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According to Gartner only 17% of buyers time is spent speaking directly with suppliers. Your prospects are gathering information from a range of informal sources.  Top of the list are situations where they have an opportunity to learn from people in their shoes. People in the same industry People in the same role People in the same situation What if you could facilitate an event where you get to learn exactly what your prospects and their peers are thinking? A virtual round table is not for your prospects and customers to learn from you It’s for your prospects to learn from each other and for your sales team to learn from everyone.  When your sales people know what is actually top of mind they’re going to know:   Who to speak to How to qualify better How to lead with (real) value   Check out the episode now! #BDR #SDR #Salestips

Traditionally in sales, we begin the year with a kickoff    We have planned the year ahead  We have lined up resources and allocated them  We have communicated plan and how we’re going to execute it    Kickoff is a fooball term and brings to mind an image of your team in their positions    Everyone knows what their role is  Everyone knows what their play is  Everyone knows what the goal is    In today’s episode    3 questions you should be asking yourself before your kick off  5 reasons to have a sales kickoff  5 key tips to make yours a success    LISTEN NOW (link in comments)    #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

When we’re trying to sell things to everyone, we’re selling to anyone. And that’s kinda hard because your team aren’t close to the kind of buyers whom they understand. In sales, we call this having an ICP - Ideal Customer Profile. This is the person whom we know we can best help, whose problems we can best solve. We could solve other people’s problems but our ICP is the person / entity / group for whom we do our best work and get our best results The trouble is that it’s not always obvious who or what our ICP is. It can take time and the help of sales ops to help us figure it out. That said, I encourage clients to involve their sales teams in this process. To really get stuck into to mapping out ICPs and to create them so they use them and own them! Today, I have Adrian Foley, Global Head of Sales at Teamwork to share how to train on ICPs with your sales team. Check out the episode now! #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

Sales is changing fast and sales roles are changing fast.   Field sales is being overtaken by Inside Sales   And Inside Sales is increasingly spinning into virtual sales and digital sales thanks to technology such as AI.   We have moved beyond the realm of analog-selling into the era of data-driven digital sales, where software, data and the internet form an irresistible tri-fecta.   Digital now gives your people the means to sell more, sell better, and gives you the means to coach better too.    So how do you navigate digital?   My guest today is Lori Harmon, Vice President, Global Cloud Sales & Customer Success at NetApp.   Lori heads up a newly formed cloud sales team of 140 new digital natives.   In the next 35 mins, we’re going to reflect on the importance for your team acquiring these digital skills and why it matters for you.   Listen to the episode now!   #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

Diversity is a buzz-word right now. Many organizations mandate it. It’s a metric by which many sales leaders are measured. But what are the business benefits of diversity in a sales environment? Is diversity linked to customer satisfaction and sales performance? How do you hire for diversity and how do you coach diversity? Today’s guest is Amandine le Sergent, Director of Inside Sales EMEA Services at Juniper Networks. Diversity is very close to Amandines’s heart, as is coaching This is episode 50 of the Inside Sales Coach podcast. Check it out now (link in comments)  #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

Coaching is a great idea. It’s often the execution of it that sucks.    I see sales leaders who are convinced that they are coaching.   But they are directing, they’re not engaging and they’re certainly not listening.    You know the expression: Selling isn’t telling. Well that’s true of coaching as well.   Coaching isn’t telling…   And coaching isn’t working …if you’re doing all the talking.   The secret is to coach conversationally.   Just like any conversation, a coaching conversation is a two-way street.   Today, we’re going to walk down that street together and give you some helpful guidelines.   Thanks to Brian for suggesting today’s topic: How do I coach my team conversationally.   Check out the episode now!

Today’s guest is Rakhi Voria Director, IBM Global Digital Sales Development.   She manages a team that is responsible for the strategy, implementation, and revenue of the Digital Sales Development (DSD) function globally.   Rakhi previously worked at Microsoft and served as the Chief of Staff to the Corporate Vice President of Inside Sales, where she helped build the digital sales force for Microsoft, growing the team to 2,000 sellers globally and the business to over $8B in under 3 years.   And it’s the topic of Women in Sales that is especially close to Rakhi's heart.    Today’s conversation addresses the urgent need to attract more women to the sales profession, what the business case is for doing so and gives you some key advice on how to succeed.   Check out the episode now   #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

Most businesses love interns.    Some imagine internships to be sources of cheap labour.    But some realise that they can be a highly effective source of future top performers.   So what’s your take on hiring for sales internships?   Have you hired interns before and have you been an intern too?   Zeeshan Hafeez is Chief Revenue Officer at VeeMed a telehealth solutions provider in California.   He is putting together his Inside Sales org from scratch.   And interns are an important part of that strategy    Listen to today’s posdcast episode as we share how inside sales internships could work for you   #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

Time is a precious commodity for a sales leader    You need one-on-one time and group time.   You have pipeline reviews and deal-reviews.   You have people to develop and people to lead   Finding time with all that’s going on when your people are working WFH isn’t easy.    So, tt’s easy to forget that we need to build people before we can build the team.   Intelligent sales leaders like Tim Wood, Sales Director, US Inside Sales at Intel know this.   Tim uses ‘office hours’ as ‘connection hours’ in order to create a close team who support each other   Listen in as Tim tells you how he makes ‘office hours’ work for his team at Intel.   #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

On a coaching call with a group of BDRs in Miami this week, the topic of Tribal Knowledge surfaced.   Some people thought: ‘Hey..what’s that?’    Their Team Lead who was also on the Zoom call was on mute but she was nodding and smiling enthusiastically.   She said: I’m a a big believer in the knowledge that people bring to the organisation when I hire them.   It’s that plus all the stuff that’s never written down, but my team have to know, to do well in sales.    And she’s right.    Wikipedia defines Tribal Knowledge as 'information that is known inside a tribe but often unknown outside it.'   Today’s guest is Billy Franz Director of Inside Sales and Channel at SADA systems in Austin.   And Billy’s going to share his ideas to help you identify Tribal Knowledge, get key people to share it and leverage it for success.   Check out the episode now   #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

Have you heard of #Revenue Intelligence? How about the terms Market Intelligence or even Conversation Intelligence ? The common denominator among these three terms is Artificial Intelligence or AI, and it’s the driving force behind platforms like gong to help upskill your remote sales teams. The technology allows Inside Sales leaders like you to capture what your reps are doing:   talk/listen ratio handing objections adherence to your playbook asking questions discussing pricing etc. When working with remote sales teams, I can leverage tools like Gong to identify coaching touch points quickly Does all that sound super-complex? Fear not.   My guest today is @Sheena Badani is Senior Director of Marketing at @gong.    And together, we’re going to give you a straightforward understanding of how AI can help you to: coach better lead bettter sell better Sound good? Check out the episode now

You have a team of #sales peope right now working from home. Are they qualifying opportunities properly? Are they asking the right questions of the right people and gathering the right information? #BDRs and #SDRs use BANT, a 4-step #framework to quickly screen #prospects. It’s simple to understand and easy to use but it’s not perfect. No system is. Last week, we covered #MEDDICC which is used by many AEs in #startups This week, it’s the turn of #BANT.   What is it? Which kinds of questions work? How do you coach it?   Check out the episode now #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

Which activity is critical to your pipeline and forecasts? Qualification HAS to be at the top of the list. Spending time on incorrectly qualified prospects is an opportunity cost. Spending time on incorrectly qualified prospects is inefficient because they often are unlikely to close. Poorly qualified opportunities are going to screw up forecasts and weaken pipeline, correct? So using a rigorous, tried-and-tested qualification framework like MEDDIC or MEDDPICC is going to help you to:   Inject rigour and clarity into your qualificaction Increase volume, value and velocity  Close bigger and better deals more often   That’s what today is all about Check out the episode now! 

Harry Farrell is EMEA North /MEE Faculty Lead at SAP Digital Sales Academy and leads the faculty in enabling and coaching sales performers in mid market. Your AEs, BDRs and SDRs need financial acumen and business acumen to have consultative sales conversations, particularly in the digital environment. It’s easier said than done, isn’t it? Today, we're going to identify what successful sales people like yours need in mid market and how a digital sales academy like SAP’s helps can help your team’s front line performance in mid-market. Check out the episode now. #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

Your sales team are in the office. Maybe not your office OR you are in the office but they are working from home. If you are checking in with your team, motivating them, enabling them, coaching them, you are using technology.  At it’s simplest, you are using the phone. At its most complex you are using AI-driven tools to automatically monitor sales conversations and highlight coaching points It’s easy to go down the rabbit hole and get nerdy on tech. instead lets’s look at a couple of solutions and how you can use them practically to coach your remote sales team. This is Episode 40 of the ISC Podcast Check out the episode now #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach 

Today’s guest is Jon Carr, Inside Sales Leader for Axios Systems in Edinburgh, Scotland. Jon is a seasoned veteran of Inside Sales. He was promoted - almost against his will - as he was doing such a great job as an SDR. Many years later, Jon has developed a recipe to help him stay close to his team and lead from the front. Inside Sales people are geared mentally to work at a distance from their prospects. But working at a distance from your team and doing it from home is a different challenge. All the more important then that Inside Sales Leader finds ways to stay close to their team. Jon’s going to give you three ways he makes this work for him! This is Episode 39 of the ISC Podcast Check out the episode now #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

As sales leader, it’s incumbent on you to coach and train your people but should all of the training and all of the coaching come from you? What about sales managers who report to you? Are they involved? Are they developing their people their direct reports? Better still, are they developing each other through peer-2-peer learning? In my experience, many teams don’t interoperate, they isolate. They work in the same sales organization but they don’t share the learning between sales leaders and sales regions. Today’s guest is John Massey VP EMEA Regional Business Development, Commercial Sales & Channel at SAP Listen in as John and I discuss his simple but powerful methodology to get sales leaders talking to.. and developing each other #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

Companies who are lucky to be expanding and taking on new sales people are challenged in the current environment. Understandably, many inside sales managers are unsure about how to do this and set their new inside sales people up for success. You have a new member of your sales team, but you have never met them. Maybe you can't because of COVID. But you have to on-board them virtually, so how do you do that? Today, 5 steps to onboard your new sales hire virtually and make it work! This is eps 37 of ISC

Great products sell - but great sales people sell better What do I mean? It means that people need to buy you before they buy from you, particularly when they can’t see you, don’t know you and don’t yet trust you.  So it’s not a question of always be closing, it’s a question of always be opening. Opening the door to better, deeper relationship and that means making people feel comfortable - particularly when times are uncomfortable So today, let’s look at 5 easy ways to make people feel comfortable  Check out the episode now! #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach

Inside sales is fast becoming Digital Sales as teams like yours adopt online channels to prospect, discover, sell and close business. Many companies now want inside sales people who can do more than make cold-calls. As a result, you need to look for a new breed of sales person with this 21st century skillset. So how do you lead this digital sales team in the current pandemic? How do you keep in touch with them, train them, coach them and motivate them? Frank Hattnann, Global Head of Sales at Intertrust and former Director of Digital Sales at Microsoft is your guest today to outline how he leads his remote sales teams in this digital environment. Check out the episode now #SDR #SaaS #InsideSales #salescoach