In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed Carson Conant.

Carson Conant is the CEO and Founder of Chicago-based sales enablement solution provider Mediafly.

Having grown up in an entrepreneurial family, Carson is no stranger to the challenges and rewards of building a company from the ground up and assembling a brilliant team to successfully execute on his vision. 

Under Carson’s leadership, Mediafly has been recognized as an Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company for five consecutive years, one of Inc.’s Best Workplaces of 2018, and a Best Place to Work by Crain’s Chicago Business. Mediafly’s software is currently leveraged by top Fortune 500 companies including PepsiCo, MillerCoors, Disney, and Goldman Sachs.

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

• What does sales enablement mean?
• The difference between marketing and sales content.
• When and how to use content in your sales process.
• The lessons from marketing and its functions in an organization.
• When to update your content whether it is a video presentation, case study, or powerpoints.
• When is the best time to establish a sales-enablement role in your organization? 

Links & Resources

Mediafly: www.mediafly.com

The Evolved Selling Institute: www.evolvedselling.com

Carson Conant on LinkedIn: ww.linkedin.com/in/carsonconant

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In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed Aaron Krall.

Aaron Krall helps SaaS companies drive more leads, convert more users, and accelerate growth. His proven, done-for-you systems and frameworks have increased conversions, automated sales, and reduced churn for companies like Reply.io and IBM.

Aaron also runs the largest SaaS community in the world: SaaS Growth Hacks on Facebook. 

He lives in Salt Lake City with his wife, Natalie, his son, Arlo, and dog, Penny.

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

• Self-Serve vs Sales – What are the types of products that work with a self-serve system versus the types of products that require a sale.
• Selling vs Marketing – When & how should you be marketing and how should you be selling?
• What makes a good marketing strategy?
• Internal vs External Realities – How you can use your internal realities as part of your marketing strategy.
• What are key metrics that you should be looking at in your Marketing?
• The importance of looking at your metrics on a weekly basis and identifying the impact areas within the business.

Links & Resources

Aarons Linkedin profile: www.linkedin.com/in/aaronkrall

SaaS Growth Hacks: www.facebook.com/groups/SaaSgrowthhacking

Understanding Your Customer’s Desired Outcome: sixteenventures.com/customer-success-desired-outcome

People & Products mentioned:

Bench: www.bench.co

Sujan Patel: sujanpatel.com

Mailshake: www.mailshake.com

ClickFunnels: www.clickfunnels.com

Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/

Russell Brunson: www.russellbrunson.com/hi

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In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed CEO at Chorus, Jim Benton.

Jim joined Chorus.ai as CEO to bring Conversation Intelligence, the fastest-growing category in sales technology, to the masses. 

As a former Co-Founder of ClearSlide and CEO of Apollo, Benton’s career is defined by revenue generation and applying the voice of the customer. 

Chorus will continue delivering solutions to improve the consistency and quality of the customer experience, quota attainment, and shortening new-hire onboarding for high-growth teams, like those of Zoom and MongoDB.

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

• Sales Productivity – connect rates and follow up meetings resulting from the initial conversation.
• How many times have phrases like “COVID” come up in your conversation?
• Tactical changes that can be made to the way that you’re operating your sales team. 
• How the work of a salesperson has changed as we enter into this new way of selling.
• The importance of getting clear on the problems and who the buyers are on the other side of the table.
• The importance of bringing both sides of the executive team to the meeting.
• The importance of authenticity. Give your team permission to be human in their conversation.
• Jim’s experience cold-emailing Steve Jobs and how he got a deal between Ticket Master and Apple.

Links & Resources

Chorus.ai: www.chorus.ai

ClearSlide: www.clearslide.com

Jim Benton on LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/benton

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In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed Laura Janusik.

Laura Janusik is a dynamic professor, trainer, researcher, speaker, and business consultant. Laura has won numerous research and teaching awards from different professional and academic associations, and she is one of the world’s leading experts in teaching and training listening.

All of Laura’s work is supported by the most current research, which she shares and applies in training, coaching, and consulting. Her approach to communication, both oral and written, is practical and other-centered. Her specialty areas include listening cognitions and metacognitions, healthcare, pedagogy, intercultural listening, and interpersonal communication.   

She is a past president of the International Listening Association, and she is published both nationally and internationally.  

Laura uses the ECHO Listening Profile™ in much of her work with individuals and teams. The ECHO is a scientifically validated instrument to measure an individual or team’s listening dominance. With this tool, listening blind spots are quickly identified, and Laura helps individuals and teams listen from their blind spots so that they can increase shared understanding, make sure everyone is working towards the same goal at the same time and decreases costs by reducing meeting times as well as rework.

 She holds a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Maryland at College Park and an MBA from Rockhurst University in Kansas City, MO.

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

• What does it mean to have a listening strategy.
• What is the process for listening and how does the brain work.
• The difference between listening and hearing.
• Cognitive pieces of the brain and how does listening work.
• How we understand the information that we hear and how do we process it from a response or no response standpoint.
• The four listening habits – Connective, Reflective, Analytical, and Conceptual.
• Defining and identifying which of those might be your dominant listening habit.
• Signal that you can use to identify other people’s listening habits to understand their type of communicating.

Links & Resources

Laura Janusik on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/laurajanusikphd

ECHO Listening Intelligence: www.echolistening.com

Interested in learning more? Feel free to contact Laura at LJanusik@gmail.com for a free consultation.

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In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I was interviewed by Business Coach and Mentor, Jason Everett.

Jason Everett is one of those rare individuals that have the ability to harness and leverage technology like a second nature superpower and use if for online teaching, training, and education. 

As the founder of several successful international digital training and technology companies, he is a powerhouse of information and can pack weeks worth of technology learning into an easily digestible short format class that makes learning it a pleasure.

 He breaks things down into simple to implement an easy step by step approach no matter what level of “tech nerd” you are. He’s has generated millions in sales as a result of his videos and courses and has been asked to speak in Japan, Peru, Paris, Egypt and countless other counties to share his passion for digital education.

 He has always been a pioneer and out-front leader in the virtual and real-world of all things digital.

If you are looking to upskill your team or kick your tech-knowledge to the next level then bring in Jason to share his knowledge and passion – he will leave you feeling charged up and ready to take on this new world over video. 

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

• The idea that everyone is running their own Ultra Marathon right now – and it’s a race without a finish line in sight. 
• Hair Salon Owners doing virtual consults, doorstep beauty kit drop-offs & give-yourself-a-haircut videos. 
• Making 10 calls every day to the books as a Hair Salon Owner.
• Action. Ownership. Leadership.

Links & Resources

Jason Everett: www.linkedin.com/in/jasoneverett

High Performance Salon: www.facebook.com/highperformancesalon

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In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed best-selling author, and coach, Brian Robinson.

Brian Robinson is a sales and marketing expert, best-selling author, and coach. He has worked for some of the best-known companies in the world, including Coca-Cola USA and Johnson & Johnson.

Upon leaving his corporate career, he helped launch a successful startup where he was the first person in the history of the industry to sell more than one million dollars in business in twelve months—entirely by phone.

He has over two decades of in-the-trenches, battle-tested, face-to-face, and phone-presentation experience that can benefit virtually anyone, from Fortune 500 companies to entrepreneurial ventures.

Brian is the author of the Amazon #1 Best-Seller, THE SELLING FORMULA: 5 Steps for Instant Sales Improvement.

Brian and his wife Cindy reside in the Oklahoma City area and have eight children - which could be the topic of an entire podcast in and of itself!

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

• THE SELLING FORMULA: 5 Steps for Instant Sales Improvement: Connect, Interview, Present, Share, and Close.
• The “Why” behind each of the five steps.
• The importance of having a pre-built list of questions in your sales calls.
•  The importance of using fact-finding and emotional types of questions in your sales call.
• Why is it necessary to set the agenda for every meeting? 
• Interview as if you are a reporter.
• Pricing strategies and ways to share your price.
• The importance of including and creating a guarantee with your products and presenting it early in your sales process.

Links & Resources

The Selling Formula (audio): brianrobinsonbook.com/free-audio-download

The Selling Formula: thesellingformula.com

Brian Robinson: linkedin.com/in/brianwrobinson

Calfussman: www.calfussman.com

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Selling Strategies in a Volatile Market

1. Don’t believe everything you think.
2. Relationships first.
3. There’s no such thing “All” and “Everyone”
4. Christmas was 90 days ago…
5. Your Prospects don’t panic-buy, so don’t panic-sell
6. Customers buy Outcomes, and simple steps create stable outcomes.
7. Slow is Smooth, and Smooth is Fast.
8. Be the Mayor of your town.
9. People will borrow certainty from the person who has the most of it in the room.
10. Your customer is on their Hero’s Journey. If you found this useful, please Like, Comment & Share ASAP.

#enterprisesales #gofarther #startupsales #sales #saassales #salespipeline #salesplan #selling

I should be on a plane to Florida for a father-son weekend.

One client runs a live event every April that’s now going virtual. Other clients planned on conferences for lead gen & meetings. We run a live event in May and I’ve got a decision to make very, very soon.

What’s the opportunity in all of this?

For the one client, it’s the chance to build a whole new system of delivering value and serving her community.

For others, it’s a forcing function to create new lead gen systems through outbound, virtual events & podcasts.

For my business, it’s an opportunity for our international teams to join the event when we go virtual.

This morning, I made breakfast for my son and took him to school. This afternoon, I’ll pick him up from jui-jitsu and head to the skate park. 

In just ten years, he’ll be out on his own and I’ll be looking to plan a father-son weekend with him.

I’ll do a trail run on Saturday. My wife & I can do date night.

Right now, I’m enjoying a stellar coffee at my local shop instead of the lukewarm airplane swill.

Disruptions suck, but they can offer a gift. 

We can’t control what happens to us. We can control how we respond to it.  

#GoFarther #Leadership #startups

Elevate Yourself with a Strong Peer Group –– Startup Lessons from the Trail

A huge challenge in running a startup is the isolation that goes with it – building strategies, figuring out to implement them, identifying blind spots & mistakes to avoid.

This weekend’s trail run reminded me why we all need a strong peer group.

My friends Kelly & Katy invited me to join them for a run in “the Canyons” – a challenging section of the Western States 100 course. Both of them are doing this year’s race too. Kelly’s done it 3x, including two sub-24 hour finishes & Katy did it in 2014.

I learned all kinds of lessons I otherwise might not have learned. Small lessons –poison oak is already growing along the trail – and big lessons – the first mile of a 1500’ climb from Volcano Creek to Michigan Bluff is the worst part.

They pushed me to go one more mile before turning around to the car, adding an extra 10% to the day I wouldn’t have done on my own.

I considered the run to be a "bonus" – a jumpstart in my training, but we met at least 10 runners out there also in this year's race, including a guy who flew from Pennsylvania to check out the trail. My "extra" was just table stakes.

Elevate your thinking. Speed your learning. Find your peer group.

No more $10 ice cream sandwiches.

It’s been two weeks since I finished the Tarawera 100 – a 100-mile ultramarathon in New Zealand. 

Usually the emotional overwhelm of completing a race like this brings me to tears at the finish line. That didn’t happen at Tarawera and since then, I’ve been struggling to figure out why.

Meanwhile, I’ve been giving myself permission to go lax on my diet. Friday night was the pinnacle – I ate more than an entire pizza, downed two large IPAs, then capped off the gluttony with a $10 ice cream sandwich.

Do you know how much ice cream and cookie goes into a $10 ice cream sandwich? 

My next race is on June 27th – the Western States 100, the world's oldest 100-mile trail race. More than 10,000 runners try to land one of the 369 available spots every year, and I got a spot in the 2020 race.

Not only do I want to cross the finish line, but I want to earn the silver buckle that goes with completing the race in under 24 hours.  I’ve never finished a 100-mile race in under 24 hours. The Western States is one of the toughest races in the world – 18,000’ of elevation gain,, yet I know I’m capable of reaching this goal.

After Tarawera, I told myself I’d go easy for a few weeks and start training sometime in March. I’d eat what I wanted. Train less. Give myself a break.

But I can’t. I spent Saturday morning mapping out the next four months of my life, work and training. I’ve been hitting the garage the past week and feeling strong. On Sunday, I paced a local 13.1-mile race, and felt good the whole way.

I’ve got four months to the race start and no excuses about why I can’t start my training now. Today. On February 24th. So I am. Right now./

I’m plenty proud of finishing the Tarawera 100, but what I realized is that was once a peak accomplishment is now my foundation, my starting point for the next big thing. It’s time to break through the next ceiling, to elevate my mindset and personal expectations because I know that I can. 

All of the work, all of the training, all of the endurance races that I’ve done over the past 12 years is all just foundation to get me here, to a place where I can seize this opportunity ahead of me over the next four months. The only person holding me back is me.

This is my public accountability to every single person reading this post. My goal is to run the last 1/4 mile around the track of Placer High School knowing that I’ve done it – to see a finishing time of 23:59 or better. To cross the finish line at 4:59AM or sooner on Sunday, June 28 because I know that I can, if I put in the right work and the right effort in the next four months.

Let’s do this.

#GoFarther 

I’m 10 days from my next ultra-marathon — the Tarawera 100. The locals refer to it as “the miler…”

I’m so close to the starting line, and in the final weeks before a race, I get tired – I’m tired of training. I’m tired of early mornings. I’m tired of my diet. I’m tired of centering my life around one day in the calendar.

That’s when it’s most important to stay disciplined, to stay on track, to do the work. I didn't want to do the work this morning. I searched for reasons why I should skip this morning's run, but anything I thought of was just another excuse. So I got up, got out and did the work.

It’s the same with your startup. You’ve been pushing towards the next product launch, or the big conference, or that implementation with your “logo customer.”

It’s easy to get tired. You SHOULD be tired – you’ve been pushing for weeks and months to get there, so it’s natural to want to let down or back off a little and hope you can coast.

That’s exactly when you have to look at what you must to do to see it through, and usually that’s simply focusing on the task at hand – to just do the work.

Do the work. Go Farther.

Zach Stein joined me on my podcast, describing the decision-making frameworks he used as CEO at Osmo. (Check the comments below for a link to the episode.)

We talked about “making one decision to save a thousand” that Greg McKeown detailed in his book, *Essentialism.*

This week, I decided to skip all Super Bowl media - no ESPN, no news, no sports talk radio. I’ll be in New Zealand teaching a sales workshop when the game's on. If I can’t watch it, why do I care? 

You’ve got hundreds of decisions to make everyday – how to spend your time, which features to add, who to hire, how to price that one deal....

While many decisions are bespoke, many can be grouped so that if you make one decision, it saves a hundred later.

1. What if you decided to only check email 3x/day – at 10am, 2pm & 6pm?  

Think about how many rabbit holes you follow b/c you’re constantly checking your phone.

2. What if you decided to stop sending proposals when prospects ask for them?  

Think about how much time and energy is wasted writing them then chasing prospects, only to hear – “Ping me in …”

3. What if you decided to do 1:1s with every team member this week? 

Think how would that change your relationship abd what you’d learn about their work.

Having Time vs Making Time: A Lesson from the Trail

I’m two weeks from the Tarawera 100-miler and I’m asked all the time –

“How to do have the time to train for ultramarathons?”

I don’t HAVE the time. I MAKE the time – every week, every day.

Today, I'm on the 5:50am train to spend the day at the Alchemist Accelerator Demo Day, so making time meant crawling out to the garage at 4am for a workout.

Every day, it’s the same - making time in between everything else that I gotta do – clients, workshops, picking up my son from jiu-jitsu, swapping kitchen duties with my wife. 

Making time means bolting out the door at 6am on Saturdays for a quick 10 miles. 

Making time means deadlifts at 7am on Sunday morning. 

Making time means running hills in Bernal Heights at 4am when I’m in SF for the night.

Making time means unapologetically blocking time on a Tuesday afternoon for midday run.

I get it – the investor meetings… product releases… candidate interviews… 

You never have the time to sell, but your company, and customers, need you to sell. Stop waiting until you have the time to sell, and make the time instead.

Type WORKSHEET below & I’ll send you our “10-Hour Sales Week Planner.” It’ll help you make the time. Because that’s what you gotta do.

In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed Refract Co-Founder, Richard Smith.

Richard has over ten years of sales experience working for and building high activity and scalable outbound software sales teams. He has been a regular contributor to leading sales content sites such as Hubspot and SalesHacker and was nominated as a Top 50 SaaS Sales Leader in the UK. 

Richard is passionate about fixing the broken mindset towards sales coaching and helping salespeople become the very best they can be.

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

• The importance of product demo as a catalyst in your sales process.
• Why is it important to qualify your leads.
• Understanding when it is fitting to have a smaller pipeline. 
• The importance of being vigilant when qualifying your leads.
• Keeping yourself accountable when it comes to selling your product.

Links & Resources

Richard on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/richard-smith-refract

Refract website:  www.refract.ai

The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million:

www.amazon.com/Sales-Acceleration-Formula-Technology-Inbound/dp/1119047072 

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

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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 Refract Co-Founder, Richard Smith.

Richard has over ten years of sales experience working for and building high activity and scalable outbound software sales teams. He has been a regular contributor to leading sales content sites such as Hubspot and SalesHacker and was nominated as a Top 50 SaaS Sales Leader in the UK. 

Richard is passionate about fixing the broken mindset to sales coaching and helping salespeople become the very best they can be.

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

• The importance of having a meaningful conversation that therefore creates a positive experience for your customer.
• Focus the discovery call on where the sales are won or lost.
• Create a checklist from your experience with leading indicators for good sales conversation.
• The need for approval that salespeople have and how it can work against them.
• Tips to create an environment where you can ask tough questions and lower the resistance in the sale.
• How to use the simplistic questions in your discovery call.
• Why the phrase ‘I think’ can negatively influence you in your sales.
• Frameworks to analyze your sales conversation to improve and make your own sales conversation better.

Links & Resources

Richard on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/richard-smith-refract

Refract website: www.refract.ai

The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million:

www.amazon.com/Sales-Acceleration-Formula-Technology-Inbound/dp/1119047072 

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“Daily Dose: The past is the past” 

If you've watched my videos lately you know that two months ago, I ran a 200-mile ultramarathon around Lake Tahoe.  For the last eight weeks, I've been celebrating and enjoying my personal glory of finishing this race. 

There comes a time where you've got to transition from what you've done to what you're going to do.  Even my friends around me are asking – "Man, that was really cool. What's next?" 

This past week, I've accepted a simple, important lesson –

The past is the past, and it's time to move on to the future. 

Too often, we can find ourselves lulled into a sense of completion, a sense of finality. We feel great about that product launch or that new customer or the leads we got from the conference booth.

When you've done something important and hard, you absolutely have to take time to celebrate. You must take the time to rejoice in your accomplishments.

After that celebration is over, huddle up with your team and ask, "Okay, what's next?" and get back to work.

For me, I registered for two new races, two 100-milers, one in February and one in June.  I might have a third in August. Regardless, I'm not past the past, and looking ahead to what's next.

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“Daily Dose: One Step at a Time"

I just signed up for my next ultra marathon – it's in February down in New Zealand.

This past weekend, I built out the next three months – what does the training look like? What's January going to look like?  What's December gonna look like? What is the rest of November going to look like?

From there I break it down week-by-week – When are my long runs in the hills and how will I fit in my training with the holidays.

People ask me all the time – "How do you train? How do you get ready for these races?" 

And there's something that I realized over the weekend as I was getting ready for my one workout on Sunday morning. 

As much as I put together monthly training programs or three-month training programs and how I want each week to look, the one thing that matters is the next workout.

For your company, the lesson is the same.

When you're building your company and you're growing your sales, too often we fixate on where do we need to be by the end of the year? Where do we need to be by the end of next quarter? 

Yes, you've got to set the vision. You need to know where you want to go. 

But when it comes down to it, it starts with doing those 20 calls today. It starts with preparing the right way for the next meeting. It starts with having the right plan of action for that conference you're flying to tomorrow. 

Everything begins with that one thing that's in front of you – next sales call, the next customer, the next product release. 

Just do the next thing, do the one thing that's in front of you, that's gonna get you closer to where you want to do – one step at a time.

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In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed TaskDrive's, Chief Revenue Officer, Mark Colgan.

Mark has over eleven years of experience in B2B sales and marketing. As the TaskDrive CRO, Mark leads the growth strategies across 100-person remote sales, marketing, customer success, and product teams.

 In his spare time, he helps B2B SaaS companies scale revenue with their sales and marketing automation and customer journey optimization.

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

• His process for lead research at TaskDrive.
• Signals to use when you are doing lead research. Some examples are hiring, press releases, online articles, technology change, and job titles.
• How to use inbound and outbound marketing strategies in your sales process.
• The importance of identifying the customers that are actively buying, open to buying and the ones that are not buying.
• Strategies to target and win back the customers that are not actively buying.
• Identifying some key lead sourcing playbooks for B2B companies.

Links & resources

TaskDrive: taskdrive.com

Mark Colgan on LinkedIn: 

www.linkedin.com/in/markcolganmarketing

[Blog Post] 14 Lead sourcing playbooks for B2B companies:

taskdrive.com/lead-generation/lead-sourcing-playbooks-for-b2b-companies

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“Daily Dose: Dude – Are you good?”

This kid was 8-years-old and he needed to know.  This was serious business – a birthday party kickball game with all of his friends from school.

Another dad and I jumped into the mix to make things interesting for the kids.

Team captains were selected and it was time to pick teams.  This 8-year picked his best friend first, and when it came time for his next pick, the best friend pointed at me and said – “Pick him! Pick him!”

With my running and training regimen, I’m a pretty athletic-looking guy. Not to mention I’m a 45-year-old adult playing against a bunch of kids.  It was pretty obvious to me that he should pick me net.

But none of that mattered to him. He didn’t know about the three Ironmans. He didn’t know about my 100- and 200-mile ultramarathons. 

To him, I was just another person in the crowd. All he wanted to know is if I was going to help him win. That’s it. Plain and simple.

It’s like that with your company.  

Your customers don’t care about your funding. They don’t care who your investors are. They don’t care about what you’ve done before. They don’t care about your past success.

All they care about is what you can do for them, right now, today. Can you help them win in their game?  

He did pick me, and when he did, I felt like I had something to prove to show him that he made the right choice. 

Completely silly, right? But that’s how it should work. Nothing is a given.

Earn every customer. Help them win. 

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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

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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.