What Sales Leaders Can Do Today to Create More Sales Conversations with Mario Martinez Jr., #178

This episode of The Modern Selling Podcast is a little bit different. Instead of me interviewing a guest, I want to share an interview I did with Rob Jeppsen on the Sales Leadership Podcast, where we talked about creating more sales conversations and how to prospect.

Our own research at Vengreso has shown that the hardest part of the sales cycle, according to both sales leaders and sellers, is getting the first conversation.

The longest part of the sales cycle is that from “hello” to close and, in fact, most of the 200 sales training companies out there focus on teaching all the skills needed in that part of the cycle. But very few focus on the pre-hello.

And that's where we spend a lot of our time at Vengreso, teaching prospecting skills that will actually build the sales pipeline.

Because the fact is that without the first conversation, nothing else happens.

Creating Sales Conversations

1. Mindset

Sales leaders who want a strong pipeline must begin by changing their mindset. Those of us 45 years of age and older are used to using mostly email and phone calls for prospecting.

But data shows that although the number of emails sent in 2020 increased exponentially, email engagement dropped, as well.

Phone calls have gone down also. So, we have to ask ourselves, what are we going to do differently and how are we going to do it?

We must apply the omnichannel approach to prospecting. That means including all these channels in your sales cadence:

• Phone
• Email
• Text messages
• Video
• Social media
• Direct mail and gift marketing
• Digital referrals

You have to engage the buyer in the way the buyer wants to be engaged.

Sales leaders have to think differently about every one of these channels and how their sellers are using them throughout every step of the Cadence process. Otherwise, they will be obsolete in less than six months from now.

Listen to the podcast to learn how to coach your salespeople to succeed in this new digital environment and what you must do as a sales leader to level up your game.

It’s not enough to give your sellers access to new channels like LinkedIn and video if you don’t train them on how to leverage them correctly. The question for you as a sales leader is, do you yourself know how to use them?

If you have the word “sales” in your title, like sales manager, director of sales, VP of sales, or Chief Sales Officer, that means you're in sales. So produce a lead, prospect, engage, get out there on the front lines. Don't tell your sellers, “Hey. go take the hill,” but say, “Let's take the hill. And I'll do it with you because we're all in this together.”

2. Execution

Once you have the mindset, you must execute. And the first thing you must do is build a program that will change the behavior of your team.

However, you cannot change behavior nor accomplish a long-term impact in your sales organization with a 2-hour webinar. You must implement a training program that enhances your team’s digital selling skills over time.

There are seven aspects of a successful virtual sales program that you must take into account, including chunking content, spacing instruction over time, using repetition, testing knowledge, and more.

Listen to the whole episode to discover how to implement an omnichannel prospecting cadence and how to discover what works for every customer through trial and error.