In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Sarah, sharing the best practices to get your team using it and maximizing the solution for them.

Episode Highlights

• 01:55 – Sarah shares, she started working with a bunch of start-ups and a lot of her role within those start-ups was implementing CRMs and getting them set up with them.
• 03:43 – Sam enquires from Sarah if she has a very broad spectrum from a sales perspective, and what made her start in sales.
• 05:40 – There's a lot of value in starting at a more established organization, says Sam.
• 07:25 – Sam asks Sarah if she is seeing the space getting more crowded in the CRM? 
• 09:39 – CRM has always been the necessary evil, and that should be the foundational tool of any sales organization, mentions Sam.
• 11:00 – There are so many different ways and methods to keep track of your contact information. So finding the right tool for you and your company is important.
• 13:04 - Sarah highlights, it's important to think about what is your current process looks like, and what potentially is it going to look like a month or even a year from now?
• 14:49 – If you move to a new tool with the same types of processes and behaviors, you probably are going to end up at the same place, says Sarah
• 17:25 – It would be great if the flow of data, and where it is coming from can be stored into your CRM, but it doesn't necessarily mean that your team has to be working out of it constantly, it depends on what you need.
• 21:40 – Sarah points out that there is a reason why user adoption is lower because the users get overwhelmed by the amount of data that's in there. They don't know what they're supposed to update.
• 23:11 – A lot of sales leaders will stick to a field because they think that they need it. 
• 26:00 – Sarah states, standardization is trying to keep things aligned across the system.
• 28:25 – Inefficiencies in redundancies if you don't standardize it leads to that drop off from an adaption and those challenging conversations probably with your sales team, states Sam.
• 31:54 – Sarah highlights, regular conversations, and check-ins are also very important because you implement something in one way doesn't mean it's going to stay that way.
• 32:22 – A lot of times CRMs are implemented and managed by IT teams or leadership, that's fine, and it's great. However, you do need to have the voice of the everyday user constantly, mentions Sarah.
• 34:31 - When you initially roll something out, it's easy to create something, but then it can be hard to remember to go back and update those materials.
• 35:41 - If you're going to document that you got to keep up with the documentation to make sure it's up to date.
• 37:22 - If everybody is using it, then everybody is going to naturally have that feedback and those types of conversations with each other.
• 40:10 - If it's implemented and used correctly, then you can see that in the long term.

Three Key Points

1. When you're rolling out initially, there are two buckets, first is, rolling it out initially and making people aware of how to use it, what this tool is, where things go, why it goes there, or what this field is used for. Then the other piece of it is what the feedback loop is? Is it working the right way? Do we need to switch this? What do we need to do here? 
2. Sarah says she is always on the side of getting everybody on to the CRM and getting everybody involved and trying to get everybody's workflows built-in there because it's not a sales tool anymor

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest, James Buckley, creator of "Saywhatsales", Chief Evangelist & Master of Ceremonies @JB Sales. They're going to be discussing why time management and Omnipresence matter more in 2022 than it ever has.

Episode Highlights

• 01:55 – Where does "Saywhatsales" come from, enquires Sam.
• 04:10 – James shares that the number one thing a salesperson can say is, how do I make people want to talk to me, content that matters to them is the way, James got through all of it.
• 08:18 – James’ first sales job was as a Phone Line Salesperson, it was door-to-door B2B in the heat for AT&T.
• 10:47 – When you're shaking your head, there's a natural tendency for a buyer to agree more or be a little more agreeable with you, highlights James.
• 13:32 – "Saywhatsales" was the long game from day one because James recognizes that from his days of working.
• 15:33 – Sam says, time is always been the biggest challenge for him like there's just never enough time.
• 16:10 – James points out that there are several factors to consider but time blocking is where you want to start, time blocking is so important.
• 19:28 - If you're not managing your time, everything around you is managing your time and then you have zero control over your outcomes.
• 20:16 – If there are five people in your general vicinity daily, whether that's in Slack or Office when they bark, they immediately become a priority. That is the way of life and when that happens, you need to be transparent, says James.
• 21:50 – James suggests keeping your tasks separate, but ensure you're using the time blocking factor to be able to allocate the time no matter what the task is. 
• 23:18 - Segmenting the task into two buckets (Revenue Generating and Administrative), they both got to be done. But there's got to be a priority associated with both. 
• 25:11 – Sam states that if you're finding that there's still not enough time, then start getting up a little earlier or staying a little late or whatever works for you. 
• 27:10 – There's no time limit on value, it can be as impactful in February as it is in April, value does not have a time limit, mentions James.
• 30:47 – Sam enquires from James about ‘Omni Presence’ as to what is it from a context standpoint.
• 32:07 – When James says ‘Omni Presence’, he means that once you're on his radar, it is nearly impossible to ignore him. He also explains how he does that.
• 35:06 – Don't waste time where you’re not, if you’re not actively posting anything on LinkedIn but you’re doing it on Twitter, you're wasting your time.
• 37:28 – James says your CTA matters, ask them for feedback, give them something and say read this part of it because it's relevant to you. Find something that happened at their company and tie it into your value proposition in some way.
• 38:06 – What works for one buyer, doesn't necessarily work for every buyer.
• 40:22 - If you're creating content on Tik-Tok and somebody that's in your space using SEO using hashtags, using all kinds of ways you can get in their feed and they'll see you and you might have an inbound connection request next day.
• 42:40 – The first thing you need to do is, dial into your ICP and the Personas that you want in your pipeline. The more you know those people, the easier it is for you to filter.
• 45:55 – James mentions, your energy is what matters, and your energy is what people respond to. Your aura, the thing that you put out there, that's

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest, Steve Richard, Founder @ExecVision: Sales Coaching & Conversation Intelligence Software. Steve's sharing 8 Cold Calling Tactics that have the potential to work for you.

Episode Highlights

• 03:34 – Steve shares his background, how he didn't make it as an Investment Banker, and so he mimic what better people were doing at the time, which made him better. 
• 04:20 – Steve realized that sales are about having the ability to impact and influence how people's lives go in some strange way. 
• 07:25 – If you're not constantly trying new things and testing, experimenting, you're missing the boat, says Steve.
• 10:11 – It is about understanding all those different nuances to your business that you should understand and then testing it. 
• 12:40 - You take a spreadsheet, you put your personas in your rows, you put your industry verticals, and then you fill in the use case and customer story for each of those.
• 14:01 – Sam asks, how to leverage a new initiative from a Cold Calling Tactics?
• 16:30 – Steve shares, they had clients who over time started comparing people in terms of their experiences, but they outperformed their people. 
• 20:19 – People are motivated by fixing a problem, accomplishing a goal, or avoiding risks, states Steve.
• 23:41 – Steve questions, what about the fact that the seller has more information than ever before? What about the fact that the salesperson could know far more about their prospective customers and prospects than they ever could have before? 
• 25:40 – Sam asks Steve about his thoughts around the title ‘X’.
• 27:00 – Steve discusses where you get to ask your qualification questions, your pain questions, or your goal questions.
• 29:30 – Steve points out about second vendor options and their two flavors.
• 31:30 - We do coaching and behavior change, tracking manager coaching, calibrating with multiple scorecards, some specific concrete things, reveals Steve.
• 34:10 – There are going to be situations that depending on what you sell and who you sell to, don't want to do the second vendor option, they use a certain competitor.
• 35:35 – Sometimes with clients, you would hear the same object every time. It was like you literally could predict which objection was going to be before you pick up the phone.
• 37:25 – Sam says, let's take 30 minutes to figure out if there's a path forward.
• 42:20 - Some solutions have to be seen to be understood.
• 43:50 – Steve mentions, in the last 3 to 4 years buyer behavior has changed.
• 45:55 – Never say pricing even arranger pricing until you have these 35 fields filled out in Salesforce that's not how the modern buyer will work, highlights Steve.
• 47:30 – Sam asks Steve to give some context behind Crawl Walk Run.
• 49:01 – Crawl Walk Run makes people feel okay to admit they suck at something. 

Three Key Points

1. Steve had a sales training company and the clients were telling him that they want the sales training content, but how do you reinforce it? What are you going to do to help reinforce the sales training content? That was the origin of ExecVision, so they started using this in their company and realized that they can reinforce this mastery training. So, it was the marketplace that was asking for this new niche and now they have a new initiative to bring technology to reinforce sales training to a point of mastery.
2. Every time Steve has a scheduled call with some

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest, Larry Levine, best-selling author of ‘Selling from the Heart’. They discuss what ‘Sales Authenticity’ is and how to develop it! 

Episode Highlights

• 01:50 – Larry says, he sold copiers his whole life up and down the street, small businesses, medium businesses, and enterprise major accounts.
• 04:28 – It took Larry five to six months for him to make his first sale. 
• 06:13 – Larry believes that if they do the non-negotiables in the basics and sell well, it creates the foundational layers for how they can go about layering sophisticated stuff.
• 10:24 – If you're in those environments that don't align with how you sell to your point, you can either accept it or lean into it, says Larry.
• 13:45 - If you want to bring your authentic self to the forefront you have to be willing to do the inner work to uncover what's in your heart.
• 17:56 – Larry states that he transformed his career within a period of 10-years when he was around 40 to 50 based on doing the inner work.
• 19:20 – In his 40s Larry’s first business coach taught him the inner work and taught him how to replicate himself online.
• 24:48 - If you read 20 pages a day, Monday through Friday, and you took the weekend off, you have read two books a month and 24 books in a year. You are now probably in the half percentile worldwide of readers. Imagine the wealth of knowledge you would have as a sales professional to leverage.
• 27:16 – Larry states, there is a difference between sales reps and sales professionals.
• 30:44 - You want to understand what it means to sell from the heart and lead that kind of lifestyle in sales. Then you got to be willing to do the work. 
• 32:33 – Sam mentions, to this day, he blocked off his calendar for specific things because it was a best practice that he learned from a book, went to a mentor at the time, and spoke to them about and implemented. 
• 35:45 – Larry mentions, if you want to become a professional, you got to be willing to do the things that sales professionals do every day.
• 37:25 – Sam reveals that he is not looking for 50 different things to pick up from a podcast or a book. He thinks that's another area we miss from a professional standpoint.
• 40:03 – If you're looking for mentorship, you should be finding out people older than you somebody who aligns with your values.
• 42:50 – Larry Highlights, if you are a reader, take the last three great books you read, look the author up on LinkedIn, ask the person to connect, send them a heartfelt message on the impact the book, add in what you got out of that book, click connect, and watch what happens next.

Three Key Points

1. If you want to bring your authentic self to the forefront you have to be willing to do the inner work to uncover what's in your heart, and this is where a lot of people brush it off to the side they go not willing to go there. Larry is going to challenge everybody on this - if you want to become a successful sales professionals who lead with integrity, who's genuine and sincere, you got to connect and relate better to yourself and the more you do it, the better you're going to be able to connect and relate to your clients.
2. Larry highlights that in those 90 days, his coach did two things that transformed his career that he wishes he would have learned in his 20s and 30s. The first one was the road to find out what was in his heart, the inner work. The second thing was how to walk, talk and breathe in an online world.
3. Sales authenti

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with Jeremy Ruch, Founder of ‘Bandalier’. He shares how to interview SDRs who don't have any experience.

Episode Highlights

• 01:14 – Jeremy mentions, most of the companies they work with would say, it is one of the most risk-prone and one of the hardest hires that they make across the entire organization. 
• 04:16 – It was kind of the nexus of two things that made him want to start a company to take a shot at the beginning to solve that problem, highlights Jeremy.
• 05:15 – Sam enquires, how Jeremy tackles hiring SDRs that don't have the experience like a typical salesperson does?
• 07:15 - The first thing is to identify what those traits are, and ensure that those traits are predictive.
• 09:35 – Jeremy states that he always recommends starting with a scorecard, especially if you're designing a high-volume recruiting process, seeing how well the scores match up to the performance in the roles knowing that in those first few hires, you're going to make a few mistakes because your scorecard is not going to be perfect.
• 13:01 - It's possible to find folks with 6 to 12 months of SDR experience who are killing it in cold calling roles that are new, mentions Jeremy.
• 16:10 - It doesn't matter what the scenario is; it's about describing a time where you faced some type of adversity in some way.
• 18:11 - If you were answering the resilience question and describing bouncing back from adversity by lying to somebody about a certain thing that would be a red flag, that showcases the lack of integrity, but beyond that, it is pretty linear.
• 20:17 – The guest says, they’re trying to build out a matrix where every single person who goes through their interview process will have scores with an overall score, but also scores within each of those sub-areas.
• 22:00 – Jeremy explains, how assessment and exercise are as close to the role as possible.
• 24:44 – You should be ensuring that your process as closely as possible matches the role that you're going to have these folks in, says Jeremy 
• 26:34 – Jeremy says they have specific areas where they’re assessing if they took and implemented feedback. That's something they’re certainly going to take note of.
• 27:04 - When you're bringing somebody on, why are those first two, or three weeks critical from a validation standpoint, enquires Jeremy.
• 29:49 – Jeremy highlights, if you don't have the experience of having done this with hundreds of people, it's tough to know where to set those baseline parameters. 
• 31:14 – Jeremy shares, they try to make note of all that feedback, and then every six to 12 months they go back to the interview rubric and redo it.
• 33:49 – Sam asks Jeremy about a good sampling to start making changes to the rubric.
• 35:46 – The most common areas where they see red flags are on the ability to take feedback, and they take this seriously, mentions Jeremy.
• 38:37 - There are folks whose default is to push back feedback which becomes an issue.
• 41:34 – People with more experience sometimes choose less flattering examples, says Jeremy.

Three Key Points

1. Jeremy explains how they tackle hiring SDRs with no experience. For the past four and a half years, they’ve designed an interview process where they’re asking questions designed to get at specific traits. Grading out those questions in a very structured way and then every 6 to 12 months, they go back and look at the predictability of those questions of the traits once they&r

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Evan Patterson, Head of Content and Community @ trender.ai. They are tackling the subject of cold calling!

Episode Highlights

• 00:55 - Cold calling is not dead because it's never even been alive.
• 02:35 – Evan shares, he has always been marketing-oriented in his approach and he’s doing it full time for several different businesses but primarily for ai.
• 03:39 – Sam asks Evan to give some background of his definition of cold calling.
• 06:40 - The fundamental issue with that is it was never a very effective use of time.
• 07:22 – Sam says, his biggest thing when he talks about cold calling is, you got to start with the ICP, and you got to know who is your sweet spot.
• 07:37 – “What are the right channels for you to be pursuing those ICPs?” Asks Sam.
• 09:25 – Evan says, millennial are statistically proven to hate unwarranted, unwanted, and unsolicited cold calls.
• 14:02 – We should be leaning more heavily on text messaging within our tech stack because that is where people want to communicate, states Sam.
• 16:05 – Salespeople are leaning more on - the let me help you instead of letting me sell you more.
• 20:25 – Evan shares, you have to look at people’s demographics from age, lifestyle, and communication perspective.
• 22:16 - There is no such thing as a universal truth in sales, says the host.
• 25:13 – Evan says he would rather make the sales cycle take longer from an ad perspective, but make it more enjoyable and have a higher close ratio for the prospects.
• 29:22 - It's all these little tiny nuanced things of data that can be shared a back and forth, mentions Evan.
• 31:05 – Sam shares, it's kind of table stakes, but it's just connecting the dots that they like to engage with their brand this way, but yet, we've never engaged with it that way.
• 35:40 - You need to spend less on sales and more on marketing, which is good because that money that you don't need on sales, you can move over to marketing.
• 37:16 – Evan highlights, it's all these different social, and psychological plays that you can make marketing that will fill in the gaps now that sales aren’t doing as much prospecting or planning.
• 39:35 – Evan also has an issue with going after leads that do not interact with their content, because the chances of them falling off the sales cycle are higher.
• 40:58 - Why is it a taboo to tell salespeople to know what sales you're just not going to get, asks Sam.
• 41:30 - Those are the nuances that separate you from the pack, like leveraging that makes life easier, makes you more efficient, and makes you more effective. 

Three Key Points

1. There's a lot more technology supporting and lifting that ceiling for social selling and cold calling has not been and will not be able to catch up. So, it's not the most efficient route.
2. Let the buyer tell you where to go. Don't tell them where they have to go and that what cold calling does. You're forcing them into a path that they didn't sign up for.
3. You don't invest more energy into the person you're struggling to read, you invest margin on the other person and you have to know when to quit. So, trying to make the sale work, don't fire.

Tweetable Quotes

• “When I say I'm against cold calling, I am not against using the phone in a sales motion.” – Evan Patterson
• “Effective calli

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest, Liz Heiman, the CEO and Chief Sales Strategist for ‘Regarding Sales’. Liz primarily helps B2B companies that are trying to grow the sales infrastructure and drive revenue. In today’s episode they discuss tips and best practices to master your sales funnel.

Episode Highlights

• 02:00 – Liz says her dad wrote a book called ‘Strategic Selling’ hence she grew up in the sales business environment, so it’s a natural thing for her.
• 08:08 – Liz’s first job as the Head of Department was to go to Australia, meet two Australian men, and convince them that they should be selling conceptual selling, not just strategic selling.
• 10:30 – Liz talks about how she got her next big deal while meeting with the VP of Coca-Cola, Japan. How her 15-minute conversation turned into a 45-minute conversation.
• 15:05 – Liz states that typically if you ask people, what's their priority, almost everybody says that it is closing business. 
• 17:10 – If you look at your funnel, and you know what your ratios are, how much you qualify out, etc. then you can prioritize.
• 19:20 – Liz tells her clients to put their prospecting time as an appointment that's busy in their calendar because everybody will schedule over it.
• 21:15 - It's as important to qualify out as it is to qualify in, mentions Liz.
• 23:25 - If it's not an ideal customer, there's got to be a good reason for it to stay in Liz’s file/list.
• 27:30 - No one person decides on a multimillion-dollar deal just doesn't happen, it impacts too many parts of the organization.
• 29:35 – There's a difference between asking tough questions and beating people up, we're asking tough questions because we're looking for solutions, says Liz.
• 32:56 - The reason the deals are falling out, or pushing back is that nobody did the work up in qualifying and cultivated when they were supposed to be doing.
• 35:30 - When you are looking at the funnel, you need to be able to make those decisions with leadership or by yourself about what makes sense and what doesn't, says Liz.
• 41:40 - If we want to have the freedom to be creative, we need to put the pieces in place that help us make sure that critical work gets done.
• 43:20 - So I hit my numbers consistently and have the life I want because I've got the revenue coming in to support it right?
• 46:20 – Liz thinks process supports the creativity, takes the stress away, and it makes selling a lot nicer.

Three Key Points

1. When we create a funnel, or a sales process, which is the step of the funnel, the very thing is to think about what is a qualified lead versus a non-qualified lead. The first thing is to look at the process of qualifying not just in that stage of qualifying but throughout the entire funnel so that you can prioritize in and prioritize out those leads that are not helpful. So by understanding our funnel, we can prioritize our work, make sure that we get the stuff at the top of the funnel that we do the work to qualify.
2. We want to make sure that the customers share the values that we have as a company. If they're not talking the same language, if the product isn't a good fit, if it's going to require a tremendous amount of change in their organization that they're not going to be able to do then maybe they're not your ideal customer. Hence, you should qualify them out and move on. If they're interested then tell them what the qualifications are for them to be able to work with you successfully.
3. There are two kinds of funnel reviews, one is when we

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest, Evan Santa, Vice President of Sales at Commerce Bear. They're going to be discussing first impressions in a remote sales world.

Episode Highlights

• 01:13 – This whole COVID thing threw us right into more remote work and more zoom that you kind of lose sight of the basic blocking, tackling, and first impressions, says Sam.
• 01:50 – Evan shares that his background is in building go-to-market sales teams at various software organizations.
• 09:25 – There's a loss of intensity because we're not sitting in an office.
• 11:25 – Evan mentions, those managers that were managing on fear or managing on friendship, they just became friends with those that reporting to them and then they hope that their friendship will push the needle, it rarely works.
• 27:10 - If you have your camera off as a salesperson, how could you ever expect that your prospect will have your camera on? 
• 29:20 - We're finding ways to brand ourselves in this digital world so that whenever a customer or prospect speaks to us, there's some type of brand there, states Evan.
• 29:42 – Sam asks Evan what's his thoughts are around virtual backgrounds in regards to creating that first impression.
• 31:48 – If you don't have a virtual background make sure you have a clean space and it's a presentable professional space. 
• 33:29 – Evan is teaching people how to set up a decent little background at home and it doesn't have to be crazy, just make it clean, make it eat, and make it personal.
• 40:22 - We're on the path towards a higher level of productivity and return for our investment as an organization, mentions Evan.
• 42:03 - If you're struggling to close deals online face-to-face, I don't think it's going to help you, states Evan
• 44:20 – Evan says, he spent a lot of time early in his career, going through these thought processes, developing his sales mantra, and essentially bringing his playbook and mantra from hiring building teams from the ground up.

Three Key Points

1. Evan highlights, now that they are digital-first, this is their only opportunity to create a brand for themselves in the organization, a brand with their customers. 
2. You need to make sure there are no technical issues; you should be getting in touch with your internet provider making sure that’s tight, logging on early, showing up to meetings five minutes early, etc. So, if you have a technical issue, you could rectify it most likely before anyone joins.
3. One of the biggest things we need to do in sales is be memorable.

Tweetable Quotes

• “Those that are truly driven, that a certain level of autonomy, are the ones who are flying right now.” – Evan Santa
• “It doesn't take much to look good, sound good, and feel good.” – Evan Santa
• “The body language is everything, your engagement is everything, and eye contact is everything.” – Evan Santa
• “You just have to have a good camera, good lighting, good audio, and it's so easy to do.” - Evan Santa
• “We should not have technical difficulties on our end at all.” – Evan Santa
• “People buy from people that they like.” – Evan Santa
• “My first word that comes to mind when I think virtual backgrounds is distraction.” – Evan Santa

Resources Mentioned

• Sam Capra on LinkedIn