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How to Improve Your Closing Percentage

January 24, 2022/in Career Advice, Communication Skills, Expert Positioning, General Tips, Prospecting-Business Development, Sales Process/by Bill Caskey

This might be one of the most neglected metric in selling today: Closing percentage.

That percentage of deals that you quote compared to the # of deals closed.

Here’s a quick video I shot where I give you three areas that might be affecting your closing percentage and hopefully will help you to improve it.

To download my FREE guide, “5 Reasons You Don’t Have Enough Clients”, just go to http://5reasonsclients.com!

Subscribe to The Bill Caskey Podcast to get this delivered to your phone weekly!

 

 

https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ClosingPercentage.png 720 1280 Bill Caskey https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/BC-Logo-2018-Padding.png Bill Caskey2022-01-24 20:19:432022-01-25 14:51:34How to Improve Your Closing Percentage

3 Ways To Avoid Getting The DING LETTER

January 20, 2022/in Career Advice, Communication Skills, Expert Positioning, General Tips, Podcasts, Prospecting-Business Development, Sales Process, The Bill Caskey Podcast/by Bill Caskey

This is a common problem with professional sellers: Everything going well, or at least you think it is…and presto, there it is…the email from the prospect. “We’ve decided to go a different direction.” Yuck!!!

I hate to say this – but it might have something to do with HOW you took your prospect through the sales process – I said “might.” In this video, I share three things that you can do right now to shore up the process and AVOID THE DING.

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To watch the video version of this podcast, go to https://billcaskey.com/mainwp/3-ways-avoid-getting-ding-letter

To download my FREE guide, “5 Reasons You Don’t Have Enough Clients”, just go to http://5reasonsclients.com!

Subscribe to The Bill Caskey Podcast to get this delivered to your phone weekly!

 
https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BC-Pod-01-19-21.jpg 720 1280 Bill Caskey https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/BC-Logo-2018-Padding.png Bill Caskey2022-01-20 14:58:122022-01-20 14:58:123 Ways To Avoid Getting The DING LETTER

3 Ways To Avoid Getting The “DING LETTER”

January 17, 2022/in Career Advice, Communication Skills, Expert Positioning, General Tips, Prospecting-Business Development, Sales Process/by Bill Caskey

This is a common problem with professional sellers: Everything going well, or at least you think it is…and presto, there it is…the email from the prospect. “We’ve decided to go a different direction.” Yuck!!!

I hate to say this – but it might have something to do with HOW you took your prospect through the sales process – I said “might.” In this video, I share three things that you can do right now to shore up the process and AVOID THE DING.

To download my FREE guide, “5 Reasons You Don’t Have Enough Clients”, just go to http://5reasonsclients.com!

Subscribe to The Bill Caskey Podcast to get this delivered to your phone weekly!

 

 

https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Ding-Letter-Youtube-Thumbnail-1.png 720 1280 Bill Caskey https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/BC-Logo-2018-Padding.png Bill Caskey2022-01-17 14:54:022022-01-18 19:02:323 Ways To Avoid Getting The “DING LETTER”

Is Tension Affecting Your Performance?

December 15, 2021/in Career Advice, Communication Skills, Expert Positioning, General Tips, Goal Setting, Mindset, Personal, Personal Productivity, Podcasts, Prospecting-Business Development, Sales Process, The Bill Caskey Podcast/by Bill Caskey

Tension can come from all areas of our life. But, how we handle this tension can create harmony or create disharmony in ourselves.

In this episode, I’ll give you some of the tensions to pay attention to and how you can handle them properly.

To download my FREE guide, “5 Reasons You Don’t Have Enough Clients”, just go to http://5reasonsclients.com!

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Also mentioned in this podcast:

  • Subscribe to Bill’s Youtube Channel
  • Subscribe to The Bill Caskey Podcast on iTunes
  • Schedule Your “High Achiever Strategy Call” Today!
https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BC-Pod-12-15-21.jpg 720 1280 Bill Caskey https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/BC-Logo-2018-Padding.png Bill Caskey2021-12-15 21:19:162021-12-15 21:19:16Is Tension Affecting Your Performance?

Creating Clarity in Your Business

December 8, 2021/in Career Advice, Communication Skills, Expert Positioning, General Tips, Goal Setting, Mindset, Personal, Personal Productivity, Podcasts, Prospecting-Business Development, Sales Process, The Bill Caskey Podcast/by Bill Caskey

Changes happen all the time and it’s often difficult to navigate them. The way we do it is through Clarity.

In this episode, Bill gives you several areas of your business and life that you need to develop clarity in and just how you can do it.

To download my FREE guide, “5 Reasons You Don’t Have Enough Clients”, just go to http://5reasonsclients.com!

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Also mentioned in this podcast:

  • Subscribe to Bill’s Youtube Channel
  • Subscribe to The Bill Caskey Podcast on iTunes
  • Schedule Your “High Achiever Strategy Call” Today!
https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BC-Pod-12-08-21.png 720 1280 Bill Caskey https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/BC-Logo-2018-Padding.png Bill Caskey2021-12-08 20:06:332021-12-08 20:06:33Creating Clarity in Your Business

What to Do When You’re Feeling Stuck

December 6, 2021/in Career Advice, Communication Skills, Expert Positioning, General Tips, Goal Setting, Mindset, Personal, Personal Productivity, Podcasts, Prospecting-Business Development, Sales Process, The Bill Caskey Podcast/by Bill Caskey

Do you feel stuck? It could be in your business, in your career, or really in any area of your life. Stuckness always seems to creep in, doesn’t it?

As we approach the end of the year and we start planning what the next year will look like, we should pay close attention to this feeling.

In this episode, Bill shares some stories on getting stuck and some tips on how you might just get yourself unstuck in the future.

To download my FREE guide, “5 Reasons You Don’t Have Enough Clients”, just go to http://5reasonsclients.com!

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Also mentioned in this podcast:

  • Subscribe to Bill’s Youtube Channel
  • Subscribe to The Bill Caskey Podcast on iTunes
  • Schedule Your “High Achiever Strategy Call” Today!
https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BC-Pod-12-02-21.png 720 1280 Bill Caskey https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/BC-Logo-2018-Padding.png Bill Caskey2021-12-06 20:34:312021-12-06 20:34:31What to Do When You’re Feeling Stuck

If you want a successful career in sales, do these 5 things.

November 18, 2021/in Career Advice, Communication Skills, Expert Positioning, Goal Setting, Mindset, New Rules, Personal, Personal Productivity, Prospecting-Business Development, Sales Process/by Bill Caskey

The WSJ just published an article in October ‘22, that suggested there are 700,000 sales jobs open right now in the US. My observations are congruent with that. 

In my client base, EVERY CLIENT is looking for sales help. EVERY. ONE. 

And with 7,000,000 unemployed (and going higher every month) it strikes me as odd that so many sales positions remain open. 

Yet, they have trouble filling these highly paid positions.

My Two Daughters Are Why

I have two lovely, impressive daughters, Kelly, the older, and Kara, the younger. Both are in the tech space and have good jobs, earning good money, with a good future.

But neither one of them wants anything to do with sales. 

And in the tech space, the salesperson can be a high-income earner – and can be extremely mobile.

And all that resistance after having a father (me) who has been in the sales coaching space for nearly 30 years – 5 books, 1000 podcasts, online courses. I guess the biblical quote. “A prophet is without honor in his own home” rings true. 🙂

So why their reluctance?

They’re both easy to talk to and listen to. They’re both engaging. They’re both sharp and don’t let anything slip by them (sometimes annoyingly so 🙂 They’re both good writers and communicators. And they both are unafraid of strangers.

What gives? 

Well, it’s the same thing that ‘gives’ for many people who could be great in the sales profession but have not made the move. They are sales-reluctant. 

This article deals with some myths about selling and some advice (from Dad).

Understand What Sales Is. (It’s not what you think)

    1. Sales is the intersection of your value and their problem. The key is to find where that intersection is. You do not interrogate people to find that intersection. A good questioner — someone who’s curious — can find it quickly. 
    2. Sales is a ‘helping’ career. You help people get from where they are to where they want to be. You are the guide – think Obi-Wan Kenobi. If you can help enough people get from their A to their B, you will be a high performer. 

Get Clear on the Value You Offer Through the Pain You Find and Fix

    1. Clarity is key here. If you take a sales position, make sure you get training to understand HOW your solution fixes their problems. And become fixated on that. Value is ALWAYS tied to the relief of pain. Once you understand this, the pressure is off. 
    2. All you have to do is find people that have problems (and money to fix). Once you show up, you are simply sorting the people who have problems and want to fix them from the people who have neither. You’re a sorter, of sorts 🙂

[bctt tweet=”Value is ALWAYS tied to the relief of pain. Once you understand this, the pressure is off. ” username=”@billcaskey”]

Human Nature is at the Heart

    1. The saying is, “No one wants to be sold – but everyone likes to buy.” Agree. BUT they like to buy from people who they believe have their best interest at heart. The amateur salesperson only thinks about himself (and his commission). The true PRO can jettison that intent and be totally focused on the problems the prospect has.
    2. Human nature hasn’t changed in thousands of years. People do what they believe is in their best interest (not yours) to do.  So don’t make selling about your outcomes – make it about theirs. 

Stop Selling and Start Finding

    1. I’m blown away by how managers choose salespeople. They think the person who’s the most enthusiastic and the most persuasive will win the day. They won’t. That’s old thinking. The high achiever is a hawk for problems. They don’t create problems for prospects – they simply find them. Once you get really skilled at problem-finding, selling is easy. 
    2. Remember story problems from 8th-grade math? You were unable to solve them until you understood what the problem was. Then it was easy. The skill was in uncovering the problem. Sounds like selling to me.

It’s Not Magic. It’s Process.

    1. It’s a myth to think that great sales professionals have some kind of magic they work on people. Once we get past the “it’s magic” myth, we can work on the real issue – “process.”
    2. Every great performer has a process they work. You’ve heard pro football coaches/players say, “We just followed the process.” Same here.
    3. If you think “process,” you will be successful in the profession. You must have a documented process that illustrates how you will guide people through from start to finish. It must be in their best interest to follow it – not just your best interest. 
    4. If you’re a process-thinker (engineer/technical person), you’ll be great in sales. In fact, in my book “Same Game New Rules“, I suggest that engineers make the best salespeople. Not because they’re smarter – but because they think linearly.

How does it feel now? More confident in your ability to handle this? Thought so. Glad to have helped. 

If you’re considering a move, OR, if you’re in sales now but not achieving at your highest level possible, I created a course called THE NEW RULES OF SELLING. 

It is a comprehensive, yet an easy-to-consume course that will propel you forward. I’ve lowered the price to $97 so that it’s accessible to the masses.

If you’re considering a move to, or up, check it out. And make the move. You’ll thank me in 10 years.

 

NR LearnMoreBlogFooter 1

https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/DoThese5Things.jpg 1125 2000 Bill Caskey https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/BC-Logo-2018-Padding.png Bill Caskey2021-11-18 15:12:512021-11-18 17:36:43If you want a successful career in sales, do these 5 things.

Your Future in Sales

December 17, 2020/in Career Advice, Communication Skills, Expert Positioning, General Tips, Goal Setting, Mindset, Personal, Podcasts, The Bill Caskey Podcast/by Bill Caskey

BCP 3 | Sales Future

 

Technology brought upon a lot of changes and improvements that would dictate your future in sales. In this episode, Bill Caskey talks about the history of employment to pinpoint these changes and how they help you understand the flow that the sales industry is following. He presents five questions that will surely help guide you towards the right path and secure your position in the place where sales is at the moment and in the foreseeable future. Understand why it’s necessary to keep up with technology and improve your skills even if you have people who will do them for you. Also, learn about the impact of investing time and money in yourself in order not to get swept away by the progress of the environment.

—

Listen to the podcast here:

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Your Future in Sales

I wanted to give you one more episode. I want to have you give this some thought. You’re heading into some downtime maybe at least at some point, hopefully you’ll be able to shut it down. What I want to talk about is you looking at yourself. Not just for 2021, although that seems to be the common theme, is what are you going to do next year? What are your goals? What are your plans? I want you to take a little bit longer, look at this and not look at this as what you need to do in the next 30 days, but what you need to do over the next year or two. You can get started quickly. You should, but I want to have a little bit longer view of this. If you have not checked out BillCaskey.com, lots of free resources there. If you want to get in touch with me, you are free to do so.

We’re working on putting together some programming. If you’re a CEO, president, you want me to help you with your team or if you’re an individual contributor or leader, you can get access to me on the page. I listen to a lot of podcasts. That probably is in sync with what you thought. Some podcasts are good. Some episodes are bad. It doesn’t take me long before I can figure out pretty quickly whether I want to listen to it or not. One podcast that I especially like is James Altucher. He’s quirky and funny. I like him. He has some interesting guests. He had a guest by the name of Jeff Wald who wrote a book called The End of Jobs.

BCP 3 | Sales Future

Sales Future: The job tenure will continue to go downward because people are mobile and able to take new jobs.

 

In that podcast episode, I encourage you to listen to it, it’s about an hour long, Jeff, the author, talks about how jobs have morphed over the years. Going back couple hundred years, we had the agricultural economy where 80%, 90% of Americans and people all over the world were in agriculture. That was an hour of work for an hour of pay. There was not much mechanization there. It was all by hand. We moved into the industrial economy and the industrial revolution, mid 1800s, then we moved into what he calls the electrical economy then into the information economy. That’s where we are now, the data, the information economy.

He is suggesting that jobs will change a lot brought on and accelerated by what we went through in 2020. This trend was on aligned to happen anyway. It was accelerated by the pandemic. Two areas that he says is pretty safe, one is creative, anything that has to do with creative. It’s hard to outsource creative projects. He says outsourcing is obviously going to be a big factor. It’s not outsourcing to China and India though. It’s outsourcing outside of your company. He said, if a company wants to launch a product, the VP of marketing may not walk around the building and say, “Who’s available for this project?” He or she may say, “Who are the best five people I can get in the world or in the US or whatever economy you’re in to launch this product?”

[bctt tweet=”If you aren’t constantly learning how to do your job better and take on new responsibilities or skills, somebody else will take your place.” via=”no”]

We will bring people in as an ad hoc team for a period of time, then disband them. That way, the company doesn’t have to pay all the overheads and long-term salaries, but they can get good people. They may pay more in the short run for those people, but they won’t be burdened with all the overhead of having a bunch of people sitting around with nothing to do. I know in most companies, that’s not the case, but sometimes if I don’t have people who can do it, I need to go outside to get it done. That was one thing that he said is going to be a dislocation and jobs of the future won’t always be you go in, you work in a cubicle and when you’re done, it’s 5:00, you clock out and you leave. It’s a 9:00 to 5:00 or 8:30 to 5:00 job. He says that’s all going to change. It’s already started to change. One thing that he brought up that I thought was interesting is he said, in 1960, what is the average duration for a job? How long will people typically work at a company?

What is your guess on that? 1960? What was the average tenure of the employee at a job? It’s five years. He says, “Do you know what the average tenure of a job is now or back then?” It was 4.2 years. He said, “This idea that it used to be that people got a job and they stayed forever.” Now we don’t do that. He said, “It’s not true. The stats and the data don’t back that up. The tenure has gone down, but it hasn’t gone down that much.” His point there is that the job tenure will continue to go downward because people are mobile. They will be able to take new jobs now. They don’t want to move, but they don’t have to move because a lot of jobs are going virtual. He says that number will continue to go down the average tenure or duration of a job.

The other thing he said is a couple of jobs cannot be outsourced. One is sales and one is anything creative. That’s good news for those of us who are in the sales profession or who train and coach salespeople. I was enthused about that. He talked about though that the role of sales will change. He didn’t get into a lot of that. I want to get into this a little bit now, but he said the roles of all these jobs you’re going to change. It used to be that when you had a creative person and you wanted to hire somebody or bring them on for a project, you bring them into the office. You’d sit in a room. You’d document everything. That’s not happening. It probably won’t because the creative may not be proximate to the company, may not be down the hall or down the road. It may be across four states. If you find a creative person who is good at what they do, what difference does it make where they are?

That’s the creative side, back to sales. As I look at sales and the people that I work with, the companies and the individuals, I do see a lot of changes coming. I want to give you five things. I wouldn’t even call them skills, although they could be, there are some skills underneath each one, but things that you’re going to need to prepare for as a sales professional or as a customer acquisition professional, anybody who is in the game, VP of sales, CEO, entrepreneur, president of attracting clients and keeping clients, what skills will you need? What areas of focus will you need to be better at in order to do that? I’m going to go through these one at a time. I’ve got five. This is not an exhaustive list. I want to give you some things to think about here and then you have to grade yourself if it got any improvement in that. “Do I need coaching there? Do I need to buy a course in that?”

BCP 3 | Sales Future

Sales Future: The way you learn how to write is to write, and the only way to improve at it is to keep doing it. The better writer you are, the better communicator you are.

 

Number one is lifelong learning. A lot of people talk about that. It’s a phrase that’s thrown around a lot, but he said we have to get serious about it. If you aren’t constantly learning how to do your job better, do different parts of it better, take on new responsibilities, get better at marketing or whatever the skills are that you need to be better at, somebody else will be there to take your place. Tenure is not going to matter as much. The question is, are you the best person to do the job? My question to you is, are you a lifelong learner? The way I would ask that is how much money do you invest in yourself each year? Do you take a percentage of your income and throw it back into you? You should. I know I do.

A lot of people that I see who are successful have think nothing of investing 5% to 10% of their income every year, whether it be online classes, small group coaching or one-to-one coaching like we do, taking a class at a community college. I’ve got a client who is about 55 years old who thought he was pretty good at technology, but he felt like things were passing him by, so he went out and hired a 28-year-old friend of his daughter’s. They went to college together. He was in the tech business. He brought him in and spent a few hours with my client and spent $300 or $400 on this. He had a long list of things that he wanted to learn how to do.

[bctt tweet=”Never count on somebody else to market you like you can market yourself.” via=”no”]

This young man taught him, from scratch, how to edit and record audio, how to record and edit video, how to set up a simple webpage or a website. He had 4 or 5 things that he wanted done. After those 3 or 4 hours, he knew how to do those things. You say, “He’s the CEO. What does he need to be building webpages for?” He won’t be building web pages, but he needs to know how it works. He needs to know how easy it is to record an edit video because when someone comes to him in the company and says, “I don’t have time to record and edit video.” He can say, “I learned in an hour. I’ll teach you in fifteen minutes. How to do it, still got that time as an excuse?” How much of your income is going back into yourself? Are you a lifelong learner? I don’t mean picking up books, although that’s not bad. I don’t mean consuming mass quantities of podcasts. I mean learning something. I’m going to give you 3 or 4 things here that you can apply to that. Learning something that’s going to be valuable for you in your business going forward.

Number two skill is video. Anything that has to do with video, shooting video, writing the script for the video, editing it, uploading it. I know you may have people that do that for you, which is fine, but you need to understand how to craft and produce good video. You don’t have to learn how to do a documentary if you don’t want, but you need to at least learn how to do video. You need to know how YouTube works. Do you know how many billions of hours a day are watched on YouTube? It’s 1 billion, but that still seems like a lot. I can’t fathom.

I don’t know how to put that in context. It’s like when somebody says, “You know how much money he made?” It’s like you would stretch, end to end, $100 bills to the moon and back. The point is that lots of businesses are on YouTube. Here’s another interesting stat from Gallup, only 9% of small businesses have YouTube channels. You know the big guys do, but what about you? If you’re a small business, I use small business $100 million or less, or you have a territory and you’re a frontline sales professional, do you have a YouTube channel?

They’re easy to set up. Could you create a channel that has all of your videos on it, that houses them, so that when somebody says, “Tell me a little bit more about what you do.” You tell them, say, “I’ll send you a link to my YouTube channel. I’ve got a lot of videos there on some of the experiences and case studies and interviews with clients.” Number two is video. It’s a skill. There’s a lot of skills within that, but you need to be better at producing video. Stop worrying about what they look like, start producing them. You don’t have to upload them if you don’t like them, but you got to sit in front of a camera with a microphone and you’ve got to try. You’ve got to make a stab at this.

Number three, writing skills. This goes back a little bit to video, but it also goes to email, writing documentation, proposal writing. Any persuasive copy, you need to be better at. Most people don’t know how to write persuasive copy. It’s hard. Like I was telling my 2X Group, I listened to a podcast by Jerry Seinfeld. He writes an hour a day, seven days a week. An hour a day, he writes skits and things that he observes in the market and the world. He has all these little bits that he’s written over the years. He has a new book out, got 300 and some little sketches in it. He writes every day.

The guy interviewing him, Tim Ferriss said, “How did you learn to write so well?” He says, “The way I learned to write so well is I write every day.” Sometimes we can go to class, to school and do online programs, but sometimes the way you write is to write. It’s like a lot of things, the only way to learn how to do it and improve that is to keep doing it. I always believe that the better writer you are, the better communicator you are. I had a client in one of my groups at 2X Academy say that thing. He says, “Sometimes I ramble a little bit. When I write things out, I get a lot clearer, and my communication gets a lot better.” Even if you’re not a professional writer, if you don’t get called on to write copy, I still believe that writing has a lot of by-product value to you, so get good at it. That’s number three.

BCP 3 | Sales Future

Sales Future: The clearer you are about your offer and the product or the service that you represent, the easier it is for somebody to say yes.

 

Number four, I’m going to use the term marketing here, but I don’t mean in the traditional sense of the word of pricing and promotion and graphic design. I mean more content and social media type marketing. Do you know how to generate new discussions with prospects? Do you know how to create content that causes someone to say, “Phil does that? I need that. I need to talk to Phil.” If you’re not doing that, people never know you even exist. If you have a client base of 100 clients and a territory, of course they know you exist, but are you creating something that you can post on social media, whether it’s LinkedIn or whatever platform, people see it, share it, consume it and reach out to you. Social media/marketing is going to be a critical area for sales professionals in the future.

I know some of you say, “I’ve got somebody that does that.” Maybe, but they probably don’t do it in the voice that is your voice. Anything you can do to get some more reps in at social media marketing, you can listen. There’s a good podcast called Social Media Marketing. It’s Michael Stelzner. Listen to podcasts. Learn the basics of marketing now. Never count on somebody else to market you like you can market you. You can have somebody at your company who is a marketing director. They might be marketing the brand of the company, but who’s marketing you? Probably nobody.

You’ve got to be more attuned to that. Sometimes the way you have to look at yourself when it comes to personal brand marketing is you have to get outside yourself a little bit and say, “If I’m representing Bill Caskey and I’m his marketing person, how am I going to market Bill?” You have to get outside of yourself because you’re humble and you feel a little self-conscious about putting your stuff out there. You can’t. There’s a way to do it so you don’t look weird, but you’ve got to learn how to market yourself and how to brand yourself.

Number five, I believe we’ve all got to get better at this concept of packaging. Whether we’re packaging an assessment and selling an upfront assessment to prospects, whether we’re packaging an offer of some kind like, “If you work with me, here’s what you get. Here’s what you don’t get. Here’s what’s included. Here’s how everything works.” You’ve got to become a better packager of your value. You can take that to mean a lot of different things, but let’s say you sell accounting services. You have done this in the past where you reach out to somebody and they say, “Come on in. I’m not happy with my accounting firm. I’d like to talk to you.”

At some point, you’re going to have to present an offer. “Here’s what it looks like to work with my firm. We do this and then we do this and here’s what’s included. Here’s what the promise is about what you’re going to get at the end. Here’s how we handle issues.” The clearer you are about your offer, offer I mean the offer of your value, the product that you represented, the service, the clearer you are, the easier it is for somebody to say yes, and worse or better, the harder it is for them to say no, because once they say no, they’re walking away from all that value.

[bctt tweet=”What got you here won’t get you there.” via=”no”]

I find that we all struggle with that, me included, is we’ve got to get a lot better at giving voice to our offer. The way you do that is to package it and understand packaging. I hope that helped you. Those are five. There’s more where that came from. As Wayne Gretzky’s dad, Walter, said to him, the world’s oldest and most overused cliches, “Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is.” That’s what I wanted to give you, is let’s start to look at the sales profession of where it’s going, not from where it was because what got you here won’t get you there. The question is, what demands are going to be needed for you to continue to grow your income, your power and your impact? These five skills or ideas will help you get there. Go to BillCaskey.com. I know it’s been a weird 2020 for a lot of us. It’s been good for some, not so good for others, but take some time and relax. I will see you back here and we will be talking to you then.

Important Links:

  • James Altucher
  • The End of Jobs
  • Social Media Marketing
https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/BC-Pod-12-16-20.jpg 585 1200 Bill Caskey https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/BC-Logo-2018-Padding.png Bill Caskey2020-12-17 03:00:002021-05-03 15:33:18Your Future in Sales

Evaluating Your Assets

December 10, 2020/in Career Advice, Communication Skills, Expert Positioning, General Tips, Goal Setting, Mindset, Personal, Podcasts, The Bill Caskey Podcast/by Bill Caskey

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Are you looking to grow your business or practice? In this episode, Bill Caskey helps you identify and evaluate your assets and the things your company is good at and understand where your company’s room for growth is. Something that companies and people rarely do on their own is an assessment of their own assets. Bill talks about the importance of knowing the kind of assets available to companies to grade yourself on how well you are utilizing them. Tune in and understand your own assets, and leverage what you and your team are good at.

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Listen to the podcast here:

[fusebox_track_player url=”https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/the2xpodcast/12-09-20-Assets.mp3″ title=”Evaluating Your Asset‪s” ]

Evaluating Your Asset‪s

I’m glad you joined me. If you are reading this prior to December 10th 2020, make sure you join me at 4:00 PM Eastern in The 2X Academy. You can go to The2XAcademy.com. I’m going to be doing an entire 90-minute training workshop on goal setting and planning for 2021. We’ve done it a couple of times for clients. We’ve got the bugs worked out. It’s good. I think you’re going to leave inspired. If you want to take part in that, go to The 2X Academy. If you are reading this after December 10th 2020, make sure you join in 2021. We got twelve months of great content. Every month, I go live for 90 minutes talking about an episode or an issue that is pertinent for sales professionals and leaders alike this year in 2021.

When I go into a company and work, companies invite me in. I spend six months to a year with them, sometimes more. One of the things that we do is assemble a list of the assets that the company has. Usually, the assets are 10 to 12 things that the company and the people within the company are good at. The problem is I don’t see that use that much. Prior to me coming in and doing that, people don’t understand what kind of assets are available to them. I’m assuming that you’re reading this, wanting to grow your practice, business or territory in 2021, it’s important to take a little time and a good time of the year to do it and take an assessment of your assets. Ask yourself the question, “Am I using these assets to the utmost of my ability to leverage those assets into business, discussions and sales?”

[bctt tweet=”People just don’t understand what kind of assets are available to them.” via=”no”]

I’ve got five of them here for you. I want to go through these one at a time. I’d like for you to grade yourself on them. On a scale of 1 to 10 or A to F, grade yourself, how well are you taking advantage of these assets? Number one, your personal knowledge. You have a ton of knowledge about your business, the problems that people have and the prospects. You’ve got tons of knowledge about the solutions that you bring forth. You’ve got knowledge of the processes and the frameworks that you use to solve those problems. I find most companies don’t have a place where they list these assets and you should. As you’re an individual performer, you need to be thinking, “What are the assets I have when it comes to my knowledge? What do I know how to do?” What do you know how to do that you can put on display in some way, either through LinkedIn, video, podcasting or articles? That’s another episode we’re not going to get into, but it’s important. You first have to understand what is your personal knowledge.

The second thing is, “What’s the internal knowledge inside your company?” I work with a lot of companies that have technical expertise. Maybe the sales professional does not or the sales team doesn’t, but the company does. There are internal engineers, experts, smart dudes, smart guys and girls who can bring something to the table. After you do the personal knowledge, I want you to list the internal knowledge. “What do the people in your company know that you can use and leverage?” It could be something. I’ve got a client who has a lot of smart, technical and sophisticated people inside their company. They do an interview series once a month, where they interview one of these people. They talk about how this knowledge that is intrinsic inside the organization can be brought forth and help clients.

There was an article I read on digital transformation. What it said was, “Your customers are looking for knowledge. They’re looking for know-how. They’re looking for you to share your expertise so that they don’t have to look around other places. They can go right directly to you. If your only message is a sales message or a pitch message, they’ll pass you by. They’ll go find somebody else where they can get the know-how.” Number two, find out what your internal knowledge is and start using that and bringing that forth. It doesn’t have to be interviews. It could be just you sitting down and questioning one of your smart people, “What’s one of the features of our product that is underutilized? When people buy it, they don’t realize what they’re getting?” They’ll tell you. They’ll reel it off the top of their head. You’ll be able to use that knowledge in your standing with prospects and your lead generation.

Number three, your email list. You may not have an email list specifically for your clients. I would like for you to, but your company probably has Salesforce or a CRM of some kind. You can drag that email list of people who are in your territory or your jurisdiction out. Don’t forget about that. That is something that I find companies underutilize. We’re guilty of that. We’ve got probably 5,000 to 6,000 people on our email list. We don’t do enough with it. Every time we send out something, we get good things back. I’m not talking about a daily email unless that’s how you’re set up. I’m talking about taking a look at who you have on your list. What can you do each week? Let’s say, a weekly email where you share something of value. Your email list is one of those hidden gems and assets that allows you to keep connected with your prospects over the course of time. Do you have an email list? Rate yourself there. Rate yourself not just whether you have one or not, but how you use it. Do you develop it? Do you leverage them?

BCP 2 | Evaluating Your Asset‪s‬

Evaluating Your Asset‪s‬: Your customers are looking for knowledge and know-how and for you to share your expertise so that they don’t have to look around other places.

 

Number four, your unique talent. I have a client that he started working with about a month ago and there were five of them on the team. One of the first exercises I put them through was they’re going to be doing a lot more social media content. I said, “What is each of your unique talents?” We went around the room and they shared their unique talent what they thought it was. I went around again and had everybody else comment on Julie. She was one of the ladies, for example. Julie had her own impression of her unique talent, but everybody else had slightly different variations of that. Sometimes it’s hard for us to see what our talents are. It’s easier for those around us to see it. I’d like for you to maybe do a little poll inside your office. This may sound odd, “What do you see my talents to be? What do you see me do that feels like I can do it in my sleep or do it like I’m falling off a log, heading into the river?”

Your unique talent is important because the more you can be in that space of using it, we’ve heard people call it the zone of genius. There are all sorts of names for it. Determine what’s unique about you in the business world and then double down on that. If you’re going to be shooting LinkedIn videos or writing articles, write about what you know and what you’re good at. You become almost mindless and you love doing it. In this case, Julie is a project manager. One of the things she loves to do is break projects down so that they can get accomplished on time and on budget. That’s a unique skill. There are project managers a dime a dozen out there, but she has a very specific way she does it. It may be part of a certification she’s gone through. That doesn’t matter. I’m more interested in, “What do you love to do? What are you good at? What’s unique about you?” Figure out a way to get that knowledge out into the world.

Number five, interactions and relationships. If you’re in professional selling, on the phone, account developing, client success, whoever you are as you’re reading this, you have constant, continuous interaction with prospects, clients and strategic partners. Every one of those develops a unique skill. Every one of those is an asset. For example, let’s say you’re on the phone with a prospect. The prospect asked you a question that you’ve been asked maybe a couple of times before, but the way they asked it was interesting. You answered it in a certain way. The answer to that question becomes an asset. I want you to use that.

I’ve got one client who puts together a Facebook Live video every Friday afternoon. He goes through his week and says, “What were the questions that I was asked this week about my product, the trends in the industry, the problems and the pandemic?” Whatever you want to talk about, he captures those. In some weeks he says, “I have 3 or 4. In some weeks, I have ten. I never do ten. I only do 3 or 4 four, but I can save those for the next week.” Your interactions with prospects can be a treasure trove of assets for you. Once you know what kinds of questions people ask you and the answer to those questions, those are assets. The world might want to know that because for every prospect that asks you a question and you answer it, there might be 100 other prospects who have that very question, but they’ve never thought to ask it. How many times have you heard someone in a group asked a question and you were like, “I wish I’d have thought of that, I never thought about that, I don’t understand that, I’m glad you asked that?” That’s exactly what we’re doing here.

[bctt tweet=”Write about what you’re good at.” via=”no”]

I’ve said before on this show and others, “Make a list of the top 10 to 15 questions that your prospect has right at the outset of the sales process at the very top of the funnel questions. Go through and answer those. Do it in a Frequently Asked Questions piece, maybe document each one and put it on LinkedIn in the polls and article sections. Maybe you shoot a video on each one.” The point of all this is that you are building an asset base. Every interaction you have with a prospect or a client can work into that because of the conversations you had. Somebody asked you, “Bill, what do you think about the trends of training over the next couple of years?” “I never thought about that.” I have thought about that, but let’s say I hadn’t. As I think about it, I might think, “There are three trends.” You’ve got an article or something you can produce and publish.

Digital transformation and the buyer-seller dance are going to be different in 2021 and beyond. People don’t want you to take them to lunch, play golf or kibitz for two hours. They want to get right to the point, “What do you know that I need to know? How can you help me solve a problem? What does it look like? What does it cost?” The clearer you can make this in the market and using your assets to do that, the better off you’re going to be. I hope that helps you. Go to BillCaskey.com if you have other questions or want to get ahold of me. If you’re reading this prior to December 10th 2020, get your butt to The 2X Academy. It’s going to be an awesome 2021 goal setting and planning session. It’s $97 a month. It’s affordable and easy. Every month, I come to you with training. I hope that helps you. I will see you next time.

Important Links:

  • The2XAcademy.com
https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/BC-Pod-12-09-20.jpg 585 1200 Bill Caskey https://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/BC-Logo-2018-Padding.png Bill Caskey2020-12-10 03:00:522021-04-12 10:00:52Evaluating Your Assets
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