Outdated Sales Advice Is Killing You

Good evening everyone.

Welcome back to the podcast.

So lovely to see you and I hope you, or see you, I should say hear from you, hope you you're doing well.

You've had really positive weeks.

So wanted to share some again, some thanks for some of the lovely messages I've had from about the podcast and how it's helping people, which is great news.

So yeah, really excited that it's doing what we want you to do and to help you get better sales results.

So look, what I want to do this week is the last thing I generally do is take a pop at anyone, but I do want to take a bit of this.

One of the big Mick questions that I've got is to change the perception of selling and way, the way in which people sell.

And one of the ways in which I want to do that is by calling out some of the BS advice that a lot of so called sales gurus give.

And there's lots of people that are sales gurus and there are some incredible people I think have that have done incredible work over the years that around sales.

But I'm going to call out a lot of the, the BS around selling and some stuff you might be hearing that you might be thinking, all right, well actually, oh, you know, I've heard that from someone that wrote a book or so.

Yeah.

10, 15 years ago.

Must be right.

And I'm going to call some of it out and it may be interesting because some of those people might hear this and react to it and think I'm talking bs in which case that's fine.

Right, let's have that discussion.

But in based upon the stuff that I know and see and do every day and sell every day and teach people to sell every day, these are some elements I think are basically some what they get wrong about modern day selling.

And so yeah, the first one I'm going to be, I'm going to talk about is, is around this idea of always be closing.

And I've heard a number of people talk around this phrase, you should always be closing, should always be closing.

And ABC comes to mind and you're always closing as a salesperson.

Why do I think that's BS advice?

Of course you need to close.

There is a time and pace in sales to close and you want to be able to know how to close so that you can get deals over the line.

If you can't close and there are lots of people in sales that can have lovely conversations but can't close, you will not achieve what you want to.

So I get that totally.

But this concept around always be closing focuses more, I think on a hard sell approach.

And I think the world has changed.

So I think the world has changed not to think I know the world has changed.

The conversations and the way that buyers operate now is vastly different to what it was maybe 10, 15 years ago where you could maybe be pushy with people and try and get them to, to.

To.

To.

To go to, you know, to, to buy something before maybe they were ready to do that or to be in a position where you were sort of doing a hard sale approach.

And this sort of style of always be closed and always try to look for the clothes, I think puts people off in a modern day sales environment.

And what people look for in a modern day sales environment is they look to understand a bit about you and your company and what you do.

They look for some.

What I Talk about the 4, 4 phases of sales and people look to, you know, have a problem.

So they want to see content and value that talks at the problem or the design, the desire they have.

They want to feel understood and feel like you get them and who they are and what they're about and what they are as people.

They then want to believe that your solution can solve their problem and they want to trust you to make it happen.

Now, of course, along that pathway, you've got to help people think about closing and you've got to be asking questions that remove the barriers from that close happening.

And that's something I always encourage you to do.

So try and find out what's stopping that person from making that deal happen.

And I've said in numerous occasions, your job in sales or business is to become a fly on the wall in the brain of the person you're talking to or the decision maker.

What's really going through their mind?

What's their thought process?

What are their risks?

What are their concerns?

What are the things that make them think, oh, I'm not sure about this.

What are the things that make them go, yeah, this is great.

And when you start to think like that and you start to show that form of understanding and that sort of ability to build relationships and show.

So show value rather than just pushing your product or service to them, I think you get a better result.

I don't think I know I get better results in the sales conversations I have.

I work with people who get better results in what they do.

So I think this idea of always be closing is BS now, where does it come from?

And there are some people that talk and say, well, Actually, you know, the reason it comes from, from this place is because you don't want to waste time and therefore you want to get the deal done and move forward.

And I get that.

Right.

There is of course a need to build, to get deals done quickly.

And in many cases, if you can get a deal done quickly, great.

Saves you time and effort.

But most of the time the deals that happen quickly in my world are from people that have seen my content, seen my value, seen the stuff that I've shared over a period of time, who have then built up trust and relationship with me, where.

So the close that I'm having with them is a really simple close.

It's like you've seen what I've done, you like what I've done, you've seen the testimonials, I've seen the work we've done, should we get started?

And it happens that way because they've seen the value that we've created, not just because I've gone in from the start and said, do you want to buy my stuff?

Do you want to buy my stuff?

Do you want to buy my stuff?

So always be closing.

Yes, you want to bring deals across the line, but if your only focus is just to speak to someone and get them to buy your stuff, I'm going to say to you depend or it depends what you sell.

But it, in most cases, 80, 90% of cases, I think it's the wrong approach.

I think it's the wrong approach.

I think it's going to be an approach that's going to make you appear to be a cringy salesperson.

It's a self serving approach.

It's focused on you, not on the buyer.

And it's also going to put you in a position where you know, quite frankly, you're going to get a reputation for being someone that's this macho sales BS stuff and that's not what modern sales is about.

And you know, I talk to people about free ways of selling and you know, there's a phrase that I've used in previous podcasts called buck em and duck em basically, which is what people do is they say, I'm going to sell one, excuse my French, by the way, but they're going to say I'm going to sell them anything.

I'm going to duck the crap that comes back my way.

And the problem is in the modern world now with review sites and social media and the way things can go viral quite quickly if you do something that's focused on what you want and not what the prospect wants and self serving and basically for one of a better phrase, get someone to buy something but they don't really want to do it, comes back and hurts you, hurts your reputation, gives people a perception of you.

So the first thing I think about is to say always be closing to me is not what I'd want to be doing.

Yes, ask the right questions along the way, build relationships, get to know people, get to really find out what's going on in their world.

But always because that's BS advice for me in my perspective.

So what's the next bit of advice that I think a lot of gurus get wrong about modern day selling?

So one of the other things that used to happen a lot was around features and functions of your solution.

So a lot of people would talk around how you can talk about the features and how you can start to talk about how your solution has a certain particular bit of functionality that does something or it does, it's got, you know, it's got these list of, long list of things that it does that are incredible that make it the top one in the market or what people do.

And of course, you know, features and functions are important.

They have a role to play.

They are important in making sure that people know what it is that you do and can see that your solution is going to work for them.

But I've felt for a long period of time buyers don't care about the features that your product has or service has.

What they care about is what outcome is it going to give them and how does it solve their problems.

And sales should always focus on the outcome and what you deliver and what you make happen for them, not just the technical elements of the specification.

And take an example of this.

There's a water bottle I've got here, you know, there's a water bottle that is, you know.

Now someone might say that this is made of aluminium and cast iron.

I don't know.

Well, not cast iron, aluminium.

And it's, it's got properties that enable it to be cool, cool throughout the day and all these clever things.

And it's got a lid on the top and these middle car.

There's all these features.

But what do I really care about when it comes to a water bottle?

I care about a water bottle being, you know, safe.

It works so it's not going to get broken in my bag.

I care about making sure that it can carry the amount of water that I need.

I make sure, yeah, the idea of keeping it cool is handy, but that's the outcome it's going to give me is not to drink warm water.

And what I generally want from the water bottle is it for it to do its job, which is to carry water and be there for me when I need a drink, when I'm thirsty.

So the reality is it's not the features that make it, it's the outcome that gives.

And I think a lot of, you know, salespeople talk around this sort of animate features and specifications and talk to them about this and talk to them about all these elements, try and beat them into submission with all the elements that you've got.

And I've seen people present on, you know, spending software, if you sell software or particular types of technical services, I've seen people literally go through 19 lines of features or this, this package does this and it does this, and this has this feature and this feature.

I'm like, they don't care.

What they care about is, well, can it, you know, what outcome is it going to give for me?

And the only way you ask and find that out is you ask the question.

So here's, you know, and I've said this on another podcast, but here's the, here's the question that you should focus on.

If you're selling software to someone or a solution someone, tell me what it is you're looking for.

What are the key challenges you're looking to solve, or other people in your position were keen to solve this issue, tell me how that issue fits for you and they'll go, yeah, that is a challenge for me.

What, what's particular, you know, what particular areas of that become problem for you?

Well, it's our issue to solve.

This is.

And this issue.

And you might find that only 2.5percent of your product or service actually is relevant and valid to the buyer.

And if they value it enough, if the pain or the desire they have is specific enough, they'll buy based upon the 10% of what you offer and the 90% you've got.

You can then work with them over time to explain what that does and make sure they realize then that they've not just bought the basic product, but they bought other things as functions as well.

That comes as you build relationships over time.

But I don't think that starts from being able to focus on features.

So the end of the day, focus on the outcomes that you solve, focus on how your service solves the specific problem or challenges that the audience has.

Don't necessarily focus on just, you know, the features that you offer.

So the third point I wanted to mention is there's this concept in some modern day sales gurus.

I was watching a video of someone the other day and I might say who it is, but they're definitely a very macho based sales approach that there's a generic way in which you should approach every single customer and this is sales done in this way and every customer should be treated in the same way.

And I don't agree with that at all.

I think that modern day selling requires you to understand the audience that you're going to engage with and to adjust your approach and behavior accordingly.

So sorry to interrupt the podcast, but if you've got a sales issue at the moment that's really hacking you off, challenge me, I'll help you solve it.

Reach out to me.

Drop an email at helloameswhite Business and I will help you solve your sales challenge.

There's not one I don't think I can't handle.

There's no sales issue that I can't resolve.

I've seen them all over my career.

I want to help you solve yours.

So reach out to me.

Let's make sure we handle your sales challenges and fix them so you can get back to smiling again.

Now back to the podcast.

So I've shared in lots of podcasts in the past, details around how I think there are four types of buyers.

And I do some training courses around this where you've got four types of buyers and those four buyers are based upon disc.

And by the way, there's lots of different variations.

There's Myers Briggs, there's different variations, but predominantly they're the same.

There's three or four of the same sort of categories.

And I use disc because I think it's a really easy, simple, color coded way to look at it, where you've got dominant, influential, conscientious and steadiness people.

So red, yellow, green, blue and Thomas Erickson.

If you've not read Thomas Ericsson's book Surrounded by Idiots, I encourage you to do so.

It's a brilliant book.

It talks around the aspects that are key here.

And so I think if you approach sales in the same way and approach every single person you have a conversation with in the same generic way, and you've just got to approach everyone in this way, you're going to potentially work.

If that's especially if that's a very direct type of selling, that might work with a red, a dominant person who wants to make decisions quite quickly and who will appreciate a specific sort of way of operating, but it won't work with a conscientious or steady blue or you know, a green person.

And by the way, that that audience, you know, tends to make up sort of 60, 70% of the population.

So suddenly because you've used your one fits all approach, you've alienated nearly two thirds of people that you could sell to.

So I think and that that group needs a lot more time to consider what to do.

They need to, to be bought in more to, to, to what's happening.

They need to be a bit more convinced they're nervous about making the decision and you just being a bully in a china shop and go, come on, buy it.

And if you don't buy it, move on to the next one potentially means you're leaving business on the table that someone else will clear up.

So I, I think, you know, strategies that we work within sales should be about trying to personalize and understand that per, you know, the, the buyer that you're talking to, engaging with, spend a bit of time trying to understand what's driving them, what's in their thought process and of course make sure you ask the right questions, again questions to qualify and to know that as they move through the process that they're a good fit for, for where you are.

But being in a position where you just take a one fits all sort of sledgehammer approach to me isn't right.

And I think if you do that, you're going to potentially, as I say, lose deals that you, you, you could win.

So just have a little think.

I've done a podcast on this episode before and I might go into a bit more detail on another one.

Adjust your behavior.

Adapt your approach and style based upon the person you engage with.

If you engage with someone that's a bit quieter and a bit more reserved, then accept and understand that they're going to take a bit more time or they're going to be a bit more cautious or if engaging with someone's a bit quicker and it moves a bit faster, you have to speed up accordingly.

So adjust your approach.

There isn't a one fits all approach to sales and sometimes people that say that I don't think understand that, yeah, that's going to work.

So okay, so the other point, I think one of my next points, sorry, is actually misunderstanding the role of social media.

So one of the things I hear a lot about is that was also that social media, social selling, social selling, we can sell on, on socials and we can get everything done.

And if you sell a product that is a transactional product that people can buy through digital ad, that's fine.

You can sell that through meta or, or through Google or through, you know, LinkedIn or tool like that.

But if you're selling a higher value service then I think this concept that you can sell via social media and it's a power tool and if you don't just sell, you know, you can do everything in social media is bs the higher the value of the sale and if depends on what you sell.

So if you sell a low value service, it may, well, you can do more on social media but the higher the value of the sale, the more that someone's going to want to have a conversation or see information about who you are and what you do and how you do it.

And just to think you can do it all on social media without maybe having to pick up the phone or have a conversation with them or to, to engage with them face to face, I think is, is not, it's not right.

And people will tell you and they tell people that you can, you can do stuff online, you don't have to pick up the phone and talk to people.

And I think that's selling you short because there are times where we've got to do those things in order to get, find out really what's driving the buyer.

Or if we don't pick up the phone or don't have a conversation with someone, when we're continually sending emails and they're not getting back to us, we're wondering what's going on.

So social media is incredibly powerful.

I think social media has two roles to play in sales.

The first thing is it's about being able to show it's social.

So it's about being able to show your authentic self.

You can build trust in what you do and how you operate by being able to share a bit about your journey, about your story online.

And the second way in which social media can work for you from a sales perspective is to add value to value.

Stack.

So when I engage with people and talk to people and work with people from a customer perspective, people often say to me, I've seen a lot of your content, I've seen a lot of your materials.

I really like the stuff that you share.

They sort of built an affinity and trust with me before I've got to that point because I'm active and visible on social media.

So.

And they also try and get a sense of who I am and what I do.

So it makes them feel that they know me before they get to that sales conversation.

So yes, social Media is powerful.

Yes.

I think you know, LinkedIn tools like that.

And by the way, my big advice on social media is, is focus your social media efforts on the audience, on where your audience is going to be.

So if you're talking to 70, if your customer base is 75 year old, you know, men, you know that you're investing money with, chances are they're not going to be on LinkedIn.

The chances are they're probably going to be on Facebook, if any social media platform at all.

If you're targeting 18 to 25 year old youngsters, the chances are they're not going to be on Facebook, they're going to be on Snapchat, for example.

So identify your audience, know the Persona of your audience and then try and identify which social channel.

Or if you want to reach out to me at James White Sales, any stage, you know, if you've got an audience definition, I can probably, you know, share some advice or my team can share some advice on which is the best channel to use, but it's probably not going to be the one that you think.

So it may not be the one you think, but you're better off to concentrate your efforts there than necessarily going after all of them and doing everyone and then finding that you don't engage with your audience.

So focus on being authentic and sharing who you are to build trust.

But also then be in a position of, yeah, sharing some value, sharing some content.

Those people that sell on social media that are always looking to get people to get their details and to book here for an appointment, I don't think generally work.

In fact, I see a lot of posts and I think, nah, that's just bs.

People just scroll past it.

What they're interested in is stuff that can add value.

So what's another challenge that I think that people, you know, I say all the guru's mistake and, and that's that.

And this is really weird since I have a cold, I have a call in business.

But one of the things I think that other, you know, sales gurus I've heard I've also done is, is rely too much on cold calling.

So you might think, well, you've got a calling business, James, why would you say that?

I've got a.

So I've got a business that generates leads for people.

But one of the things that we do within that approach is yes, we will pick up the phone and calling still works.

I think fundamentally believe if it's done in the right way and focused on the audience and the problems and the challenges they face it can work.

But what we're also seeing is that you have to what I call multi channel that approach.

So if you do a call on its own, your charts of success are 1 to 2%.

If you combine the call with an email, with a social message and do that over a period of say 10 touch points over a period of time, two to three months or three, you know, whatever your sales cycle is, you'll basically get this regular element where the prospect's hearing from you.

Now what will happen?

I say to people, the woodpecker doesn't make a hole in the tree the first time it's beak hits.

It takes time, over time to get them to a position where they continually tap, tap, tap away and it gets the result.

And in some cases you might get someone saying, look, thanks very much for seeing what you said, leave me alone, I'm okay.

But you will also get other people going, okay, you continue to share this stuff with me.

And then when you do pick up the phone and have a conversation with them, they're more like, oh, I saw your email or I saw your post or I saw your LinkedIn message or whatever they engage with because they've got that repetition over a period of time.

So you can't think that one call is just going to do everything you need it to do.

And one of the things that we're doing with my team in growth resourcing is making sure that we adapt a multi threaded approach.

So we're continually talking to one prospect that's, you know, or a group of prospects that are the ideal client for, for, for our customers and let's engage with them across multiple media across, over a period of time so they get a sense of, yeah, okay, this is who this company is actually, who are these people?

And then they might search for it, they might click on an email link, they might view a case study or might view some guide or whatever and they build up a perception of what you do and what you offer.

So yes, calling is important.

Yes, you do need to do it or you need to pick up the phone.

If you don't have anyone doing it, have a conversation with me or anyone else to help you do that.

But don't just think that you can do it alone.

You have to use it alongside, is, is alongside other, other methods on its own.

You get a limited result.

When you multi channel it, you get a better result as a whole.

So I guess the, the, the, the, the final point that I, I think that people, and I say people, a lot of Sales gurus will also will share will be.

You know, I've heard, I saw someone the other week was talking around actually it's, it's not your, you know, your customers, you know, it's not your job to know everything about your market.

It's, it's, you know, you've got to go in there and be quite direct and specific and talk to your customers about situations.

There's this sort of idea that you can ignore research and I, I think that that again is, is B.S.

i think customers now much more empowered than ever before prospects are much more empowered than ever before.

They've read information about you, they've looked at your website, they've looked at details of who you are and what you do.

And they want to feel special.

They want to feel like you know their world.

They want to feel like you understand them and not that you're just another notch on the bedpost.

And so do I think you should research, engage with different prospects that you have?

Yes, I think you should try and that's difficult because you want to do activity versus also trying to be personalized in the approach.

But I think if you just try and just sort of go another number, another, another number makes them want to, you know, just another notch on the bedpost, then I think that's going to fail.

Whereas if you can try and show how you've been specific and understand them and their situation and what's uni speak about them, you're going to personalize your approach and get a better result.

We all like to, when we're buying something, feel like we're special.

We all like to feel like the other person thinks we're special.

And in order to do that you need to make sure that you treat people in a special way.

So there's my bits of advice on, on where I think some, some, some, some, some sales gurus I've heard, you know, we'll say things but tell me what you think.

You might think I'm talking absolute tosh, in which case let me know I've got no problems in people sharing their ports on it.

You might think that some of the stuff I've shared is BS in which case tell me that's okay with it or you might think, yeah, actually this makes sense.

Let me know your comments.

I'd love to hear your comments in the section below in comment section and also reach out to me on any of the social media channels James White Sales where you hear this on, on what we're doing.

I'd love to hear Your.

Your thoughts around it and also your feedback on whether what I'm doing is helping you.

I hope it is.

I love that when I reach out, people reach out on LinkedIn, they reach out on social media and share the, The.

The insights are helping them.

Let me know.

Want to really make sure that I'm sharing stuff that can add value to you and what you do.

But as I always do, I try and finish the.

The podcast in an inspirational story.

And I want to share a story of a young man called Mason Brandstrater, who basically, at 17 years old, he was skiing and in.

In America.

And he was experienced gear.

He'd, you know, skied before, but he basically was going a bit too fast down a jump and broke his main vertebra, which basically means he was paralyzed from the waist down.

And at 17 years old, you can imagine someone that was very active that was doing those sort of things to be told then that, you know, that's it, you can't walk again would be huge and massive for him.

And I think it's an incredible story that he was able to spend some time in rehab and then come out the other side to be in a position where he could start to develop in, obviously in a wheelchair to.

To get to what he was doing.

And three years after what he did, he was in a marathon and did the marathon where he was able to, you know, to.

To basically do a marathon to.

To show that it was possible.

And he also surfs while being strapped to a kayak and does other inspirational things.

And so Mason's story, I think, is one where, you know, we all sometimes take for granted the basic things we have.

Our legs and our arms, the things we've got each day.

And this poor young man lost the use of those, but still came back and showed that nothing was going to stop him and get him in the way.

So Mason, to me is a real.

In inspiration.

It's a story that I think.

Yeah, yeah.

Is someone that I would encourage you to have a look up to see his situation.

Mason Brand straight or I think is someone that we can all think when we're going through tough times, actually still got the use of arms and legs.

And if you haven't, then you're inspiration to us to keep on doing what you're doing.

There may be something that's, you know, caused a challenge for you and if.

Which.

So I'm so sorry to hear that, but.

But also know that you're gonna have the fight to keep going and do what you need to do.

To be an inspiration to others as well.

So.

But yeah, if you are feeling, if you are, if you are able bodied and you're feeling sorry for yourself, then maybe think actually Mason's story can maybe, maybe think actually maybe I've got things okay and I can get on with life and do what I need to do.

So that's it for this week's podcast episode.

As ever, thank you so much for your ears and your eyes.

If you're watching on on YouTube, it's so great to share these insights with you.

The podcast is growing really quickly.

I'm really thrilled with how many people are starting to download it on a week by week basis and month to month basis.

I want to share more insights and stories with you.

So I'm going to try and do as many as I can.

We're going to try and see if we can even get to launching two podcast episodes a week.

And yeah, we've even got a new Instagram reel for it now which we'll share as well.

So you can get all podcast clips and insights from from the hundred and hundreds of podcasts that I've now done.

So but that's it for this week.

Thanks ever so much for listening guys.

As ever, stay safe, keep selling, keep smiling, keep and if I can help you in any way, reach out to me at James White Sales and there to support you and help you get the sales results you want.

So best wishes and have a great week.

See you later.

Bye.

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