Sales Empowerment Podcast Z. Michael Miranda

In this second of a two part episode of the Sales Empowerment podcast, our hosts Mike Miranda and Shawn Winters continue their conversation about some best practices for sales reps to make the most out of the unique opportunities present in sales conferences. With public events now becoming a part of society again, it’s best to ensure that your new sales reps are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to take advantage of sales conferences.

HIGHLIGHTS
Take note of people's badges
Know who you're talking to, but don't just focus on the big players
Have your go-to qualifying questions at the ready
Make it easy for your reps and prospects to set a meeting
You don't necessarily need to sponsor an event

QUOTES
Shawn on taking note of people's badges: "Try your best to talk to everybody, but you have to be thoughtful about, ‘okay is this a person a VP of engineering, or is this like an entry level software engineer that's probably not gonna run a big sales cycle.’"

Mike on maximizing your time in conferences: "For us, Shawn and I can attend events and most likely it's a salesperson representing these booths. And if there's a hundred booths, we can be having a hundred different conversations and probably find at least 5 to 10 of those companies are qualified and within our space and can be potential leads."

Connect with Mike and Shawn and learn more about OpTonal by visiting the following links:
LinkedIn (Mike): https://www.linkedin.com/in/zmmiranda/
LinkedIn (Shawn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnwinters1/
Website: https://www.optonal.com/

With public events now available after two years of sweeping lockdowns, sales conferences and trade shows are nowe once again a viable option for sales organizations looking to capitalize on face-to-face interactions.

In this episode of the Sales Empowerment podcast, our hosts Mike Miranda and Shawn Winters talk about the opportunities that conferences present for sales organizations, particularly for their younger sales reps to hone their pitch and networking skills, as well as gain leads that they can nurture later on.

HIGHLIGHTS
The different people you meet in conferences
Conferences are work events first
Go to conferences to hone your pitch and networking game
Tactical tips to maximize your time in conference booths
Get your elevator pitch down and have an exit strategy

QUOTES
Mike on the mindset you should have on joining sales conferences: "I always thought of conferences as really an opportunity and kind of like a privilege. The company doesn't have to fly me to San Francisco, they don't have to put me up in a hotel and they don't have to pay for my meals while I'm there. It's a really cool opportunity to get in front of customers, to build qualified leads for yourself, for your team, and to really get a pulse on what's happening and how your product is resonating."

Shawn on adequately motivating your reps to work during conferences: "If you're not motivating your SDRs and your AEs or your solutions architects to actually go after business, it's like they're selling something that they're not going to get comp on and that's really tough. If they're going to have somebody go to these events, make sure that they're able to capitalize on a lot of the leads that they get."

Connect with Mike and Shawn and learn more about OpTonal by visiting the following links:
LinkedIn (Mike): https://www.linkedin.com/in/zmmiranda/
LinkedIn (Shawn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnwinters1/
Website: https://www.optonal.com/

In this episode of the Sales Empowerment podcast, Mike and Shawn continue their conversation with Andrew Kappel, SDR & GoToMarket Strategy Consultant for Skaled Consulting.

Andrew offers several golden tips on leading your SDRs into success and achieving better outcomes. Instead of obsessing over the messaging, Andrew focuses on the sales list first to ensure that the ones you’re reaching out to are more likely to be interested in the first place. Andrew also specifies the most important metrics that you need to be looking into, to ensure that you’re optimizing your time and effort.

HIGHLIGHTS
Most people will not like cold-calling, but you should
Imitate what is working, then innovate
The 4 key metrics that every executive needs to lead SDRs
The messaging doesn't need to be perfect
Time is still the most important asset
The best SDRs and BDRs don't book the most meetings

QUOTES
Andrew's strategy for improving the performance of the whole team: "My management and leadership philosophy is to actually spend time with the highest performers, with the folks that are most curious, most resourceful, most creative, and make sure that we're removing obstacles, that we're trying out new stuff and we're making the best even better. And then we're documenting that and then we're helping to reuse those best practices to train and enable the broader team."

Andrew on why you need to start with your sales list before messaging: The "To" is more important than the body of your email. And so that's why we start with the list of who you're targeting. Because it's about targeting the right persona, the trigger event, a new executive in the role, etc., with a relevant message and then teaching and enabling the SDR to become effective with the right value props and really just showing that curiosity."

Why the best SDRs and BDRs don't necessarily have the most meetings booked: "Maybe a contrarian or atypical view that I've seen from experience is that the best BDRs and SDRs don't always have the highest output of their number of meetings on the books. Because they're focused on the bigger picture of advancing, of learning, developing, staying curious and then looking to do something else."

Connect with Andrew and his work via the links below:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewkappel/

Connect with Mike and Shawn and learn more about OpTonal by visiting the following links:
LinkedIn (Mike): https://www.linkedin.com/in/zmmiranda/
LinkedIn (Shawn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnwinters1/
Website: https://www.optonal.com/

In this episode of the Sales Empowerment podcast, Mike and Shawn talk to Andrew Kappel, SDR & GoToMarket Strategy Consultant for Skaled Consulting.

Andrew talks about his work, and how he found success as a sales development representative, got promoted to account executive, and not doing very well as a result. Fortunately, he found his niche when he was tasked by his company to work with other B2B companies in designing and implementing modern SDR and GoToMarket strategies. Andrew talks about the most common issues that SDRs face, and the most urgent interventions that make the biggest impact in improving outcomes.

HIGHLIGHTS
Know your product just well enough to sell it
Always be curious and resourceful
Do SDRs overcomplicate things?
Phones are still the best way to establish a two-way connection
Try to get the quick wins as soon as possible
The importance of the feedback loop

QUOTES
The most important trait for sales reps, according to Andrew: "An important trait of SDRs and sales reps is being curious. Having that curiosity and resourcefulness to try to figure stuff out, to do some research."

How Andrew approaches clients: "When I'm working with clients and SDR teams, it's really great to break it down, the outbound process into target, channel, message, and then feedback loop."

Connect with Andrew and his work via the links below:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewkappel/

Connect with Mike and Shawn and learn more about OpTonal by visiting the following links:
LinkedIn (Mike): https://www.linkedin.com/in/zmmiranda/
LinkedIn (Shawn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnwinters1/
Website: https://www.optonal.com/

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and so are the best sellers. Providing adequate training and support to your employees will not just help your company in achieving its revenue goals, you could also very well be nurturing the next generation of founders and sales leaders. In this episode of the Sales Empowerment podcast, Mike and Shawn continue their conversation about going above and beyond quota fulfillment, the power of listening, and the need for leaders to equip new sellers with more training and support.

HIGHLIGHTS
Sellers who are good listeners are game changers
Some things you just need to know and should be muscle memory
Practice is essential for sellers too
There's more to selling than just crushing your quota
Sales leader should equip their employees with the training and tools they need

QUOTES
Shawn on the power of genuinely listening to your prospect: So often, as salespeople, we're always ready to say the next thing, and we're missing the genuine connection with just having an interaction with somebody. And typically, what I've seen is as soon as we do that, as soon as we're able to just open up and actually listen to somebody and pay attention, it's just a game changer.

Shawn on the need for leaders to give their employees adequate training: "You're hiring these SDRs and these AEs and you're expecting them to get live practice with real prospects and like, where's their confidence level at? How are they feeling after they get rejected because they don't know what to say? It takes more mental toughness than most people have to get pas that. Why are we setting up our reps for failure?"

Mike on setting up your employees for success: "When you get someone that's fresh and they're excited and they're optimistic about what they can do at this company, and they just get crushed and there's no infrastructure. There's nothing to really help them except some of these videos that are scripted and they're not really how calls go. It's tough. I think that there's people out there that are gonna go on to be incredible ICs, incredible leaders, incredible founders. And I think we can save a lot more of them by setting up a good foundation for them."

Connect with Mike and Shawn and learn more about OpTonal by visiting the following links:
LinkedIn (Mike): https://www.linkedin.com/in/zmmiranda/
LinkedIn (Shawn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnwinters1/
Website: https://www.optonal.com/

As sellers, we’re naturally concerned with our quotas. Unfortunately, the quota can be overpowering to the point of tunnel vision, which ultimately results in burnout. In this episode of the Sales Empowerment Podcast, Mike and Shawn talk about looking past our quotas and taking the time to appreciate everything else: the skills that we learn, the relationships we developed, and the character that we built while doing the work.

HIGHLIGHTS
Your quota is important, but it's not everything
Have a roadmap of where you want to go
The skills you learn in sales can help you in other areas
Focus on developing the skill set and resiliency
Mindset is everything

QUOTES
Shawn on looking past quota and appreciating everything else: "There's so much more out there that we're learning, and if we can just take a step outside our skin and look at ourselves and be like, 'Oh there I learned this, I met that person, I had a really great conversation with them,' like that made me feel a lot more whole, and empowered myself to be more than a salesperson."

Mike on having the discipline to persevere, even in the face of rejection: "I think it's important to understand when you feel discouraged, to try to think about this broader perspective that you're developing the skill set. Like think about going to the gym, you're not always getting up, super psyched and super stoked, you might just not want to go that day. It's the discipline of, 'Hey the longer term goal, this is important to me, this is why I want to get out there.'"

Connect with Mike and Shawn and learn more about OpTonal by visiting the following links:
LinkedIn (Mike): https://www.linkedin.com/in/zmmiranda/
LinkedIn (Shawn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnwinters1/
Website: https://www.optonal.com/