Free writing on the Strategy of a Sales Evangelist

What is the strategy of a sales person? Should it not be created by those in charge? Surely they have the experience to guide us in our objectives. We do not have time to consider these things we must freely reduce our activities to those that are most effective.

Initially you strategy must focus on who you are going to contact. To find success and repeat it, you must hone to a zone. Spread your wings wide and reach out with diversity in mind. This is a strategy to uncover who you offering appeals to and how you should communicate with them.

Where to start?

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Sales Evangelist: Free writing on my chapters

Image via WikipediaA sales evangelist is a rare bird and an asset to every startup. We have to know who we are before we know what we can do and the sales evangelist has uncovered their talents before they truly soar.

When you are selling the new you are forced to think differently about how you present yourself and your offering. You must start with strategies that  guarantee audience with the hottest of the early adapters. You must message for the curious and your process has to lead them to the understanding of your difference making offering.

Do not forget about the passion, the drive, and the demeanor. The cup is not always half full, it is always pouring over. No is just a word that means not yet. It means the prospect has not yet seen the light, but oh has the sales evangelist.

What really drives a sales evangelist is ideas. Creativity is the fountain that binds them to their passion, and the moment they are stifled there are problems. Think about this when you let them loose on the world.

Ask the coach about CRM: Some great tools for the Sales Evangelist

A reader and great friend to the entrepreneur,

Cheryl Liquori, asked me the following:

“Do you have any knowledge of, or experience, working with ZOHO.com for CRM?  I’m not interested in the desktop applications, but only in the CRM.  I\’ve read reviews, but they seem to focus on large enterprise applications.  For the sole propriator on a shoe string, wrestling with excel and overwhelmed by user-unfriendly ACT, I was wondering about zoho as an alternative.  Your expert thoughts?”

Now you all know I support Landslide as the ultimate Workstyle system. If you need something that focuses o the sales process, YOU MUST ADD LANDSLIDE TO YOUR TOOLKIT!

What you do not know is that I am designing a fully automated CRM system for a client that is based on the combo dialer-crm Insidesales.com. These guys have designed a complete system that allows you to do anything via javascript. I am literally making it so reps can make 200-300 quality calls a day with almost no admin work. EVERYTHING IS AUTOMATED BY A BUTTON CLICK!

If you are CRM hunting, let me know, as I get a referral fee for either of the above.

Now back to the question. What a coincidence! I found Zoho and have loaded one of my clients into it. Mind you, I havenever talked to the company, but intend to!

As their sole sales person for my startup client I have started using it for everything. Frankly, it is awesome! I believe it is based on SugarCRM, but SalesForce look out. At a price of $12/mo after 3 FREE USERS, this is going to get the small businesses, entrepreneurs, individual consultants… onboard and adopting.

So far:

1.  Fast, I mean super fast

2. Complete sales and marketing system with all of the trimmings

3. The reporting is easy to use

4. Forecast tool is great

5. Opportunities are called potentials, how adorable!

6. Uploads work really well.

7. Mimics the standard SalesForce, SugarCRM, Netsuite methodology of lead to accounts.

8. Really flexible design

9. Did I mention that the first 3 users are free?

10. Upgradeable to an enterprise system with a load of featers for $25 a user. YES I SAID $25 A USER!

I would strongly recommend any small budget player with little demands on automation to play with this system prior to looking at anything else.

The art of cultivating business relationships – A must have for a sales evangelist

So the direction of this blog and my newsletter will now official head in the direction of my expertise. We will focus on the startup sales person and what I define as the Sales Evangelist.

Sales Evangelist – One who shares the good news of a new offering without pandering or preaching; a salesperson with deep seeded beliefs in the value that their organization and its offering bring.

Today I was on a call for one of my clients. It was a simple discovery session that involved learning more about a reporting system. My client has a strong relationship with our contact and led off the call. When I was introduced, I mentioned that long ago, I had interviewed with his VP of Sales, and that a couple of my old co-workers were employed there. One, he knew well, as she worked closely with his team. This little back and forth took around 5 minutes, however in that short amount of time my stature with this prospect grew tremendously.

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