Meditating Salesperson

Top Apps for SaaS Salespeople That Promote Productivity and Wellness

The coronavirus has ushered in a lot of change over the last year. Despite initial economic fears of a global shutdown, those in the sales tech industry actually saw a lot of opportunity open up in front of them as companies were scrambling to set up remote workforces.  Suddenly, those who were initially hesitant began seeing the value crystal clear as circumstances changed and industries pivoted to meet new consumer and business needs.

This surge in opportunities for SaaS sales might leave employees feeling stuck in overdrive, as if they should continue to strike while the iron’s hot. Couple this with all the transformations in the work environment and our daily lives and it can shake even your best workers. Finding ways to avoid burnout should be a top priority among workplaces today as it is not only crucial for your own individual health, but for the health of the company as well.

In most instances, you know there’s some kind of solution you could implement to help improve your day or a particular pain point. Cutting through the clutter to find what you truly need can be just as daunting a problem in itself, so you end up just tackling it all head on. Luckily, we’ve rounded up a list of apps that can help improve both your overall wellness and productivity so  you can remain a sharp salesperson.

Wellness

Not only does the pandemic put people at risk for catching the virus itself, but at this point, it’s been an emotionally taxing issue for more than a year. Many people who did not sign up for remote work are coming up on a full year of isolation from their coworkers. Some people have already made the transition back to the office, or it is coming up soon, as the vaccine continues to be administered.

All this to say, finding ways to take care of yourself has become even more essential. You never know what curveball is going to come next and the stress can really take a toll on your body, which will have an impact on your productivity.

goPuff

Staying nourished and meeting your daily vitamin needs has never been so important. One of the detriments of a busy lifestyle can be a lack of time to devote to your nutrition and the wear it takes on the body over time. Pre-COVID, you might have been used to meeting up with clients or prospects during lunch, but over the last year this might have changed quite a bit.

Downloading an app like goPuff may just help you keep your edge. Not only does it come in handy when you need a midday pick-me-up, but it is a hassle-free way to get the energy and nutrients you need to make a lasting impression on a prospective client. Plus, this delivery service offers contact-free options.

It’s also helpful on those days when it feels like you’re coming down with something, but need to power through back to back meetings. When this happens, you can get over-the-counter medicine delivered so you don’t have to miss a beat. For other creative, time-saving hacks, browse through what other customers had to say in their goPuff reviews about the delivery app.

Balance the busiest of schedules, without completely sacrificing your personal needs.

FitOn

With so many people new to remote work over the last year, the internet has been abuzz with jokes regarding poor posture due to inadequate furniture to work from. But let’s face it, even a few hours in the best ergonomically designed chair still warrants some break time.

Especially for SaaS sales, you may have small windows during the day in between meetings with your manager or client calls. Getting up and taking a break to get the blood flow going again might just be the refresher your day is missing.

With FitOn, you can choose from a number of different stretching exercises that vary in time and intensity. This is perfect for choosing the best option that fits within your individual schedule and physical needs. Then at the end of the workday, you might want to consider perusing all of the other exercises they have available, from workouts designed to incorporate children to exercise plans that can be done right at home.

Headspace

Whether the pressure is on at work, or you’re feeling anxious from any number of things going on in the world today, one great way to stop and refresh yourself is to meditate. Meditation can be particularly helpful, especially now with resources available like Headspace.

Choose from their large selection of guided meditations tailored to your specific needs. It doesn’t matter if you’re new, or have been practicing this exercise for years. Their clips each have someone calmly guiding you through the process step by step.

We’ve all been there, in the middle of a frustrating quarter, and you’re finding it hard to focus or feeling irritated because leads aren’t converting. With guides surrounding focus, anger, creativity and many more, you can have a quick session to work through these moments to renew yourself and pivot your momentum. If you’re unsure if meditation is for you, consider checking out what other users had to say about their experiences using Headspace.

Talkspace

Another impactful part of our health that can interfere with performance is our mental health. Reports of anxiety and depression are reaching new highs, so if you share these concerns know you are not alone. Your mental health shouldn’t just be a priority because it is affecting how productive you are in a day, but because it is our system of coping mechanisms for taking in not only our job but everything else going on around us everyday.

With that being said, you may not have even been aware you were struggling until it started seeping into your workday. Whether or not it gets that bad, its best to try to connect with a professional. For a SaaS salesperson, you might typically find it difficult to add in a commute or a non-work appointment with a counselor to address these concerns of yours. Luckily, with an app like Talkspace, you can have 24/7 access when you need it, and eliminate an extraneous commute altogether.

Talkspace is covered for many by their insurance provider or as part of their company’s employee assistance programs (EAP). Check out your own eligibility to get started on your mental health journey.

Productivity

Once your mind and body are well cared for you can get into the nitty gritty of your individual workflow. As a SaaS sales professional, you’ll need to be keeping tabs on the burgeoning tech trends and also be able to converse with business professionals speaking to some of their more general business interests. Here’s our roundup to fine-tune your productivity.

Evernote

Spend a day in the life of a SaaS salesperson, and you’re sure to want something to help keep your thoughts organized. Each meeting has a different string of thoughts. Being prepared for a meeting with your manager is quite different than a meeting with a prospective client, not to mention how different your clients might be from one another.

With an app like Evernote you can sync your project and meeting notes across your devices. You also have the capability to add in photos or pertinent documents. Or maybe you want to record the meeting so you are actively engaged in the conversation without the distraction of note-taking. You can add the audio file right to your meeting notes and go back through later to jot down any highlights you may want to circle back to.

There are various note templates available to get you started that can keep even the most scattered of note takers end up with an organized record for each meeting, project, or client.

Flipboard

Working in tech sales means keeping tabs on the industry as a whole. When a prospect asks how your product will fit into their established workflow, you’ll need to be able to speak to how it will improve, supplement, integrate or replace any number of their existing systems.

Staying informed is essential to your on-going success. Every tidbit you pick up is preparation for getting that lead all the way through your sales funnel. While we certainly don’t live in a time with a shortage of information or information sharing, this usually just makes finding the most pertinent resources difficult.

With an app like Flipboard you can cut through irrelevant news to create your very own curated feed of tech and software updates and insights. Not only can you get this customized news, but you can browse through flipboards when brushing up on other industries. Looking for talking points for a prospective sale? Check Flipboard to see if anything of relevance is up and coming in their field and connect it back to your software’s capabilities.

SmartUp

Taking a step back from the tech and software specifics, another great tool at a salesperson’s disposal is being able to touch on the value of the product to their more general business interests. It’s also likely that as a salesperson, you’ll come across young businesses, start-ups, or companies that started out as such. Being familiar with venture capital could really step up your pitch.

With SmartUp, you can dive into the knowledge sharing space and either build upon your business wits or start totally from scratch. This app gives you access to learning communities of your choice where you can share what you learn, ask questions, and make yourself a stronger overall salesperson.

Final Words

As any good sales professional knows, having the ability to be  flexible and make the most of opportunities is absolutely essential to your day to day and long term success. However, investing in yourself is also crucial to that success. Being your most productive and valuable self comes from a place of balance and setting aside time to make your health a priority and leaving time for personal development.

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3 Types of Tools that Help Improve Sales

Best Software for Salespeople

Even though it appears that COVID-19 is slowing down, it does not change the fact that the virus has changed the world around it. Nobody saw a crisis of this magnitude happening, but it has opened our eyes to expose some of the flaws in the current ways we do things.

The economy will likely be dealing with the impacts of COVID-19 for years to come. The way in which business is conducted has changed right before our eyes, but is that a bad thing? While change is scary, it usually is necessary to grow. As businesses reopen, change must be made to accommodate our new world. 

One of the main ways businesses will be different in the post-COVID-19 world is that there will be an even more significant emphasis on using technology in day-to-day operations. Hundreds of business tech tools are available, but only some will be helpful for every job. Knowing which tool to use and when can be tricky! Luckily for you, we put together this quick overview of some of the most popular tools to use in the sales space.

1) Customer Relationship Management Software

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a must-own tool to take your sales team to the next level. CRM helps manage your company’s interactions with any customer or potential customers. 

CRM tools allow you to document everything about a customer. From the first point of contact with a customer to when they leave, it will all be documented on a platform. The value of this information is immeasurable. Furthermore, after collecting this data, you can better understand a customer’s wants and needs.

Your sales team will benefit the most from CRM because of these key features;

  1. Document every interaction with a customer
  2. Allows teams to track leads, improving conversion rates
  3. Email integration, as well as email tracking
  4. Sales forecasting based on data analytics
  5. Completely remote platform with internal and external messaging capabilities 

A CRM program gives you a complete overview of your company-client interactions in one convenient location. The real value comes with what your company decides to do with this information. For example, say you realize that many customers leave after two years, could there be a reason? Or is it just a coincidence? CRM software will help you answer these questions. 

If your company is not using a CRM tool already, we recommend Salesforce. Salesforce is an industry leader among CRM providers. Their platform is compelling yet simple and easily customizable to fit any sales team’s needs.  

An industry-leading platform will come with a hefty price tag, however. Salesforce’s pricing scheme dictates how many features you want and how many users will be on the forum. A company will need to pay per person using the platform, and prices can range from $25 per user per month to $300 for each user. 

If you are interested in trying a CRM tool but are wondering if it is worth paying loads of money for, there are alternatives available.

Hubspot offers a free-to-use CRM tool. This tool is excellent for small sales teams or those about paying for a CRM tool. The free version of Hubspot’s tool is rather basic but will provide a good overview of using a CRM platform. As you use the platform, you can add features for a cost. Depending on how many parts you add, Hubspot can be just as powerful as Salesforce but as expensive.

Whatever choice you make, expensive, cost-effective, or somewhere in between, CRM software is a must for your sales team.

2) Prospecting Tools

While Salesforce and Hubspot are great at tracking leads, they are not used to discovering tips. Finding relevant authorities can be the most time-consuming and tedious process for a sales professional. However, there are tools today to help cut down on time wasted qualifying leads, resulting in a more robust sales funnel.

Finding leads has never been easier with the advancement of technology. Almost any person’s title, email address, home address, and phone number can be found online. However, most companies do their best to keep their employees’ information private; this is where prospecting tools are helpful.

Tools such as Zoominfo can optimize your team’s sales process by alleviating the time spent building up the top of the sales funnel. Zoominfo will allow you to discover different B2B prospects based on criteria. For example, sales teams can find companies based on location, revenue, NAICS or SICS codes, employee count, etc. Once a list of companies is established, Zoominfo can pull specific employee contact information from each company.

If people have any issues with Zoominfo, their pricing model could be more specific and non-transparent. Each company pays for several credits. One credit equates to one contact discovered. Each company is given a different price for a bulk amount of credits, so knowing an exact price is a lot of work. It is agreed that one Zoominfo credit equals about $1.12. Depending on how many leads you need a month, Zoominfo can become quite costly.

There are alternatives to Zoominfo in the prospecting space, but Zoominfo is generally considered the industry standard.

Hunter is a less-extensive version of Zoominfo that can be used for free. Like Zoom, users can find a person’s contact information using Hunter, but the tool is less reliable. Hunter is an excellent introduction to prospecting tools, as each user gets fifty free credits to use each month. Like Hubspot’s CRM tool, Hunter can be upgraded to be more efficient but costly.

Building your sales funnel has never been easier than now with the invention of prospecting tools. 

3) Presentation Software

As remote work becomes more of a regularity in the workforce, sales pitches will need to evolve. In-person, PowerPoint or Google Slides still suffice, but if you send sales decks to prospects online, a more sophisticated software offering is recommended.

Most people probably need to realize that other presentation software options are available. For years, people have just used PowerPoint and thought nothing of it. But today, other platforms offer more features than the software already installed on your computer.

Online presentation software like Digideck can create beautiful presentations that deliver meaningful immersive experiences. In addition, Digideck allows users to create media-heavy presentations that stand out amongst the crowd.

Besides being great to look at, Digideck presentations come loaded with back-end features that are useful for the presenter. Once the deck has been presented or sent, Digideck will track how the prospect digests the information. If the viewer spends more time on one slide over another, or if they keep reopening the deck, the presenter will be able to see. This data can be helpful when pitching a similar presentation or trying to close a deal.

Digideck will be the product with the steepest learning curve. To truly harness the power of online presentation software, the user must be well-versed in technology, specifically graphic design and video production, basic understanding of UX/UI, and be a great public speaker.

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Final Words

Remember that these tools are costly and that your business may need more money to purchase each device you want. If there is a tool that you need but cannot afford today, an online-based business loan may be worth exploring. An online loan can be used the same way as a regular business loan, but applicants typically receive their money much faster than a traditional loan.

Remember, the software offerings and tech tools continue! So many more tools and resources are available to take your sales team to the next level. So always keep improving your business, and you can handle anything thrown your way.

Are you a sales pro looking to elevate your career? Check out what Rainmakers has to offer!

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The Salesperson’s Guide to Managing Wealth As It Increases

Are you a sales development rep drawing up leads and reeling in new customers day in and day out? Are you an account executive who is managing new client relationships? Or are you a customer success manager whose goal is to maintain the customers that keep your business afloat?

You could be sitting on any of the highest or lowest rungs on the ladder of positions in a sales organization, making vastly different salaries and commissions. However, what SDRs, AEs, and CSMs all have in common as they move up from operations to leadership is the need to manage their income.

Take the comparison between a sales development representative and an account executive as an example. Our research shows that SDRs will average around $50-55,000 in a single year, while AEs and other higher-ups would make closer to an average of $60-80,000, depending on base salaries. Though employees in these two positions can bring home vastly different incomes, each needs to equally learn the best ways to spend, save, and maximize their money as it increases regardless of the number of zeros in their earnings at year-end.

If you’re watching your salary increase and your wealth grow from tech sales, read on to find out the steps you should take to ensure you’re being financially savvy and making your money grow.

Tend to your credit score

It’s no secret that a higher salary gives you more of a foundation for building your financial health. But what does it mean exactly to be in good financial health? Surely, having a lot of money in the bank does not constitute being financially sound. When you think about it, good salesmen who get a little taste of a bigger income might actually be more inclined to spend it irresponsibly. So, how can you measure your fiscal wellbeing? A good place to start is your credit score.

Your credit score is a numerical value from 0-850 given to you by a credit company that is determined not only by the amount of outstanding debt that you have but also by how well you pay off that debt. In other words, how much debt do you have and do you pay your bills on time and in the correct amounts? Experts deem a good credit score to be around 670 and higher, and 67% of people have a score in this range.

Why does a credit score matter? Well, the higher your score, the more opportunities you’ll have access to. For example, if you want to apply for a mortgage, this score will come into play. For conventional loans, you will need a credit score of about 620 to be considered for approval. But, a lower score doesn’t rule out your home purchase altogether. Requirements for FHA loans, on the other hand, include a credit score between 500-580 depending on your desired down payment.

If your credit score is less than ideal, don’t worry– credit scores can be improved with smart financial practices. Allocating your extra income toward consolidating debt will eliminate some of your obligations while making routine payments on time and in the minimum amount or more can bump up your score. It’s also key to avoid committing to more debt until you can successfully eliminate some of those credit card or loan balances to prevent defaulting.

Pay down some debt

Obviously, credit health and debt have a strong and dependent relationship. While you might not be familiar with your credit score, it’s safe to say that you’re all too familiar with the amount of debt you’re carrying. The weight of outstanding debt wreaks havoc on the majority of the population, so it’s essential that you learn the best ways to manage it while balancing your sales income.

Here are some statistics to give you an idea of debts’ recent impact on people in the US:

  • Millennials at the beginning of their sales career (under the age of 35) carry in a whopping average of $67,000 in debt per person.
  • The two largest sources of debt for those under the age of 35 are credit card debt and student debt, respectively.
  • Assuming that the average sales rep is about forty years old, research shows that adults aged between 35-44 are tied to $133,100 in outstanding debt on average.

It’s evident that salesmen are not immune to the effects of student loans, credit card debt, or even simple poor budgeting. So how can you tell if debt is a problem for you? One way you can measure your financial health in regards to debt is your debt-to-income ratio (DTI). This number divides your monthly expenses by your total income to determine whether you are safely allocating your money to needs, wants, and savings.

For example, to get approved for a mortgage, you need to have a DTI of less than 43%. In other words, if your monthly sales income is $3,000, you would need less than $1,290 in obligations each month to maintain a DTI under 43%. Keep in mind that in an ideal world, this percentage would be closer to 30% if possible, so that you don’t find yourself owing more than you can handle in monthly payments.

To start your debt consolidation, cut back on any unnecessary expenditures and temporarily commit to a minimal-spend lifestyle. Take any leftover cash from reduced expenses and pay down as many loans as you can. One less credit card or student loan payment can vastly improve your lifestyle. Not to mention that doing so can recoup a credit score that has plummeted due to poor habits. It’s also helpful to utilize a pay raise, bonus, or extra commission to knock down some of that debt.

Take advantage of retirement funds

Who doesn’t love earning money without doing a thing? This is essentially what it’s like to put money into your 401k. However, studies show that a third of Americans have less than $5,000 in their retirement fund. As if that isn’t hard enough to believe, 21% of Americans have nothing contributed to their 401k at all. For those who want to live a comfortable, jobless lifestyle when they reach retirement age, they’re in for a rude awakening if they aren’t taking full advantage of this resource.


Employer 401k match programs are an even more important justification for taking a little out of your paycheck each month. This process means that a company will match a certain percentage of your contribution. In this case, a salesman who makes $60,000 a year and contributes 5% of their income would accumulate $3,000 at the end of the year toward their 401k. Oftentimes, companies will offer to match up to 50% of your contributions, meaning you’d be able to bring in $4,500 instead.

Hearing how much money you can earn by putting it away makes neglecting to contribute sound rather naive. Research shows that employees are leaving about $24 billion dollars on the table every year for reasons all across the board. Such a small fraction of your paycheck means you won’t have much to sacrifice, so do some digging into your company’s retirement program if you haven’t already.

Especially if you’re in an entry-level sales position, you’ll understandably need a bit of guidance when it comes to knowing how much of your paycheck to commit. Many financial experts will say you should commit 10-15% of your income, but as many professionals in the workforce struggle with debt in their first several years of work, contributions this large may not be realistic. Your employer can recommend a minimum contribution that will utilize its match program and allow for practical budgeting regarding your circumstances.

You can also do some research on your own using a retirement calculator. It can predict how much you’ll need based on your desired retirement age, lifestyle, and current rate of savings.

If you have the means, speak with a financial advisor to get a better idea of how to go about saving for retirement.

Start saving

A lot of times, if people don’t see a tangible reason to save their money, they won’t feel obligated to build up a savings account, or even have one in the first place. But, there are countless reasons to constantly work toward growing your savings account, as anything can happen. Layoffs, pay cuts, medical emergencies. Maybe your car breaks down and it requires a major repair.

In fact, research shows that the top reason people save their money is for future travel. This would include the hefty costs of plane tickets, hotel fares, and other travel expenses. The second-most cited reason for saving was for emergencies, while the remaining three rationales were retirement, buying a house, and buying a car, respectively. If traveling isn’t one of your top priorities in life, then an emergency fund could be the next most essential reason to start saving. Especially in these times of financial uncertainty where job security is threatened and money is tight, an emergency fund is that much more critical.

However, non-savers are not representative of the entire US population, and shouldn’t take the spotlight away from those with good financial sense. The average US household has just over $16,000 in their savings account. Whether or not this is a sufficient amount for you, however, can be evaluated based on your lifestyle and spending habits.

This is why it’s so important to start putting away as much of your income as you can. Any amount, big or small, can add up and help you create a nest egg for you and your family. Wondering how much you should put away? Well, it varies from person to person. To put it into perspective, in 2019, Americans were saving about 8% of every paycheck.

Many financial experts recommend following the 50-30-20 rule, popularized by Senator Elizabeth Warren. It follows a framework that encourages you to dedicate 50% of your expenses to needs, bills, or any other financial obligations you have. Then, 30% of your spending goes to your wants, like going out to dinner, a concert, or a game. The remaining 20% would then be allocated to your savings. If you have the willpower and capability, push yourself to exceed that 20% to develop an even bigger safety net that could save your family in the face of a crisis.

Saving money is easier said than done, and there’s a good chance that your current spending habits could make for a difficult transition to the 50-30-20 method. If so, you’ll benefit from making some small adjustments to your lifestyle to create healthier spending habits.

One simple effort you can make today that can encourage smarter money habits is to utilize one of many popular budgeting apps. These online apps provide instant access to your statements, showing you your transactions in real-time. Not only will you be able to see how much you’re spending and on what, but you can also identify problem areas in your spending choices. Online banking services, in general, offer lower overhead fees. Therefore, if budgeting apps aren’t working for you, having access to your finances through your bank’s mobile app is a great place to start.

Cutting your spending is another surefire way to allow more room for saving. Though obvious as it may seem, poor spending is typically a major money problem for individuals and families. Minimizing the number of services you use or bundling them can knock hundreds off of your balance sheet. Or, cutting back on your energy usage can show a significant decrease in your utility bill at the end of the month.

Speak with an expert who can take a hard look at your finances and guide you toward a more structured budget that can facilitate better financial health. As you move up in the ranks from sales rep to account executive, you will start bringing in more and more money. And you know what they say– more money means more problems, so it’s crucial that you know the smartest methods for managing your money.

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Why Every Salesperson Should Blog and How to Start from Scratch

Why Start A Blog?

Maybe you’re unaware of this fact, but working as a salesperson ranks among the most common professions in the world. 

More than 21 million people worldwide qualify to be known as a “salesperson,” according to a report by the professional networking website LinkedIn. Understandably, the designations may vary according to the company and your location.

Of these 21 million people, half are women, and a small percentage are also underage or minors, depending on the country’s labor laws.

What Does This Mean?

The sheer number of salespeople worldwide clearly points to one thing: almost every business on this planet requires people to promote and sell their products or services. Moreover, as more companies emerge across the globe, especially startups with innovative products and services, the number of salespeople will rise exponentially – to about 25 million – by 2025, say industry experts.

This means hiring a salesperson is vital to every business serious about staying in business. And thanks to the internet, salespeople are no longer required to call upon potential and existing customers physically. Instead, they can work online by sending emails nurturing business and chatting online with potential leads, all while performing other functions simultaneously.

Therefore, making an online presence is becoming increasingly important for every salesperson. If you’re a salesperson that’s serious about your career, it is high time you also craft an excellent online presence that aligns with your personal and professional goals.

best reasons to start a sales blog

Why Should Every Salesperson Have A Blog?

Some may consider sales a profession that doesn’t require or merit blogging, so you may wonder why I’m suggesting it.

Blogging is essential for every salesperson, whether working for a brick-and-mortar neighborhood or selling online for a large multinational company with a global presence. 

Here’s why:

As a salesperson, you’ll be familiar with this scenario: some people will buy from you regardless of anything. And some people won’t convert as customers despite your best efforts and excellent service. This is part of human psychology; nobody can predict why a person trusts someone while distrusting the other, though both are perfectly honest.

However, it’s common knowledge that people will always approach a popular person when they wish to buy something. This flock mentality, as we call it, leads people to believe that a person is popular due to their honesty, integrity, and skills.

Blogging helps you to develop this trust factor among customers and potential leads. They’re curious about what you’re offering and would like to try working with you. 

2) Honesty Breeds Loyalty

Understandably, only some things that your employer sells in the market will match customer expectations.

Blogging provides excellent opportunities to write honest reviews about your selling products or services. With some good writing skills, you can present the pros and cons of whatever you’re selling in a very positive light that doesn’t harm your employer or customer.

When you’re honest about what you’re selling as salesperson through a blog, it’s natural that customers and potential leads will be drawn to you. They’ll be interested in knowing more about a product or service and about you as an individual. Because your honest blog posts and reviews indicate that you’re there to serve the customer’s interest, it makes it easy for them to pinpoint you as a potential resource.

3) Interaction with Customers & Leads

Frequent, healthy interactions with existing customers and potential leads is the secret behind every salesperson’s success. Blogging increases the reach of potential leads you can work with more than cold calling and emailing alone. People interested in your products will ask questions before they buy. When you respond to their queries honestly and resolve every doubt, you can convert these leads into customers.

You can also make special offers to convert a lead into a client. And that works wonders for your career. That’s precisely what happens when you blog as a salesperson. Customers can post questions and comments about the product or service you’re promoting. Responding to concerns immediately by taking proper measures instead of allowing an issue to magnify will make your life easier as a salesperson, and you will be thankful.

top reasons salespeople blog

Starting Blog from Scratch as a Salesperson

If you recognize how these three advantages can help your career as a salesperson, you might now be wondering where to start if you need to make one from scratch.

Here are some essential tips on how to get started:

Read or Watch an Excellent Tutorial

I’ll assure you that starting a blog from scratch isn’t difficult. However, you’ll have to exert some extra effort. There’re several outstanding tutorials online about how to start blogging. Read a good article written by any successful blogger. Most successful bloggers also have their own YouTube channels. Subscribe to this channel to learn about creating blogs catering to large audiences.

YouTube Videos on Blogging

Usually, every successful blogger shares their knowledge with people like us through their own YouTube channels. Look for these video tutorials from any excellent celebrity blogger from any country. Subscribe to their YouTube channel to get updates on what’s going on in the blogging world, and keep an eye out for trends in content or styling that can help you stay ahead of the curve.

Learn Basic Digital Marketing

Digital marketing consists of various processes that enable you to reach a broader audience looking for something specific such as your product or service. Nowadays, excellent digital marketing courses are very affordable and available online. As a salesperson, understanding digital marketing will help you succeed in marketing yourself and the business you represent.

Invest In a Paid Website

You can open a free blog or invest a little money on a paid website. Nowadays, you can get a domain name and host for as low as $99 per year using sites like Squarespace or Wix, which is reasonably affordable for every salesperson to start a blog from scratch. We recommend you opt for a WordPress website since updating it frequently and performing digital marketing processes are much easier on this hosting platform. There are also free options like Medium.

Use Social Media

No salesperson can afford to ignore the importance and relevance of social media. Your employer already has an excellent social media page on Facebook, a Twitter account, and some presence on YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and other platforms, but you can and should too. Promoting your blog by leveraging social media to get more followers that eventually translate into leads and sales is one of the easiest methods of reaching the largest audience.

sales recruiting agency

In Conclusion

Now that you know how to start a blog from scratch, we suggest you start immediately. Blogging allows you to make money through online resources such as Google AdSense, sponsored posting, and affiliate marketing. So add to the success you aim to achieve as a salesperson by taking advantage of the many benefits of starting a blog. Good luck!

If you’re a salesperson looking to jump-start your career or make the next big move, Rainmakers can help connect you with companies seeking a skilled sales rep like you. Join our career marketplace. Sign-up now!

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How ‘Girls In Tech’ Empowers More Women To Enter the Tech World

This week Rainmakers sat down for a conversation with Hannah and Isabella from Girls In Tech, a global non-profit founded in 2007 that works to put an end to gender inequality in high-tech industries and startups while empowering women in tech and entrepreneurship.

Girls in Tech is our partner for the upcoming “Perfecting the Tech Sales Interview” event on January 23rd in San Francisco, CA.

We wanted to find out how exactly Girls In Tech can benefit women who are interested in sales jobs in the tech industry, and how we can help their mission.

Hannah, who is a Partnerships Manager for Girls In Tech, explains how often there is a large discrepancy between the number of men and women on a sales force and how that can affect the perception of what is seen as the right “sales person type.” Girls In Tech provides a place for women to develop their sales skills and practice within the realm of their sessions to ultimately become more competitive in the sales workforce. Isabella also stated the importance of networking and community within the 10,000 members of Girls In Tech, with each part of the organization there to support the dreams and ambitions of women in tech sales.

In addition to offering a wide range of services like boot camps, voting courses, hackathons, and professional development workshops, Girls in Tech also organizes events like the upcoming “Perfecting the Tech Sales Interview” event on January 23rd in San Francisco, CA.

More info on the event is below. If you’re interested in attending, you can REGISTER HERE.

Event Agenda:

6:00 pm – 6:30pm: Arrivals/Networking
6:30pm – 8:00pm: Speed Interviewing and Resume Editing
8:00 – 9:00: Happy Hour and Networking

Companies In Attendance:

Verkada makes enterprise physical security systems for the Internet of Things (IoT) era.
Crunchbase is the leading destination for company insights from early-stage startups to the Fortune 1000.
VoiceOps uncovers critical coaching opportunities in your calls. Optimized for high-volume sales teams.
Rippling makes it unbelievably easy to manage your team’s payroll, benefits, computers, and apps — all in one, modern platform.

Our full conversation with Girls In Tech is below if you’re interested in hearing more about ways they empower more women to join the tech world and how you can get involved:

For women who are interested in making a move into the world of tech sales and are looking for help landing their dream job, check out Girls In Tech and consider attending or volunteering at their upcoming event on January 23rd.

For more information on Rainmakers visit Rainmakers.co

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Tech to Improve Remote Sales Team Productivity

Tech to Improve Remote Sales Team Productivity 

Now that you’ve landed the sales job you’ve been searching for, you might be thinking about some added benefits that could make your day-to-day a little bit easier. Often, working from home is a luxury most businesses don’t think to offer to their sales professionals. However, sales jobs offer a unique opportunity: as long as you, the salesperson, are producing results on track with your assigned goals, you can work from just about anywhere with your laptop, an internet connection, and your mobile device. 

Find the Right Setting

With tech sales specifically, the sales process can be completed with communication, and most importantly, research. Research, or preparation, is a large part of the sales process, and this is mainly completed through internet searches and reading.

A quiet, more comfortable setting, much like one’s own home or a small coffee shop, encourages better focus and dedication to the task of research. A noisy office setting with coworkers and conversation as a distraction, doesn’t exactly promote in-depth focus on discovering the best angle to pitch your products or services to new customers. If employees set themselves up for success, working remotely in a productive setting—with the proper tools—they will have great success in achieving their sales goals, whether they’re traveling to the next client or settled in a local coworking space.

Strengthen Communication

Employers and salespeople alike may worry about the difficulties of team collaboration and communication when working from home, or anywhere outside of the office, making the use of the right technology and tools necessary to help eliminate these concerns. 

Keeping in close contact with team members when working on a project is a must. Unified communication software allows for all digital, work-related communication channels to be in-sync with one another. This makes efficient communication more than possible for remote sales professionals. Not only this, but conversations can take place digitally, just as they would in an office setting, helping collaboration and communication feel natural. Remote employees will still feel connected to their coworkers working in the office or elsewhere.

Additionally, having the right communication tools will allow for excellent discourse with the customer, the most important piece of the sales equation. Being able to reach your customers and prospects with reliable platforms from any location will help keep the sales process effortless from any location. So long as you can reach your customers and they can reach you, it doesn’t matter where you work.

Achieve your Goals

Setting time-sensitive goals will help keep salespeople working remotely on track and accountable when away from the office. Not only this, but managers can observe these goals and achievements with project management software. 

Utilizing a software program that managers and employees can use will help to keep track of employee performance and progress, as well as collect other insights on employee performance such as time estimation for certain tasks. Tracking and understanding the amount of time it takes your sales employees to complete certain tasks that help to close a sale helps to better assign time and resources accordingly. Fortunately, employee time can be tracked without employees being in the office, thanks to project management tools that operate over the internet. This gives your salespeople more freedom and comfortability to accomplish their goals without close supervision, which often helps employees feel more at ease, ultimately producing greater results. 

Organize your Process

Customer relationship management software is a must for any business looking to make repeated sales with valued customers. CRM tools are especially useful for remote sales professionals to stay on top of a pipeline of new and repeat customers when away from a team or office. 

Having a resource tool like CRM software helps keep all team members on the same page with a customer’s process, and offers other organizational features to help the salesperson keep track of important events and meetings when synchronizing CRM software with other business applications. This feature is of the utmost importance when working remotely, as salespeople have only themselves to rely on, and therefore must stay organized to make sure they have all the information they need on a customer’s history with the company, their contact information, and any crucial insights that CRM data can provide to close the sale. 

Let your Tech Sweat the Small Stuff

Freeing up any time during your workflow will make for increased sales productivity. Make use of sales automation software, which has the ability to send automatic initial and follow-up emails to new and existing clients. Saving time by not busying yourself with the minutiae of email dialogue and answering the same few questions repeatedly will allow for more time to be spent on finding new clients and retaining current ones. 

Allowing your technology to manage these small tasks for you will allow remote sales professionals to better allocate their time to unique customer needs and tailor their knowledge and offerings to the ideal audience. Remote sales people will have more freedom to work on their own schedule with little management, so making use of any and all time spent working to make greater progress toward closing a sale is extremely important. And because automation software can accomplish work around the clock wherever you may be, you and the rest of your sales teams will still be able to get work done, even during business travel excursions and after office hours.

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Hiring Scenario: What to Know While Deciding to Join A Sales Team for a Tech Startup

Getting hired as the first salesperson at a tech startup can be daunting. There is a lot to gain if you join the right company at the right stage. But, if you join a team who misunderstands early-stage sales operations and KPIs, or one with poor culture, you can be taking a step backward. It’s all preventable if you look in the right places and ask the right questions. So that’s what we’re going to show you how to do today.

So how do you make sure you’re finding the right fit for you?

I sat down with Michael Cardamone to record a scenario where I aimed to find out what he would recommend a first-sales-role candidate should do before taking a position at an early-stage tech startup.

Why Michael? He is ideal for this interview because he has a lengthy and successful career in tech from joining the revenue team at Box in 2008 as employee #25, to now being the CEO of Acceleprise, a B2B SaaS focused accelerator and fund founded in 2012.

Listen to the full interview:

Michael, how do you suggest salespeople search for and choose the ‘right’ early-stage startup?

Before answering that, you need to ask yourself what your goals are. How do you want this opportunity to play into your overall career? Are you trying to optimize for any upside potential? Are you trying to line yourself up for the next step in your career? Knowing the answer to this is crucial in finding the right startup that aligns with your personal and professional goals.

Going in as the first sales hire is high risk, and it can be easy to get drawn into a role because of the company culture or because of the new responsibilities or title you will be getting. Those things are important but not as important as your ability to execute the functions of a job with excellence. Your performance within the position, and the experience that comes from it, is what will shape the future of your career.

To start determining if an early-stage startup is the right fit, you should look at who the investors are and how well the CEO can talk about their market. Look at how their business is evolving and why they know they are going to win. This can be hard to tell in a Seed stage, so if you are optimizing for upside but also care about having a brand name company on your resume, Series A would be the right time to jump into a startup. At this point, you can more easily see the momentum and have more data points to make an informed decision about coming on board.

What are some of the tactics and strategies you suggest for early stage job-seekers, starting with who I should speak with internally, and why?

As a candidate to become one of the first salespeople, you should be able to speak with whoever has been selling to date, which likely will be Founder(s) or CEO. It’s important to understand what has been working and what isn’t and how they think about the sales role and what they want to get out of it. You should also speak with any customer success employees to really understand the pulse of the customers and get a feel for what the customer perspective is. If you’re able to, you could even reach out to current customers to get further insight into their relationship with the startup.

What about vetting my own potential employers?

It’s important to look into the background of who you’re going to be reporting to. Were they successful in building teams in the past? Do they have experience in this industry? Finding out about past and current roles, and how they align into the current product, is useful for making sure it will be a good match.

Learn about the CEO’s background, if it wasn’t in sales, what was it? Ask yourself if they will make a good leader. Do they speak well about the product and inspire you? Do they advocate for good company culture? Try to research some of these questions and use the answers to aid how you move forward.

As a new salesperson, how do I make sure I’m not stepping into a bad situation for prospecting, demand gen, and hitting quota?

In some situations, you may find a company that gets an influx of leads from raising a C Round or getting positive PR. Their natural reaction will be to hire a salesperson who comes from a large “brand name” company who used to get leads handed to them on a silver platter – an experience that doesn’t fit the style of selling at an early stage startup. Once the new salesperson blows through all the leads generated from the raising the C Round or PR, they will be asked to generate leads at the top of the funnel and bring them to a close, something they likely don’t have experience doing. That’s why it’s important to set the expectations early on and have discussions on the short and long term duties required for the role. Understand if the pipeline is growing consistently, what the inbound channels are, how repeatable are they, how do you determine who is qualified, etc.

If sales have been founder-lead and you’re going to be the first sales hire, be sure to understand factors like how much time they spent selling, how many customers they sold and at what price point, what will be expected of you and how your success will be measured.

What should my next steps be?

Start doing your research. There are a lot of paths you can go down for seeking the perfect startup to work for, but one last way is to reach out to some of the top VC firms in your area and ask them for help getting in contact with some of their portfolio companies. They want to be helpful to their businesses, so you should try leveraging them to get introductions to the right people. There are also local resources like BuiltIn that host career-building events which may be helpful in your search.

If you’re looking for more information on joining a tech startup as a sales position, or even if you come on at a higher level like a CRO or VP,  be sure to seek out the Revenue Collective and Sam Jacobs, they have some great resources for helping their members advance their career.

If you are seeking this type of hire OR looking for the best early-stage tech organization to join as a salesperson, head to the home page of Rainmakers.co to get started.

Additional Links and Information:

To get involved in Acceleprise as a pre-seed SaaS company, you can apply for upcoming cohorts in SF, NYC, and Toronto.

Connect with Michael Cardamone on Linkedin

Follow Michael Cardamone on Twitter 

Follow Acceleprise on Twitter

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software sales career paths

Software Sales Career Path Guide

Career Path for Software Salespeople

What do the CEO of Oracle, the founder of Sequoia Capital, and Mark Cuban have in common? All started their careers selling technology.

Software sales is an excellent way to jump-start your career whether or not you plan on working in tech long term. Here are the primary software sales career paths to know and understand:

  • SDR to AE
  • SDR to SDR Manager
  • AE to Sales Management

In this article, we’ll go over traditional and nontraditional career paths that begin with software sales. Then, we’ll detail how much money you can expect to make and give tips on getting where you want.

The Starting Point Is Almost Always The SDR Role

Almost all software salespeople start as Sales Development Representatives (SDRs).

If you’re unfamiliar with the term or position, SDRs don’t actually sell software.

Instead, they help expand the pipeline of Account Executives (AE’s) by cold calling and emailing potential clients. The SDR role prepares a new employee to become an actual salesperson in the following ways:

  • SDRs learn to deal with the pressure of having aggressive sales goals in the form of a quota (not for revenue, but meetings set).
  • SDRs often have to explain details of the software and its use cases to potential clients in order when a potential client is on the fence about taking a meeting with an AE.
  • SDRs have the opportunity to join their AE’s calls (or they should be at a good company) and watch the AE complete demos and execute the sales process.

Think of being an SDR as being an apprentice. Depending on your company, you can expect to be an SDR for 6-24 months before becoming an AE.

How To Get Promoted In Sales

Being an SDR is a grind. The work is monotonous and stressful, and it’s safe to say that you want to get promoted out of this role as quickly as possible.

Here’s how you get promoted:

  • Perform well
    • Meet and exceed your quota every month
    • Do your best to be in the top 20% of your team
  • Behave well
    • Get along with your teammates and managers
    • Come to work on time, and don’t be the first one to leave
    • Be optimistic about working hard and set a good example

SDR to Account Executive

Getting promoted from SDR to Account Executive is very straightforward, and most companies should be able to enable you to this role within a reasonable timeframe. However, if your priority is to become an AE as fast as possible, you should, as mentioned earlier, work for a small or medium-sized company that’s growing and that sells to smaller companies. On the other hand, if you don’t mind being patient, join a more established company like Oracle, SalesForce, or Adobe.

AE’s in the SF Bay Area make anywhere from $80,000 to $500,000 annually. For example, the top 20% of performers at Oracle make between $250,000 and $500,000. Medium-sized software companies that service Fortune 1000 companies (NGINX, MuleSoft, LiveRamp) also employ AE’s who earn similar salaries.

Typically people start as an AE selling to small and medium-sized companies. However, you’ll have the chance to sell to large enterprise accounts by performing well.

SDR to SDR Manager

Becoming an SDR Manager depends as much on the employee as it does on the company. Often a company doesn’t need a new SDR manager — if you work for this sort of company, you won’t be able to get this position.

At rapidly growing companies, more SDR managers often need to supervise groups or ”teams” of SDR’s within the general SDR organization. Suppose you join a small startup as an early SDR before there is an SDR manager (and you’re reporting to the Head of Sales or CEO). In that case, you could evolve into the SDR manager if and when there are enough SDRs to merit the position.

This is, again, based on how well you perform and how much respect people at the company have for you based on your performance and behavior.

SDR Managers in the SF Bay Area typically make between $120,000 and $180,000 annually. One could hold this position for life or lead to other management and operations roles. That said, it would be hard for an SDR manager to become a Head of Sales if they have no experience closing deals.

AE to Sales Management

Moving from AE into Sales Management within the SaaS world typically happens one of two ways:

  • Being internally promoted
  • Joining a small startup as the head of sales

In the first scenario, you’re working for a company that is expanding rapidly (doing well) or has some management turnover due to poor performance (struggling). In the initial scenario, you’re one of the top performers, and you’ve been with the company for a while. However, the sales team is now divided by geography or vertical, and managers are appointed for each category. You’re now responsible for a couple of AE’s and SDRs and are officially in’ ‘sales management.”

In the latter scenario, your company isn’t doing well, so your head of sales is fired or leaves. Given that you’re the top performer, perhaps the CEO will make you responsible for the entire team’s success.

Like moving from SDR to SDR Manager or AE, moving into sales management primarily depends on performance (are you good enough to merit a promotion?) and if the company needs the new role. Moving from sales to sales management is much more complicated than moving from pre-sales to sales.

How Long Do You Have To Be An SDR Before Leveling Up?

We’ve found two primary factors that determine how long you’ll be an SDR before you become an AE:

  • First, how large are the companies that your company sells to?
    • Enterprise sales are much more complex to execute. For example, if you’re selling to Fortune 1500 companies, you’ll likely take more time to be promoted as your managers will want to train you for as long as possible beforehand.
  • How large is the company you work for?
    • Larger companies typically take longer to promote, as there is less growth than a startup doubling in size. Therefore there are fewer openings for people to move up to.

Consider MuleSoft and Salesforce. Both companies (currently hiring like crazy) are quite large, and both sell to large companies (Salesforce also sells to small companies). Suppose you browse around on LinkedIn for SDRs and AEs at these companies; it’s clear that it often takes nearly two years of being an SDR before becoming an AE. On the other hand, if you work for a small startup that sells to small businesses, it’s much more likely thatyou’lll move up to a sales role within 6-9 months.

Other Sales Career Paths

Often, salespeople move into marketing or customer success roles if they prefer a less intense” part. So we wrote a complete breakdown of all the various sales roles you could also evolve into.

The skills they learned in making sales for a few years (effective communication, problem-solving for clients, time management) are beneficial for account management. Additionally, exposure to people buying software gives salespeople unique insight into what makes people buy, enabling them to be effective marketers.

Some salespeople succeed at moving beyond the sales floor and into the boardroom. Don Valentine, the godfather of Silicon Valley venture capital, and founder of Sequoia Capital, whose investments have a market cap of $3 trillion, started his career as a technology salesman. He wasn’t selling software (in the 70s, too early for that), but selling semiconductors in that period is comparable to the software of sale today.

There are more examples. As mentioned, Mark Cuban and Mark Hurd (CEO of Oracle) started their careers selling technologies. In addition, Dan Fishback, Board member of several silicon valley companies and former CEO of DemandTec IPO’dd in 2008), started his career as a salesman at Unisys.

So there’s no limit to what you can do when starting your career in software sales. We hope this guide has given you a general overview of the various career paths you can take and what you need to do to get where you want to go.

Ready to start looking for a new job? Start browsing companies!

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personal branding roadmap template for job seekers

Personal Branding Roadmap Template For 2020 Sales Job Seekers

The importance of personal branding for career development is more vital now than ever for career salespeople thinking long-term. Your online reputation is now your resume and the key to future career growth.  

Having a personal brand gives you tremendous leverage when it comes to landing great career opportunities. For example, you might lack the job experience requirements for a role you really want, but having a strong personal brand may be able to compensate for that.

5-10 years ago, finding a new job worked heavily in the employers’ favor. Fast-forward 5-10 years later and digital transformation has shifted the advantage to the candidate. The MRI Network stated:

“86% of recruiters and 62% of employers felt the 2016 labor market was candidate-driven.”

Take a look at Tim Ferris or Gary Vaynerchuk as some key self-branding examples. Of course, they are at the extreme end of the spectrum, but they are the poster children for what you can achieve building a personal brand at scale.

tim ferris personal brand

Before diving into actionable personal branding techniques for job seekers (especially those in sales), it’s important to point out a hard reality. It isn’t going to be easy.

Building a personal brand is going to be a huge time commitment and will show little return in the short-term, but the long-term gains for the future of your career are limitless if you put in the blood, sweat, and tears in the beginning.

To get started you need to start asking yourself the questions below and write them down inside a google doc sheet or piece of paper.

Answer these questions to help you build out your personal branding roadmap in 2018:

  • What is your “value” differentiator?
  • Who is your target audience?
  • What channels does your target audience live?
  • What outcome are you trying to achieve short-term?
  • What outcome are you trying to achieve long-term?
  • What is your motive for building a personal brand?
  • What keywords do you want to be found for?
  • What is your content strategy?
  • What KPIs are you going to commit to (daily/weekly)?

1 – What Is Your Value Differentiator?

The importance of personal branding for career development all starts with understanding your “value” differentiator.

This will sound like a daunting task in the beginning. The easiest way to understand this is by understanding your strengths and weaknesses.

What makes you standout amongst the noise as a candidate every employer would want to hire?

What makes you the expert in your field?

This is the key to getting started with your personal branding plan.

Determine Your Strengths/Weaknesses:

Take out a piece of paper and start writing down your strengths on one side of the page and weaknesses on the other. What wisdom do you have in your field that others don’t?  Where do you lack wisdom?

If you get stuck, don’t hesitate to reach out to your co-workers and managers from your past and current jobs.

Really challenge yourself to understand your weaknesses because these will show you areas that need improvement.

You should consistently thrive to optimize your value differentiator.

strength vs weakness personal brand

2 – Who Is Your Target Audience?

To capture the right employer’s attention, it’s imperative that you understand your personal brand target persona. This is comparable to understanding personas in sales and marketing.

Make a list of all the influencers, employers, or decision makers you are trying to start conversation with or get attention from. This should help you build out your target audience.

Industry: Thinking long-term about your career what industry do you want to work in for the rest of your career? Narrow this down to your niche as much as possible.

Seniority Level: Do you speak to executives, mid-management, or practitioners?

Job Function: Do you speak to marketing, sales, IT, or accounting?

Industry Influencers: Who are the experts in your field?

3 – Which Channels Actually Matter To Your Target Audience?

This part should be easy. The importance of personal branding for career development starts with not only understanding who your audience is, but even more important, is where do they live?

For most B2B professionals, LinkedIn is the best place to build your personal brand. 

In most cases, your target audience will be engaged on multiple channels. Pick two channels (three at most), in the beginning, and really focus on those as you are getting started.

  1. LinkedIn
  1. Twitter
  1. Quora
  1. Reddit
  1. Facebook
  1. Pinterest
  1. Instagram
  1. Snapchat

4 – What Outcomes Are You Trying to Achieve Short-Term?

In the beginning, when building out your personal branding plan, it’s vital to understand what outcome you are trying to achieve.  

What are your short-term goals? These are outcomes you can achieve as little wins in a short-period of time. Most of these will be around audience growth and engagement metrics.

Some recommended short term goals to help you get started:

  1. Grow targeted following
  1. Create 1-1 conversations
  1. Content creation
  1. Content curation
  1. Profile views
  1. Connections

5 – What Outcomes Are You Trying to Achieve Long-Term?

Short-term wins over time will help you get to your long-term goals. Your goal here is to turn your short-term wins into habits that help you get to your long-term goals faster.

Long-term goals should incorporate building real expertise in your field that captures the attention from your employers based on association and wisdom.

Some recommended long term goals to help you get started:

  1. Inbound 1-1 conversations with target employers/recruiters
  1. Increase in number of qualified interviews
  1. More opportunity in higher positions
  1. More qualified connections with industry influencers
  1. Interviewed on top industry podcasts
  1. Guest posts on top industry blogs

Link to this podcast → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKeolScvBdI

salesman podcast personal brand

6 – What’s Your Motivation For Building A Personal Brand In The First Place?

This one should be obvious, but it must be part of building out your plan, so you don’t lose track of why you are investing the time and energy.

For example, musicians build a personal brand so they can get booked for more shows and gain more fans.

For B2B professionals, you may be looking for thought leadership opportunities such as speaking at a conference.

This exercise might also help steer you AWAY from building a personal brand (and that’s okay).

Ask yourself these questions:

  1. Why am I building a personal brand?
  1. Who is going to benefit from my personal brand?
  1. Am I doing this to give more than I receive (or vice versa)?
  1. Will I be focused on building strong relationships?

If the answer to these questions seem to be more “me” focused than “we” focused, it might not be worth making the commitment.

7 – Which Keywords Do You Want To “Rank” For ?

Understanding keywords that you want to be found for will help drive the long-term success of your personal brand. Keywords play a major role when setting up and optimizing your social profiles (or website) to be found by employers in the short-term and long-term.  

Using the “skills” section inside your LinkedIn profile will help you determine which industry keywords employer’s and recruiters search the most. This should be a pretty simple process, but you can also search industry hashtags using hastagify.me to get more granular in your search.

featured skills linkedin personal brand

8 – What Is Your Content Strategy?

Want a little known secret to building your personal brand, FAST?

Content. Simple as that.

Content is the key driver when building a personal branding plan that captures attention at scale. The key here is to be super strategic with the content you curate, create, and share.

Aligning your “value” differentiator with your content is key to capture your target audience’s attention. Your keyword strategy will need to be integrated heavily into this strategy.

Focus on these two key areas:

Content Curation – Sharing other people’s content is vital (especially in the beginning) to driving more targeted connections, conversation, and attention. Who are the industry influencers in your space? Who are the key employers you are trying to get in touch with? Use their content to drive the conversation using a value vs ask approach.

Content Creation – Creating original content should be a priority. It’s the only way you will gain the reputation as the expert in your field. This should be a mix of video and blog content. Using LinkedIn publisher should be a key area of focus. This builds your credibility inside your profile and allows recruiters to understand your “value” differentiator. Eventually, building your own website will need to happen as well.

linked profile keywords personal brand

9 – Which KPIs Will You Commit To (daily/weekly/monthly)?

Consistency is the key to driving short-term and long-term success.

  • How many times a week are you going to curate content?  
  • How many times a week are you going to create content?
  • How many times are you going to post on dedicated channels daily?
  • How many times will you engage daily? Weekly? Monthly?

Build out a posting strategy that holds you accountable and turns your activity into a habit. Using social publishing tools like Sprout Social, Buffer, or Hootsuite will help you automate the process to become more efficient.

NOTE: In the beginning, stay away from automation as much as possible. Really focus on the 1-1 conversation to build relationships that matter.

Putting Your Personal Branding Roadmap into Motion

This all might sound like its going to be a lot of work (and it will be), but start focusing on taking baby steps in the process.

After you start seeing short-term wins it will help you pick up momentum.

Think about the next 10-20 years of your career.

Visualize the opportunities that will come your way if you put in the time now, so you can reap the career rewards later!

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Branding Tips for the Modern Salesperson

Building Your Brand

How do you keep up and stand out in an ever-changing job like sales? Whether you’re an industry veteran or a rookie fresh out of college, it’s essential to create a personal brand that will position you as a cut above the rest in the modern-day salesforce. From professionalism and personality to style and voice, there’s much to consider when properly branding yourself. The good news is that we are covering it with these tips below!

Personal Branding Tips For Salespeople

Professionalism is a must for any reputable and successful salesperson, especially if you’re transitioning from the role of a college student to a young professional. To send the message that you take your career seriously and with pride, it’s equally as important to look at the part as it is to act the part. Looking professional on the outside will help you feel confident and ready to take on anything sales may throw at you. how to build your brand Start by revamping your wardrobe and style. If you’re a young professional, there’s no better time to get new, career-savvy clothes that fit the persona you want your brand to convey. A guaranteed way to look more professional is to own well-fitted clothing. Baggy or long clothing can appear sloppy and careless, so buy suits, dresses, or blazers that provide the perfect fit. Next, invest in custom tailor pieces that elevate your look beyond ready-to-wear clothes. This way, you can choose styles and colors that show off your personality while still looking professional. Nowadays, you don’t have to leave your house to get tailored. Places like iTailor make the process easy and stress-free right from your computer. Then, be sure that your hairstyle matches your look for your new career. Your hair should always be brushed, tangle-free, and neatly styled. If you have long hair, consider pulling it back and out of your face for a clean look. For men specifically, it’s best to keep a clean-shaven face or a well-groomed beard ahead of an interview or your first day on the job. To achieve this look, always use a new razor blade and high-quality products to avoid any noticeable irritation or cuts that can cause a distraction from the rest of your professional look. Speaking of online ease, all of your necessities can be found in one place at Harry’s. You can order as often as you please or sign up for a subscription that guarantees delivery at a predetermined timeline that works for you. Remember, it’s good practice to dress for the job you want. Once settled into your job, you may need to adjust your look slightly to fit with your fellow salespeople and company dress code standards. However, you can take it a step further by looking at those you admire at work and mimicking their dress, like adding a nice watch or wearing a tie every day. Contrarily, you may be able to alter your style with a more personalized touch, like showing off your tattoos or having a longer beard, once you know what looks are appropriate at your company. When you look good on the outside, you’re bound to feel good on the inside, and to be successful in sales; it’s crucial to be friendly and outgoing, which is easier when you feel confident. sales recruiting agency

Authentically Living Your Company’s Brand

When you start your position as a salesperson, it’s vital to consider your company’s brand. You’ve mastered revamping your brand but embracing the brand you’re working for is just as important in selling. When engaging with others via email or over the phone, be sure to match your company’s tone, voice, and style while adding your personal flair. To help you do this, first, familiarize yourself with your company’s brand by heading to its blog and following its social media accounts. There is valuable information on exactly what your company does and how they do it right at your fingertips! Plus, the coworkers creating content on the blog know all about the proper voice for selling your company to the outside world, so it will be easy to mimic that when you see it in front of you. Finally, the more you know about your company, the better you will be at selling it to others because you can build more trust by learning the ins and outs of what your company does every day. To continue working on living your company’s brand, make an effort to improve communication between sales and the rest of your company. This can help with knowledge transfer and brand awareness and encourages cross-departmental training. You can do this by setting up casual meetings, attending employee events, or even getting lunch with someone outside your team. You can display this knowledge internally and externally to show that you genuinely care about whom you work for; you should take pride in showing off your employer’s brand just as much as your own! Remember, it’s never too late to start doing this. Even if you have worked with a company for years, growth and change are always happening, so don’t be afraid to branch out at work, get to know others, and expand what you think you know about your employer.

How To Keep Your Brand Up-To-Date

If you want to be the best salesperson you can be, then it’s about being flexible with the constant change of the salesforce. Don’t be afraid to rebrand yourself if needed with the tips above, especially if your company is also going through a rebrand. But no matter the circumstances, there are also some ever-green tips to keep in mind when it comes to being a great salesperson. Many modern-day sales are made online and over the phone, so being personable, human, and sincere via the tech tools you may be required to use on the job isn’t an easy task, so showing off these skills is critical in a sales position. Plus, being friendly and personable will never go out of style! Keeping an ongoing dialogue and friendship with your customers will only help keep the relationship strong and help retain them as clients. Let your client know they are heard by actively listening to them and answering their questions to the best of your ability; don’t ever write a client off or act too robotic. In turn, don’t be afraid to ask questions! Dig deeper into their needs from you and your company because the more you nurture your relationships with clients, the easier it is to set yourself up for an up-sell or use current customers to attract new ones. Referrals to new clients become natural and effortless when you have a relationship of good stature with your customers. No matter the changes that your company or team is going through, keeping your brand, personality, and knowledge at the forefront of your work can help you succeed as a salesperson. building your own brand As time goes on, the most challenging thing about sales can be keeping your personal brand up-to-date. This can be anything from your style and language to utilizing your company to gain knowledge. Using your employer and coworkers to live your company’s brand will always help you sell successfully. From the online blog to sales analytics, the more knowledge you can gain to become an expert in the sales field will only ever help your career. Being in sales, you are the first look into your company from the outside, so being confident in yourself and aware of your company’s brand are two small things that will always help you stand out. Remember, sales is a constantly changing, so it can be difficult to brand yourself to stand out. With these tips on establishing your personal brand and living your company’s brand, you are sure to keep up with the salesforce regardless if you’re a seasoned salesperson or new on the market. To further your knowledge of sales, sign up to be a Rainmaker!
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