Many of us sales professionals have had a big hole punched in our pipelines & forecasts over the past couple of weeks.  So, what to do about it?

Having an issue like this is one thing, however, those among us fortunate enough to work for seasoned sales leadership will have an opportunity to do something about it.  The word ‘responsible’ is a combo of the words ‘response’ and ‘able’, able to respond, over merely flinching and reacting.  Our sales tactics and strategies need to be adapted, we need to respond to this crisis with a plan going forward.  Having an issue shouldn’t be an issue as long as you are pro-active and responsible about presenting a plan to resolve this situation.

For those of you under extra pressure, get a plan together and work that plan with your sales leadership.  Do this ASAP.  Work the plan, adjust the plan and keep working the plan.

TACTICS:

I’ve been sitting in on a few webinars on how to sell remotely, how to sell during this crisis.  Some point to this being a great time to get back to basic cold prospecting.  Get your prospects cell phone numbers and reach out to them.  Some people are craving some real contact over email or text.

SOCIAL SELLING:

If you can identify the right prospects to reach out to, pro-actively send them LinkedIn invites with a short, but thoughtful intro line that will encourage them to respond.  LinkedIn caps your open invites to 3000 at a time, so use them!  Your LinkedIn network won’t tap out until you hit 30,000 contacts.

Strategically, your outreach and messaging needs to adjust.

1. Think like a CFO – think about how do you affect the ROI.
2. Acknowledge times are tough.
3. Go through whole pipeline and re-qualify EVERYTHING.
   1. Have another discovery call.
4. Lead with Empathy “Sounds like a stressful time for you?”
5. Lead the call – if there is noise, call it out and mute it
6. “Be the Expert” a’la Challenger Sales style.
   1. If you are not familiar with Challenger Sales, buy the book or search YouTube for tutorials.
   2. I know not everyone will agree with that specific methodology, but I find it useful in the tech sector, where we often find ourselves presenting IT executives with new ideas and ways of doing things.

TIPS ON VIDEOCONFERENCING:

1. Dress well for Zoom sessions
2. Camera ON and at eye level
3. Have the room light in front of you, not behind you, use natural light if possible.
4. The Economist half-jokingly said that you should have your home office backdrop  include bookshelves or wall hangings, not your TV as the size of your home TV is in inverse proportion to your social standing.

MODIFY YOUR CONNECT QUESTIONS – how has the virus / quarantine affected….

1. Buyer
2. Company
3. Marketplace
4. Industry

“Hey, how are things, everyone there holding up?”

So, lets get back to basics, call your prospects cell phones, acknowledge we are in some strange days and quickly move into business.  Set in-person meetings for 90+ days out but start the sales conversations today.

Yours in Sales,

Bob & the CTSP.

 

Another worthy event coming up from our friends at Built In Colorado:

Get face-to-face with these companies: Adtaxi, Alto Pharmacy, Matillion, OnDeck, Percolate, Rogue Wave Software

Is your New Years Resolution to up your game as a Sales Processional?  Come check out one of our events.  If you are interested in speaking, Q4 is still open.

Just like Doctors, Lawyers or Engineers, us Sales Professionals are, above all else, professionals.  As such we have to up our game and learn as much as we can, new ideas, new thinking in our chosen profession.  If not, we’re falling behind the competition we face every day out there in the field. Sandler is offering a year of their training library for free here: https://hd113.isrefer.com/go/sellannual/a309/ 

So, what is your new years resolution?  Mine is to invest in myself.  I’ve been through Sandler training before and it is valuable in the sophisticated sales process.

Want the in-person experience?  The Denver resource to go to is Dan Levitt, who has presented at my meetup before:

 

The Colorado Tech Sales Roundtable was started in May of 2015.  Word about our meetings at the Commons on Champa was word-of-mouth through CTA Volunteers.  I tried various platforms as an on-line home to schedule events and track messages.  Nothing really clicked until I started using Meetup in August of that year.  We quickly rose to 50+ members and I had to start paying for a premium account on their platform.  At this point I knew we were onto something.  Adding James Foy as a co-organizer in 2016 absolutely put ‘jumper cables’ on the group and our member numbers soared to 500+  within a couple of years.  James also helped bring an important change in format: from moderated discussions around professional development in sales to more presenters and panel discussions.  In 2018, Samuel Thomas Elliott asked to take our concept to Colorado Springs and has expanded our presence in Colorado.  It is called the Colorado Technology Sales Roundtable for a reason, after all, not the Denver Tech Sales Meetup.

All this has paid off.  At this writing, our member numbers are 650+ and adding a member every day or two.  Our members have given us 78 five-star reviews (and one four star) and we’re going to keep having events every month for the foreseeable future.  Meetup has noticed this and granted us Super-Group Status.

The analytics are great.  People are finding this group impactful on their careers and professional development.  Our members are also pointing out that we’re making everyone feel at home.  I’m excited about where this meetup is going to go in the future.

Thursday, January 10th Convercent is hosting Built In Brews. Always a valuable, high quality event. Walk-ups will not be permitted at this event. You must be registered to attend.

My own Meetup, the Colorado Tech Sales Roundtable, Denver Chapter, has grown out of our 2018 location at Lustre Pearl.  We’re moving our events to Venture X Co-Working space for 2019.  Out-growing Lustre Pearl is great problem to have.  Also, Venture X may be more convenient for those coming in from South of Denver.  It’s in the same Plaza as the Dave & Busters at I-25 & Colorado Blvd.

This space is really ideal for meetups & we were lucky that their community organizer, Michael Patton, gave us a tour this week.  The space is at once far more elegant than Denver’s other co-working spaces I have visited, and it is uniquely Colorado in it’s classic southwest style.  Parking is very easy, RTD is 100 yards away and we’d need 5X of our current members to RSVP at once to outgrow their space.  We’re excited to have Venture X as our hosting sponsor for the foreseeable future.

If you are in the market for co-working space in Denver, Venture X is offering a different user experience than other companies in the area.  Check them out.  One unique aspect to Venture X is their location.  They are not downtown; if you are hiring talent south of Denver, their commute to Venture X will be far easier, either by car or RTD.

On January 15th, Our Colorado Springs Chapter is hosting the Sales Recruiter Roundtable.  Please bring your business cards to this event.  This event has been held three times in Denver and  it’s been one of our best-attended events in the Denver chapter.  I’m excited to help Samuel host this event in the ‘Springs.  This event is hosted at the Epicentral Co-Working space in downtown Colorado Springs.

One of my favorite events all year in Denver is the CTA’s APEX Awards. Its a whose who of the business and tech scene in Colorado.  What is extra special this year is that our own Colorado Tech Sales Roundtable Co-Organizer, Samuel Thomas Elliott, has been nominated as “Emerging Leader of Year” for 2018.

Good luck, Samuel!

On November 12th, we return to Lustre Pearl in Denver’s RiNo District for a talk with Anthony Franco:

Stop Selling and Start Serving your Customers Needs

Anthony will discuss something at the core of our communities mission of professional development. “Become a better sales professional: stop talking about your product / service and start addressing and solving their business goals and financial goals.”

On November 13th, our Colorado Springs Chapter is hosting Leif Ulman CEO and Co-founder of KidReports. Leif overcame the challenges of selling a new product to an industry. When KidReports first started selling their software platform, their biggest competition was the status quo.

Selling a New/Disruptive Product

In charge of enterprise and corporate sales, Leif and his team listened to their customers in order to adapt the product and learn the best way to sell to the customer’s needs. After 6 years, Leif and KidReports were acquired by the company that grew to be their largest competitor.

The venue is Epicentral on North Tejon.

Our Denver Startup Week Session was a success.  with 177 RSVPs, we had 50+ in attendance at 8AM on DSW’s Friday morning.  This was remarkable as the attendees were up against horrendous traffic caused by police tape covering an eight-city-block scene nearby from the prior night in Downtown Denver.

Our panelists:

• Jason Robbie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-robbie-3b044a4/
• Jennifer Aichele: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferaichele/
• Art Rancis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/art-rancis-89710/
• Tamila Bauer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamilabauer/

We sent the slide deck to the mailing list, but there were several email bounce-backs, so, apologies if you didn’t actually receive it.  For those looking for the slide deck, a PDF can be found here: DSW Sales WTH Presentation

The Moderators:

• James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jafoy/
• Samuel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuelthomaselliott/ 
• Bob: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertmcneil

Our Fantastic Support Staff:

• Danielle Kling, Motion Graphics: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-marie-kling/
• Danielle Brockman, Social Media: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellebrockman/

One other item; Last-minute webinar for women in Sales, from Dan Levitt of Sandler Training:

We have some great panelists for our DSW presentation next week.

In anticipation of some folks moving a little slow the morning after the Thursday night party at Beta, we’re rolling out a Bloody Mary bar.  We’ll understand if you have to take a nap Friday afternoon.  Coffee will be on hand, too. Personal Energy Drink favorite: Monster Zero.

Be sure to register here: https://www.denverstartupweek.org/schedule/4633-startup-check-product-heck-yeah-sales-wth

While we are self-funding the BMB, we still have a huge shout-out to the sponsors of Denver startup Week.

Our TIPS Certified servers will be ready to get your Friday at CSW off to the right start.  We’re planning on standard ingredients, plus bacon  Any special requests?  Please email, call or text.  🙂