Donald Kelly is the host of The Sales Evangelist podcast and an award-winning speaker. His podcast has been mentioned in Entrepreneur Magazine, The Huffington Post and on Yahoo Finance. He's a sales trainer and mentor, and a self-admitted addict to staycations. Kirk was a guest on Episode 32 of The Sales Evangelist.
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Getting Started in Sales
- What is the most important thing you can share about pricing?
- Price is the reward for the value that people see.
- People can be afraid of having a conversation about money.
- Price is a demonstration of appreciation of perceived value.
- Discussing price can be challenging to salespeople because they think the price is going to drive the customer away.
- All customers know they have to pay for what they are going buy.
- The fear is head trash, which limits the ability to talk about price.
- If you do not have confidence in your product and service, you will be afraid to discuss price.
- How did you discover your passion for sales as a profession?
- When Donald was a kid, his dad had the entrepreneurial spirit and was successful.
- Donald started selling cookies in the front yard or mangos he had picked.
- When he came into professional selling, post-college, he had to learn how to sell in the B2B world.
- Once he realized there was a process to follow, he decided to share it via The Sales Evangelist.
- If you have the desire, he can teach you to sell.
- The entrepreneurial spirit can be hereditary.
- What is the most important thing to succeed in sales?
- Episode 133 discussed the one thing necessary to succeed: having measurable goals.
- The idea of the episode is to quantify your performance.
- You need to be able to measure what you are doing by being methodical.
- Key indicators is an important way to measure your performance.
- Once a salesperson gets a taste of commission, they can sometimes get complacent.
- Fundamentals of a sales process:
- Understand your key indicators.
- Generate interest.
- The meat of the process is being able to ask appropriate questions of the customer to understand their problems and challenges.
- You have to present the information with options.
- Close the deal.
- Exchange the value.
- When you ask the appropriate questions, you might learn that the customer is not a fit.
Selling Value by Asking Questions
- What are some of your favorite questions to ask in the sales process?
- Why is this an important thing now?
- What have you done to remedy this situation before?
- What is your process like when you have made purchases like this before?
- If you do not do something, what will be the effect on the organization?
- Getting to the truth can sometimes be five layers down – keep asking why.
- The goal is to get to the right decision for the specific customer.
- You have to be able to probe, and make it feel like a comfortable, natural conversation.
- Jeb Blount's book, People Buy You, is about selling on a human level.
- Do you recommend always selling on value?
- Value is in every sale.
- Your product might make it harder or easier.
- If you believe you are selling a commodity, you will act like you are.
- If you think you are a premium, you will act like you have value to offer.
- If you are confident in your value, it is important to articulate that.
- Commodity thinking results in profit from volume only.
- You can ask the customer what they think about your price. Then listen and learn what they believe about you.
- When your customer comes to a conclusion on their own, rather than you telling them, it helps close the sale.
- Ask your customer to give you their perception so that you can tailor your questions to them.
- Every customer is unique and should be treated that way.
- Practice, so that the questions become natural to you.
The Impact of Options in Sales
- What is your experience offering options to customers?
- People like to have options.
- When the customer comes to an opt-in web page, they are familiar with three types of options.
- A person who would buy Donald's lowest package still needs to get the same tools as the highest package.
- With the options Donald offers, the amount of time that they spend with him is the main difference.
- Do not make your customers feel stupid or that you are trying to trick them into something.
- In more complex B2B sales, options are not always used.
- You have to stay within the realm of what you offer when you provide options.
- People like to choose.
- Do not offer an option that is worthless to the customer or you.
- How to Avoid Contract Hell was an episode about a software deal that was worth over $200K. The complexity of the negotiations required creativity to offer different options.
- Which guest on your show did you learn the most from?
- Kirk offered a lot of advice on Episode 32..
- Justin Su'a (Episode 7) and Ralph Quintero (Episode 2) are about mindset and getting the habit of success.
- Donald is the emcee for Podcast Movement and is bringing a suitcase full of costumes for his introductions.
- What is one of your best stories about creating value for a customer?
- A chiropractor's office in Miami did not have an IT staff.
- Donald worked with a managed IT service.
- The value for the doctor was to be able to provide service to his customers without distraction.
- Donald explained how he could solve the IT issues remotely.
- It felt good that he helped a doctor be able to heal others.
About Donald Kelly
- Website: TheSalesEvangelist.com
- Twitter: @DonaldCKelly
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