Raintoday's Sales Tips & Techniques Podcast

Studies show that 60% of companies don't follow up with leads. They may not trust the leads, or they may not have a process for following up with leads. Whatever the reason is, that lack of follow-up causes businesses to lose money, says Andy Paul, author of Zero-Time Selling. In this interview, Paul discusses how one firm achieved 100% follow-up on leads and as a result saw sales increase25% to 35%.

You know how to use automated email to generate leads and nurture leads. But have you thought about using transactional email, such as order confirmations or even out-of-office messages, to engage with buyers? If not, you're missing out on an opportunity to provide value-added content that can lead to sales. Listen as Matt Heinz discusses how to how to get better use out of transactional emails, mistakes that cause email campaigns to fail, and tactics to capture prospects' attention.

No matter how good a salesperson looks on paper, you can't drop that person into a new company and expect him to start generating revenue immediately. You need an onboarding program that helps new-hire salespeople fully understand the value the company offers and how to sell that value, says sales management strategist Lee Salz. Without one, you lose money on salesperson turnover or if they stay, they make less-than-optimal sales.

Often companies make mistakes with their websites that cause them to leave money on the table. Potential buyers visit their site but don't take any actionable steps or they leave immediately.  And the website owners have no idea that it's happening or why. Listen as Philippa Gamse, author of 42 Rules for a Web Presence that Wins, discusses the biggest website mistakes that cause companies to lose leads and how to improve your website so that you generate more leads and more revenue.

The online world is continually evolving. Buyers' behaviors change, which means your lead generation and marketing strategies must also evolve. To help you, several tools are available to identify leads, target your messaging toward them, and develop relationships with them. Listen as Jeff Quipp, CEO of Search Engine People, discusses some of those tools, as well as online marketing strategies firms must focus on.

For most service professionals, finding time to both sell and provide their services is an issue. That's why it's important that they qualify their prospects to make sure the potential buyer is worth giving their time to. You don't want to waste time on prospects who will never buy from you. Listen as RAIN Group Co-President John Doerr explains the best way to qualify prospects when it's a complex sale.

When you receive a generic prospecting email, what's your first reaction? To delete it? Your buyers feel the same way. If you want them to respond, you must personalize it. Listen as prospecting and lead generation expert Kendra Lee explains how to personalize prospecting emails—even when your list has hundreds of prospects, two things you must never include in prospecting emails, and the importance of follow-up email.

Thanks to the Internet, it's never been easier to build relationships with reporters and get quoted in their publications. Journalists from all types of media outlets, including The New York Times, are always looking for sources for their articles. And if you can capture their attention, they will turn to you. Listen as Dan Janal, author of Reporters Are Looking for You! Get the Publicity You Need to Build Your Business, explains how to get on journalists' radar and respond to their queries so that they use your quotes in articles.

The road to becoming a trusted advisor to clients is paved with good intentions. However, when service professionals head out with all the best goals often things trip them up. In this podcast, Andrea Howe, co-author of The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, explains what those stumbling blocks are and how to develop your trust skills so that you have trustworthy client relationships.

When you make cold calls or send prospecting emails, should you try to sell the person on the value of your services—of what you have to offer? If you answered yes, you are wrong. Listen as RAIN Group Co-President John Doerr explains what you should do, as well as how to sell your services based on value so that you generate new business at higher prices.

One of the best ways to run yourself out of business is to discount your price. For once you do that, a discounting mindset takes hold and you will start to offer discounts to everyone and will end up not making any profit. Listen as Mark Hunter, author of High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale without Compromising on Price, explains how to win sales based on the value you offer—not the lowest price—and what to do when a buyer says your price is too high.

In the B2B world, 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients. In fact, for some companies a few hundred clients generate millions of dollars in revenue. And they do so because they have a strong loyalty to that firm. Listen as Karen Posey, a senior consultant at Geehan Group, explains how to develop client loyalty that not only sustains your business but enables it to grow more than you thought possible.

The time has come for marketing teams to transition to revenue marketing—to play an active role in helping to generate revenue for their companies. To successfully do that, organizations need a revenue marketing team that has seven essential skills. Listen as Debbie Qaqish explains what those skills are, why they're important, and the results B2B organizations are seeing from having such a team.

If sales training fails, chances are three key steps were omitted. Listen as John Doerr explains what those steps are, why they're essential, and how to make sure you include them in future sales training.

Clients can't stand it when your meeting with them turns into you talking at them for 15 or 20 minutes. PowerPoint presentations are just as bad. What they want is to have a conversation with you where you uncover and discuss their situation and how you can help. You initiate that by asking "power questions," says client relationship strategist Andrew Sobel.

If you want a CEO to consider you a trusted advisor, you have to approach the sale differently. You can't be simply a salesperson looking to sell something. You must instead work with the CEO to understand what's going on within the organization, explore the benefits and risks of a solution, and develop a change management plan, according to sales expert Adrian Davis.

There's a myth that you can hire a great salesperson and on day one they'll be able to bring in millions of dollars of revenue. The truth is companies need a process to bring new-hire salespeople up to speed so that they can begin generating revenue. Listen as sales management strategist Lee Salz explains how to get started with an onboarding program and the benefits companies can achieve as a result of having one.

You can have all of the passion and enthusiasm in the world, but unless you really listen to your prospects and clients, selling will be a challenge. Pay attention to verbal and non-verbal cues to make sure you pursue appropriate prospects and that you know definitely what drives those buyers, sales sales strategist Dan Waldschmidt.

A difficult economy can mean the downfall for many businesses. But if your firm enters that atmosphere with a plan and a process, it can not only survive but succeed. Listen as performance management expert Sandy Blaha explains what such a plan looks like and the process she created to help businesses grow no matter what the economic climate.

Publishing a book is a challenging process, but the increased business and opportunities you get as a result are worth the effort. Listen as Stephanie Chandler, author of Booked Up! How to Write, Publish, and Promote a Book to Grow Your Business, discusses how publishing a book generates business revenue and how to get started writing your first book.