Episode #390: How to Generate More Leads

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advancedsellinpodcastgraphicbootAre you looking for ways to generate more leads? (because who isn’t?)

In today’s episode, veteran sales trainers Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale respond to a specific request to provide four things sales people can do right now to generate leads.

Have you considered hosting a marketing event for your prospects (not a sales event, a marketing event)?

Are you using your current client’s words and testimonials to help you communicate what you do to your prospects?

In this episode of The Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill and Bryan give you four actionable things you can start working on immediately to help you increase your leads.

Also mentioned in this podcast:

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Episode #356: How To Be Your Own Marketing Department

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advancedsellinpodcastgraphicbootDoes your marketing department actually help you generate leads? Veteran sales trainers Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale take on the challenge of lead generation… whether you have a full marketing department or none at all.

What do you do when you’re a high-level sales pro without a marketing department?

Does your marketing department spend most of their time doing promos and not really generating any actual leads for you?

In today’s episode of The Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill and Bryan walk you through building your own marketing plan— even if you DO have a marketing department to support you. They teach you what it means to “think inbound” and how to establish your own Voice of a Customer series. If you’ve been frustrated by marketing support (or lack thereof), be ready to take notes and brush up on your mad marketing skills.

Also mentioned in this podcast:

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3 Videos That Will Radically Shift Your Client Positioning and Results

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As you begin to think about 2016, I want you to consider three things to commit to next year.

I want you to create…yes I said “create”…3 videos for the expressed purpose of landing new clients.

How can videos help me land clients? Well….are you ever in for a surprise! Let me start with a blanket statement. OK, it’s my opinion….but a statement it is.

Video will help you tell your story, compel people to seek you out, and help you position yourself properly prior to client contact. 

VIDEO 1

Last week, I was in a coaching session with two sales leaders and their lead generation person. In the conversation, I found that they’re asking prospects to fill out a form on the web, then hit SUBMIT. Then, their lead person emails them back to set up a call. Read more

Building Your Platform To Make Selling Easy(ier)

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Last week, I got called by a CPA firm who wanted training for their people. This you must know: CPAs are not very good at selling. It’s not that they don’t have the expertise. That’s not it at all.

It’s that selling spooks them. It’s not in their comfort zone.

So, when I get a call from a professional services firm (or any company), I always start with one simple question: Do you have a platform?

Platform

After the weird looks they give me, I go on to educate them to what a “Platform” is.

Platform: definition, A position in the market that you occupy where people look to you for expertise.

Physical Platform

Just as you would speak at a conference from a podium (platform) the same thing applies here. In the physical world, it is you speaking from the stage, on a topic that you have some degree of expertise in, where all eyes are on you.

There, you don’t have to fight for attention. You ARE the show.

In the sales & marketing world, your platform could be a variety of things. LinkedIN is a platform. Any kind of social media could be a platform (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram). Your email list is a platform. A podcast is a platform.

Simply, it is a place where you command attention of the people you’re trying to reach.

Your platform is a positioning tool that raises you above the din of competition and market confusion.

You Have One Right Now, But You May Not Know It Read more

The Problem With Idea Generation – And a Solution

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More ideas are not better. I know there is a saying, “If you want to come up with a great idea, come up with lots of ideas.”

Ideas

But I see Presidents and Salespeople generate idea after idea – and yet have little to show for them. So what happens. Here’s my take.

My sense is that the person that has the idea (the creator) is seldom the person who will implement the idea and bring it to profit. I didn’t say “never,” I said seldom.

So the idea-creator needs to have either a) someone around him/her who can flesh out the idea before investing too much time dreaming about it. Or, b) a system that walks them through the ‘fleshing out’ process. Read more

Do You Recognize These 5 Warning Signs of a Bad Prospect?

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There is trouble ahead for you. I bet that right now you have prospects in your sales pipeline that are bad prospects. And it’s time for you to get rid of them.

Bad Prospect Warning Signs

In my sales training and coaching practice, I get clients who call me to strategize on how to close deals. One such client called me this morning. I won’t go into the verbatim of our discussion, but it got me thinking about how we ignore warning signs.

We get so enthusiastic and “needy” that we refuse to look at the truth.

Here are Five Warning Signs that indicate you’re in trouble: Read more

Have a Discussion that Generates Real Leads

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(This is a concept that will be discussed in our upcoming webinar, “21st Century Lead Generation,” a live event March 28,  12p EST) 

I struggled for years thinking that we sales and marketing professionals play too loosely with the term lead. To me, a lead isn’t a true lead until there’s a conversation with the prospect that determines if they have an interest, if they have the money to pay for it, and if they are committed to fixing the problem they tell you they have.

When we don’t clearly define lead, any person who shows up in our space becomes a “lead.” And that’s not how you create business. That’s how you become tired…quickly. Read more

Lead Generation, a Hurdle for the Outdated Sales Person

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OLS21centurylead

(This is a concept that will be discussed in our upcoming webinar, “21st Century Lead Generation,” a live event March 28,  12p EST) 

Are you an outdated sales person? You are if your primary sales tactics include cold-calling and finding customers—you know, traditional sales methods from the 20th-century. I know what you’re saying, “The 20th century was just 14 years ago. How can an entire industry be outdated?”

I like to think of the role of the sales person in 21st century terms. I say this because I notice some of us are stuck using the same old traditional sales tactics. We’re in an age of technology-driven efforts and wider markets. Shouldn’t we be further along?

Okay, Bill, if you’re so smart, then what should I be doing to generate leads? Here’s one tip that I’ll cover in a webinar with Brooke Green on March 28: Read more

Too Much Eagerness. Bad for Customers. Bad for You.

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Last week, I had a coaching session with one of my clients who is a pretty talented business development person. I say ‘talented’ because she has all of the raw materials: enthusiasm, energy, work ethic, and decent communication skills.

Then, last week she relayed a deal that her company is working on. As she described the situation, a couple of things caught my attention. She proceeded to tell me how important this deal was to her company and how excited she was and how desperate some of her teammates are about landing this deal. (I suspect the desperation came directly from the sales force, but that’s a different matter).

After she reviewed the situation I asked her if she noticed anything about how she described the deal. She said she didn’t. But I did.

What I noticed was the underlying theme of neediness and awestruck-ness about this deal. It’s that “this-one-would-be-a-huge-feather-in-our-cap-if-we got-it” attitude. But that kind of thinking, to me, assures she won’t get it.

It’s Bad for Your Internal Team

Since one of the strategies with this prospect was a presentation meeting where she was to bring her engineers to discuss the deal with the customer, it becomes even more vital that their (engineer) minds are right when in contact with customer.

Anytime you give those people ample reason to be scared they’ll take it. Feeling pressure and stress is no way to go through a presentation like this. And the more magnitude and burden you put on the situation, the less likely you will be to care/focus on what the customer wants.

This is part of that overall misguided myth that the more excited we are about getting a deal, the more excited the prospect is about giving it to us. I know we were all taught that-and really want to believe it. But in my experience, it’s the cause of more lost deals than won deals.

It’s Bad for Your Customer

More importantly, anything that takes your eye off of the customer’s problems and goals creates a block for you – and they’ll feel it. Feeling that pressure to perform is one of the most common mistakes made in business development /sales. In coping with that pressure, you take the attention off of them and put it right on yourself. Read more