Salespeople are People Too

Rebecca Gebhardt is a successful author, speaker, and trainer that has built a successful business helping to elevate sales leaders. In this episode she shares her sales origin story and how she overcame early struggles and doubts. She has advice for aspiring sales leaders and her story from her humble start selling books door to door to running a successful business is an inspiration for those interested in a sales career.

When we engage with potential prospects in a sales cycle, there are 3 key things we need to understand: why anything, why now, why us. Too often salespeople rush into Why Us, trying to explain to a prospect why we are the best choice for them. The best of the best follow a more structured model, understanding first why the prospect would do anything, then understand why is now the best time, all before presenting the case for why they are best to solve it. In this episode I give some tips on how to prepare for an execute a sales call in the most effective manner. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

Lyle Smith - owner of the Marketing firm Nymblesmith and author of the new book Why Yellow Matters shares his personal story and journey in how he became associated with Brand Storytelling. Everywhere we go in life as salesperson, parent, spouse, business owner, candidate, or any other role we play, story telling is important. Lyle shares his journey from beat writer at a NJ Newspaper to Marketing Agency writer to Business Owner and now Author. Much to learn in here about the importance of focus, specificity and finding your niche. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

Whether you are in sales, leadership, or other professional role - the line between home, work, family is more blurry than ever. It is so easy for us to be impacted by others that are constantly inserting themselves in our lives. Taking control of these interactions and establishing boundaries in our life is critically important. Dana is the Queen of Boundaries - a licensed psychotherapist that works with people from all walks of life in how to manage the relationships in our lives. She gives practical advice on how to think of the people in your life and how to take control of the impact they have on you and your mental health. If you find yourself struggling with critical relationships in your life this episode is for you. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

Dr. Peggy Delong is an expert psychologist, author and speaker on the topic of Gratitude. She is sought out for her practical ideas on how to bring happiness into your life through the expression of gratitude. In this episode we hear her background story, some life experiences that caused her to take on this cause, and 5 practical daily exercises we can do to improve our lives. Her Grateful Day program is a simple 5-step, 5-minute daily reminder on how to improve the quality of our mood and relationships. You can find all her great content at https://drpeggydelong.com/. Don't miss this episode! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

Alright - strap in for this one! I sat down with David Suson, one of the most successful speaker, coach and mentors in our industry. David has spoke before audiences totaling close to 400,000 people in his long career and he gets after it with passion in this conversation. He outlines practical advice for overcoming fear as a salesperson and outlines the techniques that he seeing applied consistently by the best salespeople we have in our industry. He even got my heart racing with his passion around personal development and sales excellence. I promise you will enjoy this all the way to his very last piece of closing advice. Good selling all! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

I sit down with Jason Grom, an extremely talented Coach and Trainer, to learn his secrets on maximizing our personal strengths. He provides tactical advice for how to master the 'Inner Game of Selling' as well as the importance of #LearningintheFlowofLife. Jason is a Coaches Coach and his equation of Talent x Investment = Strength provides a good lesson for how we can maximize our own potential. He shouts to the rooftops about the 'Honorable Profession of Selling' and you won't want to miss his practical advice on how to enjoy lifelong success. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Tom Kosnik to hear his perspective on his long and successful career as a salesperson, entrepreneur, husband, father, coach and mentor. This is truly an episode full of surprises with practical advice across a wide range of topics. Tom has an amazing sense of self-awareness and a ritual of practicing self-care that is truly inspiring. Tom gives at least 10 amazing and practical ideas and perspectives on how to balance all of the demands in life. He has given credit to '12-18 men and women' he has encountered throughout his life that have been there to help provide him coaching, mentoring and training advice. This one is good for the body and soul! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

I sat down with Cindy Cardinal, who has run her own consulting practice as a single shingle for 25 years. Cindy give practical advice and her own perspective on how she has used 'sales skills' to build her reach in support of her practice. She has great advice for anyone looking to get into consulting. Cindy touches on skills she has had to learn such as organizational skills, negotiation, and how to say 'no'. Tons of good nuggets in here! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

In this episode I sat down with Heidi Therrien and discussed her sales journey and how she has found her authentic self. Heidi is full of energy and passion and she openly shares many of the emotions salespeople confront during various stages of their career. She highlights her ability to confront and overcome adversity and shares her desire to help others. Grab a seat for this one, there is no chance to breathe! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

I sat down with Tracy Young, CEO of Tiger Eye. Tracy has an interesting story to tell starting with her journey to America as first generation from Vietnam. Her career is extremely diverse and shows how a creative, industrious and open mind can lead to radical success. She speaks about being a mother of 3 and how she and her husband started Tiger Eye and manage their busy but fulfilling lives. This has something for everyone! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

The difference between good-great-elite is often very small. In professional sports, sometimes the difference between a Gold Medal and no medal at all is less than a split second. As salespeople and sales leaders, often the difference between good-great-elite is just as small. In this episode I credit my dear friend Joel Hughes for his analogy of doing just 'One More Click'. I have some concrete thoughts for you to consider on your journey to success.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

In this conversation with Jeff Miller, we cover a wide range of sales topics including the importance of developing a sales playbook, the role of leadership and mentoring, and the way culture impacts a sales team. We talk about the role money plays in his career and how his firm has adapted to change over their 100+ year existence. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

In this episode I sit down with Lori Richardson, founder of Score More Sales, Women Sales Pros, and the author of her latest book She Sells. Lori is a champion for our profession and a thought leader on encouraging and promoting more women in sales. We get into her own sales origin story and how she has grown from a feet on the street, to sales leader, to entrepenuer and industry champion and advocate.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

In this episode, Tyler Witt discusses his advice for salespeople to help build a successful long-term career. Tyler and his colleagues launched the Students of Sales  (www.studentsofsales.com) learning platform to promote and teach the core skills of professional selling. We get into his insights and experiences over his career and talk about his passion project to help train and develop the next generation of sales professionals. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

I had the chance to sit down with an up-and-coming sales leader - Ben Bauleke. Ben works for one of the largest Healthcare companies in the US and has quickly risen his way from sales trainee to leading a team of 7 Directors and 120 salespeople. Less than 6 years into his selling career he has developed a series of experiences and ideas that have propelled him to stand out in his organization. We get into what drives him, how his priorities have changed in life and his keys to success. If you are early in your sales career, considering a move into sales, or have aspirations for being a top performer, this one is for you. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

I sat down with Melissa Prentice to learn her sales career story and she shared some unique ideas and experiences that are relatable to all salespeople. She has an amazingly positive attitude and perspective on life, her career, and sales in general. We touched on a wide range of subjects including what motivates her to do what she does and how her forward-looking approach has spurred her career. We touched on her perspective on being both a woman in sales as well as being African-American, how to make sales more attractive and inclusive for people of all backgrounds and how those perspectives have influenced her career. This is some good inspirational stuff and very worth the listen!  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

In this episode, I sit down with April Drummond who oversees a large sales organization at a Fortune 500 CPG company. We cover a wide range of subjects starting all the back in her early days as a feet on the street salesperson, through her various different leadership roles, and through to today where she leads a national sales function. We get personal around her experiences and her thoughts on being a woman sales leader. We go into her personal philosophy on the importance of Consistency - Autonomy - Impact in the people she hires. April's story is aspirational for those who want to build a lifetime career in sales! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

I sat down with Kristy Swanson to talk all things Sales and we got into some great subjects. We covered her early career, her growth path, and even some thoughts on her future. We also got personal and covered topics around being a woman in sales and the challenge of being a mom with 4 teenage daughters. Kristy tells it all and shows other women how being great in your job can be a role model for your children!   --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support

I had the opportunity to sit down with Dana Santos and talk about her career journey in working and supporting salespeople. Dana has worked as a recruiter (also Sales), Implementation Manager and currently as a Product Manager in Marketing. We get into the importance of how salespeople should cultivate relationships with their sales partners and create open dialogue to share ideas on how to continue to be competitive. We need to constantly improve our business acumen and understanding of the issues our partners in marketing have and Dana provides us great insight into that challenge.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brett-keirstead/support