27 Years of Sales Advice Every Entrepreneur Needs

27 Years of No Bullsh*t Sales Advice in 16 Mins – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEXTgvbqx6s

Transcript:
(00:00) I’ve been selling software since I was 177 years old so that’s 27 years of sales experience I sold everything from entry level software to Enterprise deals to the largest companies in the fortune 5000 people like Proctor and Gamble do Foods Johnson and Johnson and many others I get asked every day about my sales experience and helping other entrepreneurs how to become great at sales I’m going to teach you everything I know about identifying qualifying setting enclosing people to purchase from you in a way that doesn’t freak you
(00:30) out I’ve read all the top books over a hundred different books on selling I’ve talked to all the top sales experts all the people you follow on YouTube they’re all friends of mine I’ve talked to them I understand their methodologies so without further explaining it this is 27 years of sales knowledge unpacked in as little time as possible sales is one of the most important skills to learn because everything you do from getting money from investors to hiring people to getting somebody to buy from you even having somebody help you out it sits on
(00:58) the other side of understanding how to get somebody to want to help you which is sales so now let’s move into what people get wrong about sales there’s a whole bucket of things that people do wrong when they’re selling first off they overpromise underd deliver what’ll happen if you have commission structure where it’s not tied to retention meaning the customer sticks around and or is happy then you’ll have a salesperson saying whatever they have to say to get the buy so for example when HubSpot it’s a popular software that a lot of
(01:24) companies use to manage their sales process when their sales people were overselling the software and then customer customers were upset they had to introduce a process where they measured the customer happiness after the sale and if the score was low it impacted the salesperson’s commission and it changed the way they sold so they stopped overselling that’s one thing the second problem is most of them don’t follow a process so they’re literally not properly trained don’t run through skills and drills they’re just shooting
(01:52) from their hip whatever works they keep doing it they don’t try something new they don’t ask people that are doing better them how they can be better they get somebody to buy but the person actually wasn’t ready to buy they just felt pressured to buy so they say yes and then the person cancels as soon as they hang up the phone see this all the time it’s like oh I had 17 sales it’s like no five of them refunded five of them cancelled did you actually get them to make a decision to buy they don’t do the takeaway clothes the takeaway
(02:18) clothes essentially somebody purchase and you say perfect super excited for you can’t wait to get you set up it’s going to be an amazing experience really going to solve these three problems that you talk to me about hey can I just ask you a simple question minus a Global Financial meltdown in the world is there any other reason that you might not move forward and get on your onboarding call or use our software whatever it is asking that question as a salesperson really locks in the commitment of the buyer most people mess up sales because
(02:41) they follow a script and they don’t realize it’s about having a talk track it’s not about just memorizing words and spitting them out because then the prospect doesn’t feel like you’re actually listening or understand what they’re saying they don’t write anything down they’re horrible at documenting the customer information so at each step of the sales process if you don’t catalog and do doent what was said to the previous rep then especially after you sell and the person starts the process they join your thing they buy your thing
(03:07) the person shows up at their house then they have to repeat everything that was said in the sales process where that’s where all the gold is and then the customer experience suffers because they have to repeat themselves versus the sales rep just taking 5 minutes after the call and logging everything that was said about their situation their team the names of the people the key issues they’re dealing with then when the person who’s in charge of onboarding that customer into the company it’s easy they’re like hey yeah talked to Bob and
(03:31) Bob told me you have these problems and based on your situation your Revenue should be this I just want to confirm all this stuff perfect here’s our plan here’s what we’re going to do they don’t follow up most of the fortunes are made in the followup most salese do not follow up they don’t know how to follow up if they do it it’s horrendous it’s just annoying people like are you ready just following up if you say just following up you lost the sale just so you know that language in any way shape email voicemail phone call stupid bad
(03:59) don’t do that it’s hey I was just thinking about you I was talking to this person and reminded me about this article I found just wanted to send it over see if it could be helpful just from the heels Circle back if there’s an opportunity for us to help you accelerate solving that problem faster let’s move into how to get your first customer your first customer should come from your immediate network of people you know and the best way to get them is just to ask people hey I’m selling this do you know anybody that might be
(04:23) interested the cool part is that if the person is interested they’ll say yeah me or if they’re not they’ll go oh my friend Bob so just ask asking people in your contacts in your network on social media I do this all the time I go on Facebook and I look through all of my friends on Facebook and ask myself would this person know somebody is this person in my market would they even have influence in somebody else and just ask them hey I’m now doing this do you know anybody might be interested the referral or the intro is one of the best way to
(04:47) find your first customers now let’s move into the three stages of sales the first one is to qualify if you think everybody could be a buyer then you’re already messing yourself up what I think to myself is what’s true about my best buyers who are the people to get most benefit what are the questions that would make it a yes or no if I even move forward so first off if I’m selling to other entrepreneurs and CEOs I’m going to ask them do you have your own business if the answer is no I don’t have to proceed qualifying is all about
(05:12) trying to figure out what questions filters out our conversations to either say this is a person that could buy this or this is a person that shouldn’t buy it and letting the people that shouldn’t move on as fast as possible here’s what you got to look for in a lead to decide if you qualify them or not you have to figure out what are you selling what’s the perfect type of buyer and what questions could I ask in what order of broad to narrow that gets me a yes or no to decide to move to the second question to the third question to the fourth
(05:38) question so it depends what you’re selling if you’re selling Fitness then you want to ask somebody is weight something that you struggle with is putting on muscle something that you struggle with so you need to figure out what are the questions that get you immediately not only to a qualifying scenario but also to a pain identification scenario right do you struggle to hit your numbers every month as if you’re selling to business owners if you’re selling furniture it’s like are you guys expanding your office right
(06:00) so like you have to ask a question that qualifies them are they even in the market or even self-aware that they have a problem cuz if they don’t trying to sell something to somebody that doesn’t even know they have a problem it’s wasted time the best way to get the most qualified people for your product is find out where those type of people hang out so if I know that the best type of person to buy something from me is part of this organization then I’m going to go figure out how do I get involved in that organization I might be able to add
(06:25) some value I might do some training I might come in and do a lunch and learn remember for example my brother was Selling Houses the first-time home buyers so he found out that a lot of people that worked in call centers were renting and many of them would probably want to buy a house and they could afford it because they had a great job at a call center so he offered to do a lunch and learn at these call centers so that they would bring him in to teach people how to buy a home why because the call center got people that have homes
(06:48) which are more dependable because they have a mortgage that they’re committed to than somebody that is renting it might be a little bit more flip-floppy on their job choices so was actually a perfect scenario where the company the call center wanted him to come in to teach them how to buy their first home so that when they were in Market they would reach out to him to sell a home to them which brings us to the second step in the sales process which is setting the sale the role of a Setter is to talk to the market and identify leads so it’s
(07:12) either inbound or outbound opportuni so they’re either creating Demand by going outbound and talking to a bunch of people cold or they’re Fielding inbound interests this could be email subscribers people fail an application people that follow on social media those are warmer they talk to those potential buyers and they qualify them to see if there’s an opportunity if they find people that have pain then they’re going to set that conversation up with somebody that can actually close them or a sales professional or sometimes called
(07:38) an account manager or a product specialist it’s kind of funny because a lot of time in sales they give the sales people cool name so it doesn’t scare away the buyer they’ll call it a strategy session a discovery call you name it in the sense that they talk to the potential buyer they make sure that they’re in Market that they have a problem that they want solved that they’re interested in having a conversation about your company solving it for them and then they take all that information they log all those notes and they hand
(08:02) that off as almost a package to The Next Step so that that person has all the ammunition they need to have a really productive conversation you know often times the setter has to meet certain criteria they have to say like what’s a five-star Prospect look like right do they have a problem do they know they have a problem do they want our help to solve it have they tried other things have we expressed that do they have a budget to buy are they currently feeling the pain is there been certain key areas that are painful that we’ve identified
(08:28) that we can hand over to The Next Step so that we make sure we have a productive conversation those are the key things the setter has to do to increase the speed of a sale most people don’t ask themselves what needs to be true before they hand over a buyer to somebody that can help them further and what happens is the person who’s selling spends a lot of time with unqualified people what you want to do is you want to pair those people together so there’s a feedback loop those are called pods so the setter is paired with a closer so
(08:56) that the closer can get feedback on the quality of those conversations so that they can improve Pro the process don’t send over leads that I’m going to have a hard time closing because then you might fill up my calendar with a bunch of people that weren’t ready and then I’m not talking to people that are ready so that’s the role of a Setter which brings us to the third step in the sales process which is to enroll them I call it enrolling and not closing because words matter when I’m closing I’m closing off the conversation one of the
(09:18) most important things that I teach my people that are sales professionals is that you need to service the sale so what most people do is they get in this high volume sales conversation and they never go back to talk to the people that they converted into buyers and those are honestly for great sales people if you want to increase your sales get referrals how do you get referrals ask for referrals most salese don’t go back to the buyers and ask them how their experience was and if there’s one or two other people just like them that they
(09:45) might be able to help with their service that alone will increase your sales volume by 30% most sales people are onto the next one onto the next one they don’t literally say how do I serve my account how do I show up and ask them questions how do I create more value for them after the sale the post sale process is more valuable than the current transaction that’s why I don’t like the word closers there’s five steps in the enrolling process step number one is control the frame this means that you have to have the conversation go in a
(10:13) way where you are in control of the conversation amateur salespeople easily get pushed off the kilter I’ve got on calls and I say what’s the price and they’re like oh it’s 32,000 have you ever work with this kind of customer and they’re like yes and I’m like cool all right I’ll Circle back if I have more questions and they’re like okay and then I hang out I’m like you’re an amateur salesperson the best frame is the doctor frame the doctor frame is I don’t know what is wrong with you it’s a diagnosis I’m going to ask you questions to help
(10:40) you if I can help you so when the person says like hey I need this medication or hey I got this pain you go cool is it okay if I ask you a few questions to see where you’re at so I can figure out what might be wrong with you to make sure that I prescribe the right product see at the end of the day prescribing without diagnosis is malpractice and that’s why a doctor frame from a sales point of view of trying to diagnose the sale is key A lot of people do a bunch of Consulting calls that aren’t sales calls and then they wonder why the
(11:07) person doesn’t buy at the end it’s because you gave away all the answers to the problem so you’ve released the pressure from the person number two is direct questions this is where you get permission you control the frame and then you ask very specific questions around the problem that the buyer has the key thing is is the buyer is going to choose if you’re an expert based on the quality of your questions and unfortunately most amateur salespeople aren’t maintaining high quality questions they’re asking very high level
(11:32) very broad very non-specific questions it doesn’t demonstrate to the person that you are an expert around the problem that you help people solve step number three is challenging beliefs see most people when they come to evaluate purchasing something they fall on the ends of one of two spectrums they’re either overly confident then they could figure this out on their own or they’re not confident at all and they feel like they got to do a bunch of stuff to get ready to actually purchase from you and it’s kind of fascinating to watch so
(11:58) when you challenge believes it’s either end if somebody’s so confident you have to ask them a question that gets them back to the middle of the buying Zone if somebody’s not confident you have to ask them a question that gets them confident to be ready to make a purchase so ensuring you challenge the questions so you can get them in the buying zone is going to be the key to get somebody to make a decision step number four is preh handling objection what you want to do is pull up all the objections earlier on
(12:22) in the conversation so they don’t show up at the end see amateur salespeople person’s like oh I don’t have the money or oh I need to check in with my business partner or oh I need to talk to my wife all of those are things you could have handled way sooner and that’s why we want to preh handle the objections through the question so ask them have you put a budget aside to solve this problem have you talked to your wife about purchasing this car have you already reviewed this with your team in regards to the different vendors have
(12:46) you bought software like this before in the past all those questions are going to help you preh handle the objection so they don’t show up at the end when you’re going to make the offer step number five is make the offer this is where a lot of people get a little weird at the point where they’re like okay I know this person has a problem I know we can help them they understand how it works all you have to do then is assume the sale the language the energy shouldn’t change as soon as I make the offer then I ask them what card do you
(13:12) want to put that on it’s not even are you ready to start did you want to schedule your initial call to kick things off on Thursday or Friday you give them an option this or that you never say are you ready to move forward you just assume they’re going to move forward and you do the this or that do you want to have the medium size or you want the large do you want to put the security cameras around the house or do you want to go just with the lawn version do you want to this or do you want to do that it also allows them to
(13:36) see themselves as a buyer they’re pre-framed the ownership do you want to buy two copies or 10 it sounds crazy but that is the best way to ask then the key thing is you have to follow up so the offer part isn’t just about making it it’s dealing with the objections and then following up because that’s where the real money’s made the real money is made in the followup but if you have a product that you can get somebody to make a decision on the call I would go for on the call so it saves you the step of having to follow up too often people
(14:03) are too easy to bend over it’s just like okay I’ll send you a proposal blah blah blah no don’t do that never do that and the key is if you have to go to another meeting I want you to Ban Fam it’s called book a meeting from a meeting so on the call you say yeah no problem I can send you the proposal let’s do this what would you like to see in The Proposal try to deal the objection make the offer ask for the deal again don’t do it schedule the call but book a meeting from a meeting schedule the call from that meeting to the next meeting
(14:31) this is next level okay this is where nobody teaches you this stuff say the words I’ve got you scheduled for Tuesday 8:00 same time I sent the calendar to your inbox can you check it and add it to your calendar boom they do could you do me a favor Mr buyer if for whatever reason something should come up could you do me the honor of texting me beforehand so I can fill that slot with somebody else that’s looking to talk about our product and if they say yes then you don’t have a no-show see the problem with booking a meeting from a
(14:55) meeting is if you don’t do this step then people aren’t going to show up and you just wait wasted your time and took that spot in your calendar here’s the bonus step and no sales people do this after the person has their first aha moment it could be their first call it could be after they see the finished product after they see the service done the first Milestone wherever in the process you have a moment where the buyer goes wow whatever that is in that moment that’s when you follow up and ask them is there one or two other people
(15:22) just like you that you think we could serve with our product or service that question will help increase 30% of sales people people’s quota it’s that simple because they’ll be like yeah actually my friend Lisa do you mind making an introduction to Lisa right now or do you mind if I reach out to Lisa and I use your name asking for a referral that’s what the best sales people in the world do they’re not about just getting a transaction done they’re about making sure that the person feels comfortable confident going forward after they
(15:47) receive a massive amount of value they Circle back they say how’s it been going do you mind if I ask if there’s anybody else just like you that I might be able to help with our product or service and that’s how you get massive amount of new revenue on top of the existing sales you already made that was 27 years of sales knowledge but if you want to learn my 15 Laws of Success click the link and I’ll see you on the other side