Sales Pipeline Radio

Virtual Sales Training: How To Support Your Now Entirely Virtual Team

This week's episode is entitled "Virtual Sales Training: How To Support Your Now Entirely Virtual Team" and our guest is Ray Makela, CEO and Managing Director at the Sales Readiness Group. 

I ask Ray, what's the advice you're giving to your client around how to adapt their selling strategy right now?

I think this is the time to check in, to build the relationship and hopefully collaborate .... but it's certainly not a time to push to close the deal... I think we do need to be sensitive to how they're showing up and how we're showing up. And I think we want to maybe frankly do a little less challenging and a little bit more consoling these days because it's a long game. And if there was ever a time to pay it forward and say, "How can we help? Let's kind of take the deal off the table for a moment. But how can we help you or what can we do to support you?"

I ask Ray to talk a little bit to the tension between getting close to the end of the quarter and hitting their numbers. How do you address that tension?

Listen in NOW or read the full transcript on our blog starting Mon. 3/30/20

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

Selling from Scratch: Foundations and Fundamentals for Building Your Sales Team

This week's episode is entitled "Selling from Scratch: Foundations and Fundamentals for Building Your Sales Team".  Our guest is Jim Wilson, Operating Partner at Costanoa Ventures.  

We talk about the impact of the COVID19 outbreak on sales, but we also get down to some good, timeless sales team building wisdom and give you some great takeaways you can use both right now and going forward.

I love the advance of social selling tactics. I love the advance of challenger sale and the teach and tailor type mentalities. But I think in our effort to create more value as trusted advisers, a skill that isn't being taught as much today is how to ask for the deal, how to ask for the sale, and how to close.

I ask Jim to double down on these and provide examples and ideas. You'll love his Four Cs of Closing.  Listen in to hear his answers about how companies put more of a focus on these in the organization. He answers if this a training issue and shares the best ways for companies to get better at closing. This and MORE.  Listen in now and read the full transcript on the Heinz Marketing blog starting Mon. 3/23 at 6am PST. 

Coronavirus, Trade Shows and Value vs Venue

This week's episode is entitled "Coronavirus, Trade Shows and Value vs Venue".

So many cancelled conferences!  The people who wanted to attend are missing out on something. The people who wanted to sponsor are missing out on something. The people who produce the conference are going to miss out on something. So what was that and how do you now use that?

The last thing I want anyone to do is think about this as an opportunity. I've been really trying not to use that word this week because no one should be opportunistic when lives are at stake.

For the people organizing events, for the people planning on producing the events, the most common response I have seen is, "We are going to do a virtual event. We are going to take all of that learning in-person, we're going to do that online."

But what if what attendees really want isn't just the content, they want the community? What if you took those same resources and created small micro versions of your event? What if you use this as a way to catalyze actually creating and activating those local user groups to help your customers to help people in your community get together in person? There's a thousand ways you could actually do that. But in the past when you've just said, "Wow, we'll just go to the regular trade show and just do it all at once." It feels more efficient. Now a virus has forced our hand, but you got to think about where is that value exchange, what is actually valued in that process along the way? 

Listen in for this and MORE and/or read the full transcript on the Heinz Marketing Blog starting Mon. 3/16 or check out our related blog post.  

Successful Selling for Professional Services: An Unstoppable Approach from Steve Gordon

This week's episode is entitled "Successful Selling for Professional Services: An Unstoppable Approach from Steve Gordon" and our guest is Steve Gordon, Founder of The Unstoppable CEO.

We cover strategy methodology for sales and marketing professionals all the time and naturally end up talking mostly about selling products.  It's not often we step back and say, okay, "What is it when you're selling what people DO?"

I facetiously tell people, as a consultant I talk and type for a living, so I don't necessarily have the same widget to be able to sell to everybody or the same piece of software to sell. So selling in professional services obviously is very much a thing.

In this episode I ask Steve how is that different and why do people need to think about this a little differently when you're selling professional services versus selling product? And for smaller organizations--- is the answer to that to separate your services from your selling? Is there a way to make that transition? If you are a small firm and representing yourself, what are some of the strategies that you've found work best?

This and a lot more!

Listen in now or read the entire conversation on our the Heinz Marketing blog starting Mon. 3/9 at 6am PST.

______________________________________________________________________________

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

The Importance and Power of Editing: A B2B Masterclass (in 30 Minutes!)

I think as people have the opportunity to just publish things off the cuff on social channels, to just write stream of consciousness on a blog platform and just click, press, go... I don't feel like we are as good at editing ourselves as we used to be. And so we talk about this.  To start I ask Lisa how she decided editing is what she wanted to do? How did she begin her career in journalism and why is that something that she's so passionate about today?

This and a lot more!

Listen in or read the entire conversation on the Heinz Marketing Blog starting Mon. 2/24/20 at 6am PST. 

   

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

Will AI Replace Sales Professionals? Finding The Right Balance Between Sales Automation and a Human Touch

Please join me and my guest, David Keane, Founder and CEO at Bigtincan.

We're seeing such an emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning in sales and marketing and over the last six to eight months, we've seen a lot more companies say they feel like it's successful, something they can actually get their arms around and use. It seems to me that part of that is taking what we think of as big data and all this information out there and prioritizing the right data, prioritizing data that we can get access to quickly, that you can make a decision on it and hopefully continue to engage and mobilize the prospects.

I ask David how thinks about that and how you take big opportunity and make it real and make it right now for customers. This and a lot more! 

Listen in NOW or read the entire conversation on the Heinz Marketing blog starting Mon. 2/17 6am PST. 

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

   

__________________________________

What Do Tina Fey, The Ohio State University and B2B Marketing Have in Common?

This week's episode is entitled "What Do Tina Fey, The Ohio State University and B2B Marketing Have in Common?" and our guest is Marilyn Cox, Vice President of Marketing at Clubessential Holdings, LLC

Sometimes I think of this term content marketing and it sort of demeans what the form and what the opportunity is. Is there a value in thinking of it as just content? How do you create content that engages, that persuades, that teaches, that makes people better? By doing that well, you're earning ongoing attention, you're earning the right to continue the conversation that might turn into a sales conversation, but is it wrong or is it counterproductive to call it content marketing or should we just create good content?  We talk about this and a lot more!

Marilyn is into WWE.  I ask about her interest overall, but also what makes these athletes such good storytellers?

I also ask her, given her diverse career, the different places she worked in marketing, what she'd say if she was sitting in front of a group of soon to graduate college students, what's some advice shed give them they might not hear from others that she thinks is important for their careers moving forward?

I think one of the biggest is ... 

I think I would agree when a lot of people say that you have to recognize that you don't have all the answers and you can't stop learning. For me, that's huge. If I were talking to people that were getting ready to graduate and were going into marketing and they were earlier in their careers, I think the one piece of advice I would give them to build on that concept is start to learn outside of marketing. Not to discourage people from reading good marketing content and best practice content, I absolutely do, but I think there is a lot to be gained from reading more on financials. I will say probably aside from, of course, aligning with a sales team, the organization that I align with the most at a company is always the financial team. The CFO is somebody that I make my best friend very, very early on.

Listen in NOW or read the entire conversation on the Heinz Marketing blog starting Mon. 2/10 at 6am PST.  

 

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

   

______________________________________________________________________________

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

How ABM is Evolving: New Best Practices and Pitfalls

In this week's episode, "How ABM is Evolving: New Best Practices and Pitfalls" I talk with Nani Shaffer, Senior Director, Demand Generation & Operations at Demandbase

Demandbase is synonymous with account based marketing. They have done a ton over the years to really develop the definition of account based marketing to really set some benchmarks and drive a lot of great thought leadership around it. The concept of ABM has been around now for at least three, four plus years. Demandbase has been involved in this category now for a long time as well.

In this episode, I ask Nani:

• How she has seen ABM evolve?
• What is ABM here at the beginning of 2020?
• Can a company's marketing be applied to any target?
• Do you think for companies that continue to go down this maturity curve  this won't be a separate effort, that this will just evolve into the sort of table stakes of how companies market to their targets?
• What sales role is in driving effective ABM programs and what does it take to get a sales organization aligned with the marketing efforts to create a truly integrated ABM approach?
• What are some key lessons you've learned about what it takes to take this great idea and actually land it? (how does it work on Tuesday?)
• How do you make this not just a campaign but a culture change?
• What are some things you've learned that are key to making that work?
• And lots more!

Listen in now or read the entire conversation on the Heinz Marketing blog starting Mon. 2/3 6am PST.

 

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

   

______________________________________________________________________________

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

How TUNE Marketing Aligns With Sales for Lead Mgmt and Conversion 5 Minute Podcast

 

Jonah-kai, was the Senior Director of Marketing at TUNE, when this interview was taken.  Hew is a proven leader with 15 years of experience creating content, building marketing programs and leading highly-functional teams.  He is now head of marketing Algorithmia

His experience encompasses Product Marketing, Online Marketing, Marketing Strategy, and Content Strategy for B2B focused companies. Follow Jonah-kai on Twitter

This is a five-minute extract from the longer program: 

Marketing Operations 2.0: How One Company is Managing the Next Generation of Martech Stacks

Join us as Jonah-kai, answers some GREAT questions: Here are just a few:

• How do we get better at driving campaigns that focus on target accounts?
• How do we get better at working regionally in accounts to focus on that?
• How do we get better at measuring those things so that everything we do drives around a strategy that drives performance?
• Where are you putting focus in building systems that can directly track marketing's effectiveness and impact on the sales pipeline?
• What cadence do you use to make adjustments?
• How often are you looking at those results?
• How often are you making changes to your execution?

Read the transcript of this episode on the Heinz Marketing Blog

 ___________________________________________

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

   

How to Win (and Keep Winning) Bigger Deals

This week's episode is entitled "How to Win (and Keep Winning) Bigger Deals" and our guest is Lisa Magnuson, Founder of Top Line Sales and the author of The TOP Sales Leader Playbook: How to Win 5X Deals.

Read the rest of this entry »