Breaking Sales

Your competitiveness and drive are valuable sales attributes, but it's critical to know when and where to use them. Your prospect should never feel them through your outreach frequency. Listen in as Dan and Kiley share an example of how a good, well-intended email approach that initially grabbed the recipient's attention fell apart because the salesperson pushed too hard and reverted to silly gimm...

What's the best way to appeal to an elusive prospect? In this 180 Conversation, Kiley shares a recent coaching call with Dan about a client who successfully connected with their prospect. The key was focusing on meaningful questions and showing empathy in the conversation. Listen as Kiley breaks down their approach and gives valuable insights on how empathy can impact your interactions.

Who's teaching these obnoxious outreach tactics? Lead generation solutions (companies) play on your innate distaste for outreach while appealing to your ego to close more. They make promises of more appointments, qualified selling opportunities, and  revenue (wins). They do all the hard work, so you can breeze in to make the close. Yet, when soliciting for their own business, their approach is oft...

Being in the moment is a real skill and strength. High performers know the dangers of cognitive overload. They work hard to free themselves from the often-overwhelming weight of conversation expectations and past regret when talking to prospects and clients. Filler words, rambling questions, feelings of hesitation are just some of the symptoms you'll experience by not being in the conversation mom...

You work hard with the skills and tools you have to schedule new prospect conversations – but your results are average at best.  Your drive for success compels you to seek out and talk to more successful peers. You read books, listen to podcasts, and sign up for a free online prospecting workshop that assures better outcomes. In this episode, Dan and Kiley break down another well-intended effort t...

Imagine it's Monday morning, 9:30 am. Your day is full of commitments over which you have no control. What have you done this morning to move your business forward? If you're Quinn Damon with Lockton Companies, you've prioritized some key activities – including outreach, and you've already made your 15 calls for the day. Why? Because you've learned the compounding effect of process. In this episod...

When your prospect cuts your meeting down to 15 minutes, but you planned for an hour, how do you respond? When the prospect tells you to recap the meeting and send them the notes – what does it indicate? Does it matter if you know why your prospect took the meeting with you – from a need or obligation? Join Dan and Kiley as they break down a real prospect conversation with a client. In this episod...

What happens when someone tries to sell you something that you're not sure you need? Do you spend energy trying to qualify their service, product, or offering? Or do you spend your time disqualifying it? If you qualify, you're on the hook for spending money, trying something new, and possibly making a mistake – getting it wrong. If you disqualify, you maintain control of the story and avoid the di...

There's a fine line between unique and bizarre when it comes to piquing prospect interest. The more your outreach stretches convention, the more you risk alienating your audience. Sending an email or leaving a voicemail that entices the recipient to scream, "That's me!" is rewarding, but the odds of that happening are slim to nil. Maybe 10%, per the research. So, what impact does unusual outreach...

Listen, learn, and practice. Individually, they won't move the needle, but together, they create a powerful chain reaction. Talking about what you've learned makes you feel knowledgeable. Putting it into practice with a willingness to fail produces results. In this 180 Conversation, Dan and Kiley add a new twist. They break down an actual cold call voicemail message from a Lappin180 client. Bottom...

When your prospects compare your email outreach to your competitor – outside of your name and company, would they be able to tell the difference? The answer might surprise you. In this episode, Dan and Kiley offer you a glimpse into what prospects experience every day – an inbox saturated with offers for free demos, gift cards, and a pledge to take only 20 minutes of your time. Hint: if you don't...

Everything has a standard, and high performers follow and pursue a very different paradigm. In many cases, they look for conversation benchmarks that are 180-degrees different from what most sales professionals seek and observe. There's a strong likelihood that you might be valuing things in your conversation that provide little impact on your results. Listen in as Dan and Kiley deep dive on nine...

You can spend hours crafting the perfect sounding sales message, but if the prospect doesn't understand it, it's worthless. In this episode, Dan and Kiley talk about the perils of using buzzwords, empty promises, repetition, or language specific to your inner circle in your outreach. You may think you sound well-informed, but the only one you're impressing is yourself.

Flattery reeks of insincerity. When you walk into a store and a salesperson greets you with a compliment or an assumption, how do you feel? Does it trigger skepticism or trust? This style of outreach feels disingenuous: "I've been impressed with your work" or "It appears you've been doing well." Listen in as Dan and Kiley break down how praise can create barriers in your outreach strategy.  

Are you an A, B, or C-level player? Everyone likes to think they're an A player, and every leader wants A players on their team. But the reality is the journey to high performance starts with self-assessment, courage, and commitment. You have to take stock of where and how your talents and behaviors show up. If you're interested in self-assessing from the safety of wherever you privately listen to...

When your prospect meeting is going well, do you get ahead of yourself and become lazy with your questions and learning? In this 180 Conversation, Dan shares the importance of maintaining your focus on asking deep questions and learning. Never assume anything. Even when the prospect is ready to commit to another meeting.

With 5.7 million sales professionals making an average of 25 outreach attempts per day, your prospects are inundated with requests for their time. Prospects are savvy and skilled in learning how to avoid the time-suck of reading your conversation invite. Join Dan as he talks with Jeremey Donovan, SVP of Sales Strategy at SalesLoft, about tactics to help you avoid your prospect's immediate disquali...

When you send a LinkedIn message or introductory email to a prospect, do you ask for something or give something? Nine out of ten outreach emails ask prospects for their time and interest. Based on previous experience, what does this tell your prospect about your conversation intent – if they invite you in? It tells them you want to advance or position a sale. In this episode, Dan and Kiley share...

Are you speaking your prospect's language, or your own? In this 180 Conversation, Dan and Kiley break down an outreach that uses plenty of industry jargon but alienates the prospect.

Platforms that help you scale and leverage your outreach time and effort can have value, but if your approach focuses on you, your services, and what you want – the only thing you're automating is your neediness and desperation. In this episode, Dan and Kiley review a specific example of how automating outreach can go wrong.   

Making assumptions during your prospect conversations is a clear indicator of an amateur (sales) mindset. It limits the trust you build, what you learn, and creates the prototypical sales experience that your prospects have come to expect. Every time you assume anything, you make it easier for the prospect to disqualify you and harder to differentiate yourself from your competition. In this episod...

How does outreach automation feel and sound to your prospects? In this 180 Conversation, Dan and Kiley clarify the difference between using automation to leverage and scale your outreach efforts versus deploying it out of laziness. Your prospects can tell when you are simply trying to play the numbers game - the "spray and pray" approach only tarnishes your brand. Why would your prospects invest t...

What is your outreach telling your prospect about your value? What's the cost of becoming too cute with your approach? Nothing against hippos, but they don't do well around humans or within your email strategy. In this 180 Conversation, Dan and Kiley break down the ways your outreach is diminishing your value before you even start a conversation.

This episode may change how you view your sales process. Do you assess your prospect conversation based on what you got out of it or what your prospect experienced? You bring a perspective into and out of every prospect conversation: Did we connect enough? Did they answer our questions? Did they agree to next steps? These are common benchmarks for many sales professionals in measuring the quality...

How are you approaching prospects on LinkedIn?  LinkedIn's technology and automation are misused 90% of the time, potentially destroying any opportunity to start a conversation. When you approach prospects on social media, your intention may be to scale your outreach efforts but you risk hurting your brand. In this 180 Conversation Dan provides guidance on the high-performance approach to prospect...