What Makes Great Salespeople Great

what makes great salespeople great presented by one of the greatest people of all me so at any rate as we take a look at this there are some things about the highway toward being a great salesperson they understand that self motivation is a necessity have you ever seen someone that says you know I'm going to hear one of those motivational speakers I have a very simple philosophy about that there's nothing worse than energizing incompetence so if you came here today looking for somebody to motivate you and ain't going to happen this interesting book that was first written in 1908 the book was rewritten again in 1928 it was rewritten again from 28 until 1938 and this is one of the original books it's called Think and Grow Rich is there we ever heard of the book Think and Grow Rich Napoleon Hill wrote this book and Napoleon Hill grew up in Wise County Virginia is anybody familiar with Wise County Virginia does anyone know what's up there nothing my wife lives in the next county from there originally from Tazewell County in fact her daddy got picked up the other day for speeding state trooper pulled him over and said do you have any ID said about what last Christmas we had a fire in the bathroom fortunately it never spread to the house and everything was fine but Napoleon Hill grew up in Wise County Virginia and and he had an interesting career he he went to Tesla Business College and then he worked in the mines and then he started to become a writer in in 1904 1905 he he met a gentleman by the name of Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Carnegie said I wanted you to do something for me kid I want you to go out I want you to do the first study of the science of success and he did that and the first book that came out was a 32 series a set of books called the Laws of Success then he rewrote it in 1928 after the Depression started to really really crater everything he had it came out again in the late 30s gentlemen carried him on board the USS Arizona he was one of the few who survived he jumped off swam ashore carried the book this book is worth its weight in gold is called Think and Grow Rich listen to these words nineteen hundred and eight remember the philosophy presented in this book makes every one of these alibis obsolete if I had enough poll if I had enough money if I had a better education if I could get a better job if I had better health I only had time if times were better if other people understood me if conditions around me were only different if I could live my life over again if I did not fear what they would say if I had been given a chance if I had a better chance if I if people didn't know that I don't have the opportunities everybody else has if people would say oh i have a better territory they have better customers they have a better product they have a better price point the truth of the matter is really great salespeople know that the motivation comes from totally themselves and Napoleon Hill did some interesting research of these 568 very successful people he concluded that these people that he studied people entrepreneurially successful like WT Grand Rockefeller Rockefeller Vanderbilt all those people had two common traits urge you to write these down if they make sense the first trait the definiteness of purpose a true definiteness of purpose about what they were doing and why they were doing it people say to me why do you do what you've been doing and I've been doing this for 26 years sometimes speaking 200 times a year around the country and around the world and people say to me why do you do that and I say I do it because I must do I do it because I get a kick out of seeing people's lights go on and say you know I'm better now than I was before you empowered me and helped me to do some things that I didn't think I could do you know I don't know anybody who one is sure a d-day for the combat pay my father-in-law a true American Hero 25 combat missions in a b25 he didn't do the 25 missions for the air combat pay he did it because he had to do it and he had an inner drive that said I must do this it's definiteness of purpose the second thing is a burning desire to make it happen not a flickering desire but a what burning desire I love to sell I would rather sell and do most anything in the world and I know lots of salespeople who are hesitant reluctant I see them someplace and someone says and what do you do and they look with a blank stare and say I'm I'm a peddler I'm a professional salesperson in fact people look at me someplace they say what do you do what my answer is very simple about what I call a secretary on the phone she says who is this I said this is Bill Brooke she says who are you with I said I'm all alone there's no one with me it's wrongly see the truth is that self-motivation is an inside job and it's definiteness of purpose and a burning desire and without that fulfillment is never there the other thing that they know is that self-management and obligation you know what self-management is it's the capacity to bring closure the capacity to bring completion the capacity to be accountable the capacity to deliver results the capacity to manage time you see this watch this is a marvelous watch it's guaranteed for life if it breaks a mainspring comes out and slashes my wrist I'm just glad I didn't get a pocket watch thank you for catching up how many of you know some people who are always late disorganized unstructured and the a argument is you don't understand I'm creative no you're sloppy it's self management it's self motivation the other thing is they understand the sales success is driven by three things now let me tell you I have been in cars with 500 salespeople traveled with them I personally trained over half a million salespeople in 26 years worked in over 2,000 different companies 450 different industries someone once said that I was a consultant and that's a very bad thing to tell someone a consultants a person who knows 256 ways to make love knows no member of the opposite sex so in my little company the Brooks group I have the highest sales quota even though we have a phenomenal sales team I serve as the sales manager for my company so I sell and I'm the sales manager I'm the CEO because I'm not going to talk to you about things that I don't do and I know very well the sales is driven by three things and three things only and these three things are pretty simple and easy to understand let me show you what they are the first of these is job skills job skills is a real interesting concept how many of you have any sales managers in the room raise your hands we have them sales managers I know we have some of you out there someone said if we took every sales manager in America laid them end to end that'd be more comfortable most people the sales measures don't do this they run a contest you know and see job skills are things like product knowledge things like industry knowledge things like knowing how to run the software how to run the computer something about si si codes those are things that relate to the hard part of the job lots of our clients over the years have been held hostage by job skills and lots of people think when they do sales training that they give people that information and it's sales training the second part of this is what we call sales skills now when I talk later about this we're going to be talking about this in some detail I I'm going to tell you that the state of sales in this world is very weak for example someone told you when you were a young child you have the gift of gab you ought to go into sales no one ever said you had the gift of asking the right questions and then button in your lip and show in the right solution how many of us in this large group of people have seen people sell something and buy it back prospecting skills positioning skills pre call planning skills value-added selling skills questioning skills feedback question skills social proof skills trial closing skills all of those skills are part of it but let me tell you the secret the secret is the third part the personal skills the personal skills are things like listening and goal setting and goal direction and results orientation and the capacity to be a self-starter the capacity to handle rejection all of those things and I'm going to tell you the real secret here and the real secret is not that hard to understand they understand what we call the sales success formula and the sales success formula looks like this job skills plus sales skills times personal skills equals the sales success quotient and the way it works is it kind of looks like this you may want to write this down and think about this mentally or write your own skill numbers down give you an example on a scale of 1 to 10 10 being fantastic 1 being really abysmally bad like really bad 5 been in the middle everybody with me I would like you to rate your job skills your product knowledge your industry experience your knowledge of the stuff Gary here you're out there give yourself a 10 plus because I know you've been hanging around that industry for how many years 30 years you look every day of it brother Gary is very much like me a very young man with badly aging hair second part of this your sales skills and I want you to be really honest about this I'm not talking about 20th century selling skills I'm talking about 21st century selling skills where you understand that needs based selling for example is dead because people don't what they need they buy what they want there's more beer sold than Bibles what you tell people going to help get what they want and what they want varies from customer to customer and we'll talk a little bit more about that later and then your personal skills your self-management your motivation your goal direction and results orientation your empathy all the things that go with it so let's take Bob Jones Bob Jones gave himself a 10 and a 10 and a 5 10 plus 10 is 20 that's right that's right 20 thank you times 5 is 100 now the next guy gave himself a 5 and a 5 but a 10 who scores better listen to me personal skills are the multiplier of performance because the example I gave I plead with you but it doesn't make any difference what it is the multiplier is what the personal skills so as a good friend of mine says the secrets to work very hard on yourself don't work in your job can I say that again work hard on yourself don't work in your job now another interesting part about this as you look at what great salespeople they understand the 93% solution the 93% solution is very simply this my friends I wrote a book in 1995 where the gentleman by the name of Tom travisano is called you're working too hard to make the sale please go to the book stores and buy the book another world he's come to me they go to the poor children who used to live at 5400 eighth century Oaks Drive here in Greensboro one of them is our camera person will who's a college graduate let's hear it for will he graduated from Hampton Sidney college he graduated in four and a half years he had a double major beer and wine no we're very proud of him very very proud of and our other young fellow who is in Washington and Lee University but seriously here's what we discovered in that Reese which we looked at 12,000 12,000 face-to-face sales interviews and here's what we discovered when a salesperson had a linked sequential process that they followed a selling system as it were and they followed it meticulously they had a 93 percent chance of closing the sale without a drop to less than 42 percent so I'm going to make a challenge here and I will submit to you that we've got some people in this audience who wing it you go in for surgery we'll had some surgery recently we talked to the surgeon what would Nancy and I have said if the surgeon looked at us and said well I'm just going to go in there and wing it I have a knack for this but you understand I'm a sales professional yeah you have job skills so I'm going to show you what I'm talking about by asking Laura Laura would you come out and join me here and Laura's going to ask me a question okay are you ready for the question I am ready for the question and then I'm going to answer Laura and then I'm going to give her an opportunity ask me another question okay okay all right Laura what's your first question bill what do you do to prepare before you go to meet with a prospect I complete my 23.3 call checklist I complete my absolute understanding of the formal informal structure identify the buyer the user the check write or the internal advocate the style of the buyer the competitive factors look at the new unique differential that I've got I call for the appointment confirm the appointment get there ahead of time and mentally prepare and then what do you do I issue a statement of intention what do you do this primary bonding statement what happens after the permission to ask questions what happens then problem question tell me more agitation question what happens solution question and what happen question then what are you doing in objecting question what do you do then summary statement and what app stand in the findings mm-hmm and then targeted presentation yes what about feedback yeah what after that social proof then what revert to Pro yeah isolate objection uh-huh after that reapply well what about net more feedback uh-huh and tell me what do you do after that bill something close uh-huh tell me what happens then vertically integrate the account mm-hmm and what do you do after that justify the margin uh-huh tell me more take them to the advocate level and seek them as a referral tell me what do you do after that thank the Lord let's hear for Laura okay thank you Laura I appreciate that stop you say do you do this every time my answer is yes every time whether it's a seven-figure sale a small sale a big sale a little sale and listen to me I talk less now in my entire life I've never talked less and selling and sell more so I want you to listen to me shut up do we have anyone in this audience who would consider himself or herself to be an oral haemophiliac it's the process it's the system another thing that makes them great is they understand what product knowledge is and isn't if this makes sense write this down product knowledge is not how much you know about your product it's how good you are accessing what you know and putting it in terms that are meaningful and relevant to that prospect based upon what they're trying to accomplish with that product or service in fact I will submit to you that there's a great chance that the more you know about your product the more trouble you're in what do you think I know people who are having a romantic interlude with their product and it's an ex 94 742 K 815 R and I don't have to tell you what that means do I the prospect looks back and doesn't want to be embarrassed so he or she says no write this down a confused buyer buys nothing in the research that we did we discovered that the average sales presentation consists of six to eight features or benefits 24 hours later the average prospect members one in 39% of the cases they remember that one incorrectly and in 49% of the cases they remember something that wasn't brought up at all but we think oh we have to give them all of this information so that they can make an intelligent decision all you're doing is raising more room for objection so let me say this and here's the point don't ever say anything that does not bring value to the relationship or the communication keep it simple keep it basic and answer only the basic questions now they understand that sales has changed forever forever and ever it will never be the same I have never seen anything change more than sales in the last decade my dad sold for 43 years for 43 years he was the number one salesperson in his company listen to this every week for 43 consecutive years my dad graduated from high school barely he did not know his parents he grew up in orphanages and foster homes but one of the things that I know is if I brought my dad back to this earth today and I said dad I want to plop you down in your territory and I want you to sell he wouldn't have a clue about what to do unless you are working on it and not just in it as the popular book says the cheese has moved and to make it worse you can't find it so let me share a couple of ideas with you about how sales has changed first way that has changed sales my friends is all about positioning it's all about tactical marketing it's all about how you as a sales professional are positioned in your marketplace in opposition to in comparison with everyone else that sells the same products or service to you bottom line you must be first foremost in the mind of your prospect and Richards going to be talking about that at great length the second thing and please remember this one the secret to selling and I'll talk about this later is never in the selling it's always in the prospecting if someone were to say to me if you've looked at these salespeople over the years and you've observed them you've watched them you seen who's successful and who's not successful what's the greatest cause of failure in sales I'll tell you what it is not having enough qualified prospects the name of the game is how do you position yourself the second part of this the corollary to this is that listen to me cold calling is stupid we don't understand that's how we do it I'm going to suggest to you that if you're going to have someone by what it is that you sell they have to have five common traits now let me give you the five common traits number one they must have a need for your product and be aware of it you say that's okay I'm going to go create that awareness has anybody here ever done that it's like trying to spit in the wind all things being equal I come back in my next life I want to own the blood franchise in an emergency room they have a need for it and they what look at this electric power the second is consumed it has to be used again second characteristic they have the authority and the ability to pay for it so let me ask you a straightforward question raise your hand if you've been in front of someone who had all the authority and no ability you're lying to me how about all the authority and no ability how about no authority and no ability why were you there because everybody's got to be someplace you go back to your sales manager and say boy we had a great meeting they really like this you know what I say to my salespeople what step of the sale you're in and what's next and it's regimented third characteristic they have a sense of urgency about the decision you know what I know I know that you or I or anybody in this room is never going to create any urgent for someone that's not there because it's a buyers market that's what's changed is he the truth of the matter is they're going to go down the street so they better have that heartfelt sense of urgency next characteristic there's a certain amount of trust between the two of you you see people don't buy from people they like they buy from people they trust and if you're someone who gets people to like you I'll tell you what the way you sell is you sell with a low price which means no margin you're an approval seeker and approval seekers have one thing in common they have skinny kids fifth characteristic they're willing to listen to you you see an old school selling said as long as you can get in front of enough people who are willing to listen to you somebody will buy but you know what else great salespeople understand they understand this that the basics of selling have never changed they never have and they never will you see if you can't get someone to take action then you're a professional host or visitor your job is to solve people's problems and get them to make decisions that perhaps they're hesitant to make because most people need some help to do that some of the universal selling truths that we've discovered over the years are some of these like people buy things when it's their idea when it's your idea people are more likely to buy something when they're talking then when you're talking we know that people understand that you should never begin selling telling or demonstrating anything about your product or service until they verbalize what they want to perceive gain or achieve with that product or service one of the ones that I'm going to talk about later is this principle never quote price to an unsold buyer and the big issue that some of you have as what's called a premature price question and you have to know how to deal with a premature price question and as the economy continues to bumble and maybe take off a little bit you're going to get more and more of these premature price questions and in sales my friends you have two types of people the quick and the dead you either know what to say and know what to do or you don't yeah the basics have never changed that's what makes great salespeople great

Channel: BrooksGroup

Views: 363,687

Rating: 4.8243513 out of 5

Keywords: googlevideo, salespeople, sales training, sales enablement, classics, bill brooks, sales coaching, sales performance improvement

Id: YpSGulfG-Gc

Length: 24min 15sec (1455 seconds)

Published: Thu May 10 2012