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

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, 1.00

00:03:55.880 email, voicemail, phone call, stupid, bad. 1.00

00:03:58.780 Don't do that. 1.00

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 0.96

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 0.99

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.

Dan Martell - August 02, 2024

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

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