Love Your Sales

Converting Prospects to Loyal Customers

In this episode of Love Your Sales, we discuss overcoming common challenges in sales, how to communicate effectively with potential clients, and tactics to close deals more effectively. Susan Trumpler, the Founder of Unstoppable Women in Business and She Boss Care shares her 6-step decision-making process inviting us into the buyer's brain and how to convert a prospect into a loyal customer.
Contact Susan –
Website - shebosscafe.com
Website - https://unstoppablewomeninbusiness.com/
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/susantrumpler/
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am joined today by Susan Trumpler, the founder of Unstoppable Women in Business and She Boss Cafe. Susan is a master at helping women entrepreneurs find their real voice so that they can find their best clients. Her mission is to never hear another woman say they feel salesy or pushy when they are talking about their business.
Getting to yes, faster is her free masterclass that teaches small [00:02:00] business owners, how to do just that. She has 20 plus years in sales. Susan has an uncanny way to share her best practices and skills to elevate everyone to their highest level in bringing in revenue for their company. Welcome Susan. I am so excited to have you join me today
Susan Trumpler:
Thank you, Leighann. It is such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. Yes.
Leighann Lovely: Well, why don't we jump right in? I'm excited to pick your brain and hopefully learn some tips, tricks, and Um, offer the audience some of that as well. So, you know, I, I, um, you and I kind of talked a little bit about what we were going to, you know, discuss today and you not only with, you know, getting to yes, faster, your free masterclass, but you're one of the topics that we, um, discussed prior to, to having you.
Join me was, you know, the decision dynamics..
And [00:03:00] the six steps a buyer's brain goes through to make decisions, uh, to, you know, to their business. And, and so I'd, I'd love to, to jump into that.
Susan Trumpler: Absolutely. Thank you. It is. I am so passionate about understanding what is going on in people's minds because Leighann, I really believe that the more you're in touch with what your buyer is thinking, the easier it is for you to connect to them, feel authentic and be able to kind of be in alignment with them during the conversation.
So saying yes, just becomes a very natural outcome of any sales conversation. And
Leighann Lovely: I find that it, that's awesome because you know, in any conversation, a salesperson is always finding a way to get the person to say yes or agree to what they're saying. Right. Because as you progress, you want them to continue to agree with you so that at the end [00:04:00] when you say, so does this product solve your problem?
Right. Do you want to buy from me? Be that natural. You know, that natural reaction is,
Susan Trumpler: of course, yes, exactly, exactly. Yeah. It's, it's, yes. A great way to think about it is it's a journey. It's one step at a time. And just like dating, you know, you don't meet someone and ask them to marry you out of the gate.
Right. Most people don't. So, you know, like, should we want to date together? You know, should we have joy dinner? What's the next step in our, our relationship? If you start to, people start to think about sales that way, it becomes much less daunting and um, they act more like themselves, which then the buyer feels more at home with them as well.
So it's, it's just a great way to create
Leighann Lovely: relationship. Yeah. So let's start, you know, what is, [00:05:00] what is the first,
Susan Trumpler: what is the first step here? Okay. So out of the six steps, they, they're kind of clustered together. So I'm going to go through step one and two pretty tightly connected. Um, the very first thing that a buyer will be thinking about as you talk to them about anything is, do I want this?
Like, do I want what you offer? And you think that's easy, Leighann. We live in our world. We are passionate about what we do and what we sell. But if you look at it from the buyer's perspective, it is one tiny little thing that might be on their mind or might not. And until they know that they want what you have to offer, it's really hard for them to get.
Um, let me, let me share this with you because I, I think it really helps for your listeners to think about how they make buying decisions as I go through these six steps. So if you think [00:06:00] about anything that you love to buy, right? Um, more than just going to the grocery store and buying food, but if you're somebody who's a car person or if you, you like expensive purses or designer clothes, whatever it is, that's your kind of thing.
If you think about, and for me, it's cars, I just. I see cars on the road. I pull up next to a car at a signal and I look at this like gorgeous sleek car and I call it the drool factor. It's like, oh, that would be nice. I want that. Right? So I have made a quick judgment in my mind. There's something about that car that's appealing to me and it's really got to do with my identity more than anything.
It's like I can see myself in that. I'm transforming into a person who drives that car and I like myself that way. Put yourself into your buyer's seat. And think about what it [00:07:00] is that they would really want. What's the personal transformation that would happen if they were to buy from you? And how close can you get to being able to have a conversation around what it is that they want in their lives that you can help them get that they don't have right now.
And that's the want factor. So in any conversation, you've really need to ask, obviously you have to ask discovery questions to understand. What is holding them back from getting what they want? What is it that they want? Why do they want it? And once you really kind of get that under your skin, then it's easy to have a conversation around what it would look like if they had it.
So the want factor is number one.
Leighann Lovely: So I'm, I'm going to play devil's advocate because listeners right now are thinking, well, yeah, I mean, I know what I want. Like I love diamonds. I love, and those, those things are, those things are glamorous and those are, those are easy to put yourself in the other, [00:08:00] on the other side of like, oh, okay, yeah, I, I could, I could sell a diamond because it's, you know, anybody who's walking in or a car, anybody who's walking in the lot, you would think, oh, I just have to appeal to what they're drawn to.
But let's talk about health insurance. Yes. Not glamorous. Let's talk about
Susan Trumpler: that. Not glamorous. You know not glamorous? Not pretty. You know what else is not glamorous? Life insurance? No. No. Let's stick with health insurance. You know what's not glamorous is going into the hospital and feeling sick to your stomach that you don't know what this is going to cost you.
Right. Everyone knows that tomorrow is never a given and that at any moment, I, there could be a life situation that would put me into a terrible, terrible bind. Right. So it doesn't have to be something, Leighann, that you can see and touch. Those are external problems, but. [00:09:00] Um, actually the best problems to probe around and play around with are the internal problems, the feelings people have, hopelessness, dread, fear, like what is it that they are afraid of that your solution could resolve for them?
And what would that
Leighann Lovely: feel like? Wow. You did that beautifully. I mean, you, you didn't even skip a beat. You completely, I tried to throw a hard, you know, this is a glamor. You turned that around. It was like, wow. Here's how you get to that. Susan, that was amazing. Okay. All
Susan Trumpler: right. All right. But let's go to number two.
Okay. Because this is tied tightly together and we can go back to the glamorous, like the diamond or, you know, something like a car and you see it and you want it. You've got that drool factor going on. The very next thing that your brain is going to go through is step number two. Do I need it?
Unfortunately, I wish [00:10:00] my brain wouldn't go there when I'm looking at that gorgeous Tesla sitting next to me and it's, gosh, it takes off. It doubles. It's, you know, down the road faster than me. Um, because I want it. I'm like drooling. But then I think. Where would Wally sit? Like Wally, he's my big guy. He, he, you know, I don't, I would have to have another car to take Wally around.
And so now I'm going through all of this stuff in my mind. Do I really need that? And that's, you know, I call that the wah, wah, wah factor. You know, if the want is a drool factor, the need is something that can squash that want. So you really need to understand. Like, what is it that they want and do they need it?
And are you a fit for them? Are there natural things like, like that Tesla? It wouldn't knock me out of the game because I've got a big golden doodle. So under the more, [00:11:00] Leighann, the more you understand the person you're talking to. And you're listening to them and you're asking them questions. If a car salesman was trying to sell me that Tesla, he'd say, tell me about your family.
Tell me about where, where do you travel? Do you travel, you know, long distances? Do you travel with a lot of luggage or whatever? So a lot of these things, Leighann, it's almost like the elephant in the room if you don't ask the question because we, as. Um, if we get excited about when someone wants something and we just forge ahead on our path without finding out whether or not the need is there, um, or there's something blocking the need, then we are really out of alignment with our person who's making the decision and it's not going to help us by skipping past that step.
You've got to do due diligence, so do they want it? Do they need it? Step one and two. Step 11. Mm hmm. All right.
Leighann Lovely: [00:12:00] Excellent. And there's going to be certain things that want and need are, are interchangeable and other things that want and need are on the other end of the spectrum, coming back to the glamorous items where want and need.
Do not typically meet not aligned, whereas health insurance, you may not necessarily want, but it is an absolute
Susan Trumpler: need. Yes. And actually the need could be driving the want on that, you know, because I do want to feel protected and I want to know that I'm not going to go bankrupt if something happens to me.
Right. I do want those things and I need. Insurance so that I can get what I want. So that goes together perfectly. Right? You know, 1 of the problems in this area, Leighann that I see more often than not is that, um, we assume [00:13:00] a level of want to need. That may be higher than what our buyer really has. So I call it like a level five.
It's like, yeah, I do want that. And I, I do need it. And so now again, we are zipping off down the road. We're ready to share our solutions and, you know. Keep our song and dance going, but if someone isn't at like a level eight of a wanton need, they're really, it's, you're going to have a really hard time getting them over the finish line of making a commitment to you.
So there, I would have to say the problem with problems, okay, cause everybody knows you should be asking questions and finding out what people's problems are and what you can solve. Right. But the problem is that we jump too fast from problem to solution. The solution to that is when you hear a problem, ask three more questions and really dig down [00:14:00] underneath that problem so that you can get to the emotional experience within that.
Right? So if somebody says to me, um, I need health insurance. I want it because I, I don't want to feel exposed and, you know, worry about unknown bills. And so I do need it. They may be thinking at a very logical level at that moment. And people do not buy on logic, they buy on emotion, right? So my natural, like if I was just a normal salesperson, I'd be like, super, well, let me tell you about the different options that I have for you.
But because I know. How people make decisions. I will say, tell me a little bit more about that. Have you had any situations in the past where you've been hit with, you know, a bill out of the blue? That was more than you thought. Tell me about that and what was the situation and how did you experience? How did you resolve it?
You ask questions about what their experiences have been and what they imagine the experience to be. What you're doing is you're really [00:15:00] getting them to live with. Uh, within that problem in that moment. So that as you share how to solve it, it's such a contrast to how they are currently feeling because you've stirred this up in them.
This is how the buyer's brain works. Now they're living in that and they're like, Oh, I don't want to be here anymore. What do you got? What do you got? They're
Leighann Lovely: begging. Give it to me, please.
Susan Trumpler: It's just a much easier conversation once you get it.
Leighann Lovely: So now we've gotten through the want, the need. Now we're moving into step three.
Susan Trumpler: Yeah. Step three, four and five go tightly together, but we'll start with three. And this is sad too. This is another one because you've done a wonderful job this far. And. You think you've got them on the quote unquote hook. They're like, Oh, they're eating out of my hands. This is going to be awesome. Guess what?
Leighann Lovely: [00:16:00] Isn't it? Every salesperson has had that like, okay. Oh, yes. This is going to be easy. And then they go, well, I don't get it. What just happens? Was I a different in a different conversation than
Susan Trumpler: this? When I was leading a sales team, I used to call that happy ears when Salesperson would come back. Oh, this is a done deal.
It's a no brainer. I'm like, do you have signed paperwork? Well, not yet. I'm like, ah, happy years. Stop. It ain't done till the fat lady sings.
Leighann Lovely: Right. I never, I never celebrate a sale until I get paid. That's
Susan Trumpler: oh, that's exactly. That's right. Cause they can always back out. Right. Even if they signed something.
Right. All right. So step three is the dreaded part of the brain process. Because once I decide that I want something and I need it, the next thing my brain is going to say is, whoa, whoa, whoa, before you make a decision, what are your choices? [00:17:00] Is there, you don't, don't hop on now, now, now, sometimes people will zip right through this.
I trust this person. I'm, I'm, I believe in them, right? But other people when they're making buyer decisions, pause in this phase and they're like, Hmm, so I like, I do, I do know now that I need something. So now I need to know what choices I have because I'm not going to just jump on the first thing I'm going to shop.
And the higher the ticket, the more people want to shop around, the bigger the commitment, the more they're going to want to shop around. So you really need to understand what's on their mind in regards to what are my choices. And that comes to step. That's why three, four and five are really close together is step four are what are the differences?
Okay. So once the brain is like, what are my choices? It's going to start a laundry list of this is. This one I get from this and this one I need this. And so they're [00:18:00] starting to make that, you know, kind of comparison of this and this. And so when, when I was in corporate sales and we had a lot of competitors that did very nearly the same thing, I sold for ADP, it's payroll human resources, um, outsourcing.
And so. I used to really passionate about how we were different and I would just get on my little soap box and I knew our differences and I would be able to really lodge them out there and like this is this and this and this.
The mistake that I made until I knew better was that not all differences matter. And that's the fifth, the fifth process. So what are my choices? What are the differences? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ And do those differences matter? So Leighann, when you are [00:19:00] in a conversation with someone and they are trying to move through that particular area, what you want to do is really uncover.
Based on what they've told you about their problem and how you solve it, you want to be able to make them feel absolutely 100 percent safe and certain that they will be able to relieve the problem they have with the solution that you're offering. The tighter you can connect your solution to the problems that you heard, the more they will see that as the choice that really matters for them.
It's like, no one else has talked to me about this. No one else has talked to me about that. Boy, this Leighann, she's really got me covered left, right, inside and out. She's got the one. She's the choice that I want. So here's, here's the secret on this one really quickly. [00:20:00] When you talk about your solution, never, ever, ever, ever laundry list.
Everything that you can do like, oh, you get 6 months free and you get this and you get 8 weeks of that and 12 weeks of this and this handy dandy this and this other thing of that because that overwhelms someone and then they get confused. What you want to do is pick the top 3 things that will make the biggest difference in solving the problem that you've just.
Diligently uncovered and you tie them together. You say, okay, listen. So you said that this was a really big problem for you. You just, you, you know, we're worried. Let's go back to health insurance. You don't want to ever feel exposed that you may have a bill that will put you into bank medical bankruptcy.
Here's the part of our, our package, our health insurance package that will absolutely eliminate that worry. And you bring that piece, boom, right into the picture. And [00:21:00] then after you've talked about that, then you said, okay, then you said that you wanted to make certain that you had low premiums with a low deductible.
That was really important to you because from a cashflow standpoint, that really fit you. Let me explain to you how that works with our system. And then you bring that into the picture. But the problem is that people, once they start talking about their solutions, Oh gosh, you've hit us. You've hit your comfort zone and you are off to the races and you can't stop them.
And the person's eyeballs are spinning in their head. They're confused. They don't know why they would want it. And so they cannot tell if there's, you're the best choice. If the differences that you have matter to them because they're not tied directly, you're making them do the work. Does that make sense?
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. It's, it's the same thing. You know, I sold SAS solutions and wildly confusing because, you know, quite often they're so customizable and you don't go in and show them. The entire system or they [00:22:00] go, Oh, okay. Uh, I don't, you don't go in and train them on the product. You go in after the discovery and show them, here are the top three things you said you needed like the system to do.
Here's how the system can do that. Now it can do a ton more, but those were the three main concerns that you had. And I just want to show you how it can do that. It can also do the other things. Mm hmm. But those, these are the main things that you really were struggling with. You know, the usability of XYZ, the, you know, clients being able to log into their portal, you know, they're all struggling and they're confused and, and they can't pay easily and you're not getting whatever it might be.
Here's those three things. Exactly. And then you stop and go, What else do you need to know? I can show you more if you're interested. [00:23:00] But is that, is that some of the problems that you've been having with your other system? Is that going to solve the problem? And usually they'll go, wow, yeah, yeah, that is.
Dead on. That's exactly what I want. That is exactly what I need. And wow, is that so much easier than what we're doing right now. And that's, that's what they want to see. They like, that solves my top three problems and it can do the other stuff that, that we talked about. Because if you're presenting it to them in a way that they're seeing, you know, firsthand or if it's not a sales solution, it's something you're presenting the top three problems and you're saying, I can solve those.
Yes, I can solve the other stuff, but these were your top three. Right. We're going to go. Oh, okay. You're, now you've just created trust, a massive trust of. It is. Oh. And then those other pieces, maybe the, the next five things on their list, they're going to go, so you can do the other five things. That's
Susan Trumpler: exactly what happens.
It's like, well, then I, you know, because your system is so powerful, I'm just going to assume that [00:24:00] it can do this. And you're like, yes, it can. Right. And don't go there. Like I, I used to train solution consultants all of the time on demos and how to demo software. And it's like, this isn't a training session, right?
You just don't, if they say, I assume you can do it, you go, yes, you can. And I have moved
Leighann Lovely: on. I have sat in. Um, cause I used to sell, you know, soft time clock software solutions. So you know, implementing new time systems and, and then as I would have somebody come in and show, yes, we can bridge this to your payroll system as well.
So very similar to, and, and I have sat through where the payroll person came in and did their demo and I'm going. Oh, this is horrible. Why, why are you training them? They don't, they don't, why are we walking through how to enter in a new client? You just are like, like kicking them under the table going, do you not notice that the entire room is like got their arms across there, their legs are kicked back and they're like [00:25:00] head is nodding.
We don't train, you know, it's, and a demo should not be any longer at max. 25 to 30 minutes, unless they say, like, I really want to see, like, you know, all of this. Right. Because you start to lose them. And they're like, okay, now I'm bored. Exactly. So, anyways, I, I, I just, you hit, you hit a note with me there. So I'll get off my soapbox.
Well,
Susan Trumpler: that's the, you know, those are the first five steps. If you think about it, it's want and need. And then it's what are my choices, what are the difference and do the differences matter? And so have you noticed, and this is the part where people start going, Oh, we haven't talked about price yet. I thought that they just needed to make a decision on whether or not they could afford what I'm offering them.
And it's like, believe it or not, that's step six in the decision dynamics. And the way that I like to [00:26:00] label it is cost justification. It's not even about price. If you, because really what's on the buyer's mind, and I call this a value to price ratio. So whenever you are proposing a solution to someone, you're, you're telling them about your offer and you're listing the things and how it's going to work.
The buyer in their mind has a. Calculator running and they're at, they're at, Oh, this is probably going to be X much. And then you say something else. They're like, Ooh, this is probably why. And it's just a little bit higher. And then it's a little bit higher. So in their mind, they are coming up with the price that they think you're going to put out on the table, which is why I do not encourage people and to put pricing on, on their website.
That's a whole other subject. But when you go and reveal. When you're ready to reveal the investment, you want your buyer to be thinking, [00:27:00] wow, that's a lot less than I thought it was going to be. Or the price justification piece is that's totally worth it. I will figure out how to pay that because it is going to be so valuable to me that I will figure out how to fit this into my budget.
And they do, they do if you've done a really good job on steps one through five,
Leighann Lovely: right? And what I like about your process is that you're eliminating
75%. of the objections, even more, probably like 85 percent of the opportunity for them to give you objections along the way. Exactly right. Because you're addressing by really digging deep, you're, you're. You're stopping the objections before they can even happen. And so, and even in the pricing section, you're positioning [00:28:00] yourself as, well, I'm the expert.
I'm, I'm offering you everything that you have said to me at this point that you want, need. This is matching all of your pain points. It's going to solve X, Y, and Z problem for you. So at the end of that, what. Um, major objections. If I've done my job properly through all of those steps, what objections are left?
And here's where I learned early on. Somebody said to me, I said, God, you know, they're, they're keep coming back to me about, can we, can we somehow get the price down here? Can we, can we, you know, minimize the price here? And some, my, my boss years ago said. Um, is this worth your time? And I said, what do you mean?
I mean, I, I'm so close to getting this sold. Yeah. Is it worth your time? How many times are you going to go back, rework your price? I said, well, yeah, but it's so close and he goes, [00:29:00] if they buy on price, they'll leave on price. And in a year from now, this client that you sent spent a month renegotiating. And hours upon hours trying to figure out how to get them to buy from you is going to leave you anyways.
So any residuals that you had are going to be gone. And I'm like, Oh, he goes, sometimes you just need to look at them and go, this is my price and do the best I can do. And you are welcome to walk away. But I will tell you that this price is going to offer you everything that you need, everything that you told me and the service that you asked and the reason you're leaving the other place that you, and if you go to another company, you are probably in a year from now going to be looking again for a new service.
And that got drilled into me and for the [00:30:00] first time in my younger career, I realized, Oh, it's okay to tell a client. We're not
Susan Trumpler: right for you. Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: 100%. Or a prospect, not
Susan Trumpler: a client. Not a prospect. Yeah. 100%. Because then
Leighann Lovely: you free yourself up to be able to go after the right clients who understand your value.
And who are going to hurt, you know, buy from you and stay with you because you did the, you know, you sold them at the right price. You're making a decent commission. They're happy with your service and it's just, it's a good relationship. But anybody who, who's nickel and diming, they're buying on price.
They're never going to be happy. And they're probably going to turn into that, you know, where the salesperson's in standing by the water fountain going, Oh God, this client is driving me absolutely crazy. Do it. Do people actually stand by the [00:31:00] water cooler anymore?
Susan Trumpler: The virtual water cooler, I think. Right.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Uh, again, I'll get off my soapbox, but that was probably the greatest advice that I had ever gotten from anybody was, it was really good. Yeah. So, well, so now do you, do you do a training on the, the six steps, um, a buyer's brain goes through to make decisions?
Susan Trumpler: You know, it's kind of interesting because So I offer something called business momentum, um, that has five formulas in it.
One of the formulas and it's in your, it's in essence, your entire sales and marketing blueprint. When you're done with it, the sales formula is one part of that blueprint. And in the trainings I do in the sales formula, that is. Core of everything we talk about, how do you have a sales conversation? What are the, what's the process and the flow look like?
What's your message sound like [00:32:00] that whole, you know, go down and pick up one feature and tie it to a problem. This is most of the time when people say they don't. Like to sell it's because they really have never learned how to do it in a way that is so comfortable and Authentic that they feel pushy and sleazy, you know, so yes That is that's part of what we do and and it's called the she boss pro membership Within the she boss cafe and the name of the products
Leighann Lovely: business momentum That's awesome.
And, um, I, I'm sure that, well, I shouldn't say I'm sure, um, but there was definitely a time in my life where I'm like, how do you not feel salesy, pushy, um, you know, and as I grew into, you know, a more confident woman and more confident salesperson, a more confident me. [00:33:00] That's the key, a more confident me, um, all of the sudden that that kind of went away.
It goes away. Yeah,
Susan Trumpler: it, it absolutely goes.
Leighann Lovely: It does. Because you become your authentic self and all of a sudden those conversations become real.
Susan Trumpler: And you're not afraid to ask questions. I think a lot of times people, when they're new to sales, they're worried about asking questions because they're, this is my experience, they're afraid that they're going to be exposed for not knowing enough.
Right. So when I was in selling for human resources and payroll outsourcing, I was sitting in front of CFOs. I never was a CFO. Right. And I, I would sit in his office and I would think, oh, my gosh, if I ask him that question, he's going to say something that I won't understand or, or be able to really.
Connect back to it, right? So it's really just learning how to get comfortable with the person you're going to be communicating [00:34:00] with in a way that, like you said, just be yourself. You hit me with something. I'm not quite sure. I understand. Can you help me help me understand that a little bit more, right?
People love to talk to you and to help people and to, you know, talk about themselves. So asking the right questions and not being afraid to ask follow up questions is the way to authentic. Settling.
Leighann Lovely: And I, uh, same thing. I had that fear of. Am I supposed to know what that acronym means? Yes.
Susan Trumpler: Exactly. And then you just laugh and you're like, okay, boy, you're talking alphabet soup here.
Tell me, explain what you said to me.
Leighann Lovely: Right. You know, in your, in your younger years, you're like, I don't know, does everybody in the mainstream know what that, and then when you, and here's what really helped me as a young salesperson and, you know, for the younger salespeople out there, just questions are never bad.
Especially in [00:35:00] sales, even if you think, well, am I going to come off sounding stupid? Am I going to come off sounding like I don't know what, if you don't ask the questions, that is where you're, you're, it's, it's, that's where you're going to, you're going to, you're going to be in a world of hurt. Um, the thing that helped me is that I was, I was given the opportunity to go out on sales calls with, um, Um, multiple other people because my company, the company I work for, we did a lot of cross selling.
So cross selling payroll services,
cross selling insurance, cross selling. So I got to sit and watch some of these people who were five years in, 10 years in 15, 20 years in, and I got to see all of their different styles and they were asking questions where I was like, Oh. Yes, I'm not, I don't want to use the word stupid, but I'm not, [00:36:00] you know, crazy.
I knew I, you know, that acronym was weird or, and so it gave me the confidence. So don't be afraid to, if you have the opportunity at your company to say, can I shadow this person or ask another sales? Can I just, can I shadow you sometime on one of your calls? I just want to see how
Susan Trumpler: you do it. Mm. Mm hmm. Or ask
Leighann Lovely: for a mentor.
People love to mentor other people. Some people. Oh, they do. People in, in essence, love the opportunity to help other people. I do. I, I love the opportunity to help other people. Well, Susan, we are coming to time. This has been such an amazing conversation. I, I can't thank you enough for one, your expertise, um, two, your generosity and, and your time and coming on and talking with me today.
Sure. Um. If somebody wanted to reach out to you, um, to learn more [00:37:00] about your she boss cafe, um, program or your, um, your masterclass, um, training, unstoppable women in business, how did they reach out to you?
Susan Trumpler: They can find me all over the place. The best place to find me is I do hang out in the cafe all the time.
So she boss cafe. com tells you all about. The, the cafe, there's lots of free resources, but getting to yes, faster masterclass is inside the cafe. So it's, it's right there as well as lots of great women and, um, events that we have. I'm also hanging out on Instagram at unstoppable women in business, uh, is my handle YouTube LinkedIn.
You can find me anywhere.
Leighann Lovely: That is absolutely amazing. Um, again, thank you. Um, you know, for coming on and, um, thank you to the listeners. Please make sure that you like share, um, you know, another episode of, uh, Love Your Sales is
Susan Trumpler: a wrap. Thank you. Nice to be here.[00:38:00]
Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
 

Discover the Power of a Servants Heart

Pat Riley, president and CEO of Genhead, and I explore the importance of putting the customer first. Discover the power of empathy, active listening, and serving others, and learn how to overcome objections by truly understanding your clients' needs. Don't miss out on valuable insights and inspiration to take your sales game to the next level. And, by the way, Love Your Sales Podcast is presented by Genhead, the AI-driven company helping small and medium-sized businesses find their ideal clients and increase revenue.
Contact Pat
Website – www.genhead.com
Phone Number – 920-205-3589
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of love your sales. I am joined by Patrick Riley, president and CEO of Gen Head.
Gen Head provides their clients with buyer ready leads through a unique combination of their proprietary AI engine and advanced marketing automation. Pat also has 30 plus years in sales, spanning industries from manufacturing, distribution and technology as a producer and in senior [00:02:00] leadership roles.
Pat, I am so thrilled to have you join me today and talk about sales. Well, thank you,
Pat Riley: Leighann. It's great to see you and I'm happy to be here. Thank you. Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: Well, why don't you, um, you know, again, tell us just a little bit more about yourself before we dive in and, you know, hopefully give the audience a little gold nugget of information.
Pat Riley: Uh, well, I love talking about myself. I've been in sales, right? We love talking about ourselves. Uh, it's the first thing they teach you in sales is that people love talking about themselves, but I am a, uh, a senior, uh, sales leader and I have been, uh, around the block as they say. I started out in manufacturing and, uh, I enjoyed that very, very much.
Um, I sold so much that they gave me part of the company and, uh, we grew, uh, that company from a very small company to a good, [00:03:00] good sized medium company and then sold out. Uh, and then I got into industrial distribution on an international scale. And it was promoted into an international role, which I thought sounded great until I realized that when you are an international salesperson, that means you have to actually go to international places.
And I got tired of that very quickly with 4 small children at home. And so I looked again to get into small business and got into a technology company in Wisconsin with locations in Appleton, Madison, and Milwaukee, and we became the largest IT training company in the state. And I recently sold that in 2023, and we started Genhead.
Which is a very exciting adventure, uh, into AI lead generation and, uh, marketing automation, uh, and [00:04:00] it's become very successful very quickly. So very thrilled about that.
Leighann Lovely: Yes. And Genhead is our official sponsor of Love Your Sales. So Pat, I'm extremely thrilled that I get to not only have you as a sponsor of Love Your Sales, but also get to have you on and, and talk to you a little bit about, you know.
Sales and, what has, you know, created your success. So thank you for, you know, being that, that first sponsor of ours.
Pat Riley: Absolutely. And, and we're happy to do so. Uh, you, you're doing good work here and, and that's what's important. And, you know, one of the things that, that I wanted to talk about today, uh, was the, the concept and the importance of putting the customer first.
And, uh, I think that too many of us in, uh, the, what I call the front [00:05:00] facing roles, and that includes sales, obviously, uh, but, but it also encompasses marketing, uh, customer service, uh, technical service, even. Uh, if you're in a manufacturing or an industrial or a technical, uh, kind of a company, but essentially anyone that touches a customer is front is front facing, um, that they really need to.
Always put themselves in that customer's shoes and always think of them first, and when they do that, success will come. And, uh, I, I see so many, uh, people that are front facing that think of only the end. Uh, game, uh, of what they can gain from that client purchasing something from them [00:06:00] instead of thinking of what's best for that customer.
Leighann Lovely: And you make a very valid point in where a lot of salespeople get so hung up trying to force that sale. That through that process, they're not listening. They're not hearing the needs, they're not identifying what that client, that customer, that person. I mean, if you're just meeting somebody for, for a moment, that could eventually turn into a client.
They're sale. You said it earlier. I'm a salesperson. I love to talk. Right. We, we, we become salespeople because we know how to talk. We know how to get in front of somebody. We know how to almost entertain in a way. We're entertaining somebody, but then we forget, how do we shut up and listen?
Pat Riley: Well, and what do we do with the information?
So, so are, are we hearing or are we listening? It [00:07:00] is, is a very important thing. So. If we're hearing someone, what we're doing is we're taking that information and we're twisting it, uh, for our own good. Okay. If we're listening to someone, then we're taking that information and we're applying it as if we are that client.
And we're putting ourselves in their shoes and saying, what would I do if I were the client? And we've got to We, we, the best, the very, very best front facing people do that. And it always works out for them. I never have trouble closing sales because they just happen when, when I'm working with clients, And I'm, I'm, I'm obviously doing that now with, with our, our, [00:08:00] I'll still call it a startup, uh, with, with gen head, I'm on the front lines and working with clients on a day to day basis.
And, and I put myself in their shoes with their budget, uh, with their goals, with their needs, and I asked myself what is best for them. And sometimes it means not spending as much money with us. As I may have been able to get from them because that's what's best for them right now and long term. I know it's going to work out better for us because we're going to have a client longer.
Leighann Lovely: You're going to have a client for life, a client who trusts you, a client who's going to turn around and send you other clients.
Pat Riley: And that's what, that's what, that's the long game. That's what [00:09:00] great salespeople, because that person that I have, I have put myself in their position is now going to say, I've got a really good person who does my marketing and does my, my AI lead generation, and I'm going to tell people about.
And I'm going to share that story. And we have that happening right now. Uh, we've, we've got a person in Florida who is sending us so many people that we're having trouble, uh, keeping up, uh, with Mike, uh, down in Florida and he's doing a great job for us and, and, uh, God love them. And, uh, and so, and it, it, it has to do with.
With empathy and with reality of what you know about your product or service and then what you've learned [00:10:00] about the person who's sitting across from you. And if you don't know enough about the person sitting across from you, you haven't asked the right questions. Right. And that You need to back up. You need to back up.
And you need to even kind of start over again a little bit.
Leighann Lovely: And that goes into, you know, people ask all the time, well, Leighann, how do, how do you overcome objections? I said, well, if you're truly getting to the root of what that person needs, wants, desires, what their end goal is, you should be eliminating those objections all along that process.
Because if you're truly understanding, they're not going to have any, right? Well, they may have questions,
Pat Riley: they'll have some questions, right?
Leighann Lovely: Of course. But you're going to be able to [00:11:00] Identify them as you're having that conversation. And so when you get to that point of are you ready to buy, they're going to go.
Yep, I'm pretty sure you've covered. Absolutely everything, because you're systematically through that conversation, truly understanding and truly getting to the root of what are the three major things that people come, money, what is it? Logistics and fear. Those are the three things, money, fear, and logistics.
Do I have the money? Is this going to work? The fear driven, you know, how, how is it? Do I trust them? Do I not? Well, that one should be. You should be building that from the moment you meet them, the fear of the unknown, that type of thing. And then logistics. How do we implement this? How, how is this going to happen?
How do we make this work? Time elements, all of that. And those are just a matter of, well, let's work through all of that. But if [00:12:00] you are, if you are addressing those three main points throughout the entire conversation, and that person comes to trust and understand you, and you come to understand everything about that client and you become the trusted advisor and not the salesperson.
Pat Riley: Then at the end, you just, I always, the question that I always ask is. Are we ready to move forward? That's, that's, that's my great magical, uh, poof, uh, you know, close is your hard closer. My big, my big hammer, you know, is are we ready to move forward? And if they say yes, terrific. Uh, this is what we have to do next.
Uh, I need a check and I need a signature or I need whatever it might be. Um, and, and they just go, okay, yeah, that's what we have to do. Cause, cause I want this thing [00:13:00] or process or, or whatever it might be. And, and it's just the next natural step, but in order to get there, you must have. Um, what, what I've learned, uh, to call a servant's heart and it's the way that I manage people, it's the way that I work with clients, it's the way that I work with, uh, you know, even our suppliers, everybody that I interact with on a, on a business level, I try to serve first.
And, and Zig Ziglar, God rest his soul, uh, who I think was one of the funniest and best sales motivators. If, if people want to go back to, uh, to watching some of Zig Ziglar's videos, you will both laugh and learn at the same time, um, because he was, he was a funny, uh, funny guy. [00:14:00] Uh, but he said, um, that, that a person will get everything they want in life by giving others what they want in life.
And he is exactly correct. So I try to work on giving others what they want and what they need. And by doing so it comes around and I'm 55 years old. I'm not afraid to say that I've been around the block a little bit. And I'm telling you it works and maybe it doesn't work. In an hour, maybe it doesn't work in a day, but it does work because people come to trust you.
They come to like you and they will refer you. And those, those references powerful, far more powerful. Uh, even then what I can do with AI, which is amazing, but, [00:15:00] but a personal reference of, uh, one person to another, a coworker or someone in another company or someone in another industry, whatever it might be is absolute gold.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. And you know, I think back, you know, when you say that, I think back to my, when I originally got into sales and you know, somebody goes, Oh, go to this networking and go, you know, the goal is to get two sales and as many business cards as you can. And I remember the pains that I felt when I was in this first networking meeting I ever went to.
And I thought, Oh my God, this is horrific. And I'm sure people have heard the story. It was horrible because I was told to do it wrong. And when I was told to do it wrong, it was the most pain stake, even for an extrovert who loves being around people. But nobody wanted to talk to me because they would approach me and I'm like, here's my product.
And they're like, get away from this girl. When you approach somebody [00:16:00] with the idea that I don't want, I don't want to take anything from you. I want to help you. I want to help you. What can I do for me for you today? That mentality has paid dividends for me year after year after year. There are people that I met 10 years ago that for some reason I've connected with on LinkedIn that that have remembered me, that have come back and said, Oh, I'm so glad that we've connected again because X, Y, Z, or you did this for me.
And I'm like, I, I. I don't, but it meant something to them at that time. And the same goes for me. There are people who did something for me that I go back to and I'll say, you did this for me then. How can I help you now? And it goes back and forth. And that's for the younger, new salespeople coming in. That is the greatest [00:17:00] advice that I was given was give first and ask for nothing in return.
Selflessly give. It will come back to you and, and yes, is there, is there a long game in that for, there is, but you have to wholeheartedly be able to, because you do build a community of people who go, wow,
let's make,
Pat Riley: let's make a couple to the new salespeople. Let's make a couple of things clear. You still have to make the calls. Yes. You still have to, you still have to, whatever your industry is, you have to do the outreach. Okay. Now it, maybe it's email, maybe it's LinkedIn, maybe it's AI, maybe it's the phone, maybe whatever it might be, you have to be the one to instigate the conversation.
So you don't get to get [00:18:00] lazy. it this way. Let's just, let's just be clear here. So this is not a shortcut. This is just the truth of, of, of what you can do. Because what I'm really, uh, trying to share with people here today is, is what I consider to be the difference between good and great, because you can be good, um, without having a servant's heart.
I've worked with people who, uh, will just pound the, the phones or whatever it might be in your industry, and they, they, they make so many calls that they get x number of sales every month or every year, whatever it might be. And, and they do just fine, you know? Mm-Hmm. every year. And they make a living and everybody's happy and the beat [00:19:00] goes on, but they'll never be great.
They'll always be good. And you know what? An organization needs people that are just plain good people. You can rely on people. You can count on people that, you know, are going to hit their quota. They're never going to blow up their quota, but they're never going to fall down on their face either. And every organization knows who those people are, right?
But. Um, to be to be perfectly blunt in my career, I never once had a quota, not once because I blew it. I would blow up numbers so fast. That when I had a boss, they wouldn't even bother with the quota because I would just blow up, I would just explode and I would beat everybody because that's, that's what I looked at was who was number one and then [00:20:00] I'm going to beat him because I didn't care about anybody else, but who was number one and how much could I beat him by.
And, um, and that's, that's internal motivation, but my external execution of that was to be a servant. So, so you can be very competitive. Okay. On the inside. And I am okay. Um, but, uh, but be a servant to people in your execution. And those two things can work together.
Leighann Lovely: And I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to say that the majority of the greats have a very high level of competitiveness.
Often it is not, it is a self. a self driven competition. [00:21:00] It's not, I'm going to beat that person. I'm going to beat that person. It is often, I'm going to see what that number is, and I am going to set that bar high for myself. Because like you, I've gone into companies and they're like, okay, this is the number that you should beat this year.
This is the number that you should be at this year. And I'm like, yeah, okay. And I'm at the number I should be in year two and year one. And they're like, oh, Okay. And then they'll come to me. What do you think you can do in production this year? And I'm like, well, I'm going to be here. And they're like. Okay.
And then they come to me and go, so where do you think the other salespeople should be? And I'm like, I don't know, probably closer to me if they're doing everything they're supposed to be doing. But that's my own personal competitiveness that I don't want to be just okay at what I do, but I do that in everything in my life because I've just [00:22:00] I was a sports player in high school.
I was in, and in my family, it wasn't really my family. I just grew up with that. You know, I had two older brothers. I'm going to beat them. I, you know, I used to think I was going to be older than them one day. I'm going to, one day I'm going to be older than you. I'm going to be taller than you. Well,
Pat Riley: that was just how physics work, not when
Leighann Lovely: I was five.
It's that, it's that competitiveness, that competitive nature that Many salespeople have that internal, it's that internal competitiveness that you can't not, not all of them, some of them, you know, kind of like, okay, yeah, I'm, I'm happy. With just meeting this quota, but the ones that you see just take off and just are constantly rocking it.
It's usually an internal compass where they're like, I'm not okay with just meeting my quota. [00:23:00] I want to be, you know, if my quota is a million in sales, I want to be at a million five or I want to be at 2 million because that's where, and even though their boss is happy.
Pat Riley: I shouldn't say those guys, those people, those people, I don't, I wouldn't even give them a quota.
I didn't want, I didn't want to hold them back. I would just say, you don't have one. Your quota is the moon.
Leighann Lovely: And then they go, oh, okay.
Pat Riley: And, and when they would hit certain numbers, I would just show up with a hundred dollar bills and throw them on their laps.
I would, and just randomly, you know, just because they They'd hit a certain number and, and, and I, I, I would just come by. I just stopped at the bank and get, you know, a thousand bucks or 2000 bucks and a hundred dollar bills. And I just go, here you go. Here's a few for you and a few for you and a few for you and just randomly on a Thursday.
But because, you know, great greatness, greatness recognizes [00:24:00] greatness, right? And, and those couple thousand bucks goes a long way, uh, for people who are competitive, right?
Leighann Lovely: Yet, even though I have that wild competitiveness. It's not about beating somebody else. For me, it's about beating my own. And often, you know, it has kicked me in the butt.
Where I'm like, okay, I set the bar too high for myself this year. I'm like, riddled with anxiety and my bosses are going, Hey, you did a really great job this year. And I'm like, yeah, it wasn't good enough. Okay. Yes, that is my internal flaw that, you know, my own, it is, it is, it is a thing. And I'm not sick. I, by all means, I don't want my audience to mistake.
I am not saying that that is what it takes to be great. What it takes to be great is, in my opinion, is a, a balance between [00:25:00] always pushing yourself to be better, always, always looking to serve your clients. First and serve your community first, because that is what people recognize in those, in the, in other people.
Those are the
Pat Riley: characteristics. Yeah. One of the things that I always would say to people is that you push yourself and you pull others.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. Really well said.
Pat Riley: You push you so you're pushing yourself to to be self motivated, right? You're pushing yourself. To make the calls pushing yourself to make the numbers pushing yourself to do the work, but you're pulling others up.[00:26:00]
You're pulling others with you. You're pulling other others to give you information to help them. And if you, if you can do those two things and they're, I know your listeners can't see me, but I'm doing a, I'm doing a balancing thing here with my hands, right? If you can keep those two things in balance, you will be great.
Absolutely. You will be great. That
Leighann Lovely: is something that, um, something that I've thought about. And if I could just. Pull because I've been a mentor to, you know, many other salespeople I've been, people have come to, how do you do? And I'm like, if I could just wrap my arms around you and pull you up with me, but I can't do the work for you.
There's, there's that certain point where it's like, I, I can, you know, you can lead a horse to water. You can't make them drink, but that is the true servant leader as [00:27:00] well. To be a true leader, you have to want. Others to succeed as much as you are succeeding, you have to truly be able to put in the time and give them your true attention to allow them to level up on themselves and, and also cheer for them and Pat, that is part of why obviously you went from producer to leader because that is, again, a characteristic, a care, a characteristic of
Pat Riley: characteristic even.
Leighann Lovely: But that is, that is a true, that's a characteristic of a, of a true leader, not a manager, a leader of somebody who's saying, yeah, I'm, I'm on the up, I'm trending up, but I want to take you all with me. I don't want to leave you behind. Let's go. Let's all go together.
Pat Riley: And as a leader, [00:28:00] the other side of that coin, Leighann, is that by doing that, you are giving up your time that you could be spending Um, either sharpening your saw, meaning learning something new or getting better at something, uh, or, or producing for the company, uh, which would, which would, uh, uh, help you financially.
So you, by, by helping others. Uh, pull up, you were sacrificing your own production. You're sacrificing essentially, you know, some of your own pocket. And again, that is part of being a servant leader is that you're willing to sacrifice some of your own personal gain so that others may succeed. If you're not willing to do that, then don't be a leader.
Yes. Don't, if they offer you, if they, if you're not willing to do that [00:29:00] and they offer you a promotion to a management or a leadership position, and you're not willing to do that, don't take it. And stay in a production position and just produce.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And to your point, to your point on that, and we're, you know, we're getting to time, but I want to, if I just want to say this, because so often.
Mistakes are made that people think, well, if I don't accept, especially in the sales roles. Well, if I don't accept this position, they're going to think that, you know, I don't think I'm good enough or I'm not good enough, or they're going to, people think they have to accept.
Pat Riley: And here's the thing. There's a natural, there's a natural tendency that if you're offered a promotion and you turn it down, first of all, you'll, you'll never be offered a promotion again.
Right. Right. And secondly, you won't be looked [00:30:00] at as a company person. Right. So what you have to do is explain your way through it. You have to say, I'm, I'm in a position right now where I don't feel that I'm a, I'm a leader. Of others and that my best place for this organization is for me to continue to produce at a high level
Leighann Lovely: and so many salespeople think they can move from producer.
to leader, and then they tank their career or they do, they don't do well. And then they end up having to leave the company because they feel like I don't have a choice. I can't move back or people will think I fail, but so many salespeople don't realize the stress that it takes to move from salesperson producer to leader of others.
And there have been times in my [00:31:00] career where I have said no. I am not taking this role. I just want to produce and they've pushed it and pushed it. Okay. Well, if you won't be, if you won't be the manager, will you just be a mentor? No, it's the same thing, except I don't get the
Pat Riley: pay raise. Except I don't get any money.
Right. No, and, and you have to, if you, if you don't take a promotion, there has to be a good rationale that again, again, this is a servant thing. We're going back to the servant thing. Okay. All you're doing is you're being a servant to the person who offered you the promotion. Right. And, and, and here's how it plays out.
I am not taking this promotion because it is best for the company. Correct. Yes, I am not taking this promotion because I don't think that I would I don't believe in my heart That I would be good at it And I believe in my heart that the best thing for this [00:32:00] company is for me to continue to produce At a high level and that will make the company more money and for someone else to take the role of manager Yeah,
Leighann Lovely: absolutely.
That was really, really well sought and, and Pat, here's, um, opportunity as we're, um, you know, coming to time, um, again, such wonderful information. So that's great insight. Uh, 32nd, shameless pitch. Here you go.
Pat Riley: Oh, oh, I get a shameless pitch. Well, uh, I guess I'll start at the beginning that, that every business needs new customers.
That's where we start. And what we have done is we have created a proprietary AI engine that allows us to work with our clients one on one, uh, defining their ideal customer profile and using AI [00:33:00] to find Find those nuggets, those perfect customer prospects just for them, that are perfect for, uh, whatever business that they're in, whatever service that they're in, whether it's B2B or B2C, it doesn't matter, and, and we, we narrow that bandwidth down to a very narrow group.
That's it. Uh, group of, of potential prospects, and then we market to them in a way that adds value to that prospect group. And we are seeing returns on that where we're seeing click rates, not open rates, click rates in the 48 to 50 percent range on first emails. And we just, we just saw it this week, uh, even this close to Christmas.
And [00:34:00] so, uh, it's tremendous. And so these kinds of returns in terms of marketing automation are helping our clients grow new opportunities at an accelerated rate. Leveraging AI, leveraging our marketing automation. And then finally, we have a customer relationship experience software as a service package that brings this all together.
With CRM tools, sales tools, marketing tools, website tools, uh, AI bots, all sorts of things that's very affordable for a small business to a medium sized business. And it all comes together, uh, in a way that helps our clients improve their sales processes. So from AI. All the way to sales [00:35:00] process. We are bridging that gap and helping our customers succeed.
And it is very exciting. I have to tell you, uh, I'm just thrilled with the results. Uh, and we're seeing a lot of customers just grow like crazy. So, and
Leighann Lovely: how would somebody reach out to you?
Pat Riley: Uh, you can go to www.genhead.com. Uh, or you can just, uh, you know what I'm just gonna tell them to pick up the phone and call me That's how crazy I am 920 205 3589 That is my direct phone number I will put that on a podcast Okay.
That's that is a shameless plug right there, Leighann. Yes, it is. So Genhead. com is where you can start and you can learn about us. Uh, but, uh, you can call the [00:36:00] CEO yourself and I'd be happy to talk to you.
Leighann Lovely: Pat, again, thank you. This has been an awesome conversation. I really appreciate your time and I appreciate your sponsorship.
Pat Riley: Absolutely, Leighann. And we are happy to be a part of what you're doing. You're doing a great job.
Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 

Know Who Your Decision Makers Are and their Process

Anna Bruno discusses the importance of understanding the decision-making process in sales. She highlights the common hurdle of determining if the potential client is the sole decision maker or if they there are others at play spouse. Anna emphasizes the need to engage with both parties when making large decisions, ensuring that no time is wasted and that both individuals are included in the conversation. By doing so, Anna explains that the couple becomes a conduit, effectively relaying the information and selling the benefits of the product or service to the other decision maker. Tune in to the Love Your Sales to learn more about effective sales strategies and the significance of involving all decision makers.
Contact Anna –
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-bruno-129532/
Thrive Armenia Foundation - https://www.linkedin.com/company/thrive-armenia-foundation-inc/
Iris Dating - https://www.irisdating.com/
 
Leighann Lovely: Anna, thank you for joining me on an, on another episode of Love Your Sales.
Anna Bruno: You're welcome. Thank you very much for having me here.
Leighann Lovely: So Anna Bruno is a force for change, reshaping financial independence with a unique blend of science and finance. Currently Anna is the VP of business development for Ideal Match Incorporated, an influential US based firm
with an Armenian presence in 2001, Anna founded [00:02:00] Thrive Armenian Foundation, transform Armenian into technology, advanced nation, teaching employable skills and renovating schools. And I'm, I'm so excited to have you, um, with me today and to, you know, chat. So why don't you give us a little bit more in depth about your background and, you know, what you do.
Anna Bruno: Sure. Thank you so much, Lynn. Um, uh, as I said, um, I'm Anna Bruno. Uh, I wear actually a lot of different hats and I feel like only the U. S. that you would have the privilege of, you know, wearing different heights simultaneously. Um, I am the, uh, VP of business development for Ideal Match Inc, uh, under which is, um, the current, um, Subsidiary that I'm a big part of, uh, which is, um, uh, iris dating, which is a dating app.
And, um, in addition to that, as you [00:03:00] mentioned, I have, um, uh, very much involved in different charity, um, projects and, um, you know, and, um, by background and by profession, I'm a financial consultant and I've done that for the last 25 years, but going back to sales, I feel that, um, Anything and everything you do in life.
Sales is a very big, important component of it. Because, um, one thing that I have learned in a 25 years of experience doing sales in different, um, aspects of, uh, with different companies. One thing I've learned that is, um, sales is in every part of our lives. Uh, starting from the skill of learning how to sell yourself, uh, to learning how to sell your company, your product and, um, your services, et cetera.
Yeah. So I think that's for now, you know, [00:04:00] that, and then, you know, if, uh, if you want, I can tell you a little bit more about my background. Obviously I was born in a tiny country called Armenia. I immigrated to the United States when I was young, I started college here. And at the time, I wasn't sure is that what do I want to be?
What's the most challenging thing that I can do? And I thought that, you know, going into, um, science and being a doctor would have been the most challenging thing. So I started my, um, journey as a bio med major, biochemistry major. Um, and along the way, um, I found my passion. I found my purpose in life. Um, and I was able to switch from I graduated, uh, with a degree in biotechnology and biochemistry, and I was slated to go into medicine.
But, , the joke in the family is that my husband is the real doctor and I am, , people's doctor, you know, I'm a money [00:05:00] doctor and sales doctor. And, , so, so I was able to pivot into, , doing other things, , other than, , going into medicine and I'm, I've never looked back.
Leighann Lovely: You know, isn't that funny? So many of us when we're younger or definitely when we're younger, you know, in our twenties and we have this idea of, of here's what we're going to do.
And we set off on this path and often the path we set off on is not. Um, where we find our passion, our purpose, our interests, um, and you're, that's a clear, you know, clear, clearly what happened with you in, in that situation. And
Anna Bruno: I'll give you, uh, I'll give you a very quick example, uh, because I do travel the world a lot and, um, you know, we in, in the United States are very fortunate, uh, and most of [00:06:00] us don't realize how fortunate we are.
To have all these benefits of living in this country, one of which is the flexibility because I'll tell you, I'll give you an example in Europe, in France or even in Germany. Once you choose a path, it's very difficult to change, to veer off from that path. It's very, very difficult. But in the U. S., I mean, look at me, I mean, um, I studied out, you know, I went for medicine, then I graduated and I decided I was going to become a financial planner, and I spent 20 years.
Doing that becoming being a financial planner, and then I was able to pivot again and and start a foundation and start a charity that I was able to pivot again and and and do, um, you know, work with different companies and help them with their sales and their sales training. And, um, again, it's, uh, it's, it's very important that we do realize that, you know.
[00:07:00] Sales. I hope my, one of the things that I really hope from our conversation today would be, is the fact that people would look at sales from a positive perspective instead of negative perspective, because unfortunately there is stigma and there's like a negative dogma with sales and like, Oh my God is a sales person trying to sell me something.
So hopefully we can change that conversation, um, together.
Leighann Lovely: And that's part of why, you know, this podcast Exists is because sales people in general, and you know, and we all have in the back of our head, you know, and I used to, I'd say, Oh, here's another financial advisor run away. Like the last thing that I want to talk about is my finance.
Not anymore because now I'm starting, you know, I'm at a certain age where I'm like, I really need to talk about my finances, my financial health. As I'm starting to get to a certain age. Right. But I remember being in networking meetings where I'm like, Oh, financial [00:08:00] advisor, run away. I don't want to talk about cause it's so personal there.
Even as a salesperson, that's how I, that was like my thought process of like, I don't want to talk about this. I, you know, because again, it's, I don't want to, I don't, I don't want to have that conversation, but now with. Yeah. These, with the realization that every conversation matters, every relationship that you have matters because they're not trying to do anything other than just build a relationship.
And if that relationship blossoms into, yes, I'd like to have a further conversation about what my portfolio looks like. How can I improve this? How can I It doesn't matter what the person is selling as long as they're not shoving it down your throat.
Anna Bruno: You just that was the point that I [00:09:00] was hoping that you would make because you're absolutely correct.
There are different personalities in every field and different people approach sale selling or sales differently. And I think 1 of the most important things to have is finesse. To have the ability to understand when and how, how far you can push the envelope, trying to basically having the empathy to, um, try to build a relationship with people and give them what they need at the time that they need it.
Uh, and there's a fine line that we all walk on, right? There's a fine line between, um. Them knowing what they need and, uh, understanding it and then you knowing what they need. And, uh, again, that's that's really the. The science behind selling, because you have to be persistent. You have to remember that what you do is [00:10:00] very important.
And what you do is very beneficial to most people, even if they don't understand it at that time, but at the same time, there's a time and place of when and how you approach things and when and how you are presented, and that makes a difference between. Uh, a really successful salesperson versus not so successful
Leighann Lovely: salesperson.
So now I want to go back. So you, um, you're the VP of business development for Ideal Match Incorporated, which has other businesses underneath it. And one of that being is Iris Dating. So let's, let's kind of break this down to a better understanding. So Ideal Match, um, this can service. B to C as well as B to B.
Correct. Correct. Okay. So you at times are going to businesses and, and doing [00:11:00] a B to B type sale. But you also, which this is a unique skill because quite often salespeople will find a lane of, I really like B2C sales. I really like B2B, these acronyms. So for those who are not familiar with this, you know, business to business or business to consumer are two very different types of conversations and being able to pivot in between Back and forth and having those conversations is, is can become very difficult because it's a, it's a very, not very, it is a different sale.
I mean, you're still working with an individual, but you're in a B2B situation, a business to business. You're dealing with somebody who. May not necessarily be the person who's signing the [00:12:00] check you're dealing with somebody who's got to go back to other decision makers and make a decision as a group for the health of the company in a beta.
Meet a consumer. They typically are the person who's going to sign the check and use the product. 100
percent.
Anna Bruno: You're absolutely correct. And what I would say is, um, there are a lot of differences and similarities, uh, when you look at B2B versus B2C selling. And, uh, typically, this is what I've seen. Uh, uh, people say it's easier to do B2C.
Business to consumer than B to B for several reasons. Um, it's a lower entry barrier, right? So it's easier to reach individual people than it is to reach decision makers in large corporations. There is a lot of gatekeepers to get a hold of them is. Like a whole another field in itself. We could have a whole conversation about that.
How do you pass that gatekeeper? So, um, [00:13:00] typical, you know, sales cycle or time it takes to get to the right person and get some traction is much longer with B2B than it is with B2C. But the rewards are much higher, right? The B2B is much bigger rewards. So it's like, Um, it's almost like having real, like, uh, commercial real estate versus residential real estate.
I don't know if anybody is a real estate investor out there. I would certainly compare it to buying residential real estate and being a landlord to a residential person versus buying commercial. Two different things, two different approaches, but it's kind of, you know, there's a lot of, like I said, similarities and differences between the two.
Leighann Lovely: Mm hmm. So how do you, um, how do you approach and, and what, I mean, how is this approach different and how do you manage, you know, I guess, let's walk through how the process is different. [00:14:00] Um,
Anna Bruno: okay. So great question. And what I would say is the most important thing is for any salesperson to understand the process.
Like having realistic expectations of what it is that they're trying to accomplish and what time frame would it take for them to accomplish this? And the other big important thing is your pipeline. You can't just take one or two, you know, um, uh, potential clients. Or targets and just go after one. You have to have a long term time horizon, and you have to have a pipeline of which you're doing your work.
And there's a lot of talk about. Being consistent, I think I just read another research report saying the number one differentiator between successful salespeople and non successful is the consistency. Consistency is key. If you [00:15:00] have a plan, if you have an approach, and of course, it's very difficult. To, you know, uh, get shot down to, to hear nose and to, you know, to, uh, see like you're not seeing any immediate results.
But again, the difference between successful and not successful salespeople, and especially when it comes to B2B as opposed to B2C, it's a longer. Time it takes longer to to see the results that it does with the B to C. And I think the 1st step is again having the right expectations, having realistic expectations, having a plan and.
Executing on that plan consistently every day, as long as you like, I know, as long as I do what I'm supposed to be doing, if I've done, you know, I've done my leads, I've reached out to my, uh, leads, and I've done all the things that I'm supposed to be doing all my calls, all my emails, all my LinkedIn reach outs, everything that I'm supposed to be doing, and my [00:16:00] pipeline is what it is, and it's kept, you know, we are in a Yep.
Different, um, processing with different projects that we have, then I can feel good about the fact that I have done everything in my control. Um, everything else is like I said, it's a human nature for us. It's very difficult to work and not see a lot of results. And it helps when you do the C results and this is why quite often it's easier to go to B2C because the results come faster, easier, quicker than B2B.
But like I said, the rewards are much higher with B2B. You get the potential of making a lot more money, a lot bigger deals than you do with B2C.
Leighann Lovely: Right. So the differences between B2B and B2C are clearly, you know, you've got a higher reward in, in the, in the B2B world. But it takes typically a longer life cycle.
So I'm going to assume that it's, you're going to need a much larger [00:17:00] pipeline of people in multiple different stages of that process, consistency in the constant reach out with them. It's, you know, constantly gathering and
Anna Bruno: adding.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. And then, yeah. And so in B2C and, and again, I'm, I'm not much of an expert in the B2C world.
I've done limited selling in the B2C except for, you know, makeup and cleaning supply where people were coming to me, I, you know, I'm standing in a Sam's club. This is going way back to, you know, my, my first real sales job where I was like, I want to go into sales, you know, where people are walking in the door saying, Oh yeah, I'll buy that.
So it was more of a. You know, you basically hand them the product and say, here's why you should buy this. Um, but when it comes to outreach, it's a much more faster, quicker. More. Would it be more of an [00:18:00] impulse buy?
Anna Bruno: It is. And it's just like I said, it's, um, you're dealing with, um, individuals that are not as almost like hardened by, um, being pitched so much, right?
When you're dealing with, uh, senior vice presidents of big companies, um. They're being bombarded with sales pitches all day long every day, and they've almost like developed thicker skin for it, and it's much easier for them to say no than to say yes. And like you said, you mentioned something very important.
They're not the only decision maker. It's not really up to them only. And oftentimes it's they take the information and they go up to the higher ups and they have their board meetings and they have additional meetings and then like a team of people will make a decision on what to do right as opposed to dealing with an individual where typically.
They can make a decision much faster and oftentimes it's a [00:19:00] very emotional decision to be made, you know, it's it's they can do it faster. And that's, um, as long as you can tap into. Typically, they said people respond to fear or greed, right? Uh, they said, you know, if you can, um, you know, uh, tap into the fear or greed, you usually can have the sale.
So, you know, And that's why it with dealing with individuals. It's much easier. I'll give you a quick example. I was just recently calling is the talent agency. There's that modeling agency because the product that we have is has applications. The technology itself is patented. It's it's an AI technology that's patented and the technology is capable of predicting and matching people based on attraction.
So it basically puts Things together and finds what would be the most attractive, whether it's the face or facial features or whatever in different, [00:20:00] um, um, markets or in different industries. So I was calling this, um, talent, the talent manager of this company, and I had just met with him a few days prior and I had a conversation with him and he said, Oh, okay.
Call me. He put his phone number on his card and gave it to me. So I, I call a few days later and the gatekeeper is driving me crazy. Who are you? What are you? What do you want? I'm like, I was just talking to him. I was just there in the office a few days ago. He told me to call him. She drove me nuts. Let me talk to him.
Let me blah, blah, blah. Uh, well call him with whatever number he gave you. I'm like, well, this is the number I'm calling you with the number that he gave me. He, I mean, it was a she. It drove me crazy. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm not going to let this woman get to me. I have to get to him. And it was literally back and forth so many times.
And I don't know. I almost felt like saying how incompetent is this [00:21:00] person or is this like, like, is this her job? Like literally she just kept asking me more and more questions. And I kept explaining to her that he was the one who had asked me to call him. And she literally, like, I was like, can you at least just.
Send me to his voicemail. I just want to leave a voicemail. He asked me to get in touch with him. I just want to leave a voicemail of telling what it is that we discussed and then if and when he has an interest, he can call me back. And typically like it's such an like, like non threatening thing to do, go, go to voicemail or send an email.
And this woman, I'm telling you, it was a battle of the patience. Who's going to, am I going to have the patience to deal with her? Or am I going to, I literally wanted to shove the phone down and I said, but you know, it's tough. It's tough. My point is it's tough to deal with. Right. Gay people.
Leighann Lovely: Well, not only are you dealing with the gatekeeper, you, you go into a meeting and you think, wow, I had this great meeting [00:22:00] and you know, he's the CEO or he's the, you know, the president and then come to find out like, oh, well I don't actually make the decision.
I have a board of directors and then you go, so I've made this great relationship with a person who has absolutely no say. And then you, your proposal goes in front of people who have no. idea who you are. They have no emotional buy in to the relationship that you created with somebody, which means that you basically are a piece of paper and they're looking at the numbers.
They're comparing your numbers with the other proposals. They're looking at your, you know, and depending on what your, you know, your offer is, and, and anybody who out there we have a one of a kind offering. Nobody else has it. No, nothing else can do what we do. There's often something [00:23:00] out there that can do something similar.
I'm not, I'm not negating that there are products out there that are superior and that are coming out that are, especially in the AI world, Anna, I mean, having something that's patented in the AI world is, is, is an amazing thing to do. But people don't quite understand that right now. They don't know the capabilities.
So they're basically looking at. You know, all of these, you know, and I used to sell SaaS solutions. So they're looking at all these, you know, three proposals and they're going to go, okay, well, what's, and so the greatest advice that somebody gave me was, look, if they're going to buy on price, they're going to leave on price.
So you go in with your price and if they come back and negotiate and negotiate, negotiate, you get to a point where you're like, I'm walking away because in a year from now, you're going to leave [00:24:00] because you're found something that. is cheaper. And that, and that's what it comes down to. And I don't, I don't want a client like that.
I don't want a client who's going to come to me and say, yeah, let's come down on the price. Okay. Let's come down a little bit more, a little, a little bit. And in this negotiating for penny after penny, after a penny, if they're buying on price, not on relationship, not on the tools that you can offer or whatever that product.
They're going to leave you on
Anna Bruno: price. This is why you want to concentrate, concentrate on the why, not the product and the features of the product. You want to concentrate on what the product can do for you, right? What's the outcome? Should you purchase the product or purchase the service? What is the outcome that you're getting?
Why are you doing this? Not the how, not the features and the [00:25:00] benefits of the product, because like you said, everybody can compete with the different features, and anybody can compete with the price. And the other thing, the point that you made, if I spend time with, um, the CEO or a president, vice president of a company, then I realize, okay, he's not the final decision maker.
Uh, the most important thing that I can do for myself to make sure that this sale, the sale happens. And what I would suggest is to try to get in front of those decision makers, because like you said, you said something very important. You just become a piece of paper and people make a purchasing decisions.
Oftentimes it's a very emotional even in the B2B world, it's still an emotional decision. And if they know you, and they like you, they're much more likely to buy it from you. Even in the B2B. Just like in the B2C, so if you find yourself in a situation where, well, I spent all [00:26:00] this time and I said, you know, did this great rapport, I developed this relationship with this person, but oh, well, he's not, he's just, you know, going to give the paper to proposal to, um, a team of people, try you to do your best to your very best to get in front of those decision
Leighann Lovely: makers.
Right. And I'm going to assume that in the B2C world. That's probably not with a dating app. Um, I'm going to hope not with a dating app, but in the B2C world, you also are going to come up against, especially with larger purchases. I'm going to go talk to my husband before I move forward, you know, expect.
The knocking on the door of, hi, I'm with window company X, Y, Z, or with door and window or, or garage or carpeting company. I'm not going to, I'm not going to go and put my credit card down. You know, if, if that purchase gets over a thousand dollars, I'm not going to make a [00:27:00] decision on, on a purchasing of something for my home that is larger than a thousand dollars without going to my husband and saying.
Should we do this?
Anna Bruno: Well, that's one of the reasons why oftentimes, if you've seen like the sales process, oftentimes, especially with larger decisions, the one of the first questions or the hurdles to pass is you ask your potential, uh, client. Um, Are you the only decision maker or do you have to make this decision with your spouse?
And if the answer is I have to make the decision with my spouse, you don't go sit in front of them alone and then only in front of this person, you make sure you're in front of both of them at the same time. If that is the way they make their decisions for large purposes, for example, or else you're going to waste your time and they get to a point where the person really likes what you have to say, but they're going to say, well, now I'm going to go talk to my spouse.
And now they're going to tell, they're going to become the conduit, right? They're going to try to [00:28:00] sell everything that you told them, you know, from a professional to their spouse. Wouldn't it be better if you were the person who is selling the spouse? So I think it's a very good point you're making, uh, with especially the larger purchases.
You want to make sure you understand what their decision making process is, who is involved in that decision making process. Maybe it's not the spouse. Maybe it's the parent. Maybe it's somebody else who read this, figure it out, make sure that when you're spending your time pitching, make sure the right decision makers are in front of you.
Leighann Lovely: So, um, I purposely, you know, the last time I like buying a car, I will purposely go without my spouse or I'll send my husband without me so that, and then I'll have him call me and be like, okay, where are you in this process? Like how's it going? Do you really like the car? Blah, blah, blah. And then I'll say, okay, call me.
When you're ready to have me come [00:29:00] in and start really like the negotiation. And if we get to a deadlock where he's like, yeah, they're not coming down. This is like, I'll swoop in and be like, you know, honey, we're not doing this. We're not. And the last time we bought a car, I was able to get them to come down like a ridiculous amount, because I just walked in and said, wait, they're not going to match what you.
Like what you said. And they're like, Oh, my husband's like, yeah, no, they said they can't do it. And I'm like, okay, let's go. And they came down and matched. The amount and I'm like, I mean, and, and again, this is, you know, my years of sales experience and I also worked in my younger years at a car dealership understanding how much
Anna Bruno: percentages, because I think people would love to know percentages, what, what they could expect, like how much could a sales car, uh, Of course, the sales card, uh, salesman go down on the price.
Right.
Leighann Lovely: Well, nowadays with all [00:30:00] of the shortage and, and there's inflation on vehicles have been, I would have no idea anymore, but that is, I mean, I, every single car that I have ever bought, they have come down to the price that I'm like, I'm not paying anything over this. Um, I've like, I'm a master negotiator when it comes to buying cars, but it's been now quite a few.
Before the pandemic, before all of the shortages, before I, I remember one car dealership or one sales guy says to me, God, I feel like you just pretty much stole the car from me and, and he goes, and all of the swag, cause I walked out with like all of this, like swag and free a year of free oil changes.
And, but there, there is a way to, you know, to turn around those negotiations on the person. Um, to, to your advantage, you know, when it comes to that stuff and again, not on everything, you know, you can't walk into a, you [00:31:00] know, a, a
Anna Bruno: box, the secret to your success when it comes to dealing with the auto dealers or the salespeople in, uh,
Leighann Lovely: dealerships.
Well first of all, You know, they, they, they play this game of, I'm going to go talk to my finance manager. You know, this is going to be contingent on your credit rating. Well, first of all, I know my credit rating. I'm like, yep, I know my credit rating. I know that I'm approved at the highest rate. So there's no need for you to play a game of you might be approved for this.
You might be approved for that. I will be approved. For the highest credit rating, like, so I know all my financial information. So the games that they play with some of the people that come in, they don't work with me. They don't work with my husband. I know all of that information. So when they sales people, a lot of car dealers are in the back in the day, they, they played that game like, well, that price is for people who have the highest credit rating.
We don't [00:32:00] know. And I'm like, yep. No, that's not a problem. I have. That credit rating. So that's not a problem. So let's eliminate that off the table and let's talk about, you know, X, Y, Z, you know, and that's usually the salesperson's kind of like, well, well, we don't know that we'll have to run your credit. No, I already know it.
You can go run my credit. You can go tell your finance guy to run it. I already know what it is. You know, so you need to take back control from the person who's trying to play. Cause they do, they play these games of. Well, I don't know, it's probably going to be this because and so when they're playing games and for me, you know, the first time I did this, I, I walked in to the dealership and I said, I will buy a car from you today, but this is how much you have to give me for my car.
And they're like, [00:33:00] uh, that's a really specific number. And I said, yep, I'll buy a car from you today. Or I walk, but this is what you're giving me for my vehicle. And they're like, I, we, I don't, I don't know if we can do that. I'm like, okay, great. Either you do or you don't, but I'll move on. And within about 20 minutes, they came back and they said, yeah, we can do that.
And I
Anna Bruno: said, Well, the difference is because most people, uh, again, going back to emotional purchase, most people look at a car. Almost like fall in love with a car, they emotionally get attached to the purchase. And then it's very difficult to negotiate from a point of view having emotional connection to the purchase.
You have to go in very cold, very cold and say, I'm ready to walk out if I don't get my price. And it does. It doesn't. Um, only relate to the cars, but in anything that you purchase in life, whether it's real estate or cars or anything else, you have to leave [00:34:00] the emotions at the door. Otherwise you're in big trouble.
Leighann Lovely: And for me, it's very unemotional because I'm not, I don't care. I'm like, I'm not one of those people's like, I have to drive the fanciest car in the world. I drive a Mazda. I don't need to drive a fancy car. I don't need to be That's not my, like, my showpiece thing. Now, when I bought my house, it was really hard to keep my emotions under control because I wanted the house I bought.
The good thing is, is that the real estate agent that I had kept You know, me blocked from that. They kept, you know, you got to keep the emotions out of it. You got it. And I was like, huh, I don't know how, but you know, again, having a really good real estate agent was like, you know, you set your price, this is how we're going to negotiate this way.
And I'm like, okay, okay, okay. And I, and it, that turned out, but again, you're right. As the [00:35:00] buyer, especially a purchase like a car, because you are walking in, they already know you want to buy. As soon as you engage with the salesperson and say, I'm ready to buy, they've got you on the hook. It's, I mean, it's not like you can go, I don't know, you've already, like, I want to drive this car.
Now you're driving the car and now they're talking you up. Like, how does it feel? Does it feel great? Do you like it? They're engaging you. And they're getting those juices, those, those emotions. You need to be willing to go, yeah, I can walk. And it's even harder now with the shortages and everything else, but it's got to be completely non emotional.
Anna Bruno: This is why they make you go take a test run, right? Take a test drive of the car because again, you're in a car, you're driving it. I even had a jewelry, uh, friend, um, family, uh, A friend of our family who [00:36:00] owns a jewelry store and he not to everybody, of course, but the people that he knew, like, uh, he would give his rings to certain women to wear for free.
For a week or 10 days or two weeks, and then more often than not, they would end up buying the jewelry. Even if they initially said, no, no, no, I don't need another ring. I don't need another piece of jewelry. I have enough. And then you're like, okay, just wear it and then just give it back. And then I would say a high percentage of the people would end up buying the jewelry.
It's because it's an emotional decision.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Because they become emotionally attached to the way it makes them feel. So I, you know, this has been an amazing, um, conversation and I would love to continue it, but we are coming to time. I want to give you the opportunity to, you know, give you your 32nd pitch.
Um, anything it's. You're the floor is open to you. So go ahead and, you know, have your 30 seconds.
Anna Bruno: Well, I would say is, you know, being the [00:37:00] business development, um, uh, you know, being in charge of, uh, vice president of business development for Iris dating. I would definitely say, try out Iris dating. It's a one of a, uh, one of a kind app.
It is powered by AI and it can do many, many different things for you. Save you time. Save you, um, you know, uh, take out the emotions out of the picture because it's going to help, especially for men to, um, take out the fear of rejection because oftentimes we don't approach people because we think we're not good enough.
So it's an amazing app. It's powered by a out a I and it's capable of matching you with your true attraction. The person that you truly attracted to. But it goes a step further because it finds for people with mutual attraction. So give it a try and come back and let me know what you think
Leighann Lovely: about it.
Awesome. Again, [00:38:00] um, that's Anna Bruno. Um, you can find her on LinkedIn. Yes.
Anna Bruno: So you can find me on LinkedIn, Anna Bruno and, uh, Thrive Armenia  Foundation. That's my charity. Uh, of course, you know, all of my social handles are get skills with Anna Bruno because I teach a lot of different skills. So if you want to follow me, it's get skills with Anna Bruno on all different social media accounts.
And thank you again. It was lovely. It was fun. And hopefully we can do this again.
Leighann Lovely: Excellent. Yes. Um, I really appreciate it. Um, again, thank you for listening to another episode of love your sales. Really appreciate the audience support and have a wonderful day.
Anna Bruno: Thank you very much. Bye.
Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
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Creating Personalized Experiences = Customers for Life

Kat Morrow, a seasoned sales professional with 30 years of experience in the Jewelry industry shares her insights into the art of selling. She emphasizes the importance of building authentic relationships with clients rather than focusing solely on transactions. Kat's passion for her work and her deep knowledge of gemstones shine through as she explains how she strives to create a personalized and joyful experience for each customer. She also discusses the power of referrals and the value of treating every customer, regardless of their budget, with the same level of care and attention. Kat's expertise and genuine love for her product make her an exceptional salesperson who goes above and beyond for her clients.
Contact Kat -
Website - https://katmorrow.com/
Phone – 414-403-8700
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/kat-morrow-a6ab196/
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I have Kat Morrow joining me today. Kat has 30 years in sales. She is the former owner and CEO of Robert Hack Diamond, where she spent 20 years there. She is a graduate, with a gemologist degree from GIA, currently she's the owner and CEO of Kat Morrow, private gemologist, specializing in procuring fine diamonds and jewelry, [00:02:00] custom designing and jewelry appraising for private clients.
And she loves. Diamonds Kat. Welcome. I'm so excited to have you join me today.
Kat Morrow: Oh, good morning, Leighann. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I'm excited for your business and to share my love of, um,
Leighann Lovely: jewelry and my love of sales. Yeah. And I find, um, I find what first diamonds I loved. What woman doesn't love diamonds?
Kat Morrow: right. I'll run into someone, but then maybe they love color gems. So that's
Leighann Lovely: okay too. , right. If, if I had, um, if I had the money, I would turn my, um, it would turn my little, my little fake necklace here that I, I made myself into a, a real diamond around my neck. But, um, I, you can make it happen. Yeah. for free.
No, I'm just kidding. Yeah. One day. Hey, one day. [00:03:00] So I, I'm wildly interested in the how. , selling and working in this industry, , works because as we were just kind of talking, this is a very different type of sale because there is a lot of emotion associated with sometimes large, well, even small, even small purchases.
Let's, let's first talk about, you know, just in general, how do you work with and engage? Your clients.
Kat Morrow: Okay. Well, I think the biggest thing is, is that we have to be authentic in what we do. And so, um, the type of sales that I do, as you mentioned, is very emotional purchase. It's something that people. Um, you know, they want an experience with it's not just, uh, very rarely an impulse buy when they're buying an [00:04:00] engagement ring or an anniversary or, you know, for some special occasion or even buying for themselves personally.
Um, they want to, you know, have. Have an emotional attachment. There's a feeling that goes along with that decision because they're buying something of value of, you know, lasting value that hopefully they're going to enjoy for many, many years and then pass on to someone else and, you know, important in their life.
And so, um, you know, the approaches that, um, you know, I'm. I've always focused on being very relationship focused versus transactional. So this is not a transactional type of sale at all. This is something where you have to, um, you know, build that trust with the customer and, you know, maybe you don't make the sale on the first, um, meeting with the client, but.
You know, if you've taken the time to really learn [00:05:00] about them, their interest, it's, it's kind of like really in, in most type of sales, you have to do a lot of, um, legwork to find out exactly, you know, what's the occasion, what's the purpose, you know, how, you know, you know, I don't even approach budget in the beginning because I really want to find out all about them and the person that they're giving this to.
And, you know, why they are deciding to, um, gift or purchase jewelry for this particular type of occasion. So that's, you know, that's really important is just getting to know your client and, and they have to know that you really have a direct interest in, you know, their life, their purpose, not just, you know, what can I sell you?
So if that makes sense.
Leighann Lovely: It absolutely makes sense. So, you know, there's a common thread when I talk to, you know, to everybody, it's, it's one, you have to show up, right? You have, and, and I don't say [00:06:00] literally walking in the door and showing up, you, you as the salesperson have to show up emotionally, mentally, physically, you, you have to be there.
Mm hmm. And then really engage to get this information. Right. But it seems to me that there is another layer to this, that, you know, we, when you walk into a business, there's very much a gathering of the facts. And that purchase is, while there is emotion involved, they, they want to have a good, happy feeling when you walk away.
There is a fact, factual, you know, does this meet all my boxes? And they're walking away going, okay, let's, let's compare and contrast on a factual, logical [00:07:00] basis. Whereas, I'm not, I'm going to guess cause I, I have never sold diamonds. I've never sold something that somebody is going to stare at, look at, have, feel, get a feeling from, you know, I'm married.
I got my engagement ring. I look at it every day and when I look at it invokes an emotion in me. Yeah, absolutely. Which means that the person who's buying this from you wants to invoke that emotion. Right. So when they're buying it, they're going, those boxes are so different. And the experience that they're going through when they're working with you.
It's not logical the way that most, [00:08:00] yes, there is some logic involved. You made a, you're right,
Kat Morrow: but it's more emotional than just, you know, I mean there is a compare and contrast, especially if they're buying a particular size or quality diamond or whatever. But in general, it's, it's very more of the gut feeling, their intuition, their instinct.
Yes. So how do you play
Leighann Lovely: to that? Yes. And maybe that's the wrong word. I don't know. How do you,
Kat Morrow: I think that's, that's, that's actually, yeah. How do you, you know, kind of hone in on that and capitalize on, you know, getting, getting on that level with them. And, you know, I guess, you know, to back it up a little bit, I have to say that, you know, I'm not an expert in sales, but I know.
What, what works for me and what works for my client. And that's through many years of, of kind of trial and error and perfecting all of that. Um, but I think, you know, the, the best way to describe it is that you have to go [00:09:00] into any interaction with a client, whether it's the type of selling I do or business to business with a hundred percent.
Um, passion and confidence in what you're doing, because if you don't believe in your own product or service, if you don't, um, you know, believe in yourself that you have, you know, the best ability to present and to deliver to that client, um, then, you know, you're, you're not going to operate from any kind of integrity or authenticity.
Because I love diamonds and jewelry so much. I don't think I could do as well selling, you know, computers or things that that don't have, that don't resonate with me as much, but I've always loved jewelry from like little on. , so. You know that it's like I love my product. I love my diamonds. I love my jewelry.
I love looking at them. I [00:10:00] love appraising them. I love trying them on. I love putting them on my clients for them to try on and and I love educating them about it. And that that's because
I have such a deep seated passion and love for my my product and my services. So. I think that authenticity comes across to my clients, and then that puts them more of in a relaxed state because they know that I'm not just trying to sell them anything.
I'm trying to sell them the thing that's going to be Lighting up their eyes, just like when you look at your engagement ring every day and love that. I want them to, you know, love and cherish their jewelry for many years to come. So that comes from my passion imparting that on to clients and then, you know, getting them excited and, you know, bringing in some technical things, but, you know, just [00:11:00] trying to keep it,, fun and asking them, you know, how do you feel?
Try the sun, you know. How does this make you feel? How do, how do you look in this? What, what do you think? And so, you know, it's, it's quite different than, um, you know, like I said, the transactional of doing business to business. You got to keep the conversation going. You have to keep it very, very personal and, you know, but knowing your boundaries, obviously.
Um, but I think the more clients trust you, the more they're going to open up to you. So, um, I think we're all,
Natural born salespeople, believe it or not, some people say, Oh, I don't know how to sell or I don't, I don't love selling. But when you think about it, you're, we're all, um, we're all salespeople.
We sell ourselves every day and in so many different situations. And so when you're when you're focused in on working with a client, and you know, whatever business you're in, you have to realize that You [00:12:00] do this every day, you know, you are a salesperson every day. And so now you're just bringing that culmination of all your knowledge and experiences and care and concern for your customers, you know, to find the best thing for them.
So I think once they know that, , then it's easy for them to kind of let down their guard a little bit and share, you know, what is motivating them to buy. Does that make sense? It
Leighann Lovely: absolutely does. And I got completely wrapped up in what you were saying, because it's just listening to you. And, I can tell and see.
 The passion that you have, I mean, it's, it's, and if you're just listening to this podcast, I mean, if you, if you, if you jump on and you watch, you know, this right now, the clip of, of Kat talking about her passion for, , you know, for diamonds and jewelry, it's, it's, it's amazing. I can see it [00:13:00] in. In your the way that you're talking about it.
It's unbelievable. Um, there's no denying how much you enjoy what you do. And I'm going to guess that that comes out, you know, I'm ready to buy. What do you have? Yeah, well,
Kat Morrow: you know what you mean? You talked earlier about preparing yourself to, you know, coming into the right mindset. Now that just doesn't mean, you know, mentally preparing yourself like, okay, I know my, I know my products, I know my services.
Yeah. You have to, you have to physically, emotionally, and spiritually prepare yourself as the salesperson. You have to, you know, show up in a certain way because let's face it. There's, there's, there are competitors out there and that's okay. We all actually can be, um, you know, motivated by having a little competition too, but if you don't show up.
You know, with, with joy, with energy, with life [00:14:00] in your voice, you know, with, with, um, you know, just looking your best. Okay. And that doesn't mean that we always have to wear the most expensive things or be in the best physical shape or whatever, but if you've put in some effort to make yourself show up in the best possible light to your customer, that sets you apart from your competition right there.
And they feel like if you've taken the time to put that much care into yourself to mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally prepare yourself, then They're going to take care of, they, they feel like I'm going to take care of them in the same way, if that makes sense to you, is that I want to share my, my space with them and pull, pull them into that as
Leighann Lovely: well.
So, absolutely. I mean, there, there, there have been people who have, [00:15:00] who, I've walked away feeling bad that I can't buy from, from somebody because they've put forth so much effort and they've done such an amazing job at the presentation or the pitch or the right. And it's not even the presentation or pitch.
Well, it is. It is. You just don't realize that it's their pitch, which is when you, when you realize that you're sitting across the table from somebody who is the greats. When you've been, when you've been pitched and you go, wait a second, did they just completely and totally pitch me and I want to buy from them and that that's when you know that you're sitting across the table from somebody who has reached a level beyond.
Great. Because you're like, I mean, all, everything in you goes, I want to buy from this person and I'm going to find a way to do it. And then you walk away [00:16:00] and eventually when you either can buy or when you do buy, the only person you think of.
Kat Morrow: Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. I can't tell you how many of my clients become my, my, my friends, like my family, because you know, we, we do connect on such a, a deeply personal level because of the emotion and this type of buying.
And it's, it's joyful, you know, because, um, because then I know they're going to refer people to me or that I'm going to get future business out of them or whatever. And I've been in that situation too, where I've maybe not been in a position where I could buy from someone that I connected with, like, like you just described, but then maybe you refer someone to them.
You just give them a good review or you do something to reward them for, you know, being such, such an exceptional person. So.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Well, that's, that's, that's absolutely amazing. Yeah. [00:17:00]
Kat Morrow: You know, I have to tell you, I love the name of your company, which is love your sales. Because if you, if you love your sales, that's another way of saying love yourself.
Because if you don't love yourself and what you're doing and your product, and you don't believe in yourself. You cannot project yourself properly to your customers. So you, you've got to love the industry or in the business that you're in. I mean, you know, even if I always tell people we are all CEOs, like sometimes they'll say, what do you mean?
I don't own a business, but we're the CEOs of ourselves. We are our own brand. And so, you know, what is the brand that you're presenting to your clients? And what I'm presenting to my clients is, you know, that I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that they're happy, the [00:18:00] gift giver is, or the gift receiver is happy, and I'm going to go out and procure something for them, like I was doing it for myself or for my own family, because each person is important to me.
And it doesn't matter if they're spending, and this is key too. You have to treat the person that's spending a thousand dollars the same as you would treat the person who's spending thirty thousand dollars because you don't know that they couldn't refer someone to you that's, um, you know, going to buy something more expensive or whatever.
But to me, it's like, Part of that relationship building that thousand dollar customer. That's as important a sale to them as it is for the person who's buying something more expensive. So to me, it's, it's no difference. I'm, I'm treating everybody with the same level. And I, I have to tell you, I used, I, I don't like the.
Um, the expression under promise and over deliver [00:19:00] that's kind of, you know, like a main stages under promise. And then when you deliver great, they're really going to be grateful. No, you, you promise that the level that, you know, that you can deliver. I never under promise. I mean, if I can over promise and I'm already up here, that's great.
But I never under promise. Like I know what my value is and my worth is, and you know, the product and the service that I can deliver. So I set my expectations super high. And then if I go over and above that, then that's, that's a job well done.
Leighann Lovely: So that's amazing. Yeah. Now, now you made a comment that I, um, so, and here's something, you know, the referral, you treat the customer who buys a thousand dollars the same as you treat a customer that buys 30, 000.
And this is something that I often hear like in networking and people who will be selective in who [00:20:00] they. Um, talk with or meet with or schedule their time with, which I can understand people who, but here's, here's something that you, with what you said, it is vitally important that treating everybody, a customer, a buying customer, a non buying customer, you know, and, and this I'm going to refer back to, um, I was at a networking meeting and somebody goes, well, you know, the, the Mary Kay lady said that she wanted to do a one on one with me.
Why would I meet with the Mary Kay? Lady. And I'm like, because the Mary Kay lady knows absolutely everybody. And she will introduce you to everybody. She's a master networker. In fact, she could be sitting in front of the wife of the CEO of [00:21:00] the largest company in Milwaukee. Right. And, and I, I can't stand it when people discount.
others for what they think they're valued at. Right. And it, it absolutely drives me wild. I understand, you know, scheduling your time. We can't meet with everybody. Right. We still have to do the work. But you, the idea that a salesperson would discount somebody's value without ever taking the time to get to know somebody, that is vitally important to your success.
Right. Mm hmm. Thanks. Right. And could ultimately damage you. Right. If you are discounting people because you are choosing or saying that outright, that well, that person's only [00:22:00] going to spend 50. Why would I want to waste my time? Because that person who spends 50 could have or could know somebody that could spend 100, 000.
Right. Right. Right. Well, it's a
Kat Morrow: person who doesn't value relationship building then they're looking strictly for the here and now and that's short term gain and long term loss.
Leighann Lovely: So right. And so I love that you made the point to say, Oh, I, I treat each customer the same. It doesn't matter. Because that is, that is the key to having your referral base and, and, and trust me, I'm not a 30, 000 buyer.
I am your, I am your 1, 000, your 1, 000 to 3, 000 buyer who's [00:23:00] like, uh, that doesn't mean that I don't have friends who have 50, 000 rings on their finger. Right. And, you know, again, and this goes back to
having a army. An army of people out there that when they say, Oh, you know, I'm, I'm considering buying a gift for somebody. or especially of a certain age. If you have, you know, a whole bunch of people in the late twenties, early thirties, is that the general marriage age now? I'm not a hundred percent sure.
Kat Morrow: Yeah, actually. Yeah. Mid to mid to late twenties for engagements, um, been into early thirties, a little later than it used to be. It is. It
Leighann Lovely: is later than it used to be. You have a whole ton of referrals in that [00:24:00] age range, right? I mean, even if you just have 30 people that you made really happy. They refer one person, that person refers a second person that refers a second person refers a sec.
That could make or break your year. Oh yeah.
Kat Morrow: And you have to always reward those people that refer to you in some way or another. It doesn't always have to be a. You know, a gift card or, you know, it has to be at least a thank you, a call to say, Hey, that's really awesome that you, you know, send someone over to me, you know, you've got to acknowledge that, you know, and, um, and, and then make sure that you follow, follow up with all those referrals and those leads.
I mean, you know, the key is in. You know, just, you know, staying not hovering over people, but you've, you've got to, you've got to reach out and you've got to stay in contact with people and things like that and have proper follow through. But always think those people [00:25:00] that are referring to you, they're golden.
Um, you know, some of my best referrals have been from smaller sales or people that I haven't even charged for anything that I've done. Um, things just gratis because whatever I didn't. feel it was appropriate to charge because it was a quick thing or, um, or something. And it seems like I get great referrals and, and Google reviews from those type of people that are just happy that they thought that their purchase or their referral or their question was small, but it wasn't small to me.
It's all important because, um, Because they didn't know the answer to the question and I did. And so I was happy to be able to provide that service or that information to them.
Leighann Lovely: So, you know, and sometimes that is the, is the most important thing. Somebody comes to you and you're like, Oh, I can help you with that.
And you quickly, it takes you 10 minutes. [00:26:00] It would have taken them two hours. Right. And they are completely grateful. For your help and they go and give you a review because of something that you didn't even think of like you, you were like, Oh, yeah, that's I can get you that information or I can help you with that really quick.
And for you, because you're in your industry. It's, it's, you don't even think like, Oh yeah, I can. And all of a sudden for them, it means the world, right? And they turn around and they're like, Oh my God, that she saved me like three hours or four hours of research and floundering around. And that happens to me all the time where I'll reach out to somebody and I'm like, I'm completely a perfect example.
I was trying to change, legally change my business name. I have been working on it for a month. Okay. And I talked to a tax accountant and he goes, here's [00:27:00] what you do. I went and I followed his instructions. It took me 15 minutes. There you go. I'm like, what's the, I've been working on this and it was like, Oh, well this was really easy.
It's like, because there are people out there who know. Like, they just know that's their area of genius,
Kat Morrow: right? And so they're happy to gift you with that and, um, you know, that's, you'll remember that person, you know, and refer clients to that, that particular accountant. Absolutely.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. He specializes in business.
You know, in that particular area of businesses and he understands how all of that stuff works. And I was like, well, maybe I should have just gone and asked somebody like, and those are the things that may make or break businesses of being able [00:28:00] to gift. Information that become now, Kat, how much of your business is referral?
Kat Morrow: Well, um, I would say a good percentage now when I had the jewelry store, when I own the jewelry store, I did, um, a lot of advertising, you know, traditional, uh, television, radio, newspaper way back when, um, because we were talking about in the nineties and early two thousands. And so. Um, I relied a lot on people walking through the door, but now that I have my, you know, private business, I don't have a physical store location.
I work in person with people online. Um, and so a lot of my business, I would say at least 50 percent of it comes from, you know, referrals or former clients. And, you know, I mean, I still do social media. I still I still do, you know, events where I do vendor tables at country clubs. I hold trunk shows. I try to [00:29:00] do different things to get my name out there.
You know, this is a perfect example doing this podcast, which I'm so appreciative of. Um, but I just, I'm trying to. Show people that there's a different way of doing business, you know, especially since covid. So many things went remote and there were actually a lot of jewelers who closed their stores and went to more of a, you know, private by appointment like I do, but I feel like now I can even focus in a little better on my clients because I'm not so scattered running all these aspects of my business administratively and I can focus just on.
The relationships with my clients and finding the best, you know, products and services for them. And so, um, and I can offer it at a, you know, a smart, smarter spend because I don't have all that overhead and I don't have all that, you know, kind of stress and chaos going on. And so I think because I deliver that real [00:30:00] personalized attention, you know, people are loving giving me those referrals.
So, and I'm so appreciative of
Leighann Lovely: that. Well, that's amazing. And we're coming to time. So here's your, you know, shameless 30 seconds. How do people reach out to you? You know, again, your business name, give all of the, the short and skinny on if somebody does want to schedule an appointment with you, go ahead and give us that information.
Well,
Kat Morrow: you know, I always invite people to visit my website because I think it's a, it's a really great informative, um, website. Uh, it's katmorrow. com, basically my name, K A T M O R R O W, katmorrow. com. On there, you can chat with me, you can schedule an appointment on my calendar with me. You can at least see all the different services and things that I offer in the products.
And I would say, um, you know. I don't care what your question is, what your need is, you know, let me try to help you with all of your jewelry needs, [00:31:00] whether it's, you know, buying a diamond, selling something, because sometimes you get jewelry that you inherited, you don't even know if it's real or not, I can help you go through that.
I can help you sell it. You know, there's a lot of different services as a gemologist that I can do. So, um, Or my phone number. You can call me at, uh, 414 403 8700. But all that information is on my website. So just go there and, um, I'm happy to chat.
Leighann Lovely: Amazing. Kat, again, the, your insight has been so much appreciated.
Um, I really appreciate you coming on today. It's been an awesome conversation.
Kat Morrow: Well, I appreciate you, Leighann. Thank you for doing what you do and giving me this opportunity and, you know, I hope that it, it helps someone, um, you know, maybe just one little thing is triggered in their mind and, you know, if anybody's in the sales industry that wants to connect with me also just to, you know, so we can kind of share because I'm learning from other [00:32:00] people too, you know, you're never too old to learn.
I've always been a, you know, a curious cat, I say, because Oh. And I want to learn more things too. So I'm appreciative of connecting with other people in sales as well. Awesome. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much.
Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio –
https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 

Understanding Motivations behind Conversations

Join Meg Schmitz and I for another amazing conversation as we dive into importance of building relationships and understanding the motivations behind the conversation. She shared her unique approach to problem-solving to understand the underlying goals and needs of the other party. Meg emphasizes that everyone is in sales, and building a relationship based on trust is crucial for success. By ensuring that the other party believes in the intention of solving their problem, closing deals and achieving desired outcomes becomes easier.
Contact Meg Schmitz
Website – https://megschmitz.com/
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/megschmitz/
Podcast – Free Agent - https://megschmitz.com/podcast/
 
Leighann Lovely: Meg. I'm so excited to have you here today with me.
Meg Schmitz: Thank you, Leighann for having me on today.
Leighann Lovely: Yes. So Meg Schmidt is joining me. She is the founder of take the leap. Franchising Meg is a 30 plus year veteran in the world of franchising sales, which is really a matchmaking for both franchising companies and future owners for Meg selling is not a job.
It is an art form of listening and understanding the [00:02:00] goal of both sides to ensure that no one is pressured and everyone wins. You also, um, are often referred to as the franchise fashionista. I am. Awesome. Well, again, I'm so excited to have you here and talk about sales.
Meg Schmitz: Yeah, let's talk about sales. I, it's something that I graduated from college thinking I would never do because I graduated from college with a degree in counseling.
And then I, I did an internship, this is really interestingly, and I did an intern internship at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago on the psych ward and it scared the heck out of me. Certifiably really crazy. And so I thought, Hmm, maybe there's another way I can monetize this. And so for a lot of us who have a degree like that, going into sales then creates an art form of sorts where it's, it's very [00:03:00] similar to therapy.
Leighann Lovely: I it's so funny because as you're saying this, I'm thinking, well, half the time I'm a salesperson and half the time I'll go into a meeting and as you're going through the discovery, Because what we're asking questions that bring people to their pain points, bring people to their, their need and depending on what kind of sales you're in, that can be a heavy load.
For somebody to, to talk about it, you know, depending on the subject, especially if you're going into a large organization, who's like, oh, I need to fix this with my H. R. process or my computer. And often you become the, the counselor that, or the trusted advisor. That they literally just unload on and you walk out going, Oh, that was, that was a lot.
Meg Schmitz: Yeah, but it's getting them to trust that you have something that they, they [00:04:00] know they need. And we can talk about price and what happens with that negotiation, but, um, getting. Getting past the formality of sitting across the table from each other and starting to ask those counseling questions. So why are we having this conversation?
Why, why did you invite me in today? What, what kind of problems are you noting? And have you tried any other alternative? You know, all the questions to ask, but you start to get the other person or parties to be honest about why this is a pain point. And then you know, too, with Simon Sinek and why it starts with, so what do you do?
Oh, how did you get to do that? Or how do you do that? And then there's the, the essence of it is why do you do that? So why, why are we having this conversation is one of my favorite questions to ask.
Leighann Lovely: And so when you ask that question, [00:05:00] what do you find is the,
is there a default answer that people go to, or is that something that really opens up? I mean, because that's obviously an open ended question. Why, why are we having this conversation? What, what is it that you need
Meg Schmitz: from me? My own business therapist likes to ask the question, so what's your problem? Talk about open ended and it's a great question to ask.
So what's your problem? Versus my approach is very much softer. So why are we having this conversation? They know that there's something they need. They need brochures. They need signs made. They need a new bus to take people to a. Um, whatever to get people off campus and going to and from event event planners, they have to ask those questions all the time.
So why are we having this conversation? What do you want to accomplish? And we're all in sales. We're all in sales. And [00:06:00] the easiest way to clinch the sale is to have a relationship dynamic with the other party that they trust. Our efforts are in the best intention of solving their problem. And that's, that's how to get the dollars in the deal.
Leighann Lovely: Okay, so I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a moment, Meg. So you ask me, or I, I'm your salesperson. I come in and I say, okay, so Meg, why are we having this problem? And you, your answer, well, Leighann, um, I need XYZ. As that salesperson, my next go to is, oh, great Meg. I can solve that problem. Here's my solution.
Meg Schmitz: Sometimes you need to dig and dig and dig a little bit more before volunteering that you have the answer. I I like to do [00:07:00] that, to get them to open up further. And so right before when we hit record on this, you asked me about something that I know very well. And so if I were to put on that hat and say, and I did this with a young man, actually, I've been working with him for two years.
We've all had this, where they're not ready to pull the trigger, the time isn't right, the money isn't in order, um, corporate isn't saying yes at this time of year because we're in budget shutdown. Okay, why are we having the conversation right now? Have you, have you talked to other vendors about this?
What solutions has anyone else come up with, or what have you already paid for? That he's like, Oh man, that was a waste of money. That was a waste of time. Give me some background on this whole problem and what types of solutions you have sought out already. Then, then you're in the cat bird seat and can say, okay, yeah.
I have a [00:08:00] solution for you based on everything that you've just said to me. I can save you the time and aggravation and fill in the blank of whatever they said their, their yuck was, but asking more questions about what they've already done to, to talk to other companies in the product or service wasn't the right thing.
That's why they're talking to you is that they're, they're still searching.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And do you think that that is a symptom of some of the older generation of offering a solution to, and maybe it's not a generational thing or a training thing or, and it's probably a training thing, but do you think that that is why there are a lot of misses in sales?
Meg Schmitz: To me in preparation for this. I was thinking about you yesterday and I was thinking about the different techniques that I as a 60-year-old who's been in sales since I was 24, when I graduated from college at 22, so I've been in sales since I [00:09:00] was 22 there. There definitely are different approaches.
There's Zig Ziglar and there's, I mean, go down the generational list of books, , the Self-help books on sales, right. Not only do younger people and I'm working with three couples right now that are 40 and under their approach is different from my standard approach. So I find myself every day just trying to twisting a bit so that I'm, I'm adapting more to their style.
Let's call it that. I do think that there are generational style differences.
Leighann Lovely: And in those generational styles, do you think that and yes, there's definitely,
as the younger come in and here's what I love is being a salesperson is that I can learn from the older salespeople's approaches. I can learn from people who are my age and I can [00:10:00] learn from the younger generation coming in because there is just fresh blood and they have these. I'm like, wow, that's a really good technique that I never thought of the in sales.
It's a constant. You can learn from. Every single age person that comes in with these new techniques and not that you can't, you know, in other industries, but, you know, accounting, it's like, well, it's pretty black and white, like, this is the way that you do things and trying to change processes. It's much more difficult to do because it has been proven to, to work this way.
They're not as adaptable, but in sales and in certain industries, it's like, wow, you can pivot really quickly and figure out like this new approach works. This new approach works. Like the robocalls don't work. Why haven't we figured that out? This is, I know it's maybe a little bit new, but it. As soon as I hear a robocall, I hang up on [00:11:00] you.
Anyways, I digress. Um, I get like eight of them a day, which I, I absolutely, I love, but there are core skills that have through and through throughout history just worked in sales and more recent years. I think that we have figured out that
in your words of what you kind of wrote to me prior to this. Embracing your solution, being who you are, has become the
10 to 1, yes, the absolute difference. So I guess my question to you is, you had mentioned we're, we're all selling, but what is the difference between a great seller [00:12:00] and a mediocre?
Meg Schmitz: I could make so many analogies and I'll, I'll start in a second, but I think that listening active listening, caring. So why is this a problem?
Why, why hasn't it been solved yet? With that knit brow and the care and concern in the face and, um, the, there, I think in sales. Unlike accounting where it's standard, knowing the opposition, knowing, knowing the age, knowing as much as you can find out about the person sitting across from you, how old, if you're selling to a 72 year old that, and I'm 60, that's different from selling to someone who's 32, you have to know who the other, who the opposition is and one of the, one of the best tools.
Out there, [00:13:00] I think people don't fully utilize is LinkedIn, because You're putting in information that your colleagues will call you out on if, if your LinkedIn profile isn't correct versus what you put in a resume, for example, that you can put anything you want in a resume, but what goes in your LinkedIn will scroll down, read more about the 10 different past positions, read more about the.
Different affiliations, the six degrees of separation, the six degrees of Kevin Bacon were all related somehow you can really make a conversation start with 98 percent of the people out there. If you're good at your job and and are learning about who you're going to meet with ahead of time. It's not a cold call then, then it's a warm conversation.
That's such a key differentiator. I used to do cold calls all the time. We didn't have tools like we have now to do recon on people on [00:14:00] the internet. You can learn so much.
Leighann Lovely: Well, and that, I mean, you, you absolutely hit it on the head. Like the, I mean, the no like and trust factor, if you can come in with relatability.
Um, having some, and that's as, as a new salesperson coming in, especially, you know, they're like, wow, how do I, how do I connect with these, especially as a new young salesperson coming in when you don't have a, you know, 20 year or 15 year history of, of, you know, Oh, I know that author, or I know I recognize that name when you don't have that bucket to pull from of, and I remember being.
You know, new to sales where I was like, I have no idea what these people are talking about. And I feel like I should like, but that's that world, the experience, that learned experience where you're like, how do I, how do I, how do I jump on the bandwagon that everybody else seems to be on in this room, but I'm [00:15:00] completely lost.
And that's where it is of know your audience, know what room you're walking into. Are you walking into a young professionals? Or are you walking into a heavy hitter? These people are all above the age of 40, have 20 years of experience, are all, you know, high level, it doesn't mean you shouldn't walk in that room.
It just means that you should walk in that room a little bit different. And don't act like you don't belong.
Meg Schmitz: Oh, well, and that gets to a phrase that's very common these days. And people are definitely afraid of the imposter syndrome. We've all been imposters our entire lives. We have not known, we have not known how to do something.
We've not had a knowledge base. And so from the minute we were born, we were accumulating experience. So we've all been imposters our entire life. When I gave birth to my son 33 years ago, he did not know that I'd never done this [00:16:00] before. I was an imposter. I
Leighann Lovely: never thought about that before. You're right.
When my, my daughter looks up at me like, mommy, what am I, what am I supposed to do? And I looked at her and go. Well, you're supposed to do this. And in my brain, I'm thinking, I have no idea what you're supposed to
Meg Schmitz: do. So we've all been there. I remember my first job, I was selling temporary services in downtown Chicago.
And I remember walking into a building across the street. I had a territory that was right there at state and Madison. And so I go up into an office. building. I remember this one guy saying, why should I buy from you? You're no different from manpower or what's the difference? And I remember saying nothing.
I remember being so caught off guard that I was embarrassed and you know, and he was Kind enough to say, I can see that [00:17:00] you're embarrassed, but don't be embarrassed. You're young and this is probably your first job. I said, well, it's actually my first week of my first new job.
And he, he was so kind about it, but it helped me to realize that. Yeah, we're all going to go into phases in our life, whether it's a job or a relationship or something where you don't know. And, and the softer approach is if you're in a networking situation, just to sit back and listen and learn and don't be afraid to confess that you're brand new.
It, it is, I remember a different sales experience where. I was absolutely humiliated out of my mind by the guy whose office I was sitting in, and he walked me out. Don't call him my company again. I was so mortified. I'm, I'm like the most right person. I don't do wrong. I do right things. And there had been something that, [00:18:00] that obviously ticked him off about, I think it was some of the reconnaissance I had done at the office about what other departments in his company had done before hiring temporary services.
And I called out a dollar amount. And that's, that's what got him is that somehow I'd done more research and it maybe caught him off guard, but it humiliated me and said, don't come back. I could get into the details to make it more clear what the whole scenario was. It doesn't really matter. Sometimes we get humiliated.
Sometimes we get the benefit of someone who's willing to say it's okay. But if you're going into sales. toughen up because you're going to get crazy stuff flung at you. And half the time you're going to have to tap dance and say, I don't know, but the best answer is I will get back to you on that versus trying to make something up.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. It is better to tell somebody that you don't know the answer than to, to make something [00:19:00] up
or You know, and here's the thing in today's world. If somebody were to act like that and escort you out, you should not be ashamed or you should not be embarrassed. They should be ashamed of themselves because that behavior it's, it, it should not happen. Salespeople do their job. They're told to do that.
You know, they're under a pressure. By the company to meet a certain quota, they're going to go out. They're going to do that quota. Now, unless obviously the salesperson walks in and does something egregious or says something to, you know, humiliate or whatever it might be. But that and I got, I, I made this mistake.
This was truly a mistake. I called the company and got her to click. And I was like, oh, okay, picked up. I called the company again. I heard a hello. And I was like, hello. And then I heard a [00:20:00] click and I was like, oh, this keeps getting hung up. Like disconnected. I called again. I heard a click and I'm like, I don't know what's going on.
I called back again and the guy said, stop effing calling me. And then he went as far to go on the company webpage. And put a review saying that the company I work for, which are our company name must have been popping up on like caller ID caller ID and put a review that I was harassing and I was like, and my boss, he's like, were you, what happened here?
And I was like, I thought I was being disconnected. I'm like, I truly did not realize that, like, all the guy had to do was like, pick it up and say, I'm not interested. Instead of, like, just keep picking it [00:21:00] up, like, and clicking or just let it go to voicemail, right? I mean, that that behavior. Is like, inappropriate behavior and for somebody to just keep hanging up.
How was I to know? And
Meg Schmitz: that's the beauty of being in sales too, is that there's a deep, deep sea out there. There are a lot of fish in it. Don't take it personally, move on. There are other opportunities that await, but that's part of being young too, young and aggressive. And I've got a quota and I'm going to get through.
And sometimes you just. Let it go. I think that's really the beauty of having years and years of experience is that you've been a consumer, you've been sold to. I'm in sales. I've been [00:22:00] sold to. I know what I don't like and I'm more likely to offer some forgiveness, but there are times when caller ID, it's a beautiful thing to your point, just let it go to voicemail.
One of the, one of the great, um, technology feats these days is when it tips you off on your phone to tell you it's probable spam. I love that. Right. I'm not going to answer. Right.
Leighann Lovely: It does. It says it. I remember the first time that it popped up and it said. Potentially does it say potentially? Yeah, and I was like, oh, should I answer this?
Like, potentially spam. I'm like, that's awesome. However, on the flip side of that. I wonder how my phone number, my business phone number comes up. Am I being marked as potentially spam? You know, you, you never know what that may look like to the other [00:23:00] person.
Meg Schmitz: Well, now I had an interesting situation happen where it came up as potential spam.
They did leave me a voice message and it was, it was my doctor's office. It came up that way. So anyway, then, you know, there are all sorts of anomalies that are out there for the, for the sake of getting the sale done. It's just easier to let it go. Let it go. Don't take it personally move on is what I mean.
Let go move on. Don't take it personally, you're going to be young and aggressive or you're going to be older and motivated and people are going to be offended. I think people are more offended by little things now than ever before. Don't take it personally. Just don't take it personally and move on.
You're selling a commodity product or service. There are other fish in the sea. Absolutely.
Leighann Lovely: Now, you mentioned something. When you were young, [00:24:00] you didn't know your difference. So, how would somebody, and why is that so, I know why it's so important, but. For some of those younger people coming in, why is that so important?
Why is knowing your difference, knowing your why, knowing your product, why is
Meg Schmitz: that so important? Well, you get in, you get commoditized, compared, I have people do this all the time with my, my franchise investigation process. I want them to compare and contrast companies against each other. Well, there are three different residential cleaning companies.
I represent 12 different senior care companies. What's the difference? Well, they'll all tell you very clearly. They there's a difference from one to the next. And so for each of us. In the world of dating, you're in sales, you're, you're competing against. So what's your difference? Well, why does it matter to the other party?
It goes back [00:25:00] again to what matters to the other party so that you can appropriately sell yourself with sell your difference. If you know what they need and you, you really can negotiate just about anything. If you know enough from the other party about what is going to get them to say yes.
Leighann Lovely: And as an individual, and this is what I struggled with, as an individual presenting.
The company is obviously important, but people don't buy a company. So how do I sell when people nowadays want to buy
Meg Schmitz: from people? Well, so the, the, even in the work that I do. And it's a crowded field now. Everybody seems like is jumping into franchise sales because it's been hot over the last three years.
There are brokers everywhere. [00:26:00] There, and I don't consider myself a broker. Then there are consultants. People who really try to make a match. Well, I'm not just a consultant. I've been a business owner, employer. I'm an angel investor. I do this, that, and the other thing. I could go on about, I'm a podcaster, I'm an author.
Some people don't care. They want to know what kind of experience What kind of shortcuts are there, Meg? Well, if you've done all of this, what can you teach me so that I don't fall into the same pit, the same trap? If you're, if you're different from everybody else, who's out there, how did you get to be different and why does it matter to me so that that is unfortunately something that day in day out, as you do your job, you'll accumulate that experience.
You're, you're not born with it. You do have to actually try, get out there and. And build your, your quiver of [00:27:00] arrows and those come from experience,
Leighann Lovely: right? So despite the fact that you work with, you know, people who are franchise owners and there is a brand, there is a, um, you know, a solution or how do I put this?
There's a brand associated with those franchises. They knit their own persona personality into those brands. Is that what I'm
Meg Schmitz: understanding? If you think about it, every franchise That you've ever visited and it's something like one out of 12 businesses is a, is a franchise, but a lot of them operate as if they're a little boutique practice, whether it's a B2B bookkeeping.
A lot of people don't know that there are franchises out there that do that. . So, if you think about it, every business. That is a franchise started once upon a time as a little bitty idea [00:28:00] that was Leighann sitting at her desk, talking to her husband, having a whiskey at night, thinking throughout the day and weeks, you know, and I could build a better mousetrap.
I've got an idea. So every idea, every business starts with this little nut of an idea, and then it. It builds into something much bigger. So we all, we don't all want to grow our business into a franchise, but some of those business models are, they can be duplicated and then they can be easily replicated.
And that's when you start to get the, the notion that the genetic code of this idea really is a franchise franchisable business model. So the So many different business opportunities out there and so many founders of companies that have to, we all have to figure out what [00:29:00] is our difference. So for an example.
I represent at least 12 senior care, companion care, long term care, medical, non medical franchises. So they will parse out, well, we do it differently because we recommend that our franchise owners hire or, or contract with seniors. It's a population of people who is getting out of the workforce. They still have gas in the tank.
That's our differentiator. We're going to call ourselves seniors, seniors, helping seniors. Right. For example, that's just one, one way for a crowd in a crowded field to differentiate yourself. It's in your name, then it's in your branding. It runs through everything that you do and that's what you hang your hat on.
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. Well, Meg, you have given so many and, and I've thrown some pretty hard questions at you, [00:30:00] but you've given so many gold nuggets of, of amazing information here. I really appreciate you coming on. If somebody wanted to reach out to you, um, to talk about franchise opportunities or connect with you on LinkedIn, how would they go about doing that?
Meg Schmitz: So it, I'm easy to find on LinkedIn, it's Meg Schmitz and, um. I'll pop right up. The Franchise Guru is a nickname that I was given by the Wall Street Journal, but you'll see that on LinkedIn. So you can connect with me there. I also have a website in my name, megschmitz. com. I have blogs and podcasts, and I really gear my website to be informational.
Um, I am an entrepreneur besides I don't advocate franchising for everybody. You're an entrepreneur and have curiosity about a franchise. It's there are a lot of different ways to get into business and it's not a one size fits all conversation. So I'm very much following my own advice here. And that is to lean in, listen, ask the right questions so that we can get to the bottom of why are we [00:31:00] having this conversation?
Leighann Lovely: Perfect. Meg, again, thank you. Um, Meg also has the free agent podcast. Um, again, this will all be in the show notes, uh, her LinkedIn, uh, will be there. Her website, everything will be in the show notes. So again, Meg, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation.
Meg Schmitz: Thank you, Leighann. It's always great to spend time with you.
 
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Know, Like & Trust - How Sales and Marketing Should Work Together

Lisa Raebel shares valuable insights on the power of marketing and sales. It explains how marketing builds brand awareness and captures the audience's attention, and how sales rely on trust to convert leads into customers. Join us as she unravels the "know, like, and trust" framework, explaining how it drives brand awareness, engages the audience, and ultimately converts leads into loyal customers.
Contact Lisa Raebel –
Website - https://rebelgirlmarketing.com/
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am joined today by Lisa Raebel, founder and chief storyteller. Welcome, Lisa. I'm excited to have you. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So, Lisa is the, Rebel behind Rebel Girl Marketing. Not only are you the, , founder and chief storyteller of Rebel Girl Marketing, you are also the author.
Of an amazing marketing, a guide to [00:02:00] marketing. You are a speaker, leader in your, you know, industry sales professional, author, podcaster. I'm so thrilled to have you join
Lisa Raebel: me today. Thanks. Yeah. Full schedule, right? Yeah. Yeah. When you love what you do, it's easy to do it all the time.
Leighann Lovely: So what I would love to do, is dive right in, to a topic that I think most people who are in the marketing and sales, , you know, arena understand this, but people who are kind of on the outside often misunderstand.
The difference between sales and marketing. Yep. And so I would
Lisa Raebel: love to talk.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so, so often use people use that term. Oh, so you're in sales and marketing. So let's talk about the difference between. What those two things are.
Lisa Raebel: Absolutely. Um, there is a [00:03:00] gentleman who coined the phrase, no, like a K N O W no, like trust, which is in my opinion, what I use foundationally for when I do my trainings and my speaking.
So no is people know you have to exist. That's marketing, getting it out there, brand awareness, all those really great things, right? Like is the content that you have. So what the marketing that you're doing, what are you saying? What is the, what is the art? What are the visual aspects of your marketing? So no, like is marketing for sure.
They have to know you exist. They have to like what you say. And then the transition from marketing to sales goes from like to trust. They have to trust you enough to buy. They have to trust you enough to give you money in exchange for what you're selling. So it has to work together because marketing is the brand awareness and like grabbing the audience's audience's attention and getting them engaged with you.
And then the sales is just taking them. That's the transactional aspect of what you're selling. So no, like trust is the [00:04:00] absolute connection between sales and marketing. And you can't have one without the other. You have to trust yourself enough to give you money in exchange for what you're selling.
Actually closing a transaction, what's the point? And if you're just trying to sell all the time to people who don't know and like you, yet you're, you know, you get to that sleazy aspect of sales where nobody wants to be there either. So it's definitely working in tandem with each other.
Leighann Lovely: So that's a wrap.
I mean, everybody understand, which is
Lisa Raebel: great
Leighann Lovely: explanation. So I mean, and so you said that so perfectly beautifully and you really did. I mean, it seems so simplistic, but as a salesperson, I'm going to go, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. What if I don't have a marketing team? , how do I, how do I position myself at all to.[00:05:00]
Yeah. How do I position myself on the marketing side? How do I even begin?
Lisa Raebel: So there's five questions that I talk about, it's called, and I do this as a speaking event as well. It's called market the five steps to market like a rebel. And it's literally answering these five questions. And the thing is, you don't answer these five questions once https: otter.
ai Regularly because it depends upon the product. You're selling the time of year. You're selling. Um, like, if you, if you're launching a new product, there's a lot of things. So the 1st question is why do I need marketing in the 1st place? And people think it's like more clients, more money. Yeah. Is it though?
Um, because sometimes if you're a brand new, it's brand awareness. Like I need people to know that I exist. Like I just started, I need brand awareness. So my marketing is all about letting people know I exist. And then sometimes it is new clients. You know, there's a lot of attrition when it comes to sales, like a client doesn't need your [00:06:00] services any longer or you lose them to competition.
So you need new clients. So that's the second reason why you need marketing. Another reason would be you're launching a new product or service. 1 of them could be you want to be a subject matter expert. You want to get on stages you want to be hired as an out at an outsource. Expert at a company. So there's a lot of reasons why you need marketing.
That isn't just more money and more sales. I have one customer or one client who she needed. She had capacity for all of her stuff. She has a Pilates studio. She has enough clients, but then she wanted to do a campaign for upselling those clients to bring private Pilates classes, because if she sold any more clients, people wouldn't be able to get in their studio and then she'd lose clients.
You know, there's, there was a capacity with what she does. So there's a, there's a whole why you need marketing in the first place. The second question is what are you selling? And this is not products and services, you know, features, benefits, that kind of stuff. This is like, what [00:07:00] problems are you solving?
What emotions are attached to those problems that you're solving? And then writing your content around the emotions and like grabbing that person's attention. Um, there's a, there's a wheel of eight basic emotions and there's always opposite, right? There's disgust and then there's acceptance. There's. You know, there's frustration and then there's joy, right?
There's opposites. So if your customer is really frustrated about something, how do you bring them joy in that situation? And that's another, there's a whole nother gamut of things to do. And then it's, who is your target audience? Because you might have different products. You're not going to have the different person.
And within that, that's a confuse your audience too much. But when you sell, you have the buyer, the people who are actually writing the check, you have the end user, which is not always the buyer. And then you have the influencers of the users and the buyers. So your marketing could be based around that.
The other question is where do they hang out? So the question for is like, where do I go? Where are these people engaging with this information? Is [00:08:00] it online? Is it in person? Is it, is it audio? Is it visual? Like all those, what channel do I use? And the last question, the fifth question is what do I say when I get there?
And so if you answer those five questions. Truly, honestly, with that aspect of it, then you can build marketing off of that. And as salespeople, we should know all five, answer to all five of those questions. Correct.
Leighann Lovely: And, and it's funny because as you're going through that as a hardcore salesperson, you know, my default button is always, Hey, marketing is great.
And that's a great way for people to know the business, you know, know who or what company I represent, but my, you know, and, and, and this is funny because I've, I've actually sent like verbiage over to like, Hey, I just want to make sure that this. This pitch is correct that I'm representing the product.
Right? And my marketing team will send back this beautifully written like statement. And I'm like, how am I supposed [00:09:00] to say that? I'm like, no, this isn't for and that's again, a very different approach from marketing. And so, because as a salesperson, I want the down and dirty. How do I say this in 20 seconds to encapsulate what.
I do that represents what you're creating as the brand online presence or whatever presence you're creating. Right. Um, and that's where the alignment comes in as the salesperson going out saying, this is who I am and what I represent. And there's so much more to it. This is. The really down and dirty, you know, if I'm just that sleazy salesperson going out to market saying, okay, here's my product, here's my, there's a lot more to being a successful salesperson than just going out and pitching my pitching.
Yeah. Right. Then
Lisa Raebel: pitching. Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: But, and I, and I will go to my marketing team and say, I just want to make sure that [00:10:00] I'm accurate. In our product, in our persona, in our, and like I said, it's really funny because they always come back and say, well, here's how I would write this. And I'm like, well, that's not how you say it.
That's how you write it.
Lisa Raebel: That's you hit the nail on the head. And this happens. And company after company, after company, sales and marketing are constantly fighting each other because they don't understand each other. And I think that's one thing if audience, if you could walk away with one thing and you have a company that has a sales and marketing department, please.
Just listen to this one piece, the reason marketing people don't understand what it's like to be out to be a salesperson is because I've never been a salesperson. And the reason that sales people don't understand why marketing makes it all pretty and fluffy and stuff is because the, you know, the salespeople don't understand what it's like to have the pressure of, you know, they've got things are going off of, they're going off of like analytics and, you know, all of the different like data [00:11:00] that they had to go off of and just industry standards.
So do this. Do me a favor. If you have a marketing lead and you have a sales lead, please shadow each other for two, three days. Two days. And sales. Hang out with marketing and marketing. Go out into the world and hang out with sales. Go on prospect calls, go on client calls. Hear what they're actually saying.
Because if you're trying to create a marketing inside four walls for a company. And you've never been out into the real world of that organization to talk to the salespeople, like to see what the clients are saying, then it's the same thing and mark and salespeople go, go to marketing meetings and like strategy sessions and say, Hey, you know what?
That sounds great. And this is what the clients are actually looking for. These are the problems that we're solving for our clients. The problem is they don't talk to each other. Right. And I don't understand it. They're on the same road going in the same direction for the same company with the same goals.
And yet, for some reason, they don't want to talk to [00:12:00] each other and they're at odds with each other. It's literally a conversation would solve all of those problems and your sales will increase. I promise.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And you, Lisa, coming from somebody who grew up as a sales, as a salesperson and also now having that strong, you know, amazing marketing while being the rebel behind the rebel marketing, you know, rebel girl marketing.
I mean, that's. That's an amazing ability to have both aspects of that and me being, I will not ever tell anybody that I'm a marketing person, but being able to work closely with my marketing team and see the stuff that they kick back to me and I'm like, no, no, no, no, I'm just looking for validation that we're in alignment and they come back with.
Rewriting my entire pitch and I'm like, how would you go and say that in 20 [00:13:00] seconds? I'm like, it looks beautiful and you did a great job of writing it. But I can't speak that with those big words and pretty fluff. And and then we laugh about it. And that conversation was so eye opening for both of us.
And the fact that that's. Isn't happening, as you just said, isn't happening, but it's crazy,
Lisa Raebel: right? And I've stood in boardrooms and listen to the CEO ask me, like, could you make these two please play nice in the sandbox basically. And that's how I say it. Nicely. He had other words, but it's, and it's literally, I sit there and I listened to these, these two leads.
And I'm just like, and I say that what company do you work for? What is your goal? You trying to grow the business? Do you need more sales? And both of them say, yes, yes, yes. Then what then what, and then I make them shadow each other for a day or two. And it's [00:14:00] amazing when they come back, they go, oh, I didn't understand this.
Oh, I didn't understand that. Oh, I didn't realize how hard sales was. Oh, I didn't realize, you know, if you've never been in sales, you don't understand the emotional. Rollercoaster you go through on a weekly basis. And I think that's what marketing is missing is that they're like, Oh, they're just out there like talking and taking people out for cocktails.
And they're just writing checks. No, it's right. It's hard. So, no,
Leighann Lovely: and ,i,
I completely, it is, and, and again, I talked, you know, on, on our, the, the last episode, when I spoke with Sarah, we talked about the misconception that salespeople are, are out there just having fun and just talking about there is, there is a strategic.
Work that goes into that and into being able to talk to somebody and be able to identify where those pain points are and then help and guide that [00:15:00] client into will. And again. As a true salesperson who wants to help and doesn't want to just have the client sign a check because I'm not interested in somebody buying from me who in a month from now is going to go, I don't, I don't know why we're working together.
I'm not interested in selling something to somebody they don't need. So. Exactly. Guiding, guiding them to figure out. Why and how we can work together, that's going to solve their ultimate problem. Sometimes people don't even know they have a problem until they all of a sudden are working with you and they go, wow, this, the light bulbs just went on.
Yeah.
Lisa Raebel: And I think that's the, that's the really good sales people are strategic listeners. And so that is something I was at a, an event and I was talking to the gentleman who was the keynote speaker. And I'm like, I don't know, cause he was talking about your gift. Like, what is your unique selling proposition?
And I always said mine was the [00:16:00] fact that I've been a salesperson. I've been a marketing director, you know, I've run a marketing division and I've been out there with the quota over my head. Right. And so I understand both aspects of that. And what he said to me was, cause I brought up some of the stuff he was talking about.
He goes, you're a strategic listener. And he goes, and that what's, that's what makes a good salesperson and a good marketing person is because they're listening for those cues. I mean, I turned a two month engagement to a nine month engagement simply by listening to the people that I was at the company.
They, you know, they had an email campaign problem. And it went so much deeper than that. And so once they identified all the, all the holes in their customer experience, and I said, well, your sales aren't falling through in the email. They're falling through much earlier than that. And then much later than that, like they had a bunch of gaps in their, in their client experience.
And they're like, they didn't see it. And, but it was all because you're listening strategically and whether you're a marketer or a salesperson. Strategic [00:17:00] listening, being a strategic listener is a learned skill. It's not like you're either born with it or not. You could learn how to be a strategic listener, right?
Leighann Lovely: And I can identify back to the time where I, where I used to close. And this goes back to my recruiting days, my, my dad used to tell me, you can't listen at all. You're, you, you're horrible. And I used to do, um, interviews. By the phone, and I used to miss so much information, so I started closing my eyes and typing with my eyes closed and then asking because you when you block everything else out and you just start.
Like, really, truly listening now, you can't do that. If you're sitting in front of somebody, you can't close your eyes. They're going to think you're insane
Lisa Raebel: or driving. Don't do that. If you're driving. Right. Don't.
Leighann Lovely: Leanne told me to, um, but you really, you really, if you hyper focus on what people are [00:18:00] saying, like there's so much information now, again, I wouldn't, you know, body language also can say a million and 10.
Body language can say more than words can at times, especially when you're sitting across the room from somebody and you're watching, you know, their eyes roll back and you're like, okay, it's time to move on from this. But now, before we get off on a tangent on that, I want to realign this conversation and talk about brand.
Strategies when it comes to, because you work with individuals, you work with, or not individuals, but you work with. Yeah. Soulpreneurs to, you know, larger organizations. But I want to talk about the importance of making sure that each individual salesperson is representing themselves as a. Individual salesperson at the same time representing the brand that the marketing team has [00:19:00] built and why that's important.
Lisa Raebel: Well, it goes back to the trust factor. I mean, okay. Anybody listening to this podcast, and I know you'll relate to this too, can sit across from somebody who has not said a word yet and you still get the ick. Like, I don't trust this person for a reason. You don't know why it is. They haven't said a word.
Can you picture that person in your head? Can you picture or people in your head over time that you've worked with them? And you're just like, yeah, I don't trust this person. And so that's the personal brand. That's the personal brand of like, are you showing up on time? So there's a lot of things that could set you up for success just by being prepared.
So. Um, that whole aspect of being an individual, you know, are you showing up on time? Are you showing up prepared for the meeting? Are you being a strategic, are you listening strategically? Are you listening and repeating what they say back to them? Are you engaging [00:20:00] with them? Are you smiling? All that body language stuff, right?
And so that's how you become an individual professional that people can trust. I could, I don't know what it is about me, but people tell me things. That I don't know why they're telling me it, but they're, they're like deep and personal and like, like business owners and, you know, CEOs will say stuff to me.
It's like, I don't know why I just told you that I've never told anybody that fear, but it's, it's that persona that you're putting out there. So if you're showing up late and you're not prepared, you're not looking them in the eye and you're not really paying attention. Like. And if, okay, I'm just gonna say this once, if anybody picks up their phone during a sales conversation, I will slap them across the head and stop it, put your phone away, turn it off, put it, keep it in your briefcase, your purse, wherever you're putting it, pocket, you leave that on the table.
That is, first of all, that's the first message to say, I'm talking to you, but somebody more, more important might want to get my attention. So the phone is on the table. And so that [00:21:00] just that one move right there shows that the person you're talking to across from you is more important than anything else.
And that's what builds the trust. That's that individual brand. That's that individual like aspect of like, why am I a better salesperson than somebody else is because you show up mind, body, and spirit to talk to the person that you're talking to. You're not distracted by anything else. That's the one thing.
And then once they trust you, once they have that trust factor, like, I know I'm important, I know this person's going to be taking care of me, then they'll be telling you the stuff to do the selling and do all the branding and all that other stuff that you do. But you got to show up and be trustworthy first.
That is number one.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. I, I completely, um, and the cell phone thing that is not just in the people that you meet. For business for my, the greatest piece of [00:22:00] advice anybody has ever given me is that if you sit down and you, this goes back to, okay, I'm going to jump on my soapbox here for just 2 seconds.
So, during the pandemic, we all talked about all of a sudden families were becoming more connected, sitting down and eating dinner together and implementing these new rules of no technology at the table, or there is something to be said. For actually sitting down and unplugging from technology and saying, yes.
I am going to give you my full and undivided attention without having the beeps and bloops and all of these things going off where your attention is being divided. If you and my dad would say this, if you sit down for 15 minutes with your daughter every day and give her your undivided attention with nothing else going on.
He goes, you will have a wonderful, solid relationship. Not to say that I'm ignoring you the rest of [00:23:00] the time, but undivided attention, no TVs, no phones, no nothing. And I will tell you, and I told this story that it's probably been, it's been a couple years cause this was when she was like two or two and a half, I was in the kitchen and she was trying to get my attention and I was on my phone working.
She came up behind me when she was like two and a half and she bit me in the butt. I mean, outright bit me because she couldn't get my attention because I was on my cell phone working and that was
Lisa Raebel: the level she was at. So that was the most convenient place to bite you.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. That's where she was. And it was that moment when I went.
Oh, we have a problem here. It's not her problem. It's mommy's problem. I'm giving her half attention. She, she wants to play and she's going to act out to get there. If we're not, [00:24:00] if we're not fully engaging people and, and I've sat across from business owners who are looking at their phone and who are, and I will tell you, and I've had clients who I'm trying to work with them and they're like, oh, I gotta check this email.
I gotta check. It's, it's horrific. It's absolutely horrific. There's no trust factor there. There's, there's even an ick dislike factor that starts to play in. And as a salesperson, if that's the person you're representing, I wouldn't buy, I wouldn't buy from that person. And
Lisa Raebel: as a salesperson, if that, if you're, if the client is doing that, do you want them as a client?
No, no. Because I think what happens is that we get this quota and I'm always saying there's always this quota as a salesperson. You have to hit these numbers or else, right? As a salesperson, that's a lot of pressure and you're thinking, [00:25:00] well, I could hit my quota. This, this one's out, but they're a total, I can't swear.
Jerk. Right. Let's just use that word. There were different words in my head, but, if they're a total jerk and like, do you want like to be tied to this person for years and years to come? I mean, they're just going to be a pain in the, in the tush. So like not every client is a good client. So it's, it goes both ways.
And what's so interesting is that when I teach solo entrepreneurs, especially and small business owners are like, I just, I don't like sales, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because it makes me nervous. I get all sweaty and I don't know what to do. And I teach them. If you do all the prep ahead of time and you walk into the conversation, looking for a mutually beneficial converse, like a agreement, you're, that is what makes you confident in sales.
What you sell is worth buying, but the person across the table from you needs to be worth selling to as well. And if you change your mindset to that, people who don't like sales or they, they think they're going to [00:26:00] be slimy or pushy or whatever, because they've had that experience in the past, that is what you do.
And you say, okay, you change your mindset. I'm prepared. I know what I sell is good. I've done my research on this prospect. I know what's going to happen in here. And if you get any instance, it's like. It might not be worth it. It might not be worth it. And you have to take that into consideration. I've literally told somebody across the table for me who just I sat down and the factor was like.
Skyrocketing. And I'm like, how quickly can I get through the sales conversation? But it was, it was set up by, so you didn't really know me that well. Like, oh, oh, you do that. Oh, you should meet my friend, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I don't think I'm the person for you. Right. Like you we've had five minute conversation.
I said, yeah, but there's a lot of things that I can tell about a person. And I said, and I think what you're looking for is all you're worried about is increasing your revenue. You don't care about the customer and I don't work with people like that. And he was literally offended. And normally I would never, ever, ever, [00:27:00] ever say that about a person.
But what happened was it broke down a barrier and we had a really great conversation. I didn't end up working with this gentleman because it turned out he didn't actually need what I was trying to pitch to him. But at the same time, it's like he, I don't think he realized that he was doing that.
Sometimes the truth hurts, but sometimes the truth is really good. But don't do it if you're working for like, I work for myself. So I only had to report back to myself, but if you're a salesperson reporting back to a sales manager, just be careful. Right.
Leighann Lovely: And that's sometimes the hard truth for yourself or the hard truth for the clients that you're potentially going to sometimes that's maybe not in the moment, but sometimes it's the best possible thing that you can offer somebody that you're choosing not to work with
because they might be stuck on that wheel too. And helping them get off that wheel so that they can properly find, [00:28:00] if they do truly need assistance with your offering, they might be able to then properly find somebody that does match with them. And I've done the same thing. I've turned down business because what they want is not what or how I felt I best matched with.
Right. That individual. And again, you're right. If you're working for a large corporation, they may not be so keen on you saying, yeah, I don't really want to work with you. But if you are, you know, if you do have the liberties to be able to say, I'm not sure that our services right for you, sometimes that's the most liberating thing that you can do is to be able to walk away and free yourself up for the proper right clients who are in alignment with your brands and with what you're, with what you stand for, right?
Lisa Raebel: I actually inherited an account. It was a very, it was a large account. It was a nice commission, all that stuff. Right. But I always put that [00:29:00] appointment at the end of my day because the guy irritated me so much. Like you can love me or you can hate me, but don't love and hate me in the same sentence. I don't know how to process that either.
We're doing a great job or we're not doing a great job, but like. It was, it was, it was torture. It was like literally torture. And I was assigned this person. I didn't sell this person, but it was just so funny. Cause like my dentist is like, what have you been doing? I'm like, I, I literally got had to get a new crown because I was like clenching my teeth so hard with this client.
I'm just like, and I don't, I swear to God, I was God. That's how I probably had an ulcer. He was terrible to work with, but. It was, it's hard because I was in corporate America. I was assigned to this person and my manager was like, you know, this is a big client and you have to be nice to him kind of a thing.
And I was just like, I couldn't stand him. I couldn't stand it. But at the same time, it's like I was working for somebody else. I
Leighann Lovely: had no choice. And that is sometimes the situation we're in. So Lisa, this conversation has [00:30:00] been so absolutely amazing. We are coming to time. I mean, but we've hit some really awesome,
topics. , I mean, the no like and trust factor, being able to, you know, brand yourself properly to, the way that, you know, sales and marketing should be working together. And honestly, if they were just having that conversation, how they would be able to work together. I mean, it's just really been a great conversation.
I want to give you the opportunity to read, you know, tell the audience. You know, a little bit specifically about what your business offers and how they could reach out to you. So this is your shameless plug. Um, take it as you will. Yes. Take, you know, take the time to, to, you know, tell us, you know, how we can reach out to you if, if somebody wanted to
Lisa Raebel: do so.
Yeah, so if any of the stuff that we talked about today kind of hit a nerve with you. Um, like the whole understanding sales and marketing or the 5 questions I talked to you about that build a foundation. If like, you don't know the answer to those questions. That's what I do. [00:31:00] I help people who are subject matter experts in whatever that they do, but don't they know they need marketing, but they don't know where to start.
I help them start into that. Like understanding what marketing is, because you might've taken a class in high school or college, but that's not going to get you very far with your business. So my job is to help small businesses stay in business by using strategic marketing that fits for their business.
And so I can do one on one strategy sessions, or I have a one to few that's going to be starting in Q1 of 2024. So if you want to reach out to me and find out more, it's Lisa at rebelgirlmarketing.com or visit my website. Same thing, rebel girl marketing. com. And I love to have a conversation with you.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. Again, Lisa, thank you so much for joining me. This has been awesome.
Thanks.
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Misconceptions of Sales and Salespeople

Welcome to the first episode of Love Your Sales, join me and Sarah Bauer as we dive in to the misconceptions of sales, salespeople, the skills required to succeed in sales such as active listening and negotiation, and the selling aspect in different roles, not just sales-centric ones. Additionally, we are exploring the concept that everyone, in one way or another, participates in selling or negotiation, whether your aware of it or not.
Contact Sarah Bauer –
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahheggernesbauer/
 
Leighann Lovely: I am super excited today. This is the first ever episode of love your sales. I am joined by Sarah Bauer. She has nearly two decades in sales. She runs her own team at Heartland, payment systems, which is a part of global payments incorporated. One of the largest. Payment processors in the U S Sarah, welcome.
I'm so excited for you to join me on the first ever episode.
Sarah Bauer: Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
Leighann Lovely: Yes. So, um, I think to dive in today, what we are going to [00:02:00] do is I guess, talk about some of the things that a lot of salespeople, a lot of people on the outside of sales, you know, talk about, which is somehow, I guess the, the misconceptions of sales, salespeople, what we do, right?
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and I've experienced this in my career. Um, I think one of the hottest topics is salespeople go out and have all the fun. Have you ever heard that in your career?
Sarah Bauer: Oh, yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a very glamorous job, let me tell you, but yes, you're right. And I think one of the biggest challenges is, is someone who's not in a sales position.
So you're an engineering, you're an ops, you're an admin, whatever that position is. Um, every business has a sales team. It might be very large. It might be a person of one. It might be, it might look differently in every organization, but you see them going to [00:03:00] dinners, grabbing a golf, voting, you know, kind of working early, working late.
And it's kind of like. Well, wait a second. Are you, are you working? Are you just having fun? Are you going out for drinks? Like, wait, wait a second. I'm here doing my job. Why are you going out and having a blast? And there is this truth to it, right? Like networking and building relationships is a huge, huge component of sales.
And it might be even more so in some industries over the other. But I can see how that can be a little challenging, especially if you are sitting in a leadership position where you maybe have Teamwork You know, your sales team going out and doing all the air quote fun things. And then the team that has to stay behind to do all the busy work or the face to face in office work, how that can kind of be perceived as like, wait a second, they're going out and having all the fun.
And I will say this. Sales is fun, but it's fun for different reasons. That's not necessarily like, Ooh, I get to go golfing or I get to go, you know, do trap shooting or whatever [00:04:00] it might be, yes, or some fun components of it, but I'll, I'll let you in on a secret sometimes I would really just rather stay in the office and do the thing too, so.
It is, there's, there's more to it than that. And, um, you know, the grass is always greener, but yes, there's definitely that preconceived notion that that's what we're doing. Um, and there is truth to it. We actually are doing these activities. Um, they are a part of the sales process, but it can be. It can be kind of exhausting too, to be honest.
It's that always on kind of mentality. There's not that break like you might have working in an office. You can go grab your lunch and go on a lunch break here. Oh, actually I need to go see a client. I need to go. You're, you're always on. And that's the exhausting component of it.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. And now what you've been at with your organization for what, six plus years, you run a team.
You're, I mean, you have a team that you're, that you, um, manage. Is that the proper [00:05:00] word? Yeah.
Sarah Bauer: Yeah. I both manage a team, um, as well as sell myself. So it's a, it's a managerial role, but it's, um, my primary function is to bring on net new clients. So it's, it's more of a support system. Um, so it's, it's the best of both worlds.
Right.
Leighann Lovely: So not only are you out there constantly selling yourself and, you know, but you're also supporting other people. So you've got, you've got the best of both worlds. And it's funny, funny because prior to us, you know, recording you and I were talking about you just coming off of a business trip, getting home, you know, you have a family and People are like, Oh, it would be so great to, you know, be in sales and you're, you're constantly out having drinks with people.
Well, sometimes I want to hide in a closet, eat my lunch and just decompress. But that's, that's typically not an option for a day in the life of a salesperson. It's just, it's not usually, you know, not usually, but quite [00:06:00] often we're like, Oh, great. I can have lunch and also meet with a client. At the same time, because now I'm, now I'm getting actually more work done while I'm eating.
Right. So sure. Glamorous. I get to go, you know, have lunch on the company dime. If your company is one that pays or reimburses for that. But the reality is that you're still out there. You're still working when, you know, a lot of these other individuals are actually walking into a lunchroom or going up into their kitchen, depending on your work situation and being able to decompress, being able to play a game on their phone, watch a show, get some laundry done, whatever your routine is.
On that lunch break,
Sarah Bauer: there's something to think about, too, you know, uh, really, I've met some really incredible sales professionals in my career, and it doesn't matter what you're selling and what your audience is a good and successful sales professional is always on. So [00:07:00] take it even a step further. Um, Uh, you know, you go to Thanksgiving dinner, right?
And, and maybe, or a friend's giving, or you go out for a social event, like a truly social event. And inevitably someone comes up to you and says, Hey, what do you do for a living? Right. And there's your pitch, right? There's where you have that opportunity. Well, I got to tell you, it's real easy to be like, Oh, I work in sales.
And then typically if you just say that people go and they walk away. Cause they like this salespeople, but here's an opportunity where, especially if you have a pretty wide range of market, if you take that a step further and explain in a short amount of time, what you do, you might, and many times this has happened to me kind of go, Oh.
My brother in law is looking for something like that. And so to go back to the always on part, truly a successful sales professional is going to weave their life and their work together. So it is exhausting in that sense. Um, but let's just say, and I'm just going to say you're, you're an admin, um, for a company.
Well, you're not. Actively seeking new business [00:08:00] necessarily. You could explain like what the company does, but that's not your primary function. So being on in sales does even extend into family and personal life as well. And, you know, truly successful salespeople will, will totally embrace that too. , it's, it's just kind of a part of your nature and, and, yeah, it doesn't bother me anymore, but I remember a time when I really wanted to separate church and state and As soon as you embrace it, it's kind of like the concept of like people who have.
A work phone and a personal phone, honestly, it's just like, it's all one phone. If you want to talk, if someone wants to buy from me, I am happy to take that phone call. Right.
Leighann Lovely: And here's the funny, here's the absolute funny thing. As you're saying that I'm going, Oh yeah. You know how many times my husband's had to pull me to the side and go, no, honey, this is date night.
You're not allowed to talk about work. And I'm like, yeah, but that could be the next client. That could be the client who's paying for this dinner or paying for the next [00:09:00] mortgage, you know, mortgage payment. And he's like, you need to shut it off. And I'm like, I don't know how to shut it off, but I will make every effort in the world because I love you.
And then the next person walks up and they're like, Oh, hi. And they're talking to us. And then the inevitable conversation starts. What do you do for a living? And I look at my husband and I go, I'm in sales and sales
Sarah Bauer: and sales and say it proudly. You know, one of the things that I struggle with, if I could really ever make an impact on this.
World is that the whole, like, you work in sales, but that feeling that maybe someone outside of sales kind of gets when you hear that, that we can make it, we can just make it normal. So I think back to my high school, when you go, you do those career tests, right. And you fill it out, like what you're going to be good at.
Um, and then you get into college and you might have a path, right. I like where you want to go, what you want to do when you grow [00:10:00] up. Do you remember being offered. The opportunity to learn about sales. I mean, I think back to that. I remember going, I'm going to be a manager and I'm going to be an executive and I'm going to move up the chain.
And this is what I'm going to do. And granted, you know, live and learn a little bit, but I get into sales soon after college and like, I don't want to do that, but like all we had was a sales position open, I'm like fine. And I did it. And I was like, well, but I want to be a manager. Well, I got to tell you what.
My first job out of college, I worked in sales and then eventually they added managerial responsibilities onto me. And at the time, I mean, 22, 23, 24 years old. I'm like, what did I get into? I don't want to manage people. This is awful. This is awful. I'll go back to sales. And so my next career, I strictly worked in the sales environment, really had a blast with it.
Obviously, as you grow and you mature, there's managing a sales team is a lot different than just general managing, but go back to that high school and go back to that college. Like what could we do to impact our, our either young and even people mid career that are kind of hitting [00:11:00] a wall. I mean, here's a great line that I'm going to get, I'm going to credit my dad for this line.
Sales people are the only people that are paid exactly what they're worth. Think about that for a minute. It's not to ding any other career, any profession that it's not important, but in a sales environment, you make your own income, right? You are paid exactly what you're worth. And if you think about the trajectory in your career and it's okay, we don't need to follow a straight path.
You might be brand new in sales, listening to this. You might be like, yep, been in it longer than you, or gosh, you're right. I do have those preconceived notions about sales. If you really think about it and you think about the economy and you think about all the crazy things that happen in. Salespeople are paid exactly what they're worth.
You make your own path, right? You alluded to, I have little ones. I have little ones. They're not little, little anymore, but they were a little, little, you want to talk about weaving your life and your work together so that you can serve both your family. As well as your career, it's [00:12:00] possible in this particular path.
So I did have those preconceived notions about sales. I wish I would have been exposed to it earlier as a younger age. I couldn't imagine being truly out of a sales environment at this point in my career, but I, I, I wish we exposed our younger generation. To the possibility of sales and what that could mean from them, not just from an income perspective, but also from a work life balance, which in the last few years, we've all kind of had a taste of that work from home.
I got to tell you why you like working from home. This is the career to do it. Yes. Yes. You got to do those late nights. Yes. You got to go to the. Yes, you have to learn to golf. Let me, I got invited to pickleball the other day. I don't know how to play pickleball, but I guess I'm going to learn how to play pickleball.
So yes, there, yes, there are those things, but it is, it is one of those things where if you're in sales. You can really make it what you want it to be at the end of the
Leighann Lovely: day. Absolutely. And I grew up in a sales family and I [00:13:00] remember asking, you know, my dad at an early, like young age, like, Oh, I want to do this.
And I remember him saying to me, you're not ready. And here's why. And it was very apparent when I was younger that I was not ready. I couldn't listen. I couldn't, I would sit down and I would just word bomb it. Everything about me. And I still sometimes get off on tan. You know, I get up on my soap box and I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I have a podcast for God's sakes. I like to talk. However, after really, really leaning in and learning about myself, I realized the world doesn't revolve around me. This is also a rite of passage for a lot of young kids. The world revolves around me. My parents showered me with all this stuff. I, you know, I was.
For all intents and purposes, lived quite a privileged life, had, you know, never wanted for anything. So yes, I grew up thinking that the world revolved around me. It took life experience for me to realize that there was a hell of a lot more to the world than just [00:14:00] me. And when I learned that, I learned to listen.
One of the most important skills to any salesperson out there. Being able to set your own needs aside and listen and hear and understand other human beings. And I think that that is one of the things that people mistake in salespeople. That we are empathetic human beings. That we truly want to understand, help, and ultimately solve problems for our clients.
Yes, can we be Boasty, can we be, but that's also because, wow, I just did that. I, especially early in my career, I'd be like, oh my gosh, I just had a sale. Oh my God, somebody bought from me. And we were, we were then taught that people don't buy from people they don't like. So somebody bought from me [00:15:00] equals somebody likes me.
Which was a strange concept early on in my career. So, if you
Sarah Bauer: think about it, if you think about that right there, you know, two, a couple things come to mind. Um, what, two, two ears and one mouth. Right. Active, active listening is tough. I still struggle with it. You probably still struggle with it too. You're an extrovert.
I'm an extrovert. Um, active listening is a skill that we are working on every day, whether it be with your children, with family member, with someone in the office. And why is active listening important? So there's listening, right? Like there's being able to reiterate exactly what you just said, but there's active listening.
And this is like, you know, bringing sales to a whole nother level. First, you get the win. That's kind of cool. Someone bought from me, right? Got another win. You're gonna have a couple, you're going to have a couple of losses in there too. Like I'm going to, I'm going to be, that's a topic for another [00:16:00] day, but that active listening is really important.
And why is that important? What am I doing? I'm watching your body language. Are you sitting there like, like this when I walk in the door? Are you open? How are, what language are you using? Are you using strong words? Is it, is a potential client? Um, am I listening to the words that you're, you're saying, like hate or don't like, or working or not working?
Am I reiterating those words back to you? It's actually like, you can gamify this job. We talk about that all the time. You can gamify it. You're not gonna, you're not gonna win every sales.
I'm just going to say that right now. You're not going to win them all. The best thing in the world is a yes. The second best thing is a no.
And the worst. Is it maybe, or I'll never getting back to you, right? That active listening skill is how you drive from that initial conversation to close. How you really truly can walk out of there and go, I gave it the best I could. And I will tell you, I, I'm a humble person too. I have bombed [00:17:00] on this. I still do.
I still have days where even now, almost two decades into this job, where I, it's just sales in general, where I'll walk in. I'm not really listening. I'm really just like, Oh, I got to do this thing. And I do whatever. And I walk out of there and I kind of go, well, what, what did I do wrong? Nine times out of 10, I wasn't listening.
I wasn't prepared and I wasn't listening. Right. I was rushing through it. I was word vomiting all over the person. Right. And it's, it's okay to fall flat on your face, man. That's it's, it happens even to the best of us.
Leighann Lovely: And I was taught. Early on in my career, the faster you get through the no's, the quicker you get to the yes.
And I was never taught that a no was a bad thing. I was always taught that a no at least releases you to move on. I love no's. No's are great. Oh yeah. The maybe is the thing that you go, okay, what am I missing? Because they're not saying no. [00:18:00] Either they're, either they're one of those people who just can't say no or I'm just missing the thing.
And that is the thing that'll drive any salesperson crazy. Then you're like, okay, what, what do they need? What, what am I missing? What, what thing will push them over the edge? And then you get stuck in this, like, but something that you said, you and I both know somebody That says this all the time. I show up and I can't remember when I arrive or when I get there.
And that's wildly important because if you're not showing up, then you're, then you're going to fail. And, and I've done it too. I still do it. I, I'm sitting in a meeting and I'm just like, uh huh, uh huh. Okay. Let me tell you about my product. And at the end of it, I go, what was I doing? They're not going to buy from me.
I was, I wasn't engaged. I didn't make a connection. That's on me. [00:19:00] I wouldn't have bought from me.
Sarah Bauer: We are always asking ourselves, what is in it? What's in it for me? You might be listening to this podcast right now. I guarantee you're listening to this podcast right now. And you're like, what's in it for me?
What's the purpose of me investing time and listening to this podcast? And that's okay. What's in it for me. So active listening allows that sales professional, even if you're not a sales professional, like try this in your own personal life. When you have the five year old that wants to tell you a story that's 20 minutes long.
Okay. Like you really want to talk about patience and active listening, talk to a toddler or a young child. I'm not going to lie. Yeah. But think about this too. You're active listening. What's in it for me. What's in it for me. So if you can listen and speak to what's in it for them. They, you don't have to go through your spiel.
Let me tell you a secret about sales. They don't care when your company was started. They don't care where your headquarters are. They [00:20:00] don't even really care about you and your family and where you come from and all that. Like, I'm going to be really honest with you. I still remember when I first started in the career I'm at, I can tell you a story.
This is great. Cause you're gonna, you're gonna probably. Like be like, Oh yeah, I've been there done that I walk in and it's like one of my first meetings and I'm, I'm drinking from a fire hose. Like I'm learning this industry. I'm learning this company. I'm just like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I've got to get this done.
Right. And I have a binder with me and it's got like pictures of our corporate office and it's got like statistics about how many employees we have. And it's, and I'm just like, okay, this is going to be great. And I remember I was sitting across the table from someone and he was the kindest human, the kindest person.
And you could tell how incredibly uninterested he was, but I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I was in, and again, this does happen when you're new in a role and I'm flipping through this book like, Oh, aren't we wonderful. Look at us. And we do all the things. And I still think back to that meeting. I did not close the deal.
[00:21:00] Um, he was very kind, uh, and, and was just let me do my thing. And, and, and I walked out of there and look, that was so great. That was so wonderful. Like actually like reflecting back at it, like, About him, his business, what he wanted, what was important to him and, and that's okay. So there's, there's my, there's my tip.
If I can leave a tip, no one cares about you and your family and your life and your company and where they started and how long it, no, if they ask you, or if it's relevant to the conversation based off of active listening, like, well, how long have you guys been around? Well, let me tell you about that.
Then, then you answer it, right? But if it's not relevant to the conversation. They don't care. And pro tip, you don't have to tell them it's not even, if it's not important to them, don't bring it up. It doesn't matter. They are, they are asking the question. What's in it for me? Always.
Leighann Lovely: So here's something I, and something that you brought up by, uh, first of all, my, my first sales presentation, I still think back and I, [00:22:00] I had a mentor with me, which was great because had I not, it would have, I would have walked out crying.
Sarah Bauer: To be a fly on the wall, right?
Leighann Lovely: When I started speaking, I started speaking so fast that, that my mentor looked at me and the person that I was pitching to looked at me like, like, Oh my God. And I went, Oh, Oh. And so I managed to slow down and like get through it. But I remember when we walked out, my mentor, his name was Colin.
He went, Whoa, that was rough. But you did better. It was, I was like, I know I could feel it. I'm like, I could even feel you guys both snap your head and look at me like, what just happened to her?
Sarah Bauer: But you have to go through that. You have to go through it and it's okay. It's okay to fall flat on your face.
Oh my God, it's totally okay. And what are you really doing? It's not, it's not that, yes, you don't know the product yet. And [00:23:00] yes, you're new to the thing. It's confidence. Oh yeah. It was, it was, and that only comes with practice and time and good mentorship and leadership. So if you're new in a role, like if you all of a sudden said, I need you to sell me, I need it.
We're going to go out into the field. We're going to sell cell phones. That's what we're going to do. Okay. I mean, I can fake it till I make it, but I couldn't tell you much about selling cell phones. I don't know how to sell cell phones, right? So, so I'm probably going to speak fast. I'm probably going to be all over the place.
I'm probably not going to be active listening. And this is just assuming like you just took me and dropped me into a meeting and I had no time to prepare and that's okay. But I think recognizing that and you think back to that conversation and how you felt like that's going to stick with you forever.
And that's okay. That is absolutely okay. Because what are you doing? You're comparing. Every other sales presentation to when you were in that moment and talking fast. And have you ever caught yourself talking fast again? Cause you were nervous or you realized you were unprepared. I mean, [00:24:00] it's, it's going to happen again.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And that's, and that's my, that's my default setting. When I get nervous, I talk fast. But now I've learned to, you know, a lot, I've started to learn to, before I do anything, breathe, because I know that's my, like, I stop breathing and I get, and again, you know, I've talked to people, speakers who get on stage, what do you do before you go out there?
Every single one of them will say, you don't forget to breathe. And I'm like, Oh, that's, that's probably important. But so nice. There's something else you, you mentioned. There's this whole myth that only sales people sell and you were talking about your child, you know, what's in it for them on a daily basis.
And I preach this. Constantly to companies I work with, to, you know, my clients, um, and even in the HR world, that not [00:25:00] only sales people are selling, when we're talking about culture, when we're talking about, you know, a whole ton of people in your network. So when they say only sales people sell, what would be your response
Sarah Bauer: to that?
You think about it? Maybe you can argue with me on this. Sales is the oldest profession there is. Right. We are selling every day, all day long, every single one of us. So back that up just a little bit. Don't think about it in terms of like, I work for a company and my title says sales. Um, you are, I'm going to go back to the kid component because I think this, this is relevant.
Um, there's a really great book and I'll touch on two things. It's called Go for the Know. Um, I don't know the author off the top of my head, but we talked about knows and how know is great. Um, so let's just say sitting across the table from a three year old and, um, the three year old goes, can I have some [00:26:00] candy?
Many months. It's not time to have candy or dessert. No, sorry. And, you know, some candy. No, some candy. No. Okay. So what's going on there? What's that conversation? Well, he's trying to sell, sell it to you right now. Maybe they're giving you a reason. Maybe not that sales, right? You're selling to you in reverse.
I'm trying to sell on the three year old to eat his peas. Tell you what, if you three bites of these peas, I mean, this is a very rudimentary example, but think about it. I'm going to give you this. What am I doing? I'm negotiating. I'm selling. I'm like, you know, if you eat those peas, you're going to grow big and strong, right?
So I'm selling to him. He's, he's can be, um, coming back at me and try to sell to me to have some candy. Right. But this is a sales conversation. This is sales, right? So take that a little bit further. Okay, so I'm talking about in a personal life setting. Um, you are talking to your husband and you want to, or your wife or your significant other, and you're talking about, we're going to go on vacation next year.
It's a negotiation, right? Well, I really want to go somewhere warm. Well, I want to go [00:27:00] on a cruise. Well, I want to go on an adventure trip. So, so these are really simple things. Now take that into the business environment. You are not in sales. You are in HR. I'm in HR. I'm in hiring. I'm in retain, retention and compliance.
This is what I do. I don't sell. Yes, you do. Yes, you absolutely do because you are recruiting. You are selling the package. You are selling the whole picture, right? You're vetting. You're 100 percent doing that. You're selling the idea of working here to that person. Yes, it doesn't look like a sales conversation.
You're getting a yes or no. You're giving you are choosing to do business with someone or not, right? You're interviewing those people and going yes or no, vice versa. It's a it's a two way sales conversation. And then to take it a step further, if you think about it, like you own a company, and you've got a sales team, and you've got an operations team, and you've got You know, all the other people that work for you, everyone is in sales because what happens when that operation guy goes and he's going to the bar later on and you're, you know, what do you do for a living?
I [00:28:00] worked on the street at ABC company and what is it? Ah, it's, you know, it's kind of crap, you know? Okay. What are you doing? You are selling. You're not doing a very good job of selling. You're not talking very positively about, but what if he says, actually, I really like working there. I've been there 20 years.
It's great. We're hiring. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. We're not only selling the idea of working there, but we're also selling the idea of maybe doing business with them at the bar. So sales is truly in every part of our life and I'm okay. You've got to own it, right? Right. We are not used car salespeople. And honestly, used car salespeople are awesome.
They have some of the best techniques in the world. We could probably do a whole episode on selling cars and selling goods, but we are all in sales. And if you think about it, Just think about your, your day up until this point, I bet you you've sold something, right? I bet you've negotiated something already.
You wouldn't have even negotiated with yourself. I'm going to go work out today or not, you know, like you really think through it, we're all in sales. So it's okay. It's not sales is not a swear word. It's not, it's a good [00:29:00] thing. Um, but some of us choose to take it to that next level and make it our career.
And that's okay too. And that's where. That's where it really is. Have some
Leighann Lovely: fun. And I love that concept, especially when we're breaking it down to, you know, even down to the, the, the kid level. It is, it is something that children start from the time they can talk. They start trying to negotiate and sell their parents on ideas or on things they want.
It is something that is literally comes. Naturally, just along with talking. So the idea that, you know, I've heard this so many times throughout my career, um, you know, I've, I've been around longer than you, um, or maybe, I don't know, God, I hate sales people. I've heard that line. And I'm like, why, [00:30:00] why do you hate salespeople when you yourself?
Are at your core, somehow a salesperson you have negotiated, you have sold at some point in your life, maybe not as a career choice, but on a daily basis, you are negotiating with somebody or yourself in some way. And you have from the time that you could speak now, whether or not you choose to be a sleazy salesperson out there who is, you know, using techniques that are.
You know, deemed inappropriate or, and again, that would be a whole nother conversation, but there are genuine people out there that, and the genuine salespeople are the ones that will exist long into the future. The ones that are not, they're a flash in the pan. [00:31:00] They will not, like you said, salespeople are the only ones who can write their own worth.
The ones who are. You know, not above board who are doing it the wrong way. They are truly a flash in the pan and they will not make it because they are found out quickly, surely, and quite immediate.
Sarah Bauer: You're selling yourself. Like you said earlier, that's the end of the day you're selling yourself and it's a branding thing.
And yeah, it is, it is interesting that you say that. And yeah, you're right. We could definitely go through a whole entire conversation just about, you know, the techniques used behind it. But I guess my, my, my big takeaway and the big comment I'll make here is like, don't be afraid. To one, proudly say that you're in sales and a conversation, um, and, and two, don't be afraid to try it.
I mean, you gotta start somewhere and you will fall flat on your face and that's okay. Um, your ego is the only thing that is perused at the end of the day. So. Sorry, but it's [00:32:00]
Leighann Lovely: true. I've had plenty of ego bruising and any salesperson, even the greatest salespeople in the world have had, have fallen on their face.
And that's okay. It's the people who are willing to admit it, get up and do it again. Who are the ones who are going to, to go from being good? Oh, now I'm naming a book, but being, you know, being good and becoming the greats of the world. So Sarah, we are coming to time. I want to give you a moment to, you know, give a little bit more background about you.
You know, if somebody wants to reach out to you, give us your 30 second pitch. Yeah, there
Sarah Bauer: you go. So, um, again, I, I do work for in the financial technology space. Um, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, um, and connect. I'm happy to mentor coach, just give you a word of advice if you're in sales or thinking of it, or maybe you hire sales professionals, or maybe you're an owner of a business, but I work in the B2B space.
So I sell from [00:33:00] business owners to other business owners, um, to, to move money when they use, um, Everything from credits and debit card processing, ACH, payroll, all that fun stuff. So I really, truly enjoy working in that small to medium sized business space and helping mentor owners. Um, but even in the sales professional space, I mean, I've been mentored by some wonderful people in my career.
It's a pay it forward strategy. That's really where I'm at. And, uh, yeah, I'm so glad that we were able to chat with, um, about sales today. Oh my gosh. It's not a square word. You guys, that's not a square word. It's a great word. Say it proudly. When the next holiday gathering, if someone asks you what you do for living, probably say you work in sales, even if you don't and see what the reaction is, try it, let us know how it works.
Leighann Lovely: Thank you, Sarah, so much.
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