Hopp On Calls

In this episode of Hopp on Calls, James Buckley, a prominent figure in sales, aims to empower salespeople globally. He introduces a novel technique, the "survey script," which is focused on engaging demand professionals, particularly marketing personas. Meanwhile, Kevin continues engaging with sales personas, demonstrating how to display empathy during calls. Both participants face challenges, from uninterested prospects to unavailable leads. The episode underscores the importance of tonality, adaptability, and structured approaches in cold calling. James and Kevin offer diverse perspectives on effective cold calling techniques. Overall, the episode revolves around rapport-building, value delivery, with the mission to boost sales professionals' confidence and skills on their for success in the world of cold calling.

In this episode, Kevin and the guest discuss their respective strategies for cold calling and how having a solid process is essential for success for one of them, while an adaptive conversation approach is the go-to strategy for the other. Both the host and guest have extensive experience in coaching sales representatives and they actively exchange feedback during this conversation and discuss their own cold calls whilst the usage of sales scripts is one of the main points emphasized.

In this episode, the trifecta of success is emphasized: people, process, and technology. The cornerstones of this approach are effective training, well-defined processes, and technology integrations. Technology, in particular, is highlighted as a crucial tool to enhance productivity, likening outbound sales without integrated tools to manually pushing stones compared to an automation-assisted approach.

This episode contains the importance of a strong intro and how it can set the tone for a successful cold call. They also touch on the concept of closing a deal being similar to smashing a gong. Jordan explains the mission of Blueprint, which aims to solve the challenge of accessing the same data in sales.

In this episode of The Call Guys Podcast, Jacob Tuwiner, a sales development representative at ServiceBell, discusses his cold calling experiences and strategies. Jacob shares his insights on the importance of having a strong sales process. They also share the benefits of using tools like Connect and Sell for live conversations. He also provides tips on how to handle objections and navigate challenging sales calls. Throughout the episode, Jacob demonstrates his cold calling skills by making live calls and booking meetings with potential clients. Key Takeaways: Having a strong sales process is crucial for building a high-performing outbound sales team. Using tools like Connect and Sell can significantly increase the number of live conversations with prospects. Asking a prequalification question early in the call can help filter out prospects who are not a good fit. Being biased towards action and not getting too caught up in the research can lead to more productive cold calls. It's important to be adaptable and willing to pivot the conversation based on the prospect's responses. Quotes: "Teams that use Connect and Sell average five to ten times more live conversations every day with their prospects." - Kevin Hopp "The more time you put into your process, you will see it net out in your conversion rate." - Kevin Hopp "If they say no and you do absolutely no work with folks who don't use HubSpot, then throw it in there." - Ronen Pessar "I'm a cold call trainer. I take teams and transform them into cold call ninjas." - Ronen Pessar Connect and learn more about Jacob through this link: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-tuwiner/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ More live conversations mean more? You know the answer. Connect to your prospects in one click and go outbound effortlessly with ConnectAndSell! https://connectandsell.com/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101: https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

In this episode of The Call Guys Podcast, co-hosted by Kevin Hopp and Ronen Pessar are joined by Jacob Tuwiner, a sales development representative at ServiceBell, to discuss the art of cold calling and share their experiences and strategies for successful sales development. They emphasize the importance of tonality, friendliness, and confidence in cold calling. Jacob shares his approach to cold calling sales leaders and highlights the importance of having a good list. The hosts also discuss the different types of objections and how to handle them effectively. They provide insights into the mindset and techniques of successful cold callers. KEY TAKEAWAYS: Confidence and tonality are key factors in successful cold calling. Having a good list is crucial for effective cold calling. Brush-off objections should be addressed differently from real business objections. Having fun with cold calls and maintaining a positive attitude can lead to better results. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES "Your list is your strategy." - Jacob Tuwiner "Most communication is vocal, meaning tonality, not verbal." - Jacob Tuwiner "The number one limiting factor of cold call success is you and your mind." - Jacob Tuwiner "Brush-off objections are objections to the fact that you called, not what you said." - Ronen Pessar "Confidence comes from being in a good headspace and having fun with the calls." - Jacob Tuwiner Connect and learn more about Jacob through this link: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-tuwiner/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ More live conversations mean more? You know the answer. Connect to your prospects in one click and go outbound effortlessly with ConnectAndSell! https://connectandsell.com/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101:

Trent Dressel is a sales professional and YouTuber known for his expertise in cold calling and sales development. He started his tech sales career in 2018 and quickly rose through the ranks, eventually generating $1.54 million in recurring revenue in his first nine quarters as an account executive. Trent now shares his knowledge and experience through his YouTube channel, where he provides valuable insights and tips for sales professionals. In this episode of The Call Guys, hosts Kevin Hopp and Ronen Pessar are joined by Trent to share his journey from being a low-performing sales development representative (SDR) to becoming a successful account executive. He emphasizes the importance of volume in sales and the need to make a high number of outbound calls to achieve success. Trent also discusses the benefits of working at a larger, more established company and the value of loyalty in one's career. He provides practical advice on how to approach cold calling, including the importance of understanding your ideal customer profile and buyer personas. Trent also challenges the common belief that extensive research is necessary before making a call and shares his strategy for maximizing productivity and results. HIGHLIGHTS QUOTES “If you can get in close to 7:30 and start calling right around that 7:45-ish time frame, you just gotta come in and not look at your email, pull up your outreach and start making calls to start your day.” - Trent Dressel “Not all objections are worth overcoming, but we're not here to sell you anything. We're not trying to change anything. I just want to see if I can help and I can't do that if we don't meet, let's just meet.” - Trent Dressel “You're not just calling to call it, if they say, 'Hey, you got to go generate five meetings a month, X amount of pipeline, make all these calls,' you got to make sure those inputs will yield the best results possible.” - Trent Dressel Find more about Trent Dressel: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trentdressel/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101: https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101/

In this episode of The Call Guys Podcast, co-hosted by Kevin Hopp and Ronen Pessar, the focus is on sales development and building high-performing outbound sales teams. The hosts share their expertise and discuss the importance of cold calling, leveraging channel and partner relationships, and the art of sales conversations. They emphasize the significance of social selling and having a strong presence on LinkedIn. The episode concludes with valuable lessons and takeaways for successful cold calls. The podcast is sponsored by Connect And Sell, a sales acceleration platform. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES The Power of Sales Conversations. “Cold calling is really about sales conversations. It's dynamic and not just about saying, 'Hi, I sell. Do you want to buy?' It's actually about having that conversation and going back and forth, trying to understand people's businesses.” - Kevin Hopp Starting with the Warmest Channel. “When it comes to the multi-channel approach, start with the warmest channel possible. If you've got a channel where you know the person engages, answers their phone, and responds to emails, that's where you want to start.” - Ronen Pessar Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ More live conversations mean more? You know the answer. Connect to your prospects in one click and go outbound effortlessly with ConnectAndSell! https://connectandsell.com/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101: https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

In this episode of The Call Guys Podcast, co-hosted by Kevin Hopp and Ronen Pessar, they discuss sales development and the art and science of building high-performing outbound sales teams. They introduce their sponsor, Connect Sell, a platform that enables teams to have more live conversations with prospects. Kevin and Ronen talk about their upcoming cold calls and the types of individuals they will be reaching out to. They also discuss their cold calling bootcamp, a live training program aimed at improving cold calling skills and generating more conversations. The hosts share their personal experiences and insights from their years of cold calling. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES The Importance of Follow-up and Consistency - Kevin Hopp: “One of the number one problems in sales is that salespeople forget to follow up. It's the simplest thing. Consistency is key. If you're going to try to really get in touch with somebody and have a conversation with them, you have to follow up. You have to call them multiple times over multiple days.” The Three-Tiered Tech Process for Cold Calling - Ronen Pessar: “The process really comes down to three things. We can whiteboard this out a little bit... So this three-tiered layer cake that we're looking at on the board, the bottom is your CRM... In the middle, we do recommend you have a sales engagement platform, SCP... But then on top of it, you put Connect and Sell, which is our dialing solution to take actions to the people inside of our sales engagement platform.” Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ More live conversations mean more? You know the answer. Connect to your prospects in one click and go outbound effortlessly with ConnectAndSell! https://connectandsell.com/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101: https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

In this episode of the Call Guys Podcast, Kevin Hopp and Ronan Pissar are joined by Scott Leese, a renowned sales consultant and former VP of sales, CEO & Founder of Scott Leese Consulting. Scott shares his powerful journey, overcoming health challenges and finding success in sales. He emphasizes the importance of perseverance and work ethic, drawing inspiration from his own experiences. Scott advises listeners to take bigger swings, network early on, and diversify income streams for long-term wealth creation. He highlights the need to vet opportunities, considering factors such as the product's necessity, the leader's credibility, and customer feedback. HIGHLIGHTS QUOTES I want to be feeling productive and that production can take a lot of different forms - Scott: “And if I make a dollar today, I want to figure out how to make $2 tomorrow. I'm just kind of wired that way, you know? Um, but I certainly think that all of that got dialed all the way up to 10 because of my health, you know, stuff and the perspective that it gave me.” Learning from Mistakes and Taking Control of Your Career - Scott: “I made a million mistakes... I would have taken a couple of bigger swings... started networking a lot sooner... and started diversifying my income, my streams of income a little sooner.” Find more about Scott Leese: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottleese/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101: https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101/

On today's episode of The Call Guys Podcast, we're still on the cold call hype train with Kevin, Ronen, and Jack Knight, who leads SDR BDR teams at Fourth and is a founder of CallBlitz. They cover various aspects of sales, including cold calling, objections, understanding prospects' needs, and overcoming pain points in different industries. The hosts provide insights and strategies for effective communication and share real-life examples from cold calls made to cloud bolt and restaurant owners. The importance of consistency, active listening, and continuous improvement is emphasized throughout the episode. The show is sponsored by Connect and Sell, a platform that enables teams to have more live conversations with prospects. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Slowing down, having a plan, and continuously improving. - Jack: “I think one of the things that really separates the way that we teach conversations is the ability to keep the conversation going and not just kind of bowing out at the first “no” or the first “I'm not the right person”. I hope that everybody takes that away as something that they can work on. We had a few things we talked about. I think number one was slowing down. Number two is having a plan. Three is probably working on your lists.” More live conversations mean more? You know the answer. Connect to your prospects in one click and go outbound effortlessly with ConnectAndSell! https://connectandsell.com/ Find more about Jack Knight: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dontdialalone/ Website: https://callblitz.com/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101: https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

On today's episode of The Call Guys Podcast, Kevin and Ronen welcomes Jack Knight, who leads SDR BDR teams at Fourth and discusses his project called CallBlitz. They talk about the challenges of cold calling in the hospitality space and highlight the importance of clean data and smart dispositions. They also mention their sponsor, Connect and Sell, and its benefits for increasing live conversations. Throughout the episode, they share insights from live cold calls and emphasize the goal of starting conversations with potential clients. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Over exaggeration makes them give you a real answer - Jack: “I like what you said about a hundred percent though, you, you were like, so a hundred percent of your pipeline is coming from these channel partners. I think that over exaggeration resonates really well with the prospect where they'll come back. And because it was an exaggeration, they'll give you the real answer behind that.” More live conversations mean more? You know the answer. Connect to your prospects in one click and go outbound effortlessly with ConnectAndSell! https://connectandsell.com/ Find more about Jack Knight: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dontdialalone/ Website: https://callblitz.com/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101: https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

On today's episode of The Call Guys Podcast with Kevin Hopp and Ronen Pessar, Richard Harris, the CRO and Founder of Inside Sales Expert, discusses the tried and true ways to generate pipelines and what "fishing where the fish are" truly means. Richard also discusses the importance and overall impact of having a brand, not just for the company itself but even for each individual sales rep to take hold of their own branding. Even more relevant today, he talks about AI and how it's going to affect sales in the coming years. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Every rep needs to have a brand and a presence in sales these days - Richard: " I think that's the challenge that companies don't understand is that you need your reps to have a brand. And they have multiple brands, they have the brand of you as a company, they have the brand of themselves as a rep, the content that they should be writing, if they're writing is content related to their career. Yes, they're gonna get hired away don't pretend like they won't. And maybe some content related to being an expert in the field of what your company does." Find more about Richard Harris: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rharris415/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp | Ronen Pessar https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ More live conversations mean more? You know the answer. Connect to your prospects in one click and go outbound effortlessly with ConnectAndSell! https://connectandsell.com/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

On today's episode of The Call Guys Podcast, we're still on the cold call hype train with Kevin, Ronen, and Chet Lovegren, the Founder of The Sales Doctor. While waiting for calls to go through, they talk about double dials, when is the best time to cold call, and crafting personalized messages after a call when you have to reach another person from the same company. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Why your connect rates are higher at a certain time - Chet: "It's all causation and effect. It's because you're making the most cold calls in that time period. When we had tools that we could look at that, that was exactly the same I go "Wow, we have a 14% connect rate at this time." And then "Oh, look we made 5 times as many cold calls in that hour than we do any time of the day. More live conversations mean more? You know the answer. Connect to your prospects in one click and go outbound effortlessly with ConnectAndSell! https://connectandsell.com/ Find more about Chet Lovegren: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetlovegren/ Website: https://www.thesalesdocrx.com/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101: https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

On today's episode of The Call Guys Podcast, Chet Lovegren, the Founder of The Sales Doctor, joins our host duo to jump on calls. They catch a few prospects and eventually end up at a learning point on what to do during the first 10-15 seconds of the call and you get met with an objection. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES You can always weave through the first rejection - Ronen: "Sometimes they'll give you a little bit of window to just get in there and just to ask an additional question or pitch a little bit. People are legitimately busy but typically any objection you hear in the first 10-15 seconds is a brush-off objection. Brush-off objections are the kind of objections that we get usually because of how we sound." Find more about Chet Lovegren: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetlovegren/ Website: https://www.thesalesdocrx.com/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ More live conversations mean more? You know the answer. Connect to your prospects in one click and go outbound effortlessly with ConnectAndSell! https://connectandsell.com/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101: https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

On today's episode of The Call Guys Podcast with Kevin Hopp and Ronen Pessar, Kevin "KG" Gaither, the CRO and Founder of Inside Sales Expert, discusses how the landscape of sales and sales development has been changing over time. Kevin talks about utilizing tools in order to do more with less. He shares how sales development is going to change now that we have more and more access to innovation and tools like AI to enhance the whole sales process. More importantly, he mentions not hiring just anybody thinking that AI tools are going to instantly make them better as well. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Don't pretend you know everything - KG: "I think one of the biggest learning lessons that young sales leaders need to remember is that you don't have all the answers and one of your main goals should be to try and hire people that are better than yourselves. Hire better salespeople than you and hire better sales leaders." Using tools to make SDRs better - KG: "Did I hire SDRs? Because they're so great at writing emails. The answer is no. Can I use a tool like ChatGPT or AI or Bard, or whatever? Can I use that tool to put an Iron Man super suit, around the SDR as I've talked about that concept on several other platforms? That's how I view AI." Find more about Kevin Gaither: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevingaither/ Inside Sales Expert: https://www.insidesalesexpert.com/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101: https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

On this episode of The Call Guys Podcast, Shane Mahi is back on the show to continue his conversation with Kevin and Ronen on conveying authority with one's tone. Shane also explains how you can turn on your confidence before doing calls and understanding that you just have to show up and get the job done. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Realize that others are not much more important than you so be confident Shane: "Every single opportunity you have on the phone you have to capitalize on it especially if you're getting paid for it. So why let somebody undermine you or treat you any less than what you believe you are? Be the best at what you can be, show up, and get the job done. " Breaking down the tone Ronen: "People who have authority speak with normal volume. They don't have to have a high pitch like they're nervous or concerned. If you break down what the tones is, slower and the actual volume of it is lower. And the slow and low is a great combo to come off as confident. Slow the pace down and lower the volume" Get in touch with Shane: LinkedIn Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp | Ronen Pessar The Call Guys is powered by ConnectAndSell. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

On this episode of The Call Guys Podcast, we welcome back Shane Mahi, an investor, and advisor to private equity firms who has sold 2 businesses. Today, Kevin and Shane go head-to-head and connect with various prospects, some being more receptive than others. Shane also explains how to recon using a cold call and his game plan after getting a solid referral from the prospect. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Recon on a cold call and get a referral from a prospect Shane: "I'll hit up David, I'll say I know there's a number of things floating around the organization around expansion, and let's have a chat. Let's have a chat, I think I have some good ideas to help you grow." Data in your lists can be unreliable in a matter of weeks or months Ronen: "What do they say, there's like 50% drop off in your data after how many months? Like 6 months? There's some crazy statistics. It turns over so fast, and now currently with the climate is turning over faster." Get in touch with Shane: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/driivnceo/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar:https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ The Call Guys is powered by ConnectAndSell. https://connectandsell.com/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

On today's episode of The Call Guys Podcast with Kevin Hopp and Ronen Pessar, Jed Mahrle, the Head of Outbound Sales at Mailshake, dives deep into cold emailing. Understanding the persona you are reaching out to is critical so you can "talk the talk" of your prospects. Jed shares their strategy which involves prioritizing the hottest leads who open their emails and messages the most and engaging them in phone outreach after. He also gives quick tips so your emails don't land as spam and other ways to improve overall deliverability. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES A good email focuses on only one problem in a sequence - Kevin: "If you want to have a good sequence, because it's obviously not just about one cold email, nobody really books a meeting off of one singular cold email and no other activities around it." "You have to break it down so that each email only focuses on one specific product or feature. And then that allows you to have a relevant sequence because you can focus on a new problem, a new feature for the rest of the sequence." Tips to increase email deliverability - Jed: "HubSpot has a really good article on this of like 400 words you should remove in your sequences. If you do that, immediately you should see your open rates go up a good amount. Another one is using a domain warming tool, so there's a lot of them out there." "But you can basically increase the engagement going on your email to make it look like to Gmail and Outlook that you have a better reputation, and as a result, you'll land in more inboxes. Removing links from your signature." Find more about Jed: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/outboundsales/ Substack:https://jed.substack.com/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

On this episode of The Call Guys Podcast, we welcome back Eddie Cortez, the Sales Development Manager at Limble CMMS. We hit the phones again and talk about researching lists and personas versus researching individuals. Eddie then suggests making the most of a conversation with a prospect with no business problem by asking them for a pocket referral. He also demonstrates why the double tap is so powerful in a buzzer-beater call! HIGHLIGHT QUOTES A prospect with no business challenge may have a referral Eddie: "You could always ask for that pocket referral. Hey, would you happen to know anybody who might be looking to ramping up an outbound team? You never know, especially in SaaS, so many people are connected in a small community, you might get a referral and turning something out of nothing." Research personas, their problems, and the metrics they're scored on Eddie: "I don't worry about researching person by person. Start with personas. Work with a couple of titles that you sell to and understand their roles to a certain capacity. What are one or two problems that they typically have in their day-to-day that you can solve with your product?" "What are one or two outcomes that they're judged by, that they're scored on, that could be impacted by the problems that they have? And if you know that, then you can have a relevant conversation." Get in touch with Eddie: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coacheddiec/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kicksaascoaching Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp:https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ The Call Guys is powered by ConnectAndSell. https://connectandsell.com/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

On this episode of The Call Guys Podcast, we feature Eddie Cortez, the Sales Development Manager at Limble CMMS. We hit the phones and Eddie demonstrates pro moves in turning objections into compliments. He also shows how to lean into a conversation until the very end and uses a simple and scalable 1 to 10 question on how satisfied the prospect is with their current solution to remain top of mind when the business challenge arises. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Ask 1 to 10 questions on how happy the prospect is with their solution Eddie: "I have a couple of variations like another one could be 'hey, like, would you say there's room for improvement with your system or is it exceeding your expectations? Most people aren't going to say it's exceeding their expectations, or they're going to say, 'oh, there's always room for improvement.' So a simple 1 to 10 question is typically going to be a bit more scalable for SDRs because it's a real easy question." Handling calls that don't have a business challenge you can solve Kevin: "We know we're going to talk to people who that we can't help 3 out of 10 times, what you did there was absolutely textbook to say, look, I don't even recommend we take any next steps right now. You got a 10 out of 10 system, I'm not in the business of making 11s, I'm in the business of turning 6s into 9s, I'm in the business of turning 4s into 10s. So without a business challenge, they're not going to have any need to change." Get in touch with Eddie: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coacheddiec/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kicksaascoaching Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ The Call Guys is powered by ConnectAndSell. https://connectandsell.com/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

Welcome to The Call Guys Podcast, a show that aims to elevate the profession of sales development with tips, tricks, and tactics for sales leaders and SDRs. We explore the 20 years of combined cold-calling experience between Kevin Hopp and Ronen Pessar, as they share the 2 services you can look forward to: The 6-month consulting service called SDR in a Box and specialty training on conversation-first prospecting that leverages cold calls. The Call Guys will also alternate between educational episodes with industry leaders and actual and unedited live cold-calling where anything can happen! HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Go from no SDRs to fully-functional outbound with SDR in a Box Kevin: "SDR in a Box is consulting where we're going to help you, in 6 months, go from 0 SDR team to fully-running, productive, high-achieving SDR team." Ronen: "We call it SDR in a Box because it's as if you just went shopping and you're at Walmart or Macy's." The Call Guys will bring in brave guests who will cold call live on the show Kevin: "Anything can and does happen. Some crazy stuff happens there. Ronen: "And we're bringing our guests for that as well who are going to call with us, some brave souls who are going to go out to the public and make cold calls in front of people." Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/

Welcome to The Call Guys Podcast! Today, Gavin DeWitt joins Kevin again for live cold calls and a discussion on using LinkedIn to prospect and get lukewarm calls instead of cold calls. They also talk about the importance of networking because the best jobs get referred to you by YOUR network, so building great relationships should always be top of mind if you are a sales rep. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Use your tech to make lukewarm calls instead of cold calls - Gavin: "My flow is I have all my people in cadence and when it pulls up, like say their name's next step, my Salesloft is linked to my Sales Nav, so I could post up the profile and I saw he posted like 5 hours ago, so that way it's not even a cold call, it's a lukewarm call." Your network is your net worth - Kevin: "There are not good jobs out there is what I'm trying to say. There are good relationships, there are good relationships to have. And guess what? Those relationships that you have with people and the networking that you do thoughtfully and consciously when you're not looking for a job is how you get a job." Find more about Gavin: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavin-dewitt/ Phone: 417-840-3737 Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ The Call Guys is powered by ConnectAndSell. https://connectandsell.com/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

Welcome to The Call Guys Podcast with Kevin Hopp and Ronen Pessar, a show that mixes live cold calls with informational and topic-driven discussions on sales development. Gavin DeWitt stands in for Ronen today as he calls HR leaders to help them create strategies to develop their people into impactful leaders. Kevin calls founders and also explains the 2 questions every single person has on a cold call: who are you and why are you calling me? HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Answer your prospect's 2 questions upfront - Kevin: "It sounds silly but if you really focus on starting your calls and having this be the first thing you cover, understanding that when you give them these answers of who you are, my name's Kevin, I'm with The Call Guys, they're going to go, who? I don't know you, I didn't ask for this call. And then, why are you calling me? Dude, it's a sales call." Find more about Gavin: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavin-dewitt/ Connect with The Call Guys: Kevin Hopp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Ronen Pessar:https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ The Call Guys is powered by ConnectAndSell. https://connectandsell.com/ Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

On this episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp, we welcome back Ronen Pessar, a 4x SDR leader who is now Kevin's Co-Founder for The Call Guys! Today, they continue reaching out to founders who are looking to build consistent pipelines and get a couple of really good calls. Kevin and Ronen discuss humor on a cold call and why busy founders even pick up cold calls in the first place. They dig into how their own messaging fits into their target market's needs and what else you can expect from The Call Guys! HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Understand the reasons why founders pick up cold calls - Ronen: "There's all sorts of reasons like if you have kids and they go to school, you see a number you don't know, you're like, are my kids okay? So you have anxiety brain, and then when someone's like, I'm a cold caller, you get angry because you're like, hey, I was just concerned." "Another reason is you're waiting for someone to call you, maybe it's an investor, maybe it's a candidate you're trying to hire in the case of founders and CEOs, they speak with a lot of candidates, especially, when they're growing. Most CEOs want to be the final interview." Find more about Ronen: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. https://kixie.com/hopp Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

On this episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp, we welcome back Ronen Pessar, a 4x SDR leader who is now my Co-Founder for The Call Guys! We hit the phones right off the bat and we reach out to founders who are looking to grow a consistent pipeline. Ronen and I discuss the pros and cons of asking prospects about the best time to call them back, as well as, how to "fall on your sword" while prospecting. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Ask the prospect's best time to call to open a possible pitch - Ronen: "If you go in with that, like, hey, sorry, when might be a better time though? You open the door for the possibility of a five to ten-second pitch, and that's where you if you can hook them with the question, you might actually capture curiosity and have a reason for a good follow-up." Prospects asking you to call back can lead to ego death - Kevin: "The problem is the entry-level reps love when someone says, yeah, call me back this afternoon, and then they get off that call and they go. I'm calling Sean back this afternoon. He's gonna pick it up. And they're like all proud of it, thinking they got this like great interaction and they call Sean back and they have this ego death moment." Find more about Ronen: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. https://kixie.com/hopp Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of our session with Cynthia Handal, Head of Global Sales at Simera. Today, Cynthia shares her insights on permission-based openers and how NOT to apologize to prospects for calling them. She discusses her prospecting bingo sheet, a set of 5 criteria that works in every industry. Kevin and Cynthia also talk about the 2 things every prospect wants to know from you: who are you and why are you calling me? HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Cynthia's bingo sheet works for every industry - Cynthia: "I think that, especially when you're doing cold calls, everybody has to have certain criteria, which is exactly the same for all of the companies. Are you talking to the decision-maker? Are you talking to the contact, that's the correct information. What is their problem? What is their buying window?" "What is their pain point like? What's the main pain point that they have, being in the industry that they have? How is your solution going to help them solve your problem? So it's mainly, basically, I call it the bingo sheet. It's mainly the 5 criteria that work for any industry as long as you know that it fills those 5 criteria." Find out more about Cynthia Handal in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthia-h-05a2005a/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. https://kixie.com/hopp Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of our session with Cynthia Handal, Head of Global Sales at Simera. Today, she shares her insights into text prospecting in South America and how this can be applied in the US where cold texting is illegal. She shares the instances when texting is permitted and how to utilize text to rebook no-show meetings. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Text prospecting is illegal except in certain situations - Cynthia: "When you actually have a no-show or a reschedule, it means that you can probably text that person back because when somebody already agreed to a meeting and you called them to their phone or they said yes to a meeting via email, you can follow up to rebook that meeting via text because they already said yes to the meeting and they already know that you have their cellphone." Look for the potential for coachability in aspiring SDRs - Cynthia: "I look for 2 types of SDRs, those that have some sales experience and those that have the potential. I think the potential is everything and the energy, the vibes, and they're willing to learn and accept feedback are what you need to be an SDR because I've met some great people that actually have a lot of experience in sales but they're not willing to be coached." Find out more about Cynthia Handal in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthia-h-05a2005a/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. https://kixie.com/hopp Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. https://coldcalling101.podia.com/cold-calling-101

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of our cold calling session with Patrick Flynn, a 7-year Army veteran and currently Senior Business Development Representative at SilverSky. They hit the phones again and overcome gatekeepers, wrong dials, and the other usual suspects as Patrick shares his insights on becoming the best SDR you can be with his 3 C's: Creativity, Communication, and Consistency. He also talks about A-B testing your outreach to figure out the messaging that resonates with prospects. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES The 3 C's of a successful SDR - Patrick: "My 3 C's towards a successful SDR is creativity; you got to be able to A-B split test everything you do, whether it's campaign emails, talk tracks, just got to be creative, find different approaches to reach whoever you need to talk to." "Second one is communication. Got to be about listening, got to be able to collaborate with account managers, AEs, and anybody across the organization. And then the third one would be just consistency. You got to show up every single day doing the same thing. You got to push yourself every single day." Find out more about Patrick Flynn in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickflynnsales/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of our cold calling session with Patrick Flynn, a 7-year Army veteran and currently Senior Business Development Representative at SilverSky. Kevin and Patrick hit the phones and reach several prospects for cybersecurity. Some of them can be cadenced as not a phone lead, so Kevin shares the 3 main ways to do outbound in 2023: calls, email, and social. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Reach prospects in 2023 with these 3 channels - Kevin: "There are 3 main ways we can get in touch with somebody. And if you think of your total addressable market, you're just trying to funnel and figure out who's going to be more call-focused who is going to pick up their phone, who's going to be very diligent in answering emails, and who's on social media all day, that's actually a great place to find them." Find out more about Patrick Flynn in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickflynnsales/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of our cold calling session with Kyle Shannon, an Army veteran and currently an Account Executive at ARMS Cyber. Kevin speaks to several prospects today and while he was able to overcome most objections to engage in meaningful conversation, he also reached others who were the wrong target. Kevin displays how to make the most of this situation and instead of putting down the phone, he digs a bit to find out more about the right person to call next time. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Ask for a referral for the decision-maker on cybersecurity - Kevin: "If you were me and I'm trying to bark up trees here, I'm just a dog looking for a bone and I bark up the wrong tree calling you, Mary, what tree would you bark up? Is there somebody, is there like a Bob, a Stephanie, a somebody specific that you can point me in the direction of that would want to have a conversation about cybersecurity?" Find out more about Kyle Shannon in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/k-shannon/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of our cold calling session with Kyle Shannon, an Army veteran and currently an Account Executive at ARMS Cyber. Kevin reaches a couple of prospects who clearly had the time to talk but did not have a business problem to solve for. Kevin and Kyle also discuss a comment made about working in a high-risk environment and they suggest working at a startup where every action has an impact on the business. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES If a prospect doesn't have a business problem, explore a valuable solution - Kevin: "The two things you talk about in a cold call are business problems, and if they don't have a business problem, which a lot of businesses, their hair's not on fire, they don't have an actual problem today, then we talk about valuable solutions. This is where we go to our shiny object, hey, but have you thought of this?" Working in a startup is high-risk, high-reward - Kyle: "I'm all for high risk if my career doesn't tell that so, but I think you have to factor in some things too right, look at what's going on right now within the world. Like I don't know your personal life as well too, so there are so many other variables out there that you got to roll up into, hey, is high-risk the play right now? But if it is, I would say, by all means, go out there and hunt for something that is a lot more early-stage." Find out more about Kyle Shannon in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/k-shannon/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of our cold calling session with Sean Hurd, the Veteran Coordinator for Shift Group. Kevin reaches several prospects who had classic objections and he teaches firsthand how to listen to them, understand the prospect's needs, and ask questions despite the pushback. Sean also shares how sales organizations can benefit from the unique skills of veterans and the unique opportunity they have with Shift Group. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Vets provide a rich pool of diverse personalities for your sales org - Sean: "We're not all crazy, we don't all have PTSD, we're not all direct, we're not all like hardcore, you're going to get a variety of different people applying that, have that vet tag, and just find the one that kind of matches your organization's culture." Circle back to business challenges and valuable solutions after an objection - Kevin: "He said, 'hey, I'll stop you right there, and here's why.' Just went through a process, we've been working with this vendor called Rapid7 for a while, and we have an internal team that works with them. We don't have any problems, I don't want to talk about it. And then, even then, I didn't take that at face value and just say goodbye. I went back to my script, which was my talk track, which is designed to help me get into conversations about what? This. I need to get back to this, business challenges and valuable solutions." Find out more about Sean and how vets can work with him: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanhurd1122/ Website: https://www.shiftgroup.io/ Connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of our cold calling session with Sean Hurd, the Veteran Coordinator for Shift Group. Kevin hits the phone and speaks with a couple of prospects, one who displayed a classic example of the False Negative, and another who wasn't the right fit now, but shared valuable information on the industry and their competitors. Sean also talks about the sales mindset and how you must believe that you are not being a bother because otherwise, your prospects will pick up on that too. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES If you believe your product is great, then show it on the cold call - Sean: "As false negative, I think a lot of reps use that as an excuse to just fold because they believe in their mind that they're bothering somebody. So if you believe you're bothering somebody, then the odds of you having a positive, calm, booking a meeting isn't gonna work because, in your mind, they're gonna know that you don't believe in what you're talking about." Gain confidence knowing you will only talk to people who are ready to talk - Kevin: "If you were to like pull every salesperson out there and say, what stops you from picking up the phone? I think that cold call reluctance comes from the awkward nature of a conversation. But being totally okay with avoiding this and being totally okay with saying, Hey, you're busy, I'm not gonna talk to you right now, I'm going to call you another day, that gives you the confidence to know you're only going to talk to people that are ready to talk." Find out more about Sean in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanhurd1122/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of our cold calling session with Dom Odoguardi, Senior SDR at Cognism. Today, Kevin shares how to use FUD (fear, doubt, uncertainty) appropriately without going full-on about fear and doubt. Kevin and Dom share funny ways they got creative to get meetings, from using Sendoso coupons to recording funny videos and sending voicemails. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Don't sell FUD but something in the middle - Kevin: "I like the middle of the FUD, the best. Instead of fear and doubt, I want to try and see if I can make someone who's certain about their solution think that they're uncertain about their solution. Just think like, well, huh, I don't have that. What do you do differently? Yeah. That's why I did, I use a lot of feature language." The goal of a salesperson is to ask questions and make processes better - Dom: "As SDRs, BDRs, it's not just the goal to create some demand. It's really just to ask the right questions and see if there is a way there you can make their process better in any way or give them something extra that they don't currently have." Find out more about Dom in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/odoguardi/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of our cold calling session with Dom Odoguardi, Senior SDR at Cognism. Dom hits the home run and gets a meeting set after encountering every classic objection from his prospect! He shares how he overcame them, while Kevin discusses how prospects who have just signed up for a long-term deal with a competitor's service are not worth the time. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Move on when a prospect just signed for a similar service you offer - Kevin: "When someone tells you, like hey, I understand what you want to talk about, I just signed a 3-year deal about that thing that you're talking about. Not worth my time, not worth an account executive's time, moving on." Know what differentiates you from the competition - Kevin: "What's interesting about what you're calling about is everybody has a solution today like you're not calling to introduce the idea that you should be reaching out to prospects. They're doing it today. It's always a question of, okay, what are you doing for this, what's your strategy on that, and how is what Cognism does differently than what they have today?" Find out more about Dom in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/odoguardi/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of our cold calling session with Shane Mahi, Founder and CEO of SalesDRIIVN. Shane gets on, by far, the longest call ever recorded on the show. Shane displayed how to create an authentic connection with the prospect and successfully get on his radar to be followed up in about 6 months. Kevin stresses that fat stacks are found in the circle backs and why following up is one of the most important activities a salesperson can do. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Following up will tell you when it's the right time for a prospect to buy - Kevin: "Your job's not to convince people necessarily to move against their time. It's your job to figure out when it's time. So that means you have to follow up with a lot of people just because I call you and I wanna sell you this, I wanna talk to you about this now, does not mean it's a good time for you." Find out more about Shane in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/driivnceo/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of our cold calling session with Shane Mahi, Founder and CEO of SalesDRIIVN. They reach out to prospects, with Kevin calling on behalf of his client Silver Sky while Shane calls his list of CROs. As he's selling in cybersecurity, Kevin shares an analogy of selling fire extinguishers not to people with their hair on fire, but to people who anticipate the fires and want to be prepared. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Sell a fire extinguisher to people who want to PREVENT fires - Kevin: "If you only go after people that have problems, if you're only looking for people that have their hair on fire, you're never going to sell a fire extinguisher. Think about the fire extinguisher industry, they don't sell fire extinguishers to people that have fires. They sell to people to prevent fires." Find out more about Shane in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/driivnceo/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of the cold calling session with Charlotte Lloyd, Global Director of Partnerships at Investment Monitor. Today, Kevin and Charlotte get pushback from prospects, from those asking to be emailed a brochure first to those who are clearly busy. Kevin also gives tips on how to deal with gatekeepers by getting to know them and using a lawyer's curtness. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Inspire change when a prospect has a business challenge - Kevin: "What is sales? Change. What do salespeople get paid to do? Get organizations, people, and money changing from one thing to another in this period of time. That is what sales does. You are a change agent. You are here to change people. Sales is not order taking. Sales is not all of those. Sales is change. You are trying to inspire change. People only change for these two reasons, that's it, because they have business problems they gotta solve and they know you have a solution for it." Find out more about Charlotte in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlottelloydsales/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of the cold calling session with Charlotte Lloyd, Global Director of Partnerships at Investment Monitor. Today, Kevin and Charlotte hit the phones, and Kevin shares how to use cognitive dissonance to overcome quick objections about where you got the prospect's contact details. Kevin also shares how he bridged the gap between the info he knew and didn't know by letting the prospect speak. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Use cognitive dissonance to your advantage - Kevin: "I like to put them in a bit of cognitive dissonance. Now the cognitive dissonance is by saying hey, I got this off of a public database, I'm sorry I'm calling your cellphone unexpectedly. Is there a better way to have a conversation with you? Now that's cognitive dissonance because what's the answer to that question? No. There is no better way." Find out more about Charlotte in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlottelloydsales/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of the session with Morgan J. Ingram, a sales coach who teaches teams to use modern sales techniques that bolster pipelines, leverage social media, and schedule net new accounts. Kevin reaches a super hot lead that wants to know more but is convinced that the conversation has to happen in March. Kevin and Morgan discuss how to send the best follow-ups and what content to send to keep the conversation going. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Two questions to ask yourself when following up - Morgan: "There's 2 questions that I always ask when this happens, one is how do I make sure that I'm not an annoying sales rep up until March? And then two is... what exactly can I send to you that's going to be top of mind without me just following up with the information you don't care about." Find out more about Morgan in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morganjingram/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of the session with Morgan J. Ingram, a sales coach who teaches teams to use modern sales techniques that bolster pipelines, leverage social media, and schedule net new accounts. Morgan makes a bold prediction that cold outbound is back on the rise but that its medium is evolving. He shares to go to where your audience is like LinkedIn and reminds everyone that asking for a referral is a valid outbound strategy that still works. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Calling is no longer a natural skillset of today’s generation - Morgan: "Gen Z, millennials, way less likely prone to a call. Most people never use their phones to call anymore. So I'm thinking, you just don't have the skillset to actually make calls because that's not how you grew up. So the amount of people making those calls will be low. Cold call to stand out and be proficient - Morgan: "The key is here that when you're making these calls if you do get someone to pick up and you're proficient, you're going to stand out because I don't think a lot of people are doing them right now." Find out more about Morgan in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morganjingram/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of the cold calling session with Topher Evans, Account Executive at CINC Systems. Today, they explore how to use cognitive dissonance to your advantage especially in improving your voicemail strategy. This tactic is also useful in overcoming objections of SaaS founders who have built a solution that is similar to your product. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES The purpose of the first call and leaving a voicemail - Topher: "The purpose of that first call, if I can get them on the phone, it's to qualify them out as quickly as possible, like find out they've built their own software or competitor that they're using, what bank they're with, different things like that because I can tell within about 5 questions is it worth exploring more or is it just going to be a benefit to either of us." Use cognitive dissonance to overcome initial objections - Kevin: "A thing to try is to go, I totally get you investing in your own tech, all of our best customers had built their own solution before they saw what we can do. So that's another psychological tool called cognitive dissonance. That's when things don't add up. It's not going to add up in their brain. Wait, I just told you something that should make you go away and you just turned around and made that the reason for the call?" Find out more about Topher and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/topher-evans/ Website: https://cincsystems.com/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of the cold calling session with Topher Evans, Account Executive at CINC Systems. Today, they reach out to prospects and discuss how to apply FBI negotiation tactics to outbound sales. Kevin shares how reducing the mental load helps get your prospect to answer you and calls out people's reflexes to correct you when you are wrong about your assumptions. Meanwhile, Topher tests it out immediately with positive results. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Reduce the prospect's mental load to lead them to an answer - Kevin: "The mental load is when people hear things that are incorrect, they can't help but to correct it. So, if you lead with how long have you been with that folio, that's a very pointed, direct question and they can't help but correct you." Find out more about Topher and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/topher-evans/ Website: https://cincsystems.com/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of my cold calling session with Ronen Pessar, a 4x SDR leader and Chief Growth Officer (SDR) at Stylo. Today, Ronen gets a referral from a major prospect and he provides tips on how he got the referral by name-dropping other people in the prospect's organization. Ronen also shares their strategy of "running the triple" or using phone, email, and social to get a champion's attention. This holistic approach is also useful for "bumps" or short follow-ups that you can do which are extremely short but also extremely effective in reaching targeted accounts. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Map out the possible leads in an organization - Kevin: "A good SDR that's working target accounts, named accounts, is going to map a bunch of people that they think are possible based on their title. Don't call the head of social media marketing and try to talk about, you know, their email sending solution or whatever it is. Put some thought into that." Put together an email to send to several contacts in an organization - Ronen: "If you call people who are slightly below your champion or your ideal target, start collecting that information to put together an email. And so, I'm going to send this person an email saying, hey, I know you're doing X, Y, and Z. I spoke with someone on your team already and this is what they let me know. Would you be open to hearing about a way that you can do this much easier, save some time, and make it native to your existing solution?" Find out more about Ronen and connect with him in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/\ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of my cold calling session with Ronen Pessar, a 4x SDR leader and Chief Growth Officer (SDR) at Stylo. Today, Ronen breaks down how he handles a cold call, from calling out the prospect's present state to asking about a technical issue, and then finally imagining a future state. Ronen suggests looking for the gap between the present and future states and really digging to see what solutions they have tried. Usually, the conversation skyrockets from here and the prospect will share what has been working and not in their company. You can qualify some more at this point, or you can pivot directly to the ask as well. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES 80% meeting show rates are the benchmark - Ronen: "The companies who only book meetings without pitching anything have the highest no-show rates. You can get people to say yes to a meeting on a phone, but are they going to show up? And if you're getting 50, 60, 70% show rates like 30 to 50% no-shows, you're doing something wrong." Open-ended questions aren't always the best on a cold call - Ronen: "You can do this on a cold call. So my first question is something like, hey, are you using Zendesk today for ticketing? If they say yes, that's their present state and I'm going for a yes-no. People always tell you, open-ended questions. Not necessarily. You might want to know, is this the right person to talk to? I don't want to waste my time otherwise. There's no point in booking meetings with people who aren't going to be able to actually buy anything." Find out more about Ronen and connect with him in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpessar/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of my cold calling session with Julie Smith Nester, BDR at Flosum and Co-Founder at SaaSySalesMoms. Kevin gets a solid warm follow-up after an initial objection as Kevin was able to pique curiosity when he mentioned using a tech stack. Meanwhile, Kevin and Julie break down how to handle someone who requests to be put on a do not call list, and Julie books a buzzer-beater meeting to close out the episode. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Turning a conversation around after an initial objection - Kevin: "If everything is going hunky-dory and you're hitting all your numbers and everything, you're not going to spend money on a consultant to help you improve things. You only do that when there's a problem. But I was not finding a problem. Then I talked about the technology and he told me about his tech stack, that's where the conversation took a turn because I do have a lot of experience in the tech stack that he uses." How to overcome the 'do not call' objection: Kevin: "You have to separate in their mind, differentiate, hey, I'm not like that at all. Here's why. Then you do it really quickly just by saying, hey, look, I was on your LinkedIn, saw you're involved in Salesforce dev and I do Salesforce dev, it's a one-to-one connection, and let them respond." Find out more about Julie and connect with her at the links below: LinkedIn (Julie): https://www.linkedin.com/in/julienester/ LinkedIn (SaaSySalesMoms): https://www.linkedin.com/company/saasy-sales-moms/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of my cold calling session with Julie Smith Nester, BDR at Flosum and Co-Founder at SaaSySalesMoms. Kevin and Julie refine Julie's pitch and review a call that connected, however to the wrong person. They weigh the pros and cons of opening with "did you get my email?" and discuss Kevin's way of leading with context and then a question. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES The cons of an opener about an email sent - Kevin: "Leading with the reason for the call is I sent you an email can actually put them, and think about this, it could put them in a state of distrust right away because they don't remember your email. And even if you did send it to them, they opened it and deleted it within 5 seconds." Open with a context that fits your prospect - Kevin: "Context then a question. The context, like for me for instance... is here's who I am, I work for companies like yours doing this." Find out more about Julie and connect with her at the links below: LinkedIn (Julie): https://www.linkedin.com/in/julienester/ LinkedIn (SaaSySalesMoms): https://www.linkedin.com/company/saasy-sales-moms/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is proud to present to you part 2 of this season's greatest hits! We feature some of the best cold calls and insights we've gathered along with our esteemed guests. In this episode, Kevin deploys his new strategy of overcoming a common objection about not having time due to an upcoming meeting, as well as how to get around the issue of budgets. Meanwhile, Ryan Pereus utilizes the "digital handshake" to help set a meeting. Featured today are: Chet Lovegren, AKA The Sales Doctor Ryan Pereus, CEO and Founder of Superhuman Prospecting HIGHLIGHT QUOTE Overcome the 'I have a meeting objection - Kevin: "This is a new technique that I actually have been teaching the teams that I coach for only about two weeks. When we get close to the half-hour, when do people have meetings, Chet? On the hour and on the half-hour. A very common objection, when you catch somebody near the half hour or the hour, super common is, oh, I'm about to step into a meeting, I can't talk right now. So what did I do there? Did you catch it? It was subtle. I said, hey, I have a meeting in 4 minutes, so let's get this done before then. So we had this unspoken contract." Connect with our guests in the links below: Chet Lovegren: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetlovegren/ Ryan Pereus: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanpereus/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is proud to present to you part 1 of this season's greatest hits! We feature some of the best cold calls and insights we've gathered along with our esteemed guests. Kevin and his guests also touch on actionable tips for your own cold call strategy, like leveraging the fact that your prospect is driving when you called them and using a founder-to-founder approach, as well as educational content on what a false negative is and why you shouldn't be put off by initial objections. Featured today are: Collin Mitchell, Chief Evangelist of Humantic AI Junior Lartey, Senior Account Executive at pickle.ai Tom Slocum, Founder of the SD Lab. HIGHLIGHT QUOTE Learn to spot when an objection is a false negative - Kevin: "One of the things that I always advise people to guard against is this idea of the false negative. A false positive is when something says that it's good when it's actually bad. A false negative is when something you think is bad is actually good. So a false negative would be jumping right into your pitch while he's driving and then, as he hears you going and going and going, what's he going to say, Collin? I'm not interested. Is he really not interested? Or is he driving right now?" Connect with our guests in the links below: Collin Mitchell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/collincmitchell/ Junior Lartey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juniorlartey/ Tom Slocum: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomslocum/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of my cold calling session with Donnie Boivin, CEO of Success Champion Networking and Founder of Badass Business Summit. Kevin debunks the misconception that your job as a seller is to inform people about your solution. No, it is not. Donnie also shares that what sellers should be looking for is lifelong value rather than transactions to have higher-quality conversations. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES Choose lifetime value over transactional relationships - Donnie: "I would tell most people that if they would look at everything as a lifelong value, lifetime value, lifelong relationships versus a transaction and getting the deal done, they will have a lot greater conversations and find themselves into a lot better clients and clientele." Find out more about Donnie and connect with him at the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnieboivin/ Website: https://donnieboivin.com/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of my cold calling session with Donnie Boivin, CEO of Success Champion Networking and Founder of Badass Business Summit. Donnie bags a meeting right out the gate and shares how being blunt but not rude on a cold call is appreciated by prospects. He also explains his 20-60-20 Rule, where 20% will not do business with you, 20% will instantly say yes, and the middle 60% is where all the sales action happens. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES The 20-60-20 Rule explained - Donnie: "I got the 20-60-20 rule. And so what that means is 20% of people are never going to do business with you no matter what you do, no matter what you say, they're just never going to do business with you. 20% of people are instantly going to say yes. They've been looking for it, they're excited... it's right up their alley and they're ready to rock and roll. Sales happens in that 60% that doesn't know about you, doesn't know if they need your product and service." Find out more about Donnie and connect with him at the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnieboivin/ Website: https://donnieboivin.com/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of my cold calling session with Rob Turley, The RevOps Hitman and Chief Revenue Operations Officer at ChatConversions. Kevin explains why prospects even pick up in the first place, which is curiosity, and how to use this to your advantage. Rob then reaches a prospect who was the wrong person to speak for partnerships. After learning more about their business, Rob decides to play the long game and provides referrals since he has an abundance of contacts in the cloud architecture space. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES The curiosity that compels prospects to pick up is universal for everyone - Kevin: "Why do people pick up phone calls that they don't recognize in the first place? Why? The reason is they are curious. Who are you and why are you calling me? Who are you and why are you calling me? Now that we know that every single person that you cold call wants to know the exact same things, every single person, what can you do to use that to your advantage? You can open the same way every time." Find out more about Rob and connect with him at the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-revops-hitman/ Email: rob@chatconversionspro.com Cellphone: 845-746-6090 You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of my cold calling session with Rob Turley, The RevOps Hitman and Chief Revenue Operations Officer at ChatConversions. This day was Giving Tuesday, the perfect occasion to reach out to HR professionals and see if they would like to explore they can give back to the community. Rob also reaches a prospect who has heard of his client's company before, a rarity, and it is safe to assume that they would have an army in a call center at their disposal, making them not a good fit. Kevin suggests using category language for prospects like this to which Rob agrees to try it out. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES The Here's the Pen Trick explained - Kevin: "At the end of a set meeting, like a discovery meeting or a first meeting or whatever, if you don't know this person very well, I use what's called the Here's the Pen Trick. It's a quick little thing. At the end, if it's gone well, I always ask, I say, Hey, Rob, do you have a pen? And then they say, uhh, no, but I got my laptop, I got my phone, or they say yes. I say, cool, take down my cellphone number, then you give them your cellphone number. And what do they do back? They reciprocate." Find out more about Rob and connect with him at the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-revops-hitman/ Email: rob@chatconversionspro.com Cellphone: 845-746-6090 You can connect with Kevin Hopp at the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of my conversation with Ryan Pereus, CEO and Founder of Superhuman Prospecting. Kevin shares how to lean into the information you do know and create topic-driven conversations with prospects. Ryan also suggests to not just cycle through lists but to analyze the best times and days you reach your prospects and micro-adjust to double down on what is converting higher. HIGHLIGHT QUOTE Record calls and analyze them to figure out higher conversion rates - Ryan: "One of the things we tell our clients is we are on a continuous improvement cycle every month for you. We're going to constantly micro-adjust and sharpen it based upon what we see in our results. And so we'll tag what time, day person called and then just lean towards what's converting higher." Lean into the information you do know in a cold call - Kevin: "I always teach reps, lean on what you do know. As a rep, you have to be able to say well, I see you as someone in operations, people operations, and here is why, then you connect okay, if this is your title, here's what people operations generally talk about." Find out more about Ryan and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanpereus/ Website: https://superhumanprospecting.com/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of my conversation with Ryan Pereus, CEO and Founder of Superhuman Prospecting. Ryan lands a meeting in this episode and he phrased it as a way to "digitally shake hands" with the owner, an off-the-cuff comment that proved to be effective. Ryan also shares that, in their experience, December is actually the best time to cold call because nobody makes calls during this time. HIGHLIGHT QUOTE A request to call back in the first quarter was a signal to lean in - Ryan: "We're not trying to sell you now. That's not the point, so let's push the sale off to March. Now the pressure's off and now we're just having a conversation to see if this can help when they're ready." Find out more about Ryan and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanpereus/ Website: https://superhumanprospecting.com/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of a special educational feature on the Golden Rules of Cold Calling. The first Golden Rule today is to be interested and interesting or have a dynamic personality on the phone that engages prospects that gets them talking to you. Kevin also doubles down on the importance of targeted list-building and provides a formula for efficiency to get meetings over time. Lastly, cold calling is a numbers game, so do not be discouraged because a large chunk of your market is not actively looking for a solution. QUOTES Build your targeted list and time will reveal qualified prospects - Kevin: "The list-building process is the number 1 most overlooked thing in outbound. Period, full stop. You should put more time into building your list so that your lists can actually be more targeted. Outbound will always work with time. The game we're playing is time." Understand that cold calling is a numbers game - Kevin: "In your market, only 3% of people are the very, very tippity top are actively looking for a solution and have the problems... looking for a solution thing. These are the ones that we all freaking love." You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is a special educational feature on the Golden Rules of Cold Calling. Kevin explains that first and foremost, prospects are not interested. Knowing this, it is a cheap objection and should be treated as a false negative that should not be taken at face value. The second is that conversations are king. You can only find out if a prospect is potentially interested by having a conversation with them. The third is fat stacks in the circle backs or making follow-ups, the biggest area to get meetings from. The last Golden Rule today is business problems and valuable solutions, or having valuable conversations on problems you can solve. QUOTES Don't fall for the false negative - Kevin: "The false negative is the cheap objection that you get that you might take at face value as oh, they just told me they're not interested in the first 7 seconds of the call, therefore I can never sell my solutions to this company. Wrong." You get more meetings by following up - Kevin: "Trying to get a hold of people on the phone is hard enough, so when you can identify that someone has this number and picks up, that you can reach them on that number, that is worth following up." You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of my conversation with Blake Hudson, the SDR Manager of Tapcart. Blake suggests asking for 15 minutes of your prospect's time by framing it as 1% of their day. They discuss strategies to get past gatekeepers then Kevin reaches a number that, while it was the right company, was no longer the right person. They have a good conversation and Kevin agrees to follow up within the week. QUOTES Don't be afraid to pick up the phone - Blake: "You're not going to make a cold call that's so bad that they print articles about you in the paper and your business goes under. Not possible. So just lean in." Build rapport with gatekeepers to get an honest answer - Kevin: "You say, Hey Blake, I've called five times for Thomas. Every time he seems to be the world's busiest man. I totally get it. Will I ever get through to Thomas on this number? Can you be real with me for a second? And they will generally be honest with you in that moment." Find out more about Blake and connect with him in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/onebrightblake/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. Click [here] to listen in to Part 1 of my conversation with Blake!

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of my conversation with Blake Hudson, the SDR Manager of Tapcart. We discuss the seasonality of outbound outreach and knowing when to bow out of a call instead of pushing harder. Blake runs into a prospect who asks how he got their number, and we dig into the strategies you can do to overcome this objection. QUOTES Be interesting by being a real person on the phone Kevin: "I'm trying to be a weird call. I'm trying to stick out. I want next time I call for her to say, ‘Oh yeah, you're the guy who asked me if I was drinking a margarita at what, 12 o'clock on a Wednesday?’ And she's gonna say, ‘Oh, I remember you. Okay. You're a real person. You're not some telemarketer, you're not some spammer. Let's have a conversation.’" Find out more about Blake and connect with him in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/onebrightblake/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of the conversation with Chet Lovegren aka The Sales Doctor. A common objection for people is to say they can’t take your call as they’re about to step into a meeting. There are ways to overcome this, as Kevin and Chet demonstrate today. They also discuss why you should try to get a meeting on a cold call, even if it’s a bad time for prospects to buy—and it’s not because you simply want to sell your product or service. QUOTES To overcome the common objection that the prospect is about to step into a meeting, Kevin says, "When do people have meetings, Chet? On the hour and on the half-hour, right? Very common objection, when you catch somebody near the half hour or the hour, super common is, ‘Oh, I'm about to step into a meeting. I can't talk right now.’ Right? So what did I do there? Did you catch it? It was subtle. I said, ‘Hey, I have a meeting in four minutes, so let's get this done before then.’" Push for a meeting on a cold call because, as Kevin says, "Let's establish some form of back-and-forth so we're not ice-cold anymore. So it's always valuable to set this meeting and to build your network of people who are prospective buyers for your stuff, even if you're not gonna buy right now." Find out more about Chet and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetlovegren/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. Click [here] to listen in to Part 1 of my conversation with Chet!

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of the conversation with Chet Lovegren aka The Sales Doctor. Kevin and Chet reach out to prospects who were either guarded by gatekeepers or were not very curious about their service. Chet shares his technique to gain the trust of gatekeepers while Kevin shares how being friendly is the key to gaining others' curiosity. QUOTES On telling a gatekeeper the prospect 'has my number,' Kevin says, "Wow. That's a really good way to instantly sound very credible and kind of build that close relationship with the gatekeeper right out the gate. I like that. I like that a lot. Wow. Never heard of that one." By using a friendly tone to get prospects curious about you and your product, Kevin says, "The more friendly your tone, the more the prospect is going to think and they're gonna stop and they're gonna be like Do I know you? Do I know you? And I want them in this state of mind of going, “Huh, Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. Hmm. I know a Kevin. I don't know a Kevin at Uncommon Giving. I don't know what Uncommon Giving is.” I want their brain very curious." Find out more about Chet and connect with him in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetlovegren/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of the conversation with Tom Slocum, Founder of The SD Lab. Today, Kevin highlights the importance of understanding your prospect’s industry so you don't have to ask questions like "what is your pain," as prospects don't think about this. Kevin and Tom also discuss how to speak to prospects on a level way with the founder-to-founder approach. QUOTES Understand your prospects so you don't ask what their pain is - Kevin: "Ask business level questions and have that business level conversation with your prospect as opposed to asking if they're in pain because they don't think about pain, but they do think about things like, I need more top of funnel. I need a better process. I need reliability." Use the founder-to-founder approach to level the field - Tom: "That's another one I've been experimenting with where I'm actually kind of like leveling founder to founder and trying to find out if I can just get feedback, pitch them my concept without pitching them, and kind of see if they're open to showing me the structure." Find out more about Tom and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomslocum/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101. Click [here] to listen in to Part 1 of my conversation with Tom!

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of the conversation with Tom Slocum, Founder of The SD Lab. Today, Kevin and Tom speak to prospects with various objections. Kevin teaches never to push a conversation when you have the right tools to call them again on another day. Tom also suggests working with people who want to solve their problem because, otherwise, there's no conversation to be had. QUOTES There's no need to push conversations with structure, process, and technology - Kevin: "My philosophy is never to push a conversation. Never to push a conversation. Why? Why don't I push conversations? Because I've got process and structure and technology that's going to allow me to call Andreas back tomorrow really easily." Prioritize accounts so you call people with a problem and desire to fix it - Tom: "You want to call prospects that are actual prospects. And it's like, well, of course, Tom. But it's true. You've got to really look at who actually wants to solve the problem that you help solve. They've got to want to solve the problem." Find out more about Tom and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomslocum/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of the conversation with Jack Knight, SDR Manager and Founder of CallBlitz. Today, Kevin speaks to a prospect that perfectly illustrates why staying on hold for more than 3 minutes is a bad idea. Kevin and Jack also discuss why you need to push back on the classic objection of "follow up with me in 6 months" and how to do it skillfully. QUOTES Ask for personal likes when you get a referral - Jack: "If someone gives you a referral, ask the person giving the referral, ‘Hey, is there anything about Susie that would get her attention? Like what is Susie into? Does she like dogs?’" When asked to call back in 6 months, ask why Kevin: "I will always ask, ‘What's going to change between now and then? Like why 6 months?’ And I didn't just say it flat out. What did I say? Generally, when people tell me to follow up in 6 months, it's because X, Y, Z might happen in between." Find out more about Jack and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dontdialalone/ Website: https://callblitz.com/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of the conversation with Jack Knight, SDR Manager and Founder of CallBlitz. Today, Kevin speaks to a prospect who is crushing his sales goals. The lesson is to play the long game, connect on LinkedIn, and show connections what he can do for them. Meanwhile, Jack speaks to a prospect who draws out the call, and even though it's not the best fit, he makes a note to follow up on LinkedIn and stay in touch there. QUOTES Connect on LinkedIn when a prospect asks you to send an email - Kevin: "We all know if I send you an email, the odds of you replying are one in a hundred. Email is not the way to communicate with most people who are actually busy." Note down contacts you need to follow up on - Jack: "My key there is just to write a name down. So I know I need to follow up with Paul and then I'll just write LinkedIn and that's it. That's all I need. No CRM automation, whatever." Find out more about Jack and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dontdialalone/ Website: https://callblitz.com/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the last part of the conversation with Marc Mac, Revenue-istician at AmpliFi. They dive into the practice of listening and how cold calling is almost never about buying or selling, but mostly about having genuine conversations. Kevin dives into why pitching to busy people never works while Marc stresses the need to regulate pace, volume, tone, and energy during a cold call. Marc also discusses how opening cold calls and holding the first 5 or 15 seconds are crucial to deepening conversations with prospects.  QUOTES Use a framework to open a conversation in 15 seconds - Marc: "It's about that first 15 seconds or first 5 seconds. And I just find, if you have a framework and you really understand what you do, what you're trying to do, or what your product, the problem it solves, and so on and so forth, then it should be very easy to open a conversation." Find out more about Marc and connect with him in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcmachlovitz/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp is the first part of the conversation with Marc Mac, Revenue-istician at AmpliFi. Today, they discuss how to call out when a prospect is driving and how sometimes everything in a call can go right but it's still not a good fit. Kevin had to overcome his prospect's first objection by immediately calling out that he was driving and that now might not be the best time to talk. Meanwhile, it turned out that Marc's prospect was the president of a German company's regional office, so it was not a good fit. QUOTES If it's not a good fit, don't try to set a meeting - Kevin: "Sometimes it doesn't make any sense to set a meeting even if they got on your list, even if you put all the time into doing research, even though you get them on the phone, and even though you had the long conversation, it doesn't make sense to set the meeting." Find out more about Marc and connect with him in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcmachlovitz/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp features Junior Lartey, Account Executive at Pickle. The script is essential to systematically go through your list, however, it is only a handrail that you should customize as you get better with it. Junior shares how he maintains 2 lists, one broader and one more targeted, and how he reaches out to prospects with his script. He also reaches out to a prospect who is between jobs and, knowing this valuable information, Kevin suggests adding this to the calendar for a follow-up call in a month's time. QUOTES The script is a handrail you should customize - Kevin: "The script's important because it keeps us on a directional path, but it's really bad to read scripts word for word. And now, one of the biggest reasons why it's bad word for word is 95% of reps didn't write the script." Have 2 lists to cold call - Junior: "One is my targeted accounts list. I'm adding to these weekly... and going through and cadencing them. And then I have a much broader list of 1200 people that roughly fill somewhat of the same pain that I can cold call out of the blue." Find out more about Junior and connect with him in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juniorlartey/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp features Junior Lartey, Account Executive at Pickle. They cold call their respective lists and speak with prospects to find out if there's a good fit. Kevin finds out that one of his prospects is interested to know more and he agrees to send over an email, as per the request of the prospect. Meanwhile, Junior's prospect suggests that his wife might find potential value in his product and he books a meeting so they both could find out more. QUOTES People are curious about phone calls and put callers into buckets - Kevin: "Everybody, every time you call, wants to know who you are and why are you calling. And then they generally are going to put you into a bucket really quickly. The bucket is salesperson, spammer, someone I know, someone from my community." Play by someone's rules if it gives you the keys to that conversation Kevin - "He told me exactly how to do business with him, so I'm going to play by his rules. I'm a huge fan of playing by someone's rules if they're going to tell you hey, here's the keys to the castle." Find out more about Junior and connect with him in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juniorlartey/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp features Collin Mitchell, Chief Evangelist at Humantic. They reach out to prospects and hear classic objections against a calling culture, such as how their organization takes a more relationship-based approach to sales. Kevin and Collin then discuss cold calling tactics like the double tap and the best times to use it, as well as the importance of enabling sales teams with a tech stack that sets them up for success. QUOTES The double tap, done correctly, has no downsides - Collin: "You really have nothing to lose because if they heard what you said, it wasn't a bad connection and they just didn't have time or weren't interested, they won't pick up when you double tap. But if they do pick up when you double tap, chances are it was like a bad connection." Open up your top of funnel with cold calls - Kevin: "Cold calling is just top of funnel and you can open a long sales cycle with a top of funnel cold call just as effectively as you can get someone's credit card over a cold call and have a really super transactional sale. But a lot of orgs have this kind of false mindset around what I do is strategic, what you do is not strategic." Find out more about Collin and connect with him in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/collincmitchell/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This is the inaugural episode of Hopp on Calls with Kevin Hopp featuring Collin Mitchell, Chief Evangelist at Humantic. Today, Kevin and Collin hit the dialer to speak with B2B SaaS founders and help them establish a strong calling culture in their organizations. They discuss important lessons like cold calling is a conversation first before anything else and how to not fall for the false negative. If a prospect is driving and he says he's not interested, don't assume he's unqualified as he must simply be unavailable right now to take a call! QUOTES Push to book meetings only with people you can actually help - Kevin: "You only set meetings with people that you have a real business problem or valuable solution for, like you've identified a business problem, or they really want the valuable solution you've talked about." Go slow with a new script and use it as a handrail - Kevin: "A script is just helping us get from point A to point B. We shouldn't open up a call by reading the script word for word. It's much more like a handrail. I don't know if everybody can see this but it's a handrail right, a handrail going up a set of stairs is how you should think of your script." Find out more about Collin and connect with him in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/collincmitchell/ You can connect with Kevin Hopp in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Hopp on Calls is powered by Kixie. Hone the craft of outbound sales at Cold Calling 101.

This episode of the Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Lauren Delfino, Vice President of Sales at RxVantage. She digs deep into how she went from slinging magazines to working with B2B businesses and start-ups. Lauren shares some insights on adjusting to enterprise sales from doing shorter sales cycles and the difference in strategies between the two. She also shares lessons she's gained from laying off employees and being on the other end of the stick as well before that. HIGHLIGHTS From direct-to-consumers sales to B2B and start-ups. Shorter sales cycles vs enterprise sales Lessons in being laid off QUOTES On the work ethic that she demonstrated - Lauren: "I wasn't the best salesperson. I thought I was in my head, but I was quickly humbled. But I did work my tail off. And with working your tail off, as you know, you're getting more at-bats, you're getting practice, you're learning every time you fail and that's what projected my SaaS experience." It's good to have your own brag book - Lauren: "I wish I would have done a better job of snapshotting things. Not necessarily to show people but at least so I have a record of every accomplishment that I have and have the exact numbers to support it." Finding SDRs that have low productivity metrics - Kevin: "The thing about sales is if you are not selling, you're not being productive. I think a lot of people confuse busywork and admin work with being productive in sales and there needs to be a healthy mix of lowering the admin work to an acceptable level, let's call it 15-20% of your day. But you should be selling the rest of that." Find out more about Lauren and connect with her in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurendelfino/ You can find and connect with Kevin Hopp in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of the Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Sahil Mehra, Managing Partner at Darwinian Ventures. He shares about his progression through his sales career and the most difficult sales jobs he's encountered over those years. He talks about the importance of having a mentor and someone to learn from especially in a sales environment. Sahil also digs into the negative notions around cold calling from both the buyer's and seller's perspectives. He talks about shaping a positive mindset as a leader or rep to eliminate these negative notions. HIGHLIGHTS Challenging sales jobs that Sahil has had throughout his career Find someone you can learn from and help you level up your skillset Creating curiosity and eliminating the negative notion of cold calling QUOTES When sales leaders say they don't have time for call coaching - Sahil: "People's motivations are different. I tend to think that in sales, there probably are more leaders that are more committed to their status and their track." Everybody needs to be prospecting because it's an invaluable skill - Sahil: "I think that you need 5, 6, 7 years of cold calling to be a beast. You don't even have enough time to be a beast. I'm still getting better, you're still getting better. In 5 years of you doing more cold calling and more coaching, you're going to be 5x better." Cold calling being associated with the term solicitations - Kevin: "It has such a negative connotation but when I Googled it, the dictionary definition does fit what we're trying to do with a cold call. Because it's just to ask something of somebody. It's not to sell them something, it's just to ask them something." Find out more about Sahil and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahilmehra/ Email: smehra@darwinian.com You can find and connect with Kevin Hopp in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of the Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Matthew Provins, CEO at DialPause. He shares his career growth in sales which saw him quickly rise up from an SDR role to a sales leader, and ultimately taking his experience to start his own dialer company. He recalls how moving to a sales leader role was the most difficult part of his career and how time management was the biggest obstacle during this shift. Matt also comments on the prevailing influencer algorithm of LinkedIn that has less to do with sales leadership and more to do with content creation. HIGHLIGHTS The SDR role is not difficult IF you have a good sales leader LinkedIn influencers: Overflowing content with little real-world experience DialPause: Creating a dialer to talk to SaaS leaders QUOTES Retroactive versus proactive sales enablement - Matthew: "The best way to make sure a rep is enabled to be successful is by giving them the materials that they need ahead of time and replicate those processes." Be critical of LinkedIn influencers who are gaming the system - Kevin: "You don't have to be loud on LinkedIn to prove that you're a good sales leader. In fact, we're getting further and further away from that being a true indicator of your ability to lead, develop, do really good at your job. It means you're good at content." Not every sales influencer has real-world results Kevin: "Just because you're good at sales here doesn't mean you're good at human communication in real life." Find out more about Mathew and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-provins/ Website: http://www.dialpause.com/ You can find and connect with Kevin Hopp in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of the Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Kevin Gaither,  Owner of Inside Sales Expert. KG looks back on his successful sales history and shares nuggets of wisdom about quitting. For him, sometimes it is necessary to quit what you're doing now to achieve even greater success. He talks about treating people right because they give the best referrals to drive forward your career. KG also discusses how he grew ZipRecruiter using an inside sales team built around processes and metrics so he can avoid being the bottleneck when it comes to decision-making. HIGHLIGHTS Leaving equipment leasing and finance because of unethical practices Quit when you're not reaching your success goals Be specific about the job you want and it opens up more opportunities From $20M to $400M: Growing ZipRecruiter with an inside sales team QUOTES Quitting doesn't mean losing if you become more successful afterward - Kevin Gaither: "It's hard for people, Kevin, to realize that sometimes winners have quit in the past. They quit doing the things that they're not successful at in order to focus on things that are far more successful." Be specific about the sales job you want to get the best referrals - Kevin Gaither: "When you're looking for a job, the worst thing you can say is, 'So do you know of anybody that's looking to hire salespeople?' That's the worst thing you can say. Why? Because it is so nonspecific that literally, nobody can help you." Create processes so you don't become the bottleneck in solutions - Kevin Gaither: "One of the ways that we became very successful is that we were very process-driven, procedure-driven, checklist-driven, and then of course, on the back end of all that, metrics and data-driven where we were making decisions based on data in conjunction with our experience." Find out more about Kevin Gaither and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevingaither/ Email: kevingaither@gmail.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevinsgaither You can find and connect with Kevin Hopp in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of the Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Richard Harris, Founder of The Harris Consulting Group and Co-Founder of Surf and Sales. Richard shares the ups and downs of his sales career, from finding success as a consultant to getting fired multiple times over the years. He talks about your accountability in getting laid off, as well as its reflection of the company's position at that moment. He also gives advice to his younger self and recommends The 48 Laws of Power to listeners. HIGHLIGHTS A lifelong salesman: Selling Gap clothing and surviving the recession Getting fired or laid off: Accept your responsibility and growth Richard’s advice on how he should have done it QUOTES Consulting was not the plan but it's how it worked out - Richard: "This was back when you couldn't build your own websites easily, built what I call the validation website. Something that validates that I am who I say I am. And then I never looked back. So that's how I got into consulting. It was never a plan." Getting laid off is a reflection of you and your performance - Richard: "I think it's 50-50. I think it is about you as a person and it is about some level of performance. And, believe me, I know people who've gotten laid off who were crushing their number. I've seen all of that." Be open to learning because you don't know everything Richard: "I grew up thinking I knew it all and I think that's part of the Gen X life is that, because we were latchkey kids and we had to go home and figure it out, we think we've figured everything out." Find out more about Richard and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rharris415/ Website: https://www.surfandsales.com/ Email: richard@rharris415.com Phone: 415-596-9149 You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of the Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Shawn Sease, Founder of 5bynoon and iNeverAnswer.com. He shares his extensive experience in sales and how he learned to sell on relationships and referrals when working in a commoditized market. He also emphasizes the need to do the work when the goal is to grow into the next best version of yourself, as well as the dangers of incentives that make sellers manage towards the metric. HIGHLIGHTS Brewing beer and experimenting with the cannabis industry Sell on relationships and referrals to build a book of business Sobriety and fitness: Take aim at your goal and set the steps to get there Meetings set: Perverse incentives lead to managing towards the metric QUOTES Relationships and referrals are the key to selling in a commoditized market - Shawn: "Basically, there's a big difference between the top of the funnel and making these calls between trying to sell people what you do as opposed to helping those people get what they want. You get short-sighted." Always develop into the next best version of yourself Shawn: "I think the bigger story isn't like “Oh hey! You quit drinking. You quit this. You quit that.’ I think it's more like taking aim at different causes, like taking aim at something, always becoming the next best version of yourself. Shedding skin, burning off the dead wood, things like that. And I don't think that that ever ends." Moving to full cycle and client acquisition - Shawn: "The question is not ‘How many meetings do you need?’ It's ‘How many X customers do you need by Y amount of time?’ and let's work it back from there. If calling people and asking meetings and doing demos that way works, sure, it's a piece of the puzzle. It's a spoke in the wheel or whatever. But it's gotten to the point where the SDR role has become some holy grail way to do things. And it's not. It's a shit show in a lot of cases." Find out more about Shawn in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnsease/ Website: https://ineveranswer.com/ You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of the Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Ned Arick, Head of Growth at ClozeLoop. He shares how he made a successful exit at 22 years old and how selling door-to-door in the Utah bubble presents massive opportunities for sellers of solar. He also gives his younger self some advice on focusing on the bigger game instead of getting caught up with what other people think of him. Ned also advises sellers to get 90% of ego out of the way to also stop them from spreading themselves too thinly. HIGHLIGHTS Selling doctor's offices at 22 was the most challenging sales job Going door to door and co-owning a solar company in Arizona Play the bigger game and don't waste your time caring about outcomes Nobody cares as much about you as much as you QUOTES Mormons make $200,000 commission-only selling solar door-to-door Ned: "Something that not many, I would probably guess that very few of your listeners unless they're in the Utah bubble know about this, it's a very, very lucrative place to be and it's a very, very... the talent is untapped." Stop worrying about what other people think Ned "If I went a day without booking a meeting, I would just be down. And the problem with that is, when you're so worried, number one, about what people think, but number two, about the end result, what happens is you start to bring that negativity into every single further conversation that you have." Get your ego out of your sales conversations Ned: "Take the ego out of the game. Go into every single day. Swing that bat hard. Understand that, hey, man, there are going to be people that are rude to you. There's going to be people that are going to say no. There's going to be people that are going to brush you off. There's going to be people that are going to piss you off, or you're going to piss off. But, guess what? None of that really matters." Find out more about Ned in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nedarick/ Website: https://clozeloop.com/ You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of the Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Mike Wander, New Partnership Sales Leader at Saastr. It's not very usual for former Marines to go into sales immediately after their service, but this is exactly how Mike entered sales. He shares the characteristics of a salesperson to skyrocket their success as he did, from practicing grit and a growth mindset to having the courage and faith to keep going. Mike also talks about being intentional in prospecting to enjoy higher win rates and develop a connection with the buyer. HIGHLIGHTS Leaving the military and entering sales over 90 days ago Grit, growth mindset, and courage for success Careful prospecting results in a 1 in 4 email reply rate QUOTES Have courage and faith to hit your quota Mike: "Getting a quota, it's not just like this magical number. There's this huge portion of the company that's relying on you to hit that quota to continue growing. And so you need to have courage and your faith not only in your team to support you to hit that, but also in yourself to continue to go after it everyday." Prospect carefully to enjoy a higher win rate Mike: "Really, really dive deep on these companies. Really figure out if this is going to be a good fit for them? Would they benefit from being part of the SaaStr community? Once you find that out, once you think you have that answer, then go into the company and figure out who would I want to outbound to." Find out more about Mike in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-w-27781a1ba/ You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of the Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Richard Mugica, Founder of 1 Call Closers. Closing deals is a craft within the craft of sales. Richard shares how he discovered his strength in closing deals and how the need to survive necessitated his success. He discovered the power of following up and advises rookie sellers to shadow the best sellers in your company. Richard also answers Kevin's rapid-fire questions and gives an interesting take on the importance of marketing in a go-to-market strategy. HIGHLIGHTS Entering sales through Bedros Keuilian and learning how to close 1 Call Closers fills the sales gap for influencers' courses Model the top performers in your company Marketing gets people to the close QUOTES Follow-ups get you $3,000 to $50,000 one-call closes Richard: "I just followed up like a freaking maniac. I remember I had people texting me, Kevin, saying hey bro, I've never been followed up like this in my life. I had people calling me Follow Up King. All this crazy stuff. And I was like, bro, I don't what else to do. That's how I'm going to close these deals. And then I got good at it through repetition." Surviving amidst the uncertainty of quitting a job Richard: "When you have no other options but to succeed, you're more than likely going to succeed because that's the only option you have." Richard's top advice for new salespeople Richard: "Find somebody in your company, if there's somebody right now that is crushing it. Who's that top guy? And you go up to him and say hey man, I want to be just like you. Here's the goals I have this year. Here's the things I want to do for my family, x, y, z. Is there any way I can just be around you? Can I shadow your calls?" Find out more about Richard in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardmugica/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richard_mugica/ Website: https://1callclosers.com/ You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Blake Hudson, SDR Manager at Tapcart. The skill of listening is one of the most important skills a seller must have. This became even more apparent during the pandemic which proved to be the biggest obstacle in Blake's sales career. He shares how he discovered the Gratitude Gap during this time and how it led away from frustration and instead into happiness. Blake also talks about the growth he experienced by getting let go, his advocacy for every seller to become accountable for their own mental health, and being a voice for others. SHOW NOTES HIGHLIGHTS Blake's mission is to help SDRs find their vision, identity & purpose Selling during the pandemic was the biggest challenge so far The Gratitude Gap: Happiness is when gratitude creeps just above entitlement Getting let go from re:work and learning accountability for mental health Not knowing is the start of growing QUOTES A mission to help others find their purpose Blake: "My personal mission in life is to help people get clear about their identity, their practice, and purpose. Who they are, what they're doing, and why." Listening is important in politics and sales Blake: That's where my background in politics really helped out because politics is also what I studied in school⁠—communication, political science⁠—learning how to speak the language of the audience that you're in front of, learning how to shut up and listen, ask a great question, and before you can even say anything, you got to understand where they're coming from." The Gratitude Gap explained Blake: "Because that gratitude crept just above my entitlement, that gap was happiness. And for my teammates that remained entitled and that crept just above their gratitude, that was their frustration." Blake's advice to sellers on the first day of the job Blake: "Not knowing is where you begin growing. I was selling fintech, remote finance and accounting, and Kevin, I didn't know a damn thing about remote finance or accounting. But my mindset was if I can learn how to sell this, I can sell anything. And so I had to become very comfortable early on with not knowing." Find out more about Blake in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/onebrightblake/ You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Ollie Whitfield, Growth Marketer at VanillaSoft and host of The 0 To 5 Million Podcast. There is a systematic way to prospect on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Ollie shares how some creativity and a lot of tenacity helped him excel in his sales jobs, as well as his almost obsessive way of seeking out people for specific career advice. He also talks about how essential having a better work-life balance is in sales. SHOW NOTES HIGHLIGHTS An apprenticeship in Facebook marketing led to sales Learning to snipe prospects on social media Strategies learned working for Tony Robbins Create better work-life balance and leading others QUOTES Ollie on getting creative on social media prospecting: "He only went to this one chat and it was like 9 PM at night on Wednesdays to meet once a week. So I went to that knowing he'd be there because he's never anywhere else this guy. And we started talking. I engaged with him... a few times, with everybody else too, in the DM we got the appointment. It taught me things like that." Ollie's exercise to reach the next level in your career: "I researched everything he did and all of his jobs, all of the content he did, speaking engagements, everything. Podcasts, you name it. I had a very specific question for him that only he could answer, no one else, and I would get him on the phone about that for half an hour. Next night, someone else." Ollie on a future leadership role: "I really, badly, want to be at some point in my career a team leader. I don't care what the title is like CMO or VP, whatever that is, I don't care. But it's the coaching aspect that I've been there and I can offer you a perspective, a guidance, a way of doing it which you might not have thought about. I can stop you from failing because I've seen myself do that." Find out more about Ollie in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olliewhitfield/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/OllieWhitfield Podcast: https://anchor.fm/0-to-5-million-podcast You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Collin Mitchell, Co-Founder/Chief Revenue Officer of Salescast and host of the Sales Transformation Podcast. Collin shares his less-than-ideal childhood and how he practically begged his way into his first sales job. He quickly grew in this role and eventually pursued his own entrepreneurship goals afterward. Through a lot of failures, his podcast is now in the top half percent of its category with a listenership in the millions. HIGHLIGHTS Growing up poor and shrugging off sales rejections Failures are not shown on LinkedIn, but maybe they should Starting Sales Transformation and pursuing entrepreneurship Remote vs office work and being results-based QUOTES Collin: "I like to push the envelope. I like to test new things. I like to take on new challenges of the status quo is boring. And sometimes, inside of a company, that can ruffle some feathers." Collin: "It's not easy. There's a lot of tough decisions and things that happened along the way of that path. Success is not just like this unicorn, like all of a sudden you're a huge company. There's lots of ups and downs, both financially, emotionally. You name it." Collin: "Everything that people hate about a salesperson, that was me. And the people that take the path of not being that and being different are very successful." Find out more about Collin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/collincmitchell/ Podcast: https://www.salestransformation.fm/ You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Leslie Venetz, TikTok influencer and Founder of Sales Team Builder, LLC. She shares how she grows her influencer brand on TikTok and uses it in conjunction with LinkedIn for inbound sales. In her work as a fractional sales leader, Leslie discusses working with other companies and using her vast experience to grow sales teams. She also zeroes in on the role of intuition in finding your north star when deciding to build your own business. HIGHLIGHTS Being the first hire of a startup and creating brand recognition Founding Sales Team Builder and working as a fractional sales leader Believe in your intuition to find your north star Sales vs marketing: Priority depends on the business type QUOTES Leslie: "LinkedIn is my decision-maker campaign and TikTok is my influencer campaign. Like, they're both super, super important but generally, my business from LinkedIn comes because a bunch of the SDRs or AEs, whatever, follow my profile and then they go to their people leader to be like, yo, we really need to get this lady in here." Leslie: "I actually started it with inspiration from having been employee number 1 at a startup because I was like, if I can do this for somebody else and literally create a product from nothing, from the seed of an idea, I can certainly do it if I'm the product." Leslie: "I don't struggle to do more, I struggle to adjust my mindset to do less or be more intentional with my time because, for 15 years, I was like you got to put in your 40 hours. You work even though all your stuffs done. Like, look busy. And it's been the toughest thing for me to break those bad habits of working just to look busy." Leslie: "If I can only pick one, sales, because I think salespeople are really blurring the lines between demand gen and lead gen in a way that marketing is not quite yet, but maybe they're on the path." Find out more about Leslie in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslievenetz/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salestipstok Website: https://leslievenetz.com/ You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Anthony Natoli, Strategic Account Executive at Lattice. Winging sales and not having a process leads to anxiety and this, in turn, can lead to very unhealthy habits. Anthony shares how he grew into the SaaS sales role and his own personal growth journey getting back in shape after being 60 lbs overweight. He talks about the biggest life lessons he learned on self-worth and showing up and how focusing less on outcomes actually creates better results while also leaving you less stressed and more fulfilled. HIGHLIGHTS ● Growing as an AE and regaining a healthy body weight ● Transition to SaaS by being a problem-solver ● Create your personal brand ● Self-worth: Enjoy the process and don't focus on outcomes QUOTES Anthony: "My message to anyone listening that is struggling is don't be afraid to ask for help because that was the first step for me of moving in the right direction." Anthony: "If you genuinely believe in whatever you're selling and that it can solve a problem, you're pretty indifferent to rejection because you're goal is trying to find people that may have the problem, and if they do, great, if not, obviously sorry for wasting a couple of minutes but it's not like we're out here trying to spam people on purpose and ruin their days, we're actually trying to make their lives better in some way." Anthony: "What I recommend to my younger self is to have an abundant life outside of work and realize that whether I hit or miss my quota, I'm going to be fine. It doesn't make me less of a person and I think, actually, when you focus less on outcomes and your self-worth being tied to those outcomes, you actually do better because you have a clear mind." Find out more about Anthony in the links below: ● LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-natoli/ ● Newsletter: https://anthonynatoli.me/ You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Nate Nasralla, Founder at Fluint.io. He shares how he started his sales career in startups serving nonprofits and how truly believing in their mission is what gets you closer to a sale. He discusses how, after realizing massive success, he started to tie in his own worth as a person to crushing his sales targets and the damage this was doing to his own mental health. Nate also talks about the foundations of Fluint and how deep collaboration with champions gets complex enterprise sales to close. SHOW NOTES HIGHLIGHTS Selling to nonprofits is selling WITH them and understanding their mission Defining sales as your identity: An unhealthy attachment to success Starting Fluint by helping champions sell through collaboration Accountability from the top down and extreme ownership QUOTES Nate: "I'm responsible for my number, my target, my quota that I have to hit. I'm going to stay in control here. I'm a closer, yeah, exactly. But it doesn't work that way in a complex sale and that's why the whole idea is you got to shift from selling to your buyers to selling with them because not ultimately you that controls and closes the sale." Nate: "When your level of worth or value as a human is tied to a Salesforce dashboard and it can fluctuate at any given moment, that is a really, really hard way to live. And it was very antithetical to where I started in that I was there for the mission starting off in nonprofits and then I was serving people that were mission-oriented." "And I lost that because there started to kind of have this, call it a shiny veneer placed over me of former founder, top revenue producer, so on, and I started to attach myself to those things." Nate: "Don't ride the highs and don't dip into the lows. Stay even and steady because it is a recipe not only burnout but you want to be able to show up well, not manic or totally depressed every single day. And that's the sales job is consistent, steady, showing up and a lot of that starts with how you are riding all of the highs and the lows that will inevitably be thrown at you." Find out more about Nate in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natenasralla/ Website: https://www.fluint.io/ You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Duane Dufault, seasoned sales leader, SaaS growth advisor, consultant, and trainer. Duane's career is far from rosy but its rawness resonates with many other sellers who have had similar experiences. From burning contacts to returning $10,000 checks at the risk of homelessness to getting fired, Duane shares his arrogance starting out and his inward journey to really drill down what he needed to do to succeed. Duane also shares a podcast first: a medical emergency that could have ended in tragedy and how this taught him the willpower to get out of his way own way and ultimately win. SHOW NOTES HIGHLIGHTS An underdog story: A huge ego gets crushed in sales Past rejections as motivation to move forward A brush with death taught how to overcome the greatest obstacles Buyers don’t want to be sold to, they want to be guided to a decision QUOTES Duane: "With sales, you have to find that thing that drives you forward and, for me, it's every shitty manager I've had, every single person that, it sounds cliche, but every single person that doubted me, every moment that I can think back on, I relish in that. I let myself sink in that and remind myself they were wrong." Duane: "If you want anything out of life, sales, marketing, success, whatever the hell it is, you can't wait for someone to show you how to do it. You can't wait for someone to tell you it's okay. You have to go out and get it." Duane: "It's amazing what you can do when you get out of your own way, when you stop telling yourself these stories, stop telling yourself what other people say about you, and figure out what to tell yourself. That's when you get to find the true success." Duane: "If you can find a way to focus and tie your happiness about your job to things you can control, then sky's the limit. Control dialing the phone. Control the activity that you do. Don't rest your feeling of success and happiness on this one deal closing. Always be prospecting. Always be opening. Do it with a fucking smile. Get out of your own way and you'd be amazed by what you can do." Find out more about Duane in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duanedufault/ Email: duane@sellingsaas.io You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

Kevin talks about how to best use the one thing that we all have the same amount of: TIME!

This episode of Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Jordana Zeldin, Co-Founder of The Practice Lab. A background in art directing is quite unusual in sales and Jordana shares how she made this unexpected career switch. She talks about zeroing in on coaching as her passion and the need to be authentic with yourself. Jordana discusses the curious similarities between art directing and coaching, the value of practice in both disciplines, and how having an abundance mindset in the sales community helps lift everyone’s game up. SHOW NOTES HIGHLIGHTS Entering sales from the art world Sales coaching has a lot in common with art directing An abundance mindset and sharing sales strategies with the community The Practice Lab teaches how to clearly articulate problems QUOTES Jordana: "Once we dropped that formality, the job became fun. Galleries had more fun interacting with us. We did better. We felt happier. I felt happier in my life and that was really where the seeds were planted that hey, I want to stick around here." Jordana: "I think that once you are comfortable enough being vulnerable to ask for help and being willing enough to support people in need of help, all boats rise." Jordana: "This is really about creating an intermediate step that recognizes that there is a process involved in behavioral change. And it's not rocket science because practice is something that every other discipline; it would be unthinkable to learn an instrument or to learn to basketball in the absence of practice." Find out more about Jordana in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanazeldin/ Website: https://www.thepracticelab.co/ You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

Eric Mochalski, National Account Manager at ConvergeOne stops by the pod to talk about the parallels he has seen between being a pro athlete, and being a salesperson.

This episode of Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Greg Reffner, CEO of Abstrakt. He shares his unconventional sales journey, which has him start a company and invent gym exercise equipment with some success. However, circumstances eventually led him to become an SDR selling software. The lessons from these endeavors were critical in founding Abstrakt. Greg shares that push and pull motivators are essential to reaching your goals. Pull motivators are positive, like family and goals, while push motivators are the darker side, like when others doubted Greg's ambition to enter tech. HIGHLIGHTS Inventing exercise equipment, entering sales, and founding Abstrakt An inferior product removed the reliance on features to sell Abstrakt call coaching software Getting fired: Learning how not to do it Introversion is a strength in sales QUOTES Greg: "You realize rejection's a natural part of success and the more you're willing to put yourself out there, I think, the more people are going to find success." Greg: "The hardest job I've ever had in sales was selling Act-On software and it taught how to sell without relying on features of a product. It was like sink or swim. Figure out how to sell it or you're going to be gone in 3 months." Greg: "I have this list I call the Fuck Off List. You're going to get put on that list. I'm going to prove you wrong. And then, when you come back and ask to invest in my company two years from now, my answer's going to be no. And so story that's not on my LinkedIn? My career's been largely driven by people telling me I can't do what I think I can do." Greg: "Starting your own podcast, your own consulting company, that's hard. I'm sure there's many days where you get up and you're like God, I don't want to do this today. And so you have to be able to pull from kind of the positive and negative side of motivation." Find out more about Greg in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregreffner/ Website: https://abstrakt.ai/ Email: greg@abstrakt.ai Podcast: https://abstrakt.ai/category/podkast/ You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

Kevin discusses when it doesn't make sense to set a meeting with a prospect on the phone.

This episode of Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Matt Bolian, Co-Founder and Head of Strategy and Growth at RevPartners. He talks about life in the military and the interesting story of co-founding his company. What started as him crashing a wedding became a networking opportunity to meet Brendan, his co-founder. He discusses the difficulty of transitioning from founder-led sales to training sales teams and his thoughts on cold calling as not dead but dying. Finally, Matt also shares how sales and marketing are now merging into one and how marketing should now “weaponize its front” in sales. SHOW NOTES HIGHLIGHTS From military intelligence to founding RevPartners Training sales teams is the biggest obstacle Crashing a wedding to meet his co-founder Sales and marketing are merging into one QUOTES Matt: "Cold calling is not dead. Cold calling is dying. And so, what I mean is this, it is that the behaviors of buyers is fundamentally changing. We're now moving to attention commodity where your time is your most valuable resource and it's been digitized so people are self-educating and they are ignoring emails." Matt: "If you gave me $500,000, how would I build a sales team? I wouldn't. I would build a really good content engine and then I would transition to a salesperson and then that salesperson, I would be hiring based on their ability to make unique content." Matt: "If you were genuine with people, in sales or in life, magic will happen. Serendipitous events will occur." Matt: "Whatever you're given, you're never going to know the right way to do anything you've ever done the first time. So you get the first time out of the way. Period." Find out more about Matt in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewbolian/ Website: https://revpartners.io/ You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

This episode of Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Ralph Barsi, VP for Global Inside Sales at Tray.io. Ralph shares his journey in sales and some lessons he learned that aren't apparent on the surface. He talks about door-to-door selling and the role of a good reputation in driving your sales career. In terms of quitting jobs and moving on, Ralph talks about the lessons he learned from leaders as far back as 20 years ago. And as far as motivation goes, Ralph stresses the difference between being money-motivated and purpose-motivation and how money is not the end goal as money simply helps you achieve your bigger purposes in life. HIGHLIGHTS Door-to-door selling and hustling to have a reputation that precedes you Invest in network: A rising number of haters is a good sign Adversity: Get over the shock of being put on a plan and quitting jobs Advice for young Ralph: Everything will work out in the end Money-motivated vs purpose-motivated QUOTES Ralph: "Over time, you'll build that credibility and rapport and that proven track record that would get you a point where you've hustled so much you no longer have to introduce yourself. Your reputation precedes you in a good way. When you're doing work like that and you're contributing back to everybody, trying to add value into their lives and into their careers, people find out about you." Ralph: "I'll invest the time and the attention into the individuals of my network starting with thoughts of them first versus me. I'm not necessarily trying to get anything out of it. I want to see if I can have an impact on their lives in some way, shape, or form, whether that's brokering an introduction for them or taking a look at their offering, etc." Ralph: "Stop stressing out. Stop moving too fast or even moving too slow. Just find a rhythm, find a groove, and start thinking about others more than you think about yourself and stop overengineering situations thinking that it's rainclouds when it actually isn't. It's a lesson. It's going to work out, dude." Ralph: "You should be purpose-motivated over everything else. So the money helps you achieve the purpose. People are taking care of their ailing parents, people are trying to get married, people want to buy a house, people want to make investments into things, and the money will help you achieve and accomplish all those." Find out more about Ralph in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphbarsi/ Website: https://www.ralphbarsi.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/rbarsi You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

Tip Tuesday has its very first guest star, Chet Lovegren! He comes on and gives us super-practical advice for increasing your meeting show rates.

This episode of The Sales Career Podcast with Kevin Hopp features Ian Koniak, a former number 1 rep at Salesforce and Founder and President of Ian Koniak Sales Coaching. Ian lived a carefree life until a motivation to bring over his girlfriend to the US became his driver to make a lot of money. He shares how sales became the way and the marginal success he had in the beginning. Years down the road, after missing quota for 3 years, came the mindset shift. After investing in himself, getting rid of bad habits, and treating customers not as transactions but as people whose problems you can solve, he became Salesforce's top rep, made 7 figures, and was able to retire at 43. HIGHLIGHTS From teacher in Venezuela to top Salesforce rep Enterprise vs transactional selling Mindset shift from commissions to solving customers' problems Coaching as a service and launching Untap Your Sales Potential QUOTES Ian: "I made it not about me and my commissions but about solving my customers' problems, about understanding their desired outcomes, and working with them to help them achieve it. Their success became my success. Before that, I had only been focusing on me, and look what it got me. Nothing. But when I made it about other people and how it could serve them, I became the number 1 account executive at Salesforce." Ian: "Can you imagine, for someone who thinks they're hot shit to miss 3 years in a row, that's kind of what I went through and it really was the best thing that could ever happen to me, frankly, because then I put in the real work to get better." Ian: "Mindset and habits. Because the biggest thing that keeps people often from succeeding in sales is not their skill. It's actually how they show up, what they focus on, and frankly, shitty habits." Ian: "The way to perform really well is to not focus on performance. That's the irony of this. If you really want to perform well in sales, if you truly are making it about solving your client's biggest problems and helping them achieve their desired outcomes and just genuinely not being attached to the outcome but really looking at sales as hey, this is for them." Find out more about Ian in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iankoniak/ Website: https://www.untapyoursalespotential.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/iankoniak You can find and connect with Kevin in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khopp/ Website: https://www.hoppconsultinggroup.com/

How you open your cold calls really does matter. Kevin dives into a few different perspectives on this and gives his take on how to have success on the phone.