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James Muir is the founder and CEO of Best Practice International and the bestselling author of the #1 book on closing sales – The Perfect Close. James is a 30-year veteran of sales having served in every role – from individual contributor to executive VP. His mission – to make the complex simple. James has extensive background in healthcare where he has sold-to and spoken for the largest names in technology and healthcare including HCA, Tenet, Catholic Healthcare, Banner, Dell, IBM and others.   James is passionate, enthusiastic and fun. He likes to have fun while he works. Not only is James a lifelong student of sales, but he’s also an accomplished guitarist, organic chemistry fan and fitness buff.  WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: Mistakes salespeople make in the virtual selling  How to correct misconceptions about sales What the “ Ideal Advance” is and why you need it What is the “Perfect Close”  for the virtual world The noble art  of storytelling and selling     SHOW NOTES [00:28] Introduction  [03:24] Business success stories that inspire him [03:32] “The story of Edwin C. Barnes” [06:30] How James juggles through his roles [07:33] How he got drafted into sales [10:14] Mistakes salespeople make in the virtual selling [13:20] The Sales Call objective [13:53] How do you close business in a virtual world? [14:38] The best closing approach according to scientific research [15:16] The “ Ideal” advance [24:12] How does storytelling come to play is his sales technique [25:01] Misconceptions about sales [28:35] “Selling is an act of service” [30:30] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders [31:30] Contact info and book details   You can connect with James and get his book via his website

It’s another unique episode of the Storytelling for Sales Podcast. In this episode, we have combined some of the best answers and advice to questions on ‘becoming obsessed with your dream customers,’ ‘why storytelling is becoming the #1 sales skill to master,’ and ‘how to go from nowhere to a $20 billion powerhouse. This episode features Bruce Linton, Maddie Pimentel and Russell Brunson.   Bruce Linton is an entrepreneur who has been at the head of 16 different companies and presently occupies the position of Executive Chairman at Vireo Health International, Inc, Co-Chairman of Martello Technologies Group, Inc., and co-founder of online rental marketplace Ruckify.   Maddie Pimentel has been in the Learning & Development field for the past 19 years. She is the Training and Development Manager for North America in SnapAV. Maddie’s role is to enable the sales teams to quickly ramp, begin generating revenue and stay up to date on products, solutions and process updates as well as industry trends. With the purchase of Control4, a publicly-traded company, a few months ago, Maddie is now responsible for sales enablement for the global sales teams.   And finally Russell Brunson! Over the past 15 years, Russell has built a following of over a million entrepreneurs, sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his books, popularized the concept of sales funnels, and co-founded a software company called ClickFunnels that helps tens of thousands of entrepreneurs quickly get their message out to the marketplace.Together with his partner Todd Dickerson, Russell launched their sales funnel software in October 2014, and the company grew to $100,000,000 in the first three years.    WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: Why salespeople should never mention their competition The role of Storytelling in human to human connection The 3 Core Markets /Desires which will stay evergreen  The Value of the Public Policy Changes Latest trends in the sales training industry     SHOW NOTES [00:22] Introduction to this episode [00:45] Guests’ introduction [03:23] Business success stories that inspire our guests [03:33] “Elon Musk story” [04:14] “Maddie Fathers story” [06:16] How they all got into sales  [07:48] How ClickFunnels was launched [09:53] Skills salespeople must have [12:46] Online Traffic Secrets [13:36] Why Relationship Selling is oversold [17:00] Is it difficult to train salespeople? [18:57] Favorite Sales failures [21:55] How online advertising has evolved [24:39] How do you pick your industries? [26:46] How to understand your customers [29:52] The role of public policy changes [30:29] Stories that excite your customers [32:34] How do you find your dream customers? [35:04] Mistakes sales leaders make [36:46] Search-based traffic [37:17] The art of storytelling   You can listen to the individual episodes here: Bruce Linton, “From Nowhere to a $20 Billion Powerhouse.” Maddie Pimentel, “Why Storytelling is Becoming the #1 Sales Skill to Master” Russell Brunson, “Becoming Obsessed With Your Dream Customers”

In this special episode, we pulled nuggets and discussions from three of our previous episodes with Christy Soukhamneut, Gregg Jorritsma and Eli Fathi    Christy Soukhamneut is a 20+ year veteran of the mortgage industry who is dedicated to turning possibility into reality.  A gifted strategic thinker, she knows that you must cut through the clutter, clearly articulate the vision, and then rally support at the street level.   Everything she does is evaluated against these three bars: Will it make your life easier?  Will it help you & your team be more productive? Will it help you grow your business?   Gregg Jorritsma has been in leadership roles with some of the most well-known companies in the industry including Citrix, BlackBerry, Bell Mobility, Siebel and Delrina. A passionate advocate for “informed selling” and sales professionalism, Gregg credits his success to having been mentored and coached by some great people that took the time to help him on his journey.    Eli Fathi is CEO at MindBridge Ai, developer of the world’s first auditing tool based upon artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies – Ai Auditor – to uncover errors in financial data. Eli has been a technology entrepreneur for over 30 years, having founded or co-founded many successful technology companies. Eli was recognized as the 2018 AI Leader of the Year by the Digital Finance Institute and is a prolific speaker, including talks at the AICPA, Startup Canada Day on the Hill, and TEDx.   WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: Top mistakes salespeople make all the time  The rise and meaning of AI salesperson Why there is no such thing as ‘natural’ salesperson How to help salespeople see something within themselves that is just below the surface What to do to get people to take you seriously     SHOW NOTES [00:24] Introduction to this episode [02:22] Welcome  [01:55] Business success stories that inspire our guests [02:08] “The story of Febreze” [03:39] “Resilience in the face of adversity”  [04:48] “Jim Estill story” [07:58] How they all got into sales [11:04] Their favourite sales failure [13:34] Mistakes salespeople make and how to avoid them [15:06] The mortgage industry... [16:09] Why there is no such thing as ‘natural’ salesperson [16:38] Be wary of multinational companies... [17:38] Sales and rejections [18:03] The rise of Artificial intelligence [19:05] Stories that excite their customers [21:09] AI as a threat to salespeople?  [22:36] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders  [26:30] The art of storytelling   You can listen to the individual episodes here: Christy Soukhamneut, “Logic and data can only take you so far, Story is where we really connect,”  Gregg Jorritsma, “Don’t Outsell Your Competitors, Out Question Them,”  Eli Fathi, “Why AI won’t Replace (Top) Salespeople.”

Who is Milan Topolovec? Why does he consider himself as a quarterback? How does he build a relationship with his clients and offer more services than he promises? What does your business network mean to you and how do you build one?    In this episode, Milan shares his story on launching into the financial industry and how the services he offers are centred on his relationship with his clients. We have discussed why sales reps need people skills, the intrinsic power of networking, prospecting and much more.   Milan is the President and CEO of TK Financial Group and Inner Orbis. He graduated from the University of Ottawa after which he was drafted to play for Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He eventually chose a career path in the financial services industry where he is focused on building expertise to exclusively serve business owners and professionals focused on estate planning, business planning and insurance planning.   WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: How to create the right environment for your clients Knowing when to stop and how to set  your priorities How to maintain the right attitude while prospecting  Why you need the people skills How to become more than just another sales rep SHOW NOTES [00:24] Introduction to this episode [02:22] Welcome Milan [03:10] Business success stories that inspire him [04:50] How he got started in the financial industry [05:32] Type of clients he loves to serve [06:10] Switching from his football career [07:00] Challenges he faced starting out in sales [08:09] Favorite sales failure [10:05] Knowing when to stop [12:36] Positioning himself as a quarterback [14:10] Why you need people skills [15:10] How to become more than just a sales guy [15:38] His book “ Beyond the Tipping Point” [15:58] The power of networking [17:17] Covid-19 and relationships [19:01] Introducing prospective clients [19:30] Stories that excite his customers [22:03] Offer more than your service demands [22:10] Challenges facing today’s business leaders [23:10] Create the right atmosphere for your clients [23:40] Contact info and book details   You can connect with Milan on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram.   Get a copy of Milan’s book, Beyond the Tipping Point, on Amazon.   You can keep up with happenings on TK Financial Group on their website, LinkedIn, Facebook.   You can find out more about Inner Orbis on their website, LinkedIn.  

Have you been trying to figure out how to navigate selling during this pandemic or you’re struggling with keeping your teams motivated? In this episode, I discussed with Steve how selling has evolved since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and how to pivot, maintain a good relationship with your clients, and sell better.    Steve is the founder and CEO of Badger Maps. After receiving his MBA from Stanford, Steve was Google Enterprise’s Top Sales Executive in 2009. In 2012, Steve founded Badger Maps, a software company that helps Field Sales People optimize their routes and schedules to save time and be on time so they can sell more. Steve is also the host of the Outside Sales Talk podcast where he interviews industry experts on their sales tips.  WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: How to shift strategy during crisis New ways to empower your team members The right ways to prospect How to maintain a good relationship with your clients The strategic importance of training and coaching in this moment of time   SHOW NOTES [00:11] Welcome to this Episode [00:58] Shopify success story [02:38] Welcome Steve Benson [03:13] Updates on Sales, technology, and leadership [04:10] Adapting to the new sales culture [05:09] Building Relationships [05:28] Selling on Zoom vs Face-to-Face [05:38] Communicating in the new normal [06:13] Prospecting challenges [07:18] Adjusting your sales message [07:31] The importance of staying empathetic [10:00]The rise of food delivery and health care organizations [11:01] Challenges facing today's sales leaders [12:18] Re-sizing the sales teams [13:00] Hire now [13:26] The importance of training and coaching aspect [16:04] Leading remotely [19:01] The art of storytelling for Steve [19:57] Steve's Contact info   You can connect with Steve on LinkedIn, Twitter and  Instagram. You can keep up with happenings on Badger Maps on their website, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter

Over the past 15 years, Russell has built a following of over a million entrepreneurs, sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his books, popularized the concept of sales funnels, and co-founded a software company called ClickFunnels that helps tens of thousands of entrepreneurs quickly get their message out to the marketplace. Together with his partner Todd Dickerson, Russell launched their sales funnel software in October 2014, and the company grew to $100,000,000 in the first three years.  ClickFunnels is now the fastest-growing non-venture backed software company in the world. Russell is here to talk about his new book- Traffic Secrets. What I love about this book is how Russell breaks down traffic so that ANYONE can understand how to build a list of raving fans and buyers using very simple and REPEATABLE strategies.  WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: Who are your Dream Customers? Where are they congregating? The 3 Core Markets /Desires Away from Pain/Toward Pleasure The Searcher and the Scroller SHOW NOTES [00:24] Introduction [01:30] New book: Traffic Secrets [03:10] Welcome Russell [07:54] Attracting customers [09:37] Co-founding a software company [10:02] Publishing his first book [11:34] Writing his second book [13:36] Avengers Infinity War story [14:43] Google Ads challenge  [17:15] Email marketing strategy [17:17] Paid ads strategy [20:29] Using funnels [20:41] Strategy behind getting traffic [25:07] Science behind the Direct response marketing [26:20] Identifying your dream customers [27:14] Driving traffic into your funnels [27:28] Growth hacks and techniques [30:06] Getting potential customers to identify with you [32:01] Who is your dream customer? [32:59] Ideal Customer avatar [33:50] Customer-centered company [34:17] Becoming obsessed with your dream customer [38:07] Health, wealth and relationship circles [45:52] How to Create a desire for your product or services [48:24] The pros and cons of interruption ads [49:26] Outro Russell is giving special access to our podcast listeners to order his book  "Traffic Secrets" . The book is free. All you gotta do is take care of the shipping.  

Maddie Pimentel has been in the Learning & Development field for the past 19 years. She joined SnapAV last year as the Training and Development Manager for North America. Maddie’s role is to enable the sales teams to quickly ramp, begin generating revenue and stay up to date on products, solutions and process updates as well as industry trends. With the purchase of Control4, a publicly-traded company, a few months ago, Maddie is now responsible for sales enablement for the global sales teams. Prior to this, she was with NCR Corporation, AT&T, Hearst Media Services and Carrera Commerce in various roles, including Global Sales Enablement, National Training Manager, Inside and Outside Sales Manager as well as Corporate Marketing Manager. Maddie is fluent in Spanish and earned a BA in Communications from Georgia State University. She has also worked as a reporter and interpreter with several media outlets in the Atlanta market. Maddie was born in Havana, Cuba and moved to Atlanta with her family when she was two months old. Her interests include writing, reading, traveling, and photography. If you want your sales team to deliver results, discover the secrets of sales coaching and learn about the hottest trends in the sales training industry, take 20 minutes to learn from this incredibly successful business leader.  WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: The role of storytelling in human to human connection Top 3 critical skills for salespeople Is it difficult to train salespeople? The value of building companywide Storytelling Library Latest trends in the sales training industry SHOW NOTES [00:22] Introduction [01:42] Welcome Maddie [02:00] Business stories that inspire Maddie [02:51] How her father got started [03:13] Winning business of the year award [05:52] Maddie’s portfolio [06:02] How she got into sales [06:53] Critical skills for salespeople [07:08] Relationship building [07:22] Listening [07:33] Customer’s needs assessment [09:34] Is it difficult to train salespeople? [10:49] Net promoter score [11:16] Maddie’s process of training salespeople [11:40] Current trends in sales training [11:56] Mobile and gamification [14:56] The on-boarding program at Snap AV  [17:05] Type of stories that excite customers [19:00] The meaning of Story library [20:20] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders [20:34] Keeping up with the technology [22:00] The Art of storytelling [22:53] Contact info  You can reach Maddie at  Maddie.pimentel@yahoo.com  www.linkedin.com/in/maddiepimentel

Bruce Linton is an entrepreneur who has been at the head of 16 different companies and presently occupies the position of Executive Chairman at Vireo Health International, Inc, Co-Chairman of Martello Technologies Group, Inc., and co-founder of online rental marketplace Ruckify. During this candid interview, Bruce talks about his successes and his sales failures, helping us appreciate the Growth Mindset, Storytelling and the true meaning of Entrepreneurship. He also talks about how and where he has managed to find extraordinary opportunities and what to look for.  If you want your sales and business to grow, take 20 minutes to learn from this incredibly successful business leader.    WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: Why Relationship Selling is oversold   How Bruce picks his ventures   Why salespeople should never mention their competition The Value of the public policy changes How to pitch investors using Storytelling techniques   SHOW NOTES [00:21] Intro [01:45] Welcome  [02:11] Business stories that inspire Bruce [03:10] Early years: Carlton University Student Association [03:18] Canopy Growth Corporation [03:34] How he became a serial entrepreneur [04:46] Get fired for your own ideas   [06:00] You are selling all the time [06:52] Common Mistakes salespeople make [07:00] Why Relationship selling is oversold [08:36] Do's and Dont's of sales pitching [09:10] Why you should never slam your competition [10:09] How Bruce picks industries to invest [11:14] The role of Public policy changes [12:45] Stories that excite Bruce's investors [13:09] Advice for using storytelling techniques [14:38] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders [15:50] The Art of Storytelling [17:28] Contact info  

Eli Fathi is CEO at MindBridge Ai, developer of the world’s first auditing tool based upon artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies – Ai Auditor – to uncover errors in financial data. Eli has been a technology entrepreneur for over 30 years, having founded or co-founded many successful technology companies. Eli was recognized as the 2018 AI Leader of the Year by the Digital Finance Institute and is a prolific speaker, including talks at the AICPA, Startup Canada Day on the Hill, and TEDx. Eli also gives back to the community by mentoring future business leaders and sitting on the boards of various non-profit organizations.   WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: The rise and the meaning of AI revolution  How Eli built his companies from scratch and what you should expect to sacrifice in order to succeed Top mistakes salespeople make all the time The role of Human to Human Connection   SHOW NOTES   [00:31] Introduction [01:42] Welcome Eli [02:06] Business stories that inspire Eli [02:20] The story of Febreze [04:10] Customer success and assessment [05:00] Market research [07:17] Becoming a Serial entrepreneur [07:30] Building Fluid corporation [08:18] How Eli got into sales [09:30] Challenges he faced earlier on [11:05] Mistakes most salespeople make [12:38] Good relationship with customers? [13:25] Eli's favorite sales failure [15:35] The rise of Artificial intelligence [16:00] AI as a threat to salespeople [18:32] The role of Human to Human connection [19:42] Competition in AI development [22:04] Meaning of Leadership [23:10] Failure rate of new companies [24:20] His mantras [25:47] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders [27:25] Contact info  

Jamie Shanks is a world-leading Social Selling expert and author of the book, "Social Selling Mastery - Scaling Up Your Sales And Marketing Machine For The Digital Buyer". A true pioneer in the space of digital sales transformation, Jamie Shanks has trained over 10,000's of sales professionals and leaders all around the world.   WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: The meaning of Social Selling revolution  How Jamie built his firm from a laptop, a stack of business cards and a tank of gas  Top 10 Do's and Dont's for Social Selling  How to incorporate social media triggers, insights, referrals and competitive intelligence into the daily sales cycle    SHOW NOTES [00:15] Introduction [01:26] Business stories that inspire Jamie  [01:38] Building his firm from scratch [03:06] How he got into sales [05:31] Business development engine [06:16] Favorite Sales failure [06:30] Commercial real estate Lesson [08:18] The Importance of Social selling [08:40] Business to Business companies [09:14] Triggers, referrals, insight and competitive intelligence [10:48] Why some companies are yet to embrace social selling [11:00] Fear of change [13:15] The Role of LinkedIn [15:49] Do’s and Don’ts [17:32] The emerging power of video in SM space [19:56] The Art of Storytelling [20:08] Building a storyboard [21:26] The STAR process [22:52] About Jamie’s book, Spirit Selling [23:40] Contact info [24:35] Outro SHOW TRANSCRIPT Ed Bilat:                                                           Jamie Shanks. Welcome to the show.   Jamie Shanks:                               Thank you so much for having me.   Ed Bilat: I'm delighted. Jamie, I’ve been watching your videos from all over the World, exotic places, airports, helicopter, castles. I've been following you for quite some time so it's an honor to have you on the show and congratulations on your new book, Spear Selling. So that's wonderful and would love to hear your story. But before we do this, let me ask you our traditional question, which is, what business success story inspires you and why?   Jamie Shanks:                           The business success story that inspires me is any entrepreneur that has built something from scratch. For me, as somebody who built his company from an idea and a failed consulting practice at that in my first couple years, I am inspired by anyone who is a founder, owner, operator who took a business from zero to millions of dollars. In fact, you know, you can read books about those that have built billions of dollar businesses, I'm less inspired by those that take over businesses more about those that started from scratch. Ed Bilat: Wonderful. Yeah, I watched the video where you described the experience, I believe you were getting married at the same time. Right. And starting the company. So just a total start from nothing. Correct? Jamie Shanks: I mean all I had was a laptop, a stack of business cards and, you know, a tank of gas in my car and that was it. I really didn't understand and it took me years to really understand the financial and operational rigor and acumen necessary to run a professional services company. I had to learn it the hard way. Ed Bilat: Hmm. Wow. That's very interesting. You came to the consulting practice from the sales world, right? So like, you’ve been the director of business development, however, this is different. Right. So how did you even get into sales originally? Jamie Shanks: Well, it was by accident. I didn't want to be a sales professional. So when I was at university, I went to the University of Ottawa. I volunteered at the bank of Montreal, Nesbitt Burns in Canada, Ontario. And then I would spend my time as a volunteer, that gave me a summer job that turned into a full-time job and at the same time finishing my undergrad degree. So what I didn't realize, my dream as a kid was to be a stockbroker. I mean I did job shadow days at the stock brokerage firms. This is all I ever wanted it to be. And then in 2000 when the market collapsed and I was an investment representative, I didn't know that a stockbroker is actually a self-professional that advises on, you know stocks that are out in the market but also advises on stocks that the bank has underwritten and their job is to sell the inventory that the bank owns. Nobody told me this. So what I didn't realize is I was already a sales professional, just, I was like a wolf in sheep's clothing or whatever that saying is. Anyways, I left the bank and went on to do my master's degree and when I came back, the only company that would hire me or the only role that people would hire me for was a sales role because they said, well that's your previous experience. What are you talking about? I'm not a seller. And anyway, so I felt … Ed Bilat: Interesting. So obviously not expecting to be a full-time sales professional. So what was your major challenge earlier on moving into this? Jamie Shanks: I can tell you what my major strength was and then I'll work backward to everything else being the challenge. Ed Bilat: Sounds good. Jamie Shanks: So what I discovered about myself, I've always been a talker. When I was in high school, I owned a landscaping company. I make other people cut the grass and I just went door to door to win customers. So I had a neat skill of making feel people feel comfortable, creating a business opportunity for myself. So my strength, when I started in commercial real estate, it was a hundred percent commission I was really good at booking meetings, creating opportunity. I wasn't as great at the follow-through and actually doing the real estate transaction. I started partnering internally and I would become the business, development engine in a group of corporate real estate brokers. one person would maybe manage the customer, one person would do the real estate transaction and my job was business development. At that time business development was primarily done via telephone and face to face meeting. And so I could cold call the daylights out. I get to burn the phone up with cold calls. I was just strong at this. Ed Bilat: Yeah, the analog way, right. Jamie Shanks: The analog way. So every other skill became my challenge. Ed Bilat:   Hmm. Okay. So do you have a favorite sales failure? Like can you give us an example of a failure which was actually a good lesson for you? Jamie Shanks: I have a story that I'll try to shrink down to podcast level, but essentially when I was in commercial real estate, I won a mandate, which means the opportunity to work on a piece of business for a large industrial company that wanted to build a building and the commission from this deal would have been enough to pay off my master's degree and buy me a house. Like it was massive. The long and the short of it is, the day that the landlord and my customer and their investors met to do this deal it turned into an all-out fistfight. And what happened was my customer… Ed Bilat: [laughs] so this is a closing appointment? Jamie Shanks Exactly. And my customer and investors fired me because they said I didn't do the due diligence on who this land low land[sic]. Ed Bilat: Oh no. Jamie Shanks So what I did is I actually googled the investor's name, look them up on Canada 411. I bought the most expensive bottle of Scotch I could afford, drove to this person's house. It's a gated community north of the city and a place called King City. I jumped the fence to their property, ran across the yard, the investor was sitting in his bathrobe smoking a cigar right on his porch and he and I proceeded to have a scotch together talking about rekindling our business partnership. That's when I realized I was willing to do just about anything. Ed Bilat: Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So he was okay to see you show up with a bottle of Scotch? Jamie Shanks: I guess so [laughs] Ed Bilat: Well, that's a very good, interesting story specifically for Storytelling for Sales Podcast. So thank you for sharing this. I know you’re a top expert in social selling and for our listeners, could you describe it? What is social selling? What is everybody talking about? Jamie Shanks: What it really means is whether we as sellers like it or not, our customers are going to learn with or without us. So a customer is going to go on a journey. And when I'd say my customers are primarily business to business companies Ed Bilat:  B to B Jamie Shanks: Yeah. So let's say I'm vice president of information technology or a VP of HR is going to look at an initiative and a portion of their learning is going to happen without the sales professional. That means that they'll do online research. They’ll reach out to their social network and ask some questions. And so what a seller needs to do is to map and meet the customer where they are doing their due diligence, which is online and what they're doing is using four principals. They, reusing triggers, referrals, insights and competitive intelligence that can be found using social platforms or also using digital technology to aid in that buyer's process. So on a tactical level or as a real tactical example, one of the things that I as a seller could be doing to acquire customers is I take every existing customer of ours from our database and I map job changes every time somebody in our customer database from a company that we've worked with leaves that company and moves on to an organization we've never done business with that should, you know, create a trigger for my team to start a compelling sales conversation with them. And that is the purpose of what social selling is. You're just using data and new communication mediums to engage the customer in a bold and different way. Ed Bilat. Mmhmm Okay. So what I hear from now, you say that the sales cycle has already started before they talk to salespeople, right, for modern customers. So it could be 50% in

With a focus on business development, sales and marketing, David is a strategic problem solver who has held several C-level and executive positions in organizations across a number of industries including Food Service, Consumer Packaged Goods, and Technology.  David’s experience includes, President/CEO at Kingsmill Foods, partnering with organizations such as, Tim Horton’s, Nestle, Kraft and Second Cup, Chief Strategy Officer at ChannelAssist, leading programs for HP, Rogers and Toshiba, CEO of XMTrade.ca and CEO of OtolaneSoft Corporation, both leading mobile online auction platforms for auto dealers and founding Sorger & Company Inc., a consulting practice with clients including, OTEC Research/GP8 Sportwater, Teaopia (acquired by Starbucks), XELA Enterprises and MTY Group.   WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: The role of technology in the success of Domino's Pizza   How David sold his first business for $100K within one week of graduating from college  The deadliest mistake salespeople make 4 business trends shaping  our future today SHOW NOTES [00:24] Intro [01:22] Welcome David [01:39] Business success stories that inspire David [01:51] Success of Domino's Pizza  [03:28] Leveraging the technology [04:23] Starting his first company [05:58] The meaning of ecosystem [07:27] Talking Instead of listening [08:23] How to engage prospects  [10:35] Favourite Sales failure [10:53] Building trust [13:11] Food service, retail, CPG and automotive [14:01] Kingsmill Foods [15:46] Stories that excite David's customers [16:47] Personalization [17:36] Future trends [17:56] Smooth commerce [19:52] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders [20:37] Technology [21:20] Time [22:26] The art of storytelling [26:08] Contact info [27:42] Outro   SHOW TRANSCRIPT Ed Bilat: David Sorger, welcome to the show. David Sorger: Thank you, Ed. Ed Bilat: It's a pleasure to have you. I can't wait to catch up on the stories. We had a great meeting back in April. So thank you so much for coming to the show today. But before we start, let me ask you our traditional question, what business success stories inspire you and why? David Sorger: The one that's most relevant to me based on what I'm doing currently would be Domino's success story. Ed Bilat: The pizza place? David Sorger: The pizza place itself and I'll explain to you why. Approximately seven years ago they were on the verge of bankruptcy and they made a very bold and inspiring decision and that decision was to become a technology company first and a pizza company second. And they claimed that they don't have the best pizza. They claim to this day that they don't have the best pizza, but they wanted to make sure that they would appeal to obviously the growing new demographic that wanted the convenience over anything else. And so they shifted completely and became a technology company and made sure that any way you want to order Domino’s, you could order Domino's. And as of last February, they overtook Pizza Hut to become the number one pizza company in the world. So a company that goes from the verge of bankruptcy to the number one pizza company in the world by doing something that no one would have even thought of doing, which is deviated from what they were known for, making pizza, and pivot to being a digital company that actually built technology and pizza was only the vehicle to showcase their technology. That story is extremely inspiring to me. Ed Bilat: Interesting. And you would think pizza is pizza. Better ingredients, better pizza. David Sorger: You would think so. In the days where that was the only factor, I would tend to agree with you. But I think this speaks to how businesses are evolving, how we need to leverage technology or any of the tools that are provided to us in the current state and future state to ensure that we capture the audience that we need to make successful decisions and impact meaningful change. Ed Bilat: Very cool. Very cool. Thank you for sharing this. So let's turn the spotlight back at you. You've been dominating several industries. The food service, retail, CPG, all of it were the technology components and the automotive dealers. So how did you even get into the entrepreneurial/sales world? David Sorger: If I really want to go back to how it all started. I was in university doing a degree in kinesiology and health science and also studying business at the same time. The first thing I decided to do was to open up an actual company that just went around. I would sell to small, medium-sized, even some corporate businesses and go and set up their workstations, the elbow pads, the Gel pad to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome. I would go and set up workstations and give them some small exercises to do some stretches and the proper way to sit. Things of that nature. Ed Bilat: That was at least related to your field of study. Right? David Sorger: It was. But the life lesson comes in this format. About three weeks before I was going to graduate, a gentleman approached me and asked me to buy my business. He said he really liked the concept and at the time he offered me $100,000. Obviously being at that age, I thought I was rich and I couldn't sign up fast enough because I thought he was crazy and out of his mind. A little over a year later, I believe it was 13 months, he sold the business for $1.4 million. Now when I think back about what I could have done differently, given my level of expertise and business acumen at the time, not very much. I mean, if I think back, I think, maybe I should have sold 80% for $80,000, but I had dollar signs in my eyes and I was able to get out of my school debt and I was able to have a little bit of cushioning in my savings account. And so that's what inspired me. That was the beginning of my understanding that I really had to not just have great business ideas, but actually have an ecosystem around me, people that I could engage with to ensure that I could actually have a complete offering and have the knowledge base required to really grow businesses and see where there were additional opportunities. So it really started off the path to what I believe is my entrepreneurial career and I am a serial entrepreneur. Ed Bilat: Absolutely. David Sorger: I've started and sold three different companies to date and obviously working on a couple of additional initiatives right now. So it's not for everyone. Everyone thinks entrepreneurialism is easy. Everyone thinks sales are easy and that anyone can do it. But I truly believe that there is an art and a talent to it. And having to go from making nothing three months in a row to having a great month and making $10,000 or $20,000 or $30,000 or  $40,000 or whatever a great month means to you and then going back to making nothing again. It's difficult when you're starting things off, but it allows you to… Ed Bilat: Yeah, absolutely. And as my wife says, “whatever you do, entrepreneurship should be spelled with a T at the end.” So that's true. That's very true. It's not for everybody. So with regards to making the first sale for your new business, is there any particular most common mistakes you have seen that salespeople do? That entrepreneurs do? David Sorger: Yeah. They talk instead of listening. I think that’s the best advice that I could give anyone. you really want to engage whoever you're selling. To lead the conversation initially would be my advice. You have a very short window to be able to understand exactly what kind of day that individual is having. Pitching to even the same person at the same company on a Monday versus a Tuesday versus a Wednesday may be completely different and serve different outcomes based on what kind of day that individual is having. Have they just lost the biggest deal of their life? Have they just been yelled at by their manager or by their president or whoever? You really need to understand and really develop that relationship and provide that value and make that individual feel like there's value in dealing with you before you actually start selling your product. Ed Bilat: Hmm, that's a piece of great advice. How do you get them talking? David Sorger: This is the social element of it. Simple questions. ‘How was your day?’ Maybe being aware of certain body languages and seeing if they've had a difficult day. Asking if everything is okay. I've had sales calls in the early stages of my life once I realized that the person wasn't having necessarily the best day, I stopped selling my product completely and wanted to really engage them in ‘how are you doing?’ ‘what kind of a day are you having?’ ‘Is Everything okay?’ ‘Is there anything I can do to help you?’ If you develop that relationship and that connection right away, then when it is time to talk about your product than the recipient is far more likely to be open to what you have to say and to engage with you on a business level with whatever you're selling at any given time. Ed Bilat: Yeah.I absolutely love this advice. And as Confucius said many years ago, “you have to give first before you want to get something.’’ David Sorger: I couldn't agree with you more. So I think everything… this advice was given to me actually by one of my sales mentors, “if you are offered with an opportunity that you either don't have time for or that is not necessarily in your wheelhouse of what you are or are not capable of doing, then you should always recommend the solution to that individual. Introduce them to someone else, tell them that you're not the right person for this, but you have someone that is the right person for this.” Because in my opinion, what it automatically does is it develops a huge amount of trust and when they call you up and you have the ability to engage, then price never becomes a factor. They will always trust you because you had the wherewithal to understand that you couldn't best serve them with something and so you allow them or introd

Harsh Sabikhi is the Country Manager for GitHub Canada responsible for growing the Canadian region.  Harsh started off as a software engineer writing applications in C, C++, and Java for Texas Instruments.  In 2006, he transitioned into technical sales and eventually into software sales. Harsh is passionate about perpetual learning, change, and lean operations.  Harsh is a native of Toronto and holds an Electrical Engineering degree from McMaster University.  Outside of work Harsh is a new dad and has a 3-month-old boy. He enjoys spending time playing hockey, golf, and baseball.    WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: Inspiration story of Jack Ma (Alibaba Group)  Storytelling techniques deployed at GitHub by Harsh  The importance of keeping up  the pace of change in the sales world today How competition and cooperation will influence the future of sales. SHOW NOTES [00:08] Introduction [00:36] Welcome Harsh [00:49] Type of business stories that inspire Harsh [00:52] Jack Ma’s story ( Alibaba Group) [01:06] Being a firm believer in positive thinking [01:56] The win or learn Strategy [02:34] Transitioning from Software Engineering to Sales [05:49] Presenting and gathering feedback [06:36] Product knowledge [08:06] Bridging roles (having a cross-functional team) [08:46] How it felt to be the first Canadian sales rep for his company [11:25] Isn’t it hard to coach and mentor cross-functional teams? [12:01] Knowing the profile of your team is a key [12:37] What kind of stories do you tell to gain customer’s trust? [14:50] Customer experience and community [15:25] The future of software development [16:19] Why do some sales teams fail? [17:07] The relationship between the pace of change and commoditization [18:30] Advice for starters and college students [19:24] Challenges facing business owners [21:23] The future of businesses [22:00] The Art of Storytelling     SHOW TRANSCRIPT   Harsh Sabikhi:               00:00                To me, the art of storytelling is you tie personal experience to the product that you're selling. Automated Voice:         00:12                This is the storytelling for sales podcast, a show about leveraging the power of storytelling to ignite your sales performance and grow your business. Ed Bilat:                        00:22                Hi, and welcome back to the storytelling for sales podcast. I'm your host Ed Bilat. Today we have Harsh Sabikhi country manager of GitHub joining us from Toronto, Canada. Harsh Sabikhi, welcome to the show. Harsh Sabikhi:               00:39                Thank you. Ed Bilat:                        00:41                Great to have you here, so Harsh, we'd love to hear your story. It's very exciting. But before we jumped in, we'll ask you one of our traditional questions. What type of business success story inspires you and why? Harsh Sabikhi:               00:53                Sure. I would have to say Jack Ma, he had failure after failure, but he never gave up. I can't remember how many times he actually got rejected from jobs and some schools. Personally, I'm a firm believer in positive thinking. Where a positive mindset, leads to great results. However, failure allows us to take a step back and analyze ourselves. The situation and why we failed, this is where combining a positive attitude with learnings from failure comes into play. Jack Ma learned something from each of his failures early on, to now create one of the largest companies in the world. Ed Bilat:                        01:34                That's a great example. I think he was... I think he applied them for a fast food restaurant like 20 times and he was the only one rejected, I think. Harsh Sabikhi:               01:47                Exactly but he didn't let that bother him and that's the best thing. Because I think it was Muhammad Ali as well, who followed this strategy before Jack Ma who said, I either win or I learn. Ed Bilat:                        02:03                I think you hit the very important point because sometimes we get into this culture of win or lose. Instead of using the word lose, you use the word to learn. This way it's more positive. A great example. Obviously, in our generation, that's it... It's one of the tremendous success stories. Somebody coming out of nowhere and becoming... Building the new brand an exciting brand, which is worldwide accepted. Okay, great. Let's turn the spotlight back at you if we can so a software engineer who went to sales. Now I have to say this, it almost never happens. Cause I remember running a sales team myself. My guys, my sales guys, we were extremely scared of all the engineers and coders. Whenever we would have to go talk to them it was like... I don't understand it, what I'm going to say? What we found out then engineers, they want to talk to sales. They were just scared because they thought we were all crazy, obnoxious people who exist to sell the product, which actually should be selling itself. You crossed that bridge. Tell us about this experience. How did you do it? What did you do it? Take us. Harsh Sabikhi:               03:25                Sure. I did everything you just mentioned and that is spot on, I would say was spot on a long time ago, 1520 years ago, and that's when I was a developer. I would say... I think the personality and because of social media, because of our interactions online, the developers over time have changed as well. The developers are now a lot more what I call business friendly or customer friendly if you will but let's talk about my transition. I have an electrical engineering background. I went to Mac Master and I did an internship with Texas Instruments, in 2001 and then that's when I got into actually writing software for a large organization. I also developed software for that. But so in the early two thousand when I was a software developer up until 2006, I knew I had a passion for building things. Harsh Sabikhi:               04:24                I enjoyed writing software. The joy I took was seeing how my software was being used. It wasn't until when... I say being used, meaning being used by the end customers. It wasn't until my mentors within the engineering organization, the product marketing, the product management organization brought me along on their sales calls or conferences and I actually got feedback firsthand from the customers using the software. That's when I realized there's a bridge right there, that the problem development has had for a very long time is it's been a siloed organization. It still it is. Ed Bilat:                        05:09                Yes, you work alone. Harsh Sabikhi:               05:10                It still is in a lot of organizations today, where the developers are completely disconnected from the end stakeholders. They typically have internal stakeholders and those internal stakeholders work with the external stakeholders. It wasn't until I got to leave my desk to meet the clients and customers, and realized, wait a minute. Harsh Sabikhi:               05:30                That's actually pretty, it's fun because you're listening to your customer, you see what they want, and then you turn that into a feature request or an enhancement request or a bug fix on your backlog, and then you go from there. It was at that point where I realize, I'm going to swiftly ...slowly start to transition into more of a product management project manager role to do that. Then from there then I said, okay, well that's great. I realize I love presenting in front of customers. I am not scared of doing that and I love gathering feedback. That's when I realized, what other customer-facing roles can I do? The logical choice was sales. I had the luxury of working for a fortune 80 company in Texas Instruments and I had to start from scratch and I'm not going to lie to you, it was a bit of a step back, if you will, from a career perspective where, being a developer right now, literally you start from the bottom and be a technical sales associate at Texas Instruments. Harsh Sabikhi:               06:32                Then I became a technical sales rep and then go on from there, but it was a jump that I really enjoyed doing because I knew if I didn't do this now, it would be much more difficult later on. Ed Bilat:                        06:45                Did the product knowledge and understanding your own code, give you the confidence of talking to clients? Harsh Sabikhi:               06:54                Absolutely, that's exactly right. Because I used to write software, it was called code composers studio was the software that we built. I wrote an application that allowed embedded developers to view what's going on into their associate, the system on a chip. Then later, when I moved into hardware sales at Texas Instruments, I was selling those chips. I knew the software that was going to help them make use of those chips. Ed Bilat:                        07:24                Interesting, so it actually helps you, of course, you had to learn new sales techniques and approaches influencing, presenting, closing. This is a new world. However, you already had the background of actually understanding the product. Cause, I don't know how many times I can tell that we'd been sitting in the board room. Right. So on the first day, it's just a sales team p

Gregg has been in leadership roles with some of the most well-known companies in the industry including Citrix, BlackBerry, Bell Mobility, Siebel and Delrina. A passionate advocate for “informed selling” and sales professionalism, Gregg credits his success to having been mentored and coached by some great people that took the time to help him on his journey.  Gregg, his wife of 29 years and two sons live in Burlington, Ontario, Canada  WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: Inspiration stories of Jim Estill  (EMJ Data Systems) and  William Tatham (Janna Systems) Gregg's most memorable sales failure The role of the coach and mentor in his sales career Why there’s no such thing as ‘natural’ salesperson SHOW NOTES [00:20] Intro [00:51] Welcome Greg [01:10] Business success stories that inspire Gregg [02:52] Bringing Syrian refugees to Canada [03:15] Officer, Order of Canada  [06:30] Commitment and passion [07:30] How he got into sales [08:15] Moving to Waterloo [09:05] Getting the first sales job [10:55] No such thing as “natural” sales reps [11:15] Confidence [11:32] Asking customers questions and listening [11:48] Don’t out-sell competitors; out-question them [12:35] A favorite failed deal [13:28] Comforting remarks from his former sales manager [14:24] Keeping in perspective winning and losing [15:41] How storytelling helps sales [17:25] The type of story prospects want to hear [19:05] Using storytelling to overcome objections [21:06] Providing a solution [23:00] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders [23:30] Technology and mobility [28:35] Contact info [29:40] Outro   SHOW TRANSCRIPT Greg Jorritsma:             00:00                When you start a story, typically you can see a physical change in how people in the room are seated and how they're looking at your changes. I always explain that as when you start telling a story, people are preconditioned and hard-wired to listen and they drop their critical thinking barrier. Automated Voice:         00:23                This is the storytelling for sales podcast, a show about leveraging the power of storytelling to ignite your sales performance and grow your business. Ed Bilat :                       00:33                Hello, this is Ed Bilat, and today we'll have a deep and introspective show for you with a great sales leader and my distinguished guest, Gregg Jorritsma, senior director of sales and marketing at On-Ramp solutions is joining us from Toronto, Canada. Gregg Jorritsma. Welcome to the show. Greg Jorritsma:             00:52                Well, thank you very much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here, and I  appreciate the invitation to be part of this. It's a great opportunity. I'm happy to take part. Ed Bilat :                       01:01                I'm really excited that you could join us today and would love to jump right to the interview but before we do this, I will ask you our traditional question, what business success story inspires you and why? Greg Jorritsma:             01:13                That's a great place to start actually. Because I think a lot of this is about identifying someone and seeing something in somebody that you want to emulate and make part of your life. Greg Jorritsma:             01:24                I've always been of the mind that there are no Roy Hobbs out there. There are no natural salespeople, none that I've ever met anyway. I think everyone that is achieving success in sales at some point in their career, mostly early in their careers, had somebody see something in them and really take the effort to sort of mentor them and coach them. I have had the great benefit of having some wonderful people coach me and mentor me over the years, and there are a couple that really stand out above more so than some of the others. A couple I would refer to are both William Tatham and Bill Tatham from Janice systems and now NexJ Health but also Jim Estill. Jim Estill founded EMJ distribution in Guelph when he was just out of university. He started the business by selling printer supplies out of the trunk of his car. Greg Jorritsma:             02:17                He built that business up to probably just shy of $1 billion before one of the big boys Cynics acquired the company. Ed Bilat :                       02:27                Okay. That's not a bad position. Greg Jorritsma:             02:30 Yes. That's not bad stuff. But I think what really resonates with me about Jim Estill is he's always had this sort of a philosophy of being more than just a business guy, but being involved in his community and giving back. A  few years ago, anD I think it was 2015, he actually reached into his own pocket. Now it's reported he spent about a $1.5 million and brought 50 Syrian refugee families to Canada and set them up in Guelph. Ed Bilat :                       02:58                Oh, this is very recent. Greg Jorritsma:             03:02                When I first read about that, I mean it didn't surprise me at all since he was always that type of person that really was not interested in doing good business, but also setting an example. and when he did this, it was just amazing to read about. Greg Jorritsma:             03:15                Recently he's been inducted into the... As an officer of the order of Canada and he's just such a humble man. I've known him for about 20 years. First obviously as a customer selling product Tmj, and then later he has become a friend and a mentor and a real business hero for me. In my mind, I think he is the type of person that you look at and go, Jeez! I hope my kids all grow up to be like him. Ed Bilat :                       03:42 Wow! Well, I know you have two boys, so that's a really good example. Greg Jorritsma:             03:46                Yeah, exactly. I think one of the things that really says it all about Jim is after Cynics and Siebel thing, he recently became the owner of Danby appliances in Guelph. One of the first things he did was change the company motto to " Do the right thing". I think that just exemplifies Jim in every way that is possible. He is the type of person that always does the right thing, I think, in my opinion, and he said, you know, in conversations with him,  he's told me,  it's caused me make some mistakes, and it costs me money, but overall it has served me well and it makes sleeping at night and doing the right thing is, it just makes sense for him. So I've always admired that and kind of look for him for inspiration and guidance from time to time. Ed Bilat :                       04:30                That's a wonderful story. Wonderful story and a wonderful source of inspiration for you and the kids. So what you're saying that you can be successful and then you can do the right thing at the same time? Greg Jorritsma:             04:42 Yeah, I think especially in today's environment, there is so much emphasis on profit, profit, profit, stock market reports, stock tickers and everything else that it's easy to get distracted from doing what's right. I really admire him for that. The other business hero that really comes to mind is a gentleman I worked for a couple of times in the late nineties was Bill Tatham. He founded Janice systems, which was a CRM company and he believed in it and was passionate about it to the point where, he confided in me one time that the sheriffs were at the door to take the house at one point, but he believed in what he was doing and was going to make it right. Greg Jorritsma:             05:25                He did. He turned it around and grew that company substantially in the late nineties when companies like Siebel and Clarify and where the dominant players, this little company out of Toronto came out and grew its business by focusing exclusively on the vertical segment of financial services. One of our strategies was focused on the teaching within the book about crossing the puzzles,so we focus exclusively on financial services and despite the fact we were a fraction of the revenue play that companies like Siebel and stuff were, we were winning on Wall Street with Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo and All state and eventually the big stock players, a Siebel and stuff came knocking and had to buy the company because they needed the roster, they needed the customer roster. I think it's still $1.4 billion. I think it's still one of the top five or six acquisitions of the Canadian company to date. Greg Jorritsma:             06:23                What I've learned from him more than anything and working in that environment is, if you're committed to something and passionate about it and have the discipline more than anything to stick with it. In those early days as we were chasing around trying to find revenue and customers. It would've been easy to avert our focus away from financial services and just take some opportunistic count. But his vision was to focus on financial services. There were opportunities that we bypassed that we probably could have won, but it was really important that we dominated with financial services and as it turned out, that was absolutely the right move to make so that more than anything is, if you believe in it and you're willing to be disciplined about it, you can achieve something is what I really learned from that. Ed Bilat :                       07:13 I really love it. Those are great two stories you men

Bill plays a strategic role not only in role-based development, but how people, systems, and departments can positively impact the success of the Sales teams, and ultimately their companies. He believes salespeople come to work every day to be successful in their role, and there is an opportunity through architecture to enable their roles in a meaningful way.  WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: How to use Storytelling in Sales How to build Storytelling Sales library within your company How AI and Video Will Change Sales  SHOW NOTES [01:03] Welcome Bill [01:09] Introducing co-host, Sahir [01:26] Business success stories that inspire Bill [01:58] Creating a Coaching culture within the organization [03:52] Call recording as game films [05:08] Gary Milwit story  [06:50] Working as a group [07:50] Creating a sustainable system (library of stories) [08:51] Sport and sales analogy [09:00] How Bill got into sales [13:46] Learning to be brief and specific [15:25] Speak and write in bullets [16:33] Tailoring messages [17:16] The importance of mentors [17:49] Expanding your network [18:15] Self-development [19:00] Taking a cue from your network [19:30] Education and learning [20:13] Learning and development [20:20] Digital Intelligence Systems  [22:18] Institutional knowledge [23:33] How storytelling affects sales [24:34] Behavior change [25:05] Customer [25:56] Neuro-coupling phenomena during  [26:44] Encouraging salespeople [27:32] Talent [27:37] Environment [28:24] Compensation and incentives [29:23] Pipeline review [30:48] Sales trends to watch out for [31:19] The role of Videos and AI [33:19] new Prospecting models [33:33] The art of storytelling for Bill  [34:14] Contact info Show transcript   Ed Bilat :                        00:31                Hello, this is Ed Bilat Joining me today is Bill Ball, the director of learning and development. of digital intelligence systems. Bill Is also a founding member of sales enablement society and he's very passionate about sales talent management, sales enablement, and sales effectiveness. Bill plays a strategic role load on them in the role of the development, but how people, systems and departments can positively impact the success of producers and ultimately are companies deal with. Welcome to the show. Bill Ball:                        01:05                Hey, thanks for having me. Ed Bilat :                      01:06                Absolutely great to have you on the show. I will be joined today by Sahir Ponderay is my co-pilot and the cohost as well here in Ottawa today. Bill, I'm thrilled to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us. We would love to hear your story, but before we do this, I will ask you all a traditional question. What type of business success story inspires you and why? Bill Ball:                        01:30                So I thought about this and there are quite a few entrepreneurial stories that excite me, but I thought one that maybe I was a part of where I wasn't the ultimate success, but I was really proud to be a part of it is something that I thought I would share. Ed Bilat :                       01:43                Sure. Bill Ball:                        01:44                Great. So most businesses from a sales standpoint strive most modern businesses, and I'm throwing this out as not just a shared truth among sales organizations, but I think it's probably a universal truth at this point that many sales organizations are striving to have a coaching culture of some kind. So late two thousand I was working for an organization where we had one. We were really proud of it. You know, the job market at that time I think helped us a little bit where we had to people with greater tenure who are willing to give their time back. You know, they were brought in and they knew if they were sitting next to great other people doing their job, they'd be able to cross-pollinate and learn things from each other. So we created a circle of veteran peers who were coaching their peers and everybody was getting coaching from the leadership as well. But it's just, you know, as well as I do, people tend to make changes when they see their peers making those changes. They'll take guidance from the leaders, but they really make changes when they see peers making changes. Ed Bilat : 02:43                Absolutely. This is something useful. Let's see. Okay, I need to this for myself as well. Bill Ball:                         02:48   Exactly. So that got a little bit more challenging when the job market improved because you know, we were fine, but at the same time, we had people sort of circulating in out, because we're hiring a lot of recent college grads and so we had people circulating in and out, no fault of theirs. They were learning, you know, what they wanted to do or coaching culture was still solid. But you know, eventually, even with a coaching culture, you can't rely on entirely new people to carry a torch of that pure coaching because they don't have the experience and at some point, it becomes a little bit of the blind leading the blind. You don't know who was a real leader. Yeah, it's the last thing that you want to have happened is yes, great coaching culture, but you have what's called rogue coaching where it's like, well, hey, I don't know how everybody else is doing this, but this is how I do it. Bill Ball:                       03:38                Start multiplying that across the workforce. You know, it wasn't total pandemonium or anything like that, but it was just not like it was. At the same time, we started looking at technology to help with this kind of thing. We were an early adopter of thinking about, I mean this is an inside sales organization, so we're thinking about call recording as game film, which was very progressive at that time. We're talking mid to late two thousand so a little bit of a different story now, but very progressive. Then where you know, you bring up call recording. I think in some organizations now anyway, and they're still thinking, okay, this is the big brother, you know, why do you want to listen to my stuff? Versus thinking like, okay, most athletes watch game film to get better. But being a younger company and being noodle this and being sort of, you know, pioneers on are trailblazers. Bill Ball:                        04:27                We didn't roll it out very well. So some people you know appreciate it. Some people did and the technology wasn't where it is today. It was a little bit of a struggle. And so this forced us to learn a lot about change management, but we eventually did get to a place of where we were reviewing at least as leaders one on ones with people and listening to their calls and talking to them about their game film. And that was great, but we still weren't back to that pure coaching level. You know, like if appears going to review the game, fill them with another peer and they're both, you know, three to six months in like there's only so much advantage that can be gained from that. So we had a lot of friends. The previous business owners that I worked for a long time, we're pretty well connected within the inside sales world. Bill Ball:                        05:07                And there was one gentleman, his name's Gary Milwit, he works for a financial firm in Maryland. He's the sort of prototypical ex-football coach. Really tough guy that you know you either love or hate, but his people loved him. I believe he was an AI espy award winner for a sales leader one year too. Yeah, sounds like a really good combination. I mean I would see someone in those boats feel, especially coaching athletes would have a really good understanding of how to communicate with someone and actually help coach and various aspects of sales, like how to close a deal or how to pitch properly for certain. And so he like us had started embracing call recording may be a little after we did, but either way, he was starting to use it with his team as a group. And so we went and visited him and wash that an action. Bill Ball:                        06:01                And it's not as simple as you think there are rules, you know, everybody has to know. It's a safe place. Like there are certain kinds of comments that aren't allowed there. Certain kinds of comments that are allowed. There was, you know, in some way, like I think he had sort of stumbled into something that was tremendous. We brought it back to our organization and that was the whole reason we sat in, you know, we're like, hey, we want to see what's happening here. We want to see if this is something that's viable to bring back. And ended up being something that was really viable to bring back. So we started testing it with the CEO leading and testing out those rules. And it started out as a one-way conversation. But what it ultimately branched out to was I led them and our managers led them and our peers led them and we started breaking down those moments of the conversation where something really valuable happened. Bill Ball:                        06:51                And when you can do that as a group, it's so much more powerful than when you know you're sitting next to your neighbor as a sales peer and you're saying what happened? And you know, everybody remembers that last objection. But maybe three minutes before that, the call, you know, went off track somewhere. So being able to do that as a group and start establishing business specific best practices around that

Steven Benson is the Founder and CEO of Badger Maps, the #1 route planner for field salespeople. After receiving his MBA from Stanford, Steve’s career has been in field sales with companies like IBM, Autonomy, and Google – becoming Google Enterprise’s Top Performing Salesperson in the World in 2009. In 2012 Steve founded Badger Maps to help field salespeople be more successful. He has also been named one of the Top 40 Most Inspiring Leaders in Sales Lead Management.  WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: Inspiration story of Jason Lemkin -"The Godfather of SaaS" model All-In-One: Steve's biggest success and failure How to use Storytelling techniques to overcome Sales objections   SHOW NOTES  [00:11] Intro [01:09] Welcome Steve [01:31] Business success stories that inspire him [01:40] Jason Lemkin : creating SaaStr [04:00] GPS analogy [04:50] Sales experience [05:20] How Steve got into sales [06:45] IBM training program [07:20] Sales roles at Google [08:10] Challenges faced while switching career path [09:01] Failures [09:20] Badger maps [09:50] Lacking vision [10:07] Choice of Technology industry [10:45] Dynamic nature of the technology industry [12:34] Competing in software/app world [13:37] Stories that excite his customers [13:44] Application of Badger maps in sales [14:38] Field sales [18:05] Being efficient with time [19:00] Having success stories with statistical details [20:05] Leadership circle [21:25] Identify a problem and find a solution [22:00] Objection handling [23:20] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders [25:21] The art of storytelling [26:17] Contact info [27:40] Outro   SHOW TRANSCRIPT There's so much information and so much to do and so little time today in a way that there hasn't been before, and I think it takes people's focus off things. It makes it harder to accomplish things.Speaker 2:                    00:14 This is the storytelling for sales podcast, a show about leveraging the power of storytelling to ignite your sales performance and grow your business.Ed Bilat:                        00:25 Hello, this is Ed Bilat, we have a very cool guest for you today. Steve Benson, the founder, and CEO of Badger maps, the number one route planner for field salespeople joining us today after receiving his MBA from Stanford. Steve's career has been in the field sales with companies like IBM, our autonomy, and Google. And actually, he became Google's enterprise top performing salesperson in the world in 2009.  In 2012 Steve founded Badger maps to help field salespeople to be more successful. Steve has been named one of the top 40 most inspiring leaders in sales lead management. Steve Benson, welcome to the show.Steve Benson:               01:11 Hey Ed, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.Ed Bilat:                         01:13 Oh, absolutely. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have you on the show! I listen to your podcast and I watch your videos all the time, so I can't wait to hear your story all the way from San Francisco. But before we do this, let me ask you a traditional question, which is “what business success story inspires you and why?”Steve Benson:               01:35 Well, um, you know, I guess one of my big inspirations, uh, running Badger is Jason Lemkin. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him, but he's the guy that started EchoSign, which is kind of very select DocuSign if you're familiar with that company.Ed Bilat:                         01:50 Oh yeah. Yeah. We use DocuSign all the time.Steve Benson:               01:53 Okay. He started EchoSign, which, uh, is a very similar product I guess, but they sold it. They didn't take it public as DocuSign did. They sold earlier too. Adobe, he was one of the early people that made a SAAS business and built it up from scratch and took it all the way to a very nice exit. That's what he's first known for. But then after that he started just writing blogs and kind of communicating with the world of people that start software businesses and just writing down and created some really great thoughts and content around how to do every element of running a software company like his challenges that he faced, ways he'd overcome things, and he talked to other people about how they were overcoming things in very clear, simple explanations. Yeah, two-page articles would create vast value if, from my perspective, they taught me a ton of things, and that content strategy then grew into now a huge business that's called SaaStr. Yeah, when it was just all started, he wasn't even monetizing in the beginning. He was just kind of writing about his experiences and be like, Hey, I know a lot about this and I'm just going to share my thoughts. He's a really humble guy, a really inspirational guy for me. The company that I run is based on ideas that I learned from him, Ed Bilat:                        03:11 So this was a blueprint for SAAS companies with no expectations to monetize this whatsoever and it turned out into something really, really big.Steve Benson:              03:19 Right, which works out sometimes. I don't actually know if he had the plan to build the whole SaaStr Fund staying on top of what he was starting off with. I actually suspect he just had a blog and was creating content and then so many people were following it. He was like, oh, I should have a conference. I should. All of them. They do it now. But really it just started out creating great content for what ultimately came to his user software executives.Ed Bilat:                        03:49 We're gonna circle back to that. Let's turn the spotlight on you. Now our podcast listeners know, and I think today this will be particularly relevant. I like to use the GPS analogy. Then I'm, you know, you and my guests, right? You are in this world. I know Badger maps is for sure using GPS and, as you know, in order for the application to locate you, you need at least three towers. So each tower makes a circle, triangulation technique, and it'd been able to pinpoint yourself or precisely. So then I looked at your awesome experience. I see those three circles, right? I see the sales circle, right? I see the true passion for technology in this tree, which is your circle two. And I also see your leadership drive, which is circle number three. So let's talk about all three of them. Shall We?Steve Benson:               04:48 Sounds great.Ed Bilat:                         04:49 All right, excellent. Circle one is sales experience. I look in, you've been in sales roles for many, many years. IBM, HP, Google, and currently you are founder and CEO of Badger maps and which is very unusual for a CEO. You actually host your own podcast outside of sales talk, which I think is awesome, but not many CEOs are actually doing this. And look, not many CEOs actually record sales training videos for their reps. And you do. So how did you even get into the sales world?Steve Benson:               05:22 Well, you know, originally it was because of a friend slash mentor of mine. I was in business school at Stanford looking at a bunch of more traditional roles for students coming out of business school types of things that most of them do, you know, consulting and finance, jobs like that. And I was looking at them and interviewing with them and kind of exploring the different roles that are there's, you know, tried two years away from graduation, still figuring out, you know what? Early in my time there and trying to figure out what path I would take, this guy I know it was a friend and a mentor was like, you know, you could be a consultant and he had been a consultant before. He was like, you should be a consultant in finance. We can do any of these things, but ask yourself, “are you going to be the best guy in the room? Best guy or girl in the room at this job?” And because I don't think you'll be the best finance person, I don't think you'd be the best consultant. You might go into sales and you might be the best salesperson in the room and that's kind of a natural fit for you. And everyone always focuses on showing up their weaknesses. But really in a career, you kind of want to play to your strengths.Steve Benson:               06:32 I think your strength might be the interpersonal side, the leadership side, the sales side of the business. I was like, oh, that really makes a ton of sense to me.Ed Bilat:                         06:43 Okay.Steve Benson:               06:44 So I started looking at the jobs of that nature and I ended up entering IBM that has this program where they, uh, which is like a year-long training program.Ed Bilat:                         06:54 Yes. Steve Benson:               06:55 Pretty cool. It was like, so right after business school I went into a year-long sales training program and they're kind of grooming people to be at their company for the long term, I think is what they're looking for. And they stay, invest a ton up front trying to make you a great salesperson. I didn't end up staying there after the year was over. I ended up, uh, with a software company called Autonomy, which subsequently was purchased by HP. And then I ended up, uh, moving into a sales role at Google because they're kind of on the cutting edge of SAAS.  I'd seen some SAAS that, so software as a service to shift to doing software on the cloud as opposed to traditional software. It's downloaded or solo CD, it changes the whole business model and stuff. And I, and I saw that at Autonomy a bit. We were dabbling in that model. Okay. One of the companies leading the space, Salesforce, Workday, a few others, but a Salesforce is where Google is in a really

Matt Bramson is the Chief Growth Officer of RingByName, the leading integrated enterprise telecom, and customer relationship management service. In that role, he is responsible for leading the company’s sales, marketing, and business development. He has more than 20 years of experience in technology sales, sales management, strategy, and corporate development. Prior to joining RingByName he led business development for XO Communications and reported directly to legendary financier Carl Icahn.   WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: What type of Stories you should tell your clients How to use storytelling to build relationships and trust How Matt got hand-picked to work directly with a billionaire investor Carl Icahn   [00:23] Introduction [01:53] Welcome Matt [02:08] Business success stories that inspire and why [02:16] Businesses that grow and innovate [02:23] Southwest airlines [03:26] A proven model [04:33] Sales and marketing experience [04:52] Sales and partnership negotiations [04:57] How he got into sales [05:11] Selling encyclopedia [06:42] Understanding the customer’s situation [07:33] Typical mistakes people make in sales [07:45] Lack of understanding of customer’s goals and interest [09:02] How to evaluate the customer [10:33] The technology industry [10:50] Cloud service company   [15:04] Type of stories to tell [16:31] Acknowledge your failure [16:58] Fear [17:54] Leadership circle [18:21] Working with a billionaire? [20:16] Expressing an opinion [21:39] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders [22:31] Indirect sales channel [23:13] Marketing versus sales [25:11] The art of storytelling [26:40] Contact information      

Building a new kind of Business Ed Bilat and ItsPayd CEO Ken Green on finding your own story. Ken Green is founder & CEO of ItsPayd, an automated payment platform utilizing cutting-edge technologies to give control back to a company’s billing processes as well as providing users a peace of mind knowing their invoices are confidential and affordable. Prior to ItsPayd, Ken was CEO of a commercial collection agency and has over 20 years of executive leadership experience.  With his innovative and entrepreneurial spirit, he stays ahead of various industry needs providing services to improve efficiency while keeping the end user in mind. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE: · How Ken decided on his 2015 goal for building a new kind of business in the most conservative  industry of all:  The Collection Industry · How the business success story of Uber Inspired Ken in the early days · What challenges are facing many of today’s sales leaders · How Ken applied the Art of Storytelling for his company growth · The importance of setting  clear revenue targets

As the leader for 500+ great employees, Bill Jensen always strives to be a difference-maker for the people who work with him at Mediacom. He enjoys developing managers and supervisors in reaching their full potential as well as creating a true TEAM atmosphere in administrative as well as field operations. Bill focuses on excellence and attention to detail as well as "doing it right the first time.  WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: How to use storytelling to build relationships and trust How to formulate a Multibillion-dollar investment strategy? How Bill comes up with Stories that excite his customers and partners History of a cable industry How Sales Leaders Sell Can you use Storytelling to motivate people? The mindset you need to compete today The importance of preparing your stories ahead of time Why there is a shortage of qualified applicants? What does the Art of Storytelling mean to Bill? SHOW NOTES [00:07] Introduction [01:26] Welcome Bill [01:49] Business stories that inspire him [02:06] Multi-billion dollar investment strategy [03:32] Cable industry [04:12] How Bill got into the cable industry [06:16] Local access television studio [07:13] High-speed data and video-on-demand [07:20] Fierce Competition in the cable industry [08:35] 18-inch dishes [08:49] Telephone companies [09:47] Video, high-speed internet, telephony [10:08] Stories that excite his customers and partners [13:20] Why manage people? [13:28] The role his father played [13:57] Leadership opportunities [14:54] Responsibility, patience, and experience [15:20] How leaders sell [15:41] Selling everyday [16:18] Motivating people [17:32] Leading and teaching by example [20:00] Preparing ahead of time [20:17] Challenges facing today’s leaders [20:36] Shortage of qualified applicants [21:51] The necessary skills for graduates and applicants [23:27] The art of storytelling [23:37] Inter-personal communication

Chad Heath is the VP / GM of Kegstar US.  Kegstar is a leader in the keg rental space and has been in operation in Australia since 2012. Prior to Kegstar, Chad was the Sr. Director of Stone Distributing. After joining the team in 2008, he has helped create exponential growth for Stone and more than 30 supplier brands sold throughout Southern California, taking the amount distributed from 350,000 case equivalents to roughly 4+ million in 2016. Chad is also an instructor at San Diego State University where he teaches "The Business of Craft Beer".  WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: How to beat the odds in today’s competitive market How to use storytelling to build relationships and trust How to use the power of the internet in the craft beer space How Chad got into sales Why the craft beer industry? And why it is exploding? The mindset you need to compete today Why today’s sales leaders need to be bold and brave What does the Art of Storytelling mean to Chad? And why it is so important today?   SHOW NOTES [00:05] Introduction [00:42] Welcome Chad [00:57] Type of business stories that inspires him [01:01] Beating the odds in today’s market [02:30] Changes in marketplace and customer dynamics [03:00] Chad’s biography [04:17] Why sales? [05:52] Chad’s crafty tactics in sales and business development. [06:26] Roadblocks for starters in sales [06:40] Chad’s true passion [09:42] Ways customers benefit from Kegstar’s innovative technology [10:15] Beer industry knowledge [10:48] How Chad got into the beer industry [14:18] The Past sales strategy [15:25] The Present sales strategy [16:25] Building relationships and trust [17:11] How Craft Breweries utilize the power of the internet [18:45] The mindset you need to get into beer industry marketing [20:43] How he got into teaching and combines it with a full-time job [24:27] Challenges facing today’s business owners [24:50] Effective storytelling and goalkeeping [25:35] The Art of Storytelling [27:07] Upcoming events and contact information WAYS TO CONTACT Chad:  LinkedIn

Christy Soukhamneut is a 20+ year veteran of the mortgage industry who is dedicated to turning possibility into reality.  A gifted strategic thinker, she knows that you must cut through the clutter, clearly articulate the vision, and then rally support at the street level.  Christy accomplishes this by helping loan officers build their unique selling propositions around their individual strengths and then holds them accountable for achieving their dreams. Everything she does is evaluated against these three bars: Will it make your life easier?  Will it help you & your team be more productive? Will it help you grow your business?  WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE: How one tragic phone call changed her life Christy’s Grandmother’s amazing story How she started her first job as the President of a mortgage company at the age of 20 How Christy got into sales What to do to get people to take you seriously Why the financial industry and why mortgages? How people make the $100 decision How to help salespeople see something within themselves that is just below the surface Why today’s sales leaders need to be bold and brave What does the Art of Storytelling mean to Christy and why Empathy is so important.   SHOW NOTES [00:15] Introduction [01:02] Welcome Christy! [01:15] Type of business stories that inspire [01:22] Resilience in the face of adversity – her Grandmother’s amazing story [04:06] Commodity exchange [07:32] Standardized tests [07:58] It’s never about “do you have enough information?” [09:20] How Christy got into sales [10:31] Challenges she faced early on in her career. [10:52] Getting people to take her seriously [11:24] Taking it slowly and learning from others [12:44] Why the financial industry and why mortgages? [14:06] Type of stories that excite her customers [14:32] Working with first time home buyers [15:09] How we make decisions [17:41] Starting her first company at the age of twenty [17:51] Helping people see things in themselves [18:41] The connection between yoga class and sales class [20:05] Challenges facing sales leaders today [20:18] Listening to others and having empathy [21:27] Encouraging others [22:30] The Art of Storytelling [23:22] Connecting on an emotional level [23:43] Contact informationHow one tragic phone call changed her life WAYS TO CONTACT Christy:  You can find her being social on: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn