Business Success Skills for 2021 - Importance of Sales

Foreign. Are you up to date with how to sell in 2020 and 2021 and PR in the prior video, in the prior part of the series, we talked about three skills. Sales is number as an entrepreneur. Sales number one, because sales equals income. Number two is to be able to build a team because that'll give you reach, leverage and passive income. And number three, your ability to teach your team how to sell. Okay, so we're drilling down now on those various parts. And so I'm gonna start with selling. Okay. Why? Because sales equals income, probably the most important piece to start with. Okay, so again, this is not something that you just do. This is something ultimately in a later video, we're gonna teach you how to teach this to the people are selling for you or how to do this with your teams. Okay. So when it comes to sales, there are three areas, three key areas to look at. Number one, Number one, who is your customer? Now, this seems pretty freaking obvious. Who's your customer? Well, that's not maybe so obvious as it seems as you'll see in a minute. Second of all, what is the psychology of your customer right now, or psychology of the market or the psychology of you or your sales team? This is critical to understand too, because remember, your results come from behaviors, but also come from mindset, self concept, all that kind of stuff, and that your results will never exceed your self concept. So psychology is critical and of course, the process, and I say this in 2020, that all these things have changed. All of this has changed. It's all changed. They're still valid, but the details within each one have changed, and they change fairly significantly. So if we take a look at who's the customer, who is it? I mean, is it the same person that it was 2019? You know, I would say this. This is the LATTER Part of 2020. Now we're in October, almost November. It may not be the same person that you that was your customer a month ago. Who is your customer? You have to be vigilant. The days of, yeah, we know our customer, we know who they are. All that stuff, those days are over. It's constantly changing as people get thrown out of work, businesses go down, deflation happening all over the place. I mean, elections going on, it's very volatile. It's important that you continue to take a poll of who are your customers? Look at your numbers. Who are your best customers? Who are they? Who are they not? Okay, so knowing who they are, that's number one. Number two, what is it they want? I mean, some of them Wanted market share before. Some of them just wanted to be more efficient before. Now some may just want to survive. Some may just want to survive. Some are trying to figure out how do I keep from. I have to let go of these people. I, you know, I'm not sure if I can make payroll next month. So you're so understanding what they want will change your language with them, how you talk to them. You won't be talking to them about the same kind because their wants are different. If all the, If I just. If what I want is to keep my business alive and be able to be able to feed my family and be able to take care of my staff, that's a very different. And you're selling to me, that's a very different conversation you're going to have with me than you maybe did a year ago when I was just looking to create, crush the market out there. So you understand. So it's a very different. It's very different. Why? Because the psychology is different. So what's different about the psychology? What's different about the psychology right now is that what, what is prevalent in the world today is this word fear. Fear of pandemic, fear of economic collapse, fear of deflation, fear of. Fear of fear. Okay, so as to understand that psychology is going to help you in sales, ignoring it is a insensitive. You're unaware you're going to lose sales and it's just not the right thing to do. You need to understand and be able to assess and as is that, that's what's in the space. That's why your language has changed. That's why the wants have changed. That's why who this is has changed. And courtesy of one of my great colleagues, fellow by the name of Simon Bowen from Perth, Australia, I consider him to be probably one of the foremost thought leaders, thinkers, sages in the world when it comes to selling strategies and using visual models and things like that. Just amazing. And he says it very well. He says that what people are looking for now in the selling cycle and the selling cycle and working with you is not just plain value. They're looking for safety. Safety. They want something safe. How does he explain it? He explains it this way. He says that a customer should feel that doing business with you is their best insurance policy. See, formally, people don't like talking to live sales reps, you know, in car dealerships and in retail stores because they know they're going to get sold and they feel it's unsafe. And that's why people like buying Online. Okay. But a person should. And why? Because they don't want to be pressured into it. They want to do it in their own time. Well, now whatever that psychology was has just been upped tenfold. Tenfold. Okay. They want to feel safe. They want to know that by utilizing their product or service that it's like an insurance policy, that they would be at greater risk if they did not buy from you or they didn't work with you. That's a different psychology than we're used to dealing with. And to be able to position yourself, put yourself in a position to be able to provide that safety net for them. So the psychology is a little bit different. Okay, what else is going on? Well, we also know that there's lots of little voices going on out there. Lots of. Lots of little voices going on out there. There's words floating around in the environment like depression, distraction, confusion, desperation, failure. Okay? A lot of these things that back in 2018, 19, everybody's roaring, just going for the gusto. But now these words, if they're not being spoken, are in the back of people's minds. And so to understand that that's what's going on is not to go in as a gloom and doom person, but be able to assess it. Now, how would you assess it? Say, look, I know that things are. How's your business doing? Well, we're struggling. Okay, good. Yeah, I know a lot of people are struggling these days. We've been going through some of that stuff too. But here's what I under. I know is that depressing times or when economic cycles collapse, it usually signals in something new. It's end of cycle. That's usually, you know, in The Great Depression, 1929, you know, 1920s came after the roaring twenties and everything collapsed. But what came after that? You know, we went into a depression. And then after that, when it went to war, we went to the next evolution and we went into the boom of all booms, the economic boom of all booms. So we know we're at the end of a cycle. So I'm here to help you because I want to make sure we're all on board. So to take. Not only to get through this cycle, but to maximize the next one. See, so that's a different conversation. You're acknowledging what's going on out there. Say, look, other people are depressed too. One thing I know is about depression is this. We work as teams. As long as we're working as teams, there's nothing we can't handle. There's no Problem we can't handle as long as we stick together. And that's why we're here to work with you. Huh? Different conversation. Okay, different conversation because there's lots of little voices going on out there. Now the process, well, the process breaks down. I'm going to take the process to another page here so I have some more room. The process, first of all, the process is a selling cycle. Okay? So we were to take a look at this and we look at the process. There are three areas, Whoops, let's use this one. Three areas. You know, we want to attract, we want to convert and we want to retain track. Convert. Retain, Right. I mean, that's standard. That hasn't changed in thousands of thousands of years. But how you do it now has changed. Okay, so for example, over here, when we talking about, when we're talking about attraction, what are we talking about? Well, first of all, it's one to many. It's no longer one to one. If you're going to attract clients, you got a one to many on a camera, on zoom. However you do it, you got it. And you got to have some technology at least be able to get in front of a fricking camera to do this kind of stuff. Okay, so it's one to many. One, two. Let's put a little infinity sign, one to many over there. Okay? That's a given part of this whole thing. So for example, if you were one to one and making lots of appointments now, maybe you need to go, maybe you decide to go do some email marketing. And then after email marketing, you realize you had to change and do some social media marketing. And social media marketing, you're finding that most of your customers are on LinkedIn or maybe YouTube. So it continues to evolve and change and you have to be vigilant because it almost. Because things are picking up speed. You think in a depression or recession, things slow down? Well, the flow of money slows down, but the activity speeds up. Okay, the flow of money slows down. The acceleration of money slows down, as Andy Tanner, rich dad advisor would say. But the, but everything else speeds up at lower prices. That's called deflation, by the way. Okay, so it's one to many. So what do you do? My thought here for a second. Yes, so first of all, it's one to many. It's one to many. Then the question is who, who are the people they're going to attract? You know, what's your process there? Okay, so what's the process there? We talk about process. So again, it could be you have a sale, you could have a sales team, you could have affiliates, you could be using just social media. Okay, There are lots of way there. You know, there are lots of different processes and combinations of processes. But it's important to not get distracted. Do too many, but find the ones that work for you. Find where your customers are, where they're, where they're hanging out and how you're going to talk to them. Now, if you're working with a sales team, revert back to the section I did on how to recruit that kind of team and how to get them going. And if you're going to train them, the next video is going to be how to train your team, how to sell. Okay, Affiliates, do they understand your mission? Are they operating by the same code of honor, the same set of values? And on social media, do you have a team? It's not a one person job. It's not a one person job. If you're going to be a successful entrepreneur, you got to have somewhat of a team. Could be a virtual team, whatever kind of team that's going to support you in maintaining that process. Okay, so that's attraction. It's the who. It's the one to many. And it's always changing. Change is constant. It's always constant. Whatever you were doing on Facebook last week, it's probably not going to work next month. Okay, we know that. So you have to constantly test it. Now, when it comes to conversion, when it comes to conversion, let's take a look at that. That's changed too. So with conversion, what we said earlier, based on the psychology, we've got to be promoting safety as part of what we're doing. Obviously we talk about the converse. We're talking. The conversation is different. The conversation is different. And again, depending on who's doing this, these people need to be trained also. Not only on the attraction side, but also on the conversion side. Okay, and here's the big part. Value. Deep value. Deep value. What do I mean by that? The days of just, it's $2,000, but for you, is it going to be half price? It'll be a thousand dollars. And we're going to add this to that and that to that and that to that and that to that. You know, it's called stacking. Those days are. I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm just saying people are a bit numb to all of that. They're not concerned about that now. They just want, they just want to. They need what's relevant to Them. Therefore, conversation changes. It's about deep value. Value that's deeper than the customer even thinks about. Let me say that again. Your job. Our job is in con. The conversion process is to articulate a value to the customer that the customer even thinking about. I give an example that I use. I've used a lot lately. There's a group of people up in Idaho that make dog crates. Dog crates, okay. Very high end. Exquisite workmanship. And they're very expensive. And they do really well. I mean, they're crushing it right through COVID 19, through the pandemic. Best sales they've ever had. They're rolling crates out the door, right, left, and center. They're no longer using Amazon or any of those people because they cut them out. And because they're making so much margins on their own, they don't need that distribution anymore. So I asked him, I said, how do you do this? I mean, it's a dog crate for pets, for crying out loud. And they're expensive. I said, why do you do this? They go, well, you know what? People don't even ask us about the price that much. I go, they don't. They go, why? They go, well, the reason we do this is we love animals. And. And we. And, you know, most people get dogs as pets. You know, they get them as a puppy or they get them at the pound or whatever, and they have that love affair. They look them in the eye. They look them in the eye and they fall in love, and they take pictures with their kids, and it's part of the member of the family and all those things. And then this little puppy grows up to be a beast, okay? That can tear up furniture and create havoc in the neighborhood and all these things. And unfortunately, what happens, at least in America, many thousands, hundreds of thousands of these animals are abandoned or killed, euthanized because the owners just can't handle them anymore. And so that love affair turns into a nightmare. And they said, what we do is we create these crates that will protect the animal, keep them confined, allow them to settle down, because we want to preserve that relationship that you had with that little puppy where you fell in love with them. And we want you to stay in love and stay as a family together, because that's really what's important in this whole thing. I'm listening to this, and I'm going, I want to create. I mean, I've got tears in my eyes, and I don't want to crate. I got three dogs. But. But I could totally, as a dog owner, as A. As a pet owner, I could totally relate. I. But I never looked at it that way. Never, Never. And they sell thousands of them. So my question to you is, what is the deep value that you provide, that you provide that even the customer isn't consciously thinking about, but because you have experience and because you have some really good customers that you've talked to, you can find that out, and that needs to be part of your conversation. Okay, now, retention, how has that changed? Let's take a look at retention of a room area. There we go, retention. Okay, a couple things real quick. First of all, maintaining your customers requires increased frequency of contact with them. Increased frequency. Look, why? Because it's 10 times easier to sell a new product, new service, new offering, upgrade to somebody that already knows you and likes you, rather than trying to go out there and go through the mayhem of getting new clients. Okay, so critical to retain who you have. So what do you do through these crazy times? You give them more value. Don't charge them any more money, but give them more value through newsletters, education interventions, consultations, things that don't cost you money, maybe cost you a little time, but maintain a higher level of frequency with our global training, training community. When COVID 19 hit quarantine hit, we started meeting every week, the whole global group, all 500 people all together, 400 people all together and meeting every single week. How you doing? Checking in new material, new information, what's working, what's not working. Now we back off back to once a month because everybody's doing better now, doing well now. But in the beginning, the frequency has to go up. Frequency of contact is because if not, somebody else is going to grab and become part of their frequency program. Okay, so frequency is parted number two. I think I just mentioned that. Value again. This word comes back again. Value has to go up. Give them more high frequency, more value, high frequency, more value. I mentioned that. And most of all, kind of a little secret here that the great organizations do, like the Teslas and the Apple computers, Rich dad does this, we do this, is that your customers become your team. Your customers become your team. Now, what I mean by team, no, you're not paying them, you're not employing them. But they're your team. You treat them like a team. You have a code of honor with them. You meet with them, you support them. They. You do all the kind of things that you would do with a team. Education is a very, very big thing. And everybody's scrambling for good education right now. And you can provide that in your area of expertise, but treat them like a team. Some people call it a movement. Some people are, you know, I work with an organization, my friend Josh and Lisa Lannan at Warrior's Heart. They do. They work with warriors. Warriors are veterans that are fought, most of which have fought overseas. Police, emergency room individuals, anybody that's faced trauma in the line of duty. While people are running out of buildings, their clients are running into buildings. And because of the horrific things that they've had to experience, many of them have resorted to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain. And so Warrior's Heart is a place where they go and they get rehabbed and cleaned up and get their life back. And just amazing. They change people's lives. And they're, as you can imagine, during these times, they're very, very busy. And those people actually wear the tattoo of the emblem of Warrior's Heart on their arms. Now, that's a great team. Now that's a movement that's more than just a customer. Okay, so the question you got to ask yourself, would your customers wear a tattoo of your company? Well, maybe, maybe not. But do you provide a level of care and service that you would provide to your own team, to your own family, to your own community? And I'm going to tell you that if you can do that, the companies that have done well during 2020 have done this. I don't know if they've done it on purpose, but that's what they've done. These are very tight communities. I was talking about talking to a group of hairdressers. A very dear friend of mine was having a conference, and There are about 80 salon owners, hair salon owners from across America. They're part of his tribe, part of his customer base. And somebody said, I would have never made it through 2020 had it not been for this tribe. Now, how about that? Are they saying that about you? Maybe you want them to say that about you? It can be done. It doesn't take any money. It just takes awareness, direction, and effort. Okay, so retain these days in difficult times. You've heard me say this before. Your number one asset is your community. Make your customers your community, your team, your allies. A movement, if you will. And then you'll understand that in order to succeed in sales, to succeed in sales, it's the process, the customer, and it's the psychology. And the next time around, we're going to talk to you about how to teach your team how to sell, and we're going to drill down more into these particular processes. You know, the attraction process, conversion process, and the retention process. And we'll give you some more work on that. Okay, so until then, sell well, sales equals income. Be awesome.