Inside Sales Strategies - With Michael Pedone

Tom Bailey, founder of Succeed Through Speaking, interviews Michael Pedone.

Michael Pedone invented SalesBuzz.com's online sales training course for B2B teams that want to overcome call reluctance and achieve higher success selling by phone. He has 25+ years’ experience as a straight-commission rep and has over 4,000 clients in 86 industries in 9 different languages using his training program.

Why you've got to check out Michael's episode:

- Discover how Michael helps B2B small to mid-sized companies globally who have inside sales teams of around 10-20 sales people.

- Understand the challenge of having sales people who are uncomfortable or afraid to pick up the phone for either inbound or outbound sales.

- Why sales representatives are critical for your business and why you therefore need to provide them with all of the tools they need to do their job effectively.

- The importance of giving your sales teams a game plan and process and how to avoid having 'Captain Wing Its' in your sales team. Also the importance of having sales people who are coachable.

- How to get access to Michael's weekly inside sales tips as well as his training curriculum for business owners who want to upskill their sales teams.

Resources / Links

https://www.salesbuzz.com/curriculum/

Transcript

Tom Bailey: Hello and welcome to Succeed Through Speaking the place for experts and entrepreneurs who want high value ideas to boost business results.

Hello, I'm Tom Bailey. And in today's episode, I'll be getting to know Michael, who is the founder and inventor of the salesforce.com online sales training course for B2B teams that want to overcome call reluctance and achieve higher success by selling over the phone to Michael. Hello, and a very warm welcome to today's episode.

Michael Pedone: Nice to meet you. Thanks.

Tom Bailey: Awesome. And just out of interest for people listening. Whereabouts are you in the world right now?

Michael Pedone: Sunny, Tampa.

Tom Bailey: Incredible. Thank you so much. A lot sunnier than we have here in the UK, but yeah, I'm sure we'll have a summer at some point. So, thank you so much for sharing that. I want to just share a little bit more about you before we do get started. So, Michael has over 25 years experience as a straight commission rep and has over 4,000 clients in 86 industries in nine different languages. Using his training program. The title for today's episode is Inside Sales Strategies. And Michael is going to show us all about this in just seven minutes. So, question one then is who are your ideal clients?

Michael Pedone: So, the ideal clients right now, you always have those two types of clients. You have the big whales that come in. Occasionally those are nice, but you can't live off those, right? Those are nice when they come in. But so, my ideal client really is a B2B small to mid-sized companies. You know, whether they're in the United States, Canada, UK, or I have them all over the place, but business to business, they have inside sales team. Five or more sales reps, usually between 20 and 50, or actually, I should probably say more like a 50 to 200 employees usually is about the size of the company, but across all different industries, like I said, I help, but like 4 86 different industries already.

Tom Bailey: Brilliant. And it's typically just commission-based sales people or is it.

Michael Pedone: Well, the thing is I've always been a straight commission sales rep, right. But in today's world, that's like where it's like a dying breed, like a lot of times that you have BDRs and SDRs or whatever. So, they get that base salary and then move from there. So, but the, so that's who I help, whether it's, there's handling everything from A to Z selling over the phone, or if they have to initially make that, those initial outreach, cold calls, things of that nature and everything in between. Okay.

Tom Bailey: When you think of these people, then these businesses, these clients, what's typically the biggest challenge that they have.

Michael Pedone: Yeah, getting there. Well, what they would say is getting prospects on the phone, but the biggest challenge is them getting their sales team, the confidence to pick up the phone. Yeah. They're, they're afraid to do it, right. That phone gets really heavy after they hear no thanks and understood. We're all set, you know, too many times. And so that's their biggest challenge. They just don't, they don't have the confidence and the skillset to pick up the phone.

Tom Bailey: Right. And if they don't fix this, what's the biggest impact that would have on them.

Michael Pedone: Well, they're competitors. They're going to pass them. Right? So, the people that do fake it, the companies that do fix that are going to get the majority of the business. So, you don't want to leave money on the table and you don't want to leave that to chance. And yeah, so it's down revenues. I mean, salespeople are the, they're the one thing they're not just responsible for their own family's income. They're responsible for every family that works at that organization. So, they really need to produce, and there's a lot of pressure on salespeople as well. So, they, you know, the better they are at handling and knowing what to say and having that confidence, that game plan, those skills, they make more money for their families, but also for the company as well, know those families as well.

Tom Bailey: Great. That's a really good way of looking at it and for those companies and that listening to this podcast, and they want a little bit of help with their sales teams. What's the first piece of advice that you'd give them to really change the game.

Michael Pedone: You know, there's, it's really hard, right? There's two things because it's, you know, the first thing I want to say is they need a game plan. I mean, if you imagine going into a McDonald's, I mean, the reason why it's run by senior citizens and, and, and high school kids, and it's still wildly successful is because they follow a process. They have the systems down and sales is really a lot like that. If you have a sales team full of captain Wingets right. Where they just try to. Go all over the place. You're not going to be able to scale. So, I want to say that that's the most important thing, but I, I live, you're missing it. I say, listen, you have to hire kids that are, or people that are coachable. Right? I mean, if, if you have salespeople, whether they've been selling for years, if they're not hitting their numbers, or if they're brand new, if they're not coachable, you can't help them. They're not gonna. For you. So, you know, it's, it's almost like a tie, but if I had to pick one out of the two, I definitely would say, you know, hire people that are coachable because then you can bring in the systems on top of that.

Tom Bailey: Great love that wonderful advice. Thank you so much. And the next question from me then is what is one valuable resource or somewhere that you can point people to look into this.

Michael Pedone: Well, so obviously since I offer sales training, do you want some free stuff? You can go there or sign up for the blog every, every week I send out inside sales tips, that'll help people. Right. And then if you never get some point where you feel that you need, you know, a little bit more of a helping hand, then you could always reach out. But yeah, that's what I would reckon.

Tom Bailey: Okay, fantastic. And I've got a couple of links here. So sales boost.com is where I assume they'll be able to find the blog and also salesforce.com or stars curriculum is where they can find out more about that training. Absolutely. Excellent. What is, as well as I'll put those links into the show notes, people can click on those and they can dive right in. Excellent. So, so what would you say is one of your greatest either mistakes or failures that you've ever made either in life or business and what did you learn?

Michael Pedone: So, you know, that's interesting. So, I have a an acquaintance, somebody that I know that is super successful in business, and we're talking high eight, maybe nine figures worth of value worth. Okay. And. I'm nowhere near that level. Right. So, with that being said, I went up to him once I said, so let me ask. So, what what's like the secret, like, how did you become really successful? You know, how have you been so successful? I want to get that you don't want to get to that eight figures one day. Right. And you know, he simply laughed and he said, he says, Michael, I just simply survived all my mistakes. Yeah. And so, you know, when you asked me what's my failure, I think, you know, I think the biggest failure would be as if I didn't, if, if I did something that the company didn't survive, the mistake that I made and I haven't done that yet.

So, I, it's really hard for me to say what's my biggest failure and hopefully knock on wood. That doesn't happen. But yeah, I always, I thought that was great advice from him, you know? Cause what it did was it really made me realize that. We're going to make mistakes as solopreneurs or entrepreneurs, and you just have to learn from them. So as long as that's the saying, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Tom Bailey: Yeah and maybe one of the key learnings in there is, you know, take more risks, obviously calculated risks, but, you know, take more risks, take those chances to be entrepreneurial and right. Yeah. And really keep shifting things and moving the industry forward. Okay, great. So, the last question from me today is what is the one question that I should have asked that will also bring some great value to our audience?

Michael Pedone: So, how do we get sales teams overcome call reluctance and, you know, for people that are listening, it's very simple. It really is. There is a step-by-step process. So, the first thing your sales team, before they pick up the phone, they have to know exactly what to say. The gatekeeper voicemail or prospect, and there's a simple formula. You have to lead with the what's in it for them. A very think in the terms of Twitter, very short, cause it no long presentations in the opening, don't try to build false report. You get right to the point, agitate that pain, scratch, and edge, get the conversation going, and then you'll be off and running.

Tom Bailey: And that just makes it so much more simpler. Like you said, to have that process in place before you even pick up.

Michael Pedone: Absolutely no more captain wing.

Tom Bailey: He had no more captain wing. I might change the title to no more captain Wingets. I love that. So, Michael, thanks again so much for your time today for coming along and sharing some great expertise and yeah, really appreciate that.

Michael Pedone: My pleasure.