Storytelling for Sales Podcast

Gregg has been in leadership roles with some of the most well-known companies in the industry including Citrix, BlackBerry, Bell Mobility, Siebel and Delrina. A passionate advocate for “informed selling” and sales professionalism, Gregg credits his success to having been mentored and coached by some great people that took the time to help him on his journey.

Gregg, his wife of 29 years and two sons live in Burlington, Ontario, Canada

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:

• Inspiration stories of Jim Estill (EMJ Data Systems) and William Tatham (Janna Systems)
• Gregg's most memorable sales failure
• The role of the coach and mentor in his sales career
• Why there’s no such thing as ‘natural’ salesperson

SHOW NOTES

[00:20] Intro

[00:51] Welcome Greg

[01:10] Business success stories that inspire Gregg

[02:52] Bringing Syrian refugees to Canada

[03:15] Officer, Order of Canada

[06:30] Commitment and passion

[07:30] How he got into sales

[08:15] Moving to Waterloo

[09:05] Getting the first sales job

[10:55] No such thing as “natural” sales reps

[11:15] Confidence

[11:32] Asking customers questions and listening

[11:48] Don’t out-sell competitors; out-question them

[12:35] A favorite failed deal

[13:28] Comforting remarks from his former sales manager

[14:24] Keeping in perspective winning and losing

[15:41] How storytelling helps sales

[17:25] The type of story prospects want to hear

[19:05] Using storytelling to overcome objections

[21:06] Providing a solution

[23:00] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders

[23:30] Technology and mobility

[28:35] Contact info

[29:40] Outro

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Greg Jorritsma: 00:00 When you start a story, typically you can see a physical change in how people in the room are seated and how they're looking at your changes. I always explain that as when you start telling a story, people are preconditioned and hard-wired to listen and they drop their critical thinking barrier.

Automated Voice: 00:23 This is the storytelling for sales podcast, a show about leveraging the power of storytelling to ignite your sales performance and grow your business.

Ed Bilat : 00:33 Hello, this is Ed Bilat, and today we'll have a deep and introspective show for you with a great sales leader and my distinguished guest, Gregg Jorritsma, senior director of sales and marketing at On-Ramp solutions is joining us from Toronto, Canada. Gregg Jorritsma. Welcome to the show.

Greg Jorritsma: 00:52 Well, thank you very much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here, and I appreciate the invitation to be part of this. It's a great opportunity. I'm happy to take part.

Ed Bilat : 01:01 I'm really excited that you could join us today and would love to jump right to the interview but before we do this, I will ask you our traditional question, what business success story inspires you and why?

Greg Jorritsma: 01:13 That's a great place to start actually. Because I think a lot of this is about identifying someone and seeing something in somebody that you want to emulate and make part of your life.

Greg Jorritsma: 01:24 I've always been of the mind that there are no Roy Hobbs out there. There are no natural salespeople, none that I've ever met anyway. I think everyone that is achieving success in sales at some point in their career, mostly early in their careers, had somebody see something in them and really take the effort to sort of mentor them and coach them. I have had the great benefit of having some wonderful people coach me...

As the leader for 500+ great employees, Bill Jensen always strives to be a difference-maker for the people who work with him at Mediacom. He enjoys developing managers and supervisors in reaching their full potential as well as creating a true TEAM atmosphere in administrative as well as field operations. Bill focuses on excellence and attention to detail as well as "doing it right the first time.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:

• How to use storytelling to build relationships and trust
• How to formulate a Multibillion-dollar investment strategy?
• How Bill comes up with Stories that excite his customers and partners
• History of a cable industry
• How Sales Leaders Sell
• Can you use Storytelling to motivate people?
• The mindset you need to compete today
• The importance of preparing your stories ahead of time
• Why there is a shortage of qualified applicants?
• What does the Art of Storytelling mean to Bill?

SHOW NOTES

[00:07] Introduction

[01:26] Welcome Bill

[01:49] Business stories that inspire him

[02:06] Multi-billion dollar investment strategy

[03:32] Cable industry

[04:12] How Bill got into the cable industry

[06:16] Local access television studio

[07:13] High-speed data and video-on-demand

[07:20] Fierce Competition in the cable industry

[08:35] 18-inch dishes

[08:49] Telephone companies

[09:47] Video, high-speed internet, telephony

[10:08] Stories that excite his customers and partners

[13:20] Why manage people?

[13:28] The role his father played

[13:57] Leadership opportunities

[14:54] Responsibility, patience, and experience

[15:20] How leaders sell

[15:41] Selling everyday

[16:18] Motivating people

[17:32] Leading and teaching by example

[20:00] Preparing ahead of time

[20:17] Challenges facing today’s leaders

[20:36] Shortage of qualified applicants

[21:51] The necessary skills for graduates and applicants

[23:27] The art of storytelling

[23:37] Inter-personal communication

In this special episode, we pulled nuggets and discussions from three of our previous episodes with Christy Soukhamneut, Gregg Jorritsma and Eli Fathi

Christy Soukhamneut is a 20+ year veteran of the mortgage industry who is dedicated to turning possibility into reality. A gifted strategic thinker, she knows that you must cut through the clutter, clearly articulate the vision, and then rally support at the street level.

Everything she does is evaluated against these three bars: Will it make your life easier? Will it help you & your team be more productive? Will it help you grow your business?

Gregg Jorritsma has been in leadership roles with some of the most well-known companies in the industry including Citrix, BlackBerry, Bell Mobility, Siebel and Delrina. A passionate advocate for “informed selling” and sales professionalism, Gregg credits his success to having been mentored and coached by some great people that took the time to help him on his journey.

Eli Fathi is CEO at MindBridge Ai, developer of the world’s first auditing tool based upon artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies – Ai Auditor – to uncover errors in financial data. Eli has been a technology entrepreneur for over 30 years, having founded or co-founded many successful technology companies.

Eli was recognized as the 2018 AI Leader of the Year by the Digital Finance Institute and is a prolific speaker, including talks at the AICPA, Startup Canada Day on the Hill, and TEDx.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:

• Top mistakes salespeople make all the time
• The rise and meaning of AI salesperson
• Why there is no such thing as ‘natural’ salesperson
• How to help salespeople see something within themselves that is just below the surface
• What to do to get people to take you seriously

SHOW NOTES

[00:24] Introduction to this episode

[02:22] Welcome

[01:55] Business success stories that inspire our guests

[02:08] “The story of Febreze”

[03:39] “Resilience in the face of adversity”

[04:48] “Jim Estill story”

[07:58] How they all got into sales

[11:04] Their favourite sales failure

[13:34] Mistakes salespeople make and how to avoid them

[15:06] The mortgage industry...

[16:09] Why there is no such thing as ‘natural’ salesperson

[16:38] Be wary of multinational companies...

[17:38] Sales and rejections

[18:03] The rise of Artificial intelligence

[19:05] Stories that excite their customers

[21:09] AI as a threat to salespeople?

[22:36] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders

[26:30] The art of storytelling

You can listen to the individual episodes here:

Christy Soukhamneut, “Logic and data can only take you so far, Story is where we really connect,”

Gregg Jorritsma, “Don’t Outsell Your Competitors, Out Question Them,”

Eli Fathi, “Why AI won’t Replace (Top) Salespeople.”

Julien Leblanc joins us on today’s episode of the Storytelling for Sales Podcast to share his incredible journey from a tennis player to a world-class leader in many areas. He shares a lot of gems in this episode including how he uses storytelling with his unique strategy of “hook ‘em, engage ‘em and call ‘em to action.”

Julien is a very successful serial entrepreneur who has founded several companies and now largely devotes his time to learning and teaching and injecting confidence across the globe.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:

• Julien’s journey to entrepreneurship
• The practical application of confidence techniques
• Virtual selling and best practices
• The rise of the attention economy

SHOW NOTES

[00:22] Introduction to this episode

[00:45] Ed’s first encounter with Julien

[02:40] Two business success stories that inspired him

[05:52] How he got into the sales world

[08:37] Early days challenges with sales

[10:02] Current mistakes that salespeople make

[11:41] How can you tell a world-class salesperson

[12:20] How he picks his industries/ business partners

[13:22] The values that drive his company

[15:00] Stories that excite his clients

[16:30] Virtual selling and the best practices

[21:22] The top 3 questions to ask prospects

[24:34] The attention economy

[25:45] The art of storytelling

[28:15] Contact info

Connect with Julien and find out more about him on Linkedin and his website

Find out more about his company, blueprint North America here

Steven Benson is the Founder and CEO of Badger Maps, the #1 route planner for field salespeople. After receiving his MBA from Stanford, Steve’s career has been in field sales with companies like IBM, Autonomy, and Google – becoming Google Enterprise’s Top Performing Salesperson in the World in 2009. In 2012 Steve founded Badger Maps to help field salespeople be more successful. He has also been named one of the Top 40 Most Inspiring Leaders in Sales Lead Management.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:

• Inspiration story of Jason Lemkin -"The Godfather of SaaS" model
• All-In-One: Steve's biggest success and failure
• How to use Storytelling techniques to overcome Sales objections

SHOW NOTES

[00:11] Intro

[01:09] Welcome Steve

[01:31] Business success stories that inspire him

[01:40] Jason Lemkin : creating SaaStr

[04:00] GPS analogy

[04:50] Sales experience

[05:20] How Steve got into sales

[06:45] IBM training program

[07:20] Sales roles at Google

[08:10] Challenges faced while switching career path

[09:01] Failures

[09:20] Badger maps

[09:50] Lacking vision

[10:07] Choice of Technology industry

[10:45] Dynamic nature of the technology industry

[12:34] Competing in software/app world

[13:37] Stories that excite his customers

[13:44] Application of Badger maps in sales

[14:38] Field sales

[18:05] Being efficient with time

[19:00] Having success stories with statistical details

[20:05] Leadership circle

[21:25] Identify a problem and find a solution

[22:00] Objection handling

[23:20] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders

[25:21] The art of storytelling

[26:17] Contact info

[27:40] Outro

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

There's so much information and so much to do and so little time today in a way that there hasn't been before, and I think it takes people's focus off things. It makes it harder to accomplish things.Speaker 2: 00:14 This is the storytelling for sales podcast, a show about leveraging the power of storytelling to ignite your sales performance and grow your business.Ed Bilat: 00:25 Hello, this is Ed Bilat, we have a very cool guest for you today. Steve Benson, the founder, and CEO of Badger maps, the number one route planner for field salespeople joining us today after receiving his MBA from Stanford. Steve's career has been in the field sales with companies like IBM, our autonomy, and Google. And actually, he became Google's enterprise top performing salesperson in the world in 2009. In 2012 Steve founded Badger maps to help field salespeople to be more successful. Steve has been named one of the top 40 most inspiring leaders in sales lead management. Steve Benson, welcome to the show.Steve Benson: 01:11 Hey Ed, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.Ed Bilat: 01:13 Oh, absolutely. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have you on the show! I listen to your podcast and I watch your videos all the time, so I can't wait to hear your story all the way from San Francisco. But before we do this, let me ask you a traditional question, which is “what business success story inspires you and why?”Steve Benson: 01:35 Well, um, you know, I guess one of my big inspirations, uh, running Badger is Jason Lemkin. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him, but he's the guy that started EchoSign, which is kind of very select DocuSign if you're familiar with that company.Ed Bilat: 01:50 Oh yeah. Yeah. We use DocuSign all the time.Steve Benson: 01:53 Okay. He started EchoSign, which, uh, is a very similar product I guess, but they sold it. They didn't take it public as DocuSign did. They sold earlier too. Adobe, he was one of the early people that made a SAAS business and built it up from scratch and took it all the way to a very nice exit. That's what he's first known for. But then after that he started just writing blogs and kind of communicating with the world of people that start software businesses and just writing down and created some really great thoughts and content around how to do every element of running a software company like his challenges that he faced, ways he'd overcome things, and he talked to other people about how they were overcoming things in very clear, simple explanations. Yeah, two-page articles would create vast value if, from my perspective, they taught me a ton of things, and that content strategy then grew into now a huge business that's called SaaStr. Yeah, when it was just all started, he wasn't even monetizing in the beginning. He was just kind of writing about his experiences and be like, Hey, I know a lot about this and I'm just going to share my thoughts. He's a really humble guy, a really inspirational guy for me. The company that I run is based on ideas that I learned from him, Ed Bilat: 03:11 So this was a blueprint f...