Authority: How to Improve Your Results

Anthony, you have a new book in the works that hasn't been published yet and the audience wants to know. The book is all about salespeople becoming an authority.

Yes.

So I'd love to hear from you. Describe that moment in your career. Were you still a salesperson and not yet an authority? And, uh, what— at what moment did that shift?

I was making cold calls when I was 15, um, and I was the only person that got any deals. And then I realized that I could go to a skating rink where it'd be a lot more fun than making, uh, cold calls. And I got out of there in a hurry. But about 17, I started doing in my family's business. I had the Limited, Victoria's Secret, DHL, the state of Ohio. I picked up all those between like 17 and 21. That part there was harder. I mean, just very hard if you're 15, 17, don't have a lot of experience. But what I did is I found this guy named Dallas at Limited, and I asked him if he would teach me to understand his industry. And that's where I started to figure things out. I didn't know enough about the industry. And if you really want to be an authority, you have to think about the, the industries that you're touching, or the ones that, the ones that you need to touch to have the results that you want. So, so that was a tough time. It got easier for me even though I had hair down to my waist because I was still playing rock and roll at that time. And they would tease me and say, you got a tie on, are we going to a funeral today or something? And they would tease me about that. And I made a lot of friends and I got a lot of people to Teach me their industries, and that has to be part of what we're going to talk about today.

So, so you were you were a rebel.

I still am most of the time.

The rebel mindset. Yeah. So you you draw that hard line between vendor and authority. What How do you— how would you describe that, that line?

The problem when somebody doesn't have the chops, or they haven't— don't have the experience yet, or they don't understand how the sales conversation is supposed to go— I spend a lot of time with people giving them to get a better conversation with their clients. And I'll say some more about this when we get to the Being one down.

Okay. So you say that authority begins with information disparity.

Yes.

So you know about the buyer's business and you understand the industry. So now we are living in the age of AI where that information gap has been, you know, for buyers, they have the illusion of knowledge because they consult AI. So does that disparity still exist? And—

Yes. No, it's even worse. It's even worse right now. Everybody's using ChatGPT. They're all on the same algorithm. Some of you should just jump out right when you— I said that. Go to Gemini, go to Claude, go somewhere else. If everybody's on the same algorithm, you're gonna get the same results, right?

So you almost misspoke the word GPT by— I thought you're going to say cheat PT because you cannot trust GPT.

That's right. I don't use AI anymore.

Wow, that, that is a first.

Yeah, I don't use it at all. Uh, what I use is my brain, ideas, 2 hands, and a type— something to type on. That's it. I think it's— we're gonna be dumber and dumber and dumber by letting this oracle tell us what to do and believe that it has any idea what it's to be like a human being. They can't do that. It can't do that. It sounds like it, but they don't have empathy, or they try to now. I saw somebody try to do that. Yeah. So I moved from just going to encyclopedias, dictionaries, uh, magazines. Newspapers, because I don't want that. And the second thing is, as a person who is a writer, I have to be able to copyright everything that might go into the next book. So for me, I have to just get to the point where I gotta stop here because you can't copyright AI. You can't do it. It doesn't work that way.

So you, you described the buyer as one down on this decision. What, what does one down mean?

Okay, I did this for a long time. I have 2 things. I got one up, which means you have the experience to help the client make the rare decision that they have to make, and they want to get it done on the very first attempt. Because they want to get it done right there and not have to do this again and have a problem. So, and then when we get to down being one down, that's somebody who doesn't have the experience. They've not working on that. They don't have managers that are helping them to sit down and understand how the only thing we do is talk to people. You know that? That's why you did it, right? Because it's easy. You can just talk to people. And if they don't know the conversation, it's a problem.

So how do you exercise authority without being condescending or self-serving?

What, what I tend to do is to say something like, would it be okay if you give me maybe about 4 or 5 minutes to share some insights with you that we are finding that this trend now is in full post and we have to do something with it. And I think that's true all the time, especially with AI. I think that's— it's a whole different time now. The '80s were better, wasn't it?

Probably.

Probably. Yeah.

But so what you're saying is you ask for permission To show your knowledge, to show your, share your insights.

And I'm trying to do it in like 4 to 5 minutes. I, I don't wanna spend 30 minutes and then, right, they're walking out because they didn't get any value from the conversation.

So do you spend a couple of minutes on, uh, describing where you got that knowledge from, what your sources are, and, or, uh, do you Share a story about your experiences.

If I have a— if it's the industry, I would probably talk about what I know about that industry. This is the hardest thing for me when being in staffing. You, you're just doing training. I'm doing like all kinds of companies. I have no idea the industries, but I have a number of prompts that I do use AI for. For getting the insights that I need for a new industry.

Got it. So you also talk about in your new book about creating value in the conversation itself. How do you build that value during the conversation? What, what are the elements of value that, uh, you could share with us?

You can share something with 4 trends that you're recognizing that they don't recognize. That gets them value, right? That's one of the things that we can do. I think there's a lot of people who don't understand when we say about talking about the conversation, which it is, and they have to understand those things. I find it if people are in an industry for a long enough time, pretty good. If they're new, very, very difficult to catch up. It's an experience thing. You get better by doing the same thing over and over again. And that's what makes you what up is because you figured out how to be one up. And then people want to buy from you because you sound like an authority. You're, you're, you're doing the authority game that we play.

So what, what you're saying is that sometimes salespeople come, go in with the mindset that the buyer is the authority. And, uh, what you just said earlier is, uh, the buyer has domain authority in, in certain areas, but in not all.

And it's industry. They might have better industry because they do that every day and we don't. So I'm one down if I come in and I don't have the industry, right? I won't let that ever happen anyway because I would rather just come in and have insights that I can share very early in this sales conversation.

Well, and I think that there's an additional source of value That you can bring to a conversation, which is listening and come with really interesting questions that the buyer hasn't even thought of.

More people should do that.

Give me an example.

I tend to use insights. I go to ChatGPT. I still do that one for this one because I think these prompts are pretty good when I use them. So I'm asking it to tell me that the 15 headwinds in that industry and the 15 tailwinds. And now I have— I'm not going to use all those. I'm going to use 4 of those, the ones that I think that are going to be how hitting for the conversation that you want to have a conversation and who's got to be in that room.

I like that. You shared that at last year's event, and I keep asking that question when I call on a new company and, or when I do an interview with, with a CEO. And it's very, very useful to know What this company is up against. So you, you can be useful. Um, what about executive presence? Uh, describe, uh, how should you show up so that you are respected as an authority?

Oops, let me give it a second print because you gave me— put a lot of that right there. So Say it again one more time.

Executive presence.

Yes, you should look the way, I mean, and you should look like you're heavy in your industry. You've been doing this for a long time. How long are you doing what you're doing right now?

4 years.

4 years? Come on.

Oh, I forgot the zero. Sorry. Yeah.

Yeah. If you do something every day and you get more experience each time you go, it changes the whole thing. So I teach people to understand when they are one down and how they can go to being one up.

But that's a lot of work on getting the experience they need to be able to Describe for me, you have been in the staffing business a long time and you have lost sales and walked away from bad business. What is your most memorable sale? You could leverage your authority.

I went into this company, um, 2 years ago. They have used every staffing firm in Columbus, Ohio, and they never gave us an opportunity. And one day they just called us and said, would you like to come in and sit down with us? And I said, yeah, we'd love to do that. 12 people on their side, all senior leaders. Me and my younger sister, she said nothing the whole time. I mean, literally didn't say one single thing. We went through 2 and a half hours, and those 2 and a half hours was mostly them talking to each other. And I'm thinking I could probably give them something else, but I tried that. At the end of that, they said, that was really helpful for us. We'd like to do it again, not next week, but the after week. We want you to come back and do— give us 2 and a half hours. So that's a lot of time and especially a lot of money on their side. So I sat down the second time and they said, can you give us a contract? And I said, yeah, I can get you a contract. That's now in those 3 years, we're at $21 million right now with that client. With sharing, we shared almost nothing with them. They did. They just need to talk to each other. And I was trying to help them with that. Seemed to work. And now I'm still $21 million and still here.

So your function was not to sell to them, but to direct the conversation amongst themselves.

That's right. Yes, I was just helping them. That's exactly right.

Right, right.

The person sitting next to me was great. I mean, he was writing and sharing things with me and it went really well though. And we still have him. I think we'll have him forever.

So I think that speaks for your ability to think on your feet and not get locked into a preconceived idea because I remember when I coached salespeople and went with them on sales calls. I remember sitting in the car with a sales rep and I say, can you predict what is going to happen in this call and actually write it down? You know, we have a goal, we have a talk track, we, we have an objective, we need to get a certain point. So can you describe and predict what's going to happen? And we did this for 3 days and made about 12 calls, live calls, and not once have we been able to predict what is actually going to happen.

Sometimes it's a, it's a very difficult— like, you think you come in with this idea, the other person's got their ideas too as well, right?

Exactly.

So I always just say, can I just share these 4 trends? And then I, I really would love If you would share with what's going on in your industry and then in your industry, um, in your business, I'd like to know that if you could do that. I want them to start talking early as well too.

Right, right. And, uh, I, I also remember one call was in Phoenix, Arizona, and, uh, we were supposed to do a presentation, uh, for a multi-year advertising contract. And talk about all the benefits in our readership. We were in print at the time. And we walked in and the CEO opened with, Gerd, I've decided, I've already made my decision. We're gonna throw $250,000 worth of business your way. Now, What would you like for lunch? And it was the most amazing sale ever where the customer sold himself.

A lot of them try to do that, right?

Not just keep—

like, I'll say this one thing one more time. It's a rare decision. You want to have to get it done right and like the very first attempt, because if you don't, people will just start saying like, don't know if we can do this. And I've watched 5 or 6 of those maybe in the last 6 months of people sat down, 12 people, 14 people, and they walk away with nothing. One guy said, if we don't get this done, we're just not going to do anything.

Wow.

Well, you should do something, right?

Well, that's what somebody, uh, today said, that, um, 40 to 60% of sales calls end up in no decision. And I think there was a Gartner survey. So let's go back to authority. You say in your new book that authority compounds when it's visible through publishing and sharing your thinking. You have been sharing your thinking for a few decades now, and you have written 7 books.

6,500 articles.

And yeah, the sales blog is one of the most read blogs in the sales industry. What is your advice to salespeople and sales leaders to become an authority through content creation? What's the best way?

That is right. You're right with it. I ask people to write down their experiences and tell the stories because if you get the stories out of them, they can understand what they need to do to be able to get a deal.

Yeah. So what's the first, the smallest step that a sales rep can take so they can build a reputation?

write, write down what happened in the conversations that they've had, right? You put that in your CRM. Very helpful to have these stories that some of your— the, the people in your company do. It's very helpful for people to see these.

So you, you create, um, a tool on CRM so you, uh, the sales team Can then have access and harvest the collective intelligence of the organization.

Right.

Right. That's a good idea. So what about your role when you influence a buyer and assume the role of the coach? How can you do that? What's the right finesse, the right way? To set it up so, uh, you're the respected authority and the buyer is actually willing to be coached?

That happens. I mean, sometimes people on—

I'm—

if you have 12 people in there, not all of them are going to be interested in this, and some people think it's the wrong thing to do anyway. So I would start first, because I always try to do this first, I try to get the 2 people who really need to get these results, and I sit down with them and explain, if we don't have a conversation with procurement early, and if we don't go sit down and explain, if you don't do this, you're going to not be able to get the results that you told me that you most must have to have right now.

Always.

Try to help them with— this is, it's a different time. You've done this for a long time. I've done it for a long time. All I can say is it's just a difficult time. It's not as easy. Remember when it was, tell me about your company, let me hear about your solutions? Gone, gone, completely gone.

But that's table stakes.

Yeah, yeah, nobody cares. They're interested in how do we get these results. I have for as long as I can remember. I just start the conversation with, can you share with me the results that you are expecting if we have— if we get a deal together here? I want them to know I'm just all about the results. I see so many people do this. They don't talk about the results. They talk about themselves. They talk about the company. all the things that they shouldn't be doing, and those things makes it very easy for them to go and find somebody else to try to buy from.

Yeah, you, uh, I think your question allows the buyer to focus on what's important to them right off the bat. The audience is really interested in, um, knowing a few things from you, so, um, Sandy asks, Anthony, how big is your home library? You've shown it to me once. You have what, about 3,000 books?

3,000 books. Wow. And today I'll go out and I'll get another book to go with the 2 that you gave me.

Um, being invited to many businesses to meet and consult allows me a unique one-up opportunity. An owner can ask me, how are other people doing this? And I can answer knowledgeably and present valuable elements crisply. Well said, Sandy.

Very good.

Well, there's one thing I want, I want your comment on, which is we've talked a lot about AI and you say, well, I don't use AI. And then you said, well, I use some AI, but what most people don't use enough is judgment. So what is your advice to sales leaders to Tell salespeople, here is how to use your judgment more effectively.

David Brock, um, has been working really hard on this. He's not using it the way other people are. What he's doing is, is putting something on a prompt and then have the prompt try to figure out what's, what's supposed to happen there. He's got a whole big thing on this. I watched him do it too.

So here's, um, what I like to do when I write something and I want it improved. Um, I, I use the same thing that you explained earlier, what are the headwinds and tailwinds, but I reframe it and say analyze this article. Tell me what is good and why. Tell me what can be improved and how. And tell me what's missing. And then I run it through, let's say, Claude and Claude gives me some really interesting answers and then I feed it to ChatGPT, same question, 3 questions and then I run it through Gemini and, and then I see that every AI tool has different ideas and I pick the best and then I do the rewrite and then I do it again. And sometimes I go through maybe 5 edits and I come up with better ideas. And another way to push AI, in my opinion, is Rewrite this article or this email and give me a word picture instead of a lengthy description, an analogy. Or when I write something about a process, you know, give me the leading authority in that field and give me a quote. And that's why, that's a way to pushing AI To serve me and not AI to push me around.

And just remember, you're using all your tokens as you're doing all this, right?

Yes. Yeah, I'm token poor.

If you are an Amex, you get that for free. Did you know that? GPT? Yeah, that's a good thing to do. I use very little Because I have, I just, I want to take everything that I write and be able to use it when I want to instead of having Penguin telling me I can't do it.

So when does your book come out? What's the publishing plan?

The whole topics have all been set up. Everything's done there. Now I have to just do the writing, right? This is the one what I did for negotiation.

Right.

I built the whole thing first and I've trained now maybe 80 people on it. It's all I have. There's every strategy for whatever shows up. I think it's gonna be a good book because there's nothing like it.

Well, some people think that you're a genius. And, um, I had a conversation with, uh, Ron Hupsha, uh, on Monday, and he, he said, I want to see Anthony's session because I think he's a genius. I think, Michael, I'm a reader.

I just am reading. I read a lot. That's all.

Right. Michael, you took a lot of notes. What's your takeaway?

I think anybody that's written as many books as Anthony has is a genius. I think it's a big project, requires a lot of focus, a lot of research, a lot of structure and conveying the ideas he does in such articulate written form. So that's, that's, that's genius, you know. You also have the record for getting into sales at 15, where Alex got into sales, Gerhard, he was the, he was the person, the speaker before, at 19. So congratulations on being still young. Yeah, being one of the youngest persons. Yeah, 19 is incredible. He became VP of sales at 20.

Yeah. One, one way to get good at something like sales is be very, very, um, no money. If you have no money, you're gonna figure it out.

It becomes survival at that point.

Yeah. In a way, my mom raised 4 kids by herself at $3.50 For a couple of years before we even got a house. Makes it easy if you're poor, very easy. You're gonna figure something out.

Yeah. Brian, Jason.

Necessity is the mother of invention. It is, right? Any questions, Michael?

Hey, when you're, when you're crafting an approach to an executive and you're using the 15 headwinds and the 15 tailwinds, I mean, obviously you're gonna just really focus those 4 that you're selecting on the most relevant.

Yeah, that's what I would— I try to find the one that would be most relevant for that industry, or if you know the person, maybe use that too.

And you're, you're using that as an insight, is that, hey, I just want to share this insight to see if you're experiencing the same thing, or—

And if not, let me share with you. Yeah, it's very good. I think This is what I like to use, is just say, can I share this with you? Nobody says no. They can't because I just asked you. And that just goes so easy.

Well, Gerhard used the phrase permission, and permission-based openers are very common. Uh, you know, asking permission, it softens the resistance. However, when you go to an executive, you got to be careful you don't lower yourself in terms of the way they're gonna see you and your authority. You wanna go peer-to-peer with them on that. So permission at some point in the conversations, obviously very early on, will work where you have an insight that they can learn that they didn't know before.

That's right. That's exactly right. I don't believe that anybody that is going to sit across from me will not have the experiences that I've had. I just know that. I know. So I'm up one up. And then when I go to a new industry, one down, I got to do all the work over again.

So your experience is your authority, which is well articulated in your content and your writing. Very hard. It takes a long time to establish authority like that.

You know more than your client does. They have to— I mean, you, you have to. You do it every day. They buy from you how often? 5 years, maybe 7. Yeah, somewhere in that area.

So what, what's your favorite book? Is it The Only Sales Guide You'll Ever Need?

That's my first one.

That's your first one?

And I still think it's probably one of the best of the 7 that I have sitting up here. Number eight has to get up here soon.

Elite sales strategies and the lost art of closing.

The lost art of closing.

The negativity fast. Eat their lunch.

Eat Gerhard's lunch.

And eat the AI age with Chapland.

Yeah. My favorite part of that was I get to— when we were doing that, I've made the first line. I, I put— I said, this is the first salespeople or sales managers to ever touch this, because I did this in 2022. I went right to there. So when he did that and said, let's do it, I thought it was a good idea. It worked out pretty good. It's been doing— it's doing well. You see it in the airports.

So I have another trivia question. You were in a band and you toured the United States. What was the biggest audience you had?

2,000.

And as a speaker, what was the biggest audience you had?

4,000.

So now we can say that you are a rockstar speaker.

I wanted to, my first gig in a big deal was there was this company called Travel Counselors. And I got a relationship with them. They brought me over to London and kept me there for 2 weeks, and then they took me around the world. And I went literally all the way around the world. Well, the places that you can't go, I didn't go. But those places, it was just a wonderful experience too, to see like Ireland and London.

Australia.

Australian, yeah.

Where you dropped your laptop.

Yes, that's right. You remember that?

Yeah. You had to buy a new Mac.

They thought I was doing something. I had no idea. That was— I left with my laptop.

That's—

I didn't— I don't know. I think they were— what were they? I don't even know. What do you think? I'm a CIA guy.

Yeah, exactly.

Nothing like that.

Well, we are out of time. We are in overtime. I totally enjoyed the conversation. You always bring new kinds of ideas to the table that are so useful. What I walk away with is that We need all— we need to work harder in becoming the authority that the buyer needs to make the right decision.

How long were you with Selling Power?

I started Selling Power magazine in 1982.

You know how to take care of articles, ads, right? Yeah. How long did it take you to learn that?

A long time.

Still working on it?

Still working on it.

Still trying to figure out how to be crisper, clearer, more persuasive, get more traction with The bad part of this is that we're not in the same room together, which would be even better, wouldn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, if we were in the same room together, we would have a chessboard between us and—

And I would take your queen and then I'll take 2 rooks and let's see how we go.

To even the game.

Yeah. You're a great player.

Thank you.

I'm getting better though.

I know you are.

I hate chess.com. I hate it.

Well, it's, it's better to play live. Um, we need to wrap it up. Anthony, thank you so much for joining us.