Transcription
I've been in sales since 21 years old. Let me tell you, it's very hard; it's demanding; it's taxing; it's frustrating. There are so many days, for the first couple of years—three years, five years—you are going to want to quit. It absolutely sucks. There are 15 million of them in America. Sales organizations spend nearly a trillion dollars every year on their Salesforce, yet 75% of salespeople fail their first year, and there's a reason for it. Why? I'm going to give you 10 reasons today why salespeople feel miserable. If you get value out of this video, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. Let's get right into it.
I'm on a flight six weeks ago. Sam is sitting next to me. We're talking about the difference between insurance organizations, BDC, our consultants, salespeople—some of them are 1099, some of them are W2. And he says, "Pat, the difference between salespeople that are W2, who are fed leads, and those who are 1099 that have to find their own leads is the following: both could be lions, but one lion—the W2 that gets a salary and is fed leads—they are lions who live in a zoo who are fed steak and meat every day. You still need to feed them. And then there's the lions that live in the jungle who have to go get their own meat, their own food. They're both lions; one is fed every day; the other one has to go hunt."
If you're planning on making it long-term in sales, I don't care what company you work for—they give you a salary, great benefits, great 401K, great leads nonstop—and you refuse to hunt, eventually you'll be replaced. I'm just telling you, if you are watching this and saying, "Well, what's wrong with getting the leads?" and if you're part of the community that's always about leads not being good, you're not going to have a long career in sales. Because in sales, there are certain seasons that you go through that leads get backed up. I'll give you an idea right now: there are a lot of insurance companies that all they relied on was mortgage leads, and they're doing $50 million a year, $100 million a year, $10 million a year. 90% of their revenue was coming from mortgage leads. 95% of refi drops for two years—that means 95% of leads are gone. That means you go from doing $100 million a year in revenue to 5 to 10 million. That means you go from making $100,000 a year to 10, 20 grand a year, making a half a million a year to 50 grand a year. Why? Because they were just waiting on what? On leads.
If you want to make it long-term in sales and you refuse to hunt, you refuse to find your own leads and clients, forget sales; it's not for you.
Number two: this applies to a lot of people that are selling today. So it's very easy to be lazy and just text with your client, just email your clients, just DM your clients. Just everything is audio, audio, audio, audio. Everything is that, right? Versus, if you want to compete with the other guys, the other guys will say, "How you doing, Johnny? How's everything?" I'm going to make the phone call. And even better, 74% prefer today doing video Zooms with their clients. Lowest level, you got email correspondence; then you got text; then you got phone call; then you got Zoom, face-to-face; then you got face-to-face physical. Those are the tiers. Most sales guys don't want to go to the higher level. They just want to be like, "Ah, I'm just going to be lazy; just text me back; don't pick up; text me back; don't pick up; text me back." Just want to communicate there. That person is going to find another person that's willing to get a little bit more closer to the client, willing to pick up the call, willing to drop them a jingle, willing to talk to them, willing to do video Zoom, and willing to get with them face-to-face. If you're too lazy in this area, because there are so many tools and faster ways to communicate with them, you're going to lose your best clients.
If you're watching this and you said, "I got some questions for you, Pat, about sales," or maybe you're developing other salespeople, you want to ask me, you email me, I won't respond. You DM me, I will not respond—not on LinkedIn, not on Twitter, not on Instagram. I only respond on Clubhouse, the place because it shows that you value my time; you're willing to pay for it. I'll respond back to you in audio—100% of my messages I respond back to you in audio—and our response rate, anybody you talk to on Clubhouse, is roughly 94%. If you haven't yet downloaded Clubhouse, click the link to download the app and start Clubhousing today.
Number three: if you're getting into sales because you're like, "I'm going to give sales a shot for six months," don't get into sales. "I'm going to try this thing for one year; I'm going to give it two years; I'm going to give it three years." Really? Let me tell you about a guy who's in Dallas, works for a big company called Goldman. He calls me, sends me an email saying, "Hey, I found out that you're hiring the most people in your area, and the staffing company I talk to says you're placing people more than anybody else. Do you mind if we get together?" I'm like, "Who's this guy?" I check the email; no, it is an email from them. "Yeah, sure, let's get together." He comes to the office with his partner; we sit down and we talk. I'm like, "So what's your outcome here?" "No, I'm just trying to see what your vision is long-term with your business." "Probably we're going to sell the business and we're going to go Xing." "Okay, great. How can I help?" "I said, 'What do you mean, how can I help?'" "I don't know, how can you help?" "Well, do you have kids?" "I do." "Have you looked at estate planning? Have you looked at this? Have you looked at that? Can I give you any kind of contacts?" "And re—yes." And I said, "How do you make money doing this?" "Oh, I don't; I'm just here to serve." I said, "Okay. And what's your plan long-term?" "I don't know." "If you have a big life-changing event and financially I'd like to be able to help you." By the way, you can't go to Goldman unless it's a minimum of $10 million cash. So think about it; they have a standard; it's not like, "Hey, just give me $600,000, $3 million." That's not how this thing works. This is not BFA; this is not Morgan; this is not Chase; this is Goldman, right? I don't sell the business for five years. This guy followed up with me for five years and made nothing. Think about that. Do you think that long-term he eventually got the client, and he's got 50 clients like me? You know what kind of money he makes? Very good money. Do you have that kind of patience to follow up, or no? You want it right now. See, there's a part about the sales thing that if you think short-term, kiss it goodbye. If you say, "I'm going to go long-term—10 years," you choose an industry you love, you treat your clients fairly, you take care of them, but you think long-term and you treat them like that—not just looking at them as a one-night stand—you're going to do very, very well in sales.
All right, this next one is weird; most people don't like this. Sales is a lot of repetitive stuff—repetitive overcoming objections, repetitive FAQs, repetitive things people are going to tell you, repetitive things you do before you go to your client's appointment, repetitive things you do while you're there, repetitive things you do when you leave, repetitive things that you do monthly, repetitive things that you've got to do annually. If it's like, "Oh my God, I'm bored out of my mind," the one thing that I love about the business is the people are not the same. You may be doing the same tasks; you may be using the same script; you may be using the same software, same technology, same follow-up, same everything, but the families are different, and the clients are different. So if you don't get bored with the same repetitive tasks long-term, you'll eventually create a lot of momentum that helps you win. But if you're constantly trying to be way too creative with the repetitive tasks, you're going to prevent momentum from being on your side, and trust me, in sales, you want momentum on your side.
Five: this one's a very obvious one. Many salespeople just treat clients as a one-night stand. Boom, my soldier, hey, oh my God, great, okay, out, got my $2,000 check or $300 check or $800 check, everything's good. Client calls you, you don't call them back; client tries to get ahold of you, you don't call them back; you don't follow up; you don't say, "Hey, following up on you; hey, happy birthday; hey, happy anniversary; hey, what's going on with you; hey, I'm in the area; can I just stop by and say hi?" You don't do any of that stuff, and eventually, like, "Ah, this guy's just a, you know, one-night-stand type of a guy in sales, type of a girl in sales." Clients don't like that; it just doesn't work for you, and it's probably not the kind of business for you if that's what you want to do.
I'm at the Vault conference this last week. One guy asked me a question about, "Hey, how do you guys manage sales and all this stuff for it to work out?" I said, "Here's the one thing you have to realize about sales." I said so many times, "It depends on what we recognize." And in sales, if you ask somebody, "So what kind of money do you make in sales?" "So I make $50,000 a month." What they're telling you is that's the best month they've had the last 12 months. That's not what they make. The way I finally looked at it is don't let a big month fool you. I've seen so many people in sales fail because they make one month $50,000 because they got lucky, and they go buy a $225,000 Rolex; they go buy a nice car with a $2,000 payment. And then that $50,000 becomes $6,000, $8,000, $4,000, $10,000. They lose the car; they lose the watch; bad economy; they're wiped out. Always treat your income as your lowest monthly income you make in sales commission in the last six months. That's your true income. Meaning you make $6,000 this month, $14,000, $28,000, $32,000, $5,000, $7,000, $11,000—your real income is $5,000. That's what you live off of; don't live off of the $50,000 whatever income that you made here. If you can live off of this long-term and keep increasing this number, you'll be fine.
This next one's going to annoy some of you: how hard do you think you work? I'm talking to you; how hard do you think you work? "I'm the hardest-working guy in my office." Really? Let's quantify it. Working hard is not 60 hours at the office, 80 hours at the office. Here's how I quantified it when I realized what it meant to work hard: whatever behavior you have, identify and quantify how long it takes to do that behavior. For example, to make 50 calls, how long does it take you to make 25 calls? You may say one hour. Okay, so now we know what 25 calls equals—one hour. Okay, how long does it take you to make your sales presentation to a client? You may say one hour. Great. How long does it take to do a second appointment with the client? 90 minutes because it's a recommendation. All right, how long does it take you to prospect clients? I did this with my sales guys who would always say they work very hard. They told me, and they quantified, "Oh, it takes one hour to make 25 calls; it takes one hour to do this presentation." Then I said, "Give me your schedule book; give it to me." Everybody hands it over; everybody's nervous. And I said, "Based on the numbers you gave me, you only worked 14 hours last week." "Oh, you only worked eight hours last week." "No, I didn't; you know, I didn't." "Why are you getting offended?" "This—are these what—" "Yeah, but I was here, and I was working on this." Listen, you're a salesperson; if you don't do these behaviors, if you don't make the calls, if you're not sitting in front of people that don't own a product that you're selling or you're sitting out to get referrals, you're wasting your time and you're delusional. You're stuck on Instagram; you're stuck on TikTok; you're stuck on YouTube; you ain't working. Stop telling me you're working. Now, what would happen if you actually did 60 hours of this type of activity in a week? You know what would happen? You'd be the number one person in your office; if not, you'd be competing for the number one place in your office within 90 days to 180 days. But you know why you won't do it? It's because 75% of salespeople fail; they don't want to do that; they just want to be at the office thinking they're working hard; they're not. All they do is they talk to existing clients because those are comfortable calls to make because they already bought from you. They don't want to talk to people that didn't buy from them. So quantify your activity, your behavior, and let's see how hard you work.
This next one is the guarantee of success long-term in sales. So if you knew what your clients thought about you, and I, as salespeople, did you know 91% of customers said they would give a referral to a client, but only 11% of salespeople ask for referrals? That means only one out of 10 salespeople ask for referrals. Why? Because like, "Oh, I already made my $2,000; I already made my $1,000; I already made my $500; I already made my $250 or $10,000. Just oh my God, look how happy I am." Versus the prolific, the professional guys, like, "Hey, how did you like the way I treated you, the service, what we do here for families?" "Oh, loved it; perfect." "The way I grow my business is through referrals. Okay, and I noticed earlier you mentioned your sister and what they do, and you mentioned your best friend, and you mention your cousin and your aunt, and this—how comfortable would you be with me sharing with them what I shared with you?" "Oh, very." "Would you be comfortable sending a group text introducing me to them?" We're dropping a phone—da, da, da, da—and then next you know, I walk away with 19 referrals, and you make those phone calls. The guy that does that, the guy that doesn't—they're not even in the same league. When I tell you you're not in the same league, you are not in the same league. It's very, very hard to compete with a salesperson who knows how to ask for referrals versus one who doesn't. The one who doesn't—sales isn't for you; go into customer service—if you don't know how to ask for referrals.
This next one is basic: mentally weak. If you're mentally weak, you're going to be destroyed every day. Sales is very hard; it's constant rejection; it's constant no; it's constant, "I want to think about it"; it's constant, "Not now"; it's constant, "Somebody else came and told me it was cheaper than yours." It's constant; it's nonstop, and it will drive you insane. If your skin is thin and you're constantly offended, and if you're constantly worried, "I'm rejected all the time," till today, you think everybody we ask to be on the podcast says yes? No. You think everybody we consult for does an engagement with us? No. You think in every possible—you think everybody I went to when I wanted to sell my business said, "Yeah, I'd love to buy your business"? No. You think every investment banker—no. It's constant, nonstop. When we raised the first $10 million, you know how many people said no to us? When I raised the first million, you know how many people said no to us? A lot of people. But you've got to go through it. So the thicker your skin, and you're constantly working on yourself by reading the right books and developing your identity, increasing your identity, eventually you're like, "Yeah, I got this long-term; I'm going to win; I'm going to be fine," and your client will feel how poised and confident you are, and clients generally want to do business with somebody that's very poised and confident.
This next thing here was an edge for us: we started creating content, and my content wasn't direct sales; my content was talking about what I know, what I value, what I'm about—stories about me, my family, my background, sharing some knowledge, sharing what worked, what didn't work. And eventually, they're like, "Wait a minute, who is this guy?" Interesting. That brought a lot of leads, and it was an X-factor. You don't do it for short-term; that's purely for long-term play. The moment I started creating content, it wasn't one year; I said, "I'm going to create content for two years," and then after two years, I'm going 10 years, and that's exactly what we did. And then next thing you know, "Oh my God, I saw this; oh wow; oh, let me share this." Your clients that buy from you, when somebody asks, "Who is he or who is she?" now they can say, "Oh, here's the Instagram; look what he said here; look what she said here." You don't know behind closed doors what your customers are doing, but they're working for you because they're sharing the content of you speaking, and they follow you. Now they're a customer of yours. That's the stuff that happens behind closed doors. But if you don't create content, they're not going to be able to work for you and share referrals with you while you're not doing anything.
Value out of this video? Give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. And if you haven't seen the video about improving your sales process and increasing business—I did this eight years ago—it's got a million-plus views. If you've never seen it, click the link to watch it. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye, bye-bye. [Music]