Category: books

036: Craig Elias on Trigger Event Selling and More

Craig Elias

Craig started as a computer science major and ended up one of the top sales people in Canada, with a best-selling sales book to his name.

How did this happen? And what can you learn from this for your business (and your life)?

In this episode, learn:

  • What’s considered a mild winter in Calgary.
  • How he jump started his sales career, even though he didn’t seem qualified on paper. (And how he reflected on this later and the realization it led to.)
  • Craig’s primary sales philosophy: How do I become the first person people call when they have a problem?
  • Where to look for great sales reps.
  • Why he had a lot of price objections when he started, and what he did about it.
  • What he did after he joined WorldCom just as 9/11 was happening, and then, after he became their top sales rep, what happened when everyone realized the execs had committed accounting fraud. It was the first time no one would buy from him.
  • Craig’s 3 big epiphanies about sales:
    • The Window of Disatisfaction
    • Trigger Events (and typical examples)
    • Analyzing wins (and why it’s more important than the typical sales advice of “even if you lose the deal, don’t lose the lesson”)
  • Why you need to use verbs instead of nouns (with some great examples from trucking companies to marriages), and what you want to hear as a response.
  • Why you want to ask “how?” and “what?” rather than “why?” questions (speaking of advice that can also apply to marriages).
  • Why Craig ended up living on Yerba Buena Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay (I always wondered who actually lived there whenever I drove over the Bay Bridge).
  • And much, much more. Even though I had read Craig’s book, I learned a ton, and I think you will, too.

The Wine

After my forced experiment with rosé in the last episode, I’m back to reds with Parducci True Grit Reserve Petite Syrah 2014 from California, while Craig enjoyed some Tom Gore 2016 Cab, his favorite California Cabernet Sauvignon.

Where to find Craig:

Craig’s Book:

Shift! Harness the Trigger Events that Turn Prospects into Customers

Other books mentioned in the episode:

Consultative Selling, by Mack Hanan.

Spin Selling, by Neil Rackham. Craig says that chapter 4 in particular is the best 30 pages written about sales.

And, my weakness in Russian literature is obvious. The quote about happy families is not from Dostoyevsky. It’s Tolstoy– in fact it’s the beginning of Anna Karenina:

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

listen-on-apple-podcasts-sales-for-nerds

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com (the easy CRM for people who are awesome at serving clients but would love some help getting more). You can also  listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, or Player.fm.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

033: Vanessa Van Edwards on How to Captivate People

Vanessa Van Edwards Vanessa Van Edwards is lead investigator at the Science of People—a human behavior research lab. She is the national bestselling author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding With People, which was chosen as one of Apple’s Most Anticipated Books of the year. Her work has been featured on CNN, NPR and Fast Company. She has written columns on the science of success for Entrepreneur Magazine and the Huffington Post. Vanessa started her study of people as a shy teenager, trying to figure out how people interacted. This turned into a lifelong pursuit. When I read her book, I wanted her to come on the show. Vanessa was kind enough to take time away from her 10 week old daughter to share her story and wisdom. There’s a lot of great stuff in here, including

  • When to practice your new tactics (and when not to).
  • One of the few things Reuben did right in college, and how you can apply this technique right now to help you.
  • Why we subconsciously use defensive body language in work settings, and what we can do about it (another great VVE technique).
  • Starting a conversation vs “sparking” a conversation.
  • Why everyone should do 6 months in sales of some kind.
  • Vanessa’s sales tip– don’t focus on sales, focus on stories.
  • Don’t hand out your props at the beginning of the meeting.
  • How to let other people impress you, instead of trying to impress them.
  • What to say, where to stand, and what to do at networking events.
  • How to share stories effectively, and how to know if your stories are too long.
  • How to ask for advice
  • Bonus: A tip that Vanessa has never mentioned before when people ask if you know someone…

Books Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People Captivate The science of succeeding with people               Other books mentioned:

  • Howard’s End, by E.M. Forster. One of the great works of English literature (so I’m told) with a great motif: “Only connect!”

Other Tools & Resources:

  • Check out Vanessa’s site Science of People for all kind of goodies on improving your social interactions.

The wine

As mentioned, Vanessa had to take a rain check on the wine because she has a newborn that she’s feeding, but in her honor, I got to enjoy something from one of her favorite Oregon wineries, Argyle (it’s the 2013 Reserve Pinot Noir). It’s got a bit of fruit and bit of earth, but not whelming, and it’s got more body than a lot of Willamette pinots. Argyle Pinot Noir 2013    bottle_0002_oban-14yo

Where to find Vanessa:

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com (the easy CRM for people who are awesome at serving clients but would love some help getting more). listen-on-apple-podcasts-sales-for-nerds You can also  listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, Player.fm.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

032 Michael Zipursky on the Elite Consulting Mind

Michael Zipursky

Michael Zipursky didn’t mean to start consulting with giant Japanese corporations in his early 20s. It just happened. Hear how he pulled it off, and how he started multiple businesses, including his most recent venture helping consultants learn from his mistakes (this should sound familiar to long time listeners). Plus, learn to improve your results by improving your mindset, from the author The Elite Consulting Mind. In this episode, learn how:

  • Michael set himself up for success in his early 20s before he got on a plane for  Japan. (He found a niche for helping Japanese companies market to the North American market.)
  • Why he’s fascinated with languages and cultures.
  • Michael learned how to sell, sometimes the hard way.
    • Why people try to rush sales before relationships, and what to do instead (and a time Michael made a bad mistake in this area).
    • How many consultants make the opposite mistake, and never try to actually sell anything. (“No one buys consulting, unless someone makes an offer.”)
    • No one wants to buy what we’ve created. They want to buy a solution to their problem.
    • The only way to solve the problem is to understand it by asking questions.
    • When you understand the problem, you can charge a lot more.
  • What’s holding people back? Usually fear. Fear of making a mistake, the unknown, and being rejected.
    • The Catch-22 is that confidence and competence come from taking action, while people don’t take action because they’re afraid.
    • Taking action gives you the only feedback that really matters– from the market.
  • When we do “take action”, a lot of the things that make you feel productive, because you’re spending time on them, are not actually moving your business forward. Drop those things, and spend more time on the smaller fraction of things that actually create lots of value. We often do things that are easy or comfortable, rather than the things that are hard and actually productive. For example, spend time to meet with people, or, at a minimum pick up the phone and have a two way conversation. Don’t fall into the trap of sending the quick email.
    • Think you don’t have time? Follow the 80/20 rule. Document your process and pinpoint where you are really required. Offload repeated tasks (and your ego).
    • What you can’t outsource— marketing! You have to define your audience and your message.
  • Bonus tip: If you really want to build a thriving practice, stay in touch and make introductions when you *don’t* have the solution they need right now. This is a great way to build trust.

Books

EliteConsultingMindCoverThe Elite Consulting Mind: 16 Proven Mindsets to Attract More Clients, Increase Your Income and Achieve Meaningful Success, by Michael Zipursky.

 

Other books mentioned:

Other Tools:

 

The wine

We were on a Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir kick for this discussion, without any coordination. Michael was drinking some Patz & Hall 2014 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (which is amazing, if you like Pinot like I do). I had the also delicious but less amazing (but much more affordable) Sean Minor 2014 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir.

Patz and Hall

Sean Minor

 

 

bottle_0002_oban-14yo

Where to find Michael:

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com (the easy CRM for people who are awesome at serving clients but would love some help getting more).

listen-on-apple-podcasts-sales-for-nerds

You can also  listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, Player.fm.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

031: Rusty Shelton on Authority Marketing and Writing Books

Rusty Shelton

Rusty Shelton has written 2 books, and his latest one, Authority Marketing: How to Leverage the 7 Pillars of Thought Leadership to Make Competition Irrelevant, is about using books to help spread your message and grow your business.

I sat down with Rusty in his Hill Country office to talk about media, authority, marketing, and more. In this interview, learn…

  • How Rusty got into the publishing world, and how he got started on his first book.
  • The “why?” behind writing a book– it’s not about getting rich from selling a lot of copies. (“The worst way to make money from a book is buy selling it.”)
  • Why every company is a media company.
  • Why books are different than other forms of media, and why writing one is different for your brand than other forms of content.
  • 3 types of media channels
    • Rented media (Facebook, etc)
    • Earned media (PR, speaking, referrals, etc)
    • Owned media (this is the new channel that didn’t exist for most of human history, at least not a global scale)
  • 3 types of audiences– the stadium analogy
    • your customer and partners
    • people who have a seat in the stadium, but haven’t bought yet.
    • outside the stadium
  • The big marketing mistake companies make with the stadium
  • How to set up compelling Lead Magnets.
  • How to convert earned media to owned media.
  • Content strategy as your personal newspaper
    • Don’t fill it with ads or op-eds
    • Think like the media, not a marketer– focus on the needs of the audience
  • Why personal brands can be more powerful than big corporate brands
  • How to use visuals to promote your personal brand
  • How your personal brand is important, even for referral-based work
  • 3 ways to publish
    • Traditional publishing with a major publisher, an advance, etc. Takes about a year. Getting harder and harder to get this if you don’t already have a big stadium.
    • Independent– you get the editor, design the cover, etc. You can sell these in bookstores, but there’s more work involved, and you shouldn’t expect to be on a lot of shelves.
    • Assisted self publishing, or hybrid (like Greenleaf Books, Advantage | Forbes Books)
  • Doesn’t matter as much as it used to, but, the book has to be good, and it can’t look like it was “self-published”.
    • You need to have an audio book if you’re trying to reach business audiences. (Joel Block here in Austin help us do our reading, which took 9 hours for 35,000 words, and yielded an 8 hour audio book.)
  • Do an online brand audit– type your name into Google. Are you there? Do the results line up with what you want your prospects to see?
  • What’s holding me back from writing a book?
    • How to “eat the elephant”, and why you don’t need to write a 100,000 words.
  • Sales for Nerds the book– it’s coming. What have I done?!?!?! What would you like to see covered in the book? Let me know on Twitter. 

Books

Authority Marketing Book CoverAuthority Marketing: How to Leverage the 7 Pillars of Thought Leadership to Make Competition Irrelevant

And Rusty’s previous book:

Mastering the New Media Landscape: Embrace the Micromedia Mindset

The wine

Monte Real RiojaMonte Real Rioja 2009 from Spain. Delicious, a bit of BBQ and smoke. Feels right at home in the Texas summer.

 

 

bottle_0002_oban-14yo

Where to find Rusty:

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com (the easy CRM for people who are awesome at serving clients but would love some help getting more).

listen-on-apple-podcasts-sales-for-nerds

You can also  listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, Player.fm.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

030 David A. Fields on Building an Irresistible Consulting Business

DavidAFields

David A. Fields shares his journey from a teenager trying to save up money to buy a computer, to becoming a consultant, to helping other consultants with the business of consulting. He recently wrote one of the most useful books on consulting I’ve read, The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide to Winning Clients: 6 Steps to Unlimited Clients & Financial Freedom. (Seriously, read this book, it’s not the typical 20 pages of content and 200 pages of filler.)

In this interview, David shares his story, and advice from his book, including:

  • The critical lesson he learned selling shoes: it’s not about the shoes, it’s about the feet. (This sound really simple, but it’s not easy to pull off in practice, even for some of the 8-figure firms David helps.)
  • How he “fell into” consulting, then got worried because his partner had to quit 4 weeks later, and how “on a lark” he started working with other consultants.
  • Why he loves consulting.
  • Why you don’t have to be super smart, innovative, or even better than the competition. (And why attempts at differentiation probably lose more business than anything else.)
  • You have to show the client that they can trust you to solve the problem without hurting them. (And what you have to do with your approach to build trust.)
  • Why consulting is bought, not sold.
  • How to perform “The Turn” from marketing and relationships (social norms) to an actual sales opportunity (market norms) with 7 simple words: “are you open to a separate conversation?”
  • How to structure and set fees, including using the “heart attack question” to bound the budget discussion.
  • Some encouragement on building a consulting practice: “This isn’t a business about doing things perfectly, it’s about doing the right things.”
  • Plus, David and Reuben get into details on structuring proposals.

A quick recap of the 6 Steps from David’s book:

  1. Think “right side up” (client first)
  2. Maximize impact with the prospects you have (the right people, the right problem, the right solution, at the right time, with the right fishing line) As consultants, “we don’t hunt, we fish”.
  3. Build visibility, with 2 of the 5 channels (speaking, writing, networking, trade associations, digital presence). However, 1 of the channels must be networking.
  4. Connect, connect, connect
  5. Become the obvious choice (“Discovery” is the key here, and will be the title of one of David’s upcoming books)
  6. Propose, negotiate, and close (including how to offer different options and how to handle price objections).

Books

Irrestible Consultants Guide to Winning Clients

The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide to Winning Clients: 6 Steps to Unlimited Clients & Financial Freedom

The wine

Reuben had some Marquis de Calon (Bordeaux, Saint Estephe 2010)  53% Cabernet sauvignon, 38% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot. Plum, red current, coffee, earth. Yum.

David does not drink alcohol (despite trips to Bordeaux and Italy), but here’s his recipe for irresistible iced chocolate:

1 tbs cacao powder*
1 tbs carob powder*
1 handful unsalted cashews*
1 frozen, ripe banana for sweetener
20 oz water

Blend all ingredients in a high-power blender (Vitamix or Blendtec) for 50 seconds on high. Pour over glass of ice cubes.

*David uses raw, organic ingredients, but it’s not required.

bottle_0002_oban-14yo

Where to find David:

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.

listen-on-apple-podcasts-sales-for-nerds

You can also  listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, Player.fm.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

029 Stella Orange on Authentic Marketing

Screen-Shot-2018-01-30-at-2.30.56-PM-768x857

Stella Orange talks about her strange path to marketing and copywriting via Japan, school teaching, bike riding, and writing copy to raise money for an arts nonprofit in Montana.

This includes the books she read to teach herself direct marketing, how she got her first clients (a great strategy for people who don’t have a sales engine when they start), and the mistakes business owners make in marketing.

[Extra props to Stella for taking time out of her vacation to record this episode, which I had to reschedule not once, but twice. This did leave her without whiskey, which was quite unfortunate. And then her dog threw up during the call, which she cleaned up on the fly. Thanks for being a trooper.]

Check out this episode to learn:

  • How working for a nonprofit and writing and performing plays gave Stella a great perspective on the performance of marketing. (Everyone has an interesting story about how they got into sales and marketing, and this might be one of the most interesting stories I’ve heard.)
  • How she turned her passion for writing into a “career”, despite being “unemployable”.
  • How she got her first clients, and how she taught herself sales. (And what her coach said to her when she said, “I’m a writer, I want my work to speak for itself.”)
  • Why she cried when she was starting her business, and why she cried after it took off.
  • Her stress over charging $450 for a 5 page website (she now charges much more, and has a great way of dealing with price objections).
  • “Old marketing”, focusing on pain, versus “new marketing”, focusing on desires, which can attract more qualified leads for many businesses. (Stella spent way too much time on unqualified leads early in her career.)
  • The biggest mistake people make in marketing (and of course, what you should do instead).

Books (if you don’t want to spend the money on the Amazon link, you can go to the public library like Stella did):

The wine whiskyOban 14 Year Old

Reuben had some Oban 14 year old Highland whisky. It’s got a little bit of sweetness to it, with hints of vanilla and caramel. Nice for people who don’t want all the peat, but also want a bit more flavor than the Macallan.

bottle_0002_oban-14yo

Stella wished, for just this one moment that she wasn’t on vacation, and was at home with her bottles, preferably the Yoichi Japanese whisky.Yoichi Single Malt

bottle_0002_oban-14yo

Where to find Stella:

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com. (Looking for a way to turn more visitors into leads, leads into conversations, conversations into clients, and stay in touch with the people who matter? Start a Mimiran free trial.)

listen-on-apple-podcasts-sales-for-nerds

You can also  listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, Player.fm.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

027 Justin Foster goes from ranching to sales to spiritual branding– come on the journey

justin-foster-300x300

No one on this podcast grows up aspiring to be in sales. I always enjoy hearing about the journey, and Justin Foster has had an amazing journey.

He grew up on a ranch– something we are more likely to experience through the mythology of the screen than in real life. While he loved ranch life, his home life was challenging.

He moved to Austin in 2014, and describes it as the first place that felt like home.

Justin started his marketing firm in 2003 with the notion that sales and marketing should get along. (Crazy talk, right?)

Justin got his first job in sales 10 years earlier, in 1993, because he and his wife had just had their first son, and he needed to make more money. He bugged an office supply company to give him a job on 100% commission, with no sales support, working a territory that no one else wanted. His sales training consisted of a product catalog. He became the top selling first-year sales rep in the company’s century-long history.

How did he do that? For one thing, ranching is hard work. He was used to doing that. So sales seemed much easier than ranching. Plus, he enjoyed talking to people, he always honest with people, and he had some charm.

He focused on small town governments and manufacturers, and a list of “maverick” accounts that other reps had tried to sell but without success.

Here’s the question he asked his buyer:

  • What do I need to do to make you look good? (For some people, it was about buying local, or maybe about saving money, or just avoiding running out of office supplies.)

Then he’s say, “what you need to do to make me happy is order just one thing, and I’ll hand deliver it.”

Why is it so important for sales and marketing to get along? Shouldn’t this be obvious? Yes, but the rise of social media has changed the playing field.

Here are Justin’s 3 Rules for marketing:

  1. Tell the truth.
  2. Find out what their needs are.
  3. Be a human being. (This is hopefully starting to sound familiar to long time listeners.)

Branding is no longer the candy wrapper around the product.

“A brand is how other people experience what you believe”, whether you have a solo firm or Coca-Cola. Great brands are therefore spiritual experiences– Justin cites Patagonia, Yeti, and Southwest as examples of these great brands that create a connection beyond even the emotional level.

You connect with your mission. (A mission statement is evidence you don’t have a mission.)

A mission has  few characteristics:

  1. It has to improve humanity.
  2. You can invite others to join your mission.
  3. It’s a bit terrifying. It can seem like heresy– because it goes beyond your role, for example, of making your quarterly numbers.

What do brands need these days:

  1. An authentic voice.
  2. Consistently memorable experience.
  3. Compelling story.

Unfortunately, brands usually miss some things along the way:

  1. Lacking the will to want to be a brand.
  2. Lacking the courage to be different– you can’t just be slightly better. (“Don’t be a karaoke singer– make your own music.”)
  3. You have to do the work and make it a daily habit (uh-oh, I’m in trouble).

The best thing you can do for your sales team is:

  1. Give them a product that doesn’t suck.
  2. Provide good branding.

But #2 can’t make up for #1.

How can people get started:

  • Go to your website, and remove the “plastic flowers” — the jargon and other crap on your site.
  • Look at “time on site” in Google Analytics– this shows how much interest people–  you already have a transaction with them– they are giving you their time.
  • Tell the stories of the people you are helping.

Most companies aren’t doing these things. Do them and see if your time-on-site goes up.

How do people find their spiritual mission and their roots?

  • Write down what you’ve always known to be true.
  • What would you be willing to commit civil disobedience over?

Justin notes that all industries are in chaos, and the only thing that cuts through the chaos is the truth. It can be hard for family businesses to brand because the older generation often ends up selling to their friends and can’t adjust.

You have to work on your personal brand, even if you’re not the founder of the company. It’s the one thing you can control. If you don’t like yourself, why would you expect others to like you? Self-worth is critical– confidence can be faked.

Books mentioned in the show:

The Go-Giver by Bob Burg.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (“the power of choice can neither be giving away or taken away, but it can be forgotten”)

 

 

The wine whiskey…

Ben Milam Bourbon

Justin’s enjoying some Ben Milam Texas Bourbon from down the road in Blanco.

Justin’s also using a giant ice cube for less melting and dilution.

Ardbeg 10YO blancReuben has some Ardbeg 10 year old Islay Whisky. (Note the lack of ‘e’.) If you like it peaty, this is a great whisky for you.

Where to find Justin:

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.

listen-on-apple-podcasts-sales-for-nerds

You can also  listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, Player.fm.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

024: Bryan Payne gets thrown out of school, starts companies, and completes Iron Man triathlons

Bryan PayneBryan Payne is a serial entrepreneur, salesmen, Iron Man (12 times over), and general man of adventure and humor.

Normally a beer drinker, he was a good sport about having some wine on the podcast (and didn’t seem to mind too much).

This episode is a bit longer than usual, because there were just so many interesting episodes that I wanted to hear about, and I think you will, too.

For example, learn how Bryan and his brother got clever when starting their sales career chocolates to raise money for their elementary school.

Then hear about how he started a lawn care business in high school that he grew to 13 employees, and which he sold to one of the actual adults working for him.

Learn how he was the only student in his class not to go to college (and how he got expelled) and what he did to get his first job instead. It’s not conventional, but probably applies even more these days.

Then Bryan gets into how he accidentally landed his first official sales roll, and what did to be successful.

Plus,

  • Why he quit to start his own company.
  • The big bet he made on technology (and how the same technology almost killed the business).
  • How he acquired a business for almost nothing and turned it around from bankruptcy (hint, it involves pricing)
  • How be built up a capable, motivated sales team with almost no capital

In addition, learn:

  • “48 Hour Rule” for moving quickly
  • 1st Principle of Sales
  • What song you should listen to if you want to appreciate 70s music (I don’t agree with this one)
  • Why Bryan loves millennials (seriously)
  • The completely unlikely way that Bryan got into doing Iron Man triathlons.
  • How he got hundreds of resumes with a simple, no-bs story (here’s the actual story)

 

 

The wine…

Stephen Vincent Sonoma County Pinot NoirAnother yummy, fruity Sonoma Pinot Noir. What can I say? I like them.

 

Where to find Bryan:

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.

listen-on-apple-podcasts-sales-for-nerds

You can also  listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, Player.fm.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

Episode 21: Michael Katz on Winning by being a likeable (human) expert

michael-and-emilyHow do you differentiate yourself when your competitors are also experts?

And would you want to take advice on differentiated service from someone who spent over a decade working for a cable company?

It sounds crazy, but in this case, you should.

Michael Katz did in fact spend over a decade at a cable company. But then, through a series of happy accidents, he became Chief Penguin at Blue Penguin Development, helping small services companies market better. He’s also been quoted in the WSJ, the NYT, Business Week Online, Forbes, Inc, USA Today and more. Plus, he’s won an award for humor.

Hear about those happy accidents (well, they seem happy now) and more, including:

  • How he quit his stable job during the internet boom and failed.
  • How he accidentally stumbled on a niche and how that turned into a great business.
  • Why he doesn’t care about SEO or Google ranking.
  • Michael’s 3 step process for being successful in services (some of this advice may start to sound familiar to regular listeners).
  • Michael’s “Sports Illustrated” Rule for successful marketing newsletters.
  • How your marketing is like going to the gym (and Michael saves me a lot of time, right on the show)
  • How Seth Godin has been stealing his best ideas for years (remember the humor bit)
  • How being authentically yourself at work and beyond makes life so much easier.

Michael’s also got a new book (it just happened to come out between the time we recorded the interview and the time it’s published, which is why we didn’t talk about it on the show) called The Likeable Expert, 121 Insights to Start Your Day and Grow Your Business.

likeable expert

Bonus: Get the first 15 tips free here on this page Michael set up just for listeners.

The wine…

8796499443742I enjoyed a(nother) glass of 2013 Franciscan Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley. A nice, up the middle of the road cab. (It’s pretty expensive on the Franciscan.com site, but you can get it for $15-18.)

Yes, this was from the episode with Aaron, saved thanks to the Vacu Vin Wine Saver (really handy for enjoying a bottle over the course of a few days).

.beer-smokedagger-can.. and the beer…

Smoke & Dagger black lager from Jack’s Abbey in Framingham, MA.

Where to find Michael:

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.

listen-on-apple-podcasts-sales-for-nerds

You can also  listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, Player.fm.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

Episode 20: Aaron Ross on going From Impossible to Inevitable

Aaron RossFew authors have had the impact on sales that Aaron Ross has had over the past few years. His first book, Predictable Revenue, called “the sales bible of silicon valley”, he co-authored along with Marylou Tyler, who was on Sales for Nerds in Episode 14.

Now he’s back with From Impossible to Inevitable: How hyper growth companies create Predictable Revenue. This time, Jason Lemkin, former CEO of EchoSign, leader of SaaStr, and more, is his coauthor.

This book breaks done how companies can grow quickly and sustainably, with 7 steps:

From Impossible to Inevitable Cover

  1. You’re not ready to grow until you Nail a Niche.
  2. Overnight success is a fairy tale. You’re not going to be magically discovered. You need sustainable systems that Create Predictable Pipeline.
  3. Growth exposes your weaknesses and it will cause more problems than it solves—until you Make Sales Scalable.
  4. It’s hard to build a big business out of small deals. Figure out how to Double Your Dealsize.
  5. It’ll take years longer than you want, but don’t quit too soon. Make sure you can Do the Time.
  6. Your people are renting, not owning their jobs. Develop a culture of initiative, not adequacy by Embracing Employee Ownership.
  7. Employees, you are too accepting of “reality” and too eager to quit. You can Define Your Destiny to make a difference, for yourself and your company, no matter what you do or where you work.

Aaron does all this while he and his wife raise 12 kids (!!!) (mostly adopted, for those wondering how that’s even possible for such a young-looking guy).

You might think that Aaron’s some sort of superman, or at least a cyborg, but what’s great about his books is that he admits that this is hard. There’s no “X easy steps to winning.” In fact, the books include painful episodes in Aaron’s life, and the admission that things will be hard and tiring.

His whole career in sales started because he didn’t really know how to sell. He never thought about sales, and certainly never thought he’d end up the author of best-selling sales manuals.

But when his first company failed because he didn’t have the sales chops he wanted to have, he joined Salesforce.com. He was employee number 150, which gave him a bit of stock, but not enough to get rich, and he was “on step up from the interns.” He helped build the outbound engine that developed leads before handing them off to account managers. This helped salesforce grow rapidly and efficiently.

However, it wasn’t until he left salesforce and was consulting with another company that he realized how critical it is to specialize your prospecting (early funnel) and your account management (late funnel).

Even if you don’t have a huge sales team, even if you’re just one person doing everything, you still need a way to focus on your time and energies on these different activities. As they write in the book:

Specializing your roles is the #1 most important thing for creating predictable, scalable sales growth.
Even if it’s just marking different times in your calendar for different activities.
What else did Aaron learn?
First, the importance of “Nailing your Niche”.
This comes up again and again, but “you’re not ready to grow until you nail a niche.” This doesn’t mean you can only work in your niche, but you need to have one and nail it. It makes everything easier.
While consumers tend to buy what they want, business tend to buy what they need. If you’re talking to people and they say, “that’s cool”, but they don’t buy, that means it’s a nice-to-have.

Once you’ve got your niche nailed, you can use your:

  • Seeds (word-of-mouth)
  • Nets (marketing– including testimonials, which are a form of word-of-mouth)
  • Spears (outbound targeted marketing and business development)

Aaron also offers some tips on how to handle the overwhelming number of possible sales and marketing activities, with what he calls “cake vs icing.”

The cake is the core thing that helps your grow your business. For Aaron, it’s writing books. For Jason, it’s being active answering questions on Quora. (If you’re in the software world, you should follow him.) Do that one thing well, and then you can use that in other ways (the “icing”). Don’t try to do everything, or you’ll never get anywhere. Aaron blocked out Wednesdays for a year to write the the book. For Aaron, social media isn’t very interesting, so he hires someone to help him with that part of marketing.

As a pricing guy, I also appreciated Aaron’s view that you should spend as work trying to double your average deal size as you do finding and closing twice as many deals. As Marc Andressen says, “raise prices“.

Aaron also provides some tips on how he manages the family schedule (“one day at a time”). If you’v got less than 12 kids, no complaining. 😉

The wine…

8796499443742Aaron couldn’t partake, because he was in the middle of the morning California time, plus, while he really wanted a glass of wine, he knew it would put him to sleep which is not good when you have a short workday and a huge household logistical puzzle to solve each day.

However, I enjoyed a glass of 2013 Franciscan Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley. A nice, up the middle of the road cab. (It’s pretty expensive on the Franciscan.com site, but you can get it for $15-18.)

Where to find Aaron:

Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.

Get the episode on iTunes.  (check out the new Apple Podcasts– nice!)

listen-on-apple-podcasts-sales-for-nerds

You can also  listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, Player.fm.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):