Sales Pipeline Radio

This week's episode is entitled "Selling with Empathy and Integrity (Right Now and Always)" and we are pleased to have as our guest, Mike Schultz, President of RAIN Group and author of multiple best-selling books.

His new book coming July 2020, Virtual Selling, is available for pre-order, along with other books, Rainmaking Conversations, Insight Selling. Folks, do yourself a favor, go to the website for tons of resources, research, webinars, blog posts. These guys do a great job when it comes to content.

I ask Mike "What are you seeing from organizations that have been traditionally in person sellers?"  

Quite frankly, the value prop you bring isn't necessarily different just because you're not in person. Because you can't see someone at a trade show doesn't mean you can't still talk to them.

Mike shares five things that are really different now when it comes to virtual selling.

1. Managing yourself
2. Managing meetings
3. How you set up and build relationships
4. How you get people to make decisions and how you get them to choose you
5. How you actually manage a team that is completely distributed 

Of course in light of current times, we also talk about whether or not this pandemic will really permanently change anything. 

Listen in now and/or read the transcript on our blog starting Mon. 5/25/20 6am PST. 

This week's episode is entitled "More Sleep, More Sales: The Direct, Science-based Connection Between Sleep and Revenue".  Our guest is Jeff Kahn is CEO and Co-Founder of RISE.

In this current world of uncertainty, and stress, and work from home, and homeschooling from home, and all this crazy stuff, getting a better night's sleep is crazy important. Jeff has been at Rise Science now for over six years. I ask him why sleep is such a passion and why he created a business around this.

It was just the simple fact for us that sleep affects, as far as I can tell, every measurable thing that we do know about human functioning, sleep has an effect on that measure. So to think about something that impacts everything that you do, impacts how long you live, and then impacts billions of people, that, it's almost unheard of. There really is nothing else that really impacts people at that scale.

Right now, people are working harder. The boundaries between work and home have really kind of evaporated as we're working from home right now. Jeff gives us some examples of the impact and the correlation between good sleep and productivity, and why that's even more important right now.  Listen in to hear his answer to the question "Can you make up sleep debt?"

We talk about the science of sleep. We talk about precisely how getting more sleep can help you get more sales.  Jeff also tells us how the app works. Check them out, risescience.com. Go to your favorite app store and look for Rise: Track Sleep. They have generously made the app available for free right now to help folks sort of get through this current craziness.
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Sales Pipeline Radio is sponsored and produced by Heinz Marketing on the Funnel Radio Channel.  I interview the best and brightest minds in sales and Marketing.  If you would like to be a guest on Sales Pipeline Radio send an email to Sheena.

We know when we hire well we succeed and when we hire poorly we fail.  Dan Fantasia talks about the hiring environment and hiring so managers succeed.  This episode is for Sales Managers and anyone trying to hire well. 

On this episode, I talk to Dan Fantasia, President & CEO of Treeline one of the largest sales search firms in the country. I wanted to have him on to talk specifically about recruiting and the hiring market for B2B salespeople. 

Sales Pipeline Radio is hosted by Matt Heinz of Heinz Marketing which is a program on the Funnel Radio Channel.  Heinz Marketing is the sponsor of Sales Pipeline Radio.

This week's episode is entitled "Marketing’s Leadership Moment: Pivots and more with Kevin Marasco" Kevin is the CEO of Zenefits. 

"I think it starts with empathy and understanding the individual and where they are, and even your teams and where they are." 

This and a lot more!  Listen now or read the transcript on our blog starting Mon. 5/11/20. 

In most B2B companies, sales and marketing aren’t strategically aligned.  In this podcast Kevin Knieriem shows how to repair sometimes warring factions.  This program is for Sales and Marketing Management.

One of the biggest challenges we've seen is the silos between sales and marketing. I ask Kevin how he sees some of the leading companies addressing this conundrum-- And, how is he seeing them overcome and actually create stronger bonds and cohesion between sales and marketing.

We also talk about how he's starting to create and operationalize revenue operations in his own company. He tells us a little bit about what he's seen and experienced including a set of best practices of how to take what can often be good strategic alignment between sales and marketing and really bringing it down to a tactical level like getting going from, "we agree to revenue responsibility across departments at S-K-O" to, what do we do on Tuesday?

He shares some keys to helping make sure operational alignment happens on a day to day tactical level.

I think finally we're seeing a number of places where AI is having real practical applicability and it feels more accessible to organizations.

I also ask him, are there other applications of AI he sees specifically and are there additional elements that may be more theoretical now, that he thinks in the next 1-3 years are going to become more reachable?

Sales Pipeline Radio is hosted by Matt Heinz of Heinz Marketing which is a program on the Funnel Radio Channel.  Heinz Marketing is the sponsor of Sales Pipeline Radio.

This week's episode is entitled "How to Accelerate Growth Through Customer Intimacy" and our guest is Laura Patterson, President of VisionEdge Marketing and the author of Fast-Track Your Business: A Customer-Centric Approach to Accelerate Market Growth.

Among other things, I ask Laura to talk about marketing performance management and helping to drive and measure marketing accountability-- what that means and why that's so important.

A lot of marketers are either not measuring the right things or measuring things that tell a different story than they intend to. When we talk about marketing accountability and measuring the marketing's impact on the business, it's not just a scorecard. There's a story behind that that has to speak to a business result of the marketing, not just a marketing result. Laura shares what that difference means and why is it important. 

This and a lot more!  Listen in now or read the full transcript on our blog starting Monday, 5/4/20 6am PST.  

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Sales Pipeline Radio is sponsored and produced by Heinz Marketing on the Funnel Radio Channel.  I interview the best and brightest minds in sales and Marketing.  If you would like to be a guest on Sales Pipeline Radio send an email to Sheena.

This week's episode is entitled "You’re Killing Sales Deals Without Knowing It: George Will Help You Fix It" and our guest is George Bronten, Sales Effectiveness Pioneer at Membrain.  He also has a new book, "Stop Killing Deals"  How to avoid deadly assumptions and achieve sales excellence.  

I ask George, how do I continue to sell with empathy? How do I create some sort of resonance and empathy with my prospects? I think there's still value in that, but over the last week I've heard more sales leaders talk about not just selling with empathy, but creating a level of compassionate urgency.

We have an opportunity as sellers to create some clarity and direction to help [prospects and clients] know what next steps to take to get out of it. 

I also ask George, what he is hearing from the people figuring out how to continue to balance selling with empathy with still moving their pipeline forward?  George has some great insights to share!  Listen in now or read the transcript on our blog starting Mon. 4/27 at 6am PST.  

Sales Pipeline Radio is sponsored and produced by Heinz Marketing on the Funnel Radio Channel.  I interview the best and brightest minds in sales and Marketing.  If you would like to be a guest on Sales Pipeline Radio send an email to Sheena.

This week's episode is entitled "A Mind For Sales: Sales Book Club with Mark Hunter" and our guest is Mark Hunter, one of the best voices in B2B sales today. Mark is the author of numerous books including the brand new book, A Mind for Sales.

These are uncertain times.  A lot of prospects are slowing down on things.  Mark is talking to sales leaders all day long trying to figure out how to keep their team motivated and how to keep selling, how to keep selling with empathy.

I ask Mark what general advice he's giving based on what he's seeing in the field?

Look at the long picture. Look at the long game. Don't try to play the short game, play the long game. We're going to get through this. We're going to get through this. I'm very optimistic.

The piece that I'm saying right now, short term, is you need to be listening to everybody's backstory. Everybody's got a backstory, a personal backstory and a professional backstory and you got to take a couple minutes and listen to that. Listen to it with empathy because you know what?

You've got a back story. What's happened so far to you and how are you responding to it? And if we demonstrate that, it's amazing how we create a much better connection. There's a lot of business being done out there, a lot of business, a lot of opportunities, but you just have to take the time to listen, and listen more intently.

And that's advice that you could give at any time. You could've given it three months ago. You can give it six months from now-- Use your active listening skills and understand where someone's coming from. I've heard pros and cons of people saying, giving the what's keeping you up at night question and making questions too broad.

How do you exercise active listening? How do you let your prospect share while still maintaining control and direction of the conversation?

Mark, in his book talks about minefields and the mind traps, M-I-N-D traps.  I ask him to talk about the things many sellers face when they have good intentions. They develop their systems, they do some of the things he's talking about, but then they start to execute and they lose. Seeing they lose momentum, they lose confidence. I ask, what are some of those common minefields of mind traps and how do you get around those? 

This and a lot more...

Listen in now or read the full transcript on our blog starting Monday, 4/20.  

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Sales Pipeline Radio is sponsored and produced by Heinz Marketing on the Funnel Radio Channel.  I interview the best and brightest minds in sales and Marketing.  If you would like to be a guest on Sales Pipeline Radio send an email to Sheena.

We were thrilled this last time to talk to Dan Englander, in an episode called, "The Death & Bright Future of Marketing Agencies"

Dan Englander is the founder of Sales Schema and he is also the host of the Digital Agency Growth Podcast.

There are so many different options across digital and non-digital. Is it possible to have a full service? As nice as it would be to have one agency, one throat to choke, is it feasible for organizations to still have that even when large businesses require big thinking? This is just one question I ask Dan.  I also ask him to talk about how companies should think about this and about what he sees with marketing service companies in terms of their ability to find and win big deals.

You'll also hear him share what he sees in terms of their sophistication around sales pipeline strategy.  We touch on multichannel marketing and a lot more.  Listen in now or read the transcript on our blog.  

Sales Pipeline Radio is hosted by Matt Heinz of Heinz Marketing which is a program on the Funnel Radio Channel.  Heinz Marketing is the sponsor of Sales Pipeline Radio.

This week's episode is entitled "How a Nurse Practitioner Turned Sales Rep is Selling into Health Care Right Now" and our guest is Lindsay Leeder, Clinical Consultant, Nurse Practitioner at Vera Whole Health

This was an amazing episode, we covered selling in today's environment as well as why 20 seconds of washing your hands is important, where we usually "miss" regardless, why vaccines and treatments take so long to develop and more!  We talk a little bit about sales.  Lindsay shares some great insights:

"Selling is very similar to providing direct patient care because we have to understand what are the symptoms, what are the ailments, what are the pains that people or populations are going through, and then what resources do we have to address those pains and then does it make sense? And then out of that, what is a management plan that's going to work, that's going to stick."

Listen in now or read the full transcript on our blog starting Mon. 4/6/20:

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Sales Pipeline Radio is sponsored and produced by Heinz Marketing on the Funnel Radio Channel.  I interview the best and brightest minds in sales and Marketing.  If you would like to be a guest on Sales Pipeline Radio send an email to Sheena.