This SalesCast is brought to you by, well, SalesQualia. Check out the Startup Selling Program, a 90-day program focused on finding customers, growing revenue and building your sales process.

In this episode, Scott and Robert discuss the importance of talking to prospects about their 2017 budgets at the beginning of 2016, and how to start prepping your product delivery to be best prepared for getting a prospect’s 2017 budget. Key areas we cover are:

• Why you should be thinking about 2017 budgets now and using the next few months to work your product into the a prospect’s used-up 2016 budget.

• How to start selling to people when their budget has been eaten up, some actions to take and answering questions. 

• How to go about prospecting at the beginning of the year when a product has a pretty high price, and adverse effects making you feel you haven't done enough.

• Questions to ask during quarterly reviews, what mature companies do and some January advice on working to get into that 2017 budget.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!

We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!

Podcast Notes

00:41 – What does it mean to have that big B in the budget too for 2017?

03:20 – Recommended strategies.

05:06 – What are the first actions to take?

08:53 – How do you start selling to people when a lot of their budget is already eaten up?

11:26 – Who you look to and how to go about prospecting at the beginning of the year when a product has a pretty high price.

15:43 – Adverse effects making you feel you haven't done enough, even though you have done a lot, to actually be able to make that bigger sale to the overall company.

20:22 – Experiencing, “Why are we spending this $10,000 for the pilot? Shut it down."

23:10 - The next moves on getting into that 2017 budget after running the pilot?

27:30 – Explaining and answering questions.

32:56 – Business review lead into dealing with the budget process.

37:30 – What mature companies do.

38:00 – Organic growth within a company versus take it all right now or right here.

40:20 – Questions to ask during quarterly reviews.

43:15 – January advice, working on getting into that 2017 budget.

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast

• SKMurphy.com, Sean Murphy.

This SalesCast is brought to you by, well, SalesQualia. Improve Sales Performance with:

1. Self-learning resources, including books on Amazon.comand self-paced online courses.
2. Workshops & Training, hosted at venues across Silicon Valley and the US.
3. 1:1 Coaching & Consulting for company founders and sales professionals that want a personalized plan.

In this episode, Scott and Robert discuss what to do around the holiday season in preparation for the coming year. Key areas we cover are:

• Going into your industry that you’re selling to and see what are these kind of mini-publications.

• Using the holidays to map out a blog post series for yourself.

• Looking at conference planning for the coming year, getting in touch with conference organizers and getting everything ready for the conference.

• Strategies you can use to make money, and going back and doing some analysis of your pipeline. 

• Having everyone on board on where the company needs to be, and using a weekly email template.

We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!

Podcast Notes

01:16 – Look for media contacts.

08:43 – Use this time of the year to map out a 5 or 10 blog post series for yourself.

15:04 – Looking at the conference planning for 2016.

17:33 – How to go about strategically getting everything ready for the conferences.

21:14 – Get in touch with the conference organizers.

23:16 – Going back to your current customers.

25:43 – Three strategies you can use to make money.

26:45 – Going back and doing some analysis of your pipeline.

28:08 – Who are you selling to?

29:26 – The “WHY?”

29:50 – The “HOW?”

32:00 – Using an email template and having everyone on board on where the company needs to go.

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast

• The Reverse Review, a monthly publication for reverse mortgage professionals that covers issues affecting the industry.

• Wall Street Journal, online coverage of breaking news and current headlines from the US and around the world.

• Forbes, Business news and financial news.

• DSNews, Service Industry News website.

• HousingWire, U.S. Housing Finance News.

• HubSpot, an inbound marketing and sales platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers.

• UpWork, the world's largest online workplace where savvy businesses and professional freelancers go to work.

• Saastr, Blog by Jason Lemkin.

• Price Intelligently, provides SaaS pricing strategy expertise through our unique combination of data and industry experience.

• Weekly Team Update Email, by David Cummings.

This SalesCast is brought to you by, well, SalesQualia. Improve Sales Performance with:

1. Self-learning resources, including books on Amazon.comand self-paced online courses.
2. Workshops & Training, hosted at venues across Silicon Valley and the US.
3. 1:1 Coaching & Consulting for company founders and sales professionals that want a personalized plan.

In this episode, Scott and Robert discuss what to do around the holiday season in preparation for the coming year. Key areas we cover are:

• How going old school and writing a hand written note that isn’t electronically sent can help bring a fizzling prospect back to the table.
• Taking the time to clear out your CRM and email contacts from the past year and a method for clearing out that brings old prospects back into your conversion funnel.
• How to “Go Social” at the end of the year by preforming some social media research that will help you stay strong through the holidays and hit 2016 running while everyone is crawling.

We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!

Podcast Notes

04:26 – Things you could be doing that would motivate sales in the holidays or the next year.

04:46 – Write handwritten notes to people.

06:50 – Going through your top 20 contact.

10:04 – Email your contacts to see who’s interested or not.

12:10 – Clear your virtual desk, and archive all emails. Send an email to contacts you’ve been in touch with over a 6-month period.

17:30 – Go social, use it for research.

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast

• LinkedIn, a business-oriented social networking service. 

• MineMyMail, sifts through all of the messages stored in your email account looking for the information you care about.

• MailChimp, an online email marketing solution to manage contacts, send emails and track results.

• Quora, a question-and-answer website.

This SalesCast is brought to you by, well, SalesQualia. Check out the Startup Selling Program, a 90-day program focused on finding customers, growing revenue and building your sales process.

In this episode, Scott and Robert discuss the process to qualify and pursue potential sales leads, as well as tips to help you position yourself at a conference. Key areas we cover are:

• Quickly identifying and pursuing a potential sales lead, and what lessons you might learn when you’re contacting leads.
• You need to be willing to be patient because will speed up your process and you’ll earn the trust from a prospective lead.
• How to really quickly convey the unique value proposition that a prospect’s company offers versus other companies who might do the same thing.
• What to do with the people that you weren’t able to touch base with at a conference, and the one thing you fail to do at a conference.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!

We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!

Podcast Notes

02:56 – How to quickly identify whether you want to pursue a person as potential sales lead.

05:55 - Lessons when you’re out calling people on the phone or email.

06:25 – Taking leadership in the conversations.

07:16 – The types of selling approaches to use.

09:18 – The number one tip of the day.

10:38 – Qualify your lead or your conversation first.

12:35 – Learning how to position yourself.

15:25 – What you should be doing for value proposition.

20:00 – How long to generally wait before trying to create more contact with potential leads.

23:45 – What to do with the people that you weren’t able to touch base with at a conference.

27:15 – One thing you notice you’re not doing at a conference.

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast

• Blend, a cloud based lending software.

• Evernote, Online workspace software.

• LinkedIn, World’s Largest Professional Network.

• Drip, Email Marketing Automation Software.

• Upwork, Hire Freelancers and Get Freelance Jobs Online.

This SalesCast is brought to you by, well, SalesQualia. Improve Sales Performance with:

1. Self-learning resources, including books on Amazon.comand self-paced online courses.
2. Workshops & Training, hosted at venues across Silicon Valley and the US.
3. 1:1 Coaching & Consulting for company founders and sales professionals that want a personalized plan.

In this episode, our special guest Sean Murphy, of SKMurphy, sits down with Scott to discuss the concept of diagnosing new ideas in a startup, discovering early adopters, and much more. Key areas we cover are:

• Why it’s important to diagnose ideas of discovery for entrepreneurs and startups, as well as having models of the kind of impact your enterprise software has on a prospect’s business operations.
• Tips for CEOs in preparing questioning strategies, including powerful responses to use when not able to answer some questions.
• Understanding how a prospect’s worries about the risk of working with your startup and methods for reducing said risk to overcome this objection.
• How to find early adopters at organizations that have a pain and are willing to accept partial solutions, and getting customer feedback in a positive way.

We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!

Podcast Notes

03:42 – How to describe the idea of diagnosing a discovery for startups and entrepreneurs, why it’s important when it comes to sales.

07:40 – Having a model of what the impact of your enterprise software is going to be on a person’s operations.

10:00 – Tips for a Startup CEO in preparing for a questioning strategy.

15:00 – “I don’t know,” is a powerful response.

17:00 – Creating more communication nodes between you as a startup and the target company.

20:58 – The purchase decision and what the customer is really worried about.

22:43 – How to reduce risk as salesperson or as a startup CEO for people to work with you as a startup.

25:44 – Challenges working with startups.

28:18 – The right way to get customer feedback and use it in a positive way.

31:37 – The early market problems.        

35:15 – Zone of proximal development.

40:14 – Ways you can tell you’re working with a successful change agent, early adopter.

44:11 – As a startup, how to find early adopters, innovators at organizations that have the pain and are willing to accept partial solutions.

46:00 – Where to find early adopters.

48:37 – The number where you finally say “All right, I need to switch my hypothesis.”