In the Arena Podcast with Anthony Iannarino | Sales | Marketing |Business Coaching | Sales Management | Teamwork | Success |Revenue |Profits

Regardless of what the pseudo-experts say, the telephone still dominates when it comes to generating appointments, the key to creating new opportunities. The social tools are useful, and they play an increasingly important role, but they are no replacement for outbound and outreach. 

If you want to transform yourself, you are going to need to leave part of your old self behind. That’s the price you pay for transformation, and the price you pay for becoming the person you were born to be.

My observations of the current landscape in sales as it exists right now, and it isn't pretty. Selling is difficult-and growing more so over time.

You have both the voice of an Inner Critic and an Inner Coach inside you. Which one you listen to will determine the quality of your results--and your life. 

You are pure potential. What you are now is a mere fraction of what you might become--and what you are becoming. You were not born to be ordinary.

As a professional salesperson, did you even realize that there is a social environment in business in sales? If you did, you were probably one of the more successful salespeople in your organization. If you didn't, you probably aren't. That is one of the takeaways from this conversation with Christian Madsbjerg, author of the new book, “Sensemaking.” Anthony believes his book is the must-read book of 2018 for every business person. It's a treatise on the intersection of AI and culture and makes a case for how AI must be made to enhance and serve human culture in the end. This is a fascinating conversation for salespeople who want to understand how to maximize the human side of sales. Is a good sale the optimized one or the convincing one? AI is being introduced into the sales profession at an unprecedented pace. The optimization of sales cycles and sequences through AI is at the forefront the minds of many who are charged with increasing the bottom line through product and service sales. In this conversation, Christian asks if the best sale is the convincing one or the one that is best optimized? In his thinking, our infatuation with refining processes and building out great systems has us thinking a bit askew. Find out why a good sale is the convincing one and why only human beings can do the kind of convincing needed to put the right product in the hands of the person who truly needs it. Computers don’t care - humans do Anthony has long believed and said that caring is the currency of success in business and in sales. In the end, the person who cares more is the one who will be most trusted and therefore most successful. Christian Madsbjerg makes an intriguing case for a stronger understanding of and reliance on human intuition, cultural understanding, and social appropriateness as tools that can fuel long-term success in sales relationships. It's too much to contain in a short paragraph like this so you need to make sure that you listen to this conversation to hear Christian’s masterful way of describing it. There is a third kind of knowledge that all sales professionals need The first type of knowledge we all possess is subjective or preferential. Some examples are that you may feel that one type of sound is too loud or a certain type of food is too spicy. Then there’s the kind of knowledge that we can measure. But Christian points out that there’s a third kind of knowledge - one he calls an “intersubjective” kind. It’s social or cultural in nature. Examples: We know how far to stand from each other at a party. We know how loudly we should speak. This is another type of knowledge that can’t be measured, but it’s a kind that is critical in the business world. If you only rely on data sets to tell you about your customers, you make big mistakes because you’re not relying enough on your innate human ability to understand others and what that understanding tells you about their needs. Sound helpful for a sales professional? You bet it is. Listen to hear more, on this episode. What is the appropriate use of personal information in the digital age? With the recent outrage over data breaches and inappropriate use of personal data, as well as the advent of the GDPR in the European Union, many questions are being asked about not only the security and privacy of personal data but also its proper use. Christian believes that those who lead companies today need to look beyond the practical leverage they can gain through data sets and begin to ask what benefit their use of data will have to real people. How will the end result for people be BETTER if personal data is used in a particular way? These are important questions for our time, and Anthony digs into them with his guest, Christian Madsbjerg, on this episode of In The Arena. Outline of this great episode [1:44] Why Christian wrote his book out of anno...

Closing doesn't require that you be smarmy, manipulative, self-oriented, or pushy. Now it means that you ask for the commitments your dream client needs to make to create change and produce a better result.

On August 12, 2017, I published a post on LinkedIn called Why Your Linear Sales Process is Broken. I wrote it a few days after I published my second book, The Lost Art of Closing. Success in large, complex, strategic sales now requires that you adapt your approach to the non-linear nature of the process of change by working to gain the commitments necessary to move your client from their current state to the better future state they need.

I am good friends with Jeb Blount, Mark Hunter, and Mike Weinberg. We do a little show you might have heard about called OutBound. Here we are talking about Jeb's new book, Objections, on launch day.

There is a difference between buys and being productive. There are only two things that make you productive in sales, one is opportunity creation, and the other is opportunity capture. This episode of In the Arena is sponsored by www.b2bsalestoolkit.com.

The way to get off of your back foot is to change your posture. It’s to take the role of White in the game of chess. It’s to move first and cause your competition to respond to you, instead of the other way around. This decision is about with your mindset and the actions you take—but it begins with your mindset, your attitude, your beliefs.

What it is that you look for will determine the quality of your life and your experience, making it dangerous to look for only the negative in the world.

The phrase “moral management” may not be one you’ve heard much in the context of your business or sales career, but it’s a concept that leadership legend Tom Peters is emphasizing more often these days. He’s come to believe that one of the best opportunities for change in the world rests on the shoulders of middle managers, those who daily influence the effectiveness and development of the common people of our day. In this conversation with Anthony the conversation ranges from rock-n-roll, to a visit from a home service technician, to the boardroom - and in all of it you’ll hear Tom’s passion for encouraging managers and CEOs alike to foster a healthy culture that builds people. Don't miss it. This conversation could be the highlight of your week. Societal and technological changes require that we rethink who we are and what we do with and for each other There is a lot of concern these days that the advent and growth of AI, robots, and machine learning will result in the loss of many jobs in coming years. Tom Peters believes that the concerns are valid, but he doesn’t believe it’s going to be an apocalypse if we can make the adjustments now that will enable us to pivot as a society. In this conversation, you’ll hear what Tom believes needs to happen in our thinking to enable us to not only survive but thrive in the new world that’s coming. You'll also learn why business owners and service providers today need to continue working hard at what they do even though robots may be coming to take their jobs. It’s a fascinating and valuable conversation you won’t want to miss. Every business has a moral responsibility to develop the people who work for them ~ Tom Peters When you consider that the average middle-level manager in any business has at least a handful of people who are direct reports, and you open your eyes to the fact that the manager in question is one of the primary leaders and influencers in the lives of those they lead, you see the foundation for the point Tom Peters makes on this episode: Every business has a moral responsibility to develop the people who work for them. Find out why Tom is so passionate about this point and hear how he’s come to his conclusions. But even more vital for where you are at now, learn how his new book, “The Excellence Dividend” can serve as a checklist for making your company - and your role in it - more and more of a change maker in the lives of your employees. There is no excuse for not making any organization of any size, a great place to work ~ Tom Peters It’s easy to think of the Mom and Pop service businesses in small town USA as insignificant or second-rate, but Tom Peters believes that those local, customer-facing businesses that provide opportunity and income for average Americans are some of the best places for the work of excellence to take place in ways that truly impact the lives of those they employ and serve. Tom’s expertise and experience are unquestioned and his ongoing emphasis on the impact excellence makes in the lives of employees and customers is one that needs to be heard over and over. This episode sounds the charge again and is one that will inspire you to evaluate what you’re doing in the role you occupy at your company so that you can up your game and make an even greater impact The pinnacle of achievement has nothing to do with CEOs Tom Peters once read a post on social media that said something to the effect that Elon Musk is the greatest thing that has happened to the world in recent years. While Tom has nothing against Elon and actually admires much of what he’s done, his response was both classic Tom Peters, and deeply insightful. He said that he holds Elon in high regard, almost as high a regard as the elementary school teacher who works diligently every day to influence the lives of 12 young human beings... and almost as much as the doctor who,

Dan Pink is not a guy who normally would come to mind when you begin thinking about a person who can teach you productivity improvement techniques. But given that Dan is committed to a research-based approach to his writing, it shouldn’t surprise you that he's discovered something that can improve your productivity either. His new book, “When” is a masterpiece for those looking to improve their productivity - but you won’t know it when you first pick up the book. This conversation digs into what Dan discovered through his research about how humans work, how our biological cycles and clocks inform the decisions we should make about the work we do and provides practical things you can do to increase your chances of getting more important stuff done. Dan’s discoveries are revolutionary, so don’t miss it. Are the “morning person” and “night owl” stereotypes based in reality? For a very long time, we’ve heard people referred to as “morning person” or “night owl.” It’s an example of a trite saying that IS a trite saying because there is truth to it. Dan Pink's research has revealed that there really are rhythms to life and patterns to the way individuals operate that make them more prone to be productive at different times of the day. Why does that matter for productivity? It's because knowing which type of person you are will enable you to strategically plan certain types of work for specific times of the day. The result is that you’ll be operating at peak capacity when you are working. These ideas make a lot more sense in the context of the conversation Anthony had with Dan, so set aside time to listen to this intriguing conversation. Peak, trough, and recovery: 3 stages of daily activity you need to understand One of the most important things Dan Pink has discovered while researching for his new book, “When” is that every human being operates in cycles. We all experience the following three periods in every day - peaks, troughs, and recovery periods. When you are able to identify exactly WHEN each of those periods happens in your typical day, you’re able to do the right kind of work during the right time frame and your productivity soars as a result. This is more than a productivity improvement technique, it’s a day planning strategy that can yield results beyond what you might imagine. Listen in to the conversation and you’ll hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. New York Times Best-Selling Author, Dan Pink is Anthony’s guest on this episode of In The Arena. Why you should never evaluate your decisions based on the outcome Outcome-based evaluations are never a good idea, even though it’s the kind of reasoning most of us fall into. You can’t tell if an idea was good or bad simply because of the outcome because there are too many variables that could have or didn’t happen to be entirely sure of the result. Dan cites the decision to run every red light on the way to work as an example. Just because you get to work safely and without being pulled over by the police doesn’t mean it was a good idea. Listen to find out how Dan applies this concept to decision making, sales strategy, and day-planning and productivity. Are you limiting your productivity by trying to be too productive? Most of us who are worker-bees or "doers" spend our day in non-stop productivity mode. But research reveals that non-stop production actually becomes counterproductive. In this conversation, Dan Pink highlights how breaks throughout the day, and even what he calls a “Napucinno” (you’ll have to listen to find out what that is) can actually increase your productivity and enable you to get more done in less time. What is more, the quality of what you do will increase exponentially. It may sound too good to be true but Dan’s got the research to back him up, so don’t miss what he’s got to share.

What sales professional in their right mind would NOT like to have greater influence over buyers during the sales process? It’s an ability we all need to have. But greater influence comes at a cost, and it’s a cost that’s not typically about sales techniques or approaches. It's one you pay by doing the hard work to become a better person yourself. In this conversation, Anthony and his good friend, Bob Burg chat about why the characteristics Bob outlines in his book, “The Go-Giver Influencer” are really character traits and have to be genuinely birthed in the heart of a person before they can be capable of having greater influence in any area of life. It’s a great conversation between two sales professionals who are great friends. Be sure to listen to this episode of In The Arena. Great influencers attract people, to themselves first and their ideas second Greater influence comes from becoming a better version of yourself. Bob Burg explains that people are first attracted to you, the person they are involved with before they ever become interested in your ideas or solutions. The real power of influence comes when you are thinking about how you can benefit the other person, and that’s a mindset we have to develop as part of our character. You have to care about their needs and be genuinely focused on building everyone who is involved in the process, not just your sales accounts. Bob’s insights into these kinds of things are one of the reasons he’s made 4 appearances on this podcast, so take the time to find out why he’s considered to be a leader in the industry. Great negotiation requires collaboration that brings about better options for everyone When you think about a sales negotiation you likely think of the need to come to a place of compromise that everyone involved can live with. But Bob Burg says that compromise means everyone gives up something and nobody winds up happy. Instead, he believes the salesperson needs to become a master at collaboration, coming into the situation with a view toward everyone receiving something even greater than they have in mind. When you can approach a sales negotiation with that kind of optimism and a commitment to making it a win for everyone, you’ll be the one everyone involved remembers when it comes time for another deal. Greater influence comes from stepping into the other person’s shoes It’s a tired old phrase but nevertheless true, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” When you as a salesperson are able to step into another person’s shoes in a way that enables you to understand their true needs, you have the opportunity to influence them in a way nobody else can. Compassion goes a long way in establishing the trust necessary to consummate a sales relationship. In this episode, Bob Burg explains what it means to have compassion as a sales professional and how learning to listen “with the back of your neck” enables you to truly care for your buyers and close more deals. Your expectations about an interaction change you and influence the interaction as a result If you walk into a meeting expecting others to be disagreeable, contentious, or rude you will have set your own attitude in a negative direction and will influence the meeting negatively as a result, without ever meaning to do it. But if you set your expectations differently, on purpose, and go into the room with a broad smile and a belief that the people on the other side of the conversation really do want the help you provide and are eager to receive it, you’ll similarly influence the situation, but this time for good. Bob Burg explains how this is not a mystical, magical formula but a very logical and natural impact that your expectations have on you first, and the situation second. Don’t miss it. These are powerful insights from one of the greatest living business coaches of our time.