How To Convert More Sales Calls

convert those sales calls to sell more of your products and services. And we have the sales innovator with us today on Cash In On Camera. Steve Brosman is here all the way from Australia to talk about sales. I know it's so early for you, Steve, where you are in the world, um, at the recording of the live, uh, the live stream of this conversation. So we appreciate you being here. Sales is so important and I think it's overlooked. I mean, A lot of people get into business and they like all the creative side and the content and all those things, which is the sexy part of it all. But you can't have a business if you're not making any sales.

Well, sales is the lifeblood of business. If you don't make sales, you don't eat. It's as simple as that. And unfortunately, most people think of sales as a four-letter word, which it is, but Let me help the people start with my definition of selling, and I might put them on the right foot. Selling is professionally servicing other people's needs for a mutually beneficial gain. Now, it starts off with professional servicing, which is what everybody loves to do. Nobody got into business to be a salesperson, but they had to, to survive. So when we started think of selling that selling really is servicing. I've got a couple of little things to talk about later that may switch the mindset about selling just that little bit more.

It's one of those things too, where especially in the entrepreneurial space where we have people that are selling products and services that are based on their own intellectual property, right? Programs, masterminds, courses and things of that nature, that, that's the really the fun part of it. But somehow when it comes to actually selling those things, people get weird, people get strange, and they don't think about it as I have something so amazing that it's actually going to serve this person. There's this salesy approach that a lot of people take or avoid because it makes them feel uncomfortable. And I think it stems from the fact that they don't have absolute confidence in their product or service. What say you about why people feel that way about sales?

Perfect. And I'm going to start with a little bit more science-y to start with and switch them around. See, most people are taught, here's your product or service, here's your box of stuff that you do. Now the buyer comes in thinking and they want to pay less. That's just typical. And getting them up to the box price. They feel as if they're pushing them to get them up to the box price, but you know there's real value. What we teach the people to do is create your product, service, or system, and then we have what we call our blueprint, where they're actually selling the system, not themselves. And when they do it in a collaborative way and they work it out, they work towards what's called agreed implementable value. Now there's two banks. There's the financial bank and then there's the emotive bank. Now when you're collaborating with someone, if we did this, how would that affect you and/or your business? Hey, we did this and you're collaborating, excuse me, but most importantly quantifying. When you have the agreed implementable value significantly higher, and let's say, Cheryl, I'm working with you, you need 10 extra clients per month, etc. I've got a system and we're working through different things and we're going to deliver 20 extra clients and that's going to mean X dollars value. Let's just say it's $20,000 a month, but gee, my program is only $3,000 a month. They're coming down from the agreed implementable value. You've just given them, hey, if we work together, that's going to give you an extra $20,000 a month. It's only going to cost you 3. And they're thinking, wow, I'm really giving and serving this person, not I'm pushing them up from 0 to 3. And that is a big mindset shift when they work on selling the system, not themselves, and the agreed implementable value, work towards that, not sell the box price.

Yes, it stems from having a system that of what it is that you do and how you serve people needs to be built out into a, a system that you can then, to your point, be able to sell to them to get an actual return on their investment. A lot of people haven't thought that through. They haven't thought through what is my system.

It comes from everything— life coaching, weight loss— and then you get right down into the other sides of systems as well. Everything people do if they do it in a repeatable way, they have a system. And we turn it into a visual blueprint and they actually collaborate and work on it. Now they're writing down the notes and what's happening instead of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I'm good, blah, blah, I'm good, blah, blah, buy me. It's we're collaborating together. I'll get a little bit more geeky. There's 3 levels of influence in selling. There's the imposed influence, which is what most people are taught. Tell them enough good information and they'll make an informed buying decision. No, that's just you dumping a whole heap of information on top of them. Then there's the collaborative influence when they work together, and the rule is when they are involved, they invest. And then there's the self-influence, and they get to a point when you're working with them visually, and you're writing down all the little things that are going to happen when you work with that person, they're adding them up subconsciously, and they'll get to a point and they'll think, wow, this person possibly can't charge me more than what I'm about to get. And quite often they'll get to that point and they'll say, wow, Cheryl, this looks fantastic, how do we get started? And we have so many people saying I've got people asking to buy now because the agreed implementable value is so much greater than what they think the box value was going to be. They just want to get started. Shifting that focus is, is a big change.

So much comes to mind too. I think that it comes down to also being able to charge what you're worth when you implement it the way you're describing here, which is figuring out having a system or or you already have a system but it's recognizing what that system is and putting it into a visual blueprint. But then actioning that throughout the sales process and saying, okay, let's— it's really math. It's really looking at math and saying, okay, well, here's the value of what I do. I'm going to help you, let's say, get to $20,000 a month or whatever the thing may be. But if you're charging, let's say, $2,000, $3,000, or $5,000, who wouldn't do that all day long? Who wouldn't purchase that thing if they know that I can 4x my return on investment of this particular product? It's a way for people who are right now— I see this a lot. People are selling everything they know for $29. It's not right. And you can't build a business that way. You know, they're doing it in the opposite way. They have no high-ticket offer and they sell— they take everything that they know and they think that they're going to scale by starting at the bottom and then working up. And when in fact it's the other way around, is like when you're a new entrepreneur, you actually want to have a high-ticket offer, serve fewer people, and still have that cash flow so that you can reinvest in yourself, and then you scale down, in my opinion.

Look, I'm, I'm totally agreeing, but the other issue is, again, it's the way they've been taught, and they've been putting everything onto the sales call. Now, to me, the sales call is the last 10 or 20 meters of a 100-meter race. It doesn't matter how good your sales call is, or if you put all the pressure on the sales call, it's not going to happen. Usain Bolt, the greatest ever, never, never won a race when he was 20 meters behind with 10 to go. You are never going to win a sales call if you're so far behind. And one of the things that you mentioned earlier that we're talking about is how to increase the buying energy. And that's the, the energy that somebody has with you before they actually get on the call. And it starts right back at the beginning, and you want the old Jerry Maguire, "You had me at hello." And it starts from breaking out of what I call the brown box syndrome. If you call yourself the same as everybody else in your occupational category, a coach, a business coach, a life coach, a financial advisor, planner, mortgage broker, you name it, you call yourself an a, then you are a brown box and you're gonna sit on the shelf the same as all the other brown boxes. And generally the lowest common denominator is, yeah, I'm gonna pick you on price. But the minute you turn yourself into a the, the creator of whatever your system is, the something, you introduced me as the Sales Innovator. Okay, that's basically what I do. So I've gone from an 'a' to a 'the.' So that elevates the energy. So I'm going to talk to somebody who's different, got authority. And then instead of just dumping information about you, about me, about me, about me to that person, it's create the relationship. And there's lots of different ways to create the relationship. And when you start stimulating those happy hormones, we're not going to go into them, and it's like, that person, I think I can spend more time with them. I'm get— I feel as if I've got a relationship with the number of people that say, Steve, I feel as if I already know you because of things. Um, my Back Pocket Guides, which we're going to give away shortly, um, has got videos in there, little bits of training, and they can make a decision. And I want them to make a decision whether I'm an idiot or I've got something worthwhile. But that means I only get to talk to excited, educated, informed people, and that's a great place to be. So your conversation starts at a different place because they've actually got buying energy. It's really, wow, how does this person help me? Not, let's start from scratch.

Steve, question for you. Are there a number of touchpoints that need to happen in order for us to set up this proper buying energy? Is there a finite number of touchpoints there needs to be, or is it maybe looser than that?

It's, it's relatively loose. And again, there's a lot of science in how many and what order. And just very briefly, one of the earliest touchpoints needs to be a short video.. It could be a personal video or it could be a relative generic video, but that just makes you a person. I've had people in super, super competitive spaces that have been zip code or postcode, as we call them, generated leads by the company, and they just shot back a video straight away. It was prerecorded and it was, hey, well, I'll do me. Hey, it's Steve here from got the information from the English. Really, I'm looking forward to— one of my fantastic teams gonna reach out and do this, and we're gonna have a chat about this on how we can help you and how we can do that. Now, their show up appointment rate was 84%, just doing that and a little bit more, versus the companies aiming for 25%. So that's not open rate, click-through rate, it's show up and have an appointment. And they felt as if they've had a relationship. When anybody books in for a call with me— quick tip, your people right now— when you call your call a discovery call or a strategy call, buying energy drops 37%. Everybody uses it and everybody knows you're going to sell to me. Why didn't you call it a sales call? So as a minute you call, let's hop on and have a discovery call. Let's discover what the hell I'm going to sell to you. That's basically it. So prior to that, people have had two touches of me, a little bit of information. I'm not into long— if, if they're not excited after a couple of videos and some quality information, then they'll just hang around for a while. And the, the videos is— one of them is as simple as, hey Cheryl, or it could be, "Hey, Steve here. I saw you book in for a call. Absolutely brilliant. I can't wait. Oh, by the way, I've had a quick look at your website and I've had a look at your LinkedIn profile. I have some really exciting ideas that I can't wait to share with you. See you on the call." Bang! What's that done for the buying energy?

Yeah, it just elevated it to a whole new level. And it's a competitive edge, right? Not everyone is doing that. Not everyone is taking the time or has the systems in place to do that. We just recorded one here internally for our own profitable podcast recently as well. And it's not a long video. It's a short video that just says, excited that you booked a call. We call it connection call. I don't know if you agree with that or not agree with that, but we have tried to stay away from, again, the discovery call, things of that nature. But we have recorded one recently and it helps. It really helps because now that person feels more connected to you and they're more likely to come to the actual call.

I've got clients in the techie SaaS, software as a service, B2B space and quite often two things. They think they sell software. Let's change that. And B2B is not building to building. It's still person to person and we've implemented some videos and we've got some other little touch points along the way. And it makes it so much easier. I'm going to be dealing with that person. And in our very, very virtual world, it's great to have a relationship with somebody, as I feel as if I've got a connection with you. And the other thing is just as good— if they don't want to talk to me, that's even better. I don't have to get on calls knowing that I've got to try and convince somebody. They're turning up and one of my opening sales lines when they've gone through the process, so Cheryl, from what you've seen so far, what sort of a— how do you think I could best help you and what sort of an impact would that make on your business life or whatever it is? That's a different question. Most people will say, So tell me about the 3 things that are holding you back in your business, and tell me about this, and tell me about this. The neuroscience says when you switch it around, it makes a massive difference. It goes from a -7.2% to a +41%. That's a big difference. And the person is on the front foot. They're almost, I've seen this and I saw you did this, and I honestly believe that if we did this, that would make a difference. It's like, great. 'Yep, I got a system to be able to do that. Let's go through and see how we can implement that to make a big difference.' And, you know, if you've got high ticket, small ticket, whatever, it works.

And to your point, that example that you just gave, that script part, part of the script that you just talked about, allows for there to be more of a collaborative nature to the relationship. Let's work together on this, as opposed to it being one person trying to sell to the other person. It's It's almost asking the prospect to say, pitch themselves to you almost a little bit, right? It's like, let's work together. And then also, I think it does reveal their understanding of what it is that you've been expressing to them during that call.

Yeah, we've got a whole, and we don't have time to get into today, and there's a DNQC conversation framework, data, Give them some information. Narrative, turn it into a story. There's 5 different stories they could use. Quantify, how would this impact? Let's quantify that. And then confirm the quantity, confirm the urgency, confirm it's a high priority, etc. When you use that and you get to the end and you showed agreed implementable value greater, and then one question that's very, very simple. So by the looks of it, Cheryl, if we put this system into your business— not hey, buy me, I'm good— if we put this system into your business, it looks like it's going to generate an extra $20,000 per month. That's an extra $60,000 over the next 3 months. Does it make sense we actually get started on this sooner rather than later? That's the hard— that's a high-pressure close. That's just— that's as hard as it gets. When you've done the quantifying and they'll say, well, yeah, it does make sense, then objections go out the window. There are no objections. There might be obstacles, but they're different. They might be, well, yeah, payment is a little bit tricky, etc. Then you just continue to collaborate, whereas an objection is a right to say no. They've said yes, it makes sense, that you give me $20,000 a month. It makes sense. They don't have a right to say no. They can't say no because they've collaborated on the solution themselves. Yes. Then it just continues the collaboration. So you knock out the objections, just continue doing what you were doing to start with.

Which brings us back to the beginning of this conversation, which is you started telling us that we have to sell the system, not yourself. And when you can start with the system and not sell yourself, you increase your conversions because now you have a buy-in and a collaborative buy-in with your prospect that you're working together on this. And to your point, the conversation leads to a natural, 'This makes sense.' It either is going to make sense or it won't make sense. And the thing that you really want, I think, at the end of any sales call is a decision. Whether it's a— what is the decision as opposed to I'm not sure, things like that. So, I love this idea of the system, right? Sell the system before you sell yourself. And that will, that in and of itself helps people convert more of their, sell more of their products and services.

I love it. It's the biggest differentiation is the present and pitch, collaborate and confirm. That's the difference. Those who hate pitching, selling, closing, overcoming objections, okay, dump the information on and ask to buy, or collaborate visually on a solution where they're a part of, and it's hard for them to say no, and you just continue down the collaboration and confirm the next steps.

Yes. I love this. How do people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about this, Steve, and your process? I know you obviously help so many people. You're a multiple best-selling author, international speaker. That's pretty evident. But how do people learn how to sell without selling your soul?

Well, that's a damn good segue, isn't it? It is. I have written the Back Pocket Guide. I'm lazy. Got 9 bestsellers, but I don't write books anymore. I write back pocket guides. They're easy, digestible. They're virtually a workshop in a download. And the back pocket guide to how to sell yourself without selling your soul, um, you've got it up on the screen. There's a, a link that you're going to be, uh, putting around as well. It's basically stevebrossman.com and then BPG, which is back pocket guide, and then S, soul. Which is sell soul. If you forget that and if you're just hearing this traveling somewhere, I'm old-fashioned. I actually reply to emails. They get to me and I reply to emails. Yeah, it's so easy. Steve@SteveBrosman.com. Just drop me a note and then just say, hey Steve, heard you on that great, great interview with Cheryl and you can ask me a question. So, and then I can send you the link if you didn't have a, a chance to download it. I do recommend that's a great place to start, and it really does help, and it has helped a lot of people overcome their fears of selling, but just give them some skills and some comfort to say, you know what, I can actually enjoy this because I like helping people.

Yeah, Steve at stevebrossman.com, that's a great place to start a conversation. And I would love to know, what is a final tip tool, tactic, or technique that's really helping you to market yourself today?

Yeah, the info you said to me is give them a tool and/or tip, and you want to help them to market like it's not 1999. Interestingly enough, most of the things that I have been using, except from the icing on the cake with the neuroscience, I've been doing since I opened up my own health club in '84.. And I've created a lot of things, but it goes back to a lot of different principles. And I'm going to get back to my first book, which was about 10 years ago, and it was called Stand Up, Stand Out, or Stand Aside. I did want to call it, in my Aussie colloquialism, Be Different or Bugger Off. So it's Stand Up, Stand Out, or Stand Aside. And Seth Godin said it's more important to be different than be better, cheaper, or faster. Be prepared to stand up, not just stick your head up and have a look. Stand up, stand out, be that unique person. You're all unique and you do something different. Create your authority position, but most importantly, sell the value. You provide great value Don't sell the box.

It's a great place to leave this conversation. And you've really got me thinking even for my own marketing and for my own self, as you are the sales innovator. It's getting me to think about what am I? Am I an 'a' or am I a 'the'? So, I'll be leaving this conversation with that in my mind. Steve, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us all the way from Australia. And being on the show today. I think that our audience is the better for it. You've really provided a ton of value today to the audience. Thank you.

Thank you for the work that you're doing in getting this out to people.