Becoming the Go-To Expert in Your Industry | SOS Ep. 369

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The outside sales world offers abundant opportunities to reinvent your approach and grow your business, but success requires building a strong foundation that can withstand market changes and client turnover.

• Without the right foundation, your territory becomes vulnerable like a house of cards 
• There's no such thing as status quo in sales – you're either growing or shrinking
• Recurring revenue models allow you to stack clients and grow more quickly than one-time sales
• Becoming the go-to expert means understanding how to elevate your buyer's future state
• Decision-makers constantly ask colleagues for referrals, making word-of-mouth invaluable
• Most important business decisions happen when you're not in the room
• Being recognized as an industry expert attracts warm leads and opportunities
• Small adjustments to your approach, presentation or appearance can enhance credibility

If you want to know more about becoming a go-to expert in your field, please reach out to me at [e-mail] or DM me on LinkedIn for a free consultation.

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If you are in outside sales and have had any of the following:

- New to Outside Sales
- New to an industry, new product, new territory - any type of change
- Experienced, but have lacked training and business development
- Seasoned but feel like you have hit your ceiling and need a reboot

If any of those descriptions sound like you or someone you know,

If you want to have a conversation about:

- Scheduling a strategy call for your next move
- Help building your business or territory

Reach out to me:

Schedule a FREE consultation

or https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-o-kelly-44ba352b/
[e-mail]

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Surviving Outside Sales Podcast, hosted by Mike
O'Kelley, presented by SalesBuilder Academy, the goal is to
survive and thrive all phases ofoutside sales, whether you're
getting in, dominating orgetting out.
Surviving Outside Sales.
Now on with the show.
Welcome to the SurvivingOutside Sales Podcast.

(00:31):
I'm your host, mike O'Kelley.
Hope everybody's having a greatstart to their day, wherever
you are in this outside salesworld.
So, continuing on the theme ofgrowth foundation, so taking you
back a little bit,understanding that there's
always time right now we're inQ4.

(00:52):
There's always time to reinvent, reset, kind of turn over your
bag and also get prepared.
So that's one of the thingsthat I love about outside sales
is there's so many opportunitiesduring the week to elevate your
business, to grow your businessand make a massive impact.
And so, taking it back tobuilding the foundation again,

(01:15):
if you've listened to thepodcast before, you know you've
talked, or you've heard me talk,about building a foundation.
You can build a big territory,big business that can scale.
If you don't have the rightfoundation, your territory, your
business, is a house of cardsand it can easily come crumbling
to the ground.
One of the things kind of anexample of that is I worked for

(01:38):
a company where one of thequote-unquote top sales reps,
yes, had great numbers, butabout 87% to 90% of his business
came from one account.
The problem was when thataccount when the physician that
was running that account, whenthat physician retired, this

(01:59):
sales professional lost almost90% of his business and it's
very difficult to come back fromthat.
And this person did not havethe habits, processes or systems
in place or a strong foundationto allow his business to grow
and to replace that.
And so, right off the bat,you're going to always lose

(02:22):
clients.
You're going to lose clients.
It happens, and that in thebusiness world is called churn.
You're always going to havechurn.
People are going to stop usingyour products, people are going
to leave your market, people aregoing to retire or, worst case
scenario, somebody passes away.
It always happens and you haveto prepare for that.
And that's one of the reasonswhy in a sales business in your

(02:43):
sales territory, there is nosuch thing as the status quo.
You're either growing or you'relosing business or you're
shrinking period.
There is no maintaining.
Now your numbers might look thesame, but even within those
numbers, you have new clients,new business, and you've lost
some clients and you've lostsome business.
And that's what people believeis oh, I've plateaued and you've

(03:05):
lost some clients and you'velost some business.
And that's what people believeis, oh, I've plateaued.
No, what's happening is, is theamount of new business you have
coming in isn't overcoming thebusiness that you're losing or
the business that's rolling off?
And there's a lot of differenttypes of businesses.
There's recurring revenuebusinesses, subscription models,
membership models, refills,consumables, but then there's
also like equipment, where it'skind of one and done, where you

(03:27):
sell something and then you moveon to the next account, move on
to the next client.
I like the businesses where youcan continue to sell the
recurring revenue models.
That's the kind of businessesthat I like the best and the
ones that I normally gravitatetowards.
I did work in the medical deviceworld.
You know, briefly, before COVIDkind of completely altered my

(03:47):
career trajectory and my careerpath, for the good, I believe.
But that was a one and doneLike once you, once I sold a
unit to a dermatology clinic.
It was over.
There was no selling a secondunit, at least within probably
two years.
You know some of the clinicsthere would have been a
potential to sell a second unit,but once you sell one.
It's kind of like okay, youneed them for referrals, you

(04:08):
need them to be advocates, topossibly help with testimonials,
but once that's done, it's done.
The best types of and what Irecommend to people who are
getting into sales or they'relooking for sales opportunities
is look towards opportunitieswhere you can have a recurring
revenue model, where you cancontinue to get business over
and over and over again.
Those are the best types ofsales businesses where you sell

(04:31):
one and you just start stackingclients, stacking accounts,
stacking sales on top of eachother.
That is how you can grow andthat's how you can grow very
quickly.
So, building that growthfoundation.
Today's topic is to become thego-to expert in whatever field
you're going to be in.
And when people think that theword expert, they think that

(04:53):
they have to know everythingabout everything, about
everything.
You don't.
You just have to be confidentabout what you are going to be
doing for your buyer to elevatetheir future state.
And let me repeat that you justneed to be able to be an expert
on your buyer's future state.
You don't have to be an experton everything within your market

(05:16):
.
Yes, it does help, yes, it doesadd credibility, but when you
start off or when you'rerefreshing.
You have to be an expert on howdo you get the desired outcome
of your clientele.
How are you that agent ofchange that is being the go-to

(05:38):
expert within your industry?
They can call up Mike and say,hey, I need help with X Y Z and
I get these phone calls wherepeople reach out to me, or text
messages or communicationsemails.
Hey, I have this type of issue.
Do you know anybody?
Or hey, I need help with X Y Z.

(05:59):
You know, can you help or canyou refer me to somebody who can
?
Can?
The way to become that go-toexpert is again going back to
sound like a broken record thosehabits, processes and systems.

(06:20):
The process is getting to knowas much as you can about these
clients, these prospects, yourfuture buyers or your current
buyers, knowing everything abouttheir struggle and their goal
to go from A to B.
The faster you can get them toB the ending part, b, whatever
their goal is, the faster youcan get them there or you can
facilitate them getting there.
You are going to be part oftheir inner circle and then you

(06:44):
just build upon that.
But the reason why you want tobe known to as the go-to expert
is that your buyers, no matterwhat market they are in, they
have friends, they havecolleagues, they have coworkers,
they have other people thatthey know within their sphere of
influence and they talk.
And I knew that they weretalking.

(07:05):
I knew I'd been in those roomswhere they talk about things.
But until I actually opened myown business you know, for those
of you don't know, my wife andI own a wellness studio, restore
hyper wellness, in Rock Hill,south Carolina.
If you're ever in Rock Hill,please stop by.
We'd love to help you in yourwellness goals.
But that is beside the point.
But until I actually wentthrough this process, I didn't

(07:28):
know to what extent otherbusiness owners talked and
shared with other people.
I really didn't.
It really is a tight knitcommunity and I can tell you
word travels fast and I thoughtI really knew.
You know, when I used to callon doctors, I used to think that
that word, you know, got around, but I did not realize how fast

(07:53):
it gets around.
Now, not saying in the, in the,in the medical sales world,
that it got around that quickly,but it's amazing, you know.
That's another thing too.
Is business owners, people whoare in the know, the people
you're trying to sell to.
They're always asking theircolleagues, their friends, their
business partners.
They're always asking forrecommendations.

(08:14):
They're always asking forreferrals Like hey, do you know
somebody in this realm?
Like, hey, I'm reallystruggling with this, do you
know anybody?
Those type of referrals arelike gold.
If somebody that I trust givesme a name, I automatically trust
that person.
Now, it doesn't necessarilymean that I'm going to

(08:36):
guaranteed do business with them, but I'm going to give them a
call and I'm going to give thema shot.
They don't have to do anyprospecting on my part.
I'm reaching out to them.
That's a warm lead.
The more warm leads you cancreate for yourself, the easier
it is for you to scale yourbusiness.
If you're just trying to go incold with all of your business,

(08:57):
all of your accounts, and you'rejust spraying and praying, it's
going to be a struggle.
Yeah, and becoming that go-toperson is basically whenever
people are talking.
And, just as a reminder, I'vementioned this before in other
episodes, but for those of youwho haven't heard every episode
of this podcast, most of thebiggest decisions of your life

(09:17):
happen when you're not in theroom, and that is why the part
of the foundation that youshould be building is becoming
an expert in your field Not justan expert in your products, but
an expert in your field.
And this is the reason why,when you're an expert and you're

(09:40):
the go-to person in the field,what will happen is
opportunities will come to youwhen you're the go-to person Job
opportunities, companieslooking to expand is
opportunities will come to youwhen you're the go-to person job
opportunities, companieslooking to expand, companies
looking for somebody with abigger role.
They ask buyers.
I ask buyers hey, I'm lookingfor this type of role with my
company.
Do you know anybody?

(10:00):
And they either say no, I don'tknow anybody, or yeah, I've got
somebody.
Let me, let me see what they'reup to and I'll reach out to you
.
Awesome, they're going to reachout to their quote unquote
go-to experts.
So one of the fastest ways thatyou can scale your sales
territory and your business isto be viewed as one of those

(10:21):
go-to experts.
Now it sounds simple.
It's not easy.
It takes a lot of work to craftthat and sometimes it can.
It can be immediately done.
Sometimes it can take a while.
It just depends.
It's case by case.
I've had some.
I've had some students thatI've coached.

(10:42):
I've had some, some people thatI've consulted with, where it's
just a couple of tweaks herethere, what they talk about and
how they're viewed.
With one of my clients, it washow they dressed.
They were dressing super casualum, not enough of a fancy way,
but they're dressing supercasual.
So one of the recommendationswas just to elevate what this,

(11:04):
what this guy was wearing towork.
Elevate what this guy waswearing to work, not necessarily
looking like his clientele, butjust elevating it just enough
so that he had a little bit morerespect when he was walking
into his accounts.
He was a blue collar guycalling on blue collar people,

(11:26):
but sometimes wearing a hat andt-shirt is not necessarily the
best thing to do when peopledon't know you yet.
So there's a lot of things youcan do to become that go-to
expert, but that's one of the,that's one of the steps to
building a growth foundation isbeing that go-to expert, and
then all of a sudden, the leadsstart coming in.
If you want to know more aboutbecoming a go-to expert in your

(11:51):
field, please reach out to me,mike, at
survivingoutsidesalescom, or youcan DM me on LinkedIn.
As I mentioned before, I amdiligently working behind the
scenes whenever I have sparemoments to transition over to a
new platform and have everythinghoused there.
It's going to be amazing.
I absolutely love it, but fornow we are still you know, I'm

(12:15):
still kind of plugging alongdoing the same thing.
I am as a one man band, I think.
Thank everybody who listens.
I appreciate everybody whoreaches out to me.
I've absolutely loved the newclients that I have brought on
and the clients that have sharedtheir successes Absolutely love
it.
I love helping people in theoutside sales world and I would
love to help you as well.
If you want to get a freeconsultation, just reach out to

(12:37):
me.
Mike is surviving outside salesand we'll go from there and
hopefully I can help you withsome tips, strategies to become
that go-to expert in your field.
Thanks again and we'll see younext time Surviving outside
sales.
Cheers.