Dennis Collins:
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Connect and Convert, the Sales Accelerator Podcast, where small business owners tune in every week to get some tips on growing your business faster than ever. Interesting topic today. From naive to savvy, one salesperson’s journey. Leah, what do you think about that? Hi, Leah.

Leah Bumphrey:
Hey, Dennis, how you doing? You are killing me here, because there is no way I’m letting you get away with this. I’ve been your sidekick for a while now, and I love doing the podcast with you.

Dennis Collins:
Me too.

Leah Bumphrey:
But you have been doing this so much longer than me. This is your 50th show, 5-0.

Dennis Collins:
Are you sure?

Leah Bumphrey:
I am absolutely positive, and I have balloons and confetti, and I am drinking champagne all by myself. This is…

Dennis Collins:
There’s Producer Paul.

Leah Bumphrey:
You’ve been following and doing this 50 times. That’s amazing.

Dennis Collins:
Yeah, Boomer and I have definitely done it 50 times, and thank you, Leah, for joining in. I don’t remember when you joined, but it’s been at least half.

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh, but 50. Okay, now we can carry on. I don’t know about down in the States, but in Canada, we celebrate these things.

Paul Boomer:
Congratulations, man. Let’s keep going. Let’s go to 100, 150, 200.

Dennis Collins:
I’m ready, Boomer.

Paul Boomer:
If you are, let’s do it.

Leah Bumphrey:
All right, let’s do it.

Dennis Collins:
We got to keep Leah interested, so I got to really tell a good story today, or she’s going to quit.

Leah Bumphrey:
I’m so close.

Dennis Collins:
This is a tearjerker, right? Well, maybe not a tearjerker.

Leah Bumphrey:
Made for TV movie?

Dennis Collins:
We’re going to fire up Dennis’s Wayback Machine. When I fire that up, man, I go all the way back to my first time in sales. I was that young rookie. I was surrounded by people twice my age, 100 times more experienced. I must add, too, I was the firstborn in my family, I had five siblings, and I was the classic overachiever. I used to ask myself in school, isn’t there a grade that’s higher than A?

I mean, remember that grade? I wanted that grade. And another thing, early in my career, I discovered that I was a driver social style, with a touch of expressive. So that gave further explanation for my need to prove how smart I was, and the need to win.

I saw no reward, zero reward, for being that naive, or as some sales gurus call it, the dumbest person in the room, Leah. I just didn’t see myself that way.

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh, how could you? But I got to tell you, you’re a family of five, family of seven here, oldest girl, you know what? I understand that need to do good things.

Dennis Collins:
You have to prove yourself when you’re the leader. And that’s how I felt. And of course, in the sales world, I had never done sales when I first started. Isn’t that the most knowledgeable person and the most assertive person that wins? You got to be out there. You got to be talking up your product. You got to be pushing your product.

It was my mission, early on, to overcome my youth and my inexperience by being the smartest person in the room. And I did everything I could do to prove to myself and to everybody in the room that I was the smartest person in the room. And that was hard. And that was awkward. Looking back, I’m not sure it was the best idea. But that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Leah Bumphrey:
Wow.

Dennis Collins:
So when does dumb become genius? Sales success, to me, seems to be about the prospect, the customer. How do they feel? Do they feel valued, comfortable, heard, understood, and in control? As a driver and expressive social style, as anybody who knows the social styles, how was I with questions, Leah? How do you think a driver and expressive does with asking questions?

Leah Bumphrey:
It does not come naturally.

Dennis Collins:
Yeah, that’s an understatement. I mean, driver expressive styles are tell assertive, tell. And so my biggest job was, if you’re going to pretend you’re the dumbest person in the room, the first thing you have to do is ask questions, right? That wasn’t part of my repertoire. It was my job to tell, not to ask. To overwhelm the prospect with logic and intelligent reasons and features and benefits. In any case, I had no idea how to play that role.

Leah Bumphrey:
But did someone lead you there? Did it just suddenly dawn on you? It just struck you that it wasn’t working?

Dennis Collins:
Part of my experience that I’ll further share is that when I was first hired into sales, I was at an ad agency and having a blast. I was writing copy. I was producing radio and TV spots. I was doing PR work. I was having a blast. And then I got recruited by a local radio TV company who wanted me to come and sell.

I didn’t know anything about sales. And they sent me to New York for a big sales school, right? Big deal, Big Apple, a week of sales training. I got back, went into my boss’s office that following Monday, and he said, hey, I got to tell you something. I said, yeah, what’s that? He said, your sales trainer, Mr. Brown, called me this morning. He said, you may be, in his experience, one of the least likely people to ever succeed in sales.

I said, should I just resign or what should I do? He said, no, I see something in you, but you’re going to have to step up. And you know, that day happened many decades ago. But I listened to Ray, my boss, and I have never let Ray down. Because from that day forward, I started studying how to play that role, how to be the dumbest person in the room, or at least appear to be.

And I wasn’t really positive that was going to work. But then I started trying it.

Leah Bumphrey:
It’s interesting because you’re using the word “dumbest,” which when people hear it as a negative, it’s actually the most interested or the most curious.

Dennis Collins:
You just hit the key word, Leah, curious. Be the most curious person in the room. We use “dumbest” because again, in my case, that was a good word because I wanted to be known as the smartest person in the room. That was getting me nowhere, obviously. And my sales trainer from New York City said, you have very little chance of succeeding. So something had to change. Or else I had to choose another profession, right? Or go back to my agency or do something. I learned there are four things, and this was all self study.

I decided as a tribute to Ray, my boss, who didn’t fire me on the spot, I was going to learn this business inside out, upside down. There has not been a day since then that I haven’t studied something about sales. No exception today. I’ve already studied due material this morning before recording this, new stuff that I didn’t know about sales. And I commit to that every single day for over four decades.

Leah Bumphrey:
Bravo. That’s why I could never call you the dumbest person in the room. I had to stop you using that word.

Dennis Collins:
But sometimes I may appear to be because I want an exchange with a customer. So there’s basic questions. Hey, can you walk me through how your process works?

There’s clarifying questions. When you say that, can you tell me exactly what you mean? Playing naive. Hey, you know, I’ve heard about what you just said before, but could you kind of explain it in terms that I can understand? And encouraging people to elaborate. That’s interesting. Tell me more.

Those four types of questions, Leah, are what I had to learn. And that wasn’t that hard. It’s harder to put them into use because I wanted to spill out all my candy on the floor, tell them everything I knew. Well, I didn’t learn very much about my customers when I did that. I didn’t learn what their needs were. I didn’t know what they were thinking. And once I figured out, gee, this works a whole lot better than spilling all your candy on the floor. That’s the aha moment. Oh, I got it. Now I’m getting…

Leah Bumphrey:
As much as we think that our customers want to know about us, they don’t. They want to tell us about them.

Dennis Collins:
They don’t. What they want is to solve a problem. A customer has a problem of some sort that they need a solution for. And if you are that solution, great, but how are you going to find out if you’re the solution? Only one way, asking questions. And that was a foreign language to me. When I started that, that changed the whole path of my career. Not only in sales, but upward into sales management and general management. These are some of the same skills you need as a general manager. Once a client comes to you, or a salesperson comes to you, or one of your managers comes to you, you can use these same…Tell me more about that. Tell me more about that. Hey, that’s interesting. I didn’t know that. Tell me more. I don’t know.

Have you found this to be true, Leah? I don’t know. You probably know how to play this. I didn’t know how to play this. I played it wrong, and therefore I had to change to get it right. Maybe you had it right from the get-go.

Leah Bumphrey:
You know what? Showing interest and being curious… We all like to think that we do it naturally, but none of us do, Dennis. None of us do. What I remember from my first sojourn into a real sales job, and I was so pumped to get hired, there were six of us hired, and the manager said, look around the room. There’s six of you. There’s going to be two left standing in four months. I went, okay, it’s going to be me.

I didn’t work this hard not to be one of the six, and he was correct. Now, I’m not saying that was the right type of motivation, but man, I dug deep to go, okay, what do I do, and I just did it. That involved, back in the day, a lot of scripts, which involved a lot of questions.

Dennis Collins:
At some point, if you succeed in sales, there has to be an intervention where you understand it’s about the customer, stupid. It’s not about you and your problem. It’s about them and their problem, and that’s when you become, and I use the word “dumbest”, or the most curious person in the room. That’s what wins over customers. Why?

It builds great rapport. They want you to understand their situation. They want you to ask them questions. Explain their situation. Get insights into their problem. Avoid assumptions. One of the biggest pet peeves I had as a sales manager, salespeople who think, yeah, I know this customer. I’ve already been through this. This guy’s the same as the guy I just talked to an hour ago. No, they’re not.

Again, be the most curious person in the room. Figure it out. Figure it out. It’s a much better way. Today, I’m more of the dumbest person in the room, for sure, and I’m proud of it.

Leah Bumphrey:
I imagine anybody who has ever met you, and I count myself, I met you, Dennis, probably just a year and a half ago, two years ago now, and you were genuinely interested in me. That sparked a conversation that I walked away from going, that guy knows his stuff.

What did you know? You knew a lot about me at the end of it, and it was natural, and I didn’t feel interrogated, and I didn’t feel all the world’s a stage, and here I am in the middle with a spotlight on me. It became the basis of then me finding out about you, and look where we are today.

Dennis Collins:
Ta-da! A marriage made in heaven. We were meant to be together, Leah, on this podcast. Again, thank you for listening to my story.

Leah Bumphrey:
I’ve been receiving this question from one of our listeners for a while. I know you have hired a ton of people in your industry. I know that you’ve recommended people, but the question is, if someone wants to get into sales, what route should they take?

If sales is a career aspiration, what do you recommend? And I find it interesting, because they don’t specify what kind of sales. I don’t know what this person wants to sell.

Dennis Collins:
I think I have a fairly generic answer for that. I would say to study psychology, to study the social sciences, behavioral psychology. Sales, according to our guru and chief wizard, Roy Williams, is a transference of competence.

Sales is a transference of competence. Number one, if you don’t have competence, you can’t transfer what you don’t have. But number two, let’s assume you have competence. How do you transfer that? And that’s all about how the brain works. Psychology, why do people do what they do? Why do we human beings buy? On my bookshelf back here, I’ll bet there are 25 or 30 books on buyer’s motivations. I studied that as a young salesperson. I have all the books I had when I was a young buck right back here, I kept them.

What is it that causes people to not buy? What causes people to buy? It’s pretty much the same, Leah, no matter what you’re selling. My preference would be, if you wanna work for me as a salesperson, show me that you understand people, that you understand how people operate, that you have some understanding of the whole role of a question and not a statement in a sale. Show me that how you understand people respond better to questions than to statements.

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh, I love that, Dennis. The only thing I would add to that is, make sure you genuinely care about people, because if you don’t, they can smell it.

Dennis Collins:
I should have said that, but maybe I make that assumption. If you care for the commission check or your bank account or some other goal that’s not involved helping people, don’t go into sales. The question that you need to ask yourself is, are you one of those who says, I go into a sales conversation thinking, how can I help you, not what can I sell you?

If you’re going in with what can I sell you, you’re gonna fail.

Leah Bumphrey:
Yes.

Dennis Collins:
If you’re going in with how can I help you, and that’s why I stress question-based selling. I stress psychology, social psychology. Why do people do what they do? If you understand people and you resonate with that in a sales career, you will be successful.

Leah Bumphrey:
I love it. I think our challenge to our listeners and viewers this week should be to spend a little bit of time reflecting on how come you are where you are? Why are you doing what you’re doing? What brought you there? Dennis, everything from being the oldest of five to starting out in an ad, an ad agency, and then getting some support when you were told that you probably weren’t gonna be good at this.

All of this built you into, wow, someone who gives back. But I think it is important for everyone to take some time, take 10 minutes, set your timer, and think about what brought you here. And that’s pretty impactful when you carry on with your day after you take that moment.

Dennis Collins:
Not only what brought you here, but what do you need to complete your journey, the journey that you want, your dream? What is it that you need that you don’t have, and how are you gonna get it? That’s what I had to do as a young buck. I mean, nobody was there. They sent me to the big school in New York and I failed. So it’s on me now. And I took that really seriously. I still take it seriously today, every day.

Leah Bumphrey:
I’d hire you, Dennis, just so you know. I’d hire you in a second.

Dennis Collins:
I’d hire you too.

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh, let’s hire each other.

Dennis Collins:
Hey, perfect.

Leah Bumphrey:
Next week, 51.

Dennis Collins:
Okay, we’ll see you guys next week for the 51st episode of Connect and Convert. Thanks for tuning in.

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