How to Add $1 Million to Your Sales Pipeline in Less Than 90 Days w/James Carbary @SweetFish Media

The Sales Acceleration Show

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Prospecting is one of the toughest jobs in sales and many reps and companies are confused about how to best approach this difficult task. James Carbary and Sweetfish Media have the answer. In this episode, James Carbary discusses his 12-step process to help companies perform targeted prospecting and marketing to achieve revenue goals.

Step 1 - Prospecting
Being creative enough and disciplined enough to generate content is hard. James' approach to this obstacle is to let us others create content for you by allowing guests to choose the topic and share their content.

Step 2 - Outreach
People rarely answer email especially when it's cold. People almost always answer when reaching out and asking people to participate in an industry leading podcast. It's mutually beneficial to you and your prospect. The key is to keep the reach out simple and don't overcomplicate it.

Step 3 - Follow Up
Don't get frustrated if after initial contact you have to reschedule multiple times. People are busy. Find a way to automate your follow-up to ensure you don't drop the ball on your end.

Step 4 - Guest Chooses Topic
Don't send emails back and forth trying to debate and discuss a topic. Simply allow your guest to choose the topic. They are an expert at their craft and normally have many topics they are passionate about.

Step 5 - Schedule
Getting a time on both people's calendar is never easy. Email ping pong sucks. Use a tool like Calendly and it will change your life. You also need to realize you're dealing with busy people so James' recommends keeping your sessions short.

Step 6 - Prep
James' recommends that you don't prep over email but take 5 min before you actually record each interview to have a “pre-call” with your guest. During this session, discuss 3-5 points regarding their topic. This is important as it's better to structure during your interview that just wing it.

Step 7 - Record
There are a lot of programs you could use to record sessions but Skype is your best bet. Keep your interviews short. James' recommends 12-15 minutes.

Step 8 - Schedule
Once complete make sure you take the time to clean up the audio and then upload it to an audio podcast hosting service like Libsyn. Don't forget about show notes!

Step 9 - Notify
Once the episode is live, send the information to your guest so they can share it with their networks. This helps broaden your reach and continue to build your following.

Step 10 - Repurpose
You have great content sitting in an audio file. It would be a shame not to take that audio and repurpose it into a well-formatted blog post or some other medium.

Step 11 - Promote
Promote: Promote, promote, promote! Make sure you get the episode out there with great visuals, quote images, and solid headlines.

Step 12 - Initiate
Now, the most important step. You have to initiate the sales conversation after each episode goes live. You've interacted with this person multiple times over phone and email and now it's time to turn that relationship into revenue.