Everything I Have Learned From Closing 5,000+ Sales | Tips For Sales Managers

Plug: Paul Leon here. I want to take my hat off for a moment and speak directly to you, the listener or watcher of our show thank you so much for being consumer of the show and I want to take our relationship a step further. When you join our newsletter at the TheManagers Mic.com website again, that's the managers Mic.com website. ⁓ I'm going to give you a free called a selling script to sky rocket sales.

Paul Leon: It only takes 13 days of consistent action to become better at sales than most gurus and people online. I've personally closed over 5,000 sales. Here's everything I've learned from doing that, including the insights from the ones I have lost. My name is Paul Leon. I've trained over a thousand people. I've worked with over 500 companies that influenced a hundred million dollars in revenue. I like making content like this to help you power up your selling skills so you may have the same results.

Plug: Thank you so much for being a listener and watcher of the show. And now back to the episode.

Paul Leon: Communicating a value proposition is the most critical skill within a sales process. Most people understand pain, but masters understand acute pain. value proposition does this in ideally 10 to 30 seconds. We need to get to the point and answer three questions in the back of a prospect's mind. who is this person that's contacting me? what's the reason they're reaching out? And question three, ⁓ what's in it for When we do this correctly, we stop selling and we start helping people buy. I help business owners Columbus, Ohio stop losing profit from their sales process would be an example ⁓ of a value proposition. ⁓ want to create how do you do that statements when you can create the loop of how do you do that? How do we do that? That's when you have a really good value proposition a more niche example would be ⁓ help telemarketers in the medical industry Communicate value to maximize cash from consultations now that might come a little cross-car salesy like but again The point is the same we want to niche down our value proposition to the acute pain Because we want to get out of the sales process and more into the buying process. the consultation I may find something else crucial that allows me to tailor that message and that's totally fine. You want to know your value proposition upfront and carry that through your questions through your consultation of skills because here's why this is important. once you have defined this value proposition, don't change it for 12 months. Stay with it because if you tend to tinker with it or you tend to have that more creative side, one of the things that always stayed with me is that marketers tinker, salespeople are systematic. ⁓ I meet these marketers with fancy degrees trying to teach me how to and then I'll ask them I'm like well ⁓ when's the last time you did a outreach or message anybody on LinkedIn and it's always this face like ⁓ Now I want to be clear, if you have a product or solution that's between like $25, $200, you need a marketing expert. I would encourage you to hire a marketing expert because it's worth paying for that. prospects are a number until they pay or receive a proposal. Then they graduate into being a customer or they drop out of the funnel of their own doing. The phrase buyers and liars have some sense of truth to it but I prefer buyers vote with their dollars. When someone says they can't afford a product but they book a trip to Disney the following week tells me they're full of shit. No, prospects buy the way they want to buy. how I deal with that situation these days is I let it go. I just let it go. I used to get mad at stuff like that under my breath, like how could they? I thought were going to buy but wishing someone harm is just like drinking poison waiting for the other person to die. communicating the value upfront with easy to understand math will close more sales, especially with adults over the age of 24 years old. Cost is a associated with loss, investment is associated with gain. believing in what you sell and constantly learning it like a child will help you naturally communicate it more positively. Negativity sells fast, but so does polarizing positivity too. I would rather be stupid on fire than brilliant on ice is a phrase that has always stayed with me. know and benefits in order of importance and be able to tailor them based on what the prospect shares with you throughout the consultative sales process. Now this may be subjective based on the prospect, but when we know what features are important and the of the prospect, we can close more. it's important we know that upfront because sometimes prospects don't know what they want. So if you can say things like most prospects will go with or what they like the most is X because it does Y result. That helps you to kind of not manipulate but help influence them in a positive way to see what other people have got the same results. most will bring up the price get over it and have a question ready to come over that bullshit objection the reason it's such a big objection price is Salespeople making the biggest objection in their belief system because they don't really truly believe in the price They don't really truly believe in the product or they truly don't believe in the solution after a lot of trainings I'll do at least once I'll hear well this product is expensive And I want to be upfront with the product or the prospect about that about the product and that the price is so expensive, Paul, it's so expensive. It's expensive. By the way, that voice I just made that isn't anybody I'm imitating that's just the voice in my head. Personally to me, that means you're saying it's too hard to talk about the price because I don't believe enough in it. And it says that I don't really want to tail this to a prospect. Instead of saying that say I don't have this skill just yet. Can you help me go to your sales manager, go to your sales leader just role play it out. Just role play it out. I remember I was struggling sales. ⁓ And there was this Willie who was better than me. And three, he was so good. One is he worked the most amount of hours that helps. And two, he role played most and practice his script every day before the doors would open. And I think that frame that middle ground of what works is something we all need to model and adopt. had a person come up to me say once do you have an email template that once the prospect reads it that they'll just buy and give me money and I had tend to be have this bad habit of being sarcastic and I had a little rapport with him to say, that's the payment link. They say yes to ⁓ the fifth follow up call because they don't trust you yet. The reality is you have to stack the pipeline. You stack the pipeline that will strengthen the security of closing more sales. guides be gurus when in preparation, ⁓ not reputation. ⁓ I have seen top salespeople use a tool or menu of solutions show a prospect what they want. sell seven out of ten sales back to front front to back and when I mirrored this I got the same result so a friend of mine who runs this major age HVAC company we were having a conversation about this and he told me that we got on the topic of do you hire a great salesperson? Like how do you level up? How do you give them the skill? How do you identify somebody couldn't make it? He goes, have you ever been a waiter or waitress? I go, excuse me. That's the question I ask because waiter or waitresses, when you really think about it, all they do is listen. I know how to read a menu. That's really 80 % of sales. We can easily level up and train the other 20%. I heard that and it made me reflect on the reality ⁓ what I mentioned earlier that one of my best years in sales ⁓ when I I had this clipboard of solutions date myself a little here and that's fine. ⁓ there were these bundles on this menu of solutions I had on this clipboard. And all I would do is point to what's on it. And funny thing is when you took the bundle apart and you looked at all the prices online, it was cheaper to get each part but people didn't care. People would buy on the spot because it was mapped out, it was clean and the speed of the solution mattered more than the price because I didn't talk about the price, I talked about the solution. That worked in the ghettos of Orange Blossom Trail in Florida and in the rich areas of Florida like Winter Park Florida. And if you've never been to Orange Blossom Trail, a lot of... lot of pimps and a lot of prostitution what was crazy is that menu would work across poor income levels and rich income levels. That's why it's important to adopt that. tone is more important than you think. So record yourself, listen back and do it again. I'm going to say something that I don't think you're and if you're a germaphobe, this isn't going to resonate with you. Just don't adopt this one. But would practice reading your script with a pencil in your mouth or pen. Just sure you clean it first and then do it out loud. you would take the pencil or pen or okay, tell me so I'm faulting during your stink. Record yourself, listen back and then do it again. Tone is more important than you think. Record yourself, listen back and then do it again. It starts to wake up these face muscles right here. I like that frame too. I think this is a good trick. If you could go, it called the time travelers trick? A lot of people reference this. If you could go back in time and tell your younger self about buying, let's say like Apple stock before it blew up, but you couldn't tell yourself who you are, what your tone would be like. How many questions would you ask yourself? That way you can set up a positive outcome. saying nothing is the best clothes once you show the proposal but if a prospect says no or you need to think about it followed up with the one to ten clothes is the best follow-up and then the third best close is worst case best case if you buy what's the worst thing will happen what we need to be true for you to get the results you're looking for now there is a Hail Mary close you can try if it feels hopeless like this is your final attempt doesn't matter anyways because you're probably gonna lose the sale here's the Hail Mary clothes is this a no forever or no for right now. Ask that. If you got a Hail Mary close and it's like, is the most difficult prospect in the world. I used to use this a lot when I would go through grocery aisles. I used to sell phones and I would like a wholesale store. And I'll go through the grocery aisles and people would always say no, like, I'm just trying to buy milk. What are you trying to sell me a phone for? And I would say Oh, okay, no problem. Hey, is that a no forever or a no for right now? And what happened a lot of the time is they would laugh at me and just start to chuckle and they'd be like, what do you got? And then we would just start a dialogue and I could ask more questions. And a lot of that converted in. the sale. that next time. Hopefully that's a win for you because it was a win for me a lot. The word is good in sales. Since a negative followed by a positive want to make this clear, a negative followed by a positive highlights the positive. So my old professor Rick Bomeljay who wrote listening pays, it's probably gonna hate this one. But this doesn't work in any other situation. But sales, don't try this on your wife or somebody you truly love because they're going to pick up on it because let's be real women are smarter than men. But the way it works is you list all all the negativity things about what you're doing. So like if I was selling a vacation, let's just go through this frame because it's common and it relates to most people. I wouldn't start with like, oh, the TSA person is going to fill you down. You're going to go through security. Somebody is going to fart on you on the plane and they're going to throw water on your face. There's going to be a kids cream. You just say, hey, we're going to go. You're going to go through security. Yeah, it's going to be uncomfortable. there may be some children, it'll be a difficult flight. But on the other side of it is a jacuzzi, a warm bed, hotel and you and your wife. You can have the best time of your life on this trip. That's an example of how you use but effectively use all the negatives of what the prospect may be thinking followed with a but followed by solution, solution, solution, solution, solution. when demoing or showing or presenting a solution, pause every section of it to allow a prospect to ask questions, meaning do not assume intelligence. I define intelligence by invitation, meaning if I can help a sixth grader understand it, ⁓ then an adult will get it. American public media shared that after studying a sample of 130 million Americans that only 48 % read past the sixth grade. Now I don't want I want to be very clear. Don't label people stupid, it's a prospect, a co-worker or leader in your organization, unless they call you stupid, then shut them down. Now, I'm just kidding. ⁓ do that. Just walk away as who's been called stupid in many names by many prospect and I've been a comedian before, so I know it hurts to hear those things. And unfortunately, a lot of managers have called me stupid or fix my face here ugly. Those are not good situations. But I do believe there are times where you do have to protect your confidence. Protecting your confidence in sales is crucial. I had a consultation with a prospect once and during the presentation, I'll never forget, he just started mocking me and insulting me. He actually took my product and he started imitating me like, Oh, look at me with my little tiny solution. And he started like poking fun of me. It was the weirdest moment I ever had. He went out of business. I can't imagine why he had great customer service skills. The funny thing about the situation was he actually called me a few months later and he's like, Hey, do know any business? And I shook my head like this. Like, uh huh. Yeah. If you ever see me do this and you know me in the real world, like if you ever see me go like, Oh yeah, I've checked out this just gesture right here. That that not that's a little dramatic. That that means I've checked out the pipe is life and sale. So that's a Jeb Blunt quote. ⁓ would encourage you to check out the podcast, Sale Gravy by Jeb Blunt. A lot of good selling insights in there. I'm re-quoting him ⁓ for that because think it's just a powerful one. speaking from personal experience, momentum in motion maintains healthier emotion. I'm gonna say that again. momentum and motion maintains healthier emotion. But the only way you're going to get that is by making sure that that wheel is greased and keep spinning and spinning and spinning. How many calls, calls, calls, calls, consultations, consultations. ⁓ never say no in the sales process. Replace it with what can be done. In my experience, the first 30 days in a particular, let's say like all commission role is very, very scary because you're looking at an calendar and an empty calendar. It feels really scary. because it's equated to your paycheck the emptier it feels, the emptier you feel and the scarier you're going to feel. However, if you own the pipeline, own the momentum and do the critical selling actions, you will be just fine. And then this is important. You want to follow up every 24 to 48 hours and then keep that habit throughout your sales process. until the prospect either drops or graduates as I said earlier into being a customer. But here's the important thing you want to remember in all this. You got to strike when the iron's hot. And what that means is always want to prioritize new, but make sure you feed old. So prioritize new, feed old. Because you can put your name on it, you can claim it throughout your wholesale process as well. here's another thing I'll tell you, whatever you think the number is, you probably have to double or three exit at this point. So if you think you need to reach out to one person on LinkedIn, make it two, probably four, five minimum. But again, be patient with yourself. And as you're being patient with yourself, being patient with your process, whatever you do, do not work with naysayers and do not let your foot off the gas. Just keep it down, keep it down, keep it down and put the blinders on. Like just get them away from you, back to forth. My wife makes fun of me when I do this gesture, just like get the blinders out. Okay, I don't know why I did that doing the next right thing will matter more than reading the next right thing So you can read all the books you want you can listen to all the podcasts watch this video I would encourage you that if this had an impact just apply it and don't watch anything for probably like two weeks I know that sounds really weird, but I think sometimes I'm guilty of just getting into the over learning versus the over applying embrace the little no's now So you do not confront the big no's later. here's what I mean by that. Being able to lose without losing enthusiasm your most powerful weapon. No from a client will always hurt less than no to someone you love. For me, hearing no from a prospect or somebody that wasn't my family or somebody I didn't love didn't matter as much because it hurt more where If I had to say no to my wife because I couldn't give her something or if I had to say no to my kids because I couldn't pay for their college, that hurt more to me than a stranger. And luckily I'm able to handle no so much more now. Been able to save up so much money so my kids have a good future, good college. And that's the power of being able to hear no without losing enthusiasm. Bam fam, bam fam. ⁓ Book a meeting from a meeting, book a meeting from a meeting, book a meeting from a meeting, book meeting from a meeting. So a prospect or customer You should always know what is the next step in the solution or process. And here's an important part, your sales manager should also know that as well. The worst thing you could ever do. is after a meeting or consultation, especially with one that didn't close. If you go back to your sales manager, and they say, Well, what happened? And then you have struggling shoulders, I call it, it was struggling shoulders looks like this, like, what happened with the prospect? So If your manager asks what happened, a better answer would be, well, we asked them one to 10 question. They were a six. I couldn't get into a 10. They were waiting for a competitor for another quote. And what I really want to do ⁓ is I want to play like how to be more adamant, but not pushy, but be more pleasure to work with. Would you work with in a role play? Can I work with someone else? Because I don't want to lose a sale to this situation again. sales starts after the fifth phone call from a live person and I mean this from a live person, not an AI chat, nothing else, real talk, new leads will always take priority as we said earlier, but we also have to make sure we keep the initial for them super positive and keep that experience other people to I think the best frame for feeling this way through times of tribulations. If following up feels frustrating is believe in everyone, trust no one. I think that's a really good frame. Believe in everyone, trust no one, even just for anything you want to go for in do not chase money money chases them because money is a measuring tool based on how many people they help how many conversations how many transfers emotions if that is there ⁓ to show you have patience to show that you care about their well-being and you just want to help them and help their loved ones which is why it's important to ask for a referral in the way of just like you've been an awesome prospect who do you know that's just been as awesome as you that may benefit from this solution also even if don't buy so there you have it lessons from from 5,000 sales if this is helpful to you, check out our website, TheManagersMic.com I have a free selling script to support you as well when you sign up for our newsletter. But if you don't want to do that, feel free to leave a comment in the chat and I'll go ahead and go in there and I answer questions and give you a response from me to help you level up, script up, have better script adherence and give you stronger selling skills so you can put more cash in your pocket. and collect more cash from those consultations.