Prospecting Dominance with Morgan J Ingram!

Every company has breakdowns in their revenue process. Sure thing. Deals slip into next quarter, competitors creep in and swipe deals away at the last minute and deals getting single threaded that don't get to power. These are just a few examples of revenue leak, but there are a ton more and they're preventing your team from reaching their sales targets. That's why I'm such a big fan of Clary's Revenue platform is the only tool that actually helps leaders take control of their revenue and thrive through any market conditions, especially when things get tough. You can't afford to miss a single detail, but you also can't be leading by gut. Clary combines the science and the art of sales and sales leadership. So go to clary.com if you want to answer the most important question in your business. Are you going to meet, beat or Miss on revenue? Welcome to the live Better Sell Better podcast with your host Kevin Dorsey of Inside Sales Excellence, the number one Patreon group and YouTube channel for tech sellers and tech sales leaders where we dive in deep for tactical advice on how to book more meetings, close more deals faster and lead sales teams to success. But we don't stop there. We also focus on the person in salesperson. We talk about mindset goals, time management and so much more. So thank you for listening and if you're interested, head on over to patreon.com InsideSalesExcellence now with that, grab a notepad, get ready and let's dive into the good stuff. What up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the live Better Sell Better podcast. This is your host Kevin Dorsey, AKA kd and today's episode. I cannot say enough how I'm excited for because I have on this show today Morgan J. Ingram and we are going to be diving into prospecting dominance. How to stand out in a crowded world. And the beauty of this though is you're about to learn from someone who not only has done it, but continues to do it and is actually one of the most sought after prospecting coaches in this country. So if you're not familiar with Morgan, he started his journey as an SDR at Terminus, started the SDR Chronicles, built out an amazing brand and following. But he did more than build a brand. He built a skill set that now he shares with everybody. He's in fact one of the most sought after prospecting coaches in this country. So if you are looking to learn how to set more meetings, this is the guy you want to listen to. Let's dive in. Morgan, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks for having me man. I'M super excited. I'm in just like you are.

I can't wait. Now I do have to get the elephant out of the room here. Right? Like, I'm interviewing you right now. Why was I never interviewed on the STR Chronicles? Let's just get this out of the way.

You brought this up multiple times, so I know that this is something that is bothering you to your core. And so what ended up happening is first time someone's like, hey, you got to get Kevin on the podcast. This is before he put his acronyms in the middle of his name, so the. Whatever he has now. But he was just Kevin back then. And they were like, all right, cool, let's. Let's do an interview with Kevin. I didn't know him at all, right? Couldn't get it to work. We restarted it, rebooted it for like 15, 20 minutes. Didn't work. I was, alright, Kevin, we'll get you later. So then we did it again. It didn't work again. And I was like, all right, I don't know what this dude's trying to pull on me, but it's not happening. And we still have not done an interview for the SR Chronicles. So basically, I'm going to be made fun of continuously on every single platform that we do together until this interview is done. And it will get done. So just stay tuned for that.

Okay? I just wanted to open up with that so that people understood that's all we needed to cover there. So, all right, let's get into the real, real here, right? Because I did promise people no fluff, but I had to get that out of the way. So. So let's dive into prospecting, right? So we're going to get right into the meat of it. And so I'm going to start off with. Call it like a juicy one here. Why is setting meetings so hard? And why does it seem to be getting harder year after year after year?

Noise. And also, if we can add to that, buyers are more knowledgeable. So before, buyers didn't know what a product did or what a service did. That's why you could be able to schedule more meetings. That's why people are willing to pick up more cold calls. However, now there's so much that's happening, not only from a selling perspective, from a marketing perspective. And also social media is in the mix now, too. So you pick up your phone, you're getting hit up with Twitter, Instagram, your email, your text, you got voicemails that probably got left. TikTok now is in the Mix. So there's so much that's happening. It's gonna be a lot harder for you now to get in front of somebody and schedule a meeting. It's not just the sales aspect that's the noise. It's everything else that's been added into this world right now.

And so as you look at this industry, go, do you think you see a shift or. We see a shift in terms of the value placed on pipeline? Because for the longest time, like pipeline generation was the quote unquote entry level role. That's where you put people just starting their career. Do you think it ever makes a shift where that actually becomes the, the sought after role, like the top paid role? Because getting in front of people is harder than closing.

Well, let's look at, look at it now. People are getting furloughed as AES because they can't prospect. And if we even go further than that, SDR and BDR teams are completely getting let go. So if you're an A, you can't prospect, what are you going to do? You can't close air, so you got to, you got to figure that out. So I think that prospecting will be the most sought out skill moving forward. And you're gonna have to be able to prospect and close. You're not gonna be able to just do either or moving forward.

Yeah, I agree with you there. I think sales over specialized, right, where it was this predictable rev model hit and I was like, okay, well you need prospectors and you need closers and you need account managers. But then all that turned into was prospectors that can't close, closers that can't prospect, and closers that don't know how to manage accounts, and then account managers that don't know how to close. And it's created this really bad bubble where once someone's into something, they get stuck and they can't seem to make that move over. So AES listening. I hope you're not hearing this episode like, oh, like I'm not an sdr, so I need to worry about this. If you don't know how to prospect, you will be left in the dust by AES that do. I'm just telling you right now. So, all right, let's dive into then the core of prospecting. So let's talk about the different channels you recommend people use. And does the messaging have to change per channel? What are the top channels that you leverage and recommend people to leverage for prospecting? And do you think the messaging has to change dependent on the channel?

Yeah, so I'm gonna go back on your point here about AES. Pay attention to this. And I said this on a call today, is that building your pipeline is your lifeline. If you don't pipeline, this isn't going to work. And so how do you build that pipeline? Going back to your question here is you have to look at multiple channels. So it's not just doing a call, it's not just doing an email, it's not just doing a video or social or all the things that you hear on LinkedIn or read upon. It's all of them. It's how do you leverage email, phone, social, video, etc. And the reason I'm saying that is because I don't know how a prospect is going to respond. Let me give you guys a perfect example. I sent Katie a voice message and I felt like he hated me for a week. He straight up was like, morgan, stop sending me voice messages. And we're tight, we have a really great relationship. But he was like, morgan, stop sending me this or we're not gonna have a conversation. And I was like, whoa. However, there's some people that I talk to and they only talk to me through voice messages and they don't like long text. However, I know for you, you like longer text. And so I was like, okay, I have to adjust to him. And that's what I'm trying to tell you. All right now, I don't know how people respond. However, I'm going to figure that out by using multiple channels. And according to Topo has it, if you use multiple channels, it increases your reply rate. So you have to be paying attention there. And then as you're looking at these multiple channels, video, email, phone, I believe the structure of how you do those are the same. It's how do I get someone's attention? So again, our attention span is what, 5 to 8 seconds right now? And so how do I get your attention to then say, hey, here's my value prop or my attention grabber. And then that last piece is, what's my call to action for you to take a meeting with me? And those three stages follow every single thing in every channel. However, it is different in each channel.

Okay, so let's break that down. Let's Talk video, LinkedIn and email.

Yep.

Right. So how do you think messaging is different per channel?

Yep. So the messaging and it's the length.

Okay. Okay.

Yep. And so they say to your question, where do I lean the most video? If you guys have seen my content, you know, I scream about Video. However, that doesn't mean that video is for everyone, because some of your regions, some of your Personas may not respond as well to video as others. I still think you should do it and maybe test it and try it out. However, for me right now, and answer this question, it's video. So how should you see video? Right now, I see video as a movie trailer. So I did some studies on what are the most successful movie trailers and what's the length of. The length of a successful movie trailer is around 90 seconds. And in that 90 seconds, the goal is for you to be like, oh, okay, I want to go see this movie. So when you think about sending a video to a prospect, you want to make it less than 90 seconds. And also you want to follow this framework, which is the 10, 30, 10. And so what that is is in the first 10 seconds, my goal is to get your attention. Now, how I do that, I could say, hey, the reason for my video is we've been talking to a lot of VP of sales, and here's a couple priorities that they're dealing with, right? You could even go into your approach, Katie, that you talked about, which is the bucket approach, right? Hey, these are three things that I know VPs of sales are dealing with right now. And then that 30 seconds is, what's the value prop? So what solution are you offering that correlates to that first 10 seconds? Then the last 10 seconds is a call to action. Now, what I've moved to now is a collaborative call to action. And so what that means is, are you open to connecting? Are you interested in a deeper dialogue? Is this something that aligns with your priorities right now? So that isn't as abrasive as, hey, 30 minutes of your time. Because I know you probably get those all day long. And you're like, I don't have 30 minutes. It stresses you out, right? I see your face right now. It gives you anxiety. However, I said, hey, are you open to learning more? You're like, yeah, I could be open to learning more. And then it goes into, okay, it sounds like you are interested. Let's talk about what happens next, which is a meeting. And then, because you agreed to that, we now can move in the fashion. So that's video.

So a couple of things I hope everyone picked up on there. One, that movie trailer analogy is perfect. But I hope you heard what he said. The movie trailer's job is to get you to want to watch the movie, not give away the entire movie. If it was that easy to sell your Product, AKA make them want to buy from a video. We wouldn't need to prospect. We could just send out all the videos in the world and wait for people to buy. So remembering what the goal of your video is is so important. It's building that curiosity and telling that story, which I think is just a perfect way to think about it. Now you said the value prop. Do you have a formula on how to build a value proposal? Because everyone says value prop, value prop. Like this is the value, right? Lead with value for the reps out there, right? And you know this because you have to go teach companies how to do this. They might be sitting there going, well, how do I build a value prop? Do you have a formula or a framework you can give people on? Like here's how you can build a value prop.

Yeah, absolutely. And so when you're looking at the value prop, you need to figure out, we had a conversation about this. How do you understand what is happening on a day to day basis with your Persona? Now you could go ask this with customer success. If you're an ae, you should already know this answer. If you're an scr, go talk to marketing, go talk to your leaders. If I could figure out, okay, what is my buyer going through on a day to day basis and then I can figure out what's the result of what they're going through on a day to day basis. That's how you create that messaging that's scalable. I can block off an hour and create 30 videos to a VP of Sales Enablement because I know exactly what my value prop is for them. No matter what is happening now, you can get more granular and you can do it by, you could do industry messaging. However, that's getting super detailed. However, what I would step back and tell you all is focus on what do these people are dealing with right now in this current climate. You can write that down right now on a sticky note if you want want to and then figure out what results can we bring them based on the problems and parties that they're dealing with on a day to day basis. And that's how you're able to create that value prop?

No, I love it. And one little thing he said there that I don't want y' all to miss is. And he said it a few times. We have talked about this. Morgan and I bounce ideas off each other all the time and we're people that people look to at the top of the game, like to learn from and even we still ask each other questions on like, well, what do you think about this? Or how does this work? Like, we still seek out knowledge and insight and ideas from people doing things differently or better. Morgan and I might have different ideas on things. Good, we should. And then we can test those things out and work on it. So seek out knowledge. I hope you catch that because, like, we still ask each other questions like, what do you think about this? Have you tried this? What does this look like? Because we never stop learning as well. And all of you looking to then get to our levels should not stop either seek out this type of knowledge. So, okay, then we're going to move on to this. Okay, so, all right, I'm going to do more video. Morgan, you convinced me. I'm going to do more video or cold call. Whatever you said earlier. It's so noisy. So how do I grab their attention in such a crowded space? What does that first 10 seconds have to be? Or how do I stand out? Right? Like, I get probably 30 to 40 emails a day.

Right.

I probably have nine or 10 missed cold calls. I'm afraid to look at my LinkedIn right now. Right. So how, like, if you were.

Let's actually just do this.

If we didn't have the relationship, but I am like your key Persona, how would you try to stand out to me in such a crowded world?

So if I was going after you, I have, I still want to. We talked about that email and I want to bring. Break that down, but you asked me, how would I go after you? First and foremost, I would send you a LinkedIn connection request. Now, some people may agree with me, some people may disagree with me. However, listen to this, right? You guys just heard what Katie said there. He said, hey, I have a lot of emails, I have a lot of phone calls. He's already on LinkedIn, right? And if you look at his, he's active on LinkedIn. So if he accepts me or not, I still want that first touch to be a LinkedIn connection request. Because now if he doesn't know me, it's a face to the name. He's gonna remember that name as I move forward and do my other touches that I'm about to talk about. But that's always my first touch because now you know who I am. I'm not just a random email that was sent through sales off and outreach. And, you know, as a leader, building cadences and getting those emails, knew exactly when it's a sales off email and you're like, yeah, okay, cool. Automated. Don't care. However, if you've Seen my face before. You might take a couple seconds to be like, okay, he connected me on LinkedIn. I didn't accept it, but like what? What's he about? Or what she's about, Right? So my second step normally is an outbound email. And the outbound email is based on you as a VP of Sales. So let's say if it was a tier one account, it would be personalized. Let's say if it was just I'm just targeting you and you're in the tier 2, then it's just a targeted based, Persona based email. Now the interesting part comes to day three where let's say if I sit the connection request. Now what I found is that blank notes with connection requests have higher acceptance rate, which is very, it's been very, very interesting me as of late because I thought that you have to personalize, this is what you have to do. However, I was proven wrong. I ran an A B test on it and there was a 30% connection rate when I just did a blank note and I was blown away by that and I was like, alright, so let's say if you connect with me, then I would send a LinkedIn video to you. So this is a key nugget here too. I found that the LinkedIn video is a higher acceptance rate when I'm talking to executives. So my personal response rate is 40% when I send a video because it stands out. Now I know what you're gonna say here and I'm gonna add to this. Don't just send a video and be like, I sent a video and someone's just gonna reply to me because I've made that mistake myself where I was like, oh, I'm just gonna send a video. Like I'm gonna smile and people are just gonna respond. I had a lot of people, they never engaged because they had no idea what the video is about when I follow back up. So make sure that you add context in what that video is or what you want to talk to them about. And then I found that day five, I then would send follow up on that video, let's say if we're still on LinkedIn. And then I'd be like, hey Kevin, any feedback on my video? I found that that follow up was highly successful because I know that people are more prone to give feedback because they want to talk about themselves, they want to give guidance instead of saying any thoughts or bulldogs, back up to the top. That's garbage and it's boring. But if I ask for your feedback, you're more Prone to get there. And then the other steps I would do is I'd send him a video via email.

So let's say same video, the same video or different video?

Different video. Okay, so let's say that you were on LinkedIn. You weren't. You had thousands of messages in your inbox and you just didn't even see it. So then I'm gonna send you a different video or an outbound email. Depends on how you engage with me on social. And then what I found to be successful in terms of open rates, this had a 50 to 60% open rate. When I would do this, it was Kevin plus Morgan. And then just a dash, a quick video for you. And notice what I said there. A quick video for you. Not most people put is they put a video and it's like, okay, well that could be five, six, seven, eight minutes. I don't know you. A quick video is like, I got time for a quick video. And then I would send that video to Kevin there. And then normally how I ended up is I would have a goodbye email instead of a breakup email. So a breakup email, I don't understand why people call it this. Because if you break up with somebody like that, it's baggage. It's emotional, like, and you get back at your ex. You're like, I'm with my ex. But I still remember all the crap that you did on our last relationship. So why do we call this a breakup email? I don't understand. So I call it a goodbye email, which is, hey, looks like timing was not right on your end, Kevin. Here's a couple resources. Here's my LinkedIn if you want to connect. And so what ends up happening is most people look at my LinkedIn profile. Let's see if they didn't connect with me on the first touch. And then now I know the elites were interested. And then I'll have a whole different cadence from there. I know long winded there. However, you asked me how I would do it, but that's exactly what I would do.

So y' all need to rewind, play at half speed and take notes because he just walked you through a cadence that I can honestly tell you maybe, maybe two people have put me through this year. Rarely do I get videos, especially via LinkedIn, but even more so, rarely do I get a follow up to that video. I have a lot of unwatched videos in my LinkedIn mailbox right now with no message ever coming after it, like, ever. And then the multi channel. I haven't done that though. I really liked in that breakup or goodbye email putting the social media link again in there. That's a really, really good tip because it gives another way to get that connection. And by the way, Morgan is now the fourth person that I've interviewed that has said the note on the connection request isn't required. And I have my own thoughts on to why. Honestly, I just think most people are really bad at writing them and they're just. They're bad at writing the requirements. Like, and it's like, what? Or it's salesy right away. Like, hey, I saw your post. That made me think of our newfoundled lead gen thing that I would love to show you. It's like, all right, delete. So now guys, go back in and listen to that because that was. That was gold. Now what's surprising though, right? And I bet people are, you know, going up in arms right now. He didn't say anything about cold calls. Morgan's. Morgan's a cold caller. And he, he just, he just social sold and emailed Katie, like, what's happening here? So where do calls fit in? Do you only call people that engage with you or do you still make that, like, cold call?

Yeah, I bet this is shocking you.

Oh, so I love, I love this. Like, I'm the same way people think all we do is cold calls. Like, nah, I'm gonna warm up as many of these calls as I possibly can. So no, like, I think it's a great. Like, I told everyone, it's great, but eventually you gotta call me. I would think so.

Yep. So if this was four years ago, my answer would be completely different. You know, I was an SDR making 80 to 100 calls a day. Now when I tell people that in trainings, they look at me like I'm a ghost, like a suck a zombie. They're like 80, 100 calls a day. Like, Morgan, who were you? And I was like, that was the standard on our team. Like, if you didn't make 800 calls, we were making fun of you. We were like, yo, you're not gonna make it. So different game. So what? The reason I didn't say calls there is because I'm giving you all contextual advice. Like, this is what's happening now. This is what's happening a month ago or two months ago. I'm telling you right now, if you call someone, think about it, are you gonna be able to get to them? You know, we have on our team James, who's making cold calls, and I'm getting data from him he's not even doing calls anymore. And he was doing calls, 150 calls a day as an SDR. And what we found is we're not. Our data is not there. We're calling people, and I'm supposed to talk to Kevin, and I'm getting Sally. That is. That's not helpful. So why would I do that when I know my conversion rates on video that I just told you are 40% reply rates. When we send videos, we get 10 to 20% reply rate, and our emails are 4 to 6. And my conversion rate on my cold calls is 1 to 2%. And one out of 100 people are picking up the phone based on what we sell as of today. For me, that data doesn't make sense. Now, for people out there, you can add this. This is where it's key. I gave you all a structure. This is not the magic formula or the silver bullet that I just gave you. You asked me what would I do to kd. So you need to think and be like, okay, that's an interesting structure Morgan gave. I have a higher conversion rate and connect rate with my Personas as your call. But I'm saying right now, our calls are not as effective. The times where we do make calls is where someone is highly engaged with our content, they're highly engaged with our video. Then we will make that call to them as an alternative step. However, we are not making as many calls because we just found them not to be beneficial for what we sell and what we do as of right now.

Love it. I wasn't anticipating this, which gets me so fired up, because it means you're evolving and adapting, and I absolutely love it. So. Okay. But I can't let you off the hook with cold calling, right? Because you've taught it. You've done it. So say you do so Actually, forget it. Doesn't have to be a cold call. It's a call, right? You call. How do you open up a cold call? Or how do you open that first call? With a prospect, right? What do you do or say in those first five to 10 seconds to earn the right to keep the conversation going?

Well, we got to talk about two things. Is it a true cold call, or is it a warm call? Let's say those are two different.

Let's say I watched your video. I didn't respond, but, you know, I watched it, so I accepted your connection. I watched the video, but I didn't respond. You called me. I pick up, I say hello.

Then what? Okay, cool. So you've watched the video. So if that was the case, then what I would do is I'd be like, hi, Kevin, thanks for taking my call. I noticed you watched a little bit of my video. However, you didn't finish it, so maybe it was too long. Give a few minutes to chat on what the remainder of that video said.

I like it. So did you intentionally not say your name, or is that just because we're talking right now?

So you said, that's because we're talking right now. Yep, that's because we're talking right now. However, if I was doing that as a call, then I would. Let's take it back, because that was a good point. I'd be like, hi, Kevin, thanks for taking my call. This is Morgan Ingram from JB Sales. I noticed that you watched a little bit of my video. However, you didn't finish it. Do you have a few minutes to chat with the remainder of that video said?

There we go. Okay. Because you gotta remember, man, people are gonna take your word as gold. You're right. You're right.

No, I just. We're having. I see you in this conversation, so that's why I just said it. Yeah, you're right.

You know how. You know how many LinkedIn messages we're about to get? I said, Morgan and KD said not to cold call. And they don't even say their names on the phone. This is like, you know, it's gonna happen. So I gotta protect both of us here.

I do have the cold intro. You don't say your name. So that's. That's where I was leaning on. So we'll go into that in a minute.

Okay, well, let's flip it. Let's flip it there, right? Because what I like about that, you introduce yourself, you're clear with what you're asking for. Clear on a set of time. But also using curiosity there, if everyone heard it, right? It's not, I sent you a video. How are you doing today? It's not, I sent you a video. What did you think? Think is I sent you a video and I know you didn't watch it all. I know you didn't watch it all. Could I share with you what was in the rest of that video? Do you have a couple minutes to chat? Right, like, so being specific, because that also builds curiosity, right? Of like, well, yeah, I didn't watch it. Okay. Like, yeah, sure. Tell me what was in that video. And now the conversations on. So then let's flip it real quick. COLDI right? Because we got a lot of people out there still cold calling.

Let's go back. Because what if they watch the video at 100%, so you have to say something different, too. So let's go there before we get to the cold. I'd be like, hi, Kevin. Thanks for taking my call. This is Morgan Ingram from JB Sales. I noticed you watched the video at 100%. What did I miss? And do you have a few minutes to chat on areas that I didn't cover that you might have been expecting that video?

Ooh. So do you say, what did I miss? That you didn't respond, what did I miss? That you didn't engage? Or just, what did I miss?

What did I miss? Because you watched it 100% and you didn't respond, so I missed something.

So if you guys could see Morgan right now, it's something I teach my teams, and I know he does as well. I teach this hands up salesperson, right? So, like, he can't even help it. His hands come up like, hey, like, what? You know, what did I miss? Like, what did I do wrong? Like, it's a very, like, hey, like, you watched it. I really must have missed the mark. There's that hands up mentality of, like, almost being defensive in a way of like, hey, like, I'm sorry. I must have done something wrong. But it's not pushy. It's not forceful. It's not this bulldog approach, right? Like, you can pull people in, and instead of pulling it, pushing them away. So then let's go one step further. So you've warmed me up a little bit. I say, sure, Morgan, I got some time. What's up? I just had a meeting cancel. Yeah, I watched your video, but I only got, like, halfway through. You know, I don't like video messages, whatever. But now, yeah, sure, Morgan, let's chat a little bit. How do you drive the conversation where you want it to go to try to set up that meeting?

Yeah. So I'm gonna go back to cold so people can get that tip there, and I want to add that in, and then I'll go into that. So if it's cold, right, I'd be like, hi, Kevin. Thanks for taking my call. I know I'm calling you completely out of the boot right now. However, do you have a few moments to chat? Then Kevin's like, yeah, yeah, sure. Who are you? Because 70% of the time, when you say the intro without your name, they're gonna ask who you are. And so I'm like, because of curiosity, right? And so I'm like, hey, my name is Morgan Ingram from JV Sales and the reason for my call is we've been working with VPs of sales and one of their main priorities right now is to show that they're investing into their team in this crazy time. So what we're doing is we're offering sales training that's focused on creative and innovative messaging that could start Spark Net new conversations with your buyers. How are you all currently making sure that you have modern sales best practices so that you can prospect through this mess? So break that down. So I do value prop on again, the Persona based messaging that I talked about earlier. So again, that's scalable. I can say it off the top of my head at this point. Then I asked you a question to go into a conversation and that's what most people miss on cold calls is they go straight into value proposals. Let's schedule a meeting instead of value prop. Here's the value. But also let me ask you a question. So then it opens you up to give you. Give me more info from you to then be like, oh, Chris Voss labeling. It sounds like you're interested. What happens next is we move forward into this conversation. So if you're able to ask a question that interrupts their pattern, I'm huge on pattern ups. That completely interrupts their pattern and gets them to talk. They'll be willing to give you the information because when we train reps, it's about asking the right questions right in the beginning of that call. So they're like, oh, I've never had a sales cold call like this before where someone asked me a question based on what's going on in my organization that's relevant and not just tell me about your 2020 priorities. Like, what do you mean? They're all over the place and it's terrible right now. So ask me a question that's relevant to show me that you know me in some form or fashion. Yeah.

So that really is in line with what I taught in like the bull scripting session as well as I'm such a big believer in question based prospecting that I don't even say the value prop up front.

No, you asked question. Okay.

You know, like if I said like, hey, Morgan, you know, it's Kevin from, you know, Inside Sales Excellence. You know, I talk with a lot of VPs. A lot of them are, you know, kind of dealing with xyz. Like, can I ask you just two to three quick questions, see if this even makes sense? See, does it make sense for you to look in Further, because if not, I'm out. It's okay. That's all. I'm actually asking permission for the beginning of the calls. Can you say yes to allow me.

To ask the questions?

If I can get that permission? Now we're in. Now we can go forward and go through. And then we get very similar the how based questions. How are you blank right now? What are you running into here? How does this impact you to set up that meeting, let's say. All right, so I said, you open with the value proposal? And I said, well, honestly, I'm not doing much right now to invest in my team. Where would you go from there?

Yeah, so if you're saying, hey, I'm looking to invest now in my team, then I would.

Oh, so actually not real quick. So not that I'm not looking like you said, like, how are you investing in your team right now? I said, honestly, like, I'm not doing. Not doing much.

Okay, so if you said, hey, I'm not doing much, then I'd be like, okay, so what are you doing? Well, basically I'd be like, what are we doing right now is we're working with people that aren't doing that much and then showing them what they can do to accelerate their growth during this time. So it sounds like this is something that could work for you. You'll be open to a 30 minute conversation. That's the way that I would stage it. Because if they're not doing that much, then, hey, let's have the conversation on what you can be doing.

And then are you able to send the. Flip it. I hope you all catch this because this is a beautiful setup because it doesn't basically matter what I say. I'm not doing much. Well, hey, we could help you do much. What if I say, yeah, I do a lot for my team?

Well, if you're saying, hey, we do a lot, we can narrow that down to figure out what you really want to focus on here. And our training is separated into different factors. However, we do specialize in cold calling and social selling, etc. So that's something you want to have a focus on as well. Right.

So notice he can flip it. It doesn't even matter. Once you get if you know your value prop well, you don't do a lot. Oh, we can help with that. Oh, you do a lot. You're the perfect fit for us. We love working with people that really invest in their team. Right, let's narrow this down. Right. And so that's setting up the conversation to handle it right way now you kind of touched on. I want to hear how you actually ask for the meeting. Because it's also very surprising how most reps don't actually ask for the meeting. They get in the conversation and then basically they're hoping that the prospect says, so yeah, I want to take a look into this. They never actually ask, so how do you ask for the meeting?

So it's interesting because it's either they don't ask for the meeting or they ask for it way too early.

Oh yeah, it's just right out the gate like, hey, this is Kevin. Like, what's up? I saw you on LinkedIn. I wanted to set up a 35 minute call with my director to discuss. Yeah, so you're right. Like people ask immediately and it's like, okay, leave me, leave me alone.

It's the reeling effect. And I hear it all the time when I'm coaching. When people don't know how to answer a question, they're like, so do you want 30 minutes on the calendar? And it's like, wait, whoa, like wait, what? You're just default to the meeting. Like ask a question, open them up. Right. So how I ask for the meeting is I label it all the time. And I say, let's say you said that, hey, we're not doing that much. And I said, hey, well we're able to help in these areas. And then what I ask at the end of that is, is that impactful to you or is that relevant to you? Right, is how I did that. And then once you're like, oh, that's relevant or it is impactful, then I say, hey, it sounds like you have an interest here. So what happens next is we schedule a 30 minute meeting with our account executive who will take you through a demo call or whatever you have. Everybody's different, but let's say it's a demo call. We'll take you through a demo call on what our platform looks like. And so do you have next Wednesday at 3pm Eastern Time available for you? And this is key because a lot of times people say, hey, when are you available? It's like, I give people time, hey, 3:00pm Eastern Standard Time. Like, are you available at this time? And then if they say no, then normally I'll be like, hey, are mornings and afternoons better for you? Because in that way they can tell me when they are going to show up and then we'll schedule it from there. And then this is the last part of the cold call that completely changed the game for me. And I hope it changes the game for you all. Get them to accept the calendar invite while you're on the phone. Yes.

Yes.

This was the biggest miss that a lot of reps have. They're like, oh, I'm having a lot of no shows. It's because you thought the conversation was great, but that prospect did not probably think the conversation was great, to be honest. They're going to have that call and they're going to forget you in five to 10 seconds after the call. You're going to remember and high five everyone in the office, but they're going to do it and move on to the next meeting that they had. Especially if you're reaching out to someone on the C level or VP level, they're going to be like, okay, yeah, another call, whatever. So don't get caught up in your emotion of you having a great call. Get caught up in that process of every single time I had a sticky note, it was like, close on the call. Hey, I'm going to send you this calendar invite before you hang up. Accept it so that we're on the same page, and then you can ask questions even in there, too, to qualify it even more if you have to. But that was a huge game changer for me as a rep and I still do it today.

Yeah. So little bonus tip there, y'. All, when you ask for them to confirm it the way you can set that up. And by the way, you have to make sure you make it a question, because sales reps love to make a question a statement. Hey, I'm gonna send over this calendar invite for you. If you could accept that for me, that would be great. And I'm really looking forward to chatting with you on Friday, So have a great day. You didn't actually get commitment. You didn't ask the question. You just say, hey, I'm going to send you a calendar invite over right now. Can you accept that for me, please? So I know I didn't go to spam. Can you accept that for me, please? So I know it didn't go to spam. And then you shut up. You make them answer yes. So we do a dual. A dual confirmation. So we do that. Can you accept it for me, please? On, like, on the call, they say, yeah, sure. Cool. I saw it come through great. And hey, we know stuff pops up all the time, but could you make your best effort to be there for me? And if not, we can try to find another time? And again, we make them say yes. Will you make your best effort to be there for me. So we can cover what we're trying to cover. We do a dual confirm and that. I mean, we regularly maintain 75 to 80% show rates. The across across inbound and outbound opportunities with that dual confirmation. So if Morgan has a sticky on it, y' all need to have a sticky on it, too.

Yeah.

So then, you know, I'm sure there's some people listening right now. They go, all right, fine, Morgan. Yeah, kd. But you guys are Morgan and kd. Like you guys have been doing this for a while or you sound so confident or I could never pull that off. How can a rep, whether new or vet. Right? Because we're talking about trying to get AES to start this prospecting game up again, too. How can a rep build confidence when it comes to cold calling and prospecting? Like, what can they do to actually get good at this?

So when I first started prospecting, I was terrible. I was awful. And it's even funnier. I never wanted to make a cold call. I only believed in social selling and running email campaigns. That was the only thing that I wanted to do. And how do you get better at it is that you have to practice and you have to make this an ongoing motion. So let me give you all example. One is baseball. So you can't just go up to the plate and be like, I'm going to figure this out in the game. You're going to get smoked and you're going to look silly, too. I play baseball. So how do you get better? You got to go to the batting cage. You got to get your reps in. You got to, okay, we're going to have a 90 mile per hour fastball come at me in the batting cage and I'm going to do 200 at bats every single day to make sure that I get better at this. And that's how people get better at baseball. You know, rest in peace. To Kobe, he did the same thing. He was not good at all. When he first played basketball, he didn't score a single point. I think he was like 13, 14 years old. He played just out on the wreck. This Lewis Howes interview, he didn't score a single point and he went home and he was pissed. So what did he do? He practiced. He was like, all right, I'm going to get really good at free throws. And then he was like, all right, next month I'm going to focus on my jump shot. Next month I'm going to focus on my sky hook. Next point. Then we're going to my Three point. So the reason I'm telling you all this is how you get better is that you have to practice, and the best way to practice is with your colleagues. And so one thing that I did is I went across my team. So all of you can do this right now. This is one of the most actual tips that I give to all reps. If you're like, oh, I'm not good at prospecting, go ask people in your organization. All right. What do you feel like you're the best at? And you can even look at the data if you want to. In Salesforce, it tells you some people are really good at email writing. Some people are really good at calls. And so I found all the people that were good, really great at something. So I took one rep, and I want to get better at calls. I said, hey, we're going to do a call bus together today. We're going to be in a room for an hour and a half. We're going to do back to back calls. Now, what I learned in that was extremely valuable. I could hear him on the phone, so I could pick up on like, oh, man, that's a really good way he handled that. Objection. Oh, that intro is fire. Like, why am I not doing that? And then when I got on the call, he coached me on how to get better. So I learned so much faster than that. And so then we had other people join our sessions because we were getting just so much better and ended up being one of the top cold callers in that team. Because I just hung out with the top cold caller. Right? It's the law five. Right. So also, I found the best email writer. And I said, hey, how do you write your emails? Can I just see your structure? They walked me through it. Then I took that structure. Then I found someone who's really good at organizing their schedule. I was like, my schedule is trash. Can you walk me through this? And they walked me through it. At the end of the day, your work ethic, you can determine that that's something that you got to find within. However, why would I continuously try to figure all these things out when I can ask a rep on what they're doing and take those skill sets and then morph it into my own? And then as I said, guys, practice, like, every single week, we are practicing cold calls. We were doing mock cold calling. We were critiquing each other. We were listening to each other's calls. We were practicing our videos. Like, this comes down to practice. And I know Katie's gonna get hype about this and this is his thing. But that's what we did as organization. We were always practicing and we were always critiquing each other and we were in this last thing, we were in the trenches together trying to help each other. And if you're not doing that when it comes to prospecting, you're completely missing out because I still ask for help, I still ask for feedback, even though I'm the one teaching and training on this.

Absolutely. And I will reserve my hype right now because the hype comes from you on this show, not from me. But yes, practice, y'.

All.

Just practice. It's the core of everything. It just. It just is. So. Okay, so two more questions before we get into some of the rapid fire stuff from the group. And then our live, better question. Deadly sins of prospecting. Right. So we've talked a lot about what to do. Can you give a few things of, like, if you are doing this, stop. What are some of, like the deadly sins of prospecting you've seen that absolutely hold people back from succeeding?

You're trying to be too perfect. That's number one. You know, we just had that mock cold call with kd. I hesitate a little bit because I was like, oh, man, okay, cool. I got to get back into this. And however that happens, like, I've made a lot of calls, I've made a lot of videos. Over 10,000 videos that I've made to prospects alone. That's not even accounting sales cycles and content, like prospects alone, over 10,000 and I still sometimes mess up on my delivery. And the whole thing is you have to be human in your process. No one's expecting you to be perfect. Yes, you still got to deliver value. But. But don't overthink this. So that's number one. Number two is stop the connecting pitches. Eliminate this immediately. Every executive is extremely frustrated when you do this. So that's a huge sin that people are doing right now. Still, like, I connect with people and it's like, hey, here's my autobiography on why you should talk to me. I don't care about your Harry Potter novel story. I just want the short, condensed format on why I should take a meeting with you. And I'll add this note to it. 78% of emails are read on the mobile device. And the reason I'm telling you that right now is because when you write emails, some of you all write emails and they are super long. And if you read that email, you won't even respond. So take the time to make it Short and condensed and to the point. And number three, this is the last thing I'll say here is the biggest sin of prospecting is that way too emotional about your outcomes and not emotional about the process. And what I mean about being emotional about the process is you have to be practicing. Like we just said, you have to be willing to make those mistakes. I still make mistakes. KD has busted my chops for making mistakes and other people have. However, I'm willing to take that feedback when it is negative. And even though I may not like it, I know that that's only going to make me better in my process and not just my outcomes of I got to schedule 16 meetings. It's no, what are you going to do on a day to day basis to schedule 16 meetings? And this is the last thing I want to say on this is this quote is what I got when I was in SDR and I heard it and I was like, this is it. If you understand this phrase right here, this quote, it will fundamentally help you better with prospecting, which is be brief, be brilliant, be gone. So be brief in your messaging, be brilliant enough that I'm interested to take a meeting with you, right? Movie trailer to movie, like I said, and then be gone. Some of you all think that you're getting paid by talk time. If I was getting paid by talk time, I would have been raking it in as an sdr. Let me tell you right now I could talk. But the thing is that's not what I'm getting paid for. I'm getting paid to schedule the meeting or if I'm in ae, I'm getting paid to close the meeting. However, you can't close for most people on one call. You're just there to get a meeting and then get them to the movie at the end of the day. So those are the sins and those are things that you can do to not sin.

Love it. Jocko Vanderkooj told me this a few months ago. He said when prospecting and in selling, people want three things. They want education, information and entertainment. And I was like, that's so goal. He's like, most people, all they ever do is information. Here's what it is, here's what the education is, here's why it matters. But then the entertainment, that's what I think it aligns with the be brilliant, be entertaining, bring some emotion into this. Okay, we're down to our last seven minutes here. So we got the big three question, two rapid fire questions, then the live better question, right? So the first one short and punchy. If they were to forget everything we talked about today except for three things in order to set more meetings, what would those three big tips be?

Go make prospecting fun. Two is be concise and then three is set up formulas and frameworks for yourself that can be repeatable.

One tip on how to make prospecting fun.

8020 rule. 80% of the things that you already know how to do when it comes to prospecting and getting results, those are consistent systems that are set up in place already for most organizations. 20% are things that you don't know about, things that I have no Idea if a LinkedIn video or voice message is gonna work. So focus on your 20% to make things fun so that your prospect is having fun in the process as well.

Okay. I love it. Okay, two rapid fire questions from the group. The first one said, Morgan, can you describe your day in the life as an SDR terminus and how important time blocking was?

Yeah, so all I did was play Mario Kart. No, I'm just kidding. I know we're in the rapid fire, but it's funny, like when people would come into interviews, they only thought that I made videos. They didn't think that I had a job. They just thought that I was supposed to just make YouTube videos. And that was all I did. So that's just a fun fact. I was like, no, I actually prospect, like, go look at the dashboard, but I don't want to. It's a whole breakdown here. And again, I know we're at the end, but this is what I would tell you all to think about. I had three things on my calendar as themes and those three things were one, money making activities. So those were labeled as green activities throughout my day. So those were making cold calls for me. I found that 9 to 10:30 was a great time for me to make good cold calls during that time. As an SDR for pickups. It might have changed today, I don't know because I'm not making as many cold calls as I used to. However, that's what I was doing. I found that it was a great time for me to personalize emails. There was a good time for me to follow up on those emails. If you don't have money making activities on your calendar as an SDRAE or if you're an individual contributor, you're in trouble. Like you need to have those or you're not hitting quota.

You gotta have it. Like just start, start with that, y'.

All.

Like start with blocking your money making time. Have it on your calendar, make it non negotiable. So this next one's a little bit heavier, but we're gonna go for it because that's just what we do. That's how you and I vibe is. So you've been talking a lot about video, but the question is, how can you use video to address or not address unconscious bias when making outreach, Right? So as a black male, I'm a black male. This question came from a black male saying like, basically, video, is it a good thing or not a good thing if you're worried about how you'll be perceived over video as a minority.

So this is a very interesting question. When I saw this, it made me think about a lot of different angles. I would say that you have to take it back to the elements of personal communication by Dr. Albert. So 7, 38, 55. So 7% is spoken word, 38% is voice and tone, 55% is body language. Now the reason I'm telling you that is because when most people see an African American, they already have their biases that we both know. However, if I can speak, your whole perception is going to change. You know, I've done presentations, 50 plus white males in the room. You know, I got this, I got a jacket on and I got my hat on and like, yo, I don't know who this 27 year old kid is. Why did we get this guy as a trainer? What the heck is going on? But in the first 10 minutes, you know, I bring insights I've never seen before. Everything changes. And they're no longer looking at what I'm wearing. They're only hearing the value that I'm bringing. So the reason I do videos a lot more than I do text based posts is first of all, I'm not that great of a writer. And I will honestly admit that. And I know that. However, I know that when I get on video, I can articulate what I want to talk about. And I know people will lean into what I'm saying. They can hear the confidence, they can understand the inflections and tones that I have in my voice. And that's going to eliminate a lot of biases that people have about you when you have a video. And right now there's not a lot of face to face events. So you can have that virtual handshake is what I'm calling it right now with your video. And that will eliminate a lot of ways that people see you because they're gonna be able to truly see you as a human and they're Gonna be able to feel that emotion that you're giving them, which you can't do in other mediums. Yeah.

And I will say this as well. I had this built in as an excuse for a while that was unfounded. Right. Like, we place our own biases on other people and say, well, I'm not gonna do this because I'll be perceived. Or they don't. They're not going to respond because of minority. Like, lean in. He said it. Lean in and go. Because if you deliver a great message with the right energy and the right attitude and the right language, you'll be just fine. So don't allow this to hold you back from doing what you need to do. Which I think is actually a perfect segue to our last question here. Right. So the name of this podcast is Live Better Sell Better. Right. Like focusing on the purpose person in salesperson as well. So to end what would be a life tip, you would give the listeners, right. Something to either get more out of themselves or more out of life that leads to then selling. Right. Because I want to take care of the person here, too. So what would be your parting advice? To live better.

Find someone's lifestyle that you admire, get lunch with them, get dinner with them, be a mentor, tip them as a mentor and do what they say. And that advice is super simple. However, a lot of people don't do that. We look for people as a whole. And I'm guilty of this. I'm like, oh, man, that person seems pretty cool. I'm just gonna listen to them, or, hey, I'm just gonna figure it out by myself. And that's not gonna help you at the end of the day. And this isn't just with sales. It's with everything. Like, I look at people's lifestyles, I talk to them as individuals, and I'm like, all right, that person has a lot of insights, and I want to emulate my lifestyle like them, because they have that for a certain reason, and there's certain things they can tell me that I might not understand. So all my mentors, including Kevin, all have a family. And I've seen the way that they talk to their significant others, how they talk about their kids, and that's something that I want to have when I have a family. I don't have that yet. And so I was like, okay, that's something in my lifestyle that I want to pay attention to. You know, Ralph Barsi is one of my mentors, and he is always giving me books and different masterclasses to watch and I'm like, dude, what the heck are you talking about? However, those are the people you should be talking to. You should be asking yourself, what the heck is this person talking about? Because that will make you way more insightful moving forward. And so find people that, again, your lifestyles that you want and you want to emulate and then ask them questions and then execute on. That is the formula there.

I love it. Seek out mentorship, y'. All. Morgan has mentors. I have mentors. In fact, all of my mentors have mentors. It can literally change your life. So, my man, Morgan J. Ingram, we did it. We made this shit happen. We did this, y'.

All.

Incredible advice. Super tactical. Thank you so much for your time. We'll do this again soon. My man, you know I love you.

Hi, man. Appreciate you later.