I’m not a Salesperson (yet I’ve Sold Millions)

by | Jan 5, 2024 | Blog, Business Guidance

Ever feel like you’re being labeled as just another “salesperson”?

Chet Holmes, author of The Ultimate Sales Machine, certainly did and refused to be confined by just that stereotype.

This is the reason why he created groundbreaking strategies like the Dream 100 and Core Story.

Instead of the typical pushy sales tactics, he believed in leading with education and market data to establish yourself as the go-to expert in your field.

Here’s a startling fact: A decade ago, 63% of prospects considered sales reps pushy.

Fast forward to today, a staggering 97% share this sentiment, largely influenced by the dominance of e-commerce giants like Amazon.

It’s evident that the sales landscape is evolving, and so must your approach.

In this week’s episode, we talk about the changing dynamics of customer expectations and reveal why focusing on one crucial aspect before selling is paramount.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to transform your sales approach and stand out in today’s competitive market.

 

Continued Learning: Strategists Make More Money Than Tacticians

TAKING ACTION:

  • Want to know what’s keeping you from doubling your sales in the next 12 months? Take our quick QUIZ to get answers: Howtodoublesales.com
  • If you’d like to have a profound breakthrough in your business, schedule your breakthrough call with a LIVE expert here: Chetholmes.com/Breakthrough
  • Claim your FREE chapter 4 from the top 10 most recommended marketing and sales books of all time! Visit: Ultimatesalesmachine.com to find out how you Create 9X More Impact from every move you’re already making to win clients!

TRANSCRIPT:

*this transcript was mostly generated by AI, please excuse any mistakes smile

[00:00:00] Welcome, everybody, to the CEO Mastery Show. This week, I have a very entertaining guest. I was having a conversation with Justin T. W. Hall. And he said that he hyped this so big that he would be the best episode ever that I thought, Okay, let’s have you on here.

I’m curious what you have to say because very often, over and over and over again, we hear this saying of, I’m not a salesperson, or I don’t feel good about being a salesperson, or even my father, Chet Holmes, the ultimate sales machine, hated. Being a salesperson, you’ll hear a little bit about that in a minute, but I am curious, Justin, and just to give them a little bit of backstory, do you know anything about sales?

Are you qualified to talk about this topic?

Becoming a master is not about doing 4, 000 things. It’s about doing 12 things 4, 000 times. [00:01:00] The Ultimate Sales Machine presents the CEO Mastery Show for entrepreneurs looking to grow faster, better, smarter. If you would like to have a profound breakthrough in your business, talk to our team live by visiting Chet Holmes.

com forward slash breakthrough. Good advice is contextual. Get your answers at Chet Holmes. com forward slash breakthrough.

I’ve taught a couple people to sell a little bit of, a little bit of stuff, over the years. I’ve run tens of thousands of hours of sales training for people. It’s a really. Common belief that people have, right?

Selling is bad or this negative connotation with sales. And I actually fundamentally believe that it comes from a misunderstanding of what sales fundamentally is. It’s essentially, if you want to boil it down to its most basic essence, sales is simply decision making, right? But it’s decision making in an assisted manner, almost like you have a guide who’s there to.

To bring forth information to assist in that decision making [00:02:00] and when you think about decision making, we all make decisions all the time, right? So we’re really all selling ourselves all the time on everything that we do internally, and we just don’t like the feeling of having to do that to somebody else.

But when you boil it back down to what it really, really means, the misunderstanding that people have is that you can actually sell Anything because there’s no such thing as selling. You can’t actually sell. The only thing that you can actually do is compel people to buy from you. And so when you flip the script in that way, you’re not actually doing anything to someone, but you’re actually empowering people, right?

You’re equipping them. You’re enabling these individuals to make the best decision for themselves to make the right decision for themselves. Because I think fundamentally, when you think about sales in a negative aspect, it comes from that kind of sleazy. Pushy or like selling something that somebody shouldn’t be buying anyways, kind of attitude.

And that’s where like a lot of negativity comes from. But when you break it all down and you say, Hey, how can I empower somebody to make the right [00:03:00] decision for themselves? How can I give them the information that they need? How can I help them feel the things that they need to feel to be compelled to make the decision and move forward in the correct direction.

That starts with a. Understanding that no is a perfectly acceptable outcome, right? That’s a real easy way to take the pressure off of yourself in any selling situation. But ultimately just remember, you are there to empower people to buy and you can’t actually sell anything to anyone because They’re the ones who have to make the decision to say yes, right?

If you are actually forcing somebody to say yes, you’re probably employing some illegal tactics that I definitely don’t recommend anybody’s listening to this episode used to compel somebody to make a decision that they don’t want to. But if you’re fundamentally sitting there thinking, I don’t like selling, do you like helping people make the right decision?

Do you like helping people make decisions that benefit them? Because when you look at the outcome and you say, Hey, if this is the right fit for the right person at the right time for the right price and the right payment plan, then of course it’s going to [00:04:00] empower and it’s going to build their life, right?

It’s going to. It’s going to better where they are, what they’re doing and how they’re living in some way, shape, form or fashion that makes them able to show up as a better version of themselves as a better version of their business or their company. And it boils down to so much more than just like asking for dollars, because when you think about decision making.

Everything in business is decision making. So if you’re trying to get an employee to buy into a new program or you’re trying to get a group of people to buy in on a new team where you’re trying to get investors to pull the trigger and write a check and invest in your business. If you’re trying to get customers to come to you, all of that, it starts with understanding and empathizing with the person on the other side and saying, How can I empower this person to understand how to make the right decision so that they can do so?

Excitedly, proactively and really in a way that leaves no buyer’s remorse. It leaves no bitter taste. It leaves people feeling great about the decision they’ve made. And most importantly, [00:05:00] the customer, the salesperson and the company or the product of the service or whoever is going to receive that they all benefit, right?

That’s how you can take all the negativity out of the equation and that’s how you can start to empower yourself to have a healthy relationship with selling and decision making and getting people to buy into the decision that you want them to make. Right? There’s nothing wrong with being able to influence that.

So I’m interested when you identify, do you identify as a salesperson? 

I identify as the greatest salesperson who’s probably ever lived. I can sell anything to anyone for more money than what you’re charging and do it faster and easier and with less resistance and greater buy in. And they’re probably going to be fired up to go tell their friends about how they just paid so much for what they just bought and then recommend a bunch of their Okay, give me an example of this.

It’s like, how is it so different? 

Let me break down the question and just make sure you want an example of like selling something for more, faster and [00:06:00] et cetera.

Okay. Yeah. Versus, you know, someone comes, Hey, I want to sell you knives. They say, no, I’m not interested and they move on versus what made you different that you are the greatest salesperson ever. Hey, I’m sure, I’m sure plenty of people would like the challenge for that title their own world.

It’s actually very few that will actually say that and hone in. I’ve heard you say it a couple of times now. So I’m just curious to, I need an anecdotal example of how it proves that you do this differently. Okay. Okay, cool. So I actually start by going for no immediately. I am trying to, yeah, and some people who have watched me sell, they’re like, this is so counterintuitive because the first thing I usually do is I throw a gigantic price and I’m like, Hey, if this is a scare for you, like we shouldn’t even be talking, I’ll let them know how the payment plans work.

And it’s like, and if that’s not going to work for you, then like we shouldn’t even be talking. And then it’s like, Hey, does this shoe fit? And if it does, like, all right, awesome. Do you want [00:07:00] to, Go ahead and check out and get them out of the store today. That’s a medical metaphorical example. 

If you want a real life like anecdote, I have a number of people that I know in the copy world.

And I do this with a lot of services where I’ll have a friend or someone I know, and they’re like, man, I’m struggling to get some work. And I’m like, cool. Tell me about what you do. What do you charge? And, I’ll use an example of somebody who has written copy for a lot of really heavy hitters out there.

And they were like, oh, this is what I charged. So I find somebody else out there and I’m like, Hey, Are you looking for this super simple solution to your problem called a killer copywriter, right? Okay, here’s what I want to charge because I know what I want to make on middling this service. And I basically have a three second conversation where it’s like, Hey, is this what you need?

Is this the right thing? Are you willing to pay this much? Okay, if I can get you the right solution for all of that. Are you ready to rock and roll? Okay, cool. I actually have the right person in my back pocket. Let’s get you connected. And then I just middle and make the margin and tend to make thousands of dollars or sometimes tens of thousands of dollars to do literally none of [00:08:00] the fulfillment and have a conversation that the copywriter themselves would have fumbled and probably not sold the job because they get, to bog down in the details of what the work is instead of connecting fundamentally on what the other person actually needs, right?

What are they really looking to buy? They’re not looking to buy copywriting. They’re looking to buy the new sales mechanism for their business. That’s going to put the lift in when they actually turn on the crank and run the ad dollars through the machine to get the ROI out the other side.

When you boil it down to understanding what decision are they fundamentally trying to make, right? You’re able to get to the point a lot faster. And you can also extrapolate a higher level of value because you’re a, you’re respecting people’s time, you’re moving quickly and B, you can say, Hey, What is this worth to you?

You can have a frank and candid conversation and say, okay, cool. So if I can provide this solution, it’s worth that much. Then you basically have carte blanche to come in anywhere under that. And it’s going to be a great deal for them. And so you empower yourself to move very quickly to the [00:09:00] highest

profitability on your sale for the best service. That’s the best fit. And then again, it all starts from being willing to say, Hey, no, this isn’t gonna work. It’s not a fit. I’m not gonna sell you the wrong thing at any time for any reason whatsoever, because you have to be fundamentally sound in your belief and your conviction in that manner.

Another great example. If you want to go back to the knife days

there was fixed pricing, so you couldn’t necessarily sell The same thing for more money, right? That would kind of break company rule, but you could do things like say, Hey, this is the set that everyone gets.

And by the way, one of the most popular upgrades is to swap out these basic versions for these more expensive pieces. Did you want to just go ahead and do that? Like everybody else. So there’s ways to find add ons and additions, right? Like things that people used to give away for free.

I just kind of. Bundle them all together and just sell them as a package and then throw in something else for free.

Higher revenue, better commission, higher sales. 

At the end of the day, I think that the biggest thing that people misunderstand when it comes to, again, quickly getting to an exchange of the right yes, [00:10:00] it’s understanding where is the value and how can you leverage that as much as possible for both parties so that both sides feel like the deal is a serious win for them.

And genuinely, the person who’s spending the money, who’s making the commitment with the yes, is actually getting a great deal that they’re excited about and that they’re going to feel great about in the long run, because if you’re selling for now at the expense of tomorrow or later on down the line, you’re really just doing it.

Damage to your brand and your business and your bottom line in the long run. And you’re making future yeses that much harder to get from anyone else in the marketplace. And so it’s very important that you become fundamentally aligned with understanding what the right yes is in your business. And that’s the right yes from the right person at the right time for the right reasons at the right price for the right payment plan.

That’s somebody who’s always going to be excited to do business with you. when you stop trying to sell quote unquote to everybody and like force people to do things and you focus on how do I get the right people to self identify as ready to [00:11:00] buy right now, then you’re actually going to set people up to be begging to buy from you, which is the process that I teach people that I work with, but it’s fundamentally

empowering again, those people to make the right decision on the right. Yes. For the right reason. So that they’re happy. Now they’re happy tomorrow. They’re happy down the line and they’re always happy to refer people and bring you repeat business themselves because that’s fundamentally where the big yeses happen is when you get the right yes, that paves the path for you in the marketplace for future yeses.

Thank you so much, Justin. I think the biggest win that I got from what you said is that you’re leaning in looking for the no. Because once you get your first no, then you can move right past it. That I find to be so fascinating. That was my biggest takeaway from what you just said, actually.

Well, and you know, the other thing about that is why would I waste anyone’s time if it’s definitely going to be a no because of some fundamental thing like price or payment plan or something else that’s just like [00:12:00] not going to be a fit because when you have to bend over backwards to make the deal work, it’s not a deal for anybody anyways, because those are your worst customers.

They’re the biggest naggers. They’re the people who are going to be your time wasters, your energy vampires, your customer service nightmares, your people asking for special treatment. And. So yeah, I actually fundamentally try and disqualify and go for the no as fast as possible so that I can get to that high quality, right?

Yes. ASAP. And with that, we’re going to go to the next segment where I show a example of this when I was in Milan, Italy. Thank you so much, Justin. Very welcome. Pleasure. All mine.

I am in Switzerland right now, and behind me are the Swiss Alps. I just went to the top of Europe, Jungfrau, which was a miraculous experience. 

I wanted to talk today about not feeling like a salesperson.

I wanted to touch to this because so often I hear people say, Well, I don’t really consider [00:13:00] myself a salesperson, or I never knew sales until I read the Ultimate Sales Machine.

I find it funny because Chet Holmes, the author, original author of Ultimate Sales Machine, hated being called a salesperson.

That’s why he created superior access vehicles like a Dream 100 campaign, like a core story where you’re leading with education and market data to set yourself up as number one expert in your field rather than just someone that’s pushy because 10 years ago, the average prospect thought that 63 of sales reps were pushy.

Today it’s now at 97 feel that sales reps are pushy and it’s because of the advent of the internet and the apocalypse that is Amazon. So people can buy online without a sales rep. So you need to be a true expert there to assist. 

And I have a great example of this. 

It was just in Milan two days ago in Italy.

And you ever had that experience where you walk into a [00:14:00] department store and you see the people that are working in the department store and they look at you like in terror because they know you don’t want them to be there and they don’t want to be there bothering you. So they may come a little bit closer and say, is there anything you need?

And they’re really just saying, Hey, I really don’t want to bother you. And they have the whole energy of I’m here to bother you. And because of that, you put up the guard of, Nope, thanks, or Nope. I don’t want to talk to you. I had an experience that renewed my faith in retail sales two years ago, where a woman who.

would not identify as a sales rep. She was going to college for economics and finance. And yet, this woman, I’m telling you, I came in there and she treated me like family. She was such an expert, It was such a small boutique and yet I walked away buying more than I ever have in one transaction at a retail store, just to say.

But so I walk up and I pointed out, I would [00:15:00] love to try this on. She went absolutely right away. She got me that and she said, you know what? You know what would match that so well? Let’s get you out of what you have and let’s put you into this dress. Here, I’ll give you this dress.

She brings it to me. She insists that she has to button every button and zipper every zipper. I literally did not have to touch a thing. Even at one point, she then brought me another jacket and I went to go button and she went, please. It is my duty and service to be here to button your buttons and I looked at her and I went I have never Had anyone more helpful than you in a clothing experience and she was in her early 20s but she Walked the walk.

She was truly there to serve me and because of that I had a delightful experience I wanted to buy a pair of boots. I walked away with a pair of boots two dresses Two jackets, a hat, a belt. It was a [00:16:00] $1,300 experience instead of just a $200 experience. 

 What am I trying to say here? One, stop acting like you’re annoying people.

Actually think about how can I be of true value because when you are of true value and they can feel that and they can feel the joy because you are coming from that place of service, they will be grateful, they will buy more. 

So what do you have to do to be in that space where you feel that you’re giving and you’re there of service and you’re joyful at that exchange because you know you’re making their life better?

What do you have to do? for my father He wanted to do things funny, so on his cold calling, he would, make, random, accents. He would pretend to be Scottish, or Welsh, or throughout the day. He would make random cold calls with different accents. 

for me, I love to go on social, and I love to engage with people in their lives.

I love to comment on their family photos. I love to see what’s going on with them. 

For this woman, it was [00:17:00] buttoning every button and trying to find as many cute outfits that fit my body type as possible. And she truly was an expert at it, you know? I’d say, well, is this color, do you think this color would work with it? She said, no. But this one will, and then she’d pull out another set for me to try on. How can we come with the excitement of service? How can we set ourselves apart? 

My father would send little trinkets, right? Little Funny things, sending a shoe, I’m just trying to get my foot in the door, you know, Sending a yo-yo are your sales going up and down?

We can be entertaining, we can be engaging. Stop leveling down and saying, Oh, it’s just because everybody hates sales reps that we’re never going to actually follow up with the amount of follow ups that are needed. The average sale happens between 5 to 12 touches today. 80 percent of them happen between 5 and 12 touches, but the average sales rep stops after 3.

90 percent of sales reps follow, stop at 3 no’s. [00:18:00] We have to find a way to be more engaging, more entertaining, have have more gifts, education. Make them smile, make them laugh. You should be the bright spot in their day. 

And I will tell you right now. At that boutique in Milan, that was a bright spot in my day. The way that I was treated, the service that I was provided. 

So go out there and serve, stop selling, start educating. And that is my episode from Interlaken, Switzerland.

Make sure to get your copy or copies at the ultimate sales machine. com. There’s a lot of special bonuses that you can’t get going to Amazon. So make sure you check it out at ultimate sales machine.

Learn More

advertisement advertisement

Read More

Why Your Elevator Pitch Fails (And the Simple Fix You Need)

Why Your Elevator Pitch Fails (And the Simple Fix You Need)

I have a confession to make. I am appalled by the countless empty promises and bogus offers that flood your inbox during Black Friday. You know the ones: “Buy now and get $10,000 worth of courses—if you act before Monday!” But here’s the truth: Only 3% of people ever...

97% of Pitches Fail – Here’s How to Make Yours Stand Out

97% of Pitches Fail – Here’s How to Make Yours Stand Out

Have you ever poured your heart into a pitch, only to be met with blank stares and awkward silence? It’s not just you. Research shows that 97% of pitches *fail* because traditional elevator pitches only appeal to a slim 3% of people who are ready to buy right now....

Live Pitch Contest Highlights from the BOB Summit

Live Pitch Contest Highlights from the BOB Summit

Could you hook a cold prospect and make them take action in 60 seconds or less? If I gave you that opportunity RIGHT NOW would you be able to get a YES? 90% of companies wouldn’t because most companies focus on themselves. My product is the best, my service is...

0 Comments