Like anything else, you hear everyone say how sales has changed... How does a Wall Street Investor with years of experience think that sales has changed?

Check out this clip to find out what advice Wall Street Investor, Howie Kra, would give an experienced salesperson trying to adapt as well as a new salesperson right out of college.

Carole Mahoney: Now, speaking of sales and how things have changed, you've been around for awhile, how do you think sales has changed since your days on Wall Street in the '80s.

Howie Kra: One word, technology. Technology is a game changer. So you either adapt to it, or get into another profession. There is no way that you are going to succeed anymore with just a yellow pad and a pen and a good personality and the schmooze. The world has become too educated and CRMs are a must. And I renamed the CRM in our office.

Carole Mahoney: What'd you call it?

Howie Kra: I call it a Cash Register Machine. Have you heard that yet?

Carole Mahoney: No, I don't think I've heard that one yet. So that's a good one.

Howie Kra: I got to coin that. I got to go get the URL on that.

Carole Mahoney: You should totally do that!

Howie Kra: Along with my regional dialect one, I'm building up a war chest here.

Carole Mahoney: I see your read, your dialect, I raise you a beer.

Howie Kra: All right! I got it!

So cash register machine, this is the greatest tool in the modern day and age. It slices. It dices. The more you input, the more data it gives back, the more efficient you are. You can't just send out an email campaign anymore and hit send and expect the thousands of emails to go out and the orders are going to come in. The open rate is so minimal. Emails are great, they're awesome, but there's nothing like what we're doing right now- a conversation and keeping notes of your conversation because the bigger your business gets, you can't remember everything. And I'm not saying use the CRM to send Mr. and Mrs. Smith an anniversary card, or a birthday card. With every order, with watching what's going on, watching trends and the better you are at the CRM, the better you can be at selling. So you take your numbers game, your discipline, your knowledge, your passion, and now make technology your friend.

Some of these people that have been around a while that aren't gravitating to the new ways of doing business, they're going to be left behind.

Carole Mahoney: Yeah, there's job elimination happening every single day. So for the experienced sales person, adapt to the technology that's available to you to have those better conversations, using the CRM to keep track of those things. And one of the things I tell sales people is record your calls, transcribe them. You'll have everything that you need for notes. You don't have to be so focused on taking notes in your call anymore when you can record it, go back and search for keywords, pretty easily.

Howie Kra: That's the thing you taught me. I don't know if you were the one, but somebody in our group about Temi. It's 10 cents a minute. I go over to somebody who's doing a sales call, they don't even know I'm doing it. I put my iPhone down. I hit a button. They stay on the phone for say 12 minutes, right? I then walk into... I hit a send button. The next thing you know I get a transcript back. I walk over to the sales person, I go, "Come in, let's look at what you said." They're like, "How did you do that? How did you type it?" So I love it when somebody that's been around a while gets something over on the kids for a $1.20. Temi's 10 cents a minute. I know there are services that do it for free, but we have all of these tools available to us. We just have to use them and use them often and be consistent because if you do that, you're going to hone in.

I love sports. I know that you and I were together to watch a Super Bowl and think about that team that won and those guys that keep winning. It's repetition. It's discipline. It's great management. That's what selling is. Selling is no different and you're going to have the best people in class. You're going to have average. And you're going to have the underperformers.

What does it come down to? Yes, talent, knowledge, passion, discipline, and repetition.

Carole Mahoney: And it comes down to how you practice because you can practice the same thing over and over again and cement doing it the wrong way. But like you said, in sports, everyone knows I'm a Patriots fan...

Howie Kra: I stayed away from admitting that I was rooting with you because I got so much grief from my Jets fans. But they're horrible. The Jets are the worst. So I respect Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Kraft. I mean, what an organization.

Carole Mahoney: Yeah. The review of the game tape is the discipline. It's also the collaboration with the team and the preparation that they do. And that's certainly something that everyone in sales, I think can learn from. It's an easy analogy and metaphor to make...

Enjoying these quick tips?

Make sure to subscribe to see more! You can subscribe here with our blog, to our Youtube channel, or follow us on Instagram. 

If you'd like to watch the full on demand webinar, click here! Also make sure to follow Howie Kra on Youtube and Instagram!