The "Don't Sell Me Bro" Podcast

It’s RANT time! I came in to record ready to go on a few things that good salesmen should never do. Subjects of my ire include: the “check-in” call with no effort to move the deal forward, script reading, cold email follow up calls, and poor conference follow up. We give tons of great advice based on real expertise and examples.

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In an attempt to stop an epidemic sweeping the sales community, the Bros examine the mindset of counting your deals before it’s done. We talk about the problem of counting a deal as “won” or “lost” before it is really signed by you or someone else. When do you give up on a deal, if ever? Dave drops out the “Get Three Nos” method to sit along side of the 5-Whys we’ve talked about before. We discuss the relative merits of finding out why you lost a deal and how to do it well before talking about playing to win vs not-to-lose to wrap up another episode of awesome conversation.

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Allan Himmelstien sticks around for a second episode with us to talk about 10 things that Sales Managers do wrong.

Many of those are things that we’ve talked about on this show repeatedly, so Allan fits in nicely with the Bros’ mindset and strategies.

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The Bros are joined this week by Allan Himmelstein who Dave invited in after reading a great blog post about the difference between good and great salespeople. We dissect many of his points and identify many of the key factors involved.

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Joined this week by two of the talented members from local branding agency, Forty, we bring a topic to the microphones from a real meeting I was involved in. Amy mentioned in a meeting that she struggled with talking money with clients during project conversations and I offered to help in exchange for them joining the show.

Amy brought Melissa along as well and we dive into ways to make the “money” conversation easier and more natural for non-salespeople. Once we get past the initial (and correct answer) of “Just Do It” we talk about how to leverage your discomfort to success. We continue on down the roads of “Can you talk too much about money?” and “How do I read the client to know how much I can talk about money?”

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An article that was put in front of us by our wonderful podcast producer and also a fan of the show, brought up the existence of sexism in sales, not just between salespeople but amongst customers. We discuss the pains that can arise from mismanaging the initial impressions because you don’t treat everyone in the room with the right level of respect. How do you identify the decision maker properly, and how should you treat the rest of the people around the table? Other topics include conversation style, being yourself, and professionalism.

• The Article in Question

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Prompted by a question from friend of the show, Shaina Rozen of Forty, the Bros discuss the differences between cold-emailing and cold-calling. Why is one better than the other, and why I’m ok with one or the other. One of the most fun recording sessions we’ve had in a while.

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How do we deal with forecasting as a sales team? Are they going to guess high or are they going to sandbag? We give some of our experiences to argue for both directions and then break down how these forecasts affect the business. I get slightly sidetracked into a discussion on how estimates can be made better, more effective, and actually valuable for a business owner. I reintroduce some agile principles to apply to your forecasting to allow for real useful data. Why do we try to tell the future when we’re really bad at it? Where did our forecasting needs come from?

Know a CFO who wants to debate what we brought up today? Have them contact us conrey@dontsellmebro.com

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In a break from our guest-filled episodes, the Bros are running solo this week. Dave brings in some real-life issues he’s hearing from his clients, the old “I’d hit my numbers if the rest of the company did their job better” routine. My initial reaction is that the salesman who drops this excuse is the same one who estimates the best case scenario for everything, and is surprised at Christmas being on the 25th of December each year. We talk through the ways to overcome this as a manager and a salesperson to avoid this trap going in. Remember kids, don’t blame the process, work the process – find the ways to make your job easier. Also, never ever ever use the “it’s company policy” line to stall your prospect.

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Continuing our stretch of awesome in-studio guests, this week the Bros are joined by Susan Baier of Audience Audit, an attitudinal segmentation firm here in Phoenix with us. After having worked with Susan during the last several Phoenix Laid Off Camps, I invited her in to talk about some of the issues she was having as a solo-entrepreneur.

Susan expressed her pain in taking the time to do the things needed for effective business development like blogging, social media, and content creation. We dive into some of the right and wrongs of the strategy to follow as well as the methods to take that strategy head on. Ultimately, we get back to our usual answer of “Just Do It!”

We reference the episode with Greg Taylor a few times, so if you missed it, here’s that one to catch up on it

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