The #1 Secret to Explosive Sales Growth | Ep 24

0:12 Welcome back to the Impact Sales Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Beck, founder of The Sales Activist, and I was really looking forward to today's episode. Today, we're going to be talking about something that's just near and dear to my heart, something that I've been talking about with people for over thirty five years of professional selling. In fact, I just have been talking about it NonStop with people both in large corporate entities, small teams, small companies, solopreneurs. I was just talking with somebody about this very topic less than an hour ago before recording this episode. So this is something that I just believe is so important for people's success, and that is this, what's the number one thing that you need to do to create massive sales SCLCE. And I don't care what industry you're in, I don't care what you offer. I don't care specifically what solutions you're solving, or what needs you're filling, what product you're delivering to the market. There's one thing and one thing that everybody has in common as it relates to sales success, one thing that they need to do if they want to create massive sales momentum. And today we're going to be talking about that one thing. So before we dive into that, I think it's important that we really just highlight a couple of things that are really important to people's success. They're not going to be just the one thing. We're going to highlight that, but we're going to be talking about a lot of other things. Now, this one thing does not supersede or overshadow everything else.

1:46 It just happens to be the most important thing. So what are some of the other things that you need to make sure that you're doing. Obviously, you need to be doing the right type of activity. You need to be engaging people, You need to be following up. You need to be a professional every step of the way. You need to be very good at what you do. You need to deliver on your commitments. You need to make sure that moretter what you offer, that you're fulfilling all of your agreements with your clients so that they know that you're reliable. But the one thing more important than everything else that you need to do is going to help you take that next step. It's going to help you really create explosive sales momentum for yourself and your business. And that one thing boils down to something that people struggle with doing in many cases, especially in today's world. It's a noisy, crowded world, right, a lot of things going on, a lot of activities, a lot of things distracting people, a lot of competitors for their attention. Right, So what is that one thing, the one thing that you need to create to build massive sales success. Whether you knew it or not, everybody, no matter what what they sell, is trying to do the same thing. And that's the one thing that we're talking about today. And that one thing is positioning yourself as a trusted advisor in the eyes of your client. Positioning yourself as a trusted advisor in the eyes of your client. Now, I

3:20 know some people may say, yeah, that's that goes without being said. No, it needs to be said. It needs to be talked about. It needs to be described in detailed because many times people fail because they misunderstand what being a trusted advisor really is. And let me give you a definition that a very good friend and client of mine shared with me when describing this. When we went through this and we covered this for his company, his entire sales team, and himself, he came back to me later on and said, what you're describing is something similar that I have with one of my clients, and it's this. They wouldn't make us sing decision related to my area of expertise without looping me in, without running it by me, without asking me, without describing it or talking it through with me. It's almost as if I am part of their inner circle of advisors. And that is a great definition to what we're talking about. You want to position yourself as a trusted advisor and resource to your clients, but how do you go about doing that in today's day and age. There's a lot of different ways and a lot of different descriptions of how to accomplish that. But I'm going to talk about one very particular way that most people have the opportunity to do this, yet many times they fail to fulfill on that opportunity or they cut themselves off or sell themselves short in the process. So today we're going to be

4:52 digging into that. What I'm really describing is how you interact and communicate with your prospects and client in your sales interactions and you're back and forth communication with them. See too many times people struggle with being impatient in the sales process. Perhaps they have a goal and objective, a long term plan for what they'd like to accomplish, and of course I'm sure that accomplishment includes making the sale or making a number of sales. But sometimes we sabotage that process, and we sabotage that process by selling short the opportunity to build that trusted advisor's status in the eyes of our clients. See, in today's world, people have the ability of being more educated than ever before.

5:45 In fact, it's more than likely that they are already very well educated on what you may do, or at least have a sense of what you do. They may have a good sense or understanding of your offerings already. In fact, they may have already spoken to a competitor of yours or somebody that does something similar to what you offer. So the prospects the clients in today's day and age are so so much more educated than they have been in the past. So the way you stand out, the way you separate yourself from everybody else, is by positioning yourself as their trusted advisor, by putting yourself in that position to earn their trust. Now, time obviously creates that opportunity, but I know somebody sitting out there listening to this saying, how do I do that with somebody I've just met or somebody that doesn't yet know me.

6:37 I need to move my business forward? Now, how do I make that happen? If I don't have the benefit of that time? If time is a challenge, the most simple way of doing that and accomplishing that goal is in how you communicate and what questions you ask your prospect or client. Here's what I mean. Many times people ask very direct, very bulleted questions, all geared towards driving their prospect or client towards making a decision on their offering. They're very transactional in nature. The questions that you ask, the direction that you're heading your laser focused on the sale.

7:23 And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm saying that perhaps instead of taking the direct route, you may want to consider taking the scenic group for a little bit and building the relationship. Here's what I mean, instead of being directed to the point as to here's what I do, here's what I can solve for, here's what you get, Here's what it costs. Are we interested in moving forward? If not? Why not how can we move forward today? Instead of doing all of that, why don't we spend a little time, invest a little intention behind getting to know our prospect on a deeper level and building up our credibility and our trusted advisor status in their eyes. And here's how you go about doing that.

8:09 When you are communicating with people, make every effort that you can to allow them to be descriptive when it comes to what's important for them. When it's something that's important for them, make every opportunity to ask them to describe it, detail it for you, open up, expand on it, share more with you about it. Now, why is that important? When people start to share what's really important to them with somebody else, naturally, inorganically creates a little bit of a bond between the parties. Think of it in your personal life. If there's something that means a lot to you and you pull a friend aside and you say, look, I've never really shared this with anybody else, but this is something that's really important to me and I wanted you to know. Do you not feel that there's a better connection between yourself and that other person when you do that? I know certainly they feel that, but you do as well, because you now have shared that it's important to you, and now you've made it important to them by sharing it. Now, I'm not talking about the degree of importance. Of course, they're their own person. But what I'm saying is by sharing that information and detailing it with another person, you build a bond, you build a relationship. How you really expand on your ability of becoming that trusted advisor in the eyes of your clients

9:39 is in how you communicate around those particular topics. If a client says to you, or a prospect says to you, it's very important to us that we are able to show growth in the fourth quarter of this year in the first quarter of next year because we have a plan to add new employees by the end of the first quarter of next year. You now know something is important. But when you ask them why is that important to you? Why is that objective very important to what you're trying to accomplish, and then they share with you the reasons why. We're in a position to be in line for a very large contract, but we need to scale up to be ready to have the man power available to fulfill that contract. Without it, we can't take that step forward for our business. So the growth had a plan, and the plan was to get to larger growth that could only occur with more people on staff. But see, the average person without asking the whys, without wanting to know why it was important, may never know that. They may never know that about their prospect or what their goals were, or that second quarter and how important it is to their success. Or maybe the things that are important hit closer to home. Maybe talking to that prospect and the work that you're going to do for them or offering to do for them is going to free up a lot of their time, and you never really stop to

11:11 think to ask what would you do with that time if you got it back? What would you do instead of doing this since we're going to do it, or instead of being obliged to do something else. You now have a relief because of the work that we'll do, what would you do with that time? See by asking that question, you press that person into a more emotional conversation with you. Maybe that answer is I'm going to be able to focus some time and energy on other things in our business that I haven't been able to do for quite some time. And that could mean a lot, or maybe it's very close to home and it's like I haven't been able to take a vacation in five years.

11:53 I've been chained to this business. I haven't been able to break away my spouse, my wife, my husband, my family is wondering when are we going to be able to get a break and take some time together as a family. What do you think that means to that person being able to do that? Or maybe it's a fulfillment of a promise. Maybe it's when I took over this company from my father, I made the promise that I would continue to grow it, that I would take care of the people in our community, that I would continue to expand the vision that he started or they started years ago, and it's important to me personally that I fulfill that. If you never ask the whys from your prospects, you never know what's really important. Now, why is that important towards doing the one thing that you need to do to create massive sales success. It's because when you can position yourself as that trusted advisor in the eyes of your prospects, you now have positioned yourself as somebody that they can rely on, somebody that is going to help them fulfill the things that they said are important to them. Maybe they're financial, maybe they're tied to time, maybe it's family, maybe it's just peace of mind.

13:19 But if you never ask what those things are, and you never understand the impact of those things, you will struggle in your sales journey because the reality is that the people that succeed at a very high level in sales, they've mastered the art one thing, positioning themselves as that trusted advisor. They've mastered the art of creating massive sales success by doing that one thing, by positioning themselves. Why is that so important? Because it makes everything else easier. If you've built that bond, if people know you care because you've asked the right questions and you truly understood what was important to them, and you communicated your acknowledgment and belief that it's that important and understand why it's important to them. When you've done that, you've built that bond.

14:17 It makes it easier to win sales in all three major categories of selling. Three different categories. The first is that new acquisition sales. Somebody that you've never sold to before, a first time client. When you build a relationship like that, and you've positioned yourself as that trusted advisor, it makes it that much easier to ask for the business. It's as simple as saying to them, Look, I appreciate you sharing that with me. How important that is for you. I can tell just by the emotion and what you shared how much you want to make that happen. And I think you see that what we're providing you will get you there. And I have simple question, would you let me help you do that? Would you let me help you make that happen? And when you're asking people that are already emotionally engaged with you about these things, and you're asking them because you've now earned their right as a trusted advisor, your likelihood for success in that sale is so so much higher than any other time.

15:31 Sometimes when we communicate, we get lost in our prioritization of making the sale, not realizing that sometimes the sale makes itself if we prioritize other things. I don't know if anybody listening to this has ever felt tension or awkwardness or a high degree of discomfort when it came to asking for the business, asking the client for the commitment, asking for the sale right everybody. Look, I've been in sales for thirty five plus years. There is still some awkwardness sometimes in certain situations. To that exact. The easiest way of overcoming that is to ask impact focus questions.

16:16 Allow your prospect to describe to you why something is important, Acknowledge that importance, share that you share the vision with them, and then ask them to be a part of that vision and help them complete it. The sale will take care of itself if you take care of communication with your prospect. So that's the new acquisition sale. But what if you already have built that relationship with that prospect, that client, they're already a client of yours, and you're asking them about something else. You're asking them perhaps about another sale, another opportunity to work with them and upsell opportunity by being their trusted advisor already and by already recognize and knowing what's important to them and the impact it will have because remember, you earned that right by asking them. You now know what's important to them. It makes it that much easier to go back and remind them that you get it. You understand why. You can go back to them and say, look, I could tell I remember our first conversation about this when you described the importance of sales in the fourth quarter and sales in the first quarter so you could bring on the people you needed by the end of the second of the first quarter, so you could be ready for that new project. I could tell how important that was to you.

17:38 Or I remember when you describe the importance of you fulfilling the vision that your father had with the business when it started. I want to continue to help you support the completion of that vision. I got another way that we can help. Would you let me show you how we can get you closer to that vision. See, you can have the same conversation as a reminder of what was important as their trusted advisor when you're trying to upsell them, or even when perhaps things don't go exactly the way that you thought they were going to go, and somehow you lose a client and you go back to them, it's a win back situation. You're trying to win them back. You're trying to bring them back into the fold as a client of yours. Will go back to what was important to them if they shared it with you and it was emotional and it meant something to them, they made you that trusted advisor, go back and remind them of those things. Now, I'll tell you, and I'll share with you that I believe that when you maintain that trusted advisor status in the eyes of your prospects and your clients, it's less likely that you'll ever be in that situation. They'll probably stick with you a bit longer. They'll trobably try to work with you a bit longer. Why Because you've maintain that trusted advisor status, it's less likely that somebody will get as close to them to potentially take that business away. But sometimes in

19:10 the case where it was a financial decision that they just couldn't avoid, or different things change that forced their hand, it's important to know that you can go back and revisit those things. But it only happens when you've positioned yourself as a trusted advisor. That one thing that's more important than everything else, that one thing being their trusted advisor. What else can you do to be able to do that? There are other things that you can do. You can constantly be on the lookout for things it'll be of value to them beyond just the work that you do with them. How else do you position yourself. If you see an article that you think they should see, share it with them. If you hear about an industry trend that you think they should know, share it with them.

20:00 Mind them time and time again that you're on their team, that you're on their team, that you're their person. Now other things that you can do help them get better in all aspects of their business. What are the things that powerful trusted advisors do for their clients. Is they want to see their clients win. They want to see their clients succeed. So what do they do whatever they can do to help support their client's' efforts. Maybe there's another person in another industry that doesn't compete with you that is needed in that business. Make that introduction, bring them together help your client. Maybe there are other things that you can offer, value added things that don't necessarily add to your bottom line, but add to the relationship that you could do for that client. Offer them up.

20:53 Sometimes and this has happened, and I will tell you that it's not always easy to accept, but it's necessary for your growth and the growth of your business. Sometimes the right thing for you to do is to say to your prospect, to your client, you need this other person with this other thing more than you need us right now. And I would understand if you need to pause working with us because that is a priority. Now. I know some people's heads are probably be exploding right now as I describe that talking about giving up business. It's not something that you would normally do, and it's not something that I recommend you proactively doing. But sometimes the situation warrants it, where you say to that client, look, there are bigger priorities you have than this. You need to go address that now. I'll tell you what. If you want to earn somebody's trust and respect and you want to maintain a trusted advisor, staff us with them, make a decision for them that actually doesn't help you and almost harms you a little bit, but it's to their best interest. You make that decision, and that person will know without a doubt that you're their trusted advisor, that you were doing something for them. I will tell you I've made that decision many times in my career

22:25 for a variety of different reasons. Usually it was a priority situation. Sometimes budget came into play and they had to prioritize the situation one versus the other but by making those types of decisions, I never once ever, in my entire career, ever regretted that decision. Why because I found and just believed over the long haul, and this was absolutely the case that it benefited me in my business more by doing that, doing the right thing, helping that that prospect, that client get what they needed. How did it benefit me in the long term. Maybe not a lot, but many times it was significant. There were situations where it never came back to me what I thought would have happened. But in many others I was rewarded many times over referrals. People that were introducing me, Oh my gosh, you've got to talk to Joe. He's the guy. He took care of us, he did this, He'll get you squared away, or that same client would come back and say things have changed, We're now ready, we want to do that. I've had clients come back and do more business with me beyond what I expected, simply because of the power of me saying you know what, I'm going to step back. You need to focus on this.

23:51 This is your bigger priority right now. Let me know how I can help with this. Now. I would go as far as many times also making that personal introduction for them. I would say, look, here is somebody that you need to meet that can help you with this problem. I always wanted it to be somebody that I knew that would take very good care of them. But at the end of the day, it came back to me. Never across my career did those decisions ever harm my business, but it did maintain that trusted advisor status in the eyes of the clients. I still get referrals from people. I got one last week from somebody that I haven't had any direct business with this person now for just under twenty years. Twenty years, and they referred somebody to me.

24:40 And you have to wonder why people do that. They do that when you've built that trusted advisor relationship, even though it had been a long time since we've worked together, the work that we had done had been impactful, still had a lot of respect for what we were doing. He knew that I could help that person, and he made that introduction. So if you want to master the one thing that you need to create massive sales success, create that trusted advisor relationship with your prospects and clients. Truly, now I want to just take a minute and just describe to everybody what happens if you don't do that right.

25:25 What's the flip side. It's great if you do it can reward you many times over. But what happens if you don't. The number one thing that can happen when you don't is somebody will come along who understands what I'm describing today, who leverages it, who's powerful as a trusted advisor, and they win that client over, and you may never get another shot with them because they will build a relationship with that client that is so solid that you won't be able to get your foot back in the door. That happens many times in the process. It's important that you keep in mind when you don't position yourself that way, you leave the door open for somebody else. You leave the door open for somebody who is very good at doing that in winning over that client.

26:18 And I encourage you all make the most of your opportunities to position yourself as that trusted advisor. Even if it doesn't mean business today, it will benefit you in the long run. I highly recommend taking a look at how you position yourself as that trusted advisor in the eyes of your clients. If I can be a help or resource to you in any way in that process, please connect with me at the Salesactivist dot com. You can reach me directly anytime through my digital assistant. Just text the word sales to the number four O nine five oh nine seven three five five. This has been a great topic to cover. It's near dear to my heart.

27:01 I have this conversation constantly with people because of the power behind it. Make the most position yourself as a trusted advisor in the eyes of your clients. You won't regret it. This is Joe Beck with The Sales Activist