Ravi Rajani helps B2B sales teams captivate their customers, build trust, and sell more by unlocking the power of story. Ravi is here to help you craft stories that sell and deliver sales presentations that convert.

The number one key to opportunity creation is making your prospect believe that you’re someone worth talking to and that you have something worth talking about. That’s it. That’s the bar you’re trying to clear.

In order to make someone else believe it, then you’d best believe it too. 

Most salespeople have terrible definitions of what it means to succeed and what it means to fail. The lack of perspective sets the bar way too high for most people to see exactly how well they’re actually doing.

Harriet Mellor is a sales coach for small to medium sized businesses and individuals. She’s also the host of the Sell Like You Podcast.

We’re hearing a lot about ChatGPT these days. The technology is either thrilling or terrifying, depending on your point of view. The idea that there are infinitely efficient brains out there doing the same work we’re doing is quite a proposition.

I was asked recently about how I think it can/will affect the work that salespeople do. I haven’t played with the tool enough on my own, and it’s still way too early in the game to make definitive statements, but it’s clear that AI is a force to be reckoned with. It’s not going away, and it’s only going to get better.

Selling is necessarily not a tangible “thing.” There are so many right ways to do it, that what is wrong for someone might be perfect for someone else.

The sales process is rigid, as I’ve mentioned before. That’s the science of selling. Your sales methods are fluid, and they represent the artistry behind what we do. Art is subjective, therefore so is selling.

I want you to stop trying to follow the rules, and realize that you can make them up.

David Priemer is the Founder and Chief Sales Scientist at Cerebral Selling, and he’s also a “psychologist to the stars.” If you don’t already have his book, Sell The Way You Buy, then why not? It’s a perennial bestseller and has been translated into 5 additional languages.

We’re a week into the new year, and I’m already disappointed that I haven’t accomplished all of my goals.

I know this is ridiculous, but it’s the feeling I get every year at this time, and I’m sure some of you do too. It’s important to remember that any goal you set for the year is going to take habit and discipline to reach. You’re probably not going to create that kind of discipline in just a few days (or you haven’t really challenged yourself).

The books are closed on 2022. How would you classify your year?

For the past few weeks, I’ve naturally been having this conversation with a lot of people (as I’m sure you have too). This is always an introspective time of year for me, and I like to retreat a little bit from my normal day-to-day to think about how things are going and in which direction I’d like them to head.

After quite a bit of thought, the best way I can describe 2022 is “the best worst year I could have possibly had.”

On today’s show, I’m taking you back in time to share my sales origin story, and the moment I decided that I was going to do it the way I felt it needed to be done, or maybe I just wasn’t cut out for sales.

That was 15 years or so ago, so I’ll leave the verdict up to you. 😉

It was 2006. My almost 10-year-old stepson Michael had been skeptical of the jolly old elf for the past couple of years.

You could tell in subtle ways. The letter to Santa didn't go in the mailbox until just a few days before Christmas. Then the next year, he asked for the impossible-to-find toy. Somehow, improbably, he was always surprised and delighted on Christmas morning.

But that year was the ultimate test.

Today I want to define three key terms that are going to come into play this season: confidence, belief, and Resistance.

Confidence and belief are often used interchangeably. The word belief is even used in some definitions of confidence. While I don’t want to argue semantics, I believe (pun fully intended) that there is a major difference.

Great salespeople create an environment to buy.

Great sales leaders create an environment to sell.

If you lead a team, have you thought about this? Do you have an idea of what a great selling environment looks like?

As we wind down over the next couple of weeks (or accelerate at a breakneck pace to try and make a number for the year), in the quiet moments you have, I'd like you to think about this concept, and I'm willing to bet you haven't before.

We use the pendulum as a metaphor for extremes. We see it in social trends and politics all the time. It’s important to note that there is at least a thread of truth in the extremes, that’s why they get taken so far. When they get carried away, that’s when the momentum naturally causes a regression to the mean, which is usually a lot closer to the truth.

"You'll never sell better than when you Sell Like You” That rolls off the tongue really nicely, and people's eyes light up when I say that. They all seem to get it conceptually, but we have to peel back the layers of the onion here. What is the value of selling like you? What is the outcome, what happens to you? What happens to your results when you Sell Like You?

I love every new season of this podcast more than the one before, and the ones before have been pretty darn good. For Season 4, I’m thrilled to be talking about how to Sell Like You.

This concept came about in 2021 when I was speaking at the OutBound conference. It hit me like a ton of bricks during a conversation I was having with two rockstar sellers in front of my exhibit booth. Right away, I registered the domain and I knew I was onto something.

I’ve been obsessed with Steven Pressfield lately.

I was first introduced to The War of Art about ten years ago when Seth Godin referred to it in The Icarus Deception. It was impactful, and I knew the concept of Resistance (with a Capital R) was a big one, but that was barely the tip of the iceberg.

I don’t watch much baseball anymore. There was a time when it was ubiquitous on the tv every evening, but times change as kids grow up and they’re more interested in their own shows on the screen. I still manage to tune into the playoffs in October. Meaningful games are just too hard to turn down.

Today I'm publishing an article for the 364th consecutive Sunday. That's seven years.

My wife reminded me last night that this kind of consistency is not something most humans even endeavor, let alone pull off. In a world where daily creation and posting are the norms, it's easy to lose sight of the significance of a feat like this. So I'll take her advice and (gently) pat myself on the back for a second before I get ready to write something else for next week.

"That can't be it. You must be doing it wrong."

That's the inner monologue of the overwhelming majority of salespeople out there.

Every salesperson starts out having some kind of intuitive notion of what they need to do in order to sell their best. Then they promptly doubt it.