Are You Building Your Tribe?
As sales people today, we must be conscious to ‘think like marketers.’ One way to do that is considering the tribe we are building that will be suspects or prospects for our services in the future. The days of “marketing when we need the business” are over. We had better be top-of-mind when THEY have problems.
Our guest expert today is Srinivas Rao, author of The Small Tribe Strategy. In this podcast, we ask him how he would go about building the tribe of prospects if he were in sales today.
Also mentioned in this podcast:
- Srinivas Rao’s podcast called Blogcast FM
- Srinivas Rao’s blog
- Listen to last week’s podcast on Biggest Reasons Salespeople Fail
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When It’s Showtime, Will You Be Ready?
“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.” – Shakespeare, As You Like It.
Last week, I was coaching a salesperson who was getting ready to give a talk in front of 20 VPs of Marketing, his target audience. I asked the question, “What are you going to present to them?” His answer was, “I’m just going to give them a little thumbnail of our company.”
As he told me more about his presentation, I could see this was a recipe for failure. I was afraid that he was going to discount the company value by merely giving a “thumbnail” of it. His was in danger of diluting his company’s value.
And I was afraid it was going to sound like every other presentation that audience will hear over their lifetime.
What Is Your Showtime?
Recently I had a chance to attend The Story Warrior Workshop in San Diego presented by Bo Eason. 
Biggest Reasons Sales People Lose Business – From Harvard Business Review
Recently, an article was published by Steve Martin on the Harvard Business Review website called the Ten Reasons Sales People Lose Deals.
Bryan and Bill tear into the ten reasons and come up with solutions to three of them:
- What happens when you can’t get to the decision maker?
- What if you have a “nice to have” product that isn’t compelling for the prospect?
- How do you penetrate new accounts?
Also, send us any thoughts you have about these three or the other seven at listener@advancedsellingpodcast.com
Also mentioned in this podcast:
- Steve Martin’s article called the Ten Reasons Sales People Lose Deals
- Join the Advanced Selling Podcast LinkedIn Group
- Send us an email at listener@advancedsellingpodcast.com
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Call Reluctance and How To Demonstrate Value – 2 Problems, 2 Solutions
From the mailbag of listeners this week, two topics come up:
1) Call Reluctance. A listener seems to have a little bit of it and we have some thoughts (all good, of course) on what to do about it.
2) How Can I Demonstrate Value BEFORE the Sale? A listener struggles with this especially since his product is a premium product.
Two great topics that affect virtually every sales and account manager.
If you have a question to submit to the mailbag, write us at listener@advancedsellingpodcast.com
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We Attempt To Shape Others’ Perceptions- But How Is That Working?
Why is it that we spend so much time doing things that we think will shape others’ perception of us – and yet those very things do nothing to shape it?
Drew Dudley, Founder & Chief Catalyst at Nuance Leadership Development Services, Inc., was our guest this week. He’s had some great TED Talks (The List) and deals with this very issue – how we are perceived. It’s a must-listen for sales managers and company leaders in addition to top performing salespeople.
Make sure you also consume his content on his blog at http://nuanceleadership.ca/
Watch other TED Talks by Drew:
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The Age-Old Problem in Selling is…
The age-old problem in selling is: how do you get in front of a customer’s needs?
If your product is one which you can ‘manufacture’ the need for, then you might be able to cold call from a phone book and say the right things that brings awareness to the customer’s problem.
But if you’re in a business like most of us where the prospect actually must have some kind of a presenting need or pain, then you calling from the phone book will be a colossal waste of time.
I’m not like some of my colleagues who say that cold calling is a total waste of effort and energy, however I do think there are some things we can get out of a cold call that might be slightly different.
No Longer a Seller. Forever A Sorter.
I prefer to look at this whole process of prospecting as a sorting mechanism.
I am sorting the people who will never do anything with me – from the people who don’t have a need right now but might soon – from the people who I just happened to call it the right time and they have an immediate issue.
So the first order of business is to change your mindset from one of a seller to one of a sorter. Once you do that, then you will need to determine what the categories are into which you will sort suspects and prospects. I like to look at this as a bucket scenario.
Drew Dudley – Next Week’s Guest Expert on The Advanced Selling Podcast
We’re proud to announce Drew Dudley will be our special guest on the podcast next Monday.
Drew Dudley has a unique perspective on leadership. He doesn’t believe only a select few people are born to be leaders, but that we are all capable of being a leader.
In this funny TED talk, Drew discusses the idea of how we can be leaders everyday (sometimes without even knowing it).
“But it is so scary to think of ourselves as that powerful. It can be frightening to think that we can matter that much to other people, because as long as we make leadership something bigger than us, as long as we keep leadership something beyond us, as long as we make it about changing the world, we give ourselves an excuse not to expect it every day from ourselves and from each other.” -Drew Dudley
