Nick Cegelski

30 Minutes to President's Club

Building the #1 revenue media platform in the world off of hyper-actionable sales tactics from the most elite sellers in tech. Today, that platform consists of 4 products:

- Podcast: The #1 sales podcast in the world that started it all.
- Tactic Teardowns (Not Webinars): Live 30 minute breakdowns of real sales tactics in action.
- Toolkits: Templates, scripts, and playbooks you can steal and use in sales cycles today.
- Newsletter: The most value-dense sales newsletter, stuffed with actionable tactics from elite sellers.
Dramatically accelerate your career and earning potential by mastering your tech stack, stealing tactics from the best and clearing garbage from your calendar.

Zero theory or mindset discussions here; just actionable sales tactics that will win you deals today.

Founder

USC Wrestling Team

The USC Wrestling team competes in the National Collegiate Wrestling Association (NCWA). USC regularly competes with California Junior colleges like East Los Angeles College and Cuesta College as well as NCWA teams UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, Sacramento State and UC Riverside.

USC is a fantastic choice for the student-athlete looking to continue his competitive wrestling career at one of the most prestigious universities in the country in one of the most exciting cities in the world.

Volunteer Coach

Time by Ping

Senior Account Executive

SurePoint Technologies

SurePoint Technologies (formerly Rippe & Kingston) is the fastest growing legal tech firm in the U.S. With over 30 years of delivering critical firsts, SurePoint is a recognized Tier 1 provider of financial and practice management software to law firms nationwide. Its community now approaches 40,000+ members as it continues on its vital mission to ease lawyers’ management burdens and maximize their firm’s performance.

Enterprise Account Executive

Aderant

Account Executive

InviteManager

I work with companies of all sizes to help them use the sports tickets & invitations they own; plan the events they need; and stay compliant with all federal, state, and local regulation.

Our partners include industry leaders like Salesforce, Concur, Ticketmaster, StubHub, as well as 60+ professional sports teams. Companies using our technology include American Express, Coca-Cola, Verizon, CDW, Ernst & Young, and Wells Fargo.

Enterprise Sales

SuppNow

We know the struggle. You either pay a fortune for your supplements in-stores or you deal with shipping hassle online.

We've changed the game. SuppNow kiosks bring you only the top supplements at the prices of online, right inside of your gym.

Affordable, quality supplements faster than ever. That's "what's SuppNow"

No rip-offs, no shipping hassle. Just the top supplements, right now at the right price.

Co-Founder and Head of Sales and Partnerships

Beat the Streets Los Angeles

Beat the Streets – Los Angeles cultivates youth development in underserved communities by encouraging a desire for excellence, respect, teamwork, leadership, integrity, and perseverance through the instruction of quality wrestling programs.

Head Coach

Magnetic Sensors Corporation

Crafted strategic social media plan to create and enhance customer experience, strengthen the brand and drive sales

Marketing and Public Relations Director

Tipping Point Communications

Advocated for healthy eating and exercise habits for underserved urban families at major community events

Healthy Hero Community Wellness Representative

Building the #1 Revenue Media platform in the world at 30 Minutes to President's Club

I still make cold calls prospecting for 30 Minutes to President's Club sponsors. Here's one from last week. 

Self-coaching I gave myself: 

🟢 Tailored permission opener. The three steps to this opener: lead with context, own that it’s a cold call, get permission to pitch. 

This opener works better than a generic permission based opener. By including context upfront, you get them to sit up and show that it's a targeted call that is intended for them and that you're not just dialing through the phone book. 

The key here is to make the context you lead with something you can relate to the problem you solve, not just any random or unrelated piece of information (Ex "Saw you went to USC!")

___

🟢 Pacing:

Felt like I did a solid job of slowing it down and not talking too fast. It helped that I had a script I was working from. That helped me to focus on my delivery, not WHAT I was going to say. 

___

🟡 Objection Handling 

I did a good job of agreeing with the objection and saying "that's exactly why I called". It's sort of like the Improv skill of always saying "Yes, and...."

Where things went wrong was when I got hit with a variant of "call me in 3 months". This prospect told me they were in the middle of merging with another company (!) and she wasn't sure if she'd still be there in 3 months. 

I hadn't heard that one before and so I got thrown off! 

___

🛑 My pitch

My pitch was focused on gain (amplify you guys) instead of pain. 

If I had a re-do I'd say something like:

"Usually when I talk to VPs of Marketing they tell me it can be really frustrating to put a ton of work into a product launch only to have it fall on deaf ears. I run an extremely popular sales podcast and webinar series and folks like Gong, Superhuman and Salesloft advertise with us as a way to make sure their launches get front and center with the Sales Leaders they want to sell to." 

____

Sara Plowman inspired me to post a real cold calling clip. There is so much content from sales "influencers" who are not actually doing the job day in and day out.

It's so easy to project an idealized version of sales when in reality you're going to encounter stuff that throws you off when you're cold calling. 

Next week, Armand Farrokh, Jason Bay and Sara Plowman are hosting a (free) cold calling masterclass in a 30 Minutes to President's Club x Sell Better mashup. 

Weds 04/17 at 1pm EST. Join us at https://hubs.la/Q02rKk-R0

Salespeople: Your territory is NOT fully worked. 
I have been there. There have been so many times I've looked at my account list and thought "I've reached out to all these accounts and there's no further progress I can make outbounding them."

Here's a hard lesson I had to learn: 

I presently have a very small territory (about 100 accounts that I can sell to). 

When I first started selling 30 Minutes to President's Club sponsorships, I reached out to every account in my territory in the first 30 days. Some people bought, some people took meetings but decided we were too expensive and some people refused to meet with me because they were "all set".

After a couple months of selling, I felt like I had fully worked and exhausted the opportunity in my territory. 

Armand wouldn't accept it. 

"Dude, you were rejected by the Content Marketing Manager at ACME. The entire account didn't say no, just 1 person did. Go call their CMO and VP of DemandGen and see what they say". 

____

So, I called these people at my accounts. Turns out, some of the contacts I hadn't yet called at "accounts" that had rejected me were eager to meet. One person told me I'd "reached out at the perfect time."

It was surprising for me to hear this since I'd been brusquely rejected by the Content Marketing Manager just a few weeks prior! I guess the CMO had different priorities than that person did. 

I sold a couple more deals this way and felt pretty good about things. I went back to Armand 3 months later and told him NOW that our territory was exhausted and that we needed to find other ways to make $. 

Again, he wasn't having it. 

"Nick, it looks like you haven't called on XYZ in 4 months. I know it feels early, but reach back out to them."

___

So I did, and he was right. Turns out, the timing was better this time around. Shocker.

I hadn't planned on calling them again for at least a year. I was used to having hundreds of accounts when I could afford to do that (in retrospect, I left a lot of money on the table believing this myth).

___

Learn from my struggles:

1. Accounts do not reject you. Human beings do. Prospect all the humans. Keep prospecting them. 
2. If you've run through your account list, run through it again. Sort by "last contacted" and go after the oldest ones, even if just a couple months old. 

Your success in sales will be determined by the number of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to go seek out. So go seek them out! 

Pretty much anything is more exciting than prospecting. 
It's not the rejections that suck, it's the monotony. 
It's discouraging to make countless calls and send personalized emails only to be totally ignored by your prospects. 

If you work in sales, you have to remember that much of our job is to sift through the silence and rejection and monotony just to get a single win. You HAVE to keep prospecting anyway. 

Here are some things that help me consistently prospect:

1. Make calls first thing in the AM to get the hardest thing done first.
2. Build lead lists and find contact info for new prospects at the END of the day to queue up my calls for tomorrow.
3. Remind myself: There’s zero requirement that I feel like making cold calls in order to make cold calls.

___

You've just gotta commit daily prospecting, even when the calendar gets full. Prospecting daily will give you enough volume to book a few meetings a week, which helps complete the feedback loop for your motivation. 

If you're legitimately prospecting every day you should book a couple meetings a week. Those meetings will validate that your prospecting IS working and should give you the motivation to keep at it. 

Don't overcomplicate what it takes to be successful in sales:

1. Accept that much of your job is to get rejected dozens of times in order to get just 1 win. Don't expect to have a winning record. The job is hard and it's easy to get discouraged but that is the job. 

2. Commit to daily prospecting, even when your calendar gets full. It's the best insurance policy against a weak pipeline. 

3. Nine times out of ten, it's a better idea to call your prospect than email them. Quit hiding behind email and slack. 

4. Every piece of information you communicate to your prospect should be framed from the perspective of what's in it for them. Every feature you show, every meeting you hold and every ask you make needs to be explained from the perspective of why it matters to THEM. 

5. That said, it's OK to stand your ground with a prospect. "The customer is always right" isn't true. There are times to (respectfully) hold firm. 

6. You can say pretty much anything to a prospect as long as you have a smile on your face and say it in a pleasant tone. 

7. Most deals fall apart because of indigestion (you share too much information in a disorganized way) rather than starvation (you don't share enough information). Commit to clear and organized communication. 

What'd I miss? 

A VP of Sales that I really respect has brought me in to work with his team on a weekly basis. 
That team is growing (!) and he's looking to hire remote AEs and remote SDRs. 
Company is in the health tech space. 
Send me a DM if you'd like an intro to the VP of Sales. 

The best way to beat cold call reluctance?
Make cold calls. 

Doing more role-plays, learning your product better or reading yet another sales influencer's take on cold calling isn’t going to dissolve the anxious feeling in your gut.  

To beat call reluctance, you don’t need more information or practice, you just need to get reps in. 

It’s natural to feel anxious about cold calling. Nearly every salesperson experiences feelings of call reluctance and those feelings don’t ever really go away, even when you get good. 

The healthy thing to do is acknowledge those feelings and then go make your calls anyway! There’s zero requirement that you feel like making cold calls in order to make cold calls. 

Want your call reluctance to go away? Pick up the phone. 

Founder of 30 Minutes to President’s Club

Unconventional places to do prospect research: 

1. Spotify - just type their name into the search bar to find any podcast appearances they've done. Don't listen to the entire episode (too time-intensive). Stop listening once you've found 1 piece of info to personalize from. 

2. YouTube - Same as above. Don't watch the whole video; diminishing return. 

3. Job Postings - Skim these to learn about what tech they're using and what the company is focused on accomplishing. 

4. Twitter - Also can be used as a prospecting channel; far less crowded than phone/email/LinkedIn

5. LinkedIn Recommendations - skim their "recommendations" - always some nuggets to help personalize in that section

6. Current employees -  Call below-the-line users to gather intel.

7. Past employees - Former employees of the org you're targeting often reveal far more on LinkedIn (tech stack, things they accomplished) than current employees do

8. Personal Blogs -  I currently sell to marketers and many of them have personal blogs. Even when I sold to attorneys a couple of them had personal websites where I could glean info.

___

What else would you add to the list? 

The best salespeople aren't afraid to be vulnerable and expose the real human being underneath the surface. We invited Corporate Bro onto 30 Minutes to President's Club and I feel like he took the advice a little too far...?

This was an...insightful...episode to kick off April 1. 

It seems this hiker has taken a page from my prospects' books...

Reserve the last 5 mins of every sales call for the "5 minute drill"
There are 3 things you should cover in those 5 minutes:

1. Get their explicit buy-in to continuing the sales process

It makes zero sense to discuss next steps with a buyer who isn't bought in to continuing to evaluate your product. 

"Nice" buyers will sometimes agree to next steps only to ghost us if we don't ask for their agreement to continue the sales process. 

Literally all you need to say is something like:

"Dan, I know we're coming up on our time here. How are you feeling? Is this something you'd like to continue exploring?" 

^ Do this BEFORE talking about next steps. 

___

2. If they say YES, now's the time to inquire about timing. 

(If they say NO and don't want to continue the buying process, now you have time to inquire about their reservations and resolve that hesitation LIVE as opposed to when they ghost you)

Timing of when they want to make a move will dictate how/what next steps look like. A "we need something in place this quarter" decision will require different next steps than "I'm planning my budget for 2025". 

Keep it simple and say something like:

"How are you feeling about timelines for this? I don't want to make any assumptions?"

___

3. Recommend a next step:

Once they've given you explicit agreement to continue the sales process + a sense on timing, you gotta recommend a next step. 

Don't every ask a buyer "So, what do next steps look like?" 

Instead, say "What I recommend we do next is..." 

Your job is to help give guidance on how to buy your product. Some buyers might disagree with your recommendation, but that is OK. 

You're always better off making a recommendation and coming across as someone who knows what they are doing as opposed to an order taker who asks buyers to do the work of leading the process. 

___

I got excited when I saw this J. Cole song release b/c I thought for a second he might be rapping about sales best practices (I just thought he tacked on an extra 2 mins to the 5 minute drill). 

After listening to the song, I guess I was wrong. 

I've learned an immense amount from Salesforce's Top Influencers. Here are some highlights: 

John: Keep your foot on the prospecting gas pedal. Having a "big fat pipeline" gives you confidence when it comes to negotiating since you don't NEED any individual deal to hit goal. 

Ian: Sell like a Yo-Yo. When you meet with an Exec, ask permission to meet with their direct reports for further discovery. Then, come back to them with insights from the entire team. Allows you do go deep without fatiguing the Exec. 

Jen: Don't assume each stakeholder at a company sees the problem you solve the same way. When you have a big group meeting, facilitate a discussion to gain "problem agreement" from the group BEFORE showing a demo/presentation.

Richard: After you deliver pricing, encourage your prospect to share their reaction by asking "how does that feel?" (and then shut up and let them talk)

Jason: Talk like a human being instead of saying weird stuff like "I hope you are safe and well in these challenging & uncertain times". 

Armand: Ask your prospect to explicitly buy-in to continuing the sales process at the end of each meeting. Don't set next steps with people who don't really want to keep evaluating your product, it's a waste of your time. 

___

Today, I'm honored to have been recognized next to these incredible people (among others) as a Salesforce Top Voice in the sales community. 

Prospects tell us they're "not interested" to make us go away. 
You can't overcome "not interested" if that's all they say, which means the only way to overcome this objection is to get them talking by AGREEING with their ridiculous objection. 

Dismissive objections (not interested, all set, I'm in a meeting) are simply swats to get you to buzz off. 

Don't take these objections at face value. Instead, laugh & lean into how ridiculous (who the heck answers an unknown phone number in an important meeting?) these statements are to disarm your prospect and get them to give you a shot at your pitch. 

30MPC Handling Dismissive Objections

Do not outbound prospect Red Herrings. 

In sales, Red Herrings are prospects that might be willing to meet with you, but ultimately cannot impact purchasing decisions. 

Here's a story with an example:  

I used to sell software to help companies manage their sports sponsorships and sports tickets. Our prospects were Fortune 500 Companies that typically had multiple sports sponsorships in different regions and hundreds of game tickets across the teams they sponsored. 

Most of those companies would have a random Executive Assistant (EA) at each office responsible for managing the sports tickets for that region and distributing them to the employees who wanted to take clients to games. 

As long as my outbound messaging was on point, it wasn't hard to get an initial meeting with these regional EAs. It was DEFINITELY easier than landing a meeting with the CMO of a Fortune 500 company.  

The EAs I met with would always be happy to learn about our software and agreed that our product was WAY better than the Excel spreadsheets they were currently tracking things in. 

Problem was, the deals went nowhere. In order to actually sell my software, I'd need the ENTIRE company to be using my software, not just a divisional office in Dallas. 

Even though it was EASIER to book meetings with EAs, it was HARDER to get deals done because they couldn't get me into the rest of the org. 

I learned that I was better off focusing on the harder to catch prospects, the CMOs. They'd be tougher to get ahold of, but a CMO-led deal would be much easier to move than an EA-led deal. 

The lesson here is that just because you *can* get a meeting with a person does not mean you should. Focus your efforts on meeting with people who can move deals, even if it yields fewer initial meetings. 

(Different story with inbound, take those meetings but then make it clear who you'll need involved on their end to get a deal done) 

Do not *chase* red herrings. 

Your prospect is looking for fault with your product. They've been burned by too many salespeople who overpromise and underdeliver. 
Shelby takes the opposite approach - she'll tell her prospect the reasons why her solution might NOT be a fit as a way to build trust with her buyer. 

In sales, you can't be perceived to be better until you're first perceived to be different. 

Most salespeople ONLY talk about the good parts of their product. 
Great salespeople are comfortable revealing their limitations as a way to lend further credibility to when they talk about their strengths. 

This was a very fun episode b/c Shelby runs a very technical sale with a very technical buyer. 

If Sara Plowman were a law firm CFO, here's how I'd pitch her on new billing software:

1. Say CONTEXT before I even say my name: 

Examples include: 

“I just read about the big case win” (which means they’d be collecting money)
“I just saw you opened a new office” (which has tax implications)
“I was reading up on the new litigation practice” (which adds billing complexity)

This grabs their attention and shows this isn’t just a random call. 

This is a call with a reason and by leading with that reason, we get them leaning in  and listening because now they’re trying to figure out what their big case win has to do with this call. 

___

2. Own that it's a cold call + get permission to pitch. 

Mediocre telemarketers use false pleasantries to hide the fact that they’re making a cold call, but a prospect can smell that nonsense from a mile away.

You'll actually disarm your prospect when you just tell the truth: this is indeed a cold call. 

Key is to sound confident and low-pressure here. If you sound timid or too aggressive it'll be off-putting. 

___

3. Problem-based language

If you're talking about "optimizing cashflow" or "improving billing" you're WAY too generic. 

Instead, paint of picture of the pain and frustration of the problem you solve. 

"Most of the CFOs I talk to are really frustrated with the crazy hoops they need to jump through just to bill insurance carriers. There's nothing more frustrating than when you can't collect on a bill simply because an attorney used a phase or task code the carrier won't pay for"

____

Think I'd get the meeting booked with Sara? 

On Saturday I read about Larissa May, who is working with students across the USA to help them build skills to develop healthier relationships with social media and tech. 

Social media & big tech are proven to be remarkably damaging for our mental health and the article I read about Larissa in The Wall Street Journal got me thinking about the relationship I see most salespeople feel they are forced to have with tech and social media. 

For most salespeople, email, Slack & LinkedIn are the ultimate dopamine hit. Every time you open your inbox, there's a chance you'll have a message from a prospective customer ready to move forward. That means $$$! It can be and is addicting.  

Most salespeople refresh their inboxes dozens (hundreds?) of times per day instead of doing the work that they actually should be doing. They delude themselves and take pride in ultra-fast responses to prospects to justify it. 

You'll never get in your cold calling groove if you're replying to a random email ping every 7 minutes. 

You'll never be able to sit and think through a strategic territory plan if you're checking Slack for a quick dopamine hit every time it gets hard.

You'll never feel good about your current job if every time you log in to LinkedIn you see an influencer posting about how they made over $1M in sales and you "only" made $115k. 

___

Here are some recommendations I have for salespeople to improve their relationship with technology and social media:

1. Delay checking email until you're at least 30 minutes into your work day.
2. Delete your email app off your phone
3. Delete Slack app off your phone
4. Mute all Slack notifications 
5. "Batch check" your email at regular intervals. Your boss and even your customers will be OK if you don't reply instantaneously. 
6. Turn your phone to grayscale. Makes it less of a dopamine hit. 
7. Start your day with your hardest thing first (usually cold calling for salespeople). 
8. Don't give yourself that Slack/LinkedIn/Email hit until you've accomplished your prospecting work. 
9. Recognize that your job is to create (meetings, opportunities, new business appointments, etc) NOT consume (Social media, random email updates from your marketing team)
10. Unfollow people on social media that make you feel bad, even if they occasionally post helpful advice. 
11. Steal my email signature: 

In efforts to improve my productivity & focus, I only check email intermittently throughout the day. Need me faster? Call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. 

___

I know a lot of people post "what else would you add?" at the end of their posts to get people to comment and game engagement (a whole different problem) but I'm actually interested in hearing from my network here. 

What are some other ways salespeople can protect their mental health & improve their relationship with tech and social media at work? 

Tonality on a cold call:

❌ Upward Inflection: Chipper, overly-friendly, sounds like a customer service rep or telemarketer. Seeking approval from the prospect they're interrupting. 

✅ Downward Inflection: Calm confidence, assertive, doesn't need the prospect's validation to feel OK about themselves. 

You can force yourself to speak in downtones by tilting your chin downward. 

If you want to speak in uptones (upward inflection can be good on discovery calls especially when you're labeling/mirroring), try tilting your chin upward. 

Eliminating the gap of "dead time" between each dial during a call blitz will dramatically increase your dials per hour. 

During a call blitz, if you're not actively talking with a prospect, your phone should be RINGING.

Most sellers waste precious dial time stopping after each call to log notes in their CRM and review their research for the next person they plan to call. 

If you're doing that, you're wasting time. 

Instead, I recommend you take advantage of the time where you have to listen to your prospect’s voicemail greeting while waiting to leave a voicemail. 

While their greeting is playing, do these three things:

1. Log the current call disposition in your CRM ("left voicemail") 
2. Open up the next call task you have queued so you're ready to make the next call as soon as this one ends
3. Skim your call prep for the next call you're about to make. 

This way, once you’ve finished leaving your voicemail, you’ll already have everything you need right in front of you to immediately punch in the number and make the next call without pausing.

Benefits:
1. Considerably more dials per hour
2. You keep the MOMENTUM going during your call blitz. Call reluctance likes to creep in when you have delays in between dials.  

If you're going to "give in" to a prospect's demands during a negotiation, the worst thing you can do is make it seem like an easy give. 

A negotiation has gotta feel like work for your prospect. 

Slow the negotiation down. If you give things away quickly and easily, you're showing them that there is more meat on the bone and they are going to keep ASKING. By dragging out your concessions and slowing things down, you'll deter them from asking for more and more and more. 

You've gotta make it hard for them in order to stop the bleeding. 

If I need approval on negotiation thresholds, when I come back to a customer during a negotiation with an offer from my team, I like to insert language into my explanation like:

"I had a long and frankly pretty difficult conversation with my VP of Sales"

or

"At first, the team really wasn't willing to move on this point but I explained to them some of the places your team was willing to move on and really made a case for why I think it's worth making this trade"

Your tone of voice and body language need to signal that you got GRILLED by your team when discussing the negotiation. If you make it obvious that discounting is "normal" the prospect is going to keep digging in. 

Slow down your negotiations to stop the bleeding. 

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