What Abraham Lincoln Knows About Your Story
The story goes that Leonard Swit was a friend of Abraham Lincoln’s. Read more
Are We Sales People or Are We Leaders? Caskey Interviewed
I’m always happy to do radio interviews especially with someone as good as Pete De La Torre on his talk show on WZAB, 880AM in Miami.
http://www.petedelatorre.com/blog/radio-show/
His questions are always poignant and well thought out. Here is a 20-minute clip from my interview where I talk about practice, high achievement, how to be less of a sales person and more of a leader, and other notions that hit us during the talk.
Enjoy.
How’s Your Mental Fitness?
I ask that because we’ve been inundated in January with personal goals, resolutions, financial objectives…but where is the talk about the ONE THING that makes all of that possible: a fit mind?
We’ve decided to make February Mental Fitness month and we’d like you to take the Challenge.
Read and act on each one of our daily tips during the month. You can Follow our Company page to get access to each Challenge; Go here on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/943672
Naturally, we’d love you to share it with friends and offer up your comments.
Do this for one month, and let us know the result!
LinkedIn Group Question and Answer
In today’s episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale answer some questions sent in by members of the Advanced Selling Podcast LinkedIn Group. The two important questions answered were first off, “why are certain Challengers more likely to be the top sales people and are they the future of new business?” The other question is “do you need to have another reason to call your client or is it okay to just check in?”
Make sure to join the Advanced Selling Podcast Linkedin Group and post your questions today. We would love to hear from you.
Also mentioned in this podcast:
- We’re mobile! Get the podcast app in the iTunes store. Search “Advanced Selling” for the free download. App listeners will get something a little extra each week.
- Interested in what your fellow podcast listeners have to say? Join our LinkedIn group and find out.
Hot Tip Thursday Episode #2 – Calendar End Dates
In the second episode of Hot Tip Thursday, Bryan Neale tells how to make your deals run smoother by using Calendar End Dates. Don’t miss this episode or the next, free of charge to all users.
Please Download the Advanced Selling Podcast App to continue receiving Hot Tip Thursday and other Exclusive content FREE of Charge. Available on iPhone and Android.
Find Your Own Voice
In this podcast, Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale give their advice on finding your OWN voice in a sales situation. This is a very important step in improving in many different areas of your life. Follow Bill and Bryan’s steps in finding yourself and tapping into your own heart.
Also mentioned in this podcast:
- Transcription service at Fiverr.com.
- Listen to last week’s first episode of Hot Tip Thursday.
- Download the Advanced Selling Podcast App.
The Use of Checklists To Improve Your Sales Process
I’ve loved checklists ever since I read Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto. I’ve become interested in how checklists can help us become much more effective in selling.
Below is a handout I gave to our High Performance Sales Academy students a few weeks ago.
It outlines the kinds of questions you should ask and tactics you should employ as you’re pursuing an account.
As a frequent reader of this blog or listening to the Advanced Selling Podcast, I provide you this free of charge and consideration. Send it onto others in your company – especially your sales team.
Addressing a Prior Post on Hiring Seasoned Vets
I got a lot of response from a prior post you can find here on the danger of hiring seasoned vets.
As you can imagine, most of that email was from seasoned vets.
So I’m going to stand by my initial post yet deliver some caveats to that:
What Is the Track Record?
1. If a sales veteran has a track record of learning and adapting their skill set to the current reality, that’s beautiful.
In other words, the 55-year-old person who comes to the VP of sales for a job and you look at his LinkedIn profile and it is fully filled out with a video and a well-written bio – and has meaningful endorsements and they have joined groups that will help them grow their skills, awesome! Give him a shot.
Contributing Content To The Cause
2. Secondly, if the seasoned vet has her own blog she contributes to on a frequent basis and has a portfolio of some of her work on it along with links to her Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, then you might have something. Sales vets who seize the power of the new technology are willing to adapt it for her use – get her on the phone. Give her a shot.
Did They Do Research?
3. If you decide to interview a seasoned vet and they come to the interview having explored your website, full of questions about your market and model, and have a vibe that they take care of themselves both physically and emotionally, let ‘er rip!
On the other hand, if they use the standard wisecracks, are disheveled in their appearance and don’t bring paper with them to the interview, or ask no questions about your goals and your visions and your objectives and your problems, end the interview quickly. They’re not changing. They may tell you what you want to hear, but let your instincts guide you.
Once again, I am not against seasoned vets. I am against people who show up who haven’t learned a new thing in the last 10 years – and who expect to be successful in a job that requires all the skills they aren’t good at.
Politically incorrect? Of course it is. But it’s true.
Why We Fail When We Try to Learn Selling Skills
Think of how many sales books, cassettes, and podcasts there are and yet the selling skills of American salespeople are still inadequate.
Is it possible that no one has really taught us how to learn these aforementioned selling skills? I think so.
There is one easy and profoundly effective way to learn any kind of skill and that is to break it into sub-skills.
For example, in sales you must learn the skill of prospecting for new business. You can’t just go learn that skill though in a two-hour seminar because it requires many, many subsets of other skills that you must learn.
For example, you must learn the skill of “Positioning.” You must learn the sub-skill of creating a safe environment so the prospect doesn’t lie to you. You must learn the skill of getting invited in (instead of begging to get in).
And you must be good at the sub-skill of delivering your message in a way that causes someone to want to hear more about it. That one right there is what trips most people up.
Do you want more sub-skills?
What about the inner game skill of detachment? If you get too needy and hungry and desperate for a sale when you’re calling a prospect, do you not think that comes through to them? If you’re detached and feeling abundant about the chances for your future, you take on a more relaxed tone which allows the prospect to relax.
My recommendation would be to take the 5-10 selling skills that you really need – – for example if you’re in account management then prospecting probably isn’t one – – and break those down into a series of 5 to 7 sub-skills.
After you do so it may seem like there’s a lot of work to do. And there might be. But until you can break skill sets down into bite-size chunks, you can’t work on, selling skills effectively.