The Shift Control Sales Podcast

A short series of podcasts on the stuff that sales people can look after on their own so as to make their sales time more productive and more craic. I hate the media - not irrationally I hope, but I've an understanding of how the machine works and how it impacts our well-being. Negativity and bad news is the order of the day - lets not include the call in shows etc...but the morning news is one ba...

Hugh Gilmore has spent over a decade providing sport psychology support to Olympians and Paralympians, coaches and the associated multidisciplinary teams. He is passionate about training people in Motivational Interviewing, (MINT Member) and has also trained in Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT**) at the Albert Ellis institute in NYC. (**Acronym alert) In this podcast we discuss the broad a...

I watched a brilliant documentary over the weekend on Ange Postecoglou and his 12 month transformation of Celtic. You look on in awe at the speed of the cultural transformation, the off-field impact that has turned around on-file performance. IT's important to take a sense check on what is possible with a sales team referenced from a sports team. There are some major contextual differences and i r...

I won't lie to you on this one but there are 100 + resources online that could help you write better sales content. My perspective is a bit more basic than that - if you don't write a lot with your work, if you write mainly with acronyms and text-speak, if you didn't pass your English O'Level, GCSE, then you need to get a handle on the very basics of writing. The short cut to great sales copy does...

Some thoughts on account management that I wanted to share with you. I often see the roles as being under-developed within organisations and can be a number of reasons for that which I highlight briefly in this episode. Do you have the right people looking after the right accounts? Are you ignoring some potential accounts based on their current value to you rather than their lifetime value? Do you...

Curious to see how the return to work or the continued working from home is impacting your sales culture and how you are able to inject the spark into the weekly sales meeting/huddle/symposium or whatever you are calling it. For me there are some core issues that need to be discussed - as a broad framework - and everything else is built around that. What you want to come from the sales meeting is...

Sales cadence is an important part of any business development out reach. It puts some order and structure to what can be often random activities - emails, telephone calls, social media nudges etc...requires a measured approach. It represents the rhythm of your out reach - personalised messages targeted to the right person, over a predetermined time frame. It's where 'No means not yet' comes into...

45% of everything we do is habitual. That's around 6 hours a day that you're leaving in the incapable hands of your subconscious / unconscious mind. It made me think this morning of the challenge sales coaching presents to everyone involved - the business owner, the sales person AND me. Who wants to be told that what they have been doing for the last X years isn't as good as it good be? Lets face...

I could sound hypocritical here but everything I talk about here I struggle with from time to time - the biggest challenge I have is working rom home and having that consistent discipline to grind it out for 7 and 1/2 hours a day. Working from home will be a challenge for sales execs and fro business owners alike - how it fixes itself remains to be seen. But it's not the only challenge - poor diar...

There are myriad resources telling you all about the art of asking questions in sales - if you've not come across any, it's worth googling. Everyone knows about open and closed questioning techniques - high impact questions, directional, and and and... Sales effectiveness isn't about asking questions - IMHO - it's about curiosity...having an interest that goes beyond superficially asking a list of...

Most businesses will admit to following a strategic model for business development activities yet when things go wrong or a challenge appears from the competition or the marketplace, occasionally they head straight for tactics. In his biography Alastair Campbell talked in depth about OST - objectives, strategy, tactics - I have interviewed PR Smith on this podcast in the past - where he talks abou...

Some time ago I received a letter from a company who were representing a number of media companies and photography agencies. 2 letters actually, in and around the same time. Both asking for a serious amount of money to pay for a license for misuse of 2 images...otherwise court and a big fine and costs. Google the company...PicRights...not something that you want to get caught up in because the has...

Having worked in marketing for a car manufacturer and a car retailer, having coached a number of sales teams within the automotive sector, I still fall back on my role as a customer when it comes to critiquing the sector. Too often it's easy to criticise - for me, way too often and so it is always good to be able to give credit where it is due. I was buying a car for a friend coming over to Irelan...

Richy Donnelly is an entrepreneur and elite athlete, running the very excellent Natur&Co in Co Tyrone and playing Tyrone club Football with Trillick and inter county with Tyrone. WE had been in conversation way back before COVID about his desire and vision to set up a coffee shop with a focus on natural ingredients and wholesome foods, wellbeing and fitness - today his coffee shop, Natur&Co just o...

It's fashionable to talk about 'brand storytelling' but how many businesses actually succeed at communicating their business/brand narrative either through websites, marketing collateral or sales pitches? Jonny Willox is a student of English Language, professional story teller, dramatist and actor. He recently launched his first book into the children's book market with The Hairy Fairy. No tenuous...

Brand story telling has its origins in a post advertising world but much of what it is can be traced back to story telling and songwriting. Success leaves clues and Steve Earle leaves plenty across a body of work that spans half a century. How can your brand story be influenced by the work of one of country-musics most iconic, controversial and durable songwriters? Referenced in the podcast: - Jos...

The Irish playwright, Marie Jones has a strong body of work - most notably for me, Stones in His Pockets and the Blind Fiddler. My introduction to hurling followed the path of the Blind Fiddler - an introduction to one of the worlds sporting masterpieces, The All-Ireland hurling final. The weekend past, Tyrone and Ireland lost a sporting legend - Damian Casey, reminiscent of the death of Cormac Mc...

Over the course of this and the last series of podcasts, I had tried to uncover some of what it takes to build high performing teams in sales - more often than not, talking about improving performance in a way that is both relevant and meaningful to business owners and sales management in the SME sector. In this episode I talk with Noel Slane from Irish start up, Food Guard. Noel has experience an...

The Law of The Instrument is a cognitive bias based on - "if you only have a hammer, then everything is a nail." For years in sales all I had was features, benefits and questions - and not always the right kind of questions either. Today organisations and customers expect more from their sales contacts - much more. Features and benefits, whilst having some importance are irrelevant if the seller i...

Excuse the rant about Johnny Depp, Heard, The Jubilee and the rising cost of living as the lead into a discussion on the effective use of technology in a sales environment and the basics requirements for effective sales. Many businesses that we work with use technology sparingly across their business development efforts - others try anything once, retaining what's effective. We try and get sales t...

Kevin Young is a practitioner and counsellor in Compassionate Inquiry. Based in Northern Ireland, Kevin works closely with Dr Gabor Maté and works with teams and individuals throughout the world. He has a lifetime experience working in sales and sales management, working for corporates as well as being self-employed - he now coaches, offers counselling and mentoring as well as undertaking the impo...

I first spotted Callum on Linkedin where he publishes recorded content of his sales calls. I know some people that will not listen to their calls in private. Callum publishes them warts and all etc...critiquing the good and the bad. He generates business for companies across a variety of industry sectors and types and the way he talks about his work you can see where the value is and why he is suc...

This is the first Shift Control podcast of 2022 - also available on YouTube, featuring Gregory Bradley from BLK BOX, the Belfast based fitness equipment manufacturer. Celebrating 10 years in business, the company has grown into a genuine market leader and is considered to be one of the exemplar Irish manufacturing companies. In the week that the podcast was recorded they had just finished an insta...

A little while ago I had an interest in parts marketing, working with a couple of GAA teams. In the course of that work, I met with Enda Lynch who at the time was Head of Sponsorship at 02, when they were lead sponsor at IRFU as well as having naming rights at The Point / 02 music venue in Dublin. Shortly after, Enda moved to Thomond Park, home of Munster Rugby, working with one of the leading nam...

Much is made of the comparison between high performance sport and high performance sales - way too many sports books to mention that offer some excellent examples of people performing at the highest levels and the lessons those teams and managers can offer business. It's an honour to have Enda McNulty guest on the show as someone who achieved sporting success at the highest level with Armagh winni...