Dennis Collins:
Welcome back to Connect and Convert, the Sales Accelerator podcast where small business owners tune in every week to hear insider tips on how to grow their sales faster than ever. Joined today, as always, by my lovely partner in crime, Leah Bumphrey.

Leah Bumphrey:
Hey, Dennis. How you doing?

Dennis Collins:
Hi, Leah. Welcome back.

Leah Bumphrey:
Good to be back.

Dennis Collins:
Glad to be with you, as always. Before we get into today’s topic, which I think you will like, it’s a fun topic, I want to talk about a new feature that we are introducing on this podcast right now, today. We want to announce our new opportunity for our small business owners, our target listeners, those are the folks we hope are listening, we want to give them a possible next step.

The first step would be our Connect and Convert discovery call. Yes, a discovery phone call with you for 60 minutes. It’s waiting for business owners willing to take a step back and take a look at what the difference would be working with us. We can make a difference for some. We’re not for everybody, we acknowledge that, but on a 60-minute phone call, we can figure that out. So, email us, the emails are posted there, denniscollins@wizardofads.com and leahbumphrey@wizardofads.com, either one or both. We will send a questionnaire and arrange a 60-minute virtual conversation. You’ll love it, and so will we. Let’s connect.

Leah, today, we sometimes in these podcasts end up talking about alcohol. I don’t know how we get on that topic. We had one episode with our producer, Paul, and the whole thing was about alcohol.

Leah Bumphrey:
That was a good one.

Dennis Collins:
That was a good one. But anyway, I am going to talk today about sales lessons from Gino. Before I jump into that, I would like you to tell our audience about possible lessons. You’ve been in the sales business. You have been a pro in the sales business for some time. What sales lessons have you learned from the most unexpected sources, a situation, a place, a person that you never thought could teach you anything about sales?

Leah Bumphrey:
You know, that’s a really interesting question because sometimes we think of sales inside of a bubble, Dennis, and it’s not sales, and sales skills are everywhere. I always think of my siblings, or I think of growing up in a big family, or I think of my kids.

I was blessed with three beautiful boys. You’ve met Fletcher, one of them, and this story actually is about Fletcher when he was in piano. Now, we made sure, being very diligent parents, our kids had a sport, and they had a musical or an artsy type of venture that they were doing every year during the school year, and piano, all three of them took piano for a number of years, and they were pretty good.

Now, Fletcher was going into a music festival, which is a big deal. He was at the university, and he was sitting down, and he had his piece already, and we’re watching, this is being curated, and you have to imagine this little guy in the little glasses, he’s probably about 11 years old at the time, and he gets up with his little tie, and it’s this huge, magnificent grand piano that he sits at, and we’re all poised, waiting for him to go.

And what does Fletcher do? He looks around, and he goes on the keyboard, and picture the 88 keys of a keyboard, he’s checking the tuning. He’s checking the tuning of a grand piano in a concert hall at the University of Saskatchewan. The whole audience, including the judges, cracked up, and you think, what does that have to do with sales?

Sometimes we think of sales as just barreling ahead and doing, but sometimes sales is about stepping back, making sure we know where we’re at, and that’s what this 11-year-old kid was doing, and it was a magnificent, and it is, a magnificent story of, wait before you go.

Now, he ended up nailing his piece.

Dennis Collins:
No doubt.

Leah Bumphrey:
No surprise. So that came to mind when we were talking.

Dennis Collins:
That’s a very interesting story, and knowing Fletcher a little bit, I can see him doing that. That rings true with me, that he wants to be totally prepared for any situation, as we should be in sales, right? As we should be in sales. Great story, great lesson.

So now, I guess I should tell you a little bit about Gino. I remember the first time I met him, it was a beautiful summer afternoon in Key Biscayne, Florida, just off Miami, on the causeway. Beautiful, nice cooling breeze blowing in.

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh, I’m there with you.

Dennis Collins:
Oh, it was nice. I walked by a very crowded pool bar at the Sonesta Beach Resort, which was one of the nicest resorts on Key Biscayne. It’s a beautiful place. I mean, and you could hear the laughter, you could hear the friendly banter from the people gathered around the bar. All the stools were taken, and the crowd was about three deep standing behind each stool. I said, what the heck is going on over there? Maybe it’s free liquor today.  I inched my way closer. I spotted the bartender, a 30-ish year old, maybe a little older.

He was putting on a show. He was mixing drinks in that very flamboyant style, making jokes with all the customers. And what I thought was most amazing is calling people by their first names and asking if they wanted their favorite drink. Now, why was that so impressive?

This was not a neighborhood bar. This was not a neighborhood bar. This was a resort. Almost all the guests were from out of town. Some of them visited only once a year for a short time. Some came back every year. Some like me were locals.

But what was going on at Gino’s Bar that made it so special? What are the lessons that I learned about people, about persuasion, about influence? Leah, when I was finally able to fight my way through the packed crowd and actually sit on a stool, I got a ringside seat to one of the best sales lessons I’ve ever learned.

Isn’t that funny? At a bar. Who would ever think, right?

Leah Bumphrey:
It can happen. I love it.

Dennis Collins:
Yeah. I wish you had been there. You would have enjoyed this.

Leah Bumphrey:
Well, what I love is you’re calling it Gino’s Bar, which I can see a neon sign saying that, but it wasn’t Gino’s Bar.

Dennis Collins:
It wasn’t Gino’s Bar. Oh, let me assure you.

Leah Bumphrey:
But yet it was. He made it his own.

Dennis Collins:
Let me assure you it was Gino’s Bar. He owned that bar, not literally, but figuratively, this man owned it.  So what was going on? So I sat on the stool and what am I hearing? I’m hearing connections. I’m hearing him listen.

I’m hearing him relate stories to people that maybe he sees once or twice a year. And he had your name. He knew, obviously, where you were visiting from. He had family information. He knew, hey, how are your kids? How’s your job? Of course, and the most important thing he knew was your favorite drink.

And he’d always ask, are you still drinking the blah, blah, blah? And they weren’t just regular drinks. They were special Gino drinks, because he would always say, let me add a little special Gino touch to your drink. Do you mind if I add a little touch? Who would say no to that? So his attitude set the tone. I mean, we talk a lot about attitude. We talk about mindsets. This man made you feel like a million dollars just sitting at his bar. You couldn’t help but have fun. You couldn’t help it. It was laughter.

It was conversation. He took pride in introducing his guests to each other. Hey, Dennis, I want you to meet this guy, Joe. He’s from New York or whatever. And we’ll start up conversations. And we talk a lot on this podcast about storytelling. Gino had a magical way of introducing you to a new twist to your favorite cocktail.

He described exactly how he would make your special drink. And he would make it there right in front of you. Now, I’m going to put a little of this. I’m going to put a little of that. You’ve probably never had it done this way before. But just for you, I’m going to make you this special cocktail.

Leah Bumphrey:
And I bet you nobody asked him how much they cost.

Dennis Collins:
Are you kidding? That was never discussed. I don’t even think there was a menu or anything showing the cost of the drinks. That was never an object. Why do you think that was, Leah?

Leah Bumphrey:
He took you down a process, and you were part of it with him. It had nothing to do with money. It was everything to do with the experience. And as you said, the connection, that’s not buying off the right-hand side of the menu. That is being involved.

That is being made to feel part of someone’s business. And you want to. You’re going with your wallet open, going, yes, yes, I want to be part of this.

Dennis Collins:
It has nothing to do with the cost. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And I don’t know this for a fact. I wish I knew, but I believe his revenue figures for that, and it wasn’t a huge bar, I’ll bet his revenue figures rivaled some of the most successful bars in the United States, maybe even in Canada too.

Amazing volume. And he had a lot of offers over the years to go here, go there. He was recruited heavily to move, but he never left there. Unfortunately, they closed the Sonesta Beach Hotel. And I believe for a while he went next door to a Hyatt. And then I moved out of South Florida and I’ve lost touch with him and shame on me.

Shame on me because he should be our guest on this show, darn it, if I knew how to contact him. But I have to tell that story because he made everyone feel they were the most important person at that bar, even when he was slammed.

Leah Bumphrey:
You know, if you’re listening, get ahold of us because we want to interview you and see what happened.

Dennis Collins:
Are you out there, buddy? It’s Dennis. You remember we had a lot of good times because as you know, I was in the radio business in South Florida, in Miami, and we did a lot of entertaining at the Sonesta Beach. It was very convenient to downtown Miami, just across the causeway.

And our customers, our clients love being there. So we would do lunches, we would do dinners, we would do cocktail parties, we would do all kinds of functions. So I got to know Gino pretty well. Unfortunately, stupid old me didn’t keep the contact up.

So let me pull this right back in to sales. You know, I quote a guy by the name of Jeb Blunt a lot. To me, he is one of the modern day sales gurus. We’ve had Zig Ziglar, and we’ve had Dale Carnegie. I mean, we’ve had gurus in the sales and persuasion business forever. But to me, the modern day guru is Jeb Blunt. And he says there are five questions that every customer, I don’t care if you’re buying whiskey at a bar or a house or a car or whatever, they silently ask these five questions to themselves. And all five, Liam, must be answered yes, or you’re not going to get a sale.

So how did Gino stack up against those five? What are the five? The first one is, do I like you? How could you not like Gino? Number two, are you listening to me? Gino could repeat things that he heard once or twice a year ago with precision. Yeah, he was listening.

Number three, do you make me feel important? Yeah, because he made a drink just for you with his own special touch. He made you feel important. Hey, do you understand me? Do you get my stuff? Yeah, because he’d ask about the kids. How’s the family? How’s the job going?

He made an effort to really understand that life situation that people were going through. And of course, number five, do I trust you? I mean, Gino, who knows what he could be putting in those drinks? By that time, we trusted him and we were never wrong.

We were never wrong. Wow. What an experience.

Leah Bumphrey:
That’s a great story. And it makes me think of breakout challenge that we should give to our listeners for this coming week.

Dennis Collins:
Indeed.

Leah Bumphrey:
Breakout challenge, honestly, everyone listening, everybody watching this week, look for those lessons in your everyday life that have nothing to do with your business, nothing to do with sales, nothing to do with your ultimate financial goals and where you are.

Look around and see. You’ll be surprised if you’re open to it. We see what we seek. So if you’re looking for them, you’re going to see them. And you’re also going to see where they could help you impact your business. And shoot us an email. We do have questions from our viewers.

And that’s a huge part of what we do. And I want to emphasize what Dennis said at the beginning. Certainly send us the individual questions based on things that you’re hearing from us. But don’t hesitate. Shoot us an email and say you would like to take part in our 60-minute virtual introduction.

We’re going to meet each other. We’re going to find out a little bit about your business. We’re going to see, hey, how can we help you connect and convert more with your potential customers, with your staff, with what you’re doing for business?

It’s a big part of what Dennis and I just value is helping the people that are listening to us.

Dennis Collins:
Well said, Leah. I mean, I was just in your beautiful country as we record this. I just have come back from the western part of Canada, the Canadian Rockies, which are just magnificent. And, you know, I bought a lot of services while I was in Canada. Food services, you know, we took some excursions, et cetera. And I watched the salesmanship, or lack of in some cases, of some of these folks. It is amazing what you can pick up. A little phrase that they use, a word that they use, a little something that you didn’t even expect would hook you, and it hooked you. It got you. And not in a manipulative way. That’s the challenge.

Send us an email. Tell us about how the challenge went. We’re going to be back next week with another edition of Connect and Convert. We’ll see you then.

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