New Episode – Learning the Language of Your Buyers

Sales Evangelist TV s the home of Karl Goldfield the startup sales mentor. He delivers concise plan based sales training in series designed to help the startup make more money. Every few weeks some of the best in the sales training business join him and get interviewed. Come join the awesomeness and make more sales!

Next Episode: Friday, July 17, 2009 at 10:30am PST
Where: http://tv.salesevangelist.com
Contact: tv@salesevangelist.com

Episode Summary:
How much time have you spent learning the language of your buyers. Karl will share how a Sales Evangelist works toward understanding the word choice and vernacular of their contacts by title and industry. By speaking the language of the potential client more can get done in less time.

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Sales Rant – Keep believing that things are bad and they will be

or A little face smacking Sales Training for all.

Some messages to the free market world:

To all the news men, politicians, and loud mouths out there, I have one thing to say. SHUT UP!!! You are only making matters worse by ruining the average person’s ability to maintain focus on their day to day.

For all of you that still have a job.  STOP FREAKING OUT. The more you change your behavior the more you hurt the current situation. If you still have a job and you are not in bad shape, then take care of your needs and your family. Little Johnny can still get a Christmas, and you should still spend in a smart manner.

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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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Organization: Focusing on selling activities

One of my favorite sales trainings relates to the understanding of selling vs. non selling activities. It is a common theme and an important skill for high level sales people to master to stay at the top of their game. On ki work, I have listed a 7 part full cycle sales training for startups. The third lesson I give reps relates to this focus. Many wonder why this is so important to outline it in a training to sales evangelists at startups. Well, if there are two things a sales evangelist have to deal with is an abundance of expectations and an even great landscape of unkown opportunity.

So much of this day to day can get lost in non selling activities, for distinctions read this post on selling and non selling activity. It is easy to get lost in the long list of tasks that are outside of selling activites, but in a startup, where so many have to where multiple hats, the sales people on the fornt lines should focus on one. SALES!

If we burden the sales evangelist with non selling activities they will fail. Why? Because they have to work harder at crafting the perfect sales opportunity. They have less resources, fewer customers, no long lasting case studies, no peers, new ideas, and if good interested prospects. So, teach them to focus on the things that make sales and put on a hat and help them with those things that do not. Whether you are their manager or the CEO, take off that ego hat and get your hands dirty. Yes, you can do some of their administrative tasks, yes you can help them with their pipeline, I mean you take out the garbage and clean up the kitchen….right? How much revenue does that bring in?

When I was at Demandforce, one of our failings was not supporting our sales team enough. The person I took the sales team from, then eventaully and willingly gave it back to, had a superiority complex that inhibitied him from really helping his team. He thought my willingness to do so was a weakness. I feel that it is a strength to be willing to help your sales team succeed, no matter what it takes.

So, the next time a rep can lose an hour doing some menial task that will not bear fruit, walk on over and get them back on the phone or out the door. Believe me, they will not only appreciate it in the moment, but when they get that extra sale, also on payday…and so will you.

Sales Training: A group of sales bloggers has united

Time to let the cat out of the bag. For the greater good of sales people everywhere, a group of 10 of people focused on sales training and development have united forces to compile and share the best sales content available on the web. We are still finalizing our name and our new blog site, and here is the jist.

Every quarter we will offer an E-book with an article from each of us focusing on a specific theme. Since each of us has a different niche in sales training and education, and all live in different parts of the world, he plan to deliver dynamic perspectives on subjects, instead of giving you a linear opinion on a topic. The first E-book will be out at the end of the summer, and it will be a free download for all list or RSS subscribers. I will share the topic in the same post that I announce the new site. My gut says, in a week or two there will be news.

Addi tonally, every two weeks we will have a blogging topic. Each of us will write a post on that topic during that period again offering you many sides to the same coin. Our aim is to elevate the possibilities and engage in dialog with our readers that helps them grow as sales people.

Here is the bio of each member on Brad’s Sales Management blog:

http://www.salesmanagement20.com/profile/TiborShanto

http://www.salesmanagement20.com/profile/CraigElias

http://www.salesmanagement20.com/profile/TimRohrer

http://www.salesmanagement20.com/profile/JimKlein

http://www.salesmanagement20.com/profile/SkipAnderson

http://www.salesmanagement20.com/profile/NeshThompson

http://www.salesmanagement20.com/profile/KarlGoldfield

http://www.salesmanagement20.com/profile/IanBrodie

http://www.salesmanagement20.com/profile/ColinWilson

http://www.salesmanagement20.com/profile/bmtrnavsky

As leaders in sales training, sales plan designers, pipeline experts, sales management consultants, business consultants, (man the list goes on) we intend to deliver something different than the other group blogging sites. If you have any ideas for topics or concepts you want us to explore, speak now or forever…ah you can share with us whenever you like. Sales training in the form of articles and blog posts is my favorite part of this Web 2.0 world.