Is 65 too old to sell? When do you retire? Are you over the hill at 65?
Here is an example which proves that age is no barrier, when it comes to selling.
I have a friend who owns a large real-estate company in one of our provincial cities. The population of this city is around 100,000 people.
It’s a beautiful part of my country and folk flock there in the Summertime for its amazing weather.
Last week, I caught up with him and we got talking about how things were going, sales, management issues, and the usual stuff we chat about when we see each other.
Performance incentive.
As an incentive for his staff, he offers the top ten salespeople for a calendar year the opportunity to win a few days away at an exotic designation.
This is hotly sought after and keenly fought for.
I asked how it was going and he remarked that it had just been announced and he had 10 winners again this year.
They were all excited and were off to a great destination.
I asked what type of people were going, and the mix, were they male? Female? Younger? Older?
Guess what? This year, the 10 winners were nudging 65 and were all women.
That’s right, an age when most of us would be thinking about retirement.
Working Hard.
Make no mistake, the company my friend owns is one of the best in his region, and if you want to win awards, you have to work really hard, and knuckle down to make it happen.
An excellent example.
So, is 65 too old to sell? The lesson I took away from this example was that working hard and carrying out the disciplines of selling was not limited to age, but attitude.
Age is no barrier to success, and these women proved it.
It’s also a great example about avoiding putting people in boxes and stereotyping them.
We often do that with our clients, using phrases like “They will never buy” or “They tried my product once and they said it did not work”
Maybe this week, think about all those women celebrating success because they worked hard and performed well and that age was no barrier.
Well done, I say.
Good selling.
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
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!
When I owned NRS Media one of the best sales guys was Michael Botta.
Michael was one of our longest standing staff members at NRS Media, and was based in our Long Beach office, in good ole’ USA.
He was in front of thousands of media salespeople each year, and travelled weeks on end with our NRS Media message.
He understands the importance of work. Here is his definition of W-O-R-K: W: Weighing O: Opportunities R: Repeatedly
(with) K: Knowledge
We come to work, and what makes it frustrating for many of us at times, is that we are challenged to continually Weigh (consider, ponder, create) the Opportunities (challenges, problems, setbacks) that are Repeatedly uncovered during the course of commerce, which then causes us to tap into our Knowledge (experience, success, etc) to fix the problem.
This is a never-ending process.
Work is a gift?
Work should be viewed as an incredible gift given to us that make us more helpful to others. In fact, businesses all over the world are happy to compensate you for your WORK.
Work is the giving of yourself to help another. Work is actually the best thing for us, because, by its very nature it brings out our best qualities, our best inventions, our best solutions.
What work isn’t:
If, on the other hand, one views ‘W-O-R-K’ as: Wanting Others to Replace my Knowhow, then that individual is essentially holding back their unique gift and perspective, and not giving of themselves to help another.
Work for some people is merely something that they have to do, and not something that provides them an open door to use their creativity – or, is not viewed as a unique opportunity to share their creative insight for the benefit of another.
Fear, disappointment, rejection, anger, and blame, is what keeps one from doing their best WORK.
The way in which we view WORK has a significant impact on ourselves, our families, and the benefit of others. By doing our best WORK we can change lives for the better.
Great reason to get up and work every day and do something you love don’t you think?
Thanks Mr Botta!
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
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!
In Dan Kennedy’s book ‘No BS Sales Success’, he talks about a real estate agent called Pebby B.
Here is an abridged version…
“Peggy B gets 70% of her listings from referrals and 30% from advertising. When someone wants to list with Peggy they get put onto one of her three assistants. The assistants then vet the clients to see if they fulfil Peggy’s requirements for listing. If they do not, they are passed onto other real estate agents.
If they do, then a DVD on Peggy’s successes is sent direct that day, to the potential listed property owner.
An appointment is made, but the assistant arrives first (Peggy comes 20 minutes later). While the assistant is there, they go over the data of similar sales in the area, how long sales have taken, price expectation etc. etc.
Peggy then calls to let the client know she is on the way, then arrives and listens to her assistant’s overview of the property. Next Peggy asks if is okay, while they talk, for the assistant to take a few photos of the house. (This is a trial close)
Why would they let her go ahead if they were not interested in listing the house?
Peggy then uses her flip book, and goes over the ten steps they will use together to get the best price for the house. An agreement is produced that has been partially completed by the assistant from the information obtained over the phone.
Last year Peggy listed 92% of the homes where she made this listing presentation immediately, without delay.”
I highly recommend you buy this book to get literally hundreds of ideas for your sales presentations. I personally fight for every referral I can get; I have a system in my book to tease up clients before you present your offering.
This can be done with some planning and understanding of what and how important referrals and structured presentations are.
Please share your ideas on what you do when you first meet a client.
Good selling.
Mike
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
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!
Everyone praises the feats of both Armstrong and Aldrin as the first humans to set foot on the moon, but what about the third guy, and what has that got to do with teamwork?
The third person who went to the moon with Armstrong and Aldrin was a guy called Mike Collins; he was the one that was floating around the moon in the space capsule alone while the other two set down on the moon. In fact, he went around the moon twenty six times, solo.
Lessons about team work
While the other two were down on the moon he had to fly his craft round and round the moon. If he pressed the wrong button or knocked the wrong lever he would leave both Armstrong and Aldrin stranded, to finally run out of air and die. Fortunately that did not happen and history was made.
A couple of great lessons here; the first is that you want to make sure that whoever is on your team you have absolute faith in them to do the job; and secondly you have selected the right person.
It’s a great time to review your team and see who would stand by you or would help you as the year continues to unfold.
Good selling.
Mike
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
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!
Off the back of my latest vlog above, I want to talk about stories. Stories that motivate your clients to buy.
I have certainly over the years been taught to sell products; every sales process, every close- you name it, I have used them, even when I knew that my client should not have bought the product.
I don’t feel too good about that now, but at the time I thought it was about me, and not them. I just wanted to make lots of money and then move to the next sale.
Bang bang…. Next one, bank the money now and screw the customer!
Beliefs Matter
It changed for me was when I met my mate Rob Hall and observed his drive (and ability) to create belief in clients.
He lived every day with the belief that he could climb Mt Everest.
His belief is actually what made him such a success.
How do you do that? How do you create belief in your clients, which results in them wanting to come with you, and back you and what you sell?
One Thing
I work on helping sales teams find out the one thing that they sell which will ensure their clients to believe them.
I have a detailed workshop on this, but here in this blog, I want you to think about that one thing that makes you unique. Ask yourself: What is the one thing that I can do to get my clients to believe about my product or service?
Mt Everest and an Ice Axe
Rob Hall and I had to convince a huge multinational company to sponsor us to the top of Mt Everest. We had to create one thing that no else could do.
If we convinced them to believe that this was possible, then they would buy our idea.
That’s the key message, and it can be done through storytelling.
Live from the Top Mt Everest.
Our story was to get them to believe that their product would ‘walk with us to the top of Mt Everest, and we would do that using satellite phones broadcast live to 4 million people’ and, that it was only attainable through us.
They believed us! They bought us and went along for the journey.
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!
Clients that are confused do nothing. The challenge for the salesperson is his/her own familiarity with their product. Salespeople presume that their knowledge and understanding of their product is also in his/her customers.
That just isn’t so. If you think that your customer knows everything about your product, you might be mistaken. The secret is, you have to make it simple. A simple proposition to buy.
2. Unable to pay the price.
That’s why sometimes it’s important to get really clear on ‘would they buy your product or service on installment?’
If you’re selling anything that’s even slightly overpriced for the market, you can always get sales by making your financing attractive. Financial offers with more options.
3. Bad timing.
If we could control the timing and marketing of our products and services, we would be very rich people. Sometimes an irresistible offer, easy payment plans etc. are simply not going to help the timing of the sales your product. Sometimes people don’t want to buy for lots of reasons. So, what’s the answer to that?
Firstly, you have to be continuously, constantly, frequently in front of the same well-selected clients, day in, day out, week in, week out. And secondly, you’re right there at the right time.
4. Competition.
Competition can have a real effect on the way you present your product or service.
If your client has a well-respected, long-term relationship with a vendor, sometimes that’s more difficult to sell against.
This can be short circuited by offering different types of products that the competition doesn’t have, alongside the products that our competition does have.
The idea is to move the client away from comparing you to the product they have already got. That, in my view, helps you overcome some of the challenges you have when you’re selling against the competition.
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
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!
