Laurel Bernstein | How Active Listening Can Help You Sell More Effectively

by Nancy Calabrese | Oct 20, 2020 | Podcast

On this week’s episode of Conversational Selling, we sit down with Laurel Bernstein, Founder and President of Laurel Bernstein and Associates, a consulting and training firm providing performance and leadership skill training for business professionals. Laurel has an extensive background as a facilitator and trainer and aims to be able to help and advise business owners on their business models and team development.

“I spent the first 25 years of my life as a painfully shy person; in groups I rarely had anything to say. But, I started to study listening skills and learned that you don’t have to be born a good listener, it’s actually a skill you can learn. So, I became a student of listening, and as a result, I would hear and observe things that people didn’t even realize. I realized that I knew a lot more about what was going on in a room than the people who were participating,” says Laurel.

We chat about what sets Laurel apart from others in her field, as well as:

• How active listening can help you sell more effectively
• Her tips for keeping sales skills sharp
• Why every conversation is a negotiation
• What makes someone successful in sales
• And more

Listen now…

Mentioned in this episode:

• Laurel’s Site
• Laurel’s Email

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 it’s fantastic to have with me today, Laurel Bernstein, the founder and president of Laurel Bernstein and Associates, a consulting and training firm providing performance and leadership skill training for business professionals.

She has an extensive background as a highly effective facilitator and trainer. Laurel advises many companies helping owners evaluate their business model and team development. And she has the astounding ability to listen in ways most of us don’t. And I can’t wait to hear more about that. Laurel is a staple here at One of a Kind Sales. We couldn’t live without her. Thanks so much for joining us today, Laurel.

Laurel Bernstein: Well, Nancy, as I said, I’m honored because you have a high standard.

Nancy: Oh, okay. Well, I guess I’ve been accused of worse before, right?

Laurel: No, but thank you. I’m really delighted to be here. And I’m really delighted to talk to you more about the importance of listening, especially in sales.

Nancy: Sure. You know, you and I have gotten to know each other over the years. And, you know, I’m always amazed at your successful career and in your wealth of knowledge. I mean, any question I have, you have an answer for, you’re my go-to for everything. I’m just curious, you spent many years in corporate. What made you leave to become a certified executive coach?

Why Laurel Chose to Leave Her Job and Start Her Own Coaching Firm

Laurel: The reason I left is that two or three years before I actually did leave, I started to think about what am I going to do next. And I had made an entire career of being in charge, always in charge of something. And I really wanted to think about my next act. And I didn’t want to be let go like people were being let go after long careers.

So I wanted to plan my own exit. And so I had always been advising senior leaders, so decided to go to business school to become a certified executive coach. And fortunately, the company that I was working for allowed me to have five or six internal clients so that I could get good at what I was doing. And once I got good, I decided I want to do, instead of saving the company I was working for millions of dollars, maybe I wanted to go out on my own and make millions of dollars.

Nancy: Hey, I like that thinking. And I’ll take that any day. Now that, you know, obviously, when you hear the word executive coach, what comes to my mind is you work in a highly saturated space. And again, I know firsthand, you’re amazing. But what unique idea, sets what you do apart from the others?

Laurel: So to be very honest, I spent the first 25 years of my life as a painfully shy person. I would be in groups of even as little as three or 33 and I would never say anything. I very rarely had anything to say. And I wasn’t even uncomfortable about it. But because I was watching and listening and hearing, seeing people roll their eyes and I became so good at listening.

So I started to study listening skills and learned that you don’t have to be born a good listener. It’s actually a skill you can learn. So I became a student of listening. And as a result, I would hear things that weren’t there and I would hear and observe things that people didn’t even realize. And I realized that I knew a lot more about what was going on in the room than the people participating.

Nancy: Wow. You know, and in sales, as you know, it requires a lot of skills. But one of the most important skill, I think the most important skill is the people’s ability to listen. And you’ve often told me and my team that I’m trained to listen differently. How is that? You know, I want to know more. I’m sure my audience does.

A Different Approach to Listening

Laurel: Okay. So this is really important to understand. And I’m going to give you a little background story. I went to a networking event. We were sitting around a big table and there were 17 people, including myself. And when I have people introduce themselves, I like to go first because otherwise, I’m sitting here at the table, practicing what I’m going to say and practicing what I’m going to say and then I’m not listening to anybody else. So I sat in the spot where I could go first.

But unfortunately, the leader started elsewhere in the room. So I decided I was going to write one thing down about each person in the room. Just one thing that was outstanding that I would want to remember. And then when it got to me, I was the last person, I went around the room and I said to each person, I’m going to tell you what I remembered from your presentation and then you’re going to tell me if that’s what you want to be remembered for. And if you don’t want to be remembered for that, you get to do a do-over.

So, out of 17 people, there were nine people who did do-overs because truthfully, I was the only one in that room that was listening. Everybody else was preparing what they had to say. It was pretty obvious when they said what they had to say but they hadn’t heard anything that happened before. And I really, as a result, wound up with two clients in that room that signed up to my active listening workshop.

Nancy: Wow. I mean, that’s pretty amazing. So can you talk to us more about that workshop? What’s it like?

Laurel: All right, so I’m going to give you sort of like an intro so that you can feel what the workshop is like. One of the first things that I do is I said, say, we’re not going to introduce ourselves. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to talk about our favorite room, and it needs to have texture and color and function. And why you love it, why it is your favorite room. It doesn’t even have to be a room in your home. It could be your deck, it could be a room that you stayed in at the Biltmore Hotel.

It could be any room that just was perfect for you that you love. And so we go around the room and everybody does that. And what I then do is I asked them one at a time to tell me one thing that they know about every other person in the room without repeating something they said. So in other words, if they said, I have a red couch in my living room that’s so furry and comfortable, and I stretch out on it every night after dinner, you can’t say any of those words.

You have to say something about the person you learned from hearing the things they said. So what we’re looking for is, well, you know, she knows how to unwind because lying on the couch was unwinding. It wasn’t about that Nancy has a red couch, it was that she got a place to lie down in her favorite room where she knows how to unwind. And so all the attributes of a person come out when they’re talking about something they care about. And if you’re really listening, you can know them.

Nancy: Wow. So how long does it take to develop a skill like that?

Laurel: My workshop is nine sessions. They’re an hour and 15 minutes each. Usually, you press to really materialize around session number four. And I have to admit that there are occasionally some people that get all the way through the program and they still are unable to listen to cutely. They are better, but they don’t really learn how to listen with a third year.

Nancy: Right. So let’s talk about what you do and how it would benefit people in sales.

If You’re Talking, You’re not Learning

Laurel: So, people in general like to talk about themselves. They are, if you ask somebody tell me something about yourself, they like to do that. And so if you’re talking, you’re not learning anything about them because they’re not talking. I would think that in a sales situation, the more you knew about a person, the better the conversation will be. And if you really want to know, you have to listen.

And you have to keep prompting them. One of my favorite books of all times, Tell Me More. And that was just something that in a conversation, a woman would say over and over again, tell me more. And it would really allow somebody to really tell you what they need. And then from a sales perspective, then when you hear what they need, you can then tell them you understand that and that you can provide that for them in a way that they can receive it because they’ve just told you they need it.

Nancy: Yeah. So is this the kind of training, you know, I know, there were a training programs people invest in, and then maybe they’ll do it, right? For a period of time. What is your recommendation to keep your skills sharp? Again, in sales, I think it’s the most important skill. So do you have any techniques or any go-to places you would recommend people spend time each week and just, you know, revisit or learn new techniques?

Laurel: So what I can explain which can be recreated very easily at the end of the workshop, we define what areas of listening people are still struggling with. And then what we do is we have one final videotaping of each person’s listening skills test. And we have them do it over and over and over again until the skill is built. We’ve provided a way for them to do that on a regular basis until it gels for them. The listening skills requires another person to practice and that’s what we provide.

Nancy: Okay, and you do this, you can do this virtually?

Laurel: Oh, yeah, it’s better done virtually, actually because then you can record the visual.

Nancy: Okay, so generally speaking, what do you think makes a person more or less successful in sales?

Every Conversation is a Negotiation

Laurel: So I think that one of the things that is one of the most important things is that they don’t ever sell, they need to know that every single conversation you have with another human being in a negotiation. So you want to go to a movie with, or you want to choose a movie to download with a friend. So you say, What do you feel like watching? Do you want to do a rom com? Do you want to do a shoot em up?

You want adventure? Do you want to do sci-fi? You’re negotiating, right? Well, I really thought I wanted to do this. Well, I heard that wasn’t so good. And it goes back and forth and back and forth as a negotiation. Every conversation that any two people have is a negotiation. So I think salespeople from listening, can benefit so much because they are hearing what they need to hear to negotiate effectively.

Nancy: Yeah. And, you know, when you really pay attention and understand what they need, they are pretty much telling you how to sell them, right? by listening and letting them talk. And we love that phrase here, tell me more. We use it all the time and just try to keep quiet. I think there’s a stat 70% of the time, prospects should be talking, 30% of the time we should be talking. So I think this is really amazing. And frankly, I haven’t heard of a program like this. You may have just answered this, but I’m going to ask you this anyway. Tell me something that’s true that nobody agrees with you on.

Laurel: Well, that every conversation is a negotiation. It’s hard for people to think that they’re doing it all the time. And I’ve never really gotten anybody to say yeah, I guess you’re right. But I did, you know, I did think it through and it really, that’s how it comes out. Every interaction.

Nancy: Wow. I know that you and I spoke earlier about how you quote your father, and it’s endearing. And I saw something on your LinkedIn profile talking about the forcers and the unforcers. And I wonder if we could just tie it into what we’ve been talking about.

Forcers vs Unforcers

Laurel: Well, absolutely. Let me give you a quick summary of the story that I wrote. My father believes that the room, the dichotomy that he lives by were the people who forced things and the people who were patient and would keep things calmer. And his example was that if you are trying to get a light bulb out of the ceiling lamp, and doesn’t come out easily, the person who is a forcer, is going to grab it and turn it and the bolt could break in their hands.

And more than not, they get hurt. But the person who is patient and waits, wiggles it a little bit, turns it off, thinking maybe if it pulls down a little bit it’ll come out easier. And they almost never make a mistake. And I think in sales, it’s the same kind of thing. If you’re trying to force a sale, uh oh, I don’t, nobody likes to feel that. Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of something that’s being forced at them. But if you’re gentle and you’re listening, and you’re waiting to see what a person needs and you really hear them, the patient person will come out on the right side of the sale.

Nancy: Awesome. Yep, I completely agree with you. So what’s the one takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?

Laurel: Alright, so there’s this program called StoryCorps, started 17 years ago by a fella named Robert Isay. And what you can do is go into a booth, they started in Grand Central Station in New York, and you could go with a grandparent or a parent or spouse and interview them. And the interview would be stored in the Library of Congress. And after 17 years, now you can do it online. You can do it with your cousin in California.

And these interviews are golden. They’re just beautiful. And they interviewed Robert Isay about on the 10th anniversary to ask him what he learned from starting StoryCorps, and he said, first of all, I learned that listening is an act of love. And then he said, I also learned that when you’re talking, you’re only telling people what you know. But when you’re listening, you’re learning something new.

Nancy: Oh, wow. Laurel, I’m sure my audience wants to reach out to you. How can they find you?

Laurel: They can find me at www.laurelbernstein.com or laurel@laurelBernstein.com.

Nancy: Wonderful. Another great conversation with Laurel Bernstein. I highly recommend to any of you out there, if you have interest in what we’ve just discussed and she shared with us, be sure to reach out to Laurel. My team and I are going to participate in this active listening workshop. We can’t wait to get started. And additionally, for those that might have an interest in relying on a professional to turn to who’s got the answers for everything, I highly recommend. Laurel. Thank you so much for coming on today.

Laurel: Well, thank you. I really had fun. This is great.

David Trapani | Achieving Better Results Using Sandler Training

by Nancy Calabrese | Oct 6, 2020 | Podcast

On this week’s episode of Conversational Selling, we’re joined by Dave Trapani, the CEO of AGT and Associates, an authorized Sandler Training center. Dave has over 25 years of sales, marketing, and management experience, and helps business owners and leaders gain an edge to move their business development efforts to the next level. He firmly believes that many sales challenges can be fixed by attitude, behavior, and technique, and as a longtime client of Dave’s, I can say firsthand that it works.

“I think the real game-changer is that we do things 180 degrees differently than all other salespeople out there. So most salespeople think we should be headed in a certain direction, or taking certain actions to move a deal forward, but at Sandler, most of the techniques and approaches that we use are actually counterintuitive to what that person thinks they should be doing,” says Dave.

We chat about the Sandler methodology and what makes it unique, as well as:

• Why the best sales results come from using “the trifecta”
• The importance of ongoing training
• Why salespeople are often frightened by new techniques
• His biggest successes and challenges
• And more

Listen now…

Mentioned in this episode:

• Email Dave
• Dave’s Site

Transcript

Nancy Calabrese: Hi everybody and welcome to Conversational Selling. It’s the podcast where sales leaders, business experts will 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 Dave Trapani, CEO of AGT and Associates, an authorized Sandler sales training center. He has over 25 years of sales, marketing and management experience and helps business owners and leaders gain an edge to move their business development efforts to the next level.

His clients come from a range of industries, including professional services, IT, financial services, healthcare and more. Dave firmly believes that many sales challenges can be fixed by attitude, behavior, and technique. And I can speak firsthand, it works. I’ve been a client of Dave’s for many years. My team loves him. He’s a great coach. And Dave, I’m just so excited to have you on the show. Welcome.

David Trapani: Hey, Nancy. Thanks for having me here. And I appreciate being onboard with you.

Nancy: I am totally excited. And, you know, I think it makes sense to just start with what is Sandler Methodology and what makes it so unique?

What’s Unique About the Sandler Methodology?

Dave: Yeah, so I think, you know, the first thing is, when you look at Sandler, it is a methodology. And I know that that may sound pretty, you know, basic. I think most people don’t have a sales process or methodology. So Sandler gives you those steps to follow when you’re working on a piece of business, regardless of size. What makes Sandler unique is really a couple of things. I think one is, we really believe in the process.

So if you’re following that process, there’s no doubt you’re gonna have better results. But I think the real game-changer is we do things 180 degrees different than all other salespeople out there. So most salespeople think we should be headed in a certain direction, take certain actions. This is how you move a deal forward. But at Sandler, most of the techniques and approaches that we use are actually counterintuitive to what a salesperson thinks they should be doing.

Nancy: Well, you know, that’s really intriguing. And, you know, is there any example or can share with the audience about what 180 degrees looks like?

Dave: Yeah, I think one of my favorite examples, and I teach this early on in the training, and I consistently reinforce it, is we will tell prospects early on in the sales process that we can disqualify them. Now, we would say it in a nice way. We might say something like, hey, at the end of our conversation, we could tell you no because we don’t think we can help you with your situation. So the first thing we’re often telling prospects is that we can tell them no. And it blows salespeople’s minds to think that why would you ever put negativity out there to a prospect? And what we’ve found is, again, better positive results by using that approach.

Nancy: Well, it really, it almost puts you in equal stature, right? With the prospect by making a statement like that, giving them the option to also say no thank you. But we also as salespeople have the opportunity to do the same. Wouldn’t you say it gives us equal stature?

Dave: Absolutely and I think it’s a great term. Equal business stature is something that we’re always fighting for in sales. And most salespeople view the prospect as the person asking control, the person that calls the shots. But again, by creating that equal business stature, what we’re trying to do is balance the playing field.

It actually disarms the buyer and makes them feel even a little bit more in control when we’re actually balancing the scale. So it is a real game-changer. What it takes though, is someone that have the guts to go out and try that one or two times to actually see that it does work.

Nancy: Yep. And it does, folks. It definitely does. So, Dave, you and I speak on a regular basis and you often mentioned the word trifecta in conversation. What are you referring to? Tell my audience.

The Trifecta

Dave: Yeah. You know, sales training is a challenging world, because it’s one of the, it’s probably the number one issue for business owners and CEOs. But often, they don’t make a large investment of time and of dollars into training. So training is often, we’re going to read a book, we’re going to attend a class, but what we’ve seen in our results, the best results come from the trifecta. And what’s the trifecta?

If people show up for training on a regular basis, so Nancy, you and your team know you’re showing up every week, for some of our clients it’s every other week, but they’re attending training. The second piece is we do assign reading a book or reading a chapter of a book or listening to a podcast. So I call that part two of the trifecta is do the homework. Go out and practice, do what’s expected of you.

And the third thing is, and I think that this is a game-changer for our business here, we offer all of our clients coaching. There a correlation between the top salespeople who call me for coaching. Our top clients that work with sales results are doing the trifecta. They’re attending the training, they’re doing the homework and doing the practice and they’re calling in for coaching no matter how long they’ve been a client with us.

Nancy: Yep. Yep. And, you know, I love that, what you just said about taking advantage of the coaching, you know, and really making yourself visible to you being the coach and working together with the team. I mean, I’ve seen it even with my team members, the ones that have sought you out individually, tend to be the better performers. You know, kind of in line with what you just said, many companies invest in sales and management training. And that’s a good thing. Many do it for short periods of time, some don’t do it at all. Why is ongoing training so important? What’re the benefits?

The Benefits of an Ongoing Training Process

Dave: Yeah. So tremendous benefits on the backside. You know, there’s data that suggests, and don’t hold me accountable to this, that if you attend, like a one-day training class, after 30 days, you’re only gonna retain about 7%. But when Sandler developed this process and this methodology, and looked at training, he looked at it actually, from the view of how do we educate individuals? How do we educate adults?

And the only way to make significant change in somebody is to consistently reinforce the lessons learned and then add new education to that. And really, the best way to do that is what I call small bite-sized chunks. So as we do with your team, once a week for an hour, or maybe it’s bi-weekly with some of our other clients, small bite-sized chunks so that we can learn the tactic, the behavior or the attitudes, put it into play, and then come back and report on those results and then add another element to it. I think there’s a second piece there that there are belief systems on how to sell. There’s, you know, a ton of books out there.

There’s belief systems on how to sell, but attitudinally, we have to make a shift that we will try it a different way. And the only way to make that change between the ears that I’ll try things that are a little bit different, is to consistently reinforce that message to the brain. It’s hard to break some old habits and some old beliefs and without reinforcement, we pretty quickly will drop that more challenging way of doing something and we’ll default to what’s the easier thing to do. So reinforcement’s key.

Nancy: Yeah, and Dave, you know, people that join my organization have to be open to this kind of sales training. Why do you think salespeople in general have, maybe they’re challenged with new techniques? What is it about a new technique that frightens them away?

Dave: Well, I think if you ask every sale person about their expertise in sales, they are all experts when we know that the data suggests otherwise. So, I think it’s a lot of ego. You know, my ego gets in the way so we’ve got to make that easier for folks. The other thing is, this is difficult. I always use the term that Sandler is not rocket science, but it’s rocket fuel, Easy to understand, hard to execute. So this notion, let’s go back to where we started, the notion of telling a prospect that you can disqualify them during a sales meeting.

When I train that, let’s say there’s 50 people in the room, there are at least 25 to 35 that are going he’s out of his mind because it doesn’t feel good. Now, educationally they understand to do that, but now put them out into the field and that’s a hard tactic to execute. And like most human beings, we default to what’s easy. Nancy you guys do cold calling. How many salespeople should be doing cold calling, but have a hard time picking up the phone? It’s tough

Nancy: Yeah. It is tough stuff. But like, you’ve been talking about, it gets easier and easier over time if you’re committed to practicing it and role-playing it and having documents in place to help. And we know it can be successful. Speaking of success, why don’t you share with the audience a success story in how implementing the Sandler technique has helped an organization?

Dave: Yeah, so, you know, I’ll look at actually an individual sale that took place a couple of years ago because I think it speaks to what we’re doing. We have a client who was working on a significantly large deal into the near $100 million opportunity. And, you know, the folks that were working on the deal are good Sandler are people, they understand the process. But what we did is we partnered with them alongside and navigated each step of the sales process with them. So, you know, meeting one, we followed Sandler Methodology, meeting two, we followed, now, I wasn’t participating, but I was coaching them along.

But at the conclusion of the sale, when they won this piece of business which was significant, what we saw was the execution of the Sandler process in real-time. And, you know, you see that so you see how the methodology plays itself out and that’s an individual piece of business that we’re looking at. That cascades through the sales team. You know, that type of methodology, just everybody goes, Okay, that works.

Let’s all do that. So then we see better results with the sales throughout the sales team. One of the other things that we’re seeing right now is for some of our newer clients who are super open-minded, right now might be a little bit more of a challenging sale time. They are, we’re seeing our newest clients truly adopt the Sandler Methodology and we are just watching their sales click up every month. The last few months we’re seeing 30%, 40%, 30% increase month over month in sales results because of open-mindedness.

Nancy: Awesome. You know, I think you’re beating me to my question. So speaking of the crazy times we’re in right now, I know that you have worked hard at staying in front of your audience. I’m curious to know what’s been your biggest challenge and what’s been your client’s biggest challenge?

Staying Ahead of the Curve

Dave: I think our biggest challenge is making sure we stayed ahead of the curve. I think we’re pretty lucky being part of the Sandler organization. Sandler, right from the get-go, put out kind of a phased approach of we’re going to get ahead of this, we’re going to build programs that are stepped ahead of where our clients are. So I think we’ve done a good job there. But that is probably one of the biggest challenges I’ve seen is how do we stay ahead of the curve here. For our clients, what I’m seeing right now is slow sales cycles.

Sales cycles have slowed down so we’ve got to be super diligent, better than we were six months ago, make sure our methodologies are in place. With that slowdown, what I’m also seeing is less meaningful conversations are taking place right now. So for example, because of the challenges we have, more buyers, I think are leaning on that, I won’t say as an excuse because I think that that’s unfair, but as maybe a little bit of a stall.

Hey, based on today’s time, we’re going to have to hold off on this decision. So I think that’s making it much more challenging. So we have, our clients are having more conversations and I think they got to be super prepared to ask better questions and to follow that methodology to try to minimize those stalls that are occurring.

Nancy: Yeah. How does attitude play into what’s going on right now?

Dave: I think right now, that is, especially early on, that was the biggest driver. We’ve had clients who said, hey, look, this is the hand that we were dealt, we’re going to move forward. We’re going to double down on what we’re doing. Training is important. Our prospecting has to get better, our technique has to get better. We’ve called some prospects and we’ve had prospects say to us, how can anybody sell in this environment?

I need to hit the pause button. That is total, now listen, there are some businesses that are going to struggle, there’s no doubt about it. I’m a restaurant, I’m a retail shop. But if that’s my attitude, you are absolutely putting yourself behind the eight ball. So you got to think what can I do to get better to use this time to be the best business, best salesperson, best leader that I can be? And that’s all driven between the ears. Absolutely an attitude driven belief system.

Nancy: Yup. So tell me something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

Oftentimes, Salespeople are Oblivious to Their Own Mistakes

Dave: I would go with the idea that salespeople have no idea that they’re making mistakes. I throw out numbers. Now they are more observational. I think that 80 to 85% of salespeople really are not that good. And that’s kind of a high number. Now, there’s some data that might support that. But when I’m talking to a group, or maybe even talking to other people, when you share with a salesperson that they’re doing something wrong or that maybe they could do it this way, I’m often met with well, I’ll keep doing it my way.

My way works just fine, when we know that they’re struggling. So there’s this, you know, there’s this cognitive dissonance, this breakdown on the actual results versus what my belief system is from the salesperson, their head is just in two different spaces. The real versus what their beliefs are.

Nancy: Yeah. Two final questions as we’re wrapping it up. What’s the one takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?

Dave: You know, sales training is a tough business. And there’s, Sandler has great techniques, great methodology, but really, what it comes down to is the attitude of the client. So does the client believe that they can get better? So I have no doubt that what we’re going to train is going to work. It’s going to make that sales team, that company better. There’s no, I have no question. The question really should be on the business owner, on the salesperson, do they have the belief in themselves that they can actually execute what we’re teaching here?

Nancy: Yep. And the patience to allow it to happen, correct?

Dave: No immediate results. We’re not going to get immediate results. But if you start to implement what we’re doing, you will see early change, and then dramatic change over time.

Nancy: Yep. So how can my audience find you?

Dave: Easiest way to find me is by emailing me at D Trapani, TRAPANI @sandler.com, or our website is agt.sandler.com.

Nancy: Awesome. And just, you know, and I’m thinking of this right now, the workforce looks different. A lot of us are working remotely. Is virtual training an option that’s been incorporated into your business?

Dave: That’s a great question. So prior to us all moving into a remote workplace, we were running about 65 to 70% virtual. We’ve got some national clients. Now we are 100%, virtual, at least for the time being. That’s how we’re delivering right now. And based on the feedback we’re getting, and some of the results we’re seeing is it’s working. I mean, there was a little bit of fear of how good is virtual, and we’re finding it’s actually, it’s working real well.

Nancy: Yep, yeah. And I want everybody here to know that he is an awesome trainer. If you and your team are committed to grow professionally and sharpen your skills, he’s a great vote to take advantage and email him. Dave, I’m so thankful you came on the show. I can never get enough of this stuff. So happy selling to everyone, stay safe and we’ll see you soon.

Dave: Thanks, Nancy. It was great being on.

Joe Pici | Taking a Consultative Approach to Selling

by Nancy Calabrese | Sep 22, 2020 | Podcast

On this week’s episode of Conversational Selling, we’re joined by special guest, Joe Pici. Joe is the CEO and Co-Founder of Pici & Pici Inc., providing sales teams with skill training, professional speaking training, executive coaching, keynote presentations, and live phone call workshops. He is also currently ranked as the number one sales trainer worldwide by Global Gurus.

“My wife and I were $350,000 in medical debt and we signed up in a part-time direct sales business with no background in sales, but, we could not find good sales training. And so, just by trial and error, we paid off our medical debt on cold calling and we started to develop some skills. Then they started throwing us up on stages around the world, trying to get us to motivate people, and we did that. And then around 2003, I remember walking off stage and I told my wife that there’s a big gap in the marketplace and that I wanted to really focus on skill-based training to help people really develop the skills to get in front of their target market. That’s how we got started,” says Joe.

We chat about how Joe got his start in sales, as well as:

• Rapport mastery
• Using sales scripts effectively
• Priority management
• His podcast series, Sales Edge
• And more

Listen now…

Mentioned in this episode:

• Joe’s Site
• Joe’s LinkedIn
• The Sales Edge Podcast

Transcript

Nancy Calabrese: Here we are again everybody, and welcome to Conversational Selling. It’s the podcast where sales leaders and business experts will join me and 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 welcome Joe Pici, CEO and co-founder of Pici & Pici Inc, providing sales teams with skill training, professional speaking training, executive coaching, keynote presentation.

Oh, and I can’t forget live phone call workshops, which I think is absolutely awesome. He’s ranked by Global Gurus as the number one sales trainer worldwide. And, you know, Joe, I just don’t know where to start. There’s so much you can offer my audience. So I really want to welcome you to the show.

Joe Pici: Well, thank you. It’s really an honor to be here.

Nancy: Yeah, I’m really excited. And, you know, in doing my research for this conversation, I read that you’re a meat and potatoes kind of guy, which I absolutely love. I mean, how did you get into this industry?

How Joe Got Into Sales

Joe: Well, I was a college football coach, my wife was a voice teacher. We were $350,000 in medical debt, losing everything we owned. And we signed up in a part-time direct sales business with no background in sales. We could not find good sales training, we found a lot of motivation, a lot of strategy. And so just by trial and error, trial and error, we paid off 350 thousand dollars in medical debt on cold calling.

And we started to develop some skills and they started throwing us up on stages around the world trying to get us to motivate people. And we did that. And then about 2000, and that was about 1992. I’m old. And then about 2003, we were speaking on a big stage. And I remember walking off and I said to my wife, you know, there’s a big gap in the marketplace. I want to really condense what we do. I want to really focus on skill-based training and help people really develop the skills to getting in front of your target market. That’s how we got started.

Nancy: Wow. Wow. Well, obviously you’re doing something right. I mean, what would you say is your uniqueness and how does it help your clients?

Joe: Well, I guess the number one uniqueness we have is we’re still selling. I think a lot of speakers, trainers and coaches, and they’re very gifted, I think there may be a point by which they stopped doing what they were doing and they start managing the process. And I sell all of our speaking, coaching and training. The other uniqueness is we don’t believe in roleplay. So we actually do live outbound telephone call training, booking appointments. So whether I go into a corporation or they come to a sales boot camp or I work with them privately, part of the training is going to be real-time picking up the phone, calling people with the idea to book appointments.

Nancy: Okay. I, again, I think it’s an excellent exercise and more people, I’m sure, should be doing more of that. Tell me more about rapport mastery.

Rapport Mastery

Joe: That’s our methodology. We do, we are very consultative in our approach. We like to build rapport, which takes time. Really in the world of sales, as you know, you’re an expert, there’s transactional sales, which is get to know as soon as possible and there’s consultative sales. And rapport mastery is about consultative sales. 82% of sales happens between the sixth and the 12th contact, 68% of the population processes slowly. So they’re not buying today. So we opt to build more rapport with skills. And that’s a process we develop.

Nancy: That’s, you know, you say everything that’s music to my ears. I think having a discovery discussion in a non-salesy way really earns the trust of the person on the other end. And over time, they do build that relationship. One of the stats that I found in, again, doing my research, is you have the ability to train people to get through the gatekeeper 98% of the time. And I said to you before, I think I’m pretty good. I’m not sure I’m getting 98% of the time. So what’s your secret sauce?

Joe: First of all, I think we have to understand that the gatekeeper is not a gatekeeper. They’re a decision-maker. I think the first mistake people make is to patronize or play some kind of silly game instead of really telling the people why you’re calling and what benefit is to their boss. And I’m not being elusive, but in building the script to get through a gatekeeper, when I’m working with a client, when we build our sales scripts for telephone calls, it’s a four to five-hour process.

And I see many times, people come in and they drop a script in front of their salespeople and they wonder why they don’t get the results. If the person making the call doesn’t know how we’re getting there, why we’re doing it the way we’re doing it and if we don’t get buy-in, they’re just going to read a script.

They’re not going to own it. And so, whether it’s the decision-maker, the gatekeeper, it really doesn’t matter. The whole process we use is scripting based on what’s in it for the person who answers the phone. In our sales boot camp, we only allow 20 people. In day two, it’s six hours of digging into your target market, understanding the benefits you provide and creating scripts that are going to give you better results.

Nancy: I’m a big believer in scripts. There are people that may be listening to this that don’t think scripts work. I think it’s safe to say that we know it does. So what’s your comment when you hear people say they don’t work? I won’t sound natural.

Own the Script

Joe: I was with a CEO of a big corporation about two weeks ago. He goes, Joe, my people don’t like scripts. And I said, well, the finest actors in the world are Italian. You got Stallone, you got Brando, you got Pacino, and they all use a script. I say, now, if professional actors use a script, why wouldn’t a professional salesperson? The difference is when they know the script, when they own the script, it doesn’t sound scripted.

Nancy: Correct. Correct. And if we take it from the read-through to internalization and really having it become your own, it’s funny you say that because anyone we hire internally, one of the first questions we ask is who’s your favorite actor or actress? And then when they let us know, well, guess what, you’re just getting a new script for a movie.

You’ve got to start memorizing it. And I think that makes it more real and reminds people that, Yeah, when you’re on the phone, you have to be an actor, right? And an actress, to get your message across, to be heard. You mentioned this earlier that you speak about mindset, strategy and skill mastery in outbound sales conversations. And that skill mastery is your specialty. Any particular reason why you chose that?

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. It was very intentional. The majority of training out there is great, but it takes a long time to bear fruit. And so the company or the individual begins to lose trust. We go right after the skills, and within the first two days I’m in a company, we’re booking real appointments, closing real business, it earns the trust of everyone in the room and everyone upstairs, which then allows me to work in their strategy. So does that make sense?

Nancy: So, give them the skills first, and then you build on the strategy. Correct?

Joe: When we do the training, we build out the complete sales process, but then we drill down into the skills. And so what happens is, while I’m in the room, they’re getting real quantifiable results. And I was on a podcast late last night and this guy had spent $100,000 in sales training and he still couldn’t pick up the phone to book an appointment.

And all I said to him was he said, Why is your training differently, would it be different? I said because you would be making the phone calls with me in the room and I’d be coaching you live. He said, I never heard of that. And I said, Well, that’s one of our uniquenesses. And if you master what I believe is the hardest part of sales, getting in front of the person with the checkbook at the right time for the right reason, then the rest is pretty simple.

Nancy: So is he your client now?

Joe: I was his guest on his podcast and he asked for a proposal.

Nancy: That’s sweet, right? I’m guessing you didn’t say no to that, right?

Joe: You know, it’s a, I don’t believe in selling from charisma and talent because you cannot duplicate that. So everything we do, number one, we only train what we do to grow our own business. Number two, everything we train is processes, communications and skills, which means you don’t have to be Attila the Hun to sell.

Nancy: They have to know the right questions to ask and when to ask them. I want to just pivot for a minute to introduce the audience to your podcast series. Talk more about that.

Joe: Well, it’s called The Sales Edge, SALES EDGE. It’s on all of the podcast hosts. And if you want to get to it really simply, just take out your phone and type in 55678 and put in the tagline Salesedge and send it. That’ll take you to a link, it’ll take you to a splash page. On that splash page, there’s some free downloadable books.

But to the bottom of that, you will also get links to our podcast on all the major podcast hosts. That’s 55678 the word Salesedge, make sure it’s one word. Some phones will break it up. It comes out every Tuesday, every Thursday, and it’s all about sales and marketing and business development, cuz I have never been gifted with the life coaching gene.

Nancy: So, you know, listen, you run a business, a very successful business, you sell you, teach, how do you find the time to do it all? And that’s always the salesperson’s lament, right? Where do I get the time?

Joe: Well, I have a process I developed called Priority Management. First of all, I love what I do. So I’m not a hobbyist, but I believe if you’re really good at managing your priorities and if you make sure the top priorities are getting done first, most salespeople spend time in busywork, but for me, not only do I generate the leads and I book the appointments and I do the meetings, I close the business after I go to proposal, I get the deposits, but then I go in and actually do the training. So it’s very important that I exercise very good priority management skills.

Nancy: I would say so, sure. And just listening to your story. I guess that’s the only way to manage, right? A variety of different responsibilities and pull it off successfully. What is something that’s true that nobody agrees with you on?

Joe: That’s a great question.

Nancy: Isn’t that a fun question?

To Many People Attempt to Negotiate With Non-Negotiables

Joe: It’s a great question. And I believe 95, this is a Joeism, which means it may not be right, but according to Joe, I think it’s right. I believe 95% of the people on the planet negotiate with the nonnegotiables. Every business has certain things that are called non-negotiables. And I believe a big portion of the people in the world, those are the very things they negotiate with. So I get pushback on that all time. That’s not true. That’s not true. Until we line up what their non-negotiables are and then they look at me and they start laughing because they realize they’ve negotiated with their non-negotiables.

Nancy: Can you give us an example?

Joe: Oh, sure. You know, Joe, I really don’t like to pick up the phone. You know, it’s, I’d really rather use email. Well, if you’re going to do outbound sales, you better love the phone. That’s a non-negotiable. A non-negotiable is you have to have X amount of sales meetings a month. Well, you know, I really got very busy with this and that. No, no, that’s a non-negotiable. There, you have to do X amount of meetings a month to generate X amount of dollars.

So what happens is most people first don’t locate the nonnegotiables. So they get into business or they get into sales and they really never established what does it take to be successful at this? So then they invest their money and they get in it and then they realize, oh, my goodness, you mean I have to do those things? And that’s where they begin to negotiate.

Nancy: Yeah, pretty interesting. So how can my audience find you?

Joe: Oh, it’s easy. They can have a complimentary cup of Joe. Just take out your phone and call 407-947-2590. Or you can go to my website, www.PICIANDPICI.com. I’m on LinkedIn, Joe, and then PICI, and you’ll recognize me right away. I’m on the knee, I’m all in black and I’m pointing at you. So, I think I make myself easily findable. I rather people just pick up the phone and say, Hey, I heard you on a podcast, I got a question, and I’ll talk shop with you.

Nancy: Well, hey, everybody out there, this is a guy to take advantage of right now. And I think you have a tagline, right? Which says something about unfair advantage.

Gain That Unfair Advantage

Joe: Yeah, we help our clients gain an unfair advantage over their competition. In a competitive market, even in lieu of how business is being done right now, if you don’t have that competitive edge, if you are not focused on how many sales meetings I’m doing a month, you’re losing ground because believe it or not, millionaires are made in the down economy.

Nancy: Well, we’re going to end it with one final question, people. Who’s ready to become a millionaire? Pick up the phone and call Joe. Joe, thanks so much. I really enjoyed speaking with you. And hopefully, we’ll do this again one time real soon.

Joe: I’m gonna have you on my show so get ready for that call.

Nancy: Oh baby, I better get prepped. All right, see you all soon, everyone.