Every entrepreneur knows the value of sales to their business. However, most misunderstand what sales are really.

Today we talk with Jill Konrath the author of three books on sales. Jill talks about the mindset of successful sellers and specifically we talk about how to connect with people that are crazy busy. Sales are essential to business growth so this episode is a powerful lesson for you to master the sales conversation.

Jill’s Target Audience: Jill’s target market includes salespeople, entrepreneurs and business professionals in the B2B sector who want to increase sales to their corporate markets.  

At her core, Jill is an entrepreneur. As she says, she is “an entrepreneur who has learned to sell” and she now specializes in sales. But she didn’t start out loving sales. In fact, she hated it; the last thing she wanted to be was a salesperson!

But when she realized her dreams wouldn’t be realized unless she learned the intricacies of sales, she dove in. As she educated herself and applied her knowledge, she failed countless times along the way. But she learned a trick to overcoming that too: she changed her mindset and viewed “failures” as learning opportunities.

“Everybody has a dream, but they don’t know how to sell.” ~ Jill Konrath

This new attitude and accumulated knowledge brought more success; and as more people came to her with their own difficulties in the sales arena, she knew a book telling of her experiences and her philosophies would have a positive impact. And so she wrote her first book, Selling To BIG Companies, and received rave reviews.

Never one to rest on her laurels, Jill continued to grow and evolve along with the sales industry. As a result, she came up with the ideas and strategies at the core of her next two books: agile selling and SNAP Selling.

With three successful books under her belt, a bevy of high profile clients like IBM, GE and Microsoft, and speaking gigs around the country, Jill continues to help people shift their mindset about sales. Jill believes success in sales is a choice, “If you choose to figure out how to do it, you’ll do it.”

“We need new skills to be successful selling to crazy, busy people.” ~ Jill Konrath

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

• The difference between having resources vs being resourceful.
• What’s the most important thing to being a successful entrepreneur?
• 80% of success in your launch comes from this – what is it?
• Who is the CVO and why is he or she the most important person in your business?
• Why there is no “sure thing”.
• What’s the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make?

“I have failed a lot and that’s why I’ve earned so darn much.” ~ Jill Konrath

Practical & Actionable:

On the topic of what is practical and actionable for getting out of the trenches, Jill has some solid advice. She says, “Go to my web site and go to the resources section. Pick out a resource about whichever area you’re struggling with right now (whether it’s email, voicemail, whatever). Download it and read it!”

She wants people to realize they have to learn sales, “…they have to dive in and really dig in, and I’m giving them the tools to study it and to short-circuit their learning.”

RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS SESSION INCLUDE:

• Jill’s web site
• Jill’s sales resources
• Jill on Twitter
• Jill on Facebook
• Jill’s LinkedIn group
• Selling To BIG Companies, Jill’s first book
• SNAP Selling, Jill’s second book
• Agile Selling, Jill’s latest book

To give Jill a shout out for being on the show, follow her and send her a message: Jill Konrath. Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter at @genehammett and let me know what you liked about the episode!