Advertise on podcast: Sales Samurai

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest, Steve Richard, Founder @ExecVision: Sales Coaching & Conversation Intelligence Software. Steve's sharing 8 Cold Calling Tactics that have the potential to work for you. Episode Highlights 03:34 – Steve shares his background, how he didn't make it as an Investment Banker, and so he mimic what better people were doing at the time, which made him better.  04:20 – Steve realized that sales are about having the ability to impact and influence how people's lives go in some strange way.  07:25 – If you're not constantly trying new things and testing, experimenting, you're missing the boat, says Steve. 10:11 – It is about understanding all those different nuances to your business that you should understand and then testing it.  12:40 - You take a spreadsheet, you put your personas in your rows, you put your industry verticals, and then you fill in the use case and customer story for each of those. 14:01 – Sam asks, how to leverage a new initiative from a Cold Calling Tactics? 16:30 – Steve shares, they had clients who over time started comparing people in terms of their experiences, but they outperformed their people.  20:19 – People are motivated by fixing a problem, accomplishing a goal, or avoiding risks, states Steve. 23:41 – Steve questions, what about the fact that the seller has more information than ever before? What about the fact that the salesperson could know far more about their prospective customers and prospects than they ever could have before?  25:40 – Sam asks Steve about his thoughts around the title ‘X’. 27:00 – Steve discusses where you get to ask your qualification questions, your pain questions, or your goal questions. 29:30 – Steve points out about second vendor options and their two flavors. 31:30 - We do coaching and behavior change, tracking manager coaching, calibrating with multiple scorecards, some specific concrete things, reveals Steve. 34:10 – There are going to be situations that depending on what you sell and who you sell to, don't want to do the second vendor option, they use a certain competitor. 35:35 – Sometimes with clients, you would hear the same object every time. It was like you literally could predict which objection was going to be before you pick up the phone. 37:25 – Sam says, let's take 30 minutes to figure out if there's a path forward. 42:20 - Some solutions have to be seen to be understood. 43:50 – Steve mentions, in the last 3 to 4 years buyer behavior has changed. 45:55 – Never say pricing even arranger pricing until you have these 35 fields filled out in Salesforce that's not how the modern buyer will work, highlights Steve. 47:30 – Sam asks Steve to give some context behind Crawl Walk Run. 49:01 – Crawl Walk Run makes people feel okay to admit they suck at something.  Three Key Points Steve had a sales training company and the clients were telling him that they want the sales training content, but how do you reinforce it? What are you going to do to help reinforce the sales training content? That was the origin of ExecVision, so they started using this in their company and realized that they can reinforce this mastery training. So, it was the marketplace that was asking for this new niche and now they have a new initiative to bring technology to reinforce sales training to a point of mastery. Every time Steve has a scheduled call with some

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest, Larry Levine, best-selling author of ‘Selling from the Heart’. They discuss what ‘Sales Authenticity’ is and how to develop it!  Episode Highlights 01:50 – Larry says, he sold copiers his whole life up and down the street, small businesses, medium businesses, and enterprise major accounts. 04:28 – It took Larry five to six months for him to make his first sale.  06:13 – Larry believes that if they do the non-negotiables in the basics and sell well, it creates the foundational layers for how they can go about layering sophisticated stuff. 10:24 – If you're in those environments that don't align with how you sell to your point, you can either accept it or lean into it, says Larry. 13:45 - If you want to bring your authentic self to the forefront you have to be willing to do the inner work to uncover what's in your heart. 17:56 – Larry states that he transformed his career within a period of 10-years when he was around 40 to 50 based on doing the inner work. 19:20 – In his 40s Larry’s first business coach taught him the inner work and taught him how to replicate himself online. 24:48 - If you read 20 pages a day, Monday through Friday, and you took the weekend off, you have read two books a month and 24 books in a year. You are now probably in the half percentile worldwide of readers. Imagine the wealth of knowledge you would have as a sales professional to leverage. 27:16 – Larry states, there is a difference between sales reps and sales professionals. 30:44 - You want to understand what it means to sell from the heart and lead that kind of lifestyle in sales. Then you got to be willing to do the work.  32:33 – Sam mentions, to this day, he blocked off his calendar for specific things because it was a best practice that he learned from a book, went to a mentor at the time, and spoke to them about and implemented.  35:45 – Larry mentions, if you want to become a professional, you got to be willing to do the things that sales professionals do every day. 37:25 – Sam reveals that he is not looking for 50 different things to pick up from a podcast or a book. He thinks that's another area we miss from a professional standpoint. 40:03 – If you're looking for mentorship, you should be finding out people older than you somebody who aligns with your values. 42:50 – Larry Highlights, if you are a reader, take the last three great books you read, look the author up on LinkedIn, ask the person to connect, send them a heartfelt message on the impact the book, add in what you got out of that book, click connect, and watch what happens next. Three Key Points If you want to bring your authentic self to the forefront you have to be willing to do the inner work to uncover what's in your heart, and this is where a lot of people brush it off to the side they go not willing to go there. Larry is going to challenge everybody on this - if you want to become a successful sales professionals who lead with integrity, who's genuine and sincere, you got to connect and relate better to yourself and the more you do it, the better you're going to be able to connect and relate to your clients. Larry highlights that in those 90 days, his coach did two things that transformed his career that he wishes he would have learned in his 20s and 30s. The first one was the road to find out what was in his heart, the inner work. The second thing was how to walk, talk and breathe in an online world. Sales authenti

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with Jeremy Ruch, Founder of ‘Bandalier’. He shares how to interview SDRs who don't have any experience. Episode Highlights 01:14 – Jeremy mentions, most of the companies they work with would say, it is one of the most risk-prone and one of the hardest hires that they make across the entire organization.  04:16 – It was kind of the nexus of two things that made him want to start a company to take a shot at the beginning to solve that problem, highlights Jeremy. 05:15 – Sam enquires, how Jeremy tackles hiring SDRs that don't have the experience like a typical salesperson does? 07:15 - The first thing is to identify what those traits are, and ensure that those traits are predictive. 09:35 – Jeremy states that he always recommends starting with a scorecard, especially if you're designing a high-volume recruiting process, seeing how well the scores match up to the performance in the roles knowing that in those first few hires, you're going to make a few mistakes because your scorecard is not going to be perfect. 13:01 - It's possible to find folks with 6 to 12 months of SDR experience who are killing it in cold calling roles that are new, mentions Jeremy. 16:10 - It doesn't matter what the scenario is; it's about describing a time where you faced some type of adversity in some way. 18:11 - If you were answering the resilience question and describing bouncing back from adversity by lying to somebody about a certain thing that would be a red flag, that showcases the lack of integrity, but beyond that, it is pretty linear. 20:17 – The guest says, they’re trying to build out a matrix where every single person who goes through their interview process will have scores with an overall score, but also scores within each of those sub-areas. 22:00 – Jeremy explains, how assessment and exercise are as close to the role as possible. 24:44 – You should be ensuring that your process as closely as possible matches the role that you're going to have these folks in, says Jeremy  26:34 – Jeremy says they have specific areas where they’re assessing if they took and implemented feedback. That's something they’re certainly going to take note of. 27:04 - When you're bringing somebody on, why are those first two, or three weeks critical from a validation standpoint, enquires Jeremy. 29:49 – Jeremy highlights, if you don't have the experience of having done this with hundreds of people, it's tough to know where to set those baseline parameters.  31:14 – Jeremy shares, they try to make note of all that feedback, and then every six to 12 months they go back to the interview rubric and redo it. 33:49 – Sam asks Jeremy about a good sampling to start making changes to the rubric. 35:46 – The most common areas where they see red flags are on the ability to take feedback, and they take this seriously, mentions Jeremy. 38:37 - There are folks whose default is to push back feedback which becomes an issue. 41:34 – People with more experience sometimes choose less flattering examples, says Jeremy. Three Key Points Jeremy explains how they tackle hiring SDRs with no experience. For the past four and a half years, they’ve designed an interview process where they’re asking questions designed to get at specific traits. Grading out those questions in a very structured way and then every 6 to 12 months, they go back and look at the predictability of those questions of the traits once they&r

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Evan Patterson, Head of Content and Community @ trender.ai. They are tackling the subject of cold calling! Episode Highlights 00:55 - Cold calling is not dead because it's never even been alive. 02:35 – Evan shares, he has always been marketing-oriented in his approach and he’s doing it full time for several different businesses but primarily for ai. 03:39 – Sam asks Evan to give some background of his definition of cold calling. 06:40 - The fundamental issue with that is it was never a very effective use of time. 07:22 – Sam says, his biggest thing when he talks about cold calling is, you got to start with the ICP, and you got to know who is your sweet spot. 07:37 – “What are the right channels for you to be pursuing those ICPs?” Asks Sam. 09:25 – Evan says, millennial are statistically proven to hate unwarranted, unwanted, and unsolicited cold calls. 14:02 – We should be leaning more heavily on text messaging within our tech stack because that is where people want to communicate, states Sam. 16:05 – Salespeople are leaning more on - the let me help you instead of letting me sell you more. 20:25 – Evan shares, you have to look at people’s demographics from age, lifestyle, and communication perspective. 22:16 - There is no such thing as a universal truth in sales, says the host. 25:13 – Evan says he would rather make the sales cycle take longer from an ad perspective, but make it more enjoyable and have a higher close ratio for the prospects. 29:22 - It's all these little tiny nuanced things of data that can be shared a back and forth, mentions Evan. 31:05 – Sam shares, it's kind of table stakes, but it's just connecting the dots that they like to engage with their brand this way, but yet, we've never engaged with it that way. 35:40 - You need to spend less on sales and more on marketing, which is good because that money that you don't need on sales, you can move over to marketing. 37:16 – Evan highlights, it's all these different social, and psychological plays that you can make marketing that will fill in the gaps now that sales aren’t doing as much prospecting or planning. 39:35 – Evan also has an issue with going after leads that do not interact with their content, because the chances of them falling off the sales cycle are higher. 40:58 - Why is it a taboo to tell salespeople to know what sales you're just not going to get, asks Sam. 41:30 - Those are the nuances that separate you from the pack, like leveraging that makes life easier, makes you more efficient, and makes you more effective.  Three Key Points There's a lot more technology supporting and lifting that ceiling for social selling and cold calling has not been and will not be able to catch up. So, it's not the most efficient route. Let the buyer tell you where to go. Don't tell them where they have to go and that what cold calling does. You're forcing them into a path that they didn't sign up for. You don't invest more energy into the person you're struggling to read, you invest margin on the other person and you have to know when to quit. So, trying to make the sale work, don't fire. Tweetable Quotes “When I say I'm against cold calling, I am not against using the phone in a sales motion.” – Evan Patterson “Effective calli

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest, Liz Heiman, the CEO and Chief Sales Strategist for ‘Regarding Sales’. Liz primarily helps B2B companies that are trying to grow the sales infrastructure and drive revenue. In today’s episode they discuss tips and best practices to master your sales funnel. Episode Highlights 02:00 – Liz says her dad wrote a book called ‘Strategic Selling’ hence she grew up in the sales business environment, so it’s a natural thing for her. 08:08 – Liz’s first job as the Head of Department was to go to Australia, meet two Australian men, and convince them that they should be selling conceptual selling, not just strategic selling. 10:30 – Liz talks about how she got her next big deal while meeting with the VP of Coca-Cola, Japan. How her 15-minute conversation turned into a 45-minute conversation. 15:05 – Liz states that typically if you ask people, what's their priority, almost everybody says that it is closing business.  17:10 – If you look at your funnel, and you know what your ratios are, how much you qualify out, etc. then you can prioritize. 19:20 – Liz tells her clients to put their prospecting time as an appointment that's busy in their calendar because everybody will schedule over it. 21:15 - It's as important to qualify out as it is to qualify in, mentions Liz. 23:25 - If it's not an ideal customer, there's got to be a good reason for it to stay in Liz’s file/list. 27:30 - No one person decides on a multimillion-dollar deal just doesn't happen, it impacts too many parts of the organization. 29:35 – There's a difference between asking tough questions and beating people up, we're asking tough questions because we're looking for solutions, says Liz. 32:56 - The reason the deals are falling out, or pushing back is that nobody did the work up in qualifying and cultivated when they were supposed to be doing. 35:30 - When you are looking at the funnel, you need to be able to make those decisions with leadership or by yourself about what makes sense and what doesn't, says Liz. 41:40 - If we want to have the freedom to be creative, we need to put the pieces in place that help us make sure that critical work gets done. 43:20 - So I hit my numbers consistently and have the life I want because I've got the revenue coming in to support it right? 46:20 – Liz thinks process supports the creativity, takes the stress away, and it makes selling a lot nicer. Three Key Points When we create a funnel, or a sales process, which is the step of the funnel, the very thing is to think about what is a qualified lead versus a non-qualified lead. The first thing is to look at the process of qualifying not just in that stage of qualifying but throughout the entire funnel so that you can prioritize in and prioritize out those leads that are not helpful. So by understanding our funnel, we can prioritize our work, make sure that we get the stuff at the top of the funnel that we do the work to qualify. We want to make sure that the customers share the values that we have as a company. If they're not talking the same language, if the product isn't a good fit, if it's going to require a tremendous amount of change in their organization that they're not going to be able to do then maybe they're not your ideal customer. Hence, you should qualify them out and move on. If they're interested then tell them what the qualifications are for them to be able to work with you successfully. There are two kinds of funnel reviews, one is when we

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest, Evan Santa, Vice President of Sales at Commerce Bear. They're going to be discussing first impressions in a remote sales world. Episode Highlights 01:13 – This whole COVID thing threw us right into more remote work and more zoom that you kind of lose sight of the basic blocking, tackling, and first impressions, says Sam. 01:50 – Evan shares that his background is in building go-to-market sales teams at various software organizations. 09:25 – There's a loss of intensity because we're not sitting in an office. 11:25 – Evan mentions, those managers that were managing on fear or managing on friendship, they just became friends with those that reporting to them and then they hope that their friendship will push the needle, it rarely works. 27:10 - If you have your camera off as a salesperson, how could you ever expect that your prospect will have your camera on?  29:20 - We're finding ways to brand ourselves in this digital world so that whenever a customer or prospect speaks to us, there's some type of brand there, states Evan. 29:42 – Sam asks Evan what's his thoughts are around virtual backgrounds in regards to creating that first impression. 31:48 – If you don't have a virtual background make sure you have a clean space and it's a presentable professional space.  33:29 – Evan is teaching people how to set up a decent little background at home and it doesn't have to be crazy, just make it clean, make it eat, and make it personal. 40:22 - We're on the path towards a higher level of productivity and return for our investment as an organization, mentions Evan. 42:03 - If you're struggling to close deals online face-to-face, I don't think it's going to help you, states Evan 44:20 – Evan says, he spent a lot of time early in his career, going through these thought processes, developing his sales mantra, and essentially bringing his playbook and mantra from hiring building teams from the ground up. Three Key Points Evan highlights, now that they are digital-first, this is their only opportunity to create a brand for themselves in the organization, a brand with their customers.  You need to make sure there are no technical issues; you should be getting in touch with your internet provider making sure that’s tight, logging on early, showing up to meetings five minutes early, etc. So, if you have a technical issue, you could rectify it most likely before anyone joins. One of the biggest things we need to do in sales is be memorable. Tweetable Quotes “Those that are truly driven, that a certain level of autonomy, are the ones who are flying right now.” – Evan Santa “It doesn't take much to look good, sound good, and feel good.” – Evan Santa “The body language is everything, your engagement is everything, and eye contact is everything.” – Evan Santa “You just have to have a good camera, good lighting, good audio, and it's so easy to do.” - Evan Santa “We should not have technical difficulties on our end at all.” – Evan Santa “People buy from people that they like.” – Evan Santa “My first word that comes to mind when I think virtual backgrounds is distraction.” – Evan Santa Resources Mentioned Sam Capra on LinkedIn

In today’s episode of ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Skye Grace, Account Executive for Orum about the 9 Ways to Get Better as an SDR. Episode Highlights 03:33 – Building those personal relationships and providing value to someone else's life and business is what Skye loves. 04:45 – Learning how to Coach people as human beings and having good SDRs is important, states Skye. 06:01 – The first way to get better as an SDR is, you need to understand the industry that you're in and also the customer's problems. 08:38 - Who you're targeting, who do you have the best shot at driving a meeting with and converting into a real tangible opportunity for your sales organization, asks Skye. 10:15 - Sam asks Skye, how she does temper hyper-personalization with relevance from an SDR perspective? 18:34 – Skye highlights that being productive and finding that time for self-care, calendar blocking, and creating that for yourself is important. 23:30 – As an SDR you need to know why are you networking with people and what is the reason behind that? 25:30 – Skye points out, you got to keep track of what's working, where you get a lot of engagement from because ultimately, we're serving other people when we're posting things and sharing content. 28:49 - There are these communities that can make you better. You can become masterful in what you're doing and it teaches you how to get promoted, mentions Skye. 30:45 - As an SDR you need to be disciplined, disciplined with your time knowing you do have only a certain number of hours in the day but being very effective there and that comes down to your integrity as an SDR. 34:14 – Sam enquires, what was the biggest learning curve as stepping into that SDR? 36:30 - What are some tips that you would provide other incoming SDRs, asks Sam. 37:28 - If you want to become the best, you need to go out, pick a book, read it and you need to understand the organization, says Skye. Three Key Points What’s important for every SDR is building a personal brand so that you're able to reach a wider audience faster and you're also humanizing yourself to your prospects.  You need to keep track of what's working, what's been successful, and what have you had the most engagement of. She has integrity in her work ethic, she is productive, and she is time-blocking. And maybe it's not today that she books a meeting but maybe it's tomorrow. So, you have to learn to let that go and have trust in yourself. Tweetable Quotes “Sale is something that I always took interest in since I always felt that this was the foundation of being a successful business owner.” – Skye Grace “In sales, we're solving problems for other people and that's something that I've always loved doing.” – Skye Grace “You want to figure out what tools are most important and most effective but at the same point the human element sometimes gets missed and we forget about that aspect.” – Skye Grace “You need to find out what's most effective otherwise it is an information overload, technology overload.” – Skye Grace “The first step as an SDR is, know your industry, know what you're selling.” – Skye Grace “I have generated so many more opportunities and booked meetings for my company because I follow-up.” – Skye Grace “True personalization can't be scalable.” – Sam Capra “Anyone can have a perso

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest, Brendon McAdams, the Managing Director and Founder of Kinetics. He is giving 12 simple tips to elevate your sales effectiveness. Episode Highlights 01:49 – If you get back to some of the fundamentals, those are oftentimes all the things you need to be successful, says Brendon. 03:07 – Brendon shares his sales background. Now he is doing sales coaching and consulting on a very specific basis, usually with early-stage start-up founders. 05:02 – Sam enquires from Brendon, about what has changed for the better and what’s gone in the wrong direction, in his opinion from a sales perspective. 07:59 – Sam always looked at sales tools as it drives efficiency and allow you to scale faster. 09:00 – Sam asks Brendon if there is any context he wants to provide before we jump into the list of simple tips to elevate his sales effectiveness. 11:20 – When customers are measuring you at the beginning, it's the little things that they catch up on like if you can't get their name right in the email it seems such a little thing but it is an attention to detail. 20:00 – Brendon highlights, your customers don't know how you're going to deliver and so they use these little events to measure you. 22:33 – Sam questions, sometimes we get lost in our process and what we need to do is to qualify or disqualify it that we forget the root cause, how can we help this? 24:35 – If you ask the right questions when you need to, it is so liberating. 26:30 – Brendon shares, you have to figure out ways and say this isn't going to work.  28:56 - When you're promising something that you can't deliver, that again is in the category of first impressions, states Brendon 30:48 – You can look at things and say, here's how we can help your business.  41:43 – You've spent less time talking and more time listening. Then when you do speak, you're more educated because you understand the question better. 45:22 – If someone has to leave early, cover the stuff that they need to cover and you can even pin them down and say to follow up with you afterward. 47:00 – The two assets of a salesperson are, being professional and yourself. 48:41 – Brendon shares, he thinks that authenticity helps you to connect with your customer. 50:31 - I don't think you should be doing things that aren't rewarding and satisfying.      Three Key Points Brendon says, he tributes this episode being sales tips, but they're just good practices in general and that's intentional because, for a lot of people that he coaches and talks to they're not professional salespeople, their founders are oftentimes very technical. And so, what he is trying is to bridge this gap and get them to understand that these skills aren't exclusive to salespeople, salespeople tend to execute on them better if they're good at it. The customer discovery process is critically important, and the thing you have to do and get better with practice is being able to explain to the customer why you want to ask these questions.  If you've got 30 minutes to get through something, you want 10 minutes, in the end, to be discussing where this goes, and working out calendars and figuring out who needs to be involved and what the action items are and who's responsible for them. Tweetable Quotes “I didn't necessarily aspire to be a salesperson initially, but I ended up doing things that were sales related.”

In today’s episode of ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Mark Fershteyn, CEO @Recapped.io who collaborates with buyers through mutual action plans to accelerate revenue, create repeatable playbooks, and ensure seamless handoffs. He shares the why, what, and how mutual cctions plans work. Episode Highlights 01:52 – Mark shares his background. He never thinks they'd have had the opportunity that they have today. 02:32 – The number one problem for most sales teams is the lack of process and lack of standardization, especially when you get into scale, states Mark. 10:43 - If you do want big changes, it does require big investments. You're not going to get a 20% swing on a 5% effort move, says Mark. 12:33 – Mutual Action Plan is a tool, and the internal parties and your customers are to be aligned on what needs to happen, it's a project plan. 14:31 - It's getting clear alignment and expectations on what needs to happen. 16:19 - Your mutual action plan is almost the business case that you're putting together.  20:07 – It’s creating that framework, so that your new reps and people that you bring in an organization, they're able to come in and follow best practices, highlights Mark. 22:07 - All of these different paths can converge, that's when you want to start driving the next steps together. 23:22 – We should understand that our customers or our prospects barely read our emails. We should not expect that they're going to collaborate with us 100% of the way. 26:06 – The deal acceleration is the most popular impact that they have seen by doing this, states Mark. 27:10 - If you're able to have a consistent way that everybody sells, it starts giving you visibility and insight into what's happening because it allows you to improve as an organization because you can't improve what you can't measure. 32:40 - Mutual Action Plans are essentially enforcement of the ‘Why’ but without a ‘How’ you can't implement the ‘Why’. 38:24 – Mark points out, setting a date on a checklist or on a task they found that the chances of that task being completed doubled. 42:15 - It's becomes winning what's winnable, and allocating your resources and being strategic with what you're doing, says Mark. 43:34 – Start implementing a collaborative selling approach, start working together on an action and implementation plan, and it's going to do wonders for you. Three Key Points If you're looking for a big swing, then you got to take a big swing from an investment standpoint, you have to double down somewhere, or you are not going to get there. Mark recommends that the first thing you do is create a checklist of the high-level things that need to happen. Number two is including an executive summary, and the third one is access to resources.  There are different ways we help other customers like you, hear all the different proof points and data points that we can help you with. Here's the business case, shoot this over to your boss, here's my contact information. And if your boss has any questions, I'm right here for you. Tweetable Quotes “There's nothing worse than having something fall apart at the finish line….” - Mark Fershteyn “The bigger you are the more important step process and standardization becomes.” – Mark Fershteyn “The Mutual Action Plan, it's just a way for everyone to make sure you're on the same page.” – Mark Fershteyn “So much of sale

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction talks with guest Mike Thompson, Partner at Spark Recruiting. He is discussing why recruiters have to be sales professionals. He shares a great approach for sales leaders around hiring candidates as well as insights from the candidate standpoint. Episode Highlights 01:40 – Mike says, his background is exclusively in recruiting. He has been in the industry for about 13 years. 03:20 – Mike learned a lot about selling and recruiting as you can sell software, widgets, whatever it may be.  04:39 - How are you differentiating yourself from the 1.5 million other competitors that are also trying to hire sales talent? 06:30 – Some organizations are pivoting quicker than others and realizing that they have to be more proactive and sell to potential candidates. 08:20 – People want to be inspired by who they're working for more than the company they're joining, mentions Mike. 10:20 – Remote nature of work these days is a good thing for some companies and not so good thing for others, it’s depending on how you're situated and set up.  12:30 – It's going to continue to get more and more competitive to find talent and retain it as well, it's going to continue to be a problem. 13:37 – Mike shares, the first question he always likes to ask is when you're hiring a salesperson, and what does success look like for the successful individual in a year?  16:11 – You need to start thinking about how you sell the role and how you can simplify what that job is? 17:31 - There's a reason why referrals are the best source of talent attraction.  20:41 – There's not enough money that is going to sustain someone in that role long term if you just have a terrible relationship with your boss. 22:40 – Sam asks, what does the first year look like for a person from a candidate profile standpoint? 24:47 - If you’re a salesperson looking for a job, and you want to follow the leaders on LinkedIn, you get to see what they post, what they're talking about.  26:50 – Mike says, he coaches a lot of his clients and sales leaders to take stock on how candidates are selling themselves because that's their best sales foot forward.  28:05 – If you're hiring a sales individual, and how they approach you is how they're going to approach your clients, says Mike. 30:00 – Sam points out, if you're going through the process of navigating on LinkedIn, then you'd want an engaging leader, creating content, commenting on it, and creating a personal brand for them. 32:25 – Mark states, Automation, and AI Technology do a great job of analyzing resumes, but you're not hiring a resume, especially in sales. You're hiring somebody that's being tasked with creating a relationship and having conversations with customers. 35:23 - You need to be clear on what it is you're looking for, and realistic with that, instead of thinking somebody is going to come in and they're going to bring all these accounts, and all their customer lists over. 37:04 – Mike brought up outside of what's the type of qualities candidates want to look for in a leader, points out Mike.  Three Key Points You need to be creative in terms of how you're building your team and not only from an attraction standpoint, but that helps with retention. You can't just throw money at people; you have to invest in the leaders and place them at the core of your hiring campaign because they're going to attract the people that want to follow them that worked for the

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction talks with guest Ralph Barsi and discusses 5 reasons why salespeople miss quotas. He also shares how we can learn and overcome them. Episode Highlights 01:40 – Ralph shares, he oversees the global inside sales organization Tray.io in San Francisco. They are in a general automation platform and help a lot of companies integrate all the components of their tech stack. 03:23 – Sam enquires, how did Ralph got started in sales and what's his origin story around sales? 05:37 – What's not changed in sales is people buy from people and people selling to people must build rapport and credibility quickly by not thinking about themselves but the sellers point out Ralph. 07:10 – Ralph highlights, buyers have access to so much information to learn from, that's where the sellers come in. That's where sellers need to differentiate themselves as trusted adviser. 10:28 - The first obscurity just comes down to so many sales reps, especially sales development reps, who are initiating a lot of first conversations with prospects that nobody knows who they are. 11:05 – Ralph mentions, you attract opportunities by becoming attractive in the marketplace. You do that by adding value to the marketplace, and the best channel to do that is LinkedIn. 13:32 – You've got to build up who you are and why one should listen to you even more. You don't have to do that if you've been avoiding obscurity this whole time. 15:52 – Sam asks when Ralph says lack of focus, how that impacts salespeople missing quota? 16:25 - If you're trying to serve your mission of closing deals, making your quota, and moving the needle as a sales rep, you have to boil things down to one thing, says Ralph. 18:00 – Ralph mentions, one of the best tools that he has seen that might be effective from a lack of focus standpoint is it was published a few years ago, by a gentleman named Brendon Burchard. He created and published a one-page productivity plan. 22:50 – Sam enquires about Ralph’s thoughts around inactivity. 24:13 – It’s about planning your work, and not just kind of hoping it all works out. 26:28 – It doesn't matter at all if somebody opened your email, it does not move the needle but if somebody responds to your email, engages and books that meeting with you that means there's something you're putting in the right spot in terms of how you craft your messages. 29:10 - No matter what models you look at or acronyms you want to toss around, it always comes down to taking action and doing what you say you're going to do. 30:46 – You will establish conversation flow when you have a beginning, middle and an end in your mind in a conversation, states Ralph.  32:15 – You’ve to be prepared as a salesperson at all times to establish conversation flow, mentions Ralph. 42:00 – Sam questions Ralph about his thoughts on failure to keep improving. 46:10 – If you just ask yourself, how good am I at this, you'll get your wheels cranking and, in your head, you'll start making some little changes that make the big things happen. Three Key Points To all the salespeople, keep your finger on the pulse of all that's going on. So be on point with where your competitors are today. Be on point with where your customers or competitors are today so that you can help and meet with your prospects and customers. The five reasons why salespeople miss quota: 1. Obscurity 2. Lack of focus 3. Inactivity, 4. No conversation flow 5. Failure to keep improving.

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Mr. Joe Barhoum, an Author, Consultant, and a Professor at the University of Portland. They are discussing pipeline versus pipe dream, and the four steps to “gut check” your opportunities and overall pipeline health. Episode Highlights 01:15 – Sam enquires, is this the hardest thing for sales reps to truly understand pipeline and manage pipeline? 03:55 – When you start getting those complex deals that's where pipeline management gets a little bit challenging because there are so many moving parts, says Sam. 05:33 – It’s important to make sure that those opportunities in the pipeline are accurate, states Joe. 06:11 - What you should be doing, to be honest with your pipeline? 07:54 – You need to write all the deals that you have for the current, and the next quarter. 08:37 – Once you have written all the deals the first question is what are the problems that the buyer or the buyers said they need to solve. 10:53 - Why do you think you're going to win, write that down, and then the last step is to write down the two-three biggest risks associated with you winning the deal. 14:35 – Sam asks, how many buyers do we need to be involved with - single thread or multi-thread? 16:13 – If you get to a habit of being critical of your deals, you don't want to be critical of your sales all the time.  23:00 – Joe highlights, if your only justification for winning is a good relationship then that's not enough, because even if you're liked and trusted, you can still lose. 26:20 – Joe points out that you shouldn't win a deal on accident. 30:50 – Sometimes even having two champions is not enough to win, states Joe. 32:00 – A champion is vital and what level of influence that champion has is the most important question, thinks Sam. 33:33 - If there's a risk that you can validate as a risk, you then have to understand what the likelihood of that risk to occur is.  36:32 – Sam says the goal is to minimize as many of those risks as possible 39:28 - What are your thoughts on a mutual action plan and how it works with a more complex sale? Sam asks Joe. 41:58 – Joe feels that formalized buying which aligns with the formalized mutual action plan idea, it's going to become more common. 43:33 - How much trust you can build if you help a buyer become a better buyer? 45:37 – You have to understand that the buyer may not have tried to resolve the problem this way before.  Three Key Points All four steps allow you to play devil's advocate with your pipeline. The first step is to write down all the deals that you have for the current quarter and the next quarter; the second step is to what problems they want to solve so that you prioritize them. The third step is to write down your justification for why you expect to win, and the last step is to write down the two/ three biggest risks associated with you winning the deal. If you're trying to figure out the priority, you also have to keep in mind that the priority kind of differs from person to person at the decision-making hierarchy. Of course, asking the right questions, so these things are important to you. The questions you need to ask buyers are I want to make sure that we're the best fit for you. So, what are you seeing in us? What are you seeing in our technology that makes you feel comfortable? That’s a good question to ask it always have to do it. Tweetable Quotes