Ask the Right Questions, The Sales and RevOps Podcast

This episode explores the most significant reasons companies have difficulty following a defined sales process and what sales processes offer to organizations and their salespeople. Sales processes allow you to sell more value to your prospective buyer. The sales team is selling more and selling more value. It seems like it's something most companies would want. So why do so many get it wrong? In...

Marketing. It's still one of those things that people either love or hate. Business leaders can't seem to allocate enough time and resources for marketing. They can't build a scalable marketing practice that can provide sustainable, long-term growth. Small business owners don't want to wait six months to see results but also want to ensure they're investing in the proper marketing practices. Too o...

We often hear this question. It seems like a simple enough question. If you asked 100 small business owners, you'd get many different answers and opinions.  Sales reps will always tell you that they're doing great.  - "I'm doing all the right things!" - "We're out in the field!" - "We called all our old customers!" For every sale, they say, "I was right there with them." So how do we hol...

Stop wasting your leads' time. Stop pitching. When you meet someone for the first time, how do you get them to pay attention? Inbound leads are probably further along in the buying process than outbound leads, but does that matter? Tactically, yes. The truth is, though, no one wants to get pitched. Instead, try to get things rolling by starting a conversation. In this episode, Paul and Fab answer...

Salespeople are heroes in their way. They're the ones who are out there on the ground, making the phone calls, looking for new customers and ultimately using their time, energy and expertise to make sure that we're growing your business. They're amazing. But, economic uncertainty is plaguing many businesses and sales organizations today. With customers looking to their bottom lines and companies w...

Building a solid brand positioning is hard, and it's essential. But it doesn't have to be intimidating. A strong brand positioning means you can quickly and efficiently communicate what your business is about. It means that your company stands for something.  In this episode, Alyssa Milot joins us again to go through exercises you can use to build a strong brand positioning for your organizat...

Sales is hard. Prospecting is harder. And prospecting is where all salespeople struggle the most. How can we prospect more consistently? How can we transcend the fear and discomfort and put ourselves out there, reaching out to our prospects and asking for their business? In this episode, Paul and Fab unpack the fear of prospecting to help you break through your reluctance and create a compelling p...

The biggest question in sales is whether to pay somebody a commission for their behaviour or results. We've seen both. Results-based pay is more straightforward, but performance-based can be more motivating. But here's the thing: Companies should evaluate performance with established metrics before the reps hit their goals, regardless of which method they choose. Pre-established metrics communicat...

Have you ever considered using LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter in your business? In this episode, we sit with Alyssa Milot to share her tips and advice on how to get started and succeed.  Find out how she helps small businesses with social media makeovers. Enjoy the show!

Salespeople hate updating the CRM. So we automate, compromise and simplify. And what's wrong with that? At the core - nothing. But refusing to update your CRM is an indication that there's an underlying problem. You stay on top of your deals, contacts and companies by keeping your HubSpot or Salesforce up-to-date. Not doing so can be an indication that there's a lack of accountability in the sales...

How do you know if you're marketing is working? Evaluating the success of marketing efforts is tricky. Software like social media and email tools give you tons of data. But is it the correct information? In this episode, we sit with Alyssa Millot to talk about how to evaluate your marketing efforts.

In sales, you need to forecast what revenue will come this week, month, quarter and year. An accurate forecast allows you to determine future investments and hirings. They're crucial, but not all sales leaders know how to forecast with their teams.   In this episode, we discuss forecasts and how to run forecast calls with your reps.  Enjoy the show!

Sales coaching is one of the best ways to ensure your reps level up. Spending time with each one and helping them learn from their mistakes is a crucial responsibility of a sales leader. In this episode, Paul and Fab share how to best coach sales reps and how your CRM is an essential coaching tool. (NOTE: Paul experienced technical issues during the recording and dropped off before the end)

Interviewing salespeople isn't easy. After all, sales aren't your typical job and require particular skills and aptitude. And there's a lot of advice out there. In this episode, Paul and Fab talk about recruitment in sales and share some best practices. Enjoy the show!

Upsells, cross-sells, and renewals are the lifeblood of a company. Especially those with recurring revenue and usage-based pricing. But while we talk a lot about sales and marketing roles and responsibilities, we don't spend as much time looking at sales and service/account management functions.   In this episode, Paul and Fab explain who should handle expansions in your organization. Enjoy t...

How do I generate leads? How do I qualify them? It's a big topic, and so many companies struggle with it.  But it doesn't have to start that way.   In this episode, Fab and Paul sit with Alyssa Milot from Zen Strategies to discuss: Free lead generation strategies Sales and marketing alignment  The roles of sales and marketing teams in lead generation  The importance of SDRs ......

Your salespeople aren't calling? They're constantly updating, tweaking, but never actually selling? Are they lazy? Can you motivate lazy salespeople? We uncover the truth behind sales "laziness" in this episode. Enjoy the show!

WARNING: We veer off track and riff on various marketing and RevOps topics during the show, so enjoy! Marketing and RevOps need to work better together to help to company achieve its revenue goals. In this episode, we sit down with Alyssa of ZenStrategy to review marketing's biggest pitfalls and how both teams can work together.  

A Sales Manager job is interesting. Different roles, different job descriptions, and little-to-no job or manager training, it's more often than not, the path to growth for a lot of salespeople. In this episode, we discuss - What's the role of a sales manager? What skills does a sales manager need? Why do sales managers matter so much? Who does a sales manager work with most often? Where do they sp...

The number of sales tools available to teams keeps growing. But do they matter?  Are they moving the needle? Or is good old-fashioned elbow grease all you need? Naturally, tools matter, but there's a caveat... Enjoy the show!

Should sales reps be comedians? Well, not necessarily, but if your sales (and marketing) teams are having a hard time connecting with their audiences, you'll want to listen to this episode. Revenue teams should understand a comedian's process of writing jokes to figure out how to stand out in their markets. In a crowded world where every rep is sending the same email templates, gaining a deep unde...

Marketing is one of the three critical pillars of your revenue generation. Yet organizations still ignore it, misunderstand it and underinvest in it 🤷 That's why we sat down with Alyssa Milot, a fractional CMO who's worked with countless startups to help build out their marketing efforts. In this episode, we talk about: How Alyssa got into marketing and became a fractional CMO. What marketing cha...

Your sales methodology dictates how you sell to your prospects. While Consultative Selling is one of the most popular ones, it isn't the only one.   In this episode, we discuss these sales methodologies: Transactional selling Consultative selling Solution selling Provocative selling (by Philip Lay, Todd Hewlin and Geoffrey Moore in the HBR article In a Downturn, Provoke your Customer) SaaS se...

Everyone tells you to qualify your leads: inbound, outbound... qualify, qualify, qualify. Forget qualifying prospects. It would help if you focused on disqualifying instead. Every stage of your sales process should be about disqualifying and identifying leads that aren't a good fit. Bad fit leads don't close or churn, so we want to reduce the amount of time we work on them. When reps qualify, it's...

Warren explains how they built their company around their customers during this fascinating conversation. Warren shares how they center everything around the customer: from the first touch with the business to the long-term relationships. And the key to a genuine customer-first company? Your employees. Enjoy the show!