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Startup Selling: Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci

Over the past twenty years, I’ve led three Silicon Valley startups to their first customers and revenue, and sold everything from financial data, enterprise software, and vaporware to cabinet doors, amusement park daily programs, and “would you like fries with that…?” My customers have included the largest financial institutions in the world, top US Universities, cabinet door makers and people that eat at Applebees and go to amusement parks... I’ve learned a lot, and made a few, ahem, well… a lot, of mistakes. Here in The Sales Podcast with Scott Sambucci, I share the lessons learned from my past two decades of selling. In each episode, I discuss a specific topic in selling and sales strategy like how to find new prospective customers, how to manage leads, how to run an effective sales meeting, uncovering customer needs, and developing pricing strategies. Episodes are a mix of guest interviews, observations from the field, and sales techniques that I’m using every single day. And people that care about such things, I’ve written two books, been a TEDx Speaker, been featured on CNBC, The Financial Times and NPR. Oh… I’m also a husband, a dad, and a three-time Ironman triathlete. Build your sales process so that you can have the company you imagine. The Sales Podcast with Scott Sambucci will help you get there.
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Now displaying: April, 2020
Apr 30, 2020

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I was interviewed by Neil Fontenot. 

 

Neil is an entrepreneurial and versatile technology sales leader, skilled at exceeding quotas and maximizing revenue.

 

His experience in Fortune 100 Financial Services, FinTech, InsureTech, AI, and SaaS startups combined with storytelling talent allows him to convey value, ROI, and close deals. 

 

As a leader of people, Neil is not afraid to roll up his sleeves and get my hands dirty to find and address any challenge a business may face.

 

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



  • What’s been working for me in this new environment?
  • What have been the biggest changes in my day and life with COVID?
  • The challenges and adjustments when you’re a parent with a child now home from school?
  • How do you stay positive and find progress in daily life?
  • The importance of discipline and exercise every day.
  • Doing your best and accepting that you’re doing the best that you can.
  • What’s changed in my life and what new activities have I done in the past two months?
  • What are the sales strategies we’re recommending to our clients?
  • The importance of setting small goals every day, celebrating those wins, and then keeping yourself moving.
  • Why every person that’s struggling should ask for help?




Links & Resources

 

Neil Fontenot on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/neilfontenot




Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia.com

Apr 28, 2020

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed CEO of Chili Piper, Nicolas Vandenberghe.

 

Nicolas started his career by selling newspapers in the streets of Paris in high school, studied Maths at Ecole Polytechnique, and then received his MBA from Stanford GSB. 

 

He then started and sold 2 tech companies with up to 65 employees and $11M in revenues, and also ran sales for a $2B telecom firm negotiating billion-dollar deals with companies like Google.

 

After having his 3rd tech startup put out of business by Salesforce, Nicolas rebranded his company “Floating Apps” to “Chili Piper” and then self-funded with no remaining employees. He used the “Bull’s Eye” marketing strategy to close in-person the first $1 million in revenues himself with companies like Intuit, Square, Twilio, and Greenhouse in under 12 months.

 

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



  • How to reduce friction in the sales process.
  • The importance of a “Thank You!” page for requesting demos or other pieces of information from your page.
  • How quickly you can get someone from ‘Interested’ to ‘booking the meeting’.
  • The importance of selling a product that does not exist and getting your customers to prepay you.
  • The importance of having a quick response rate in order to take advantage of the people that are interested in your product.
  • Call times and conversion rate – How sales can be lost due to slow response times.
  • The importance of reference points in making decisions when it comes to pricing and anchoring your customers to what your product does and how it can solve their problems.



Links & Resources

 

Chili Piper: www.chilipiper.com

 

Nicolas Vandenberghe: www.linkedin.com/in/nvandenberghe





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.

Apr 21, 2020

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed entrepreneur and Founder of Lead Cookie and Content Allies, Jake Jorgovan.

 

Lead Cookie helps B2B sales teams generate leads through LinkedIn prospecting. They manage your LinkedIn account and start conversations between you and your target customers.

 

Content Allies cater to Events associations and Consulting Firms where they create Podcasts, Articles, White Papers, and Social Content. 



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



  • How to use LinkedIn for engagement and lead generation.
  • Why you should think about your engagement campaign in “small segments”.
  • The 3 factors of relevancy on LinkedIn.
  • Technical factors such as the number of LinkedIn connection requests you can send on a daily basis.
  • Sales Navigator and how it is designed for sales research and other sales activity.
  • The 4 step process in your engagement to identify if whether the person you are connecting with is a lead or not.
  • How can the leads that are not qualified be useful to build your LinkedIn network?
  • Tips that will make you feel confident that ‘now’ is the right time to do prospecting.




Links & Resources

 

Jake Jorgovan: www.linkedin.com/in/jakejorgovan

 

Lead Cookie: www.leadcookie.com

 

Content Allies: contentallies.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.

Apr 14, 2020

Ep. 82: Role Playing & Assessments in Your Sales Hiring Process: An interview with Aspireship's Christine Rogers 



In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed President and COO of Aspireship, Christine Rogers.

 

Christine is a seasoned sales and marketing leader with over 15 years of recruiting, hiring, training, and managing high-performing sales teams at Infusionsoft and Booker by MindBody to name a few.  

 

Currently, she's the President and COO of Aspireship, a platform designed to match high potential sales candidates with great SaaS companies looking to hire. They do this through an exclusive network of candidates who prove themselves through their training and assessment process, and also by providing tools to help companies better discover talent within their existing network. 



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



  • “Should I be hiring now?”
  • Bloat: Looking at ways to cut expenses.
  • Taking steps forward to start building your business again.
  • Getting clear on what are the real metrics for hiring.
  • The importance of having a process for hiring and having alignment around culture, mission, and values.
  • How do we access which salespeople are good versus the ones that look good on paper?
  • How do we get the salespeople to role play – in this way, we can access their ability to sell. This gives your candidates an option to disqualify themselves.
  • How to make decisions when it comes to moving forward with a candidate or not.




Links & Resources

 

Aspireship: aspireship.com

Christine Rogers on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/christinerogers2



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.

Apr 7, 2020

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed author and CEO, Chris Spurvey.

 

After consciously choosing entrepreneurship as a means to create a better life for his family, Chris realized that negative beliefs about sales were holding him back from taking his ventures to the next level. He saw this as a major hurdle to not only his businesses but the businesses of virtually every other entrepreneur. 

 

Chris spearheaded the growth of Plato Consulting to the point it was acquired by one of the largest management consulting firms in the world (KPMG). In the process, he sold over $300 million in consulting services.

 

Following the acquisition, Chris turned his focus to helping other “non-sales sellers” find a way to grow their revenue in a consistent, stress-free manner.

 

Chris’s newest venture is Dockridge Digital, a technology consulting and product development company focusing on helping businesses leverage digital to serve their customers.



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



  • Chris’s background and his transition from the mindset “sales is something you do to people/being pushy” to “sales is a place for problem-solving”
  • The general approach to sales – sales is not about doing something to someone, sales is about curiosity
  • Diagnostic conversation – How to be related and being more relevant
  • How do we sell in our current environment
  • How to problem-solve for our customers




Links & Resources

 

LinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/in/chrisspurvey

 

Website:www.chrisspurvey.com

 

It's time to sell on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2R6vxSs




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.

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