Episode #517 – Bill McCormick, Mary Grothe, and Tony Hughes
Meet
Bill McCormick
Bill McCormick is the Founder of Digi-Sales, a Digital Selling training company and author of the book “All Selling Is Social”. Bill first started using digital sales techniques after he and his wife, Sue, started their own promotional product business. By using social platforms, especially LinkedIn, they were able to build a very successful business. Bill then began to help other business owners, entrepreneurs and sales professionals how to use LinkedIn to increase sales.
Mary Grothe
Mary Grothe is a former #1 Midmarket B2B Sales Rep who after selling millions in revenue and breaking multiple records, formed Sales BQ®, a Denver-based firm of fractional Revenue Leaders who serve companies nationwide by profitably rebuilding their marketing, sales, and customer success departments by getting to the root of their revenue problems, rebuilding infrastructure, developing talent, and holistically growing their growing revenue at sometimes rapid paces. Her 8 year B2B midmarket sales career required daily prospecting efforts. She was the first rep to embed social selling and custom events into her lead gen process to diversify the funnel from just telemarketing and email prospecting.
Tony Hughes
Tony Hughes has 35 years of corporate and sales leadership experience having generated record-breaking results as a salesperson, head of sales, and as a CEO. As a renowned speaker and independent consultant, Tony is a bestselling author and has been the most read person in LinkedIn on the topic of B2B sales leadership. He has more than 500,000 followers of his blogs and his most recent book, COMBO Prospecting, is published by HarperCollins and the American Management Association. His upcoming book is Tech-Powered Sales.
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This episode of Sales Reinvented dives deep into the essential do’s and don’ts of prospecting and lead generation with advice from three industry trailblazers. I host Bill McCormick, Mary Grothe, and Tony Hughes to help you transform cold outreach into meaningful connections and qualified leads. You’ll hear their top do’s and don’ts for successful lead generation, compelling real-world sales stories, and get their lessons learned from overcoming challenges in the field.
Outline of This Episode
- [01:49] Nurture prospects on LinkedIn by providing value and insight without pitching
- [05:05] Navigating lengthy sales processes
- [08:23] Strategic prospecting and lead generation
- [12:31] Building lead gen strategy
- [14:48] Time block prospecting and outbound activities
- [13:23] Aligning strategy with your target audience
- [19:02] Leveraging existing client relationships
LinkedIn, Patience, and Nurture
Bill discusses the power of leveraging LinkedIn for more than just cold outreach. He recommends connecting with all your clients on the platform to expand your prospecting potential and insists on building a clear ideal-client profile to sharpen your targeting. Nurturing relationships over time—without jumping straight into a pitch—forms the cornerstone of his methodology. On the flip side, he cautions against using impersonal connect-and-pitch tactics, being fixated on closing rather than conversing, and trying to rush prospects through the sales funnel. Patience and persistent value-driven follow-up can turn long sales cycles into lasting business wins.
Own Your Pipeline
For Mary, successful prospecting begins with actually doing the work and being radically customer-centric. She underscores the importance of authentic, warm messaging—regardless of your outreach medium—and stresses the need for a quantifiable, strategic approach that aligns with your sales goals. Her top don’ts are not to skip prospecting, resort to robotic or spammy tactics, or blame marketing for a lack of leads. Mary’s story about refining her own inbound strategy is a great blueprint for adapting messaging and targeting the right persona, showing that retooling your approach based on hard lessons can lead to a stronger, more effective funnel.
Time Block, Talk Results, and Embrace Sales Hygiene
Tony shares his mantra: time-block and truly execute your outbound efforts. He stresses the need to “nail your narrative” by focusing every conversation on the prospect’s world and their opportunities for improved results. Tony warns against the pitfalls of talking only about your own products, making excuses, and skimping on sales processes or CRM practices. His real-life client story illuminates the power of monitoring trigger events and leveraging referrals—not just to secure new business, but to protect and expand existing relationships. By covering account risks and opportunistically following key contacts as they move into new roles, he demonstrates that proactive, value-led prospecting is the fastest route to revenue.
Connect with Bill McCormick
Connect with Mary Grothe
Connect with Tony Hughes
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