Stop Talking About Yourself: You’re Killing Your Sales

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Dennis Collins: If you are new to sales, if you’ve never done sales, we’ll just give you a quick look, a quick peek at what the elements of a sales process are all about. Okay? The first part of a sales process is all about connection. Okay? A sales conversation starts with connection, or it ends without connection. Does that make sense?

Paul Boomer: No, no, no, no.

Dennis Collins: Oh, now Paul’s…

Paul Boomer: I don’t agree with that, actually. I really don’t. It doesn’t start there. It doesn’t start with a connection.

Dennis Collins: It doesn’t?

Paul Boomer: No, it starts with yourself.

Leah Bumphrey: You can’t jump over steps, Dennis.

Dennis Collins: Okay, well, Paul, since you brought it up, expound.

Paul Boomer: Know thyself. 

Dennis Collins: Know thyself.

Paul Boomer: Know thyself. I keep saying… Whatever it is. Know yourself in that how do you communicate? What are your weak points? What are your good points? How do you come across to people? If you don’t understand how you communicate and where you lack in communication, how can you sell?

Leah Bumphrey: Okay, well, I’m going to add to that.

Dennis Collins: I guess I would… Oh, go ahead, Leah. Come on, gang up on me, guys. Gang up, come on.

Leah Bumphrey: No, no, I’m ganging up on Paul. It’s not just how you sell. You have to know your why, right?

Dennis Collins: Yes.

Leah Bumphrey: That’s why it’s so important to understand I’m in this sales job, and why is that? And let’s go down to brass tacks.

Dennis Collins: You’ve been listening to Simon Sinek too much.

Leah Bumphrey: I love that guy! If you don’t know your why, if you don’t know your why, why would you bother going out there and putting yourself through this?

Dennis Collins: So would you allow me to amend my remarks and say that in my mind, in my brain, which I know is impossible for you to know, part of connection is knowing the impact you have on other people.

Leah Bumphrey: I like that.

Dennis Collins: Part of connection is knowing that, you know, I’m a big advocate of social styles. I teach it, I believe it, I use it. If you’re an expressive social style and talking to a driver client, you better damn well bring your driver language or you’re not going to get heard. So you know I believe in that.

Leah Bumphrey: Yep.

Dennis Collins: That’s part of connection. Okay. It’s knowing who you are, as Boomer rightly said, and knowing furthermore, even more important, is knowing the impact you have on others.

Leah Bumphrey: Okay, I just have to say this. You’re waiting for me, Dennis, I know you are. Let’s define our terms, gentlemen. There, now we have.

Paul Boomer: I need a little button that just says that for her.

Leah Bumphrey: It’s got to be on the board. It applies…

Dennis Collins: What term would you like defined? 

Leah Bumphrey: Well, you just… Now you defined connection that encompasses what Paul said, what I said. We’re all group hugging. It’s fantastic. Our owners that are listening are going, “Yeah, okay, now I get it.” Learned our terms, gentlemen.

Dennis Collins: Let me further define. Connection is not some false BS flattery. “Oh, your tie looks so nice. Oh, Leah, those earrings are so lovely on you. Oh, those shoes, wow, where did you get those shoes?” That’s not connection, okay? That’s bullshit. Okay? [laughter] And if you think as a business owner that when your salespeople do that, they’re connecting, they’re doing the opposite. They’re repelling.

Leah Bumphrey: Yeah.

Dennis Collins: Connection means, in my world, understanding what your client needs to hear, understanding what is important to them, and delivering on that. So they are the star, they are the hero of the story. It’s not your… Here’s where I find a lot of owners, founders, they don’t get this. You, your business is not the hero of this story. I know in your mind you are, because it’s your business. But the hero of the sales story is the customer, and the connection is where it all starts.

Okay, so that’s the first part. Do you have a process whereby your salesperson can make connections? Number two: are you listening to me? Okay. You say, “Well, that’s stupid. I mean, yeah, we all listen to each other.” Yeah. No, we don’t. Again, I’ve done deep research on this too, for years. It is amazing how many people are just waiting for their turn to talk and are not really listening. Okay.

Paul Boomer: But Dennis, but Dennis, but Dennis…

Dennis Collins: But Paul, but Paul. 

Leah Bumphrey: I think you both…

Paul Boomer: I have nothing to say. I just wanted to interrupt you.

Dennis Collins: Oh, you just wanted to interrupt me?

Paul Boomer: Yeah.

Dennis Collins: Well, he just gave a great example of what poor listening sounds like. Interruption, answering, finishing sentences for your client, making assumptions without hearing them out. The most important skill in a sales process is questions, questions, questions, questions. If you’re going to practice something in a sales process, practice questions. It’s not the initial question. Yes, you have to start with the initial question to get the ball rolling. The important question is the follow-up questions. “Oh, let me make sure, Leah, I understood what you said. I don’t want to get this wrong. This sounds important.”

The payoff, brain science here, guys, the payoff is in the follow-up question. So two things: we’ve got to have connection first, and we have to have “Are you listening to me? Are you listening to me?” Okay? You guys with me or you’re going to fight me?

Leah Bumphrey: Well, see, yeah, I want to see where you’re going with this because the follow-up question has to be directly related to what they’ve actually said. I worked with a guy and his follow-up question, and it was a great follow-up question, except he just got sick of hearing it. “That’s interesting. Why would you say that?” And it was always this big, deep dive. It was a follow-up question, but it was, to quote you, Dennis, it was total bullshit.

Dennis Collins: Yeah. Well, again, you can’t do that.

Paul Boomer: There was no context.

Dennis Collins: No, but… Yeah. .

Leah Bumphrey: “That’s interesting. Why would you say that, Paul? Aren’t I smart? Aren’t I witty? That’s very interesting.”

Dennis Collins: So here’s the problem. You’re right. Asking questions is an art form that most people have no idea how to do. Okay? So if you remember, my point two was you’ve got to listen. When I say that you have to listen, I assume that you’re listening to what the person said and that you form your next question about what they said. [laughter]

Leah Bumphrey: No, but this is a basic podcast for people who are, we may be in a sales meeting right now telling people this has to be said.

Dennis Collins: Yeah. The follow-up question needs to be relevant to what they just said, not a generic BS, “Oh, that’s interesting. Tell me more.” I mean, there’s a time when that comes into play, but only if you have to use that and you don’t have anything else. Okay? So we got two things: connection and…

Paul Boomer: And I’m actually… Hold on, I’m going to pause right there. Yeah. I was just practicing my listening skills.

Dennis Collins: Good job, Paul.

Paul Boomer: One thing I want to make sure of, though, is it’s okay to pause, to ask the right questions instead of just saying, whatever Leah you just said with the guy that you know, “Oh, that’s interesting. Why would you say that?” Okay, that is BS. As a salesperson, pause for a few seconds and actually come up with a freaking good question that matters. It’s okay to shut up for a moment and then ask a question.

Leah Bumphrey: People are afraid of silence.

Dennis Collins: Totally afraid of silence. Okay, so I’m trying to disagree with you guys, but I find it difficult because…

Paul Boomer: Keep going. We’ll figure something out.

Dennis Collins: What Paul just said is it’s brain science again. Do you know how effective pauses are in any conversation that you have? Not just sales conversations, personal conversations. A pause gives everybody a chance to settle, to reset. Okay. It also calls attention to the very next thing you’re going to say because now they’re waiting for you to speak again, right? And so when you talk, the next thing you say is pretty important, so it better be good. So I support that. I teach a lot of people sales and I teach a lot of people public speaking, and the one thing that they have the hardest time with, it’s the pause.

Pause. Build pauses into your presentation. Build pauses into your speech. See, I can’t disagree with you, Paul. I tried, but I can’t. What’s the next thing? A great sales process makes the customer feel important. Okay. How? You say, “Well, gee, that’s pretty obvious.” Really? I’ve listened to thousands of recorded sales calls over my career. I would say maybe 10% of them really made the customer feel important because all they did was talk about themselves, their product, their service, what they can do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the customer says, “Is this about me or about you?” And it was about them. And a lot of those deals don’t close. Does that make sense? You guys going to argue with me on that?

Paul Boomer: I’m going to argue just a little bit.

Dennis Collins: Okay.

Paul Boomer: What about for those people who are transactional? They don’t want to feel good about themselves. They just want the goddamn good money, the cheapest price. Don’t make me feel good.

Dennis Collins: Huh. Wow.

Paul Boomer: What about that? Because believe me, they are out there.

Dennis Collins: Well, that’s a whole ‘nother… That’s a whole ‘nother podcast. You’ve now opened a topic that we can’t go there in this.

Leah Bumphrey: And this is our Wizard of Ads training, wizardacademy.org. It’s about the… Not the transactional. We know it’s out there, but we are talking more about relational sales process here. And the two are very different. Now, you can stack transactional on top of relational. You can convert transactional to relational, but that’s a mess.

Paul Boomer: That’s another conversation we’ll have at another time, which I’m sure, believe me, if you search for us, you’ll find it.

Dennis Collins: Yeah. We’re talking about all this stuff, so keep looking. Here’s the other thing. A lot of times that type of attitude is portrayed when the client becomes disengaged in the conversation and they just want to cut to the bottom line. Okay. It’s not really that they’re a transactional buyer. At that moment, they become a transactional buyer because you’ve messed up the sales process. You haven’t made them feel connected, you haven’t listened to them, and they’ve had enough of you, so they cut to the chase. “What’s the price?” And that’s not who they are. That moment, they feel that because they want you to get out of their face. So sometimes that’s said to get you out of there.

Let me cover the last one here, really. Here’s the big one. A sales process must prove that you understand their situation. Okay. I cannot tell you how many sales conversations that I have gotten an engagement from because I used that. Let me summarize what you told me about what you need. I heard A, B, C, D, E. Did I get that right? Do I understand your situation? Bam. Once they say yes to that question, you’re engaged.

Leah Bumphrey: But does it sound salesy when you do that? I hate to sound salesy. I’m a salesperson and I’ve been…

Dennis Collins: So, let me ask you…

Leah Bumphrey: Because we are talking about educated people out there that are buying, our clients. 

Dennis Collins: What’s so salesy about that, Leah? I don’t think that’s salesy at all. I think that’s…

Leah Bumphrey: It just sounds like a setup question. 

Dennis Collins: What are you talking about? If I ask you, Leah, I heard you say three things. Do I get you? Do I understand you? That sounds salesy?

Leah Bumphrey: Dennis, there’s a $5 bill on the floor behind you. I’m not sure if I dropped it or you dropped it, but there… Now, doesn’t it sound kind of like that too? I don’t know. I struggle with…

Dennis Collins: Not to me. Not to me.

Leah Bumphrey: Okay. I know I’m being sold if somebody does that.

Dennis Collins: Really?

Leah Bumphrey: Oh, absolutely.

Dennis Collins: Oh, I totally disagree with that. That is one of the… Again, going back to brain science. The reason that people accept your proposal or reject it is primarily one reason: you didn’t really understand their situation. You did not understand them. You went off on your own tangent and went your own way and you did not marry up what you have to say with their needs.

Leah Bumphrey: And I agree with that, but I don’t like a tactic to prove that I’ve done it. 

Dennis Collins: How would you do it? All right, so how would you do it?

Leah Bumphrey: In the course of the conversation, as you’re… They’re telling stuff and you’re relating it to, “Oh, I had another client that that happened to. Oh, you know what? I remember so-and-so telling me… Yes, that’s exactly right. We can work with that.” It is a process. It shouldn’t be a tactic, and that smells like a sales tactic to me.

Dennis Collins: Wow. Boy, well, we couldn’t disagree more. I’ve taught it for years. I’ve used it for years. And I will be honest with you, it’s never failed me. I’m not going to tell you every single thing closed, but nobody pushed back on that.

Leah Bumphrey: But I can’t imagine you laying it out like that. I know you would do it, but I don’t think you would do it like that.

Dennis Collins: Okay.

Leah Bumphrey: In all the conversations… I guess you’ve never tried to sell me anything.

Dennis Collins: I guess not. 

Paul Boomer: Or maybe he has and you just don’t know it.

Dennis Collins: Yeah. Believe me. I mean, we’re sitting here on this podcast and you’re saying, “Well, that’s a tactic.” If you use this properly, it is not perceived as a tactic.

Leah Bumphrey: Okay.

Dennis Collins: It’s perceived as someone who really cares that you are zeroing in on what’s important to them and not some BS that your owner told you to try to go sell.

Leah Bumphrey: Okay, so then this is the Leah warning: make sure it doesn’t sound like a tactic.

Dennis Collins: Okay. Well, I think we got to close this out, but let’s… How would you make it not a tactic, though? You said it comes up in the conversation. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.

Leah Bumphrey: You make it… It is a tactic, even the way I’m saying it.

Dennis Collins: That’s what I did. I summarized what you told me. I made it come up. I caused it to come up. I took what you said and summarized.

Leah Bumphrey: It’s too direct. It’s too direct of a conversation.

Dennis Collins: Too direct?

Leah Bumphrey: It’s too direct of a conversation. Yeah.

Paul Boomer: Dennis, I’m sorry, I’m on Team Leah here, because I’ve heard that before and I immediately felt it in my body, like, oh, I know what they’re doing. I get it. I get it. So to me, it comes down to context. What point in the conversation does it make sense? In what language, in what words do you use to do said thing? That’s the difference. What you’re saying, Dennis, I think is brilliant. How you do it matters.

Dennis Collins: Okay. Doesn’t that always… Isn’t that always the case, though? How you do it always…

Leah Bumphrey: I just for our owners, I had to be specific. I just had to be specific. Make sure they get it, that the “how.”

Dennis Collins: So you’re saying that they shouldn’t do that?

Leah Bumphrey: I’m saying they be cautious. We’re talking… This is kryptonite. This is kryptonite, Dennis.

Dennis Collins: Kryptonite.

Leah Bumphrey: If I said, “Well, you know, Dennis, so I just want to summarize now where we are at the end of this podcast,” people will hit the button and be done with it because, oh, she’s done. We don’t need to hear it again.

Dennis Collins: Well, that’s… You wouldn’t do the same thing on a podcast. We’re talking about a live conversation with somebody where you’re trying to get them engaged. And the biggest obstacle to getting them engaged is that they feel you don’t understand them. Okay? That you are talking about your product or service and not what they need.

Leah Bumphrey: Oh, I’d love to go on a sales call with you, Dennis.

Dennis Collins: Oh boy. You would, huh? You’d teach me a few things, huh?

Leah Bumphrey: I wouldn’t. You are a masterclass. You are a masterclass.

Dennis Collins: I don’t know, Leah.

Leah Bumphrey: Oh, absolutely. But it is… When you get down to it, it’s the how and it’s the… And that’s what’s fun about being able to have the conversation.

Dennis Collins: And the one thing I always tell, and you’ve been on sales training calls with me, you have to use your language. You cannot use my language. What works for me may not work for you. We’re talking about frameworks and concepts here.

Leah Bumphrey: Yeah.

Dennis Collins: Okay. Not scripts, not word for word. So, yeah, if you say the way you get to that may vary. What I just spoke of works for me. Maybe another way works for you. But if you don’t do it, you’re running the risk of not having the engagement.

Leah Bumphrey: And we both agree with that. And our business owners, man, this is gold, you guys. You have to know where you are in the process to be able to not pull, not push, but put your arm around your client and let them know that you’re there to help.

Dennis Collins: You bet. Okay, guys, I think we’ve… Paul, last words from you on this? Thoughts?

Paul Boomer: Stay tuned for and look for other podcasts from us and listen to us disagree.

Dennis Collins: Yes. Connect and Convert, by the way.

Paul Boomer: And yes, Connect and Convert, Leah Bumphrey and Dennis Collins and Paul Boomer. And enjoy the show. The disagreements. That’s what I have to say.

Dennis Collins: We’ll get you next time.