The Sales Evangelist

Donald C. Kelly
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The Sales Evangelist

I believe in doing BIG THINGS! You should be earning 6 figures easily as a sales rep. But chances are you are not...yet! Sales is the most important department in every company but many sellers are never taught how to effectively sell, much less how to earn their way to high-income status. My own career limped along until a company I worked for invested in sales training to help me succeed. Immediately afterward, I closed a deal worth 4X what the company spent on me and saw hockey-stick improvement in my performance. So I started a podcast to “Evangelize” what was working. Today I interview the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales right now: folks like Jeffrey Gitomer, Jill Konrath, Bob Burg, and Guy Kawasaki to name a few. They share actionable insights and stories that will encourage, challenge, and motivate you to hustle your way to top income status. If you’re someone looking to take off in your sales career and earn the income you deserve, hit subscribe and let’s start doing BIG THINGS!

  1. 2 DAYS AGO

    Donald Kelly | "Start The Day Off Right"

    show notes

    16 min
  2. Adam Block | The 3 Moves That Got Us Enterprise Deals (Case Study)

    5 DAYS AGO

    Adam Block | The 3 Moves That Got Us Enterprise Deals (Case Study)

    show notes

    31 min
  3. Matt Tharp | Cold Call vs. Cold Email: Which One Actually Works in 2025?

    7 JUL

    Matt Tharp | Cold Call vs. Cold Email: Which One Actually Works in 2025?

    Should you email or call prospects? Which method is best for effectively reaching your clients? To find out, listen to my chat with Matt Tharp, the CEO of Hunter.io. He provides data and insights on why businesses should focus more on cold email than cold calling. Meet Matt Tharp Matt might be perceived as biased towards email since he's the CEO of Hunter.io, but he was drawn to the company precisely because of its commitment to email.He enjoys working with fast-moving businesses that prioritize high velocity and product-led growth strategies. He believes this approach helps build a robust pipeline with marketing, while the sales motion supports and supplements that pipeline.Sales-driven models, heavily dependent on closing the next deal, can make it challenging for new sellers or businesses to find their footing. Relying solely on cold calling makes pipeline building particularly difficult, and the current business environment is only making cold calling harder.Matt shares his own experience as a decision-maker: if someone cold calls him unexpectedly, he's likely to get annoyed because it almost always interrupts something he's doing. Marketing Strategy for Email Outreach Matt and his team conducted research to determine which marketing strategy prospects prefer. The results showed that 61% prefer cold emails, while less than 10% prefer cold calling. He also found that individuals in the US prefer digital outreach 71% more than calling.To successfully begin email outreach, Matt suggests keeping two key things in mind: 1.   How you build and segment your email list. 2.   How you write your content. He advises against trying to reach everyone when building your list. Instead, personalize it and make it relevant to your target audience. Keep your audience segments under 100 contacts to help maintain message relevance. Subject Line Trends To create subject lines that generate clicks, Matt emphasizes the importance of addressing a problem the buyer is facing.It's better not to be overly playful. Instead, speak to a problem that prospects genuinely care about, and in the first one or two sentences, demonstrate that you are there to solve it. Then, explain how you will solve their problem. The final step involves adding a clear and easy call to action at the bottom of the email. "Looking at current trends for business scaling investments, it's clear: phone calls are becoming less and less effective." - Matt Tharp. Resources If you need help scaling your business with email outreach, consider Hunter.io (I highly recommend it).  If you like more guidance with improving your sales skills, join my Sales Mastermind Class. Thinking about starting a podcast yourself? Learn more about Blue Mango Studios.  Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot. With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales. 2.  This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at a...

    31 min
  4. Andrew Barbuto | 5 Simple Things Top Producers Do That Average Sellers Hate!

    4 JUL

    Andrew Barbuto | 5 Simple Things Top Producers Do That Average Sellers Hate!

    If you’re struggling to make it as a seller, you may be unknowingly doing things that a top performer would never do.  To help you figure out what you may be doing wrong, I’m going back to episode 1831 with my chat with Andrew Barbuto, a seasoned sales professional and author. He shares five things that top-performing sellers always do to help them succeed in finding clients and closing deals.  Andrew Barbuto’s Background Andrew Barbuto is an accomplished sales professional and author with a deep understanding of the intricacies of top-performing sales strategies. He shares his sales methodologies in his insightful book, “Top Sales Producer: How To Crush Your Sales Quota.” Andrew’s commitment to excellence in sales makes him a valuable resource for anyone aspiring to elevate their sales performance and effectively manage their client interactions. Key Practices of Top Performers Andrew shares the five things that top performers do differently than average performers.  1. Time Management: Top performers allocate their time to maximize revenue-generating activities. Start early on your work tasks and focus only on the ones that bring in money. Also, don’t forget to put the phone down to help avoid distractions. 2. Research: You may find researching on a specific client to be long and boring, but it’s one of the most important tasks top performers do. Andrew explains that rather than adopting a broad approach, successful sellers conduct targeted research to identify and connect with the right prospects.  3. Meeting Preparation: You can avoid generic questions and tailor conversations to address specific needs by coming to a meeting prepared. This is why it’s important to research a prospect before contacting them.  4. Prospecting Activities: Andrew recommends employing a multi-channel approach with at least seven touch points, including phone calls, emails, and LinkedIn messages. This persistence helps in turning cold prospects into warm leads. 5. Leveraging CRM: Creating detailed notes will allow you to maintain contact with prospects and provide personalized value to each one of them. You can do this by using a CRM system to help strengthen your client relationships.  “Top producers typically will try to allocate as much time as they possibly can to revenue-generating activities.” – Andrew Barbuto. Resources Learn more sales tips from Andrew from his book, “Top Sales Producer: How To Crush Your Sales Quota.” Follow Andrew on LinkedIn and YouTube.  Download Andrew’s cold outreach strategy to book more clients.  If you like more guidance with improving your sales skills, join my Sales Mastermind Class. Thinking about starting a podcast yourself? Learn more about Blue Mango Studios.  Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot. With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at a href="https://www.hubspot.com/products/sales" rel="noopener noreferrer"...

    30 min
  5. Dan Novaes | 80% of Prospect Wouldn’t Share Their Email — Until This Changed

    30 JUN

    Dan Novaes | 80% of Prospect Wouldn’t Share Their Email — Until This Changed

    You have thousands of prospects coming to your website daily, yet 80% of them don’t even sign up for your newsletter. What can you do to turn this around? My guest, Dan Novaes, the founder and CEO of Mode Mobile, is here to tell you how in this quick chat. His advice will make your prospects give away their emails as soon as they click on your website. Meet Dan Novaes Dan Novaes is the CEO of Mode Mobile and creator of the EarnPhone. Mode Mobile is revolutionizing the mobile industry with its “Earn As You Go” software, enabling millions of users to turn daily smartphone habits into passive income.Under Dan’s leadership, Mode Mobile achieved 32,481% revenue growth (2019–2022), earned the #1 spot in software on Deloitte's2023 Technology Fast 500 List, and pioneered a fundraising model leveraging 30,000+ everyday investors. Now, they’re on a mission to reach1 million shareholders while tackling a $1 trillion market opportunity. Turning Around Investor Page Troubles Even though his company’s landing page was doing well, he saw that his investor page was struggling to retain prospects. Dan provides the steps he and his team took to make the changes.Knowing that he doesn’t really know what’s going on in a prospect's world when they’re looking at the page, he decided it would be best to send reminders to entice their return. He also found that offering an incentive for returning entices prospects even more.Dan achieved a 600% return by applying this method to his marketing efforts. He spent $ 15,000 to start the efforts, and in a short period, he ended up with a $ 750,000 return. The Most Important Components While conducting the marketing research, he discovered that certain components were most effective in achieving his goals.One was targeting the older demographics aged 55 and above. He found that boomers were more receptive than the younger generation. He also found that it is important to put a name to the face within the email. The last component Dan shares is how truly important copywriting is, even in this AI-driven world we live in today.  “People don’t invest enough in copywriting. The message has to hit just right. You don’t want to just have AI write generate copy.” - Dan Novaes.   Resources Want to learn more about Dan? Visit Invest.ModeMobile.com  Consider using these resources for your marketing efforts: Retention and Beehiiv. If you like more guidance with improving your sales skills, join my Sales Mastermind Class. Thinking about starting a podcast yourself? Learn more about Blue Mango Studios.  Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot. With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales. 2.  This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at a...

    28 min
  6. Tanner Stewart | Three Things Every BDR Must Master When Doing Cold Calls

    27 JUN

    Tanner Stewart | Three Things Every BDR Must Master When Doing Cold Calls

    No matter what you’re doing right now, cold outreach should be a part of your game. I’m returning to episode 1605 with Tanner Stewart, Sr. BDR Manager at Activated Insights, where he shares three tips on how to handle every single cold call.  Meet Tanner Stewart At the time of the interview, Tanner was an account executive at Home Care Plus. Previously, he worked as a BDR with the same company for approximately two years. In these roles, he gained experience in conducting cold outreach every day. Now he is a Sr. BDR Manager with a new company, Activated Insights.  The Biggest Challenge Sellers Face When It Comes To Cold Outreach Tanner shares how most sellers don’t know which prospects they should call in the first place to close a deal. He shares that if you’re calling hundreds of the wrong people every day, you’ll have little success. It’s best to focus on the right people and the right message to reach your goals. 3 Things Every BDR Must Master When Doing Cold Calls Be a human, treat your prospects like humans. ·  Be genuinely interested in your prospects. If they ask you how you are, be genuine and vulnerable. This helps them bring their guard down.  ·  Instead of starting a call by saying, “Here’s what we are doing and how we can help you with,” start with, “I’ve been talking to some folks, and here are trends I am seeing in the industry. Are you seeing this as well?” ·  Be present when making calls, and when they do answer, don’t be afraid of the interaction or being genuine. 2.  Product selling vs. solution selling ·  Avoid the temptation to dive deep into your product. It’s not bad to want to give them information about your product, but think about relating what you tell them back to what they have told you about their challenges. Take the time to genuinely care about the prospect and alleviate their pain points. 3.  Ask questions and know when to ask them ·  Instead of diving into your product, ask them a question. You can ask them if what they are doing is working for them. ·  Little follow-up questions help you dig deeper. A great question is, “Can you tell me a little more about that?” ·  Once you’ve booked the demo, don’t be afraid to ask a few more questions to figure out what they are hoping for. “Don’t be afraid to be yourself. As scary as someone’s title may be, deep down, they are also human. Be yourself and enjoy it!” - Tanner Stewart.  Resources Follow Tanner on LinkedIn. If you like more guidance with improving your sales skills, join my Sales Mastermind Class. Thinking about starting a podcast yourself? Learn more about Blue Mango Studios.  Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot. With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales. 2.  This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at a...

    28 min
  7. Will Padilla | Three Things BDRs Get Wrong When Structuring Their Day

    23 JUN

    Will Padilla | Three Things BDRs Get Wrong When Structuring Their Day

    Sometimes, all it takes to have a strong pipeline is having a well-organized routine. Since it’s summer, you may be getting a bit hectic and find it hard to do this. I’m going back to episode 1600 with my guest, William Padilla, Mid-Market Account Executive, who shares how he structures his day to reach his goals. His advice will help you understand how being well-organized can be impactful to your work.   Meet Will Padilla During the interview, Will shared how he started as a regular sales guy with the tech company, GRIN. He went on to become a top-performing sales agent and an account executive for the company within two years. Now, he is a mid-market account executive for the company, Aspire.   Planning And Prepping Your Day Don’t go into your day winging what you plan to do. For example, Will realized he was too distracted and hit his metrics only by scrambling on a Friday afternoon.He decided to structure his day, achieving all his late-stage interactions in the morning to reserve his afternoons entirely for prospecting. Adapting Your Approach For More Clients BDR roles are fairly science-based because they focus on meeting metrics and quotas. When Will needed to book eight demos per month, he quickly realized that not every cold call was a qualified demo. He would ensure that at least four cold calls were set up each week with qualified leads. Whatever demo number you need to hit, book double to ensure enough opportunities to reach your quota. Implement the 5×5 rule – don’t log off for the day unless you have five new companies to prospect and five contacts within each company. Be Like Batman And Robin: Work With Your AE As a BDR, understand that your account executive is your teammate. So sometimes, it helps to be friends. By establishing a working relationship with your Account Executive (AE), you increase the likelihood of both of you succeeding, as your success largely depends on one another. “I wouldn’t say I’m more talented than the next seller; I’m just more structured.” - Will Padilla.  Resources Follow Will on LinkedIn and TikTok. If you like more guidance with improving your sales skills, join my Sales Mastermind Class. Thinking about starting a podcast yourself? Learn more about Blue Mango Studios.  Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot. With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales. 2.  This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse. 3.  This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation. Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn...

    32 min
  8. Donald Kelly | Apple’s New Call Screening Is Cold Calling’s Worst Nightmare

    20 JUN

    Donald Kelly | Apple’s New Call Screening Is Cold Calling’s Worst Nightmare

    t seems like every time you turn around, cold calling is being painted as the worst thing a seller can do. Now, Apple has created a new feature that's making this sales method even worse. Luckily, in this episode, I'm going to provide you with some ways to handle this situation and still close deals through cold calling. iOS 26: Call Screening If you remember from the last episode, I told you what we'd be discussing today: Apple's newest feature, iOS 26: Call Screening.It's a feature that lets you ignore unwanted calls from numbers you don't know. Call Screening essentially helps you decide if a call is actually worth answering or if it's just an annoying telemarketer. The trick is that call screening lets you answer unknown callers in the background. Once they share their name and reason for calling, it appears on your screen. You can then decide whether to answer or ignore it. Apple’s New Feature Is Not Going To Stop Cold Calling You might think this new feature will prevent you from hitting your quota, but honestly, I believe it will actually help sellers. With the rise of social media, we found a way to still reach out and connect with our prospects. We just have to evolve and figure out how to do it with Apple’s new feature. Just like with social media, we can adapt to this, too. How Will Most Sellers Feel About This Change? Here’s what I believe most sellers will do because of this change:Keep doing the same tasks they've been doingStart feeling down because no one is picking upPut more effort into cold calling to ensure they reach their quotaTake advantage of AI toolsI also believe that there will be a group of people who simply adjust to the changes. They might start doing parallel dialing, where they make three to four calls at the exact same time. Whenever one of them picks up, a seller will take that call. What Should Sellers Be Doing? Instead of taking the steps mentioned previously, try these instead:Be relevant:Remember, call screening will allow you to talk to an AI tool. Think outside the box on how you can connect with prospects on a personal level during this moment.Try to be funny: I recently played a short clip demonstrating how creative sellers used to be during the days of collect calls. My point is to be witty or make a joke that will make your prospect want to pick up the phone.Use a point of reference:Make the prospect feel as though they already know you. Try using LinkedIn to connect with them before you do cold outreach. But keep in mind, don't become another spammer. Look for ways to get engagement from others and be smart about your connection requests.The keyword is relevance. Try to be as relevant as possible to prospects during cold outreach, and I promise you that you will still be able to close deals despite any new changes coming out.  "Human beings are like water. We’re going to find a way to get through or around a problem and come back another way. The way we go about Apple’s new feature has to evolve." - Donald Kelly.  Resources If you like more guidance with improving your sales skills, join my Sales Mastermind Class. Thinking about starting a podcast yourself? Learn more about Blue Mango Studios.  Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot. With HubSpot sales hubs,...

    26 min
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About

I believe in doing BIG THINGS! You should be earning 6 figures easily as a sales rep. But chances are you are not...yet! Sales is the most important department in every company but many sellers are never taught how to effectively sell, much less how to earn their way to high-income status. My own career limped along until a company I worked for invested in sales training to help me succeed. Immediately afterward, I closed a deal worth 4X what the company spent on me and saw hockey-stick improvement in my performance. So I started a podcast to “Evangelize” what was working. Today I interview the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales right now: folks like Jeffrey Gitomer, Jill Konrath, Bob Burg, and Guy Kawasaki to name a few. They share actionable insights and stories that will encourage, challenge, and motivate you to hustle your way to top income status. If you’re someone looking to take off in your sales career and earn the income you deserve, hit subscribe and let’s start doing BIG THINGS!

Information

  • Creator
    Donald C. Kelly
  • Years Active
    2013 - 2025
  • Episodes
    1.9K
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    Copyright 2025 © The Sales Evangelist Podcast
  • Show Website
    The Sales Evangelist

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