The Salesman.com Podcast

Do you agree that life is short? Getting Walter, my dog was the turning point for me that confirmed the shortness of life. He’s two years old and still a puppy. Yet, he’s probably lived 20% of his life already. I’ve only got 8-10 more Christmases with him and then he’ll be gone. And I’m sure you’ll agree that 8 of most things isn’t a lot. 8 films can be finished in a weekend. 8 chocolates can be nailed in a couple of mouthfuls. So, life is short, but what does this have to do with sales? My message to you is that life is so short that if you’re not selling your products or your ideas… or you’re not selling yourself to do the things that you’ve always wanted to do… then you’re going to end up disappointed with your shot at life. This is why life is too short not to master sales.

Here’s a bold statement—more has changed in sales over the last 20 years than has changed in the 1000 years before it. Crazy right? But it’s true! And it’s especially true when you look at the buyer’s journey. So what’s the big deal? What’s so different today than just a few decades—heck, even a few years—ago? And what are the 3 takeaways you need to build into your sales process if you even hope to survive the shifting buyer's journey? How the Buyer’s Journey Has Changed Let’s look at how the buyer’s journey has changed. Now, as any sales rep worth their salt knows, understanding your unique buyer’s journey is key to selling successfully. As Wistia’s VP of Sales & Customer Success Peter Von Burchard told me in our interview… “Customer success is really understanding the journey that the customer is on, and the problem that you're solving as a solution and finding a way to align yourself as a company with getting those customers to achieve that end. And I think it's really about aligning the business and the solution with the goals of the customer and helping execute on that.” – Interview with Peter Von Burchard, VP of Sales & Customer Success at Wistia [01:10] Now in the old days, the buyer’s journey started with materials educating the prospect about the problem. But soon after, it’d then be taken over by the sales rep. They’d build rapport, explain the various solutions, differentiate their product from the competitors, and close the sale. But in the past twenty years or so, that’s changed quite a bit. Today, sales reps are way less involved along the way. A study from McKinsey found that up to 80% of B2B decision-makers prefer digital self-service models to “traditional” in-person models. Buyers now expect to be able to access loads of educational themselves, without the help of a rep. On top of that… Sales cycles are getting longer Deals are increasingly complex And more decision-makers are now involved Those are some pretty big changes, I know. So the question is, how do you navigate them? Well first off, you need to know… 1. How to Deal with a Longer Sales Cycle How to deal with a longer sales cycle. A report from Demand Gen found that nearly 60% of buyers say the decision-making process is becoming longer year over year. Plus, Gartner found on average it takes input from 6 to 10 decision-makers to settle on a solution. And that means more emails, product demos, sales calls, and nurturing cycles than ever. Now there are ways to speed up that process. Like spending extra time qualifying your prospects, making sure you’re selling to an authority figure, and relying more heavily on referrals. But in general, you’ve simply got to get used to dealing with a longer sales cycle. What You Can Do About It So, what can you do about it? Well first and foremost, you can work on your sales cadences. If your buyers need more time to make their decision, that’s okay. You just need to make sure you’re keeping them engaged and answering all their questions along the way. That means developing sales cadences that continue to share industry insights, facilitate free and open communication, and ensure that when they are ready to talk, you’re the first person they think of. So start putting in a bit of extra time to lengthen your cadences this month. 2. The Shifting Importance of Content Now takeaway number two is about the shifting importance of strategic content. In the world of B2B sales, the salesperson with the best content is king. Research from FocusVision found that B2B buyers now consume at least 13 pieces of content before making a buying decision. That’s why it’s so important for you as a sales rep to make the shift to creating valuable, customer-focused content for every stage of the buyer’s cycle. Doing so positions you as a thought leader. AND it acts as the entry point to your selling funnel. Selling expert Victor Antonio said the same thing when I interviewed him: “The majority of executives don't want to talk to a salesperson, they simply don't. They want to do the whole customer journey by themselves. And then, when I'm ready, I'll reach out to you. Well, how do I reach out? Well, this is the guy that’s got content, he seems to know what he's talking about. I'm going to go call Will, see what's happening over there.” [12:40] What You Can Do About It Alright, so good content rocks. But how do you make it? My advice is to put in the time for deep dives. Those pithy little 400 word blog posts aren’t doing a damn thing for positioning you as a thought leader. Instead, you’ve got to really dig into the problem. What’s causing your prospect’s pain points? What are the mechanics of that problem? What are the 200 different solutions out there? This is the type of stuff that your buyer wants to immerse themselves in. On top of that, use past customer data like surveys, testimonials, and interviews to better understand what topics and pain points to cover. The more your content resonates, the more it’ll seem like you’re talking right to your buyer. 3. A Now-ESSENTIAL Selling Tool And the third takeaway is that if there’s one sales tool you need now more than ever, it’s this… A solid CRM. See, in the old world, you’d know exactly what content your buyer is consuming. Why? Well, because you were the one who showed it to them in the first place! But with so much research and engagement happening before you even speak to a lead, you need to know exactly what your buyers have interacted with beforehand. That’s where your CRM tool comes in. With the right customer relationship management tool, you’ll have a complete record of which content leads have already consumed and where they may be at on the buyer’s journey. On top of that, you’ll have: Tons of lead scoring info to tell you when to reach out Lots of buyer background data to help you refine your ideal customer persona Automation features to make outreach and follow-up 10X easier With the right CRM on your side, you can knock out as much work as a whole team of sales reps from 20 or 30 years ago. What You Can Do About It Now a few words of note here. A CRM takes investment. There’s the money factor, of course. But these days CRMs are more affordable than ever. No, more than the money, I’m talking about the time investment. A CRM’s data is only as good as you make it. And with bad data, you’re going to throw off the entire purpose of using the tool in the first place. That’s why you need to be sure you’re putting in the effort to record the type of data that truly matters. Now if you head over to our guide on the buyer’s journey, we link to a great article from HubSpot on the topic. So be sure to give that a look. Because as my friend Daniel Disney pointed out in our interview with Author Andrew Grant: “With CRMs, you reap what you sow and what a lot of salespeople don't do is they don't put into the CRM what they need to get the best out of it, and it's the same with Navigator.” [19:25]

Ask a brand-new sales rep what the most important skill is and you know what he’ll say? “Closing.” That’s what we always hear, right? But ask a 20-year vet who’s seen a thing or two and they’ll tell you it isn’t the closing. It’s the prospecting. As Founder of Tenbound David Delany told me – “If you’re able to do your own prospecting, you'll never starve.” But I’d even take it one step further—nail down how to prospect like a pro, and you’ll live like a king. Now prospecting is one of the most valuable skills you can learn in your entire sales career. As Cardone Enterprises VP of Sales Jarrod Glandt shared –  “I would rather have a salesperson that could get in the door and create an opportunity in the first place, than somebody who sucks on the front side of it but is average at the end.” Which is why we created the Sales Prospect List Building Framework. This framework is just four steps. And if you want to take a deeper dive into the strategies and techniques we’re talking about here, I suggest you head over to the link in the video notes below to read the full guide. Alright with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s jump into the framework. 1. Refine Your ICP Now step one is refining your ICP or ideal customer persona. These are essentially your perfect buyers. And they’re the prospects you want to be focusing on the most. Here are some qualities to look for when trying to identify your ICP: Are easiest to close Have the pain point you’re solving Understand your product’s value Offer the fewest objections Are urgently ready to buy All of these attributes up to 1) a shorter sales cycle, 2) higher profit margins, and 3) an easier, less stressful sales process for—that’s right—you. Now, identifying your ICP takes a bit of work. But you can start by looking at past customers with the shortest contact-to-sale cycle. From there, you can bring in more data points by considering how large the sale is, whether they’ve become repeat buyers, and if they provided a glowing testimonial or referral. For an even more in-depth dive into defining your ICP, be sure to check out our Value Proposition Design Framework. It’s got an entire step dedicated specifically to finding your perfect buyer. Okay so once you’ve got about 20 to 40 past customers, it’s time to figure out what they have in common. To do that, you’re going to list out seven components for each: Job Title Industry Location Company Size Current Goals Main Pain Points Previous Solution A lot of this info you can get with a bit of online research. But some—like previous solutions, main pain points, and current goals—may require an actual phone call. Once you have that info for everyone, you’ll need to cross reference and look for similarities between your perfect buyers. What criteria do they have in common? What are some general trends you see among the majority of them? Details don’t have to align perfectly here. But the closer the match, the easier step two will be. 2. Create Your Test Audience With your ICP outline detailed, now it’s time to create your test audience. Essentially, you want to build a small list of prospects that match your ICP and then validate that list by entering them into your sales cadence. Depending on the success rate of your outreach, you can then scale up your audience or go back to the drawing board and refine your ICP to get better results. So the question is, how do you build that list? And the answer is LinkedIn Sales Navigator. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a fantastic sales tool I can personally vouch for. I use it myself. This tool lets you plug in details on prospects and then it populates a whole list of potential customers based on that list. It’s like a super advanced prospecting search tool. AND it’s on the biggest professional network in the world, so you’ll never run out of leads. All you have to do is plug in the ICP outline you just created into the search parameters. And then hit ENTER. That’s all there is to it. For new and unvalidated ICPs, start with building an audience of around 40 prospects. For validated ICPs, you can start off strong with 150. ProTip: Start Off Small But protip here—remember to start small with your audience. The entire goal of this exercise is to test quickly, document the results, and refine your ICP or cadence accordingly. The bigger the audience, the longer the whole process will take. Don’t worry, once you hit a solid success rate you can take off. But not yet. 3. “Test” Your Test Audience Alright now step three is all about “testing” your test audience. Here’s where you run your list through your cadences and check out the results. Nothing too special here, just start from the top and work your way down. But you do want to be sure you’re at least working off of a proven framework. Our Cold Outreach Sales Cadence Framework is a great foundation to start from if you don’t have a cadence built out already. Best of all, it’s even got three templates you can basically copy and start using yourself. You can take even more guesswork out of the equation by incorporating the messaging from our Cold Email, Cold Calling, and Social Selling Frameworks too. After you’ve run through your list and recorded your success rate, it’s time to take a step back and evaluate. What percent of your audience were you able to move on to the next step? If the success rate (e.g., meetings booked divided by your audience size) was less than 5%, then there’s an issue with either your ICP or the cadence. For example, if you run 40 people through your cadence, you need to book more than two meetings for it to count as a success. Once you’ve run through your entire test list, it’s time to decide… 4. Scale or Change If you’re below a 5% success rate, the answer’s simple—change. Your ICP or cadence isn’t performing as well as it should. So you need to head back to the drawing board. What other similarities did your ideal clients have that you didn’t test? You should also bring those new prospects who did respond to your cadence into your evaluation. What kinds of job titles, industries, etc. describe them? Once you come up with a new hypothesis, jump right back on that horse, test again, and keep iterating until you hit at least 5%. Once you hit 5, you can start scaling your Sales Navigator audience up and build out a monster list in no time. But just a word to the wise, you should keep testing and improving, even after hitting a 5% rate. With a bit of refining and tweaking, you can easily turn that into a 20% success rate. All it takes is finding new similarities between those who responded and adding those details to your ICP. And then, start the process over again! Summary So there you have it—four steps to building a sales prospecting list that’ll keep you bustling with business for the rest of your career.

Hitting quota, buying that dream Porsche, taking the family to Disney Land. These are all noble financial goals for salespeople but they’re all dumb. In this video I’m going to explain the only financial goal that you should have and if you’re watching this video right now, you’re probably further away from it than you think. The only thing you should be aiming for in your sales career is financial freedom. Otherwise known as early retirement. Why Would I Want To Retire Early? Why?:  Because working in sales will kill your soul. It’s emotionally draining. But… It’s the fastest way to make insane amounts of money legally and ethically. It’s the safest way to make money (no risk of starting a business or investing capital). You’re in control of your own success. Assumption?: This works on the assumption that you actually want to retire early. If most people believed it was possible, most people would aim for it. Most people believe the lie that you have to work until you’re 65 before it’s possible to retire. This isn’t true. Conclusion?:  Sales is a great medium term (5-10 years) career to acquire significant wealth to retire early on. It’s probably not the most fulfilling longer term (11-30 years) career. It’s a trade off:  Work hard now so that your future self can live the life that you dream of living now. How Do I Retire Early? First off let's define what early retirement is so that we know what we’re aiming for. Defined: When your assets generate more income each month than you spend. Two ways to get there: Reduce costs (need less money from assets to live on) Increase income (can buy more assets to increase income) So with the definition and the basic steps to retire early, lets get practical. Steps To Retirement From a Sales Role Calculate your number What is your ideal monthly retirement income? What level of risk are you willing to tolerate with your assets? How likely are you to continue generating income in your retirement? How much/many assets do you need to throw off your ideal monthly income? Calculate the retirement date Very specifically, when do you want to hand in your notice in your sales job? Reverse engineer your required income Take the total asset price, divide by the number of years and then months. The tough questions Are you capable of generating an amount of value in your market that will warrant the market giving you enough commission to acquire the retirement assets? Does the sales role you have right now have the scope to pay out that level of commissions? Do you have the balls to stick to the plan and make this happen over the medium term (5-10 years)?