In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed former CEO of Osmo Systems, Zach Stein.

Zach is an entrepreneur living in Oakland, California. He was previously the CEO of Osmo Systems, a hardware startup building AI-driven solutions for aquaculture (fish and shrimp farms), and now he and his co-founder are working to launch a new project that focuses on combatting climate change.

I first met Zach through the Highway1 Accelerator Program – he was a participant and I was one of his mentors.  About a year later when Zach and his team were starting their go-to-market work, he became a client in our Startup Selling Coaching Program.

Some of the topics that Zach and I discussed in this episode are:

• His journey as an entrepreneur and what led him to work on environmental challenges.
• Decision-making processes based on identifying a lack of clarity, weaknesses, and pain in the business operations.
• Using “Name it to Tame It” – a psychological process to articulate a problem and identify potential solutions.
• How to use questions to orient a decision-making process.
• Creating a clear set of rules for your team focus and daily activities.
• “Say it out loud” – sharing your idea with your team and have them reflect what you just said to their understanding. This creates clarity to prevent ambiguity.
• How can rulemaking allow you to avoid decision-making fatigue. 

Links and resources:

Highway1 Hardware Accelerator Program: highway1.io

[book] Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio

 www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio/dp/1501124021

[book] The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: An Illustrated Leadership Fable

by Patrick Lencioni www.amazon.com/dp/0787960756

[book] The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business by Patrick Lencioni

www.amazon.com/Advantage-Organizational-Health-Everything-Business/dp/0470941529

Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist & developer of “Name it to Tame It.” 

[book] The Whole-Brain Child

 www.drdansiegel.com/books/the_whole_brain_child/2

[Blog post] An Entrepreneur’s Lessons Learned

 scottsambucci.blogspot.com/2008/08/lessons-learned-confessions-of.html

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed keynote speaker, sales coach, and author, David J.P. Fisher.

David is a speaker, coach, and author of nine books including the best-selling ‘Hyper-Connected Selling’ and ‘Networking in the 21st Century: Why Your Network Sucks and What to Do About It’.

With more than  20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and as a sales professional, he combines nuanced strategy and real-world tactics to help professionals become more effective, efficient, and happy.

Some of the topics that David and I discussed in this episode are:

• David’s book of haikus and his participation in Slam Poetry in Chicago.
• The importance of building trust and relationships with your prospects and customers.
• David’s concept of being a ‘‘Sales Sherpa’’ and why is it important to bring your customers through their journey and use information that they already have to understand what it means to their company.
• Why your product demo is not destinations in your sales process – it is the place to provide credibility of your promise.
• The Edelmen Trust Barometer - The value of relationships and how trust is a spectrum.
• Tactical tips for using LinkedIn for your networking and trust-building

Links & Resources

The Edelmen Trust Barometer: www.edelman.com/trust-barometer

David on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/iamdfish

Download a Free Copy of"19 Ways to Immediately Skyrocket your Sales Network” here: davidjpfisher.com/podcast/startup

About Slam Poetry on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry_slam

David’s books on Amazon:

• Hyper-Connected Selling: Winning More Business by Leveraging Digital Influence and Creating Human Connection – www.amazon.com/dp/1944730052
• Networking in the 21st Century: Why Your Network Sucks And What To Do About It – www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SGOGQ8M
• Five Seven Five: A Daily Glimpse of Chicago Life as Seen Through Haiku – hwww.amazon.com/gp/product/1944730079

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed Sarah Tuneberg, Co-Founder and CEO at Geospiza.

She leads an interdisciplinary team of problem solvers focused on developing data-driven, evidence-based solutions, models, and processes that reduce risk and enhance resilience, especially for the most vulnerable.  

She is passionate about harnessing data, analytics, and technology to solve complex challenges.  After more than a decade in emergency management and public health, Sarah founded Geospiza to transform the way climate risk decisions are made.   But the real reason I asked Sarah to join us on the podcast was because of the lead generation systems she’s built for Geospiza, specifically using LinkedIn and LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator tool.

Some of the topics that Sarah and I discussed in this episode are:

• Sarah’s experience in solving Climate change issues.
• What are some of the best practices to help you generate leads at the top of your sales funnel
• How Sarah and her team use LinkedIn for outreach and messaging structure.
• Sarah’s experience, challenge, and insights that she’s gained as a female founder.

Links & Resources

Sarah’s LinkedIn Profile  - www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-tuneberg

Geospiza company page - geospiza.us

Sarah’s TEDxMileHigh Talk:

“We know how to save lives in disasters - why don't we?”  www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=zmanP8WDNwQ&feature=emb_logo

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed Oscar Santolalla, Author and Sales Engineer at Ubisecure. 

Oscar has spent years in product management and sales roles in the tech industry. Since 2014, Oscar has been hosting the public speaking podcast ‘Time to Shine’, in which he has interviewed more than one hundred communication professionals.

Oscar is a communication expert and his mission is to help technology companies present better, inspire people, and sell more. He regularly writes for international blogs and gives talks and workshops worldwide. 

Some of the topics that Oscar and I discussed in this episode are:

• The different types of product demos – ranging from the trade show booth to the pre-sales call to the full-on “Big Group” demo.
• The importance of having a different script for each product demo, with a consistent message for each one.
• The importance of having a “main message” that focuses on a central theme for your product demos.
• The ‘WOW’ moment in a product demo.
• Preparation and avoiding common pitfalls that happen around product demos.

Links & Resources

Oscar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oscarsantolalla/

Oscar’s Book: Create and Deliver a Killer Product Demo: Tips and Tricks to Wow Your Customers: https://www.apress.com/us/book/9781484239537

Use Promo Code: KILLERPRODUCTDEMO for a 20% discount

Time to Shine Podcast: http://www.timetoshinepodcast.com/

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Apple Podcasts | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed Brett Gilliland, Co-Founder & CEO at Elite Entrepreneurs.

As the original leader of Infusionsoft’s "Built to Last" efforts, Brett spent 10 years helping Infusionsoft grow from less than $10M to over $100M in revenue.  Brett's roles at Infusionsoft included: Built to Last Champion, Strategic Advisor to the CEO, VP of Infusionsoft, and VP of Leadership Development. He also Co-Created the Elite Programs with Infusionsoft’s CEO, Clate Mask. 

Brett has experience in high-impact, trusted-advisor roles in both large and small organizations across multiple industries. He has worked with hundreds of $1M-$10M entrepreneurs and their teams to develop and implement the organizational and leadership processes and systems they need to grow. 

When he isn't busy serving Elite businesses, Brett loves family life with his beautiful wife, Sharon, and their 8 children!

Some of the topics that Brett and I discussed in this episode are:

• The five (5) stages of a small business.
• The definition of each of the five stages.
• The challenges that most entrepreneurs experience when they're in each stage.
• The challenges in growing from stage to stage.
• Solutions for overcoming the growth challenges in each stage.
• Company culture and the importance of setting the company’s vision as the CEO.
• The challenges when it comes to building, managing and growing a team.
• How can you ‘gift’ ownership of certain roles to the people on your team.
• Strategies and ways you can make your team grow.

Links & Resources

Connect with Brett:

Elite Entrepreneur: growwithelite.com

Brett Gilliland on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/built2lastchamp

To receive a copy of the 5 Stages of Small Business Infographic, text “Stages” to 72000

Books & Resources:

The Rule of 3 and 10: www.sequoiacap.com/article/the-rule-of-3-and-10

Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter www.amazon.com/Multipliers-Best-Leaders-Everyone-Smarter/dp/0061964395

Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box

www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-Out/dp/1576751740

The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Peace-Resolving-Heart-Conflict-ebook/dp/B00SGET4BS

The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations 

www.amazon.com/Outward-Mindset-Change-Transform-Organizations-ebook/dp/B07V4GKZCV

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't 

www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0066620996

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed Joe Curtis, Chief Operating Officer at Pango Group. Joe expertly manages the operations, sales and marketing efforts of

the business.

Pango Group is a family of companies that provides personalized services for a diverse range of

real estate and escrow related transactions. In addition to escrow services, the subsidiary

companies focus on the areas of notary, insurance, document archiving and leasing: offering

clients a full range of services. Pango Group owns and manages 20 offices throughout California and has a staff of more than 50 escrow officers and over 250 employees across the state.

Some of the topics that Joe and I discussed in this episode are:

• The difference between a transactional sale and a relational sale.
• The importance of a follow-up system for the transactional sale.
• Terminal Unique Syndrome - what makes your company unique in your sales process.
• The importance of being your authentic self.
• How do I set a quota for my prospective customers.
• Why Joe doesn’t use sales quotas at his company.
• Training opportunities for your sales team in order to be successful.

Links & Resources

Find Joe on LinkedIn here: www.linkedin.com/in/joecurtis

Pango Group: https://pangogroup.com/

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed Jason Bay, Chief Revenue Officer at Blissful Prospecting where he helps sales teams remove the stress from prospecting.

His sales experience dates back to 2008. At 19, he ran his first six-figure business painting houses while attending school at Oregon State University. He's worked with hundreds of sales reps and personally closed millions of dollars in revenue during his career.

Some of the topics that Jason and I discussed in today’s podcast are:

• The importance of having a process for your outbound prospecting that reduces stress.

• How you can use the lesson from improv and stand-up comedy to you selling.

• How to use the REPLY method as the foundation for your sales messages.

• How infrequently we see our clients go back to their current customers to get verbiage about the problem they’re solving every single day.

• The importance of running your outbound cadence manually before you automating it.

• Being HUMAN in your sales.
• Segmenting your prospects - why you should not treat everyone equally.

• How to use video as part of your prospecting plan of action

Links & Resources

Jason Bay - www.linkedin.com/in/jasondbay

Blissful Prospecting - blissfulprospecting.com

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

Leah is a Customer Success pioneer with almost two decades of experience.

After successfully starting and growing Customer Success teams for over 8 successful startups, Leah decided to go out on her own and join BetterGrowth as a Founding Partner. BetterGrowth is an agency that focuses on in-house talent for SAAS companies around the world.

BetterGrowth's core offerings include a model where they hire, train, and employee Customer Support agents, sales agents, and recruiters in their Portland office.

 In just over 7 months BetterGrowth has grown its Portland Oregon team to over 15 full-time employees focused on servicing some of the world's top technology companies. 

Some of the topics that we discussed in this podcast are:

• Defining what is ‘Customer Success’ from the buyer's point of view.

• The importance of being an investigative reporter as part of your customer success work.

• Getting clear about your known outliers and challenges when creating your implementation plan.

• The importance of setting up a clear cadence with your new customers.

• The ‘80/20 rule’ - the biggest kryptonite in customer success.

• Who runs the quarterly business reviews.

• Conversation programs for customer success for upsells and renewals.

• The ‘triple-A’ scorecard for your customer success team.

• Leah’s dedication and active work around diversity and inclusion around the LGBT community.

Links & Resources

BetterGrowth: www.bettergrowth.co

Leah Chancy on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/leahchaney

Thanks for the rainbow logo... but let's do better.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/thanks-rainbow-logo-lets-do-better-leah-chaney

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I had the privilege of sitting down with Dan Martell.

Dan is a serial entrepreneur having built several multi-million dollar technology companies starting at the age of 17. He's also an award-winning angel investor, having invested in 35+ companies like Intercom, Udemy, Hootsuite, and Unbounce.

Today he's an executive coach focused exclusively on B2B SaaS working with the founders from ClickFunnels.com, Proposify.com, Carrot.com, and many others to help scale their businesses. He splits his time between Canada (where he grew up), and San Diego with his wife Renee and two boys.

Some of the topics that we discussed in today’s podcast are:

• Why Dan calls himself “The Chief Instigator”
• The mindset of thinking in decades – and why you should make decisions based on what you would want to be doing in the next ten years from now.
• The strategic mindset you need to take as a start-up founder.
• The importance of learning from the mistakes from other people make so you don’t have to make them.
• The idea of either fixing the track or the vehicle that you’re on or jump on a new one.
• The “Front Page” rule and the pain of indecision.
• The importance of building an achievement list for yourself to help you build confidence in yourself.
• Understanding why issues in your business are a reflection of your personal life.
• The challenges entrepreneurs face by not trusting themselves to take action.
• Dan’s story as an at-risk youth. 

Links & Resources

Facebook Personal Page: hwww.facebook.com/profile.php?id=829175116

Facebook Business Page: www.facebook.com/Danmartell

Instagram: www.instagram.com/danmartell

YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/danvmartell

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I had the privilege of sitting down with John Messina.

John currently leads North American Sales at Amplitude Analytics where he helps their customers leverage customer data to build the best product experiences possible.

 He has built sales teams at Enterprise B2B SaaS companies ranging in size from 8 to 500 employees for the past 10 years. He loves helping teams scale and figure out how to go from initial sales success to a team full of successful salespeople. 

Some of the topics that we discussed in today’s podcast are:

• Finding the ‘sweet-spot’ for hiring.

• The biggest mistakes that startups make when hiring their first sales team members.

• When is the right time to hire a sales team at a startup?

• Signals to tell you when to hire and bring in a new salesperson to the team.

• The “Whiteboard problem”

• How and where to find perfect recruits.

Links & Resources

John Messina on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jomessina

Amplitude: amplitude.com

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I had the privilege of sitting down with master storyteller and CEO, Susan Lindner. 

Susan is the CEO at Emerging Media which is an award-winning PR, branding, marketing, and social media agency, that helps the visionaries and entrepreneurial leaders make their mark in the ever-changing media landscape. 

Emerging Media creates and aligns a solid brand foundation, lead-generating marketing, awareness building PR and an engaged social community that helps disruptive companies to rise above their competitors to industry leadership. 

Some of the topics that we discussed in today’s podcast are:

• How to use storytelling in your sales process.
• Susan’s experience as an epidemiologist and getting Red Light District prostitution brothels to use condoms.
• The importance of thinking of your customer’s journey.
• The four-step process for creating a story behind your company.
• The importance of creating a platform around company’s goals and services.
• The four-step process for creating a story-telling environment to connect with your target customer.
• Four questions you should ask every customer after getting them onboard.

Links & Resources

Susan Lindner on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/susanjlindner

Emerging Media: emergingmediapr.com

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com 

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I had the privilege of sitting down with another guest from Lever, his name is Erik Bulichi. Erik is currently a Senior Sales Manager for the corporate segment at Lever, a modern applicant tracking system company. 

Erik started his tech sales career at 8x8, a cloud communications and customer engagement solutions provider located in Santa Clara, California. From there, he found himself at a small startup called DemandForce. 

Erik held a few different leadership roles and exited three years after Intuit acquired the company. Then he found himself back in the startup world, this time it was in the head of sales capacity at Zozi, a booking and resource management solution in the tour and activity space. 

Some of the topics that we discussed in today’s podcast are:

• How Erik and his team build their sales process. 

• “The Buyer’s Journey” - how do we truly create empathy around their situations or problems.

• Marketing qualified leads (MQL) versus sales qualified lead (SQL).

• What constitutes a sales qualified lead.

• How Erik and his team implemented ‘APV’ (always provide value) in their sales process.

• The difference between inbound leads and outbound leads and how to handle them. 

Links and Resources:

Erik Bulichi: http://bit.ly/2GxbSpr

Lever: www.lever.co

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Plus, whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you grow your startup…

1. Grab a free copy of my book

It explains the core selling strategies that EVERY startup needs to sell, if you really, really have to and don’t know how…  Click Here

2. Join me on my monthly LIVE Sales Q&A

Every month, I tackle YOUR sales questions on anything and everything sales – Prospecting, Pipeline, Sales Metrics, Buyer Behavior and more…Click here to save your spot and send me your toughest sales question.

3. Work with me and my team privately

If you’d like to work directly with me to take your company from Start Up to Ramp Up to Scale Up, just reply to this message, put “Private” in the subject line, and tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you the details! 

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I had the privilege of sitting down with Jonathan Soares.

Jonathan is the founder and CEO of Agency Labs, a powerful and trusted engineering partner that collaborates exclusively with leading digital, creative and ad agency teams globally.

He and his team have delivered more than 600 projects for IBM, Nestlé, eBay, and more, helping some of the world’s leading in-house teams and agencies achieve peace of mind in every aspect of technical production.

Some of the topics that we discussed in today’s podcast are:

• Collaboration versus competition with companies, whether the competition is direct or indirect.

• The idea of being honest and compassionate with your customer's needs.

• Vision versus purpose - balancing where you want to go with your company and what actions can be taken on a day to day basis to reach your goal.

• Practical tips to step away from spreadsheets and growth goals and to become more human when building your business.

• The idea of ‘being human’ when it comes to managing your company as a founder and CEO.

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Plus, whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you grow your startup…

1. Grab a free copy of my book

It explains the core selling strategies that EVERY startup needs to sell, if you really, really have to and don’t know how…  Click Here

2. Join me on my monthly LIVE Sales Q&A

Every month, I tackle YOUR sales questions on anything and everything sales – Prospecting, Pipeline, Sales Metrics, Buyer Behavior and more…Click here to save your spot and send me your toughest sales question.

3. Work with me and my team privately

If you’d like to work directly with me to take your company from Start Up to Ramp Up to Scale Up, just reply to this message, put “Private” in the subject line, and tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you the details! 

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I sat down with Alex Berman. Alex is the chairman and founder of a marketing and lead generation agency called X27. 

Alex is responsible for generating millions in B2B sales for his clients over the course of his career. He also creates weekly YouTube videos to help agency owners grow their businesses and bring in more revenue teaching them how to optimize B2B sales cycles and put inbound marketing strategies in place.

He’s also a former director of marketing at the 60-person, three-time INC 5000 agency in NYC and a YEC member.

Some of the topics that we discussed in today’s podcast are:

• Creating emails that will get you a meeting with top Fortune 500 executives.

• How to craft a good email from subject line to closing, and how to iterate until you get it right.

• Alex’s use of YouTube for lead gen in his own business.

• The 3% Rule - Why you shouldn’t edit your marketing copy or the email template you’ve written. 

• The differences between sales and marketing and why they should be separated in a company.

Links & Resources Mentioned In This Episode:

• x27marketing.com - Qualified lead generation 
• Alex Berman’s Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UCAr7M4Pz-c1WCpIz3YAJQeQ

Listen & Subscribe to The Startup Selling Show Here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

As a Startup, if you’re interested in how to solve a problem, how to build a product, and most importantly, how to impact your customers and change your industry, feel free to grab a copy of my recently released book called: “Stop Hustling, Start Scaling: Ramp Up Your Startup’s Repeatable Revenue with The Q Framework”

And, if you’re interested in learning more about Startup Selling, one of the easiest ways for me to help you is to give you a (free) copy of my book called: “Startup Selling: How to Sell If You Really, Really Have To And Don’t Know How.”Just go to www.startupselling.co and you can download your free copyright there.

Thanks so much for listening!

Social Selling Strategies Using LinkedIn, Video & More: An Interview with Autoklose CEO Shawn Finder

In today’s guest episode I had the privilege of sitting down with CEO and Founder Shawn Finder as we discussed the topic “Social Selling Strategies Using LinkedIn, Video & More.”  

Shawn is the CEO and Founder of Autoklose; the first sales email automation platform powered by machine learning. Their searchable database is jam-packed with millions of verified B2B leads. Pick a niche, generate a targeted list, turn autopilot mode on, and you’re done. You don’t have to make cold calls or deal with a gatekeeper anymore. 

In addition, Autoklose is a well-rounded outbound sales platform featuring an automated lead generation software, email drip campaign management tool, and different CRM integrations. 

Some of the topics that we discussed in today’s podcast are:

• Shawn’s background and how he made the transition from finance to sales. 

• How to use social media as part of your outbound outreach and campaigns - specifically LinkedIn

• Content development - How to get more likes, comments, shares, and reviews.

• The importance of being the “Brand” and using the different networks even before using the new automated platforms.

• The right way to use LinkedIn to build your network - starting from sending an invite to interacting with the prospect.

• When the best time to post on your social network is when you have a super busy schedule.

• New and improved software tools and features to promote your business on LinkedIn.

There you have it. Thanks for listening. 

Links & Resources

Find Shawn Finder on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/shawnfinder

Autoklose: autoklose.com

LinkedIn Live on TechCrunch: techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/linkedin-debuts-linkedin-live-a-new-live-video-broadcast-service

Meet Leonard: meetleonard.com

Automate your work on LinkedIn with Linked Helper: linkedhelper.com

Listen & Subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Also, if you’re interested in learning more about Startup Selling, one of the easiest ways for me to help you is to give you a (free) copy of my book called: “Startup Selling: How to Sell If You Really, Really Have To And Don’t Know How.”  https://www.startupselling.co

Just go to www.startupselling.co and you can download your free copyright there.

As a Startup, if you’re interested in how to solve a problem, how to build a product, and most importantly, how to impact your customers and change your industry feel free to grab a copy of my recently released book called: “Stop Hustling, Start Scaling: Ramp Up Your Startup’s Repeatable Revenue with The Q Framework”

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

We have a first in today’s episode! It’s our first returning guest. Joining me on the show today is Marylou Tyler. 

Marylou is the founder of Strategic Pipeline, a Fortune 1000 sales process improvement consulting group. Her client roster includes prestigious companies such as Apple, Bose, AMA, Talend, CIBC, Gartner, Prudential, UPS, Logitech, Orkin, AAA and Mastercard.

Marylou is also an author and a contributor of two #1 bestselling books – “Predictable Revenue” and “Predictable Prospecting.” Both books have sold over 60,000 copies worldwide.

She specializes in optimizing top-of-funnel sales process and implementing predictable new sales opportunity models. Her approach walks clients through a 7-point outreach framework that is part behavioral, part predictive and part creative, which when combined together, yields a persuasive storytelling process for sales outreach.

Here are the highlights of the topics that we covered in today’s episode:

• The Yellow Brick Road Matrix – Selling new products vs. existing products and selling to new clients vs. existing clients.
• Becoming a pleasant and reliable machine as a salesperson, entrepreneur and founder. 
• The five (5) levels of a prospect perception of a problem - starting from “unaware” and going to “extremely aware.”
• The Engagement Pyramid – a process for lead-scoring that shows what to offer your sales leads as the next step in your sales process.
• The importance of disqualifying potential customers that might not be ready to take action with you, and discover the ones that are ready to take action. 
• The Importance of Storytelling in your Sales and the five (5) steps of the story arc.

Show Notes

Marylou Tyler:

• Website: www.maryloutyler.com
• PredictableEDU: https://predictableedu.com

Robert Cialdini:

• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion: www.amazon.com/Robert-B.-Cialdini/e/B000AP9KKG

Nancy Duarte:

• TED - Talks Recommended:
• www.ted.com/talks/nancy_duarte_the_secret_structure_of_great_talks?language=en
• Nancy’s Books: www.duarte.com/books

Chet Holmes

•  The Dream 100 strategy: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol2j3NLguBM
• The Ultimate Sales Machine [book]: www.amazon.com/Chet-Holmes-Turbocharge-Relentless-Strategies/dp/B004S7Y002

Twila Tharp’s book, “The Creative Habit” – www.amazon.com/Creative-Habit-Learn-Use-Life/dp/0743235274

Listen & Subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Make sure to grab your free copy of my book – “Startup Selling: How to Sell If You Really, Really Have To And Don’t Know How.”

Just go to www.startupselling.co and you can download a free PDF version of the book.

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

In today’s podcast, we have with us Erik Jacobson and Jonathan Barshop with BeMyGuest. 

Erik Jacobson spent three years learning how the podcasting system works and what impact it can have on your business, while Jonathan Barshop fell in love with podcasting after listening to an episode from Tim Ferriss show: Focus on your obsessions. 

BeMyGuest is a Podcast company that books Founders and CEOs on podcast tours, creates original podcasts for brands looking to build authority in their market and partners with internal communications teams to create private podcasts. 

Today’s episode is all about how to use podcasts in your startup’s sales and marketing as a way to market yourself as an entrepreneur and target a wide audience. 

A couple of key topics that we discussed in today’s conversation with Jonathan and Erik are:

• Why every startup Founder show become a podcast guest on shows that reach their target market.
• How to approach and become a guest on podcasts.
• The steps in starting your very own podcast, how to generate topics and the technology tools you need to get started.
• Ways to leverage your podcast in a way to share your expertise, show your authority voice and as a result, bring good leads to your company.
• How to identify guests for your podcast show.

Also, if you’re interested in learning more about Startup Selling, one of the easiest ways for me to help you is to give you a (free) copy of my book called: “Startup Selling: How to Sell If You Really, Really Have To And Don’t Know How.” www.startupselling.co

Show Notes:

BeMyGuest [company website]: www.bemyguest.fm

Erik Jacobson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-jacobson-78811b54/

Jonathan Barshop: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-barshop/

Podcast Episode with Jonathan: www.choosefi.com/podcast-episodes

Masters of Scale [podcast]: mastersofscale.com

The Tim Ferriss Show: tim.blog/podcast

The Tim Ferriss Show episode #145 – The Interview Master: Cal Fussman and the Power of Listening: tim.blog/2016/03/11/the-interview-master-cal-fussman-and-the-power-of-listening

About The Hero's Journey: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey

SS

Today’s guest is Paul Rush, founder of Substantial – a digital design agency based in Seattle, Washington.

Substantial is a software product development company that help clients bring new software product into the market. Paul has sold huge projects and have worked with large companies such as Amazon, T-Mobile, Google, Mercedes Benz, ADO, and many more.

As the company founder, Paul has always been the lead salesperson and responsible for bringing in these companies as clients. And that’s exactly why I had Paul on the show...

Some of the topics to be discussed today are:

• The three types of company founders when it comes to sales and having a selling mindset.
• Why sales should be the number one priority for every company’s growth.
• The systems and frameworks Paul uses ensure that sales is the priority for him every day.
• The Goldilocks Rule for challenging yourself at the right level to make sure that your work is neither too easy or too difficult when it comes to selling.
• The importance of curiosity in the sales process.

Listen & Subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Also, if you’re interested in learning more about Startup Selling, one of the easiest ways for me to help you is to give you a (free) copy of my book called: “Startup Selling: How to Sell If You Really, Really Have To And Don’t Know How.”

Just go to www.startupselling.co and you can download your free copy right there.

Thanks so much for listening!

Today’s episode is a very special edition because it relates to my personal life and the lessons learned from it. Stephen Anderson and I take a deep dive into my most recent personal challenge – the Bryce Canyon 100-mile ultramarathon – and how the experience relates to startup life and selling.

Over the past five months, I’ve been training and preparing myself for the race. As a runner, a sales coach and an entrepreneur, I constantly see parallels and lessons that I feel are important to share with my team, clients and startup CEOs and Founders.

The race took place in Bryce Canyon in Southern Utah, and took over 30 hours to complete with more than a few obstacles and challenges along the way – elevation, weather and a challenging course.

It was a nervous and exciting feeling at the start, knowing that I’d put in the time and effort to get myself there.

It is the same when you’re starting a company – you’re excited to get started, ready to build and  grow your business, but nervous for all of the challenges ahead.

As a startup, there are so many obstacles on your journey and so you have to figure out ways to work through them without affecting or damaging yourself and the business to get to where you want to go.

This is the journey we chose. Excitement gets you started, but recognizing the reality of the journey requires emotional maturity and perseverance. It’s hard, and we know it’s going to be hard – it’s the only way to discover what we’re really capable of doing, who we really are, and what impact we can make to the people around us.

I also wrote a series of articles about the experience. Here are the links if you’d like to check them out:

1. Starting the Journey: From Excitement to Reality – Startup Lesson #1 from the Bryce Canyon 100:

https://salesqualia.com/starting-the-journey-from-excitement-to-reality-startup-lesson-1-from-the-bryce-canyon-100/

2. Knowing What’s Ahead Makes It Even Tougher – Startup Lesson #2 from the Bryce Canyon 100:

https://salesqualia.com/knowing-whats-ahead-makes-it-even-tougher-startup-lesson-2-from-the-bryce-canyon-100/

3. The Reality of the Distance: The Long F&cking Road Ahead – Startup Lesson #3 from the Bryce Canyon 100L

https://salesqualia.com/the-reality-of-the-distance-the-long-fcking-road-ahead-startup-lesson-3-from-the-bryce-canyon-100/

Listen & Subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Thanks for taking the time to listen to the Startup Selling podcast. If you are enjoying the content here, we’d love it if you would do two things, please.

One, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you are listening to The Startup Selling Show.

And two, please tell a friend or ten! The best way for others to find out about The Startup Selling Show is for them to hear it from people just like you. So if you’re liking the content here, please tell a friend or ten so that we can get the word out to as many people as possible.

Also, if you’re interested in learning more about Startup Selling, one of the easiest ways for me to help you is to download a free copy of my book called: “Startup Selling: How to Sell If You Really, Really Have To And Don’t Know How.”

Just go to www.startupselling.co and you can download your free copy right there.

Thanks so much for listening!

In today's podcast, we have with us Kelly Del Curto, Director of small business and corporate sales at Lever, the applicant tracking system.

Kelly started off as a Team Lead and Account Executive and has now become the Director of Small business and Corporate Sales at Lever. She enjoy helping small businesses source and hire the best candidates in the most efficient way.  

Below are some of the topics that we discussed in today’s Podcast are:

• Mistakes do people usually make when hiring especially when it comes to sales
• Where are good places to source great candidates (applications, inbound, where you put out your job post, referrals, etc), and what are the values of sourcing candidates
• Diversity in the hiring process and women in technology in the startup selling world.
• The importance of Cultural Fit and what would be the best practices when it comes to balancing technical vs non-technical and experienced vs non-experienced candidates

This Podcast is full of great hiring strategies that would be very useful when hiring a candidate for a post.

Also, if you’re interested in learning more about Startup Selling, one of the easiest ways for me to help you is to give you a (free) copy of my book called: “Startup Selling: How to Sell If You Really, Really Have To And Don’t Know How.”

Show Links

Kelly Del Curto on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kellydelcurto

How to balance untraditional backgrounds with a skillset to make an impact ASAP https://inside.lever.co/finding-a-company-and-community-that-celebrate-untraditional-backgrounds-in-tech-beddfe492c58

Women in Sales: https://inside.lever.co/how-to-avoid-the-horror-stories-of-being-a-woman-in-tech-sales-a59895a128d4

Lever: www.lever.co

Top Grading: www.topgrading.com

Book a Scale Session: www.salesqualia.com/scalesession

In this episode, Stephen and I discussed the importance of consistency, and defining the importance of Discipline vs Motivation.  Discipline will get stuff done, whether you want to or not, while Motivation is just the temporary attempt at making yourself want to do it.

Fighting to remain consistent is not an easy thing to tackle, especially if you're an entrepreneur with a busy schedule and your input is required for the business’s operation.

As a business, what the task at hand might be – such as consistently releasing new marketing content, finding ways to make your ten or twenty sales calls – and making it a habit regardless of how small the accomplishment might be, is the result of discipline, not motivation. Motivation is temporary while discipline is consistency.

In today's episode Stephen and I will be discussing 'Live Events' – why should you run live events for both your customers and your prospects. This topic came about from our recent Client Intensive event, where we bring our clients together three times a year for a two-day workshop in San Francisco to coach them in areas where they're having challenges, build and install systems in their startup’s sales process and have them work with either other to tackle tough problems each of them are facing.

Think about your day-to-day work and interactions with your customers – nearly everything is done virtually  – from mobile phones to video conference calls to email to Slack and more.

Having like-minded people in the same room to share their experience is a great method to build their business and build a community. Since every business faces some sort of challenge every day, it’s a great opportunity to listen and learn where mistakes can happen, and how can they be prevented simply by the experience shared from someone else in the room.

One of the top reasons for running live events is to bring out these entrepreneurs at least once in a while to a physical space to share their experience in where they're succeeding and where they are facing challenges.

You can do the same with your customers and prospects – whether you run your own event, or organize an event in tandem with an industry conference or association. The gains from getting away from the office and in a new, creative environment ALWAYS overrides the one-day loss of time with the team.

If you’re interested in getting some help with building the sales process at your startup, be sure to grab a free copy of my book called: “Startup Selling: How to Sell If You Really, Really Have To And Don’t Know How.”

Download your free copy here at https://www.startupselling.co/

The process is the process!  In today's episode of the Startup Selling podcast, we did a Daily Dose edition. Stephen and I talk about the concept of the process is the process.

A couple of quick notes about this episode. First of all, we talked about the importance of process versus outcome. How many times do we scramble, and work, and grit our way to an outcome; however, without a measurable, distinct, process that outcome might be achieved, but it is either not repeatable or we don't know exactly why we achieved that outcome. Second, the process is important because it allows us to then specifically test some new ideas and see how we can continuously improve. And third, in this episode, we give you a little backstage look on one of our processes that actually did not go as planned with a new client, what we learned from it and how we improved things moving forward.

Thanks for taking the time to listen to the Startup Selling podcast. If you are enjoying the content here, we'd love it if you would do two things, please. One,  leave a review on iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify, or wherever you are listening to the Startup Selling podcast. And two, please tell a friend or 10! The best way for others to hear and to learn about the Startup Selling podcast is for them to hear it from people just like you. So if you're digging the content, please tell a friend or 10 so that we can get the word out to as many people as possible.

Also, if you’re interested in learning more about Startup Selling, one of the easiest ways for me to help you is to give you a (free) copy of my book called: “Startup Selling: How to Sell If You Really, Really Have To And Don’t Know How.”

Just go to www.startupselling.co and you can download your free copy right there.

Thanks so much for listening!

Today's episode is a little bit of an experiment. So here's what I want to do. Every month I run what's called a Live Sales Q and. A. It's an open forum Webinar for anybody wants to join and ask whatever sales question they have - could be a question about their prospecting, about their pipeline pull through, building teams, managing teams, SDR metrics, whatever sales related topics come up. I answer them!  In this particular case, there were three topics that came up, which were pretty top of mind for a lot of people out there.

So in this particular episode, we covered three main topics. The first topic that we covered was cold calling: when to cold call, is cold calling dead, how to cold call, and how to think about cold calling as part of an outreach sequence. We certainly tackled the question of cold calling, in general, more so what we did is talk about the importance of outbound calling. I don't call it cold calling cause I think there's no reason to do a pure cold call anymore, but I think of it as warm calling. And so we talked about how to use warm calling as part of it multitouch on the channel sales engagement sequence.

The second topic that I covered in this live sales Q and A was on partnerships, when to use partnerships and how to use partnerships as part of your sales funnel at your startup.  In particular there are three different places where you can use partnerships: one based on prospecting and legion, the second one being in your sales pipeline to co-sell or resell your product, and third, on the customer success integration side of your business. We talked in detail about those three parts of your sales funnel and how partnerships could be part of what you're doing to both distribute your product and of course sell and support your product.

The third topic that we talked about was how to assess an account executive. More specifically, how do we know if somebody is the right fit? How do we know that somebody is motivated by the right things to make sure that they're a good match culturally with our startup, and for our staff, as it relates to our vision, mission, and values of the company.  Not just are they the kind of person that can sell my stuff.

Those are the three big topics that we covered in the Live Q and A. I'd love to get your feedback if you feel like this is a good way to redistribute this information and content that we're doing.

We can certainly pop more of this type of content into the podcasts so that if you're listening on your commute, listening in the car, or maybe as you're shopping at Trader Joe's (it's one of the places I listen to podcasts all the time). If it's the same for you and if this is a way for us to get more content, more information and more ideas to you, the startup founder and the startup sales leader, then by all means, I'm happy to do it as part of our podcast sequence.

I'll make two asks of you: one ask is that if you are listening to this podcast and you are what I call a repeat offender, that probably tells me that you really like the content. And if you do like the content, please leave a review on SoundCloud, iTunes, Spotify. Where are you? I would love to see your review. Not just for me though, it helps other people just like you find the podcast and helps us to increase the number of people that are listening, downloading and subscribing to what we're doing here.

Number two is if you would tell a friend or 10 about this podcast, that would be awesome. A word of mouth is still the best way to get the distribution of this content out to more and more people.

Thanks so much for listening and look forward to seeing your review!  

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Scott Sambucci from SalesQualia on his Startup Selling Podcast recently to discuss digital marketing for startups.

We touch on the mistakes startups make when setting up their digital marketing strategy, how to pick your marketing channels, why you need to pick a niche and focus on it, and so much more…

The interview focuses both on how a startup business owner can improve their marketing, AND common mistakes everyone should avoid.

Here are just a few of the topics we tackled in our conversation:

• The biggest mistakes startups make when setting up their marketing strategy.
• How to reverse engineer your marketing.
• Doing stuff and making noise vs driving towards specific results.
• The importance of focusing on a niche vs trying to sell to everyone.
• Why you need to set up strict KPIs for all of your marketing activities.
• The different types of channel: How to select the right channels. What is channel bias and how to avoid it.

You can listen to the podcast over here on the SalesQualia website.

Enjoy!