The Advanced Selling Podcast: Sales Training | Leadership Coaching | B2b Sales Strategy | Prospecting Tips

Isn’t it time you took inventory of your skills and competencies as a professional salesperson? Is it possible that, over time, your skills have deteriorated? You know the saying, “You lose what you don’t use.” In this episode, Bryan and Bill review several of the 10 Skill Sets needed to be a great salesperson. You can email them at listener@advancedsellingpodcast.com  (Subject line: Skills) to get all 10. In the document, you get  a chance to rank yourself. If you’re sales manager/leader, there’s even space to assess your entire sales team.

The world is full of articles on techniques—golfing—tennis—internet—marketing—and of course, selling techniques. Today, Bill and Bryan address this in a slightly different light. There is a “technique” (singular) to selling that is more important than the “techniques” used to sell. We don’t like the idea of “sales techniques” – it becomes rather manipulative. So listen in today and get some good “technique” advice.

In this episode, Bryan and Bill dissect a deal from an actual client phone call. The issue is what do you do in the 11th hour of a deal when everything that you thought was true—was untrue? You’ll hear both hosts weigh in on the situation, then hear the advice that Bill actually gave.

This week on the Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill and Bryan talk about the ethical consideration that keeps you from moving forward. What to do? What to do? Intent (a core principle on the ASP) comes to the forefront in this discussion. You are invited to weigh in by emailing Bill and Bryan at listener@advancedsellingpodcast.com. 

This is not a new topic for us at ASP, but we did have another letter from a listener whose manager asked her to "stop selling small stuff and start selling big stuff." Our advice may surprise you—and  it may be useful to you if you find yourself in the pressure cooker that is today's modern sales environment. Bill and Bryan also talk about a listener who took our advice, built a blog, and now has a success story you should hear. If you have a question to put into the mix, go tohttp://www.askbillandbryan.com

This is a special treat this week because we have a client who just landed a large deal with a new customer. And much of what he usedhe learned right here at The Advanced Selling Podcast. In this episode,Jeff spends 15 minutes telling you exactly what sales strategies and tactics he used and how he executed the sales process to land the deal.

In Bryan Neale’s absence this week, I enlisted Phil Bounsall of Walker Information to talk about the issue of client loyalty. As sales professionals, a loyal client is a referring client. And since most of us count on referrals to grow our business, keeping your eye on loyalty is a MUST DO. Phil has excellent insight and tips on how to improve client loyalty.

In this episode, Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale address a question from an audience member on how to prospect when you're already busy. And Bryan reveals a communication technique that helps as you're explaining to a prospect what you do.

In this week’s podcast, Bill is going “solo” and talks about the first call “protocol.” We’ve received a lot of mail recently on “filling the sales funnel,” but the first discussion you have with a prospect is still vital. You have to set the tone in the right way. And to do that, you MUST have the right frame of mind going in.

Sometimes we just need to have bold, bad sales moves. In this podcast, Bill and Bryan talk about two bold moves you can make as you pursue the sale.These moves are not intended to get someone to buy—that’s not cool. They ARE intended to move the sale along—or move it out.

In Bryan’s absence this week, Bill reviews three more of the core sales philosophies that govern sales success. He addresses money and budget, how to find out early where the prospect’s mind is, and how to reframe who your competition is. As always, you can email us at listener@advancedsellingpodcast.com to ask a question or make a comment.

Due to the holiday week, Bryan is taking some much deserved time off and Bill chose this week to share live audio from one of our MasterMinds programs. (MasterMinds is a peer group of high achieving sales professionals.) Bill and the group address the issue: What mental platform do you need to operate from? Happy Memorial Day!

In this week’s podcast, Bill and Bryan address a common question they get, “Does my message change depending upon who I call on in the organization?” The answer is YES. But hear some of their counsel on how to think differently when you’re in front of different people.

Well it's been a while since we posted a Mailbag episode. We're getting so much mail--and so many questions--that we take three of them today. The most important was from a young lady who feels her product might be inferior to her competition--and she isn't totally sold on it. This is a powerful topic. Bill and Bryan delve into the inner game of this--and give you some counsel if this is happening to you. They also answer the question of 'how do you handle it if your sales manager isn't aware of the "podcast teachings?"'If you have a question, go to www.askbillandbryan.com and post it there. We'll get to it as we can.

It’s not the sales funnel that’s important…it’s all the stuff “above” the funnel. So what action can you take to the suspects that are orbiting the funnel? In this episode, Bill and Bryan walk through the Top 5 Techniques (you can email us for the other 5 at listener@advancedsellingpodcast.com –subject line: FUNNEL).So if you don’t have enough in your sales funnel, you may not be practicing the right Rules, Tools and Attitudes to fill it up.

In this economic time, how you communicate your value—and WHAT it is—will be very important. Here, Bill and Bryan pick up on a topic they began a few months ago—what is your personal value to your customers and how does it show itself in the sales process? All sorts of goodies here.

Today, Bill and Bryan discuss the age-old-but-still-modern problem of how to get to the decision maker. In today’s economic climate, companies are more discerning about their spending patterns and that means the decision process is changing. You, as a sales professional or manager, need to know how to navigate through the maize of roadblocks inside companies. And this podcasts gives you ideas on just how to do that. By the way, go to www.askbillandbryan.com to submit a question for future podcasts.

Do ever feel like when you talk about your value it leaves people cold? Or maybe you wonder if your value really is special. We have a client who is wondering that very thing. So in this podcast, Bryan reviews the client issue, and we give you four ideas of how you can improve the value you bring. Then, we want you to weigh in on the fifth. The way you do that is listen to the podcast, then send an email to listener@advancedsellingpodcast.com with VALUE in subject line.

You are a leader—whether you’re in a position of leadership or not. In many companies, the leadership is not provided by the “one in charge” but by everyone else. So as a sales professional, you need to be in an “attitude of leadership.” Thus, we asked Kevin Eikenberry to be on this week. He wrote a book called “Remarkable Leadership,” which is a must read for anyone in business. Kevin gives us some tips on how best to have the attitude of leadership.

On this week’s episode, Bill, Bryan and Brooke talk about the framework for an effective Personal Business Plan and how to handle prospect resistance on price. We deal with this issue because we’ve heard from listeners that their prospects are suddenly quite price sensitive. While that’s understandable, we want to make sure we’re asking the right questions.