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Sticky Learning Lunches #17: Part 1 of The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan
The Cunning 4 Stage Sales Plan by Geoff Burch – Part #1. Did I achieve my chosen goal for this visit? Use your time working from home to become the very best version of yourself.
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Nathan Simmonds:
Welcome to Monday. This is Sticky Learning Lunches. Myself, Nathan Simmons, and I’m also Dueting today with Jeff Birch as well. Gonna bring him on in just a second. Now, you’re pretty sure you can see him in the, on the side there. Welcome everybody to Monday. I’m excited for today because this is the first time I’ve done a duet in this space. And in that in itself is, is, is a, is a revelation and something new to me. We’re just waiting for the last couple of people to turn up and come into the room.
Nathan Simmonds:
Just as we’re doing that, setting everybody up for success today. Drinks available, making sure that we’ve got our drinks available, water, herbal tea, whatever, so that we can fully focus on what we’re doing here today. Mm, definitely needed. Number two, mobile phones. Let’s make sure we’re zeroing out the distractions. A hundred percent attention on Jeff today, what he’s gonna be sharing.
Nathan Simmonds:
The content, mindset, ideas, very different approaches. So let’s make sure we’ve got our phones out and everyone on flight mode gonna make sure mine is done. And the third thing, keepers, we at Sticky, sticky learning at MBM, we talk about keepers. It’s the things that you need to write down to make sure that you are remembering the key points, the ideas, the new realizations that you’re documenting them down, and making sure that when you go back to read them again.
Nathan Simmonds:
That they’re, they’re sparking new ideas, new curiosities, reminding you to come back to this content time and time again, to develop the thinking, to help you be the best version of yourself in this time and moving forward. Last couple of people arriving. Brilliant. So we’re gonna crack on introducing today, Jeff Birch. We’ve already had an interview. Um, we did some work for the blog and we posted this on YouTube.
Nathan Simmonds:
Categorically what it says about him. He is a rip roaring keynote presenter. He is six bestselling books. He is a BBC presenter. I am honored to be sharing a small amount of time with this man with you on today’s subject, which is all about sales. And I alluded to this last week that every day is a sales day. And this is why we’ve got Jeff here. ’cause we’ve led him from coaching skills, interpersonal development that then leads you into job interviews, pitching projects, sharing ideas.
Nathan Simmonds:
Every day is a sales day. Um, we’re hoping with the content of the next four days from Jeff, that we’re gonna get this skillset embedded, this way of thinking to help you develop, deliver and overachieve. So welcome to today’s training final people in welcome to MBM, making Business Matter, the holistic learning. My name Nathan Simmons, also with my friend Jeff Birch. These sessions are all about helping you be that best version. Let’s get on with today. So Jeff, bringing Jeff back in. Jeff, welcome to Sticky Learning Lunches.
Jeff:
Hello. Hello. How are you?
Nathan Simmonds:
I’m marvelous. How are you?
Jeff:
I’m nuts. I’ve been driven nuts by the shutdown, so I’m I’m un I’m doing unspeakable things. good.
Nathan Simmonds:
Like doing these virtual classrooms with me.
Jeff:
Yeah, well, yeah, yeah. But yeah. And other things,
Nathan Simmonds:
00:03:15 . Well, look, I’m in charge of the whiteboard today, so we’re gonna be covering three key points, myself and Jeff with you there. Um, listening in, um, today predominantly we’re gonna be talking about what is sales, the sales mindset. We, and also be talking about part one of this coming for stage sales plan. And I’m conscious of time because these sessions are very short. Their micro learnings are quite intense. And Jeff likes to speak
Nathan Simmonds:
For a lot. He gets paid for this, which is what you know, he is good at it. Jeff, look for you for, you know, the wonderful people that arrived. Stuart, thanks for very much coming again, Tim, amazing seeing some new faces in exist and, and regulars as well to you. Jeff, what is sales?
Jeff:
Well, everybody, sales is applied to everybody. Sales certainly shouldn’t be the province of salespeople. What, actually, let me tell you something. It’s not about selling, it’s about moving people. Okay? It’s about moving people from one place to another in their mentality. We’re in a world now where we can’t just tell people to do things. I mean, at one time doctors had this power that people respected them. So they would say, listen, old chap, give up smoking, or you’ll be dead. It was very simple. But now, if you are a doctor, you know where your patient is smoking, you know, where you want them to be is not smoking.
Jeff:
And that’s a sale. It’s moving that mindset from wanting to smoke, to wanting to be alive. You know? So we are all in this business. Maybe we’d like a job. So we’re moving the person we meet from. I don’t like the look at this bloke. He looks shifty to this is exactly the employee we need for this business. And that is a sales process. The world over. You know, whether it’s we’re trying to persuade our kids to stop picking their noses, or whether we’re trying to get an employer to give us a job. We need to move people.
Nathan Simmonds:
Yes. And I’m just thinking it, you know, stopping your children from picking their nose or going for a job. It’s the same tactics that we have to employ. We have to remove the objections from the individual so we can get where we need to be. But they need to get where they need to be, which is how with us,
Jeff:
You are showing signs of old festy,
Nathan Simmonds:
Good .
Jeff:
Old festy, sales habits, objections. Now, I do not like objections because I like the people I persuade. They’re my chums. I persuade my wife, I persuade my kids, I persuade the people I work with. Objections is combative and aggressive. I much rather think of them as concerns. So my wife says, where would you like to go for holiday? And I say, me Yorker. And she says, I don’t want to go to Major Yorker. Why? Because you’ll spend the whole time in that boat and I won’t see you. So I go, okay, now she isn’t, that’s not an objection to me, Yorker. It’s a concern. She’s concerned that I, it she won’t get the holiday that she wanted.
Jeff:
So I was, I will come to some sort, oh, I’ll tell you what, why don’t I go for a sale before breakfast and then spend the rest of the day with you. That’s a solution. It’s not dealing with the objection. It’s not slick. It’s not dishonest. It, it, it is me uncovering my customer’s concerns or my, and and it’s not dealing with them. It’s, it’s putting them at rest. It’s a lovely, kind, gentle way of dealing with it rather than having the aggressive objection. You know, we, we, we know our customer is not our enemy. They’re our chu.
Nathan Simmonds:
Absolutely. And you know what? Every day is a sales day and every day is a school day as well. So thank you Jeff. It’s appreciated. ,
Nathan Simmonds:
Just to bring the, the, the, the, the audience for the, want a better words into this. You know, what concerns are you helping or, or what concerns do you need to be thinking about in your current projects, in your current endeavors? What concerns have you got coming up that you would like to overcome work with and incorporate into your dialogues?
Nathan Simmonds:
Let’s see those in the question box, just so we can get a flavor of what’s going on for people and start coming up with some ideas to help people incorporate this thinking into helping them move forward. Have you got a job in, hold on two seconds. Have you got any job interviews, projects or, or sales you’re doing for the audience that you’ve got concerns coming up?
Jeff:
Another important thing, especially like job interviews or anything else, is if, if you think about them as objections, they are often difficult to uncover. So they, they, they might say, I’m not sure we can trust this bloke, but they wouldn’t say that in the job interview. They say, well thanks jolly. Well, very nice, very interesting talking to you and we’ll let you know in a few days. Well, I need to find out, I’ve gotta start asking some pretty careful questions to find out, you know, just because I, just because I’ve been nicking their ornaments and they’ve spotted it on their, their security cameras.
Jeff:
Is this what’s putting me off the job? You know, whatever it is I need to find out. And again, you know, too expensive. You know, too expensive. I mean, we, we, we love we love your product. It’s too expensive that we need to ask some very gentle questions about what do they mean by too expensive? Do they mean too expensive? We’re dearer than everyone else. Do they mean too expensive as they just haven’t got the money to pay it Too expensive?
Jeff:
Under the current proposition, I put, it seems unfair that I’ve asked the price, you know, I need to under, I need to take part too expensive because if I say no, we’ll do it cheaper. That just means that hasn’t dealt with their concern. It’s just me panicking and knocking money off, which is always disastrous.
Nathan Simmonds:
And like you say, you know, when you’re going with this idea of it being combative, you’re already creating a level of resistance, which is gonna kind of, um, um, demean the conversation that you are about to have. So valuable lesson in this for everyone. Objections change into concerns, ask better questions to find out where the concern is coming from.
Jeff:
And also they can be signals. We don’t because particularly me, I talk and never listen to anybody. It’s, it’s my biggest failing ’cause I love listening to me . But you, you get a customer that says, under the current climate, we couldn’t possibly afford this. Well, I didn’t listen, I, I heard him say he couldn’t afford it, but what I should have heard was him saying, under the current situation, he has given me a signal saying that if I could change that situation, he possibly could afford it. He’s not saying no, he’s signaling that there are, there are situations where he would, so we need to listen to signals as well.
Nathan Simmonds:
No signals are the other opportunities, which actually make you a more viable candor, make you a more viable provider of a service. If we are looking for the signal rather than looking for an objection. Uh, objection.
Jeff:
Yeah.
Nathan Simmonds:
Amazing. We are already jumping on day three’s content. That’s the only problem with this part of the conversation, Jeff. So we’re already running ahead. So
Nathan Simmonds:
In the questions box, we’ve got a couple of things here. Vanishing, prospect syndrome, um, you know, challenges that are coming up, get on board with the project. So we wanted to help people get on board with projects, potentially got a job interview, identifying the questions to ask so I can cover the issues. Absolutely. Um, and we’re gonna look at some of those in that, especially that last one about what questions to ask. We talked a bit about this earlier today, Jeff and I. Let’s get in, let’s get into part one because I’m conscious of time. We’re getting into part one of this cunning sales plan.
Jeff:
Can I give the little bit of background on that? Then?
Nathan Simmonds:
Of course you can. Brilliant.
Jeff:
When I was, when I was a kid, I was a real smart, I still am a smart ass to be fair, but I was a real smart asset and I was a natural persuader. It’s a thing I’d got from school that I’d been expelled from a three schools. I should have been expelled from six. I could usually talk my way out of trouble and, and it just meant sales was the thing to do, you know, uh, off I went flogging stuff. And it, it, it was just, I was a dodgy geezer, flogging stuff and good figures.
Jeff:
And, and a sales manager, an old hard bitten monster said, you are just a shambolic mess and if you don’t do what I tell you, I’m gonna fire you. Even though you are our highest earning salesman, you could do better. And he gave me this piece of paper and on it with four, he said, this four stage plan, it’s not my invention.
Jeff:
He said, if you don’t follow those stages, you are sacked. And the first, the first one was have, you know, the first question was, um, you know, why am I making this? What is my objective? Have, have I achieved my objective? You know, and that, that, that is the sort of first one, you know, and you know, I, I work with salespeople now and so many of them have absolutely no objective. Yeah, they think they have. I, I sit, I sit in the car and say, why are we here?
Jeff:
It’s one of our best customers. You know, one of these guys have been on a, on a sales course, um, was on a sales course, uh, called, um, relationship selling. So I said to him, what are we doing here? And he said, oh, this is one of our most important clients. We have a fabulous objective, a fabulous relationship. I mean, I said, oh, brilliant. I said, what are you gonna sell them? Oh, I don’t wanna sell ’em anything. Why not? I don’t wanna spoil the relationship.
Jeff:
Why, why are we here? Oh, to see if they want anything to tell them about our new product. You know what? So, so many times we either have no object, no reason other than we have been told to go and see potential customers and tell ’em something about us and see if they want anything. And one of the keys to this is we fail to measure success. I mean, you go to see, you go to see a customer and come out and I say, how did you get on?
Jeff:
Now, if I’m your sales manager, you will answer. Fabulous. Fantastic. Well how, how, how do you work that out? And the replys, usually they were very interested. Or if you’ve been in the game a long time, you abbreviate that to V in. So on your sales reports it says V int and whose fault is this?
Jeff:
Sales managers. And, and back in my misty day, some of them actually had call rate, I want you to make eight calls a day. Oh no, you ain’t working unless you make eight calls a day. And I was sitting in a reception once and, uh, a bloke came to a skidding halt and knocked on the window and the receptionist opened it all out. What can I do for you? Can I see your buyer now he’s busy. Oh, give us a compliment slip then.
Jeff:
Love. She gave him a compliment slip and he waved it at me and said, nine today. Nine today. And buck it off. So when, so when he reports to his sales manager, he’s gonna have 10 compliment slips. His work, his work ethic is unchallengeable challengable. But he was a crap sales . You know, and again, why are we going, what are we gonna do and how do we measure the success of that call?
Nathan Simmonds:
Lemme jump in here, Jeff, ’cause we’ve already got some points here of, you know, what are the concerns that we need that are coming downstream? And we’ve talked about those in previous sessions and it is an interesting, you say, changing that objection into an objective almost, you know, and for the people that have already put the answers on or the, the responses previously, what is your objective from these conversations, from the project?
Nathan Simmonds:
You want to get people on board with, you know, the potential job interview, identifying the questions. What’s the objective that you want to get to? Let’s see that in the questions box. Just to get the flow of thinking. Because when you know what the objective is, you can start identifying the right questions to be asking. You can start to see the impact that you want to create in the business that you want to go and work in.
Jeff:
The question you need to ask yourself is, what am I doing here? I mean, what, what is it I want? And, and again, I’ve seen the, the classic is the ambush. I, I love the ambush. Um, you, you arrive because you’ve been sent to visit potential customers or perhaps you’re working for yourself. You have absolutely no hope of selling anything because you haven’t sold anything in the last eight calls. You’ve been chucked in the street. You knock on the, can I see the buyer? I I’ll just ask him. Ask. And she gets your name completely. Well, what’s your name? Jeff Burke. Hello, Mr. Jenkins.
Jeff:
I’ve got a Mr. George brunch. Jeff bur George brunch to see you. Oh yes. He says he can spare you a minute. Would you like to go and sit down? So you sit in a squidgy chair with your knees above your ears or your sort of box on your knees. And there’s a tip to anybody watching this. Never accept a drink. Ever, ever, ever in a call accepted. Do you know why? Because your entire call that you’ve planned so meticulously after listening to me is now dependent on how hot that ghastly drink in the plastic cup is. You know? Yeah. So you get the order, you’re sitting there and they go, so I would finish your drink before you go.
Jeff:
So, um, anyway, uh, how long have you been in sales? Well, not not long. I, I, I was, uh, you know, I started as soon as I came out and Nick, it’s about six weeks ago. You know, this is, this , this is the time when the bad stuff. But in this case, just sitting, you’ve got all your stuff and you’ve got this red hot cup of coffee. Then you hearing footsteps, tick, tick, click, click. I’ve got, I’ve got 30 seconds, I’ve gotta a meter. Tell me a bit about your visit. Oh, oh, right. Okay. So you pour boiling, boiling hot mud in your crutch, which is, you know, and then your sample, your case bursts open, your sandwich, your spare pants, your leaflets, and you start dabbling crap at this bloat because you aren’t in control.
Jeff:
You haven’t planned it, you didn’t expect to see the buyer. Because you always think you won’t. And what you do is, Mr. Smith, lovely to meet you. I can see you are really busy. If you’ve got a meeting into, can I just ask you if you’ve got your diary, can we, can we make a time when I can come and see you and show you all the fabulous things I’ve got in this box? You know? So what was my objective? My objective, if I’m cold calling, is to get proper time to do a proper sales call.
Jeff:
I am not going to sell my atomic power station with a crutch full of hot chocolate and my leaflets scattered around their entire reception with a bloke who’s too busy to talk to me. You know, and it’s the same if you meet pe I I see sales people, oh, anybody, but I see reports saying, time wasted, tire kicker, not intra this, that, and the other didn’t meet the decision maker.
Jeff:
But it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to see the decision maker. One of the key objectives is to get the person you meet, to give the highest possible thing that they’re allowed to. So you, you arrive and there’s the lady cleaning, and you are, you’ve gotta sell an atomic power station to Mrs. MCGs, the cleaning lady. Hello, Mrs. MCGs. Hello love. Is there anybody at hard out of darling? Oh, have they? Oh, ’cause I wanted to sell an atomic power station. Wow.
Jeff:
That wouldn’t be me and my darling. So who’s your manager? Well, that’s Mabel, she’s my manager. She’s, uh, she, she sits up in the canteen with her all. Oh, you wouldn’t ask Mabel if she’d have a quick chat? Oh yeah. Okay. She’s here. Hello Mabel. Hello darling. Who’s the buyer for Atomic Power Stations? That’s John. Oh yeah, we’ve been, uh, yeah, me and John have been going out for quite some time.
Jeff:
You know, that’s, that’s, that’s the whole key to this. You know, that the, the ability to to whoever you meet will take you the next step up. That, that’s the objective. Do you know it’s about measuring success. If I sell Mar I, I was sitting with one guy and we, and I said, what’s your objective? My objective, I went to your seminar, Jeff, and my objective on your recommendation is to get an appointment to meet the chief buyer to demonstrate our product.
Jeff:
And that would be success. That would be a measure of my success in this call. I said, good, good, good. We arrived. The buyer said, oh, hello lads, I’m a bit tied up. Can’t stop. Here’s a check for 50 grand. Get the stuff delivered next week. And we, and he went, so we’re now sitting in the car with 50 grand. And I said, so that’s a failure.
Jeff:
Then he goes, well I suppose it is. Really? I said, don’t be an idiot. I said, success must be achieving your objective or a sale. What’s a failure is doing nothing. No measurable forward motion. That’s the point. Not not. Hello? Hello John? Anything this week? No. Alright mate, keep in touch. I’ll keep in touch if you made your mind up. No. Alright mate, I won’t push you. Give us a ring. That is a failure.
Jeff:
It goes on week after week after week when nothing moves forward. You know, did you get the samples? I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m a bit tied up at the out. I’ll just check if I’ve got them. Well, if you’ve got the samples, give him a try and give me a ring. I’ll, so he writes in the report when get sample, we’ll call us. Be interested. No, he isn’t . So look,
Nathan Simmonds:
Yeah, I’m conscious of Thomas. We’re hitting 20 past one already. So look, so what I’ve captured already from what you shared, one is what is sales? You know, it is about moving people from one place to another. You pick me up on the objections language, which is marvelous old school combative. Whereas we need to change those objections to concerns so that we can start to look for more signals to build the conversation and making sure that we have an objective in that conversation.
Nathan Simmonds:
So whoever you are speaking to, whether you are building a project, whether you are selling the atomic power station, whether you are um, going for a job into whatever it is, that whoever you speak to you, you’ve got a quick fire response or, or thinking process that helps you to speak to that individual that’s gonna help you speak to the next individual. So you can lay those breadcrumbs all the way to the person and build the relationships all the way through the organization to get to speak to the person you need to speak to, to create or, or move towards that objective that you set to make sure you are winning the day.
Jeff:
I couldn’t have put it better myself. Well, you’re genius.
Nathan Simmonds:
You and I did a very good job. I think. So look, I’m, I’m conscious these ideas are scalable and transferables. Now, whether it’s you are selling a product or selling yourself, what do you want to get out the conversation? Where do you want to get to? So open question for everyone right now. What have you got out of the last 20 minutes that’s useful, that is applicable to what it is you are working on at the moment? We’re gonna just wait for those questions or those responses coming in. What have you got from today’s session that’s useful, that’s gonna help you get to where you want to be?
Nathan Simmonds:
We’ll just wait and see. Wait for those responses to come in. We’ve got a combination of Jeff is nuts, hilarious and a guru. Love that, um, love the relationship part. Absolutely. Also, someone here has put a, an epiphany for themself. What is my objective? And, um, saying, this person earlier talked about how potential get got a job interview and interviews coming up. Like I said, what is your objective for getting the job?
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s not just getting the job, it’s the value you are gonna add after you’ve got the job that’s gonna get you the job. What else we got? Finally, understand what sales is. Find we, we, if if we change one mind, Jeff, with some of this approach, we’re winning. Someone said they don’t agree with the word objection being banned.
Nathan Simmonds:
I think no.
Jeff:
I think I just reply to that. I, I understand that. I still call it dealing with objections. It’s just that it does give you this feeling that somehow you can’t play chess with somebody you are sitting next to. That’s the point. And that’s a good thing. What I’m saying is if you, if you are on the same side as the customer, you know, chess is a battle. I, I don’t want to go into people and have battles with ’em. I want to solve their problems. I want to understand their concerns, and I wanna have a relationship that is profitable to the both of us.
Jeff:
And if you don’t watch out, if you read the old slick American sales books of the sixties, you’re dealing with objections, setting it aside, the gun closed at the atomic bomb, you know, and you, you kind of think, you know, let’s be chums. Let’s be cool. Let’s chill, let’s smoke a doobie and sign the deal. .
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s the same whether it’s for me, quantum or Newtonian physics. The moment you put, like you say, you say you create a resistance or, or, um, position yourself. You have to be in opposition to something. There has to be an alternative or um, an opposite resistance or pressure to, to maintain that positioning. And in this, you know, yeah, there might be objections, but when you come back to almost that martial arts idea is, is okay, you rather than strength versus strength, you kind of just go with it, turn it into something else, and then give it back to them.
Nathan Simmonds:
Yeah. And you’re coming up with solutions based on the signals that you are picking up. What is, what else are they saying? What else can I incorporate into my conversation to kind of, to work with them rather than like grab hold of and deal with the objection and focus on that all the time?
Jeff:
It doesn’t stop you being sneaky. I mean, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the ways is to repeat the objection back, but try and change the world slightly. Bloody hell, you’re expensive. I can understand that. When I can understand that you feel that a prestige product like this , you know, you’ve changed expensive to prestige, but, but you, and you’re repeating the concern back to them. It’s a very good way of doing. But, but again, i, I just, again, I just feel more comfortable the handling concerns rather than dealing with objections.
Nathan Simmonds:
And I owe an apology. I misread that bottom question. It says, I do agree that the word objection should be banned. Roger, apologies for that. Well, Roger
Jeff:
They’re on your side. Good conversation. So well done Now
Jeff:
And I’m glad we handle your concerns even though we’ve got a completely passback face.
Nathan Simmonds:
I’m not gonna hold my hands up to that one. Look, I’m hoping this session’s been useful and, and this approach to what sales is and isn’t. What questions have you got for myself, Alex, especially Jeff ’cause he’s the, the lead in the, the this comedy GO today. Um, what questions have you got for Jeff today about objective setting, overcoming and, and reaching your objectives? What questions have you got for us today? Just wait for them to come in as they come in. Jeff, what’s one thing that you do to help people achieve their objectives?
Jeff:
Conversation with them, uh, uh, to clarify what it is exactly they want to do because they simply say, I wanna sell more stuff or I want more customers and I want this, that, then you have to kind of ss that down to you understand, first of all, it can’t be maybe done on the first, the first call. Secondly, you know what, as, as we work through this four stage plan this week, we’ll see that there’s a lot of things we can do with a customer apart from just sell to them.
Jeff:
You know, we need to get information from them, we need to accumulate. The thing is, it’s like a snowball. Yes, it’s nice to, to, to to to have a sale or, or change someone’s opinion, but we also want this relationship to gather more and more valuable stuff for us. Information about our industry.
Jeff:
Informa not, not just did we get the job, but we know how to move that job forward. We know where there are similar opportunities with other employers. We need, even if we didn’t get the job, who else is hiring pick? Because they know if they’re hire, if they’re talking to you and say, I’m sorry, uh, Nathan, you didn’t get the job. And you say, well that’s a shame. I really would’ve loved to work with you. Perhaps you could give me the name of the HR director in similar companies. ’cause this is exactly the sort of work I’d love.
Jeff:
You know, maybe you didn’t get that job, but it might, they’d say, well, it’d be wonderful if you could call ahead and let them know that I’d be very interested in working with them. Yeah, I dunno, I’m talking bollocks now. But you see, but it’s not just the opportunity, the narrow opportunity in the person you are speaking to, but it’s the broader opportunities. If you are talking to a farmer and you are selling him, I don’t know, some piece of agricultural equipment, he will know every farmer in the county he drinks with them.
Jeff:
You know, it’s an intro into his whole industry if you ask the right questions. So your objective may not be just the flog in the harvester, but it’s to gather intelligence about his whole industry so that you can get intros into other farms. You know, his nephew might have the biggest farm in the county.
Nathan Simmonds:
Question has come in here, Jeff. One is, should you have a, a sliding scale of objectives? So if one doesn’t come off, you have another and another and another
Jeff:
A hundred, a hundred percent definitely, definitely you should. You, you, yeah, that’s a brilliant question house point for that. Um, yes, a absolutely you should have fallbacks. If I, if the guy doesn’t give me a check for 50 grand, what else do I wanna know? You know, what can I diarize? You know? Um, well we we’re not going to invest in a new machine this year. We, we hadn’t really budgeted, you know, we’ve only just installed one, so we wouldn’t be looking for another 12 months.
Jeff:
Well, blow me down. He is gonna get a phone call in 12 months time. Yeah, by the way, you don’t look stupid if you write things. Um, I, that’s another thing I used to do. I used to sort of clasp my knee and gaze into the customer’s limpid blue eyes. It’s not a great idea that you can actually, you can act like the coffee.
Jeff:
You shouldn’t accept times your sale. You can actually time your own sale by saying, excuse me, can I just make a note of that? Did you, oh, next year, which, what, what machine are you using currently? Mm-Hmm, . Okay. Just make a note that people actually make it actually weirdly makes you look at intelligent. If you stop the sale and say, can I just make a note of that? Let me just take those details down. It makes you look extremely professional and it ends up with you having a pile of notes and information. That’s a great objective to have, have loads of background stuff about what’s been going on in their industry and other people’s industries.
Nathan Simmonds:
And then if, if you don’t get that job or that sale, actually when they introduce you to the next one, you already have a whole mo a whole load more meat on the bone to have the rest of the conversation that actually closes the deal on the next one. Rather than being in combative or frustrated because you didn’t get what you thought you were meant to be getting, actually you’ve got those secondary gains, which then becomes a,
Jeff:
Allows you to pace it. In the old days when people smoked pipe smokers were really annoying. Pipe smokers would spend ages dotting the pipe and packing the tobacco. And, and it was a kind of way these people would use to time their conversation with you. They were in control because they had this thing. And you can do the same by writing things. You should be in control. You should not lose control of your customer.
Jeff:
Uh, uh, if we have a longer session, I do my little thing about trying to sell a tank to Genghis car, I mean, some customer, well a lot of customers and job interviewers and potential life partners can be very intimidating. And because they’re intimidating, they will screw up your objective by, so you walk in and you think, well, I’m gonna talk about this. I’m gonna arrange a meeting, I’m gonna get a demonstration.
Jeff:
I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do this, and then I’m gonna close the sale. And they go, how much is it? They, what? How much is it? I mean, there’s no point in talking anymore unless it’s, you know, unless I know the price you go. Um, well, I, uh, I hadn’t planned or getting to price yet. No, come on, come on. How much is it? Uh, and you’ve gotta say, Mr. Smith, hang on, lemme just make a note of that.
Jeff:
Mr. Smith price is something I understand is very important, but I just wanna show you this before I get to price. I will be dealing with that. You’ve got to stay in control, otherwise, you get booted about all over the place and you end up back in the street wondering what the hell, it’s you, you know? Yeah. You’ve got to pace yourself and be in control.
Nathan Simmonds:
Jeff, we’re on, we’re on time. In fact, we are rapidly creeping over time. So we’ve already covered a lot. So we’ve covered three things. Moving people from one place to another, dealing with objections, turning ’em into concerns, and picking up the signals and making sure that we have a clear objective. And also scale back some of the key things. Don’t accept hot drinks as it just, yeah, in an interview, a, a sales bit. Don’t do it.
Nathan Simmonds:
It’s, it is gonna cause a problem. Um, and also making sure you’ve taken lots of notes. Store the information so that you can strengthen your understanding and your objective achievable for the next time. Absolutely vital. Before we wrap up, what has been useful from what we covered today? I’d love to see this in the question, but what has been useful so far from what we’ve spoken about with Jeff?
Nathan Simmonds:
Jeff, I just wanna say thank you for today. That’s been illuminating for me. It’s reminded me of lots of the mistakes that I’ve made as a, as a young salesman, um, and you know, how to I, and, and, and how to develop from this. Tomorrow we’re gonna be looking at the second stage of the, the cunning four part sales plan. So we’re gonna look in that. I’ve got my notes here. So we’re looking at, you know, what have you, what have you learned? What are you learning? So we’re coming tomorrow, going back into that in that, that element of what are you learning?
Nathan Simmonds:
And we’re gonna build on that. So Jeff’s already started alluding to that, and that’s what’s gonna be tomorrow’s session. I hope this has been useful. I hope this has been helpful to some people, especially preparing for the job interview projects, sharing ideas, developing thinking, if you haven’t already registered for tomorrow, so we can continue this conversation. Register now. The link is in the chat box for you to click through right now, making sure you’re ready for tomorrow. And this conversation’s gonna continue. Jeff, thank you for today. Thank you everyone for being here, and I look forward to seeing you all again tomorrow. Right? He says.
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