The Sales Acceleration Show

Follow @GabeLarsen and @SteveEror on Twitter
and LinkedIn: Steve Eror - Gabe Larsen

Sales people waste a lot of time doing random tasks. Sales reps attempt to manage their time but become overwhelmed by long lists and outside distractions. A lot of companies sign their reps up for time management courses only to have great habits disappear. In this episode, Amanda Holmes, CEO of Chet Holmes International, talks about the book "The Ultimate Sales Machine" and dives deep into time management techniques to boost sales productivity immediately.

Here is the six step process Amanda recommends. As Chet says, "Don’t think about if you’ve heard them before, think about if you are applying the discipline to implement them."

Step One - Touch It Once

How many times have you looked at an email and left it right at the top of your inbox only to come back a few minutes later to do something with it? Don't redo tasks. Touch it once and move on to your next activity.

Step Two: Make Lists

Just by making a list your can dramatically improve your productivity. The key is to find a way to only have six items on your list.

Step Three: Allocate

Take your list of six items and plan how long each item will take. Don't fool yourself. If your activities add up to more than the time you have to work that day then you need to rethink your list.

Step Four: Prioritize

Put your most important items first. Too often we're tempted to check off the small or non-important tasks which leaves no time to accomplish the most important tasks.

Step Four: Prioritize

Put your most important items first. Too often we're tempted to check off the small or non-important tasks leaving the most important items to never be accomplished.

Step Five: Plan Your Day

With a prioritized and manageable list, begin to plan your day by putting activities into time slots. Be sure to remember to plan for items like "gotta minute meetings" and "checking emails". Be proactive about these types of activities instead of reactive.

Step Six: Throw it Away

We want to hold on to everything but we never end up reviewing it. Find a way to dejunk. Either be brave enough to throw things away or create a organizational system that allows you to eliminate "stuff" and not have to look at it again.

If you're looking to have more conversations with the right people, persistence is key. Data shows that most sales reps today stop at sending an email or placing one phone call. The best sales professionals will not give up so fast. They create a sales cadence with multiple touch points, including a variety of sales communication channels: calls, texts, email, social media, voicemail, event direct mail and video.

At InsideSales.com, we've tracked and analyzed thousands of sales interactions with machine learning algorithms and found there really is a formula for success. When executed correctly, the right sales cadence can double your contact rates.

There's an ideal duration, spacing, attempts, media, and messaging for each sales cadence during prospecting, and we're about to tell you what it is.

Gabe Larsen, VP of Growth for InsideSales.com, and Michael Pedone, founder and CEO of SalesBuzz, are going to show you the winning formula for sales prospecting.

You can't replace in the human in selling, it's just not possible. Authenticity goes a long way and it just can't be faked. In this episode, Shari Levitin, founder of the Levitin Group discusses the human interaction and how important it is in training and coaching.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• AI System of Growth Case Study
• State of Sales Infographic

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Why the book Heart and Sell was created
• How do you structure a training program so it produces ROI
• How do you know if your training methodology is effective
• What's the best way to scale a training program

The Sales Acceleration Show

Follow @GabeLarsen and @SteveEror on Twitter
and LinkedIn: Steve Eror - Gabe Larsen

David Rudnitsky, SVP of Enterprise Sales at InsideSales.com, discusses the principles he's learned over his sales career to close large enterprise deals. Dave's methodology has been honed over the years and was featured in Marc Benioff's book, Behind the Cloud, to describe how Salesforce.com was able to achieve unparalleled success in the enterprise space.

1) Think Big; Have Attitude, Go High
-Thinking BIG and having a winning attitude inspires confidence
-Thinking BIG and having a winning attitude allows you to play high

2) No Deal is Won or Lost Alone
-Enterprise Sales is a team sport, not a spectator sport; it’s a contact sport

3) Connect the Dots: Never Dial for Dollars! Never Cold Call!
-Always call with a plan; social due diligence = never having to cold call
-Always call/connect as high as possible in an organization

4) Focus on "Why Not"
-Find 5 to 6 reasons/red flags why it might not work – always challenge yourself
-WHY’s are table stakes, WHY NOT’s win deals

5) Always Take the Deal Off the Table
-If a deal is ready, close it; increase deal velocity
-Time is the enemy of all deals, work with a sense of urgency

6) Get Your Face in the Place - Walk Their Halls Frequently
-Know your customers better than they know themselves
-Walking the halls, physically or virtually, builds trust and confidence; get badged

7) Fun Fact Build Instant Credibility
-Be a student of our customers’ fun facts

8) Be a Master of Your Business; Be Consultative; Be Prescriptive
-Be a trusted advisor; ensure professional services/consultants are involved

Every sales rep is looking to have more meaningful conversations. Whether it’s with a new lead they’re hoping to get in touch with, or with a potential buyer who has gone cold. There is a plethora of strategies on how to acquire more conversations. With terms such as: cadence, sequence, follow-up, and outreach being thrown around like a chopped salad, it’s difficult to know what methodologies actually deliver results.

After reviewing 479,140 sales activities, we discovered the four laws that will increase your connect rates as well as conversations.

Join Gabe Larsen, VP of Growth at InsideSales.com, as he discusses these four laws. Showing you how to build a cadence that delivers real results.

Learn:

The four laws to build a successful sales cadence
Tips and tricks on building cadences for different sales situations
What 1,456 different sales cadences tell us about conversation rates

The Sales Acceleration Show

Follow @GabeLarsen and @SteveEror on Twitter
and LinkedIn: Steve Eror - Gabe Larsen

Apttus provides quote to cash solutions on the Apttus intelligence cloud. Since it's inception in 2006 Apttus has experienced rapid growth and was valued in 2016 at over one-billion dollars. Bootstrapping in the early days the company started with one and grew to 100 sales development reps in 18 months. Kent Venook, Director of Global Sales Development discusses his six lessons learned from accomplishing this amazing task.

1) Standardization of process
In the early days, reps were each doing their own thing. It was more of a cowboy town than a well-oiled machine. Visualizing the process on a white-board and looking for areas of optimization, the team was able to move to a scalable process that each rep followed.

2) Key KPIs
After a lot of debate, the team standardized on sales accepted opportunities as the primary metric to have sales development reps focus on. Although, Apttus runs an account-based model where sales development reps are closely tied to account executives, Kent decided not to listen to outside sources and pay his reps on ACV or revenue. Kent believes reps should be paid for things they can control and what they can be coached to improve.

3) Continued Training
Kent set up a two-month onboarding program called the Sales Academy. Apttus is a robust product and Kent found he could train his people for a few days and let them try and figure it out for the next six months or train them for two months and them fully ramped by month three.

4) Management Team
When Kent began he hired 60 reps so quickly that everybody reported to him. Looking for key characteristics and top performers, Kent quickly put in a management team that increased engagement and overall productivity for the team.

5) Don't be Afraid to Fail
Testing is the name of the game. Try different things to increase productivity results and have fun with it.

6) Investment
Great people and great teams don't get where they are alone. Realize that to get to an optimized state you will need a powerful sales stack.

We all want to get more sales but that is hard to do if you're not targeting the right accounts, in the right way, and the right time. Matt Amundson, VP of marketing and sales development at EverString knows a few things about account targeting and on this episode Matt dives into the need to find your optimal customer profile and explains the importance of prioritizing your best accounts as part of your sales strategy.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Development Summit
• State of Sales Report
• InsideSales Labs Best Practice Training

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How to determine your which prospects you should target
• The importance of good data and the role it plays in the sales process
• The power of prioritization and how companies can do it

What is a sales playbook and how should companies think about it? The answer may seem easy but it's not. In this episode, Daniel Baunds, CEO of Vendas B2B Academy, talks about his experiences with sales playbooks. He highlights the importance of making them custom centric and having them follow a methodology that can be scaled to fit your business.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• AI System of Growth Case Study
• State of Sales Infographic

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The importance of a buyer-centric playbook
• The power of closing early
• Why you need to make it scalable
• The importance of mapping out your methodology
• Implementation hacks

If you’re in sales, it’s only a matter of time before someone tells you to “work harder” or “we need more activities (dials, emails, voicemails, social, mailers, etc).” But is this really the silver bullet to hitting your number in sales? Just work harder?

If every sales reps works harder, will they crush their quota and hit their number? Or should sales work smarter by doing more research and having more insights on every lead they contact?

Brandon Bornancin, Founder of Seamless.ai, and Gabe Larsen, VP of Growth at InsideSales.com, discuss whether sales should work harder or work smarter to improve their contact rates. Gabe and Brandon will go over tips, tricks, and techniques, on how sales can effectively prioritize their leads to improve their selling motion.

Gone are the days of the simple sale. CRMs, like Salesforce, allow you to document and log key sales information in a world full of complex deal cycles. But you often lack the essential tools to see the big picture, build effective account plans, and operate strategically.

To succeed in sales today, you need to understand hierarchical and political relationships, identify influencers, and decide whom to contact. You need to be able to quickly and effectively show this information in deal reviews and 1:1s. The fastest, easiest way to get an overview of your accounts is to work visually. Influence maps and account maps are visual references that can help you find the fastest path to sale and close your deals faster.

In this podcast, Lucidchart’s SVP of Sales, Dan Cook, will show you how to successfully map your accounts and key contacts and how to use that map to strategize more effectively. With a clear view of your accounts, you’ll be prepared to accelerate the sales cycle and close bigger deals.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Visualize Summit

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• What is account mapping
• Why should organizations be thinking about mapping accounts during the sales process
• Tips to map accounts effectively and how to use that information effectively

Most organizations struggle to sell and even more organizations struggle to up-sell and cross-sell. As organizations look to optimize their post-sale interactions, they will need to focus on the right people, systems, and process. In this episode, Richard Harris, owner of the Harris Consulting Group, discusses key points to winning after the initial deal is sold.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How organizations are structuring their post-sales teams
• What companies are thinking about when it comes to compensation and motivation
• Tips needed to win in a up-sell and cross sell environment

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Richard's LinkedIn
• 22: How Client Success Accelerates Sales w/Dean Robison @InsideSales, Dan Steinman @ Gainsight, Jim Steele @InsideSales
• 12: How I Broke the Rules and Doubled Oracles' Inside Sales Revenues w/Dan Freund @InsideSales.com

Enterprise AI has reached a tipping point with enterprise sales. Whatever you call it – machine learning, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, cognitive computing – this phenomenon is dominating our newsfeeds. In this episode, CEO of InsideSales.com, Dave Elkington presents his thoughts A.I. and how it can effectively be used in the sales process.

In This Episode You'll Learn That Meaningful AI requires Three Crucial Elements:

• Math – Algorithms that look for patterns in data in order to predict future outcomes.
• Data – Information that continually feeds the math, making it smarter and more accurate.
• Applications – Software that turns predictions and prescriptions from the math into improved outcomes by integrating into activities and workflows.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• What Is AI? Setting the Record Straight
• A Day In The Life Of A Millennial Sales Rep: Why A.I. Is Causing A Sales

Every SDR team makes mistakes. Some make more than others. However, there are three mistakes almost every SDR team makes and they are killing the productivity and capability of SDR departments all over the world. In this episode, Becc Holland talks about these three mistakes and gives tips for companies to overcome them.

Sales Development is one of the biggest trends in sales and it is here to stay. To win at sales development you need to master five plays according to Dan Gottlieb from TOPO. Those plays are developing a repeatable and prescriptive live call framework, focus SDRs on multi-threading within target accounts, design SDR onboarding activities for their role, leverage sales engagement filters for time management, and try an offer that is 100% valuable to the prospect.

Salesforce has become a special company and every once and awhile they will open the doors and let us understand their secrets of success. In this episode, we dive into how to build a sales development team the Salesforce way.

I know, I know, we've talked a lot about direct mail but this is different. Rather than hearing some expert, we did some research and asked 325 B2B associates what they think of the topic. Rather than focus on one specific thing, we decided to understand the opinions of those that may send or receive direct mail. Interesting results, check them out!

We all have sales development teams but we don't all have sales and sales development teams that work well together. In this episode, Kristin Agnelli, Sr. Director of Lead Development at PGI, discusses what's she learned to do to make these teams work successfully together.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The importance of strategy – Sales is the customer of the sales development team. What does sales need, more volume or better leads? An agreement always needs to be there if you’re building a new team or taking on an existing one.
• The need for alignment - When sales realigns compensation and territories at the beginning of every year it’s best to mirror their set up and change SDR structure/comp if needed.
• The purpose of service level agreements – SLAs make easy for sales to partner with the SDR team, and likewise make it easy for SDRs to get their job done. Set up your backend technology stack to support your deliverable and put some SLAs behind different expectations.        
• Why you have to have accountability – Both the SDR team and sales teams are accountable for different activities throughout the process.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• 3: Lessons Learned from Scaling a 100 Person Sales Development Team at Apttus w/ Kent Venook
• The Definition of Sales Development
• Posts by Gabe Larsen on the InsideSales.com Blog

No one can argue the world in which we live is a digital world. But, what does that mean for sales? Many people have interpreted digital sales to mean social selling and have argued social selling is and will be the only way to sell. Mario Martinez, CEO of Vengreso, argues that digital sales is more than just social selling, it's understanding where the customer is and meeting them there. Digital sales is a combination of all the tools sales reps have in their hands on. In this episode, Mario settles the debate on social selling and opens the listener's mind to new possibilities for selling in a digital world.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The truth about social selling
• What is digital sales
• Statistics about how digital sales has changed the way we do business

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• 113: The Truth About Social Selling w/Koka Sexton @Hootsuite
• 103: The Number One Thing That Drives Results With Social w/Cameron Brain @EveryoneSocial
• 97: Is Social Selling Dead?