About Doug C. Brown: Doug C. Brown is the CEO of CEO Sales Strategies and a Sales Revenue and Profit Growth Expert. He has led client award-winning and high-performance teams as well as pioneered profitable development programs for companies. He has advised companies such as Intuit, CBS Television, Procter & Gamble, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Nationwide, Embassy Suites, Inc. 500 to 5000 companies, and thousands of other businesses and entrepreneurs. As an independent division head, Doug created, trained, and presented high-impact, results-oriented web seminars for prospects of Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes. Doug increased their division sales by 864% and close rate by 62% in just six months. Today, he helps companies and individuals increase their sales by incorporating sales revenue and profit growth strategies used by top 1% performers through the Top 1% Academy, Sales Revenue, and Profit Growth Masterminds. He also specializes in creating commission-only sales teams and advises companies on how to properly prepare for a high-performing sales team so they can attract and retain elite sales producers. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Doug.
In this episode, Nancy and Doug discuss the following:
- Understanding commission-only sales
- Optimizing sales strategies
- Doug’s experience in revolutionizing seminars for Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes
- How does someone become a 1 % earner
- The definition and importance of sales optimization
- Working techniques to close the sale
- Why “Maybies” are the great start of sales
Key Takeaways:
- Optimization is taking a look at everything that you’re doing and then asking two questions: How do I make it more effective? How do I make it more efficient?
- There are no bad clients, there are bad sales and buying decisions that turn into bad clients.
- If you make mistakes, don’t beat yourself up for it because multi-billionaires who are selling make mistakes too.
“I became a 1% earner firstly, through declaring and deciding that that’s what’s going to be. It’s a mental game in that regard. A lot of people talk about wanting to become a 1% earner, they want to double their sales, but it’s just an idea. It’s not a committed idea. Firstly, it requires that commitment and, quite frankly, one’s now asking to be in the top 1% of earners in the world. You know, that’s a commitment, and it takes time, energy, a lot of studying, and a lot of practice—and frankly, money, right? Because we’ve got to, we must be investing in things and getting around people who are in the 1% and learning what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. You know, fortunately for us, we train on that. So, you know, somebody comes here, obviously, they’ll learn that. But it’s still about getting around, you know, and I still do the same thing today, Nancy. I mean, I search out people that I feel a little uncomfortable being around because of their place in life, right?” – DOUG
“So, the conversation of selling is really about having a conversion conversation, and I’ll explain what that is versus having a sales conversation, right? Conversion conversations are really doing three things. First, they’re boosting rapport continuously. So, you know, we’re working on trust, like, and respect. A little luck sometimes doesn’t hurt, but it’s really about promoting those three. Second, it’s constantly moving the conversation in the direction of the business return on investment or personal return on investment that the potential buyer is always looking for. I can expand upon that. And third, we’re always creating what we call “yes states.” When we move from step to step in the buyer’s mind, they’re thinking, “Yes, this makes sense,” “Yes, wow,” or “I didn’t know that that’s good.” You want to constantly create a state of yes throughout the process. Now, on business and personal returns, people buy for different reasons, but they all fall into two categories: What is my business return on investment? What is my personal return on investment? When we really understand that ideal client profile and the ideal buyer persona—their motivations, what they want, need, feel, fear, and value—we can construct our conversation to be more like what we’re doing right now: just having a conversation. It’s not about taking them step by step, like, “Well, hey, we built rapport here. Next step, let’s do a discovery session. Next step, let’s…” and so on. That’s a sales conversation. If you do conversational conversion the right way, in most cases, you never even do a presentation. They never ask for it.” – DOUG
“So, the other thing I wanted to say about that, Nancy, is if they’re getting a “maybe,” I would suggest that through their conversational conversion, they haven’t been qualifying or disqualifying. When we’re thinking about creating these yes states, if we’re creating these yes states, but they’re turning out to be “nos,” it’s like your radar goes up as the selling entity. It might be time for you to disengage or at least qualify why. A lot of times, the “maybes” will come at the end because they’re thinking the same thing you are: “I’m really not sure if this will work, but we’re trying to get it to a sale.” And that’s where the apprehension comes up, right? As the seller, we would be much better off going—and we do teach this—if you are not the right fit for this, you gracefully disengage and find out who the right fit is. It goes a long way versus just trying to push the sale. Because there are no bad clients, but there are bad sales and buying decisions that turn into bad clients.” – DOUG
Connect with Doug C. Brown:
- LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougbrown123/
- CEO Sales Strategies: https://ceosalesstrategies.com/
- Download the E-Book: https://www.ceosalesstrategies.com/1PE
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
- Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsales
- Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/
- Website:https://oneofakindsales.com
- Phone: 908-879-2911
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/
- Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi, it’s Nancy Calabrese, and it’s time again for Conversational selling – the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it always starts with the human conversation. Today we’re speaking with Doug C. Brown, CEO of Sales Strategies and a sales revenue and profit growth expert. With a proven track record in transforming sales outcomes, Doug’s career highlights include his tenure as an independent division head, where he revolutionized web seminars for Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes, boosting division sales by an impressive 864 % and increasing the close rate by 62 % in just six months. Doug empowers companies and individuals to achieve remarkable sales results. His impact is tangible as evidenced by clients seeing 3 million in new sales within five weeks through optimized sales channels and conversational selling techniques. You are a superstar, Doug. Welcome to the show.
Doug C. Brown: Well, thank you and thanks for having me here. [1:28]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, I can’t wait to dive in. So, I read somewhere that you specialize in commission only sales teams. Why is that?
Doug C. Brown: Well, because everybody selling is commission only, right? So, if we focus on the commissions and, you know, will we help people to solve a problem or to gain a better future and we are focusing on commissions, you know, we’re not sitting back and waiting, you know, for that big base salary or whatever, right? So that’s one reason. The other thing is that most people who are entrepreneurial or owners really like the idea of commission only salespeople because they don’t have to outlay the expense upfront and so therefore, they’re minimizing their risk. [2:23]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. What about draw versus commission?
Doug C. Brown: Well, draws okay, you know, but you know, we prefer to have people who are already, you know, don’t need the money, so to speak, right. So, they’re, you know, usually on the drawer, it’s usually something that is because people are seeking some type of cash. I’m looking for that full entrepreneurial person who says, you know, I can get up, I can wake up, I can make money, I can help, and I can sell and so to me, that’s kind of the truest entrepreneur. As an owner, you don’t get paid unless you produce something, right? [3:04]
Nancy Calabrese: I totally agree with you. You know, but my experience is it’s really hard to find commission only salespeople. Has that been your experience?
Doug C. Brown: It depends on what we’re selling. And it hasn’t really been my experience because it’s in how you go after anything advertising for them, right? So, there’s a certain person that has a certain profile, if you will, in buying persona that’s very comfortable with that. So, we target that. [3:40]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay. So, listen, I mean, how did you revolutionize seminars for Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes? I mean, how did you get those numbers?
Doug C. Brown: Well, when I got there, what really, it’s, it’s about optimization and segmentation, right? So, when I got there, I ran all the numbers that they had for the last two years. And I looked at who was buying, who wasn’t buying, why they were buying, why they weren’t buying. And then what I did is two things. One, I separated the right buyers in the right rooms with the right trainers and two. I then trained my team, you know, in the teams, I should say, you know, four days a week, and we continue to train regardless of whether or not they were good, great, amazing, or needed, you know, propping up. So, the two facets of that one, bringing, you know, the skill sets up and two, making sure the systems and optimization were in place. That’s really how we kind of brought it up and we tested, I tested everything. You know, I even tested taking Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes out of the presentation and actually conversion went up. So yeah, you know, that was surprising to me because when I originally looked at the presentation, they had about four or five slides on both, you know, on them, you know, cause they both have huge credibility and so, then I was like, you know what, it’s you know, just in selling, right? It’s always what’s in it for the receiver, not what’s in it for the presenter, so to speak, or the seller, right? Because everybody’s interested in their own. So, I was like, you know, I’ll pull it right out of the presentation and conversion went up and they, you know, then they told me, hey, we need something in there. So, I gave them like, you know, a half a slide. Conversion, you know, improve. I mean, they, you know, I mean, when you go from having your whole team go from 17 .8 % to 43 .2 % on the close, they weren’t going to argue with that. So that was helpful. [5:55]
Nancy Calabrese: Right, all. Wow. Really interesting. So how does someone become a 1 % earner?
Doug C. Brown: Firstly, through declaring and deciding that that’s what’s going to be. It’s a mental game in that regard. A lot of people talk about they want to become a 1 % earner, they want to double their sales, but it’s just an idea. It’s not a committed idea. Firstly, it requires that commitment and quite frankly, one’s now asking to be in the top 1 % of earners in the world you know, that’s a commitment and it takes time, energy, and a lot of studying and a lot of practice and frankly money, right? Because we’ve got to, we must be investing in things and getting around people who are in the 1 % and learning what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. You know, fortunately for us, we train on that. So, you know, somebody comes here, obviously they’ll learn that. But it’s still about getting around, you know, and I still do the same thing, Nancy, today. I mean, I search out people that I feel a little uncomfortable being around because of their place in life, right? [7:09]
Nancy Calabrese: Really? Okay. And I said, really? So how do you even identify the one percenters?
Doug C. Brown: Well, so firstly, you can figure it out by what they’re making. I mean, that’s one capacity, right? I mean, if they’re making that million dollar and up type income. And then, you know, there’s places that one percenter hangs out, right? So, they don’t generally hang out in lower end, you know, spaces, right? And I don’t mean lower end as a derogatory type of term. I mean lower end as in your usually going to find them, you know, start with country clubs and up membership types like things like that, right? They’re usually, you know, they, you know, I have a good friend and, you know, he was telling me he’s like, you know, I’m going to go to the Celtics playoff games. And I’m like, that’s probably gonna, you know, be a ticket cost that is, you know, not going to be, you know, normal. And he’s like, I don’t care. I’m going to sit on the boxes. I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that. Right. So, it’s, it’s that type of thing. Where are they hanging out? You know, and they’re not, you know, hanging out in places usually that, you know, the top 10 % are hanging out there, hanging out in the top one, two, 3 % areas. [8:31]
Nancy Calabrese: Well, okay, so I stated earlier that you have clients seeing three million in new sales within five weeks through your optimized sales channels and conversational selling techniques. Can you expand on that? What are they?
Doug C. Brown: So, optimization is taking a look at everything that you’re doing and then asking these two, this one question, how do I make it more effective and how do I make it more efficient? So, it’s two separate questions, right? So, when you look at effectiveness, that is how do we make this, in the case of say, go back to Tony Robbins, Chet Holmes, that was how to make the conversion rate better, right? And then the efficiency on that is how do we make this more leveraged? How do we make it easier? How do we improve the profitability? How do we lower the time, the energy? How do we create systems around all that process? And how do we automate things, so we don’t have to do certain things? So, it’s all those two facets are what we want to look at every single time on the optimization side. And you asked me a second part of the question. I apologize. I forgot the second part. [9:54]
Nancy Calabrese: That’s fine. Conversational selling techniques. What are some of those?
Doug C. Brown: Okay. Yeah. So, so the conversation of selling is really about having a conversion conversation and I’ll explain what that is versus having a sales conversation, right? So, conversion conversations are doing really three things. One, they’re, they’re boosting rapport continuously. So, you know, work try a luck, not luck, trust, like, and respect. And a little luck sometimes doesn’t hurt, but it’s promoting those. It’s constantly moving the conversation in the direction of the business return on investment or personal return on investment that the potential buyer is always looking for. And I can expand upon that. And the third thing is we’re always creating what we call yes states. When we’re moving from stage step to step to step to step in the buyer’s mind, we’re thinking, yes, this makes sense. Yes. wow. Yeah. I didn’t know that. That’s, that’s good. Right. You constantly want to create a state of yes in the process and on the business and personal return. There’s, you know, people buy for different reasons, but they all kind of fall into those two categories. What is my business return on investment that I’m looking for? What is my personal return on investment that I’m looking for? And so, when we really understand that ideal client profile and the ideal buyer persona, what makes them, you know, their motivations, what do they want, need, feel, you know, fear, right? Value. We can construct our conversation to have a communication going on that’s more like what we’re doing right now, just having a conversation versus having to take them through each step. Well, hey, we built rapport here, next step you know, let’s do a discovery session, next step, let’s, you know, and that, and that, and that, that’s a sales conversation. And if you do conversational conversion the right way, in most cases, you never do a presentation, right? So, they never even ask for it. [12:09]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. You know, it’s so funny you bring that up because a lot of salespeople are asked to send proposals, and I never do. I never do. Why? You know, we’ve spoken about it. So, I find that very interesting too.
Doug C. Brown: Yeah, and the only reason to send a proposal is to solidify the agreement. And what I mean by that is the proposal is the actual agreement. [12:34]
Nancy Calabrese: Yes, I agree. I totally agree with you. And since I stopped doing that, which is years ago, I have so much more energy. And another thing, and I don’t know if this has been your experience, a lot of salespeople are afraid to ask for the closes, right? And I think the close is very simple. If you do everything right in the conversations prior, the close is simply, well, what would you like to have happen next? That’s what I say. What do you say?
Doug C. Brown: Yeah, what I usually say is, is this something you’d like to move with right now? Right? Forward with right now, something of that nature, because the course is nothing more than just asking a question. But the too many people, you know, they kind of make it about it’s that nervous guy takes out this beautiful girl. And at the end of the night, he’s like, should I kiss her? Shouldn’t I kiss her? Shouldn’t I kiss her? Shouldn’t I kiss her? Right? Should I try? Should I not? And they get they get all wound up about this thing. And the reality is, and statistically in selling, most people are expecting that question. So, if you don’t ask that question, they’re scratching their head like, why didn’t he try to kiss me? Right? So really, I can’t imagine why. So, it’s one of those situations that statistically, half the people never ask, which I think is crazy, right? Because, you know, crazy curiosity in my head because like, all right, we do all of this, you know, energy and effort to get to this place. And then it’s like, you know, they’re holding the ticket to the concert we wanted to go to in their hand and they’re saying, take it. And all we have to do is reach out and say, you know, thank you. Would you like to come with me, so to speak? And people don’t do that. But the reasons behind that are generally rejection. People don’t. They’re in a fear state. And so when they’re in a fear state, then they play scarcity. And when you play scarcity, they think scarcity and they act in scarcity. And that’s usually what happens. But the reality is those of you who who really want to know if you ask, you know, they’re going to say three things. Yes, no, maybe. And you can deal with that next level as long as we know what it is. But if you don’t ask, I mean, you’re, you know, firstly, it’s, it’s, it’s a rapport break because if they’re looking for somebody who has high confidence, which most people do, who wants to buy off somebody who’s like, you know, so shy and timid, like, well, maybe this will work. Maybe this will work, right? You know, you know, you don’t want to be in that position because, you know, confidence drops. But so asking and asking in a way that’s really kind of like part of the conversation that you would be having with your best friend. You know, that’s really how we want to I mean, you don’t ask your best friend like, you know, hey, do you think you want to go here? You know, you’re like, Hey, look, I’m going to go to the movies you want to go. [16:01]
Nancy Calabrese: Right, right. You want to cut, right? Listen, it’s better to get a no or a yes, but I hate the maybes. So what do you have to say about the maybes?
Doug C. Brown: Yeah. Well, the maybe is the first thing that I want people to understand when you get a maybe is don’t panic, right? So, it’s because the, the, the, it’s the same rules I teach and getting an objection, right? Cause a maybe really is an objection. It’s just that they’re lacking information and they’re not really sure. So, they’re in a state of, fear really when it comes down to it. Right. And we could call it discomfort because some people don’t like the word fear, but when somebody’s in that state they’re not sure where they’re going. So, they could be overwhelmed at this point. They could be underwhelmed, right? But they still have interest. So, the first thing is when we hear maybe folks breathe, take a breath, relax, right? Otherwise, the natural tendency is going to be to want to overcome it and or run away from it, right? Neither work very well. If we try to overcome it and they’re in a fear state and now we’re on top of them saying, hey, why what, what, what, you know, we’re just Adam, then all of a sudden, we’re going to start creating more fear. Because now it’s no longer about the situation. It’s about you, not you, Nancy, but the person selling, you know, being highly dominant. And now it’s no longer about even what the original objection was about, if you will, the maybe was about it’s about now they’re anchoring this fear to the individual selling, which is the worst position to be in. So yeah. [17:46]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. They shouldn’t be in sales if they’re fearful. Right? Because we live in rejection land. You get more no’s, way more no’s than you do get a yes. But when you get a yes, it’s like the baby came. This is great, right? But until the baby comes, you’re in a state of discomfort, or women are. So.
Doug C. Brown: Right. Well, then when the baby comes, it’s like all heck breaks loose, right? So, the other thing I wanted to say about that, Nancy, is if they’re getting a maybe, I would suggest that through their conversational conversion, they haven’t been qualifying or disqualifying. So, when we’re thinking about creating these yes states, if we’re creating these yes states, but they’re turning out to be nos, right? And it’s like your radar goes up as the selling entity. It might be time for you to disengage or at least qualify why, because a lot of times the maybes will come at the end because they’re thinking the same thing you are. I’m really not sure if this will work, but we’re trying to get it to a sale. And so, there’s where the apprehension comes up, right? We would, as the seller, be much better going, you know, and what we teach, we do teach this, which is if you are not the right fit for this, you gracefully disengage and you find out who the right fit is. It goes a long way versus just trying to, because there are no bad clients. There are bad sales and buying decisions that turn into bad clients. [19:25]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, you know, and I think getting back to our job in sales is to get to the answer or the no quickly. So, it frees you to move on to the next prospect, right?
Doug C. Brown: Well, I think I’d say getting to the know in its time, right? So, I don’t want to urge people to get to the No quickly because if we get to the know quickly, then sometimes we bypass things, right? So, I’ve seen it, and I’m saying this especially for non -experienced people who are listening to this, they’re like, okay. Because it’s okay to miss occasionally, right? Because even at the stages, yeah, I was just going to say that, right. I still miss, you know, time to time, right? I did the other day and I’m like, how did I miss that? Right? And that was the wrong question and the answer because my brain came back and said, because you’re stupid. Right. But, you know, a better-quality question would have been like, you know, where in the process that I know so well did I make the full power, right? And then it would have been like, right here. And then it would have been like, okay, so you learn from that. And that’s the other thing, Nancy. I want people to understand that multi -billionaires who are selling, not that I’m a multi -billionaire, but I can say certainly millionaire type selling, they make mistakes too. So, if you make mistakes, don’t beat yourself up for it because I’ve seen the best of the best, because I’ve been able, I mean, being president of Tony Robbins companies, you can imagine that the access I had to other people, right? And then, I’ve watched lots of them make mistakes. I mean, I watched Chad Holmes blow out a sale twice. Yeah, yeah, and I went back and closed the one of the two and it happened to be a little company called Intuit. Yeah, yeah. It was amazing. You know, we made about $435 ,000 off that, right? And, you know, the point I want to make is not how much money we made off that. But the point I want to make is that no matter how good you are, you’re still dealing with human beings. And, you know, if they sometimes throw you a curve ball, like, you know, how many people maybe are listening to this, are married or have been in a relationship for a long period of time and then all of a sudden something just comes up where in that relationship you’re like, whoa, where’s this coming from, right? [22:21]
Nancy Calabrese: I can’t believe we’re up with time. I want to ask you one other question. What is the one takeaway you want to leave the audience with?
Doug C. Brown: That it is our responsibility to do the right thing in selling, which means we want to play win -win, which means that if they’re not going to win and you’re going to win, that’s win -lose. If you’re going to lose and they’re going to win, that’s win -lose. So, if it’s not the right fit, as we were talking earlier, and you know it’s not win -win, then I firmly agree with what you said you know, disengage quickly, you know, get to that no on your side or their side. Because there’s, you know, there’s no sense in continuing the relationship in the capacity, turn it into a new relationship, and then work on expanding that relationship to get you better, better fit, right? They will appreciate it. So yes. [23:27]
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. Yeah. Well, how can my people find you?
Doug C. Brown: Well, they can do it numerous different ways. Can I give them something free, Nancy? Is that okay? Yeah, so I wrote an ebook called “The 1 % Earner” that we’re actually rewriting because when I read it just recently, I was like, there’s too much about me in that. So, I told everybody to take that out. But it’s at www.CEOSalesStrategies.com/1P .So one P E and they can download that and it will really talk about how you think and what’s the difference between, you know, people who are earning average in sales and you know, the one percenters, how they’re doing it. And they’re going to notice it’s not radical, you know, changes. It’s just, you know, slight changes that lead to better outcomes, right? So that’s one https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougbrown123/ is my LinkedIn. If they want to send in an email, please to the company, just send it to you matter youmatter@CEOSalesStrategies.com [24:45]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, great conversation, Doug. I knew it was going to be. And for everyone out there, take advantage of this gentleman’s expertise in sales. And as you heard, he’s a funny guy too, so we’ll make it enjoyable. Doug, I appreciate you spending time with us today and sharing everything that you know, not even everything, but what we discussed, and I hope our paths cross again. So, for all of you people out there, make it an awesome sales day and definitely download that eBook, get in touch with Doug and we’ll see you next time. [25:25]
