Purpose-Driven Sales - A Sales Leadership Podcast

This episode talks about another challenge for leaders: deals don’t flow correctly when sales and marketing aren’t aligned. Sweeney and Barnes will talk about the reasons why there is no alignment between sales and marketing teams. They will also include the solutions to handle this challenge. Alignment in teams is necessary for an organization to share a common goal to achieve enormous success, especially in sales companies. However, there are times that this alignment gets out of tune. Misalignment is where problems come in and becomes a challenge for leaders. In this episode, Sweeney and Barnes discuss why misalignments happen in organizations, particularly between sales and marketing teams. This episode will enlighten leaders on the possible reasons why this happens and gives brilliant ideas for leaders to bring the alignment back. As a sales leader, what are you doing to break down the sales and marketing silos? “Communication involvement has to happen, and you, kind of, have to walk in somebody else’s shoes to know what is going on.” - Josh Sweeney “Sales needs to make sure that marketing knows what’s relevant out there. And no one’s going to know that better than sales and sales leaders.” - Taylor Barnes “Aligning marketing with revenue really facilitates different conversations that help everybody.” - Josh Sweeney “As sales leaders, you must get with marketing because us, sitting here saying those leads suck, those are not good enough, that’s not helping us.” - Taylor Barnes

This episode talks about another challenge that leaders most likely encounter, managing salespeople with multiple personalities. Sweeney and Barnes will talk about the reasons why leaders fail to manage the emotional spurs of salespeople. They will also include the solutions to handle this challenge. There are a lot of situations going on in sales companies. These situations bring out multiple emotions from salespeople that may influence the way they act. And these emotions may be unnoticed, which is why leaders miss to actively manage how they feel and express their emotions at work, especially in stressful times. In this episode, Sweeney and Barnes discuss why salespeople bring out multiple personalities at work in letting their emotions out when facing high-low situations. They will also discuss helpful tips to handle these situations to help leaders manage emotions in the workplace and their impact. This episode is full of helpful information for sales leaders as they tackle daily emotional encounters in the workplace. As a sales leader, what are you doing to recognize when a second personality shows itself? How are you managing it? “Sales is a high-low game.” - Taylor Barnes “I sit down with employees and say you need to know your goals so that I can help you achieve your goals at work and in life.” - Josh Sweeney “If as a sales leader, you are not aware of your salespeople’s motivations, then it’s gonna be pretty tough for you to get the most out of them. If your heart's not in it, how can you expect your head to be in it.” - Taylor Barnes “You can’t believe your own hype when you’re doing great and you can’t lose your shit when you’re doing terrible.” - Tim Grover

This episode talks about sales reps often getting beat up on price by clients and the reasons behind it. Also, in the discussion are ways to handle it or get away from the situation where they get beaten up. For sales companies, people try to get the best out of what they are buying and tend to get sales reps beat up on price more often than not. It is the responsibility of the leader to train sales reps on how to deal with this situation, how to be proactive, and make sure that they are not beaten up by price. All these provide value to the service offered that often costs money. In this episode, Sweeney and Barnes will discuss the reasons why sales reps often experience getting beat up to a lower price. They will also talk about ways to handle it to make a pricing advantage for sales reps. Also, they will share some hacks that will surely benefit sales companies. This episode will surely come in handy for most of the sales leaders who often experience having their sales reps getting beaten up by price. As a sales leader, how are you helping your sales reps sell value instead of price? “Sell on the value. I don’t sell engineering rates. I don't sell little widgets and pieces. I sell a good experience. I sell an end result that’s gonna make everything better for them.” - Taylor Barnes “If you educate the client in terms of here's why us, here is why other customers chose us, here is some tremendous feedback that we got. Here is an example of not a price of a project that went incredibly well from the result point-of-view because they chose us. Educating the client on WHY YOU. Having a very clear value proposition, having very clear CAN statements in terms of WHY YOU originally. If you lead on that kind of education, you’re going to significantly reduce the painful conversation, which is you’re not the low-cost leader.” - Taylor Barnes “Identifying a bad fit (customer) and training a rep to know that and move on and utilize that time in other places, I would say is one of the hardest challenges I’ve seen.” - Josh Sweeney

This episode talks about the common critical blockers and documents that go into a deal and some solutions to have those ready for the deal flow. In the sales business, it is critical to keep the deal flowing throughout the process. Therefore, it is essential to comply with all the formalities. Once done, that is when income flows into the business. The challenge for sales leaders is to know if the sales reps have the critical requirements required to close the deal. In this episode, Sweeney and Barnes discuss the common critical blockers and documents to comply to get the deal going and seal it. They will also tackle solutions to the issues raised. There is a hefty amount of information you can get out of this episode that will surely benefit sales companies. As a sales leader, what documents do you need to plan for to convert deals? “There are a lot of critical documents that you must have to play the big ball game when it comes to responding to somebody’s formal RFPs, RFQs, and RFIs.” - Taylor Barnes (On having an escrow plan) “Have the plan in place. Have an escrow vendor that you’ve already used, somebody that you already trust and has the escrow documents, cause again those vendors can provide you with some of those documents.” Josh Sweeney “If writing, and documenting, and putting these repositories together is not a strength of yours, by all means, outsource it. Outsource what you’re not good at is a big name in the game when it comes to being purpose-driven about sales.” - Taylor Barnes

This episode talks about the top distractions for salespeople that make them lose focus on the right tasks to close enough deals and reasons why salespeople get distracted. Like any other challenge, there are solutions to resolve it. Sweeney and Barnes' will also include the solutions on why these challenges occur. It is the sales leader’s responsibility to direct the salespeople into doing the right tasks to help them focus and close enough deals. However, there are instances where leaders fail to do so and leave their salespeople in confusion. In this episode, Sweeney and Barnes discuss why sales leaders tend to lose that sense of guidance. As a result, salespeople lose their focus on what right tasks to do to close more deals. Also included in this episode are the solutions for every reason why it happens. As a sales leader, what are you doing to remove distractions so that your salespeople can focus on selling? “There is a line that we have to draw sales leaders out there. If the rep is too involved in things like transition, delivery, problems, issues, changes, where that is a true function of operation, well then the sales reps are gonna get bogged down, and they are not gonna be closing enough deals because they are completely distracted by something else. ” - Taylor Barnes

Every time you try to develop training for your sales folks, you write a playbook, a more challenging role for sales leaders. It is a fact that training your sales representatives is essential, but most of the time, it is elusive due to some factors. In this show, Sweeney and Barnes will discuss why training does not happen and how to make it happen. Every tick of time is essential for sales leaders because the timing in sales is critical. However, most often, sales leaders tend to miss out on training their sales force. Why is this the case? In this episode, Sweeney and Barnes will discuss reasons why sales leaders miss to make training for salespeople happen, especially in the fast pace sales companies, and what this implies. They will also talk about solutions to make it happen. As a sales leader, what are you doing to get reps trained and up to speed quickly? (on getting salespeople on board without proper training) “The minimum amount of information wasn’t there, and all of a sudden, they don’t know how to answer when they do get a question, or they do not have enough understanding in the organization. So, there is a concept, I think, of slowing down in order to go faster when it comes to training.” - Josh Sweeney There is a lot of technology out there these days… If you can utilize technologies such as the loom, for instance, well then you can create quick videos over time... and then give the responsibility, maybe, to these individuals to get trained through them, bring them quality questions, and that will significantly decrease the amount manual effort that you are gonna feel and hopefully make a little less daunting.” - Taylor Barnes

A discussion about a common dilemma for leaders awaits the listeners of this episode -- aligning product or service mix to do away with sales complexity -- its reasons and how to do it right. Most businesses thought that expanding their products or services into more mixes will increase their sales or gain more customers. But in reality, most products and services are unrelated. Because of this, it makes managing or aligning offerings complicated and quite challenging. What are some of the reasons why most businesses cannot focus on one or related product or service? That will be the focus of this episode. Sweeney and Barnes will also discuss making things right when complications arise from expanding, to be up and running again. Here is one question to ponder on for sales leaders: what are you doing to ensure that your products or services are aligned and that one door opens the next? “The leader challenge is it’s hard to sell multiple services that are not directly aligned.” - Josh Sweeney “You could be the best apply stand in town. People could come to you because you’ve got the best apples in the world, and you’ve got this tremendous business. And then, a customer comes to you and says “I like some oranges.” and then, for whatever reason, you say “alright, I can do that, I can do some oranges. And then you do that, and all of a sudden, what happens? Now you’re just another fruit stand.” - Taylor Barnes

A discussion about a common dilemma for leaders awaits the listeners of this episode -- aligning product or service mix to do away with sales complexity -- its reasons and how to do it right. Most businesses thought that expanding their products or services into more mixes will increase their sales or gain more customers. But in reality, most products and services are unrelated. Because of this, it makes managing or aligning offerings complicated and quite challenging. What are some of the reasons why most businesses cannot focus on one or related product or service? That will be the focus of this episode. Sweeney and Barnes will also discuss making things right when complications arise from expanding, to be up and running again. Here is one question to ponder on for sales leaders: what are you doing to ensure that your products or services are aligned and that one door opens the next? “The leader challenge is it’s hard to sell multiple services that are not directly aligned.” - Josh Sweeney “You could be the best apply stand in town. People could come to you because you’ve got the best apples in the world, and you’ve got this tremendous business. And then, a customer comes to you and says “I like some oranges.” and then, for whatever reason, you say “alright, I can do that, I can do some oranges. And then you do that, and all of a sudden, what happens? Now you’re just another fruit stand.” - Taylor Barnes

In this episode, the discussion wraps around understanding the True Cost of a Deal. As a leader, one must know the other costs to be considered when doing a deal or the right comp! What are the options if sales reps are unsatisfied with comps in some way? What is a holistic Cost Of Goods Sold (COGS) to a deal? Making a deal is just not all about making sales. There are also True Costs involved. With this in mind, Knowing the holistic real number behind the actual cost of the sale is essential. In this episode, we will discuss the common reasons for sales reps not being happy with the comps that cause most misunderstandings between them and the sales organization. Aside from these, we will explain the costs involved in comping for deals and about COGS. Also, we will talk about the solutions that sales organizations can do to resolve issues with sales reps. The sales organizations and sales reps are responsible for each other. Learn more ways to create a win-win environment for both in terms of making money through this episode. Listen up and jot down those nuggets of wisdom. “There’s a lot of economics around just the real cost, the time to recoup, and cash flow management for this.” - Josh Sweeney “Any example that we just talked about all the internal resources and the cost that go on to supporting that sale, spit it on the salesman and say “okay, would you like to do this yourself? Would you like to prospect, close, create and handle supply chain, handle accounting, handle billing software, handle the audits, handle sales support” just list 'em out! Cause I have done that and it is very fun to watch the formerly bitter salesperson, their face softens a little bit, and then they’ll have that AHA! moment.” - Taylor Barnes

In this episode, we will discuss the challenges of great leaders on having the right salesperson and working along the right sales channels -- its reasons, how to pre-empt it, and how to correct it. Two important factors can contribute to a successful real estate business: finding the right salespersons and the right sales channels. But the tricky part here is finding the right fit for the business -- what are its goals and the direction it wants to tread. In this episode, we will talk about what are the possible reasons leading to the ultimate mistake of finding the wrong salespersons and working towards the right sales channels or the other way around. We will also talk about the ways to pre-empt or correct such slip-ups. A lot of valuable inputs await the listeners. It is time to listen and take in those hefty learnings about the topic. “The challenge for leaders is that they have a great salesperson but that salesperson is working the wrong sales channels.” - Josh Sweeney “Some of the sales work is not about the closing, it's not about just getting the customer in and signing a piece of paper. If it was, hell, everybody would do it.” - Taylor Barnes

In this episode, we will discuss a challenge that leaders face, and that is the other costs involved in hiring a salesperson. We will also discuss the practical solutions to fix it. Salespeople are the frontliners of businesses. Salespeople are among the essential people in the business. Why? Simply because they bring in money to keep the business running. But, what are the true costs involved in getting a salesperson to work for you? In this episode, we will talk about the other costs involved in getting salespersons, aside from the usual salary and commissions, that leaders fail to consider ahead of time. We will explain the reasons why those other costs happen. We will also talk about practical solutions to fix the hurdles or avoid spending more on costs. “Consider this a purpose-driven understanding of what a salesperson costs... If you have got a ramp-up plan, great! Define it. Define what that 30, 60, 90 looks like. What do they accomplish at each level? What is a milestone? What is a true takeaway at 30 days? Test, a quiz, whatever you want to do to make sure they are on track to button up the exact time frame or close to it that you believe it is going to take them to ramp up.” - Taylor Barnes

Leads equal money! With this thought in mind, lead generation for your business is crucial. It is essential to produce sales and grow organic customers. However, this takes some factors to balance to be able to get genuine leads. Among these are having the right process to generate leads and people to look for them. It is like managing a baseball team to make that home run! What are the reasons for having a team of closers but no starting pitchers or a team full of closers but have nothing to close? In this episode, Barnes and Sweeney will talk about the reasons why this happens. They will discuss this in the context of company pivots to adapt to the changes which come with the change in management and setting mindset. They will also talk about solutions to solve those bottlenecks to start generating sales. You are in for a meaty discussion. Listen to this episode to get the juices out from it. “Pivoting is important. And if you are individuals who are not going to support that movement, whether you are going through an organizational change or a market acceptance change, you have got to make some wise decisions in the best interest of the brand.” - Taylor Barnes

Sales conferences can be great opportunities to meet new prospects, vendors, and get the word out about your brand and the services and products that you offer. But conferences are often packed with many social distractions, and opportunities to lose sight of the overall company goal. In this episode we discuss conferences, the pro's and con's and useful tips your organization can take for a successful sales conference trip. "I would find the right conference and make sure that the dollars that you are going to spend (invest), are going to bring the best result." - Taylor Barnes

There's a balance to strike when sending documents and proposals quickly, and getting them in the clients hand as soon as possibly, but with as few mistakes and errors as possible. In this episode we discuss urgency and accuracy and methods to boost team productivity, performance, and overall accuracy in the review process. "Training the sales rep on a method that helps them narrow the scope before they do the most amount of work, can save time and produce better results." - Josh Sweeney

In todays age of remote meeting, and living in a post-Covid world, it's important to utilize networking events and virtual meetings to the best of your potential. In this episode we discuss how to build relationships with events and virtual meetings during today's time. "People talk to each other more politely and communicate better when they are in front of somebody, even if it is digital." - Taylor Barnes

Choosing words that express the right tone and emotion with clarity and brevity is an important part of communicating with clients. In this episode we discuss important need to knows for your sales teams emails, sales proposals, and even touch on some of the generational changes that we've seen recently. "Creat[e] mutual accountability for your customer. Your customer wants something from you. Well, that's a give. And you should create some sort of get [in return]." - Taylor Barnes

Organic growth can develop a need to revisit your organization's written territory plan. In this episode, we talk about tips to improve territory performance, discuss the methodologies used by different business types and sizes, and the importance of community effectiveness and niching down. "Any time that marketing content is too broad, it speaks to nobody." - Josh Sweeney

This year has presented many challenges, both on an individual and professional level. For the sales leader, one of those challenges is leading through uncertainty, but the path isn't always clear. In this episode, we talk about the difficulties leaders face during disruptive times and discuss what you can do to inspire your sales reps to forge ahead despite the uncertainty, building a stronger, more reslient team in the process. "If we focus on what's in our control, we can keep forging ahead." - Josh Sweeney

Increasing the revenue your sales team generates is not about increasing the number of sales reps, but more about optimizing their effectiveness so that you can maximize the revenue per sales rep. In this episode, we challenge some of the entrenched methods of increasing revenue from your sales team and discuss ways you, the sales leader, can more effectively use the resources you have. “People tend to equivocate working hard and working smart as the same thing.” - Taylor Barnes

Knowing where your prospects are in your sales pipeline gives you valuable insight as a sales leader, but that perspective is only as reliable as the data that goes into it. How do you ensure your sales reps are uniformly qualifying each stage of a prospect’s journey? In this episode, we dive into some of the reasons the view you have of your sales pipeline may not be as accurate as it should be, and talk about how to bring that view closer to reality so that you can make better decisions that set your team up for success. “Unless we have the foresight to see things coming, we’re not going to be set up for success.” - Taylor Barnes