Use Sales Engagement To Break Through The Noise, with Mark Kosoglow, Episode #113

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Sales engagement is a fairly new term but one that every sales rep needs to understand and a skill they need to master. In short, sals engagement is the interactions that take place between a sales rep and a buyer that focus on how a seller communicates with the prospect and how effective that engagement is in moving the prospect toward a purchase. On this episode of #SellingWithSocial, I’m honored to have Mark Kosoglow, co-author of the book, “Sales Engagement” on the podcast.

Mark is a seller at heart, beginning his sales career selling shoes at the mall as a teenager. He’s run a small business, resurrected a dead sales territory through a decade of hard work, and has managed a sales team as well. Now he works as Vice President of Sales at Outreach.io - a sales engagement software platform that turns sales teams into revenue driving machines.

Join us to learn what sales engagement is, why an Omnichannel approach is vital, why more activity does NOT equal more results, how to personalize your sales conversations the right way, and more!

Omnichannel: Working To Find The Ways Prospects WANT To Engage

With the advent of digital technology and the use of social media, the noise buyers are exposed to is louder than ever. That means that the days when you could send one or two emails or make a few phone calls and get a buyer’s attention are gone - forever. You’ve got to learn how to engage on multiple fronts. Here at Vengreso, we refer to this as an Omnichannel approach so I was pleasantly surprised to hear Mark and his co-authors refer to it in the same way n their new book.

What is Omnichannel? It’s engaging with prospects in a variety of ways to get on their radar and secure a conversation. That could be through email, video, LinkedIn InMessaging, phone calls, and more. Listen to hear why Mark is of the opinion that sales leaders must be continually experimenting to find what works and why even the solutions they discover may not be the right combination for very long. But most of all, learn what to do to avoid making critical mistakes in your Omnichannel approach.

Today, More Activity Does Not Bring More Results

Before the advent of social media, sales teams had very limited avenues of reaching out to prospects: Email, phone calls, and door knocking. Back then it worked to crank up the number of contact attempts in order to get more sales conversations on the calendar. But it’s no longer the case. Why? Because the sellers have to break through just to get a prospect’s attention has increased dramatically.

That’s why sellers have to be smart in the ways they engage with buyers (the particular channels within your Omnichannel approach) and how they do it (with personalization). As a seller, those are the things that enable you to cut through the noise and secure conversations with people you genuinely have the ability to help. Listen to learn how Mark recommends personalizing your touches, why your methods won’t be the same even 6 months from now, and how to make a prospect “hot.”

Personalize Around The Pain, The Problem, And The Value

There’s a lot of misunderstanding about what it means to personalize a sales message. Take this example: You find an ideal prospect on LinkedIn and send a connection request. You personalize the request and reference the university they attended. That is NOT personalization - at least not the type that will matter to the prospect. Why? Because all you did was regurgitate a fact from their LinkedIn profile. You’ve got to make the personalization relevant to your connection request and to the problems or pains you know your product or service can help the prospect solve.

In this conversation, Mark and I brainstorm a handful of ways to make personalization of sales messaging more effective so listeners can understand what TO do and what NOT to do. You won’t want to miss it. Mark has great insights to share!

Don’t Wait For Sales Prospects To Become “Hot,” Make Them Hot!

As a seller, it’s your responsibility to help prospects see the relevance of the messaging you’re sending their way. They don’t know you or the service/product you sell. They don’t know how you can help them, so you’ve got to show them. But you don’t do it through pushy, insensitive messaging. You do it by serving.

In this conversation, Mark explains that truly “hot” prospects are not something that just falls into your lap, they are a condition you create in your buyers by serving them with relevant, personalized content that shows how much you care and that you've taken the time to understand them and the pain and problems they deal with. This is one of the most practical parts of our conversation so make sure you listen to hear Mark’s insights.

Outline of This Episode [1:17] Mark Kosoglow: a sales guy helping Outreach build its sales team and systems [5:35] Why Mark was willing to join Outreach.io at 100% commission [9:36] Sales has changed forever due to technology: sales engagement is born [11:50] Illustrating why Omnichannel makes all the difference [20:20] Good sales leaders experiment to understand what works [23:01] The existence of “Blitz days” mean sales professionals are not disciplined [30:35] How to know if a prospect is hot and deserves personalization [32:44] The WRONG ways to personalize with a prospect [37:34] Seller content that’s destined to lose [40:06] Video is not the cure-all. How to know if it will work or not Resources Mentioned Mark on LinkedIn Outreach.io - the company where Mark serves as Vice President of sales BOOK: Sales Engagement Mark’s all-time favorite movie: SpiderMan: Into The Spiderverse Manny Medina Max Altschuler LinkedIn InMail WEBINAR: Entering The Mind Of The Marketing Executive Buyer The Vengreso PVC Method The Vengreso Selling With LinkedIn Course Modern Marketing Engine Podcast - Bernie Borges Connect with Mario! www.vengreso.com On Facebook On Twitter On YouTube On LinkedIn

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