How to use content in sales, get more from sales tech, sales reps' red flags

This week on Full Funnel: sales reps' red flags, how to use content efficiently in the sales cycle, and using sales tech to strengthen relationships.

Tune in every Friday to get the latest sales news and hot takes from RajNATION and Tyler Lessard.

Resources from the episode:
"Examples of Open Ended Sales Questions" from Sales Hacker: https://www.saleshacker.com/open-ende...   

"Huge Year Ahead for B2B Content Marketing" from the LinkedIn Marketing Blog: https://www.linkedin.com/business/mar...

"Tech Powered Sales" by Justin Michael and Tony Hughes https://www.amazon.ca/Technology-Quot...

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Transcript

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You're missing these key red flags in your sales conversation. There's a better way to use content to move a deal forward. And is the future of sales being a sales borg? All this without fries on the side today on Full Funnel. Hey, everyone, I'm Raj Nation, he's Tyler Lessard, and this is full funnel. The weekly show that consistently disappoints carnival enthusiasts in search of funnel cake. Full Funnel is the show where we break down three hot topics happening in the world of sales in under ten minutes. All the help you go out, show out and fill up your funnel. Let's dive right in. Last week, the Internet blew up with red flags, whether you're on Twitter, Tik Tok, LinkedIn. Red flags were everywhere. But as sales reps, what are some real red flags we need to be watching out for when engaging our prospects? for me, one of the biggest red flags is when it sounds like we're the ones doing all the talking. If your prospect isn't chiming up and offering information proactively, how are you going to get to know what their biggest pains are and how it is that you can actually help? Now, a great way to get your prospect talking is to use open ended questions. Let's try it out right here right now. Hey, Raj, do you enjoy hosting full funnel? Yes, I do. Now that was a close ended question, of course. Let's reframe that, you seem to really enjoy hosting full funnel Raj. Why is that? Well, Tyler, any time spent with you is time well spent. Well, that's the start to a beautiful conversation that I can now bring you in on it and get you to open up. Now, Raj, how about you? What are some red flags that you are looking out for when you're engaging with a prospect? Well, if you do a lot of the talking yourself and your prospect isn't talking much at all, what can oftentimes happen is the dreaded will talk internally and get back to you, which is essentially code for you in no man's land. You're in sales purgatory, and that's not a position that anyone wants to be in as a seller. So you want to hedge against that by trying to get concrete next steps and an action plan on both sides of the table. If they say we're going to talk internally and get back to you, that's a red flag. So how do you make that a fuchsia flag or a different colored flag or not a flag at all? You try and learn from them. What are those conversations going to look like? And you try and bring in those other people into a conversation with you so that you become the center of their internal discussions? Red flags are really hard to spot in the moment, so you got to make sure that you're able to see things clearly and take a step back , whether that's with yourself or with your sales leader. one of the best quotes I can pull out is from BoJack Horseman on this topic, the Netflix show where they had a scene where they said, You know, when you look at a situation through rose colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags. LinkedIn's marketing blog released a report in the last week with data suggesting that content marketing is going to be a huge investment for companies and sales teams in 2022. Their research and their reporting and surveying found that companies are investing even more, with over 60% of respondents saying that they plan to invest in video. They plan to invest in virtual events and in case studies. As sellers. how can we leverage the content that our company and our marketing team creates? Well, I'll tell you one of the worst things you can do in a sales process to help move a deal forward is follow up with something like, Hey, I'm going to send you a few case studies, want you to just take a look at them before our next call. You know why that's a bad idea? because no one is going to look at those attachments. Instead, what you want to do is tell them, I want you to actually take a look at the bottom of Page two. I think that's really going to help you think some of this stuff through. And because you give them a specific place to look at, you're actually opening up opportunities. They're going to read the entire thing or read a whole lot more of it, as opposed to just saying, Hey, I'm sending you these things to look at. That's too unclear. There's no direction there, and it just seems too overwhelming. So reduce the overwhelm in your content strategy on the sales side by telling them specifically within the content what you want them to watch or what you want them to read or what you want them to listen to. Tyler, where are you seeing content being used in the sales process as we look ahead in 2022? Well, I think that's spot on adding the context. Whether it's a case study, whether it's educational content, a blog post or a video is key. Now, one of the things that I think is really important for all of us in sales right now is to actually get ahead of all this content production that's going to happen. When was the last time you talked to your marketing team about your needs as a sales professional? What content would you like them to create to help you have a better sales process? Is it a specific case study in a certain market? Is it an educational asset to help answer a question you commonly get collaborate with your marketing team, pin them on Slack, set up a quick meeting and have a chat so that you can be a part of the 2022 content development planning. Last month, Tony Hughes and Justin Michael launched their new book, Tech Powered Sales, and boy, it is a doozy. It dives deep into not only the future of sales tech, but also the today and how it is that modern sales teams and sales reps can be using tech to help them sell better. What I love about this book is it's not just about how to be more efficient as a sales team and to generate more calls or more leads. But it actually talks about how to use tech to allow you to be a more human seller, but how to let the tech do it . It does really well so that you can spend more time being personal, being human and actually reaching out to people in meaningful ways. And they talk about this idea of TQ and developing your technology quotient as a salesperson so that you can become more and more proficient in using sales tech, which I think is super important in today's world, and it's only going to get more important in the years ahead. Raj, what have you seen as a startup and when is the right time to think about embracing sales tech in a new business? I will tell you across the startup landscape, if you are an early stage company, a new way to invest in your sales tech stack until you absolutely need to. You have waited too long. I want you investing in your sales technology well before you think it's absolutely necessary. And the reason for that is because if you invest earlier on, it's going to help you sell easier. If you can sell easier out of the gate, guess what? You're going to grow faster and you're going to go farther in much sooner time. So get out and get in front of it today. Don't wait because it will be too late. We've reached the end of our funnel. Let's do a quick recap, in top funnel we talked about how to spot red flags in your sales process and one way to make sure you can eliminate flags entirely is by asking open ended questions in middle of funnel. We talked about the accelerated use of content in the sales process, how you can use it more effectively, and even how you can partner with marketing to make sure they create content you're going to use. And in bottom funnel, we introduce you to the new book tech powered sales by Justin Michael and Tony Hughes for links to dove deeper on our first two topics and to access that book on Amazon. We've got those linked for you in the episode description below. That does it. Our funnel is full. We hope you can get back out there now and fill up yours. Please, like subscribe and comment before you go. He is Tyler Lessard, I am Raj Nation. You have been watching full funnel exclusively on a sales feed. We will catch you next week. And in the meantime, remember, images have been enlarged to show texture, actual sizes may vary.