RainToday's Sales Tips & Techniques Podcast

There’s a problem among sales managers that’s reaching a critical level. They have forgotten the primary job and responsibilities of the sales manager. As a result, the sales culture is a mess and performance is steadily dropping. Listen as Mike Weinberg, author of Sales Management. Simplfied., discusses how sales managers can stop this trend and create a high-performing sales team.

The secret to successful improv comedy is the same strategy that keeps sales conversations moving forward. It’s all about saying “yes and.” Listen as Michael Port, author of the book Steal the Show, explains how sellers can use that tactic, why you must rehearse in order to be spontaneous, and the best way to close a deal.

Sales experts have said the phone is the best sales tool. It can be even more effective, however, when used along with email—when you use email to familiarize prospects with your product and company. By essentially pre-selling, they will be 80% sold when you talk with them on the phone, says email specialist Ben Settle.

If you think professional services firms are exempt from using artificial intelligence to automate services, you are in for a big awakening. As new technology is developed and buyers’ needs shift, firms are changing delivery models and their sales models. And those that don’t change will be in peril, says John Dillard, author of Microslices: The Death of Consulting and What It Means for Executives.

Doing great work for a client is no longer enough to ensure the client will buy from you again when the need arises. Great work is expected and doesn’t set you apart from the growing competition. To keep clients buying from you, RAIN Group's Ago Cluytens suggest you do four things.

Online tools such as email were once considered the best prospecting tools. That is no longer the case. The phone has reclaimed the title as the number one prospecting tool for sales teams. Listen as inside sales expert Trish Bertuzzi explains why the phone is the top tool and what to say during conversations to get buyers to want to learn more.

Having a CRM to enable your sales team is just table stakes. Today, sellers need advanced tools to help with their sales efforts—tools such as predictive analytics software, cloud-based document software, and esignature software. Listen as Monte Wilson, Vice President, Head of Americas Field Operations for Digital Media at Adobe Systems, discusses how those types of tools help companies win sales—and close them faster—and develop longtime relationships with customers.

In sales situations, 59% of the executives who make buying decisions don’t want to meet with a salesperson. That doesn’t mean salespeople aren’t needed. It means their role has changed. They’ve become guides in what’s become a very processed-driven selling system. Listen as Tom Searcy, author of Life After the Death of Selling, explains sellers’ new roles and what sales leaders must do to ensure their teams perform well.

When 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers, it’s critical to retain and grow those accounts. The best way to manage those key accounts is through a Selling Center, a permanent team committed to the account that maintains and increases the value of the relationship over time. Listen as Carl Herman and Joël Le Bon, authors of Key Account Management, explain how to improve your key account management.

People have strong beliefs. Those beliefs may not be correct, but you will never win those buyers over by telling them their belief system is wrong or flawed. To earn people’s business, you must accept their beliefs for what they are and learn how to communicate in a way that validates what they believe is correct, says Jay Samit, author of Disrupt You!

Buyers want personalized messages and conversations with salespeople. Generic selling just won't do. To have those conversations, companies must enable their sales teams, says Aberdeen Group's Peter Ostrow. They must give sellers the tools, content, and support that allow them to speak to a specific persona, vertical, or even company.

You probably know everything required to sell more. The problem is you don't implement those tactics because you worry you are bothering your clients or you think you don't have time to do them. Both of those are misconceptions you need to get past. Listen as Alex Goldfayn, author of The Revenue Growth Habit, three unimposing things you can do now to increase revenue.

The average B2B salesperson uses only about a third of their time to actively sell. That means there's much more they can do to be more efficient, complete more sales activities, and win more deals. Listen as Matt Heinz discusses what salespeople can do right now to be more productive and sell more.

In sales, you have to move your prospects where you want them to go. You do that by using power language that gets them to agree to a series of small things. Listen as Mark Rodgers, author of Persuasion Equation, discusses how to use power language, and the Principle of Nudge to persuade customers to buy from you.

If you're trying to sell something, don't try to sell to people using logic. It's a waste of time. You need to connect with buyers on a subconscious and emotional level, says Erik Luhrs, aka The Bruce Lee of Sales and Lead Generation. If you can do that, you will increase sales volume and decrease sales cycle length.

Products and services are more complex. We use different media to communicate. And we communicate less face to face. As a result, our communication is often boring and superficial. It does not include intuitive information or the experiential aspect of what we're trying to say. Storytelling can fix that, says Annette Simmons, author of Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins.

Hostage takers and your customers have different wants, but how you communicate with them to get to your desired result is the same. The goal is to keep the person talking. In this podcast, Mark Goulston, author of Just Listen, explains how to keep customers talking until they sell themselves on your solution.

Referrals are a salesperson's biggest competitive differentiator. The produce the highest quality leads and can shorten the sale cycle. The problem is many people don't ask for referrals or they don't know how to ask for them. Listen as Joanne Black, author of No More Cold Calling and a leading authority on referral selling, discusses how to ask, as well as how to get started creating a referral system.

Buyers are frustrated. Often sales reps are unprepared for meetings and unable to answer buyers' questions, causing the rep to lose the sale. To remedy that, companies need to gather insight about their buyers, create buyer personas, and use the information to help buyers, says Adele Revella, author of Buyer Personas.

Email is still an effective sales tool—if it's done right. The problem is it's very easy to do wrong. Listen as David Traub, author of The 10 Second Sale, discusses six things you should include in every email that make people want to not just open your email, but reply to it.