Why you should never send pictures of yourself to a prospect

Published: Wed, 04/20/22

April 20, 2022

Welcome back! According to most sales managers, April is a great month to get in touch with prospects (though they say this every month, so it can be difficult to tell when it’s actually true). In any case, we’ve got another issue of The Quota ready to go: an interview with a non-cringe sales trainer, the Wolf of Wall Street’s new hustle, and advice for a rep who just can't seem to focus. Let’s go.

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

The percentage of sales professionals who believe that salespeople are underappreciated.

Source: Pipedrive

SALES ROUNDUP

Here’s what’s happening in the sales world this week

The Wolf of Wall Street is reinventing himself as the Wolf of Crypto. According to a recent profile in The New York Times, Jordan Belfort, the former Wall Street bad-boy who went to prison for an illegal stock manipulation scheme, is running seminars out of his Miami Beach home, charging $40k per seat for a few days of discussing who-knows-what. In any case, it looks more tame than his days at Stratton Oakmont. You can read the profile here.
Legendary singer Johnny Cash once tried his hand at sales, pitching home appliances at a store called Home Equipment Company in Memphis, Tennessee. “I couldn’t sell anything and didn’t really want to,” he said. But when he decided to pursue a career in music, Cash was relentless in his pursuit of Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, calling him every single day before setting up in front of the recording studio to intercept him on his way in. A recent article in National Jeweler tells the story of Cash, and makes the case that he merely traded one type of sales for another. You can read it here.

FEATURE

An interview with Samantha McKenna, founder of SamSales Consulting.

We typically like to poke fun at sales trainers, especially the Instagram types, posing in front of rented Lambos in their wildly undersized shirts. But putting those guys aside, sales training is a major part of the sales profession, so we wanted to interview a non-cringe sales trainer to learn a bit more about the role itself.

As luck would have it, we recently connected with Samantha McKenna, founder and CEO of #samsales Consulting, a sales training organization founded 2.5 years ago. We challenged Sam with some of the skepticism people feel toward trainers, and tried not to hold back. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you become a sales trainer? What was your path?

After spending 12 years in ENT sales, half as an individual contributor and half as an executive, and breaking 13 sales records, I wanted to test the waters of the ultimate sales challenge - starting a business. The goal was to work with a few clients, teach them the sales process, and take it easy for a bit. 2.5 years later, we have over 120 clients and an all-female team of 13. So much for taking it easy!

They say that those who can't do, teach. What do you believe makes you an authority on sales and why should sales reps trust you and other sales trainers?

Candidly, what makes me stand out is that I've actually held the roles I coach on for long periods of time while being consistently successful. My advice and tactics are also extremely practical and tangible - you can put what you learn into play immediately. Less "Be in front of clients more!" and more "Here's precisely how you do that, what you write, what cadence you follow, etc."

Originally being from Switzerland, I also have a unique and enthusiastic personality, bring plenty of jokes, and teach sales processes that work while also being deeply rooted in proper manners. My background working for LinkedIn and our roster of clients also helps our company stand out.

What kind of outcomes can your clients expect? Be as specific as possible.

I can't think of how to say this in a humble way, so I'll simply lay it out there. We know that most reps grumble at the thought of sales training, but once we do even one training with our clients, their reps immediately turn around and say, "FINALLY! I really learned something! When do we do this again?"

Our clients have reps who are looking for a model of what GOOD looks like with every part of the sales process. What they get from us are inspired teams who will net instant results, even if they only implement two things we teach them in an hour. Gone are the days of teaching all the traditional sales methodologies - in are the days of teaching your teams how to social sell, have conversations, use our tagline of Show Me You Know Me, and be great active listeners, which is precisely what we do.

How much do sales trainers make? How much can a company expect to pay for sales training?

Quality sales trainers are well paid, and should be as they are scaling what makes them successful right to your teams. Everyone varies wildly, but we have a minimum engagement of around $2100 for an hour with one of our team members, and can scale into six figure deals across large teams quickly. That said, we also believe in being accessible for everyone, which is why we created our short video subscriptions that will teach you what's in our heads for a few dollars a month.

There are a lot of con artists passing themselves off as trainers in today's digital-heavy world. How can sales reps and companies differentiate between the phonies and those who are the real deal?

The first step is to not trust the metric of "followers' on any social media platform - followers can be purchased.

The second step is to investigate their work history - do they have the credibility to teach, have they worked for organizations that demand high performance, and were they consistently (consistency is so key) successful?

The third step is to investigate their content - is it tangible, practical, modern, and process driven? Does their content resonate with the beliefs you have as a leader, and do they communicate in a way that would inspire your teams?

Finally, look for their recommendations - are they from respected leaders in the space and are they consistent? If you only look at my LinkedIn recommendations, you'll see a decade of recommendations, all saying the same thing.

If you could sum up your most important advice for sales reps in a few sentences, what would you say?

Master. The. Foundations. Of. Sales. Do not be in a rush to be promoted if you are a BDR. Take the time to learn how to prospect, how to social sell, how to handle objections, how to have a great discovery call, how to connect with people, how to follow a sales process without the crutch of technologies, and how to nurture your leads. I am a CEO who earns 7-figures a year and I still do all of this - you will never outgrow needing these skills, regardless of your rank and title.

TOGETHER WITH DOOLY

How much of a salesperson’s time is actually spent selling? Our friends at Dooly asked six hundred sales reps about the state of sales productivity. It turns out that nearly half (41%) of the sales workday is not spent selling, which hurts the entire org.

•1 in 4 (!!!) reps plan to quit sales in 3-6 months.

• Reps feel leadership underestimates how long admin work takes.

• Companies lose out on 38% in revenue every quarter.

You can learn more about how salespeople really spend their time, in the 2022 Sales Happiness Index. You can check out the 41-page index here.

MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram -- Sales Humor

QUIZ

Where is the average real estate commission in the U.S.?

A. 5.49%
B. 4.21%
C. 4.89%
D. 6.02%

SALES FAILS

Each week, we bring you the most cringe-worthy sales moments from across the web. To submit your sales fail story for consideration, click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

“The funniest thing that’s ever happened to me in sales was when I was a sales support rep for a big online retailer about four years ago. We weren’t “first line” reps, we were basically a hybrid sales/customer-support role. People browsing the company’s website would call in or email and ask questions that each of us would handle, and for every sale we processed, it would count towards a monthly bonus above a certain level.

Anyway, this guy called in with some questions about an item, and my company was big on customer support, so we were trained to ask questions and be really conversational. So I was being very engaging, and somehow we got on the topic of boots and I told the guy that I had bought these boots from Austin, TX that I really like, and he started asking a ton of questions about the boots. Pretty strange, but not THAT weird.

After I finally got him back on track and answered his questions, he asked me to email him some information and he’d probably buy, which is pretty normal, so I sent off an email to him. He responded about a half hour later, and said thanks, and then asked me to send him some pictures of the boots I had bought (which I had told him I was wearing). I didn’t think anything of it, just thought he was genuinely curious about the boots, so I sent him a pic of the boots and asked if he wanted me to process the order.

He responded that he wanted to see a few more pics of the boots and asked if I could find a mirror so that he could see them from a different angle. Now I was getting suspicious, and I took a while to respond, but then HE replied again directly to the email that had the boots pictures with “nice.” lol.

At that point I realized that this person very clearly had a foot fixation or something else that was extremely weird, so I responded with something like, “Would you like me to go ahead and process this order for you?", to which he took a while to respond. Finally I got a message from him that just said, “Thanks.” Ugh!

Anonymous, 34 Nevada

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: LinkedIn Poll -- April 2022

WORTH A PEEK

If you struggle to keep up good habits (like prospecting daily), then you might be interested in The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg. Released in 2014, this book is fantastic not only because of its easy-to-understand explanations of the science behind forming habits, but also because of the interesting stories Duhigg uses to illustrate his point, including the story of how Tony Dungy used habits to coach the Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl victory. You can learn more about the book here.

ASK THE QUOTA

Want to submit a question and be featured in our advice column? Click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Dear Quota Team,

I’m in my third year in SAAS sales – I was lucky enough to get in through my best friend from college. I like the job, I like the potential, and I’m definitely not complaining.

The problem for me though is that I have such a hard time staying focused consistently. Sometimes I can focus on the work, but most of the time, I’m super distracted by everything going on around me: Slack messages, phone notifications, emails, texting with my friends and GF (you get the picture).

My numbers are pretty average. I’m never at the bottom of the board, but never at the top either. Meaning, I can keep my job for as long as I want. But I want more than that. I want to get to the next level, and make the BIG checks like we’ve all seen that others are making. And I know I can’t do that if I can’t get myself to focus for eight hours a day. Any tips or advice?

Distracted in New York

--

Dear Distracted,

If ever there was a relatable advice question, this is the one. It would be difficult to find someone who’s not struggling with focus in today’s distraction-filled world. How can someone sit down and do focused, prolonged work when there is an endless stream of information being rapidly beamed into our brains through perfected algorithms twenty-four hours a day?

Here are some tips: you mentioned that sometimes you can focus on work. When does that happen? Is it in the morning when you have a ton of energy? Or is it in the afternoon when you finally feel fully awake? Different people have different peaks, but if you can identify when your ability to focus is at its peak, you can structure your day so that you can be most productive during those times.

Another thing you might want to try is the Pomodoro technique. It allows you to work in short, 25 minute bursts, broken up with either 5 or 15 minute breaks in between. You can literally use a timer to keep yourself on track, like this one. Just make sure you do it consistently, even when you don’t want to (this is the hard part).

Finally, you need to set yourself up for success. That means adjusting your phone and laptop’s notifications so that things aren’t interfering with your ability to focus. Turn off everything that doesn’t have to do with your job, and close out the social media, the news, and the online shopping. It’s going to feel really uncomfortable for the first few weeks, but eventually you’ll get used to it.

And the best part is, you’ll feel a whole lot better after a day of consistent, focused work than you will after a day filled with mindless distractions. You can do it. Good luck!

Quiz Answer: A

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Today's email was written by Ken Kupchik, Erica Furgiuele, Steve Rado, and Emily Hill.

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