Selling Your Brand with Donald Kelly

Donald Kelly

[00:00:00] Brad Seaman: I know that you’ve been doing, I think 2013 or 2015, you started, okay. You started doing the podcast. So I’m super fascinated. Just kind of in your sales journey, your podcast, you know, what made you decide to do a podcast? I know at this point you’ve developed a pretty strong following, so I’d love to just have you just share with our community kind of how you got into sales and how you got into podcasts.

We’ll go from there.

[00:00:27] Donald Kelly: Love it. with that, like I started. Growing up as a kid in Jamaica, like sales was almost, it was a part of your life without knowing it it’s a part of your life. Right. Because it’s just the way it’s set up. Like one of the biggest export out of Jamaica, it’s just people like having a fantastic education system.

So people will go to like England and to like the U S and Canada. So. When you’re there and you have awesome education and you, you know, it’s hard to find a you know, get a good job. People just do whatever. So my aunt, she came to the U.S., she would buy products and come down and sell it in Jamaica. And that was like something I saw.

My dad is an entrepreneur and was pretty successful during his time in Jamaica with doing it and, had several businesses. So I saw him do that. I saw cousins and friends. Like everybody around me were selling. We just call it business, you know, a business man. You know what I mean? So that was a. So come to the U.S. As a nine year old, Yeah. When I come, I came last night and he came with six to go to Disney and then we went back. So it came when I was nine. And, I figured out if I want to make money, I’m just going to sell stuff. I just saw I would create a business. but I didn’t know it was sales per se. Later on in college, you know, my friends told me that I should try to sales thing.

I did it and worked out well in college. I did the door to door security sales. I did other type of selling, dish network, sold it. Training classes, made good money, the business to consumer sale fast forward. Now I jumped into the after college, go into the B2B. I got kicked in the face, like at, roundhouse kick.

Right? Because B2B was so much different in the execution because when I go door to door to door sale, I’m trying to close the deal in like an hour when I’m going to a B2B sale. This is like going for an in this sales process was like 18 months, 18 months, like two years is a long process selling to the government.

But the money was good. So I didn’t understand that. And I had to learn it. I got some training and Brad, I’m not kidding to you. Like with this, like, dude, it was like a hockey stick in my performance. like it just kind of just took off, like, it was amazing how that happened and I realized that there were more people like me that were out there that didn’t know what to do and needed the guidance and needed to help.

So I was like, man, if there’s a way I can share some stuff. And one of my friends, good friend, Jared Easley, he’s a co-founder of a company called, the podcast movement and also the biggest podcast in conference, in a world. And, he was getting into this game and he’s like this. Podcasting is where is that?

So we were chatting and, he said, you should check it out. So I searched for some podcasts and there was like four podcasts. I’m like, there’s no other way. There’s no way I can have a podcast on sales. There’s already four people doing stuff. And I’m like, oh, I don’t know how to do this. Like the technical side.

I want to do a video video. I know I’ve done that before. I can just record a video. But I sucked it up and then I learned it and because I was enthralled in it, I was listening to it. I started going to somebody’s events. Like they were having the new media stuff and see, this was an opportunity. So I was like, let’s use this medium to share the wisdom.

It was either going to be video or it was going to be a podcast. I went the podcasting route and, and right when we got out the gate, I remember a post, a first episode. And then one of my, uh, friends in, for my congregation at church dude saw it and was like, My wife and I, we have this AC company, we need some help on sales and marketing, any ideas.

And at this point I’m like, sure. They’re like, we’ll pay you. I’m like what? So because I saw it as a hobby. So that came as an opportunity to start sharing what was working for me. And get money for it. And a little by little, then we got mentioned in a magazine and then we got mentioned somewhere else.

And people started to invite me to come speak at events. And by 2015 it made sense to jump ship. And I started doing the sales consulting and training firm full time, after a couple of years of the podcast and we got sponsorship later on with it, but the point is it was something that I liked. I love the topic of sales.

I would evangelize about it, thus, the name, the sales evangelists, and two, it was the right place, right time where one of my constituents, a really good friend came to a conference, learn about this idea and shared it with me and it became that medium to share it. So. Go back eight years. Maybe I could have been a YouTube star right now if I had gone to YouTube route, but I chose to go to the podcast and route at the time.

[00:04:42] Brad Seaman: Now you look back on that. Do you wish you had gone to YouTube the video route? Or do you feel like this was probably the right right move?

[00:04:49] Donald Kelly: It was a right move. because if I gone video, I probably would have taken a lot longer to really launch video. The challenge is when you need to look at it with audio, I didn’t understand how to do.

Once I learn how to do the backend. It was way simpler than the video, because the video you got to have good video quality per se, you gotta have decent editing and you gotta have a good camera. And all of those were barrier of entries that I prompt that I was putting up against myself that was taken me a while to get it.

But with this, it was a little bit easier to get going with it. and, it was, it was the right part. The other part to podcasting was a novelty. So I was able to, it was almost like blue ocean. Type thing at that time, or I guess red ocean versus blue ocean, it was the opportunity to have a bigger impact.

I was a big fish in a small pond, rather go on YouTube. I would have been a, a smaller fish grow, you know, in a bigger pond, trying to catch up with so many other YouTube channels. So it was like advantageous to take advantage of it. Now we’re getting into the YouTube game, but, more so, but it’s, it’s, we’re taking the audience that we have from other platforms and utilizing them.

[00:05:55] Brad Seaman: Now, what were you doing when you short the podcast and then you launched the sales consulting? What are you saying?

[00:06:02] Donald Kelly: I was selling document management software, super exciting stuff. or selling, uh, helping city county governments. And K-12 go paperless essentially. and, that was a solution. We, some of our clients were using like a S 400.

We’re getting, we had solution on that. And then we had stuff trying to get the other ones, get them to get out of the dark ages, to come into like do some windows. Solution at the time. And, we, so that was, the flagship software was a document management and then you have stuff like. Dropbox and, you know, Google drive that kind of eventually helped to, put us past our capabilities.

[00:06:36] Brad Seaman: That’s so crazy. Just to think, like you’re taking me back in time, you know, like when everybody’s trying to make, I mean, it’s, you know, it’s, don’t, you know, it was only a decade ago. People were just talking about like, you know, Larry, Ellison’s talking about whether the cloud is going to be a thing or not, you know, 2000 we’re not.

last monster connect. I remember. The cloud is a brand new thing. Like prior to having SaaS, it was called a, application service provider. So you’d have like a thin client on your desktop. you know, it was only. A good decade seems, you know, if you’re, if you’re 21, a decade seems a long time ago, but if you’re, you know, if your late thirties, forties, you know, it seems real, it seems like, yeah.

It seems like yesterday. so talk a little bit about, I’m super curious for you to kind of talk about the future of podcasting and the future of sales. it sounds like you’ve got your hands in a lot of different types of sales. know B to C, B to B. you’re well-rounded can you talk a little bit about, like, what you think is happening in the, in the market as it pertains to.

I think the core of selling is going to stay the same. Right. And so the way that I sort of think about it is like the picture’s going to stay the same relationships, interacting with people, how you sell psychology. human nature is all gonna always stay the same, but the frame of the pictures change.

Yes. And, can you talk a little bit about that? Like where do you think the frame, like what kind of frame is this all getting put in as we move into the future?

[00:08:08] Donald Kelly: Yeah, you go back like a hundred years from now, or 200 years. It was the same notion, like human to human relations.

Was always the same, but it’s a means of how we go about, getting there, like, you know, for, for me to, to get from England to here taking a ship in three months was like annoying or six months. Now I can do that in four hours, really from JFK to five hours, four or five hours, I can get to England. so it’s like there, but the point is like the medium change of how about we’re doing it, but.

Goal of when I get there still to connect with individuals. So I think the same line where you’re on. Cause I posed that question to Jeb blunt and also Anthony and Reno. And they were saying like, yeah, it’s, we’re still going to be selling the same. We’re still going to be selling. It’s just a matter of.

The way that we do it, like, say for instance, a realtor, for instance, they still need to do the same exact things to sell, but now they don’t have to be in person. They can do that over or give somebody sign, you know, a thousand pages over DocuSign versus printing on it. So I think what’s happening is we though on the consumer, on the B2B side are gonna have a we’re.

We need to catch up to Amazon. What I mean by that Amazon. T a strained our customers to buy in a certain way and to expect certain things. And it’s not necessarily like, we’re not going to, I’m not saying what I’m buying a certain way. I’m not going to go online and just say, I want to just get the best software.

I’m going to do a drop down and get those certain things are going to still require me to be able to have and to discuss and to have the human human relationship when it comes towards making like, you know, a bigger purchase, however. It will be important that the B2B side think like Amazon, I would love for, and we’re getting there, but we’re not quite there.

If I’m a sales rep and I reach out to you say, I reach out to you and I’m pitching you on something like. This awesome tool called iPhone. I’m selling you on my iPhone, right? Or about this technology. You went to my website, you downloaded something about the iPhone already. Marketing knows that. And you know, they’re sending you things about iPhone, but here I am coming into the conversation, not knowing that information.

And I’m talking to you about, you know, buying like, you know, a certain type of case or a certain type of plan when an actuality. Yes. Already gave us information because of the things that you’ve downloaded. I think the point I’m trying to get is like, with AI, it’s very easy on Amazon where I could look at something and then Amazon starts feeding me things with the sales and marketing communication.

It’s really challenging. And there were try, you know, companies are out there with, with technology, trying to get break the gap, amend that gap where marketing is getting information from consumers or from the buyers, the B2B buyers, that information needs to get to sales quicker. So sales can be on a second.

Footprint with marketing and make those decisions. And I think there are technologies that have sales, enablement, sales, enablement platforms that are allowing us to be able to do this a little bit more, but some of them for the most part are still isolated and that’s causing a discrepancy because not a buyers I’m coming with Amazon mentality when I’m coming to purchase something in the B2B.

And I’m like, man, this company is so district discombobulated. They’re not even the marketing and sales people are not communicating well, I don’t know if I’m making sense here, but oh, so you’re totally

[00:11:20] Brad Seaman: making sense. So, so here’s so for whatever reason, this has been kind of a hot topic. I’ve been talking to a lot of people about the, about this topic.

Um, I had a pretty extensive conversation with. Jen Allen from the challenger sale a couple of weeks ago and she brought up a, so I’m going to, I got a point here. So she brought up that there’s more people involved at the buyer’s table than ever. So it’s not going down, it’s going up. And then you’ve got a lot of people out there talking about the, how, let’s call it, the Amazon, the Amazon effect, or the Netflix flip flips effect should be, you know, we should buy more like we should buy enterprise products.

Like we buy Netflix and like we buy Amazon. I’ve had a challenge there, but you brought up a really good point is I don’t think it’s the actual purchasing as much as it is the same challenge that you had in a call center 20 years ago, when you made a phone call into a helpline in the, and they didn’t have that disparate information.

But I think that, I think that’s what it’s going to change. The the, if the number of people, cause I’ve always looked at this as like, look, you’re not going to go to the internet and buy a, you know, million dollar product that takes 12 months. You are not buying that without a committee. So therefore it’s complicated, but I think what you highlighted and Roy open my eyes is that.

There are parts of the B to C process that need to make it into B2B. And that is, you know, disparate information. So when I call and get, when I get a sales rep on the phone, I’m just like, what if I get a call? If I get my call center rep on the phone for my, Insurance. I expect them to know everything about me, right.

Where I live, who I am, you know, what my previous phone calls were on that same mentality. I do agree with you needs to be adopted and, needs to be impacted in the, in the B2B process for sure.

[00:13:07] Donald Kelly: A hundred percent like, and I feel the other part to that too, is something that I’ve been a kid on a kick on.

And and we’re, we’re playing with some stuff internally here. but that’s another story for another day. Think about how much information. Like. I look at Ironman. This is my first time trying to use this analogy just came to me, but let’s think about iron man and how Jarvis worked with iron man.

Like it knows everything about that. You know, about the performance, like, you know, it was like the altitude, how fast he’s going and how he’s going. It’s not like the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. And I think some, a sales rep, the other part that we’re going to see is the disparity we’re seeing with solution.

So I’m on zoom. Or talking to a prospect, but I have my emails going, they integrate, but they do not communicate. If I’m making sense there does, does like, does my email, does my, my CRM speak directly to zoom as well as does my email. And does it speak directly to sales loft? Does it speak directly to Google drive?

Does it, does it know like Intel, like intellectually, like with so much AI in technology that’s out. Can there be a way to break down those data silos that provide me with more information so I can perform at an optimal level. And that’s one area that I feel we’re lacking in the world because we have gone for the past, go back, say for the five, eight years, five, eight years right now, where we’ve been seeing so many tech stack, everyone talks about this tech stack.

My tech stack is so high. It’s like as big of a stack bite into this stack of stuff. Yes. They all do community. And they do integrate, but I don’t feel that we all communicate well enough to spit back data out to me as a sales rep and say, bro, when you send an email, you got to have this in that email because based on the conversation, I mean, gong is doing a little bit of that, but it’s that based on the number of a zoom call you have based on a number of where your deals are sitting in your pipeline, based on the, the, you know, how quick your, your deals convert.

This is what you need to be talking about, right? And that’s another w

[00:15:12] Brad Seaman: well, I think the one, so what, it’s fascinating to me either. I was fortunate. I consider this a fortune, a fortunate situation. So I grew up in a family. That had a call center and we did, outbound, lead generation for mortgage companies.

And what I think is really interesting is the watch the technology of the C call center come to the B2B sales organization. Now it’s taken 20 some years, but like gong is not new. That is like, like the, the re the idea that gone brought tomorrow. Yeah, it’s not a new technology. It is costly. It’s a standard call center technology piece that they clipped off created its own market piece and took it to market in the B2B space.

Yeah, no, cause that’s like traditional, that’s it. That’s traditional B to C call center. how you were talking too much. yeah, so I find that super fascinating. I mean, that sales law, you know, just the, all the different automation products that have entered the market. I mean, those things are staples to the call center to the B2C space for,

[00:16:19] Donald Kelly: for decades.

And I think that’s just like what it is like if you, I think the most, the most common sales scenario is that is the, and I think that’s why it’s so far ahead of B2B B2B, I think probably has a lot of money. But no per ticket item, but if you look at the B to C world though, we all buy stuff. And I think it’s like, it’s like a light years ahead of the B2B world when it comes to words, the performance or the technology.

So, yeah, I mean, it’s like going to Japan and then taking something from Japan and bringing it to the U S and like, whoa, this is cool. Yeah. They’re like two years ahead of us.

No, that’s the same idea. I’m seeing here with the B the C like, we just need to catch up with the, with the times, uh, with the capabilities. And if you look at this, like GDPR came in a B2B world, but that came like how long ago did that happen? In a, B to C world? Like when you make it, you can’t just, it was hard to just like call people, call you at five o’clock in the afternoon.

Same thing that happened with GDPR and people were freaking out, oh, the world’s coming to mind. I it’s like, no, we found different ways to go about it. And we then got creative with like Google ads and so forth and getting people when they’re, you know, getting them to call into us, you know, getting them to opt in and then we can call them in and so forth.

So there, there are different ways, but I think that. If we really want to thrive in the B2B world, just go back two years and look at a B to C and see what they’re doing, and we can evolve that. And I think that’s what’s happened, especially, thanks to like COVID. I want to say thanks in a sad way because of that, but it in a morbid way, but yeah, it didn’t make it that we tr we went light years ahead with things.

That sales leaders probably wouldn’t do. Let’s say for instance, working from home. I remember when I was battling back in the days with one of my leaders, for us to work from home and they’re thinking, oh, if you work from home, you’re going to be home chilling, not doing anything. It’s like, no, I want to make money.

It just doesn’t make sense for me to drive 45 minutes to go all the way down to the office where I can get the same stuff done, the same exact thing done and quicker and home. So it’s like companies are transforming like that. And I think there’s. It, it just, it allowed us to see ways and to create ways to make things be more effective.

[00:18:35] Brad Seaman: Yeah, for sure. No, no. I think those are, those are great insights. so, you know, since you have such a great podcast, experience, I want to sorta, I want to sort of focus on that if you don’t mind, what do you think the biggest, what are the biggest takeaways or biggest learnings you feel like you’ve gotten from.

Podcasting. Well, let me ask you this before I ask you that. Oh, oh, change gears. do you think we’re gonna see, more sales reps, like to me, everybody should have a podcast, but I think if you’re a salesperson or you’re a new, you’re a new SDR, usually a podcast. Like I think it’s the simple, easiest way to get started having conversations with people.

So learn a market to interact with people, to learn how to talk, to learn, how to ask questions, to learn how to listen and not talk, you know, to be a good listener, which I think is a super important skill as a sales person. Yeah. I said, I was going to ask you a question though, that I just read a bunch of statements.

do you think we’re going to see this, that like, ushering of salespeople having podcasts? Do you think that’s the new, that’s the new trend?

[00:19:37] Donald Kelly: Nope. I had this conversation with like Jack, one of my buddies, Jack and, cause the philosophy. Yeah. Jackson, cause it’s Laski and a couple of the folks like maybe back in 20 14, 15 ish 14.

When we started doing the podcast, because my podcast, I used it as a prospecting tool. I would get some of these folks that I wanted to have conversations with on a podcast. And it was a great avenue. I feel that it’s, it could be like that. I don’t think it’s going to become the new. And the reason here’s the reason why there are, if you look at LinkedIn has, has seven, we’re going to see more and more.

Yes. Sorry. It’s good. We’re going to see more and more, and we’re going to see this, you know, people do it, but LinkedIn has the 750 million users of the 750 million users. About three 50 RSA are active, you know, actively user profile of those 350 million people. Guess how many of them actually post on LinkedIn every month?

It’s they just got to 2%, just got to 2% after all this time, 2% of their users posting. And why is that the case? Because it’s a professional platform that said people don’t want to look like a non-professional. They don’t want to say something stupid. Look at a platform like Facebook or tick-tock or Instagram where a larger percentage of their people.

So go back to this podcasting thing. I feel that you’re going to find a fraction of the reps because you have so much of a visibility. When you do a podcast, your people can scrutinize what you’re saying and people can scrutinize the way you look. If you do a video podcast and people can scrutinize, you know, the type of how your content is.

So I feel because of that, go back to the professional network. They’re going to be a percentage of the population who are not going to want to do that. Just like that 2%, only 2% of people posting on LinkedIn. So I find that, that we’re going to see with, we’ll see that with pie. We’re seeing that with podcast and then two, you have the people who think it’s like a big challenge when it’s not that difficult to launch a podcast.

And then three, you have the people who. Are stuck in the hamster wheel of the day-to-day stuff. Like I’m going to make phone calls, emails, and that’s it. They don’t know to think like I need to be my own lead generation source. But I feel that there are people who caught that and grasp it and they’ll do it.

But I don’t feel that it’s going to be like, you know, if I, if I look at a sales team of 10 people maybe one of them will do it. if I look at a co you know, out of 200 salespeople, like maybe a couple, but I don’t know. Tons really taken advantage of it like

[00:22:09] Brad Seaman: that. Yeah. Yeah. Just super curious. Cause I definitely, you know, I know for me, I started podcasting cause I had a marketing manager that we brought in that had a podcast background and I was super surprised.

So a couple things, I think in my mind, I thought, Hey, we will launch this. We’re going to launch this podcast. And the leads are just going to like fall from the skies that that was not the case. but what it did do. Is it really improved? The, it was, I think I was really focused on the audience and what it really, it becomes a great way to build relationships.

I have built some just phenomenal, phenomenal relationships, over, over podcasting. And I think the other thing is if you’re a small team and you don’t have a, you don’t have a huge marketing budget, it’s just a great way to have consistent content. So you can show up every week, you can do your interview.

You can, you know, get a CAMBA license, you can get a screenshot or you get a picture of your guests and you can put it up with a quote and you can consistently get something out every week. And if you’re a small business, you’re going to have a, you’re going to have a pulse, right. And you don’t have to sit down, you don’t have to make a content calendar.

You don’t have to put a schedule together. you just get on your interview and you, and you just, you know, religiously posted.

[00:23:30] Donald Kelly: Yeah, I think you, that, that side of it is it makes it, so the barrier of entry to it is way easy, especially when you look at tools like anchor as well, where you can be on your phone and record your episode and they host it.

So there’s some simple stuff there. I feel though, like, as you’re going to the next level and with the more competitors. You need to have more of a higher quality content to stand out per se. And in that same vein, because now the NPRs of the world, the big radio stations, the high iHeart radio, they all got into the game of podcasting.

So then now when I’m looking back in a day, it’s like, I think right now there’s like 200 plus sales podcasts. When I was starting off, there was like, Not 400 there’s jet blown sales, gravy. They were me. There was a, I think there was a lady named Alice, something she’s still around. I think it was her, maybe it’s an older, it was an old art, what can I think she even stopped doing hers, but it was just kept people download it, like so there’s like, I can’t remember the other one now.

And I think maybe it was like one of the other companies that were out there, like, you know, the Dale Carnegie’s or something like that. So there’s like maybe. There are zigs. It’s like four podcasts. So anyways, it w the work a lot and they weren’t consistent, but now go look at it. Like I am not fighting for when people, when I’m downloading my, my look at my podcast app, I have things on business.

I have things on like, you know, pop culture there’s, you know, like the mystery there, there’s so many other things in so many of the audio programs that are there that are fighting for the same time slot. That I have with my person who’s driving from the office to work or driving to the grocery store or cleaning the kitchen.

So in that same vein, like, am I creating, creating enough quality of a content and what I would say, what we’ll continue to see in what we try to do. We look at that and we try to evolve. I’m trying to get to where the puck is. So even with our content, how can I make the content more entertaining and then educate.

So we’ve done. We tested out with some storytelling. Those were really good, because that was like, you know, tapping into some of the NPR stuff. It just made the quality seem a little higher. The, instead of just like the same type of, like interviews, what else can I ask? That’s going to be different than if I know, like, you know, just they set the goal and it’s going to be going on a speaking circuit and he’s coming on my show.

He’s going to talk about the same concept, maybe on all of those podcasts. How can I make sure I bring something unique to the table? And that’s kind of like where, you know, you might ask some questions. Seth may not get on a day-to-day basis. So you’re providing your audience with something unique.

That’s allowing them to say, dang, you know, when I go on, you know, go on Bradshaw, like, dude, he’s going to be having like some good stuff because it’s the questions. Yeah. It’s just so fascinating. so anyways, so I think that’s where it’s going to start to see the we’ll stop seeing separations of the shows, the content quality and it will help to maintain.

But the other part to this too, is like, it doesn’t have to be too. Crazy. Doesn’t have to be too scripted. Like we’re talking about people in industries. Like if I could focus on the power of the niche, that’s where the money might be. So if I sell, like, I don’t know, like waterproofing, I’m just, I said waterproofing, cause there’s a co clients that we’re working with right now.

But this company, we’re doing some sales stuff with it, but the arena process, but waterproofing, if that’s the case like that, I don’t need to know everything. I just, just probably, maybe the industry is like, you know, there’s, you know, 2 million people that will care about that stuff. So those are my that’s who I need to get that 2 million people.

Or even if it’s like 500,000 people that will get that. Imagine if you had half of that or a 10, 5% of that you have, say, uh, 10,000 people in that industry. That’s listening to your stuff every single week. That’s money because those become leads. It brings you to attention and how I make money off my podcast.

And I’ll just be straight up with it. It was a S it was a S you know, we offer sales, content and education for free people reach back out. I told you, and they started asking, well, this guy clearly knows what he’s talking about. Let me see if he can. Then they ask, you know, can they, can you train our teams?

So those things come in trickling. We get sponsorship for the podcast because the audience has grown. So that’s one opportunity. But the biggest thing is like a sales rep. Listen to this, take this back to manager and managers like, you know, Like this guy sounds good. Can we do a program with them? Can we do a training?

Can we have them for our sales kickoff or the sales reps? The team leader say, Hey, we need somebody for one of our upcoming national speaking, sales event. Who do you guys recommend? I listened to this guy’s podcast. They put me in the pool in the pool when they listened to their podcasts. Like, it sounds good because I focus on entertaining and educate after, and that allows for me to get the attention.

So those are some opportunities. So is that. It’s an education standpoint and it pushes them back to our website where they can get more education. So those are some of the ways that we utilize it. And being in full transparency. Yeah. Now,

[00:28:23] Brad Seaman: now, was there ever a period? I mean, you’ve been doing this for a while.

Was there ever a period that you thought about quitting?

[00:28:29] Donald Kelly: I don’t think there was ever a period where I thought about quitting. There was periods more. So when I thought about what is the exit stress. And the conversation that I said to myself back then is the same one I say to myself right now is when it gets boring, I’ll stop doing. And it hasn’t been boring.

No,

[00:28:50] Brad Seaman: it’s well, I mean, I’ve found it to be a lot. I’ve found it to be a lot of fun now. It’s just a good, I mean, it’s, it’s a, it’s a lot of fun. Well, yeah. All right, well, Hey, is there anything specific that you want that you’re passionate about right now that you want to cover? That I didn’t ask you?

[00:29:01] Donald Kelly: planning Phil, self-interest here. So this is my self planner that I just launched it. And, the reason why it’s something I’m really excited about. I started this about three years ago, this project, because I wanted to find a planner that I could really like, just get. I messed up a white balance.

Now I wanted to find a planner that could really like, you know, help me as a sales professional, and some of the ones that are out there. It was just like, you know, stuff. My dad was using back in the days, you know what I mean? Like a planner with this, like every single hour of the day. And I was like, man, it gotta be something else.

But I couldn’t find it. So I said, screw it. So I started drawing stuff out what I would like, I created an income. And then I started, you know, printed it off. And then I had a couple of my friends and clients play with it. Then one of our other clients saw it and she was like, Hey, I want that for my team.

So she bought like one of our beta stuff, like, you know, about a year ago. And then it just started to evolve. you know, version. I don’t know what version we got right now, but I had my designer, I was like, let’s put this in like a real book. And so she did that. So the way it works is most people are reactive planners.

They, what I mean by reactive planners is like, you know, we do a checklist of a bunch of tasks that we are going to get done. or we just take a bunch of things and put it on that regular, you know, from eight to five o’clock, I’m just going to put things down, no rhyme or reason. These are some of the things I want to get done today.

What we need to do a sales rep. And what I looked at was HubSpot at a status there’s only 40% of a sales rep time is actually spent. 40%. And I was like, dang, what is the other 60% doing? And that comes from things that are not necessarily conducive to a sales professional. So as we made our planner. We did that.

We have a category component built in. So there I feel there’s five categories that every sales rep should have. And it shouldn’t be any more. Maybe you can, if you’re listening to this and there’s more tell me, but the first one is business development. Business development is everything that comes towards business development.

That’s like your main area. That’s your bread and butter. That’s your. That’s your nine to five, that’s the biggest component. Then you have current customers. Cause some people are full cycle sales reps, where you might have clients that you need to work with or getting referrals or whatnot. then you have like an administrative task, updating CRM, maybe creating a proposal, and so forth.

And that does it. Shouldn’t be your main area. Then you might have other, other, I bundle like training one-on-ones, you know, things that happen internally in the organization, watching a podcast, getting some education like that’s other, and then the final area is personal and personal is like going to the dentist today, doing a workout, listen, you know, buying a book, you know, whatever, going to get some lunch.

Those are some of the, if as I went through for the past several years, I started looking at those are the five main areas as a sales rep. So then. What we started to do was like, before you start reactive planning and say, I want to get these things done, or these are the things I must get done. And people tell you, you need to get these things done.

Put them all on in a sifter. First, put them on the left-hand side of the page in the categories. And if you can’t put something in one of those categories, Then we have a problem. Or if your category is lopsided where you have more administrative tasks than business development tasks, you have a problem.

So now those things get put on the calendar. So the only things that get actually on the calendar are things that have been filtered as the right task. And then we have KPIs built in that we utilize internally as a ma a couple. It’s a common thing. Activity-based as well as the outcome base KPIs.

So we kind of find a happy medium with there, with that, and we helped attract. So then they, now the sales rep can look at a day and say we had 15 things plan. These are 15 things that were highly, you know, tied toward’s my sales success. And based on these category, I got 14 of them done. That’s not bad.

I got a 95% today. Awesome. But if you’re doing like your day and you see like, you know, you got so distracted and you only got eight out of those 16 things. We got a problem. You got 50% of your most important task things that you’re supposed to focus on done. So we need to, we can need, we need to fix, fix that and tweak it anyways.

We’re working on a software right now, so this is planner’s going to go digital. So eventually you’ll see that in the next, hopefully in the next year or so, or sooner, but the point is that way we have full control. We utilize data. We can find out. Are we performing our optimal levels, the sales rep, and that’s what my sales planner is built for on a three-month system.

So you could use it for three months and then buy a new one next three months.

[00:33:26] Brad Seaman: Now, where do you go? If we want to get to the system we get on the website?

[00:33:29] Donald Kelly: Yeah, you can go to the sales vangelis.com/planner. Or you can just go ahead and just go to Amazon and search, Donald Kelly sales planner, and you’ll find it there.

[00:33:39] Brad Seaman: Okay. Awesome. Well, Donald, this was, this was great, man. I’m looking for it. I’m gonna buy it. I’m going to hop off and buy a couple, buy the planners.

[00:33:48] Donald Kelly: I appreciate it, man. Thank you.