The Death of a Salesman

The AI Sales Revolution has begun.

"AI is my sword. Sales data is my shield. The AI Sales Revolution has begun. Arm yourselves, brothers and sisters."

This is the headline of Rob Turley on LinkedIn, who is my guest today.  Rob is the co-founder of White Rabbit Intel where he describes their purpose as :

"Driving the vision, mission, and strategy of White Rabbit Intel--making advanced artificial intelligence analytics easily available, highly affordable, and commoditized, so that all businesses; small, medium, or enterprise have a solution to do better business at a revolutionary level of efficiency. To unlock the raw potential of data to connect business professionals to other businesses at a truly personal level. To allow businesses to see insight into what they actually are, what is working, define pain points while making real human connection the priority."

In this episode, we talk about, or rather I listen, to Rob's story where he shares why it is critical for sales & marketing teams to have their data in order to drive far more effective outreach to your target audience for the 21st Century. This makes sales teams more efficient in their prospecting, targeting the right people who are most likely to want to buy your product or service.

He shares some amazing stats around what he and his team have achieved for some of their customers in a matter of months around increasing pipeline and revenue, in double digital multiples in some cases. 

Rob's brain works at one hundred miles an hour, so strap yourself in. 

Follow Rob on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-turley/

Learn more about how White Rabbit Intel can help you and your sales teams here https://www.whiterabbitintel.com/

Employee Advocacy on Social Media

In this episode, we are going global with social.

I am joined by Anita Veszeli, Global Head of Social Engagement & Advocacy at Ericsson. 

Anita describes what she does as this "At Ericsson I enjoy a unique position with oversight of all social media, employee advocacy and influencer marketing across our global business. This bird’s eye view enables me to create a social-first strategy which helps colleagues around the world to better reach and engage with their customers.

I believe in adopting a strategic approach to digital marketing, challenging existing ways of doing things, and measuring the impact of our programs. I enjoy working with the wider Marketing and Communications team, helping colleagues in Ericsson’s business areas and markets to use social to solve their business challenges. Our expertise and social media insights help them to make better decisions and speed up sales velocity.
Key to our success is #TeamEricsson, our employee advocacy program, which involves around 10% of our global workforce. I’ve very proud of this community and look to actively support their involvement with both sharable content and training support."

I discuss with Anita, how she is able to achieve this, with the support of her team.

We cover off :

How do you bring a scepital leadership team on board.

How do you train employees at scale to understand the how and the why of social media.

How technology supports this.

How do you prove it is working.

What does the future look like for Employee Advocacy.

Follow Anita on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitaveszeli/

Follow Anita on Twitter @anitaveszeli

Read her article on 4 research backed tips to help you plan your 2021 social media strategy https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/4-research-backed-tips-help-you-plan-your-2021-social-anita-veszeli/ 

 

Is Cold Calling Dead?

There seems to be more tribalism than ever happening on social at the moment.

You are wrong, I am right. I will not engage in a conversation with you and hear your side of the conversation. End of.

The sales world is no different.

This works, that doesn't work. You are wrong, I am right. I have been guilty of it myself in the past. I am now listening to the other side of the conversation. I am learning too. 

Cold Calling - always causes the biggest "debate". It always has and no doubt always will.

It's here. It works for some, not others.

Recent McKinsey research cited "Top performers favour cold calls over cold emails. Across the 40,000 deals we looked at, old-fashioned telephone calls were superior for getting peoples initial attention.…, high performers relied on cold calls more than unsolicited emails, making 82 percent more cold calls than low performers and sending 26 percent fewer unsolicited emails" - https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/how-data-analytics-helps-sales-reps-win-more-deals 

Something is obviously still working.

In this episode, I explore this with Gerry Hill, the EMEA VP of Connect & Sell https://connectandsell.com/ "Technology that Gets Your Best Sales People 8-10x More Live Conversations with Qualified Prospects, Every Day."

I have seen this technology live over at the Revenue Garage Channel on YouTube - https://revenuegarage.com/ 

And it works. It is as much about the quality of the data of your lists, as it is how you handle the call, which is an art form.

Gerry is a master of this art form, supported by the psychology of people, science, and data. 

Whether you are a believer in Cold Calling or not.

Just listen.

Listen to what Gerry has to say about cold calling, sales more generally, where it is all going. 

Connect with Gerry on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/beaccurate/

Or, give him a call. 

What is Guided Selling?

In this episode, I am joined by Seth Marrs, Principal Analyst, Sales Operations at Forrester. Seth wrote a blog back in February 2020 which piqued my interest. It starts :

• Dynamic guided selling is a concept that is poised to become a reality in B2B sales organizations
• Integrating sales tools to build an iterative process enables sales teams to win more
• E-commerce guided selling, configure, price and quote (CPQ) systems, customer relationship management (CRM) and AI are the foundation for every customer interaction

Sales tools have traditionally been used to enable administrative efficiencies for sales leaders who can drive adoption. Tools can identify top prospects, reduce admin and provide improved visibility to pipeline reporting. These things all sit at the periphery of what salespeople value most — winning the deal.  

 

Seth breaks down more research he and his team have been conducting to the market and with his clients. 

We break down Guided Selling into its component parts.

Why Sales & Marketing leaders need to be considering this in concert, not in isolation.

What are the challenges faced by Sales & Marketing when looking at who to build in a Guided Selling culture and behaviours.

What opportunity this presents for them.

Why this needs to be top of the agenda today.

Your buyers are buying in a very different way, in order to stay with them, you need to engage with them on their terms, not yours.

Where AI & Automation will support and augment this. 

You can connect or follow Seth on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethmarrs/ - be sure to mention this podcast when you do.

Seth has also shared more resource below for your consideration :

 

Supercharging Sales with Dynamic Guided Selling: http://bit.ly/2Oq2HuV

AI Can Get You a Date, But Can It Keep Your Buyers From Swiping Left? https://forr.com/2TnzjIH

What If the World Depended on the Accuracy of Your Org’s Data? https://www.siriusdecisions.com/blog/what-if-world-depended-on-data-accuracy?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=cso20&utm_term=covid19&utm_content=sdblog

Are You Managing Your Sales Data or Is It Managing You? https://forr.com/3ghzRYY

Sales Reps as Psychics: Buyers Want You to Know Their Expectations, Even if They Haven’t Told You What They Are https://forr.com/3j9CK0v

Cadence Optimization Is a Sales Rep Prospecting Superpower https://forr.com/30rbTp0

The Best of Both Worlds: Sales Reps Can Finally Get Value From Their Customer Interactions Without Needing to Log Them https://go.forrester.com/blogs/sales-reps-value-from-customer-interactions/

Quoting Is About More Than Just Efficiency — It’s Also A Key Sales Driver https://go.forrester.com/blogs/quoting-is-about-more-than-just-efficiency-its-also-a-key-sales-driver/

I See You! How Technology Increases Customer Transparency and Lifetime Value https://go.forrester.com/blogs/i-see-you-how-technology-increases-customer-transparency-and-lifetime-value/

You’ve Got My Attention — Now What? Providing High-Impact Predictive Content to Increase Sales Velocity https://go.forrester.com/blogs/predictive-content-increases-sales-velocity/

 

TikTok for business

In this episode, I am joined by Rob Flaska (as in Alaska).

I met Rob in the crazy world of Clubhouse, listening in to his story on how he used TikTok to become an "Antfluencer" - yes, it is a thing. How did he do this? He watched how others were using the app. His work colleagues decided to have a competition on who could keep ants alive for the longest in an ant farm. Rob decided to document his journey on TikTok under robsants.

His following exploded to plus 400k, Ants were trending on TikTok and he now has a commercial deal with an Ant Farm. As you do.

Through these learnings, he set up a second account, growthsensei - this name will make sense when you listen in - he uses this account to support and guide Businesses on how to maximise the use of TikTok, through a business & marketing lense. 

This is all on top of his day job!

Listening to Rob and his advice made me realise the underlying fundamentals of social media are relevant across all platforms.

Know your niche.

Create a community.

Engage. 

This is well worth a listen if you are considering TikTok as a platform. 

You can find & follow Rob on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/robflaska/ and of course TikTok.

Can you create a sales led culture in Professional Services?

Steve Wills believes you can.

Why?

He has done it himself.

Steve is a former Partner from EY and now describes himself as semi-professional. Having left EY in 2019, he now advises Professional Service firms on how they can build a culture, strategy, and playbook for having a sales led culture in a Partnership environment, including managing the EY / Microsoft Alliance across EMEA.

He learned the hard yards in the early 2000s when he and 24 of his fellow partners stepped out of a fee earning role and took on an out and out sales role, carrying a $20million USD target.

In this 50mins podcast, Steve shares his learnings of how they did it, what worked, what didn't. 

We chat about how other professional services industries might learn from what EY did, and were the first to do it. 

We talk about the challenges that the current partnership model can present, changing client expectations in a digital world, and how things will be very different for how client relationships are created, nurtured, and converted into business, in a post covid world.

Steve also shares 2 podcasts at the end of the discussion which he is listening to, and how this is helping give him a different perspective on selling today, versus when he first made the transition. 

Follow and connect with Steve here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/willssteve/

Find your voice and fill the damn silence

In this episode, I am joined by String Nguyen.

String is a 4 x LinkedIn Top Voice, founder of the Trusted Voice, and a Lenovo Brand Ambassador for ANZ.

How has she done all of this?

Using social media to create a personal brand and amplify her voice.

This is her story and how she did it.

She also shares her framework of the 7 Vs for doing this :

Vision

Values

Volk

Visuals

Voice

Validation

Victory

 

Oh, and she really likes Fried Chicken. 

Follow her here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stringstory/

Your mental health matters

In this episode, I am joined by Amir S Dhillon.

Amir shares his story about his journey and relationship with this mental health. 

We talk about the money he has raised over years for Mind https://www.mind.org.uk/ and why this is important to him.

We discuss why we believe mental health still carries a stigma.

We look at how mental health is being managed in the workplace, the rise of the mental health safety officer.

We discuss suicide.

You can :

1️ DONATE & LEARN MORE: https://lnkd.in/dr29Vur

2️ If you'd like to see more of this and previous year's campaigns, head here: https://lnkd.in/d83UeEt

3️ About Mind's amazing COVID work: https://lnkd.in/d6w5Pzj

Follow #movemberamir on social

Thank you

What is real today?

In this episode, I am joined by Jeremy Dalton from PwC. 

Jeremy leads PwC's VR/AR team, helping clients understand, quantify, and implement the benefits of virtual reality and augmented reality technology (sometimes collectively referred to as XR, immersive technologies or spatial computing).

We chat about his journey into the world of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

He shares real-world examples of how businesses are adopting VR & AR, and the benefits it can bring.

We discuss some fascinating results that he and his team have seen in VR training vs Classroom-based vs E-Learning.

Augmented Reality in Lego.

Why VR is not for every situation.

He also happens to be a Chartered Accountant (but prefers not to advertise that too loudly!).

You can find him on :

Twitter under the handle @jeremycdalton

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremydalton/

Link to his book "Reality Check: A book about XR Technology in Business"  https://realitycheckxr.com/

 

What do your customers really value?

I don't mean, do they like your product or service. What are their personal values as humans? What is it that is important to them? 

Values such as Family, Trust, Experiences, and more. If you truly understand this, then you can begin to create the right type of content and copy which will act as a magnet, attracting your target audience to you, rather than repel them.

Welcome to the world of Valuegraphics.

I bumped into David Allison, the founder of Valuegraphics whilst listening to him being interviewed by Kate Chernis, the CEO of Latley. His thinking piqued my interest as he is basing his insight on a blend of neuroscience, sociology, and psychology. Backed by The Valuegraphics Database which is informed by almost a half-million surveys from around the world in 152 languages, about what people value, want, need, and expect in life. Metrics include 40 core human values like belonging friendships, money, authority, and family, as well as answers to another 370 questions covering a broad range of contextualizing topics. 

Over the next 40mins, David breaks this down to what it means to you, and more importantly, how you can start to think differently about your audience and audience segmentation - backed up by data. 

Taken from their website :

"Your target audience is hardwired to chase what they care about. It’s what humans do. Now we can detect what your audience is focused on, so you can easily connect the dots between what you have and what they want. This is innovative consumer research that will change the way you look at the world.

When we truly understand what we all value most, we can unleash enormous passion and power. This is the fundamental disruption of our time: we can now predict and influence what people will do next."

We also chat about David's book, his forthcoming book, what his dog ate for breakfast, and trash pandas.

Connect with David here https://www.linkedin.com/in/valuegraphicsfounder/

Learn more here https://valuegraphics.com/ 

This is what the World cares about the most https://valuegraphics.com/news/infographic-what-everyone-in-the-world-cares-about-most

David's book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Are-All-Same-Age-Valuegraphics-ebook/dp/B07GTBQB2J