You’ve probably brought a gift to a meeting with a prospect hoping it would tip things your way. A coffee, a trinket, or maybe something that actually cost you a lot.

In this episode, we’re talking about gifting and “reciprocity” in sales (the idea that giving someone a gift makes them feel like they owe you). It sounds harmless, but that logic can actually be a bit manipulative.

I’m sharing my own experience that changed the way I think about giving gifts to prospects, and what I did instead of trying to out-gift my competitors.

This episode will change how you think about:

• Why a small gift almost never buys the outcome you’re looking for
• What actually sets you apart from your competition
• How to reframe gifts from a game of who-owes-who into something that builds a real partnership

I’ve written about gifting and a lot of other hard-won sales lessons in my book, Confessions of a Sales Professional. You can pre-order now and be one of the first to get a copy when it’s out nationwide September 15th: https://bit.ly/dontjustsell-ep22

–

Most sales podcasts give you more tactics. This one proves you don’t need them.

I’m Rebecca Kilday, and Don’t Just Sell is the podcast where your sales career gets easier when you quit selling like you’ve been trained, and start selling like yourself.

–

Produced by SpeakEasy Productions.

A few years ago I lost the biggest account in my state, and I did not take it well. I wallowed in it for weeks, until my then-manager called me up, laughed, and told me I'm not that special.

That blunt reality check is where I started figuring out what resilience actually takes.

Resilience is a muscle, which means the only way to get better at loss is to live through a few. But there's a way to build the mindset faster than just taking the hits.

In this episode I walk through the three P's of resilience, why a loss feels so overwhelming in the moment, and how to cut it back down to the size it actually is.

This episode will change how you think about:

• Why the sting of a loss feels like it's unique and personal (but it almost never is)
• Where a big failure at work actually belongs in the bigger picture of your life
• How to keep a loss from feeling like it'll last forever

Staying in the sales industry takes more than a good attitude. It takes a real strategy for the hard days, so you've still got something left for the good ones.

If your team is taking more hits than wins lately and it's wearing them down, that’s exactly what I built my resilience training for. Reach out to book me for a sales training: https://bit.ly/DontJustSell-Ep21

–

Most sales podcasts give you more tactics. This one proves you don’t need them.

I’m Rebecca Kilday, and Don’t Just Sell is the podcast where your sales career gets easier when you quit selling like you’ve been trained, and start selling like yourself.

–

Produced by SpeakEasy Productions.

Rachell is a commercial banker, but if you're assuming this episode is about interest rates, stay with me... She closes competitive deals in a field where it would be easy to compete on price and nothing else, and she refuses to.

What sets her apart is the thing I keep coming back to on this show: people can tell whether you actually care about helping them or just want to close them.

We cover:

• Why a cold call feels completely different the moment you stop treating it like a sale
• The kind of value women tend to give away too early, and what it can cost you
• Why a quick no can move a deal further than a drawn-out maybe
• How preparation, not personality, is what closes a trust gap in the first meeting

These are all things I've touched on in past episodes, but Rachell is proof it holds up in one of the most competitive industries out there.

If this episode has you rethinking what actually makes you worth working with, that shift is the whole foundation of Sell INSPIRED Academy. Come see what changes when you stop trying to prove your value and start trusting it: https://bit.ly/dontjustsell-ep20

–

Most sales podcasts give you more tactics. This one proves you don’t need them.

I’m Rebecca Kilday, and Don’t Just Sell is the podcast where your sales career gets easier when you quit selling like you’ve been trained, and start selling like yourself.

–

Produced by SpeakEasy Productions.

Whether it's someone brand new to sales or someone who's been in the industry for 30 years, I see the same 4 mistakes being made over and over again. (Even I’ve been guilty of them before!)

In this episode, I'm sharing what those 4 mistakes are so you can spot them in your own process, and I’m giving recommendations on what you can do instead going forward.

You’ll hear about:

• The rep who couldn’t take a hint to stop talking
• A colleague of mine who turned in over a hundred signed agreements in one quarter and still closed nothing
• My client who did everything right and still walked away without the contract
• The stranger at a coffee shop who talked himself into a corner

Mistakes don't make you a bad rep. What matters is whether you catch them and do the work to fix them. If you're tired of doing that alone, or of being handed another script instead of an answer, that's what the Sell INSPIRED Academy is for: https://bit.ly/dontjustsell-ep19

Listen to my episode about credibility here: https://bit.ly/dontjustsell-credibility

–

Most sales podcasts give you more tactics. This one proves you don’t need them.

I’m Rebecca Kilday, and Don’t Just Sell is the podcast where your sales career gets easier when you quit selling like you’ve been trained, and start selling like yourself.

–

Produced by SpeakEasy Productions.

In my first sales job twenty years ago, my manager told me I should cut my hair to be taken more seriously. She wasn't being cruel, she was preparing me for an industry never built for women.

For the last 100+ years, salespeople have been following the same playbook that was written BY men FOR men. Despite this, women now hold 1/3 of senior level sales roles in Fortune 500 companies, and we're closing more deals than our male counterparts.

Imagine what we could do if we were actually supported!

In this episode, we're traveling back to 1894 to see where sales training began, and exploring why it hasn't changed in any meaningful way since then. I'm also sharing 5 easy ways you can start supporting the women on your sales team *today.*

If you're a leader who wants the women on your team to stay, grow, and outsell the competition, visit https://bit.ly/dont-just-sell-ep18 to learn how we can work together.

Sources:

• https://www.gong.io/blog/women-in-sales
• https://www.allego.com/blog/women-in-sales-experts-share-selling-advice/

–

Most sales podcasts give you more tactics. This one proves you don’t need them.

I’m Rebecca Kilday, and Don’t Just Sell is the podcast where your sales career gets easier when you quit selling like you’ve been trained, and start selling like yourself.

–

Produced by SpeakEasy Productions.

"I'll be in touch." Four words that sound polite and mean nothing, and if you've heard them you already know how the meeting that earned them probably went.

A client sent me a recording of exactly that kind of meeting. She was warm, she connected, she did everything we're told to do, and it went nowhere. The real problem wasn't anything she said. It was what she was too afraid to ask, because she didn't want to seem pushy.

In this episode I share the three questions I now ask in every meeting that turn a pleasant dead end into a real conversation, even when they feel uncomfortable coming out of your mouth.

If you've ever softened yourself in a meeting to avoid being "too much," this is the kind of work I do with women in sales in my 1:1 coaching. Join the Sell INSPIRED Academy: https://www.go.rebeccakilday.com/offer123-9675

–

Most sales podcasts give you more tactics. This one proves you don’t need them.

I’m Rebecca Kilday, and Don’t Just Sell is the podcast where your sales career gets easier when you quit selling like you’ve been trained, and start selling like yourself.

–

Produced by SpeakEasy Productions.

You have to sell people on you before you can sell them anything else.

I learned that the hard way, after years of thinking my job was to represent my company well. But knowing the product, building rapport, having the perfect answer to every objection are things every other rep does too.

The thing that actually sets you apart is the one thing most women in sales never invest in, which is their own brand.

In this episode I share not only what changed when I stopped being a messenger for the company, but also how you can do the same in three simple steps.

If you've ever felt interchangeable with every other rep your prospect talked to that day, this is the kind of work I do with women in sales in my 1:1 coaching. Join the Sell INSPIRED Academy: https://www.go.rebeccakilday.com/offer123-9675

–

Most sales podcasts give you more tactics. This one proves you don’t need them.

I’m Rebecca Kilday, and Don’t Just Sell is the podcast where your sales career gets easier when you quit selling like you’ve been trained, and start selling like yourself.

–

Produced by SpeakEasy Productions.

Most of the sales advice out there is from men who are coaching other men, leaving us women to figure it out through trial-and-error or to try to be someone we're not.

In this episode, I'm breaking my usual format and sharing unfiltered answers to ten of the most common questions I get from sales students, people who are new to the industry, and my clients.

Some of my answers are probably not what a typical sales coach would say, but you need to hear them anyway.

00:00 Why I'm breaking the usual format today

01:02 What advice would you give someone starting out?

02:01 What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

02:54 How do you build trust?

04:03 What do you do when trust is broken?

05:06 How do you build confidence?

06:00 How do you avoid sounding pushy or sales-y?

06:55 How do you handle objections?

08:35 Why do you qualify prospects?

09:42 What are your favorite questions to ask a prospect?

10:49 Have you ever walked away from a sale?

11:40 If you need more answers

The work doesn't have to stop here. Join the Sell INSPIRED Academy: https://www.go.rebeccakilday.com/offer123-9675

–

Most sales podcasts give you more tactics. This one proves you don’t need them.

I’m Rebecca Kilday, and Don’t Just Sell is the podcast where your sales career gets easier when you quit selling like you’ve been trained, and start selling like yourself.

–

Produced by SpeakEasy Productions.