Top 10 Rambling Sessions Moments

Over the past year, we have brought on some of the biggest names in the sales industry to sit down with us and hash out their secret sauces—their recipes to tackling different problems and their know-hows of how they survived in the B2B tech space. 

With all this amazing content on our hands, I've decided to combine the dazzling takeaways of our Rambling Sessions webinar series and compress it into this blog post. Here's our countdown of the top 10 Rambling Sessions moments.

Moment #1: Belal Batrawy’s “No Decision”, the #1 Sales Killer

One of Rambling Session’s shining moments was when Belal Batrawy, founder and community leader at Death2Fluff, spoke to us about how he hates the “no decisions” status quo response and gives us a sales strategy to overcome the same.

Belal says, “As sellers we all love a yes, we don’t like a no, but we’ll live with it. However, to run a full sales cycle and end up in no decision is emotionally exhausting.”

In order to make a sell one needs to have these three things from the people who fall into the evaluation and decision categories. 

1. You need a buyer and not a prospect
2. A pain point that causes a willingness to change
3. A critical event

It is only when these 3 variables fall into place can you escape the black hole that is a “no decision” outcome. Consider this the perfect recipe for a great sale.

Check out this blog to understand more about what tactics and strategies you can use to counter a “no decision” outcome

Moment #2: Dale Dupree's secret sauce to creating a successful brand on LinkedIn

On episode #6, Dale Dupree spilt his secret sauce to establish a successful brand on Linkedin. 

He says, “There 2 very important things that come to mind when setting up a brand on LinkedIn. One is Aesthetic and the other is the Message you want your brand to convey.”

Establishing an aesthetic when launching a brand on LinkedIn is essential. People like pleasing, clean and minimalist eye-catching looks. So develop an aesthetic which is a relatable representation of yourself. 

Next work on setting the message and tone of your brand. The copy, tone and ideas you use need to ultimately be relatable. You want people to relate, to understand, to get curious of what you stand for. Only by accomplishing this will you sustain the growth of your brand.

Check out this short snippet of our webinar with Dale Dupree as he talks about how he established his brand.   

Moment #3: When Wes Schaeffer—The Sales Whisperer? whispered about awkward silences and how to make use of them.

Not good with awkward silence? Feel this painful need to fill them? Well Wes Schaeffer has something radically different to say about awkward silence and how to make use of them.

Don’t try to fill awkward silence with answers to unasked questions rather just wait for a beat and your prospect themselves will counter the silence with a question.

In order to leverage the silence or pauses if you will, it is essential to build a rapport with the prospect. Put the prospect in comfortable land and wait for them to slowly open up to you.

Sometimes, it’s the silent solutions that offer the loudest results. Check out this short video to understand more. 

Moment #4: Using alternative channels during those frustrating spells of fruitless outbound efforts

What is always part and parcel of a career in sales? Well, if you guessed fruitless outbound efforts, then you guessed right. For this shining moment, we have Collin Mitchell and Tony J. Hughes share their knowhow on employing alternative channels during those frustrating spells of futile outbound efforts.

When outbound efforts don't turn up with the results you wanted then it is because you are not using all your channels properly. Some people only end up using one channel and expect to generate outbound leads. However, that should not be the case. 

You need to fully utilize all channels such as phones (the best way to reach people), LinkedIn, text messages, social media etc. In a world where social selling takes prominence people are forgetting the art of phones and how it is one of the best ways to generate outbound leads. 

When everyone is focusing on social selling, you interrupt the pattern and switch to using phones as part of your outreach and you’ll wind up with better outreach efforts. 

Check out this post that elaborates more on this.

Moment #5: Should outbound prospecting for AEs be linked to their incentives?

For the 5th episode, we hosted Michael Hanson, Founder of Growth Genie and asked him the question, “When an AE sources and closes their own deal, should they be paid more in incentives?”

Without missing a beat, Michael Hanson answered with a resounding yes. Getting AEs tap into their own network to find a lead, nurture it and close it will result in more outbound opportunities. So how do you go about getting AEs to do this. Well, you incentivize it. 

During the webinar, we asked the audience to vote on who does the outbound lead generation in their company and 50% of them answered - SDRs. So there you go, why not get AEs to be involved in this as well.

Bottom line, incentivize outbound prospecting for AEs as well. Check out this small recap of this moment to find out how this can be done in Michael Hanson’s own words. 

Moment #6: How to motivate SDRs and AEs to Update CRM Regularly

We sat down with Rosalyn Santa Elena and Darryl Praill to find out how they motivate SDRs and AEs to get them to update their CRM regularly.

Darryl Praill uses the stick method — No CRM Update, No Pay. He says this works like a charm, adding that, “Every Monday, I have a 1:1 with my SDRs and AEs and I spend most of my time berating them to update the CRM.” He says that there is no secret sauce, however shame, threats, humiliation, lack of money always gets his SDRs and AEs to update their CRM. 

However, Rosalyn Santa Elena says she uses the carrot method — trying to get them to understand why updating the CRM regularly is important holds the key to their motivation. 

Towards the end of the discussion, both Darryl and Rosalyn agreed that it is a combination of carrot and stick method that works. They liken it to a parental reaction when you first berate and then calmly assess the damage it does. 

Check out this video to get a few laughs and also a formula for motivating your SDRs and AEs to update CRM more regularly. 

Moment #7: When sales superstars spilt the tea on effective LinkedIn personal branding

Tried of envying people who have a kickass LinkedIn branding? Don’t know where to start with your own LinkedIn branding conquest. Well, fret no more, we have Justin Michael and ??Ashleigh Early who spilt the tea on how they successfully created a brand on LinkedIn.

1. Create a purple cow as Seth Godin says. Do something radically different than what is available.
2. Do not be afraid to take a stand. Most often, what you are afraid to say is what people need to hear the most. 
3. You do not need everyone to be a fan of you, you just need a few of them to be your fans.
4. No need to overcrowd your LinkedIn wall with 20 posts, instead spend time to curate and craft 1 post a day that will bring you enough engagement. 
5. Most importantly, you are who you associate yourself with. So make sure to connect with people who are standing for the right message.

With these pearls of branding wisdom, how can you go wrong. Hurry over to your creative board and start brainstorming ideas. For more, check out this extract from the webinar.

Moment #8: When The Beatles of the sales world graced our Rambling Session

Not every moment needs to be a nugget of wisdom. This webinar needs a special mention for delivering on another aspect—the stardom.

We had the opportunity to host Andy Paul, the pioneer behind the sales podcast format with over 800 episodes of the Sales Enablement Podcast.

To quote the equally amazing Fred Diamond, “Following Andy Paul is like following The Beatles back in the 60’s, because Andy Paul is the king, he invented the concept of the sales podcast”. Check out the video here.

Moment #9 How to Do Outbound Sales in 2020

One of the shining moments was when Laxman Papineni of Outplay, a Sales Engagement Platform shared 7 tips on how to do outbound sales in 2020.

We are all fans of people who share their tried and tested methods along with data on how they fared during the experiment. Here are Laxman’s 7 tips on doing outbound sales in 2020:

1. Always be A/B testing- You never know which method is going to work. Put into play different methods to tackle the same problem. Based on the data you gather, you can make an informed decision on the method to you.
2. Multi-Channel Outreach- Its 2020 people! Come up with a schedule to use different methods (email, phone, LinkedIn etc) do your outreach.
3. Do not drag your feet waiting for the client to confirm a time for the meeting. If a client has given you an estimate of when they would be able to sit down for a meeting, then immediately schedule a meeting and send them the calendar invite. 90% of the time they will accept the meeting.
4. Find the Wrong Person- This means, reach out to the wrong person intentionally and ask them to refer you internally to the right person. This is a good trick to try.
5. Don’t bad mouth your competitors- Well, just don’t do it. It is not good for your business.
6. Identify your prospect’s pain points.
7. Sell results, not your products.

For a detailed explanation of this check out the video here.

Moment #10 What Matters the Most for Seed Round Investments

Last but not the least, when our viewers wanted to understand what matters the most for seed round investments.

Prayank Swaroop, Partner at Accel Ventures answers, it is the idea that matters the most. Next up is the founder’s past experience. Or rather, the completeness of the founder’s team. This is because if the founder comes from a sales heavy background then who is going to build the product. These are what we look at during seed round investments.

For a full understanding of how you can create a product that will catch the attention of investors and what you need to do to raise funding for your B2B company, check out the video here.

Next up on Rambling Sessions!

This is your capsule sized recap on all our Rambling Session webinars to date. For those of you who want more, register for our next webinar on 8 April, 2020 with Zendesk’s Archana Lokesh, Whatfix’s Kasturi Das Talkudar and Slintel’s very own Rahul Wadhwa as they sit down with Anupreet Singh to hash out all things SDR.