Thank you. All right, good afternoon everybody. Welcome back to Disruption. This is Mike LaBersi and on behalf of my co-host Jay Clendang, I'd like to welcome a real sales powerhouse and a hell of a guy, Ben Wright. What's up Ben, how are you? Hey Mike, really happy to be here today all the way from the other side of the world. I think we are almost exactly the other side of the world, but yeah, thank you for having me on. Well, if I drill down, maybe I can pop up and get to you and we can have a chat there and have a coffee maybe. I would love that. It would be quicker than all the flight delays that are happening with jet fuel prices at the moment. So, yeah, let's do it. I can't even believe that. Can you believe what's going on right now? And I'm not even segwaying into what, when and where. the chaos in terms of price uh security travel the logistics are a nightmare uh people are reporting to me i haven't flown in a minute and about uh a month month and a half and from what i gather it's going crazy out there how about over on your side we're definitely definitely feeling the pain i mean if we look just from a travel pure travel point of view i've just been Thailand with my family we've just got back every single flight was delayed bar one and we went four flights and we had pretty significant delays but I mean in a sales landscape it's adding so much uncertainty for customers at the other end it's adding uncertainty for suppliers and manufacturers that there's definitely turbulence out there in more than just your daily commute or your plane flights whatever it may be it's actually impacting businesses I think at a greater level but those that are pretty agile those that have seen it's it's a period of time rather than a change in how we operate, have tended to be okay, certainly down under where we are. Now, I don't know about you, but you bring up this good point about turbulence and uncertainty. I always use this micro macro view where I kind of pan back, take a look at it, say, okay, this is permanent, temporary. I'm not going to let this affect me. I'm going to adjust accordingly, but I'm not going to let it like depress my nervous system and get me frantic. I'm not going to listen to, I'm not going to be blind to the reality of what's happening, but I'm also not going to get steered by negative influences. And I, a lot of times, like you're a sales specialist and all of your information is going to be on in the show notes. I'm not going to burn time here. You've been in, you can give us a quick overview of how long you've been in the sales game, But really, I'd like to get a little coaching from you for the audience, and we're going to pretend I'm the audience, on a few things today. And the first thing right now, as we're talking about this, when you have this uncertainty and you're still in the sales process or you're selling to customers, how do you handle that discrepancy between maybe something in your life is bothering you and you're trying to lock in and you're trying to get this sales thing going? And how do you handle it? How does somebody handle that separation? It's a really interesting point. And when we throw uncertainty, I'll give you a real live example. We've been on air for two minutes. And in the two minutes that we've been on air, I have had a kangaroo bounce in front of my window. I've had a fox chase that kangaroo. I haven't seen a fox around our house in years. And I've just had a great big white Labrador come trailing through. So it's been a commercial of pets that come through. So we talk a bit about uncertainty and things throwing you off your game. I've just had one of those moments before we get into today. But as I answer that, it's probably worth me giving that really brief background. So my job today is to find two or three pieces of value, two or three changes or adjustments that your listeners can make to how they sell. Because if I can do that, then we've really created some great value for your listeners and they'll come back again and again and again. And the reason I'm qualified to do that, I think, is that I'm now 43. I have to say that because some people say, although I've got a beard at the moment, some people say you look a bit younger than that, right? But I'm 25 years now in sales. And by the way, that white Labrador's back pours up on the window in front of me. It's not our dog. I've never seen it before in my life. And I've got 25 years in sales. And that has been across corporate businesses. That's been starting my own businesses where I carry the bag. That's been through really fast growth businesses. We won company growth rewards in Australia for our businesses. we had about 23 in our sales team of our largest business at peak so I've lived many many sales lives and what has come from that is successes but also lots of failures and lots of times you'll be able to reflect and decide and I guess test what works really well and what doesn't work in the sales landscape and for me when we talk about uncertainty which is that you know that piece we've focused in on already. Salespeople, and in fact, any people in businesses, one of your previous podcasts I've spoken about who your customer is, but anyone who has customers, who are you internal customers, internal customers, where you can create value and where you can be focused on how you create value is a really terrific way to work through uncertainty because that allows you to find right now what's most important to your customer. And when you're digging into that, you're generally going to have a captive audience, people that are willing to talk, learn, listen, and in the end do business with you because you've uncovered what that value is. So if I'm hearing you correctly, I guess it goes to the principle of make it about them, not you. And this goes for, and we've all been there as entrepreneurs, where you've got more time than money and you've got more uh you're selling off the back you're selling off the front foot not the back foot you're you're desperate you need to make a sale your back's against the wall if you can transcend those emotions and become a value tool it doesn really matter where you are in life it matters that you becoming a conduit Same thing goes for the experienced salesperson that is so used to her has a high close rate or high conversion rate whatever language we want to use, right? You start taking the sales process for granted and you start thinking ahead of your customer and you lose the fact that you're trying to establish value. Somebody needs something. You have something someone needs. you're educating you're creating the value and you're making that connection is that an accurate recap of what you were saying yeah absolutely mike i think it is and i spend the majority of my time now it hasn't always been this way but i spend the majority of my time now working with trade building construction industry businesses people that own their own business they're 20 to 30 they technically are very proficient but they're in this situation where they're quoting over and over and over again and just not winning deals. They're super busy, they're frustrated, they can't get deals done. But at the same time, I've worked with huge numbers of experienced salespeople. I have a process with a team of 50 salespeople. They're a $300 to $400 million business. And of those 50 salespeople, they have about 20 who I would say are career salespeople. So 20, 30 years in the industry. And what's common across both of those is that they have strengths and weaknesses. the younger generation is still learning how to sell but the more experienced generation they know so much but they have almost forgotten more than they've learned and they become dangerous because they rely on their knowledge and their confidence to get deals done. Whereas with both of these parties and both of these different personas if you like where they can ask great questions which I would guess and assume assumptions can make fools of us but I would assume that most of your people listening have heard that before. And they know, hey, I need to ask great questions. But the difficulty comes in to say, okay, I know I need to ask great questions. I know I need to create value. But how do I trust myself to do it in the moment when I'm busy, when I'm distracted, when I have a kangaroo, fox and a Labrador run flying in front of me in the middle of a sales consult, whatever it may be. I think a kid's book over there. Sounds like, it totally sounds like a kid's book. The kangaroo, the fox and the Labrador. Yeah, we live in one of the most beautiful places in Australia, which I can riff along later on, but one of the bonuses is we get that and snakes and all sorts of things. But where both of those parties can build a simple, a very simple system, and that's one of my biggest learnings through mistakes over my 25 years in sales, is that simplicity really is more important than a 15 step or a 10 step or a framework or a script that is really detailed. But where they can build a simple system that allows them to trust themselves to ask the right questions that then creates value. These are the people that I'm seeing succeed because they're able to do that again and again and again, each and every day, regardless of what's happening around them. Okay. So you're talking more like a process and work me through. Why don't you give a light example of a process? and then this is for the master or the sort of beginner here the journeyman i'm always fascinated by this thing because we're going to talk in a minute about marketing versus sales i love sales nothing happens until somebody sells something right you can't do a darn thing until some a transaction happens in business just can't do it you could have people can walk through your door they can't get to your door without marketing nothing happens until a sale is made so for me I feel like, man, I could go on here for about three and a half hours with you and pick your brain for three and a half hours. But at the risk of sounding super, super basic, which I think we both know that this is actually the root of success, is this a basic fundamental process. What exactly is the definition of a or an example of a basic fundamental process? Let's get one on one here. Let's get real simple. Yeah, cool. And I like the way you're going about this here because we're layering, or actually we're now up to our... All right. well I guess Ben took a pause the uh Australian internet rolled out and rolled back in uh we're gonna work through that here so as we sit here and talk about it what we want to do is we want to come up with an idea I'm going to walk you guys through some basic ideas about sales process and when, and then Ben's going to come back in and correct me a little bit. So my version of a sales process, right, is, and again, I can't wait for Ben to come back in and school me on this. We're going to walk in and we're going to go customer need, listen, learn, talk introduce listen learn needs talk introduce listen learn needs talk introduce so with that being said as we walk and talk through these processes each process becomes a layer and as we roll through these layers hey there's ben he's back hey ben i was just giving the audience here a uh a brief and i want to see if i'm right uh while you were uh you know land of the internet while you were uh working on detaching and reattaching the uh the internet there is a is a brief overview of a sales process and i was talking about listening learning talking introducing listening learning talking introducing right that's kind of a formula that i'm not a sales expert i mean i've sold a few things but i was just given a basic framework so as you were talking about layering what um let talk deeper about a process it happens Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Most customers then spend a process or the rest of the process thinking, okay, I've chosen Ben, I've chosen Ben, I've chosen Ben, and they're supporting that choice. Versus when you don't create value, it remains as a very competitive process. Is it Ben? Is it Michael? Is it the white Labrador? Is it Ben? Is it Michael? Is it the white Labrador? all right so so that's certainly from a value piece then when we get into process it's all about having a process that is simple enough that you can roll out again and again and again when you contact a customer the questions you ask how quickly you get to site what you do when you're on site how you quote and then how you follow up and your process can really be as simple as that but those three levers are really powerful when it comes to building a very simple sales framework or sales process? I like process. That's when I was going over when you were, when you had jumped out and I was going over a little bit more of a tactical thing. I like the overview. I like the speed component. I like the sales component of, of getting back to people and being, and in and of itself, the quicker, in my opinion, the quicker someone can meet, But if I have a need and there's a gap in you getting back to me about my need, already you're not valuable, right? Like, I need this. In my head, psychologically, I'm in a vulnerable state. I'm reaching out. And my vulnerability, I know this sounds like really micro, but it's really what tactically happens in the brain. You're not creating a friction point for me to get to that. Speed closes the distance. The value means you're hearing me. Now I'm heard. Now I want to, you've got to me. Great. I feel comfortable. It's almost like you need a doctor and you can't get a hold of one or you need somebody or there's a flood and you need a plumber. And then you're heard, right? Now a salesperson has things I need and we've left the transaction category and we're moving into the needs category. And now you hear me, right? oh, Ben, Ben's team, he hears me, right? Now what? Okay, great. So, yes, sorry, it must be this long connection between where we both are, or the core drilling through the center. Yeah, you're right. So we've created that value. We have to get some of those tin cups and connect them with a bit of stream, and that works even better. So you're right, we've created that value. So what do you do then from a process point of view, I think is what you're asking. Well, I'm the customer. You've gotten back to me. You've listened to me. That's creating value, right? You've established two metrics of value. Tin cup. We need a tin cup, Ben. That's what we need. i think ben and i need to put us a soup can in our ears and a string and vibrate uh we need to vibrate that to the we need to vibrate all the way through the uh all the way through the ground and bring it back here so anyway ben's bringing up some fascinating points uh he's talking about he's talking about value we're talking about speed we're talking about getting back to people and now that i've created all these things where you're talking about value speed and getting back to me. What happens? Like how do I go from now we're talking, how do you, what's the close, what's the next thing? I know people are dying to know. Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, it all does come back to those three key levers. And if we look about in particular, how do we close a deal? For me, and certainly the teams that I see really succeed in selling, and I would have worked with, I mean certainly into thousands of salespeople now, is those that are most successful at closing, they're able to set up what a yes looks like in that first meeting. And this is really important for everyone listening. The best closers aren't the best ones at asking for the business at the end of the engagement. They're not the ones who have the most tricks to say, you know, butter wouldn't melt in my mouth, here's how we're going to get the deal done. They're the ones that set up what a yes looks like early in the process. So by asking the right questions, by creating value and let me give you an example what are we spoken about today? We've spoken about painters. So if we were to use painters as an example, that when they go into that first meeting they're really clear with the customer around what's most important to them. So is it quality of paint? Is it speed? Is it damage? Is it being able to bring to life a part of their house that they haven't been able to previously, right? Is it doing an economical paint job, right? Is that important? And, you know, we try to avoid talking about price, but sometimes that's what we have to do. And what the best salespeople are able to do is set up a structure that says, okay, thank you for having me in your home today. I'm really grateful. What's come out of today is that the most important piece for you is that we need to be able to get this project done with minimal impact to your family. You've got three kids at home. You work from home, right? And you know that if we don't get in here in this certain window, get the job done and get it done really well, that it's just not going to work for you. So if I'm able to come back to you with a quote that covers all your walls, your inside, your outside, we're going to work on really strong prep because you've got children who are going to mark the walls. And we're going to work this in the fastest window. We're going to hit it really fast with a big team. And we'll be in and out in four days. So we can build together a proposal that looks like that. What does the next step look like for you? And what we're doing is we're setting up right there and there for the customer to say, look, I really like that, but what you've forgotten is I want pink bathrooms, right? Let's think of something a bit silly. I want pink bathrooms, right? And I want them fluorescent in color so that when the lights are off, the kids have a fantastic time in there. You go, fantastic. Thank you so much for bringing that up. And I wasn't aware of that. So if I add that into your proposal and we're in and out really quickly and we repeat those key points, what does that look like for you? and where we try to work here is that the customer is saying great I love it perfect exactly what I want make sure your price is on point you know when you're ready come back to me okay fantastic I'll come back to you tomorrow with a quote and if you don't mind I'll call you at this time we'll run through it and then you can decide what you want to do next that's a really basic sales process but it is far more successful than any processes that try to try to wow through features and benefits, that try to show how you are better than someone else, that try to produce magic through anything other than understanding what the customer wants. They are the most effective people at closing because their question, once they've presented, simply needs to be, what would you like to do next? What would you like to do from here? How do you want to proceed? It's really natural. It flows. And for me, that's when the best closing happens. Well, that sounds like a modern approach versus features, advantages, benefits. And it sounds like a really clean, honest, earnest approach to creating value. And it sounds like you're not pressed and you're not trying to make a sale. You're trying to have an engagement that's positive for both people. Obviously, you're not trying to walk out of there without a sale or leave an engagement, walk out of there is metaphoric, without a sale, regardless of what product, service or industry you're in. I feel like this is, we've just unearthed a whole new category of how to sell honestly and how to introduce people to what the new era of sales are. So look, we're running low on some time here. Again, I can tell you I can go for three or four more hours. What's the best way to get a hold of you, man? What is your contact information? What's going on? How do we do it? Yeah, absolutely. So normally at the end of a podcast interview like this, we'll have two streams of people, those who know they need some help now and would like to connect. And when we talk about value, one of the key ways to create value is through a really nice quotation. It's more than just mechanical, but it actually drives some engagement from customers. So for listeners of Total Disruption, we'll offer them a quote audit. So the link will be in your show notes. Thank you. You can click straight onto that and engage with us and we'll help you make some positive changes. No cost, no obligation. We also then have people who aren't ready to engage with someone, but do want to learn a bit more about how they can simplify their sales processes and get that 20 to 30% bump in sales really easily. them and look I'd recommend that they go and listen to our podcast which is sales growth made simple it's it's a one of the largest sales podcasts that are internationally it has a big viewing here in Australia but we'll drop a link to that into the show notes as well and people can jump on there and no doubt supports a lot of what what you and Jake go through yourselves too. Awesome man I can't thank you enough for being on the show man this was a great I've learned a lot i know we had some internet stuff going on but regardless it was awesome and it it i i we need to do a part two so i have so many more questions uh let's let's if ben's gracious enough we can break off some time we're gonna get part two going on uh so for my co-host jake clandetting for ben right my name is mike labersi you were just live on total disruption we'll see you next time
