For many people, entering the sales profession can seem overwhelming. What are the right strategies, tactics, and mindset to do the best job possible? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the Account Executive at Challenger, Brendan Kelly, to learn his takeaways and thoughts after working in sales for six months.
Before starting his job, Brendan assumed he would just make phone calls every day.
- However, he soon realized high activity isn’t the long-term solution; it’s a burn-out-inducing, needle-in-a-haystack mentality.
- Instead, who, when, and why he reaches out to prospects is far more important. Intention and consistency are what yield success for new sellers.
- He learned to keep it simple. The person on the other end appreciates the authenticity.
- Whether he gets the meeting or not, the person should have a positive experience from the discussion.
- The intention is to get the win, and a win doesn’t always equal a meeting.
Business acumen Brendan didn’t know:
- A lot of acronyms and the specifics of what stakeholder titles mean were confusing. It takes time and curiosity to learn it all.
- It won’t happen overnight, and it’ll take effort to learn the ins and outs of a job title.
- To learn, get in situations where it comes up and have the confidence to ask someone what it means. It’s as simple as searching it on Google and writing it down to remember later.
- Prioritize the learning and schedule time to devote to complex topics to better understand them.
Sales is collaborative.
- It isn’t the cutthroat environment he thought it was going to be. While you need a level of self-motivation to thrive and succeed, it isn’t a process done alone.
- Since day one, Brendan was able to rely on his Account Executive for advice and to help him hone his craft.
- When everyone works together to reach their quotas, everyone is happier and more successful.
Brendan’s final piece of advice? Volume doesn’t solve all your issues. Being intentional about your efforts is a better long-term plan for success. For more content and information from Brendan, connect with him on LinkedIn or visit challengerinc.com.
This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio.
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As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.