The Salesman.com Podcast

On this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Chris Beall explains the exact process to start a successful cold call and the mindset you need to be in to make it stick. Chris has led software start-ups as a founder or early-stage developer for the last 30 years. He is currently CEO of ConnectAndSell, and hosts a podcast which you can find at  MarketDominanceGuys.com. You'll learn: Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Chris Beall CEO of Connect And Sell Resources: Connectandsell.com Marketdominanceguys.com Chris on LinkedIn Book: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It Book: Sell without Selling Out Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the Salesman Podcast. On today's show, we're looking at the psychology of the perfect cold call with our guest Chris Beall. Chris has led software startups as a founder or early stage developer for the last 30 years. He's currently the CEO of ConnectAndSell and host a podcast, which you can find over at marketdominanceguys.com with that, Chris, welcome to the show.   Chris Beall: Hey Will, great to be here.   Cold Calling is Alive Again · [00:30]    Will Barron: I'm glad to have you on mate. So this is a, I think I'm going totally sidetracked from what I was going to talk about. We'll go down a different avenue for 30 seconds and then we'll get it back onto the psychology of the cold call, but it seems like it was in fashion two or three years ago, whether it's on social media, whether it's sales training, whatever it is to start to say, cold calling is nonsense, cold calling no longer works. People don't want to be cold called and obviously cold calling is effective when used in the right way, which we'll talk about in this show, but have you found that these conversations and these premises and these debates of whether cold calling is effective or not, it's kind of died down over the last 12 months. I really feel like that narrative has almost disappeared.   Chris Beall: Yeah, I think it has. Email is the thing that's gotten hammered over the last 12 months because COVID came along and I think the rational response to it was, well, let's send a million emails and the problem is a million emails create a lot of noise. And I think that's really what has driven a resurgence of interest in having conversations.   Most Salespeople Don’t Cold Call Because They Like Hiding Behind Emails · [01:34]    Will Barron: I agree. I agree. I feel like it's almost, well, it's not almost, it's definitely easier to spam crappy emails and hide behind your inbox than it is to do the hard work of using ConnectAndSell to make the [inaudible 00:01:47] easier I guess. But the actual calls itself is somewhat labour intensive. If you're doing it correctly, I think it's fair to say is brain intensive. You having to think, you're having to engage your conversational skills, you're having to do a little bit of work there as well. So I think it's people have leveraged some of these automated tools to hide behind email, whereas you can't really hide behind a cold call. Can you?   “Gresham's law of business communications says that bad money drives out good money. So counterfeit money drives good money out of circulation because people hide the good money. And I think noisy communication, cheap communication like email, the bad ones, the spammy ones, drive the good ones out of circulation. And so you have to switch to a different currency.” – Chris Beal · [02:17]    Chris Beall: No, you can't. It's kind of interesting, I call it Gresham's law of business communications, Gresham's law, most people probably don't know it. Hopefully they don't, but it says bad money drives out good. So counterfeit money drives good money out of circulation because people hide the good money. And I think noisy communication, cheap communication like email, the bad ones, the spammy ones, drive the good ones out of circulation. And so you have to switch to a different currency. And so I think that's, it's not so much hard work with ConnectAndSells an example, it's easy. You push a button and talk to somebody. How hard is that? But it's hard to bring yourself to push the button and that's rational because you're at that moment agreeing with yourself that you're going to ambush somebody and they're not going to like it.   Chris Beall: So now what? I think that's actually the hump we have to get over. Our fears peak around the fear of exile and in the environment of evolution in the village, exile was the worst. Exile was worse than death, always it has been in human society forever. And when we decide to ambush somebody and frighten them, annoy them, do something bad to them, we are actually risking something worse than death inside of our bodies. We feel it. And we don't want to push that button so that's the hard work. And then getting skilled at it is in a way, once you get over the first part, you can agree with yourself that you're going to develop the skills, but then the brain work is way inside your brain. The cortical stuff, where you're thinking, not worth very much in a cold call. There's not a lot of thinking to be done.   Chris Beall: I remember listening to Cherryl Turner who works at ConnectAndSell, she's perhaps the greatest cold caller in the world. Certainly the best I've ever heard. And when Helen and I, my fiance and I, were listening to her, as I mentioned in the pre-show, we're kind of nerdy, we do nerdy things. So we were just listening to a bunch of Cherryl conversations, because Helen is a big strategic seller. So she doesn't do any cold calling. And she said, “You know what's interesting? Is there are millisecond level emotional pivots that Cherryl uses in her cold calls even though the words stay the same.” That's the hard work.   People Don’t Like Being Cold Called So Don’t Waste Their Time · [04:35]    Will Barron: So I want to get into, we'll dive back into that. I made a note down here to come back to that later in the show Chris because I guess that's more advanced level stuff. Let's start from the foundational side of this and build our way back up to that. And you mentioned, and I don't know if you did this very specifically or if it was more kind of in passing, but you used specifically the word ambush and you were quite heavy handed in the way you were describing what happens most, not all the time, but most of the time when we make a dial to someone. Do you purposefully think about and almost teach and describe cold calling in that matter, in that way that you are ambushing someone to make it real for people when they are picking up the phone? Is there a reason why you use those words specifically?   Chris Beall: Yeah, there is. So first of all, when you dial, nothing happens most of the time, you end up up in their voicemail, which is, so what? Anybody can leave a voicemail, but when you get somebody and they answer, you've ambushed them, they made a mistake. They were not intending to speak with you. I mean, think about it, otherwise you wouldn't be cold calling them. It's just kind of simple math. So I use the word ambush to make it clear that the psychological beginning of the cold call for the other party is that they don't like it. And here's the point. It's not that, I'm not saying, hey, this is a big deal, steal yourself for it. What I'm really saying is, and we get into this in the psychology of the cold call. What I'm saying is that is a great place to start because it's predictable and because it lets you do something for this person immediately.   “A cold call is a great place to start because it's predictable and because it lets you do something for this person immediately. And if you can get in a relationship with somebody where you can do something useful for them, something emotionally useful for them as the very first thing you do within a relationship, you've got a pretty good chance of creating trust.” – Chris Beal · [06:02]    Chris Beall: And if you can get in a relationship with somebody where you can do something useful for them, something emotionally useful for them as the very first thing you do within a relationship, you've got a pretty good chance of creating trust. And so that's why I call it an ambush. Because one, it is an ambush. It really is. Let's face it. And two, until you face it, you can't behave correctly in the first seven seconds of the conversation. You don't have the right mindset for saying what you need to say, how you need to say it in these very, very delicate moments that are there for the taking. And if you blow it, you blown it. For the rest of your life, you've blown it. That relationship is not going to flower. Whereas if you do it right in that first seven seconds, as long as you never blow up, this person will trust you for the rest of their life.   Chris Beall: That's a pretty big pivot point in a relationship, but how do you get your head in the right place to know what to do? It's kind of saying, this will be for American baseball fans. If you want to play Major League Baseball, you have to be a will stand in there against a Major League curve ball, which appears to be coming right at you. If you don't admit that it feels like it's coming right at you, you'll be crashing to the ground and bailing out or you'll be bravely standing there to get hit by fast balls, one or the other. You got to recognise the situation as it is in order to be able to use that truth, the truth of the situation in order to do the right thing.   This is The Absolute Worst That Could Happen When You Cold Call Someone · [08:00]    Will Barron: Got it. I love it. And I love the way you're not glossing over this. Now I try and do this as our training as well because there's a lot of sales trainings out there that talk about tricks or hacks or ways to almost beat the psychological trauma, and I'm using that kind of, that's too strong a way to describe it. But there is an element of, oh crap. I am potentially annoying someone here when they immediately pick up the phone and a lot of people try and gloss over that. And I think if you just be realist about it, it makes it a lot easier because the flip side of that is even though you might annoy someone until you have an opportunity to add value, until you can build that relationship, until you can get the conversation going, which we'll get onto in a second, they can't climb down the phone and come out the other end and strangle you. The worst that can happen is they go, “Right, that person's an idiot, I'm not going to pick up their phone calls again.” Or you damage your personal brand slightly or the company's brand, but there's not that much on the line with regards to most cold calls, is there?   “The opportunity cost of a bad cold call is quite high.” – Chris Beal · [08:54]    Chris Beall: If there's not in a negative sense, there is in a positive sense. It's really interesting. The opportunity cost of a bad cold call is quite high. The cost, sort of the raw cost of a bad cold call in terms of your own emotions, maybe you'll have a difficult time getting over it or not kind of depends on who you are. Grandmothers don't have a problem with this. They can cold call all day long. Younger people who are not so sure of themselves and thinner skin and all that might have to recover a little bit from somebody saying whatever they say. But the fact is, once you deal with the facts, once you actually get into this, this is the fact and you get why it's important for you to recognise and I have got a simple analogy. So say you want to save people's lives because you have a steady hand, you've got a good mind, and a good heart and you want to be a surgeon, so you want to do heart surgery to save people because heart disease is a real big problem.   Chris Beall: So you dedicate your life to studying and understanding anatomy and physiology and maybe even go all the way to bed side manner to talk to the loved ones and all this kind of good stuff. But you faint at the sight of blood. You faint, you're out, you can't be a heart surgeon. You've got to recognise very early in your developmental process as a surgeon, this truth, which is, can you work through the site blood because there's always going to be blood?   Will Barron: I create that analogy is real for you Chris. My partner, [inaudible 00:10:23] and the regulars know, she's a doctor. First day of medical school, the cadavers on the table, chopping them up, cutting them to bits. They were given essentially hacksaws to hack off a limb each to take off to another part of the department and the whole point of that, she didn't realise it at the time, but discussing it after the fact and now she does a bit of teaching as well is to get the doctors or the medical students to cut a few of them out who perhaps aren't capable of handling that trauma. It is a bit weird chopping some dead person's limb off, straight out of college. You're some super nerd. You go for a load of box, the next thing you're hack sawing someone who's donated their body to medicine and science. And so, yeah. So that makes your analogy real because as I said, my Mrs has been through it.   “When people ask me what makes a good cold caller, number one is they have to be able to gain control of their voice in an emotionally difficult situation. It is emotionally difficult because you're ambushing somebody. Can you get your voice to work naturally in an unnatural situation? And if you can do that, you're great.” – Chris Beal · [11:16]    Chris Beall: Yeah. It's an incredibly important. When people ask me, what makes a good cold caller? Number one is they have to be able ultimately to gain control of their voice in an emotionally difficult situation. It is emotionally difficult, you're ambushing somebody. Can you get your voice to work naturally in an unnatural situation? And if you can do that, you're great. But if you faint at the sight of blood, that is you tighten up so much that you sound artificial and you listen to a lot of cold calls and people sound sing songy. They have this different voice, their sales voice, hi blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm whoever, whatever and you just kind of roll your eyes. And that's problematic and you can be trained to get used to the stress. That's actually what we do in this flight school thing is a little aeroplane I have on me here.   Chris Beall: We actually train people to be really, really good at keeping control of their voice in a natural way in the first seven seconds of the conversation. But you have to do it under pressure and no pressure. When you go from those cadavers to a live person, imagine the first time as a surgeon that you've got that scalpel in your hand and or you've got that you're going to crack somebody's chest open, you've got to feel pretty sick. That can't be good, but you've got to somehow be able to keep your emotions under control and behave naturally. Naturally in this case means smoothly. You can't have your hands shaking when you're going to cut somebody's chest open. It's just not good for them. And you also have to think this in cold calling, when you cold call, you're doing it for the other person.   Chris Beall: That's why you're doing it. You're not doing it for yourself. And my friend, Scott Webb who runs sales and growth and a bunch of stuff over at Hub International, he called me one day when he was going into a session using ConnectAndSell with his team blitz and coach session, he leads from the front. He does it himself. And he said, my mindset is wrong. I am going to go into each conversation feeling like I am stopping this person that I've never met from walking in front of a speeding bus. I'm going to save their life. And he went five for five, five meetings and five conversations called me up and said, that's the key.   The Mindset You Need For the Perfect Cold Call · [13:40]    Will Barron: How much of the psychology that we're talking about here, Chris, these metaphors, these analogies, these ways of changing our mental models I guess, the answer is it doesn't matter, but how much of it can be just nonsense and have a positive effect of literally your power isn't stopping anyone walk in front of a bus. But if he goes into a conversation with that mindset, he's going to be in a position of more likely to add value during the call, however you want to describe it. So how much of this needs to be real logical step by step and how much of it is kind of just shifting your mindset, whether it's actually true or not? Does that make sense? That wasn't a very good question, but feel like [crosstalk 00:14:39]   Chris Beall: No, it's a great question. Actually, I love this question because it comes to that intersection of technique which is step by step by step and who we are, what are we bringing to the party as ourselves? Ask anybody who plays competitive sports, especially I'll call it the exacting ones, the slow ones like golf. Golf is a great example of a very, very difficult game to play competitively. A lot of people can hit a golf ball in the range, very few people can hit one on the course and nobody can hit one in competition because it's just too hard to be natural when you're doing something that's slow and considered and has got technique and mindset working together in real time and that's what cold calling is. The seven seconds of a cold call are very similar to the amount of time it takes to set up to a golf ball, pull the club back and actually hit it.   Chris Beall: Yeah. A lot of things can go wrong technically, and then one big camp thing can go wrong emotionally, which is you get tight. When I get tight, I hit the ball left. I'm a natural right to left hitter, boom, there's somebody's house and that's what happens. So when I used to play more competitively, which I don't at all anymore, somehow I had to do something inside myself that said it's okay no matter what happens. That's hard. Cold calling we have to do attitude things, but then we need technique. And the technique is exacting. It is second by second. It's actually millisecond by millisecond and it has to do with the other person's psychology. I think a lot of folks who talk about cold calling deal with the rep psychology, the caller. I don't think the caller psychology is particularly important. Other than they've got to be confident that what they're offering is really valuable for this other person. Even if they never do business with them, that's really important. Everything else, no big deal. At that point, the technique becomes important because it's about someone else's mind. You're doing brain surgery on somebody and you've got seven seconds to get it done.   The Only Technique You Need For the Perfect Cold Call · [17:00]    Will Barron: So let's paint the picture then. Sam, the salesperson is selling a product that they know helps a specific prospect. We can narrow it down into a more succinct kind of metaphor if we like but he knows that they are able to help this individual. They've got data on it. They've got whatever it is. So they're in a really good mindset themselves. What do they need to do from a technique perspective assuming that again, they are confident, they're somewhat calm, they're chilled, they know that they can help this person if they can just get through this first seven seconds, they can book that next meeting. They know that when the prospect gets on a demo with them, it's wrapped up, it's sealed. This person's the perfect person to purchase from them and they're somewhat qualified, somehow they've pre-qualified them. What does Sam need to do in that first seven seconds? And how does Sam need to I guess preempt the buyer's psychology so that they can cater those seven seconds towards getting that next meeting booked in?   “The product you're selling is the meeting, not the product. So you have to believe in the potential value of the meeting for this individual, even in the downside case where you never do business together. So you have to know what's on offer in the meeting. What are they going to learn? That's the product. And I think the biggest mistake that most people make is they sell past the meeting. They sell the product as though the product is going to draw somebody in the meeting. It's not. Curiosity is going to draw somebody into a meeting.” – Chris Beall · [17:43]   Chris Beall: Well, I got lucky on this. So first a small point, the product you're selling is the meeting, not the product. So you have to believe in the potential value of the meeting for this individual, this human being, even in the downside case where you never do business together. So you have to know what's on offer in the meeting. What are they going to learn? That's the product. It's the universal product of B2B is the meeting. And I think the biggest mistake that most people make is they sell past the meeting. They sell the product as though the product is going to draw somebody in the meeting. It's not. Curiosity is going to draw somebody into a meeting. So if you look at the emotional journey and say, what about the first seven seconds? You have to know where the prospect starts. The prospect starts in fear.   “Where you need to take your prospect during a cold call is immediately to trust. From trust we want to take them to curiosity and from curiosity to verbal commitment, and eventually to action.” – Chris Beall · [18:26]   Chris Beall: They're afraid of you, the invisible stranger. You just ambushed them. We might call it annoyance or whatever. Trust me, it's fear. Where you need to take them is immediately to trust. From trust we want to take them to curiosity and from curiosity to commitment, verbal commitment, and eventually to action. So our big problem is how do we get from fear to trust. That one sounds impossible. Seems like we should go through a lot of steps, maybe go through value. I have value for you, blah, blah, blah. Turns out we don't need any of that. So Chris Voss actually taught me this, the author of Never Split the Difference. They nailed this in FBI land I guess with hostage negotiators. I asked him one night I was fortunate enough to be at a dinner with him. And I asked him, “How long do we have to get trust in a cold call?”   “The reason that cold calling actually can be allowed to work 100% of the time is you can show the other person you see the world through their eyes. And all you have to do is say this phrase correctly, with the right heart, then it works. You say, “I know I'm an interruption.” Not something soft like, “Oh, I do believe I might well be interrupting your day.” Or any of the crap that people want to say. Take full accountability for being the ambusher, see the world through their eyes.” – Chris Beal · [19:38]    Chris Beall: And he says, “Seven seconds.” Oh okay, our research says eight seconds. He says, “Your research is wrong. It's seven seconds.” That's interesting. So what do we need to do in those seven seconds? He said, “Oh, that's easy, all we have to do is show this other party, we see the world through their eyes. We call it tactical empathy. And then we need to demonstrate to them we're competent to solve a problem they have right now.” And I said, “Well, isn't the problem they have right now me.?” And he said, “Bingo, that's why you're in control.” So the reason that cold calling actually can be allowed to work 100% of the time is 100% of the time, you can show that other person you see the world through their eyes. And all you have to do is say something like this. I happen to like this particular phrase, it's easy to learn. It's hard to emit. But if you can get to the point of saying this correctly, with the right heart, then it works.   Chris Beall: You say, “I know I'm an interruption.” Not something soft like, “Oh, I do believe I might well be interrupting your day.” Or any of the crap that people want to say. Take full accountability for being the ambusher, see the world through their eyes. That's easy. Except it's hard to say, because we've been told don't be bad. Don't be the bad person ever since we were little tiny children. We have a baby in the family now, not Helen and me, but her daughter. And that baby is already being told by her parents who are wonderful people. But every once in a while, don't do this, don't do that. That's what we get told growing up.   Chris Beall: The main thing we hear is don't be bad. Don't be that bad person. Don't be a bad kid. We're told this, I don't know. I tried to count it once, I figure by the time you become old enough to cold call, you've probably been told half a million times, stop being bad. And now you've got to go and agree to be bad. The bad thing, not even a bad act, but you have to agree, you are a bad thing. You are the problem. Get over that and learn how to say, “I know I'm an interruption.” Hammering the word, no. And then being clear about the interruption part and your voice is hard and flat. And then you've got to switch your voice to playful and curious so that you can offer a solution to the problem, which is you. You're the problem.   Chris Beall: This person has one goal in life at this point, to get off this call with their self-image intact, that's their goal. Isn't that great? You know somebody else's goal. It's fantastic. Offer to help them. So how to help them? Simple exchange. Ask them a question of fact in a playful, curious voice. We know the answer, by the way, they can certainly spare 27 seconds they answered the phone. So offer a simple deal. “Can I have 27 seconds?” As the voice goes up, playful, “To tell you why I called?” Little chuckle helps, “Can I have 27 seconds to tell you why I called?” And then you've offered a solution to the problem they have which is you. At that point, they will trust you for the rest of their life. As long as you don't blow it, how do you blow it? Try to sell to them, turn into a salesperson, then you'll blow it. That is, you've just gone from being the worst thing, an ambushing invisible stranger to a new thing, which is a trusted human being. You're way up on the hierarchy at this point, then you can go to the second least trusted profession in the world by trying to sell to them, or you can offer them the opportunity to be curious about something, better path.   How to Sell Without Selling Out · [22:50]    Will Barron: I feel like a good diagram this out in a really simple frame work. Does this, hey, I understand the situation that you're in. So in this instance, the situation is that I'm annoying you, but later on in the sales process, it'll be a different situation whether you've identified that pain points or whatever it is, here is how I can help you solve the solution. Let's solve the solution. Could this feedback loop happen not just from the first seven seconds but towards the three months of the deal cycle that we're working on. Can we just do this over and over and over and sum up a lot of B2B sales as this three step framework?   “Curiosity within a trust framework is the most powerful thing that leads to good end states. The good end state in a sales situation, well, there's two. One is you decide not to move forward together. So you save a bunch of time. And the other is you decide to take another step.” – Chris Beall · [23:55]    Chris Beall: Yes. I believe this is the framework. I think Andy Paul just wrote a book at which he made clear that this is the framework. His book is Sell Without Selling Out and he offers a four step framework or a four pillar framework of connecting with somebody which is important so you actually connect with them oddly enough, when you ambushed them, it's a funny connection, but it's a connection. So then the question is sort of, well, what's next? And his next is curiosity, which I agree with deeply. So that cycle of connection and curiosity, curiosity within a trust framework is the most powerful thing that leads to good end states, because the good end state in a sales situation, well, there's two. One is you decide not to move forward together. So you save a bunch of time. And the other is you decide to take another step.   Chris Beall: Why does somebody want to take another step? Well, they trust you a little bit more than they trust themselves for making that decision because you're the specialist, you're the salesperson. You know what you know, they're the generalist and they're risking their career. So they've got to trust you more than somebody and that somebody happens to be themselves. So the threshold for the next step is always from the buyer's perspective. Do I trust this person, the seller, more than I trust myself with regard to the decision as to whether we should take a next step? That cycle runs forever. And as long as then, your curiosity allows you to go all the way to understanding and then to generosity, you actually offer something in the next step, you have a cycle that goes on forever. I think Andy Paul has nailed it and I've read the book now twice in the last four weeks. I'm now listening to it. I think that's it. I think that's the great, that's like the circle of life out of Lion King or something, it's that simple.   The Best Salespeople Have a Sales Process · [25:45]    Will Barron: Love it. I love it. All our training, Chris, if you're not familiar is all down to these step by step simple frameworks. That's all we teach because I feel like a lot of sales get over complicated especially when we're talking about enterprise, the complex sale, the long sale, the consultative selling. So I love it when we can break it down as succinctly as that. And we had Andy on the show maybe last week, last Monday, I think it was to cover all this. So the audience will hopefully have heard that before the end of this episode.   Chris Beall: Yeah, so I mean, Andy's been right all along. He brings an engineer's perspective to something that requires engineering thinking, but about stuff that people don't normally think about in engineering fashion, which is what's going on inside that person? And what is a simple driver? Who are you as a salesperson? You're somebody who can help somebody. Why? Because you're a specialist, you represent a specialist capability. Companies are specialists, they do one thing, they don't do everything, it would be ridiculous to do everything. So the specialist comes to offer the opportunity to be helpful to the generalist who might need that specialisation. That's actually at the core of B2B sales. Once you recognise that it's well, at this time, can this person be helped by learning more about what we specialise in? That is, should we take that next step? It's very natural at some point for that to become commercial because otherwise it's imbalanced. Somebody's got to pay at some point, but that's not the big deal. The big deal isn't the transaction. Transactions I think are in modern sales are actually completely irrelevant except in the negative. When you have a salesperson who has had enough time to have a bunch of transactions and they haven't, that's a very lagging indicator that you should have paid attention to something earlier.   How to Handle Sales Objections During a Cold Call · [27:10]    Will Barron: Yeah, that makes sense. Two things I want to get into, one, what do we do if, heaven forbid we get an objection at this, can I have 27 seconds of your time kind of pivotal moment in this cold call. I'm sure there's only three sales objections ever come out at this point, just reworded and rebranded in different ways. But is there any specific pathway we should take at that point? Is there anything we should specifically say? Because I know that the audience listening to this now will be thinking, well, what if, which might be the wrong mindset to have altogether. The correct mindset might be to let's do this 50 times and see how it works but I'll cut off their objection before they kind of throw it our way. What happens if or how do we deal with that objection at that critical moment of the conversation?   Chris Beall: Sure. Well preemptively, what you do is you go from scarcity to abundance. That's our business is we'll take you from conversation scarcity to conversation abundance. And so it gives you the option of just going, oh, okay, talk to you later. And that actually is a pretty good answer when somebody says, “No, I don't have the time.” It's “Great. I'll give you a call later.” That actually works quite well. Push a button now, three minutes later, you talk to somebody else, but make sure you put them on your follow up list and have this conversation. So I got to look at my watch to see what the date is, Wednesday the 23rd. So the conversation would be this when you get them on the phone again, say a week later or whatever. Say, “Hey, when we spoke back on the 23rd, you didn't have time for a conversation. You were walking into a meeting.” Or whatever they told you, whatever the objection is, just play it back to them and ask them, “Is now a better time to talk?”   “You can blow the trust you built in the first seven seconds by insisting that somebody who says they don't have time for you make time. That's the dumbest thing in the world to do, but people do it. Sales people do it out of a scarcity mindset.” – Chris Beall · [29:08]   Chris Beall: It's one of those straight things, asking is now a good time to talk is incredibly ineffective. But the comparative asking them, “Is now a better time to talk?” Is very easy. It's got to be a better time last time. Well, they didn't have time to talk. Now they might say “No, actually blah, blah, blah, I'm doing whatever.” But now you're in a trust relationship and this is part of the don't blow it. You can blow the trust you built in the first seven seconds by insisting that somebody who says they don't have time for you to take time. That's the dumbest thing in the world to do, but people do it. Sales people do it out of a scarcity mindset.   “Once you have abundance, you can be relaxed. And once you're relaxed, then your calls will be good.” – Chris Beall · [30:08]    Chris Beall: Well, what if I don't get them again? Pat Lynch, who is the chief of, a sales enablement officer or something like that, a life person, maybe he's a VP, I think of him as a chief, good friend of mine lives here in [inaudible 00:29:38] actually with us in our neighbourhood. He watched my reps once in Denver for a whole day. I left the office, when we used to have an office, I'd left just to have him observe and tell me something. And at the end of the day, he said, “That rep over there, just let a CEO go without any effort to keep him on the phone. I don't understand it.” And I said, “Well, Jordan, why'd you do that?” And he says, “Because I can push a button and talk to somebody else.” So that's number one is once you have abundance, you can be relaxed.   Chris Beall: And once you're relaxed, then that's good. However, if somebody is kind of indicating that they want to talk a little bit and they want to talk about whether they have 27 seconds, you always get to just say this, which is they're giving you the 27 seconds, they're talking. So you may as well just tell them why you called. And at that point, just tell them why you called. I mean, it's a simple trade. They're not going to stop you. So there's not that many ways that somebody is going to say, “I don't have have 27 seconds.” Why did you answer the phone? Don't argue with them. It's just in your head. You know damn well they had 27 seconds. Does anybody answer the phone when they don't have 27 seconds? It's insane. That's a crazy proposition. That's like, oh, I answered the phone, but I actually only have four seconds.   Chris Beall: Well, what if this had been somebody calling to say, “By the way, I'm, I'm holding a check here with your name on it for $2,372,147 and I'd like to know where to send it.” You you'll have 27 seconds telling them your address. So clearly they have 27 seconds. So you could just go ahead and say, you tell me, “Gosh, I don't Chris but I'm really busy.” It's fantastic. I would say, “Well, I believe we've discovered a breakthrough.” And then tell them what your breakthrough is. Just takes 17, 18 seconds and now you've fulfilled your promise and you did it in less than 27 seconds so now you've actually done a piece of psychological magic. You made a promise and you kept a promise. Whoa, and you did it all within the 17 seconds that follow the first seven seconds. And it's a really easy formulation, but it's hard to say.   Chris Beall: I have reps all the time go, “I can't say I have a breakthrough.” It's, well, why are you in business? What? Really? Your company doesn't have any breakthroughs. You leave your customers stuck behind the problem they have now rather than breaking through and being able to progress. That doesn't make sense. Of course you have a breakthrough. Let's come up with simple language so you can say that. Why? Because we're just trying to get somebody curious enough to take a meeting for their own good. That's all we're trying to do. Relax. I believe we've discovered a breakthrough. That completely eliminates the waste and the frustration that keeps your best sales reps from being effective on the phone or even using the phone at all. And the reason I reached out is to get 15 minutes on your calendar to share this breakthrough with you. That took 17 seconds. And I told you why I called.   “The prospect’s problem during a cold call is getting off this call with their self-image intact. That is their problem. That problem will never change, all the way up to the end of the call. That's their only problem, so your job is to help them solve their problem.” – Chris Beall · [33:40]    Chris Beall: And they might say, now here's the objection, the worst objection, here's a bad objection. This objection is so bad I have to warn people about it. It's be ready for this one they'll say, “What? Tell me more.” That's a hideous objection. I call it the Venus fly trap. Because what it does is lures you the rep into holding the meeting that you're trying to sell. So you're under selling a meeting, you're basically saying, oh this is such cheap crap in this meeting that I can tell it to you right now when I ambushed you. It's like what? That makes no sense. Nobody's waiting for somebody to ambush them and tell them how to do their job. It's insulting. What they're looking for is another way to solve their problem. The prospect problem still is getting off this call with their self-image intact.   Chris Beall: That is their problem. That problem will never change. That's it. All the way up to the end of the call. That's their only problem. Help them as Andy Paul says to solve their problem. Well, how do I help them? I make a trade, 27 seconds, I tell them why I called. Now what? Well, I've got a little extra time and I sincerely believe that this meeting's good for them. “Okay, do you happen to have your calendar available?” Question of fact set in a playful, curious voice, not asking them to do anything. No matter what they say, you pretty much say something on the order of, “I'm a morning person, how's your Thursday. I'll send you something, we'll move it around.”   “You don't have to choke somebody to death in order to get them to verbally agree to a meeting.” – Chris Beall · [34:25]   Chris Beall: You don't have to choke somebody to death in order to get them to verbally agree to a meeting. You don't, you can just, you know the meeting's good, modern calendaring allows you to shoot a calendar invite to somebody it goes on their calendar. And in fact, 55% of the time that they're going to show up no matter what you said, and reminders and all that help, but you're going to have to talk to them again anyway, and that's fine. We call this psychologically a connect and so going from if to when. If is really hard. That's a decision, when is really easy. There's a lot of time in the future. We're going to talk it sometime. We're going to meet.   The Number One Mistake Salespeople Make During a Cold Call · [35:10]    Will Barron: Love it. Love it. The big thing here. So I'm going to break down this episode and if [inaudible 00:35:13] said, I'm going to add some extra notes in the show notes to this episode over salesman.org for people to follow along with. So there's that, but something that I don't, you slightly glossed over it because clearly you've said it a million times and it's part of your vernacular. But this idea of just not blowing it is so important because I've had so many from email specific, no one has my phone number. So no one calls or calls me. I don't give it to anyone. You cannot get my number. It does not exist on the internet, any database. All of the people I've add on from different kind of database organisations have tried to get my number. In fact, there was an open bounty a couple of years ago of I'll give you two grand, $2,000 if you can cold call me on my phone. I've only got one work phone.   Will Barron: So I guess that still stands. I've not touched on that in a while. But with that said, I get cold emails all of the time. And the first one I ignore most of the time, because I'm busy. Just my inbox is so full, I just delete stuff. The second one I'll be, okay, well, maybe this sort of to this, I'll read it. Then there'll be the third or the fourth, and at that point, I'm going okay, maybe I should just jump on the call with this individual because hopefully they've demonstrated, they understand what we do, our business, there's some kind of unique insight in there, it's been personalised, perhaps have shared some content I clicked on and was relevant, whatever it is. But then the fifth to sixth email, they blow it.   Will Barron: They do some kind of breakup email or there's some weirdness to it or you can sense a little bit of them going, oh [inaudible 00:36:41] if you're not going to reply to me, I'll end it [crosstalk 00:36:45] before you get to end it. And so I love this idea of just don't blow it because especially with cold calls, you're trying to catch one when they pick up the phone. So that knocks your success rate of connecting down immediately versus an email can be found a day later, a week later, an hour later, wherever it is. So you're already slightly on the back foot with it. Then you use tools like what you have at ConnectAndSell which kind of magnify and increase your ability to get those [inaudible 00:37:12] in, get the people on the phone, which is amazing, but then just be polite and don't blow it.   Will Barron: Because you might have called them at exactly the wrong time. The dogs just got run over, something just happened at work. They literally can't speak because there's a flood in the building and they're trying to deal with it and they thought that you were the plumber and you came with them a few days later, a week later, a month later, whatever it is. And eventually as long as you are polite, I don't know about you Chris but I find that that wears down on me as our company's tiny, I've got tiny budgets to spend, but we do spend money on B2B products and services. And if a salesperson connects with me whether it be via typically a meeting, an email, then a Zoom call, whatever it is. And it's not the right time to do a deal right now, eventually is the right time.   Will Barron: And that's the person I seek out to do business with. So this isn't great when you've got, you're behind quota and you work for a crappy company that's not helping you with marketing leads and your out bounds not going well and you don't have connected sell. You don't have dialling software and you're struggling. This is not the advice that you want to hear at that point when you're on the verge of being sucked and you attained your quota, but for anyone who's doing all right, this idea of just don't blow it and you stay in the same sales role for two to five years, you just keep going along and building that momentum and building that list of people who know I can trust you from afar via cold call and via your personalised emails, via maybe time, a little bit of content creation or content curation if your customers are on LinkedIn or wherever it is, and engage with them there, the events as and kind of conferences as that kind of opens up again, all of this in my experience build up into to 18 months, two years later, you start absolutely crushing your quota and you're doing less work than all the people who are working late and “hustling” because you just built that momentum over time by not blowing it. I know I'm just throwing a lot at you there, but is there something to say for that strategy?   Chris Beall: Yeah. I mean, it's everything. For one thing, 11/12ths of your ideal market is not in market this quarter for your offering because the replacement cycle for B2B products is about three years. So last I checked they were 12 quotas in three years. Therefore only in one of those quotas, 1/12th is your ideal market, somebody is perfect actually in market for your product. So right there, you've got to relax and go, oh, not market this quota so maybe I should talk to them next quota. Now, one of the funny things is about ConnectAndSell about cold calling in general is you actually curate a sub list of people who do answer the phone, where you can have that trust relationship built in seven seconds because you have access to their mid brain at 20,000 bits a second.   Chris Beall: And you're smart. You don't let people have access to your mid brain at 20,000 bits a second. You make them come in through 5,000 bit emails that you can choose to pay attention to or not. And so, okay, I'll call it you're structurally defended, you have a good castle, but people who have to answer the phone in their business or do it by habit like me like to do it because I think talking to people's fun, those people are opening up their mid brain, their decision centres to a 20,000 bit per second flow of potentially psychologically compelling information coming in through their ears. They can't do anything about that. There's nothing they can, nor should they by the way. But if you blow it by trying to go, oh, here's what, I have two goals, one to get you to trust me. The other is to get you to buy something. You're kind of screwed. You got to choose one goal at a time.   “If you are a rock climber or a mountaineer, looking at the summit doesn't get you to the summit, dreaming about the summit doesn't get you to the summit. You have to do the movement in front of you, and you have to do it in a way that you're fairly unlikely to fall off.” – Chris Bealll · [40:58]   Chris Beall: I'm an old rock climber mountaineer. It's an idea in climbing that's really clear looking at the summit doesn't get you to the summit, dreaming about the summit doesn't get you to the summit. You have to do the move in front of you. You have to do the move in front of you and you have to do it in a way that you're fairly unlikely to fall off. That's problematic in climbing it turns out. So it's the same thing. You get to do the move in front of you and you have to do it in a way where you're unlikely to fall off. That is not be trusted anymore. Here's what folks don't get. And this is why I have a podcast. If you get somebody in a situation where as a result of how you interact, they trust you and you don't blow it, you've actually sealed off the market against all competitors with regard to that information or that particular offer for all time because somebody else coming in has now got to displace that trust. And if you try to displace trust that somebody has in someone else, you will not be trusted so they'll blow it.   Will Barron: Got it, got it. I love it.   “You can pave the market with trust and harvest it at your leisure. And your leisure is three years, in general is three years. Your prospect’s readiness is never going to be in the past. It's always going to be in the future. So what are you doing about the future? Well, number one, don't blow it. Number one, just don't blow it.” – Chris Beall · [42:02]   Chris Beall: You can pave the market with trust and harvest it at your leisure. And your leisure is three years, in general is three years. And that 18 months you talked about that is generally the tipping point where you stop working and you feel like you're just having these nice conversations that wow, suddenly they're ready. That's of course their readiness is never going to be in the past. It's always going to be in the future. So what are you doing about the future? Well, number one, don't blow it. Number one, just don't blow it.   Parting Thoughts · [42:50]   Will Barron: Got it. Well, with that Chris, I'll stay on it, I'd love to have you back on to dive into this deeper. I feel like I've only scratched the surface of your brain mate, on some of the things we can pull out on this idea of cold calling and don't blow it, that in its own is super valuable takeaway for the audience. And with that mate, take us through ConnectAndSell, what you do over there, where we can find out more and then tell us about the podcast as well.   Chris Beall: Sure. I mean, ConnectAndSell is super simply push a button and talk to somebody on your list. We do everything else, including navigating phone systems, talking to gatekeepers, hanging up on voicemail. You don't have to do anything. You just push, talk. We do by the way, this thing called an intensive test drive, that's a free full day of production. It's a lot of fun and it's kind of a lottery ticket. Sometimes folks make a million bucks or two. Sometimes they just have a bunch of conversations. You can find out about ConnectAndSell obviously at connectandsell.com where there's a bunch of information, none of which is relevant because the only thing that counts is what does it feel like to go this fast and that's the test drive. And if you really want to kind of go deep on all these psychological concepts, so how to dominate eight markets with the human voice and how to get 14 times more of your emails open because you talk to somebody first, go to marketdominanceguys.com and see if you can wade through Corey, Frank and I talking endlessly.   Will Barron: Amazing stuff. Well, to all that in the show note to this episode and more welcome diagrams and some illustrations about what Chris has shared with us in the share notes over at salesman.org and with that Chris, thank you for your time, your insights on this mate, I really enjoyed the conversation and for joining us on the Salesman Podcast.   Chris Beall: Thanks.

Don’t be fooled—excelling in sales isn’t about having the right talents. Instead, it takes work to develop the skills you need to crush it. In this video, I’m taking you through the four most important skills in sales that, once developed, will skyrocket you to an entirely new realm of success. Now before we get started, tell me, does this sound familiar? “He’s a born salesman.” “She’s truly a natural.” “What I wouldn’t give for their talents.” If you’ve been on a sales floor for more than a year, you’ve probably heard one of these phrases uttered around the cubicles. Someone, usually a high performer, makes their job look easy. Hitting their numbers, bringing on new buyers like ants to a picnic. And they rarely, if ever, look like they’re even breaking a sweat. As a result, their colleagues think they’ve got some god-given talent. That they’re a natural sales rep. But the truth is, that’s bullshit. Sure, some people are born with a leg up over others. But to be truly successful in sales, you’ve got to be a master of four skills. And sorry to break it to you, these aren’t skills you’re born with. They’ve got to be developed. The natural-born sales rep myth is a crock. And if you really, I mean really want to push your earning potential, excel professionally, and become the best damn sales rep you can be, then you’ve got to get great at these four sales skills. 1. Understanding the Market You can’t even hope to achieve any sort of sales success without first understanding your market. Who are you selling to? What pain points are they experiencing? And how can you best cater your messaging to start speaking their language? Understanding the market is foundational. And to do it correctly, you need to have a hold on two things in particular: the buyer’s journey and value proposition. A) Buyer’s Journey So, let’s first talk about the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is essentially the steps your buyer will take on their way to purchasing your product. A high-level look at a buyer’s journey would look like this: The Awareness stage comes first, and this is when the buyer is first learning about their problem. Next up is Consideration where they’re weighing the pros and cons of different solutions. And finally is Decision, where (surprise, surprise) they’re finally making their decision. Now, each market is going to have a slightly different buyer’s journey. And each buyer is going to make their way through that journey a little bit differently. It’s your job to understand that unique buyer’s journey and guide prospects through it effectively. Now there’s a lot more to learn here, but one of the best tips I have for this is making it about the prospect. Jeff Koser, CEO at Selling to Zebras, explained the benefit to me in an interview: “They don't care about your product, they care about themselves. And they have to. It's their job. That's why there's such a fundamental difference between the buying journey that a prospect wants to go down versus a sales cycle that most salespeople try to conduct. And by shifting to pain, business issues, and value, you're actually making more of the shift to the buyer's journey that they want to participate in.” B) Value Proposition But not just any value proposition. One that’s built based on your buyer’s unique needs, pain points, and end goals. A value proposition, as you likely know, is what sets your product apart from the competition—what makes buying from you so much more beneficial than buying from the other guys. There’s a lot of research that goes into crafting the right value proposition—the wording, the delivery, the specific perks and features. And when you master how to deliver yours, you’re going to find it far easier to attract the right buyers and turn them into enthusiastic customers. 2. Getting in Front of Buyers A perfect product and a perfect pitch only get you so far. To truly succeed in sales, you need to know how to bring in buyers. Because if you can’t, you’ll be selling a perfect product to… well, no one. Getting in front of buyers requires adept skills in two areas in particular—sales cadences and cold outreach. C) Cadences When it comes down to it, sales is a numbers game. For every X prospects you reach out to, Y will actually be interested in your product. And the better you are at fine-tuning your equations to maximize interested prospects, the more successful you’ll be in this position. The trick is knowing how and when to reach out to prospects. On the one hand, you’ll be able to fine-tune your cadences over months and years of experience. What techniques work? What schedule amplifies response rates? But on the other, you can also take a page or two from the books of other sales professionals through training courses. Industries usually differ a bit in buyers’ journeys but when to reach out to them tends to be the same in every business. So be cognizant of that when you’re looking for ways to up your sales game. Another invaluable skill in getting in front of buyers is… D) Cold Outreach Nobody likes “bothering” people when they’re trying to get work done. But the truth is, every successful sales rep needs to know how to conduct cold outreach campaigns if they ever want to make it in this business. Cold outreach is vital in sales. More important in some ways than other skills in fact. As Vice President of Sales at Cardone Enterprises Jarrod Glandt told me: “I would rather have a salesperson that could get in the door and create an opportunity in the first place, than somebody who sucks on the front side of it but is average at the end.” Email, cold calling, social selling—it all plays a vital role in bringing in new leads. And if you develop your skills and build a sophisticated strategy involving each of these methods, you’ll be well on your way to earning a healthy income. 3. Explaining the Value How do you get prospects on board? Not just during your initial discovery calls? But throughout the sales cycle? It all comes down to explaining the value. What can you do for them that they have no chance of being able to accomplish on their own? That’s where this skill comes in handy. And to excel at it, you need to be able to Diagnose, Demo, and Close. E) Diagnose One of the most important skills for all sales reps to master, or if only to start taking seriously, is lead qualification. Is the prospect you’re talking to actually a fit for your product or service? Is their problem closely aligned with the value of your product? And do they seem like they’re motivated to make a purchase decision sooner rather than later? Spending just a bit more time on diagnosing your prospect’s problem and weeding out the bad buyers from the good ones is one of the best ways to cut down on your work time, maximize your efficiency, and prevent a whole lot of wasted time down the line. F) Demo Your product’s got the specs. It’s got the benefits. And it’s got the interested (if not enamored) eyes of your buyer. But in order to clinch the deal, you’ve got to prove your mettle. You’ve got to show that your product really is everything it’s cracked up to be. And that means conducting a demo. Mastering your demo skills is a great way to showcase the true value of what you’re selling. And when you conduct it in an effective, repeatable way, you can rest easy knowing your exciting new lead is sure to sign on and give you their business soon after. G) Close Closing is a bit of a fickle beast. Because when it comes to money and when it comes to crunch time, people can fall back on promises. They can make erratic decisions. And they can choose against their own best interests, even when their perfect solution is staring them in the face. The best closers will be able to navigate all these unique variabilities to ensure the most successful outcomes. We actually have a very specific framework built for this stage of the sales cycle specifically. And just to hint at what’s contained there, the trick is continuously closing rather than building it all up for the end of the buyer’s journey. But that’s all I’ll say here. For more on that subject, be sure to subscribe and check out our other videos on Salesman.org. One thing I will say is if you want to close more deals, make it about the buyer as much as possible. Author, speaker, and founder of The Daily Sales Daniel Disney summed it up well when he told me: “If you want to close deals, if you want to win business, make it about them. It's not about you. It doesn't matter how great your product is. What is it going to do for them? Do your research on them, give them as many good examples of how it's helped similar people, but make it 100% about them.” 4. Developing the Right Mindset Now, there’s not a whole lot I can say about this skill. Because the topic is way bigger than this short video allows. But essentially, you need to be able to cultivate the right mindset if you want to implement the skills we’ve talked about up until this point. You can have the knowledge, you can have the systems, and you can have the experience. But if you want to truly crush it in sales, you need to be able to come to the table each day with the mindset of a winner. One that can stay resolute in their processes, dedicated to their goals, and passionately determined to improve, to succeed, and to grow every single day. Now if you want to see if you have the mindset it takes to succeed, go ahead and click on over to the SalesCode Assessment linked to in the description of this video. With it, you’ll join more than 10,000 other sales professionals who took just a few minutes to find out if they have what it takes to kill it at sales and what areas in particular they need to work on. Because mindset truly is key to success, especially in sales. Now, I’m going to sum things up with one quote I love from my interview with founder of Sales Success Media, Scott Ingram: “The mindsets are the foundation. It all starts with that. You can have the best relationships in the world, but if your head isn't right and you're not in the game, it's not going to matter.” Summary Well that about wraps it up for this video! Remember, if you want to crush it in sales, you really need to focus on four specific skills – Understanding the market. Getting in front of buyers. Explaining the value. Developing the right mindset. With enough talent, skill, and work in each of these areas, you’ll be well on your way to closing more, earning more, and feeling a greater level of professional satisfaction than you could ever dream of. And in the end, isn’t that what everyone wants in life?

Asking the right questions builds rapport, influences buyers, and seals deals like gangbusters. But asking the wrong questions is sinking your sales numbers like a 20-ton anchor. In this video, we look at five stupid sales questions that are costing you sales and cutting your chances of closing off at the knees. Now, qualifying leads and closing prospects are without a doubt two of the hardest parts of being a sales rep. Do you agree? If so, you’re in good company. HubSpot found that 61% of reps reported lead qualification was their biggest challenge and 36% said it was closing. But part of the difficulty in both cases is not knowing the right questions to ask. Questions let you identify whether your prospect’s problem is one you can solve. They uncover hidden motivations that’ll help you craft a perfect pitch. And they aid in spotting who’s an ideal client and who is going to be a major pain in the ass. But the problem is asking the wrong questions leads to sunk sales. Bad questions make you look like an idiot, a conman, or just a waste of your lead’s time. And even if you have the most groundbreaking, world-shatteringly amazing product in the universe, a single crappy question in your process will leave you struggling to meet your goals every month. But don’t worry, I’m going to help you avoid that completely by pointing out these five worst questions you can ask in sales. Now, I’m also working on a follow-up video where I tackle the five most powerful sales questions successful reps ask buyers. So be sure to subscribe and keep an eye on this channel so you don’t miss it. But for now, let’s get into the bad questions you should avoid asking prospects with every fiber of your being. Here we go! 1: “Can I Give You My Pitch?” Just hearing this one should make your neck hairs stand on end. First off, don’t call it a pitch for god’s sake. Nobody actually wants to be pitched, especially when it comes to sales. But beyond that, the very structure of this question is setting you up for a troublesome power dynamic. Can you see why? You’re asking for permission here. Doing so pushes the psychology and dynamic of the conversation towards the lead having all the power. They are the ones granting you permission. They are the ones who are so generously donating you their time. In reality, the best sales relationships stem from a place of equality. You are bringing real, tangible value to the table. And the buyer is exchanging that value for money. So don’t ever, ever forget—you and the buyer are equals. So remember to act like it 2: “Can You Tell Me About What You Do?” This one’s a bit tricky, partly because so many people ask this question, especially online. And it’s easy to see why—it’s seen as a solid conversation starter. I mean, who doesn’t love talking about themselves? The problem here is this question is a real value suck. You are getting all the benefit here. And though people do like talking about their business, their time is also precious. They likely don’t want to spend it on explaining their job. On top of all that, asking the question also indicates one huge red flag—you didn’t do your research beforehand. Instead, take a minute to look up their profession beforehand. And glean insights about their day-to-day from other value-based questions like the ones we’ll be talking about in our later video—don’t forget to subscribe for those by the way! 3: “But…?” That’s it. One little word. But using that little word in sales conversations can lead to big consequences. Simply put, this word is the start of an argument. And that’s tough. Because it’s a verbal slip so tiny that most reps don’t give saying it another thought. But the word by its very nature is meant to draw contrast. It’s acknowledging your buyer’s previous point and saying, “Here’s why you’re wrong.” In the heat of sales, emotions can run high. And when you’re talking money specifically, both reps and buyers are going to be quicker to react than in normal talks. So rather than test the limits with this word, try to cut it from your vocabulary entirely. Instead, acknowledge their point and just move on to your point without drawing a contrast. 4: “So You’re Saying You Can’t Afford This?” Even in the more logic-based world of B2B sales, emotions like pride can still factor into making deals. And when you frame the question like this—where you’re attributing the low budget to the buyer themselves—it’s going to get them to go on the defensive. And to an even larger point, insulting the company as a whole—even if it is just implied—is never a good way to do business. Instead, try using subtler language when trying to determine if price is the biggest obstacle. Ask, “Is price your biggest sticking point here?” or “Do you currently have the budget for this?” But remember, there’s always money to be found in large companies. Usually it just comes down to an issue of budget reallocation. 5: “When Should I Call You Back to Follow Up?” This one again comes down to simple reframing. Putting the fate of the follow-up in the hands of the buyer is a mistake. People forget. They lose track of time. And their priorities shift over the course of days, even hours. That’s why it’s so so so important to close on the next step yourself. Frame the question so that you determine their level of buy-in while weeding out any objections. A lot to do in one question, right? Here, you should take a page from the Selling Made Simple Academy’s Closing Framework. Rather than saying, “When should I call you back to follow up?” instead try… A: “Does It Make Sense to Jump on Another Call?” The “Does it make sense to…” question intro is fantastic for solidifying commitment from the buyer. But the beauty of it is that if there is an objection, maybe they’re not sure if your product is right for them, then you can follow up with… B: “What Do We Need to Do to Move This Forward?” They’ll then tell you verbatim what’s holding them back from moving to the next step. And you can address those objections now rather than dealing with them later. And that’s going to save you tons of time and hassle down the road. Summary There you go! Five downright terrible questions you should never ask in sales… “Can I give you my pitch?” “Can you tell me about what you do?” “But…?” “So you’re saying you can’t afford this?” “when should I call you back to follow up?” In this business, it’s all about knowing what to say and what not to say. And if you avoid these five questions like grim death, then you’ll be one—or five—steps closer to making more sales and boosting your numbers.

Among all the challenges sales reps face day in and day out, closing is often said to be the hardest to manage. And it’s true—being an effective closer is key to killing it in this industry. But there’s more to closing than most reps think. And there are ways to make closing easier, more effective, and less of a stressful debacle. Today we’re covering how to stop selling and start closing. It’s just one more invaluable sales skill that, once mastered, will secure your success throughout your entire career. Now, let’s get real here. For a lot of reps, asking for the sale sucks. Most Sellers Hate Closing Think about it for a sec—how do you feel about it? If you’re like nearly forty percent of reps out there, it’s probably the hardest part of your job. The stress, the awkwardness, the potential for weeks of work going down the drain if you’re hit with a “No.” Ugh. But the problem is a lot of reps go about this stage all wrong. They try to close on leads at the end of the sales process rather than throughout it. They’re trying to say all the magic words to get their buyer onboard without checking in at each stage of their journey. They’re selling when they should be closing. And closing continuously. Now don’t worry—if this is all sounding a bit out-there and you aren’t sure what this looks like in practice, I’ve got your back. This blog dives into exactly how to start continuously closing in the real world. Before we get into the how of continuously closing, let’s first look at the why. Why should you switch up your closing process at all? Well, there are three reasons in particular. First… A) It Keeps Everyone on Track There’s often a disconnect between buyers and sellers on exactly where they’re at in the sales process. Are they highly motivated to purchase, even before the day’s out? Or are they just testing the waters? And what comes next if they agree to a call? When you close continuously, everyone knows where they are, what stage is next, and what’s to come later. B) No Value Is Delivered With Maybes A sale has value when your buyer agrees to a purchase—duh, that’s the point. But it also has value with a “no.” After all, a no means you get a better idea of the buyer’s objections. Whether or not they’re truly qualified. And, of course, a no also frees up your time to concentrate on other, better leads. But maybes are time-wasters. They suck up hours of the day, even weeks in some industries. And if by the end of it all there’s no deal, that’s just energy that could be spent elsewhere. But when you’re continuously closing, you’re sussing out exactly where the buyer stands. Forcing a yes or no. And eliminating maybes altogether. C) When You Close, You Win Confused leads don’t buy. They string you along for ages and, eventually, drop you like a bad habit. And when you aren’t closing throughout the sales process, your prospects won’t know exactly what step of the sales process they’re in. They’ll be confused. But when you practice continuous closing, you avoid that confusion altogether. And in the end, that means you win. So now, let’s dive into the how of it all. How do you stop selling and start closing? Well, the first step is to… 1) Always-Be-Closing Always be closing. Yeah yeah, we’ve all heard the famous line before. “A, always. B, be. C, closing”… “coffee is for closers”… what rep with an ounce of cinematic taste hasn’t seen Glengarry Glenn Ross at least three times? But what does the ABC of selling look like in practice? For one thing, you should always be closing at minimum at the end of every interaction. Friendly interaction with a new lead? Schedule a discovery call before the convo’s done. Just finished a discovery call? Close the next step by booking a demo. Demo gone great? Set up a time to chat about sales objections and the finer details. Do not—I repeat—do not leave it to the prospect to take the lead here. If you let them get out of a conversation without booking the next step, you’ve just plummeted the chances of moving forward tenfold. Now, you should also be closing within the conversation, not just at the end. Here’s what that might look like in practice. You may say… “So it seems like you’re interested in X feature. Does it make sense that I show you how it’ll interface with your business?” Or maybe… “Does it make sense that [objection] isn’t a concern anymore?” When you close within conversations, you’re gaining mini commitments along the way that keep everyone on the same page and boost rapport at the same time. And in fact, these examples bring us nicely to our next point because they use a very key piece of language. Did you catch it? This simple phrase is vital to the last point we’re talking about today… 2) The Closing Framework The Closing Framework makes closing continuously or “micro closing” incredibly simple. All you have to do is ask… “Does it make sense to…” That’s it. “Does it make sense to… get on the phone and see if we’re a fit.” “Does it make sense to set up an in-person demo?” “Does it make sense to start talking numbers?” The way this question works is it makes micro-closing a collaborative process. You’re showing that you care about whether you and the buyer are on the same page. As President of People First Productivity Solutions Deb Calvert told me in our interview: “The fastest, quickest way to get away from that being perceived as a pushy salesperson who just wants to reach into my pocket, is that you've asked me a question, or you've somehow demonstrated that you care about me and you're interested in where I want to go and what's important to me.”  And it works because it… Relieves pressure from the buyer who’s probably expecting overly aggressive old-school closing tactics. It updates the buyer on where they are in the buying process and lets them know what to expect next. And… It forces the buyer to think logically about moving forward rather than emotionally on what could be at stake. Is this really a fit after all? Now, ideally they’re going to respond with a hearty “YES!” But as we all know, buyers will always have objections. So what happens when they say it doesn’t make sense to move forward? Also simple—you get to the bottom of why. Why doesn’t this make sense right now? Why aren’t they interested in moving to the next step? And in practice, the best way of doing so looks like this: “That’s okay, what would be a good next step to move things forward?” Essentially, what do you need for this to be a winner on your end? The best thing here is you don’t have to be a mind reader. Instead, they’ll literally tell you what’s holding them back. Their objections, their unclear value understanding, their timeline—whatever. And with that information, you can further assess if the buyer is a good fit, if your product meets their needs, and what objections you need to address before closing the deal. It doesn’t get much simpler. And it’s a proven method for driving more sales and crushing your quota.

As a sales rep, it’s your job to convince the buyer that you’ve got the solution to their problems. But how exactly do you get a sales lead from the point of zero product awareness to enthusiastic buyer? Today we’re talking about perhaps the most foundational of all sales techniques—how to convince a customer to buy from you. And stay tuned. We have a lot more to talk about than you might think! Selling Mind Control The crooked smile. The slicked-back hair. The patchy sports coat. We’ve all seen the old caricature of a sales rep before. You know the type—the one who’d step over their own mother just to close a deal. They’re one part charmer and two parts swindler. But we in the sales industry know that grifting a lead into buying a shoddy product is worse than just bad business. It poisons your reputation. Kills any chance at repeat customers. And decimates your earning potential. Instead, a truly successful sales rep knows value-based selling is the way to go. This form of selling prioritizes the buyer's needs. And instead of pitching them on a product at every stage of the buyer’s journey, this type of rep does their best to offer value stage by stage. They assess the situation, identify the problem, determine if they have a solution, and then (and only then) will they start closing the deal. But even after picking out the perfect solution, they still need to convince the buyer they have exactly what they’ve been looking for. Now, there are plenty of ways to approach this pivotal moment, the pitch. Some dig deep into emotions, others focus purely on logic. But over my career, I’ve found that a mix of the two is by far the most effective. Today, I’m showing you my proven four-step process for convincing customers to buy from you. And with it, you’ll be able to turn even the toughest sells into enthusiastic brand evangelists in no time flat. Ready? Let’s do this. 1: Understand Where The Buyer Is If you’ve been doing things right up until this point—you know, researching the business, investigating pain points, asking about past solutions they’ve used, etc.—then you should already have a pretty good idea of the problem your buyer is facing. What you need to do here is call it out. Call out the, say, inefficient teams they’ve been dealing with. Or the frustrating accounting system that no one quite understands. Or a lack of engaged customers. Bring it all up in the pitch with your buyer. Get them to think, “This guy really understands what I’m going through.” But don’t stop there. The trick is not to just point out the pain. But to take it one step further by getting the lead to feel that pain. Founder of the MEDDICC sales framework Andy Whyte put it to me like this in our interview: “Now, implicating the pain is the one that really elite sellers do. Where it's like, I've found some pain, I've quantified it, but now I'm going to really make you feel it.”  How are those problems impacting their work-life? Their opportunities for advancement? Their respect they get around the office? What are those pains doing to hurt their reputation? Their finances? Their sense of fulfillment? Hit those points and hit them hard. 2: Point Out the Barriers Similar to picking out the pain points, this step also builds rapport and gets the buyer thinking, “Man, he knows his stuff!” What is it that’s holding the buyer back from solving this problem on their own? In most cases, the barriers fall into four different categories: Selection overwhelm, confirmation bias, blowback risk, and cost of change. Let’s take a look at each. A) Selection Overwhelm Now, selection overwhelm is a big one. In almost any industry, you’re going to have competitors. And sometimes, it’ll be a lot of competitors. If a prospect hasn’t solved their problem yet because they see so many potential solutions but don’t know which to choose, that’s selection overwhelm. Your job up to this point should have been to differentiate your product enough to make it clear why you stand out from the rest. B) Confirmation Bias Confirmation bias. This bias is essentially our tendency to stick with our past decisions and look past its faults rather than work with something new. C) Blowback Risk Blowback risk, which is the risk of your potential buyer looking stupid if things don’t work out. The solution to this barrier is your brand, reputation, reviews, case studies, etc. D) Cost of Change Cost of change. Now there will always be costs to implementing a new solution. But if you can make your buyer’s job as easy as possible, say by providing complimentary training or free support for a year, then you can help them overcome this barrier. So during your pitch, you should pick out which barrier your prospect has been hitting in the past. And then later in step #4, we’re going to loop back and show them how you tear that barrier down. 3: Paint a Picture of Where They Want to Be What does life look like after your buyer’s found the right solution? Are they more productive? Is their team more efficient? Are they happier? Do they sleep better at night? Really try to paint a clear picture of what their life could be like with the right solution. And try to cover a broad spectrum of effects—how has their productivity changed? How has their home life changed? How has their career trajectory changed? Now obviously, you’ll want to make this picture as positive as you can. But it’s important to be authentic here. Don’t promise them a new reality that your product can’t create. Upgraded accounting software can do wonders for your bookkeeping but saying it’ll give your buyer a six-pack, 7-figure salary, and a perfect head of hair isn’t going to fool anyone. The point here is to get them connecting the solution to their problem with a brighter, happier future. 4: Establish Yourself as the Guide Remember those barriers to a happier life we talked about in step #2? Well now it’s time to bring in the details on how you help buyers overcome those barriers. If they’ve been held back by selection overwhelm, hit them with your core differentiators. Confirmation bias? Show them how your solution outperforms what they have now. Blowback risk? Case studies and testimonials. Cost of change? Throw in free onboarding or even an immediate discount to reduce the risk. But ultimately, explain that you are the connection between their current reality—with all its pain points and frustrations—and the glowing future reality we painted a picture of before. You can get them there. They just need to let you lead the way.

Communication—it’s a delicate art when talking with potential buyers. Ask the right questions, you’re driving enthusiasm and closing successfully. But ask the wrong ones and you’re sabotaging deals and looking like a fool doing it. That’s why in this video, we’re covering the 5 most powerful sales questions. From discovery calls a d demos to closing like a champ, these questions are guaranteed to skyrocket your numbers and catapult you well past your quotas. Best Selling Questions, Ever Now before we get started, think about it for a sec—are you asking prospects the right questions? I’m not just talking about when you first connect or on discovery calls here. But instead, the right questions throughout the entire sales process. See, asking bad questions sinks sales. It makes you look like an idiot. It scares off picture-perfect buyers. And it leaves leads thinking, “Why would I ever want to work with that guy?” Now, I covered the top five sales-sinking questions in a previous video. And if you haven’t already seen it, go give it a look when you finish this video. But what are the good questions? The ones that dig into the heart of your buyer’s pain points? That uncover the real problems they’re facing? That are built to quickly qualify prospects while driving enthusiasm, building rapport, and nudging the right leads ever closer to saying “YES!”? That’s exactly what I’m covering in today’s video. So if you’re ready to start asking the right questions throughout your sales process, let’s jump right in. Now, first up, like I said, is perhaps the most powerful sales question you can ever learn. And you’ll be surprised at just how simple it is. 1) “Does It Make Sense to…?” That’s it? That’s it! “Does it make sense to…?” This questions is straight out of the Closing Framework from inside Selling Made Simple Academy. What’s so great about this question is that it makes selling a collaborative process. Rather than going for a hard push to buy or even to set up a call, you’re getting input from the buyer. Are they ready to move forward? And if not, you get the opportunity to ask, “What’s holding you back?” You can then deal with any objections or sticking points directly rather than uncover them further down the sales process. Now, this question isn’t just for when it comes time to close the deal. Instead, it can be used throughout the entire process. From setting up discovery calls and demos to getting into pricing and going over the finer details. The point here is that this question… Relieves buyer pressure and lets them know you aren’t going to hit them with aggressive sales tactics… Keeps them updated on where you’re at in the sales process and which steps are next. And it… Forces the buyer to think logically about whether they’re a fit or if they have objections. I’m going to be going into greater detail on how this question works in an upcoming video. So if you haven’t already, hit that subscribe button now so you don’t miss it. Now, let’s look at the next set of powerful questions. These next four questions come directly from The Diagnose Framework, which is particularly perfect for discovery calls, demos, sales calls, and everything in between. And we’re going to start with this question… 2) “What’s Stopping You From Solving This Issue Yourself?” There are two benefits specifically to asking this question. On the one hand, you’re qualifying the prospect. If they can solve the problem themselves, then they’re not going to value your solution as much as it deserves. And that can cause issues down the road. On top of that, this question will also uncover any hidden obstacles that make it clear this lead just isn’t a fit. But secondly, this question makes the value that you offer real. What’s holding you back from solving this issue? Well we can overcome that obstacle. And we can provide tangible, often quantifiable value that you can’t get on your own. Qualifying power with a hint of driving enthusiasm. Perfect. 3) “When Do You Want to Solve This Pain?” Timeline is such an important part of the qualification process. Do they need their problem solved sooner than you’re able to roll out your solution? If so, this isn’t a good fit. And conversely, are they looking to solve this problem two, three years down the line? If that’s the case, they likely aren’t motivated enough to draw up a contract now, and they may just be fishing for information (let marketing handle that). But this question also opens up the conversation on what the buyer should expect too. How long does your solution take to implement? What’s the onboarding and training process like? And is that within their time window? If not, they can self-qualify themselves out, making things easier on you today. 4) “What Is Your Motivation to Make This Happen?” Now, this one is especially clever in my opinion. Because beyond just learning more about what factors are driving your prospect’s decision-making, this one question also does wonders for connecting with your buyer’s emotions. President and CEO of Whetstone Inc., Adrian Davis, put it to me like this: “Fundamentally, we make decisions emotionally, and if all we're doing is spouting features and benefits, we're really engaging the logical part of the brain. The logical part of the brain does not make decisions. But analyses and captures information to weigh pros and cons, but decisions are made emotionally.” – Interview with Adrian Davis, President & CEO of Whetstone Inc. What are the factors that are driving your buyer’s need to get this done? Is it just the numbers? Or is there company status, respect, and even on-the-job fulfillment involved too? If you take the time to dig a bit, I guarantee you’ll find there’s much more to the story than just logic. And when you engage that side too, you’ll find yourself closing more deals than ever. 5) “If We Can Solve X, Will You Commit to Y?”  Now, it should be noted here that this question should follow some sort of qualifying affirmation. Usually I pair it with, “You’re a good fit for us” first. But essentially the value here is this: You’re in the business of exchanging value. The buyer pays for your product. And in return, they get a solution to their problem. This question makes that even exchange of value clear. They aren’t doing you any favors by buying your product just as you aren’t doing them any by selling to them. Instead, you’re coming to this deal on equal footing. This helps reinforce the fact that this should be a reciprocal relationship rather than a one-sided one. And it’s designed to create the foundation for an equal, dare I say synergistic, relationship. Summary And there you have it—the five most powerful sales questions you can ask buyers. When you add these questions to your arsenal, and when you train yourself to ask them naturally, you’re bound to start closing more sales, building rapport, and sailing through the sales process easier than ever before. It’s just plain smarter selling.

We’ve all seen the glamorous toys rich people buy—the luxury cars, the decked-out jewelry, the quintuple decker yachts. But what about the things rich people buy to grow their wealth? To become richer? That’s what we’re looking at today—the top 6 things rich people buy that poor people don’t. And if you’re looking for a way to invest in yourself, you’d better stick around. Get Rich Quick? Wealth is a funny thing. Some people are born into it. Others fall ass-backward into millions. And some people, on paper, look like they should be rich someday… but end up paupered, penniless, and pissed at the world around them. Making and spending money wisely is tricky. And a misunderstanding about what you should and shouldn’t be buying to grow your wealth is one of the biggest differences between the rich and the poor. Which investments pay off? What purchases lay the groundwork for future success? And how can you tell the difference between an asset that expands your financial empire and one that brings it crashing down? These aren’t easy questions. Hell, if they were, everyone would be rolling in dough. But today, we’re pulling back the curtain and looking at six things in particular rich people buy and poor people don’t. From physical items to organizations and yep, even ideas, we’re tackling it all. Now, let’s give it a look. 1: Training The best asset you’ll ever have is your own abilities. And the more you invest in bettering yourself—we’re talking mind, body, and spirit here—the better earning potential you’ll have. Reading and consuming valuable, educational material is key here. The most successful people, for example, consume books and audiobooks ravenously. And if you’re not reading at least 10 pages a day, sorry to say it, you’re simply not doing enough. But books and written content are just the start. And you can only learn so much by reading the static words on a page. That’s why rich people also tend to invest in training programs. Ones that provide interactive deep dives into the topics. Ones that cover skills and strategies using different media like whiteboards and video. And ones that give you the opportunity to engage with (and pick the brains of) real-life experts. It's that type of learning experience that I modeled the Selling Made Simple Academy after. All-in-one sales training, in-depth mentoring, proven success—it’s got it all. And on top of all that, if you can sell, you can do anything. So developing this invaluable skill should be at the top of your list. 2: Businesses Now don’t worry, this one isn’t as out of reach as you might think. One of the best ways of expanding wealth is by purchasing a successful business. Businesses are revenue-generating machines. And with a business that’s already well-managed, you don’t have to put in any work to keep them earning money while you sleep. It’s why business acquisition is one of the go-to investments for people with lots of money to burn. But for those with a little less expendable income, there’s always investing in the stock market. Buying shares in companies with strong track records can dramatically scale your wealth if you’ve got an eye for the market. And with the right investments, you can create a surprisingly substantial passive income stream from dividends alone. 3: Audience Whether you’re selling physical products or services, there’s one thing that’s common across any industry—people. You need people to buy what you’re selling if you want to make a profit. And the savviest professionals know that spending their money on increasing their audience is a fantastic way to boost future income. Now, you can’t directly buy sales opportunities (at least not ones that’ll actually pan out). But what you can do is invest in indirectly increasing your audience. For example, you can purchase equipment that’ll increase the production value of your webinars. You can invest in marketing your upcoming event. You can hire on help for producing valuable and educational content you use to grow your LinkedIn network. There are tons of ways for you to invest in growing your audience. And the more you do, the more you’ll be growing your earning potential. 4: Precious Metals The markets these days are a bit, shall we say… sporadic. With everything going on in the world around us, your portfolio could be bringing in a return of 5% one day and getting hit with a 10% loss the next. That’s why so many of the wealthy invest in precious metals that hold their value. These are super stable investments, unlike erratic Bitcoin or NFTs. When the market goes down, their value stays steady as a rock because they have actual, physical value. Sure, clever investors still hang on to some super risky stocks and assets in case they pay off. But the majority of their portfolios are super safe to offset the downsides of riskier investments. 5: Intellectual Property Rich people grow their wealth by owning a variety of ideas, systems, or other protected IPs. This could include ideas like a system for expanding your online audience, creative works like unique characters, music, or art, or patents for inventions. Now, a smart investor will grow their wealth by licensing these assets out to others and collecting royalties or licensing fees. For example, Salesman.org uses its own custom illustrated character designs. I can license these character designs out to another training company for some extra income. Or I can even hire a writing team and illustrator to create a comic featuring those characters to further expand my audience. See how that works? 6: Appearance Boosters Now I’m not talking about stupid designer clothes, diamond-encrusted watchbands, and plastic surgery. Instead, I’m talking about smart, straightforward items that enhance your appearance so you can do business better. See, first impressions matter, especially when it comes to business. And if you show up to a sales deal wearing a stained T-shirt, there’s no way in hell anyone’s going to want to work with you. That’s why it’s so important to buy items that imply success. “Imply” is the key word here. Because going too far the other direction (like buying over-the-top flashy outfits and jewelry) makes it seem like you’re not serious. For example, I wear an Omega Seamaster watch to meetings. It’s a fantastic watch. And it shows that I’ve had a bit of success. But it isn’t so decked out in jewels that it could blind a prospect if it catches the light wrong. Look successful. But don’t risk coming off as unprofessional along the way. Summary So there you have it! Six things rich people buy that the poor don’t. These are all savvy investments that the cleverest wealth-growers consistently use to boost their earning potential even higher. So focus on these assets instead of wasting away your income on the flashy cars or luxury clothes. Because when you do, you can rest easy knowing you’re truly investing in your future. Not just buying a bit of bling that won’t earn you a single cent.

On this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Jon Picoult explains how to turn your customers into raving, lifelong fans and what effect this has on the number of deals you'll close this year. Jon is the founder of Watermark Consulting and author of “From Impressed To Obsessed”. Coming soon. Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Jon Picoult Author: From Impressed To Obsessed Transcript: Coming soon.

Success isn’t fated. It’s forged. You just have to have the right qualities to make that success a reality. Using data from more than 10,000 participants who’ve taken our SalesCode assessment, this video covers 15 traits of particularly high performers. And best of all, you can cultivate and develop each of these traits yourself. Are you built to win? We first created the SalesCode assessment as a learning tool for future-minded reps. What were their strengths? Where could they use some improvement? And what did they need to focus on to take their sales skills to the next level? Since its initial launch, more than 10,000 sales professionals have completed the assessment. And while it’s definitely served its original purpose, this enormous chunk of data also opened up the door to something unexpected. With it, we could actually identify the key traits that high performers had in common. Now, there were some outliers of course. But in general, the best of the best outperformed the average rabble on each of these 15 traits. And these weren’t “born with it or without it traits” either. They were skills, mindsets, and processes that anyone could cultivate. From the awkward first-year intern to the seasoned professional looking to climb the corporate ladder. So today, I thought I’d share those 15 traits we discovered after analyzing our SalesCode assessment data. And hopefully, doing so will give you a clearer roadmap to which skills you can cultivate to boost your sales success. Sound good? Let’s jump in. I’ve organized the 15 qualities into 3 distinct trait types—beliefs, actions, and sales skills. And the first trait type we’re talking about is… A) Beliefs Beliefs. These are the ideas and qualities that underpin everything these individuals do, how they look at the world (and themselves) as a whole. And trait number one is… Comfortable Talking About Money Businesses run on money. And high performers recognized that conversations about money are a given in sales. Rather than clamming up, beating around the bush, or getting defensive, these individuals approached money conversations like just any other step in the sales process Extroverted They’re energized by conversations. And they’re curious about other people. While this one can be hard to “learn” on your own, there are plenty of strategies introverts can take to increase their extroversion too. The point is, a “people person” tended to fare better in sales than those who abhorred social contact. Optimistic Outlook They have an optimistic outlook on life. While high performers weren’t necessarily blinded by their optimism, they did tend to see the silver linings and hope for the best. Optimism in sales is crucial because it keeps you energized to go out there, do the hard work of prospecting, and stick to your cadences. It also has the added benefit of building rapport and enthusiasm in buyers too. Solid Self-Esteem It takes a lot of confidence to approach a cold prospect. And it takes a healthy self-esteem to withstand the hangups and no’s of those who aren’t interested. The best performing reps need to have a solid self-worth to excel in this industry. Personal Accountability They hold themselves accountable. High performers know that they make their own success. They make mistakes, sure. Who doesn’t? But they take ownership of those mistakes. And they know that doing so is the only way to learn and get better at what they do. B) Actions Actions. What do these successful people do? How do they spend their time? And how do they handle interacting with others? The first trait here is… NOT a people pleaser There are some industries where it pays to be a suckup. Sales is not one of them. High performers know how to get on a buyer’s good side. But they also know when to push an issue and give an assertive “no.” When it comes to sales, nice guys finish last. High emotional intelligence Emotional intelligence is a rep’s ability to 1.) control their own emotions and 2.) respond effectively to the emotions of others. High emotional intelligence makes it easier to manage buyers, connect with prospects, and build rapport. And no surprise here—high performers had more developed emotional intelligence skills too. Assertive Knowing what needs to be done and executing on that knowledge is the best way to close deals and avoid future hassles. In the world of sales, being assertive means being able to bring up issues before they turn into serious problems, turning down buyers that aren’t a great fit, and, of course, asking for the sale. It’s no wonder this is one of the most common qualities among high performers. Strong goal setting Sales is a numbers game. And the better you are at setting, tracking, and achieving those goals on time, the more of a high performer you’ll be. Productivity Success in sales isn’t for the lazy. You need to be self-disciplined enough to hit the ground running every day and keep that momentum going and going. High performers will be pros at using productivity strategies like creating task lists for the next day, having dedicated focus periods, and confining distracting tasks to certain points throughout the day. And the last trait type we identified was… C) Sales Skills  Believe it or not, you’ve got to have sales skills if you’re going to be good at skills. Who knew, right? And that means being good at… Objection Handling Buyers are going to have objections to purchasing your product. That’s not the problem. The problem is how you handle those objections. High performers come to pitches with answers ready to a prospect’s major concerns. And The best ones also know how to turn an objection into an opportunity for building enthusiasm. Influence Sales isn’t just about the product you’re hawking. It’s also about the subtle things you can do to demonstrate your expertise and influence their decision. High performers do exceptionally well at showing their authority. And as a result, they can sway their success rates in their favor. Industry Expert Similar to the last point, high performers appear knowledgeable, confident, and influential. More than just talking the talk during a pitch, they’ve built up dedicated media presences on sites like LinkedIn. They put out regular and insightful content. And that brings potential buyers to their doors. Storytelling Storytelling is an essential component for tapping into the emotions of the buyer. And when it’s incorporated into the pitch, it drives success rates through the roof. High performers are exceptional storytellers. And they know when and where to use their skill to its fullest. Negotiations Negotiations are tense. Hell, anything money-related tends to be tense. But high performers know exactly how to handle these situations effectively. And because of their adept skills in this department, both parties, the seller and the buyer, always leave negotiations happy. Summary So there you have it! 15 traits of particularly high performers, taken straight from data gathered from 10,000 sales professionals. And if you’d like to see which of these sales success traits that you have, then this link to grab your free SalesCode assessment. It will show you the traits that you have, those that you don’t and it’ll even give you feedback on your overall strengths, weaknesses and how you can improve your chances of success, . It’s free, takes 10 minutes to complete and it might change your life. And don’t forget—anyone can cultivate and develop each of these traits for themselves, no matter their level of experience or what kinds of skills they have today. All it takes is persistence, hard work, and of course, some quality sales training.    

If you have a good handle on what you’re doing, sales can end up being an incredibly lucrative career. But how do you get started? How do you get your foot in the door? What a lot of people don’t know is that you don’t have to have direct sales experience to land a quality sales rep position. All you have to do is follow the four tips in this video on how to get a sales job with zero experience under your belt. Your Dream Sales Job You need to master a lot of different skills to excel at sales. On the technical side of things, managing a wide range of sales enablement technologies is key to closing more deals in less time. CRMs, prospecting tools, video conferencing and demo software—these are all par for the course in lots of sales positions. But the technical stuff can all be learned on the job. The other skills, the soft skills, the people skills, and the self-discipline—these are the real underpinnings of sales success. And if you can cultivate these skills before landing your first sales role, you’re going to move up the ladder and boost your earning potential much quicker. Best of all, you don’t have to have a background in sales to get into the industry. All you need is a bit of tenacity, some hard work, and a strategic approach to impressing employers. In this video, I’m pointing out four ways you can get your foot in the sales door without having any experience in the biz. This video is meant specifically for newcomers to the field. But even seasoned reps can apply these principles (especially numbers three and four) in order to advance their careers even further. Alright, enough chit-chat. Let’s dive into the four tips. 1: Show How Your Existing Skills Are Applicable First up is showing how your existing skills are applicable. No one is a completely blank slate. And you might be surprised just how much your past experiences, both professional and personal, can go a long way towards making you seem more hirable for a sales role. For example, have you ever worked in retail? If so, you’ve probably had to deal with lots of face-to-face customers, both friendly and off-putting. To be successful in a position like that, you’ve got to have some decent people skills and at least some degree of emotional intelligence. Both these qualities can do wonders for improving your ability to sell on the job. Or maybe a past employer offered a service that required a lot of door-to-door cold calling. A summer job like this is great for building up resilience to rejection, which happens quite a bit in sales. Put these experiences and skills on your resume. A knowledgeable sales manager will understand just how valuable they can be. Tip number two is where the real hard work begins… 2: Be Happy to Work From the Bottom Up Be happy to work from the bottom up. Sales isn’t like other departments. If you’re in HR or IT, for example, climbing the corporate ladder is all about seniority. Who’s been there the longest? And have they put in enough time in the department to warrant a raise? With sales though, a lot of your progression speed depends on skills. What do your numbers look like? How hungry are you? And how well can you do your job? That’s why it’s so important to be willing to work from the bottom up. Even if you start in a regular old sales development role, with enough hard work on your part, you can be in a surprisingly decent account executive role in as little as six months. And that’s when you can really start scaling your income. So don’t brush off the “lower” roles—they can be a fantastic launchpad for the rest of your career. 3: Increase Your Visibility Increasing your visibility. Salespeople need to be seen as subject matter experts if they’re ever going to win big. And that means putting out plenty of thought leadership content to demonstrate that expertise. Platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter are great for this. The better your content is, the more it’ll get shown to potential buyers in your chosen industry. And you can use those connections as leverage when applying for a sales position. For instance, say you’ve been writing valuable content about accounting software, and you’ve built up a strong following because accountants find your content educational. If you then reach out to an accounting software’s hiring manager and show them how thousands of their customers actually follow you on LinkedIn, there’s no way they’re not going to at least sit down with you for a conversation. Social selling these days holds some serious weight. And the more visible you are to the right people, the better positioned you’ll be to land a quality sales job. 4: Jump Into Quality Training Jump into sales training. And not just any training. But quality training. If you want to kill it in sales, you’ve got to be always improving. And that means digging in, developing new skills, and refining the ones you’ve got. Now, there are a fair amount of sales training programs out there. But they’re not all made equal. And some are going to offer you more value than others. On top of that, some training programs only teach you a narrow range of the skills you need to be successful. That’s why I developed the Selling Made Simple Academy. This training program is designed to take your sales skills to the next level and truly crush it. Inside, we cover four distinct and equally important aspects of sales success: Understanding Your Market Getting in Front of Buyers Explaining the Value Cultivating the Mindset If you can show a sales manager that you’re committed to improving your sales skills, or better yet, have already completed a quality training program, you’ve got at least an interview in the bag. Summary And that’s all there is to it! With enough elbow grease and go-getter mindset, you can break into a lucrative and fulfilling sales role without having any direct experience. Just… Show How Your Existing Skills Are Applicable Be Happy to Work From the Bottom Up Increase Your Visibility Jump Into Quality Training That’s all there is to it. Now remember, this is all just to get you started. If you want to start raking in some serious dough, you need to be committed to improving your skills. To getting better. And not every year or month. But every. Single. Day. It’s tough work, I know. But if you keep at it, you can achieve real professional fulfillment and earn more than you ever thought possible, I promise.