HOW THIS ONE SKILL CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE AND WIN. MORE DEALS

One of the skills that I've noticed among all these great salespeople that I've interviewed that I really haven't talked a lot about is their ability to build conversations that aren't about the transaction, aren't about the product, aren't about them, aren't about their company. And why is this so important? It seems almost Trivial. And I'm not talking about sports and weather. I'm not talking about small talk. I'm talking about— most people would call this industry talk, networking talk, talk about their business, curiosity about them, their career. And most of you are saying like, yeah, I think I do some of that. Well, try this experiment. Just an experiment. Call up one of your prospects, a deal that hasn't closed yet, a new account, meaning that they haven't bought anything yet, and don't talk about the transaction. Don't talk about you. Don't talk about your company or your product. And only ask questions about them. And see how it feels. It's probably different, isn't it? Because they're going to push it to the transaction. And that's where it gets us because we feel like, oh, they want to talk about the transaction. Well, maybe they do, or maybe they just think that's the purpose of the call. It's one of the purposes of the call. It shouldn't be the whole call. Now, in today's example, we have somebody who sells doesn't sell, basically works in the market of recycling catalytic converters. Now, you can just imagine how glamorous that is and how interesting it would be to talk about all the issues in that transaction. And he gets into how he handles this, not only in one-on-one selling, but selling to SMB and companies, corporations. Now, a lot of us think, well, why is this so valuable, Brian? It's because we want people to want to talk with us, not just have to. Now, imagine your caller ID shows up on your prospect's phone. If they don't have any news or questions about the transaction, do they take the call? What's going through their head is, do I want to talk with this person, or will it feel like an interrogation or a check-in call as opposed to a value-add call? They probably put you on voicemail if they don't feel that way. That's why it's so important. Now, how do you get good at this? Well, you get good at it like anything else. You know, you kind of plan for it. You practice it a little bit. You ask how other people do it. You come up with great questions, maybe some updates, maybe some analogies, some stories, some case studies that don't have to do with just you and your product, have to do with what's going on in the industry. And What you'll find if you get good at this is that people will want to talk with you. And the crazy thing is it expands the transaction. It doesn't eclipse the transaction. Now, I've been working with brevitypitch.com on this particular drill called Industry Knowledge. And what it does is it takes all the work out of it for you. It gets you comfortable with answering questions and asking questions about industry knowledge. The point isn't whether the answer is 100% accurate or not, meaning it's not true/false. It's much more conversational, where it's okay not to have the answer. People think they have to have the answer. Sometimes it's great not to have the answer because it spurs more conversation. But you have to be comfortable with that. Now, I've worked on this drill on my way to my meetings in my car instead of listening to Howard Stern. It may not be as funny, but it sure is more productive. So if you want to get good at it— oh, did I tell you it's free? Did I tell you that? Go to brevitypitch.com. Get on the waiting list for Brevity Play. It works on your phone. No need to authenticate or anything. No app to download, any of that stuff. Anywhere you can take a phone call, you can practice your sales. Imagine how good you could get. But why would you want to become good at sales? I don't know. It pays better. Here we go. Hey Cliff, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Okay, Brian. Yeah, no, happy to be here. As far as the background goes, I'm gonna say I've been in sales for most of my career. And that's going back, oh boy, last century.

That sounds really long.

I know, doesn't it? Doesn't it? So, I got my start in politics actually, which is just a different type of selling. Yeah, I was working. I was was working right on the Hill, right, right in the thick of it all. Had a public relations background, got a little soured on it. Eventually, you get a little bit, a little bit cynical in the political world.

Mm-hmm.

And I thought I'd strike out into, into the private sector, where all of those people skills, and the ability to understand and, you know, communicate with people really came across. And that was, I'm gonna say, the better part of 25 years ago now.

Yeah.

So it's a long stretch.

Well, I got to imagine in the PR business, the big challenge is thinking like the client, right? Figuring out what they want.

Absolutely. Understanding what the client is trying to say. And, you know, from the PR side of things, being able to communicate that in a simple way. And that's, I think, one of the most important things that a lot of salespeople miss today. They have complex and And I'm going to say very dynamic products that they try and get into the minutiae of with their clientele. And they miss it.

Miss it.

They just miss it. They're talking over their client's head and the relationship doesn't develop because they think you're smarter than them or they think you're just a know-it-all and not interested in what's really important to them. So, these are things that I've taken out of sales over a number of different, I'm going to say, you know, environments. So my first start, I sold cars for Ford and I loved selling cars for Ford. They had such a great sales path that helped you interact with the client in a very orchestrated way. The only trouble with car sales, in my opinion, is that you don't have enough opportunities. You're really limited to people who are walking through the door.

Right.

Now, that's fine.

Yeah.

Yeah, you don't have control over that. But once I had them, I mean, I had a 33% first-time close ratio. People came in and they would pay a bit more for the vehicle. They'd get a little less for their trade. But man, they got the whole deal. They got the service. They got my attention. They knew exactly what their car was going to do for them. They had the right features and options. You know, these things are key in sales. And they would tell me what their objections were. It was fantastic. You know, if you have a good process, it's a wonderful job to have.

And what do you like about sales versus PR or politics?

I love the hunt. I love the close. I love working with people.

Practical, right? It's a little bit more tangible, isn't it?

It is because, I mean, you can see it in numbers. You see the numbers go up. I also like the relationships that develop. Because I have a, you know, my sales over the years developed from cars to radio, which is truly intangible, by the way, selling radio ads, truly intangible. You don't have, you can't show somebody the effects of it. The last 15 years I've been in catalytic converters and I'm actually a buyer if you believe that. I'm not a seller. And it's a very, very complex field where it's autocatalyst refining, It really is a very different, precise field that's highly competitive. But as you get to know people in the business, in the car recycling industry, in the metal recycling industry, these relationships are fantastic. And they're people that I want to spend time with. There are associations that I enjoy. And it's really become a much more— I'm going to say teaching role. It's a partnership role. And there are things about the business that, and I think this again, it travels over all the sales realm, that when I become more of a partner or a trusted ally with a customer, these roots become really strong and they don't leave. So you actually end up developing a strength of relationship that people rely on you for a service. And they come to you with these questions, you know, and they trust you. You know, that to me is fantastic. And we both make money. That's the most important part. Crazy, isn't it? You know, I love when you do the hat sideways thing and you get, you know, I love that character on your videos because it reminds me of all my competitors. I'm going to give you the most. I'm the best.

I got all this. I got all that.

And that is just not the way to win. The way to win—

That is acting like a salesperson. What you're talking about is being a salesperson.

Absolutely. So, one of my biggest lessons, and I'm going to say it's come over the last 5 to 10 years, is that if I can help my clients, I guess that's the right way to put it, I have to be interested in other aspects of their business. And I have to see how the associations that I have can actually build and develop their key interests. Because a lot of salespeople, I'm going to say there's a lot of salespeople out there that are, I'm the biggest, I'm the best. And they're just in it for the sale and they just want to have this repeat customer. You don't develop business if you're not interested and actively involved in sharing your networks, your information, And helping— I'll give you a real key example. Recently I was in a meeting with a metal recycling yard. Their interest is cores, and they do all kinds of core work. Catalytic converters are a small aspect of what they do. In fact, a lot of cases, converters are the gravy in the business for auto recyclers and different metal yards. They're just a very small aspect of what they do. Well, what turned the interest in the sale of working with our company was that I'm much more interested in seeing their business grow in their— in the cores that they're looking for. So I was able to present ourselves in a way to them and saying, look, we're looking for a partner. I do want your product because that's important. That's the part that's important to me. But what I think is important to you is that you grow your core business. Ching, ching, ching!

That was—

this is, this is the real— because they took me through their facility, they showed me tens of thousands of square feet of material that had nothing to do with my business. Nothing. It's interesting, it's fascinating, but the people I deal with sell that material as well. So absolutely, I want to hook these people together because it makes everything stronger.

And how did you come to this realization? I mean, was it something that you learned along the way? Did somebody say, hey, not just the transaction?

You know, it's been, uh, how did I come to it? It's, it's over time. Absolutely. It took some time. Cars were just a transaction.

You never see them again.

Yeah, well, 4 years later, maybe, you know.

That's a long wait.

Right. If you have a career that long in cars, I started to develop this as I started to have residual business. So, when I got into sales that required a residual development of business, of really getting involved in an industry that required referrals, and the catalytic converter industry, I gotta tell you, is super niche. There's not a lot of people at the top of it.

Oh, come on.

It's all glamour and Oh yeah, I travel a lot for work. One of the things people don't realize that, you know, I post on Facebook where I go. It's kind of fun, you know, really just for me. But people are like, oh, it's so glamorous, you travel everywhere. I say, yeah, I travel to big cities and I go to scrapyards and they're really in the nicest part of town.

Right downtown.

Oh man, there's some pretty rough neighborhoods. But you know what, again, Salt of the earth. I mean, it's wonderful people that, you know, and as you say, where did I get this? The notion of the, you know, it's important that it's a reciprocal business. It's right here in this industry that it's not a one-way street. It's not just me winning. But interestingly enough, when I do close a client and, you know, I hold a bit of margin. How about that?

Wow.

Yeah, how about that? And you know what? I hold the margin, and and I don't mind anybody seeing this. I want them to see. I want them to know that I made some money too, because if I make my the more I make, the more they make. Right? We we have this really interesting. You know, I'm going to say business that we're working with metal markets. So we work with platinum, palladium, and rhodium. These are the the three precious metal group. bits that are in converters. Our company is different in the sense that we actually encourage selling material at a higher market. If that sale goes through at a higher market, I make more money, my client makes more money, and there's a real self-interest to it, and I'm blunt about it.

Well, but because it can sound like this interest in them is charity, but it's really self-serving as well. Because how long can you talk about catalytic converters? I mean, that's—

Honestly, I try to talk very little about them.

Right. Because they care this much about that, and they care this much, this huge amount about them and their business.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know what? What's really— this is, this is an interesting lesson in sales.

Every—

and I don't care what product it is. Everybody's got a guy. Everybody, if you're in business for any length of time, whatever the product you're using, selling, doing, that business owner has a guy. Yeah, he's been doing business with this person for any number of years. He thinks he's made the best decision that he, you know, wait and pay. Do you want to make this guy feel bad about that? Do you want to make him? Do you want to make him feel stupid about? Yeah. How to kill a sale? Hi.

And does he really want to talk about that?

Right. He doesn't.

You probably know 5 or 10 things about his business that he wants to talk about.

Absolutely. In fact, I'm going to ask him how things are going. How, you know, what's your car flow like? What's, you know, what's happening here? Is there legislation that's, you know, that's driving you crazy? I mean, there's all kinds of things that they're interested in. And again, People love to talk about themselves.

It's their favorite topic.

I know I'm a favorite. I wish I had known that earlier though, that I'm not somebody else's favorite topic.

Yeah, I wish a lot of reps knew that. I know a lot of reps, they're not talkers. I go, all you have to do is come up with 3 great questions and then shut up and let them go.

Absolutely. And then, and then it's— people tell you exactly what they want. They tell you exactly what's important to them. Again, it's— there are natural salespeople, and as you say, there's people that are not necessarily naturals or not necessarily big talkers. Things don't flow for them.

Yeah.

The most— what I— one of the things I wish I knew earlier, because I had a great sales manager in radio, He said, "We pay you super well to be uncomfortable," and it clicked for me. It's not comfortable. It's not comfortable. You know, finding out about all day, talking to strangers, getting doors. I mean, come on! I've I've walked into places, and I you know I had guys say, "I'm not selling anything to you. Get out." And all how do you turn that around, Brian? How do you turn that around? You say, "Well, tell you what. I'm not here to buy anything from you today." But tell me about this, that, or that. All of a sudden, before the end of the day, we're leaving with the biggest load I ever had. That's uncomfortable.

It's the most basic human need is to be understood.

Absolutely. Again, you never know what somebody wants to be understood about until you sit there and you listen and you just quiet down for a moment. And ask them. In fact, I've got a deal going on right now. You know, it's long in the making. I've worked with the client before from a previous company and it keeps stalling. Super nice guy. I get all these kind of, you know, yeses that aren't with no, you know, no good follow-up. That's a tough lesson to learn in sales.

Easy yeses aren't yeses.

Easy yeses aren't yet. In fact, soft yeses with no real action or follow-up are really a no. They're really a no.

They're not amazing.

So, you know, I finally, you know, I mean, and again, this is something I wish I'd known earlier in sales. I just put it on the line because the guy knows me. We're friendly. He's getting— I'm getting the soft yeses. And I said, what is it? What are— what walls are we hitting here that I need to clarify? Because I've thrown everything at you. I've given you all the, you know, all the easiest ways to interact with us. What is not connecting? And now I'm just waiting for the answer. I'll let you know how that comes. You know, it's— but it's okay to ask it like that. There's nothing wrong with it at this point.

Right. Get on the same side because you should be there regardless.

That's the, that's the confusing thing when it happens. We're on the same side. I know I've got the, you know, great pro— I know the service is there.

I know what he needs.

This is it. This is a challenging thing in sales when you have all of those components. And I mean, I've been in it long enough. I know it's gonna work for them. So what is the— what's gonna take us to get past the goalposts on this one? What objections do you have when I can tick all the boxes? You know, maybe it's me. Would you like another rep? I don't know.

Well, change for people is uncomfortable, right?

Oh, there you go. And that's the next part. And it's not just people. This is a big corporation. So, as you get into bigger corporate selling, so I have a real spectrum of types of customers. I have a sole ownership. I have partnerships. I have people that are generational businesses where, you know, you've got 2 or 3 generational decision makers in the process.

Great. No history there. Grandpa's here.

Exactly. So, you know, you're dealing with the son, but the father or the grandfather is going to chime in on how he used to do things. And, you know, then you have the corporations, and the corporations are even slower to make change and turn. And, and, and it's the corporation now. So may not be me, may not be this, may not be— it just could be the slow boat, could be the slow boat that, you know, but when they turn, they really, they really turn it on. I mean, that's a— well, that's being patient enough to—

That must have been a huge learning curve for you because, you know, cars, transactional, they either buy or they don't. And now you're selling to sole proprietorships, partnerships, family businesses, and corporations. Very different.

Absolutely. Totally, totally. But, you know, you say that the fundamentals of the sales process are still there. I loved what I learned in car— Ford had a fantastic training program. Meet and greet, assess the needs, get to pick the product down, explain the product, ask for those preliminary— is it the right color? Does it have the right features and options? Do you have a trade-in? Test drive it, put them in it, get them to feel what it's like. When you get back to the dealership, By no means go straight to the deal. Take them by the service department, buy them a coffee, sit down, build the features. Like, all of those primary aspects of selling apply all the time. You cannot forget these things because I think that's where deals are lost, actually, because you don't take somebody through and understanding what their needs are. So that, again, it's asking questions. And today I can ask a few questions and I can tick the boxes as I go mentally. I don't need to sit there and type it all out in a CRM so that I'm covering something. Nothing kills work faster than trying to tick boxes. When you know these things and you can actually deliver them, right? And you're right, the transition took a long time and it took a while to figure out how to manage these different types of, I'm gonna say, customer bases because the sole proprietor could be completely different than the corp or the family business. Well, it's like the car.

If a couple comes in, it's a very different sale than if one person comes in. And then—

Absolutely.

If a family comes in or if the couple isn't getting along, there were always some awkward moments.

But again, it's just figuring out who's— who cares about what. Yeah, it's about what—

what am I—

who am I really selling to? Am I selling to, to the new generation? Am I selling to the last generation? I mean, there's any number of, of answers to those questions that people will tell you. Again, I don't think there's any right way to ask wrong questions. Does that make sense? There's no quantifiable question base that you can put out there that says you have to ask questions in this order. It's an interaction with people.

It's got to feel authentic.

Right.

You know, and for— again, it sounds like they did a good job. They broke that, that sale down into tiny little pieces that anyone can learn.

Yep.

And probably the hardest part was not skipping something. Probably you wanted to skip something, right?

In the beginning, for sure. You always want to skip something. And you know what? I had some good managers in the day too, and they said, well, did you do this? And you'd say no because you ran them a deal, right? You're all hot and heavy to bring them a deal. They're like, no, no, take him back to service. No, no, go test drive him. No, he's ready to buy right now. It's done, it's a done deal. Every once in a while they let you blow one up and it would blow up because the guy's there on price, he's just there and he's just shopping you against somebody else.

He's scared. It's the second biggest purchase of their life.

If you haven't built value into your product, and this is for sure in my industry today, if I haven't built value, I'm never getting the sale. If I haven't built the trust, if I don't understand the need, if I, you know, I believe in sales and I don't think a lot of people do. Everybody says that you can just ask for the sale. You can. It's important. It's a part of it.

Eventually.

But if I ask, exactly, if I ask for that without actually taking care of all of the necessary pieces of the puzzle, it's a hard no and that door might shut forever.

Right. Because as salespeople, that serves us, right? Of course, we just want the transaction. But in B2B, they can give the fake yes and then you go hunting for the real no for the next month and a half, right?

Right. Where again, so I've I'm too early in the process. I haven't actually found out what they're looking for to qualify. I'm going to say this, to qualify asking for the sale. Yeah, to close the deal.

In your corporate example, it's like, you know, there's something there. They may not even know what it really is. They're apprehensive about something.

What I like in working in corporations Got to look to— because everybody wants to be a star. I want to be a star. You want to be a star in our own industries. I want my CEO to think that I'm the best. And so does he. I mean, so does the guy in that corporation. He wants to be the star. One of your heroes. He wants to be, right. I love making heroes. I love finding ways to make people shine in their own organization. And that's through association. That's not transactional. That is not a transactional deal. That— and again, this is one of the things that I get up in the morning for this. I love guys that, you know, say, hey man, since we've been working with you, everybody's happy. There's no headaches in our organization. You know, accounting is not chasing anybody. I'm making more money on the product. It's really easy. And Everybody says, wow, what a great decision you made. I can help people make a decision they can stand behind and feel good about. Man, that's satisfying. And again, that's a customer now. That's a long-term customer that I've made a star for.

And that's not on your brochure. That's not one of your features and benefits.

It never is. It never is. And again, I think we touched on this earlier. People want to be heard and understood. And also, we'll grow on that. They want to be heard, understood, and they want to look good amongst their peers.

Yeah. And they certainly don't want to look bad.

There you go. And that's how we get referrals. That's how we— hey, you know what? Working with Cliff's been so easy and it's been so different And, you know, not only that, he introduced me to several other people in the business. And I grew my— not even catalytic converters, I grew 7 other things.

Really?

What's this guy's number?

Yeah. And now, what would you wish you'd learned earlier in your career? That kind of—

I'm gonna say that no is never a final answer. To take those nos, you got to turn them around. It's just an objection. I'm trying to think of some of the other things that really keep it simple. Keep it simple. Now, I think I'm a reasonably intelligent guy. I understand my chosen field now very well. I can easily talk over it. I wish I had known that earlier because it's a complicated field and while it's important to my customer base financially, I describe it this way. They've got 20 things on their list to do today and converters are the 21st and they've already got a guy. And if I start over-talking them and talk about process or, you know, refining an assay and this and that in terms— I mean, there's a lot of complexity in it. You lose them. You lose them. So finding again, that's— if I wish I'd known that earlier on because it's very tempting to show somebody how smart I am.

And for you, that's much more of an emotional skill than it is an intellectual skill, isn't it?

Sales is an emotional maturity game. It is not The top sellers out there know that it's all about how I leave you feeling. If I leave you feeling good on a regular basis, you want to be around me, you want to phone me. There's people I don't want to be around. I don't give them my business.

Right.

I don't feel good when I talk to them, when I call. And I don't have to be Mr. Congeniality with everybody. I just have to be real and authentic.

And curious about them.

Yes. Yeah. Again, what, what makes you tick? What's important to you?

Everybody thinks they have to be Jimmy Kimmel or something. They have to be like this night show host. And it's like, no, just be a little curious, have a nice smile.

I describe myself as an extroverted introvert.

That's a good one.

Yeah, it's the truth. I mean, I can go, I can ask the questions, I can, I can smile, I can, I can get along. Uh, I recharge alone. You know, I, I, I, I, I want to be quiet. I want to have a quiet atmosphere. But, but what's uncomfortable in that, you step out and you, you meet people and you're asking them questions, and it's— it is a very extroverted thing to do for an introvert.

It is.

And this is, you know, we talked about this a little bit for a sec. Salespeople who do well get paid to feel uncomfortable. Yeah, whether it's so— however you want to describe that. And I don't mean— I don't mean morally uncomfortable. I mean pushing the boundaries of social maturity. Yeah, absolutely.

Because you naturally want to talk about yourself. You have to tamp that down and be comfortable and then show interest in someone else.

Absolutely.

Ahead of your need, right? Your need is to close.

Ahead of my need, ahead of— yeah, this is another thing that I really wish I knew early on in sales. Desperation kills a deal like nothing else.

Who wants to talk to a desperate person?

I've related it to dating and I wanna give a 21st century answer to this and it's because it doesn't matter if it's a guy chasing a girl or a girl chasing a guy or whatever. If there is a desperation, it's just not attractive. Nobody likes that. They want to feel like you want them, but they don't want you to desperately need them.

Right.

So, you know, if my sales case is just desperate, if I'm just desperate to close a deal and I'm just gonna roll over and do anything, They've already got a guy. They don't need me. They don't need anything that I'm looking to sell them.

Right, because you're number 21. But they do want to talk about number 1 through 5. And I bet you have an opinion.

Of course I do, because I have lots of people in the industry that I work with and I can share information. And I know a guy, I know this guy, and I know that guy. And you know what? There's some interesting industry buzz on the way things are being done. Have you heard about that? Because it might make your organization more profitable, more streamlined. Tell you what, I can get you in touch with him. In fact, he's the one who introduced me to how, you know, to this new product that we have in our organization. And he stays in his lane, I stay in mine. And if you stay in yours, we're all going to be rich. Yeah, great.

Hey Cliff, I really appreciate your time today. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

They can certainly see me on LinkedIn. So Cliff Hope, Accurate Converter, here at Converter.com. Would love to hear about the businesses that are looking to do things a little bit differently.

If you still have trouble building that conversation, I've got a course. It's called Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting, and it teaches you how to do this with a complete stranger, meaning how to build it step by step. You can use email, you can use the phone, you can use social, any way you can communicate with another human being. The point is, I teach you how clients want to engage with a stranger, because the last person they want to talk to is a police officer. The second to the last person they want to talk to is a salesperson. Why not be A little bit better than that. See, we get such a bad rap because it's all about us.

It's push, push, push.

It's ask, ask, ask, when it should be give, give, give. And I don't mean stupid giving. I mean learning how to learn about them. Everybody's core desire is to be understood. That's why we call the people who are closest to us the ones who get us, that understand us, which is an enormous building block on trust. Now, you can ignore this. You can have your little t-shirt that says, uh, only buyers for me. And if you have that and it works for you, congratulations. You're probably not listening to this podcast. Most people who listen to a sales podcast understand that sales is hard, or it might be hard where you are. So what do you do? Go somewhere else? That's one way. Get better at sales? That's a better way, because no matter where you are, you'll still be better at sales. And getting good at sales is hard. It's counterintuitive, all of it. And we don't want to admit it. We can see it in others, but not in ourselves. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to learn more about sales and becoming great at it, go to b2brevenue.com. I have 2 major courses, Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting, which basically gives you this incredible superpower of starting conversations with strangers. Which happens to be what prospecting is instead of sending spam all day. If that's what you want to become good at, you can. How about closing those complex sales? Are they closing or are they just starting? How's that pipeline? Everyone loves a big pipeline. It's comfortable. But if it doesn't close, it's just work, isn't it? Everything that doesn't close is just labor. Why not, if you're going to do the work, get the order? Closing the Complex Sale at B2BRevenue.com. We'll see you next time.