What's wrong with being salesy? I deal with this every day, but particularly over the past couple of weeks, I've had a few clients tell me that they're progressing slowly with their opportunities, taking care not to come across as pushy or overbearing. "Okay, but what next steps do you have defined and scheduled?" "None yet. I'm going to give them a little time and then follow up with them."  "Hmmm..." ? Purposely putting yourself in follow-up prison is a subject for another piece, so I won't get into that here, but seriously? Slowing things down decreases your chance of winnin ..read more

Earlier this week, I led a book club discussion for Women In Sales about Seth Godin's The Icarus Deception, which I consider to be a career-altering read for me. It changed the way I look at selling, as well as the trajectory of my life. That is not an overstatement. The very next day, I presented to the members of Growth Forum about your #1 sales superpower, and how it fuels the Sales Success Cycle. These two events on back-to-back days helped me make a connection I hadn't made before, and I wanted to share it with you here quickly. Selling is an art form The sooner ..read more

On the heels of my interview last week with Jen Allen-Knuth, I wanted to go further into the fact that there are so many ways to excel in sales. In fact, there are more ways to do it right than to do it wrong. The last thing a seller want stop do is let anybody down, and the eight of that responsibility can be heavy. But when you think about it, there are so few ways to screw up a sales process, so long as you have good intentions and approach the process from a place of curiosity, generosity, and good intentions. When you reframe and redefine selling in the way that best suits you (and still ..read more

Nobody cares about how you help them. Sorry, was that too blunt for a starter? I guess the truth hurts sometimes. The number one problem with most of the prospecting efforts I see, whether it's with my clients or just in my inbox, is that it's all about the seller. Ok, you've gotten away from telling people how great you are, but your reframe to "how you help" is really the same thing, and your prospects can see right through it. If you don't speak your prospect's language immediately, you'll never get their attention. I'm not talking about using their jargon or referring to the college they ..read more

Jen Allen-Knuth heads up community for Lavender.ai, after being Chief Evangelist for Challenger. When I connected with her a year or so ago, we became fast friends, and I knew she’d be an excellent guest for this podcast because of her wisdom, perspective, and witty style. Follow Jen on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/demandjen1/ and earn more about Lavender here: https://www.lavender.ai/ Here’s what Jen and I got into during this episode: how she got into sales  how she was taken back by the “force of presence” of her mentor how a conversation with a prospect changed her enti ..read more

To be an effective prospector, you need to reach out longer and more often to your prospects than you do. Once every two weeks for a couple of months isn't going to do it- you're just not creating any momentum. Likewise, those three messages you send in a week's time are easily ignored, and most of your prospects know you can be waited out. You're afraid to do more because you don’t want to annoy those prospects and ruin any potential opportunities. You probably feel stuck, but remember: being a pest doesn’t have anything to do with the cadence. It has everything to do with the value of the m ..read more

There’s a thread that started a few weeks ago on this show about vulnerability. It started with my conversation about transparency with Todd Caponi. Then I dug a little deeper into transparency, the truth, accountability and how all of those concepts require vulnerability. Then Jordana spoke last week about how her new leader joining the organization and encouraging her to be vulnerable allowed her to do her very best work.  You need to be willing to get out of your comfort zone and leave mediocrity behind. You have to be willing to try things that might not work. You have to do all of t ..read more

Jordana Zeldin is a sales coach, facilitator, speaker, and co-founder of The Practice Lab- the first-ever sales training program for B2B Account Executives ready to develop their skills like athletes, musicians and performers do theirs. You can find her at https://www.thepracticelab.co/ or on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanazeldin/ Here’s what Jordana and I dug into on today’s episode: how her sales journey started what changed when a real sales leader joined her team permission to drop the rigid mask she was wearing the feelings people get when they work with you the po ..read more

A key component of learning to #SellLikeYou is redefining selling for yourself so that you can feel good about doing it. The reframe is crucial. It gets you out of someone else’s ideas, and into a position where you can really do your best work. Of course, a critical component of selling is the sales call. While in the shower the other day, this hit me straight upside the head. A sales call is “a productive conversation about a problem worth solving.” The more I think about this definition, the more I love it. It doesn’t just expand the perspective for what’s going on in those discussions, it ..read more

On today’s episode, I’m digging a little deeper into the concept of transparency in sales leadership after last week’s interview with Todd Caponi. You can have a real short memory if you always tell the truth, and that’s the key to building grounded trusting relationships with everyone on your team.  When you have trust, you can have real accountability. This is rocket fuel for sales teams. Without it, you just won’t go very far, and you certainly won’t get there quickly. Another overlooked aspect of transparency is vulnerability. The leader needs to create a safe environment for the tea ..read more