Episode Transcript
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John (00:00):
What does teaching elementary school for nearly two
decades have to do with closingsales in a fast paced call
center more than you mightthink.
Today's guest, Doug Robinson hastaken the patient's
communication skills and thepeople first approach he masters
as a teacher and turn them intoa secret weapon in the world of
sales.
Doug's story is proof that nomatter where you start, the
skills you've built can lead youto success in surprising ways.
(00:21):
Stick around because we'rediving into how Doug went from
grading papers to crushing salestargets and how his journey can
inspire yours.
Doug, I want to thank you forcoming in today and if you can
break the ice a little bit hereand let me know a little bit
more about your background.
I know you started out most ofyour career as a teacher before
(00:41):
getting into sales.
Can you give me an idea of whereyou started out in life?
What led you into teaching?
Absolutely.
So I am a fifth generationteacher actually.
My my parents were teachers,grandparents were teachers going
back all the way in.
And I was just the familybusiness is something I really
wanted to do.
I loved it.
I love teaching I loved beingwith the kids, and seeing them
(01:03):
develop and you know workingwith them And that was a passion
of mine for a long time.
It was something that You know Ireally worked hard at and I
loved it a lot, but, once youget to the top of the teaching
pay scale there's nowhere to go.
And so I had two daughters thatI wanted to push towards college
and help them out with theirlives.
(01:23):
And it really started with,starting businesses, we, I a
couple of friends that I starteda sports camp and we started
painting houses and just makeends meet.
And then, you had a, anentrepreneurial bug a little
bit, dissatisfied with mainlyjust the income from teaching.
(01:44):
Yeah, it wasn't the students atall.
I would, if they would pay, whatI needed to do to survive or
push my kids into college ifthey would have paid there, I
would have stayed there forever.
But it was just something that Ihad to do to help my family.
Okay.
No, that makes sense.
And basically you mentioned thatyou'd started like a painting
business and like some sidehustles.
How did that kind of work outfor you?
(02:06):
I went really well.
It it first started with thepainting business.
I started with my dad a coupleof summers, then another couple
of teacher friends and I startedpainting a lot.
And it got to the point where wehad to turn a lot of people away
because, when you're a teacher,you don't do it for the money,
so everything is a passion and,you want to do everything right.
And so like we were.
(02:27):
We were good painters and likewe, because we were very
particular about gettingeverything done on a fast pace,
but everything looking good.
And, if it took us an extra dayto make sure everything looked
good we would do that because,we had that passion.
And we, we definitely startedturning people away because we
couldn't keep up with the demandand then we started the sports
(02:48):
camp and the sports camp, whenit started with 20 kids and it
exploded to about 150 kids and,it was fun, but but again, you
have teaching and then you have.
The painting houses, then youhave, it starts to stack up and
you're going for 40 hour days to70 hour days.
Or that's 40 hour weeks.
Yeah.
No and I'm guessing the sportscamp, that came about because,
(03:12):
one of the other things that Iwas in your background is that
you were doing footballcoaching, right?
Yeah.
I love that.
Middle school coaching.
Okay.
Now I'm going to go back alittle bit more about being a
teacher for a moment, and we'llcircle around to some of the
other things in a few minutes.
But you mentioned that you werea fifth generation teacher.
Everybody in your family hadtaught for many years.
(03:35):
And was that just a calling toyou to a certain extent, or just
what was expected of you andyour family?
My parents were both teachersand they were very good teachers
and I would go into theirclassroom as a kid and they
would, let me help the students,cause they're elementary school
teachers as well.
And we would go out to recesswith the kids.
It was just fun, a funatmosphere.
And I thought it'd be a funcareer path to, do that with my
(03:58):
life because they lived a goodlife.
And my parents, were great.
And so they were they were myidols.
So it was something that, youknow.
I really liked to do.
My brother went into thebusiness world, I went into
education and I don't regret itat all.
What did you like, what was itthat you really liked the most
about teaching?
Working with the students, ithad to be.
(04:19):
It definitely wasn't, you don'tdo it for the paycheck you do it
to help kids thrive and and seetheir successes and, to be
honest I wanted to be a fathertoo, and I wanted to be around
for my kids, and I saw that my,my parents were teachers, and
they enjoyed their job, but theywere also here for, my brother
and I, so that was a motivatingfactor as well.
(04:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
Now, were there any kind of,skills or habits you developed
in the classroom that kind of,surprised you as far as how
useful they were in, otheraspects, whether it was,
developing your paintingbusiness, your, the sports camp
or even in, your sales career?
Yeah just it's persistence.
It's getting getting students todo what you want to do, even
(05:01):
though they don't want to do it.
I was a 10 year old kid at once,too, at one point, too.
And I remember going to schooland dreading school and not
wanting to be there.
And it's just manipulating thesituation so they A, want to be
there, B, want to work for you.
And it went the same way with,the painting jobs and the sports
camp.
It's manipulating the situation.
(05:25):
One of the things that youmentioned was that you had,
obviously had to convince,students to do things that they
didn't want to do, right?
They, obviously, kids probably,I have very various levels of
motivation at the end of theday, you're judged as a teacher
by, how many of these kids arepassing and moving people
forward and things like that.
What, what kind of techniques doyou use to obviously moving the
(05:50):
motivated kids forward is easy.
They're self motivated,internally, driven, but the kids
that were, falling behindresistant to change, things like
that.
What kind of.
Techniques to be used to helpkeep them moving forward.
The longer you teach, the moreor the better you get at reading
students.
And it's all about reading thesituation.
(06:11):
Cause like in, sales or anythingelse, it's every situation is
different.
Every kid is different.
Some kids deal with humor.
Some kids need to be pushed.
Some kids need to, eat back alittle bit.
Something kids need help.
Some kids, want help fromstudents.
Some kids want help fromparents, from teachers, but some
kids don't want help at all.
And you just have to be able toread the situation and that's,
(06:34):
the best teachers can read whatthat kid needs and what they
need to do to survive.
They don't fit in a box.
Not every kid is a square peg,going into that square hole,
there's a whole bunch ofdifferent shapes, like a whole
bunch of different students.
So you have to just be able toread students and figure out
what they need.
(06:55):
And sometimes it takes longerwith others, like we just have
to figure out what they need inorder to survive or in order to
thrive.
And I'm sure you get a lot ofdifferent, educational
abilities, like myself, I grewup with, ADD and, that's one of
those things that, makes forsome kids, I feel actually the
act of learning is painful forthem, and, transitioning that
(07:16):
into sales, a lot of what you doin sales is, finding somebody's
point of pain and trying to finda way to, provide a solution for
that pain that works for bothyou and the customer, right?
And I would imagine there's acertain amount of that goes on
in education as well, right?
Because the pain point is theydon't want to do the work, but
they also need to get the gradesto move forward.
(07:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
And it's finding what that is,and that, that's the talent
there.
You had to find what that painpoint, as you say is that what,
or, or, What can push them andmake them enjoy class and make
them want to come back, becausethat's in sales, too You know,
you want them to pay for yourproduct you also want them to
(07:58):
come back So you want them toenjoy this the relationship as
well if you know if that can beyeah It doesn't do much good in
sales to sell somebody somethingBut then burn the bridge behind
you and you got there, you gottheir money today, but now
whatever company you're workingwith, whether it's the insurance
(08:18):
company you work for now or yourpainting business or the, sports
camp.
Any of those kind of things, youget a bunch of bad reviews
because you hard sold somepeople, burnt some bridges in
the way that's going to becounterproductive, right?
Yeah, you don't want that forsure.
You want to keep that balanceof, being in sales it's a lot
like teaching.
You have to keep that, teeteringpoint.
You want to push and push.
(08:39):
But you don't want to push themover the proverbial cliff.
You want to push them enoughwhere you can be successful,
where they're happy too, or atleast they're, happy.
Okay, with the situation, thesame thing with the teaching.
Like not every kid, I can't tellyou that I was successful with
(08:59):
every kid.
Nobody's successful with everykid.
Nobody's successful with everysale.
It's just being able to keepthat teetering point between,
what's best for you and what'sbest for the company while also
keeping your client happy.
Yeah, absolutely.
Now, obviously, when you decidedto leave teaching to go into
sales you were feeling kind ofyour own pain point there which
(09:21):
was, your ability to provide foryour family in a way that was up
to the level that you wanted todo, right?
Where was that teetering pointfor you that kind of led you to
say, Hey, you know what?
My, my life's goals and dreamsand everything else were to be a
teacher.
And I need to jump off that togo do something majorly
different.
Sure.
(09:41):
At one point I had five jobs,like it was.
Teaching, coaching, paintinghouses doing the sports camp.
But I was also working at arestaurant as a waiter.
And, I was honestly was missingsome of my kids sporting events.
And was the end.
Like I was always their coachgrowing up and I got into
teaching so that I could bethere for them too.
(10:03):
That was, like I said earlier,that was my, one of my major
draws to teaching is, yes youcould work with the kids, but
you could also be there for yourfamily.
And when I was missing a coupleevents, because I was doing
things with either a other kidsor B working at a restaurant.
That was when I said, enough'senough.
I don't want to miss any more ofmy kid's stuff.
(10:23):
I need to find something else.
And I had a buddy who was also ateacher and said, Hey, look, you
could do this too.
And your friend was in hadtransitioned from teaching into
sales.
You mean, and Indian insurancein particular.
So he came gave me a blueprint.
So that was definitely helpful,like seeing that.
Yes, I could be successful doingthis.
(10:44):
Okay.
Yeah.
And basically what it's wehaven't really talked about
income or anything like that.
Obviously, you, I think I saw onyour profile that you had a
master's degree and had beenteaching for basically 19 years.
And at that level you stillneeded to have, several other
side hustles and jobs and thingslike that to be able to get to
(11:05):
the point you could help yourkids in college and things like
that.
And then that transition tosales, you were looking, then to
change your income from that.
And we're basically replace theincome from the primary side
hustles and do that in a waythat gave you a little bit
better work life balance.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
So like it was consolidation.
(11:27):
It's almost like a debtconsolidation.
You took all five of the jobsand made it into one 40 hour job
to make, to hopefully make thesame amount or maybe a little
bit more.
And and.
I I did a lot of research on it.
I did a lot of research how thecompany did, how my friend did.
I shadowed him a few times tosee what, his daily job was
(11:49):
like.
And and we grew up together, sohe was very forthcoming with,
how well he did financially and,it made sense at that point to,
to make that jump.
Okay.
No, that makes sense.
Now, so obviously you had alittle bit of a leg up with
somebody you trusted that gaveyou a introduction.
(12:09):
And, I imagine it was prettyscary leaving the safety of 19
year sales or 19 year teachingcareer to jump in as a, rookie
salesperson and learning on thefly.
And what would you say was yourbiggest challenge as a rookie
salesperson?
And how did you overcome that?
I think it was I think, that's agreat question.
(12:29):
It was for me.
Everything's always acompetition, you know I grew up
in a very competitive householdlike my dad and brother still we
compete in everything, and youknow picking football games or
golfing or you know WhateverDylan so for me.
I stepped in this situation andjust knowing the fast pace realm
(12:52):
of sales and like howeverything's pedal to the metal,
whereas teaching it's, Hey, wehad to get to this point, but we
have, two weeks to get to thatpoint.
So we have to speed it up, butwe can slow it down if we need
to, we can branch off and thisis just pedal to the metal.
I guess that was the biggestthing was the fast pace and
getting used to that.
(13:12):
But but I enjoyed it because thecompetition level growing up and
through coaching and.
And the fear of not succeeding,like I, Hey, look, you, you're
in it now.
You you're out of teaching oryou gave up your other jobs.
This is what you chose to do.
And it's the fear of lettingyour family down, I think that
(13:33):
was it too.
Yeah.
It was, it's a little bit morestressful for sure.
One of your bigger challenges,like on a personal or emotional
level, it's the fear of Kind ofthat fear of failure was a
driver for you then basedcombined with the competitive
nature of, that you grew up in acompetitive household, obviously
had, sports background andthings like that, and you got
into the next question that Iwas going to ask you, about
(13:54):
coaching football and being,involved in competitive sports,
what type of transferable skillswere there that helped you in
sales?
One of the questions that wasasked to me during my interview
was I mentioned, cause I waslooking for a job, the same
company my friend was workingfor.
And they said not a lot ofpeople can go from teaching to
sales.
(14:15):
And I said my friend did thisand they said not a lot of
people are this person.
And and I stopped and I said I,this is where my competitive
nature came in.
yeah I don't want to be thisperson.
I want to bury this person, soit was more so having growing up
with sports, like you said,that's a, that was a big one
growing up in a family that'scompetitive, that fear of
failure.
(14:35):
In coaching you always want towin, and you always want to be
the best and that, that isdefinitely the biggest
transition I see, at least insales because you're compared to
everybody else and, You have tohave that.
That inner interpersonal driveto not just want to survive, but
to thrive and, and my goal everyweek is to, with our team per se
(15:01):
is to be the best, to have themost sales and if I'm in second,
it drives me ups and it'll pushme to the end until I can beat
that last person.
So yeah, I get that.
I grew up, in a very competitivehousehold as well.
My dad was a business owner.
I got into competing, very youngin life, through, I was the
shortest person on my middleschool basketball team, I was
(15:24):
really, I was a tiny little kidand, competing with, kids that
get dunked.
And then I, was, I got intohorses and middle school and
high school.
And, by the time I was a seniorin high school, I was in the top
10 in the country.
And then I went to my firstworld championship my freshman
year of college.
And so everything, my mentorthat I, used to spend summers
(15:46):
with, he was a four time worldchampion and he used to always
say, first is first and secondis nothing.
And I don't think that's ahealthy attitude to have many
things in life, when you're aninternally motivated, like self
driven person, it's that voicethat's in the back of your head.
All the time, right?
(16:06):
It's that thing.
Like what?
It kind of mirrors what yousaid, which is, if you're coming
in second, it just kicks you inthe butt and makes you push that
much.
Absolutely.
And it's it started withactually the person that I grew
up with.
He would like when I would tellhim, I would say, Hey, I had
this many sales this week and hewould, he knew what kind of
(16:29):
person I was and a competitor Iwas.
And he would say, Hey that'spretty good for a little fella.
And that would just, oh man,that would drive me nuts.
And so that, that became my,Focus is beat that person.
Then when you get on a team,it's beat that team.
And now it doesn't help if youhurt the other people on your
team, you want them to thrivetoo, because if they're thriving
and you're trying to beat them,that pushes you farther too.
(16:50):
So it goes into, helping yourteammates because you want them
to be better because if they'rebetter, internally, that's going
to push you to be better.
Yeah.
It's when I was younger, I usedto do boxing.
Sure.
If you're, if you were going tobe.
Sparring with the people at yourgym, you wanted to push each
other to be better, but youdidn't want to hurt each other,
cause you're all there and yourfriends, they'd be hanging out
(17:12):
afterwards and it's, the samething.
You want to be the best, but youalso want to help the other
people be the best around youbecause, that helps everybody,
the rising tide carries allboats, so to speak.
Sure.
Absolutely.
That's a great way to put it.
And yeah, you just, you wanteverybody to succeed because if
the company is succeeding,you're succeeding.
Absolutely.
(17:33):
No, excuse me there.
So what would you say has beenyour proudest moment as a
salesperson so far since movingover?
I always go back to my team andmy team is is or, the first two
people on my team are mydaughters.
And I guess the, when my, incomestarted to increase and, get to
(17:58):
the point where I could be therefor them.
And provide for them at the sametime that was my proudest
moment.
Like it wasn't I know whatyou're saying.
And I get the whole numbersthing.
And yeah, those are proudmoments.
Definitely the proudest is beingable to provide for your kid
for.
In a way that you couldn't do sopreviously, that, that was by
(18:18):
far the most internally proudmoment for sure.
Yeah, I get that.
I know with my daughters, wewent through some very lean
years.
I went through a divorce when mydaughters were like in preschool
age.
And when my youngest was stillin diapers, my older one was in
preschool.
And I was a single parent mostof their lives.
And, it had a very difficulttime even holding down a job or
(18:40):
my own businesses had failed.
And I went from being, a verywealthy person to, all the way
down to food stamps for a while,went through a personal and
business bankruptcy.
And, I remember, teaching mydaughters that, Santa was real,
but he was more like a UPSdriver because whatever,
Whatever you got from Santa andyour friends might get more than
(19:02):
you and things like that.
Their parents had to pay Santato deliver, it's like Amazon,
you had to pay for the presentsand then Santa would put them
under the tree for you.
Santa wasn't doing that forfree.
And to teach your kids that tomanage their expectations of
what you could do for them.
And then, it's difficult andyeah, it's, it was heart
wrenching.
You want your kids to grow up inthis world where everything is
(19:24):
possible.
And mine, when they were little,we're growing up in a world
where not much really was.
And, Using sales to dig out ofthat hole and be become
financially successful again.
It was really nice I rememberbeing able to take my daughters
to a concert You know for thefirst time and it was just sure
you know we want to see CarrieUnderwood of all people and it
was because I'd actually won thecon or won the tickets at a
(19:46):
contest at work and They youknow, they said hey you win you
won two tickets And there werehalfway decent tickets, and I
remember going in and I tradedthe tickets in that were two
decent tickets and I traded themin to get worse tickets so that
I could take everybody.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
(20:07):
It's just that I, that drive ofdoing something for your kids is
just unbelievable.
Oh, sure.
And seeing, cause I, I playedsports growing up and I'd still
golf and things like that andyou really want to do well, it's
a whole nother level when yousee your kids doing well, and
that just, that's the biggestmotivator I think by far.
(20:28):
Absolutely.
I feel like one of the thingsthat.
From teaching that's reallyimportant is being able to,
build trust.
I feel how can you get a kid tolearn from you if they don't
trust you to a certain extent?
And I feel like sales has a lotto do with teaching.
And, I personally, and one ofthe reasons that I wanted to
talk to you today is that I'vealways personally believed that,
teachers are some have a lot ofthe skills to make the best
(20:51):
salespeople because.
Your job is to build trust inpeople, transfer knowledge, and
then get them many times to dosomething that they don't want
to do, but that is in their bestinterest.
And that pretty much, in myopinion, describes what we do as
salespeople every day.
absolutely.
You have to be, teachers areempathetic, and they they can
(21:13):
feel, like what you want.
You know what's wrong with yoursituation and they want to help.
And I think that's thedefinition of being a salesman.
You want, you find out whattheir issue is, what you can do
to help and how you can help it.
And, but they have to, like yousaid, trust you.
You have to see where they'recoming from.
That you do in particular onyour end that you feel helps to
(21:35):
get customers to trust you andobviously in the inbound, call
center type world, you've onlygot a few minutes.
You don't have, eight or ninemonths to build a relationship
with a student.
You've got, 15 minutes tointroduce yourself, get that
person to know that you careabout him, get them on your side
and then get them to trust youenough to give you their credit
card number, right?
(21:56):
what would you say is any kindof a skill that you developed in
teaching that, helps you dothat?
I think the biggest one islistening.
Listening and reading.
Reading what they want, findingout what they want.
But listening to what theirplight is, or what their issue
is.
Do they need, this or that orwhat is their problem and how
(22:17):
can you help fix at least aportion of that problem?
And same thing with teaching isbeing able to read students what
is best for them and thenlistening to what their issue
is.
And not just saying, okayeverything else, don't be a
robot, listen to what they haveto say and not, take a call and
just everybody's the same.
You're going to get the samespiel every time because they're
(22:38):
not going to trust you.
They need to know that likeyou've been, if I was a customer
and I was calling in forsomething, I want that salesman
to listen to what I have to sayand know what I'm saying.
And.
Be able to help me with mysituation because my situation
is different from every othersituation.
(22:59):
And to me, my situation is themost important situation in the
world.
And you have to give them that.
Yeah.
That basically you're listeningto them.
Personalizing it for them andtrying to, in your mind, in your
actions then, really convey tothem that in that moment they're
the most important person in theworld to you.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
No distractions because I wantto be able to help.
(23:22):
How would you say that youapproach objection handling and
do you feel like your teachingbackground helps you with that?
For sure.
When students are pushing backand, or clients are pushing back
on, on what they want to do oranything like that.
And it's, you have to showempathy.
You have to show them, like youunderstand their issues and you
(23:43):
want to help with them.
And and like you were sayingearlier, it's being on their
side, showing that they need totrust you.
And Yeah.
Like for me being on the phone,I try to put myself in the
situation.
I want this guy to understandwhat I need.
And and this is not, not what Iwas expecting.
So I want him to be empathetic.
(24:03):
Like I want him to, say, Hey, Iunderstand what you're going
through and let's see what wecan do to help you out.
Yeah.
So because the customers often,they're on the phone with you
because they have a problem or apoint of pain.
And our job as a salesperson isto find out what that point of
pain is and find a way that wehave to soothe that pain, so to
(24:25):
speak.
Sure.
If they're having challenges, wewant to go through that.
I really like what you mentionedthere about empathy.
That's something I always try todo.
I often try to think about, if Iwas on the other side of this
desk or if I was on the otherside of this phone call, what
would I be feeling?
What was, what are the thingsthat I could do?
And if I can put myself,mentally and emotionally into
(24:45):
their seat at that point.
I feel like it definitely helpsme reason a way out that can
help them find a solution thatis in their own best interest.
And I feel that's a lot liketeaching as well.
You're, your kids don't want to,they don't want to be a lot of
the kids don't want to bestraight A students.
They just want to keep theireligibility up so they can go on
the.
The basketball team or thefootball team, right?
(25:06):
And you've got to find a way toproblem solve for them to do
that.
Does that kind of absolutely.
And you know what, like we weresaying earlier, each, and like
you just mentioned, each personis different.
Not everybody wants to get it,get all A's.
Some people want to be justeligible, same thing with sales.
Not everybody, A lot of peopleunderstand their situations.
A lot of, they understand thatnot that I'm might be paying
(25:28):
more than the other personbecause of this, and this.
And they just want to hear that,that you understand their
situation and you're trying yourbest to help them out.
And I also meant to shamelessplug here in my book, called
stop selling, start believing,right?
One of the core messages in thebook is the importance of
(25:49):
belief, right?
Like not just in the product,But in your customers potential
success with it, right?
And I feel like that's Verysimilar as well to, with
students, you're, you believe inthat kid, you see the potential
in them, you know that they can,do better than where they are.
And you've got to find a way tohelp them do that.
And in sales, a lot of timessomebody, whether they're buying
(26:12):
insurance or buying a car,they're buying a consulting
program, you're.
You wouldn't be selling it andputting yourself out there on
the line and staking yourreputation on it if you didn't
believe what you were doing wasright for the customer.
And what do you, is thereanything in particular that you
felt you've been successfulwith?
And conveying that sense ofbelief to your customers is the
(26:34):
same as you would have with yourstudents.
It's not one set thing.
Like I said, it's, each student,each client is different.
It's in that moment, readingthat, That person and
understanding what they want tohear.
And you're not saying thingsjust because you want to hear
it.
Like you said, you believe inthe product you're selling.
But you had to show them that,Hey, look, I believe in what you
(26:54):
say.
This is what I'd say.
This is what I can provide you.
And we are this kind of companyand this is our path to, so you
can trust that this is not justa just a company that just a pop
up company.
This is, we've been here foreverand and this is what you're
saying is like you're leveragingthe strength and longevity and
(27:16):
trustworthiness of the companyand the product that you're
representing, right?
And then you as a person, like,how are you trying to convey
your own personal belief?
Sure I, yeah I give them twosituations that I've been
through hey, look, I understandthis happened to me once, and,
this is what happened and Iunderstand it's a frustrating
time for you, because, Iremember being frustrated as
(27:38):
well.
I remember not, having this to,this to fall back on.
And it's just reading thatsituation and trying to pull
from your own personalinformations, because if they
can hear that you've beenthrough that, those same issues
and you sound successful on theother line, that maybe they can,
(27:58):
see that and see the light atthe end of the tunnel, it's just
reading each situation and it'stough.
It's going to take you a whileas a salesman or teacher, like
you're not going to just comeinto a company and blow
everybody away because you haveto either you're either born
with it, which 90 percent ofpeople aren't, or you have to
learn it.
So it takes a while.
It's if you circle back aroundto, coaching football, it wasn't
(28:21):
always the most talented kidsthat did the best.
It was the kids that had enoughtalent to succeed, that put the
hard work in Really did that.
For sure.
And, I had teams that like weremuch more talented that were
500, 500 records and I had teamsthat were, they just worked
their tails off and, they, theywere undefeated.
(28:41):
So it was.
No, it's each situation.
It's just separate.
No, absolutely.
All right.
So let's kind of change gears alittle bit.
You came to have a little bit offun and sure.
Go for it.
Perfect.
So one of the things that, I'dlike to do is a little bit of
objection handling.
Exercise, right?
Kind of what you do in coachingto get over the hump.
(29:03):
It's, cause I feel this is agood place to segue into that,
right?
In order to get over the hump towhere your talent meets your
potential, you have to put inpractice.
You've got to put in the repsand the hard work behind the
scenes, not just when it counts.
And so one of the things I'vealways done when I used to
manage large sales teams is alot of, objection handling role
(29:23):
play, just different parts ofthe sales process to make sure
everybody was sharp.
And one of the exercises that Ilike to do was something called,
are you out of hot chocolate andit'll get clear in a moment.
Okay.
So basically we're going to doset up a framework that has
nothing to do with anything thatwe're actually selling and just
build those skills and sharpenthem a little bit.
That's just an exercise that youstill like to do with a lot of
(29:44):
my people.
Now, in order to do that, thefirst thing we do is I go
through a objection handlingframework that I like to use and
that I used to teach to a lot ofthe sales teams that I used to
manage.
Now before we dive into that, Ido want to share something
special with listeners.
If you're looking to take yoursales game to the next level,
(30:05):
visit StopSellingStartBelieving.
com To learn all of my objectionhandling frameworks and grab a
free copy of my book milliondollar questions, where you can
pay 10 bucks for it on Amazon.
It's packed with a thousandpowerful questions that will
help you close more deals andbuild stronger relationships.
And don't forget to watch forour objection handling
masterclass coming soon.
It's designed to help you masterthe art of overcoming objections
(30:27):
and boost your closing rate likenever before.
You can check this stuff out atStopSellingStartBelieving.
com Now, back to you and me,Doug, the next thing that I like
to go through is that we're outof hot chocolate.
Before we do that, I'm going totake you real quickly through a
basic objection handling methodthat I used to teach all of my
(30:47):
clients and sales staff.
It's called the AVARA method.
Okay, there's the five stepmethod, which I know sounds like
a bit much to remember.
But basically what IFR standsfor is acknowledge, validate,
ask, respond, and agree.
Okay, so basically the firstthing when the customer gives us
(31:08):
an objection.
I'll put you in the customer'splace real quick.
What's an objection that youface a lot, in your everyday
sales career?
Oh, most common is that's waytoo much money.
Way too much money.
So a price objection.
Okay.
So to break this down into fivesteps, the first thing I would
typically do would beacknowledge the objections.
Oh, wow.
(31:28):
You feel it's way too muchmoney, right?
I, I do definitely agree.
This is a second step, which isvalidate.
I definitely agree.
It is very expensive.
Next step is ask.
So why do you feel that it'sexpensive?
I used to pay 200 a month andyou're asking for 325 a month.
(31:51):
And then the next step isrespond.
That's a great point.
I realized that you used to pay200 a month and now it's 300 a
month.
There have been some,inflationary pressures.
Your personal situation haschanged and in the market, this
seems to be the best option thatwe have now.
And then the next step afterthat is agreed.
And that's where you're going tomake sure that the customer
(32:14):
agrees with you or you can askfor the sale.
Okay.
So if we're at a point where wefeel like we can ask for the
sale, like it's a very quicktransaction, we agree on to move
forward or we agree to move pastthat particular point.
Does it make sense?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And a price objection is fairlystraightforward.
Say for the agreement, we'regoing to say, so I feel like
(32:37):
With the pricing and thedifferent car and all the other
factors that we have here thatthis is a really great deal for
us today.
Would you like to get thisstarted on a monthly or annual
basis?
And so that's how the basicframework of that works.
Alright, so Doug, the Next thingI want to do is let's flip this
around and let you go throughthis once, all right?
(32:57):
You ready?
It all looks pretty good to me,but I really feel like I need to
talk to my wife before I make afinal decision.
Okay, so you're saying you wantto give your wife a call before
you make your decision on this?
Yep, absolutely, and that wasstep one, acknowledge, very
good.
Next step, how would youvalidate that?
Yeah I understand.
I'm in that same situation.
(33:18):
I would want to ask my wife orsignificant other their opinion
on how we spend our money aswell.
Okay, perfect.
Now, the next step, what wouldyou want to ask me to move me
off of my spot?
Obviously, we've talked a lot.
What do you think that she wouldsay about this situation or what
we've talked about thus far?
I feel like she would probablybe pretty happy with the price.
(33:40):
The bigger thing that she wouldprobably be worried about is,
the reputation of the company.
Do you have any more informationI can give her on that?
I do respond.
I totally understand yoursituation.
Instead of me conveying thatinformation to you and then you
sending it to her and then youcall me back, why don't we get
her on the phone?
So that way I can tell youeverything that I tell her,
(34:01):
everything that I've alreadytold you.
Okay.
And then the, then I, as acustomer, I might say something,
you know what, she's out of townor.
I might just say, you know what?
Yeah, that's a great idea.
Let's get her on the phone andthen the next step would be
agree.
Yeah, definitely.
Let's give her a call.
I'll explain all that situationto her and we could take, we
could do this with a, eithermonthly payments or we can pay
(34:24):
it off in full.
Okay, perfect.
And now basically that format issomething that can be used for.
You can use it in selling, cars,boats, cows, pretty much
anything you want to do.
One of the things I feel like iseven there, in teaching and
you've taught kids in school,I've taught sales to,
(34:44):
individuals and entire teams ata time.
And that's something that Ialways feel like helps in
teaching as well.
You always have to acknowledgestudents struggles.
You need to validate theirfeeling.
And then you need to, be guidingthem towards success, right?
Absolutely.
You just it's a process, youwanna, you want to find out what
they need and what they want andhow to get there.
(35:06):
All right.
So now we promised the listenersthat we're going to sell them
some hot chocolate, right?
So next I'm going to go throughthis real quick.
And something that I've used ina lot of sales meetings over the
years.
It's a role play that I like tocall.
We're out of hot chocolate.
All right.
Now, basically what we want todo is Doug, you can pretend to
(35:26):
be in a, you're going to pretendto be a barista facing a
customer objection or a waiterat a restaurant where, some
picky customer came up and theywant hot chocolate, but you're
out of the hot chocolate.
Does it make sense?
And what we're going to do isuse the Avara method to.
Go through some steps to findout what can we do to satisfy
(35:47):
the customer, even though wedon't have the one thing that
they really want?
Does it make sense?
Okay.
Sure.
Okay.
All right.
And I'll take you through alittle bit on how I do this,
right?
The customer is going to saysomething like, I'm out of hot
chocolate.
I'm going to, as a waiter, I'llsay, Hey, yeah, we're out of hot
chocolate.
The customer's Oh man, I reallywant hot chocolate.
(36:08):
So I use the five step method toask them, basically validate
their concerns, acknowledge it.
Yeah, I know you're disappointedthat we're out of hot chocolate.
We want to validate it.
I'd be very upset too.
Then you ask a question,something about what was it that
was.
What was it that was importantabout the hot chocolate?
Was it a consistency?
(36:28):
Were you looking for a warmer,cold drink?
Were you looking for it to bemostly earthy?
Or was it the sweetness that wasimportant to you?
Things like that.
And then your response, another.
Option, maybe we don't knowabout chocolate, but maybe we
have a lot or maybe we havecoffee that's warm.
Maybe we have a diet coke thatmight, if it was sweet and then
you agree, it was, that'ssomething that would work.
Now, the customer doesn't haveto agree and then you can just
(36:51):
keep going through the processuntil you find something the
customer's happy with.
Does it make sense?
Okay, sure.
Keep your in front of you andthen just go through each step
as we go through it.
Make sense?
I guess so.
All right.
You're the waiter.
Okay.
What can I get you to drinktoday?
You know what I really like?
It'd be a nice hot chocolate.
A large hot chocolate would beperfect.
(37:12):
So you're saying you're lookingfor some hot chocolate today?
Absolutely.
I totally understand.
I love hot chocolate as well.
Unfortunately, we don't have anyhot chocolate today.
Oh, wow.
That's really frustrating.
That's what I had my heart seton.
Yeah I get that.
I love hot chocolate as well.
What in particular are youlooking for as far as a hot
(37:32):
chocolate go, are you lookingfor something sweet or hot?
Why is it the hot chocolatethat, that is, why is it that
the hot chocolate is what you'relooking for in particular today?
You know what?
I just had my heart set on a hotchocolate.
I, I was really in the mood fora nice warm drink.
It's a really cold day today.
Yeah, I totally understand thatand I get that as well.
(37:54):
How about this, instead of a hotchocolate, obviously you don't
know, you know we don't have anyof that anymore.
We do have hot chai's, hottea's, hot coffee's or anything
I can help you out with that.
I'm not really sure man, I wasthe, I was really looking for a
hot chocolate.
Do you have anything like reallysimilar to a hot chocolate?
Like what would you do if youwere me?
(38:14):
Yeah I get it too.
I get on those fixes as well.
I want a hot chocolate andthat's all I can see is hot
chocolate.
Obviously we don't have any ofthat right now, but what we do
have is we can do one of twothings.
We can either, get you a hotchai mocha, which is chocolatey
flavor, but it's got that coffeefeel to it as well.
Or we can just, turn around andget you chocolate milk instead.
(38:36):
If it's chocolate you're lookingfor, we can get you chocolate
milk.
It's cool, but, or we can getyou that, that chai mocha.
Yeah.
So you have chocolate milk butthat's cold.
I was really looking forsomething hot.
Is there anything we could do tomake the cold milk hot?
Absolutely.
We can, put it in the, on thestove and warm it up for you.
(38:57):
So it'll be a a hot chocolatemilk, if you will.
Is that with a whole milk or askim milk?
We No, generally only carry oneone kind of milk and I you know,
I know I sometimes when I'mtrying to lose You know lose
weight.
I've tried to do skim milk, buta lot of times I like that whole
milk feel to it We normally justhave 2 percent milk, but it is
(39:20):
very good milk Yeah, I washoping for something a little
richer than that Know what wecould do and I understand the
whole richness of chocolate Whatwe could do is we could add a
little cream to it And we can,so it would be a little bit,
more, of that whole milk feel toit.
Okay.
And you think And we can do, wecan get that, we can get that
(39:41):
for you this second.
Okay.
And you feel I guess what I'mworried about though is that now
we're going to water down thechocolate.
I feel like I just don't wantchocolate milk.
I don't want a warmed upchocolate milk.
I really wanted hot chocolate.
I feel like that's just notgoing to be sweet enough for me.
What do you have that would bewarm and sweet, but still have
(40:01):
that kind of rich, full flavor?
For sure, I would want thatflavor as well.
What I would suggest is ourmocha coffee, because that is
definitely, it's not milk, butit's definitely has that rich,
full, chocolatey flavor, butit's rich and full and it's
warm.
So you don't have to, we're notwarming up chocolate on a stove
for you.
This is what it's meant to be.
(40:21):
Chocolate milk is usually meantto be cold.
This chocolate mocha is meant tobe hot.
This is what you're looking for.
Okay.
All right.
Let's go with that for now.
I appreciate that.
Absolutely.
We can do that with your creditcard.
Oh, we just put it on my bill.
I'm ordering a whole bunch ofstuff here for the table.
So sure.
What else?
Okay.
(40:43):
So a couple of things that Iwould look at.
You did pretty well with that asfar as keep moving things
forward and offering, offeringsolutions and things like that
and not getting frustrated.
You could tell that you've beendoing sales for a long time now,
which was awesome.
The one thing I would mention,you did get a little bit off of
the Avara program a little bit.
So as I said, no, I don't wantthat.
(41:04):
You went immediately intooffering alternative solutions.
I'm going to switch this backaround and I'll go through this
with you and I'm going to be theway that you'd be the customer
and I'll show you could look aslightly different.
It makes sense for you.
Okay.
So I'm going to be the waiternow.
I'm coming over to your table.
Hey, how can I help you today?
What would you like?
(41:24):
Yeah I'm really looking forwardto a nice hot chocolate today.
It's the only thing I reallywant.
Okay.
You know what?
That's fantastic.
Unfortunately, we are out of hotchocolate today.
It's, we had a run on it.
It's been a cold day.
I tell you what, man, I'd befrustrated by that too.
That's my favorite.
We're really known for thathere.
Can I ask you one thing realquick, though?
(41:45):
Obviously, I want to make youhappy.
What was it about the hotchocolate that was most
important to you?
Was it mostly that it was a hotdrink?
That it was a sweet drink?
Or something that was justreally rich and full?
It's pretty cold out today.
And, I just came out from thesnow.
And I wanted something warm todrink.
And I love hot chocolate.
(42:06):
Okay.
We do have coffee here.
Do you feel like a nice hotcoffee would do what you need?
Not a big coffee fan.
I'll drink it, but it's hot,which is nice, but I was looking
for that chocolatey flavor toit.
Chocolatey.
Gotcha.
So basically, and say that wasmy respond and now I'm going to
(42:27):
go to an agree.
So what we're going to do oneither we can't agree on a
coffee cause it doesn't soundlike you want that.
So we're going to agree on anext step, right?
So if we could find somethingthat was warm, but still gave
you that rich fullness, that,that would be something that
would be obviously not what shereally wanted, probably
something would satisfy yourneed.
Would you agree?
Yeah I understand that would be,if that's my alternative, if I
(42:49):
can't have chocolate milk or hotchocolate, that would definitely
be something that I would belooking at.
Okay, great.
And unfortunately we're out ofall chocolate mochas, any of
that kind of stuff,unfortunately.
We do have a chai tea, which ispretty cool.
It's not chocolate, but it doeshave that sweetness to it.
It's got, the sweetness and thewarmth that you're looking for.
(43:10):
We could get something like thatstarted for you.
It's been the most popular drinkhere behind, behind the hot
chocolate today.
Oh, so it's a popular drink.
It's a very popular drink.
Or my customers have loved it.
I, I've been drinking it myself,even if we have hot chocolate,
even though hot chocolate's myfavorite, I love chocolate
mochas, all that kind of stuff.
I'm a bit of a chocoholic, butthat's really been something
(43:32):
that, that I've been reallyenjoying lately.
Is that something I can getstarted for you?
Yeah, let's try it.
Okay, perfect.
You were a little easy on methere but can you see where the,
where this can progress as faras a objection handling
practice, right?
Sure.
Absolutely.
(43:53):
Yeah, and I feel like that's oneof the things that like, for me,
it's just taking those reps,right?
It's when you are, Coachingsomebody like for football, you
don't tell him, Hey, just go putthe football in the end zone.
You've got to draw the play upand practice it dozens and
dozens of times in order to getthere consistently.
No, absolutely.
Absolutely.
In practice, it's, you could seethe new salesman or salespeople,
(44:17):
sorry that, when they firststart off, there's, many
mistakes just because theyhaven't done it before.
And the more calls you get, themore people you talk to, the
more students you talk to, thebetter you get, and it just
takes, it takes a long time to,to figure out your method and
what's best for you and.
And taking tips like this, likethat, that you were just telling
(44:39):
me and tips from your job andtips from other people and
sharpening your skills.
Yeah.
Now, do you ever feel with a hotchocolate exercise that you've
run into a situation like thatin real life sales where you
just can't really give thecustomer what they want and
you've really got to go down theline?
Road of trying to find whateveralternatives you have.
Only on days that end with y Soit's, yeah, every day there's
(45:01):
something like that.
Every day you have something, asituation somewhat similar to
that situation, where no matterwhat you do, it's, I want this.
And it's not, bickering, it'sjust, navigating your way
through that situation.
Yeah.
It's all about problem day.
All right.
So let's move past the hotchocolate thing.
Now I'm actually in the mood forhot chocolate.
It's a cold day in Ohio here.
(45:22):
I'm going to move back a littlebit.
What do you say is a lesson thatyou've learned, since
transitioning to sales that youwish you had known sooner?
I guess being willing to, whenyou're in a, you're a
competitive person, you want todo really well, you just, put
your head down and grind.
And we're I think the biggestthing is to listen to other
(45:44):
people that have been that, havebeen there.
And and if I were to tell my,myself when I was first starting
out, I would say, Hey, listento, what your boss has to say,
but also listen to the otherpeople around you and find the
best agents in your company andask them what they do or ask
them to listen in on theirprocess.
(46:06):
And be willing to change yourprocess so that way, and always
be, and the other thing isalways be willing to change,
don't go down, don't be, stayingin one lane and never be willing
to look at other situations andother ways to do things because,
you can always get better, andmy original self.
(46:29):
One of the greatest things thatyou can learn in life, I think,
is learning that you're notspecial.
Yeah, absolutely.
I want to be the best on myteam, but I also want to be the
best in the company.
And you're not going to be thebest in the company if if you
don't listen to what the otherbests are doing, if you listen
to what the other bests aredoing and say, Oh, wow, I really
liked that.
Or, wow, I really need to changemy thing or even helping them
(46:49):
out.
Look, Hey, I know you said itthis way, but I tweaked it just
a little bit this way.
And it's helped me out a lot.
I think it would help you outtoo, and, that just pushes the
needle a little bit more eachtime but be willing to change.
Yeah.
And I think you just touched onsomething else that I've always
tried to do in my life, not justin my career as a salesperson,
but just in life in general,which is, I feel like I learn
(47:12):
more by teaching others a lot oftimes than I do by any other
method.
Because whenever you teach,you're not just spouting things
off, you have to listen, right?
So you have to understand whatsomebody else doesn't understand
and find a way to explain it tothem in a way that they can
understand it, right?
(47:33):
Whenever you're sellingsomething to somebody, you have
to give them the informationabout your product, the
services, how they can use it intheir life, why you personally
believe in it.
And You're teaching themsomething and at the same time
you're learning about your ownproduct, service, company,
things like that.
You usually find out more thanwhat you did if you're really
doing your job right.
(47:53):
And by doing the same thing withpeople that are around you,
other, other sales people,literally your competition,
helping them get better.
I've never helped somebody andregretted it.
Do you know what I mean?
Absolutely.
And, they say, when I wasteaching, they say that if you
can actually teach the materialyou'll know it better than, any
(48:14):
other situation.
I would put a lot of mystudents, I would say, Hey,
look, I need this lesson taughtand I want you guys to teach the
class and what that did is Iwould get that group because
that group you're going up infront of people and presenting
information so that put thatlike pressure on them to
actually really know theinformation because they didn't
want to look foolish in front oftheir friends and so like when
(48:37):
and When you do that with otherpeople, when I take on new or
when there's new agents thatcame, come to our company and
my, my bosses want me to talk tothem or, you don't want to look
foolish either.
So if you are able to teach thatto other people.
Get your game right, and buteven the new people like, don't
just listen to the people thatare the best, listen to the new
(48:58):
people too.
Hey, look, this is what I seebecause I used to do this in my
job.
They might have a whole newclean look at it that we never
looked at.
So it's just listening is themost important thing, I think.
Yeah.
Fresh be open to fresh ideas atall times.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yep.
Actually something you mentionedis something I think is also a
very effective objectionhandling technique that we
(49:21):
didn't even, wasn't evenplanning on talking about today,
when you have, your studentsteach the class, right?
I feel like the same thing,whenever I'm selling, I try to
set up a little bit of a teacherstudent relationship because
it's, conveying knowledge and,you need to make sure they
understand or they can't agree.
One of the things I think in theobjection handling for the
(49:41):
spousal objections a lot oftimes, if you can get your
customer to explain the featuresand benefits of the product or
service to their spouse, or ifyou're doing, you don't, if you
ever did any kind of B2B sales,having the champion within the
company present to the board andon your behalf and things like
that can be very effective toovercome sale objections because
(50:03):
they essentially, Put themselvesin that teacher slash
salesperson role and overcometheir own objections.
A lot of times you've seen thatas well.
Absolutely.
And being able to for them tocommunicate that information.
Cause I, I don't do a lot of B2Bsales, but being able to convey
that to their sons or daughters,or, especially if, it's a
younger kid looking forinsurance and their parents are
(50:25):
there, having that that, okay.
Hey, why don't you talk to yourparents about this?
Or why don't you tell, I hearthem in the background.
Why don't you explain it to themon what you'd be getting, and
that empowers them in thatsituation.
Yep, absolutely.
And I'm trying to see what elsewe've got here.
Man, you, we've covered a lot ofground.
You've done a whole bunch ofquestions and I've tortured the
(50:47):
heck out of you today.
I do want to thank you forsharing, a bit about, your
journey and insights.
And I know I've learnedsomething today and I hope the
people listening get somethingout of this as well.
And I do think it's really coolthat, we've been able to tie in,
a bit of, the parallels betweenteaching and selling and I think
(51:07):
that sales a lot of times gets abit of a bad rap because of a
few bad apples, that and try todo things like, manipulate
people or push or hard, theslimy used car salesman.
And, you're one of the better,one of the better salespeople
I've ever met in my life.
And just a natural salesperson.
And I definitely think, you andI know the gentleman who got you
(51:30):
into sales also insanely goodsalesperson.
And again, I feel like it's justthat natural ability to connect
quickly.
Sure.
And people to learn, becauseonce again, it's made by.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I appreciate you having me, andI definitely learned a lot today
and I like that method that youused, and it's, I would
(51:52):
definitely take that to the nextlevel for sure.
Absolutely.
Anyways, I want to thank you foryour time here today.
I don't want to take up yourentire day.
I know you've got a family toget back to.
And for the people listeningdon't forget to visit, stop
selling, start believing.
com to download the milliondollar questions for free and
keep an eye out for theobjection handling masterclass.
Your next big sales breakthroughmight just be around the corner.
(52:15):
Thank you very much and watchfor our next episode.
What does teaching elementary school for nearly two
decades have to do with closingsales in a fast paced call
center more than you mightthink.
Today's guest, Doug Robinson hastaken the patient's
communication skills and thepeople first approach he masters
as a teacher and turn them intoa secret weapon in the world of
sales.
Doug's story is proof that nomatter where you start, the
skills you've built can lead youto success in surprising ways.
(00:21):
Stick around because we'rediving into how Doug went from
grading papers to crushing salestargets and how his journey can
inspire yours.
Doug, I want to thank you forcoming in today and if you can
break the ice a little bit hereand let me know a little bit
more about your background.
I know you started out most ofyour career as a teacher before
(00:41):
getting into sales.
Can you give me an idea of whereyou started out in life?
What led you into teaching?
Absolutely.
So I am a fifth generationteacher actually.
My my parents were teachers,grandparents were teachers going
back all the way in.
And I was just the familybusiness is something I really
wanted to do.
I loved it.
I love teaching I loved beingwith the kids, and seeing them
(01:03):
develop and you know workingwith them And that was a passion
of mine for a long time.
It was something that You know Ireally worked hard at and I
loved it a lot, but, once youget to the top of the teaching
pay scale there's nowhere to go.
And so I had two daughters thatI wanted to push towards college
and help them out with theirlives.
(01:23):
And it really started with,starting businesses, we, I a
couple of friends that I starteda sports camp and we started
painting houses and just makeends meet.
And then, you had a, anentrepreneurial bug a little
bit, dissatisfied with mainlyjust the income from teaching.
(01:44):
Yeah, it wasn't the students atall.
I would, if they would pay, whatI needed to do to survive or
push my kids into college ifthey would have paid there, I
would have stayed there forever.
But it was just something that Ihad to do to help my family.
Okay.
No, that makes sense.
And basically you mentioned thatyou'd started like a painting
business and like some sidehustles.
How did that kind of work outfor you?
(02:06):
I went really well.
It it first started with thepainting business.
I started with my dad a coupleof summers, then another couple
of teacher friends and I startedpainting a lot.
And it got to the point where wehad to turn a lot of people away
because, when you're a teacher,you don't do it for the money,
so everything is a passion and,you want to do everything right.
And so like we were.
(02:27):
We were good painters and likewe, because we were very
particular about gettingeverything done on a fast pace,
but everything looking good.
And, if it took us an extra dayto make sure everything looked
good we would do that because,we had that passion.
And we, we definitely startedturning people away because we
couldn't keep up with the demandand then we started the sports
(02:48):
camp and the sports camp, whenit started with 20 kids and it
exploded to about 150 kids and,it was fun, but but again, you
have teaching and then you have.
The painting houses, then youhave, it starts to stack up and
you're going for 40 hour days to70 hour days.
Or that's 40 hour weeks.
Yeah.
No and I'm guessing the sportscamp, that came about because,
(03:12):
one of the other things that Iwas in your background is that
you were doing footballcoaching, right?
Yeah.
I love that.
Middle school coaching.
Okay.
Now I'm going to go back alittle bit more about being a
teacher for a moment, and we'llcircle around to some of the
other things in a few minutes.
But you mentioned that you werea fifth generation teacher.
Everybody in your family hadtaught for many years.
(03:35):
And was that just a calling toyou to a certain extent, or just
what was expected of you andyour family?
My parents were both teachersand they were very good teachers
and I would go into theirclassroom as a kid and they
would, let me help the students,cause they're elementary school
teachers as well.
And we would go out to recesswith the kids.
It was just fun, a funatmosphere.
And I thought it'd be a funcareer path to, do that with my
(03:58):
life because they lived a goodlife.
And my parents, were great.
And so they were they were myidols.
So it was something that, youknow.
I really liked to do.
My brother went into thebusiness world, I went into
education and I don't regret itat all.
What did you like, what was itthat you really liked the most
about teaching?
Working with the students, ithad to be.
(04:19):
It definitely wasn't, you don'tdo it for the paycheck you do it
to help kids thrive and and seetheir successes and, to be
honest I wanted to be a fathertoo, and I wanted to be around
for my kids, and I saw that my,my parents were teachers, and
they enjoyed their job, but theywere also here for, my brother
and I, so that was a motivatingfactor as well.
(04:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
Now, were there any kind of,skills or habits you developed
in the classroom that kind of,surprised you as far as how
useful they were in, otheraspects, whether it was,
developing your paintingbusiness, your, the sports camp
or even in, your sales career?
Yeah just it's persistence.
It's getting getting students todo what you want to do, even
(05:01):
though they don't want to do it.
I was a 10 year old kid at once,too, at one point, too.
And I remember going to schooland dreading school and not
wanting to be there.
And it's just manipulating thesituation so they A, want to be
there, B, want to work for you.
And it went the same way with,the painting jobs and the sports
camp.
It's manipulating the situation.
(05:25):
One of the things that youmentioned was that you had,
obviously had to convince,students to do things that they
didn't want to do, right?
They, obviously, kids probably,I have very various levels of
motivation at the end of theday, you're judged as a teacher
by, how many of these kids arepassing and moving people
forward and things like that.
What, what kind of techniques doyou use to obviously moving the
(05:50):
motivated kids forward is easy.
They're self motivated,internally, driven, but the kids
that were, falling behindresistant to change, things like
that.
What kind of.
Techniques to be used to helpkeep them moving forward.
The longer you teach, the moreor the better you get at reading
students.
And it's all about reading thesituation.
(06:11):
Cause like in, sales or anythingelse, it's every situation is
different.
Every kid is different.
Some kids deal with humor.
Some kids need to be pushed.
Some kids need to, eat back alittle bit.
Something kids need help.
Some kids, want help fromstudents.
Some kids want help fromparents, from teachers, but some
kids don't want help at all.
And you just have to be able toread the situation and that's,
(06:34):
the best teachers can read whatthat kid needs and what they
need to do to survive.
They don't fit in a box.
Not every kid is a square peg,going into that square hole,
there's a whole bunch ofdifferent shapes, like a whole
bunch of different students.
So you have to just be able toread students and figure out
what they need.
(06:55):
And sometimes it takes longerwith others, like we just have
to figure out what they need inorder to survive or in order to
thrive.
And I'm sure you get a lot ofdifferent, educational
abilities, like myself, I grewup with, ADD and, that's one of
those things that, makes forsome kids, I feel actually the
act of learning is painful forthem, and, transitioning that
(07:16):
into sales, a lot of what you doin sales is, finding somebody's
point of pain and trying to finda way to, provide a solution for
that pain that works for bothyou and the customer, right?
And I would imagine there's acertain amount of that goes on
in education as well, right?
Because the pain point is theydon't want to do the work, but
they also need to get the gradesto move forward.
(07:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
And it's finding what that is,and that, that's the talent
there.
You had to find what that painpoint, as you say is that what,
or, or, What can push them andmake them enjoy class and make
them want to come back, becausethat's in sales, too You know,
you want them to pay for yourproduct you also want them to
(07:58):
come back So you want them toenjoy this the relationship as
well if you know if that can beyeah It doesn't do much good in
sales to sell somebody somethingBut then burn the bridge behind
you and you got there, you gottheir money today, but now
whatever company you're workingwith, whether it's the insurance
(08:18):
company you work for now or yourpainting business or the, sports
camp.
Any of those kind of things, youget a bunch of bad reviews
because you hard sold somepeople, burnt some bridges in
the way that's going to becounterproductive, right?
Yeah, you don't want that forsure.
You want to keep that balanceof, being in sales it's a lot
like teaching.
You have to keep that, teeteringpoint.
You want to push and push.
(08:39):
But you don't want to push themover the proverbial cliff.
You want to push them enoughwhere you can be successful,
where they're happy too, or atleast they're, happy.
Okay, with the situation, thesame thing with the teaching.
Like not every kid, I can't tellyou that I was successful with
(08:59):
every kid.
Nobody's successful with everykid.
Nobody's successful with everysale.
It's just being able to keepthat teetering point between,
what's best for you and what'sbest for the company while also
keeping your client happy.
Yeah, absolutely.
Now, obviously, when you decidedto leave teaching to go into
sales you were feeling kind ofyour own pain point there which
(09:21):
was, your ability to provide foryour family in a way that was up
to the level that you wanted todo, right?
Where was that teetering pointfor you that kind of led you to
say, Hey, you know what?
My, my life's goals and dreamsand everything else were to be a
teacher.
And I need to jump off that togo do something majorly
different.
Sure.
(09:41):
At one point I had five jobs,like it was.
Teaching, coaching, paintinghouses doing the sports camp.
But I was also working at arestaurant as a waiter.
And, I was honestly was missingsome of my kids sporting events.
And was the end.
Like I was always their coachgrowing up and I got into
teaching so that I could bethere for them too.
(10:03):
That was, like I said earlier,that was my, one of my major
draws to teaching is, yes youcould work with the kids, but
you could also be there for yourfamily.
And when I was missing a coupleevents, because I was doing
things with either a other kidsor B working at a restaurant.
That was when I said, enough'senough.
I don't want to miss any more ofmy kid's stuff.
(10:23):
I need to find something else.
And I had a buddy who was also ateacher and said, Hey, look, you
could do this too.
And your friend was in hadtransitioned from teaching into
sales.
You mean, and Indian insurancein particular.
So he came gave me a blueprint.
So that was definitely helpful,like seeing that.
Yes, I could be successful doingthis.
(10:44):
Okay.
Yeah.
And basically what it's wehaven't really talked about
income or anything like that.
Obviously, you, I think I saw onyour profile that you had a
master's degree and had beenteaching for basically 19 years.
And at that level you stillneeded to have, several other
side hustles and jobs and thingslike that to be able to get to
(11:05):
the point you could help yourkids in college and things like
that.
And then that transition tosales, you were looking, then to
change your income from that.
And we're basically replace theincome from the primary side
hustles and do that in a waythat gave you a little bit
better work life balance.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
So like it was consolidation.
(11:27):
It's almost like a debtconsolidation.
You took all five of the jobsand made it into one 40 hour job
to make, to hopefully make thesame amount or maybe a little
bit more.
And and.
I I did a lot of research on it.
I did a lot of research how thecompany did, how my friend did.
I shadowed him a few times tosee what, his daily job was
(11:49):
like.
And and we grew up together, sohe was very forthcoming with,
how well he did financially and,it made sense at that point to,
to make that jump.
Okay.
No, that makes sense.
Now, so obviously you had alittle bit of a leg up with
somebody you trusted that gaveyou a introduction.
(12:09):
And, I imagine it was prettyscary leaving the safety of 19
year sales or 19 year teachingcareer to jump in as a, rookie
salesperson and learning on thefly.
And what would you say was yourbiggest challenge as a rookie
salesperson?
And how did you overcome that?
I think it was I think, that's agreat question.
(12:29):
It was for me.
Everything's always acompetition, you know I grew up
in a very competitive householdlike my dad and brother still we
compete in everything, and youknow picking football games or
golfing or you know WhateverDylan so for me.
I stepped in this situation andjust knowing the fast pace realm
(12:52):
of sales and like howeverything's pedal to the metal,
whereas teaching it's, Hey, wehad to get to this point, but we
have, two weeks to get to thatpoint.
So we have to speed it up, butwe can slow it down if we need
to, we can branch off and thisis just pedal to the metal.
I guess that was the biggestthing was the fast pace and
getting used to that.
(13:12):
But but I enjoyed it because thecompetition level growing up and
through coaching and.
And the fear of not succeeding,like I, Hey, look, you, you're
in it now.
You you're out of teaching oryou gave up your other jobs.
This is what you chose to do.
And it's the fear of lettingyour family down, I think that
(13:33):
was it too.
Yeah.
It was, it's a little bit morestressful for sure.
One of your bigger challenges,like on a personal or emotional
level, it's the fear of Kind ofthat fear of failure was a
driver for you then basedcombined with the competitive
nature of, that you grew up in acompetitive household, obviously
had, sports background andthings like that, and you got
into the next question that Iwas going to ask you, about
(13:54):
coaching football and being,involved in competitive sports,
what type of transferable skillswere there that helped you in
sales?
One of the questions that wasasked to me during my interview
was I mentioned, cause I waslooking for a job, the same
company my friend was workingfor.
And they said not a lot ofpeople can go from teaching to
sales.
(14:15):
And I said my friend did thisand they said not a lot of
people are this person.
And and I stopped and I said I,this is where my competitive
nature came in.
yeah I don't want to be thisperson.
I want to bury this person, soit was more so having growing up
with sports, like you said,that's a, that was a big one
growing up in a family that'scompetitive, that fear of
failure.
(14:35):
In coaching you always want towin, and you always want to be
the best and that, that isdefinitely the biggest
transition I see, at least insales because you're compared to
everybody else and, You have tohave that.
That inner interpersonal driveto not just want to survive, but
to thrive and, and my goal everyweek is to, with our team per se
(15:01):
is to be the best, to have themost sales and if I'm in second,
it drives me ups and it'll pushme to the end until I can beat
that last person.
So yeah, I get that.
I grew up, in a very competitivehousehold as well.
My dad was a business owner.
I got into competing, very youngin life, through, I was the
shortest person on my middleschool basketball team, I was
(15:24):
really, I was a tiny little kidand, competing with, kids that
get dunked.
And then I, was, I got intohorses and middle school and
high school.
And, by the time I was a seniorin high school, I was in the top
10 in the country.
And then I went to my firstworld championship my freshman
year of college.
And so everything, my mentorthat I, used to spend summers
(15:46):
with, he was a four time worldchampion and he used to always
say, first is first and secondis nothing.
And I don't think that's ahealthy attitude to have many
things in life, when you're aninternally motivated, like self
driven person, it's that voicethat's in the back of your head.
All the time, right?
(16:06):
It's that thing.
Like what?
It kind of mirrors what yousaid, which is, if you're coming
in second, it just kicks you inthe butt and makes you push that
much.
Absolutely.
And it's it started withactually the person that I grew
up with.
He would like when I would tellhim, I would say, Hey, I had
this many sales this week and hewould, he knew what kind of
(16:29):
person I was and a competitor Iwas.
And he would say, Hey that'spretty good for a little fella.
And that would just, oh man,that would drive me nuts.
And so that, that became my,Focus is beat that person.
Then when you get on a team,it's beat that team.
And now it doesn't help if youhurt the other people on your
team, you want them to thrivetoo, because if they're thriving
and you're trying to beat them,that pushes you farther too.
(16:50):
So it goes into, helping yourteammates because you want them
to be better because if they'rebetter, internally, that's going
to push you to be better.
Yeah.
It's when I was younger, I usedto do boxing.
Sure.
If you're, if you were going tobe.
Sparring with the people at yourgym, you wanted to push each
other to be better, but youdidn't want to hurt each other,
cause you're all there and yourfriends, they'd be hanging out
(17:12):
afterwards and it's, the samething.
You want to be the best, but youalso want to help the other
people be the best around youbecause, that helps everybody,
the rising tide carries allboats, so to speak.
Sure.
Absolutely.
That's a great way to put it.
And yeah, you just, you wanteverybody to succeed because if
the company is succeeding,you're succeeding.
Absolutely.
(17:33):
No, excuse me there.
So what would you say has beenyour proudest moment as a
salesperson so far since movingover?
I always go back to my team andmy team is is or, the first two
people on my team are mydaughters.
And I guess the, when my, incomestarted to increase and, get to
(17:58):
the point where I could be therefor them.
And provide for them at the sametime that was my proudest
moment.
Like it wasn't I know whatyou're saying.
And I get the whole numbersthing.
And yeah, those are proudmoments.
Definitely the proudest is beingable to provide for your kid
for.
In a way that you couldn't do sopreviously, that, that was by
(18:18):
far the most internally proudmoment for sure.
Yeah, I get that.
I know with my daughters, wewent through some very lean
years.
I went through a divorce when mydaughters were like in preschool
age.
And when my youngest was stillin diapers, my older one was in
preschool.
And I was a single parent mostof their lives.
And, it had a very difficulttime even holding down a job or
(18:40):
my own businesses had failed.
And I went from being, a verywealthy person to, all the way
down to food stamps for a while,went through a personal and
business bankruptcy.
And, I remember, teaching mydaughters that, Santa was real,
but he was more like a UPSdriver because whatever,
Whatever you got from Santa andyour friends might get more than
(19:02):
you and things like that.
Their parents had to pay Santato deliver, it's like Amazon,
you had to pay for the presentsand then Santa would put them
under the tree for you.
Santa wasn't doing that forfree.
And to teach your kids that tomanage their expectations of
what you could do for them.
And then, it's difficult andyeah, it's, it was heart
wrenching.
You want your kids to grow up inthis world where everything is
(19:24):
possible.
And mine, when they were little,we're growing up in a world
where not much really was.
And, Using sales to dig out ofthat hole and be become
financially successful again.
It was really nice I rememberbeing able to take my daughters
to a concert You know for thefirst time and it was just sure
you know we want to see CarrieUnderwood of all people and it
was because I'd actually won thecon or won the tickets at a
(19:46):
contest at work and They youknow, they said hey you win you
won two tickets And there werehalfway decent tickets, and I
remember going in and I tradedthe tickets in that were two
decent tickets and I traded themin to get worse tickets so that
I could take everybody.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
(20:07):
It's just that I, that drive ofdoing something for your kids is
just unbelievable.
Oh, sure.
And seeing, cause I, I playedsports growing up and I'd still
golf and things like that andyou really want to do well, it's
a whole nother level when yousee your kids doing well, and
that just, that's the biggestmotivator I think by far.
(20:28):
Absolutely.
I feel like one of the thingsthat.
From teaching that's reallyimportant is being able to,
build trust.
I feel how can you get a kid tolearn from you if they don't
trust you to a certain extent?
And I feel like sales has a lotto do with teaching.
And, I personally, and one ofthe reasons that I wanted to
talk to you today is that I'vealways personally believed that,
teachers are some have a lot ofthe skills to make the best
(20:51):
salespeople because.
Your job is to build trust inpeople, transfer knowledge, and
then get them many times to dosomething that they don't want
to do, but that is in their bestinterest.
And that pretty much, in myopinion, describes what we do as
salespeople every day.
absolutely.
You have to be, teachers areempathetic, and they they can
(21:13):
feel, like what you want.
You know what's wrong with yoursituation and they want to help.
And I think that's thedefinition of being a salesman.
You want, you find out whattheir issue is, what you can do
to help and how you can help it.
And, but they have to, like yousaid, trust you.
You have to see where they'recoming from.
That you do in particular onyour end that you feel helps to
(21:35):
get customers to trust you andobviously in the inbound, call
center type world, you've onlygot a few minutes.
You don't have, eight or ninemonths to build a relationship
with a student.
You've got, 15 minutes tointroduce yourself, get that
person to know that you careabout him, get them on your side
and then get them to trust youenough to give you their credit
card number, right?
(21:56):
what would you say is any kindof a skill that you developed in
teaching that, helps you dothat?
I think the biggest one islistening.
Listening and reading.
Reading what they want, findingout what they want.
But listening to what theirplight is, or what their issue
is.
Do they need, this or that orwhat is their problem and how
(22:17):
can you help fix at least aportion of that problem?
And same thing with teaching isbeing able to read students what
is best for them and thenlistening to what their issue
is.
And not just saying, okayeverything else, don't be a
robot, listen to what they haveto say and not, take a call and
just everybody's the same.
You're going to get the samespiel every time because they're
(22:38):
not going to trust you.
They need to know that likeyou've been, if I was a customer
and I was calling in forsomething, I want that salesman
to listen to what I have to sayand know what I'm saying.
And.
Be able to help me with mysituation because my situation
is different from every othersituation.
(22:59):
And to me, my situation is themost important situation in the
world.
And you have to give them that.
Yeah.
That basically you're listeningto them.
Personalizing it for them andtrying to, in your mind, in your
actions then, really convey tothem that in that moment they're
the most important person in theworld to you.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
No distractions because I wantto be able to help.
(23:22):
How would you say that youapproach objection handling and
do you feel like your teachingbackground helps you with that?
For sure.
When students are pushing backand, or clients are pushing back
on, on what they want to do oranything like that.
And it's, you have to showempathy.
You have to show them, like youunderstand their issues and you
(23:43):
want to help with them.
And and like you were sayingearlier, it's being on their
side, showing that they need totrust you.
And Yeah.
Like for me being on the phone,I try to put myself in the
situation.
I want this guy to understandwhat I need.
And and this is not, not what Iwas expecting.
So I want him to be empathetic.
(24:03):
Like I want him to, say, Hey, Iunderstand what you're going
through and let's see what wecan do to help you out.
Yeah.
So because the customers often,they're on the phone with you
because they have a problem or apoint of pain.
And our job as a salesperson isto find out what that point of
pain is and find a way that wehave to soothe that pain, so to
(24:25):
speak.
Sure.
If they're having challenges, wewant to go through that.
I really like what you mentionedthere about empathy.
That's something I always try todo.
I often try to think about, if Iwas on the other side of this
desk or if I was on the otherside of this phone call, what
would I be feeling?
What was, what are the thingsthat I could do?
And if I can put myself,mentally and emotionally into
(24:45):
their seat at that point.
I feel like it definitely helpsme reason a way out that can
help them find a solution thatis in their own best interest.
And I feel that's a lot liketeaching as well.
You're, your kids don't want to,they don't want to be a lot of
the kids don't want to bestraight A students.
They just want to keep theireligibility up so they can go on
the.
The basketball team or thefootball team, right?
(25:06):
And you've got to find a way toproblem solve for them to do
that.
Does that kind of absolutely.
And you know what, like we weresaying earlier, each, and like
you just mentioned, each personis different.
Not everybody wants to get it,get all A's.
Some people want to be justeligible, same thing with sales.
Not everybody, A lot of peopleunderstand their situations.
A lot of, they understand thatnot that I'm might be paying
(25:28):
more than the other personbecause of this, and this.
And they just want to hear that,that you understand their
situation and you're trying yourbest to help them out.
And I also meant to shamelessplug here in my book, called
stop selling, start believing,right?
One of the core messages in thebook is the importance of
(25:49):
belief, right?
Like not just in the product,But in your customers potential
success with it, right?
And I feel like that's Verysimilar as well to, with
students, you're, you believe inthat kid, you see the potential
in them, you know that they can,do better than where they are.
And you've got to find a way tohelp them do that.
And in sales, a lot of timessomebody, whether they're buying
(26:12):
insurance or buying a car,they're buying a consulting
program, you're.
You wouldn't be selling it andputting yourself out there on
the line and staking yourreputation on it if you didn't
believe what you were doing wasright for the customer.
And what do you, is thereanything in particular that you
felt you've been successfulwith?
And conveying that sense ofbelief to your customers is the
(26:34):
same as you would have with yourstudents.
It's not one set thing.
Like I said, it's, each student,each client is different.
It's in that moment, readingthat, That person and
understanding what they want tohear.
And you're not saying thingsjust because you want to hear
it.
Like you said, you believe inthe product you're selling.
But you had to show them that,Hey, look, I believe in what you
(26:54):
say.
This is what I'd say.
This is what I can provide you.
And we are this kind of companyand this is our path to, so you
can trust that this is not justa just a company that just a pop
up company.
This is, we've been here foreverand and this is what you're
saying is like you're leveragingthe strength and longevity and
(27:16):
trustworthiness of the companyand the product that you're
representing, right?
And then you as a person, like,how are you trying to convey
your own personal belief?
Sure I, yeah I give them twosituations that I've been
through hey, look, I understandthis happened to me once, and,
this is what happened and Iunderstand it's a frustrating
time for you, because, Iremember being frustrated as
(27:38):
well.
I remember not, having this to,this to fall back on.
And it's just reading thatsituation and trying to pull
from your own personalinformations, because if they
can hear that you've beenthrough that, those same issues
and you sound successful on theother line, that maybe they can,
(27:58):
see that and see the light atthe end of the tunnel, it's just
reading each situation and it'stough.
It's going to take you a whileas a salesman or teacher, like
you're not going to just comeinto a company and blow
everybody away because you haveto either you're either born
with it, which 90 percent ofpeople aren't, or you have to
learn it.
So it takes a while.
It's if you circle back aroundto, coaching football, it wasn't
(28:21):
always the most talented kidsthat did the best.
It was the kids that had enoughtalent to succeed, that put the
hard work in Really did that.
For sure.
And, I had teams that like weremuch more talented that were
500, 500 records and I had teamsthat were, they just worked
their tails off and, they, theywere undefeated.
(28:41):
So it was.
No, it's each situation.
It's just separate.
No, absolutely.
All right.
So let's kind of change gears alittle bit.
You came to have a little bit offun and sure.
Go for it.
Perfect.
So one of the things that, I'dlike to do is a little bit of
objection handling.
Exercise, right?
Kind of what you do in coachingto get over the hump.
(29:03):
It's, cause I feel this is agood place to segue into that,
right?
In order to get over the hump towhere your talent meets your
potential, you have to put inpractice.
You've got to put in the repsand the hard work behind the
scenes, not just when it counts.
And so one of the things I'vealways done when I used to
manage large sales teams is alot of, objection handling role
(29:23):
play, just different parts ofthe sales process to make sure
everybody was sharp.
And one of the exercises that Ilike to do was something called,
are you out of hot chocolate andit'll get clear in a moment.
Okay.
So basically we're going to doset up a framework that has
nothing to do with anything thatwe're actually selling and just
build those skills and sharpenthem a little bit.
That's just an exercise that youstill like to do with a lot of
(29:44):
my people.
Now, in order to do that, thefirst thing we do is I go
through a objection handlingframework that I like to use and
that I used to teach to a lot ofthe sales teams that I used to
manage.
Now before we dive into that, Ido want to share something
special with listeners.
If you're looking to take yoursales game to the next level,
(30:05):
visit StopSellingStartBelieving.
com To learn all of my objectionhandling frameworks and grab a
free copy of my book milliondollar questions, where you can
pay 10 bucks for it on Amazon.
It's packed with a thousandpowerful questions that will
help you close more deals andbuild stronger relationships.
And don't forget to watch forour objection handling
masterclass coming soon.
It's designed to help you masterthe art of overcoming objections
(30:27):
and boost your closing rate likenever before.
You can check this stuff out atStopSellingStartBelieving.
com Now, back to you and me,Doug, the next thing that I like
to go through is that we're outof hot chocolate.
Before we do that, I'm going totake you real quickly through a
basic objection handling methodthat I used to teach all of my
(30:47):
clients and sales staff.
It's called the AVARA method.
Okay, there's the five stepmethod, which I know sounds like
a bit much to remember.
But basically what IFR standsfor is acknowledge, validate,
ask, respond, and agree.
Okay, so basically the firstthing when the customer gives us
(31:08):
an objection.
I'll put you in the customer'splace real quick.
What's an objection that youface a lot, in your everyday
sales career?
Oh, most common is that's waytoo much money.
Way too much money.
So a price objection.
Okay.
So to break this down into fivesteps, the first thing I would
typically do would beacknowledge the objections.
Oh, wow.
(31:28):
You feel it's way too muchmoney, right?
I, I do definitely agree.
This is a second step, which isvalidate.
I definitely agree.
It is very expensive.
Next step is ask.
So why do you feel that it'sexpensive?
I used to pay 200 a month andyou're asking for 325 a month.
(31:51):
And then the next step isrespond.
That's a great point.
I realized that you used to pay200 a month and now it's 300 a
month.
There have been some,inflationary pressures.
Your personal situation haschanged and in the market, this
seems to be the best option thatwe have now.
And then the next step afterthat is agreed.
And that's where you're going tomake sure that the customer
(32:14):
agrees with you or you can askfor the sale.
Okay.
So if we're at a point where wefeel like we can ask for the
sale, like it's a very quicktransaction, we agree on to move
forward or we agree to move pastthat particular point.
Does it make sense?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And a price objection is fairlystraightforward.
Say for the agreement, we'regoing to say, so I feel like
(32:37):
With the pricing and thedifferent car and all the other
factors that we have here thatthis is a really great deal for
us today.
Would you like to get thisstarted on a monthly or annual
basis?
And so that's how the basicframework of that works.
Alright, so Doug, the Next thingI want to do is let's flip this
around and let you go throughthis once, all right?
(32:57):
You ready?
It all looks pretty good to me,but I really feel like I need to
talk to my wife before I make afinal decision.
Okay, so you're saying you wantto give your wife a call before
you make your decision on this?
Yep, absolutely, and that wasstep one, acknowledge, very
good.
Next step, how would youvalidate that?
Yeah I understand.
I'm in that same situation.
(33:18):
I would want to ask my wife orsignificant other their opinion
on how we spend our money aswell.
Okay, perfect.
Now, the next step, what wouldyou want to ask me to move me
off of my spot?
Obviously, we've talked a lot.
What do you think that she wouldsay about this situation or what
we've talked about thus far?
I feel like she would probablybe pretty happy with the price.
(33:40):
The bigger thing that she wouldprobably be worried about is,
the reputation of the company.
Do you have any more informationI can give her on that?
I do respond.
I totally understand yoursituation.
Instead of me conveying thatinformation to you and then you
sending it to her and then youcall me back, why don't we get
her on the phone?
So that way I can tell youeverything that I tell her,
(34:01):
everything that I've alreadytold you.
Okay.
And then the, then I, as acustomer, I might say something,
you know what, she's out of townor.
I might just say, you know what?
Yeah, that's a great idea.
Let's get her on the phone andthen the next step would be
agree.
Yeah, definitely.
Let's give her a call.
I'll explain all that situationto her and we could take, we
could do this with a, eithermonthly payments or we can pay
(34:24):
it off in full.
Okay, perfect.
And now basically that format issomething that can be used for.
You can use it in selling, cars,boats, cows, pretty much
anything you want to do.
One of the things I feel like iseven there, in teaching and
you've taught kids in school,I've taught sales to,
(34:44):
individuals and entire teams ata time.
And that's something that Ialways feel like helps in
teaching as well.
You always have to acknowledgestudents struggles.
You need to validate theirfeeling.
And then you need to, be guidingthem towards success, right?
Absolutely.
You just it's a process, youwanna, you want to find out what
they need and what they want andhow to get there.
(35:06):
All right.
So now we promised the listenersthat we're going to sell them
some hot chocolate, right?
So next I'm going to go throughthis real quick.
And something that I've used ina lot of sales meetings over the
years.
It's a role play that I like tocall.
We're out of hot chocolate.
All right.
Now, basically what we want todo is Doug, you can pretend to
(35:26):
be in a, you're going to pretendto be a barista facing a
customer objection or a waiterat a restaurant where, some
picky customer came up and theywant hot chocolate, but you're
out of the hot chocolate.
Does it make sense?
And what we're going to do isuse the Avara method to.
Go through some steps to findout what can we do to satisfy
(35:47):
the customer, even though wedon't have the one thing that
they really want?
Does it make sense?
Okay.
Sure.
Okay.
All right.
And I'll take you through alittle bit on how I do this,
right?
The customer is going to saysomething like, I'm out of hot
chocolate.
I'm going to, as a waiter, I'llsay, Hey, yeah, we're out of hot
chocolate.
The customer's Oh man, I reallywant hot chocolate.
(36:08):
So I use the five step method toask them, basically validate
their concerns, acknowledge it.
Yeah, I know you're disappointedthat we're out of hot chocolate.
We want to validate it.
I'd be very upset too.
Then you ask a question,something about what was it that
was.
What was it that was importantabout the hot chocolate?
Was it a consistency?
(36:28):
Were you looking for a warmer,cold drink?
Were you looking for it to bemostly earthy?
Or was it the sweetness that wasimportant to you?
Things like that.
And then your response, another.
Option, maybe we don't knowabout chocolate, but maybe we
have a lot or maybe we havecoffee that's warm.
Maybe we have a diet coke thatmight, if it was sweet and then
you agree, it was, that'ssomething that would work.
Now, the customer doesn't haveto agree and then you can just
(36:51):
keep going through the processuntil you find something the
customer's happy with.
Does it make sense?
Okay, sure.
Keep your in front of you andthen just go through each step
as we go through it.
Make sense?
I guess so.
All right.
You're the waiter.
Okay.
What can I get you to drinktoday?
You know what I really like?
It'd be a nice hot chocolate.
A large hot chocolate would beperfect.
(37:12):
So you're saying you're lookingfor some hot chocolate today?
Absolutely.
I totally understand.
I love hot chocolate as well.
Unfortunately, we don't have anyhot chocolate today.
Oh, wow.
That's really frustrating.
That's what I had my heart seton.
Yeah I get that.
I love hot chocolate as well.
What in particular are youlooking for as far as a hot
(37:32):
chocolate go, are you lookingfor something sweet or hot?
Why is it the hot chocolatethat, that is, why is it that
the hot chocolate is what you'relooking for in particular today?
You know what?
I just had my heart set on a hotchocolate.
I, I was really in the mood fora nice warm drink.
It's a really cold day today.
Yeah, I totally understand thatand I get that as well.
(37:54):
How about this, instead of a hotchocolate, obviously you don't
know, you know we don't have anyof that anymore.
We do have hot chai's, hottea's, hot coffee's or anything
I can help you out with that.
I'm not really sure man, I wasthe, I was really looking for a
hot chocolate.
Do you have anything like reallysimilar to a hot chocolate?
Like what would you do if youwere me?
(38:14):
Yeah I get it too.
I get on those fixes as well.
I want a hot chocolate andthat's all I can see is hot
chocolate.
Obviously we don't have any ofthat right now, but what we do
have is we can do one of twothings.
We can either, get you a hotchai mocha, which is chocolatey
flavor, but it's got that coffeefeel to it as well.
Or we can just, turn around andget you chocolate milk instead.
(38:36):
If it's chocolate you're lookingfor, we can get you chocolate
milk.
It's cool, but, or we can getyou that, that chai mocha.
Yeah.
So you have chocolate milk butthat's cold.
I was really looking forsomething hot.
Is there anything we could do tomake the cold milk hot?
Absolutely.
We can, put it in the, on thestove and warm it up for you.
(38:57):
So it'll be a a hot chocolatemilk, if you will.
Is that with a whole milk or askim milk?
We No, generally only carry oneone kind of milk and I you know,
I know I sometimes when I'mtrying to lose You know lose
weight.
I've tried to do skim milk, buta lot of times I like that whole
milk feel to it We normally justhave 2 percent milk, but it is
(39:20):
very good milk Yeah, I washoping for something a little
richer than that Know what wecould do and I understand the
whole richness of chocolate Whatwe could do is we could add a
little cream to it And we can,so it would be a little bit,
more, of that whole milk feel toit.
Okay.
And you think And we can do, wecan get that, we can get that
(39:41):
for you this second.
Okay.
And you feel I guess what I'mworried about though is that now
we're going to water down thechocolate.
I feel like I just don't wantchocolate milk.
I don't want a warmed upchocolate milk.
I really wanted hot chocolate.
I feel like that's just notgoing to be sweet enough for me.
What do you have that would bewarm and sweet, but still have
(40:01):
that kind of rich, full flavor?
For sure, I would want thatflavor as well.
What I would suggest is ourmocha coffee, because that is
definitely, it's not milk, butit's definitely has that rich,
full, chocolatey flavor, butit's rich and full and it's
warm.
So you don't have to, we're notwarming up chocolate on a stove
for you.
This is what it's meant to be.
(40:21):
Chocolate milk is usually meantto be cold.
This chocolate mocha is meant tobe hot.
This is what you're looking for.
Okay.
All right.
Let's go with that for now.
I appreciate that.
Absolutely.
We can do that with your creditcard.
Oh, we just put it on my bill.
I'm ordering a whole bunch ofstuff here for the table.
So sure.
What else?
Okay.
(40:43):
So a couple of things that Iwould look at.
You did pretty well with that asfar as keep moving things
forward and offering, offeringsolutions and things like that
and not getting frustrated.
You could tell that you've beendoing sales for a long time now,
which was awesome.
The one thing I would mention,you did get a little bit off of
the Avara program a little bit.
So as I said, no, I don't wantthat.
(41:04):
You went immediately intooffering alternative solutions.
I'm going to switch this backaround and I'll go through this
with you and I'm going to be theway that you'd be the customer
and I'll show you could look aslightly different.
It makes sense for you.
Okay.
So I'm going to be the waiternow.
I'm coming over to your table.
Hey, how can I help you today?
What would you like?
(41:24):
Yeah I'm really looking forwardto a nice hot chocolate today.
It's the only thing I reallywant.
Okay.
You know what?
That's fantastic.
Unfortunately, we are out of hotchocolate today.
It's, we had a run on it.
It's been a cold day.
I tell you what, man, I'd befrustrated by that too.
That's my favorite.
We're really known for thathere.
Can I ask you one thing realquick, though?
(41:45):
Obviously, I want to make youhappy.
What was it about the hotchocolate that was most
important to you?
Was it mostly that it was a hotdrink?
That it was a sweet drink?
Or something that was justreally rich and full?
It's pretty cold out today.
And, I just came out from thesnow.
And I wanted something warm todrink.
And I love hot chocolate.
(42:06):
Okay.
We do have coffee here.
Do you feel like a nice hotcoffee would do what you need?
Not a big coffee fan.
I'll drink it, but it's hot,which is nice, but I was looking
for that chocolatey flavor toit.
Chocolatey.
Gotcha.
So basically, and say that wasmy respond and now I'm going to
(42:27):
go to an agree.
So what we're going to do oneither we can't agree on a
coffee cause it doesn't soundlike you want that.
So we're going to agree on anext step, right?
So if we could find somethingthat was warm, but still gave
you that rich fullness, that,that would be something that
would be obviously not what shereally wanted, probably
something would satisfy yourneed.
Would you agree?
Yeah I understand that would be,if that's my alternative, if I
(42:49):
can't have chocolate milk or hotchocolate, that would definitely
be something that I would belooking at.
Okay, great.
And unfortunately we're out ofall chocolate mochas, any of
that kind of stuff,unfortunately.
We do have a chai tea, which ispretty cool.
It's not chocolate, but it doeshave that sweetness to it.
It's got, the sweetness and thewarmth that you're looking for.
(43:10):
We could get something like thatstarted for you.
It's been the most popular drinkhere behind, behind the hot
chocolate today.
Oh, so it's a popular drink.
It's a very popular drink.
Or my customers have loved it.
I, I've been drinking it myself,even if we have hot chocolate,
even though hot chocolate's myfavorite, I love chocolate
mochas, all that kind of stuff.
I'm a bit of a chocoholic, butthat's really been something
(43:32):
that, that I've been reallyenjoying lately.
Is that something I can getstarted for you?
Yeah, let's try it.
Okay, perfect.
You were a little easy on methere but can you see where the,
where this can progress as faras a objection handling
practice, right?
Sure.
Absolutely.
(43:53):
Yeah, and I feel like that's oneof the things that like, for me,
it's just taking those reps,right?
It's when you are, Coachingsomebody like for football, you
don't tell him, Hey, just go putthe football in the end zone.
You've got to draw the play upand practice it dozens and
dozens of times in order to getthere consistently.
No, absolutely.
Absolutely.
In practice, it's, you could seethe new salesman or salespeople,
(44:17):
sorry that, when they firststart off, there's, many
mistakes just because theyhaven't done it before.
And the more calls you get, themore people you talk to, the
more students you talk to, thebetter you get, and it just
takes, it takes a long time to,to figure out your method and
what's best for you and.
And taking tips like this, likethat, that you were just telling
(44:39):
me and tips from your job andtips from other people and
sharpening your skills.
Yeah.
Now, do you ever feel with a hotchocolate exercise that you've
run into a situation like thatin real life sales where you
just can't really give thecustomer what they want and
you've really got to go down theline?
Road of trying to find whateveralternatives you have.
Only on days that end with y Soit's, yeah, every day there's
(45:01):
something like that.
Every day you have something, asituation somewhat similar to
that situation, where no matterwhat you do, it's, I want this.
And it's not, bickering, it'sjust, navigating your way
through that situation.
Yeah.
It's all about problem day.
All right.
So let's move past the hotchocolate thing.
Now I'm actually in the mood forhot chocolate.
It's a cold day in Ohio here.
(45:22):
I'm going to move back a littlebit.
What do you say is a lesson thatyou've learned, since
transitioning to sales that youwish you had known sooner?
I guess being willing to, whenyou're in a, you're a
competitive person, you want todo really well, you just, put
your head down and grind.
And we're I think the biggestthing is to listen to other
(45:44):
people that have been that, havebeen there.
And and if I were to tell my,myself when I was first starting
out, I would say, Hey, listento, what your boss has to say,
but also listen to the otherpeople around you and find the
best agents in your company andask them what they do or ask
them to listen in on theirprocess.
(46:06):
And be willing to change yourprocess so that way, and always
be, and the other thing isalways be willing to change,
don't go down, don't be, stayingin one lane and never be willing
to look at other situations andother ways to do things because,
you can always get better, andmy original self.
(46:29):
One of the greatest things thatyou can learn in life, I think,
is learning that you're notspecial.
Yeah, absolutely.
I want to be the best on myteam, but I also want to be the
best in the company.
And you're not going to be thebest in the company if if you
don't listen to what the otherbests are doing, if you listen
to what the other bests aredoing and say, Oh, wow, I really
liked that.
Or, wow, I really need to changemy thing or even helping them
(46:49):
out.
Look, Hey, I know you said itthis way, but I tweaked it just
a little bit this way.
And it's helped me out a lot.
I think it would help you outtoo, and, that just pushes the
needle a little bit more eachtime but be willing to change.
Yeah.
And I think you just touched onsomething else that I've always
tried to do in my life, not justin my career as a salesperson,
but just in life in general,which is, I feel like I learn
(47:12):
more by teaching others a lot oftimes than I do by any other
method.
Because whenever you teach,you're not just spouting things
off, you have to listen, right?
So you have to understand whatsomebody else doesn't understand
and find a way to explain it tothem in a way that they can
understand it, right?
(47:33):
Whenever you're sellingsomething to somebody, you have
to give them the informationabout your product, the
services, how they can use it intheir life, why you personally
believe in it.
And You're teaching themsomething and at the same time
you're learning about your ownproduct, service, company,
things like that.
You usually find out more thanwhat you did if you're really
doing your job right.
(47:53):
And by doing the same thing withpeople that are around you,
other, other sales people,literally your competition,
helping them get better.
I've never helped somebody andregretted it.
Do you know what I mean?
Absolutely.
And, they say, when I wasteaching, they say that if you
can actually teach the materialyou'll know it better than, any
(48:14):
other situation.
I would put a lot of mystudents, I would say, Hey,
look, I need this lesson taughtand I want you guys to teach the
class and what that did is Iwould get that group because
that group you're going up infront of people and presenting
information so that put thatlike pressure on them to
actually really know theinformation because they didn't
want to look foolish in front oftheir friends and so like when
(48:37):
and When you do that with otherpeople, when I take on new or
when there's new agents thatcame, come to our company and
my, my bosses want me to talk tothem or, you don't want to look
foolish either.
So if you are able to teach thatto other people.
Get your game right, and buteven the new people like, don't
just listen to the people thatare the best, listen to the new
(48:58):
people too.
Hey, look, this is what I seebecause I used to do this in my
job.
They might have a whole newclean look at it that we never
looked at.
So it's just listening is themost important thing, I think.
Yeah.
Fresh be open to fresh ideas atall times.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yep.
Actually something you mentionedis something I think is also a
very effective objectionhandling technique that we
(49:21):
didn't even, wasn't evenplanning on talking about today,
when you have, your studentsteach the class, right?
I feel like the same thing,whenever I'm selling, I try to
set up a little bit of a teacherstudent relationship because
it's, conveying knowledge and,you need to make sure they
understand or they can't agree.
One of the things I think in theobjection handling for the
(49:41):
spousal objections a lot oftimes, if you can get your
customer to explain the featuresand benefits of the product or
service to their spouse, or ifyou're doing, you don't, if you
ever did any kind of B2B sales,having the champion within the
company present to the board andon your behalf and things like
that can be very effective toovercome sale objections because
(50:03):
they essentially, Put themselvesin that teacher slash
salesperson role and overcometheir own objections.
A lot of times you've seen thatas well.
Absolutely.
And being able to for them tocommunicate that information.
Cause I, I don't do a lot of B2Bsales, but being able to convey
that to their sons or daughters,or, especially if, it's a
younger kid looking forinsurance and their parents are
(50:25):
there, having that that, okay.
Hey, why don't you talk to yourparents about this?
Or why don't you tell, I hearthem in the background.
Why don't you explain it to themon what you'd be getting, and
that empowers them in thatsituation.
Yep, absolutely.
And I'm trying to see what elsewe've got here.
Man, you, we've covered a lot ofground.
You've done a whole bunch ofquestions and I've tortured the
(50:47):
heck out of you today.
I do want to thank you forsharing, a bit about, your
journey and insights.
And I know I've learnedsomething today and I hope the
people listening get somethingout of this as well.
And I do think it's really coolthat, we've been able to tie in,
a bit of, the parallels betweenteaching and selling and I think
(51:07):
that sales a lot of times gets abit of a bad rap because of a
few bad apples, that and try todo things like, manipulate
people or push or hard, theslimy used car salesman.
And, you're one of the better,one of the better salespeople
I've ever met in my life.
And just a natural salesperson.
And I definitely think, you andI know the gentleman who got you
(51:30):
into sales also insanely goodsalesperson.
And again, I feel like it's justthat natural ability to connect
quickly.
Sure.
And people to learn, becauseonce again, it's made by.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I appreciate you having me, andI definitely learned a lot today
and I like that method that youused, and it's, I would
(51:52):
definitely take that to the nextlevel for sure.
Absolutely.
Anyways, I want to thank you foryour time here today.
I don't want to take up yourentire day.
I know you've got a family toget back to.
And for the people listeningdon't forget to visit, stop
selling, start believing.
com to download the milliondollar questions for free and
keep an eye out for theobjection handling masterclass.
Your next big sales breakthroughmight just be around the corner.
(52:15):
Thank you very much and watchfor our next episode.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!