Stuff You Can Learn From Door-to-Door Sales with Zach and Jessica DeVries #291

In this episode our guests don’t have a book, don’t coach, nor have a tool that saves you time or a consulting service that will get you back on the right track. They are real sales people finding success in the fundamentals of non-pushy sales. Jessica and Zach DeVries are married  and in sales. They met as college interns studying door-to-door sales.  This is the first of two parts. Look for the next episode here. 

Sales Training for College Interns

Both Zach and Jessica met selling educational books at Southwestern Advantage during college. What the learned doing door-to-door sales:

• • Door knocking strips down your confidence to your core.
  • Real confidence come from inside.
  • Builds resilience  and mental stamina.
  • Learned how to stay positive and  leave people feeling positive.
  • People are cool, not that much rejection.
  • People don’t know,  what they don’t know. It’s a common response.
  • Be pleasantly persistent.
  • When you meet people, who have to warm them up by coaxing out of them what they don’t like, the pains they commonly feel, but feel it at that moment.
  • You should only sell to people who have a need. The idea of selling ice cubes to eskimos is actually bad sales (they don’t need it)
  • Consultative selling requires good listening and allowing the buyer to let the pain out.
  • Let people solve their own problem.

How They Sell Now

• • Books vs Real Estate vs Clothing there are commonalities to door-to-door sales.
  • Networking – build relationships, not try to sell on the spot.
  • Goal – Be the person people think of when they hear someone is buying/selling a house
  • Bespoke clothing – custom sewn to a person’s body, hand workmanship forms to your body.  Business built around guys who don’t like shopping but want to look good
  • Sellers are Entrepreneurs – in real estate speaking openly and lovingly to potential homeowners, probably one of the biggest decisions in their lives.

How To Find Jessica and Zach Devries

Jessica

• Jessica at realtorjess.southwesternreal.com
• Facebook www.facebook.com/RealtorJessSWRE

Zach

• On Instagram @zdhaberdash
• LinkedIn
• https://www.tomjames.com/ZacharyDeVries/

Selling With Confidence Sales System

This online course helps non-sellers who aspire to grow their persuasive skills in order to find great leads, close more sales and accelerate their business. All this and at the same time, not be pushy! 

Click below and learn how you can start selling with confidence today.

Got a Question?

Something about today’s episode got you thinking? Do you have a question or a comment you’d like share?

If so “babble me” an email here, or if you can’t wait chat Pat now.

Maybe you’d like to share your musings on the podcast? Leave a voice message here. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Don’t worry about babbling, we prefer it.

Past Episodes on Sales Skills Training

Check out these past episodes to keep the babble babbling today!

• Making Buyers Think Your Idea is Their Idea –  Oren Klaff #284
• How Value Selling Can Grow Your Business with Chad Sanderson #281
• Selling is an Away Game with Lance Tyson #274
• No Sh*t Sales Journal with Carson Cook #270
• Return on Investment Buying with Frugalnomics with Tom Pisello #265
• Climb Everyday Sales Process with Mark Steel #263
• Five Steps for Instant Sales Improvement with Brian Robinson #259
• Selling Secrets for Women with Ryann Dowdy #244
• Telling Your Sales Story with Tom Jackobs #233
• You Can’t Challenge Your Way to a Sale with Meridith Elliot Powell

Listening Options

You can find us on:

• Google Play
• Spotify
• iTunes
• Stitcher
• Player FM
• Spreaker
• The SalesBabble.com website    click the player above on this page!

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How to Pitch a Compelling Proposal with Steve Thompson #285

In this episode guest Steve Thompson shares his process on how to pitch a compelling proposal. It’s frustrating responding to an RFP and losing the deal after hours of effort. Stop wasting your time and start applying Steve’s book “The Compelling Proposal – Make It Easy For The Customer To Buy From You“.

RFP – Request For Proposal

Formal document used to level the vendor playing field.  Goal is to stop the winning of contracts with wine and dine tactics and other nefarious efforts. But they can be an incredible time waster!

Steve doesn’t like RFPs. He has never found  an RFP that shares the outcomes the customer wants to achieve. To win a contract , you really  need to know what the buyer wants to accomplish.   How can we accomplish this?

RFPs Lost at the Start

You’re going win or lose a deal before the RFP is released.  Steve has found his win rate was 1 out of 20.  Instead, you should be talking to the client ahead of time. Help them write the specs so that the deal is tipped to your favor.

How can you do this? Tell the you DON’T was to respond! He recommends a form letter:

• • appreciate the opportunity to bid
  • after reviewing RFP can’t determine the real outcomes you’re trying to achieve
  • because of that, we’re uncertain we can give you the very best outcome possible
  • therefore we’re going to decline
  • but in the future, if we get to meet with you and your team to understand what you want to accomplish, my commitment is that you will always get the very best solution that we can provide

He then CC’s  CEO and other concerned executives.

Decline To Respond to RFP Results

When he sends this letter he has seen the following results:

• 1/3 time never heard back (never going to win it anyway)
• 2/3 time get a phone call (often gruff but explained why)
• 1/2 of the 2/3 asked for an appointment. When he gave proposals, 80% win rate!

Design of a Compelling Proposal

If the letter works, this is the pitch Steve recommends.  It contains  seven slides in the deck :

1. Value Proposition
2. List of specific outcomes important to them
3. Mapping of key outcomes with your solution
4. What’s important to seller (framing win-win)
5. 2-3 examples of successful customers in similar situation
6. Multiple options – They pick best fit, then ask how can it be improved.
7. Rewording Slide #2

How To Find Steve Thompson

• Website: www.valuelifecycle.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/steve-thompson-61913b17

Sales Presentation Tips

• Story Selling with Harry Maziar #276
• Return on Investment Buying with Frugalnomics with Tom Pisello #265
• Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell with Mike Adams #251
• Sales Jokes That Don’t Fall Flat with Jon Selig #195
• Speaking Skills Win Sales with Mark Gai #125
• Educate While You Negotiate with Jeanette Nyden #85
• How to PRESENT a terrific sales presentation
• Acting For Sales with Julie Hansen #69
• How To Use Improv When Selling with Sean Kelley #66
• How To Sell a Fine Dining Experience with Tony DeSalvo #62

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How to Guide Your Customer to Becoming a Hero with Brandon Sok #255

Brandon Sok is Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of OneTeam Marketing Solutions, a full-service marketing agency. As a StoryBrand Certified Guide, he helps clients clarify their message and connect with customers.  He started a company that helps his customers prioritize their marketing program to they can grow their business. During this journey he found the path to success is making his customer the hero. In this episode he tells us the story of his success and how you can do the same for your customers.

Perfect You One Liner Pitch

Here is an example:

Strong business owners struggle to find the time and execute the marketing their business deserves

so we started a company that can prioritize their marketing program for them so they can grow their business.

The Sales Guide Process:

1. state the problem
2. state how you can guide them to their solution
3. speak to the success they would experience

How To Leverage Your Hero Story

This process can be used to qualify clients too. You can use it to  find referrals when networking when you meet people are not qualified. They may know people who are a perfect fit.

This pitch is also useful for your website messaging.  Be clear who you serve and how you help.  Have a clear call to action : buy now, call now, schedule a counsel today.

Here is an example consultation script you would say at the beginning. This will give the buyers a sense of direction and understand you’ve got a real plan. This builds trust.

• Step 1  schedule a counsel
• Step 2 at your counsel we’ll create customized plan you can follow for life
• Step 3 we will finalize that plan so that you can sit back and trust the plan that grows your business.

How to Find Brandon Sok

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Are  Sales Chatbots Going to Take Away Your Sales Job with Dave Gerhardt #254

Advances in sales chatbots are raising the ability to instantly engage in web visitors. In  this episode Dave Gerhardt, VP of Sales at Drift.com, explains how to answer website visitors questions immediately and then motivate them to engage in a deeper sales call. This is done with Artificial Intelligence (AI)  and decision tree technology. The goal is to  use conversational marketing and anticipate the questions most visitors have BEFORE they even ask the question.

Brick and Mortar vs Online

Consider the situation where you visit a store and no clerks step up. You walk out of the store and then get a call on you phone saying “Hey I noticed you came into the store. How can I help”. Silly right? That’s what happens on website.

Consider a different possibility. What if you could immediately get in contact with a person the minute you visit.

How Conversational Marketing Works

People visit a website for reason. Try to talk to them immediately. While you browse a website, you see a sales chatbot in the bottom of the website. It says if you have a question, ask. Each page can have the bot say something contextual e.g.

• schedule a webinar
• get more data, a blog
• right brochure
• an event
• conference that’s been scheduled

Sales chatbots are programmed to answer the right question. They use reverse IP lookup to see if you (or someone from your company) have ever visited.  This is yet another aspect of conversational marketing.

How To Find Dave Gerhardt

Dave is VP of Sales at Drift.com   that creates sales chatbot technology.

This is Dave on LinkedIn.

Sales and Marketing Alignment

Let’s keep up the conversation with other lead gen episodes.

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Top 10 Sales and Marketing Tools for 2019 with Neil Kristianson

In this episode the returning Neil Kristianson from Email Splat visits Sales Babble in the international podcast studio. As we gather around the fire,  Neil and I drink homebrews, sample salsa, mustards, various cheeses and crackers.  Neil and I share the top 10 sales and marketing tools, we feel Sales Babble listeners should adopt in 2019.

Below are links to each of the tools mentioned in this episode.

Top  10 Tool Links

Past Episodes

Let’s keep the fireside chat going…….

Top 10 Sales and Marketing Tools for 2018 with Neil Kristianson

Top 10 Sales and Marketing Tools for 2017 with Neil Kristianson

Top 10 Sales and Marketing Tools for 2016 with Neil Kristianson

Top 10 Sales and Marketing Tools for 2014 with Neil Kristianson

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Building Sales Relationships with Cards Against Mundanity with Jason Treu #242

Jason Treu is an executive coach who works with executives, entrepreneurs and businesses to maximize their leadership potential and performance.  He’s the best-selling author of Social Wealth, a how-to-guide on building extraordinary business relationships, In this episode Jason shares his breakthrough team building game Cards Against Mundanity.

Team Building

It can be difficult to get teams to self disclose information and share in a very personal way.  High performing teams know each other extremely well. Vulnerability builds the highest levels of trust. If team members care, they will do anything for you. For example, your team will help you on a deal, not because they have a percentage, but because they like you.   These relationships give organizations a leg up. The game speeds up the trust process.

Cards Against Mundanity

Split  into groups of 6-8 persons. Kick Start the conversation with a question – “What are you most grateful for this past year?  Or tell me about a really important lesson you learned last year”    The card game facilitates these kinds of questions.

Customer Seller Relationships

When sellers have a great relationship, they  know a lot about their customers’ personal life. Since they trust you, they share. Because they share, you are more fully engaged.  Sometimes prospects do NOT want to divulge about themselves.

The game is a way to overcome that challenge. There is no pushback. People want to share, they just need a reason. The best way to start is for the seller (you) to be vulnerable. You must be vulnerable to gain trust.

How To Find Jason Treu

• You can find Jason on LinkedIn
• His website is https://jasontreu.com/
• His card game Cards Against Mundanity
• https://twitter.com/jasontreu
• https://www.youtube.com/user/jasontreucoaching
• https://www.facebook.com/jasontreuexecutivecoaching
• https://www.instagram.com/jasontreu/

Building Rapport in Sales

Let’s keep the conversation going. Here are other past episodes on how to build a relationship with clients. Listen today!

• Consulting Coaching and Serving Your Ideal Client with Ben and Aiden Hoppe #234
• You Can’t Challenge Your Way to a Sale with Meridith Elliot Powell
• Valve Stem Sales Strategy with Corey Philip #229
• Honesty Sells with Colleen Francis #223
• How To Sell With the CRINGE Method from Doug Vigliotti #213
• Sales Jokes That Don’t Fall Flat with Jon Selig #195
• How To Sell The World with Karl Weaver #177
• How to Sound Better and Improve your Voice during Sales Presentations with Tracy Goodwin #172
• Selling from the H.A.R.T. with Mega Cindy Vranken #143
• 4 Step Sales Framing Process with Aaron Janx #131

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Napoleon Hill’s Truthful Living with Jeffrey Gitomer #240

This episode’s guest is Napoleon Hill. Hill is the author of the book Think and Grow Rich which according to Wikipedia is one of the top 10 best selling self help books of all time. It’s important to know that Hill died in 1970 which begs the question, how is it that Napoleon Hill is on Sales Babble?  Our other guest is the sales king Jeffrey Gitomer who is taken Napoleon Hill’s Truthful Living book and re-published it with annotations, definitions, and editing for the modern reader.  Jeffrey is a renowned author on sales books including the Sales Bible and cohosts with Jennifer Gluckow the Sell or Die podcast. Today we dig into the eternal  truths of Napoleon Hill and how it applies to sales and any who have the entrepreneurial spirit.

Personal Development, Positive Attitude and Wealth

Jeffrey has been a long fan of Hill’s work. Hill had an advertising school on sales. He would type out his lessons, then assembled those lessons into this book. Written in 1917 and now over a 100 years ago the book is still 100% relevant. This book has been a three year project available on October 30th, 2018

Take Action

Success is up to you. Finish what you start.  Hill encourages you to succeed while giving you the ideas to succeed with.

“Success may be had by those who are willing to pay the price… And the price is eternal vigilance in the development of Self-confidence, Enthusiasm, Working with the Chief Aim, Performing more Service than you are paid for, and Concentration. With these qualities well developed you will be sure to succeed.” – Napoleon Hill

To be an entrepreneur, it takes focus and letting go of distractions and car payments. To be an entrepreneur it demands rising from the fray.

Companies come and go… Sears and Roebuck. Montgomery Wards, Marshall Fields,  and the Yellow Pages were all mainstays in the past century, but now history. They were not targeted, too diverse, expanded too quickly,  too soon and lost focus on their core competency. All of these companies waited too long. They failed Hill’s teaching of “eternal vigilance” and working on the “Chief Aim”.  

Quote of the day  

“Bing helps you decide to  use Google.”  Jeffrey Gitomer.   

How To Find Jeffrey Gitomer

You can find Jeffrey all over the web:

• LinkedIn
• Sell or Die podcast
• New book Napoleon Hill Truthful Living   Go here to download the first chapter for free!

Selling Mindset

Here are other great episodes on having the right selling mindset. Listen today!

• Why You Need a Killer Business Plan with Peter Mehit #232
• You Can’t Challenge Your Way to a Sale with Meridith Elliot Powell
• White Collar Warrior with Bill Hart #226
• Debunking Sales Myths with Mike Schultz #216
• How To Sell With The Socratic Method with Roger Breisch #214
• How To Sell With the CRINGE Method from Doug Vigliotti #213
• The Key to Authentic Selling with Jeff Davis #207
• The Purpose of Sales with May McCarthy #203
• Time To Sell Mindset with Chris Spurvey #202
• Three Step Process to Narrow Your Sales Focus #201

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5 Free Ways to Instantly Generate Hot Qualified Leads #228

The one plea I hear over and over is “Pat! I NEED more leads! I’ve run out of people to talk to!” It’s painful to have a great offer and nobody knows about it. What’s a seller to do? In this episode I’d like to share a strategy on how to instantly generate hot qualified leads.

By qualified  I mean people who have a genuine need or desire for your product or service. By hot I mean people who once they see your product, they  immediately see the value and can’t wait to become a paying customer today.

Follow this strategy  and you will be talking to REAL prospects instantly. I’ve also included few tips and tactics to kick this strategy off. Let’s find some leads!

The Strategy

The Strategy for generating hot qualified leads  has two goals:

• Visit places where your ideal clients hangs out.
• Strike up a conversation and turn strangers into friends and friends into customers.

Sounds simple, right? People are inundated with pitches, offers, and can’t miss deals. It’s difficult to discern whose honest and who’s not. To turn a stranger into a friend, you’ve got to  build trust and that takes time. Trust demands a certain level of friendship. To find new friends we’ll leverage your value proposition to discover places rich with your ideal prospective clients 

5 Free Lead Generation Tactics

Here are 5 ways to discover and uncover new qualified leads. You may be familiar with some of these. But have you tried them all? Depending on the industry, some may work better than others. Find what works best for your situation.

In Person Networking

Meeting someone in person is the premiere way to connect and instantly build a relationship. Common channels to meet people  are:

• Attend live meetings posted in Meetup.com 
• Subscribe to shared forums in social media and join the conversation.  
• Most of the people you meet are not qualified to be your customers. But once you get to know them, they may know people who are a good fit. Treat EVERYONE like they’re an opportunity.  
• Attend trade shows.   You can meet people a couple ways. One is exhibiting at a booth to collect leads or another is to attend as a guest and finding clients among the attendees and exhibitors. That’s right, depending on your business, exhibitors might be great prospects.
• Get scheduled at as a guest speaker. Do not sell or pitch your product or service during the presentation. Talk about issues that surround the pains and desires your offer addresses. At the end of the presentation tell them you’ve barely scratched the surface and you have more to share. People will reach out and connect. Through your networking introduce yourself to the host. They are always looking for new content.

Direct Outreach:

 Reach out to people you’ve never met with cold emails, cold phone calls, cold LinkedIn mail, or direct message tweets. Use the Get-To-Know-You process (see below) to slowly build rapport and convert into a conversation.

Referrals

Ask people you know to introduce you to friends who might find value in your offer. Do this on a regular basis twice a year. Most will not know anyone, but every so often you will get a great lead. People want to help, don’t be shy, ask. Heck, they may be interested themselves. 

Content Marketing

Write a dozen great articles (in my case podcasts) that give value to prospective customers. Writing will help you better understand the value of your offer and clarify your thoughts. The goal is to be persuasive and have the reader take action. This content will be used for multiple purposes. Post them on social media, share to your email list, make it a free give away (called a lead magnet) on your website.

Website

Have a prominent signup form to gather emails on your web page. Give away something free (see above) and place the people on your email list, Make sure all the branding on your brochures and ads match the website. Don’t confuse people. The goal is to have the visitor take action and sign up. Since they took the initiative to signup, you know for certain they are a qualified lead. Have all sign ups forwarded to you. This is all dependent on making your website search engine optimized (SEO). 

The Get-To-Know-You Process

The primary goal of sales is to turn strangers into friends and friends into customers. Rapport is a state where two people profoundly understand each other’s feelings and ideas. This is the ideal situation for any seller. Building rapport is a process that takes time.  The Get-To-Know-You process slowly builds trust and a relationship with the strangers you meet. You are in search to discover if they are indeed a qualified lead. Follow the steps patiently and in order.  

1. Introduce yourself without pitching (in person, social media or on the phone)
2. Ask them about them  (challenges, problems, hopes, dreams starting with small talk)
3. Listen carefully and search to see if they have a problem/desire you solve
4. Agree to connect online via social media or email or if in person exchange business cards and shake hands goodbye. Wait.
5. Connect online, share some advice you believe will add value to their business (or life). Wait. Don’t be pushy. 
6. Ask if they enjoyed the content you shared. Wait.
7. Set up an appointment to chat about their problems and challenges.

The target  of this Get-To-Know-You process is to first schedule an appointment and second get them to show up. This is the most difficult part of a sale. If your prospect is qualified AND they understand the value of your product they will agree to meet. This process takes time.  Steps may be added or removed depending if you’re working online or offline.

If they see the value of your offer they will buy. If not ask them why they don’t see the value. In either case you will learn something that will help you in the next deal.

The Follow Up

It’s easy for people to forget you. You don’t want your hard earned qualified leads to go stale. You must follow up, at least 8 times.  Create an email campaign that sends reminders and interesting articles every so often. This can be automated but make the emails look simple as if you just typed them.

The Commitment

Look at the above process and channels and set a few  weekly/daily goals to prospect. If you set aside time to attend meetings, or meet people on LinkedIn, you will soon find yourself in many conversations. From the those conversations you will find qualified prospects or people who know prospective customers. In either case it’s about building rapport, trust and relationships that are mutually beneficial. Start small and with time bump up the challenge.

The Secret

A few years ago I was doing business development for a SaaS startup that had a killer app. It far exceeded the competition but we had tiny sales. We had this great product but nobody knew about it. It was a secret. Eventually the secret got out and we dominated the market. We did it by using this strategy of turning strangers into friends and friends into customers. You can too.

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Blizt Episode: Learning a Sales Language

In this short podcast Pat will share some selling thoughts based on recent work with clients. This episode is a “blitz” with advice for new sellers or seasoned sellers of new products and services on the necessity of learning your prospects sales language.

​A common Startup Challenge is to get Beta customers to convert into paying clients. Often times sellers wonder “How do I sell? What do I say? How do I close them?” This is a case of putting the cart before the horse. Sellers fail to deeply understand their market and learn the sales language before selling.

This comes with Practice. To become the teacher takes work and empathizing with customer’s needs, wants, and desires. When the time comes, sellers show a path of success. All this work is focused on prospect, in the prospect’s language.

Finding a Market

Brainstorm exercise 50 verticle market niches. Next align with pros and cons. Then pick 10 that look like a possible fit. Next market research companies in the niche. Ask people in those companies:

• What’s their challenge
• What’s the impediment to that challenge
• What’s the cost of failure – Revenue, Profit, Time, Quality, Frustration, others
• What’s the opportunity if the challenge is met

Discovery conversations will soon convert the interview into a sales call. Dont foolishly focus on your tech, your commisions and your end of quarter quotas. Do the work and the latter concerns will vanish.

Message of the Day

Take time to focus on a niche. Learn their language and let them guide your solution. Be like a mouse in a maze, finding dead end after dead end. Try and try again and eventually, like the mouse, you will find the cheese. Tenacity will get you there.

Entrepreneurial Mindset

Listen here for past episodes regarding the entrepreneurial mindset:

• The Key to Authentic Selling with Jeff Davis #207
• What’s Not Working In Sales Today with Brandon Bruce #204
• Three Step Process to Narrow Your Sales Focus #201
• How to Pitch Shark Tank with Michelle Weinstein #184
• How to be a Sales Sherpa with the Hyperconnected David Fisher
• Startup Story Where Software Goes to Seed with Charlie Wiltgen #179
• Sales Cycling and Startups with Jon Woodroof #145
• Selling from the H.A.R.T. with Mega Cindy Vranken #143
• Lose Your Ego Gain The World with Todd Lemense #139
• Location Independent Business Essentials with Dan O’Donnell #138