by Mike Brunel | Mar 27, 2019 | Sales
Several years ago, when attending one of Robert Kiyosaki’s courses, he told the group the story of the Black Door.
It was about a young man and a Persian general.
The young man, it is said, was a prisoner of war, and the general was a very fair man. When the day arrived to decide the fate of the prisoner, the general had the prisoner brought before him.
The young man was certain of death, but the general generously gave him two choices.
On the young man’s left was a firing squad, guns poised ready.
On the right was a plain white wall with a large black door in the middle of it.
The young man was given a few moments to determine his fate…the firing squad or the black door.
The young man made his choice and in a short while a volley of shots rang out and the prisoner crumpled to the ground.
The general shook his head and commented to his aide that in all his years he had seen only a few men choose the black door.
“May I ask, sir,” the aide queried- “what lies beyond the black door?” “Freedom.” The general replied.
“The black door leads to freedom, but I have seen only a few men choose it because they are afraid of what horrors may lie beyond.
Most would rather choose a fate that they know, even if it means death, than experience the unknown. The man brave enough to choose the black door deserves to be free.”
Today, in the world of sales we know that change is upon us all the time.
The sad thing is that many salespeople would rather stick with what they know, than what they don’t know.
We experience change in our lives every day, it’s a part of life.
Sales is no different, there will always be an underlying principle to selling, but there is also the unknown.
What does that look like? – It comes in many forms, the approach to selling, discovery, understanding your client’s needs.
These are often driven by them, not you.
The most successful sales people I know are constantly learning; loading up on new information.
Dan Sullivan, at Strategic Coach has a great saying. “Our eyes only see and our ears only hear what our brain is looking for”
Are you ready to choose The Black Door?
For more content like this, please make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. He has hired hundreds of salespeople around the world.
He made a lot of mistakes when it came to hiring his superstars. Check out his How to Hire A Super Salesperson Each and Every time – It’s packed with tips and ideas on how to hire great salespeople. Don’t ever Hire Bad Salespeople Ever Again. Promise!
by Mike Brunel | Mar 20, 2019 | Leadership, Sales
In the early 1900s, Reverend Russell Conwell earned 5 million dollars by giving the same speech, titled “Acres of Diamonds,” more than 6,000 times to audiences across the country.
His speech told the story of a farmer who sold his farm so he could travel overseas searching for diamonds. After a lifetime of searching, he returned home penniless, having never found treasure.
In the meantime, the man who purchased the farm noticed a sparkle in the stream running through the property. He waded into the water and found – a diamond!
The farm was sitting on one of the world’s largest diamond mines, making the new owner rich beyond his wildest dreams.
The point of Conwell’s speech: You can find a fortune literally in your own backyard if you take the time to look for it.
The reverend concluded his talk by telling listeners: “Your diamonds are not in far distant mountains or yonder seas. They are in your own backyard if you but dig for them.”
Isn’t this so true of salespeople and business owners? We pursue new clients, day after day, when the real ones are right before us.
Lapsed clients, clients who have been neglected, those forgotten by businesses who only work with a few of their clients, leaving millions of dollars sitting there waiting. If only we were to approach them.
This lesson was taught in the early 1900s and is still true today.
So go and check out your diamonds. This story illustrates that every client you’ve ever had needs to hear from you and be part of your tribe, your business family.
I know a pizza company that believes you must dominate everything within 1 km or mile of your franchise. I mean, dominate it!
Every mailbox, sign, or business within a 1 km radius of the store must know about them. They do this through mail promotions, in-store activity, events, promotions, and anything to get that top-of-mind awareness and move them into the 94% as quickly as possible.
With the advent of email and online marketing to your clients, it has never been easier in the history of marketing.
There is a great quote that I found about customer service, which I think is very true.“Customer service is the new marketing.”
As quoted earlier, keeping clients is much easier once you get them. It drives me mad when I work with clients through my consultancy service, and I discover that they have a database of several thousand, and they ignore them. It’s with an attitude of “They won’t buy from us.”
One sports organisation that we worked with had 7,000 lapsed clients. That’s 7,000 members they had not talked to in any fashion for years, yet they were still on the database, ready to be sold to.
Just ignored, that organisation came to us with a desperate request to build a membership program for their following year’s membership.
We suggested starting with all those lapsed clients on the database. The answer? Oh, they tried us and never came back. No kidding! Really!
Our theory was that you had to at least ask them and find out why they were not buying or what their problems were. Then you could provide a new solution so they might consider a proposal.
We ended up dropping the client. Sometimes, folk do not want to be helped. We also learned that this particular category was not ready for our type of selling. That happens, and in every sale and business experience, you have to accept that.
It’s worth remembering that often buying experiences, are based on how the customer feels they are being treated, spoken with, assisted, and helped.
Learn about the importance of looking inside your company for opportunities that might be staring you in the face.
Mike
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by Mike Brunel | Mar 13, 2019 | Sales
Every week, all over the world, salespeople are subjected to a ‘rant and rave’ from a sales manager who runs a meeting with no direction, no agenda, no concept of time, and generally over-run by members of the ‘we know it all’ brigade.
Besides lacking agenda and strict time limits, the weakness of many sales meetings is agreement.
Every time I work with teams, I like to set up some agreements, some guidelines on how I run my event, team talk, or presentation.
I use this process at the beginning of every meeting, with sales people.
Some examples of group agreements
- Participate 100%
- Be on time
- No such thing as a stupid question
- No missiles / no mobile phones!
- Have fun!
Participate 100%
This rule is paramount within any sales meeting. If you are asked to my meetings, you contribute- and if you don’t I will ask you not to come again. Sniggering and laughing down the back of the room was not tolerated in my meetings, period! Who is running your team, you or them?
Be on Time
My Dad used to say to me “Being on time is being early”.
If you have an agenda (which I advise) then there’s a start time for the meeting clearly advertised.
If I had sales people that arrived late, they were not allowed into the sales meeting.
Simple as that. I even, on one occasion, locked the door. Not very pleasant for them, if that happens!
No Such Thing as a stupid question.
If a question is asked in a meeting, there is nothing worse, than people sniggering or actually saying “Argh that’s a stupid question!”.
This is not school, people, it’s a business meeting. Everyone has the right to ask a question in my meeting, particularly if they are not sure.
It’s granted as much credence as anything. If you shut the negativity down, then you get input.
As a sales manager, you do not know all the answers. They do, the people in your team. Trust them.
No missiles / no mobile phones!
No Missiles – I cannot stand when a person asks a question and are made to feel small because someone on the team says a negative remark. (Missile)
What that person says is true to them at that moment. They do not need another team member undermining them. That’s a form of bullying.
Please just listen to the contribution and who knows, one might even learn something.
No Mobile Phones- I know it might be hard for some people, but phones are either muted, or turned off.
If you want, bring in a ‘fine’ process. A dollar for every phone on, looked at, or played with. No phones means no phones.
Have fun!
I think that’s the key rule of any sales meeting game. Do things differently, meet somewhere new, have a breakfast meeting, dress up, and have themes.
Don’t recreate the same environment, over and over again.
However, do stay firm and be in control. Believe it or not, it’s your team’s expectation that you do so.
Have a great week selling your stuff.
Mike
For more content like this, please make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. He has hired hundreds of salespeople around the world.
He made a lot of mistakes when it came to hiring his superstars. Check out his How to Hire A Super Salesperson Each and Every time – It’s packed with tips and ideas on how to hire great salespeople. Don’t ever Hire Bad Salespeople Ever Again. Promise!
by Mike Brunel | Mar 6, 2019 | Sales
Research has shown, in a hundred different ways, that people will do more to avoid the loss of something than to score a win.
Is that true of your sales company?
What is the cost to you if you do not get that latest weekly budget? Does it hold more emotion with you than getting your monthly goal?
As a sales manager, what do you fear most; the achievement of the target, or not getting the target for the month?
I think it is the latter.
Here is my quick tip this week to get you thinking less about your benefits, and more about what your client might lose.
Next time you present your proposal to your client or your next big deal, explain in detail what your client will lose in time, money, and getting to the right quality market.
This should be in your proposal several times, with all the other benefits you offer, but the loss has to be stressed more.
Good selling
For more content like this, please make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. He has hired hundreds of salespeople around the world.
He made a lot of mistakes when it came to hiring his superstars. Check out his How to Hire A Super Salesperson Each and Every time – It’s packed with tips and ideas on how to hire great salespeople. Don’t ever Hire Bad Salespeople Ever Again. Promise!
