Strolling through a market one Sunday afternoon, I was approached by a short, podgy, shiny-headed man

He stopped me with a gentle tug on my shirt and a big warm smile. He had large glowing white teeth — which had to be false — and he beamed infectiously with enthusiasm.

He asked me how my day was, I responded, “Fine, thanks. Yours?” With a thick accent he responded, “Always a good, my young friend, always a good!” He guided me back to his tiny stall which consisted of a small table covered in punnets of baked beans.

He then proudly revealed the story behind his baked beans, how much he loved baking, why he prepared them a certain way and how he hadn’t missed a Sunday market in over ten years. His passion was intoxicating and you could almost see it steaming up into the air after every word.

Now, I’m no connoisseur of baked beans, nor do I eat them very often, but guess what I did? I happily handed over my hard-earned cash for his beans. Such is the power of passion and conviction! What’s more, I’ve told a lot of people about the bean man, including my friends. I’ve gone bean mad and viral, and I enjoy doing it, because this story and what ‘the bean man’ represents is meaningful and memorable to me.

This is how game changing companies are born. The Virgins, Nikes and Amazons of this world ― all have to start somewhere. They begin in Sunday markets, lounge rooms or garages. It doesn’t really matter where. What does ―is that from the beginning the business is uncompromisingly about doing what you love and captivating and serving your customers.   Not huge profits, accolades, or what you think success may bring you.

Does buying or selling baked beans validate who someone is and provide them with a profound sense of meaning?  Not in itself, no. But if you plan to setup a company that’s going up against my bald headed friend ― you sure as heck better have meaning and passion!  Otherwise, you’re dead in the water. The mad bean man will outsell you 10 to 1.

Whether home-grown, Grandma’s secret sauce, or hand-baked fresh every weekend ― take pride in what you do and make sure your beans are unique and better than everyone else’s. Even the smallest and simplest business idea can grow into an unfathomable success story, but it takes thinking and selling it differently, lots of passion and knowing what you stand for.

When you get this right, your customers will not only make efforts to seek you out― they will move from being mere customers to mad and loyal salespeople.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan

Sales Training

The short answer is, no. However, my experience suggests the better you get along with your customers, the more meaningful the relationship becomes.

One this is for sure, if you dont like your customers, you must at the very least share a likeness with them. And the best form of likeness is: their best interests.

“I dont really like you, but I still really care about you.”

Is a powerful mantra I embed into service based businesses.  Even if you don’t like some of your customers’ ― you still better service the pants off them, and enjoy doing so. Is that ‘idealistic,’ you bet! But in today’s hyper-competitive market, anything less is settling for mediocrity and we all know how that story ends.

Without some sort of commonality human relationships are merely surface level, “Eh… take ‘em or leave ‘em” and “easy come ― easy go” ― you know how it goes. These types of relationships hold little intrinsic value to either party, making them transactional at best.

I am staggered by the amount of companies that take an ‘easy come ― easy go’ approach to customer development. It’s as if they believe there is a never-ending pipe of happy customers lined-up with their eyes shut and wallets open. I’m also not surprised by their limited success.

“Customers want meaning; give them that and you will have them for life.”

I make a living by helping companies get the most out of their sales activities and customer relationships, so in my world, ‘sales’ and ‘service’ go hand in hand. Yet so many companies fail to understand this. They try hard to win new-business, and sometimes do, but then someone along the service chain lets the customer down, in a small or significant way ― leaving the self-respecting customer with little choice but to move on. And in the process taking their valuable repeat business and friends with them!

I recently had an experience with a real-estate agent in Melbourne. Initially my experience with this company via the salesperson was great. It’s safe to say if I was to sell a property in this area, this company would have been top of mind. However, I later dealt with the property manager at this company and my experience with her was nothing short of horrendous. She had zero customer service skills and tried her best to bully me using legal jargon in the hope I wouldn’t call her bluff. Well I did call her bluff and she eventually backed down, but not before my perception of this company was completely annihilated. 

A week or so after this incident a salesperson from this same company then called me to explore my interest in buying a property they had listed. You can guess my response, and yes it may have contained the F-bomb! I have also told everyone I know about this real-estate company, so my negative experience has multiplied exponentially.

Does the self-focused property manager care about all this? Clearly not. Does she care about empowering her company and sales team? Absolutely not! Cleary the property manager didn’t like me, I could tell from her tone in our first conversation she considered me a problem, or a waste of her precious time. I appreciate property managers are busy and many under-valued, but I dont care about that because I’m the client and I’m paying! And I am just like every other customer on the planet when it comes to this philosophy. So it’s worth understanding.

The property manager didn’t have to like me, but she could have at least shared a likeness with me. This creates meaning with anyone you deal with, not only customers and it’s the most powerful (zero cost) way that I know of to build valuable long lasting customer relationships.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan, Founder ― BOOM! Sales

One of the most frequent areas that I get asked to consult on is sales team ‘performance’, or lack thereof…

In many sales teams what I observe is a small percentage of sales stars shining and the rest making up the numbers. This conundrum I call ‘The Law of Lesser Equals’. This law propounds: All men and women are created equal, yet when compared in competitive environments some underperform, not just marginally, but resoundingly. Many team members have the same training, similar backgrounds and experience, but some get the results, while others struggle. Is that a result of luck, experience or natural talent, or is there a more substantial explanation?

A few months ago, I coached a team of 12 experienced medial liaison offers. This group consisted of a mixed bag of personalities: outspoken directors, reserved thinking types, socialisers and relaters. As I facilitated the session, I observed the behaviours and engagement levels of each participant and it soon became evident who would get the most out of the sales training content. By the morning break, even without viewing individual sales performance records, I could tell who the top sales performers were and why. How?

There is second part to The Law of Lesser Equals: Those that are created equal will determine their advantage, not by luck or natural inclination, instead through will and determination to better themselves and those around them. You see, the salespeople who understand this principle are invariably those who outshine everyone else. These people think and behave in a way that develops them into more of their potential. Research indicates it takes approximately 10,000 hours (roughly 10 years) of practice to achieve mastery in any field. So those who are patient and committed to their development over the long-term will more often than not come out the other end more successful.

In the medical liaison group there were two people who contributed most during the session, and surprise, surprise, when I spoke to their manager afterward, she explained they were the two top performers. Not just marginally, nearly 40% of the business was being achieved by these two salespeople, the rest were merely making up the balance. Some of the rest had more experience and had been working in the company longer, others presented more impressive credentials, yet those attributes were not enough to outshine the two best people.

If your poor sales performers are putting in the effort, have a positive mindset and are doing things right most of the time, but are not getting the results – give them more time. In sales there is a lot to be said for effort. It’s not often the hare that wins the race; they may get the quick wins here and there. It’s the person who is committed to slow, steady and never ending improvement that develops the mindset and habits that not only create but sustain success.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan

Donald the management consultant arrived late to a public sales seminar I was conducting.

The rest of the participants arrived early for their 8.45am registration and had been chatting amongst each other. He apologised for being late and then rushed in and sat down. His body language was stiff and noticeably anxious. Although now behind schedule, for Don’s benefit, I asked everyone to again quickly introduce themselves and describe what business they were in. All were happy to oblige.

A couple of minutes into the introductions I sensed Don’s energy. He seemed disengaged and uninterested in the stories the others were sharing. I continued into the morning break paying extra attention to him but not at the detriment of anyone else. As soon as the other participants left the room for the break, he approached me and explained the seminar was not what he had expected.

Don had white-grey hair and the lines on his face told me he was in the twilight of his career. He looked stressed and his desperation was obvious. He thought the content was about generating more leads. I explained this was not advertised – the session is about the ‘sales fundamentals’ – things that are easy to do but easier to forget. He responded, “No thanks, I’m really busy, I just need more leads.” His comment didn’t make sense to me, yet hearing the resolve in his voice, I explained that’s not our content for today and offered a refund. With half a foot out the door, he promptly agreed, but pretended he didn’t care about the money.

When everyone returned from the short break I explained, Don had left for his own reasons. With a collective shrug of the shoulders’ everyone quickly drew their attention to my presentation on the big screen. Unperturbed I continued with the seminar.

What Don missed in the next section would have provided many answers to his sales problems: the fundamentals that are ‘easy to do but easier to forget’: aligning values and maximising value, buying-in and being interested in others, the ABC’s of selling – ‘Always Be Contributing’, the Seven Sales Pillars – ‘Presentation, Preparation, People Skills, Passion, Persistence, Patience and Process’. We explored how to create and develop business friendships and a retro-service culture by harnessing change yet not forgetting the essentials of human interaction: courtesy, politeness, integrity, listening, trust and loyalty.

Also in attendance was a young girl, Taylor who was just starting her business journey. Don and her worlds couldn’t be further apart. She had just graduated from high school and came along with her step-father who owned a promising online start up business. In a relaxed manner she listened intently throughout the session and engaged and contributed where she could. Her receptors were wide open and she devoured the content as nourishment. Taylor wants to get into PR and marketing when she graduates from university. To her credit she is already investing in her own development. If she stays on this path her success will only be limited by her imagination.

The reality is, despite whether you understand the fundamentals or not, there is a world between knowing and demonstrating them. As for Don, he’s most likely still chasing leads, and for his sake I hope he does catch them eventually.

Had he taken the opportunity to stop chasing and start contributing he would have learnt: when you get the fundamentals right the business will chase you.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan

Inspirational selling comes from a place of contribution. Desperation is selling from a place of contradiction.

Selling in contradiction is when you sell a product or service without believing in it. What you say and believe is not congruent.  In these sales models the monetary exchange takes priority over the value and benefits being created. Conversely, selling with inspiration means you dont need to sell, but the customer wants to buy. Why? Because your proposition adds real value and benefits you and the customer understand. Therefore the line between you, your value and the customer’s benefit is congruent. This makes selling relatively easy if you’re talking with the right customers.

Being desperate is not pleasant and it’s an exhausting place to be in all the time. To achieve and sustain long term sales success you need to sell with inspiration! If you can’t get up every morning motivated by ‘what’ and ‘how’ you sell, you’re in real trouble because no one else is going to do it for you. One of the biggest tests for any salesperson is how they perform under immense pressure ― yet if you’re resilient and made of the right stuff you may even thrive in it.  Many salespeople crack under pressure. They have a couple of poor months and then get desperate. They start cutting corners and looking for quick-wins. This is the beginning of the end.  The quick wins seldom come, particularly when you’re desperate.

When people get desperate they gamble, make poor decisions and take uncalculated risks ― hoping to get lucky. Dont bank on luck, ever! It’s impossible to replicate. Desperate salespeople rely on luck. They have no strategy and no passion and most certainly no interest in their customers best interest. How can they when solely focused on their own survival? Desperate salespeople simply sell to get paid.

If you’re success relies on selling ― you need to be a ‘sales athlete!’ To be the best you need to take an approach akin to any professional sportsperson. Elite athletes are dedicated to their craft. They are focused, passionate, determined and disciplined in their approach and they have a strategy and process refined and developed on an on-going basis. They have benchmarks, goals, and targets. And in highly competitive sports they spend significant time collaborating with team members and studying competitors to develop their game theory and relevant tactics.

Sales athletes compete at a small percentage of their time and then rest, refine, and develop skills. On the contrary most salespeople compete 48+ weeks a year and invest little, if any, time in reflection, refinement and skill development. Elite athletes seldom focus on the money ― it’s a by-product of being exceptional at what they do. And very rarely will an elite athlete not love their chosen sport, and when the love is gone they retire and move on.
Now compare all the above characteristics to the average salesperson and you understand why most are desperate and ineffective. There is a proverbial chasm between ‘sales athletes’ and all-so-ran salespeople’s mindsets, behaviours and habits.

Sales Tips to sell with inspiration instead of desperation:

• Make sure your selling from a place of contribution ― not contradiction
• Become a ‘sales athlete’ and be focused, passionate, determined and disciplined!
• Compete less and spend more time developing successful habits and skills
• Take regular breaks (and holidays)  to rest, recover, and rejuvenate
• Understand your competitors and develop game theory and tactics
• If you dont enjoy selling ― get out of the sales kitchen
• Train yourself to enjoy pressure ― it’s all in your head and part of the game
• Dont bank on luck, ever!  ― have a process and continue to develop it

When all else fails just love what you do and have the passion and courage to see it through and the selling will eventually take care of itself.

Oh and one more thing: inspiration is highly contagious so when you catch it, those you come in contact with will also.

Who do you think appeals to people more ― a person buying or selling?

I can tell you without hesitation the ‘buyer’ wins hands down every time! Why? The buyer contributes to us usually by adding to our success or financial wellbeing.

In the heady pursuit of success, the fatal mistake many salespeople make is they ‘sell’ and self-promote all the time.  This trains people to ignore them much like TV ads that are in your face so much, after a while we simply don’t see or hear them.

So with more people selling, (than ever!) than buying, how do you compete in an overcrowded and self-focused market place?

Step 1:  Do the exact opposite of what the majority are doing in your space. Give customers choice, either ‘same-same’ or you. Most salespeople are focused on ‘the sell’ ― you need to be the minority of unique and interesting people buying!

Step 2:  Understand that buying means buying-in and contributing by taking a genuine interest in your customers and their best interests. Move from a ‘self-focused’ state (all about me and what I do) ― to a ‘selfless’ state (all about others and how I can help them).

Step 3: Rethink your ‘value proposition’, and redefine what you do and how you contribute with real value and benefits.

Step 4: Get out into your market place and buy the pants of your competitors!

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan

Sharpen your focus and target small groups of people you are confident you can contribute to most.

Your existing (best) customers will provide the clarity you need to establish this.  Less is more, work in a narrow pipe and leverage each call by communicating with benefits, specialised knowledge and commonality ― this helps build rapport and develops foundations of trust.

Cold-calling is as much about process, support and leverage as it is about dealing with rejection and maintaining enthusiasm. You have to work to a structured plan and initiative contact as you would a warm referral, i.e. I know who you and your competitors are ― and the reason for my call is to help you, just like I have helped others in your space.

I often indulge cold-callers simply because I’m curious to learn what they say and how they engage customers.  I recommend any cold-caller do the same to pick up valuable insights. Recently, I asked a cold-caller who randomly contacted me, what the nature of my business was? His response, “Um, could you please give me your web address?”  Clearly he did not care about me or my business, nor had he taken the time to buy-in and demonstrate an interest in my best interests.

Traditional cold-calling is about volume and working with the law of averages.

Contrastingly, modern cold-calling is more about understanding your niche and carving-a-path to market that engages customers in meaningful conversations and leads them (willingly) to benefits via your sales-process.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan

Your reason for contact, either cold-call or warm referral, must be of substance and not just another random-act-of-selling

I also encourage people to take the time (prior to making initial contact) to understand who your calling and how you can contribute to them most, and make that the sole reason for your call.

I encourage people to cold-call by coming from a place of ‘contribution’ first; I call this approach ‘buying-in’. In highly resistant sales executions, like cold-calling, you have to buy-in before you can successfully sell-in because the mass of cold-callers that have gone before you, have trained your customers to ignore you.

Like anything in life, you get out what you put in. So make every call an opportunity to learn about your customers (so even if you get a “not interested” response you are still taking away value you can apply next time.) And be sure to use each call to positively promote not just your company but yourself.

If someone looked me in the eyes and said with conviction, “I love cold-calling and I’m going to be the world’s best cold-caller!” and they were prepared to stick long enough to realise their vision, I have no doubt they would succeed in the end.

Most people cold-call because they have no choice and don’t enjoy the process, making their efforts condemned before the first call is even made.

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan

How important is being ‘believable’ when you’re selling? It’s the most important thing!

The number one killer that will stop any salesperson dead in their tracks, even the really confident ones, is their inability to instil trust in their customers.

Being believable is not just getting people to follow you ― it’s also their willingness and peace of mind during the process. Being believable is easier to achieve when you truly believe in what you are selling ― so sell something or be a part of a business that you truly believe in.

A great way to develop your believability is to engage in believable activities outside of your chosen profession.   

Sales training exercise:  Next time you’re at the supermarket doing your grocery shopping ― volunteer to carry someone’s bags to their car for them. I guarantee your request will be met with hesitation and even some trepidation. The natural response to such a request would be the obvious, “what’s the catch?”

But there is no catch. All you’re doing is offering to help someone in some way without reward or recognition. How you overcome the other persons reaction to your offer to help them, is how you train yourself to be more believable.

If you are genuine about helping others, you need to develop a way of being that enables you to cut-through your customers fear and get to a place of trust with real value and benefits.

Remember: Training yourself to be believable only works if you are genuine about helping others! Imposters need not worry themselves with this type of activity.  

Contributing to others without repayment is not only rewarding in itself, it helps you to develop your inner belief. So when it comes to selling all you have to do is believe in yourself and the selling part takes care of itself.

Inspire,

Trent  Leyshan              Sales Training  ∙   Sales Book ∙  Sales Coach

To be ‘interesting’ to others you have to be ‘interested in them!’

You don’t demonstrate that you are genuinely interested in others by being totally self-focused. The mistake many businesses make is ―everything they do and say is all about me, me, and me!

Have you ever been out for coffee with someone you just met and all they did was talk about them the entire time? I bet you left the exchange somewhat drained of energy and totally disinterested in this person. Businesses, like people, are much the same.

When you meet or speak with a new customer, don’t take this opportunity to tell them everything about you, instead make it about them. Furthermore, take this moment to transcend your genuine interest in them into a valuable relationship with very real benefits.

How to be ‘interesting’ in business tips:

-  Make what you do and say all about your customers

-  Lead with getting to know others first, before getting others to know you

-  Listen and feel the underlying emotions of what’s really being said

-  Always communicate in benefit terms

-  Never lead with ‘me’ – Always align values and add value and make it ‘we’

For a living, I consult with and develop salespeople and businesses, and I can categorically state, leading with ‘it’s all about me’ much like many traditional selling practices – is a waste of time.

Much more effective is an approach that enables you to align values and add-value to create and develop a relationship that is about us and we, (never me!)

Inspire,

Trent Leyshan                      Sales Training  ∙   Sales Book  ∙  Sales Coach