Mel Kozun

How I achieved a 78% positive cold call conversion rate. Focus on the opening line script and call the right people. Background: I've been making cold calls for a political campaign in the U.S. I'm up to about 700 calls and have been keeping track of outcomes. Here's the opening line script: "Hello! This is Trevor and I'm calling [community name] voters today to discuss the upcoming election for U.S. Senator. Am I speaking with [name]?" Why it's brilliant: 1. It's personal. Just my first name to make a quick connection. 2. Explains who I am calling = "[community name] voters" . Not you? Hang up. 3. Explains what we are talking about = upcoming election. Not interested? Hang up. 4. Confirms that I have the person I think I have dialed. Not you? Hang up. 5. Permission to talk was granted because they picked up the phone. No? Hang up. 6. Does not reveal the brand (the candidate or the party) until after they agree to proceed. Mad? No harm to brand. 7. It takes ~6 seconds to say. 8. Leverages propensity and timing data. 9. Doesn't waste time on apologies or excuses. Hang ups are not the enemy. Wasted time is the enemy. My last session (the 7th to date) yielded 14 discussions: 11 supported my candidate. 3 were undecided. 0 supported the opponent. So, how can this experience apply to business? If your cold prospect's first question is "What's this call about?," you're losing. Avoid that. Stop telling them you know they're busy. Stop asking permission. Stop apologizing. Get to the point. "Hello! This is Trevor and I'm calling [job title] leaders today to discuss the [insert topic of the day]. Am I speaking with [name]?" 1. Personal. 2. Who = [job title] leaders 3. Topic = pick something relevant 4. Confirms prospect's identity 5. Didn't hang up = Permission granted 6. No brand confusion 7. Fast 8. Call people who are more likely to say yes than no (i.e. - get some data) 9. No apology. Match topics to the job titles you're calling. If they don't answer and you leave a voice mail, rotate and refresh topics so you're not constantly calling about the same thing.

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Your current customers are the biggest potential source of business 💛 I'm talking about building a Customer Success Revenue Factory with Nieves Canada. Unfortunately, Customer Success (CS) is often treated as an afterthought and seen as not so sexy by most in sales and marketing. BIG mistake. Nieves builds strategic CS teams with Ops / Product and Sales/Marketing, so that the customers get the BEST and the business grows because of that. So... how DO you drive growth with your exicisting customers? 👉 Have a clear strategy. How can you best service your customers? What is the goal and how are we going to get there? 👉 Who's on your CS team? What kind of skills do you need? When? In what phase? 👉 Is CS siloed, or is there collaboration with product/ops and marketing/sales? Nieves, I loved your MASTERCLASS. This was definitely more than a podcast. Check out this snippet and keep an eye out for the next episide of Growth Bites. Usually on Thursday, but this one's coming on Sunday 🚀 And of course, come nerd out with me some more with Growth Tribe. We're always sharing inspiring and instructional content to help you succeed as a professional and a business 🎯 #sales #marketing #customersuccess

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Sellers who have "need for approval" from their prospects are 35% less effective (RAIN Group). It's not your job to make your prospect feel "good" all the time and here's a prime example: When Spencer Ivey is asked for a discount, he simply nods his head and says "....Okay..." He doesn't jump to justify his pricing. He doesn't immediately start negotiating. He lets the silence linger. No doubt, this makes the prospect who just asked him for a discount feel somewhat uncomfortable (Ironic, since that's what they were trying to do to HIM when they demanded a discount!). 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞, 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫𝐬. Salespeople that want their prospects to like them (need for approval) will immediately jump to problem solving mode when they get asked for a discount. But the best? They're ok with a little discomfort, even if it means they're less "likable". They know that the discomfort will compel the other party to justify their ask with more information (information is your greatest ally in a negotiation).  

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A client just reached out to integrate Shopify into their current customer payment set up. They wanted to know if we can still process customer payments on Shopify for them, even though they are using this now independent e-commerce solution. The answer is YES. Pro’s ➕ Con’s. Con, it costs more to to bring in a 3rd party. Pro, we become their point team for managing payment headaches. I educated my client enough for them to be able to make their own decision. If it’s the partnership of Me ➕ Shopify they decide on, I would have them set up in under an hour ⏳. ____________________________________ #sales #rejection #deal #coldcalling #payments #intagrations I’m Shalom Markman. I went into sales to become great❗️ I aim to sprinkle cold calls 🥶☎️, sales advice, and a dash 🧂 of sales humor as I show the journey of my success.

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Lauren Feyer and I ran a campaign in Canada last quarter, and yesterday the first outbound deal from that campaign became a customer. Here is what Lauren did to source this deal that was 100% cold outbound. 1. Linkedin outreach, she got connected with someone at the account on Linkedin and had a conversation with them understanding their current tech stack but also the challenges we are helping companies in their industry solve. We spent a lot of time evaluating closed won and lost analysis in this industry, important integrations, and needs of their business to make sure our messaging was relevant but also we were reaching out to the correct titles. 2. Got an intro, she followed up with that same person from Linkedin on email who immediately introduced her to the team leading an evaluation. 3. TIMING..the timing was perfect as were starting a technology eval so they had urgency to get a conversation started. 4. Prep..Lauren took the time to gather some info and ask some questions from the eval team prior to the first call so that her AE/SE could use the full time to tailor the conversation to what the prospect actually cared about. Solid job Lauren Feyer and Melissa Smith!!

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Enterprise Salespeople - just a friendly push (from someone who isn't impacted by your results but wants you to kick ass) May & June - time to fine-tune  😎 If, on average, you have a 6 + month sales cycle - hopefully you rested up this long weekend.... It's GO time! Any Discovery Calls booked inside what's left of May & the month of June have a shot to close by Calendar Year End. Factor in some down time in July & August & December. This is when you want to: 🚀 review and own the heck out of next steps with ops inside your CRM 🚀work with marketing to provide timely and intelligent collateral for each stage gate of your ops 🚀ensure that decision makers are identified and introduced 🚀hammer away with your sales leader/founder the key accounts and get support 🚀build plans with your champions to get these deals to their natural close 🚀understand how market forces/head winds/corporate budgets etc might create a sense of urgency for prospects Good Luck & Go CRUSH Your Quotas - like only you can!!! AND make sure you have some personal activities for growth inside your daily calendar!!! That part is always non-negotiable!! If I can help - happy too! startupsalesgrowth.ca #sales #saas #saassales #founders #startups #startupsales #proptech #realestate #enterprisesales #ae #bdr #salesteams #salesculture #salesprocess #salescycle #salesstrategies #salestips #quotas #salesquotas #revenue #salesleadership #salespeople #worklifebalance #marketing #salesandmarketing #mentalhealth #salesprospecting #crm #nextsteps #coaching #b2b

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NOW THAT I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION - Check Out the Stats on Speed to Lead: The Critical Metric for Converting B2B Leads. Vendasta's study insights into lead response times reveal a pressing challenge for businesses aiming to maximize their sales and customer engagement. Here are the key findings: #Immediate #Response #Requirement: The first five minutes after a lead makes contact are pivotal. Failing to respond within this window drastically reduces the chances of making a successful connection. Drift's research supports this, showing that only 7% of companies manage to achieve an average response time of under five minutes. #First #Responder #Advantage: A Lead Connect survey highlights that 78% of customers choose the company that responds first. This first contact advantage is crucial for shaping a potential customer's perception and setting the stage for the entire sales process. #Dramatic #Conversion #Impact: Contacting a lead within the #first #minute can #increase #sales #conversions by #391%, according to Lead Connect. This demonstrates the significant advantage of immediate engagement over competitors. #Sharp #Decline in #Lead #Qualification: Waiting just five to ten minutes to respond can lead to an #80% #decrease in the likelihood of qualifying a lead, marking a rapid decline in potential sales opportunities. #Widespread #Delays: Surprisingly, 55% of companies take five or more days to respond to leads, with 12% failing to respond at all, potentially leading to #substantial #revenue #losses and #missed #opportunities. Vendasta's case studies also show that implementing an "instant demo" process dramatically increases contact success rates, with nearly double the presentation booking rate compared to traditional methods. These findings underscore the necessity for businesses, especially in the B2B sector, to optimize their lead response strategies to stay competitive and maximize their conversion opportunities. At NXTLVL Ai Solutions, we #connect #with #your #leads #INSTANTLY and by doing so, help you avoid the black hole of wasted ad spend. For more detailed insights, visit: https://mynextlevel.ai and schedule a discovery call. #LeadManagement #ConversationalAI #DigitalMarketing #BusinessGrowth #Innovation

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What a 9 day fishing trip to a remote lake in Canada can teach you about cold calling… I recently took a trip to northern Manitoba to catch walleye. For those of you who don’t know - this is where the biggest walleye in the world swim. Basically a came to a simple conclusion. Sure you can do it with a rental boat and no fish finders. Just throw out a bobber and wait for her to drop. In fact, a of the few days our graphs & fish finders didn’t work… And this is what we had to do. I got to thinking that this is the equivalent to not having the right tools as a cold caller. Yes we still caught fish - but we weren’t able to locate them and increase our odds. And in fishing… the spot is the strategy. You can have the best lure but if you’re in a lake with no fish good luck… Sort of like how your list is your strategy in cold calling. And depending on the spot, we would use different lures. Kind of like we use different scripts and different offers to different lists. When something wasn’t working…. We would try something new. And when someone did find a winner, everybody else would switch to it…. Once we burned that spot (list) we would try a new spot, with new lures, and the pattern repeats. It was a constant game of guess and check. I couldn’t help but think as cold callers… We sit on the dialer and guess and check different combos of messages to lists until we find our winners. Once we do… we run with them until they stop working. We try a new script or new list and the pattern repeats 📞 🎣 — Am I the only one noticing cold calling metaphors showing up in real life? 😅

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A question for Sales Leaders re: quotas - A friend in Medical sales just got their quota...halfway through May (almost halfway through the year). As a territory manager they hustled in 2023 and achieved 111% to quota. They were #4 in Canada and #1 in Ontario. Great, right? Wrong... As a reward, they were gifted with a 12% increase in quota not from previous year's quota, but from previous year's achievement, and to me this just doesn't make sense. 👉 This type of quota calculation rewards those who achieved 90% (or even lower ) 👉 Demotivates those high achievers - They used their relationships to get orders in before quarter/year end and those doctors won't be needing those products perhaps for 18 months 👉 Promotes #quietquitting - doing the minimum requirements of one's job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary 👉 Promotes mediocrity - the more I sell the more will be expected of me next year My friend is understandably demotivated. They are the first ones to help with any events, often being away from home on a weekly basis to help other colleagues with their events/sales. They no longer want to put in any extra work and are questioning the company and whether it may be time to leave. I would love to hear from Sales Leaders out there as to how you calculate quotas, what systems/products you use, and how you deal with employees who have questions.

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Prospects decide in seconds if your message matters, so generic messaging is a conversion killer. Your homepage must be clear and accessible. The less someone needs to think or do, the better. A case in point is Fizz, a new mobile carrier in Canada. The homepage messaging is: Try the other side. We do things differently here. Everything happens online and when it comes to your plan, you’re in the driver’s seat 24/7. What does the "other side" mean to a prospect? Why would they care if Fizz does "things differently"? And why does it matter that I'm in "driver's seat 24/7"? Granted, there is a button "Mobile plans" below the homepage messaging but it's secondary player. The homepage "hero" section doesn't deliver. It's not until you visit the "Why Fizz" page that you see messaging about "fair prices" and "great savings," which matter in Canada's over-priced mobile phone market. It is an example of a company not putting its value proposition in the spotlight. To be fair, Fizz does a good job of highlighting benefits below the hero image on the homepage, which make it clear how it delivers for customers. If you're a new player without brand awareness, first impressions matter. You need to deliver your story right away and make sure it resonates. #messaging #brandpositioning #websitedesign #marketing #mobile   ----------------------------------------- I'm doing a workshop on May 10 at noon EST on how companies can optimize their homepages to drive more clicks and conversions. The link to register is in the comments.

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This time last year, my commission was 3x less than what it is now, yet i'm not closing 3x more deals. Instead, I focussed on these things... 💰 Deal Value 💰 - I stopped selling one product and started selling a suite. - I stopped negotiating against myself. - I got confident in providing pricing and then shutting up. - I started to understand when pricing really was the blocker, and only then negotiated. 📆 Multi-year Deals 📆 - Every proposal was based on a multi-year deal. - Rather than discounting for extra commitment, I started with the extra commitment, and the price increased for less. - I got rid of the head trash that people didn't want multi-years - I recognised that the price doesn't necessarily need to change for multi-year commitment, simply holding that pricing for a longer period of time meant that buyers appreciated no uplift. ⏱️ I stopped wasting time ⏱️ - I got rid of any pipeline that simply wasn't 'pipeline' so that I could free up more time on the deals likely to close. - I spent less time on smaller deals, that typically took as much effort as the larger deals. - Instead, I spent more time strategising on more creative proposals, creating mutual action plans & supporting on business cases for larger deals. - I focussed my efforts on working out how to engage additional stakeholders in larger deals which typically had a larger buying committee.

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When this Canadian dating app came to us, they struggled to get noticed in a competitive market. Their keyword rankings were weak for essential terms like LGBTQ dating, lesbian dating, and dating apps, and they weren’t even ranking for many other dating-related terms. Within just one month of working together, we: 🚀 Helped them reach the Top 3 for 53 high-performing keywords 📈 Got them to Top 5 in the Lifestyle category 🔄 Increased user retention by 70% 💸 Reduced their CPI from $4.89 to $1.34—with the same marketing budget How did we do it?  By optimizing how users search for them. Sometimes, the best results come from refining what’s already there. ✅ P.S. If you're ready to see similar growth, let's chat! https://rb.gy/r70a27 #ASO #AppGrowth #KeywordStrategy #DatingApps #UserAcquisition

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I received an outbound message calling me Shawn. I’m not a Shawn. I don't know if it was intentional to get a reaction out of me, but anyway - ❌ It was not personal ❌ It didn’t hit any of my pain points ❌ I didn't bother replying Why do SDRs and sales teams shy away from crafting truly personalized messages? We're bombarded with generic ads, email marketing, and countless SMS pitches daily. The "spray and pray" approach no longer cuts it. To capture attention, you NEED to inject authenticity. Personalization is the ONLY way to go, and it doesn’t have to be that hard, not anymore. Similarweb just released our new AI-powered sales assistant, #SAM. It can help you create prospect-specific insights that will get their attention and be ready to use for your outbound copy. Yes, powerful outbound can be this easy.

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Just wrapped up an outbound training with 64 EMEA AEs & SDRs at Shopify. What a fun group! They really nailed the cold calling portion of the training. Shopify has 20+ openings right now for SDRs, AEs, and leadership right now across the entire globe. Why you should consider joining their team: ✅ Shopify is an absolute 🚀 I've said this before. They're growing 25%+ year over year. Very rare for a company their size. They made 150+ product updates in Q2 alone. Over $1 TRILLION has been sold through their platform. ✅ Their SDR org is top 1% Matt Saxon heads up the SDR org in EMEA. You get all of the tools, support, training, and coaching you need to be world-class. They're using AI better than anywhere I've seen. ✅ Great front-line leaders Birk Angermann heads up the EMEA team. Shout out to all their front-line leaders/coaches: Matthias Kleven, Hisham Khan, Anastasia Sfregola, Dominik Moecklin, Paul Storton, Rich Mason, Marion Escaffre, Dominik Moecklin ✅ World-class enablement Siobhan Sweeney, Brittany S. S. H., and Dan Wetton did an excellent job of setting up the program, building buy-in, and making sure everything went smoothly. ~~~ Check out Shopify's careers page here: https://lnkd.in/egjix93v Tag someone you know this could be a great opportunity for.

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If you decide your sales team needs to help with renewals make sure they are incentivized correctly (I usually see a 70% new bookings goal and a 30% renewal / upsell goal). If you don't incentivize hunting, sales tend to farm too much and your growth will slow.

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Here’s what running my marathon PB just taught me about leveling up my B2B SAAS sales. Nothing. I don’t work in SAAS. I help brands build awareness through video content but the race didn't teach me much about that either. However, I did learn a few things that you should keep in mind about: • Your limiting beliefs. • Your dormant abilities. • Compounding through consistency. Let's take it back for a second... In 2017 I couldn’t run 4 blocks. It was New Year's Day and I was out the front of Dublin airport smoking a cigarette, hungover, out of shape, and depressed. I committed to myself then that I was going to get in shape at last. The most frictionless solution? Running. It's free and I already had a pair of sneakers. I decided to run first thing each morning, even if it was for ten minutes. Soon I went from running 4 blocks around my house, to 7km on Berlin's famous Tempelhof Field. 7km turned into 15 and then 21. In the last 3 years, I’ve. • Run 2 trail marathons over 50km in the Canary Islands • Run 3 street marathons in Berlin and Copenhagen (42km) • Ran 25 minutes faster in this year's Berlin marathon than I did last year. I used to think I wasn't a"fit" person. Now the joy that running brings is core to my identity and I can't live without it. Commit to that thing you've been procrastinating about (I'm doing it right now with this post FYI.) Throw perfection in the bin and focus on momentum. Progress is about showing up for yourself each day and trusting the process. If I can do it, anyone can.

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Sales has gotten more and more difficult over the last two years. This year is no different. Longer sales cycles, especially up market. Far more competition. Especially in the shopify space. Outbound never works unless you take the spray and pray approach and spam in big numbers (we don’t do that). Inbound is and always has been our biggest channel. Good SEO placement and content marketing. But it’s a slow burn. You don’t know what will work and what won’t work. And it may take months or longer to see any results. Providing good service. Fair value. Stay top of mind. Focus on long term. #ecommerce #sales

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Outbound is so dead. Psych. With half our BDR team still in ramp, or barely out of their 3-month training wheels, we saw a 21% increase in booked meetings QoQ. And yes, that’s strictly from outbound. Turns out, when you mix a bit of strategy with some good old-fashioned hustle, outbound still works. Shocking, I know. Here’s to building on this momentum in Q4! Where'd y'all finish in Q3? #outbound #sales #SDR

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When onboarding a new AE I focus their first 4 weeks entirely on understanding our clients and client success teams. This means shadowing our CS reps, watching onboarding calls, watching activation calls, sitting in on strategy sessions and planning calls, and handling CS calls in week 4. All of this before we ever begin to start talking about sales enablement or taking sales calls. Why? Because too many sales organizations are 100% seller centric. I am passionate, some may say maniacal about ensuring our sales force is the most customer centric team in the industry. This means our AE's need to understand our customers, their status quo, be able to deliver thought provoking insights, the problems we solve, why they work with us, and the results we get them deeply before they can sell that way. Sending someone into the deep end to "learn by experience" is a go to for many. But I will never be swayed that this is the best way. The best way to create "at bats" and build confidence without burning potential opportunities is to ensure your AE's are learning as much about your customers as possible. This coupled with strong sales enablement, process, and clear expectations will set them up for long term success. Sure they may not be making dials and having meetings 2 weeks in. But I can assure you they will be more successful a year from now then the rep in that situation the majority of the time. True sales leadership is about long-term results. I know this is an unpopular opinion but I believe it is one of the biggest advantages you can give your new hires to increase their chances of long-term success. At the end of the day, my responsibilities as a sales leader are to be fanatical about our customers ensuring our clients and potential clients receive a world class experience. Set our sellers up for success to deliver that, and create an environment where people grow, win, and are challenged on the regular. By doing this, revenue targets take care of themselves. If you're onboarding new AE's in Q3, I would challenge you to try this if you're not. Happy EOQ!

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