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  • February 21, 2019

Bringing Your Authentic Self to Sales

February 20, 2019 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this interview, I talked with Amanda Georgoff, Enterprise Sales Rep at SalesLoft. She has 15+ years of frontline experience selling software and services to CFOs, CMOs, Heads of Sales and other functional executives at F500 companies across her time at SalesLoft, Xactly and CEB (now Gartner).

Our topic focus was about bringing our personal authenticity to our interactions with future and current customers. Being real and being you opens the door to strong relationships and better sales conversations. Decision makers can feel the insincerity of the reps focused solely on achieving quota.

Here is what I wanted to know when I sat down to talk to Amanda:

How Amanda defines personal authenticity.

The moment that Amanda first realized being more authentic in her conversations with potential customers was important.

She told me about the manager who “coached” her how to relax the scripted version of herself – the person she thought she was supposed to be – in sales calls. Amanda talked about the questions her manager/coach asked her that led to her making the shift to being more authentic.

You’ll find out when you listen to the interview, how Amanda realized that putting herself in the buyer’s shoes and raising questions or possible concerns they might be thinking about became a competitive advantage for her.

More than a few training companies insist that we (sellers) should NEVER bring up a potential problem, issue or objection that the buyer might have before they do. Amanda and I talked about how this assumption is a myth that doesn’t work against you. Amanda shared examples of what really happens when you bring up issues or concerns you think the buyer might be having.

We also talked about helping buyers stay engaged during our sales meetings with them. Let’s face it, we all know that buyers sometimes check out during our sales calls. Amanda discusses her strategy for re-engaging buyers when this happens.

Finally, we closed by talking about the advice Amanda has for women in sales roles who worry about being themselves for fear they’ll be described as “soft”, “weak”, “touchy feely”, and as a result try to act more like the guys.

BTW – Meet up with Amanda, me, 100+ speakers, and over 1,500 sales professionals at the upcoming Rainmaker 2019 Conference in Atlanta in March. REGISTER HERE

As always, another insightful interview! Listen and enjoy!

http://barbaragiamanco.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WIS_AmandaGeorgoff_SalesLoft2018-Final021219.mp3

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About Amanda:

Amanda Georgoff is an Enterprise Sales Rep at SalesLoft; she has 15+ years of frontline experience selling software and services to CFOs, CMOs, Heads of Sales and other functional executives at F500 companies across her time at SalesLoft, Xactly and CEB (now Gartner). Amanda is known for taking a consultative, insight-based approach to selling, consistently over-performs quota and has won multiple Presidents/Chairmans Club awards. She loves working directly with customers, adores her team, and was skeptical of using video in meetings before she tried it. Amanda resides in Austin, TX with her husband, Michael, her son Gray (2.5 years) and baby girl Hayes (5 months). Her favorite Queso is from Torchys Tacos.

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Thanks to our Sponsors!

This podcast is presented by our Elite Sponsor, Microsoft. Corporate Vice President and Channel Chief Gavriella Schuster, along with other female leaders in the company, are driving for change, trying to bring more women into the technology industry. Gavriella and Microsoft are committed to giving “young women better role models and a stronger voice to all women.” You can hear more from Gavriella and other Microsoft leaders, on the Microsoft Partner Network podcast. Or visit partner.microsoft.com 

SalesLoft, the leading sales engagement platform. Join them this March in Atlanta for 3 days of learning, networking, and inspiration at their annual Rainmaker conference! With over 100 speakers and 40 track sessions, their annual Women’s Breakfast and a performance from Grammy winning band Blues Traveler, this conference is not one to miss. Get your tickets today at rainmaker.salesloft.com.

Thanks to our Media Sponsor. Women Sales Pros has a vision for more women in B2B sales and sales leadership roles where there are currently male-majority sales teams. We help educate companies on how to do this, and we champion women on what a professional sales career can be. We also showcase the very top women sales experts who are speakers, authors, consultants, trainers and coaches. People can sign up to get updates HERE and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WomenSalesPros

Filed Under: blog, Featured Story Tagged With: authenticity, Rainmaker 2019, sales, salesloft, selling, women

Social Sales Prospecting 101

October 1, 2010 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

goldpanningAh, isn’t this exactly the way it’s supposed to happen? It is a sales dream…fresh, hot leads – and lots of them – mined daily. Like digging for gold, you are looking for those potential opportunities that can be quickly converted into new customers.

The challenge dogging many sales organizations today is that even though they are bringing prospects into the pipeline, the two questions they should be tackling are not being addressed.

  1. Are you bringing the RIGHT prospect into the pipeline?
  2. Are you able to engage them at the moment that they are most open to making their purchase?

Traditional approaches to prospecting for new clients continues to decline in effectiveness. Cold calling lead lists, free webinars, email marketing, networking at events and conferences…things that used to have high levels of success just aren’t as effective as they once were. It’s why leveraging the use of social technology makes good business sense. Still, there is an art to prospecting in the online world. It takes a little more time, creativity and finesse to create value in the mind of your buyer in advance of any sales opportunity.

Here are 5 social selling prospecting tips to get you started:

Tip #1 Target.
As Mal Pancoast says, “The odds of hitting your target go up dramatically when you aim at it.” Smart sales people recognize how important it is to target their activities, so that they are engaging with the right prospect at the right time. In the online space your targeting ability is even more critical. If you haven’t narrowed your focus or defined the characteristics of your ideal buyer, your messaging will be confusing and your social sales activities will be fractured. Don’t try to serve everyone, because you can’t. Not well anyway.

Tip #2. Listen.
Now that you’ve targeted your buyer, it’s time to identify the social communities where your prospects are likely to be participating. LinkedIn groups are a great example. Thousands of business professionals engage in dialog every day about products, services, industry trends and business issues in general. Once you determine key online communities, your job is to learn the language of the group. Make sure you understand the group’s guidelines when it comes to blatantly promoting what you offer. Groups typically frown on sales pitches. Don’t risk damaging your brand because you didn’t learn the rules. Take time initially to watch and observe.

Step #3. Participate.
Creating social profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter is your first step. Nothing is going to happen if you let your social profiles sit passively on the sidelines though. You need to participate often to increase your visibility and broaden the awareness of your capabilities. But, what do I actually do, you might be asking. Participation can be as simple as posting a daily status update with something interesting and relevant for your audience. Answer questions in groups, pose questions on Twitter, recommend others, keep profiles updated with current information, share video or news stories…these are all ways to keep yourself visible in front of people. Bottom line – you need to be top of mind when your buyer is ready to make their purchase. If you’ve not been active and visible, chances are high that you’ll be overlooked.

Step #4. Search.
LinkedIn gives you the ability to create lead generation lists using the “saved search” functionality. You’ve targeted your buyer so using “advanced search” you create your list by entering in titles, appropriate keywords, geographic location and more to search the LinkedIn community of over 350+ million users. Once the search results are returned, you now have leads to follow up on. And the real power is that when you save the search, LinkedIn will send you a weekly email to notify you of the new people joining your network who match your search criteria. Imagine, on Monday you receive a list of 20 new prospects for you to go to work on. You can also search companies on LinkedIn and “follow” those that you want to keep on your radar.

Step #5: Connect.
Continuing to cultivate your network of connections is a daily activity that every sales person needs to undertake. People with sizable networks comprised of high value, high quality contacts earn more money than those that don’t. In this new world of social selling, remember that 78% of buyers trust peers, not ads. Using social media, today’s sales person can develop and maintain diverse business networks that lead to greater access and opportunity.

Want hot leads? Learn to harness the power of social selling!

Filed Under: blog, Featured Story Tagged With: lead generation, leads, Prospecting, sales, social selling

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