[SPEAKER_02]: This is The Sales Grady Podcast. [SPEAKER_02]: Hi, I'm Jeb Blunt, guest selling off their fanatical prospecting objection, sales EQ and ink. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm here to help you open more doors, close bigger deals, and rock your commission check. [SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back to The Sales Grady Podcast. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm Jeb Blunt Jr. your host, and I'm here today with Ashley Blunt, your co-hosts. [SPEAKER_04]: And we are doing the best of Q1.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm really excited for these clips who have got some really, really great pieces of information that we've shared over the last quarter and we're going to recap those for you. [SPEAKER_04]: So you get a best of playlists actually. [SPEAKER_04]: Thanks for joining me and I'm excited for Q2. [SPEAKER_06]: What do you think I'm excited for Q2 as well and just like kind of skimming through these clips. [SPEAKER_06]: I'm excited to go over them and kind of almost do a check in.
[SPEAKER_06]: A lot of it's around goals and the progress and the difficulty of working through them and sticking to them. [SPEAKER_04]: As you're listening to this, going into Q2, we have outbound conference. [SPEAKER_04]: Actually, you want to give people a little bit of information about outbound. [SPEAKER_06]: So outbound this year is in the beautiful city of Las Vegas, Nevada. [SPEAKER_06]: At the Red Rock, Casino Resort, we're super excited for you guys to join us there.
[SPEAKER_06]: We have a fabulous lineup of speakers ready to go when we hope to see you in November. [SPEAKER_04]: Go to outboundconference.com that's outboundconference.com to go get your tickets now. [SPEAKER_04]: Now let's get into these clips. [SPEAKER_04]: Putting down your goals, well, first is really hard because it feels sort of... [SPEAKER_04]: big and it's hard to put exact words to the things that you want and a lot of people go through this process.
[SPEAKER_04]: They sometimes it's easy to say, well, I want a house or I want a boat or I want to go on a vacation or in a lot of this has to do with tangible things you could spend money on typically. [SPEAKER_04]: Those are all great, but they do run out after a few brainstorming sessions, you kind of realize that, I guess, as human beings, we want a little more than just stuff usually. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, you talked about it makes you uncomfortable.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it also exposes your risk. [SPEAKER_04]: And so in a lot of cases, it's more uncomfortable to write down goals because you realize how difficult it might be to actually reach them. [SPEAKER_04]: And when we don't write down goals, it is easy to be delusional that, you know, if you have no goals. [SPEAKER_04]: You'll always hit it, you know, whatever it is, you're going to, and Zig Ziggler said this, you know, if you don't have direction, you'll get there every single time.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's the same thing with writing them down. [SPEAKER_04]: I think putting real words, there's something really powerful about putting ink on paper. [SPEAKER_04]: It is actually physical, but it's like the manifestation of your thoughts into the physical world. [SPEAKER_04]: And for whatever reason that grounds our brains in a way that not many other things can.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's scientific that people who take notes and who use note pads and meetings and actually write down things.
[SPEAKER_04]: Remember, [SPEAKER_04]: the information and it's at a much higher percentage than people who don't and that's even typing in everything so I think that you know what I go through when I write down these goals and as I've been journaling is initial discomfort, initial anxiety sometimes I sort of want to talk myself out of [SPEAKER_04]: Because there's no one watching. [SPEAKER_04]: It's just you, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, unless you tell someone what you're doing, but typically you're writing in a journal, writing on a piece of paper, or you're thinking about it on your own. [SPEAKER_04]: And there's no one else watching, so you sort of can manipulate it in the way that makes it easier to get to. [SPEAKER_04]: But when you start really challenging yourself, you'll feel that tension between what you really want in what's easiest.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, I love that and, you know, to add to it, I think, you know, writing it down is a form of accountability and, you know, it's, it's happened to me enough, but I'll write something down. [SPEAKER_05]: I'll get distracted and three months later, I come back across it on my desk and I go, oh, I dropped the ball here. [SPEAKER_05]: But because I've written it down that form of accountability to tell me, hey, get back on track. [SPEAKER_05]: Keep the train moving.
[SPEAKER_05]: You can get to the final destination, but you've got to stay committed. [SPEAKER_04]: That clip right there talks about goal setting, kind of the benefits of doing it, the process of going, [SPEAKER_04]: into your notebook and thinking strategically about the goals that you said, I think it even gets into specificity and some of those things. [SPEAKER_04]: We are now in going into YouTube of 2022.
[SPEAKER_04]: So actually, what have you learned about the goal setting process now that you've had a few months to hit some of these goals and what's been accomplished on your team since we shot that podcast? [SPEAKER_06]: that's such an exciting question.
[SPEAKER_06]: So one of the biggest wins that I think is that, you know, we got to have our strategic planning session in Q1 so it really helped set that direction for the next the year and just bringing clarity around roles and like how we're actually in a reach those goals. [SPEAKER_06]: So that was step number one. [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know, excited though.
[SPEAKER_06]: We got that one checked off the list because we're already seeing some of the momentum pick up with my team especially around efficiency and the volume of things that we can handle. [SPEAKER_06]: So it's [SPEAKER_06]: Awesome to see that come together. [SPEAKER_06]: And personally, I know I had said something about wanting to compete in another skating competition this year, checked that one off in mid March and headed to the next one.
[SPEAKER_06]: So we're going strong on both professional and personal. [SPEAKER_04]: What about you super exciting to watch what you've been able to accomplish this year. [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, from a goal setting perspective when I shot this, I was in a different role within the organization. [SPEAKER_04]: So my goals have had to shift and change.
[SPEAKER_04]: What I have really noticed is that the process of setting goals is so important to the success I was experiencing and I'm experiencing and even the failures that I'm experiencing. [SPEAKER_04]: If I don't go through the process the right way, I do actually suffer.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, going into Q2, I've got some really ambitious goals and because I have a plan and built a plan and went through the goal planning process we talked about in that clip, I am actually seeing some really crazy success happening personally. [SPEAKER_04]: I got on the figure skating train. [SPEAKER_04]: If you go listen to my money Monday about that, it should be outpicked up.
[SPEAKER_04]: Figure skating this year is a 28 year old person who's never been on the ice and seeing some really crazy progress there.
[SPEAKER_04]: The one thing I have learned about goals that I'll add into this conversation just for the listeners before we head to our next clip is when you are setting goals, it's important to know that you, [SPEAKER_04]: are going to see a lot of progress in places that you've never tried anything before, and you're not going to see a lot of progress in places that you've been doing the daily motion for years and years and years.
[SPEAKER_04]: For example, for me with prospecting and for sales and things like that, my skill level, I'm not seeing, you know, 25% change in gains because [SPEAKER_04]: I've been doing this for so long, so my percentage changes are a lot smaller. [SPEAKER_04]: Now with figure skating, I've noticed massive jumps in my skill levels from being on the ice a couple months ago for the first time to today.
[SPEAKER_04]: So knowing the difference between something you're probably going to need to put an intentional effort into every day for like a 0.1% increase in gains is a little less exciting than new skills. [SPEAKER_04]: So keep that in mind, building new skills is really really fun, but you also need to work on [SPEAKER_06]: So the commitment to the goals to the growth. [SPEAKER_06]: That's like the thought that keeps reoccurring to me in which is why we're seeing the success.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that we're both in the same boat this year. [SPEAKER_04]: And that has been a big motivator for me as love the process and have fun with it. [SPEAKER_04]: And you're going to win if you're going to lose, but the outcome is not dependent upon your value and who you are as a human being. [SPEAKER_04]: You just need to change the process. [SPEAKER_04]: If the process isn't bringing you the results you want, go back to the drawing board and just keep learning along the way.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, let's head into this next clip. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm keen to know, because you learned golf because your wife was into it. [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know about you, but there's no way I could learn off my husband if he was trying to teach me how to do something I think I'd kill him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, maybe you can answer the golf question first here about learning, maybe learning from your wife, but does the same thing apply when you're learning from somebody so close to you? [SPEAKER_00]: Is it like, oh, you know, I know, I don't need to know this from you, oh, give me a break. [SPEAKER_04]: I know, I know, I know, I know, so if, if jab is listening, jab is really listening.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know the answer is yes, and I don't learn from you because I'm not any different than any other kid Like I mean, I mean, I have children.
[SPEAKER_04]: They don't listen to me No, and and is the best that I try like they don't listen to me and sometimes they do Yeah, so it's not all lost, but like you listen to me sometimes I think they don't Most of the time they don't and I was definitely the same way and I think that chip also I think along with you know being a young man and you [SPEAKER_04]: in a testosterone-driven industry, drove me to have a big ego, and a big pride.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think more ego, let's ego more pride, and when he tried to tell me things or teach me things, or he was just talking like we were on this podcast, I would roll my eyes, and behind the scenes, it just was not as smooth of learning. [SPEAKER_04]: Now the issue is that I learned everything from him. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, in the end, I did learn all of those things from him.
[SPEAKER_04]: I had all those conversations, whether or not I wanted to listen the knowledge in my head, and I would be like two days later and go, I should probably try that, whatever. [SPEAKER_04]: But I would grumble about it, and they would work and that kind of thing. [SPEAKER_04]: No, it was as receptive to the learning and shook the day I learned as much as I could have. [SPEAKER_04]: No, I didn't, and I'm still working through that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I'm still understanding how to sort of get over [SPEAKER_04]: thing and and I work when I work with sales clients like you it's it's the same in industries like the like VP of sales training their sales team I call it the parent effect you know like we come in and say the same thing that their VP of sales has been preaching on the mountain top for years and suddenly they're like that's a good idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: because you said it, not them, so I use the exact same analogy, so that's why I'm smiling, because it's so true. [SPEAKER_00]: But do you know what, so then I call the next bit that I'm the fun and so I'm fun and Harriet, and I come in and I say all the things that your parents told you, you know, don't do this, do this, but I say it from the fun and way, and therefore they're like, yes, [SPEAKER_00]: everything you say.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's how I always describe that you go into a sales team. [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, the VPs are all the head of his then say, oh, I just need them to do this. [SPEAKER_00]: And then you go in and say it in a different word and a different style and a different way, different person. [SPEAKER_00]: And you win.
[SPEAKER_04]: Outside of that family specific dynamic where I talked about what it's like to learn from you and you learning from me and you know, you learning from job and of course we're in a family business scenario where that obviously isn't relevant to a lot of people listening to the podcast but I think there's a lesson there for sales leaders and you know we when we were a
[SPEAKER_04]: you leading our training department and operations, you have hands in almost all of our, you know, best customers engagements. [SPEAKER_04]: What is one thing you've noticed about the learning from someone close to you challenge that sometimes is pervasive in sales organizations. [SPEAKER_06]: This is a weird way to put it, but it almost becomes noise.
[SPEAKER_06]: When it's the same, it was just the leader and it's the right message and it's the correct way to coach and you're giving all the resources to your teams. [SPEAKER_06]: Sometimes it just takes a different voice saying it in a little bit different way and you see a massive amount of improvement and you know, I'll tie it back to skating. [SPEAKER_06]: I would do that periodically with coaches.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like I was responding, I was winning, I was moving up, but I didn't mean my technique was perfect. [SPEAKER_06]: And sometimes it just takes hearing it from someone else and sales organizations that we work with and you know even in the consulting and things that we do a lot of times we see success when there's just that another voice in the room that's helping reiterate the message that the leader is sharing with their team and then reinforcing it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I call it like I'm the cool uncle or cool cousin when I come into the room when I get to be the rock star. [SPEAKER_04]: Right, it's somewhat, um, I think frustrating for lears both before and after the event, but I opening for them when they bring some of them like me and
[SPEAKER_04]: The difference I see in a lot of places is the way that I go about saying it, the way that we teach it, how we build our curriculum and our emphasis on speaking the language of our customers as an immense amount of value and, you know, leaders, especially after like the medical prospecting like one of the things that we focus on is building pipeline, fast and that curriculum.
[SPEAKER_04]: I've been telling these guys to do the same thing for, you know, three years and they've never been able to do it and after you came in, you know, 90 days later we had more pipeline. [SPEAKER_04]: And in some cases it genuinely is like you need a separate voice and then then you're messaging starts to really click afterwards. [SPEAKER_06]: You know, it's just bringing the whole team together. [SPEAKER_06]: So they're all playing well together as well, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: Right. [SPEAKER_06]: So I think that's a big part of it. [SPEAKER_06]: I was thinking back of when I was on the soccer team and sometimes we'd get a little disjointed. [SPEAKER_06]: And it would just take another coach coming over and say, hey, I'll are doing the right thing and reinforcing it and just being that authority and saying, but you can get more out of this and you enable them to get more out of it. [SPEAKER_04]: That is an interesting conversation.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, how you learn from others that are close to you. [SPEAKER_04]: And if you are listening to listening to your seller, think about your relationship with your managers, think about the relationship with the people who are mentors and coaches with you. [SPEAKER_04]: Are you really listening or are you waiting for someone else to come and bring that voice?
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, I think that's, you know, having multiple people and having different kinds of organizations to help you with your sales growth and, you know, mindset and all of that is really important, but sometimes it's about being aware. [SPEAKER_06]: sometimes I think this is important to not. [SPEAKER_06]: You just don't want to hear it from the person close to you.
[SPEAKER_06]: You already have the self awareness that you need to make an improvement or that you need to do better because you're slacking and it just emotionally hurts a little more because the person's pointing it out. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, usually when you're angry at someone pointing something out for you, you already know you need to make that change. [SPEAKER_04]: You're just mad that someone else said it and you know you're being held accountable for it.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, let's go into our next clip. [SPEAKER_03]: When you think about selling, think about blending, and think about from your standpoint, there isn't one way of having conversations with people.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are multiple ways to have conversations with people, and you have to make these decisions in the moment based on the context and based on the person that you're dealing with, [SPEAKER_03]: What is the channel that's going to give you the highest probability of acquiring or gaining or getting to your desired outcome at the lowest cost of time energy and money?
[SPEAKER_03]: In some cases, getting on an airplane and going to see in someone is going to be the thing that you need to do in order to get a big deal close. [SPEAKER_03]: In other cases, on a first time appointment, it might be a phone call or it might be a video call. [SPEAKER_03]: And even now, as an executive, I'm often saying, can we just get on a phone call? [SPEAKER_03]: Because I don't want to have to go get on a video.
[SPEAKER_03]: I could just have a conversation with you in the moment. [SPEAKER_03]: So those are the choices that we have to make. [SPEAKER_03]: And by the way, as a Gen Z, your natural inclination almost always is to go digital. [SPEAKER_03]: So you're almost always thinking, I'm going to send an email and send a text. [SPEAKER_03]: And that's okay. [SPEAKER_03]: There's nothing wrong with that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But again, go back and think, what's the communication channel that's going to get me the outcome that I desire? [SPEAKER_03]: Because that's the only question that matters. [SPEAKER_03]: If a text message is going to get you there, send a text message. [SPEAKER_03]: But if a phone call is going to get you there, make a phone call. [SPEAKER_03]: If getting there in person is going to get you what you want, get there in person.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I start with the biggest mistakes, the biggest mistakes that sells people make. [SPEAKER_03]: And by the way, this isn't a Gen Z problem. [SPEAKER_03]: This is a Gen X problem. [SPEAKER_03]: This is a baby boomer problem. [SPEAKER_03]: Is it sells people get single siloed. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm only good at this. [SPEAKER_03]: So if I go back to my generation of sellers, my generation of sellers said, hey, I'm only good in person.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like so you would say, you know, pick up the phone and call someone. [SPEAKER_03]: And that was the fastest way to make someone quit selling. [SPEAKER_03]: Is here put a phone in front of them. [SPEAKER_03]: But the truth is is that getting out in person was incredibly inefficient.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, it's super effective, like if you're standing in front of someone, you can close business, you can build relationships, you can get people to engage at a level that you can't on any other medium, but it's inefficient in terms of time. [SPEAKER_03]: But salespeople would say, I'm only good in person. [SPEAKER_03]: You have salespeople that they say, I'm only good on video, or I'm only good on the phone, or I'm only good at email, or I'm only good at text messaging.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a mistake. [SPEAKER_03]: You need to be good at everything. [SPEAKER_03]: And so if you get into this mindset that I'm only good at some things, that mindset is limiting your ability to make money because it's limiting your ability to communicate with people. [SPEAKER_06]: I feel like this is totally in your wheelhouse because you're absolutely doing this right now. [SPEAKER_06]: As everybody knows, all of our sales trainers here sell.
[SPEAKER_06]: So in blending of messaging and getting to where you need to go the quickest, what are your thoughts on this? [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, he said about everything you can say about picking the right communication channel for different folks. [SPEAKER_04]: It's hard to nail down exactly what the right move is because every single person speaks a little differently. [SPEAKER_04]: So we sort of blanket statement you need to pick the right thing for the right people.
[SPEAKER_04]: The way that you can express this practically, so just some quick tips for you as a seller, [SPEAKER_04]: is in a lot of cases, I have to feel out the kind of communicator that my prospect or partner is in that scenario. [SPEAKER_04]: So in some cases, I'm working with another person who's Gen Z earlier, a younger millennial, and I see a lot of people moving towards like, I'm okay with a phone call. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm okay with [SPEAKER_04]: a text message.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I love that there's a lot more people who are communicating in that way, but there are buyers and prospects who are older and more seasoned. [SPEAKER_04]: They have different backgrounds, different frame of references. [SPEAKER_04]: I like to prioritize based on how valuable this motion is in terms of the deal itself, in terms of my productivity.
[SPEAKER_04]: For example, setting up a bunch of video calls back to back to back to back to back in your afternoon, isn't very successful
[SPEAKER_04]: for your organization, like if your goal is to treat every customer with the level of expertise and value that you want to bring and you only set up video calls, you're probably missing out on key information or how people communicate or you're not putting in your CRM directly and not organizing your day and it can be very onerous and then afterwards you feel like you're exhausted because you've been on videos for like five hours.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, three of those people, if you to ask them how they like to communicate, might have said something very different. [SPEAKER_04]: So, in most of my meetings, after I get through like a first time appointment. [SPEAKER_04]: So, say I set up a meeting. [SPEAKER_04]: Now, you can pick the right channel for prospecting. [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I think there's lots to be set on that.
[SPEAKER_04]: But after my first time appointment, one of the questions I ask people is, how do you prefer a quick communication? [SPEAKER_04]: And do you prefer text, email, phone call, do you prefer meetings over video? [SPEAKER_04]: And usually they'll tell you, oh, yeah, you can text me or, you know, I actually prefer email. [SPEAKER_04]: I see things don't text me. [SPEAKER_04]: I won't get to that. [SPEAKER_04]: People are pretty honest about how they communicate.
[SPEAKER_04]: And the people who tell me text messages, we text, you know, every other day because that's how they communicate. [SPEAKER_04]: People who like email very different cadences, very normal professional cadences. [SPEAKER_04]: I work with these companies that are more in the field. [SPEAKER_04]: They're not sitting in an office with a Patagonia vest, they're out in their trucks with bibs on, and they're walking into manufacturing plants.
[SPEAKER_04]: If they're in that motion, they would prefer phone calls and they want to move pretty quickly. [SPEAKER_04]: They don't have an office to just sit and have a video call with me on. [SPEAKER_04]: And me forcing them to do so is [SPEAKER_04]: friction in our in our relationship.
[SPEAKER_04]: So rather than fighting it and trying to get them to do what I want them to do, I can kind of meet them in the middle and therefore they have a more positive relationship in their minds with with me as a salesperson. [SPEAKER_04]: So picking the right channel just often comes down to good communication, ask people what they want to do. [SPEAKER_06]: Awesome. [SPEAKER_06]: That was great. [SPEAKER_06]: Well, I think that moves well into our next clip.
[SPEAKER_03]: What skills you need to build and co-calling in order to get through? [SPEAKER_03]: So skill number one is the ability to leave voice messages. [SPEAKER_03]: And there's voice messages you're going to leave on the phone. [SPEAKER_03]: And there's also voice messages that you're going to end up leaving on, say, LinkedIn.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you need to learn how to leave an effective voice message on LinkedIn, effect the voice message on the phone, and that's going to be super important because in a lot of cases, not only people are going to hear your voice message, they're going to read your voice message. [SPEAKER_03]: The second thing is sequencing. [SPEAKER_03]: So you need to get really good at being able to leverage a cold call.
[SPEAKER_03]: Which might turn into a voice message, which might turn into a reminder via in mail or a LinkedIn direct mail, which also might be a email, which could also be a text message or could be you landing on your prospects, social media post and commenting on it. [SPEAKER_03]: It can even go into snail mail.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what happens is, if you're like sending one email out there, [SPEAKER_03]: you're just a drop in the ocean, but if you leave with a phone call and you leave a voice message you're a real human being, if you then follow up with an email and you mentioned the voice message that you left your real human being, and then if you do something on LinkedIn and I love reminders on LinkedIn, hey, I left you a voice mail.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if by the way, if you're a field sales person, you can have a reminder, hey, I came by your office and I dropped something at the front desk for you. [SPEAKER_03]: Obviously, you can use that, but you want to start sequencing and pulling those messages together. [SPEAKER_03]: You can see right here, I've got this brand new book, The Link to Nedge, in the book itself, there's a whole process on how to sequence those things together.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the sequencing along with being able to leave good messages will get you through, because I do look at voice my messages, and I say, look, if you're my words, I actually read them. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't really listen to voice my messages so much anymore. [SPEAKER_03]: And I get voice my messages both the email and all my telephone, so I get those. [SPEAKER_03]: The third thing is you're going to have to start practicing and getting through AI gatekeepers.
[SPEAKER_03]: So AI gatekeepers are really coming online now. [SPEAKER_03]: They're not prevalent, but they're there. [SPEAKER_03]: And those gatekeepers just like email gatekeepers, just like human gatekeepers, there's a process for getting through. [SPEAKER_03]: And what you want to start thinking about is relevant. [SPEAKER_03]: And will and I've talked about relevance a million times before, but with an AI gatekeeper, all they're looking for is relevance.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's going to be different types of them, so there's going to be some that are going to be set up on phone systems, Siri, but they're just looking for relevance. [SPEAKER_03]: And that relevance means that whatever comes out of your mouth when the call call is got to be about your prospect or about problems that they're facing right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: which means that in the medieval number four, bonus, you need to know who you're calling, you need to have some business acumen, and you need to be able to use words and language and problems and challenges and issues and aspirations and business outcomes. [SPEAKER_03]: You need to be able to say the things that are important to them. [SPEAKER_03]: And the crap that's not getting through right now is this gratuitous AI, sycophanic crap.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, oh, Jeb, love what you're doing over at blah, blah, blah. [SPEAKER_03]: I get a dozen a day or hey, I'm with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. [SPEAKER_03]: We help companies do blah, blah, blah, blah. [SPEAKER_03]: You just sound like everybody else. [SPEAKER_03]: So you really want to dial into the relevance of your message.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, we were just talking about preferred method of communication and then, you know, in this clip, Jeb's talking about, you know, the best types of voicemails to leave on various platforms and going into sequencing and I feel like you're the king of sequencing because internally, you're like a legend for how you've explained this and built, so I'd love you to take this one. [SPEAKER_04]: All right, so voicemails.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like you talked about the fundamental skill of voicemails. [SPEAKER_04]: So voicemail in and of itself really, really powerful. [SPEAKER_04]: It takes up a little bit more time in your prospecting. [SPEAKER_04]: I want to give another fundamental skill of prospecting that leads into this conversation. [SPEAKER_04]: So the first fundamental skill of prospecting is organization.
[SPEAKER_04]: do you have lists that funnel into a targeted prospecting block that you are specifically talking to a kind of ICP, a biotype, a geographical area, are you setting appointments? [SPEAKER_04]: What is your intention behind it?
[SPEAKER_04]: Most reps I work with fail when they build a bunch of sequences like jobs talking about and find the right communication channels that they want to use and then they just [SPEAKER_04]: It's just not the way that you should be going about your prioritization. [SPEAKER_04]: So if you are funneling people based on your qualifying blocks, where I literally call a group of cool VPs of sales out of a list, and I ask the silliest questions, like, do you have a sales team?
[SPEAKER_04]: How many people are on your sales team? [SPEAKER_04]: Have you thought about bringing in an outside vendor for sales training this year or in the last few years? [SPEAKER_04]: If they say yes or no to those questions, I then moved them into different places. [SPEAKER_04]: And when they get to a targeted list, then I'm putting them into sequencing. [SPEAKER_04]: And so to Jobs Point, a fundamental skill of prospecting as voice mails, voice mails should be very simple.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's essentially what you would say on the phone, but you're kind of converting it into a voice mail block. [SPEAKER_04]: Now, I don't leave voicemails on every single call in it, but if I can get to the right person's phone number and get to their voicemail block, there's no reason I shouldn't. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not leaving a voicemessage to, you know, a random phone number.
[SPEAKER_04]: I pull off of zoom info from a cold list that, [SPEAKER_04]: You can't even confirm that it's their name that's, you know, like I don't know that that's the person who's doing that, but if I have a list of 25 people that I have been cultivating for, you know, weeks and weeks and weeks and I have been moving them into my targeted lists and I have a pretty good idea that this is like an account that I can go in I'm absolutely leaving voicemails and so in my prospecting block.
[SPEAKER_04]: You can actually see like I'm going to put this in the camera, hopefully you all can see this on YouTube, I actually count how many voicemails and things I leave and I note that in my CRM so that the next time I have a communication with them, I know that there is something that is in somewhere in their world that they've seen my name heard sales gravy heard why I was calling and it's all about familiarity so if you're not leaving voicemails or you're not setting yourself up for that skill if you're just calling and if you don't get anything and you just hang out the phone and just keep rolling.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you're missing just in a really important part of, honestly, a little bit marketing. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, you're just now, you're missing out on the opportunity to put your name and your company in front of that person. [SPEAKER_04]: So the next time you communicate with them, they've at least seen it. [SPEAKER_06]: Absolutely agree. [SPEAKER_06]: And I have enjoyed watching all this too.
[SPEAKER_06]: And another question that you use while you're qualifying, which I think is really great is the way that you approach people and ask what are their initiatives for the year. [SPEAKER_06]: Do you have any projects you're currently working on? [SPEAKER_06]: I think the qualifying is super important what you're doing too, because you are waiting out the contacts that aren't really contacts that need to be in there, and it makes the sequencing much more manageable.
[SPEAKER_04]: The one thing I get a question about is gatekeepers. [SPEAKER_04]: Do you leave the message with a gatekeeper or do you let them send you to the voicemail? [SPEAKER_04]: And one thing I do is the skill of ultra hyperformers is being able to pivot on a prospecting call and ask for qualifying information even if you don't have the right person with phone. [SPEAKER_04]: But if I get a gatekeeper and they go, well, I can send you to so-and-so's voice mail.
[SPEAKER_04]: Would you like that? [SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to start with, yes, I would love to be sent to their voice mail. [SPEAKER_04]: But, and I use this, but I go, but before you send me to their voice mail and get me into their inbox, I don't want to waste their time. [SPEAKER_04]: And I don't want to waste your time either. [SPEAKER_04]: Could you answer a quick question for me?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, do you have a sales team and the gatekeeper goes yes or no and if they say yes, I go great how how many folks who do you estimate it's on the sales team they say, you know, 25 plus great we're in the ballgame, yep, so many of the voicemail if they're like yeah, we have got two reps and they're in Australia. [SPEAKER_04]: I go great. [SPEAKER_04]: I really appreciate you answering that question for me. [SPEAKER_04]: I don't want to waste so in so's time.
[SPEAKER_04]: I've got their email here. [SPEAKER_04]: I'll send some information and if there's interest you will go from there and then I just move on with my prospecting. [SPEAKER_04]: like I'm qualifying everything before I even get to the voicemail. [SPEAKER_04]: So quick tip there is just before I waste their time. [SPEAKER_06]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_06]: And you have somebody on the phone. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_06]: I'm excited to get into this next clip.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's with Jeb and Patrick Lincione and her round the working geniuses. [SPEAKER_06]: So let's dive in. [SPEAKER_01]: You need all six types. [SPEAKER_01]: That's the beautiful thing about this. [SPEAKER_01]: You need all six types of work. [SPEAKER_01]: And when teams say, oh, I don't really like work with WIs. [SPEAKER_01]: They're so flaky. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you're not going to make it. [SPEAKER_01]: All these ETs are so anal.
[SPEAKER_01]: They just want to get stuff done on budget. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, yeah, and that's, we need them all. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's one of the things I love about this. [SPEAKER_01]: It allows us to appreciate. [SPEAKER_01]: everyone, because they're all geniuses. [SPEAKER_03]: I get so frustrated because I believe it's big conference that we run every year called the Outbound Conference. [SPEAKER_03]: Good Outbound Conference.com and get your tickets.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the ETs on my team, I'm just, I'm starting the early promotions and I'm just coming out with marketing stuff and doing my own and all the ETs, even when it's sitting over here, got all up in arms and jumped down my throat and we're all set and I'm just like, I'm just going, like we're just moving forward and we need to have the budget and new prices right and we have to do all these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you're doing that because that's how you're wired and I appreciate that. [SPEAKER_01]: You can also say, we do have to lean into the fact that the reason why sales gravy is done well is because we're an idea company and we move on things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I am not going to make you, I'm not going to hold you accountable for perfect execution when I'm out doing this, but I appreciate that you're pushing back on me because we need the balance, but you can say, I think we need to air on the side of ideas. [SPEAKER_01]: versus safety. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. [SPEAKER_01]: But I love the fact that we've got some safety people in here. [SPEAKER_01]: And most people when they know they've been heard and seen, they can do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's trivial and sales teams. [SPEAKER_03]: The sales people are always complaining because there are people in the organization holding them back. [SPEAKER_03]: The internal sales hard in the external sales. [SPEAKER_03]: And when I was sales teams, I would say the same thing every single time. [SPEAKER_03]: As said, if you didn't have the safety people on the team, you would burn the place to the ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, and if you didn't have the other people, you'd have the a perfect system with no new thoughts and ideas Drop through people in and that's what I want. [SPEAKER_01]: I want the ETs to go. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so glad you're a WD because man I couldn't do that and what you I'm so glad you're an ET because I couldn't do that [SPEAKER_01]: That's the difference between people resenting one another and celebrating one another.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's the difference between failure and success, too. [SPEAKER_04]: All right, so, be sure you shout out to Patreul and Cionne and that entire team over there who has helped our organization immensely, as on someone on the sales side, someone who, you know, has more experience with a very particular type of individual within a business.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, sales is one of those places where we all sort of, [SPEAKER_04]: no personality types just because it's the nature of the beast. [SPEAKER_04]: But then you have all of these other people in the organization that work with you, and if you are completely ignorant to other kinds of working geniuses, especially if your buyers are not salespeople, which I have the benefit of. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, of working with sales professionals and sales leaders all the time.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we have a very easy relationship where I can we we speak the same language in a lot of cases. [SPEAKER_04]: But if you're a buyer like I sold to CFOs and when that county when I was 22 years old and I'm a completely like high energy, you know, galvanizer. [SPEAKER_04]: I believe that my working genius types would never put me in the space where I was writing like big Excel worksheets and finishing out like my new technical project.
[SPEAKER_04]: for more tenacious that I don't like speak that language and when I was selling to the CFOs who are definitely different working geniuses and disprofiles in myself, I was at a big disadvantage, comparatively to other people who were selling to them who had learned those personality types.
[SPEAKER_04]: You as someone who runs an abysnus and has lots of different people in your team and you work with lots of clients the importance of this conversation for sales leaders or even just sales professionals who are interested and knowledge that's not necessarily directly related to the revenue producing part of your job.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, my gosh, it's so important, and you know, when we were reading the working genius book as a team, it was just like light bulbs going off all our place and it's probably been about a year now since we actually read that book. [SPEAKER_06]: But now that we've kept going back to, we've kept pushing it through our organization, I've seen it transform projects on the delivery side because we're getting the right people in the correct seats to pull this work off.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you know, I mentioned earlier that goals, we were hitting a higher [SPEAKER_06]: And it's based off their working geniuses and I also have an appreciation now that we're working cross departmentally this literally happened like last week there's a handful of us in our organization that are inventors there's literally like three of us that is one of our primary working geniuses.
[SPEAKER_06]: and I was able to sit at the table with another individual and recognize him doing what I do. [SPEAKER_06]: So it's also fun to see how the, you know, people with similar geniuses work through, but also why it's important to have them jump in in the right part of the conversation. [SPEAKER_06]: Because it's also just as much what you're saying about communication, you can eliminate a lot of communication frustration.
[SPEAKER_06]: If you understand where the other individuals coming from, if they're doing work that they're passionate about, if they're not doing work that falls within their working genius, they're not going to be happy. [SPEAKER_06]: You know, we've seen that too, which is why we've made the adjustments where we've needed to for tasks on my team, just because you might have the same job title doesn't necessarily mean that you're doing the exact same part of the process.
[SPEAKER_06]: Some of our processes are divided up now because of people's working geniuses. [SPEAKER_06]: So it's really cool to have watch the team operate on that level. [SPEAKER_06]: And it also enables the rest of our trainers and our sales team to go out and actually bring more back to us because we can handle it and we can deliver it at the level that we want our clients to have.
[SPEAKER_04]: Relating this into the sales order is important for you to understand that working within an organization. [SPEAKER_04]: But [SPEAKER_04]: A lot more organizations are focused on, you know, their enterprise selling teams team selling specifically. [SPEAKER_04]: And this has been a big push for lots of organizations over the last like four years. [SPEAKER_04]: I've seen a lot more of this and it has to do with these bigger projects.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like I have some enterprise level deals. [SPEAKER_04]: At sales gravy that I'm working currently and we're going through this process all together, but if I was working it all alone because of my working genius, I tend to fall short on a lot of the important parts of the process, but later down the road and not not immediately not upfront, but I start to get out of my element when it requires a lot of technical follow through or a big.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, piece of information that you have to do a lot of work to go gather all of that from and finding different subject matter experts within my business who are going to help me out with this, I don't have the not the skill set, but just the working genius to drive that at an excellent level. [SPEAKER_04]: So what I have to do and what I work with sales teams on is.
[SPEAKER_04]: making sure that you understand your working geniuses across your enterprise sales team, whether that's engineers, a subject matter experts, whether that's your lead seller and account executives, whether that's managers, whoever that is, and then go ahead and gain planning where they're going to be in the process. [SPEAKER_04]: It helps a lot. [SPEAKER_04]: someone who's more of a galvanizer and I think I have an inventor as well, my working genius profile.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know that when it comes to tenacity, I'm going to need to pull somebody in on my count management team who has a way better eye for making sure that little details get pushed across the line. [SPEAKER_04]: So I'll bring that person in and say, this is what role I want you to play in this. [SPEAKER_04]: This is how we're going to lead it. [SPEAKER_04]: You're going to be a part of this with me from end to end.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I have people who are experts on things, but aren't necessarily skilled at the managing of a calendar or how to follow through on making sure that meetings get put in front of one another and making sure emails go back and forth at the right times I can do that.
[SPEAKER_04]: But if I'm going to read that subject matter expert in, I need to know that about them because if they come in and be a subject matter expert, but I'm expecting them to take the deal from, yeah, start like running with it more with more responsibility, I'm setting them and myself up for failure.
[SPEAKER_04]: So these working genius conversations, especially that one with Patrick Lincione can help you as a leader and even as an individual, just start to see the web, although it's like watching the matrix and starting to put the pieces in place for success. [SPEAKER_06]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, that's what led to part of the push to actually change our count management teams working with our trainers and it's been incredible to watch.
[SPEAKER_06]: Just everybody absolutely thrived with the changes based on that. [SPEAKER_06]: And you know to your point, like bring that subject matter expert in. [SPEAKER_06]: If they don't have the tenacity to take everything across the finish line, then you need to make sure that the person on your team that does is also paired with them. [SPEAKER_06]: And that's where that team selling is so incredibly important because that's how you get across the finish line.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's how you get more of those on our [SPEAKER_06]: That's how you sell more. [SPEAKER_06]: It's working together with the team and pulling on the working genius says. [SPEAKER_04]: No, I just really good clips here. [SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate you joining me for this podcast as we go into this Q2. [SPEAKER_04]: I want you to take a look at sales gravy in a university for you and your team. [SPEAKER_04]: It's a great place for resources around sales training over 55 experts.
[SPEAKER_04]: We've handpicked for that site in over 1700 hours of on demand sales training content. [SPEAKER_04]: If you're interested in that, go to sales gravy.com and let us know. [SPEAKER_04]: And we'd be happy to set up a conversation with you. [SPEAKER_04]: If you are listening to this and you've gotten this for on the podcast, you need to give us five stars. [SPEAKER_04]: And that would be on Spotify, Apple, or I heart wherever you listen to your podcast.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you aren't watching this, go to youtube.com for socials gravy, ring the bell and you can watch all of these conversations. [SPEAKER_04]: Actually, it was wonderful having you here today in the sales gravy studios for the sales gravy podcast. [SPEAKER_04]: We'll catch you next time.