Predictable Prospecting's Podcast

If you are trying to figure out what to do next when it comes to starting new business and getting doors opened with high level decision makers. This show is for you. My guest today is Caryn Kopp of Kopp Consulting. Caryn’s business is all about  opening doors and meeting with the right decision makers. If you aren’t talking to the right person it is impossible to close the deal. Caryn is also the author of Biz Dev Done Right which is all about uncovering and managing the blind spots in the sales process. When business development is done right there is no limit to what we can do. Caryn is the Chief Door Opener at Kopp consulting, and her service has helped thousands of business owners and salespeople secure meetings with the right people. Today, she shares expert insights into the sales and business development process. Episode Highlights: Her book is an Amazon bestseller and it helps uncover the blind spots that keep sellers from executing as they should. It uncovers the strategies and methodology to get

Whatever role you play in a sales position, there are a lot of moving parts and specific challenges involved with your unique role. Today, I talk to an account executive who has held many roles in the sales cycle and is passionate about making life for salespeople easier. We talk about his vast knowledge and lessons learned, along with how his company OppSource has developed a platform to make salespeople more productive. Today’s guest is Andy Zehren. I met Andy by chance, but discovered that he had so much experience that he would be a perfect guest for the podcast.  Andy is an account executive for OppSource a platform that makes B2B sales prospecting and engagement easier. They help find and prioritize prospects and enable one sales rep to do the work of three with their automated touchplans. Episode Highlights: How Andy has held a lot of different roles in sales and he started as an SDR. How each different role has had specific challenges. Andy works with sales people at OppSource helping them with solut

The current trend with sales teams is moving away from generic messages and the batch and blast approach. The method that everyone's talking about and trying to focus on now is personalization. Customized methods can be incredibly difficult for an SDR to create. My guest today is an expert at personalization for sales teams and we discuss challenges and solutions for crafting personalized emails for effective sales. On today’s show, I am speaking with Kristina McMillan from TOPO a research and advisory firm that focuses exclusively on sales and marketing organizations. They have dedicated practices for sales, sales development, and marketing. The focus is on market research, executive advisory, and the study of high-growth organizations to understand the processes, levers, and best practices that contribute to high growth. Episode Highlights: Challenges with creating personalization at scale and having a repeatable structure that allow customization. The four stage messaging framework research, crafting the

There are a lot of definitions of sales enablement. What is it? How do we do it? Why does it matter? Having a process and mindset that extends across an entire organization can help enable salespeople to be successful. Still, it would help to have a clear plan and goal to get the most impact out of the enablement process. Today, I have two guests Cory Bray and Hilmon Sorey.  Cory and Hilmon just happen to know a little bit about sales enablement. They are the authors of The Sales Enablement Playbook and they run ClozeLoop a sales enablement platform. They are based in San Francisco, and this is a fun and lively episode with two guests diving into the topic of sales enablement. Episode Highlights: Cory and Hilmon share their definition of sales enablement and focusing on the prospect. How there isn’t a one thing silver bullet type solution to sales enablement. Every department needs to contribute to sales enablement. Having a mindset based on customer engagement where every team contributes. Having the custom

When people in sales hear the word story, they think the focus is on marketing. What if I told you that there was a way for sales executives to use story to frame their sales conversations? Story can be used to explain what a company does, the value they deliver, and how they are different. Story can also be used to begin a conversation, continue a conversation, and feed that all important sales pipeline. This week’s guest is Jim O’Gara the founder and CEO of Story Dimensions. Jim shares why he began his company. Along with how sales professionals can use story throughout their sales process, and how Story Dimensions can help automate, organize, and publicize the process. Story can be a valuable tool in the sales process, and Jim shows us easy ways to implement story into the process.   Episode Highlights: How Story Dimensions came into being and what they offer Lack of relevant customer stories and insights in the buying process Providing salespeople with a consistent stream of relevant stories Tactics for

Starting a conversation is the first step in the sales process, and it is also a step that most salespeople would like to be more successful at. There are a lot of channels that can be used to start that all important first conversation, but today we are going to discuss an emerging channel that can generate curiosity and add that personal touch. Today, I am speaking with Fernando Silva who is a solutions associate at Wistia which is really the same role as a sales development rep or SDR. Wistia is a professional video hosting platform that offers analytics along with video marketing tools. They also offer advanced marketing integrations for video that can help create the ultimate lead nurturing tool. I met Fernando at a conference, and I was intrigued with how he is using video to reach out and start conversations. Episode Highlights: How Marylou tripled her response rates with cold video How Wistia targets large and small accounts but they focus on the SMB space Fernando works more on the inbound model of

Every business from solo entrepreneurs to small business owners and people working within larger businesses need systems to create consistency, make the work easier, and achieve better results. Today, I speak with Nancy Gaines the CEO and Founder of Gain Advantages on systems and the process of creating systems to free up time and money and create opportunities for businesses of all sizes to scale.   Nancy Gaines has been advising small businesses and Fortune 100 companies on how to increase revenues through proven systems for almost two decades. She is a best-selling author and international keynote speaker. Nancy has been named in the Top 100 Productivity Experts to follow on Twitter and has a global podcast downloaded in over 70 countries. Her main focus is creating business processes with actionable steps so her clients achieve more consistency, ease, and ultimate success.   Episode Highlights:     Nancy helps small business owners to scale She creates systems and processes to avoid trading hours for d

Building, training, and growing a sales team can be expensive and time consuming. New businesses and especially growing businesses will need a team to move the sales and business process foreword and generate revenue to continue the growth. Our guest today is someone who has come up with a solution to the problem of creating and growing a sales team.   Today, I speak with Stephen Hayes the founder of Inside Sales. Which is a group of on demand sales professionals that assist growing businesses with the sales process and with additional sales team help. This process is cost efficient with ready to go sales professionals that also bring tools, techniques, and technology that can be plugged into a growing business to accelerate the process. Episode Highlights: How companies were struggling with building an inside sales model Stephen noticed the need and created the service solution for inside sales help They will often augment an existing sales team and help them scale They also help businesses that have no tea

Without prospects, there will be no sales. Yet, companies can struggle with incorporating prospecting into the sales process and getting people to balance the time spent prospecting compared with the all important task of closing the deal. This issue can be especially prevalent with leaner bootstrapped companies. Today, we will learn about an innovative method of solving this problem and attracting new sales talent.   Today, I speak with Patrick Rodgers who is VP of Sales at LearnCore a leading sales training and coaching platform that combines technology with people for optimum results. Patrick is leading and building the sales organization for this bootstrapped company. We talk about the idea of prospecting as a sales function and some of the challenges when expecting AEs to close and prospect. Episode Highlights: Challenges of scaling a bootstrapped company Difficulty of finding AEs who would go through the entire sales cycle Starting a 9 - 12 month sales training focused on prospecting Learning the proce

Sometimes old school sales people forget the importance of data. Nothing can help shape and guide the sales process better than having the right types of data. I have a wonderful guest today, who challenges the sales status quo and the ideas of what types of data are important and how to apply that data to the sales process. Then we dig even deeper into the data side of sales. Jason Vargas works in the trenches as the Managing Director of Sales Development at Datanyze. If you aren’t familiar with Datanyze, you should check them out. Especially, if you are doing business development. They specialize in helping to find data for tracking, analytics, prospecting and more. Jason is on the rocketship of data analysis, and it shows as he shares new insights and more with us. Episode Highlights: Identifying the rights types of companies and accounts to target Segmenting by other methods besides demographics Leveraging technology data or technographics Prioritizing segments by how sophisticated their sales methods ar

The number one problem most sales people say they have is lack of pipeline. Yet, lack of pipeline is usually a symptom of other issues. The three key issues that affect lack of pipeline are having the wrong mindset, using the wrong narrative, and executing the wrong activities.  Today, I speak with LinkedIn’s most read author of B2B selling content. Tony Hughes is a sales improvement consultant and bestselling author. His new book Combo Prospecting: The Powerful One-Two Punch That Fills Your Pipeline and Wins Sales is available for pre-order and will be released in January of 2018. In our conversation, we attack the myths around prospecting and lead generation. Tony also shares some wonderful actionable tips that you can implement right away.  Episode Highlights:  Treating predictable prospecting as a process. Separation of roles that actually work in large organizations. How sellers need to generate their own pipeline. Everyone in the organization needs to be prospecting and looking for referrals. Getting t

As an Executive Coach and Consultant, Bryan Franklin has helped multiple businesses pass the one billion mark in revenue. His newest venture, OutboundWorks, is the marriage of the traditional SDR role and the future of sales -- Artificial Intelligence, or as Bryan calls it, Augmented Intelligence. In this episode we’re talking all about using automated tools in the sales process: How to implement them, how they’ll affect relationships with prospects, and what it means for the future of sales.  Episode Highlights: Bryan Franklin’s background and coaching track record What is Outbound Works? The future of selling: Augmented Intelligence and account-based selling Automating good habits Where does Bryan Franklin sit in the pipeline? Bryan’s process for Implementing an automated tool Will automation replace outsourcing? The future of automation and the phone Does automation mean the end of human relationships? Working with marketing Bryan’s ideal client profiles  Resources: OutboundWorks Connect with Bryan Fran

As we march down the sales pipeline, the more information we have the easier it is to connect the dots in the sales process. Having more information and better data makes us more strategic, scalable, and consistent. You are going to love today’s podcast because my guest is David Hoffeld, and he is all about the science of selling. He is the author of The Science of Selling: Proven Strategies to Make Your Pitch, Influence Decisions, and Close the Deal, and he is the CEO and Chief Sales Trainer of  the Hoffeld Group which offers science-backed sales training, coaching, and consulting. We are delighted to have him on our show today, because we love science, data, and research.  Episode Highlights:  David tried to translate years of research on behavioral science and data into his book He became obsessed with science and the sales process and his numbers increased dramatically Incremental commitments guide customers through the sales process Architecting choices of buyers that will be made contextually Heuristi

As much as every SDR loves using technology and programs to help them connect with prospects, no one likes to spend valuable time filling out endless online forms and getting crushed by an avalanche of pre-set tasks. Our guest today is Matt Bertuzzi, VP of Sales and Marketing Operations at The Bridge Group and author of Lighting Sales Ops, a book about how to make SalesForce work for you. We’re talking all about the top issues SDRs and managers face when using CRMs like SalesForce, and how you can tweak small points of conflict in the pipeline to reduce friction and close deals.  Episode Highlights: What inspired Matt Bertuzzi to write Lightning Sales Ops The issue every CRM faces Encouraging leaders to lean into new tools and thought processes Breaking down the concept of leads versus context and accounts How to reduce the amount of effort and friction in the pipeline while maximizing impact Eliminating “clicks” and letting the system do the work  Resources: SalesLock The Success Community The ButtonCli

How many times per day do you pick up your cellphone? We all do it -- mindlessly scrolling through our social media news feeds when we get a free minute, glancing over at every chime and vibration our phone makes throughout the day. While this behavior isn’t unusual, it’s definitely not beneficial. New research has shown that even these small interruptions are adding up to be huge distractions, sucking up tons of valuable time in the workday and leaving us feeling stressed and overwhelmed. Today’s guest, Jill Konrath, is a recognized sales consultant and speaker whose new book, More Sales, Less Time is all about getting more done in the time that we already have! Episode Highlights: An overview of Jill Konrath’s past books What can More Sales, Less Time teach us? Fighting distraction: How you can get at least one hour of your day back Escaping the email trap Taking a break and getting more done How to leverage trigger events  Resources: Unroll.me DiscoverOrg InsideView Lead411  Books by Jill Konrath:  

Our guest today is Alea Homison, Vice President of Sales Strategy at GLG Group. What makes Alea different from some of our other guests is that she is actively working on the frontlines of sales every single day, training members of her team on the newest practices in sales enablement. She’s here today to discuss her work with GLG, her unique 3-stage hiring process for new SDRs, and her advice for curating the best sales environment possible. Episode Highlights: Alea Homison’s role and her unique process for training and new employees GLG as a case-study for selling a service Sales enablement and the SDR team Alea’s 3 stage hiring process Creating a positive team culture Why daily role-playing with your team is the best thing you can do Hyper-personalizing your messaging Alea Homison’s top advice for SDR’s beginning to work with sales enablement Resources: Connect with Alea Homison on Linkedin or email her at ahomison@glgroup.com

Have you ever said “no” to a client and walked away from a deal? Maybe you knew that your services weren’t a good fit for their pain, or that they weren’t ready to hear the solutions you presented. In this episode we’re joined by founder and host of SalesTuners, Jim Brown. As a sales coach who specializes in every stage of the sales pipeline, Jim is an expert in client relations. He’s here to discuss his unique method of using upfront contracts: beginning a relationship by telling the client that either party has the right to walk away from the conversation! Episode Highlights: The meaning behind the SalesTuner brand Learning through failure Qualification versus disqualification Creating an “upfront contract” with your prospects How to prepare for a team call Getting a client to close: Jim’s number one question to ask a client Self-diagnosing problem areas Funnel math Resources: Want more from Jim Brown? Connect with him Linkedin, follow him on Twitter, and check out the SalesTuner podcast! Download the Sa

Building sales pods is the latest fad to hit sales departments worldwide, but is it really the best way to set up your team? In this episode we’re chatting with Tito Bohrt, CEO of AltiSales and Chief of Sales Staff at AppBuddy, about his unique concept of architecture of the sales organization. Bohrt walks us through his philosophy on POD and round robin factory models of organization, and when the best time to use each is! Episode Highlights: Introducing Tito Bohrt Defining the POD and the round robin factory models When to use each type of organization model Client success stories When is the best time to implement a new organizational structure? Account based selling, prospects, and the POD and farming models Being pleasantly persistent Resources: “Sales Pods - Nice in Theory, Not so in Practice” blog post by Tito Bohrt The tech stack Tito Bohrt uses when building early stage sales teams:: CRM: Salesforce Lead Research: Linkedin Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo and Hunter.io Sales Automation: Outreach.io Pho

How many of us keep track of calls and personas using a process that feels way too complex and doesn’t deliver the desired results? Today we’re joined by Anthony Iannarino, international speaker, sales leader, and best-selling author. His new book, The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need, is an absolute must-read for anyone who wants to sell more and sell better. In this episode we’re talking all about the dangers of automating your sales process, and the research and science that backs up Anthony’s methods for creating an effective and lucrative sales process. Episode Highlights: Understanding sales by using the OODA Loop Why successful prospectors have the mindset of a competitor When asking for a referral goes wrong: Why we can’t rely on technology to do our work for us “Automation is marketing, not selling”: Why you can’t automate intimacy Creating value for multiple personas Getting into an efficient sales rhythm Resources: The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need by Anthony Iannarino Boyd by Robert Cora