Selling With Social - A Sales, Social Selling & Social Media Podcast

Automation is the path of the future, especially for sales companies. But, knowing how to automate sales outreach the right way is where so many companies are falling short. My guest on this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast is an avid technologist and sales futurist who has mastered the science of fully automating fast-growing sales. Make sure to listen to the entire conversation with Justin ‘TQ’ Michael as he walks us through the most proven automation strategies that no one else in the industry is talking about (or even using). Justin Michael, Co-founder of HYPCCCYCL & Salesborgs, is the automation consultant companies call for highly-targeted RevOps and GTM strategies that work. Having coined the term ‘Technology Quotient’, his ingenious approaches have helped Fortune 100 companies like Salesforce and LinkedIn crack the top funnel with tech stack optimization. His 20+ years of experience revolutionizing sales development itself, has exploded the growth of hundreds of cutting-edge technology startu

As the world enters into a new and ever-evolving post-pandemic landscape, sales leaders are hyper-focused now more than ever on mastering the art of selling. My guest in this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast is a Harvard Business School professor, market researcher, and best-selling author who has spent decades studying the data behind what really drives sales. Don’t miss this eye-opening conversation with Frank Cespedes, as he dispels the biggest sales myths and explains the must-use strategies to consistently get sales results. Frank Cespedes is one of Harvard Business School’s best-kept secrets. He spent 12 years as a Managing Partner of a professional services firm, where he helped countless companies navigate go-to-market and strategy issues. He has written for numerous publications, and is the author of six books, including, Aligning Strategy and Sales, which was cited as “The Best Sales Book of the Year” by Strategy & Business, “A Must Read” by Gartner, and “Perhaps the Best Sales Book Ever”

Sales coaching is critical to your organization’s success. These days, businesses are focused more and more on learning and developing frameworks for sales enablement to support coaching. So, what’s all the hype about sales coaching anyway – and why is it getting so much attention? I asked Nicholas Gregory, a seasoned, globally recognized sales enablement leader with 13 years of sales and sales enablement strategy development experience, about his thoughts. Nick is currently the Vice President of Global Sales Enablement at Korbyt, a workplace experience technology company. He has held global and regional sales enablement roles at technology organizations such as Veritas, Symantec, Sabre, and Automation Anywhere. Check out today’s show, where Nicholas gives his unique perspective, drawing from years of deploying enablement on an international scale to help you coach your sellers to the next level. More Organizations Are Giving Attention to Sales Coaching My success in sales is directly attributed to coaching t

As you’re aware, the speed of innovation is only getting faster in today’s dynamic market. Understanding the trends, and quickly responding to them, is the key to success. Are you paying attention? New data-driven sales technologies help sellers who are wanting to stay ahead of the curve, make the right decision at the right time Today, I’m joined by my friend and mentor, Amit Bendov. the co-founder and CEO of Gong.io. Amit’s company has created a software solution in the category of Revenue Intelligence. Gong, helps sellers gain critical insights into what’s happening with leaders' remote sales team, their deals, and market. Thus, transforming the way they go to market. With over 20 years’ experience in hyper-growth software startups, Amit previously held the CMO role at Panaya. His outstanding track record of taking tech companies from unknown to market leaders has led him to being featured in such publications as Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and others.  In this episode, Amit and I discuss how developm

The digitization of the world’s economy has accelerated in recent years. The changes brought about by the information age have revolutionized marketing and advertising. A crucial aspect of the sophisticated pipeline structures used by modern businesses is sales development. Pipelines are instrumental to a company’s growth, and my guest today has a record of building SDR teams that maximize pipeline potential. With over 25 years of sales and operations experience in the technology sector, Lars Nilsson is a global leader in enterprise software and selling solutions. Currently, he is VP of Global Sales Development at Snowflake and CEO of Sales Source, a premier consulting firm specializing in industry-leading best practices and advisory for optimizing sales teams.  Before his time at Snowflake, Lars was VP of Global Inside Sales at Cloudera. Together with his team, they developed the sales methodology known as Account-Based Sales Development (ABSD). It has transformed how many businesses approach their high-valu

Negotiation isn’t just a tool that turns potential buyers into customers. The best negotiators create an ongoing partnership. My returning guest on this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast is a good friend of mine, Petek Hawkins. She says that you’ve already begun negotiations before you first reach out to a potential buyer. Petek is Head of Enablement at Melio, where she works to keep small businesses going. In this role, she ensures customer success by delivering tools, skills, knowledge, process, and content to handle each customer interaction with efficacy and value. Listen in on our conversation to find out how she’s found success in negotiations throughout the buying process. When Do Negotiations Begin? When I talk about negotiation with my kids, I like to get them to think about what they can give in exchange for what they’ll get. Sometimes, negotiations don’t go exactly as we expect. One side or the other may walk away from the table without everything they wanted from a deal. Often, it can be hard

Sales and Customer Success are essential to the growth and expansion of any organization. So, how you think about them and how well they work together will shape the future of your company. How can you improve your client’s customer experience so there are no gaps between sales and customer success? That is the topic of this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast with my guest, Dan Burkland, President of Five9.  As President of Five9, Dan manages the entire customer lifecycle from sales to implementation to ongoing support – all critical to customer success for a cloud software company. He heads global sales, including all direct sales, channels, System Integrators, and ISV partnerships. By leading implementation, professional services, and customer support organizations, Dan has elevated the exceptional, industry-recognized customer service that Five9 provides to its clients. Join our conversation to discover how to integrate sales and customer success for a better customer experience. Why Sales and Customer

The sales profession is evolving at a fast pace because of the changes in consumer behavior. B2B sales are becoming more and more like B2C sales in many aspects. That is why modern sellers need to level up their sales skills and adapt to the modern buyer. One of those skills is the ability to find latent problems that prospects are unaware of. How?  Well, you have to listen to this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast to learn what my guest, Greg Alexander, has to say. Greg is the Chief Investment Officer for Capital 54, where he decides which entrepreneurs to bet on, and which firms to invest in. He helps them scale and exit their firms by sharing how he scaled and exited his. Listen to Greg tell the amazing story of how he started SBI, a sales consulting firm, from scratch and how he sold it for 165 million without recurring revenue. Greg is also the author of The Boutique: How To Start, Scale, And Sell A Professional Services Firm. Listen now to hear his predictions about the future of sales and how you

  This episode of The Modern Selling Podcast is a little bit different. Instead of me interviewing a guest, I want to share an interview I did with Rob Jeppsen on the Sales Leadership Podcast, where we talked about creating more sales conversations and how to prospect. Our own research at Vengreso has shown that the hardest part of the sales cycle, according to both sales leaders and sellers, is getting the first conversation. The longest part of the sales cycle is that from “hello” to close and, in fact, most of the 200 sales training companies out there focus on teaching all the skills needed in that part of the cycle. But very few focus on the pre-hello. And that's where we spend a lot of our time at Vengreso, teaching prospecting skills that will actually build the sales pipeline. Because the fact is that without the first conversation, nothing else happens. Creating Sales Conversations 1. Mindset Sales leaders who want a strong pipeline must begin by changing their mindset. Those of us 45 years of age a

Are you coaching your sales team or are you just making sure they hit quota?  According to my guest in this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast, sales leaders today have moved from providing sales coaching to reporting on numbers. And that is not helping sellers grow. Listen to this interview with Charles Forsgard, the Vice President of Global Sales for Honeywell’s Advanced Sensors Technology business. In this role, he leads 300 salespeople, applications engineers, and managers delivering $850M in revenue. Prior to working at Honeywell, Charles spent three years at GE leading the Controls and Software sales team and twenty-six years at Schneider Electric in a variety of sales, marketing, and business management roles. Charles is an avid customer advocate and is passionate about the evolution of the selling profession. He is a frequent speaker at events and on podcasts about selling and sales management. Charles was named as one of The Modern Sale Magazine’s Top 100 Global Sales Leaders in 2020 and is the au

For those of us in the trenches, it is obvious that buying and selling has changed significantly due to Covid and the shift to virtual selling. But what does the research say about these changes and what can we do to overcome the new challenges? To answer this question, I have an amazing guest in this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast, Andee Harris. Andee is the CEO of Challenger, a global leader in training, technology, and consulting, and the creators of the Challenger sales methodology. She has more than two decades of experience in growing and scaling service and technology businesses and previously led multiple companies, both as CEO and Senior Vice President. Don’t miss our conversation to learn how you and your team can succeed in the new sales landscape. What is different about buying and selling today? Andee says it's a buyer’s market right now. That means that companies have had to reprioritize their spending across categories. “Every purchase,” she says, “every function is now under a lot of s

What can sales leaders learn from cybersecurity awareness? A lot! My guest in this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast is Perry Carpenter, author of Transformational Security Awareness: What Neuroscientists, Storytellers, and Marketers Can Teach Us About Driving Secure Behaviors, and he brings some great insights for sales leaders and marketers. He currently serves as Chief Evangelist and Strategy Officer for KnowBe4, the world's most popular security awareness and simulated phishing platform. Previously, Perry led security awareness, security culture management, and anti-phishing behavior management research at Gartner Research, in addition to covering areas of IAM strategy, CISO Program Management mentoring, and Technology Service Provider success strategies. With a long career as a security professional and researcher, Perry has broad experience in North America and Europe, providing security consulting and advisory services for many of the best-known global brands. Listen to our conversation to learn t

With so many sales methodologies available, sales leaders ask themselves how they can pick one and how they can actually implement it and drive adoption among their sales team. My guest in this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast is a sales strategy and methodology enthusiast who has great insights about this topic. Paul Curto is the Head of Global Sales Methodologies at Juniper Networks. He is focused on accelerating the performance of Juniper Networks’ sellers, both direct and indirect. Paul develops and delivers a holistic framework for consistently improving the experience and capabilities of all of Juniper’s customer-facing roles from onboarding through ongoing development and seller excellence and skills.  Paul has a special passion for sales methodologies as applied in a consistent way to improving sales outcomes, as well as maximizing employee productivity, health, and impact. Listen to this episode to learn from Paul about implementing a winning sales methodology in your organization. Aren’t All Me

How do you get a traditional sales team to embrace modern selling techniques and engage with prospects digitally? That is the topic of conversation in this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast with my guest Kyle Healy. Kyle is the SVP of Sales Enablement and Strategy for NFP. A dynamic leader with nearly 15 years of experience in the insurance consulting and sales space, Kyle is a core member of the leadership team at NFP tasked with driving transformation inside the functions connected to the organization’s revenue growth. Kyle is a regular public speaker on progressive sales strategies for complex B2B buyers, as well as total rewards and human capital trends as a result of his background in benefits consulting. Listen to this episode to discover how NFP has transformed its traditional sales force into a modern sales organization. Focusing on Outcomes We started our conversation by talking about some commonly held beliefs about selling that he disagrees with. One of those beliefs is that as a seller you ne

Sales and marketing have evolved significantly in the past few decades, especially in the SaaS space.  In the 90s, for example, we had sales-led growth, with sellers doing cold calling and hitting the phones. In the 2000s, it was about marketing-led sales or marketing-led growth, with events, inbound leads and SDRs doing outbound prospecting. Now, according to my guest in this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast, we are moving into a new era of product-led sales. Doug Landis is a Growth Partner at Emergence Capital. In this role, he is responsible for capturing, creating and sharing go-to-market strategies and ideas with the Emergence Capital portfolio companies and the greater SaaS community. Join us in this conversation about the future of the sales force and how to better qualify your leads. What is Product-Led Growth? “I would argue in this generation and especially over the next three to five years,” says Doug, “you're going to see a tectonic shift to product-led growth, meaning the product is leading

Whether you are a sales leader looking for a new role or an aspiring sales rep looking for your first sales job, you will want to listen closely to what my guest has to say. My guest in this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast is Richard Harris, a seasoned SaaS leader and consultant. Richard has 20 years of sales and sales training experience with companies like Google, Visa, SiriusXM, Pager Duty, Gainsight, Salesloft. He is also the author of Owning Your Job Search: Your step by step guide from application, to salary. The goal of the book is to teach people that they have way more control in the interview process than they think they do. It's all about the mindset. “When you go to a job interview,” Richard says, “you're interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.” Listen to the episode to learn some tips on how to land your dream sales job. How to Get a Sales Job These are the basic steps to apply for a sales position, according to Richard. 1. You have to update your resume -- that means Linke

Most sales professionals operate without a strategy, which results in a reduction in sales productivity. How can we fix this? That is the topic of discussion in this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast, with my guest, Brain Margolis. Brian is a former environmental/fisheries scientist turned entrepreneur. He is the founder of ProductivityGiant.com and author of the book The Index Card Business Plan for Sales Pros and Entrepreneurs. His client list ranges from individual sales reps to Shark Tank entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies. Brian's Pillar System helps sales pros and entrepreneurs create a strategy so simple, it fits on an index card, but so powerful it’s helped create 7 figure earners and has been licensed by some of the largest companies in the world to train their sales teams. The Need for a Sales Strategy Brian says that sellers can grind their way with their skills and work ethic, but at a certain point they will hit an upper limit, because there are just so many hours they can put into their

9iu Pipeline generation is one of the biggest challenges to the sales force today. No matter where you go or whatever the organization is, whether it's consulting services or SaaS, pipeline generation is the Achilles heel for most organizations. So how do we solve that problem? That is the topic of this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast with my guest, Scott Walston. Scott is the President of North American Sales at Micro Focus. In this role, he works with Senior Executives to make sure they are receiving incredible value from Micro Focus’ digital transformation solutions, helping them identify solutions that deliver essential business insights, operational efficiencies, and process automation. Don’t miss this great conversation about building and managing the sales pipeline. Why is a Sales Pipeline so Important? For sales leaders, the sales pipeline is the headlights of the business, allowing them to do sales forecasting based on their amount of pipeline and their close ratios. “Now when you're thinking a

On May 6, 2017, Robert Paylor broke his neck. On national television. During the Rugby collegiate championship game. Doctors said he would never walk again and would actually be lucky if he could regain any movement below his neck. Yet, almost four years later, Robert is telling an amazing story of recovery, hope, and forgiveness. I’m super excited about having Robert Paylor as my guest in this episode of The Modern Selling podcast. Robert is an international public speaker and, in his own words, a “quadriplegic on a journey to walk again and inspire others.” Don’t miss this episode to hear Rob’s story, some amazing life lessons, as well as valuable keys to sales success for leaders and sellers alike. 1. Mindset Rob was a rising star in UC Berkeley's Rugby team, with a bright future in front of him. But it all changed in an instant. The medical prognosis was that he would be paralyzed for the rest of his life. Rob, however, refused to accept that. Rob’s attitude and mindset after his injury helped him get thr

Organizations don't partner, people do. As sales leaders in a remote selling environment, we must teach our sellers how to create successful partnerships that will ultimately increase your sales pipeline. This is the topic of conversation with my guest in this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast, Fred Copestake. Fred is a sales consultant, trainer, and author of Selling Through Partnering Skills, a book that looks at the evolving world of sales and sets out what people need to do to refine their approach. It explores how they can take it to the next level through understanding partnering intelligence (PQ) and using what Fred calls the VALUE Framework.  Put simply, it helps individuals and businesses improve how they sell in the modern sales environment so they will achieve better results. The Partnering Quotient PQ or Partnering Quotient refers to the skills that people who are good at partnering have. PQ has the following six elements. 1. Ability to trust Trust is the foundation of relationships and good c