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In this podcast episode, Kevin and Sean discuss how to help a top-performing salesperson get through a slump and get back on track. They emphasize the importance of a time-based sales strategy and keeping an eye on the early stages of a sale, such as lead generation and relationship building. They recommend reinforcing the positive aspects of a salesperson’s work and ensuring they follow the right process to build an effective pipeline.
They also suggest an intellectually honest approach to pipeline management to evaluate the pipeline’s health and identify areas that need improvement. This involves looking at close rates and the average time taken to close deals. Moreover, they discuss setting realistic goals for salespeople, focusing on the right activities for the right prospects, and practicing delivering the right message to the target market.
They stress the importance of patience and confidence-building for salespeople in a slump, as well as celebrating successes. Lastly, they highlight the role of a sales leader in supporting their team members rather than taking over their tasks.
In this engaging podcast episode, hosts Kevin and Sean dive into the crucial topic of rewarding effort and results during sales meetings. They emphasize the importance of recognizing salespeople’s achievements through monetary rewards, acknowledgment, and praise. The hosts discuss the impact of consistent processes for catching people doing things right and sharing best practices among sales teams. They also touch upon the idea of self-reward for sales practitioners, encouraging them to celebrate their successes.
Throughout the conversation, Sean and Kevin provide actionable advice and tools for sales leaders to cultivate a positive work environment, ultimately leading to better results. They also highlight the human aspect of sales, acknowledging the challenges that salespeople face daily.
If you’re a sales leader or a sales practitioner looking for valuable insights and strategies to elevate your team’s performance, don’t miss out on this podcast. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast player to stay up-to-date with the latest episodes and learn from industry experts like Kevin and Sean. Happy listening and happy selling!
In this podcast, Tim Warren, CEO of Helium-SEO, discusses his approach to handling difficult situations in a sales environment. He emphasizes the importance of coaching opportunities and scaling through challenges or problems with existing salespeople. Tim shares his approach to handling a situation where an account manager did not provide the level of service they were supposed to, causing a client to feel that the service level had dropped. He stresses the importance of being open, honest, and transparent, taking responsibility, and having a plan to fix the issue. As a CEO, Tim wants to show his team how to take ownership and responsibility for handling similar situations and eventually be able to handle them independently.
Tim emphasizes the importance of building a strong culture in a business. According to Tim, a company’s culture should be grounded in its core values, which should guide the behavior and actions of every team member. The culture should be so strong that it feels like a cult, somewhere between a business and a religion. Tim believes that a strong company culture can significantly impact business success by attracting and retaining top talent and creating an environment where everyone feels valued, motivated, and committed to achieving the company’s goals.
To maintain the company’s culture, Tim emphasizes the importance of hiring according to core values and being strict with those values when people do not live up to them. He suggests promoting and praising team members who embody the company’s core values. By doing so, it reinforces the importance of these values and helps to maintain the culture. Overall, Tim believes that building and maintaining a solid company culture is essential for business success.
In this podcast, Kevin and Sean talk to Tim Warren, the founder, and CEO of Helium SEO. Tim talks about his background and how he got into sales. He discusses his experience building technical engineering-focused SEO and SEM campaigns for mid-size and enterprise clients. He also explains how his company has been able to drive higher ROI for its clients.
Tim shares his leadership journey as a sales leader and how he has learned that star salespeople don’t always make great coaches. He emphasizes the importance of having a sales process in place and training salespeople effectively to ensure consistency in performance. Tim also talks about the challenges of growing a sales team, such as hiring the right people and scaling the team without sacrificing quality. He reinforces why his LinkedIn profile says he is “Recruiting rockstars to build Helium to $100M. Are you ready to take your career to the next level?”
This podcast provides insights into Tim Warren’s sales journey and his approach to building and leading successful sales teams.
Kevin and Sean continue to discuss the importance of staying relevant to customers and prospects.
In the first part of the podcast, Sean interviews Megan O’Hara of EasyIT about the challenges of reaching customers in the digital age, where everyone is bombarded with emails and messages. They discuss the importance of being authentic, providing value, and standing out from the competition. They also emphasize the need for salespeople to adapt to changing technology and stay up to date with new tools and platforms. They touch upon topics such as personal branding, content creation, and the role of social media in sales. Megan does this by sending out her video series called Mondays with Megan, and she goes into detail about how this helps her grow her business.
In the second part of the podcast, Kevin and Sean praise sales professional Megan for her effective approach to engaging with prospects and customers. They highlight the value of her short, actionable tips and tricks, which immediately benefit to her listeners. They also discuss the importance of constantly learning and improving, regardless of age or experience. They end the podcast by emphasizing the three things that every salesperson sells: their product, company, and themselves.
Overall, the podcast provides valuable insights and tips for sales professionals on how to stay relevant, provide value, and engage with customers in the digital age. It emphasizes the importance of authenticity, personal branding, and continuous learning and improvement. The podcast also highlights the potential impact of short, actionable content in driving customer engagement and business growth.
Kelly Crandall returns to Two Tall Guys Talking Sales for her second episode in two weeks. Kelly is an expert in sales after working in the corporate world, running a small business, providing Fractional Sales Leadership for her customers in Florida, and now is the Visionary for Sales Xceleration.
This episode centers around building a strong value proposition and creating a sales strategy that resonates with customers. In this particular episode, the topic of discussion is the third area of the sales process and how it can help build trust with customers.
Kelly has agreed to stick around for the second episode, where she focuses on the validation needed to create trust.
A great sales strategy starts with answering the questions of why act and why act now. Then answer the question of why choose us. Then you need to validate that your product solves the problem so that you can have the conversation about trust (because #b2bsales is simply the transferring of the trust from the sales team to the prospect). The hosts and the guest emphasize the importance of covering all three areas to create a strong value proposition.
Kelly explains that proof is the key. Salespeople should be authentic, transparent, and empathetic while using data and statistics to support their claims. Testimonials, case studies, and stories help build trust with customers. The goal is to anticipate objections and provide proof in advance.
Salespeople transfer their trust in the product to the prospect. The hosts also explain that salespeople sell three things: the product, the company that makes the product, and themselves as salespeople. Building trust is an essential part of the selling process.
Validation events can be expensive for young companies. Owners should help get customer testimonials and create case studies to leverage for future sales pitches.
This podcast episode provides a comprehensive overview of creating trust and how it can help build customer revenue. Kelly emphasizes the importance of covering all three areas to create a strong value proposition. She provides practical tips on using proof to build trust and anticipate objections.
This podcast episode is a valuable resource for anyone looking to improve their sales strategy and build a stronger value proposition.
Sean O’Shaughnessey recently did a CEO Workshop on Key Account (or Named Account) sales management best practices. In this episode, Kevin and Sean dig into one of the ancillary topics that wasn’t fully explored in that CEO Workshop.
In this podcast, Kevin and Sean discuss why it is important for companies to assess their sales plans and processes. They explain that having a sales plan is about more than just setting quotas and involves figuring out how to bring value to the customer. It is also important for smaller businesses that are transitioning from founder-led sales organizations to have an assessment to build the right infrastructure. The conversation also touches on how CEOs should still be involved in customer conversations regardless of company size and that competition, complacency, and consistency should all be considered when assessing one’s own organization. Lastly, they invite listeners to reach out with any questions they may have about creating a great sales organization.
You can subscribe to our podcast by searching in your favorite podcast player for “Two Tall Guys Talking Sales,” or you can listen to the embedded version here.
The following is a transcript of the podcast above. It has been sparsely edited to increase its readability, but many of the idioms and poor spoken grammar have been left in place. Fireflies.ai automatically generated the transcription, and, as capable as that product is, there are times when words are missed or the sentence structure is incorrectly interpreted. We have tried to catch all of these software misses, but we are confident that some still remain. The below text is provided for those that would rather read than listen to a podcast.
00:00
Kevin Lawson
Hello, and welcome to Two Guys Talking Sales. I’m Kevin.
00:06
Sean O’Shaughnessey
And I’m Sean.
00:08
Kevin Lawson
We’re glad you’re here. In this podcast, we’ll tackle real sales issues big and small for salespeople selling situations and sales leadership. We’ve collectively built successful careers around the problems and solutions used in B2B selling, from software to services, manufacturing, and distribution. We have sold to and for many of the world’s most recognized brands as well as some you’ve never heard of. For roughly the next 15 minutes, we invite you into our world of experience, where we’ll take one issue and dig into it so you might have a solution for when you encounter a similar situation in your career. Let’s dive in. Sean, what are we talking about tonight?
00:48
Sean O’Shaughnessey
Kevin, we should discuss why a company should assess its sales plan, process, and methodologies. How about that?
00:57
Kevin Lawson
Sounds Good. Maybe we should start by asking, “What are a sales plan, system, and methodology.”
01:03
Sean O’Shaughnessey
That makes sense to me. Do you want to start? Go Ahead.
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