Greatest Sales Story and Biggest Lesson I Ever Learned

Many years ago, I witnessed the Greatest Sales Story ever told. A veteran rep I worked with did it all by asking one question. His tactic sold a large account that day in a matter of minutes, and his methods have never failed me once since. My fellow rep asked the prospect one question rather than showing brochures and graphs. Please find out how by simply listening to my podcast and trying it later in the day to make more sales in less time.

This same sales rep had a knack for asking questions. He could find out what the customer wanted and needed, and he could do so that they felt like they were being heard. He would ask questions, listen to the answers, and then ask more questions. It was as if he had a sixth sense of how to talk with people to get them on his side. I am unsure how he did it, but I have never seen anyone do it better. He always seemed to know what people wanted before they knew themselves. This sales rep was successful because of his ability to ask questions.

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Jerry Bauer
Hospitality Cleaning 101
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Transcript

Transcription Details:

File Type:                            Audio

Length:                                 21 minutes 06 seconds 

File Name:                          Greatest, Greatest Sales Story Ever Told

Transcription Time:        Wednesday, 03-Aug-2022, 09:04 PM (GMT+5)

Speakers:                            Jerry 

 

Greatest, Greatest Sales Story Ever Told 

PODCAST INTRO: Hi, and welcome to “Cleaning Processes with Jerry”. This podcast is dedicated to building an online community of like-minded individuals and businesses in the chemical and cleaning industry. We're going to share ideas, tips, solutions, and even some stories to solve problems, and to expand our markets. Please join me every other week, when we frequently will introduce a special guest that just might be you. Check us out our blog Hospitality Cleaning 101. I worked for ChemStation of Boston out of New England. If you ever have any questions, feel free to reach out and I want to answer on a future podcast. At the shows end, I will include all of my contact information. 

Jerry: Today, I am going to talk about the greatest sales story ever told. I will tell you in advance. It's not that I'm bragging about something I've done, I'm going to tell you about something I learned. I forgot to tell you an introduction, that if you hang around to the end of the show, at the end, we're going to tell you how you could be a winner of a couple of Amazon Gift Certificates. Today's show, as I had stated, was going to be talking about the greatest sales story ever told. But before I get to that, it's not something I actually did. I don't want you to listen for 15, 20 minutes, so I can brag about something I've done. But it's gonna tell you about something I learned many years ago. And that's the whole reason for this show, is because I learned from people who had been in the industry longer than me. They taught me. They're the ones who've led the way wasn't necessarily the sales manual, the glossy pictures that management would give me charts and graphs. It was the people who would done it, walk the walk. And that's the reason I kind of design this show was to help people who might be younger than myself, who might be looking for different ways of approaching a customer. So today we're going to talk about sales. The reason is, is I don't have a guest today because I'm at home. I'm going home because recently I had back surgery. It's not so much I'm at home, but it was hard to schedule someone to join me to do a podcast, different scheduling, things like that. I’ve been in home after back surgery from two weeks ago. Things are coming along very well. Thanks. And I just thought I'd go into the sales cycle a little bit. The sales cycle is the process that begins with prospecting in ends with the sale. In this process, salespeople must find new leads, convert them into prospects and close the deal. 

All buzz this can take place in the rules three steps. First, you need to contact a potential customer, that's called “Prospect”. You're going to be following up on leads from contacts or other sources converting and then trying to close the deal. Some reps as myself in the beginning have problems that start and that is because of what I call sales paralysis. The reason why a salesperson has this is because that they're afraid of rejection. The fear can be caused by many things like the fear of being wrong, the fear of not being able to close the sale, or the fear of not knowing how to close the deal. As mentioned, prospecting is the first step in the sales cycle, a way to find and build new relationships for your company. Prospecting can be done by cold calling, both by phone and email. And some people even use LinkedIn for introductions. In addition, many people sales rep use social media, like I just said LinkedIn, Facebook, and even Instagram. Prospecting starts with connecting to the people in a particular industry or a target market. Then following up with the relevant content, and personalized message until the interest is in your product or service. The next step in the sales cycle is “converting the prospect into qualified leads”. Again, I am guilty of sometimes thinking someone is a lead and they're not. We tried to pretend to ourselves that someone's lead, so it has to be a qualified lead. This can be done by creating a sense of urgency for your product or services by showing them how it will make their lives easier or better. Technically, today, our soon, frequently is a good time to name drop a reference. We've helped someone so up the street when he had a recent problem, similar to yours. The final step in the sales cycle is of course “closing the sale” which happens when you have to convince your customer to buy something from you. Frequently, and I'm laughing frequently, too much emphasis is put on this stuff, because you need the work before you harvest. It's like seeds, plants and then harvesting. I used to work for a boss who had gone to a sales seminar. And he came back with all of these different closes, I think he had 100 like the Ben Franklin closed, the Abraham Lincoln closed, many different closes, you cannot use the close at the end, if you haven't set the call up in it. Because technically, if you've done all of your work in advance, there is no closing of the sale. The customer, the prospect who will be your future customer will be asking to buy rather than you trying to use some manipulative way of getting it past them. First, you have to do a great discovery call. Because the discovery call is where it's frequently made or not. It's the most critical step in the sales process is when you are trying to figure out what your prospect needs and wants. It is also the point where you can identify whether your prospect needs align with your services or not. It is essential to ask questions that will help you uncover their challenges. It would also help if you also were listening for clues about what they've already tried in the past. So that you can show them how your product or services can help them reach those goals. It is also the best time to find out if you're speaking to the right person, a major problem for all of us, you do a lot of work, and then find out the person you're talking to is not the decision maker. 

The discovery process is the most crucial part of the sales cycle. As this is where the salesperson and customer agree on what the customer needs, you can break down the discovery process into four steps. Number one, “Identifying the potential prospects problems”. The old expression of what is keeping you up at night, gather information about these prospects and look for the flag bearers. The initial largest ones that stand out establish a rapport with the prospect at this time, “Establish” what the next step is in the process. Don't ever leave a call with not a next step agreed upon by both sides. Bring out your calendar, bring out your day camera, bring out your phone calendar and say is this day or this day, the best day I come back. I call you our review things. Don't say I'll send you an email, you send me an email, and we'll figure out what the next step is. Get the next step before you get off the phone or leave the office. Frequently the buyer needs more than the product you're selling to get a specific job done. See it all the time. For example, if you're a contract or selling a new kitchen, the husband and wife want a new kitchen. However the wife wants and needs a new stove that you don't usually include or the salesperson doesn't usually include in a package. You as the quarterback need to move the pieces to get the job done. Trust me, none of that is learn from your brochures online. That is a reason you need to ask questions. You realize you've been reviewing this and he never spoke price. So please don't always feel the least expensive price wins. Because if that were true, Starbucks would be out of business. The first step was Starbucks is the purchase stimulus. This is when Starbuck advertises products and offers deals and discounts entice customers. The next step is the customer's response. This is when the customer besides whether or not they want to buy anything from Starbucks, and then they fall right into what I call almost a trap. Starbucks doesn't sell small, medium and large. Everything's a little different. Trust me, you're paying for it. The third step is the “Customer Perception”. And that's where the customers choose that after the visit wasn't worthwhile based on their experience. Well, frequently as the barista has been friendly, put your name on the cup, and gone out of your way, gone out of their way to make sure you're happy. This is gonna lead up to what I call the greatest sales story ever told. As I had said, the show was designed to help people see their mistakes, and how to advance their careers by overcoming it. 

Many years ago, when I worked for Ecolab, I went through a one year training program with them. I work with another salesperson in their car for one year. With two manuals went through us what they call a standard sales pitch, you had to be able to memorize verbatim and stand up in front of a group and be able to speak about R&D, the money that they have spent, the Osborne building and such. It didn't teach you so much about asking questions. So I had been with Ecolab and I was fairly successful. However, I was one day not with the gentleman who trained me, but then other seasoned veteran. We had tagged up one day, I think the management asked people to work together and I was with him and I probably was 35, 32 something like that probably had come up to equal out to almost had been for almost 10 years. So again, I wasn't a rookie, but I wasn't a seasoned veteran either. So we had lined up our calls and decided to go to a local restaurant, which was a fairly large restaurant, do you making a cold call? I didn't have any contacts there. I didn't know anybody there. I was with this gentleman who I was with had sold them at one time, and at least knew the owner and I believe in might have known the chef's name. We'd arrived about 10 o'clock which was probably the perfect time, walked in the front door. A couple of waitresses were walking in, they were going to start getting their stations. The owner was up at the foyer area and them in the main station area where the hostess would normally be probably getting menus ready, double checking things had a clipboard walking around. We introduced ourselves and beforehand my veteran friend said, Jerry, I want you to handle this call. Well, I had gone in with. I had my sales manual, I had my brochures. I went in, introduce myself, the owner is very nice introduce himself said he had heard of our company and said he would give us maybe 10 minutes, which was well more than we expected. I believe we sat down at a front table and I brought out the brochures. I brought out the binder. And I had gone through every sales pitch. I knew I went through every chart graph even showed a picture of the EB Osborne building of St. Paul. At the end the gentleman said, thanks for coming. I'll keep you in mind. We're happy now, yada, yada, yada. Of course we were getting ready to leave. I turned to the veteran. We started the walkout and Ecolab had did have a sales pitch at that time called the hat trick. And a hat trick was years ago, menus were hats, it would be like you would put your hat on to walk away. The owner or manager would think wow, I'm getting rid of them now and go back to work. And then turn around and say wait, I have one more question. Well, my veteran friend pulled something like that. Of course, neither one of us had hats. But before he did that, my friend asked me he said how do you think it went? I said, “Well, you tell me. Tell me how I did? He goes Jerry, you know the sales man. You know, the brochures, you know everything your binder front and backwards. I said, “Well, how'd I do?” He goes, okay. He said, do you mind if I have a shot at it? I said, I first thought we were coming back a week later and said we can do whatever you want. This isn't my prospect wasn't on my prospect list. Something made cold call. He was just “Wait right here and watch this call out to the owner”, who then had thought we were getting ready to leave. And he called his name and said, do you mind if we go into the back and see if I still remember the shelf and take a look around. The owner said, I don't mind, go right ahead. We went back and he did wave to the chef. And he immediately walked over to the dish machine and I walk with him. We didn't ever tool bugs. We didn't have a flashlight, this before iPhones, we had a flashlight on your phone. And he was just standing there looking around looking around and looked at me said what you see? 

Well, it looks like you're about ready to get busy. It's now 10:30 dishwasher was definitely trying to get ramped up for lunch. Stood there for a little bit more. My friend didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. He finally guess he caught the dishwashers named by the one of the waitresses calling out his name. We'll just say his name was Joe. He then went hey, Joe, are you still having the same problem? Simple question. Are you still having the same problem? Now I thought that my friend actually knew what the problem wants. My friend was doing nothing more but fishing. He was fishing for an answer. Joe turned around and said, “Well, I was waiting for you to ask”. My friend didn't know Joe really technically didn't know the chef. The dishwasher turned off the machine which was running at that time, open up the door and started pointing to all the problems that were going on with his dish machine. He must have named 10 different things. We then went over and looked at the results and the results were horrible. He then said Joe, do you mind going and getting the owner and asking, if had a minute to come back here? Dishwashers actually thought we were the current chemical vendor and that we were going to fix the problems that day. The dishwasher renting out the owner, the owner came back seemed a little upset, not even perplexed, but seemed busy. He said what's going on fellas. My associate said, Look, Joe was just showing us all these problems he had, pointed them out real quick, show jumped right in and even showed some more. We then held up the results and said there's definitely some problems here. The owner quickly said, listen, fellas, if you can take care of our Joe's concerns, and get my dish machine up and running with some good results. Do you believe you can install by next week? Of course, we said “Yes”. And of course we got the job done. There was no proposal, there was no looking back and forth at pricing. The gentleman had a problem. I don't even know if the owner knew he had a problem when he was sitting down talking to us. I was more concerned about the brochures and showing the height of the EB Osborne building. I wasn't asking questions and coming up with solutions. I remember this as it happened just yesterday. A quite honestly, it happened over 20 years ago. I'm amazed when I'm on a sales presentation now. And someone starts bringing out chart brochures about where the company is located and what they're doing there. It really doesn't mean anything to an owner, operator. He wants to know what's in it for me. How are you going to help me? So remember that next time you go out and you get into a trap where you're just showing and telling but not asking. Today, that is the greatest sales story ever told. 

PODCAST OUTRO: I wish to thank each of the listeners today for joining us. We are slowly adding subscribers to our show. Currently, we are most podcast apps now including iTunes, as well as Spotify, as Amazon and many others. If you have time, please rate and like our show. If you've enjoyed today's content, please let us know. Also give us some ideas for future shows you might be looking for. If you have the time, please rate and like our show and share any of our episodes that you have enjoyed. Please send me an email about who, what, where you would like information on a future podcast.

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