Sales Strategies with Alaska MEP

Live with Alaska MEP

Join us and sales guru, Wesleyne as we discuss high level sales strategies to grow your business.

Live Summary

Join Sami Jo Lewis from the Alaska MEP and eCommerce Evangelist for Manufacturers Curt Anderson - Founder of B2Btail as Wesleyne from Transformed Sales shares high level sales strategies to grow your business.

To learn more about how the Alaska MEP can assist your business, connect with us online: https://alaska-mep.com

Key Highlights

• How did you get into sales? 1:59

• Why is it so important to focus on a core customer? 6:17

• What is a bloated sales funnel? 10:21

• How to get long-term customers. 13:19

• How to work smarter, not harder on your sales process. 15:25

• Know more than your customers about your product. 19:51

• Wins and losses report. 22:25

Transcription

Sami Jo Lewis 0:03

Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us. We are having this a day early and we're super excited because we have a fantastic guests and speakers with us today. I want to start introduce my wonderful co-host and helper Curt Anderson super happy to have you here again with us. I'm just talking to manufacturers.

Curt Anderson 0:24

Sami Jo, thank you what an absolute honor and privilege it is to be here and I'm so glowing because I got to hang out with you live in person just two weeks ago. I still I wish I was there and got to hang out in Anchorage with you. We went to Kenai we went to Palmer. So I got to cover all sorts of fun places. I got to hang out with Holly your little wonderful, beautiful two year old now. And so we had so much fun. So thank you for that opportunity. But welcome to the Alaska MEP. And you know, so every other week we're doing a live stream here. And Sami Jo was bringing just high level wonderful guests in boy we're hitting a home run today. It is my honor, it is my privilege to introduce my esteemed friend Wes lean president and founder of Transformed Sales Wesleyne. How are you my friend?

Wesleyne 1:10

I'm doing fantastic.

Curt Anderson 1:13

Well, welcome to the program. We are super, super excited. And guys Wesleyne is a recovering chemist who is a sales guru leadership expert. If you are on LinkedIn, and I'll tell you what, whether you're on LinkedIn or not, you need to fall asleep on LinkedIn and we might dig into that a little bit. But see me Joe, why don't we kick things off and go ahead, let's start fires. For some fastballs Wesleyan says sweet she can handle anything that we've gotten. But let's we'll start unpacking some sales strategies for our manufacturers here in Alaska.

Sami Jo Lewis 1:45

Wonderful. Thank you so much for being here with us Wesleyan. I think Curt started off right. I want to dive a little deeper. And how did you go from recovering chemists to now the sales leadership coach that you are today?

Wesleyne 1:59

Ah, yes. So I started my career in the petrochemical industry. I was working with plastic pellets, I was making things and I was always curious. I was like, why are we doing this? What is the purpose of this? I'm tired of being in the lab and not talking to people. So I actually would always go seek out the salespeople when they got back from the trips. And I would be like, so what did you do? Who did you see what do you talk about? And that really piqued my interest into getting into sales. And I tell people, when I got into sales, I finally figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up, because I loved everything about it. And because of my love and my desire, my passion, I read books, I attended seminars, I there weren't as many webinars back then. But seminars, books, podcasts, and I got really good. And so I became an international sales manager really, really quickly. And when I became an international sales manager, and the first six months, I fell flat on my face, people were leaving, we were not hitting our numbers. It was a whole it was horrible. It was really, really bad. And so I was like, What is wrong with me? I wasn't really good sales mercy. Why can I not teach other people to sell? Why can I not inspire them and motivate them. And so I literally had to take a look at myself. And I was like, I'm the problem. The problem is Wessling. And so I had to invest in myself to figure out how to lead other people how to not treat everyone like a mini me. And once I did that, and I unlocked that within six months, it was a completely different thing. People were begging to come work for me, I had zero turnover, we were hitting our numbers of double digits every single month. And so about five years ago, I decided that what I did for the company I worked for I wanted to do for organizations all across the world. And so that's how transform sales came to be.

Curt Anderson 3:47

Wow, Wesleyne, I'm gonna be honest with you, we've been friends for quite some time we worked, you know, extensively. And I don't know if I knew that story. So I want to I want to unpack that for a minute. I know, we have a ton of coverage,Sami Jo, but I want to cover that for a minute, which is, you know, again, going back in time, you know, you kind of like, you know, you can fast forward stories, but was there you know, first off, kudos to you for the humility to look in the mirror. And so for anybody out there listening owner, or many of the manufacturer or sales team or whatever, you know, and we're all leaders in one way or another? Was there an aha moment? Or like, how did you get that taste of humility to say like, Man, I need to I need to turn myself around. And you certainly did. But what was there an aha moment that came to you or how did that happen?

Wesleyne 4:30

Yeah, it was, you know, one person leaves another person leaves, you know, it's okay, because you're like, the new kid on the block, and they're just not happy with what's happening. But by the time that third person was like, I think that this isn't I don't, I don't, I'm putting my notice. And I was like, okay, so I literally, that was my humble pie moment. And I had a real exit interview with them. And I really I was like, So what are the challenges you're experiencing? What is the reason you're leaving? And they were like, Like, the way that you lead, it's you always talking about yourself, you're always saying, when I did this, when I was a salesperson, you're so focused on what you did, and you want us to fit into your little tiny box. And it feels very crushing. It's like really oppressive. And so this iron fist that you're rolling with, it just doesn't work for me. And I'm not making money anymore, because I'm so stressed out because you want us to do everything exactly your way. So that was a moment, I was like, Oh, I'm the problem. I mean, and it just smacked me in the face. And after that, and so literally the way that people see me show up today, and even my employees in my company, they tell me, I am the best person that they have ever worked for. I they love working for me because like I treat everybody like a human. And I lead with empathy. So I really took to heart what that person told me so many years ago, because if it wasn't for that person being able to say that because you know, when you leave a job, you don't care anymore, if they weren't able to say that I would never be able to lead the way that I lead today.

Sami Jo Lewis 6:04

That's powerful. I love that you're able to really dive in deeper with your exit strategy. And I also feel like it just shows so much that you're able to come on live and share with us I like it didn't start off so great. Like there was some challenges. And there were some hardships that you really had to realize, to now get you to where you are today of super successful sales leadership coach. So I really appreciate you sharing about that. All right, so our next question I want to hit you is why is it so important to focus on a core customer think you kind of talked about that a little bit, and just the way you were able to niche down? So why is that important to focus on our core customer, instead of trying to be everyone do are everything to everyone.

Wesleyne 6:48

So when you become everything to everyone, you become nothing to no one right? And so what does that mean? If I? Because I can do I get requests all the time, hey, we have this leadership team and HR, and they really need XYZ and I'm like, do they generate revenue? If your answer is no, I am not for you, right? Because every people know that I am a sales leadership guru. I have sales tips, sales techniques, from leadership to teams. And so what now that I'm known for that, I get a lot of inbound inquiries, right. So most of our business is inbound, based on the content that I put out on LinkedIn based on the things that I say. And so when you have a product that you are selling, that you're putting out into the market, if you say I make this widgets, specifically for stay at home moms that have boys between the ages of five to 15, that means stay at home moms that have worth between five to 15, while the kids are at school, they're going to be on your website, they're going to be engaging in your content, they're going to be reading your blog, because they're like you get me. And that's what you want every single one of your prospects and your customers to feel like you understand me on a human level, you know exactly who I am. Because you've dug really, really deep and you went you understand the underlying problems and their pains

Curt Anderson 8:05

was clean. So you and I've done tons of webinars, workshops, and I now tell you I never I learned something new from you every time. And that, that you're lying, when you try to be everything to everyone, you are nothing to no one that never gets old for me for you know, it's an entrepreneurial curse. Boy, if I could if I had one superpower, if I could get rid of the shiny object syndrome, right? How do you help manufacturers, your entrepreneurs, you know, whether like you give Wesleyne tough love, but you know, how do you politely How do you identify? I am you know, how do you tell somebody like you are out of focus that you are too, you know, how do you help them niche that down in a tactful constructive way where the where they don't give you resistance?

Wesleyne 8:50

So I start by asking them who is your ideal client? Right? And so a lot of times people will tell me, so we're working with a lot of manufacturers now. And they're like operations managers, plant managers, right? And that that is who they're thinking about. And I'm like, unfortunately, they don't have time for you. So they just don't like they don't have time for you. And so they're like, but they're the ones who make the decisions. They have the money. And so we have to go through all of those things. Yes, they hold the budget, yes, they make the decision. But your job is to understand who within the organization has the biggest problem, the biggest pain, and you scratch that itch, and you help them realize that this challenge that they're having, you can help them solve, they will get the money, they will get the budget, they will get the sign off, but you have to really think about you go deep so you go layers within the organization. And that's what you do.

Curt Anderson 9:44

So good. So Sami you're asking phenomenal questions here. And as you can tell, like, you know, she's going to handle anything. What else do we have for?

Sami Jo Lewis 9:56

All right, so can you share your best tips and tricks strategies for small manufacturers how to create a healthy sales pipeline.

Wesleyne 10:06

Oops, healthy sales pipeline. So first, I have to talk about the unhealthy sales pipeline. Because we have to talk about what we don't want before we talk about what we do want. So I, there are a couple different ones that I really like to talk about. Well, I'll talk about the bloated funnel. So if you think about a sales funnel, it actually looks like a funnel, just like a water funnel, you pour something in the top and it comes down small at the bottom, it is made like that, because you need more prospects more leads. To get clients, you need more shots at the goal. A bloated funnel is when you have a lot of the same people, you're getting a lot of your business from the same companies from the same area from the same kind of organizations, or you have all these people on your marketing list, you have all these people following you on social media. But they're not converting. And even further, if you have sales people and those sales people, they're like out doing lunch and throwing events and doing all this stuff, but nothing is converting, that means you got have a lot of stuff stuck in the middle, right? And so your job is how do I get the stuff stuck in the middle out. So the reason a funnel is made, the way that it is made, you need to have way more leads way more prospects than you do clients. Because at each stage in your sales funnel in your sales pipeline, there's about a 33% chance that you're going to convert, right. And so if you need just one customer, you use the rule of threes to get back up, right? So if I have 100 people, I start with 100 people, what does that mean, I'm only gonna get 33 People who are actually going to demo who are gonna get on a call with me, who are going to even click through and add something to their cart if you're an ecommerce manufacturer. So you really have to think about that. And those 30 from those 33 people, you're gonna get like 11 that will say, Yes, I will buy from you, right, and so just 11 people from 100 that you hit. So if you feel like you don't have enough paying customers, the problem, the thing that you need to do is go back to the top, figure out how you can get more shots at the goal, because that conversion rate is just a natural thing, even in the best event even I mean, I teach people how to sell our conversion rate right now, it's probably around 50% Because everybody who comes to you isn't ready to buy. So sometimes it's not even your fault. And sometimes you're out of their price range. And so there are things that are out of your control. And so more SATs angle,

Curt Anderson 12:32

shots at goal, right, that's some fantastic Okay, so describing the funnel, so if the funnel is new to somebody, can you describe like, let's get into like the conversion, like when when you get down towards the bottom of the funnel? What are some tips, you know, like, man, they really enjoyed the webinar or they enjoyed the Lunch and Learn that we did or they enjoyed the we read the tradeshow booth in a really dig in what we were talking about are they we scratch that itch as you described, or we were hitting that pain point, when you get to the lower part of the funnel, what what are some strategies there to help convert, let's get them in the endzone any tips there.

Wesleyne 13:09

So it depends on if you are, you know, selling a product primarily online, if this is more like a face to face sales, like what you're doing. And so I'll give you examples for each of them. If you have a product that I would say is probably less than $100 per per item, if you will. So that will be a quick sale, your job is to get a long term customer, right, like you want that evangelist, that person who keeps coming back and keeps coming back your customer services key, you meet them at a trade show you meet them on a webinar, you need to touch them click and touch them with high impact, right send them a quick video message. Or if you do text marketing, whatever that is, like give them value, value, value value. And all of these lower the funnel is all about value value value. So that's if you have a smaller ticket item, as you get up to the larger and larger ticket items, you're gonna have some kind of discovery meeting, some kind of phone call. And your job is to be quiet and listen. Let the prospect talk, allow them to share their problems allow them to share the challenges that they're having reflected their words back to them. Right. So people like to hear that their words people love hearing, like if you say so what I understand is this current solvent that you're purchasing, it's not really doing exactly what you needed to do. And everything else that you've seen in the market is twice as expensive. Did I get that correct? Yes, that's it. That's it. You get me oh my gosh, where do I sign I want this now. Right? So really listening. And as you're lowering the funnel, whether you have an item that is not that expensive, or if it's you know, a couple $100,000 really stepping into the buyers world is important. So thinking about if you send them a video saying hey, it was so great to meet you that Ah, so I really want to schedule time for us to chat, share something you learned about them make it personal to them.

Curt Anderson 15:09

So good, right? So it's like a sponge like we just met when we're asleep. And for the record for our social media friends out there, if you're using hashtags, it's hashtag Wesleyne wisdom in so we're going to be digging into her social media a little bit, but say me, Joe, let's keep rolling here. What other questions do we have for mostly?

Sami Jo Lewis 15:29

Okay, so what advice do you have for manufacturers on how to work smarter, not harder when it comes to their sales process? Oh,

Wesleyne 15:38

fan? Yes. So first of all, you should focus, like sales needs to be a core part of what you do. Because as a small manufacturer, you think about your product, you think about your operations, you think about marketing, but sales kind of gets lost in the middle, right? You don't really think about the fact that they have a great product or marketing it, I'm doing all the things to attract people, but I'm not converting them. So the first thing is to recognize that sales is an integral part of what you should be focusing on every single day. And when you think about sales, I want you to think about conversion. So I want you to think about the people on your email list the people that are following you on social media, the people who have purchased from you before, how can I convert them more? How can I convert them faster, and spend a concerted amount of time each day and this should be on your calendar, 30 minutes, right? I hour every day, this is a time I'm focusing on sales. And when I'm focusing on sales, I'm focusing on conversions. And when you think about what is my process, your process needs to be make it simple for you, if you're going from not doing anything to starting to lay out a process, get a spreadsheet, get one of these free CRM, CRM, HubSpot or something it's there's so many free tools out there, CRM, sorry, customer relationship management tool. So something where you can load all your contacts up, you can say I call this person this time, I'm gonna send this person every sample some kind of database where you can kind of keep your customers in. And it's literally like from interest, to nurture to close, right interest, they came, they visited the website, they came to the booth, they did a website inquiry, nurture is I'm giving them some hot content I'm giving I'm getting on the phone with them, I'm understanding their challenges, then closes, I'm sending them a proposal, I'm sending them a quote, I'm literally closing the business. So have it's as simple as that like three steps. And your job is to know every person that is an active client for you. What stage are they in this journey? Are they at that initial contact, if you have too many people up there, you might your funnel might be way too wide, you may not be spending enough time in that conversion. If you have a lot of people that are just nurturing that means you're not pushing them out, you're not moving them along the process.

Curt Anderson 17:57

That's fantastic. So you know, let's we're going to dig into social media in a minute. But like, content wise for a manufacturer, or maybe that's new to them, muscling any tips advice, where like, you know, the thought of them sitting down, like whipping out a blog, or maybe they're a little gun shy as far as like, you know, getting on Facebook, Youtube or, or LinkedIn, any, you know, how do they tip their toe in, you know, to get in, get that content going to get that to nurture that client as you're describing?

Wesleyne 18:27

It's for different people. Some people are writers, some people are talkers, it depends how you what is most comfortable for you, right? I am a talker, I will talk all day long every day. If you can't tell, I love to talk. So I literally I'm an introvert knows this, I think Curt is actually using it to help them write a book, like I have this app on my phone. It's called otter.ai. And so you literally just talk into it. And it automatically transcribes for you. It's probably about 80 to 90%, right? And you can take those transcripts. And you literally just post that on whatever your social media places, and how do you even come up with your content? What are the questions your customers ask you all the time, like, sit down and literally write out all the questions your customers asked you? How does this work? Why do you do this? This is broken, how do I fix it? That is what people want to see. They want to see solutions for their problems. So literally, if somebody's always asking, let's say you manufacture granola bars, right, and they're like, I really love all your granola bars. But my favorite is the cranberry, the cranberry one. I was wondering, do you have any cool recipes that you use with this cranberry, cranberry granola? All righty. Let me whip a recipe for you. And literally just tuck it into otter or if you're gay typing it out, just type it out. So listen to the things that your customers are asking you for. Anytime a customer asks you a question. Have a Word doc, a Google Doc, a note on your phone and just type the question out and then you can rattle it off off the top I pick your brain because you're the subject matter expert. And so that's the key, you know more than your customers about your product. So don't feel less like, insecure about saying something wrong, you know more about the thing than they know. So just talk about it talk from your heart, my videos from like, I don't know, 2018 I look at them. I'm like, Oh, my gosh, restlessly what was actually even happening here. And now I just get on here. And I just couldn't roll, right. But it took a lot of iterations. And it took me watching myself and saying, I don't like this, maybe we should change that. And do that. That is how you become better. So just try, just start, just do it. Just

Curt Anderson 20:41

get off the sidelines. Build, I love it. And our little joke, our tagline stop being the best kept secret. But just recap what was insane. So say, you know, you're a small manufacturer, there's only you know, a team of five team, a team of 10. If you're the owner, maybe there's one engineer, maybe your customer service, and everybody's kind of thrown on their sales hat, you're you know, you don't really have a dedicated salesperson, you know, what, what seems describing it's, you know, if you're in customer service, grab the owner and like, interview them, ask them what are some of those key questions, grab the engineer and ask those tough questions. As you're, if you're in customer service, and you're hearing those questions over and over, as was describing jot those down, save those, you're actually create a sales enablement tool, making your life easier, not harder, you know, so I absolutely love this. Amy Jo, you are on fire. With great questions here. What else do we have for Wesley?

Sami Jo Lewis 21:31

Thank you, Wesleyne. And I love that you brought that up. I think that's so important. I love that you brought up otter, we have actually just started implementing otter, I think it is a very great and powerful tool that we use, and to try to just make your time more efficiently. If anyone wants to hop on our website, Wesleyan also did a wonderful webinar on cleaning up the calendar. And she knows how to make it more efficient to even put more time in for sale. So I just wanted to throw that out there. Because I know I took a lot from that. But another question we have is, you know, you love to talk about instead of chasing new leads to really nurture as you were referring to existing customers, can we dig deeper on that and share the importance of really nurturing existing customers, rather than chasing new leads?

Wesleyne 22:14

Yes, your existing customers, there should be a key part of your sales strategy to extract more business from the people that you've done business with before. I like to do this thing. I call it a win loss report. So I actually go to customers that we've lost and customers that we won. So and this is something that you should do often. So once a quarter, you pick five people, you want five people you lost, and you ask them, why did we win? And then you ask the ones, why do we lose, right? And so you get that voice of customer. And what you do is from those customers that you've won, you want to do more of that, right? You don't want to ever make your existing customers feel like they are second class citizens. So if you have a customer that typically buy something from you, once a quarter, your goal should be like how do I get that once a quarter buyer to being a once a month buyer? If they're buying something from me once a month? How can I add more to their existing order, I want to increase it 20%. So you have conversations with them. And this conversation can be again, depending on the size of the average size of the product that you're selling, maybe you have 1000s of customers. So you don't have that one on one interaction time. But do a quick survey, like just do a survey monkey or something and get their information from them that way. And what that will allow you to do is see like customers made let's say you sell custom tea, and they're like, I really like having one cup of tea every morning. But in the evenings, I would love to have a tea that's non caffeinated. Okay, so in this custom tea subscription, let's add a little nightcap or something like that for three days a week, right? Like use the voice of the customer figure out what is a value to them, so that you can add more to your top line. And you're adding more to their bottom line because they're happy. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 24:05

I love that was seen and I'll tell you a couple big things that I've learned from you is if you feel like you're just hitting it right there, the more as a main or any business that you're in as entrepreneurs, the more that we understand our customers customer, the more loyal you're going to have a customer, the more you understand your customers customer. And I love what you're saying here Wesleyan like when you come in and like is it okay? If I come in with a mindset like what else? Can I sell them? What else can I sell them? But how can I help them make more money? Customer How can I help you make more money? What is your customer going through? And I absolutely love that. So I want to dig in here. Could you talk about you, I learned from you on a daily basis. You're my accountability partner. You're my coach on LinkedIn and you are posting relentlessly on a daily basis. Leadership tips, thought tips, just your incredible mother a woman of faith I just admire you for Fact you commend you just love you. You're just an awesome blessing in my life. Can you just share? Like, how did you get so aggressive on on on social media? And like, just how are you such a go giver? So how did you get so aggressive on social media? And how did you become such a Go Giver with your messaging?

Wesleyne 25:18

So I will start this will say, I did it scary, I did it hard. And I tell people that all the time, do it scary, do it hard. I literally at the beginning of I don't know, 2021, maybe I was like, I'm gonna post every single day on LinkedIn. And I didn't know where the content was coming from. I didn't know what I was gonna do. I just said, this is what I'm gonna do. And so anytime I make a goal for myself, or I want to do something, I watch people who have bigger networks who are doing more things than I am doing, right. And so what I found from the people who were providing me valuable content was they were sharing they were teaching, they were giving of themselves unapologetically. Right. And so that's what I did, then I did in my own very little way. And initially, it was very, you know, it's all business. Like, I wasn't as open, I wasn't as forward. But then I started getting feedback. And people would be like, I really liked that post. I'm like, Oh, you liked that post, I was really forward. Okay. Okay. So I'm learning the West, my customer, they give me feedback. And I do more of that. And then I started even doing so like, on the weekends, I'll do like more personal content, like me, and the boys or Me Doing Something went to church or whatever that is, because I'm a human. And I want people to understand that it's okay to be human. You don't always have to be business like, like we have, we all have challenges. And so that is really the way that I got started. And the way that I create my content is I know my natural gift is the gift of gab of talking. So how most of my content actually comes I have a podcast, it's called Transform sales podcast, anybody who wants to subscribe, check it out. And so a lot of my content actually comes from the podcast, because we pull out videos, and then we're writing segments based on what I say. And then from my coaching and my training, like I get all of my content from what I'm already doing. So it's not a heavy lift, because it's not like I'm recreating the wheel.

Curt Anderson 27:20

Yeah, that Alright, so just to repeat, unpack for a minute, and I know we're gonna be winding down here. We're almost, we're coming into time. But a couple of things that Wesleyan shared right there. Number one, well, Wesleyan question for you. How did you and I connect LinkedIn. You've been such an enormous blessing to me. We've done a significant you know, we've been very fortunate. So grateful, we've done a significant amount of business, Wesleyan works with a number of MEPs in different states. And you in his matter of fact, in the state of Illinois, I believe you're rated as one of the top vendor consultants at the Illinois MEP, and you do a great deal here with our friends in Alaska. So you are a tremendous blessing, but you're not connected through LinkedIn. Wesleyne just mentioned, you know, it was scary. She just got herself out there. She made a commitment. It's like going to the gym. And what another word that I'd like to populate, or reshare that she just shared. Repurpose. She's taking content from her podcast in repurposing it. So like working smarter, not working harder. Remember that line earlier? So Sami, Jo, I know we're winding down any parting thoughts, words of wisdom or last questions that you want to hit hit Wesleyan before we wrap up?

Sami Jo Lewis 28:31

Thank you so much, Curt. And thanks, Wesleyne. And I love this. Do it scary. Do it hard. I absolutely love that quote. I think that definitely resonates because I just know everything as a small business owner or small manufacturer. Just getting out there is such a scary thing. But like you, you're not going to be successful until you do it unless you get out there and you do it. So I so appreciate that. I just think that was such a fabulous quote, to end on. I so loved having you here. So thank you so much. And I look forward to hopefully having you on here. Again. We'll be doing more live interviews, every other Thursday's typically throughout the month. So thank you so much for being here.

Wesleyne 29:09

Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. Thanks,

Curt Anderson 29:12

guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks, Sami Jo.

Sami Jo Lewis 29:14

Thanks, Curt.