Category Archives for Sales Strategy

TSE 1272: How To Become A Warrior Seller During The Coronavirus Outbreak

The world has been taken aback by the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses, regardless of industry, have been affected. As a salesperson, how do you become a sales warrior during the coronavirus outbreak? Jason Forrest works for a company called FPG which stands for Forrest Performance Group and one of their programs is Warrior Selling. 

There are four different levels of sales professionals. The first level is the follower. They give all the permission to the customer.  The customer dictates what to do, how to act, and tells the salesperson when they’re going to buy. The next level is the helper, who has the sole intention of helping people and serving their customers. The leader is the third level. They are the people you follow to a place you wouldn’t go on your own. The last level is the warrior.   The warriors are advocates for the product and service they sell. This salesperson believes, supports, and advocates for their products and services. In addition to that, the warriors protect their customers’ best interests. 

In today’s market, we need more warriors to protect the customers and the organization. People are afraid and the warriors help protect their customers from fear. Without leaders, fear can overcome customers and it can eventually kill the organization. Warriors know their customers so well they know what is needed. A sales warrior and con artist may have the same skill set but what sets apart the sales warrior is intention. They protect their customers through their service or product. 

Knowing the sales warrior 

A sales warrior has to get their messaging right for their customer and should be able to answer these questions:

• Why should people buy from you today?
• What will your products and services immediately do for them?
• How will your products and services benefit them at this moment?
• How will your products and services eliminate their present pain points?

Once they find the answer to those questions, they need to be able to share the message with the people they serve. 

Salespeople procrastinate for several reasons. The first is that they’re not clear about what they’re trying to accomplish.  The second is that they don’t know why they’re doing what they do. Their why has to be strong enough to get through tough days. The why has to be greater than the sacrifices they have to make to do the job of a salesperson. Third, once the why is discovered, a salesperson has to figure out how. The how includes your cross pattern strategy. What are you going to say to give them certainty and how do you want them to feel once they get off the phone with you?  The last reason why people procrastinate is their “leash mentality,” the restriction in someone’s thoughts that keeps them from doing what needs to be done.                                                                                                                              

Remove your leash

A leash is like a dog collar in that it can prevent you from moving forward and can hold you back. The present mind is the best mind because it keeps you focused on the task at hand. In sports, trash talk occurs because it is a means for one player to distract another player.  If done well, it can throw that player off their game. However, as a salesperson, the trash talk doesn’t come from other people but from inside their own heads. 

Jason came up with the concept of performance formula:
P(erformance) = K(nowledge) – L(eash). Performance is what a person does and what we see them do.  Knowledge is what we’ve told them to do. They have a process for making a sale and they have brand knowledge. To get a performance you have to remove the leash from the knowledge. This is the resistance that keeps them from using the knowledge they have, the things that keep them from taking action. 

Kinds of Leashes

Jason addresses four types of leash mentalities in his book:
Self-image

An example of the self-image leash is the perception the salesperson has of herself that she doesn’t know the right words to say to convince a prospect to buy. In order to remove this leash, you have to have the confidence that you will be able to convey to others why your product or service is valuable.

Story

The story is anything external from us. It’s when you tell yourself that people are still waiting for things to settle down before they start buying and purchasing again. This is just a story, especially when there’s no evidence to support that claim. 

Reluctance

Reluctance is a situational fear and it may come from not wanting to sound pushy and insensitive. The coronavirus outbreak will impact 2020 projections – it will either lower the sales forecast or be seen as an opportunity to steal market share from the competition. The truth is, if you’re not going to make any changes to get ahead of this, then it could lead to long-term challenges and impede the growth of your company. Taking action now can remove the ambiguous fear you may.  It puts you back in control of your circumstances rather than passively being a victim. As long as you have the right intentions and you believe you’re offering help to your clients, people will know you’re there to help.

Rule 

Jason defined the rule as anything you need to see, feel, or hear to give yourself permission to engage. However, most of the rules you set for yourself don’t make sense and can serve as roadblocks. 

Jason’s program teaches the result matrix. Our results are achieved from what we’ve been taught by our parents, teachers, culture, and media. These elements drive our beliefs and behaviors, and it helps us achieve our results once we understand how these forces drive our actions and decisions.

“How To Become A Warrior Seller During The Coronavirus Outbreak” episode resources

Jason’s new book has won as one of the best sales book awards in 40 countries. Know more about this book and how to become sales warrior on his site. 

If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald about it. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. 

This episode is brought to you in part  by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can also call us at (561) 570-5077. 

We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and ratings to every episode you listen to. 

You can also read more about sales or listen to audiobooks on Audible and explore this huge online library. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial. 

Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.

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TSE 939: Sales From The Street: “Ditch The Funnel”

The traditional funnel works in a lot of industries for many sellers. It’s always true, though, that no single industry is exactly the same.  In some cases, sellers have to find a different way to operate. Jereshia Hawk had to ditch the funnel.

Today on Sales From The Street, Jereshia Hawk shares how she shifted her mindset from exchanging time for money to helping people find a solution to their problems.

Jereshia calls herself a corporate dropout, having left a job as a pipeline engineer to become an online income strategies coach and consultant. She teaches a simple way to sell services online.

Finding “worth”

Jereshia left a large corporate pipeline project because she wanted women of color to have a voice at the business table. She believed that entrepreneurship was an economic equalizer, but she compared her early efforts to “throwing spaghetti at the wall” to see what might work.

She launched two coaching programs at ridiculously cheap prices and then doubled the price every time she sold it. When she reached the point where no one bought it, she was heartbroken.

She called it a new concept that people would pay her for something that wasn’t tangible. It was a foreign concept that people would pay for intellectual property.

She didn’t understand the value exchange and how to adequately price for the value and transformation she was providing.

Imposter syndrome

Jereshia forced herself to decide whether this was simply a hobby or something that she was truly going to invest in.

She decided to develop a recipe; to implement a strategy that would help her find future success.

She realized she was struggling with imposter syndrome. Jereshia didn’t believe she was qualified to charge money for a service, and she also didn’t believe that people would actually pay her for it.

She realized that she had to shift her mindset.

Mimicking others

Until she shifted her mindset, she was trying to sell everything under the sun. She mimicked the things that helped other entrepreneurs be successful.

She had opt-ins, membership sites, digital products, trip wires, upsells and all kinds of content.

Then she realized that there had to be a simpler way. She realized the funnel wasn’t working for her.

She flipped the funnel, and instead of focusing on finding a bunch of leads and coaxing them through a funnel process, she worked to solve a single problem well.

Jereshia worked to solve a problem that people needed help with at a higher price point.

Warmup

In a traditional funnel, you warm up your audience.

Jereshia wanted to simply figure out how to sell something consistently.

The best way to do that, she realized, was to focus on one core offer and learn to sell that really, really well. She focused on solving just one problem.

Then, she picked just one person in her target market, picked one problem to solve, and packaged a single process that became her signature service.

That’s when the game changed for her.

The outcome

After she changed her process, she got an offer of $9,000, where before she hadn’t been able to sell a $900 offer.

Over a six-month period, she grew her offer to $9,000, and six people bought it.

She offered a six-month mastermind teaching business owners to break through the six-figure mark.

Jereshia booked more than $60,000 in sales in one month, and that created the cash cushion that allowed her to quit her job.

Lean launch

She created a process involving basic sales psychology and the three core stages of awareness.

Once they develop awareness and realize they have a problem, they begin searching for a solution and ultimately they evaluate who they will buy from.

To address that, she created Facebook live videos based on those three stages of awareness and structured those videos over the course of two months. She used those videos to warm up her audience.

She believes that anyone earning less than six figures should begin with a more lean approach to selling and should return to business basics. Advanced funnels work, but if you don’t have a solid enough offer, it will be tough for you to land those deals.

The lean launch is a really solid foundation for any service-based business.

She now helps customers package their programs and services and she walks them through the entire four-step process to package their offer, price it, position it, and then profit from it.

“Ditch The Funnel”

If you’d like to connect with Jereshia and hear more about her signature service, check out her live 90-minute crash course which breaks down her methodology and strategy. Learn more about Jereshia at her website, jereshiahawk.com, or connect with her on Instagram, LinkedIn, or other social media platforms.

This episode is brought to you in part by Maximizer CRM, personalized CRM that gives you the confidence to improve your business and increase profits. To get a demonstration of maximizer, go to the sales evangelists.com/maximizer.

Click on the link to get a free demo of what Maximizer CRM can do for you. It integrates your marketing campaign as well as your CRM.

This episode is also brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach. Your prospecting will never ever be the same.

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TSE 863: The Index Card Business Plan

Many sales professionals rely on their talent and work ethic to help them succeed. They believe that if they go more and do more, they’ll achieve greater returns. They fail to realize that strategy is the key to real growth. Brian Margolis, the author of The Index Card Business Plan for Sales Pros and Entrepreneurs, has developed a unique index card business plan to improve strategy.

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk with. Brian’s understanding of strategy helps sales pros apply all of their knowledge and skill to move their business to the next level.

Understand pillars.

Pillars are the activity you have to complete every week that is 100 percent in your control.

Pillars must be proactive. They must be significant to your income and your productivity, but pillars do not have immediate consequences. Prospecting, for example, is significant to your business, but your next paycheck won’t be immediately impacted by your failure to prospect.

Pillars must be high-leverage activities that produce big results. They must also be predictable or repeatable, such as reaching out to a certain number of prospects each week.

Pillars are something you already know how to do effectively, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tackle new ideas. If, for example, you could use help with prospecting, your pillar would be to spend an hour a week studying prospecting. Because you already know how to learn, the pillar activity is the learning.

Pillars must be measurably weekly so that you can cross it off your list at some point. They also must be things that aren’t already habits.

Determine your pillars.

Begin by identifying one thing you already do effectively that could increase your business if you did it more. The answers will lead you to your pillars.

Perhaps you need to increase your followup; generate more prospects; create more content. Whatever they are, choose the skills that would impact your business if you improved them.

For example, if I take the time to create a Hitlist of my best prospects each week, my prospecting would improve because I’d be focused on the right people.

One of Brian’s clients developed the following pillars:

• Schedule 15 future meetings each week; 7 of those must be million dollar meetings.
• Send five non-sale touches each week to nurture existing relationships.
• Spend two hours each week sharpening skill sets. (reading, improving messaging)
• Complete three workouts a week.

Pillars can help you master the mundane: the things you know you should do but that you avoid. If we invested time doing them instead of seeking silver bullets to help us avoid them, we would likely see results.

Being good at something doesn’t guarantee success. You must have a strategy. The index card business plan can help.

“Index Card Business Plan”

Grab a copy of Brian’s book, The Index Card Business Plan for Sales Pros and Entrepreneurs. It’s a guide to help overwhelmed sales professionals stop being reactive, and instead develop strategies to move their business to the next level. It will help you channel your existing skills into an actual strategy, and to help you synthesize your existing knowledge.

Connect with Brian on LinkedIn or on his website productivitygiant.com, and grab a copy of his free report on simplifying your own strategy.

Consider giving a copy of the book Stop Selling & Start Leading as a thank you gift to someone who provided a referral. It’s a blueprint for sellers based upon years of research about the things buyers hate.

We’re so convinced that you’ll love the book that we’re providing a free excerpt to our listeners here.

The Sales Evangelist Hustler’s League is an online coaching program designed to help sellers of all levels and all industries improve. It’s an opportunity to share ideas and interact with other sellers from around the world.

Also check out The Sales Evangelizers on Facebook, where a community of people shares their struggles and their experiences with selling.

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