by Nancy Calabrese | Nov 23, 2020 | Podcast
On this week’s episode of Conversational Selling, we speak with special guest, Wendy Weiss. Wendy is a speaker, sales trainer, and coach, known as the Queen of Cold Calling, and is recognized as a leading authority in lead generation, cold calling, and new business development. She helps her clients speed up their sales cycle, reach more prospects directly, and generate more sales revenue. She is also the author of several books, including Cold Calling for Women and The Sales Winner’s Handbook.
Wendy says, “Eight months ago, it was possible to walk into a business and have a conversation. There were all sorts of channels that people could use to reach out to prospects, then get in their car and go see them, but none of that is possible right now. The phone is really the one avenue that we have. It’s direct, it’s personal, and it makes a human to human connection that you don’t get in an email or a Facebook ad.”
We chat about the importance of cold calling during the pandemic, as well as:
- The performance model and how it affects sales
- Learning to avoid creating objections
- The 3X Appointments Program
- Micro-targeting
- And more
Listen now…
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Nancy Calabrese: Hi, everybody, it’s Nancy Calabrese. And this is Conversational Selling. It’s the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it all starts with the human conversation. I am so excited. We’re going to have an amazing show today because Joining me is Wendy Weiss, The Queen of Cold Calling. She’s an author, speaker, sales trainer, sales coach, she’s recognized as one of the leading authorities on lead generation cold calling, which of course, is music to my ears and new business development. She helps clients speed up their sales cycle, reach more prospects directly and generate more sales revenue. She’s the author of several books, including Cold Calling for Women, again, resonates with me, and The Sales Winner’s Handbook. We’ve actually had the privilege of working for Wendy and it’s been terrific. You know, Wendy, we have so much in common and I can’t wait for my audience to listen to all your tips and expertise. Welcome to the show. Well, thank you for inviting me, Nancy. I’m happy to be here.
We were saying earlier, it’s like two friends reconnecting. You know, I want to start with the obvious the new norm in selling, why has cold calling become even more critical in today’s world?
Wendy Weiss: Well, certainly six, eight months ago, it was possible to walk into a business and have a conversation. There were all sorts of channels that people could use to reach out to prospects. Maybe reach out on social media, reach out through email, and then get in your car and go see them. But none of that is possible right now.
And so, the phone is really the one avenue that we have. It’s direct. It’s personal, human being to human being connection, that you don’t get an email or a Facebook ad. It is talking to prospects and is actually the fastest path to cash.
Nancy: I’m with you all the way. You know. And we were speaking earlier about the performance model. What is it? And how does it help business?
Wendy: Well, let me thank you for asking that. Let me take a step back and say that I was never supposed to be The Queen of Cold Calling. I was not supposed to be a sales trainer. I was supposed to be a ballerina. My first career was dancing in a ballet company. And I pretty much believed that everything I know in life I learned in ballet class. And I use a performance model to talk about prospecting. And the performance model is warm-up, rehearse, perform.
If you’re a ballet dancer, before class or rehearsal or performance, you always have to warm up so that you don’t hurt yourself. If you are a sales professional and you’re prospecting, you need to warm up, you need to do the things you need to do to get set up so that you don’t hurt yourself. If you are a ballet dancer, you don’t just run out on stage and start dancing. You have been rehearsing for months. And rehearsing, doing something over and over again, it gives you that automatic muscle memory that you stop thinking you just execute. And if you are a sales professional and you are prospecting, you need the muscle memory, you need to practice that’s why sales trainers love role-playing. Because since practice, and you practice until you get that automatic muscle memory that just kicks in and you can do what you need to do. And then you perform your warm-up you rehearse, then you perform you that’s when you actually get on the phone and you start prospecting. The problem is that most people just start with performance. They don’t do the warm-up, they don’t rehearse, they just get on the phone. And then things go badly.
Nancy: Yep, you know, I hear it time and time again. You and I both know that there are many organizations out there that don’t really view practicing as a way to sharpen the skills of the sales staff, right? I think it needs to be an ongoing process doesn’t matter how young they are in sales, or how experienced they are, we all need to sharpen our skills. And you know, you talk about muscle memory. We were joking before about scripts, and why it’s so important to sales success. Maybe you can explain that in a little more detail.
Wendy: Absolutely. I just wrote an article about this actually. And because I had a conversation with a business owner about a week ago, who said he doesn’t believe in letting his sales team use sales scripts. And what he actually said was, he doesn’t believe in canned scripts. And I’d actually have to agree with them. I don’t believe in canned scripts either. But it and it’s funny to me, because a lot of people when you say the word script, a lot of business owners, a lot of sales professionals assume that means that you’re going to say the same thing over and over again, no matter what the other person says to you.
Nancy: Right!
Wendy: And that you’re Hello, sir. Or madam, may I have a moment of your time? That’s not a script? Let’s be clear, that’s not a script. A script is if you think before you speak, and if you are prepared, you know, the points that you want to make, you know, what’s relevant, you know, what’s going to get your prospects attention. And you know how you’re going to ask for that appointment. You’re not winging it because winging it doesn’t work. Right. And rather than making you inauthentic using a script, because you are prepared that enables you to be the best self that you can possibly be the best view.
Nancy: Yep. You know, it’s funny. When I think of scripts, I think of that as this is going to ground me and my team. Right. So you have it in you’re head, it’s your muscle memory. I think the real work in sales come when you have to deal with the objections. Would you agree with that? No?
Wendy: Okay, what I think the real work comes in knowing what to say so you don’t hear the objections. Okay. Most people create the objections that they hear by what they’re saying.
Nancy: So give us an example.
Wendy: Sure, we have somebody in one of our programs right now. He’s in insurance. He’s a commercial producer. And his, his manager signed him up for the program–3X Appointments, it’s called, we teach prospecting. And so he wasn’t happy about it. And he said to me, I don’t have a problem getting appointments, I get a lot of appointments.
He said, My problem is the underwriters, because every time I take something to the underwriters, the pricing is too high, and I don’t get the client. So I don’t have any problem at all with prospecting. I have a problem with the underwriters. And I said to him, okay, what do you say when you’re prospecting and you get a business owner on the phone? What do you say to them? What he’s saying to them is, I’d like to see if I could save you some money on your insurance. So right, he is creating, he knows if the underwriters are always high, he knows he can’t save the money on their insurance. So he has to find something else to talk about. And so we in our 3X Appointments Program, we’re taking him through that process to develop a script that’s going to resonate, get him the appointment and not cause him a problem down the line when he’s trying to close.
Nancy: It’s a great example. I want to talk well since we’re talking about 3X Appointments. It’s really interesting, everyone. Wendy and I go back to 2014 when this program was called Prospect Mastery, I sat in and greatly benefited from it. So maybe you can tell the audience what the program is about in more detail.
Wendy: Absolutely. Yes, we used to call the program, Prospecting Mastery, and we rebranded about a year ago, simply because people that do this program, if they’re already doing business development, and they follow this system, typically their numbers triple. And so what I mean by that is that the number of qualified appointments, they’re able to schedule triples, and then force it depends on the sales cycle, but because they’re more appointments and they’re actually qualified appointments, then down the line, there’s a corresponding increase in revenue. So the 3X Appointments Program is a skills training and coaching program and we do it online. So we’re maintaining social distance, but we do it live. So we work with the people that are in the program, they learn a very step by step process, what to do, what to say how to say it, and we work with them on that introductory script so that they can get a yes, instead of worrying about objections.
Nancy: That’s great. How long is the program?
Wendy: The program is it’s most people do it in three months, but we actually give people six months of coaching. So if they need more time to go through the program, we give them six months.
Nancy: For anybody out there that is struggling with appointment setting, I really encourage you to reach out to Wendy after the program, and she’ll give us her contact information. So that we can find it, it was awesome for my team. And we saw the growth internally here, you will do the same if you follow the skills training, and stick with it. So I’m really glad that I did it. And we were formally introduced. So that’s been great for me. I also would like you to reference your lead magnet, can you share with us what that’s about?
Wendy: Sure, I want to offer to all of our listeners, my Business Owners Guide to Scheduling More Qualified Appointments When Their Prospects are All Completely Freaking Out. And I wrote this guide because our situation today is different than it was six months or a year ago. And so many people say to me, and they tell me how stuck their prospects are, their prospects are freaking out. Yeah. And so this, this guide is 12 easy steps to finding more sales opportunities today. And so I wrote it to just adjust for what’s going on now. Yeah, and I invite to you’re gonna post a link. Underneath this, near the interview that people can just download it.
Nancy: Very good. Yeah. And I’m looking forward to getting my hands on that as well. You know, we, you and I spoke about and we always speak about why people resist or hate cold calling. I don’t get it, you don’t get it? What do you think it is?
Wendy: Well, the idea of cold calling has been very demonized over the years. And people say such stupid things about this particular topic. People say cold calling is about going through the nose and the hang-ups until somebody says yes to you. Well, I mean, who wants to do that? I don’t want to do that. And they say, well, it’s about dialing the phone hundreds of times every day until, you know, till you get a person. And I don’t think that was ever a great strategy, that it really only worked when a lot of people answered their phones, which they’re not today. And they say things like, Well, everybody hates cold calling. And you know, prospecting sucks, get over it.
And so if that’s your starting point, if that’s what you have heard all of your life or all of your, you know, professional life, of course, you’re not going to be excited about doing cold calling, even the name cold calling, possibly sounds scary. I prefer to think of this as introductory calling. You’re calling to introduce yourself. You’re calling to introduce your company, your product, your service, it’s an introduction, and you have to look at it as an introduction. It’s not Hi, give me your credit card right now. “Fire our vendor hire me,” that’s not what we’re doing. We’re calling to introduce ourselves. So if you look at it as an introduction, there are a lot of ways that you can meet people in your life, meet prospects, this happens to be one of them, and it’s very powerful when it’s done well.
Nancy: Yeah. Why is it so cost-efficient?
Wendy: Well, it’s only cost-efficient, when it’s targeted and well done. So you know what the another one of the dumb things people say about cold calling is you’re gonna open up the phonebook and start calling people well that’s just stupid calling.
Nancy: You know, we hear that introduction calling is stupid calling.
Wendy: You know, we, we teach in our 3X Appointments Program to micro-target, to have a very narrow focus. Because when you have that narrow focus one, it’s easier to find the people that you want to talk to. And then it’s easier to create the messaging that’s going to resonate with that particular market. So you might have different, you know, several different micro targets, that’s fine. But the idea is not if you can’t say the same thing to everyone. Because every, if you’re in different markets, they might have different issues. And you have to speak to their issues.
Nancy: Right. You know, speaking of what you mentioned, narrow focus, I think there’s also a misunderstanding many people I speak to feel they have to have thousands and thousands of leads to effectively prospect, what are your thoughts on that? As it relates to cold calling?
Wendy: Right? Well, you don’t need thousands and thousands of leads, you need a good micro-targeted list. All of the research shows that it takes somewhere between eight to 12 touches to get someone to respond. So we usually start with eight touches and track. So then you know, do you need more touches? Can you do fewer touches? And here’s another dumb thing that people say. They say it’s a numbers game, meaning that it’s dialed, it’s on hundreds of times every day. And eventually, you’ll get somebody that will say yes to you.
The real numbers game is about conversion. If you’re playing the old numbers game, dial the phone hundreds of times every day with your fingers crossed, then you probably do need thousands of leads. If you’re playing today’s numbers game, which is about conversion, converting your dials into conversations with the right person, that’s a skill, and then converting those conversations with the right person into a qualified appointment. That’s also a skill. So the real numbers game is about conversion. And if you’ve got the conversion, you don’t need thousands of leads, because you’re converting.
Nancy: Last question. And then more or fewer questions as it relates to conversion? I am often asked, well, what’s the acceptable conversion ratio? I believe it varies from industry to industry. But you have any thoughts on that?
Wendy: Yeah, I mean, first of all, it really does vary from industry to industry. And it depends on what the target is within the market. I mean, if you’re calling CEOs, that’s going to be a much lower conversion number than calling mid-level managers, let’s say, but an average across all industries is 15% of dials into conversations with the right person. And then 20% of those conversations, one out of five into appointments. Now, if you’re calling CEOs that dials into conversations could be 3% or 5%. Right? The conversion of the conversations into appointments and is where the skill and the messaging of the scripts come in. That we’ve had people doing 50%. That’s a skill.
Nancy: Yeah. Wow. You know, we could go on forever. But unfortunately, we can’t. I want to ask you, what do you want to leave the audience with? If they had one takeaway, what would it be?
Wendy: Well, the one takeaway that I’d like to leave our audience with is no matter where you find a lead because salespeople like to divide the world into warm leads and cold leads. I don’t actually believe there’s any such thing as a warm lead. I believe that’s a construct that salespeople have made up.
Nancy: I totally agree with you.
Wendy: Because here’s the thing, if you have somebody that fills out a form on your website and ask for a phone call, and you call them up and they don’t know who you are, or they deny they have any other interest at all, and you’re looking at the form they filled out on your website, doesn’t matter that they filled out the form on your website, that they’re opening all your emails, you reach out to them, they have no idea what you’re talking about, doesn’t matter that they’re opening your emails.
So the better idea is to learn the communication skill so that you can pick up the phone and talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime, and get that appointment or get that agreement to the next step in your process. And that’s the skill.
Nancy: Yep. People take advantage of her expertise. And her skill training. It works. Wendy, how can my people find you?
Wendy: Well, you could give me a call because I’m a phone person. Our phone number is 866-220-4242. And if you get voicemail, I’ll call you back. Leave me a message. You can go to our website, which is coldcallingresults.com. You can also download my free gift The Business Owners Guide to Scheduling More Qualified Appointments When Their Prospects Are All Completely Freaking Out. And that will also put you in touch with me. You can also email our Director of Operations Kim Storz and that would be Kim@WendyWeiss.com. There are a lot of ways you can reach me.
Nancy: Okay. Well, I so enjoyed speaking with you. I know I’m speaking on behalf of my audience. Thank you so much Wendy and you’ve got to come back.
Wendy: Anytime Nancy, say the word. All right. Everyone out there. Make it a great day.
by Nancy Calabrese | Nov 16, 2020 | Podcast
On this week’s episode of Conversational Selling, we sit down with Christine Schlonski, the Queen of the Sales Success Mindset and founder of christineschlonski.com. Christine has over 12 years of successful high ticket event sales in the corporate world, and has built and trained international sales teams, leading them to make millions in revenue. She is also the creator of the online Summit Series, Sales Mentality Makeover Masterclass, and the host of the Heart Sells! Podcast.
Christine says, “I shifted from just thinking about the sale, making it logical and showing up in a way that I thought I had to show up to represent the success that I wanted people to see. When I really shifted into that heart space and I started to talk to a human on the other end of the phone, things just shifted dramatically.”
We chat about how our hearts help us sell, as well as:
- The Sales Success Mindset
- Teaching entrepreneurs to sell naturally
- Her Sales Mentality Makeover
- The Heart Sells! Podcast
- And more
Listen now…
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Nancy Calabrese: Hi everybody and welcome to Conversational Selling. It’s the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it all starts with the human conversation. I’m your host, Nancy Calabrese, and I’m so excited to have Christine Schlonski with me today. She’s the founder of christineschlonski.com and is known as the Queen of the Sales Success Mindset.
She has over 12 years of successful high ticket event sales in the corporate world, has built and trained international sales teams, lead them to success making millions of revenue. She’s the creator of the online Summit Series, Sales Mentality Makeover Masterclass, and host of the podcast, Heart Sells! You know, it’s so funny. I always open my shows saying it starts with the human conversation. But our heart has to be in the right place first, for sure. Welcome to the show, Christine. So happy you can join us.
Christine Schlonski: Yeah, thank you so much, Nancy. I am so excited to be here.
Nancy: Yeah, yeah. Well, for my viewers, Christine and I have gotten to know each other in the past couple of months. And she’s just a wonderful, wonderful person to know, and you are going to enjoy this conversation. So why don’t we start with how do our hearts help us sell?
Christine: Well, I think at the end of the day, right, when you look back on what you have created or what kind of life you have to live, that is a place where you are looking. And that is the place where, you know, we are all aligned and we all come together through our hearts. And I think it’s so important when you create relationships to include your heart and not just make it about a business transaction.
Nancy: Yeah, you know, I mean, why is it so important to our sales success? Or for that matter, any success in general?
The Heart Brings Meaning
Christine: Yeah, I think without heart, it’s meaningless. You will not find the fulfillment, you will not find the happiness because that is created from within. And, you know, that comes from that place of love. I think everybody is looking for, you know, being loved, being recognized, being heard. And that all comes from that desire.
That’s a human desire. So if we go out into the world and we just use our brain and be like, super logical, we don’t find that fulfillment. We might climb a ladder or a mountain and at the top, we figure out that, oh, it doesn’t feel the way I thought it’s going to feel because we forgot to put the heart into place.
Nancy: You know, interesting. I think when most people think of sales, they don’t think of heart, right? When they sales as a profession or part of a role, I think they think stress, panic. What am I going to do? So you bring a good twist to it. I mean, how did you discover selling with the heart?
Christine: Well, when I was working in corporate Germany, and I was cold calling people day in, day out, I just noticed the moment where I discovered self-development, where I started to read certain books where I gave myself permission to be me.
And I shifted from just thinking about the sale, making it logical and showing up in a way that I thought I had to show up to represent the success that I wanted people to see, when I really shifted into that heart space and I started to talk to a human on the other end of the phone, things just shifted dramatically. And I was very successful already before but that helped me to double and triple my revenue that was able to close for the company because I started to really engage with people and to build relationships.
Nancy: So you took the pressure off of yourself not to be someone that you weren’t, but to just have a conversation with a like-minded person. Is that safe to say?
Christine: Yeah. I’ve been taking the pressure off. That had really something to do with it. But I think just feeling good about who I was and who I wanted to be and not, you know, not trying to show up, like how I thought the super successful person had to be calling the other person that already had success because we were only calling like, general managers, owners of companies, CEOs.
So like, taking all that off and just thinking, I’m going to talk to an amazing human being and I have something that they need that helps them to make their life better. So I’m calling a person. And this person is an awesome person, and therefore I can, you know, put my respect, my love, my gratitude, for just talking to that person into the conversation.
Nancy: You’re known as the Queen of the Sales Success Mindset. Tell us more about that.
Christine: Yeah, so everything starts with a sales mindset. And as you mentioned in the intro, a lot of people don’t think that sales if something beautiful, right? We all have these emotions around sales, and they’re pretty bad. So we all have a sales mindset, but for most people, it is something more negative.
And I discovered that sales basically is love. So saying, like sales as love is always a good conversation because people are pretty skeptical when I make this claim. But at the end of the day, if you really have an amazing product or service that helps another person, that makes their life better, then you are just actually sharing your love by helping them to, you know, get on board with whatever you do for them. So yeah, so I changed that to the sales success mindset because you need that success part. You need to know that there is a different way to think about sales.
And by really letting go of your beliefs that are not serving you, and tuning into what serving you, you create that success. So people started to say, Well, this is really the success mindset. This is really what you need in sales. So the sales success mindset was born. And yeah, for some people, they were like, well, you’re so amazing. Like, you are the queen of the sales success mindset. And so yeah, kind of like that.
Nancy: Okay, let’s bow to the queen. I mean, I love your concept. And there you go, you have me talking about love now too. You know, many entrepreneurs find themselves in a sales role that is somewhat new to them, you know? Maybe they’re launching their own business for the first time. And this new role, they sometimes lack the skills and confidence to sell. What are your thoughts on that? And I know you do a lot of work with business owners. How do you get them past that so that selling becomes a natural part of their everyday conversation?
Do You Want a Business or a Hobby?
Christine: Yeah, that’s such a great question, Nancy. So I think if you can’t sell, you don’t have a business. So you have to make the choice. Do you want to have a business or a hobby? And when you say, Well, I do want to have a business, obviously, you are not in the game to have a business that, you know, is just barely supporting you and your dreams.
You are in the business to have a big impact, to make your own dreams come true while you help all these other people. So really getting clear on what is the goal. What do you want to achieve with your business in your life is the first steps I usually take as entrepreneurs. So they have a really clear map and clarity around their own desires.
Because oftentimes, entrepreneurs think, well, I’m really good at this or I have this skill set and I just can go into business for myself and people will show up because I know how to do it and they don’t. But they forgot that they do need that selling part, that sales piece to get people into the door and to support them and to serve them. If they don’t say yes to you, if you don’t make the sale, well, again, you’re back to having a hobby. So we get clear. And with that clarity, I always touch on all of their skills and gifts and talents because what happens so often, and that’s the two of us toon Nancy.
We could talk about sales all day long, right? We would have the best conversation ever. But for other people, that’s a topic like, Oh my goodness, right? They can’t even get to it. So we would talk about sales And we would, you know, be talking about without getting paid. And that’s the same for all these other entrepreneurs. They have something that they love so much, that they would do it without getting paid. And if they haven’t learned that sales piece, well guess what, they don’t get paid because they don’t ask for money.
So really getting clear on your gifts and what they do to support others, what they do in other people’s lives, gives them the understanding of how amazing they are and that they should be charging. And they should be also charging in a way that feels aligned and that they stop underselling and over-delivering, that they create, like a harmony, a balance in their businesses. So they get rewarded for their amazing work while the other person gets what they wanted.
Nancy: Yeah, well, you know, in listening to your description, I always think of sales is just having a conversation. That’s it. It’s a discovery, right? It’s an exchange of information to determine whether or not, you know, the person that I am speaking with, do they have a need? And is the need right now?
Can we solve that problem for them? And I think, you know, adding onto your beliefs about the heart and being so genuine, it’s hard, frankly, I can, I’m sure this is for you, to understand where all of the fear comes in. But having a coach like you to remind them and, you know, the practice and the conversation over time, it becomes so natural, doesn’t it?
Christine: Yeah. And I want to teach people that sales is fun, right? So I love that my clients come and they, you know, I just had like, one of my clients and she started selling her new course. And, you know, we talked about the course and the pricing we picked and I, you know, I challenged her. So she went with her new pricing.
And all of a sudden, like people started to book because the way she expressed it, the way she presented it, and the confidence that came with it just showed her Wow, this was fun. I just offered my next new thing. I knew the person needed it, I knew I was a perfect fit and I knew they’re going to get so much more than what I asked even though I felt uncomfortable with that new pricing. But in the same process, she learned that was a fun conversation.
She got paid in a way she’s never gotten paid before. She feels totally rewarded. Well, guess what, the course is gonna rock because she’s so excited now. And she doesn’t feel like, you know, she’s giving too much and she’s like, missing something in return. That is such a beautiful energy. And with that energy, she goes out, talks to the next person and they said yes and then next person said yes. And all of a sudden, she’s like in total excitement about sales conversations that she was dreading before.
Nancy: Wow, that’s really awesome. Talk a little bit about your Sales Mentality Makeover.
Sales Mentality Makeover
Christine: Mm-hmm. So that’s an online series that I created. And now I run it once a year. And we are just in the process of, you know, setting up the experience to have the replays. But what I do is I invite experts who can teach on mindset sales, money and wealth creation, because that’s like the whole chain, right?
Once you have the mindset in place, you will be able to sell. Once you sell, oh my goodness, you might have some money. What do you do now? And then comes all the money mindset into place and maybe strategies how to not just put all your eggs in one basket, right? But then what do you do then? And then how does it lead to wealth? And what’s wealth? It’s not just money for me. Wealth is like your way of living, the level of fulfillment, your health, your happiness, the, you know, the happiness you can give to others by interacting with them.
So yeah, I have guest teachers that I interview portraying their story to help others to be inspired and to see like wow, some people come from a really, really, really low and unfortunate level and they made it all the way to the top of their mountain by shifting their mindset and by putting strategies in place that really helped them and their business and tons of other people on the way. And so there’s like this teaching moment. And yeah, so I put that out once a year and it’s full of amazing people who have created wonderful businesses in a heart-centered way.
Nancy: Wow. When will the next one come out?
Christine: Well, the next one will come out May 2021.
Nancy: Got it. Alright, well,
Christine: Now we are setting up the experience. So basically, the experience is that you can go and watch like it was live. You get like, your daily content over a certain period of time. And you can just take in all that wisdom and knowledge of these amazing entrepreneurs.
Nancy: Wonderful. They’ll be here before we know it, right? Yeah. Hey, and, you know, I definitely would be remiss not to bring up your very successful podcast, Heart Sells. Tell my audience more about that.
Heart Sells! Podcast
Christine: Thank you so much, Nancy. So Heart Sells Podcast is there to inspire and to motivate entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs in the making, by really showcasing other extraordinary businesspeople who have created amazing companies, by not really starting out with loving sales. And we showcase their success story, what they have accomplished, we talk about the mindset, we talk about the first thing they ever sold, how they overcame, maybe their own fear of selling or rejection or what it took.
So it’s always inspirational interviews. And on Fridays, is where I just teach myself, where I share resources. And yeah, it’s a wonderful podcast that can be listened to in the whole wide world. And I have really, really amazing guests. And I’m so excited because we also had an interview together. And yeah, I just loved it. You gave so much wisdom to the audience. And yeah, it was just wonderful.
Nancy: It was. And I encourage, you know, at the end of our discussion we’ll be able to let people know how to find that and all the other good things that you do. So what is something that is true that almost nobody agrees with you on?
Christine: Well, coming back to sales is love.
Nancy: It sounds like a song, doesn’t it? It reminds me of a Beatles song.
Christine: It does. What’s the Beatles song though?
Nancy: Love is Real? I think love, John Lennon wrote it. Maybe it wasn’t the Beatles. Maybe it was post Beatles but every time I hear you say that I’m thinking of that song.
Christine: Yeah, awesome. Yeah, that’s usually something that people don’t buy it right away because it feels so so not true for so many people because when they hear sales, something within them kind of clicks. And, you know, their tummy tightens, or, I don’t know, the mouth gets dry or the heartbeat goes up. Usually, sales is not a wonderful emotion for people. So, love is, right? When we hear love, like we think of romance of couples, of love hearts, of I don’t know, wonderful vacations, candlelight dinners, like all the good stuff. And bringing that together feels little bit contrary.
Nancy: I mean, how can you not be in a good mood in listening to everything you have to say, Christine? Brings a smile to my face and I’m sure everyone else who’s listening. You know, finally, what is the one takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?
Allow Yourself to Give Your Gift
Christine: Yeah, really, please get clear about your gifts because everybody on this planet, no matter where you live, what you do, you have a wonderful, beautiful gift. And if you allow yourself to give that gift and if you’re an entrepreneur, to sell that gift, to monetize your gift by supporting so many more people, your life will be like, more than you can imagine right now because you do grow and your dreams grow with you.
So I always say like, create a life beyond your wildest dreams because what’s now your wildest dream might not be next year, right? They might get like, bigger and you grow. So just give yourself the gift of being you and stop buying into who you have to be due to whatever, society, family, I don’t know, just be you. And don’t miss out to live the life you want to live because you only have one.
Nancy: Well said. So how can my audience find you?
Christine: Well, you can just google Heart Sells or you can go to christineschlonski.com. And that’s my page. And, you know, you’ll find the podcast there, you’ll find all the ways to connect on social media. So yeah, that’s the easiest way.
Nancy: Wow. Well, I thank you. I, you know, again, I don’t know how anybody can leave this podcast not being in a good mood and not thinking about love and perfect timing for us, it’s going to be the weekend before we know it. So we go into the weekend feeling great. I thank you, Christine and I can’t wait to have you on again.
Christine: Thank you so, so much, Nancy. It was a pleasure. And, you know, a great podcast always has a great host with awesome questions. And thank you so much for, you know, asking in a way that I never answered those questions before.
Nancy: Oh, really? Well, I’m glad you enjoyed this. You’ll never forget it, right? Alright, have a good one. Bye, everyone. See you next time.
by Nancy Calabrese | Nov 12, 2020 | Interviews
Listen is as I am interviewed by Tibor Shanto on his ‘Breakfast for Champions’ podcast series. We talk about Sales, Prospecting and why it may become a lost art.
by Nancy Calabrese | Nov 9, 2020 | Podcast
On this week’s episode of Conversational Selling, we’re joined by Colleen Stanley, President of Sales Leadership, Inc., a sales development firm specializing in the integration of emotional intelligence, sales, and sales leadership skills. Salesforce.com named Colleen as one of the top sales influencers of the 21st century, in addition to her being mentioned among the top 50 sales and marketing influencers and the top 30 sales gurus. She is also the author of three fabulous books: Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success, Emotional Intelligence for Sales Leadership, and Growing Great Sales Teams.
“If you’ve had the luxury and the good fortune of engaging in formal sales training programs, you would teach your team the skills, they could roleplay it in the classroom, and then you might see that the same salespeople that were modeling the right behaviors in a workshop would buckle when they got on a real sales call with a tough prospect. So, what I found is that EQ, the soft skills, actually helped with the consistent execution of the hard skills,” says Colleen.
We chat about the importance of emotional intelligence in selling and sales leadership, as well as:
- The hard and soft skills of selling
- The importance of ongoing training in sales— why “one-and-done” training is holding you back
- Integrating empathy into your sales process
- Remote selling and emotional expression
- And more
Listen now…
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Nancy Calabrese: Hi everybody and welcome to Conversational Selling. It’s the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it all starts with the human conversation. I’m your host, Nancy Calabrese, and joining me today is Colleen Stanley, president of Sales Leadership, Inc, a sales development firm specializing in the integration of emotional intelligence, sales and sales leadership skills.
She’s the author of three fabulous books, Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success, Emotional Intelligence for Sales Leadership, and Growing Great Sales Teams. Salesforce.com named Colleen one of the top sales influencers of the 21st century, which is pretty awesome. She’s also been named one of the top 50 sales and marketing influencers and top 30 global sales gurus. Now, try to say that one three times fast. I am so honored to be speaking with a sales guru. And welcome to the show, Colleen. So happy to have you here.
Colleen Stanley: Well, thank you, Nancy. And what a buildup, right? My mother would be proud of that bio. They never did understand what I did for a living, but it sounds good. So thank you.
Nancy: You’re very welcome. So, you know, I know your hot topic is to combine several different components in the sales conversation. And emotional intelligence is so important. Why is it so important in selling and sales leadership?
Why Emotional Intelligence is Important in Sales and Sales Leadership
Colleen: Well, you know, what we found and we started bringing these, this topic, this body of work into our programs about 10 years ago. And for me, what really got the light bulb to go off was I really felt like this was the bridge between the knowing and doing gap, right? So for many of us, we have, if you’ve had the luxury and the good fortune of engaging in formal sales training programs, and there’s many good ones out there, you would teach your team the skills, they could roleplay in the classroom.
And then I would see that the same salespeople that were modeling the right behaviors in a workshop would buckle when they got on a real sales call with a tough negotiator, with a tough prospect. And so what I found is that EQ, the soft skills, actually help with the execution, consistent execution of the hard skills. Quick example, Nancy, I think everyone listening today would probably, at some point, say my salespeople present too soon and too often, right? So I’m going to teach them that questioning model one more time, roleplay it.
But when you really take a look, often you’re presenting too soon because you’re lacking impulse control, that desire to serve and help. Maybe emotion management, you’re getting nervous. You don’t have the self-awareness to realize what’s triggering your mouth to start moving too soon and too often. So I feel like if you can teach both sets of skills like diet and exercise, you’re going to equip your team with 100% of the skills needed to win business, particularly in this environment.
Nancy: When you said presenting too soon, I immediately thought of happy gears, and really not allowing that process to explain in more detail the whys behind it. I know you’re, as you’ve mentioned, you’re a big believer in integrating the hard skills of selling, consultative selling skills and soft skills of selling. Can you expand on that?
Colleen: Absolutely. So what we’ve worked very hard to do to make this not an esoteric process theoretical, is we’ll literally look at every selling step and stage and skill. And then what we will do is partner and teach the associated soft skill with it. So Nancy, you obviously run a very successful sales organization and you have probably seen in your years of coaching where every good sales manager or coach will teach get a clear next step, right?
On the calendar. Meet with all the buying influences. So you’ve taught the knowledge, but if a salesperson isn’t executing that knowledge, often that’s due to lack of assertiveness. They lack the ability to state what they need nicely. And what they need nicely as an actual calendar date on the calendar or meetings with all the buying influences, right? So assertiveness is the soft skill that supports the execution of asking for what you need on a call.
Meetings budgets, before writing proposals. I would also say emotion management is a big one, right? Because, again, you might be meeting with a prospect and to no fault of your own, they just met with another salesperson that over-promised and under-delivered, right? So now, they’re looking at this salesperson thinking you’re that same person.
And they’re a little bit tough on that person during the sales call. Not real friendly. Well, if a salesperson doesn’t have self-awareness and emotion management, they can start defaulting into fight or flight responses, right? Getting defensive, over-selling, or simply doing what we call the Tommy Boy behavior. Okey, dokey, I’m out of here. I don’t get paid enough to put up with this, right? So all those great skills, go right out the door even though the manager or the sales trainer has taught the hard skill.
Nancy: Yeah, so why does this integration work?
Colleen: Well, again, it’s because if you really teach just the hard skills, those are very, very important. So it’s not an either-or. But if you’re seeing them not executed, this is what I found. If I get emotionally charged up, my brain literally can’t think, right? So I can’t execute the skills I’ve been taught. If I lack empathy, really not sitting there being fully present, paying attention to the conversation that’s happening, and more importantly, the one that’s not happening, the unspoken objection, I can leave that meeting because I wasn’t tuned in to my prospects emotional state. And guess what?
I missed the meeting after the meeting. And that’s the one where they talk about, well, you know, they’re kind of a small company. Can they really handle us? No, do we really need to change, switch or move? And so because I haven’t developed my empathy muscle, I wasn’t able to ask the proper questions, the hard skills. So those are a couple of examples of where it’s a constant back and forth. And we’ve got a training coach on both.
Nancy: Yeah, so, you know, just to speak about your training experience and the importance of training in sales, I’m a big proponent that training has to be all the time. Many companies don’t believe in that or don’t look to invest in that ongoing training. You have any comments on that?
Colleen: That should stop. That should stop. And so we, you know, the term is called one and done training. And it always cracks me up, right? Okay, I trained my team once. now they’re trained for the rest of their life. And so, you know, all you need to do is sometimes study other professions that actually get called professions. Lawyers, accountants, all continued to go to courses to get their CEUs, right? And for some reason, in sales, we seem to think you’re born, or once you’ve learned at once, you don’t need repetition on it.
So this is really a culture shift people need to make. And I would say, the EQ skill behind this is really delayed gratification, right? Because, you know, to carve out the time for teaching, training and coaching, you’ve got to take time to calendar block this, pre-call plan your sales meetings for training and development versus roll call meetings and really put in the time for training and development. So sometimes, sales managers given the instant gratification, doing drive-bys, or just hope and pray strategies.
Nancy: Yeah. And you know, for the benefit of everybody listening, could you explain what EQ skills are?
What are EQ Skills?
Colleen: So EQ skills, basically, they’ve been kind of called the soft skills, which is, in many ways gives them a, sometimes a bad rap, so to speak, because, you know, in sales were hard-charging. I need to be aggressive and assertive and competitive. But really, you take a look at it, they’re often the hard skills to master.
So you can have, optimism is actually an EQ skill. And a really important skill in this day and age of these very turbulent business times we’re in. And so optimistic salespeople, they’re not Pollyanna, but they literally have a belief system or a thought process that you know what, this is temporary, whatever adversity I’m facing is temporary, not permanent.
I’m in control. So I’m going to focus on what I can control versus what I can’t control. You’ve got interpersonal skills, assertiveness, empathy, self-awareness, emotion management, reality testing. So there’s a variety of skills that fall into this bucket. And then it’s figuring out which ones you’re pretty good at and then which you might have a blind spot on that are impacting your personal and professional success.
Nancy: Yeah, so you’ve trained so many sales teams. Is there a story that comes to mind where, you know, it just clicked? An example, perhaps in one of your workshops, one of your clients or customers applied, what you taught?
Colleen: You know, one that comes to mind is we were conducting a happy sales kickoff. So this isn’t that, you know, reenforcement training that we’re talking about which the company does do pretty well with that. But this is a sales kickoff at the beginning of the year. And I was teaching the team, the framework behind real-world empathy. So this is a pretty big crowd, right? And so at the break, Nancy, a salesperson got on the phone and called a customer that had been really upset with the installation and delivery.
They’re a managed technology firm. And she immediately applied the model and she said, Hey, listen, I gotta tell you, if I were in your shoes right now, I’d be upset for two or three reasons. Number one, you’re busy, the last thing you need to do is be on the phone talking with me on something that should have happened in the first place. And the second thing is, I think we’ve probably put you in a really difficult position with your clients.
And then she stopped. And what happened was the magic of empathy. You’re right. But the customer diffused because often what happens like in upset customers, which is the sale after the sale, they simply are fighting to be heard. And the fact that she stated everything he was thinking or feeling, he was like, okay, we’re done with that part of the conversation, and they could move on to a solution. So it was just this beautiful example that happened after a four-hour training that somebody was paying attention and actually applied it.
Nancy: Wow, those two questions, I think, are pretty powerful. So everyone in the audience, I hope you jotted that down. It’s a great way to deflect in a professional way, right? You’re addressing the issue, you’re owning the issue and your customer is surprised.
Colleen: Yes, yeah. And I think that’s the big thing is often with the customer service, again, the sale after the sale, just as important. You bring them in the door, please keep them in the door, right? And so they often think they’re going to ask their fight for their position because, frankly, a lot of people haven’t been trained in real-world empathy.
So they start solving the problem right away. And what we always teach our clients is empathy first, advice second. I cannot hear you until you have demonstrated you’ve heard me. But that takes self-awareness because our impulse is I got to fix this. I care about you. Well, you’ve got to tap into empathy first, advice second.
Nancy: Yeah, I totally agree. Talk about the video you posted a month ago, which is really great. I found it on YouTube. So everybody go out there. The name of the video is How Too Much Empathy erodes Sales Results. Can you explain why?
Empathy + Assertiveness
Colleen: So I actually wrote that blog and it was inspired by some feedback I was getting from sales leaders, and they were sending me responses and questions. My team is showing too much empathy to their sales team. They’re getting burned out, stressed out. And so I thought, Oh, my gosh, in this time of the pandemic, we’ve all been trying to be very empathetic, right? But they were going overboard on it to where they were taking on the problems of their salespeople. They weren’t asking them to take action.
So empathy is this fine balance because too much empathy with a customer, you discount. You’re not good at stating what you need, right? So I always say empathy combined with assertiveness is the formula. So yes, I’m going to demonstrate that I understand where you’re coming from but we are also a company where we’ve got to take action and make money, even when it’s difficult to do so. So it’s that combination because if we just go overboard, and one, you tend to get very depressed and you’re taking on the work of others, frankly.
Nancy: Well, congratulations on the release of your latest book, Emotional Intelligence for Sales Leadership. Tell us more about it. And what is some of the key points?
Colleen: So thank you, first of all. Yeah, we’re very excited to get this out to quote the world. I would say there’s a few points for sales leaders listening today is number one, we really talk about the importance of their own emotion management when they’re coaching. So if you’ve run enough coaching calls, you’ve had a situation where you set up a well-intended coaching session with a salesperson, right?
You use the sandwich method. Positive, let me deliver feedback on what needs to be approved. And sometimes, you’ve got a seller that simply starts to lobbing back excuses. Well, if I had better leads, if I had better pricing, if I had better. And if a manager is not able to manage their emotional state, they can default into fight or flight. And what happens with this well-intended coaching conversation, it turns into the need to be right rather than get it right. And so they get caught up in the emotion and none of the great coaching skills or questions are asked.
I would also say we talk a lot in here about empathetic coaching. So again, I’ve seen managers where they actually score pretty well on empathy but they’re also good problem solvers. That’s another EQ skill. So a salesperson brings them a problem, like, you know, I’m just doing a lot of the activity, I’m not getting any results. And you can tell the person’s discouraged. So this isn’t a lazy person, they’re doing the activity. The manager puts on his problem-solving hat and says, well, let’s look at the activity plan again. Let’s take a look at those value propositions.
Let’s see what we need to reengineer. And the poor salesperson sitting there just thinking, Could somebody just show me a little empathy? And so again, you’d say, you know what, that must be discouraging because you’re doing all the right things and nothing’s popping. And I’m guessing you’re a little fearful, you’re not going to get the monthly quota, which could impact your year-end bonus. So again, empathy first, advice, second. So those are a couple of examples. And I can talk about several others. I want to make sure we’ve got time today.
Nancy: Yeah, well, isn’t it also all in the way you say it? And to, here’s another point, we are in the world of remote selling today, most of us are, right? And so saying those words, and then conveying them in a way, either over the phone or on a video webinar, how important is how you say what you say in today’s day of selling?
Emotional Expression
Colleen: I would say very important, and it ties into another EQ skill that’s been called emotional expression. And this is really interesting. Emotional expression is where somebody is listening not only to your tonality, rate inflection, but they’re also watching your facial expression. So here’s the example I use to teach this. I am sure everyone at one point has seen a pundit on TV, right? And they’re talking about the latest war that just broke out, but the person is smiling. Have you ever seen that? Well, we’ve just had a war break out.
And so, and or as they’re waiting to be interviewed, for really, this is a serious topic. They’re sitting there smiling. It’s incongruence. So sometimes what happens with sales managers, they may have a resting expression, we all know what I’m talking about. And it is not conveying empathy. And that’s simply their resting expression. So they really have to take a look in the mirror and say, What are my salespeople seeing what I’m talking? Because if there’s a disconnect, you could be saying the right things, but your face is saying and other.
Nancy: You know, it is so funny you say that, because since COVID, I’ve been very aware of my resting expression. And it’s something that I never paid attention to before. Now that you see yourself on Zoom meetings all the time. You know, I always like to ask this question. Tell me something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on
Colleen: Multitasking. So it is so interesting in training, when we had the face to face, now we’re doing it with our virtual instructor-led, but literally in face to face, we would say, okay, you need to take your cell phone, we’ve nicknamed that the adult binky, because it goes everywhere, right? It’s crazy. And, you know, and then we say, Now, you need to put it aside. And it’s kind of funny, they’ll put it off to the side and they put it face down and they think they’ve accomplished something great. And I’m like, No, no, no, it goes into your briefcase. You should see the look of fear on people’s face because they’re so afraid they’re going to miss something.
And then we’ve had sales leaders that actually allow that behavior. So sometimes, you know, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got that agreement up front. But there’s some cases, you know, it is their training. But here’s what happens. When sales leaders are modeling a culture of distraction, that’s what they’re modeling, their team cannot learn because it’s proven. You can only learn very intentional learning, which is when you’re going to become a very good deep consultative seller. You’ve got to be paying attention. You’re engaging the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is a glucose sucking machine, right?
If you are going to teach your team how to be perfectly present on a call, that’s, see, being present on a call is the requirement for empathy. But if you’ve allowed your team to constantly keep checking in, well, they sit down and have that 45-minute call, whether it’s video or phone, they can’t focus for 45 minutes because they’ve never done it before in their life. You can’t recall a habit you’ve not developed. So I am all over the sales leaders. I’m like, you know what? You need to model the behavior focus and paying attention. That’s what’s going to win in the future.
Nancy: Yeah, well, I just think it’s bad manners in a group meeting. You know, it’s simple is that for me, exactly?
Colleen: Well, and Nancy, what always cracks me up with this, this will be in a meeting where it’s when people, you know, prior to COVID, were going into meetings, first thing they did was pop up the laptop then they put their cell phone down. It looked like a command and control center And this is in a room, right.? This is a room that has posters that are called teamwork, respect. There is nothing that you can accomplish teamwork if we’re not paying attention to what anybody’s saying. So, again, it’s this big disconnect for people. You and I are on the same page there.
Nancy: Alright. So and what’s the one takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?
Make Sure You’re Coaching 100% of the Person
Colleen: You know, for sales managers, the question, I think you always need to be asking yourself, am I working on the right and the sales performance issue? Does the salesperson need more tactical sales training, strategic thinking? Or do I need to give my attention to building their empathy skills, assertiveness, empathy, or excuse me, emotional intelligence skills? So empathy, assertiveness, impulse control, optimism, reality testing, and it’s generally not an either-or, but make sure you’re coaching to 100% of the person.
Nancy: Yeah, it’s a lifelong skill to develop, wouldn’t you say?
Colleen: Absolutely. And so it’s like anything, and it’s a very overused analogy, but frankly, still relevant. It’s like working out. You can work out for a year and if you take six weeks off, you get flabby. Yeah, the brain is the same way, skills are the same way. It’s not fair. I worked out for a year. Which is just something called life. So continuous improvement is continuous improvement.
Nancy: Well, I can’t speak for my audience right now but I know that they are taking away a lot of excellent nuggets. I’m so excited that you joined us. Now how can my audience find you?
Colleen: You know, I would suggest going to our website. We’ve got a lot of resources there. And that is www.salesleadershipdevelopment.com, salesleadershipdevelopment.com.
Nancy: Got it. For everyone out there today, I definitely would go find Colleen on YouTube. She’s an awesome speaker with some, as you heard. excellent points in the sales world. Happy selling everyone until the next time. And thanks again, Colleen, for joining.
Colleen: And thanks for having me.
by Nancy Calabrese | Nov 3, 2020 | Podcast
On this week’s episode of Conversational Selling, we’re joined by special guest, Judy Hoberman, President of Walking on the Glass Floor and Selling in a Skirt. She is an international trainer, coach, author, and mentor, and her 30 years of business experience has given her both the knowledge and a great sense of humor about how men and women sell, work, and live differently. She is also one of the female pioneers in the insurance world and is the host of the weekly podcast, Selling in a Skirt.
“Sales today is a little bit more difficult than it was, but it isn’t outrageously difficult. I always say that now is the time to share opportunities and collaborate. It’s the time to find people that you can do things with and make yourself even stronger. In that, you can also be a champion, whether you’re male or male or female, you can be a champion for another woman in business that you can open a door up to, or you can collaborate with, or you can show an opportunity to,” says Judy.
We chat about her goal to empower women and give them the tools they need to be successful, as well as:
- Her shift towards virtual coaching
- Prejudgement
- The differences between how men and women work and sell
- Why humor in sales is so important
- The women’s roundtable
- And more
Listen now…
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Nancy Calabrese: Hi, it’s Nancy Calabrese and this is Conversational Selling. It’s the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today, and it all starts with the human conversation. Joining me today is Judy Hoberman, President of Walking on the Glass Floor and Selling in a Skirt. She’s an international trainer, coach, author and mentor.
Her 30 years in business has given her both the knowledge and a great sense of humor about how men and women sell, work and live differently. She’s one of the female pioneers in the insurance world and is the host of the weekly podcast Selling in a Skirt. You know, Judy, I could go on and on about what you do and your successes. I absolutely love humor in sales and I think it’s so important, you know? And I’m really excited to learn more about what you have to say about the differences in genders. So welcome to the show.
Judy Hoberman: Thank you so much, Nancy. I’m excited to be here and couldn’t wait for today.
Nancy: Oh, boy, you know, I think this was a long time in the making, wasn’t it?
Judy: Between weather and sickness and everything else, yeah, but we’re here and we’re gonna do this.
Nancy: Alright, so, you know, in contemplating what to ask you, I kept saying, Well, where do I begin? Where do I begin? Your background is really diverse. Why don’t we start about what you do today and how you juggle it all?
Judy: So what I do today is really what I’ve done forever, just a little bit more intentional. So I do executive coaching, I do sales and leadership training. I’m a speaker, I am an author. I do my own podcast and I was on radio for many years. And I just want to make sure that what I do every single day is empower women and giving them the tools they need to be successful, as well as encourage men to become champions of women.
Nancy: Yeah. And, you know, we spoke earlier that you’re considered to be one of the female pioneers in the insurance industry. We have a common bond in the insurance industry. I think it’s fantastic. How did you earn that title?
Judy: When you’re the only, you get that title, but you have to earn it, you know, so people start to respect you. I believe that once you show that you know what you’re talking about and that you have results, and anything that has to do with sales is always about results. It could be dollars, it could be numbers, it could be whatever. So when you start to prove yourself, people start to take notice and they start to listen. So today, when I go out, and I talk to companies or I work with individuals in the financial arena, they know I’ve been there, they know I’ve done that. And so it’s a very different relationship because I can say something and they know that I know what I’m talking about because I’ve done it. So it’s different and it’s fun.
Nancy: That’s great. So you still play in the insurance world.
Judy: Yeah, it’s almost like going home. You know, I go in lots of different industries and I love all the industries I work with. But when I go back to financial, it’s like, ahh, I’m here again.
Nancy: You’re there. You’re there. So I know you have a great story to share with the audience, you know about your future in business. Let us know about it.
Regular Self-Reinvention
Judy: So I reinvent myself quite often. And it’s only because I need to make sure that I’m shifting. Wy word for 2020 was shifting and who knew how relevant that was going to be? A lot of the things Yeah, I know, a lot of the things that I’ve done before, I have to figure out how to make them relevant going forward for the future. And, you know, I was, I mean, I work with a triangle. My triangle is speaking, coaching and training. While we all know that in March, all live speaking was eliminated and live training was eliminated, so two-thirds of my triangle was gone.
So going forward to the future, almost everything I do is virtual. And if it’s not virtual, yet it is becoming virtual. And I do believe that you can have the same relationship and have the same success virtually if you do it right. So those are the things that I am working on to make sure that I do the things that will not only continue my business but also continue making a difference in everybody’s lives because that’s truly what I want to do. I want to continue that.
Nancy: Yep. Yeah, have you found the transition to be challenging?
Judy: I think in the very beginning, it was very challenging only because, you know, you look at yourself and you look at your business, and it’s different, and, you know, everything’s gone. You have to basically start all over again. So it was challenging then. But when you put your mind to it, it’s all about mindset. When you put your mind to it, you think, okay, so we can move this around, we can move that around. And as long as you stay in contact with your clients and they know that you’re still there and you’re worried about how they are, it’ll work out.
Nancy: Yeah. You know, I know that you’ve spoken on TEDx Talk. Is there a particular story that you can recall that might also be of interest to everyone?
Judy: So my TED Talk was about being, prejudgment, and I have been prejudged my entire life. One of the stories that I tell is about the one thing that women are always freaking out about and it’s always about not being enough. And one of the stories is when my father told me that all I was pretty and I’d never amount to anything else because I wasn’t good enough and I wasn’t smart enough and then wasn’t bad enough. When you tell the story, yeah, well, and it was a very emotional story to tell out loud for the very first time on a TEDx stage. So it was, yeah, it was pretty powerful.
Nancy: I bet you that resonated with a lot of people, a lot of women.
Judy: It did.
Nancy: And it could also be men, too.
Judy: Yeah, I was, yeah, a lot of the men said, you know, I have to make sure that I don’t ever do this to my children and myself and, you know, so yeah, it was very powerful.
Nancy: Wow, wow. And so taking that empathy that you have must really add a lot of value in your work relationships, your coaching and your training.
Judy: Yeah. And I, you know, what’s happening today is, it’s everything’s becoming much more empathetic, more nurturing, more, you have to be more concerned about your people now because everybody is separate. And so people don’t feel connected. And if you don’t connect people and connect with people, you’re going to lose people. So I would say know your people and know what they need.
Nancy: Yeah. You know, and, you know, maybe that’s the silver lining in all of this right now. That people are making a concerted effort to connect in different ways, right? We can’t be physically around each other so we use other skills to convey that. You. I’ve gotta bring this up, I have to hear about the differences in gender and why I find it so humorous.
Gender Differences in Sales
Judy: Okay, so you know as well as I do that men and women are different. That’s where it starts. Men and women are different. And it’s a very profound statement. But the truth of the matter is, if you watch what happens in a sales process, it is very different. And some people like, they prefer to work with men more than women because men make decisions quicker. Women have to marinate it. They have to make, you know, have a relationship with us in that. I am that person. So I try to understand who my contact is, who my new connection is, who my new prospective client is.
And I ask a lot of questions. And so I have been dubbed the question queen. So I’ll get in there and, you know, I did a lot of field training. And all, of course, everybody I was with were men, and what I would do field training, they would always say to me, why do you ask so many questions? I said, because I’m interested. And when you’re interested, it’s a very different feeling than being interesting. And so as a man, I would, you know, most men, and I say this with a caveat, not all men, not all women. But generally speaking, a man would go in and they would say, you know, what do you want?
How much do you want to spend? Boom boom boom, get in, get out and get the check. Women go in and they want to know, how is this going to affect your family or the other people in your life? How is this going to work for you? How can I make your life easier? So it’s a very different conversation. And, you know, you can have fun with it. And I always like to team up men and women so they can see the differences and use them as assets instead of liabilities.
Nancy: Interesting. And so there are two schools of thought, right? What you described initially is maybe going in and doing features and benefits versus the opposite, the polar opposite is what is it that they need? What are they struggling with? Can we fix it? Would you agree with that?
Judy: Absolutely. Absolutely. And both are important. Both are important. And so if you go in with this second way, and you start to be interested and find out what they need and what they want, you’re also going to give them the features and the benefits. I mean, like a perfect example is when I was selling insurance, I would never say to someone, do you want life insurance? How much did you want to spend?
Who’s the beneficiary going to be? I would never ask those questions. However, what I would ask is, tell me why it’s so important for you to have a policy in place today. Well, in that conversation, I’m going to hear how much they want to spend, when do they want to start, who’s the beneficiary all of that. But I don’t have to ask that because I asked the other question which was a much bigger question that when the answer it, you get everything else you need.
Nancy: Absolutely. And you’re earning trust because you’re focused on them, not on yourself. Okay. This kind of leads me to Selling in a Skirt. And I have to confess, I immediately passed judgment on this. It’s about women in sales. So tell everybody why I was wrong.
S.K.I.R.T
Judy: Well, okay. When I originally started telling people about Selling in a Skirt, the first response I would get is men would say, Oh, it’s only for women. Oh, I don’t know, don’t wear a skirt or anything like that. And I always said, If I would have $1 for every time that was said to me, I would never have to work again.
But the truth of the matter is when I was writing the book and when I was, you know, creating my company, I wanted to do something that I knew about. Well, I knew about sales. I also knew about women. And so skirt is definitely not the article of clothing. It’s an acronym. However, you have to be very careful how you brand yourself because I have to wear a skirt all the time. People come to see when, you know, where I’m showing up to see if I’m really wearing a skirt. And the acronym is
Nancy: Do you always wear a skirt?
Judy: Always. Always Always. I was actually called out in a FedEx office. The young man behind the counter that I always see and I always bring stuff in and he’s always very kind to me. It was the middle of the winter and my husband and I were bringing in cartons of books that I had to send out. And the place was packed. It was right before the holidays. And he yells out yo, Selling in a Skirt, where’s your skirt?
I was in sweatpants, and a baseball hat and a big sweater. It was freezing. And I looked at him and everybody looked at, they all looked at me and I said to him, I’m not selling today. I’m shipping. And he goes oh no, no, you tell us you’re selling every single day. Well, he read my book, which was the funny part. And everybody in the place was laughing. But after that, I never appeared without a skirt.
Nancy: Oh, that’s so interesting. That’s great. And you look pretty good in a skirt, too. Yeah. So what does the acronym stand for?
Judy: So the S is standing out. The K is keys to success. The I is inspiration. The R is results. And the T is time management. So everybody struggles with at least one. I struggled with all five. It happened to spell out SKIRT.
Nancy: I love it. There you go. Okay. So why is humor so important in sales and just in life in general?
Judy: Well, if you take everything seriously, it’s pretty dull. When you can either laugh at yourself or make you know, appropriate jokes it, you know, it works and people get, they calm down a little bit, you know? Sometimes when you’re meeting with somebody, they’re just as uncomfortable as you are. You don’t really want to be selling, they don’t really want to be buying.
And so, you know, if there’s some way that you can, you know, bring it down a little bit so it doesn’t feel so forced, and so I always find something funny. And I do, a lot of times, I laugh about things that I do. And I’ll tell people when I mean, obviously, you know, it has to be appropriate, and it has to come up in conversation that’s relevant. But I’ll always use myself as an example. And people just start to laugh. And I am my own best audience. So if people don’t laugh at a joke or whatever, it doesn’t matter because I laugh anyway.
Nancy: Good to love yourself, right? I think that’s great. Okay, we had talked earlier about your Woman’s Roundtable. Can you share that with the audience?
The Roundtable
Judy: Yeah, so the Roundtable is a place where you can have, you know, a small group of women, it’s 10 to 12 women, and you are able to have your own personal board of directors. So we, you know, we problem-solve together, we are, we have each other’s backs, we talk about best practices. And it is a group of women that stay together for at least six months. And it’s very, very powerful.
And you can see how the trust and the respect starts to evolve after just one time together. You know, the first time like anything else, you’re kind of guarded, but all of a sudden, everybody’s telling their story. And so it’s a wonderful program that I put together. I do it inside companies, I also do it for individuals outside companies. So that is one of the programs that I offer.
Nancy: Okay, and I’m curious When you say women in any position in business, do you focus on sales?
Judy: We, okay, so it’s really what they need. So the first thing that I always ask is tell me what your biggest challenges are in business. Nine times out of 10 it’s sales, okay? It could be any part of sales, it could be prospecting and networking, it could be whatever it is. So I take whatever they tell me and as a facilitator, that’s part of the agenda. So we talk about that. We, you know, we also have, you know, what’s your story.
Tell us your story. Or what are you committed to doing and, you know, let’s put together a group project. We do things together as a group and it is the growth itself, the transformation, sometimes it makes me cry when I think about it because there is such a huge shift. We watch it. You can see it. And because we do it virtually and everybody’s on the screen, you get to see everybody together and you watch how the body language in the first week is very different from the body language in the second week because everybody, okay, they all want to talk, they all want to share, they all, you know, so it’s amazing and I just adore it.
Nancy: Why only six months? So I would think that if the group is pretty tight, they want to continue.
Judy: Yeah, but it’s a minimum of six months.
Nancy: Oh, a minimum of six months.
Judy: Yeah. A minimum of six. And they can go on forever.
Nancy: That’s wonderful. Yeah, so we’re gonna have to learn how to find that. But what is the one takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?
Be a Champion
Judy: So one of the things that I want to say is that it’s, you know, it, sales, especially sales today, it’s a little bit more difficult than it was, but it isn’t outrageously difficult. I always say that this is the time to share opportunities and work together. Collaboration. This is the time that you find people that you can do things with and make yourself even stronger.
And also, you know, in that, be a champion, whether you’re male or female, be a champion for another woman in business that you can open the door up to or you can collaborate with, or you can show an opportunity to. Because I’ve always said that, you know, my mission has always been helping one woman a day. And my tagline is women want to be treated equally not identically. So when you put that all together, it just means let’s work together. Let’s be respectful. Let’s have fun, and let’s make things happen.
Nancy: Yeah. Wow. So how can my audience find you?
Judy: Well, I am all over social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram under either Judy Hoberman or Selling in a Skirt. Anywhere, that’s where you’ll find me. And my email is judy@sellinginaskirt.com and my website is Selling in a Skirt. So you can find me anywhere. I answer my own emails. And, you know, that’s how I, where I am.
Nancy: Great. And everybody go to her website. You’ll see a nice video, she introduces her office space, welcomes you to the site. Really enjoyed speaking with you today, Judy, and I hope you come back in the future to talk more.
Judy: I would love that. Thank you so much for having me and for the opportunity to share some information.
