Our awesome guest today is “The Sales Whisperer,” Wes Schaeffer. Where did that term come from? You probably guessed it right. He was watching the “Dog Whisperer” and saw Cesar saying that he rehabilitates dogs and trains the owners. Well, rehabilitating and training are definitely a part of Wes’ expertise. He rehabilitates salespeople and trains the owners/managers.
Having an extensive background in sales, Wes is a sales trainer and a sales motivational speaker where he goes around and helps organizations from beginning to end. Wes is the author of the book The Definitive Guide to Infusionsoft: How Mortals Increase Traffic, Leads, Prospects, Sales, Testimonials, Online Orders & Referrals With the World’s Most Powerful Sales & Marketing Automation Software. Wes also has expertise in sales training & marketing and software implementation to help with automation.
Today, Wes shares with us what you should focus on as a salesperson, how to effectively qualify your prospects, the power of an effective sales script, plus some sales strategies for you to better perform and hit your sales goals. Bam!
Here are the highlights of the conversation with Wes:
The benefits of automating marketing and sales:
- You can scale.
- You can grow faster without adding staff.
- You have more margin and make more money.
Main challenges of small and mid-sized companies when it comes to sales:
- The owner’s number 1 job: To market
- Sales manager: To recruit
- Salesperson: To prospect
Should you focus your time and energy on the close?
- Focus on qualifying and disqualifying
- Great salespeople are great at sorting and sifting
How to effectively qualify your prospects:
- Identify your persona.
Who can benefit from what you sell?
- Focus on a niche in your industry or a specific region first.
“Batch” your work. Do not answer phone calls from clients at this moment. Call in to one neighborhood or industry or one key list. Bang that out and stick with it until you’re done.
- Stay in a prospecting frame of mind.
Talk to people and set appointments and ask good and tough questions to get the opportunity to sell.
More sales strategies for you to better perform:
- Know your numbers.
How many phone calls do you have to make to set up an appointment?
- Be “granular” to stay on point.
Start at the top and work down to what you have to do every hour to stay on task and hit your goals. What do you need to do on an hourly basis?
- Have a script. (A good script that is!)
Prepare it in advance. Rehearse it. Internalize it. Make it believable. (That’s what Tom Cruise does folks! And he’s making more money than the rest of us.) So have a template prepared in advance. Learn your script. Learn your process. Learn what you need to do to deliver the value.
- Rehearse and have the discipline to execute it right.
Professionals are willing to rehearse. Execute it right, day in and day out. Do the exact same thing. Stick with what works!
- While you stick with what works, try to beat it.
“What works” becomes your control group. Try new strategies to beat it. If it doesn’t work, go back to what works.
Why companies have a tough time generating leads online:
- Most companies are product-centric.
- We undervalue our knowledge and skills.
- We overestimate the understanding that our prospects have of our offering as well as their understanding of their own dilemma.
- Many businesses under-market or under-promote.
If you’re new in business, you must promote your business 10x than what you think. And if you’re already in business, then at least double or triple the amount of what you do. Market, market, market!
What you need to do to grow your biz:
- Market MORE.
He who has the biggest list wins. Always work on attracting new prospects and people who have the ability, desire, need, and pain to buy from you.
- Aim for what you can do to streamline things.
Figure out how to automate things. Try to carve seconds or minutes out of your hours because those add up.
“Time kills deals and a confused mind says no.” – Wes Schaeffer
- Figure out what you can do to attract people to you and educate them.
Create podcast, videos, free reports, email sequences, blog posts, books, etc. This will build their trust.
- Think of how you can cut out the need of a salesperson.
Your job is to increase the bottom line.
Current projects Wes is working on:
Working on his next book
Make Every Sale: Wes’ sales training program
The Five: Wes’ mastermind group for 4D/3N retreats bringing in 5 motivated entrepreneurs
Know more about Wes on www.thesaleswhisperer.com
Episode Resources:
Wes’ website www.thesaleswhisperer.com
Wes’ sales training program www.makeeverysale.com
Wes’ mastermind group www.thefive.us
TSE 179 – Should I Use a Sales Script or Not?
Wes’ major takeaway:
Selling is a calling, serving is its purpose, questioning is the process, and the sale may be the solution. You can’t help everybody and everybody is not a prospect. Go and seek to help and understand. Ask good questions until you’re sure you understand their situation.
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