In today’s episode of The No Limits Selling Podcast, we have Dean Ray, Sales Coach at SalesGym, and Will Fuentes, Founder at Maestro Group.
Guest Bio:
Dean Ray has spent the last decade immersed in the worlds of sales, training and entrepreneurship. His experience learning and teaching under pressure on Marine helicopter crews instilled a passion for working with and training exceptional individuals. This passion merged with a business education at Boise State University along with experience in sales, entrepreneurship and real estate, culminating when he found his calling of coaching high-performing business professionals. When he is not coaching, training, or creating content, he can be found mountain biking, hiking with his dogs, or on an adventure with friends and family.
Will is the founder of Maestro Group. He empowers sales teams to maximize their potential. Will focuses on teaching both hard and soft sales skills and identifies opportunities to improve sales efficiencies. Will is a graduate of Virginia Tech and The George Washington University Law School. Today he uses what he learned at both those institutions to teach business owners and salespeople how to uncover information, ask better questions, and identify risk in their deals. His unique background and perspective guide his training principles, and he is motivated to help individuals and organizations sell more, faster.
Find Dean Ray: Website, LinkedIn
Find Will Fuentes: Website, LinkedIn
[EDITOR’S NOTE: This podcast is sponsored by No Limits Selling. It is a fun, fast-paced podcast that delivers hard-fought business advice that you can implement today to improve your sales and performance]
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Ready to become fearless? We can help you become fearless in 60 days so you accomplish more in your career Schedule A 15 min Call with Umar[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]
Umar Hameed 0:01
Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone! My name is Umar Hameed, I'm your host on The No Limits Selling Podcast, where industry leaders share their tips, strategies and advice on how you can become better, stronger, faster. Just before we get started, I've got a question for you, do you have a negative voice inside your head? We all do, right? I'm gonna help you remove that voice and under 30 days guaranteed, not only remove it, but transform it. So instead of the voice that sabotages you, there's one that propels you to much higher levels of performance and success. There's a link in the show notes, click on it to find out more. All right! Let's get started.
Umar Hameed 0:41
Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the no limit selling podcast where we talk to industry leaders on how to become better, stronger, faster. And just before we get started, number one I am in freaking shock. Like today is the 17th of January. It's like last year just zipped by and this year is already like, well on its way. And so sales makes the world go round. And whether you're selling ideas, or you're a four year old, this is when we were masters at sales, getting mom or dad to get us what we want. I mean, we were such great salespeople. What if we could do that professionally? It'd be amazing. Today, I've got the privilege of having two experts on the program with me. Will Flint is welcome to the show tell us like gains 3060 seconds who you are and what you do.
Will Fuentes 1:29
Yeah, my name is Wolf winters. I'm the managing partner and founder of the maestro Group. We're a sales acceleration firm. Our secret sauce is that everything we do is based on industrial organizational behavioral psychology. We have a research team that's out there always looking for the latest and greatest research on how people think and make decisions. And then we take that to our clients to inform not only how we train them and coach them, but also the strategies that they put forth in order to achieve their revenue goals.
Umar Hameed 1:54
Hot dog that was fast, precise money. And we've got Dean Ray Dean, welcome to the program. Give us your 30/62 intro.
Dean Ray 2:02
Hey, thank you, Mark, good to meet you there. And well, great to meet you as well. So my name is Dean Ray, and I'm a coach for a company called sales Jim. So my background has been in training and sales since I've been an adult. And really that training background started when I was in the Marine Corps flying and attack helicopters. When you get in that role, you get in a lot of very high pressure, high consequence style situations where you have to perform and you can't afford to make many mistakes, because they cost quite a bit. So with that in mind, we took a system where it came down to breaking down the fundamentals that go into a flight, we drill those fundamentals until you get exceptional atom. And then whenever we put them back together, we reacted by second nature when we were flying, and our system had sales, Jim, because we're a sales training program. That's our general approach, we figured out what goes into a great sales interaction from that initial meeting all the way to the close, we figure out what fundamentals go into that. And then we work on creating drills around those particular fundamentals so that your people have basically a muscle instinct whenever they're in those situations, and they can react low under pressure. So that's kind of our background, what we do, where we come from looking forward to learning more about both Well, tomorrow as well into this podcast.
Umar Hameed 3:05
Brilliant. One of the things you said Dean was, you know that that muscle memory and one of the things that kind of brings up is the state of flow. And for some people once in a while they get into the state of flow, whether it's playing tennis, or doing sales or doing whatever. But I'm here to tell you that is a lie. Most people get into the state of flow and the state of flow is not a good one. Because you can do flow in two ways. that negative voice inside your head that tells you you're no good or bad. A lot of that stuff, it becomes muscle memory, and it just automatically comes in. And the way to combat that is two ways. Number one is shifting mindset. And number two is training your body to react in a different way. And today, what I wanted to do was this since the beginning of the year, and people are looking to kind of make their numbers and make a difference in the world. So I want to just take a look at the entire sales process. And I'm gonna just make it in, in simple terms divided into the sections number one, prospecting, and that includes cold calling, something you do to get the appointment. Number two is doing the presentation when you're there. Number three is handling objections. Number four is actually closing the sale and number five is deepening into the account of getting referrals and plus a minus that's the sales process. There may be other ways of looking at it. Can we all agree that's pretty much a fair assessment. Well,
Will Fuentes 4:22
yeah, sorry. I'm sorry. I lost you there for a second Did you say is that my system with prospecting presentation, objection handling closing the sale and and then getting referrals?
Umar Hameed 4:32
getting referrals dipping into account plus minus?
Will Fuentes 4:35
Fear? Yeah, I think I think I think you're spot on. I think absolutely. You're spot on that's, that's really at its essence, right? People talk about, hey, there's five stages. That's, you've pretty much hit on them in terms of how people should be thinking about it now. Like the real difference is like how skilled and how much muscle memory you build up into each one of those. And I'd love and be interested to hear how Dean thinks about specifically closing an objection because I think that was to particular areas or areas where they can be high pressure situations that if you don't have the right muscle muscle memory, or have done the right amount of practice, you can really blow up a deal that was close to closing.
Umar Hameed 5:11
Brilliant, we're gonna go deep into that this is someone to tell you a story first, then we're gonna dive in into the deep end. So I was doing this presentation for about 140 sales managers, and I asked them is that the sales process plus or minus? And they said, Yep, that's the sales process. Then I asked them, where's the one area where most salespeople your salespeople struggle? And what's the impact on the revenue that they bring into the company, and two things tied, number one was prospecting. If you don't have enough things in the pipeline, then of course, you're gonna starve to death. And number two was closing the sale and actually bringing home the money. And both of those areas impacted 50% of a salespersons revenue ability. So what I wanted to do is this is let's kind of take a look at prospecting. We're going to do a round robin, and I'm going to start off with Dean, Dean, what's one way to kind of get appointments that you'd recommend them winning? Oh, well, I mean, we're gonna keep on going until we run out, then we're gonna go to presentations, till we run out, then handling objections, and then closing the sale, and then finally getting referrals and going deeper. So I'm gonna let you kick it off, Dean, in terms of prospecting, getting somebody to have an appointment with you. What do you recommend they do?
Dean Ray 6:21
The first thing to keep in mind is nobody cares about what you have to say they care about their own world. And that's, that's critical. I think all of us, we believe that. But it's really hard for us to actually translate that to the way we approach prospects, right? So one of the first things I recommend people do is think through Who are you trying to talk to, and what are they care about. Now, once you understand who you're trying to talk to, and what they care about, you need to design your approach to very quickly tease them, let them know you have some value, you have some expertise in their area, and then ask if they want to have that conversation with you to learn more. And the team is really critical here. A lot of times people say, hey, you know, my name is Dean ran with sales. Jim, great to meet you. Here's my entire spiel. What do you think you want to talk to me or not? And that leads to usually blind interactions. Where if you're able to actually kind of pitch the idea, let them know what kind of value you have. You've been helping people in their particular area of expertise. But leave it a little bit vague, that makes people want to be curious about you and learn a little bit more about what you have to say, and what you're really selling. When you're prospecting isn't any kind of deal on that phone call, you're selling the next five minutes to make them think you know what, talk to this person for five minutes longer, that's worth my time. So I always tell people, whenever you're prospecting, think of what the tease is, and how you can get them to want to talk to you for five more minutes.
Umar Hameed 7:33
Love it, will to you great advice thing, landing an appointment? What do you recommend?
Will Fuentes 7:39
Pick up the phone? Everyone tries to avoid the phone. Let's pick up the phone. You know, that's so many times that people are like, I'm struggling. And I'll look and I'm like, Well, you made three dials yesterday. They're like, but I send emails. Yes. Thing, pick up the phone. Right? And I will tell you there's Yes. You know, there's a lot of techniques you can use, you know, one of the things I'd love to recommend to people is like, hey, like, you're gonna make a bunch of dials, why don't you go get some phone ready leads, you know, send them to one of those services that gets you, you know, who's more likely to pick up call those numbers first. You know, make sure you've practiced that pitch, you're ready to get it off in terms of capturing indeed, I agree with you. It's about the next five minutes, but in the initial three seconds, it's about the next three seconds, three seconds, right. And once you're at 15 or 20 seconds, now you're in a groove, and you can now sell that lot larger conversation. But you're not going to do that if you don't pick up the phone.
Umar Hameed 8:32
Yeah, absolutely. So some things you need to do is like, what we do is not rocket science. If we're going after, let's say, I happen to be in a real estate office today. And it's like, if it's a team leader, you know, they've got a players, B players, C players, you know, wouldn't it be nice if you get your B players to become a players, what kind of impact so we know who we're selling to, we know what the hot buttons are. And so one of the ways to do is to all you got is that few seconds to grab their attention. Like Dean said, like, we will say pick up the frickin phone, is one of the ways to get good at your script is I learned this from somebody that actually acts on Broadway. And she said, Okay, learn your material. And once you've learned your material, so let's say you've got your 32nd pitch that you're doing on the phone, then use a different accent. So you can do it in Scottish, right, you can do this script that you're doing. And the reason that works from a neuroscience point of view is number one, you learn your script, and it's still like a little alien. But when you use a silly accent, not with the customer. But as you're rehearsing it, it gets another part of the brain to engage, it also allows you to take the pressure off of yourself, and it just gets into your bones. So you can just do that. Do that 32nd Opening with every income person you could talk to that day. You don't have to change anything, just do the same thing. And if you do that, it just becomes second nature. You can do your 100 dials and actually get conversations with maybe 12 people and out of those 12 people, maybe you get four people say yeah, I want a longer conversation and you move forward to get comfortable with this. quipped, don't recreate it every time. Just once you got it. Keep going. Dean, do you have another piece of advice for prospecting that you're ready to give? Or should we move on to the next topic?
Dean Ray 10:11
Yeah, just to kind of piggyback off what you just mentioned there, right. It's about knowing your script and having it down verbatim. But in my perspective, it's not necessarily about getting like the exact words writing the script, it's getting the thrust of the message across in the script, in your own voice in a way that feels genuine. And whenever it comes to prospecting, what I'd advise people do is do some A B testing, maybe have one script you have in mind that has maybe one type of feel another script with a slightly different feel. And if you're making those 100 calls a day, to Will's point, then maybe you can get a chance to knock out 50 And one script 50 on the other and see what lessons learned you can gain from that. By repeating that process. Day in and day out for a couple months, you might notice some really distinct differences in messaging that really can make an impact where you wouldn't notice that if you weren't trying different versions of your script.
Umar Hameed 10:55
Love it AV testing will to you, my friend. Yeah.
Will Fuentes 10:59
So two things here that come to mind really quickly. Number one is, is I love to try pitches on family members that are outside the industry that I'm pitching, and ask them like, hey, what am I talking to you about? And if they can grasp it, and give me at least directionally what I'm talking, then I know, like, Okay, this pitch can resonate, because the words I'm using are efficient. And that's the key is you need to be efficient with your words. And the second is I tell people all the time, like have a mirror in front of you, or something that where you can see yourself so that you're smiling, you bring that energy, people can tell that energy that you have when you're prospecting. And if you're down in the doldrums, and you're like, I'm really excited to be talking to you today. Like that's not going to excite someone to want to have more time with you. So you got to bring the energy in the fire. Right? This is fun, and it should be fun.
Umar Hameed 11:43
Yes, I think
Dean Ray 11:44
if you don't mind me jumping in real quick, Umar. Well, what do you recommend people do if they are having trouble with that mindset piece? They feel like they're not having a great day, how do you kind of snap yourself into that headspace? So you can come off as your best self on these calls. I'm curious what your perspective is there and say I love it. So we,
Will Fuentes 11:59
we treat this, we teach this concept about the 4020 rule. And so 40 hours is to do your work. 20 hours is to is to work on your craft and part of working on your craft is identifying how your energy functions, right. And so some people are better on the phones in the morning, some are better after lunch. So that's number one is identifying when you work best. The second thing is also identifying what are those? What are those things that exist in your world that put you in a positive mindset, we've had individuals that when they're down in the doldrums, they love to listen to show tunes, it just brings them up happy memories for them. There's others that like to take a walk around the office, there's even others that will go lift and just feel like they've accomplished something. And really, it's about understanding, hey, you're gonna get beat up. I say two things. Number one is identifying how you switch your mind. And number two, it's not personal. Yeah,
Dean Ray 12:47
that's fair. So what's your take on it? You're the widespread mindset expert here. What's your thoughts on this?
Umar Hameed 12:52
So I want you guys to do this with me, I went on and we're going to break the internet with this is your physiology, Trump's your psychology, and one of the things that teach people is to just say, rah, like deep down like a rock. And it just instantly changes your energy. So do what's right for you. But here's my tip on when you're prospecting. So I was coaching someone to prospect and I'm listening to this, I had the conversation with them, they're talking to a client. And what I ended up doing was using the phone to just record this side of the conversation on my iPhone with a recorder. And I said, Great, and to be paper, call your best friend up and invite them to the movies this weekend. So guy calls his buddy, I'm recording that too, and invites him to the movies and and say, Okay, now listen to these two recordings, recording a, your voice is tight. And you're talking quickly, and the stress in your voice and listen to when you called your friend what was that? Like? It's like, softer voice. It's a really kind of familiar kind of tone. And then you really got it because can hear the two. It's like, oh my god, I wouldn't want to talk to me either. So it's basically getting in the right mood. And just assuming if I called will up and I went, hey, well, how you doing? This is Umar wills, like, Who the hell is this? Do I know this guy did we meet? It's like, if you can do that, you just start creating conversation. So now we're going to go to number two, during the presentation. And we're going to actually turn the circle around. And this time it's well, what do you recommend that someone can do to do a great presentation that leads to people going, hmm, I really want to get this. What do you recommend?
Will Fuentes 14:28
Yeah, so first and foremost, I think, doing a great presentation, establishing establishing yourself as a sales professional. And the way that I teach teams to do that is to use the time check tech check and framed introduction. So time check, hey, we're scheduled for the next 30 minutes. Does that still work for you? Make sure that you have their full attention. And as a sales professional, if they say yes, then you deserve their full attention. Second thing is you know, if you're doing a remote presentation on your screen right now, you should be seeing the maestro group logo. Is that what you're saying? Yes. Why? Because they don't know what's on your screen says Stop saying can you see my screen? The third thing is making those framed introductions. So, you know, Dean really excited to have you meet me. I'd love to understand your role at sales, Jim and like, what are you most interested in learning about the maestro group today, really direct Dean in a way that's going to give me an idea of what he's looking for. From a presentation standpoint, that's the establishing point that you're a sales professional, and things start to really gain momentum when you do
Umar Hameed 15:24
that. So we'll all that you said was like, so basic that nobody does it. And it's like one on one building trust. I love what you said. Because it basically gets everybody on the same page. And super Excellent. Dean, what's your piece of advice, do a good presentation?
Dean Ray 15:43
Well, playing out the last thing that will said there the priority, the number one thing I think we teach here at the sales gym is seek to understand before you seek to be understood, and a really big part of being able to get people to understand that you are an industry expert that you do understand things that can help them is by immediately start asking questions and starting a conversation. Nobody likes being whenever you show up, somebody shows you a PowerPoint presentation for 30 minutes, and at the end says, Hey, any questions, no matter how good your presentation is, that cuts off the human to human dynamic, and it makes people feel like they're being talked at rather than being talked with. So focusing really quickly on yeah, here's my little piece of the pie. But let me get you talking get from your perspective, why is this important? And what are you trying to accomplish? That right there creates instant rapport in the conversation. And then you can use the things you learn to start micro targeting your actual pitch your actual selling points towards what's important to them. So taking this mentality that a conversation or a presentation or meeting happens in two halves, that first half is where you ask most and understand. And then that second half is where you actually start to use what you learned to sell. That's the biggest thing I think that people need to understand when it comes to having more successful meeting flows and getting more out of those conversations.
Umar Hameed 16:54
Absolutely, because then you can focus on the one feature that's going to be really important to will as opposed to here's the 23 that will doesn't care about. So I started this presentation a long time ago. And I forget the guy who was doing this presentation that the guy was talking about Motorola coming into the cell phone space to help first responders get cell phones that was secure, that allow them to communicate with HQ and get information from, I guess, internal databases about what chemicals are stored in this factory versus that. And they had this brilliant, amazing PowerPoint presentation that probably cost a fortune and looked beautiful, and it generated zero sales. And so this guy came in to understand what they were doing. And he basically did the presentation on the sheet of paper, just doing a simple hand drawing with stick figures. And it just blew my mind away, because I saw it once maybe eight years ago. And I can recreate that presentation. I don't work for Motorola. And I'm not a first responder. But I think sometimes just a blank sheet of paper, and really listening to the person and then solving their problem with just some simple diagrams on a piece of paper. And if you guys are interested, I'll share the presentation with you off this presentation. Maybe I'll put a video in a link here. So everyone can see what that presentation was like sometimes listening to the person, pen and paper, you can do a more compelling presentation than you can with a slide deck. No matter how beautiful it is. We'll do you have a second piece of advice on how to do a great presentation?
Will Fuentes 18:23
Yeah, stop saying Does that make sense? So you know, when you're doing a presentation, there's so many different ways to understand what someone understands, like, what I just shared, what's going to have the biggest impact in your organization of what I just shared. Who's going to be most excited about that information? Of what I just shared? What are What haven't you what happened? I said that you thought you were going to hear in the first like 10 minutes of my presentation, whatever it is that you're that you're getting to, but when you say bla bla bla bla, does that make sense? You might as well just say blah, blah, blah. Are you an idiot? Are you paying attention? Like that's just not? You know, that's not like, it's not an appropriate question in the sales conversation. And you know, the only thing you're gonna get is a yes. Like how many people raise their hands is like, No, I'm an idiot doesn't make sense. Thank you very much.
Umar Hameed 19:12
Good advice simple. Will's kind of got this foundational stuff, which I like, because that's the stuff we miss all the time. It's like, anytime there's a team no matter what the sport is, whether it's like hockey, football, whichever country when the team's doing badly to get a new coach. And the first thing the new coach says on his interview is, yeah, we're gonna go back to the basics, because that's where greatness lies. Dean, what do you have for advice number two, do a great presentation.
Dean Ray 19:39
I'm just gonna keep piggybacking off of those great points. So one of the things that's really critical as you're asking open ended questions that further the conversation and don't lead to these awkward like, yes, no pauses like that. Does that make sense? Is that something you guys can see yourself using that creates awkwardness and sometimes friction in the conversation. So asking open ended questions is critical. And one of the most useful elements, whenever you're presenting things to people is bringing in critical industry insights that maybe they don't know, as, say you're trying to sell the business owner, as a business owner, you may not know what somebody in the sales world knows, or the marketing world knows, or whatever other world. So being able to bring a critical insight in, educate them on the subject and make them feel like, you know, I just learned something, and then asking them, hey, now that you understand that, what's your take? What's your perspective on this? That's really helpful for building a foundational conversation. And once you've done that, you can find those areas of agreement, but to Will's point, if you're giving them an insight, and you say, does that make sense? All you're gonna get is a binary yes, no. And that stops the conversation in its tracks. And you really can't build something off of that. It's much less effective,
Umar Hameed 20:40
brilliant, someone to add in, on my final one is at the end of the day, it's all about rapport. And that opening segment of the conversation where you build rapport, which is the most important for building trust, one of the things if you're just in that stage, so if I asked Dean Dean, who is your favorite teacher in high school or college?
Dean Ray 21:01
real question. Yeah, real question. Real question, I would have to say there was an English teacher I had back in the day called Mr. Townsend, he saw a lot of potential in me, he pushed me a Monday to make sure that I wasn't just being lazy with things because he saw it could be more. And he ended up getting me to start a chess club in our school, which really wasn't something I planned on doing. But just kind of him driving me and expecting more from me, that really brought out the best in me, I would say. So he's definitely somebody that stood out a lot.
Umar Hameed 21:28
Brilliant. So if you take a look at Dean's physiology there soon as I took him back there, he kind of lit up and there was like this really great memory and you're kind of reconnected. And so next question is, you know, how does he teach you to get the best out of you? Like, was it through demonstration or inspiring? Like, what what did he do?
Dean Ray 21:46
He challenged me a lot, I think that that was the biggest thing is he would demonstrate and he'd show that he can do it. And I was an arrogant kid. And I thought I was the best at everything. So having this teacher kind of show me what good looks like and then saying, hey, let's see what you got. See if you can hang that right there was really useful for me. But to be fair to that, like that style doesn't work with everybody. So because I was more of an aggressive, competitive, solid person, that was the right approach for me were with somebody else, I don't necessarily know that he would have got the same results. And I did notice some good in some of those interactions in class with people who really didn't have the motivation to become more.
Umar Hameed 22:21
So the reason I asked you that question that would have been like, if we're getting to know each other, and you start revealing that, number one, we're getting a lot of trust built up. But number two, number one I took you from, I'm not sure where this presentation is going to go down to a pleasant memory. And then two, I asked you that question, how did you get the best out of you? And it was like, show you stuff and then challenge you. And that's how I know I need to conduct my presentation to use specifically Dean for will that probably wouldn't work. But just by asking that question, I get insights and how I need to flavor the presentation. And so I think rapport is really important. But you can also get valuable information that lets you rule when it comes to doing the presentation. So I'm going to turn the clock around again this time, Dean, handling objections, what's your piece of advice on how to handle objections,
Dean Ray 23:07
my best advice for handling objections that bring them up yourself. The biggest mistake that I see in sales, whenever it comes to closing, besides people just not giving defined next steps, is waiting till the very end, sticking their head in the sand and hoping that the objection they know that most people have won't come up. And then whenever it does come up, they have three to five minutes to be able to try to work past that objection, and then get some kind of next steps in the process. And generally speaking, that's far too late. So what I advise most people do is think through what are maybe the common three or four objections that come up in your particular world. Bring those things out early with some kind of insight that frames that conversation in a way that you can control and then ask what their thoughts and their opinions are on it. That way you can get through all the typical objections that tend to come up and your particular world. You can walk them through why maybe that's not exactly an issue. And since you brought it up proactively and you framed it, you have control the conversation, then when you're at the end of the conversation, you're trying to make the ask for the next step. You don't have those objections that deal with and try to swat away last minute, you're ready to actually talk about, alright, here's what we need to do to advance this conversation. Help your company out. So the whole time early and bring them up proactively. That's my advice. Okay.
Umar Hameed 24:13
I love that great advice. Well,
Will Fuentes 24:16
so, Dean, by the way, I love it. That's the George Costanza method. If you're a fan of Seinfeld, that's when he decided to go, Hey, I'm unemployed, I'm overweight, and his dating life took off, right? So it's like, those are gonna be all the objections, I'm just gonna put it out there. So, for me, it's there's a couple of things. Number one is is don't answer too quickly. Take a second to think about what you were just asked. Number two is like make sure that like you control yourself, you control your breathing, you slow down your rate of speech, you know, make sure that the person on the other side is seeing how thoughtful you're being about what you're talking about. And then the third one would be seek to understand and so if someone uses an adjective or uses a phrase to describe something in their objection, ask them what those things mean. We start Often answering questions without understanding the context of the words that are being used. And thus we don't overcome the objection, we actually end up probably confusing the prospects even more. Right. And so that becomes, to me, one of the most critical things to do is like, well, what does that person mean when they use that word?
Umar Hameed 25:18
Yeah, great advice. What I'd add into is kind of basically what we'll say but slightly different way. It's like, you know, let's say the objection you get is, you know, our processes aren't set up to do that right now, whatever the thing is, and what makes you bring that up? Have you done that? ask a couple questions deeper before you answer the objection to make sure you're addressing the right objection. And more often than not, you give the person an insight into what the situation is themselves, because most people don't think deeply about what's going on. And if you ask the right questions, and you help get them in an insight, then they're like, Oh, my God wills a genius. So that's what I'd recommend is ask a couple of questions before you address it to make sure you're addressing the right objection. Back to you, Dean, one more piece of advice on handling objections.
Dean Ray 26:05
One of the things I'd say is let's kind of lean into what you were bringing up how you want to get into that deeper level of questioning. A good example of that is being able to bring up like these multiple choice style questions where you can say something along the lines of You know, I've actually heard that before, that's a typical thing I hear. And generally, it's because people are falling in one of three camps. There's camp a, there's camp B, and there's camp C, let me kind of define them. Now, from your perspective, where are you coming from? Where you fall in one of these three camps? Or is it something a little different, so that way, you can continue retaining control of where that conversation goes, and how you frame it out, you're actually listening to their objectives, and then you're getting your objections. And you're giving them some idea on why people just like them had those same objections. So they can pick a path and you can start talking them through, you know, how they worked through it, and how they dealt with those particular circumstances. So I would say, give some kind of multiple choice style approach of direction, allow them to retain some control and pick the direction they want to go, and then know how you handle that particular objection in that particular vein. And because you framed it out, you'll have a lot more control over that conversation. Love it. Well.
Will Fuentes 27:09
So it's interesting, nice little spin on the feel felt found approach there, Dean that people use, right. I understand why you feel that way. Others like have felt that way. Here's what they have found. It's nearly one of these three things for your organization. Which one is it? Right? The other thing that I love to do is, is teach teams like once you're done answering an objection, like close the loop by figuring out whether you actually answered the objection with something as simple as like, what part of your question that I leave on answer.
Umar Hameed 27:36
Nice. Yeah, so I'm gonna go back to the feel felt found, because you know, that's a tried and true kind of way, is collect stories from all the other salespeople in your organization, on how they have solved those, we had a client with this problem, and stories of what compel us to take action, explain what's going on. So those things are golden, your company, record those memorialize those, bring them up in trainings. And that becomes one of the resources that oftentimes people just take for granted. Don't do that is just as important as the IP you have for your technology. All right, well, going back to you, how do you go for the clothes.
Will Fuentes 28:17
So number one, for me is you should practice your clothes. And I think a lot of people just go in and they don't actually even have that objective going into the conversation, I'm going to close or I'm going to figure whether it's a yes or a no today. And so for me, it's like writing those three things down and then practicing that clothes, I think about often. So I have a young young son who's learning to play quarterback. And a lot of his drills are around the red zone, and the two minute drill two of the most high pressure situations, and it's not like they don't practice those all of the time, those get special attention. So closing should get special attention. You should practice you should roleplay you should think about when I say this, what are they going to say? How am I going to react to continue moving the conversation forward. So for me, the number one tip is practice your clothes. Love it,
Umar Hameed 29:07
do you Dean.
Dean Ray 29:08
So this is gonna be a little bit longer of an answer, because it's going to build in a process as well as kind of the advice at the at the tail end of the close. So we always tell the people we work with, you need to summarize before you before you sell. And so what that means is defining the you know, there's two halves of the meeting like I was going back to originally, you're going to ask listen to understand and get their perspective in the first half. And then once you understand your perspective, you're going to summarize it and check in to make sure you didn't miss anything. They don't need to add anything. When you're at that point, you fully understand the situation. And it's time for you to start racking your brain of stories that you know of people in that type of situation, what they did, why they did it, what kind of outcomes they received. And then whenever you get to the tail end of your story, and you've got them on that emotional journey, they see themselves kind of using your products, developing their business, and they see that brighter future. Now you're going to ask for the next steps. And whenever you ask her next steps, it shouldn't just be some thing along the lines of so does that sound like it would work? How does that sound for you something like that, that's not going to do it, what you want to do is you want to ask them to describe the next step in the process to you. So the follow on step is a meeting with their team to discuss a specific plan, then it's a so with that in mind, kind of curious who on your team would be a good fit for this follow on meeting and whenever it comes to the plan, what kind of things you think we should be highlighting? And then once they describe to you what that meeting looks like, you just nail them down on that meeting itself. And you actually put it into motion. So I never asked for permission, whenever we get to the end of a selling conversation. I never asked yes, no. Do you want to buy my widget? I asked. Alright, so the next step of the process is this. My question for you is, how would you describe that next step to me, as they describe it to me that I just hold them to what they just described. And that's what we do the next time we meet up? Love it.
Umar Hameed 30:44
So for me if summarization is an important part of it, and one of the things I do is, as they're telling me about the issues, sometimes this product gets delivered late to us, they okay, how does that impact you emotionally and really get the emotional impact of that particular issue? And what's the financial impact on your bottom line from that, and at the end of that section, I've got four issues. We've got dollar amounts attached to it. We've got emotional impacts attached to it. And so when I go to summarize at the end, so just to make sure I understood what we talked about, well, what you said was issue a is causing you to stay up at night, and it's costing your company $2.8 million. Issue B has done it at issue C. So it sounds like you've got a $20 million dollar problem. And that's their numbers, they go Yup, we can solve that for you. And this is how we're going to do it. What would you like to do? And that way, it just kind of amps up the emotions and it summarizes them in one big, ugly, hairy ball, a big financial number. And then it's like this the solution? What would you like to do is the way I like to go more for a close? We'll back to you.
Will Fuentes 31:50
Yeah. So I think part of this is shifting, like the way that you think about things a little bit, right. So a mind shift change, is that, you know, I love what you said, Dean, like, you know, you don't ask for permission. Like I literally feel like if you've done your job, you earned the right to ask for that business. And you should feel confident asking for that business. So when I'm summarizing, it's like exactly what you said him, I was like a based on what you told me. He This is how I see the next steps based on these factors, right? Like all of that earns you the right and you should close confidently. I think most people actually have deals in their hands. And they hem and haw around, it creates all this doubt in their prospects minds like, Well, if the sales guy doesn't believe that this is the right thing to do. What am I not seeing?
Umar Hameed 32:31
Yeah, absolutely, Dean, well,
Dean Ray 32:34
let me touch on that confidence piece. Yeah, to Will's point, if you don't have confidence in your voice, that what you're saying is true, and you have conviction in it, people can read that. And it's immediately off putting, and they're much less likely to follow through. So first things first, have confidence that what you're selling will actually transform someone's business, and will impact their life in a positive way. And then speak with those convictions when you're talking. But to go back to what you were talking about. Omar with like the storytelling piece, have a few different stories are the type of person you're meeting up with. So that way, when you do get to the end, you do summarize their needs and their concerns, you have the tailor fit story to tell them of somebody just like them, who shared their problems, who decided to go abroad a transformational experience by working with you. And then after they went through that experience, here's what their company looked like. And here's how those problems were solved. If you have a few good stories like that in your back pocket for the common client types you run into, you're gonna find it's much easier to do the closing and to make it feel like at the very end, you know what, this is a tailor fit solution for me, let's go and walk forward. That's how it's going to feel for you. I
Umar Hameed 33:33
love that I'm not sure what the current stats are. But it is like frickin unbelievable the number of salespeople that go through the entire freaking process and don't ask for the sale, they'll hum and haw around it, but they won't actually go give me the money. And so I think one of the things we need to do as salespeople is get our financial house in order and get our money issues that we learned from our parents. Money is evil salespeople are evil, all that bullshit needs to get out of your head and you to x, go to a priest get Holy Water, whatever you need to do, get rid of that and promise yourself, I'm going to ask for the sale three times minimum, it should be actually five times in that thing. And what's kind of interesting is if you're like a nut about it, and you don't have rapport, because that's the most important thing is right at the beginning, you build that rapport and people give you permission to interact with them, then you can ask for the sale and when you ask for the sale, you're gonna get an objection. And the objection may be a real one, or a phantom one, but you address it and then you go for the Ask again and then you get down to if there is a real objection. And if you can overcome that you walk away with the order but do not give up too soon. And always ask for the sale and actually have a checkbox I got five checkboxes I'm gonna I'm gonna ask five frickin times to make this happen. Because like we'll said a couple of times as you get to the finish line the sale is yours. Then you either don't ask or you screwed up by doing something dumb and you lose the sale and then dean comes in and lands the sale and only we get it Angria Tina that damn it. So here's the last one, how do you get referrals or deepen into the account, what would be a piece of advice that you have Dean on how to get referrals or deepen into the account. So
Dean Ray 35:14
for me, it's the same advice I give to somebody who doesn't like that feeling of being that that salesperson, it feels kind of slimy, or whatever, it's the start to realize what your value is in the industry and how you actually help these companies, and start viewing yourself less as a salesperson as more as just a trusted consultant, an industry expert, who understands what this world looks like, and sees opportunities to help people. Now, if you have that mindset, then when you're working with somebody, and you see a chance to upsell them, you're not upselling them, because you see an opportunity to make more money, you're actually making the recommendation because you know, this is the right route for their business. And if you start approaching it like that, and you're only trying to target people that you know, are a good fit for maybe the upsell or whatever it is you're trying to sell whenever you're developing the account, then whenever you actually make that you're going to have a lot of conviction there. And you're going to believe what you're saying. And if the person on the other end doesn't feel like they're just a number for you, they're just an additional sale, they actually feel like you're somebody who cares about their success, and you're making the recommendation because you've analyzed their business and you think this is the right route, then you're going to find it's much easier to develop your accounts and build bigger accounts that way.
Umar Hameed 36:14
Well, it
Will Fuentes 36:16
will. Well, it sounds like on this podcast on the foundational guy. Right? So number one is ask for the referral. So you know, depending on what study you pick up only eight to 13% of sales people, you know, are willing to ask for a referral when they close business while 80% of satisfied buyers are willing to give one, right? So there's like a massive delta and a massive opportunity. So you know, my sales motion is is is you know, really early in the process. When we're delivering value, I asked for the referral. I'm like, we're having an impact on your business. You know, who else in your network would benefit from having conversations with me and my team? And I'm not shy about that. That is what it is right? And so, you know, if you've done a good, a good job working someone through the process, and I always get this question, well, you know, our implementation takes this amount of time or this, and I'm saying, but you delivered value already to this individual. So ask for the referral based on that. Who else in your network would benefit with a conversation with me? It doesn't have to be about my product, right? It's that that conversation to your point D you're an industry expert, you've delivered value? Don't shy away from asking for that?
Umar Hameed 37:20
Absolutely. I think one thing to do before you go into a sales meeting is to rehearse that sales meeting in your mind that I'm gonna go in, I'm going to develop rapport, we're going to that person's going to be smiling, we're gonna we're going to find some commonality. And you know, we all want to be part of a tribe. And sometimes I've been in a situation where it's like, oh, you used to work for Hewlett Packard, I did, too. And all of a sudden, it just changes the entire demeanor of the conversation. So rehearse what you're going to do, asking for the sale five times asking for the referral. And if you can just visualize doing that, the chance of you actually doing it goes up significantly. So practice what you're going to do before you go in and you end up doing it. Because at the end of the day, it's all about the people that are great at what they do is they are practicing their craft all the time. And that's what we need to do is we're not like, fly by night, folks, if you take this career seriously, become a frickin master at it. And I was listening to this guy on the radio, it was like one of the jazz greats, like an 80s 90s. And the guy interviewing him was like, I guess you don't need to rehearse anymore. And the old guy goes, son, that's my favorite four hours of the day. I've done it over the last two years. And that's what we need to do as salespeople is hone our craft Dean, back to you for Tip number two, on how to get referrals or deepen into the account.
Dean Ray 38:44
Well, if you don't mind them, I'm gonna go ahead and dive down the road, you are just going down because I think that right, there is probably more critical than anything, I'll say, I think we'll probably set what I was gonna say about the referral piece. So let me dive into this practice piece. So what a lot of people do whenever it comes to sales is they do just show up and they just start talking and hope that their natural abilities and knowledge, take them where they want to go, they need to view themselves more as performing artists, you're going up there, you have different kinds of routines, or scripts or approaches you take for different types of meetings, you rehearse those approaches, so you feel very comfortable in those spaces. And when you go out some version of that meeting, flow is going to end up emerging and you're going to feel comfortable in your zone, you'll feel like you can guide them towards a good conclusion. Now, if you're not practicing, that you're doing yourself a disservice. I'm not trying to smack you on this hand and say practice because or else you're a bad kid is not like that. It's do it because how would you feel if you were supposed to be in a play, and you just showed up and you showed up on the stage of the night of the play. Or if you're going to be in a basketball game, and you just read the the basics of basketball, then you showed up for the very first game of the season. You're not going to feel comfortable, you're going to feel weird in your own skin and you're not going to be able to produce so being able to practice what your flows are for different client types. And what ideally these meetings look like that's going to be super helpful for helping you visualize what the conversation will sound like and then It'll give you a much greater ability to consistently get people towards these closing points. So I would say highly emphasized practice, know what you're practicing and why and do it consistently week in and week out. Even if it's only 30 minutes a week, that's going to be super critical. Because this
Umar Hameed 40:14
book I read about the US military and the US military was kind of really bad at killing people. And over the wars, we've gotten really, really good at it. And that comes from practice. And this, you know, if you're a soldier defending this country, that's what you need to do. And the reason they train soldiers how to shoot accurately so much is when the pressure is on and people are shooting at you, you can get the job done. The same thing is true for us. We're experts at what we do. And the only way you can become an expert, or get better is practice, practice, practice. How do you get at Carnegie Hall? The old joke was practice. Do you mind you?
Dean Ray 40:53
Yeah, let me jump right back into that. So speaking from somebody with that military background, this is why I'm such a believer in it. I see his work out in the sales world. But let me tell you a story about how I know this is impactful just in everyday life. So whenever I was in the military, I was a crew chief, I flew in attack helicopters, and one of the guns we shot was a minigun. And the mini gun, it's really complex, there's a lot of different moving parts. And the first time I went out and shot the mini gun at night, I had a severe gun jam. And it took me 15 minutes to try to work through the gun. Before I gave up, I gave my gun to the instructor, he fixed the jam shot up my rounds and made fun of me. Now that was okay, because we're in a training environment. But we're going to Afghanistan in just a few months. And I couldn't afford to be like that and react like that when it actually mattered. So what we did was every single day, whenever we got done with our work for the day, we would take dummy rounds, and we'd practice clearing out different types of gun jams. Once we got it down perfectly with our eyes open. We started with doing it blindfolded, though we could do it with our eyes closed. And then what happened whenever I was in Afghanistan, and I got my first gun jam, when it actually mattered, people were getting shot at is that went from going 15 minutes trying to clear it and giving up in that practice, to actually getting it down to under 30 seconds getting the gun back up and helping out people on the ground. And because I had that muscle memory, and I didn't have to think about it, even though there was a lot of pressure in the situation, I reacted, and I did things well on the fly. And if you practice anything you're doing in a business environment, or in a social environment, you're gonna find you'll get the same results, the context may change, but the actual results in the systems, they stay the same. So on your Marlette, he said it backwards,
Umar Hameed 42:20
that's good, then it adds to the point will What do you recommend to get deeper?
Will Fuentes 42:27
So I think there's a common theme here, right? That this is a craft, and it's a profession, and professionals do a lot of hard work, so don't be lazy. So one of the things I often will do for suggested people to do is write the referral and say, hey, you know, I noticed you're connected to this person, would you mind sending this message along, I've written the introductory note in why this will be relevant to them, feel free to edit it as you see fit. And more often than not, you know, because people are lazy, though, if they want to make the referral, they're like, Oh, this is even easier. And they just send me a copy and paste and send it along. And it's you know, so it's a part of all of this is control that message, right, like, send it along. And if you feel competent to ask for the referral, then you should be confident enough to be able to write a competent referral in a way that your your prospect your now client will be comfortable sending along.
Umar Hameed 43:11
Love it. Because you also get the resistance out of the way because sometimes it's like, I gotta write this thing, dammit. And nobody wants an extra thing to do. So the last piece of advice on this is, I'm not sure if you guys have used a software like Bom Bom, which is like a video messaging over email. And oftentimes, I'll encapsulate what I do in a nice one minute video. So ask for the referral and say, Hey, say, you know, hey, we work with you. March is great work. And by the way, here's a video from him. And I get to actually articulate what we do. They give me the validation and the trust from the referral. But I get to articulate what I do, and why it would be important to kind of chat with me. So guys, before we part company today, I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you, I'll be listening to this particular episode, because we've broken Delibird that was like, really good advice, like six pieces of advice on each one of those sections. So bravo to all of you will, I'm gonna let you kind of finish off, you've got some really great training available for people on your website that they can get to be better, stronger, faster. Once again, tell us how people can connect with you and what do you have for them that's going to add value to this sales career.
Will Fuentes 44:19
Yeah, absolutely. You can go to our website, Maestro group, Maestro group.co, it is a.co not a.com. There's two things in there. That'll be a massive interest to your audience. Number one is the blog the maestro mastery blog. It is written by professional writers, one who happens to be world renowned poet and really brings the beauty of sales into you know, kind of the sales blogging sphere, which is amazing. You'll see some incredible quotes from Pablo Neruda, Langston Hughes, all this stuff, stuff that you would expect to see out of a sales blog. But it also gives a lot of practical information. The second is, is if you go ahead and send us a message or a website and say that you listened to this podcast I'll be happy to grant you free access to our asynchronous learning. It is designed by instructional designers for adult learners. It's micro lessons, encapsulating the best things that you can be doing out there to become a better sales professional and close more deals.
Umar Hameed 45:15
Love it. Thank you, Dean last words.
Dean Ray 45:18
So from an individual perspective, I'll steal from Alex or mosey here, I've got nothing to sell you, you're an individual and you're looking to gain some perspective and gain some knowledge on what we're doing, you can jump on our YouTube channel, just look up sales jam, and you'll be able to find us there. Or you can purchase our most recent book, which is how to influence and you're gonna gain a ton of value for yourself personally, in developing your sales skills. But if you're the leader of a team, you're somebody who actually run sales teams, and you'd like to get a little bit more experience in what it looks like to do drills based training. And what our approach is that go ahead and visit us at sales gym.com. And you can request a chance to speak with myself or one of the other coaches, we can see if you're fit for our style of training in our organization. And then you can get a free example of what our coaching sessions look like. We do an hour type of coaching session with you and a few of your salespeople, and you can get an idea of if this type of training is the right fit for you and your team.
Umar Hameed 46:08
Brilliant. Thanks, guys for being on the show today. Everyone, please visit the no limit selling website, no living selling.com And subscribe to the podcast and share this this stuff. You'd be paying each one of these guys $5,000 A pop and we got it for free. Dammit, I need to send them a check. Thanks so much for tuning in everyone. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Well, thank you Dean. Thank you I learned a lot and I'm looking forward to our next conversation CLA
Umar Hameed 46:41
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating. And if you're looking for more tools, go to my website at nolimitsselling.com. I've got a free mind training course there, that's going to teach you some insights from the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and that is the fastest way to get better results.