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Sales Influence - Why People Buy!

I came from the world of selling as an account manager and moved up the ranks to Director of Sales, then VP of International Sales and eventually President of Sales and Marketing. I know what it takes to sell and how to manage and motivate your sales team. I didn't read a book on selling; I LIVED IT! Selling has become tougher! It isn't what it use to be! Show up, do the dog-and-pony and close the deal! Not any more! Today's buyer has changed given access to more information. This means buyers are more informed and more skeptical when it comes to buying. In this podcast, we'll discuss "Finding the Why in How People Buy"! Using the latest studies in consumer behavior and neuromarketing, you'll learn new ways to sell more effectively!
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Sales Influence - Why People Buy!
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Now displaying: Category: Sales - Selling
Apr 23, 2025

Value Positioning and Articulation

  1. 🎯 Positioning value involves putting customers in the scene and situation where they can feel the pain of not having your product, rather than simply listing features.

  2. 💡 To sell value effectively, one must know, believe in, prove, articulate, and position the value correctly within the customer's context and situation.

  3. 🚩 When a customer asks for a discount, it's a signal that you've failed to articulate and position the value of your product, not that the price is too high.

Customer Decision-Making

  1. 🧠 Customers often rely on default rules (heuristics) like "heavy equals quality" or "long line equals good restaurant" to make quick decisions without deep thought.

Effective Sales Techniques

  1. ⏱️ To position value, tie together articulation values (e.g., "repair within 30-40 minutes") with the customer's situation (e.g., "what happens if this unit goes down during lunch?") to make them consider potential negative outcomes.
Apr 22, 2025

Timing and Productivity

  1. 🕰️ The biological sales clock reveals optimal times for sales and productivity: 7-11 a.m. and 3-9 p.m., when customers are most receptive and in a positive mood.

  2. 📊 Companies can leverage this data by scheduling morning meetings from 7-11 a.m. and afternoon meetings from 3-6 p.m., avoiding the noon-3 p.m. slump when customers are tired and negative.

Strategic Applications

  1. 📞 Sales teams can boost success rates by aligning their calls and meetings with the biological sales clock's peak times.

  2. 💼 Businesses can optimize earnings calls by scheduling them during morning hours to potentially improve stock price reception.

Holistic Impact

  1. 😊 The biological sales clock influences not just sales and productivity, but also mood, with peak happiness aligning with the 7-11 a.m. and 3-9 p.m. windows.
Apr 16, 2025

Efficient Prospect Evaluation

🎯 Disqualify prospects quickly to save time and money, as faster disqualification leads to more efficient use of resources.

💼 Establish clear boundaries and specific requirements for working with clients, such as minimum budget, project size, location, time commitment, and payoff structure.

Value-Based Qualification

💰 Qualify by value by setting a Minimum Value Proposition (MVP) that clients must meet, such as a minimum budget or project size, to ensure alignment with services offered.

Situational and Ethical Considerations

🚩 Disqualify clients based on situational requirements, such as too many people involved, too many departments, and certain scenarios to avoid wasting resources on unqualified prospects.

🤝 Evaluate clients based on personality and ethics, including trustworthiness, reasonableness, and willingness to follow recommendations to ensure a good working relationship.

Apr 14, 2025

The Sales Influence Podcast episode "Spin the Value Arrow" discusses tailoring B2B sales presentations to resonate with different decision-makers. Victor Antonio, introduces the "value trinity": increasing revenue, reducing costs, and expanding market share, as the primary concerns of business owners. He argues that effective selling involves understanding which of these concerns is most important to each stakeholder involved in a purchasing decision, such as the CTO, CMO, and CFO. The podcast challenges listeners to create both a comprehensive sales presentation addressing all key interests and shorter, specialized presentations focused on the specific priorities of individual decision-makers.

Apr 12, 2025

Accelerating the Sales Process

  1. 🚀 Immediately ask for pricing when a customer requests a proposal to potentially close deals faster, as time kills all deals and prolonged processes reduce closing probability.

  2. 💼 Utilize a 3-step process to confirm customer interest and fit: verify interest, ensure product/service fit, and validate features/functionalities, helping to evaluate interest levels and determine next steps.

Non-Verbal Communication and Prioritization

  1. 👀 Watch for micro-expressions and body language when presenting pricing to gauge customer reactions, providing insights into their budget range and interest level.

  2. 🏆 Mentally assign priorities to proposals based on customer enthusiasm to focus on promising leads and allocate resources effectively.

Strategic Timing and Trust-Building

  1. 🗓️ Insert start date questions early in the sales process, not at the end, to avoid pressuring customers and build trust, facilitating a collaborative relationship that enhances deal closure potential.
Apr 8, 2025

Presentation Structure

🏠 Visualize a house with 5 points to represent the top 5 customer priorities, organizing them in order of importance and checking off each point during the presentation.

Engagement Strategy

🔄 Utilize the "say-ask-do-show" formula for each priority: say what you want to discuss, ask questions to gather information, do an engaging activity, and show a visual aid or demo.

Planning Tool

📊 Create a "say-ask-do-show" matrix by listing the 5 priorities and filling out corresponding actions for each element of the formula.

Customer-Centric Approach

🎯 Focus on the top 5 priorities that customers care about, ensuring your presentation addresses their most important concerns and interests.

Visual Aids

📈 Incorporate demos, case studies, and other visual aids to effectively sell each issue or priority, enhancing the impact of your presentation.

Apr 2, 2025

Victor Antonio's podcast excerpt explores the counterintuitive idea that simply giving something away for free doesn't guarantee its acceptance. He argues that to effectively offer something for free, one must still "sell the free" by framing it with perceived value and context, making it enticing for the recipient. Using his podcast as an example, Antonio demonstrates how establishing a need and desire precedes the free offer, significantly increasing engagement. He contrasts this with simply stating a free offer, highlighting the importance of creating contextual value to overcome skepticism and the perception that free items lack worth.

Mar 31, 2025

The podcast episode from the Sales Influence Podcast, hosted by Victor Antonio, draws a parallel between method acting and effective sales techniques. Antonio suggests that salespeople should empathize deeply with their clients, mirroring how method actors immerse themselves in a role. By understanding the client's fears, anxieties, and potential resistance, salespeople can better address their concerns. This approach encourages sellers to "become the client" to anticipate objections and tailor their approach. Additionally, a brief outro introduces Victor Antonio as a speaker focused on making his clients successful rather than himself.

Mar 26, 2025

Audience Segmentation and Engagement

🎯 Categorize audience into "winners" (willing to learn) and "losers" (resistant to learning) based on their response to new sales strategies.

🤝 Prequalify audience members by asking them to consider "how can I make this work for me" rather than dismissing new ideas outright.

Overcoming Resistance

💪 Reduce resistance by acknowledging audience's sales experience and proposing 3-5% sales increase through new strategies.

🏆 Congratulate experienced salespeople (20+ years) and ask if they're open to learning new sales techniques for potential growth.

Tailoring Presentation Approach

📊 Segment audience by asking about years of sales experience (5, 10, 15, 20, 20+) to tailor presentation and overcome fear of know-it-alls.

Mar 24, 2025

Guarantee Strategies

🛡️ Implementing a money-back guarantee within a 30-90 day period can significantly reduce buying resistance and boost sales by providing customers with a sense of security.

🎯 A results-based guarantee can be more effective than a standard money-back offer, as it promises specific outcomes and enhances customer trust in the product or service.

Advanced Guarantee Techniques

🔒 Offering a double guarantee provides enhanced customer protection by combining a 30-90 day money-back period with an additional 1-year return option if expectations aren't met.

🎁 A plus guarantee adds extra value by including a bonus (e.g., $100 charity donation) alongside the money-back offer, potentially increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

💼 The "keep the bonuses" guarantee allows customers to retain all add-ons even if returning the main product within the specified period, further enhancing the perceived value of the purchase.

Mar 22, 2025

Buyer Types and Sales Strategies

🗳️ Buyers can be categorized into five distinct types: single issue voters, well-informed voters, partisan voters, low information voters, and non-voters, each requiring a tailored sales approach.

💡 Salespeople should identify the single critical issue for each buyer and craft their presentation around it, maximizing impact on single issue and well-informed voters.

Challenging Buyer Types

🔒 Partisan voters are the most difficult to convert, as they are deeply committed to their preferred brand and resistant to change.

⚠️ Low information voters pose a risk for ethical salespeople, as they are susceptible to emotional manipulation and media influence in their decision-making process.

Engagement Tactics

🔄 The "switchover effect" can be used to motivate non-voters by first generating interest and engagement before guiding them towards a new decision.

Mar 20, 2025

Key Pitch Strategy

🎯 The "two-minute pitch" is a powerful technique that uses five key numbers to quickly grab attention and convey value.

🔢 Memorizing five metrics and their corresponding explanations forms the core of this concise, impactful pitch strategy.

Practical Application

📊 Examples of effective metrics include years of experience, number of clients served, people trained, top companies using the product, and percentage increase in performance.

🗣️ This pitch format can be adapted for both presentation slides and personal verbal pitches, making it versatile for various sales situations.

Psychological Impact

🧠 The "two-minute pitch" acts as a pattern interrupt, effectively capturing audience attention through unexpected numerical data presentation.

Mar 17, 2025

Evaluation Framework

🎯 The BANTER model provides a universal benchmarking system for qualifying great sales meetings using 7 key questions: Budget, Authority, Need, Timing, Engagement, and Request.

📊 A perfect score of 6-7 out of 7 indicates a truly great meeting, while 0-5 suggests the meeting was not as successful as claimed.

Practical Application

🔍 Managers can use BANTER to objectively assess meeting quality, identify potential issues, and make informed decisions about which deals to pursue or drop.

💼 The model helps salespeople focus on critical aspects of client interactions, ensuring they cover all essential elements during meetings.

Consistency and Objectivity

🔄 BANTER provides a consistent and objective method for evaluating sales meetings across different salespeople and scenarios, eliminating subjective assessments.

Mar 15, 2025

Sales Performance and Anxiety

  1. 🎯 57% of salespeople fail to meet their sales targets, leading to sales anxiety at critical periods like month-end, quarter-end, or year-end.

  2. 😰 Sales anxiety stems from three main causes: urgency (recognizing the need for change without knowing how), lack of a plan (uncertainty about how to change), and time belief (perceiving it's too late, too busy, or too time-consuming).

Time Management in Sales

  1.  Time belief serves as a major excuse for inaction, categorized into four types: out of time (too late), don't have time (too busy), won't make time (not urgent), and too much time (takes too long).

  2. 🚀 Despite the abundance of online resources and training programs, many salespeople cite lack of time as the primary obstacle to improving their sales skills.

Overcoming Sales Challenges

  1. 💡 Creating awareness of time-related excuses is crucial for overcoming sales anxiety, with Victor Antonio emphasizing the importance of making time for improvement if it's truly urgent.
Mar 11, 2025

Employee Engagement and Retention

🔍 24% of inside salespeople are actively seeking new jobs due to poor compensation plans, bad managers, and lack of respect and appreciation, according to a Gartner study.

📊 A Gallup study reveals that 2/3 of employees are disengaged, costing the US economy $605 billion annually, with 25% actively job hunting.

Effective Management Strategies

👥 Highly skilled managers prioritize compensation, meaningful work, growth opportunities, and collaborative environments to boost employee engagement and retention.

💼 Creating an employee value proposition encompassing compensation, career path, and collaborative environment helps managers "sell" employees on staying and drives engagement.

🌟 Good managers listen, empathize, provide growth opportunities, give purpose, and foster a winning culture through compensation, career path, and collaborative environment.

Mar 6, 2025

Stakeholder Framework

🎯 The MUTE acronym (Management, User, Technical, Economic buyers) provides a comprehensive framework for identifying and addressing key stakeholders in the sales process.

🔍 Stakeholders are distinguished from buyer personas by their actual decision-making responsibility within the company, making them crucial targets for sales efforts.

Buyer Concerns

💼 Management buyers (executives and above) are essential for ultimate decision-making, while User buyers focus on practical application of the product or service.

🔧 Technical buyers evaluate interoperability, upgradeability, expandability, and compatibility of products with existing systems, as well as long-term maintenance.

💰 Economic buyers (purchasing department) prioritize price, breakeven points, return on investment, and return on assets when considering a purchase.

Mar 4, 2025

Sales Enablement Impact

  1. 🚀 61% of companies have a sales enablement position, boosting quota achievement by 23% compared to those without.

  2. 💼 Sales enablement focuses on training, tools, and talent development, covering technical product knowledge and sales process skills.

Time Management and Productivity

  1. ⏰ Only 37% of salesperson time is spent on actual sales activities, highlighting the need for productivity-enhancing tools.

  2. 🔧  A sales enablement person can curate technology by testing and implementing tools to make salespeople more effective.

Training and Development

  1. 📚 Developing a sales training cadence involves determining frequency, types (classroom, LMS, video conferencing), and testing methods.

  2. 🎯 Effective sales enablement can help companies grow by 23% in terms of quota achievement, according to a study.
Mar 1, 2025

Pricing Strategy

🏷️ Decoy pricing strategy involves placing the middle option closer to the highest-priced option to increase sales of the more expensive item, exploiting the brain's risk-mitigating tendency.

💰 In a National Geographic experiment, offering $7, $6.50, and $3 popcorn options led most people to choose the middle option, but many upgraded to the highest when comparing the 50-cent difference.

Consumer Behavior

🧠 The brain's risk-averse nature often leads consumers to choose the middle option when presented with three choices, a tendency exploited by companies like Starbucks and McDonald's.

🔄 Adding a third option to a two-option scenario can significantly shift consumer preferences, as demonstrated in the experiment where a $5 option added to $7 and $3 choices led most to select the middle price.

Sales Tactics

📊 To boost sales of premium products, offer three options with the highest price closer to the middle, e.g., $20,000, $17,000, and $10,000 instead of evenly spaced prices like $20,000, $15,000, and $10,000.

Feb 25, 2025

Mindset and Focus

🎯 Focusing on objectives rather than obstacles is key to achieving success, as it creates motivational momentum that helps overcome challenges.

🧠 The attitude towards an objective drives behavior, which in turn drives consequences, highlighting the importance of maintaining a positive mindset.

Overcoming Obstacles

🚀 When faced with obstacles, concentrate on how to get around them rather than dwelling on why you can't achieve your objective.

💪 People who focus on objectives tend to find ways to overcome roadblocks, while those fixated on obstacles often give up when faced with difficulties.

Optimism vs. Pessimism

🌟 An optimistic mindset focuses on what you want to achieve, whereas a pessimistic or cynical mindset dwells on what prevents you from reaching your goals.

Feb 19, 2025

Consistency and Value Creation

  1. 🎯 Consistency in creating valuable content is the key to attracting business and relationships, leveraging the principles of law of attraction and value attraction.

  2. 💪 While intensity and passion are relatively easy to achieve, maintaining consistency in content creation is challenging, especially when relying on external validation.

Content Creation Strategy

  1. 🔄 Daily effort and staying up-to-date with industry knowledge are crucial for consistent value content creation, which becomes difficult without enjoying the process.

  2. 📊 Creating valuable content consistently is essential for sales success, enabling salespeople to understand customer needs, pain points, and industry trends.

Long-term Business Impact

  1. 🌟 Consistent value content is vital for long-term success, helping salespeople build trust, establish credibility, and attract repeat business.
Feb 18, 2025

Authenticity in Sales

🔑 Authentic selling involves being open and honest, connecting with clients as individuals rather than labels, and focusing on building genuine relationships and trust rather than saying the "right" things.

💡 The key to authenticity is trusting oneself enough to be open with clients, requiring self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-trust, rather than trying to manufacture or learn it from others.

Personal Approach

🌟 Effective selling comes from embracing one's unique strengths, communication style, and approach, rather than copying successful salespeople or seeking external approval.

Emotional Connection

❤️ Authenticity's power lies in its ability to connect with clients on a genuine and emotional level, building long-term relationships that are more valuable than simply closing deals.

Embracing Imperfection

🔓 Authentic selling involves being real and vulnerable, embracing imperfections and learning from mistakes, rather than striving for an unrealistic image of perfection.

Feb 14, 2025

Emotional Intelligence in Sales

🧠 Cultivate an "attitude of gratitude and latitude" by appreciating what you have and giving people more breaks, understanding that humans make mistakes and are often going through personal challenges when they act out.

🎭 Practice empathy in sales and personal relationships by considering the fundamental attribution error and trying to understand others' perspectives rather than assuming their actions are about you.

Mental Energy Management

⏳ Avoid wasting mental energy on issues that won't matter in 24 hours or less, including customer interactions, confrontations, and negative news, focusing instead on what you can control.

🎢 Moderate your emotions by avoiding extremes in response to both positive and negative events, maintaining an even keel to prevent emotional rollercoasters and disappointment.

Personal Growth

🌱 Grow your "empathy tank" by being more understanding and forgiving of others, which helps maintain composure and prevents being thrown off balance by others' actions.

Feb 11, 2025

In this episode of the Sales Influence podcast, Victor talks about upsell conversation starters to use during sales pitches. 

Feb 7, 2025

Upselling Techniques

🔍 "Will that be enough?" creates artificial scarcity, prompting clients to question their initial purchase and potentially buy more.

💡 Casually mentioning additional products with "By the way" serves as an effective upsell conversation starter for complementary items.

🗣️ "Now that you mentioned that" allows for immediate response to client statements, introducing relevant upsell opportunities they may not have considered.

Effective Implementation

🤔 Upsell phrases should always be accompanied by a "reason why" to provide value justification and facilitate informed decision-making.

🔄 Upsell techniques can be applied beyond capacity-limited products, extending to various situations and unrelated items to increase average order value.

Feb 4, 2025

Credibility and Trust

🎯 Presenting rounded numbers instead of precise figures can trigger skepticism and damage the credibility of the entire presentation.

🔍 A single instance of inaccurate data can lead audiences to question the truthfulness of everything else said, creating a cascade effect of lost trust.

Data Integrity

📊 Using "lazy math" or presenting numbers without proper backing from studies risks being caught in falsehoods, jeopardizing the presenter's overall message.

Effective Communication

💼 Salespeople must ensure their presented numbers are accurate and backed by data, avoiding the temptation to round for convenience (e.g., presenting 31% instead of 25%).

Impact of Misinformation

⚠️ Even if 99% of a presentation is truthful, a single incorrect point can significantly impact the presenter's credibility, potentially killing their credibility entirely.

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