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In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, I cautiously open a present from a listener live on the air.
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We share a new fun game matching listener questions to famous musical acts, and we dip into the co-video mailbag with a question from Matt, who joins the sales game mid-career and asks us for the best advice for a late-start salesperson.
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Welcome back, everybody, to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest-running sales training podcast in podcast history.
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My name is Brian Neal.
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Me, Bill Kasky.
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We are thankful that you re here.
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Every Monday, we come to you.
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Sometime, when do we release?
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Like 6 in the morning, something like that?
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1 in the morning?
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1 AM?
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Is it really?
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So I wonder if there are people sitting at their phones, their devices, just waiting for the Advanced Selling Podcast episode to release.
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I m sure they are.
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Your buddy from Aruba probably is.
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He is.
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We still haven t found that guy.
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Maybe we found him by now.
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I don t know.
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So we re glad you re here.
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We go on the road.
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So this is very important that you know.
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So we re on the road frequently doing sales meetings, launch meetings, sales kickoffs, those sorts of things.
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If you d like us to talk to you about coming up, I m doing a twofer in Cleveland, Bill, coming up a twofer with podcast listeners.
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Send us an email, listener at advancedsellingpodcast.com.
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Just put come see us in the little subject line.
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We also have a forum.
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Is the forum still live?
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We have a forum still on the website.
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Yeah, it s got some questions.
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Yeah, I ll ask you some questions.
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Have you go to the website and find that, the Come See Us button?
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That d be good.
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No.
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OK, so I have what looks like a gift in front of us.
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What s it called?
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Unpackaging?
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Unwrapping?
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Urgent.
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What s it called on YouTube?
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FedEx?
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Unwrapping.
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Unwrapping?
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Unwrapping.
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We re going to unboxing.
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Unboxing.
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Yeah, here we go.
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So I don t know who this is from.
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It s addressed to Bill and Brian for the Advanced Selling Podcast.
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What I don t know, and the reason I think Bill s having me open it is in case it s an angry listener.
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And this is some sort of bad package or a white powdery substance.
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We will put this on the Advanced Selling Podcast s LinkedIn group, too.
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I don t even know who this is from.
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It s from Rashawn Richards.
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You got yourself a book.
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Oh, well, thank you.
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Make Yourself Clear, How to Use a Teaching Mindset to Listen, Understand, and Explain Everything and Be Understood.
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Oh.
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Make Yourself Clear.
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Now, my question is, is this a hint?
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Are they trying to tell us in our 17 minutes?
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Could be done in five.
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Exactly.
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We re not very good at communicating this.
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I m seeing nothing here that s suspicious.
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OK.
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So I think we re clean.
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No, it s good.
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It s very nice.
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So who s it by?
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We haven t.
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We re not plugging this because we haven t read it.
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No, we just opened up presents.
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So if you want to send us presents, we ll open presents and swag and stuff like that.
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Cover a little.
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This is by Rashaan Richards and Stephen Valentine.
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All right.
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Rashaan Richards and Stephen.
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Thank you very much for this.
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It looks like it s not even open.
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I think it s just the first Cali copies.
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Oh, maybe we re influencers.
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Maybe it s like influencer marketing.
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It s really, really nice.
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Could be.
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I like.
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Thanks, guys.
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Good deal.
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That wasn t anything dangerous.
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So before we get into our topic today, which is a voice memo from a listener, we ve been off this track a little bit.
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In January and February, we were into our listener voicemails.
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And we haven t done that for a couple of months.
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So we re going to go back at it today.
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But first, I wanted to know this.
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Are you skipping lunch so you have time to complete all of the calls, emails, texts, and other sales touches you need to build your sales pipeline?
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Everybody s building their sales pipeline.
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Well, outreach.io is a solution for you.
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Sales engagement platform supports sales reps and managers by making it simple,
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to humanize and personalize communication at scale, automates the soul-sucking manual work, and dramatically increases the productivity of all revenue-generating teams.
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I want you to check them out.
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Just go to outreach.io slash ASP to chat with them and receive a free copy of their new book.
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That s outreach.io forward slash ASP.
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Very good.
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So we have a listener who has sent us a high-quality audio question we re going to listen to and then comment on.
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All right, here it goes.
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Hello, Bill and Brian.
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This is Mike in Little Rock, Arkansas.
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I found your podcast a few weeks ago, and I really enjoyed the information that you guys are providing.
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I spent over 20 years in the telecom industry across many different roles, from a business analyst to customer service support, customer service management, marketing, product management, financial planning, and business intelligence.
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Following a layoff about a year ago, I recently found myself with a new company and a completely new role, business development slash solutions architect for a small telecom and managed service provider here in Little Rock.
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What advice do you have for a 44 year old first time B2B salesperson?
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Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
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Thanks, gentlemen.
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Great job, Matt, on the audio quality and your
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voice reminded us of another wonderful, beautiful voice that we all know.
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Let s take a listen.
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I ve heard people say that too much of anything is not good for you, but I don t know about that.
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That s the unforgettable Barry White.
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Matt, we think you are the Barry White of advanced selling podcast listeners, and that s full on complimenting.
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Yeah, it is.
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Wonderful.
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Velvety voice, velvety smooth.
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We like it.
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I listen to a lot of 70s and 80s oldie stations.
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And I can turn off a lot of that music.
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Like if a song comes on, I m kind of tired of it.
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I never turn off Barry White.
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You have to listen to the whole thing.
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Yeah, it s so good.
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Across the board, the talking, the bring in part.
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So good.
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Oh, thanks Matt for your question.
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We ve got Ryan I went through this and Studied it for a bit and we have three Suggestions each that we want to give to you so if you re listening get your pen your pencil your paper Whatever your number two as I like and start writing or your iPod iPad iPod above.
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Mm-hmm I just can t get very white out of my mind now.
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I just think I m very white keep going with a drive-thru chick-fil-a yeah, like a
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Six piece, nuggets, large fries.
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I have a large diet lemonade.
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OK, let s go.
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Number one.
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And this is interesting, because he s later in career, correct?
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Yeah, usually we do this for younger people, but this is good.
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I think it s really good.
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We ve never really had someone who s later in career moving to sales first time.
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It s kind of like people have become first time parents in their 40s.
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It should be unique, kind of different things.
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But I think we re going to see more of that, because there are a lot of sales positions that are open right now.
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And they don t want to bring in maybe a 22 or a 23-year-old, or they just can t find them.
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So they re going to someone who has a lot of industry experience, but maybe hasn t had sales experience, bringing them in and teaching them.
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So this is a common thing today.
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Very, very, very.
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OK, I got three things written down here for advice for a later in career salesperson.
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Would you like me to go first?
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Go first.
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Numero uno.
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I m going to do the whole thing in Spanish.
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Not really.
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Good.
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Number one.
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Listen, this is interesting.
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Leverage what you know, but in big bold letters I put, with nothing to prove.
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So leverage what you know with nothing to prove.
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I think one of the things that occurs when you go into something later in life is you do have lots of knowledge to lean on.
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And because you re in shaky ground, you re in a new place where you haven t been before, sometimes the intention to come and prove yourself comes over you.
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So I d have you, Matt, think about leveraging all the knowledge that you have and all the different business functions you ve been involved with over your 20, 22, 23-year career.
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Just be sure it doesn t turn into you proving yourself or proving something.
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Just let that occur naturally and let your experience kind of be the guide for you, the northern light, if you will.
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But don t set yourself out to prove anything.
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Who was it that we either had on our show once, or maybe you and I knew him or her, who said that when we feel vulnerable in life, we tend to clutch onto things.
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We tend to grasp anything we can.
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And it s like when we re in quicksand, the more we grasp, the quicker down we fall.
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And I think that s the case when you re starting out in sales, especially somebody like Matt, who s got a lot of experiences.
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We tend to clutch onto all that stuff that we know, all that knowledge.
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And that s not what we should be clutching onto.
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No, not at all.
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And so it can harm.
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So I love that advice, Brian.
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It s good.
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Thank you.
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Here s one that kind of fits in with this one, and that is be a master questioner and assessor.
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And with all of your experience, and this goes for anybody who has experience in a company or an industry like Matt does,
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Get good at understanding the dilemmas that customers have.
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You don t have to worry about, am I a good salesperson?
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Am I gregarious enough or enthusiastic?
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Forget about all that crap.
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It doesn t matter.
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If you are a master at assessing problems, and even grab
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The first 20 questions you would ask somebody, and just write them down and turn them into a little 11 by 17 folded document where you can say, this is the process I go through when I first meet somebody.
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These are 20 questions that I will need answers to at some point.
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Do you want to go through the process?
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Yeah, sure.
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OK, well, let s start.
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And you become a master qualifier
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because you understand their circumstances and their pain.
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That s really, really great.
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And my guess is, Matt, you re already pretty good at that.
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Exactly.
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And let that come out, right?
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That s really good.
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Hey, Bill, before I go on to my next suggestion, have you ever sent a sales proposal and wondered if your prospect even saw it?
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My answer is, yep.
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Well, with Pandadoc, you ll no longer be left in the dark.
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Pandadoc can help you create, send, e-sign, and even track every proposal you send.
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Their detailed document tracking allows you to see where deals are stuck by telling you how long your recipients spent on each page of your proposal.
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You can try Pandadoc for free for 14 days at pandadoc.com.
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And while you re there,
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Download your free copy of Elements of a Winning Sales Proposal.
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That s PandaDoc, P-A-N-D-A-D-O-C dot com slash A-S-P.
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OK, number two for me, for the late start new and salesperson, is more heart, less head.
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More heart, less head.
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What I mean by that is you ve got so much knowledge built up in your mind, your default s going to be to lean on that intellectual knowledge.
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And so the advice I m going to give to you, and in some of the roles you ve been in, it sounds like they may have been technical in nature, right?
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Operational, technical, and that sort of thing.
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Really make sure you open up the heart part of selling, which is the connection with people, empathy, understanding points of view, trying to feel what other people feel, stuff like that, coupled with your intellectual knowledge, will take you a long, long way in this game.
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And what you ll see is people will justify decisions with the intellectual stuff, but they will make the decisions with their heart, with their emotions.
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So you have to play to both sides of that coin.
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And it s tempting sometimes when you have all this intellectual and operational knowledge to just stay in that kind of prove it with data section.
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And so be sure you let some heart in over your head.
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No one likes a no at all.
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No, no.
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Did you gather from his voice
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Other than the resemblance to Barry White.
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Did you gather from his voice that he was an intellectual kind of thinker?
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Yes.
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I did too.
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Especially the job, the roles that he s had.
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Yeah.
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But also just the way he delivered that it felt to me very intellectual.
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I can tell he s a smart person, very process oriented.
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I would agree.
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And so the danger of that is it becomes all about process and knowledge and data, and it can t be.
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Because like Brian said, a high percentage of the decision dimension is from the emotional language, and so you ve got to kind of work on that.
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Here s something that is a little bit advanced, but I think you d get a kick out of it, Mr. Matt.
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And that is, I want you to find somebody in your sphere who can interview you, and I want them to ask you 10 questions, and I want you to tell them what the questions are.
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So you might say, one of the questions is,
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Matt, tell me a little bit about your background.
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One of the questions might be, what are some mistakes that you see people make when they buy telecom?
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Another one might be, what s one coming trend that maybe nobody knows about that you know about because you ve seen it from the inside?
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Whatever those 10 questions are, have it video recorded with a good microphone, good quality microphone like we have here at ASB Studios.
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Good video.
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The interviewer does not have to be in the shot.
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They can ask you the question, and they might even come up with some follow-up questions to help clarify points if you re not clear.
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Then you take those 10 videos, you clip them up, and you can use them on your LinkedIn page.
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Really great.
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So now when somebody goes to your LinkedIn page because you re going over to see them, to visit them, you ve got an appointment, and they go to check you out, they ll see all these videos there on your profile page.
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and they will get to know you before you even show up, and they ll get to know what you know.
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Let s see, how do I say it?
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They get to know what you know, not just who you are.
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And so then you can skip a lot of that data stuff, because they will feel very comfortable with you in their presence, because they feel like they already know you based on the videos.
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So actually, that goes for anybody, but especially somebody who has the gift of gab when it comes to talking about technical issues and financial issues.
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That would be awesome for you.
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That is such good advice, Matt.
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You don t need to listen any further.
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I m telling you.
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You do that, you ll be so far ahead of the whole game by doing that.
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What s great about it is because you have all this other knowledge.
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I think that lends itself to someone like this that s been in the business for 20 years.
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If you ve been in the business six months, you can t do this.
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That s a good one.
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That s a good one, just saying.
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All right, my last one here.
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And you ve already done this.
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You ve already demonstrated this.
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I m going to encourage you to do it more.
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And I wrote down here, B23 again.
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B23 again.
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Because you said, I think you mentioned he was 44.
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You ve got to go back.
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Now, not everything maybe that came with being 23.
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Not all of it.
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Not the crazy parties and stuff like that.
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But go back and be 23.
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What you ve impressed me with is you ve found a podcast and you re trying to feed yourself on your own knowledge that will make you better at this new gig you re in.
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So I d highly encourage you to keep doing things like that.
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When I say be 23 again, get involved in the things that that part of the economy is doing.
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That s a good point.
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So it s the social media stuff.
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Get OK on Instagram.
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Understand listening to podcasts on a regular basis, all that sort of stuff.
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And also the freshness of your brain when you re 23.
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We all go back.
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And if there s one thing we all learn when we get older is we don t know anything.
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I think.
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I ll speak for myself.
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I don t know anything.
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I totally agree.
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So I m like, OK, someone asked me about how long is the training program.
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I m like, I m in year 49 of a 100-year training program.
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It just never stops.
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So be that way.
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Go back with your fresh brain.
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Be curious.
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Forget what you know.
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Try to suck it all in.
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See it differently.
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And stay in that fresh part of your mind.
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See if you can go back and channel it.
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And that s fun, too.
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Someday we should do an episode on the concept of I don t know.
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We propose and we suggest that when you first go into a prospect, you be of a mind that you don t know.
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You don t know if you can help.
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You don t know what they do.
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You don t know.
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And yet in life sometimes, I think we become certain about things.
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Well, do you have a plan for tomorrow, Brian?
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Yeah, I know what I m going to be doing tomorrow.
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And I always feel like, no, you don t.
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You have no idea, because you don t know if tomorrow is even going to come or not.
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You don t.
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No.
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I only had one more and then we ve already talked about that and that s bring your best gifts Don t try to don t try to learn the gift of sales until you use the gifts you already have which is in financial analysis technical expertise assessing some of the stuff that Brian talked about but
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I would say that s the sixth best one.
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I think there were four or five others that were better than that.
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I love it.
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I love it.
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Good stuff, Matt.
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Love your voice, dude.
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Love the fact that you found the podcast.
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Love you to send us an audio.
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Encourage all of you to do the same thing.
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We re going to be doing this about once a month.
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So we ll put a shout out to you to say, hey, it s time.
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But you can start to submit now.
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listener at advancelinkpodcast.com and send us an email and just put a high quality audio.
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I love that people imitated their favorite singer.
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Yeah, that should be the gig.
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You sing, oh my God.
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You send in the audio, we ll match you up.
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That would be great.