In this insightful discussion, the speakers, including the host, delve into the nuances of effective selling, emphasizing the importance of belief in one's product. They argue that sales success hinges not on a binary belief in the product but rather on the extent of that belief, which they term the "belief continuum." The host introduces a visual model illustrating the disparity between a salesman's belief and a prospect's potential skepticism. They stress that while sales skills are essential, conviction—fueled by a deep understanding of the prospect's needs—can greatly enhance sales performance. They also discuss the impact of work ethic on sales volume, suggesting that strong conviction not only improves closing rates but also motivates more persistent follow-up efforts. Ultimately, they advocate for sales training to focus on fostering belief and understanding the customer's problems, rather than solely on sales techniques.
"So many people like to think like, do you believe in what you are selling? They ask the question as though it's a binary answer, yes or no, I believe or I don't believe. But it would be much more accurate to say, to what extent do you believe in?"
This quote emphasizes that belief in sales is not simply a matter of yes or no, but rather a matter of how strongly one believes in the product or service they are offering.
"Because belief is not a binary question. It is a continuum. It is, how much do you believe in what you are selling?"
Speaker A clarifies that belief is a spectrum, suggesting that sales success is influenced by the degree of belief a salesman has in their product.
"Because if you thoroughly, 100% believe with all of your heart and mind that what you are selling is true, I guarantee you that you will sell significantly more."
Speaker A asserts that complete belief in a product's value and truthfulness can lead to significantly higher sales figures.
"And so many people focus, I would say a disproportionate amount of people focus on the skill of selling. And there absolutely is a skill to sales."
Speaker A acknowledges that while there is a skill set required for sales, it is often overemphasized to the detriment of other important aspects.
"But you can shortcut that path to success by having conviction. And the way that you have conviction is by a dramatically understanding the needs of your prospects."
This quote suggests that conviction can be a shortcut to sales success, and it is achieved by deeply understanding the needs of prospects.
"Most salespeople don't even listen to the prospect at all and simply want to deliver their pitch, which inherently means that they can't believe in the product that much because they're not even thinking about whether it solves the problem for the prospect."
Speaker A criticizes salespeople who focus solely on delivering a pitch without listening to the prospect, implying that this approach hinders genuine belief in the product's ability to solve the prospect's problem.
"And so if you think about this visual, right I have right here. So you've got your salesman here, and you've got your prospect here, right? And you see this bubble that I put over their head."
Speaker A introduces a visual metaphor to explain the concept of belief in the sales dynamic between the salesman and the prospect.
"The prospect has no bubble inside. It's completely empty, and they might have a negative bubble as well. And then you've got the salesman who's got his belief bubble."
This quote describes the visual metaphor, where the prospect's belief bubble is empty or negative, and the salesman has a belief bubble, indicating the levels of conviction each party holds.
"Most sales training should be, is currently focused on educating salesmen around the product perfectly matches their problem, you can have conviction in order to sell it."
Speaker A suggests that sales training should shift focus towards educating salespeople on understanding the prospect's needs to build conviction and improve sales effectiveness.
Most of the time focused on educating the salesman around the prospect and their problems, not the product.
This quote emphasizes the importance of training salespeople to understand the customer's problems rather than just the features of the product they are selling.
One of the reasons that many successful businesses happen from somebody who suffered from a pain and then went to go solve it for themselves and then ended up solving it for other people is because they desperately understand the thoughts, needs, and pains of the prospect and they know how the product solves those problems.
The speaker is highlighting that businesses often succeed when they are founded by someone who has personally experienced and solved a problem, as this gives them an innate understanding of their customers' needs.
And so the first equation here is for increasing closing percentage... it's the skill of sales multiplied by the extent to which you believe it is not.
This quote introduces an equation for increasing the closing percentage in sales, suggesting that both skill and belief are essential components.
You can be a very skilled salesman. But let's say the skill of sales is one to ten... I believe that your beliefs around conviction can be one to 100.
The speaker argues that while sales skills have a limit, the level of conviction a salesperson has in the product can far exceed that, thus having a more significant impact on sales outcomes.
People can sense whether you believe what you are telling them is true, and they believe that what you are selling them is going to solve their problem.
This quote suggests that a prospect can detect the salesperson's belief in the product, which is crucial for making a sale.
How can you transfer an empty cup? How can you transfer a cup that is only one third full into another empty cup and expect it to be over the threshold of the amount of belief that's necessary and that's required for a prospect to make a purchasing decision?
The speaker uses a metaphor to illustrate that a salesperson cannot effectively transfer belief to a prospect if they themselves do not fully believe in the product.
But a much, much bigger lever that is often and most underutilized or unutilized at all is the conviction or the extent to which the salesman believes in what they are selling and to what extent it can help solve the prospect's problem.
The quote identifies conviction as a major but often neglected factor in sales effectiveness, emphasizing its importance over other sales techniques.
To the podcast, I have a book.
This quote indicates a shift in the conversation where the host introduces a book they have written.
On Amazon, it's called 100 million dollar offers that over 8005 star reviews. It has almost a perfect score.
The host provides details about the book's availability, title, and the positive reception it has received on Amazon, suggesting its relevance and authority on the subject of sales and offers.
You can get it for $0.99 on Kindle. The reason I bring it up is that I put over 1000 hours into writing that book and it's my biggest give to our community.
This quote emphasizes the value proposition of the book, balancing its low price with the significant time investment made by the author, and presenting it as a contribution to the community.
So it's my very shameless way of trying to get you to like me more and ultimately make more dollars so that later on in your business career I can potentially partner with you. So that's my give. Go check it out, Amazon and back to the show.
The speaker candidly admits to a marketing strategy that aims to build rapport with the audience, with the long-term goal of fostering business relationships.
And so that will influence the closing percentage of an individual or team.
This quote introduces the concept of closing percentage as a metric for sales success.
The second piece is going to be the work ethic, right?
The speaker identifies work ethic as a second key component in sales performance.
So a lot of people have probably seen really good closers versus really bad closers based on their closing percentage, but also total number of deals closed.
This quote compares salespeople, suggesting that closing percentage and total deals closed are both indicators of performance.
Personally, when you have somebody who has really high work ethic, then they can make up for a lower closing percentage by having more activity.
The speaker argues that high work ethic can mitigate a lower closing percentage by increasing the number of sales opportunities.
And so if you think about the expert salesman as having these two things together, which is you want to have a high closing percentage and you want to have lots of units sold, all right?
This quote defines the ideal salesperson as one who combines a high closing percentage with a high volume of sales.
And so there's three variables here. You've got skill, you've got conviction, and you've got work ethic, but conviction counts twice because if you believe that what you are selling is genuinely going to help people, you will follow up faster, you will follow up more religiously, you will follow up as though you were trying to help someone.
This quote explains that skill, conviction, and work ethic are the three variables of sales success, with conviction being particularly influential because it motivates more persistent and genuine follow-up efforts.
If you could go back in time, let's say you could go back in time five years and you could talk to yourself and say, hey, I want you to put 100% of the money that we have right now.
This quote sets up a thought experiment intended to make the listener consider the power of conviction in influencing one's own decisions.
How many times would you follow up with yourself to get yourself to do that thing or do that action or make that investment? A lot. And it's because you truly believe that it would solve your prospect's problem.
The speaker suggests that one's persistence in following up is proportional to the depth of conviction that the action or investment would be beneficial, drawing a parallel to the persistence needed in sales.
"I would implore you to focus way more of your time around the thing that counts twice in the equation of selling and creating great salespeople, which is the belief to which the extent, the extent to which they believe what they are selling and to whom they are selling, than boring with the monotony of the skill."
The quote emphasizes the importance of belief over skill in the context of sales. It suggests that managers should focus more on fostering belief in what is being sold rather than just the mechanics of selling.
"And the proof that I have in this is that if you look at every single religious movement, you are selling something very hard to sell, which is a completely new frame of view around the world."
This quote draws a parallel between sales and religious movements, suggesting that the success of religious movements comes from the deep belief of their proponents, not from formal sales training.
"If you believed wholeheartedly in the solution that you are selling, would you not then spend lots of time honing your skill? Probably because you would want to help more people because you believe in the thing that you were selling them, right?"
This quote asserts that belief in a product or service motivates salespeople to refine their skills in order to assist more people, indicating that belief is a catalyst for skill development.
"I believe that the skill of sales is fundamentally a transference of belief. And we do need to start with why for salespeople, because it is not a question of whether or not they believe, it is the question of to what extent do they believe?"
This quote encapsulates the concept that sales skills revolve around the transfer of belief and that the depth of belief in the 'why' of a product or service is essential for sales effectiveness.