Visit https://apprento.io/download to Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide now.In episode 14, Scotty and I talk about challenges with the sales talent lifecycle, and what you as a sales leader or business owner should be thinking about and taking action on as you're hiring, onboarding, and developing your teams. When you hire a salesperson, it is essential to have a proper process to get them up to speed, there are some key parts of that that we will dive into in this episode because there are some numbers, and the numbers aren't great at the moment. Almost 90 days can go by from the point you put up a job ad to the point you'll have someone starting in your team. Needless to say, it is quite slow, and I think a lot of businesses are feeling that pain around filling roles. And then, if you look at the onboarding time, it takes on average three and a half months for a sales professional to get not up to full performance, but to a level that is acceptable. After that, typically, you'd be looking at anywhere from seven to 12 months before that person's really firing, and they're really hitting or exceeding the target. As if that wasn’t bad enough, at the moment, the average retention time for a salesperson or a sales professional is 11 months, and that's come down, it was 13 a couple of years ago. As you can see, this is a big problem, and it only seems to get worse as time goes by so, listen to this episode to understand what is causing it and to learn what to do in your organisation when you’re looking to hire someone so that you can do things better. Bear in mind that in the current market, we are massively short of good talent so, all the stages are so important that you get right and it has become more important than ever to always be recruiting, to get your process right when you're interviewing, and then when you get them on board, to look after them. Look after them for the long term. Make it a great experience! Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento

Visit https://apprento.io/download to Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide now.This Thursday, 8 AM NZT, in the Rev-Up Sales Podcast, episode 13, we are going to talk about scaling sales with Amanda Armstrong. Amanda specialises in helping B2B tech companies who’ve gone past the growth stage and want to scale. Amanda and her team help her clients build a repeatable, scalable revenue engine to accomplish it, even if scaling means expanding into other countries. It is really exciting for any business owner to grow their business and face new challenges, but it is also very common for businesses that want to scale to lack some foundational elements. There are a couple essential things that must be set up before thinking about scaling, and that’s why Amanda is going to share with us her four pillars of scaling sales, and the elements you need to have in place before taking the next step. It’s very exciting to have her on the show and experience her expertise on this topic. We know you are going to get a lot out of this episode, more so if you are currently thinking about reaching new heights. Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento

Visit https://apprento.io/download to Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide now.This week, we are interviewing Steve Hall on the Rev Up Sales Podcast. Steve is the Co-Founder of Executive Sales Forum International and one of Australia’s leading C-Level sales experts. In episode 12, we talk to him about selling to the C-Level, with a focus on larger, enterprise deals. For the past ten years, Steve has been working with sales executives helping them understand what’s relevant for senior executives, helping them get meetings with those executives, making sure those meetings go as productively as possible, and then helping them to have an idea of what to do afterward. In this episode, Steve shares with us all the different areas to take into account when approaching a senior executive. We discuss what is causing problems for salespeople in that regard and what you can do to have a successful conversation with your ideal clients. Lots of practical takeaways in this episode for those interested in more complex B2B sales so, make sure you don’t miss it. Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento

Visit https://apprento.io/download to Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide now.In episode 11, we talk about mindset with an amazing guest, Luigi Prestinenzi. Luigi is the co-founder and head of growth at SalesIQ. He is highly regarded in the Learning and Development industry having led major transformation projects with some of the world's most respected companies. He has been in sales for almost 20 years and that experience has taught him that mindset is at the core of every successful and unsuccessful deal. If you look at the days that don't go well, when you look at the deals that might have gone a bit south, and when things didn't go the way that you thought they would go. It probably wasn’t a result of your skillset, but a result of the way you behaved through the process.For Luigi, mindset is all about the way we show up. In order to be successful in any sale, you have to have a good mindset. Listen to this episode to learn how to work on your mindset so that you can get the most out of every situation. We are going to talk about some of the areas where it plays a huge role so that you can identify what you need to work on the most and make sure that what you bring to the table works for everyone, including yourself. Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento

Visit https://apprento.io/download to Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide now.In episode 10 of the Rev Up Sales podcast, we are going to talk about the power of storytelling with an amazing guest, Ravi Rajani. Ravi showed incredible talent and creativity from a young age. He used to go to dancing classes when he was a kid; he didn’t necessarily love it, but because of those classes he felt something he had never felt before and secretly thought it was amazing. He discovered theatre later on and became very good at it. His family used to encourage him to take speaking or acting seriously because they thought he was pretty good at it, but Ravi said, “no way, I’m going to go make some money”. That’s when he went to business school and ended up on the trading floor at Citibank where he began his career in corporate sales, which is what he really wanted to do. Once he got there, he started to feel like there was something else out there for him, but he didn't know what it was at the time. So, he pressed eject in 2016 and started doing TV appearances in the UK, doing radio, coaching, leading and building sales teams in early-stage startups. Ravi recognised there were three things that really slapped him in the face. He asked himself, number one, why are so many salespeople stuck selling with features? Number two, why do they have presentations with no personality? And number three, why do they not include any storytelling? He felt like it was illegal to showcase who people really were and that's what led him to the big mission he is accomplishing nowadays; helping sales teams sell more with stories and doing it in a way that is authentic and without compromising who they truly are. Ravi never imagined he would end up working in storytelling, but his trajectory has made him aware of the relevance that stories have for people in general, so now, he uses them towards building great business relationships. Listen to this episode to learn more about storytelling and how you can use it to approach clients while providing them with value and solutions. Ravi is going to tell us in detail how he does it and we’re sure you are going to learn a lot from him. Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento

Visit https://apprento.io/download to Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide now.In this episode, we're going to talk about a very ingrained idea among some salespeople. That idea is that you need to be liked in order to sell. We’re going to discuss the role of likeability in sales and, we are going to differentiate between being liked and being trusted. First of all, it is important to build really solid, strong relationships with businesses and clients. But, at least in New Zealand, we've got this bit of a village mindset where we rely on our personal relationships. We'll go use the connections we have from our brothers, uncles, and friends, and sell to those people. Kiwis definitely have this idea that you need to be very much liked and get on with your customers in order to sell to them. The question is, is that assumption actually true? Some cultures may promote this kind of approach to people, and in some contexts, that can be translated to sales as well. It may depend on where you are from, how you were raised, or what sales philosophy you were trained with. There can be a lot of factors taking part in how important it is to you. But, is it really necessary to be liked in order to sell? Drumroll…..No, it isn’t, and we are going to tell you why. We’re going to dive into this polemic topic, and we are going to share with you studies and actual data that reveal to us what role likeability is actually playing in sales. That data also shows us what are the areas that successful salespeople focus on, and work on the most. Spoiler alert: You guessed it; it’s not on their likeability. We’re certain that this episode is going to help you see the bigger picture and set your priorities straight because there are a lot of more important things to worry about than whether people like you or not. Of course, being liked helps but it is not the key to success so, don’t miss this episode. Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento

Visit https://apprento.io/download to Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide now.In episode 8 of the Rev Up Sales Podcast, we are going to talk about Social Selling with non-other than Ryan ‘The Lion’ Ashton. Ryan has been running A Few Quiet Yarns (AFQY) for the tech community - all about "Personalising Business" bringing the H2H over B2B and B2C through Events, Training, Social and Digital. AFQY has connected over 8,500 people through their stories, technology and business over the last 13 years. He’s worked across sales, across marketing, across agency. He’s done everything from copywriting to directing to sales, sales management, marketing, marketing management, he has deployed CRMs, managed, trained CRMs, marketing automation. That versatility has allowed him to realistically see what needs to be done with every client and to know how things should work together and be orchestrated together in order to function properly. Ryan’s way of approaching these situations has enabled him to save and resurrect various sales and marketing organizations. By coming in and doing what he can do with the bits he’s mastered, but also by being able to pull in the specialists to do the bits that he can't do. Of course, he knows how to do things and deliver great results at a very high level so today he is going to share with us some of his knowledge regarding Social Selling and also, some very easy tips to become better at engaging with people. This was a great conversation so, listen to this episode to know what Social Selling is about and to improve the way you connect with people. We also dived into other topics around sales that we know you will find very interesting so, don’t miss it. Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento

Visit https://apprento.io/download to Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide now.In this episode of the Rev Up Sales Podcast, we are going to talk about cold calling, the misconceptions, the benefits of doing it right, and what steps should be followed in order to make a great cold call. For that matter, we have non-other than Rana Kordahi. Rana has worked in sales for about 20 years and knows a lot about this. She is a sales coach, NLP practitioner, writer, and TEDx speaker. Rana is also, Top 10 Female Sales Coach in 2020 by Yahoo Finance and Top 15 Sales Experts to Watch in 2021 by The Australian Business Journal. Rana is known for her ability to change people’s perception about cold calling, mainly because of the results they get, but also because she shows them that they can actually enjoy doing it. Today we are going to talk about the different ideas around cold calling. Many people say that it doesn’t work anymore, a thing of the past. Others think of it as a one-time event; Rana is here to show us how wrong those conceptions are. She knows that many people think they’re going to close the deal on that first call. That is a problem for them because, most of the time, they're not going to be able to do such a thing. Why? because there are so many decision makers, it's complex! Of course, you need to try and sell the appointment on the phone, but sometimes you might not be able to do it on the first call, you might be able to sell it after several calls. So, it is definitely not a one-time event, you have to build up to a certain point where a decision is made. However, Rana knows how important it is to do the homework and have something compelling. “You do your research, you know a little bit about them, you approach it as if you're the expert in their industry, then you have a high probability of at least having them talk to you on the phone. And then another higher probability of you getting that meeting with that person as well.” We are so thrilled to have her share her knowledge and experience on the show today and we know you are going to get a lot out of this conversation. Listen to this episode as we dive into all the things you need to know about cold calling. Remember, she is also sharing with us the 5 steps that make a great cold call, and how you can get the most out of every one of them. Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento

Visit https://apprento.io/download to receive your free ebook on how to find or retain high performing sales teams.In this Episode we speak with The UK's Most Hated Sales Trainer!Our infamous guest, Benjamin Dennehy, unpacks the misconception that you need to build strong relationships with people in order to sell to them.Benjamin Dennehy, aka the ‘UK’s Most Hated Sales Trainer’, is an engaging sales speaker and sales trainer who will explain that the barriers cemented within the selling process are the fault of childhood programming, poor beliefs, and general hatred of being in sales. Dennehy brings an antipodean brutality and charm to the sales experience that many have never encountered before.Listen to this episode for a rare, counter-industry perspective on sales and the relationship of the salesman to the buyer.Visit Apprento online: https://apprento.ioLearn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento

Visit https://apprento.io/download to receive your free ebook on how to find or retain high performing sales teams.Today, we are going to talk about the mysterious topic of sales DNA.What do we mean by sales DNA? It's understanding people at a deeper level, and understanding the key capabilities, their inherent preferences, the attributes, and the abilities that make individuals predictors of performance. The basic premise is that there are some inherent preferences that are probably a mixture of nature and nurture. If you think about a person as an iceberg, the bit that we can see is the bit that we tend to work with, for the most part. People are hiding, or even not aware of some of the things that are below the surface. In this episode, we are going to dive into the complexities of sales DNA and look at some of the problems of not understanding what it is, both in the hiring and training of salespeople.We will talk about how we can overcome those problems, and also, we are going to share with you some of the things that we've noticed, what the data shows, and what's it made us aware of.We really want to get a lot deeper than a lot of the industry does when it looks at people and reasons for performance so, there is a lot to talk about regarding sales DNA.Listen to this episode to get to know yourself and your team at a deeper level, not only your existing team but people you might bring on. There is a deeper level than what you see on the surface and understanding what are the traits that lead to top performance in your team is an enormous advantage over your competitors.Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento

Visit https://apprento.io/download to receive your free ebook on how to find or retain high performing sales teams.Today, in the Rev Up Sales podcast we are going to talk about some conceptions people have about sales, and specifically, why sales ended up being a dirty word. Sales is this dirty word, and as a result, we're missing out on getting a bunch of awesome people into the profession. Today I want to explore that problem with our amazing guest, Kyle Coleman. We are going to unpack why it's a dirty word. And then also, talk about all the good stuff about sales, why it's an awesome career, and where it can lead. Kyle is the VP of revenue growth at Clari where he’s now leading sales development, growth, marketing, sales enablement, Value Engineering. His main charge is creating the right accounts at the right time. He specializes in getting in front of the right people and then creating the programs and processes that help mature that pipeline for their sales team to close. Before joining Clari he worked at a six-person business intelligence company back in 2013 as the first individual contributor on the sales side and marketing side. He ended up being the first SDR at this company, and he then grew the team from one to a team of about 65 people globally. The company went from $100,000 in revenue ARR when he joined to about 100 million in ARR when he left. Kyle has been in sales all his life, and today he’s going to share with us his views on sales and salespeople, his thoughts on how different personalities perform in a sales environment, what are the attributes of successful salespeople, what are the skills you learn in sales as a career, among other great topics. Listen to this conversation as we dive into the current situation around sales. We want to showcase and talk about the problem of sales missing a lot of great people because of it being “dirty”, but also, we want to share our experiences with you and why we think sales is a great career choice. I’m sure you’ll find this conversation relevant, and we hope it helps you in any way either in your life or in your career. Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento

Visit https://apprento.io/download to receive your free ebook on how to find or retain high performing sales teams.Today we're talking to Jason Bay about Outbound Sales. Jason is Chief Prospecting Officer at Blissful Prospecting. He’s on a mission to help reps and sales teams turn complete strangers into paying customers. A few of his clients have included reps and sales teams from companies like Zoom, CBRE, Medallia, Xfinity, Commvault, and many more. Sales is the only "adult job" he’s ever had. And he’s done everything from selling house painting services door to door, running outbound call centers, to helping thousands of reps master cold outreach.What's always fascinated Jason about outbound of any kind, whether that B-B or B-C is how cool it is to take a complete stranger and turn them into a paying client in a day or less. The painting services Jason was selling in the US, the average ticket was $4,000 - $6,000 and he would make 25% profit off of that sale.Jason worked his way into outbound sales through the company's sales manager as a marketing director.Today random cold calling is over; it doesn't work. Blasting out emails, will fail most of the time. You can use free tools to research prospects by finding their email, phone number, and learn more about them before you call so the game has completely changed. Even as an extremely introverted kid, Jason sold a substantial amount of painting contracts.Listen to this amazing conversation as we also dive into a few other topics as well. We know this is going to be super valuable for you. Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento

Visit https://apprento.io/download to receive your free ebook on how to find or retain high performing sales teams.Today we have Todd Caponi on the show. Todd is a sales leader, author, speaker, guru, and sales historian. He’s always been really enamored by the behavioural science of how human beings make decisions. As he moved into sales leadership, he found that behavioural science had a big impact on his career and the way that he treated people, especially clients and prospects. A couple of years ago, a crazy research study led him to quit his job and write a book called “The Transparency Sale,” which is actually one of the key books we recommend to our Apprento sales grads as they get started with their career. Today, we are going to talk about sales leadership, and then what is leadership like in the context of today. One of the buzzwords that we've heard about, and it's just now creeping into the New Zealand, Australia-type ecosystem is the idea of The Great Resignation. Todd is here to tell us what that is and what are the current circumstances in the world of sales given the COVID lockdown. So, you've got sales leaders that desire certainty and control. You got reps that desire independence and autonomy, and all of a sudden, the leaders can't see anybody. What are they going to do? Todd is going to tell us about some strategies sales leaders have put into place and how they turned out. During these times, businesses have to get creative and build systems in which they can guarantee certainty and control whilst taking care of maintaining a healthy work environment. We may be alone, at home, but we are not alone in being alone, as Sting once said. Sales leaders can incorporate different methods to enable businesses to continue to flourish even when they are remote, but in order to do so, a lot of things must be considered. Obviously, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to have Todd talk with us about transparency so, he is going to talk with us in detail about the role transparency has had in his career, and the incredible lessons he’s learned along the way. Listen to this amazing conversation as we also dive into a few other topics as well. We know this is going to be super valuable for you. Learn how to Sell in Uncertain Times. Get the FREE Guide: https://apprento.io/download Schedule your call with Alex or Scotty: https://apprento.io/call Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apprento.io LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/71642692Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apprento