Transcription
So, did you get what you wanted out of 2020, based on the effort you put up? Meaning, you work your butt off, you work your tail off—did you get what you wanted in 2020? And if you didn’t, why not? Could it be the fact that maybe your ability to sell and negotiate and persuade isn’t at the level that it needs to be? Look, I’ve trained tens of thousands of people on sales the last 20 years, and I can tell you it takes six things—six things—to be great in sales. We’ll talk about that in today’s video. [Music]
And, by the way, when I go through these six things, watch how closely this is to also you dating somebody that eventually leads to a real solid relationship, possibly a running mate, as well as what it takes to find a business partner that becomes a long-term running mate. Let me get right into it. Six things it takes to be great in sales:
Number one is audacity. If you don’t have audacity, how do you prospect that person? How do you make that phone call? How are you willing to make that phone call knowing someone may say what to you, you know, and reject you? How do you approach the client? Just like in a business partnership, if you want to find somebody that’s going to be a running mate, how do you have the audacity to go to somebody and say, “I think you ought to go into business with me,” and he or she may say, “What? No.” Just like the guy who sees a girl who’s pretty, he wants to talk to her; he’s got the audacity to go up there because she may simply say, “I would never date a guy like you,” just like a customer may say to you, “I would never do business with you.” And those comments tend to hurt a lot of people; that’s why it takes audacity to go prospect and make the phone calls.
Number two, outside of audacity, is repetition. What’s repetition? It takes repetition to learn a script, an approach, or a presentation. So you repeat it over and over and over and over, and you fine-tune it. You add this story, you add that, you add this question, you add that, and so many times you do it. Eventually, like, here’s what we do; let me tell you what about it; tell me about yourself. So when we do another presentation, it becomes easy. Just like a business partner, just like somebody you’re dating, you present, you adjust, you make your pitch better, you make your presentation slides better, until eventually you become so easy where it’s effortless. So, number one, audacity—you approach, prospect. Number two, repetition—by you learning the script and the words over and over and over again.
Number three is discipline. What’s discipline? Discipline is: you had the audacity to go and talk to the person; they said yes; they gave you the number; you presented; they said, “Let me think about it.” Then you follow up, follow up over and over and over again until you said yes, until they say yes. Let me tell you, the biggest sales I’ve ever made, the biggest guests I’ve ever interviewed, the biggest deals I’ve ever done in my life, the biggest anything I’ve ever done in my life, never happened with the first time I asked the question. It happened with me doing a second approach, a third approach, a fourth approach, a fifth approach, a sixth approach, a seventh approach. Then things were patiently like nothing going on; no progress was being made. Then I made the subtle phone call: “Hey Bob, just want to check on—how’s everything?” “Everything good?” “Good.” And I don’t even make the ask; I just call Bob. “Everything good?” “Yeah.” “You calling about that stuff?” “No, no, I’m just checking on you. Is everything good with you?” “Yeah.” “Why? Just checking on you, man. I really enjoy talking to you.” “Uh, just once… everything’s good with you and the family?” “Yeah, everything’s good.” “Okay, sounds good. Take care, buddy. Bye-bye.” What is this guy doing? Just calling me, never asking me to sell. That’s a form of follow-up; that is a form of discipline. So, audacity, repetition, we have discipline to follow up. And then you have intuition. What’s intuition?
Intuition is: you prospected me; you had audacity; you came and presented; okay, repetition; next is discipline—you follow up; intuition. What is intuition? Intuition is the ability to qualify the lead before you pitch your product or you present your product to them. What do I mean by qualify your lead? So if I got intuition, if I’m talking to a client and I sell three different products, this may not be a client for me to present the biggest commission product; maybe it’s the small one. Intuition is based on the family’s demographics, where they live, income, lifestyle; maybe it’s middle-based on certain questions I asked, certain things they said, who their broker was; maybe this is a million-dollar account; maybe this is a higher-term, higher-tier product. Then my intuition is I’m qualifying my leads based on the questions I’m asking, right? Again, business partner—you bring a business partner in, you have to have intuition to qualify them. A person you date, you have to have intuition to know if this is a one-time relationship, if it’s a girlfriend, or maybe one day this could be a running mate, hence husband or a wife. Because it’s intuition to qualify this person, to qualify the business partner, to qualify the potential client that you’re doing business with.
The fifth one is confidence. You got to have confidence while you’re going there to make the ask and say, “Hey, do you want to do business with me? I think you need to buy this product,” versus saying, “I think this is a good product for you, you know, I think it’ll be very good for you. What do you think?” versus, “Based on if I were you and I know your situation where you have Bob, I think this is the perfect thing for you to do today. I think this is the right product for you because it meets you this, this, this, this.” Confidence to make the ask and close the deal, because you got confidence with the prospect, with the business partner to say, “Look, let me tell you why you want to run with me. Here’s what it is: I enjoy you a lot; I like where you’re going; I like where you’re working at. Probably you got a lot of different options that different companies will work at, but I’ll tell you one thing: with us, with us, you’re coming in to make history. You’re not coming here to just work at a different company; you’re coming to make history. You can go to a different place and take a regular salary and a job and be bored out of your mind where you can’t wait to go home to watch football because it’s the most exciting thing that happened in your day. For you, with us, you’re going to come here; you’re going to say, ‘If I miss football, it’s cool, because the most exciting thing I’m doing is I’m making history running with them.’ ” Confidence to ask and close him; confidence to ask her and say, “Look, you’re a good-looking girl, don’t get me wrong. I tell you, I already know you’re drop-dead gorgeous; I’ve told you this before. There’s a lot of guys out there you can go with; good luck finding somebody like me. And I’m not trying to be arrogant; I’m not trying to be cocky; I know what I have to offer. I saw how you looked at me; I saw what things you said; I think you like me; I think you know I like you; I think we ought to go out. That’s what I think. What do you say?” The approach to feel, the swagger is felt. You can’t teach that, but through a lot of repetition, through a lot of audacity of being rejected, through a lot of you giving your presentation and having the intuition to qualify, all of these things you’re doing leads to you having the confidence to make that ask.
You know what’s the last thing here? Let me tell you what’s the last thing here for people that do great in sales: it’s character. You may say, “Pat, character? What does character have to do anything?” Uh-huh. This is how you build a reputational marketplace. Let me tell you about the reputation you build in the marketplace. That person had the audacity to prospect; they say, “Okay, I’ll give you my number.” They give their number; I present; okay, and I do a good job because I’ve done so much repetition; they like it. After I present, I have the discipline; I follow up; they come to me; I do the right presentation; I qualify them; I have the intuition where I say, “This could be a client that may need this.” Then I have the confidence to sell them the product. The last one is character. Character is: you follow through on whatever that product was supposed to do, whatever your service was supposed to do. If you told them you’re going to call them in three months, you did. If you told them the product was gonna do XYZ for them, it did. If you told them that you’re gonna go out there and be able to do such and such thing for them, to deliver on all your promises, you did. And when you do that, what this person does, they tell the world about it. By the way, same as a business partner—you do right with a person you do business with as a business partner, they’re going to tell everybody about it, and they’re going to bring other people that want to work with your company. If you do this right with a guy or a girl, you go and you say, “Let me tell you, I’m gonna rock your world.” You know what’s bad about that line? If you don’t rock their world, it’s kind of embarrassing. You better rock their world if you’re gonna say, “Baby, I’m gonna rock your world tonight.” You better rock her world that night, or else don’t use that line. But if you do rock her world, she’s gonna go tell her friends, “This guy freaking rocked my world!” Let me tell you, this was a whole different story. Same thing with somebody you date. If you marry somebody like me, I’m going to give you the world. You give her the world, and I was going to say, “This guy kept on his promises.” That’s sales for you. If you do those six things, you’re gonna crush it in sales.
So let me go through this one more time: the six things. Number one, audacity. Number two, repetition for presentation. Number three, discipline to follow up. Number four is intuition to qualify. Number five is confidence to close. And number six is character. You do those six things, great things are gonna happen to you. By the way, if you didn’t make a lot of sales in 2020, not as much as you thought you were going to do, here are six reasons why you don’t sell more. If you find that these six reasons—it gets very deep, very specific—but it gives you an idea on why you could have sold more in 2020 and you didn’t. So hopefully you can make those adjustments in 2021 so it becomes a record-breaking year for you in sales. Having said that, have a killer 2021. Take care. Bye-bye.