Predictable Prospecting's Podcast

For prospectors, referrals are important. When you’re a business developer, it’s helpful if you can engage clients to the point that they’re willing to refer another business to you. Today’s guest is Brandon Bruce, the COO and Co-founder of Cirrus Insight. In today’s episode, Bruce will be talking about the top of the funnel. Listen to the episode to hear what Brandon has to say about referrals and about the tips, techniques, and strategies that he’s using in his own company that may also be useful for you. Episode Highlights: Brandon’s unusual height Brandon’s company, Cirrus Insight, and what they do What Brandon has found does and doesn’t work when it comes to prospecting When is the best time to bring up the topic of referrals with a client Incentives that can encourage clients to make referrals How making a job fun can help build energy and get people excited How customer feedback can lead to great ideas for improvements How to use personalization in prospecting The small batch approach, and how new tec

There are a lot of different things that you can try when you need to make more sales. But one of the most effective things that you can do to become a great salesperson is work on your leadership skills. Today’s guest is Deb Calvert, President of People First Productivity Solutions. In today’s episode, she’ll be talking about her new book, Stop Selling and Start Leading: How to Make Extraordinary Sales Happen. Listen to the episode to hear what she has to say about what buyers really want and how sellers can make sure that they deliver, and stay tuned for a special offer at the end. Episode Highlights: Deb’s interest in doing real research into what buyers really want, and how that led to her new book The surprises that Deb found in the course of researching her book The importance of sellers establishing credibility with buyers by doing what they say they will do The backstory on the co-authors that Deb worked with when writing her new book The 30 behaviors that buyers respond to when sellers adopt them Ho

You may not think of yourself a performer, but prospecting and performing have some important things in common. In both cases, it’s important to get yourself noticed and stand out from the crowd. Today’s guest is an expert in the art of getting yourself noticed. Tsufit is a former lawyer who left the legal profession in order to become a performer. She has performed as a singer and a comedian, in the theater and on television. Now she is an author, speaker, and PR and marketing coach. Listen to the episode to hear what Tsufit has to say about getting noticed, attracting people, and the importance of a good story. Episode Highlights:  Tsufit’s legal background and how it informed her work as a performer Where to start with getting noticed How communicating one-on-one differs from communicating with a room full of people The importance of being able to tell a story that interests people How to catch people’s interest during the first 30 seconds of speaking to them Why you should start in the middle of a story,

My guest today is Matt Benati, the CEO, and co-founder of LeadGnome. As salespeople, we tend to focus on the perfect pitch, the hottest leads, and the smartest marketing strategies. With all this noise and bustle we forget that there is an existing client base that needs just as much attention as a new client. The best way to keep the lines of communication open with an existing client is to use automated systems. LeadGnome is an automated email system that collects data from email replies. The information it provides allows companies to clean out contact lists and remind clients of changing contact information. Matt gives us an in-the-trenches look at automated systems. He also shares why he started LeadGnome and why automation is an important component of  the future of sales. Episode highlights: How LeadGnome came to be. How automated messages help a business keep clients informed. The useful information automated messages provide. Automation’s role in bringing marketing and sales together. Building an in

It’s important for prospectors to understand the entire funnel, not just the top and middle of the funnel. Today’s guest has a breadth of knowledge for the entire funnel and a particular focus on frontline sales, leadership, and managers. Dave A. Brock is the CEO of Partners in EXCELLENCE, a California-based consulting organization that focuses on helping clients develop and execute business, sales, marketing, customer service, and new product strategies. Dave is also the author of Sales Manager Survival Guide. Listen to the episode to hear what David has to say about frontline sales. Episode Highlights: How Dave got started in the area of sales performance How too many apps and tools can be detrimental to sales performance Why the sales manager needs to be part of the plan when implementing a new tool A sales manager’s role, and how that can be leveraged to maximize the performance of each sales person. The qualities that make a great sales manager The importance of determining a process that works before br

A 5-minute quick listen on the 2 universal mistakes we make when holding conversations with buyers.

Being an entrepreneur doesn’t always stop with creating one successful business. Some entrepreneurs make a business out of creating different businesses. Today’s guest is a serial entrepreneur that creates businesses and sells them. Mansour Salame is an engineer by training, and he is currently the CEO and founder of a company called FrontSpin. However, Mansour says that he doesn’t think of himself as an engineer or a salesperson so much as he thinks of himself as a person who can find value for customers and clients. Listen in to this interesting interview to hear Mansour’s insights about growth and scaling.  Episode Highlights:  Mansour’s first job out of college as a project manager, and how that led to his introduction to sales and startups The importance of understanding a client’s needs in detail How to put a process in place that you can scale to the level of growth that you’re at How process can be divided into two categories: search mode and scaling mode How Mansour is scaling processes at his curre

When it comes to sales having the right team in place makes all the difference in the world. Today’s guest is someone who understands how to create and build a team with the right people. He understands building a brand and creating and nourishing the company to scale. Today’s guest is Paul Fifield the chief revenue officer for UNiDAYS a student affinity network that connects verified global students with relevant brands and services. Paul and I go way back. We’ve known each other for years and worked together in the early days. This is a great episode where we talk about how to grow a team and to build a team that consists of the right people. Episode Highlights: When Paul first arrived in New York, he read Marylou’s book and then hired her as a consultant. The importance of hiring. A brilliant process won’t work without the right people. If you’ve hired great, people you can actually get a lot wrong in your business and still be okay. Getting the right people into your business that are brilliant when it c

Troy Kirby is a sports business consultant who builds relationships and revenue for sports organizations. He is the owner of Tao of Sports where he consults for B2B vendors, professional teams, and college athletic departments. He also hosts the Tao of Sports podcast. We have a really interesting conversation on today’s show. Troy comes from the world of sports, and he is an expert in sports sales. He is going to share some of his great stories in the area of sales, education, where he came from, and what he was trained for. He is also going to share his sales experience from the perspective of focusing on engaging people and getting them to come to his events.   Episode Highlights: When people give you time and opportunity it is a gift, and you need to give back. Stand up comedy and open mic night helped Troy become relatable. If you have a speaking opportunity. Go and screw up. The whole idea is to get practice relating to people. Listen to other people and be interested in what they do. Build a relationsh

Shimon Lazarov the CEO of LiveCoach is here today to talk about you as a person. I focus on sales and spend a lot of time focused on the ins and outs of the sales process, but the person behind the sales matters too. Shimon is here to shed some light on coaching and the importance of having a coach. Coaching can increase productivity, success, and life satisfaction. Ongoing coaching is usually more useful than a one-time coaching session. Finding and connecting with the right coach for you isn’t that easy. Shimon created LiveCoach to connect coaches and clients through an easy to use online platform. Episode Highlights: Business coaching versus life coaching. People work with coaches to accomplish something that they don’t know how to do or to be held accountable, so that they follow through or to aspire to new horizons. People usually prefer a coach over a peer to help them be held accountable. Some people only need specific help for one thing. Other people want accountability or they want their life to be

Carson V. Heady is an author and sales leader that I am really excited about talking to. He is in the trenches when it comes to sales. He is there digging in the dirt making sure that those sales are happening. I asked him to come on the show is because he is diving into an becoming an expert at social selling. When it comes to prospecting, we are habit machines that block out times to do single tasks, and we get stuck when it comes to integrating all of the social tasks into our process. Carson is going to talk about best practices around integrating social into the sales process and specifically the prospecting side of things. Episode Highlights: How social selling is bubbling up as something that we should pay attention to. Sales is still a relationship game, but social will enable us to build relationships and stay top of mind. How platforms have caught on and integrated into people’s day. These platform enable us to target specific areas and when people make changes. We can keep at the pulse of what is

The telephone is a vital instrument for us to use when having sales conversations. Telephone sales expert Art Sobczak is here today to share some of his amazing telephone sales knowledge. I consider Art Sobczak a mentor. I have been following him since 1985. He is the president of Business by Phone and the author of books like Smart Calling, Sell More in Less Time, and Telephone Tips that Sell. He is an expert in utilizing the phone for sales conversations. Art shares how selling is the greatest profession in the world, and how he wakes up everyday knowing that there are people out there that he can serve in this profession. A lot has changed over the years, but people still buy from people, and aside from face-to-face, voice-to-voice is the best way to sell to those people. This is a great conversation, and Art shares tips and selling knowledge from his 35 years of selling experience. Episode Highlights: Art wakes up everyday knowing that there are people out there waiting to be served. Making a difference

Henry Schuck is the Co-Founder and CEO of DiscoverOrg a platform for finding, connecting, and selling to more prospects using a accurate high-quality contact database. The company was founded in 2007, and Henry has led it through rapid growth going from the original three employees to over 500 today. Henry is the list expert, so put your seatbelts on. We have a great conversation about lists. In this episode, he shares the story of how he and a friend founded DiscoverOrg and how they grew the company. They even had to refine their product to meet their own sales needs. Once they got the process down, their sales numbers went through the roof. Episode Highlights: DiscoverOrg is a sales intelligence tool that profiles who's who in about 175,000 corporations. They use a mix of proprietary technology and a team of 300 human researchers. Maintaining the data is one of the most difficult aspects. It takes 70 hours to count to a million. They profile almost 3 million contacts across their database. Henry has been i

Mario Martinez Jr. is the CEO and founder of a fantastic company called Vengreso. They are a B2B digital sales transformation company and they do their magic through content marketing, social selling, and a variety of things. Mario spent 82 consecutive quarters in B2B sales and leadership roles growing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually.Mario is one of 19 sales influencers invited to appear in the Salesforce documentary film "The Story of Sales" to be launched in 2018. He is recognized as the Number 1 Top Sales Performance Guru in the world, named 2018's Top 10 Sales Influencers by The Modern Sales Magazine, and in 2017 he was named the Top 25 Inside Sales Professional and the 6th Most Influential Social Selling Leader globally.As a renowned digital sales evangelist, Mario teaches marketing and sales professionals how to develop an engaging personal brand to attract today's modern buyer using the digital sales ecosystem. Mario is the host of the popular Selling With Social Podcast. He's been

Account based marketing or ABM is an alternative to B2B. It’s a strategy where an individual account is treated as its own market of one. Brandon Redlinger manages growth at Engagio which provides software products for account based marketing and account based sales. Brandon is going to share his experiences and strategies working in this funnel. I’m hoping that you will come away with some key takeaways and educational points that you can apply right away. Brandon also shares how account based everything may be more appropriate because bigger companies are now pushing account based success in all aspects of sales and marketing. Episode Highlights: The account based approach is strategic marketing that is personal and relevant coordinated between different functions. It can be used in the top of the funnel to open doors or lower in the funnel for account expansion, upsells, and more. This concept is similar to strategic selling targeted at a smaller set of accounts but at bigger deals. Technology is enabling

Having issues with mindset and skill set can amplify issues that we may have at the top of the sales funnel. Will Barron the host of The Salesman Podcast is here today to talk about mindset. He has so many skills and there are so many topics that we can talk about, but I wanted to hone in on mindset because having the right mindset can amplify our sales success. Will has interviewed so many people and has had so many conversations that he brings a wealth of knowledge to the show. The Salesman Podcast is the most downloaded award winning B2B sales show on iTunes. The reason Will started his podcast was because he was hitting his sales marks, but he wanted to go beyond that and smash it. Now he shares some of his deep dive sales knowledge with us here today. Episode Highlights: How Will has personally beat his chronic procrastination through habits. His biggest sales mind hack was actually understanding why he wanted to work in sales in the first place. He worked in sales because he wanted to save up cash to s

The top of the funnel and improving, augmenting, and optimizing the ability to start conversations with whales on a consistent basis for higher revenue and a higher lifetime value is at the top of most listeners minds. Hardy Kalisher is the Executive Director of  Parallel Path out of Boulder, CO. He is here today to talk about more of the marketing side of things. His focus is generating awareness and serving up those great opportunities for us. Parallel Path is a digital marketing agency, and Hardy shares his strategies for getting quality responses to bubble up to the top, so that we can get these potential clients into the pipeline and start those all important conversations. Episode Highlights: How sports create a certain amount of discipline and focus. Getting too many minow leads that are muddying up the pipeline. How digital marketing is best implemented on the outreach side of things. How sales and marketing are both working towards the same goal of growth. Foundationally building a data collection i

George Bronten the founder and CEO of Membrain is here today to talk about sales effectiveness and how to drive winning behaviors. Membrain is a sales effectiveness platform that helps complex B2B sales. There goals are to make it easy to execute your process, enable your team, coach effectively, and optimize your strategy. George is a lifelong entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the software space and a passion for sales and marketing. Because of the Internet and global competition, George knew the sales process needed to evolve. It is his vision to increase sales effectiveness using modern SaaS technology. Episode Highlights: After failing to build a successful sales team. George realized that he had some wrong assumptions. George started Membrain to create a way of working and selling that gives a strategy for sales people to use. Everything needs to be centered around the buyer. How can we differentiate when everything looks the same. How we sell is going to be even more important in the future.

Jamie Crosbie is here today to talk about the top of the funnel. Jamie has experience all the way through the funnel and knows a lot about the pipeline. For the show, I asked her to focus on the top of the funnel, but if you like her processes and workflows by all means get in touch with her because she has a lot to share. Jamie has over 20 years of experience in sales leadership and the talent acquisition industry. She founded ProActivate over 13 years ago. ProActivate partners globally with forward thinking leaders of organizations to achieve their revenue goals. We provide the top-shelf sales talent you need to amplify your message, leverage your position, and expand your base. Our unique model is the next generation of sales talent acquisition. We qualify talent through an in-depth, precise methodology based on behavioral modeling, digging deep into both skill-set, mindset and simulation evaluations. This allows us to offer only the most qualified sales professionals for your continuing strong growth. Jam

Process and metrics are so important, but there is a whole other side to selling. In this episode, I have a conversation with sales expert Mark SA Smith. We talk about selling professionally and being authentic. We talk about polishing the saw not only with systems and frameworks, but when it comes to the conversational side and speaking from the heart. Mark shares stories of exceptional sales professionals. Ones who have skills like caring about their customers success, having foresight, choosing who you do business with, and being pragmatic. He talks about the importance of trust, and how the number one salesperson is usually the most trusted salesperson. We also talk about the importance of customer motivation and more. Episode Highlights: How life can be easier when you are in build mode because you have a path planned out. Moving from knowing what’s next to being OK with uncertainty. Having a growth mindset and progressing in a way that is comfortable for you. How life is a series of challenges and triu