How To Find Your First 10 Customers with Collin Stewart #325

Collin Stewart Sales Babble

How To Find Your First 10 Customers with Collin Stewart #325

Collin Stewart Sales BabbleCollin Stewart is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Predictable Revenue, podcast host, AA-ISP Chapter President and former guitarist. Before founding a software company he’s been in the sales  profession most of his career.  Collin enjoys sales, marketing and product management, and deeply believes these are the  three disciplines needed to develop a closer working relationship. In this episode Collin shares his thoughts on the struggle companies face earning their first 10 customers and the steps needed to scale that up.

How To Find Collin Stewart and Your First 10 Customers

This is his  Outbound Labs Ebook and the podcast episode on Outbound Validation.

Thank Our Sponsor Sharetivity

Sharetivity on Sales Babble Sharetivity helps salespeople increase prospect engagement by providing an easy and fast way to personalizing their outreach. Sales starts with getting your prospects attention, given all the noise you have to be different, you have to personalize your outreach. Unfortunately, it’s time consuming going to Google, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube etc to find an icebreaker. To get Sharetivity click here https://bit.ly/Sharetivity

Thank Our Sponsor Habanero Media

We help busy B2B companies  attract new customers and clients through the magic of podcasting! Start your B2B podcast today and grow your brand, authority, influence and trust.

Download Why Your Business Needs a B2B Podcast here.

Past Episodes on First 10 Customers

Sales Consulting To Grow Your Business

Pat helps technology startups and businesses discover the true value they bring to market, find customers who deeply appreciate that value then scale that process to extraordinary profits. We do this with modern 2020 sales and marketing techniques. 

Image result for linkedinImage result for emailImage result for telephone icon

Pushy sales doesn’t work! The key is to build trust over time. What  tools do we use?  LinkedIn, Email and the power of the Voice Mail.

We believe and teach the value of a helping mindset. Your prospective customers have challenges, hopes and aspirations. They need your help. All you need to do is build their trust, and faith, in your organization. Learn  how we help here. Once it’s clear you can help, you will have loyal clients for life. When you bring value you make sales. Or if you’re a startup, learn sales for engineers and skills to promote your new venture.

Got a Question?

Something about today’s episode got you thinking? Do you have a question or a comment you’d like share?

If so “babble me” an email here, or if you can’t wait chat Pat now.

Maybe you’d like to share your musings on the podcast? Leave a voice message here. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Don’t worry about babbling, we prefer it.

Listening Options

You can find us on:

 

How Personalized Prospecting Generates More Leads with Ankesh Kumar #324

Sharetivity

How Personalized Prospecting Generates More Leads with Ankesh Kumar #324

Ankesh Kumar is a serial entrepreneur who has taken 2 companies from zero to $20m, raised over $50 million in venture funding and sold patents to Google. He was born in India, raised in London and now lives in Palo Alto with his wife and 2 daughters. In this episode Ankesh explains how personalized prospecting can be used to generate highly qualified leads and set appointments using his Sharetivity tool.

The Prospecting Challenge

It’s difficult to stand out from all the noise on the internet. Prospects are flooded with pitches for all kinds of products and services. This is where sales people  get it wrong. Sellers need to standout  which requires them to better understand buyers.

Sellers who take the time to look at buyers social media footprint and craft their message to help it stand out get it right. When you look at LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, the company website and Facebook you can discover the whole person. It can take a long time to do this by hand, Productive sellers can prospect 20 leads a day with this process doing it by hand. Unfortunately, it’s a  time consuming process to find an icebreaker. It’s a challenge despite the fact that personalized outreach converts significantly higher than canned emails.

Personalized Prospecting Solutions

Sharetivity is launching an  outbound personalized prospecting service. With one click you get the social footprint of your prospect. This footprint accelerates personalized outreach.
Sharetivity is a chrome extension in the Chrome store. Click a button and it does a
    • Google search
    • Find the Twitter account
    • Personal LinkedIn post
    • The company LinkedIn account
    • Company website

This creates the possibility for personalized messages with context ;   a recommendation they shared or the college they attended. Templates can be built into the system, but they are all personalized. Creates an opportunity to create playbooks for new SDRs.

How To Find Ankesh Kumar and Get Sharetivity

You can find Ankesh here :   https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankeshkumar/

This is Sharetivity

    • https://sharetivity.com/
    • https://twitter.com/sharetivity
    • https://www.linkedin.com/company/sharetivity/?viewAsMember=true

To get Sharetivity click here

    • https://bit.ly/Sharetivity

…. then send an email mentioning “Sales Babble” to ankesh @ sharetivity.com

Thank Our Sponsor Sharetivity

Sharetivity helps salespeople increase prospect engagement by providing an easy and fast way to personalizing their outreach. Sales starts with getting your prospects attention, given all the noise you have to be different, you have to personalize your outreach. Unfortunately, that is time consuming to go to Google, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube etc to find an icebreaker.

Start Your B2B Podcast with Habanero Media

We help busy B2B companies  attract new customers and clients through the magic of podcasting! Start your B2B podcast today and grow your brand, authority, influence and trust.

Download Why Your Business Needs a B2B Podcast here.

Past Episodes

Sales Consulting To Grow Your Business

Pat helps technology startups and businesses discover the true value they bring to market, find customers who deeply appreciate that value then scale that process to extraordinary profits. We do this with modern 2020 sales and marketing techniques. 

Image result for linkedinImage result for emailImage result for telephone icon

Pushy sales doesn’t work! The key is to build trust over time. What  tools do we use?  LinkedIn, Email and the power of the Voice Mail.

We believe and teach the value of a helping mindset. Your prospective customers have challenges, hopes and aspirations. They need your help. All you need to do is build their trust, and faith, in your organization. Learn  how we help here. Once it’s clear you can help, you will have loyal clients for life. When you bring value you make sales. Or if you’re a startup, learn sales for engineers and skills to promote your new venture.

Got a Question?

Something about today’s episode got you thinking? Do you have a question or a comment you’d like share?

If so “babble me” an email here, or if you can’t wait chat Pat now.

Maybe you’d like to share your musings on the podcast? Leave a voice message here. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Don’t worry about babbling, we prefer it.

Listening Options

You can find us on:

 

How To Use Podcasts for Business Development with Scott Ingram #318

Scott Ingram Habanero Media

How To Use Podcasts for Business Development with Scott Ingram #318

Scott Ingram Habanero MediaScott Ingram is the host of the Sales Success Stories AND Daily Sales Tips podcasts. He’s the author of two books: Sales Success Stories and B2B Sales Mentors. He’s also a quota carrying sales professional, working for the professional services company,  In this episode Scott shares ways you can grow authority, influence, and trust that attracts new business through  podcasting.  We’re going to learn how to use podcasts for business development.

This is a great topic because I believe that podcasting is the easiest way to become a  thought leader with content that reaches your ideal buyers and grows your business. This is what my new podcasting agency, Habanero Media is all about. When it comes to business development, trust is the tallest hurdle. With steep competition and a plethora of online choices, it’s often easier to choose nothing. When clients trust you have their best interest at heart and accept your council. When you’re an authority and influencer, buyers know you’re the right choice for their company. Podcasts build trust. 

How To Find Scott Ingram

Website: https://top1.fm    Sales Success Stories Podcast and Daily Sales Tips podcasts for business development.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottingram
Facebook: N/A I’m a conscientious Facebook objector
LinkedIn: https://linkedinn.com/in/scottingram

Thank Our Sponsor Habanero Media

We help busy companies grow influence, trust, and provide value that attracts new customers and clients through the magic of podcasting! Start your podcast today and grow your brand, authority, influence and trust.

Download Why Your Business Needs a Podcast here.

Past Episodes

Sales Consulting To Grow Your Business

Pat helps businesses discover the true value they bring to market, find customers who deeply appreciate that value then scale that process to extraordinary profits. We do this with modern 2020 sales and marketing techniques. 

Image result for linkedinImage result for emailImage result for telephone icon

Pushy sales doesn’t work! The key is to build trust over time. What  tools do we use?  LinkedIn, Email and the power of the Voice Mail.

We believe and teach the value of a helping mindset. Your prospective customers have challenges, hopes and aspirations. They need your help. All you need to do is build their trust, and faith, in your organization. Learn  how we help here. Once it’s clear you can help, you will have loyal clients for life. When you bring value you make sales.

Got a Question?

Something about today’s episode got you thinking? Do you have a question or a comment you’d like share?

If so “babble me” an email here, or if you can’t wait chat Pat now.

Maybe you’d like to share your musings on the podcast? Leave a voice message here. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Don’t worry about babbling, we prefer it.


Listening Options

You can find us on:

 

Go For the No with Jacob Balanzategui #310

Jacob Balanzategui

Go For the No with Jacob Balanzategui #310

Jacob BalanzateguiJacob Balanzategui has over 20 years of sales experience. Due to his exposure to his father’s research on stress and neurobiology, he has a unique perspective on sales, business and life in general. Jacob lives in Dallas with his wife of 12 years and their 5 kids. He enjoys spending time with his family, watching football, coaching youth basketball and finding new places to eat and he believes you should go  for the no when selling. Learn how.

Buying has Changed So Go For No

Jacob believes there is a plethora of  information on the fingertips of buyers who then experience analysis paralysis.  How do you overcome this?

    • Believe in what you 
    • Help
    • Explain in a way that resonates
    • Go for the no 

Don’t waste time trying to make something fit that never will.  Qualify prospects and disarm them.  Don’t do a discovery call, instead get to know them.  Don’t over praise and thank for time. That’s not needed.  The intent of the meeting is to learn a little bit about each other, then share some ideas that they may find of value. Next ask if they feel like they  would like to chat some more  and if not that’s OK too.   Let go of the psychology of push and push and push.  Go for the no, don’t push it.

Referrals Are the Best

Clients are the best source for future leads. This is his approach to send a note:

Subject : quick question?
“I want to request  something from you and if you’re not comfortable it’s perfectly OK.  I’m trying to get better at my career and to work with clients I know i’ve had success with and to talk to them about possible introductions to others.   Business is about people and relationships “

    • Do lunch introduction
    • via email personal,  (you write the script )
    • Follow up with a due date

Tell the Truth

After telling a prospect or client  about the benefits of some product or service,  he then tells them about  where they struggle and how they are getting a handle on it.   This is much appreciated. Be transparent and the deal will close quickly.

How To Find Jacob Balanzategui

Thank Our Sponsor Sales Nexus

Sales Nexus tip for this week – Use Your CRM To Save Yourself Time

Get the free download here  for the 12 Sales Tips to Steal  for 2020  Success  and 4 Steps to Market Domination 

Past Episodes on How To Ask Sales Qualifying Questions

Sales Consulting To Grow Your Business

Pat helps businesses discover the true value they bring to market, find customers who deeply appreciate that value then scale that process to extraordinary profits. We do this with modern 2020 sales and marketing techniques. 

Image result for linkedinImage result for emailImage result for telephone icon

Pushy sales doesn’t work! The key is to build trust over time. What  tools do we use?  LinkedIn, Email and the power of the Voice Mail.

We believe and teach the value of a helping mindset. Your prospective customers have challenges, hopes and aspirations. They need your help. All you need to do is build their trust, and faith, in your organization. Learn  how we help here. Once it’s clear you can help, you will have loyal clients for life. When you bring value you make sales.

Got a Question?

Something about today’s episode got you thinking? Do you have a question or a comment you’d like share?

If so “babble me” an email here, or if you can’t wait chat Pat now.

Maybe you’d like to share your musings on the podcast? Leave a voice message here. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Don’t worry about babbling, we prefer it.


Listening Options

You can find us on:

 

How Shane Snipe Won Multimillion Dollar Success #305

Shane Snipe Sales Babble

How Shane Snipe Won Multimillion Dollar Success #305

Shane Snipe Sales BabbleIn this episode we meet my good friend  Shane Snipe. Shane is a mechanical engineer turned account executive. Shane is the proverbial, non-seller, seller. We both work out of the Fox.Build Makerspace and often talk about the struggles of selling technology. Recently he shared with me a couple true stories of multimillion dollar success he had in 2019. Once hearing these tales, I knew I had to have him visit and spin these stories on Sales Babble.

A Selling Story

Shane shared two stories: one a referral experience from a past client and the second a prospecting campaign at a trade show.  The highlights include:

    • Past client references are gold
    • Use case studies (tell stories) to generate curiosity
    • When clients sing your praises, don’t butt in, let them talk and talk and talk
    • Chat up everybody at a conference, you never know where it will lead
    • It may take many connections and steps to get to the decision maker
    • Do your homework before leaving for a conference
    • Do your homework before meeting a new prospect (he shares a Tesla story)

Take Action Advice

Lastly, Shane recommends that you take care of customers like family. Sometimes they are going to call you out of hours. Sometimes it’s going to seem like a impostion. But be patient, listen and do what’s best for them. In time this good karma will pay off with multimillion dollar success.

How To Find Shane Snipe

This is Shane on LinkedIn.

We work out of the Fox.Build Makerspace. You can find all of their programs an events on  Meetup.com

Thank Our Sponsor Sales Nexus

Sales Nexus tip for this week – Make Promises Then Keep Them

Get the free download here  for the 12 Sales Tips to Steal  for 2020  Success  and 4 Steps to Market Domination 

Past Episodes with True Stories

Here are past episode that share multimillion dollar success from our guests.

Selling With Confidence Sales System

This online course helps non-sellers who aspire to grow their persuasive skills in order to find great leads, close more sales and accelerate their business. All this and at the same time, not be pushy! 

Click below and learn how you can start selling with confidence today.

Selling With Confidence Sales System

Got a Question?

Something about today’s episode got you thinking? Do you have a question or a comment you’d like share?

If so “babble me” an email here, or if you can’t wait chat Pat now.

Maybe you’d like to share your musings on the podcast? Leave a voice message here. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Don’t worry about babbling, we prefer it.


Listening Options

You can find us on:

 

Selling For Nerds #287

Pat Helmers Wordpress Naperville Sales Babble

Selling For Nerds #287

Pat Helmers WordPress Naperville Sales BabbleLast Tuesday I was a guest speaker for the WordPress Naperville meetup. I’ve been a long time member of the group and was asked to present advice on how to sell websites. The talked was titled “Selling For Nerds“.

Many of the group members own their own company and they find business development and generating new clients a constant battle. The members don’t think of themselves as sellers, more engineers, marketers, designers and artists. Because of my consulting with the web services company VoyagerNetz, it was easy to share things we did to attract new clients and build a repeatable and scalable sales process.

The Slidedeck

This talk was also based on  past presentations I’ve given over the past year. This was the meetup notes:

Selling for Nerds: Our presenter for this meetup is long-time regular Pat Helmers, host of the Sales Babble podcast.

Pat will share stories, experiences, and concrete advice on the process of lead generation, qualifying, presenting, closing and upselling clients in need of websites and SEO services. Too often web developers view marketing and selling as icky work. Pat shows how a helping attitude and service mindset can make selling fun AND earn clients for life.

This is the slidedeck and a sketch that Stacey Kvernmo created.

Selling For Nerds Sketchnote

Call to Action

Would you like to me to speak at your next event?  If so, babble me!

Click the link “Babble Me” and we can chat.

Solo Episode

Here is a another solo episode you might find of value:

How to Use LinkedIn for Cold Prospecting – Anniversary Episode #260

Pulling Profits Out of a Hat with Brad Sugars #278

Brad Sugars Sales Babble

 Pulling Profits Out of a Hat with Brad Sugars #278

Brad Sugars Sales BabbleBrad Sugars is the the founder of ActionCOACH and author of the new book, Pulling Profits of of a Hat:  Adding Zeros to your Company isn’t Magic, Brad started ActionCOACH when he saw how business owners lacked simple how-to help and strategies to grow their cash flow and profits. Unfortunately, many business owners  didn’t know what they didn’t know, leading to struggles with their time, teams and money. In this episode Brad talks about how salespeople can generate profits through exponential growth.

Five Disciplines for Exponential Growth

It’s important that companies exhibit behaviors that are growth minded. Brad believes companies need to address five disciplines:

  1. Strategy – Pick a strategy with a growth point of view.
    1. Leverage – “Do the work once, get paid forever”. If you can find ways to improve your productivity, it will show up with exponential growth.
    2. Scale – ability to create processes that focus on growth.
    3. Marketability – high value products and services.
    4. Opportunity Size – how much money is in the niche, how much competition, what is the potential size
  2. Business Development – understanding how much people want your products, and having a strategy across various sizes of clients with a marketing program that discovers qualified prospects.
  3. People – if you don’t grow your people, you won’t grow your business. One mistake companies make is focusing on team building. That’s not enough. Consider performance: hiring, onboarding, training, coaching, etc…   Always remember, how you treat your people is how they will treat your customers.
  4. Execution – products and services delivered with exceptional quality.
  5. Mission – make sure there is a connection between the company and the employees. Customers will notice if their staff don’t enjoy working their work.

Profit in the Sales Arena

Have a mindset of multiples:  10x , 150%, or 1500% .   Don’t have a  a mere 10-15% growth target.  Consider Apple, Microsoft and Amazon and how they’ve been able to pivot strategically for massive success.

As a seller, have a mindset that the company is your business. Always know your numbers, step by step. Have  a clear process that is tuned, based on results. Work on your communication skills.  Adjust your conversations according to the personality type of the prospects. Lastly, do homework on your prospects and understand their wants and needs.

Be a lifelong learner!

How to Find Brad Sugars

Brad is easy to find online. These are his links;

Website:  actioncoach.com
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradsugars/
Facebook:  facebook.com@bradleyjsugars
Twitter:  @bradsugars

You can find his new book here: Pulling Profits of of a Hat:  Adding Zeros to your Company isn’t Magic

How To Grow Sales

Here are past episodes focused on profit driven growth. Enjoy!

Prospecting and Cold Calling for New Sales with Steve Kloyda

Prospecting and Cold Calling for New Sales with Steve Kloyda  #277

Sadly my past guest and good friend Steve Kloyda  passed away on June 27th, 2019.  Steve was a two time babbler on the podcast.  He was the host of the “Get In the Door” podcast and recently published a new book  “The Art of Prospecting: Your Guide to Get in the Door   I’d like honor Steve and rerun an interview we did in 2015.  Steve’s wit and wisdom is spot on when it comes to prospecting and cold calling for new sales leads. His timeless message and book is a must for all any sales professionals looking to get a foot in the door.

The Prospecting Expert

When Steve started in sales his first lessons included:

  • How to connect with the senior VP, President, or business owner.
  • How to educate them on his service. 
  • How to ask for the business.
  • How to get around voicemail, gatekeepers or no answer.
  • His first script was ….

“Hi I’m Steve Kloyda do you have a moment to talk?

The purpose of my call is to let you know about XYZ stock how many shares do you want to buy?”

  • Steve was taught to make 100 dials everyday.  For each call is task was to paint a picture in the mind of the listener on what he was trying to communicate.
  • From this he learned the fundamentals of successful sales prospecting.

How To Prospecting From Scratch

If you’re starting from scratch, it’s hard and takes energy but it can be done. Steve recommends:

  • Make a list of every company in your area.
  • Find the executive team and connect on LinkedIn.
  • Call them but makes sure every call and voicemail adds value.
  • Find qualified candidates to get an appointment.
  • Each voicemail must add value.You have only one opportunity to make a great first impression.

This is Steve’s script with urgency and a compelling reason:

“Hi this is Steve Kloyda with the Prospecting Expert my phone number is NUMBER,

The purpose of my voice mail today is that we have created an XYZ that provides a BENEFIT

Pat if you want to learn more about our unique XYZ give me a call at your earliest convenience my phone number is NUMBER or if you prefer to email me at EMAIL.

And Pat I want to thank you for the time to listen to this voicemail and I look forward to speaking to you soon.”

Gordon Gecko on the original “Wall Street” is a Steve’s favorite example working with the GateKeeper Natalie.

“What’s on your mind, why should I even listen to you?”

Steve’s Last Sales Nugget

This week’s Sales Nugget: Praise Your Competitors

This week’s Quote: “I will speak ill of no man and speak all the good I know of everybody” ~ Benjamin Franklin

How Find Steve Kloyda

Steve’s book can be purchased here:  The Art of Prospecting: Your Guide to Get in the Door

How to Prospect and Generate Leads

Networking is a Contact Sport with Joe Sweeney #271

Networking is a Contact Sport with Joe Sweeney #271

Our guest is Joe Sweeney, author of three books most recently “Networking is a Contact Sport”. Joe has owned, operated, and sold four manufacturing companies, headed up the Wisconsin Sports Authority, and launched a sports marketing firm, where he represented several professional athletes, most notably serving as Brett Favre’s marketing agent during his time in Green Bay. In this episode we discuss networking principles with advice all Sales Babblers will appreciate.

Networking Philosophy

Joe prefers to think of networking as Connecting. He believes:

  • Networking is not just business development but it’s really about relationship building
  • Give and serve and NOT get
  • You haven’t had a perfect day until you’ve done a favor from someone who can never repay you. – John Wooden
  • Networking is not about you
  • Don’t talk about yourself
  • Ask great questions

Approach to Business Networking

Ask, Listen, Take Action and lastly believe when you serve others it will come back.  God gave us two ears and one mouth, use them in proportion.  This is what makes networking a contact sport.

    • Ask:  Bad Question Examples:  How are you doing?  Are you busy? What’s new?  Good Question Examples:  What are you most excited about in your life?
    • Listen Deeply: Most people don’t want to go deep. People don’t talk about what’s really important in their life. The more you can learn  about the buyer, the better you can service them.   Let go of your attitude “I know what’s best for you.”
    • Take Action :  Create opportunities, not excuses. When he hears why something doesn’t happen, he knows the excuses are not true.
    • Believe and Receive: All the things you do for others, will come back two fold.

How To Find Joe Sweeney

Habanero Business Community

This episode is the first episode mentioning the Habanero Business Community app.  We’ve created the website in preparation for the announcement and commissioned a study to better understand the needs and desires of the market. Find the website at Habanero.community and sign up for the pre-launch.

 Networking Tips

 

Webinars that Work with Todd Earwood #246

Todd Earwood Sales Babble

Webinars that Work with Todd Earwood #246

Todd Earwood Sales BabbleTodd Earwood is the founder and CEO of MoneyPath. Todd believes in using webinars as powerful sales tools that will engage customers for years to come, and he helps his clients do just that through Webinar Works. In this  episode Todd and I discuss what it takes to build effective webinars that work. In a world where there is more work than time, we consider the possibility of using automation to tease out highly qualified prospects.

What’s new About Webinars?

A webinar is a video sales presentation made over the web. The presentation maybe live or automated. The webinar can be augmented with technology to advance interest in a product or service. In either case a webinar is a way of getting leads to self identify interest. If a visitor spends a long time on a webinar, they are a hot prospect. This is how you can make webinars that work.

Keys to High Quality Webinars That Work

  • Webinars should private, don’t publish on social media
  • Target a very narrow persona, may only have 1 or 2 people show up
  • People are strongly motivated to avoid pain, not so much gain. Be mindful of your focus.
  • Hook on a persona. For example consider this headline “Top 5 mistakes and pitfall that Z make regarding Y topic”
  • Arm sales with snippet content.  Make separate blogs posts and videos for each mistake and consider it a reusable asset
  • Have two people host the webinar
  • Have polls – leave a comment or use a tool
    • Do you agree? YES or NO or THE POPE IS CATHOLIC
  • At the end of the webinar ask, which question was the most interesting for you?
  • Then ask “now that you’ve been educated on this topic, what’s your next step?”
    1. research
    2. love it going to hand it off
    3. love this topic I need to learn more now

Build  a webform poll on the video page… people will  click it.

Segmented Follow Up: Follow up with ALL who show up. Break up the signups into groups by interest; follow up who didn’t show up and offer to have them watch the replay.

How To Connect with Todd Earwood

5 mistakes entrepreneurs makes working out an idea

Webinar Works is for you if…
You want to use a turnkey, proven process to drive leads
You think creating content is too much work, much less a webinar
You wish there was a new way to target old prospects or dead leads
You want to discover from first-hand companies who have used this system

Get your assessment here:  https://www.webinarworks.co/salesbabble

Lead Generation Strategies

Let’s keep the babble going. Here are past episodes on lead gen. Listen now!