Dan Martell - August 02, 2024


27 Years of No Bullsh＊t Sales Advice in 16 Mins


Episode Stats

Length

16 minutes

Words per Minute

239.87564

Word Count

3,858

Sentence Count

151


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 I've been selling software since I was 17 years old. So that's 27 years of sales experience.
00:00:05.960 I sold everything from entry-level software to enterprise deals to the largest companies in the
00:00:10.900 Fortune 5000. People like Procter & Gamble, Dole Foods, Johnson & Johnson, and many others. I get
00:00:15.780 asked every day about my sales experience and helping other entrepreneurs how to become great
00:00:21.200 at sales. I'm going to teach you everything I know about identifying, qualifying, setting,
00:00:25.920 and closing people to purchase from you
00:00:28.460 in a way that doesn't freak you out.
00:00:29.960 I've read all the top books,
00:00:31.660 over a hundred different books on selling.
00:00:34.000 I've talked to all the top sales experts,
00:00:36.240 all the people that you follow on YouTube.
00:00:37.840 They're all friends of mine.
00:00:38.680 I've talked to them.
00:00:39.360 I understand their methodologies.
00:00:40.540 So without further explaining it,
00:00:41.800 this is 27 years of sales knowledge
00:00:44.000 unpacked in as little time as possible.
00:00:46.320 Sales is one of the most important skills to learn
00:00:48.240 because everything you do from getting money
00:00:50.780 from investors to hiring people
00:00:53.000 to getting somebody to buy from you,
00:00:55.000 even having somebody help you out it sits on the other side of understanding how to get somebody to
00:01:00.600 want to help you which is sales so now let's move into what people get wrong about sales there's a
00:01:05.180 whole bucket of things that people do wrong when they're selling first off they over promise
00:01:09.780 under deliver what'll happen if you have commission structure where it's not tied to retention meaning
00:01:14.860 the customer sticks around and or is happy then you'll have a salesperson saying whatever they
00:01:19.360 have to say to get the buy so for example when hubspot it's a popular software that a lot of
00:01:24.140 companies use to manage their sales process. When their salespeople were overselling the software
00:01:29.260 and then customers were upset, they had to introduce a process where they measured the
00:01:34.040 customer happiness after the sale. And if the score was low, it impacted the salesperson's
00:01:39.480 commission and it changed the way they sold. So they stopped overselling. That's one thing.
00:01:43.780 The second problem is most of them don't follow a process. So they're literally not properly
00:01:48.260 trained. Don't run through skills and drills. They're just shooting from their hip. Whatever
00:01:52.580 works they keep doing it they don't try something new they don't ask people that are doing better
00:01:56.920 them how they can be better they get somebody to buy but the person actually wasn't ready to buy
00:02:01.460 they just felt pressure to buy so they say yes and then the person cancels as soon as they hang
00:02:05.100 up the phone see this all the time it's like oh i had 17 sales it's like no five of them refunded
00:02:11.160 five of them canceled did you actually get them to make a decision to buy they don't do the takeaway
00:02:16.440 close the takeaway close essentially somebody purchased and you say perfect super excited for
00:02:21.920 you. Can't wait to get you set up. It's going to be an amazing experience. Really going to solve
00:02:24.780 these three problems that you talked to me about. Hey, can I just ask you a simple question? Minus
00:02:28.220 a global financial meltdown in the world. Is there any other reason that you might not move forward
00:02:32.600 and get on your onboarding call or use our software or whatever it is? Asking that question
00:02:36.560 as a salesperson really locks in the commitment of the buyer. Most people mess up sales because
00:02:41.380 they follow a script and they don't realize it's about having a talk track. It's not about just
00:02:45.520 memorizing words and spitting them out because then the prospect doesn't feel like you're actually
00:02:50.080 listening or understand what they're saying, they don't write anything down. They're horrible at
00:02:54.020 documenting the customer information. So at each step of the sales process, if you don't catalog
00:02:59.200 and document what was said to the previous rep, then especially after you sell and the person
00:03:03.760 starts the process, they join your thing, they buy your thing, the person shows up at their house,
00:03:08.560 then they have to repeat everything that was said in the sales process where that's where all the
00:03:13.060 gold is. And then the customer experience suffers because they have to repeat themselves versus the
00:03:16.960 sales rep just taking five minutes after the call
00:03:19.120 and logging everything that was said
00:03:20.640 about their situation, their team, the names of the people,
00:03:23.320 the key issues they're dealing with.
00:03:24.600 Then when the person who's in charge of onboarding
00:03:26.680 that customer into the company, it's easy.
00:03:28.960 They're like, hey, yeah, I talked to Bob
00:03:30.480 and Bob told me you had these problems
00:03:32.000 and based on your situation, your revenue should be this.
00:03:34.380 I just wanna confirm all this stuff.
00:03:35.680 Perfect, here's our plan.
00:03:37.200 Here's what we're gonna do.
00:03:38.260 They don't follow up.
00:03:39.460 Most of the fortunes are made in the follow-up.
00:03:42.020 Most salespeople do not follow up.
00:03:44.920 They don't know how to follow up.
00:03:46.300 If they do it, it's horrendous.
00:03:48.040 It's just annoying people.
00:03:49.600 Like, are you ready?
00:03:50.360 Just following up.
00:03:51.160 If you say just following up, you lost the sale.
00:03:53.280 Just so you know, that language in any way, shape,
00:03:55.880 email, voicemail, phone call, stupid, bad.
00:03:58.780 Don't do that.
00:03:59.440 It's, hey, I was just thinking about you.
00:04:01.300 I was talking to this person
00:04:02.460 and it reminded me about this article I found.
00:04:04.360 Just wanted to send it over, see if it could be helpful.
00:04:06.060 Just from the heels, circle back
00:04:07.680 if there's an opportunity for us to help you
00:04:09.420 accelerate solving that problem faster.
00:04:11.300 Let's move into how to get your first customer.
00:04:13.480 Your first customer should come
00:04:15.080 from your immediate network of people you know.
00:04:17.960 And the best way to get them is just to ask people,
00:04:20.520 hey, I'm selling this.
00:04:21.800 Do you know anybody that might be interested?
00:04:23.340 The cool part is that if the person is interested,
00:04:25.900 they'll say, yeah, me.
00:04:27.020 Or if they're not, they'll go, oh, my friend Bob.
00:04:29.180 So just asking people in your contacts,
00:04:31.740 in your network, on social media.
00:04:32.900 I do this all the time.
00:04:33.540 I go on Facebook and I look through
00:04:35.040 all of my friends on Facebook and ask myself,
00:04:37.020 would this person know somebody?
00:04:38.020 Is this person in my market?
00:04:39.040 Would they even have influence in somebody else?
00:04:41.300 And just ask them, hey, I'm now doing this.
00:04:43.040 you know anybody might be interested the referral or the intro is one of the best way to find your
00:04:46.800 first customers now let's move into the three stages of sales the first one is to qualify
00:04:51.600 if you think everybody could be a buyer then you're already messing yourself up what i think
00:04:55.520 to myself is what's true about my best buyers who are the people who get the most benefit what are
00:05:00.800 the questions that would make it a yes or no if i even move forward so first off if i'm selling to
00:05:05.040 other entrepreneurs and ceos i'm going to ask them do you have your own business if the answer is no
00:05:09.040 i don't have to proceed qualifying is all about trying to figure out what questions filters out
00:05:13.760 our conversations to either say this is a person that could buy this or this is a person that
00:05:17.600 shouldn't buy it and letting the people that shouldn't move on as fast as possible here's
00:05:21.360 what you got to look for in a lead to decide if you qualify them or not you have to figure out
00:05:26.320 what are you selling what's the perfect type of buyer and what questions could i ask in what order
00:05:31.360 of broad to narrow that gets me a yes or no to decide to move to the second question to the
00:05:36.880 third question to the fourth question so it depends what you're selling if you're selling
00:05:40.400 fitness then you want to ask somebody is weight something that you struggle with is putting on
00:05:44.240 muscle something that you struggle with so you need to figure out what are the questions that
00:05:47.280 get you immediately not only to a qualifying scenario but also to a pain identification
00:05:52.240 scenario right do you struggle to hit your numbers every month as if you're selling to business
00:05:55.760 owners if you're selling furniture it's like are you guys expanding your office suit right so like
00:06:00.240 you have to ask a question that qualifies them are they even in the market or even self-aware that
00:06:05.840 they have a problem because if they don't try to sell something to somebody that doesn't even know
00:06:09.520 they have a problem it's wasted time the best way to get the most qualified people for your product
00:06:14.320 is find out where those type of people hang out so if i know that the best type of person to buy
00:06:18.960 something from me is part of this organization then i'm going to go figure out how do i get
00:06:23.200 involved in that organization i might be able to add some value i might do some training i might
00:06:26.800 come in and do a lunch and learn remember for example my brother was selling houses the first
00:06:30.480 time home buyers so he found out that a lot of people that worked in call centers were renting
00:06:34.560 and many of them probably want to buy a house
00:06:36.780 and they could afford it
00:06:37.680 because they had a great job at a call center.
00:06:39.340 So he offered to do a lunch and learn at these call centers
00:06:41.640 so that they would bring him in
00:06:42.800 to teach people how to buy a home.
00:06:44.440 Why?
00:06:44.800 Because the call center got people that have homes
00:06:47.640 which are more dependable
00:06:48.720 because they have a mortgage that they're committed to
00:06:50.420 than somebody that is renting.
00:06:51.740 It might be a little bit more flip-floppy
00:06:53.200 on their job choices.
00:06:54.240 So it was actually a perfect scenario
00:06:55.820 where the company, the call center,
00:06:57.580 wanted him to come in to teach them
00:06:59.480 how to buy their first home
00:07:00.640 so that when they were in market,
00:07:02.160 they would reach out to him to sell a home to them,
00:07:04.220 which brings us to the second step in the sales process which is setting the sale
00:07:07.820 the role of a setter is to talk to the market and identify leads so it's either inbound or
00:07:12.940 outbound opportunities so they're either creating demand by going outbound and talking to a bunch
00:07:17.100 of people cold or they're fielding inbound interest this could be email subscribers
00:07:21.260 people fill out an application people to follow on social media those are warmer they talk to
00:07:25.340 those potential buyers and they qualify them to see if there's an opportunity if they find
00:07:29.980 people that have pain, then they're going to set that conversation up with somebody that can
00:07:34.760 actually close them or a sales professional or sometimes called an account manager or a product
00:07:39.580 specialist. It's kind of funny because a lot of time in sales, they give the salespeople cool
00:07:42.980 names so it doesn't scare away the buyer. They'll call it a strategy session, a discovery call,
00:07:47.080 you name it. In the sense that they talk to the potential buyer, they make sure that they're
00:07:51.260 in market, that they have a problem that they want solved, that they're interested in having
00:07:55.560 a conversation about your company solving it for them. And then they take all that information
00:07:59.740 they log all those notes and they hand that off as almost a package to the next step so that that
00:08:05.020 person has all the ammunition they need to have a really productive conversation you know oftentimes
00:08:09.660 the setter has to meet certain criteria they have to say like what's a five-star prospect look like
00:08:14.140 right do they have a problem do they know they have a problem do they want our help to solve it
00:08:18.780 have they tried other things have we expressed that do they have a budget to buy are they currently
00:08:23.740 feeling the pain is there been certain key areas that are painful that we've identified that we
00:08:28.380 we can hand over to the next step
00:08:30.260 so that we make sure we have a productive conversation.
00:08:32.300 Those are the key things the setter has to do
00:08:33.960 to increase the speed of a sale.
00:08:35.500 Most people don't ask themselves what needs to be true
00:08:39.420 before they hand over a buyer
00:08:41.980 to somebody that can help them further.
00:08:44.040 And what happens is the person who's selling
00:08:46.380 spends a lot of time with unqualified people.
00:08:48.760 What you wanna do is you wanna pair those people together
00:08:51.240 so there's a feedback loop.
00:08:52.500 Those are called pods.
00:08:53.440 So the setter is paired with a closer
00:08:55.380 so that the closer can give feedback
00:08:56.980 on the quality of those conversations
00:08:58.360 so that they can improve the process.
00:09:00.260 Don't send over leads that I'm gonna have a hard time closing
00:09:02.860 because then you might fill up my calendar
00:09:04.300 with a bunch of people that weren't ready.
00:09:06.340 And then I'm not talking to people that are ready.
00:09:08.220 So that's the role of the setter,
00:09:09.400 which brings us to the third step in the sales process,
00:09:11.560 which is to enroll them.
00:09:12.660 I call it enrolling and not closing because words matter.
00:09:15.460 When I'm closing, I'm closing off the conversation.
00:09:17.620 One of the most important things that I teach my people
00:09:19.700 that are sales professionals
00:09:20.980 is that you need to service the sale.
00:09:23.560 So what most people do
00:09:24.480 is they get in this high volume sales conversation
00:09:26.780 and they never go back to talk to the people
00:09:28.900 that they've converted into buyers.
00:09:30.780 And those are honestly for great salespeople.
00:09:33.180 If you wanna increase your sales, get referrals.
00:09:35.600 How do you get referrals?
00:09:36.700 Ask for referrals.
00:09:37.880 Most salespeople don't go back to the buyers
00:09:40.140 and ask them how their experience was.
00:09:42.260 And if there's one or two other people just like them,
00:09:45.180 that they might be able to help with their service.
00:09:47.080 That alone will increase your sales volume by 30%.
00:09:50.100 Most salespeople are onto the next one, onto the next one.
00:09:53.100 They don't literally say, how do I serve my account?
00:09:55.440 How do I show up and ask them questions?
00:09:56.920 How do I create more value for them after the sale?
00:09:59.340 The post-sale process is more valuable
00:10:01.940 than the current transaction.
00:10:03.440 That's why I don't like the word closers.
00:10:04.980 There's five steps in the enrolling process.
00:10:07.500 Step number one is control the frame.
00:10:09.140 This means that you have to have the conversation
00:10:12.420 go in a way where you are in control of the conversation.
00:10:16.380 Amateur salespeople easily get pushed off the kilter.
00:10:19.460 I've got on calls and I say, what's the price?
00:10:21.340 And they're like, oh, it's 32,000.
00:10:23.060 Have you ever worked with this kind of customer?
00:10:24.300 and they're like yes and i'm like cool all right i'll circle back if i have more questions and
00:10:28.300 they're like okay and then i hang out i'm like you're an amateur salesperson the best frame is
00:10:32.060 the doctor frame the doctor frame is i don't know what is wrong with you it's a diagnosis
00:10:37.500 i'm going to ask you questions to help you if i can help you so when the person says like hey
00:10:42.860 i need this medication or hey i got this pain you go cool is it okay if i ask you a few questions
00:10:47.980 to see where you're at so i can figure out what might be wrong with you to make sure that i
00:10:51.820 prescribed the right product see at the end of the day prescribing without diagnosis is malpractice
00:10:57.420 and that's why a doctor frame from a sales point of view of trying to diagnose the sale is key a
00:11:02.460 lot of people do a bunch of consulting calls that aren't sales calls and then they wonder why the
00:11:06.620 person doesn't buy at the end it's because you gave away all the answers to the problem so you've
00:11:10.060 released the pressure from the person number two is direct questions this is where you get permission
00:11:15.500 you control the frame and then you ask very specific questions around the problem that the
00:11:19.580 buyer has the key thing is is the buyer is going to choose if you're an expert based on the quality
00:11:24.540 of your questions and unfortunately most amateur salespeople aren't maintaining high quality
00:11:30.060 questions they're asking very high level very broad very non-specific questions it doesn't
00:11:35.580 demonstrate to the person that you are an expert around the problem that you help people solve
00:11:40.140 step number three is challenging beliefs see most people when they come to evaluate purchasing
00:11:45.340 something, they fall on the ends of one of two spectrums. They're either overly confident that
00:11:49.560 they could figure this out on their own or they're not confident at all and they feel like they got
00:11:53.580 to do a bunch of stuff to get ready to actually purchase from you. And it's kind of fascinating
00:11:57.360 to watch. So when you challenge beliefs, it's either end. If somebody's so confident, you have
00:12:02.080 to ask them a question that gets them back to the middle of the buying zone. If somebody's not
00:12:06.280 confident, you have to ask them a question that gets them confident to be ready to make a purchase.
00:12:10.740 So ensuring you challenge the question so you can get them in the buying zone is going to be the
00:12:14.880 key to get somebody to make a decision. Step number four is pre-handling objection. What you
00:12:19.080 want to do is pull up all the objections earlier on in the conversation so they don't show up at
00:12:23.920 the end. See, amateur salespeople, person's like, oh, I don't have the money, or oh, I need to check
00:12:28.280 in with my business partner, or oh, I need to talk to my wife. All of those are things you could
00:12:32.220 have handled way sooner, and that's why we want to pre-handle the objections through the questions.
00:12:37.060 So ask them, have you put a budget aside to solve this problem? Have you talked to your wife about
00:12:41.260 purchasing this car? Have you already reviewed this with your team in regards to the different
00:12:44.840 vendors? Have you bought software like this before in the past? All those questions are going to help
00:12:49.560 you pre-handle the objections so they don't show up at the end when you're going to make the offer.
00:12:54.000 Step number five is make the offer. This is where a lot of people get a little weird at the point
00:12:58.440 where they're like, okay, I know this person has a problem. I know we can help them. They understand
00:13:02.040 how it works. All you have to do then is assume the sale, the language, the energy shouldn't change.
00:13:08.360 As soon as I make the offer, then I ask them,
00:13:11.460 what card do you wanna put that on?
00:13:12.820 It's not even, are you ready to start?
00:13:14.440 Did you wanna schedule your initial call
00:13:16.140 to kick things off on Thursday or Friday?
00:13:18.400 You give them an option, this or that.
00:13:20.620 You never say, are you ready to move forward?
00:13:22.520 You just assume they're gonna move forward
00:13:24.080 and you do the this or that.
00:13:25.680 Do you wanna have the medium size or you want the large?
00:13:28.200 Do you wanna put the security cameras around the house
00:13:30.620 or do you wanna go just with the lawn version?
00:13:32.600 Do you wanna this or do you wanna do that?
00:13:34.300 It also allows them to see themselves as a buyer.
00:13:37.120 They're pre-framing the ownership.
00:13:39.640 Do you wanna buy two copies or 10?
00:13:41.440 It sounds crazy, but that is the best way to ask.
00:13:44.380 And then the key thing is you have to follow up.
00:13:46.660 So the offer part isn't just about making it.
00:13:49.200 It's dealing with the objections and then following up
00:13:51.320 because that's where the real money's made.
00:13:52.900 The real money is made in the follow-up.
00:13:55.060 But if you have a product
00:13:56.220 that you can get somebody to make a decision on the call,
00:13:58.220 I would go for on the call.
00:14:00.120 So it saves you the step of having to follow up.
00:14:02.320 Too often people are too easy to bend over
00:14:05.100 and it's just like, okay, I'll send you a proposal,
00:14:07.660 blah, blah, blah.
00:14:08.120 No, don't do that.
00:14:09.520 Never do that.
00:14:10.180 And the key is, if you have to go to another meeting,
00:14:13.640 I want you to bam fam.
00:14:14.880 It's called book a meeting from a meeting.
00:14:16.500 So on the call, you say, yeah, no problem.
00:14:18.480 I can send you the proposal.
00:14:19.720 Let's do this.
00:14:20.540 What would you like to see in the proposal?
00:14:22.000 Try to deal with the objection, make the offer,
00:14:23.960 ask for the deal again.
00:14:25.060 Don't do it, schedule the call.
00:14:26.440 But book a meeting from a meeting.
00:14:28.060 Schedule the call from that meeting to the next meeting.
00:14:31.140 This is next level, okay?
00:14:32.400 This is where nobody teaches you this stuff.
00:14:33.960 say the words. I've got you scheduled for Tuesday, eight o'clock, same time. I sent the calendar to
00:14:39.260 your inbox. Can you check it and add it to your calendar? Boom, they do. Could you do me a favor,
00:14:43.480 Mr. Buyer? If for whatever reason, something should come up, could you do me the honor of
00:14:47.180 texting me beforehand so I can fill that slot with somebody else that's looking to talk about
00:14:51.000 our product? And if they say yes, then you don't have a no-show. See, the problem with booking a
00:14:55.000 meeting from a meeting is if you don't do this step, then people aren't going to show up and
00:14:58.720 you just wasted your time and took that spot in your calendar. Here's the bonus step, and no sales
00:15:02.720 people do this after the person has their first aha moment it could be their first call it could
00:15:07.520 be after they see the finished product after they see the service done the first milestone
00:15:12.880 wherever in the process you have a moment where the buyer goes wow whatever that is in that moment
00:15:18.880 that's when you follow up and ask them is there one or two other people just like you that you
00:15:23.360 think we could serve with our product or service that question will help increase 30 of sales
00:15:28.800 people's quota. It's that simple because they'll be like, yeah, actually my friend Lisa, do you
00:15:32.880 mind making an introduction to Lisa right now? Or do you mind if I reach out to Lisa and I use your
00:15:36.820 name? Asking for a referral, that's what the best salespeople in the world do. They're not about
00:15:41.040 just getting a transaction done. They're about making sure that the person feels comfortable,
00:15:45.220 confident going forward. After they receive a massive amount of value, they circle back. They
00:15:49.820 say, how's it been going? Do you mind if I ask if there's anybody else just like you, then I might
00:15:53.660 be able to help with our product or service. And that's how you get massive amount of new revenue
00:15:57.360 on top of the existing sales you've already made.
00:15:59.580 That was 27 years of sales knowledge,
00:16:01.520 but if you wanna learn my 15 laws of success,
00:16:03.600 click the link and I'll see you on the other side.