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Podcast — AoS #8: Building Engaged Audiences and Great Sales Culture with Daniel Disney

Daniel tells us how he built a huge following around sales memes, what companies can do to hire better, and why he loves sales.

David Smith
Published in
6 min readOct 22, 2017

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This podcast is an excellent listen for anyone who:

  • Loves sales memes and great sales content.
  • Wants to know how to build their LinkedIn to over 130,000 followers.
  • Is looking to hire top sales talent and wants to know how to find it.
  • Wants to build an amazingly fun sales culture.
  • Is curious how to build a massive and highly engaged audience.
  • Wonders what to do to motivate millennials.
  • Believes that passion for sales is paramount.
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In this episode of The Art of Sales Podcast, we chat with Daniel Disney, Founder of The Daily Sales, about what makes sales fun, how to build great culture and how to captivate an audience.

Podcast guest: Daniel Disney, founder of The Daily Sales.

(1:10) How Daniel built The Daily Sales to over 150,000 followers and content that reaches 7,000,000 views monthly.

  • Daniel’s tips and strategy for growing an audience on social media.

“If you can offer value without saying “buy, buy buy”, that’s how you build an audience.”

  • Discussing different social sharing platforms and why Daniel uses Hootsuite.
  • Balancing the content types that you share to engage an audience.
  • Creating advertising revenue around your audience.

(09:15) What was Daniel’s motivation to create The Daily Sales and share this fun content with other salespeople?

  • Passion. Love of sales fuels the desire to do something fun with it.
  • Looking down the road towards the future of this venture.
  • Brief look into Daniel’s beginning in sales at 16 years old.

(13:00) How do people get into sales and what drives them?

  • My story and Daniel’s about how we got into sales.
  • Laughing about our younger experiences in sales.
  • Business revolves around sales and that is absolutely fascinating to be a part of.
  • Finding intrinsic motivation, doing what you love, and chasing your passions is what builds great employees and strong businesses.

(20:53) How Daniel leverages doing something that he loves to build this great sales content with a big audience

  • It’s not about advertising… it’s just about fun. It started as a fun way to share whatever sales content he likes… and has evolved into a business.
  • Daniel’s goals and model for future growth through advertising.
  • How Daniel generates advertising revenue and what ROI he provides.
  • Balancing the desire for growth with an audience who doesn’t want to be bothered by ads.

“The goal has always been to do something I enjoy. I still laugh at my own sales content.”

  • The “History of Sales” eBook Daniel mentioned, which is a free download by Salesforce.

(26:47) Daniel’s career in sales and lessons learned

“I was just so driven, so absolutely hungry for it. I loved sales.”

  • How a passion for sales and a natural curiosity drove Daniel up through the ranks of various sales organizations.
  • The Training Room provides various IT training courses across the UK. Dan talks about the fun and exciting sales environment here.
  • Gongs, leaderboards, foosball and all the other fun stuff that drives a highly motivated and engaged sales environment.

The fundations of sales will always be the same. You need to find the right people who are driven, give them the right tools, and make it a continuous process with a fun and interesting environment.

  • How to create a relaxed and activity driven sales process.

(32:45) What does it take to build strong sales culture?

  • Throwing colored balls around the office, dancing, being active and creating really great customer conversations because the office is lively.
  • Leadership has the power to build or stagnate culture.
  • Where can companies find and hire great sales talent that is inwardly motivated? > Perhaps one of the biggest problems for sales leaders.
  • Good hiring adverts are very important and must be accompanied by a good hiring process.
  • Hiring is like fishing… you need the right bait, the right strategy, and even a bit of luck.

(39:15) What makes a great salesperson great?

  • Looking for challenges.
  • Very determined.
  • Don’t take failure personally.
  • Are honest with themselves and know their shortcomings.
  • Work hard to fill the gaps in their skill sets.

(42:30) Let’s talk money… how important is salary, bonus, etc?

  • You have to want to make money in sales.

Helping people is great but may not be enough of a motivator to push past the obstacles people face everyday in sales. Money is important.

  • Every person is motivated differently and understanding their unique motivators is really key.

(46:12) Millennials… all just a gimmick?

  • Are millennials different from other generations? If so, how?
  • Desire for purpose and desire for recognition… how important?
  • The desire to make an impact is huge.
  • Simon Sinek’s viral video on Millennials is here, as discussed:
  • Millennials maybe see the rewards and fail to see the work required to get there.
  • Millennials are a good fit for sales because they do want to really listen, help people and solve problems.
  • In 2020, 46% of the workforce globally will be Millennials. In 2025, it will be over 75% Millennials in the workforce… so understanding how to get it right really is critical.

Perhaps equally important, how do we properly engage Millennial buyers, since they will soon make up a majority of the consumer population also?

(54:00) How companies can build a workplace where Millennials will want to not just work, but stay for the long-term?

  • Most importantly, ask them what they want and listen. “What do you want? What will keep you here for 5–10 years?”
  • Look also at the industry experts. Career progression is key.

“Constant progression, the environment, the reward, making them feel like they are really part of the company is critical.”

  • Step-by-step increases in responsibility, salary and leadership are really important.
  • Keep them humble. They may want to be management but they’re just not there yet, so you may need to sit them down and tell them how to be patient and work their way up.

(1:00:04) Closing round

  • What is the future of The Daily Sales?
  • What motivates Daniel in life?
  • What Daniel loves about sales.
  • Daniel’s biggest take-aways from this podcast.

Background

Daniel Disney is a top 50 sales influencer and is the founder and owner of The Daily Sales, one of the most popular sales publications in the world. With sales content reaching over 7,000,000 every single month and over 150,000 followers, The Daily Sales provides the best sales blogs, quotes and entertainment online.

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Hubby & daddy. USMC veteran. Marketing professional. Entrepreneur. I like mountains, whisky, travel and mischief. Live in Norway. Insta: @americanvikinginnorway