July 3, 2025 • 39 mins
Join Katherine Martín-Fisher as she chats with Benjamin Brown, an entrepreneur and sales consultant, about his business ventures and the Veterans Claims Direct initiative. Ben shares insights on overcoming challenges faced by veterans, identifying ideal clients, and enhancing sales confidence through mentorship. He discusses his sales philosophy, the evolution of sales technology, and key takeaways from his book on entrepreneurship. The episode wraps up with tips on applying sales skills in daily life, followed by Katherine's closing remarks and listener engagement.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
I am Katherine Martín-Fisher, and I helpbusiness owners who have lost their vision
because they're struggling with cash flow,sales, and marketing, which also affects their
company culture.
By showing them how to implement proven systemsthat increase their revenue by 30% in 90 days,
this allows them to reignite the passion andthat big dream that they started with.
(00:28):
So, the reason that I started this podcast wasto celebrate businesses that have overcome
adversity and have come out on the other sideof it.
And I want you to know that you are not alone.
Good afternoon.
This is Katherine, your host with The BeyondBusiness Podcast.
(00:49):
I'm excited to introduce you to Ben Brown todayon our podcast.
Ben, thank you so much for being here.
You're very welcome.
Such a beautiful day out today, isn't it?
It is.
So Ben, tell us and tell our audience actuallywhat it is, like, who is Ben Brown?
What do you do and how do you serve the world?
(01:11):
Well, I own four businesses, but the one Imajorly work with is 360 Sales Consulting,
where I help people learn the language ofsales.
It's a gift that I love giving back to peoplebecause it's a language that most people are
losing right now due to the lack ofcommunication and technology.
When you do sales, it is a form ofcommunication, and it has to be taught.
(01:34):
It's a skill.
And so being able to do that for a lot ofpeople, it's a lost art because of all the
emails and things that we do to sell at adistance.
Being able to do it verbally is something thatI love doing.
Plus, I know everything about sales.
That's why it's 360 Sales.
So anything from what type of a CRM you need touse to hiring salespeople, all the range.
(01:57):
So I've been doing it for over 25 years.
kind of fell into it like the acting bug.
It's something that I was really good at andalso good at teaching.
So I pass that on to other people and use thatas a platform to gravitate towards other
businesses and entrepreneurs that need thattype of service.
So you say you have four businesses, and thisis The Beyond Business Podcast.
(02:21):
So in this podcast, I like to explain to ouraudience, if you have four businesses, how are
you able to manage the four businesses?
Well, it's called time management, but the limobusiness kind of runs on its own because it's
automated based upon the clients.
I have over 3,500 clients.
I've been doing that for 15 years, so that isgreat.
(02:42):
I also work with, and I'm not a business owner,but I work with a publishing company for doing
books for people who want to get themselvespublished.
They do all the back-end stuff.
You come with a manuscript and a title and doall the work.
I fell into that because that's one of myformer student's businesses, and she asked,
because she's an introvert and I'm anextrovert, can you talk to people?
(03:03):
Because I went through the hell of putting abook out, which is really crazy.
It's a lot of work.
And so I understand how that is.
So it's not really selling.
It's only a couple of calls for that.
Then I coach.
And then I just started my new endeavor lastyear, which is another passion that I'm getting
into.
The website just launched today.
It's called Veterans Claims Direct, and we helpveterans get the disability that they deserve
(03:29):
with the process of getting their disability.
I am 100 percent disabled based upon that, andit's a benefit that I should have had many
years ago, and it's a process.
So we help them navigate the political and alsothe intricate part of getting what they
deserve, and it changes people's lives becausethose benefits really help out people for PTSD,
(03:52):
as disabled, and the medical and all thataspect, and the money side, and, like, my
children get to go to college for free now.
So, you know, these types of things are reallybeneficial for and there's no really billboards
out there for it.
And so I, ten years of working on it, I figuredand devised a program to help other people do
that.
And so that's what I do as well.
(04:14):
You know, I just had a conversation.
This is kind of a side note here, with agentleman in the construction industry.
And we were talking about the veterans and whythey don't a lot of times you ask them, well,
you have all these benefits.
Why don't you apply for them?
One of the things that I found very interestingis when you're in the military, you're kind of
(04:34):
taught to just do just do what you need, youknow, what you're told to do.
You don't think of how to go get benefits andthings because it's almost like, you know,
you're responsible for you.
And it's so interesting because that issomething I feel like they, you know, how do
you get that information out?
So you're helping with that.
(04:56):
Well, I have to do therapy on some of thembecause I've been there.
I'm a Gulf War veteran, the PTSD, thedepression.
There's also survivor's guilt.
I don't need it.
Somebody else does or somebody that's notaround anymore.
And I don't want to get involved with thatbecause of that different deal.
He didn't have an opportunity.
So I have to go through the mindset ofsometimes an hour-long call telling them, that
(05:21):
out and reconstructing it where they canunderstand.
And only it's three, four months later and theygo like, I'm ready.
I'm ready to do it now.
Because their mind was trained to be like that.
And so a lot of guys, I can tell in the voice,that's why I talked to them and I've been
through it, a civilian normally can'tunderstand that type of situation.
(05:41):
And so, by having those conversations up front,I get three different types of rejection and a
survivor's guilt.
They think they don't deserve it or they thinksomebody else needs that money and telling them
how the system works.
And finally putting that in their head a coupletimes.
I just had a gentleman I talked to today, tooktwo months for him to come to the table, and
(06:04):
he's in Vietnam, and he's an Agent Orangeperson, he already goes to the VA, he has all
these things, no disability whatsoever.
And so he's at 0%.
And so he was a customer of mine in the limobusiness and talking to him on the way to the
airport for four months.
And finally, he came, you know, went and didhis research and everything else.
(06:24):
He finally came to the table and he said today,thank you, you know, for finally getting me
getting in this because I'm talking toeverybody else and everybody's telling me I'm
doing the right thing.
And it took that long a period of time for himto convince himself to go get what he deserves
because a lot of the benefits take care of youand your old age that you need.
You can go to a retirement home without anyproblems, you know, income every month that
(06:47):
comes in, all these different things that youhave with no taxes on your home, you know,
money, tens of thousand dollars in benefits,nobody tells you.
And so when somebody starts to tell you, youdon't believe it or you just go through that
until you see other people and you startunderstanding, which takes a while.
But, yeah, I've had guys breaking down on thephone after about an hour because in the Marine
(07:09):
Corps, I have a Facebook group of 181 guys Iput together when I started getting my benefits
in 02/2014.
So I went 20 years without even knowing aboutit.
So I missed out on 20 years of benefits.
I went to one of my guy's retirements because Ionly did six years, and he was like, why are
you not getting your benefits?
I'm like, dude, I run 12 miles a week, I'mgood.
He's like, no, you're not good.
(07:30):
You're not good.
I'm like, how many hours a night do you sleep?
Like four hours.
It's like, that's, you know, when you go to thebank, what's the first thing you do?
Case the joint, figure out who I'm going totake out, where are the exits, where I'm going
to come.
If somebody pulls a gun, go that you're doingthat.
When you go to a restaurant, where do you sit?
Facing the door, never put your back to thedoor.
(07:51):
So all these things are ingrained.
This is the PTSD.
You're always like this, you know, but you livewith it.
So you think it's normal.
I love that you're using this because you'vehad quite a bit of challenges to have to
overcome through different parts of your life.
How do you help someone who is struggling insales to be able to overcome what they have to
(08:17):
overcome in being able to close a sale, let'ssay?
Well, normally what I learned in the beginningis I can't teach you what you don't already
know.
I can't come in and just teach.
I did that when I first tested my process onwhat I did for a first sheet, six months and it
wouldn't get anywhere.
And I'm like, I'm telling you how to do it, whyit's not working because I had to find out why
(08:38):
they were not selling.
Okay.
So anybody can sell, but I had to find out whyyou're not selling as much.
So I had to go back and find out what washolding you back psychologically, something
from your childhood, somebody told you youcouldn't do it, why rejection, all these
different things before I add the tools in.
(09:00):
So once I was able to go back in and figure outwhy you're not selling psychologically, then
when I add in the tools on top of that, doublethe amount.
Let's talk a little bit about the tools.
What do you do that helps your clients overcomethat piece of not being able to close a sale or
(09:21):
not close as much as they should be able to?
Well, most people don't have a process.
The biggest critic is yourself, but mostsalespeople blame it on what?
Oh, they weren't ready.
They didn't have the money.
It wasn't the time of the year.
Salespeople are good at selling everythingelse, but sometimes the sale.
They'll tell you every reason why they couldn'tget it when really the problem was their
(09:45):
performance.
So what is the process you use, the steps thatyou use?
It should be repetitive because either you'regetting better or worse every day in sales,
it's not a continual thing.
It's a performance skill.
So if you don't practice it, you're not gonnabe good at it.
So who do you practice on?
You don't practice on the customers.
(10:08):
Role play.
That's something
we talk about all the time, the role play, roleplaying.
So you're not practicing on the customers.
You don't know how you sound.
Right.
You don't know what you said.
Right?
And so being able to do that, you know, Italked to people who've been in the game for 16
years.
I said, when's the last time you recordedyourself?
I'm like, I never.
(10:28):
You don't even know how you sound.
Your tonality, the way it comes out, peoplecould smell fear in your voice.
They could smell anxiety.
They could smell all of that by hearing you.
You're just talking.
You're not, and most of the time, the threethings you have to do in sales simultaneously,
you gotta know where you're going.
Right?
You gotta listen, right?
(10:48):
And then you have to close.
And most people, and you have to do all threeat the same time.
So you gotta know exactly where you're going inthe steps to do that confidently.
You can't be fumbling it around.
It's like an actor going out there, you go toBroadway, and the person comes out there and
says, To be or not to?
That's why you practice.
People are like, What's going on?
(11:10):
Not to be.
Not to be.
That is the question.
And people are like, oh, I need to get my moneyback.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like
I love it.
How do you, so give us an example of a clientthat you've worked with that was able to
overcome and get to the other side of what youwere teaching them?
One of the deals I worked with a client namedKen.
(11:33):
It took a while, but I had to go back into ittook about a month to get back into his
childhood to realize there was an instance inhis life that debilitated his ability to
overcome because closing is just aboutrepeating the steps over and over again and
having the confidence.
Eighty percent of sales is confidence.
(11:54):
Mhmm.
Eighty
That's why you have the rip-off artists and thenegative aspects of sales.
Those guys are very confident.
They're selling crap.
They might be ripping you off, but they soundso good because they're confident.
So when people put a negative connotation insales, it's this car salesman.
The guys who are very confident and they don'tget what they want in the end, but they don't
(12:17):
care.
So people are passionate about their productsbut not confident in selling it.
I love that.
What would you equate your success in beingable to, because you have four businesses,
you're obviously good at closing, you know,there has to be some sales skills in there.
What would you equate your success in havinglearned that skill yourself?
(12:38):
I came up in the old school way back in the'90s where we didn't have computers.
When I started in the gym business, I wasthinking about him today, a guy named Stuart
Vespe.
I remember my first mentor and him bringing meinto the game, Pinnacle.
And he gave me a skill that I was able to gofrom company to company to company to utilize.
(13:01):
I've sold cars.
I, you know, worked at a Ford dealership.
I sold that for a while.
I found out that I was doing Verifone, if youremember that back in the day, payment systems,
stuff like that.
But when I got into software working for acompany in a room, it was if you ever seen the
movie "Boiler Room," that was basically it.
We had 25 guys in a room.
(13:22):
You had a desk.
You had a little thing like that.
That's all you had.
You didn't have any drawers and you had a blackphone and you had a notebook and you were doing
about 20 to 60 outbound calls a day.
No auto dialer, no nothing.
And you were just and we were closing and 25people closing half a million dollars a week in
sales on credit cards back in '96.
(13:44):
Half a million on products that ran from $50 to$1,500.
So when you talk about systems, I love thisbecause that would be, that's a system.
Oh, it was a system.
It was a machine.
You're like a machine.
But then how do you fast forward that to todayand what kind of systems do you propose to your
(14:05):
clients that they use?
So it's very simple.
What I did over the years of learning is thatyou keep it simple, stupid.
So there's 10 steps.
Every sale has 10 steps in the process, but youdon't have to use all 10 depending on the
product or service.
So when I teach you the 10 steps, depending onwhat you're selling, we pick the ones that work
(14:26):
for you to comprise something that'sconsistent, that you can use over and over
again and improve.
So people come to me, I don't know if we canwork with this, we do this.
I don't care what you're selling.
It's not about the product.
It's about, it's about, it's not about theprocess.
So I can have you selling Learjets on Friday,we could sell refrigerators on Monday, and you
(14:48):
won't even skip a beat because you just put theproduct inside the process.
Wow.
So people get so caught up in all thisjibber-jabber stuff, but it's really about the
process and you could just put the product inthere and you just roll with it.
And I've done that with people.
So I've worked with people in insurance.
I worked with people who did software websites.
(15:09):
I've done medical.
I've done, you know, in the same deal,customizing a process that they can use on a
regular basis so they can grade theirsalespeople because it always goes up and down.
Sales is like this.
So if you don't have something that you canlook at and say, this is the benchmark, you're
just winging it all over the place and you'rejust throwing marketing at it.
(15:30):
Right?
We need more marketing.
We need more leads because you're burningthrough leads.
Right?
Some of the companies I go into at 360, I canfind money that they're already losing in their
database.
You go back through the database, so you don'tneed it.
You go back through and you resell some of thepeople that's constantly in there.
You find 30% of sales is through the databasethese people already have.
(15:54):
Because they just turn it and burn it.
Right.
So I only work with people.
I tell people, you don't pay for me; yourclients do.
I find the money inside the company that'sgonna pay for me; you don't pay for me.
That.
So who would be your ideal client?
Well, I work with companies that are between ahalf a million and 10 million and also
(16:14):
entrepreneurs.
But my sweet spot is around, you know, $2million companies, salespeople anywhere between
one to 10.
And I built sales teams from scratch, companiesthat had everything going but a sales team, and
came in and built a sales team for thatbusiness and gave them the keys and walked
away.
So I could do that too.
The hiring, the whole entire deal, theinfrastructure.
That's a big project.
(16:36):
That's like six months.
I don't like those anymore, but I've done themand done them successfully.
So mainly one-on-one with people,entrepreneurs, doing a lot of role-playing,
things of that nature, and getting the benefitthat they can get from that.
Right.
Right.
And so you have a book that's coming out,right?
Oh, it's out.
(16:56):
It's out.
Okay.
Sale.
There it is.
Closing the sale.
Mastering the Art of Closing the Sale.
So how would you compare? Did
Did you have, along your journey as anentrepreneur, have you had other mentors,
coaches, people that you've sought, you know,some advice from?
Yes.
Entrepreneur game is all about that.
(17:18):
It's about failure.
I tell people entrepreneurship, and my ex-wifeis like, when is this all gonna be done?
And my accountant goes, it's never done.
It's entrepreneurship.
It's never.
It's never, never done.
It's a drug.
You know, this is never done.
When's the website done?
Never done.
It's always upgrading.
She was like, what is this?
(17:40):
I'm like, mhmm, this is entrepreneurship.
So mentorship, I was going through, I think,yesterday thinking about all the mentors I had
in sales that led me down the right way ofteaching me the sales game on different aspects
of it and realizing, you know, it can come fromdifferent ways.
I tell people it's like, you go to school andyou get your butt beat, and then your parents
(18:02):
say, you know, we're not gonna put up withthis, we're gonna go to Yellow Pages and find
you a dojo or karate place to go to.
Right?
So which one is gonna be the right one to goto?
The one that you're gonna pay attention to.
Because you could still win with Aikido, youcould win with karate, you could win with
jujitsu.
All of them are self-defense.
Just like my sales process, somebody else'ssales process, the one that you're going to use
(18:25):
is the one that's going to be more effectivefor you.
That's right.
So I'm no better, no worse than Grant Cardone,Jeffrey Gitomer, all these guys that's out
there.
It's like, are you going to use it?
Because it's not theory.
Right.
Right.
I love that.
So tell me how, someone is saying, you know,kinda like this guy, I think that he's got a
(18:48):
lot to offer me.
How would they find you?
How would they do business?
I use this keep it simple.
So I bought the URL meetwithBenjamin.com, andyou can go there and schedule a call.
That is amazing.
That's awesome.
So I do want to ask you one last question.
How do you, let's say you have someone whowants to start with you, walk us through what
(19:12):
their beginning stages are to work with you.
It's based on analysis.
What's the problem?
We're all problem solvers, right?
What's the problem?
Is it the sales?
Is it your confidence?
Is it your systems that you have in place?
Is it, you know, old systems?
You need new systems?
What's going to get them from marketing to acustomer that's going to give you a referral?
(19:38):
Because step number 10 in the sales process isgetting a referral.
You can only do that if you have a smooth salesprocess.
Right?
If you try to be too archaic, too fast, peopleare, if the sales process is rough, they're not
going to give you a referral.
Right?
So there's businesses out there, Amway, networkmarketing that don't do any marketing.
(20:00):
It's all referral base.
Right.
So the end point of the sale is not to get thesale, it's to get the referral.
That's right.
That's right.
You've got it.
Hit the nail on the head.
So Ben, thank you so much.
This has been really awesome.
I, you know, I feel like there are differentpodcasts you and I could do together because
(20:21):
there's so much conversation too that we have.
Absolutely.
But the, you know, I would love for our people,if you can just tell them where to get your
book.
Oh, on Amazon.
It's "Master the Art of Closing the Sale" byBenjamin Brown.
It was published in February 2016.
So it's almost nine years old.
So yeah, they can go there or they can go to360 Sales Consulting.
(20:43):
You find me there or just meet with Benjaminand schedule a call and do an assessment to
figure out if I can help.
Sounds great.
Thank you so much.
We really appreciate you being on our podcasttoday and sharing with our audience.
Yes, ma'am.
Do you know Grant Cardone?
Yes, I do.
Oh, if you've heard of him.
(21:04):
business coach.
I see the book back there.
Has he written that?
Yes.
That's awesome.
He's, actually I'm a 10X business coach withGrant Cardone and, and what's really nice is
all of the things that you're talking about oreverything that we teach our clients is
(21:25):
everything is a process and it is all processesand following the process is the most
important.
So, and if they don't know you, they don't flowyou.
That's a Grant Cardone quote.
And so one of the biggest things is obviouslyin sales is you want to be omnipresent.
And so being omnipresent is super important.
Right.
(21:46):
Gotcha.
So how do you do that?
Well, it's in the step.
It's called connect and relate.
Right?
And do you so do you find because you did thisin the nineties and you did this in the boiler
room and you did the way in those thoseprocesses that you have in place.
Do you find when we move to digital that youkept up with doing it digitally, or do you
(22:08):
still do it more with the people connection oneon one and phone calling?
Funny thing.
I've found an evolution that's going to comeback because people are so used.
I had my first, I think AI call the other dayand I'm old school.
So I'm like, you could tell it was AI.
I'm like, I'm not going to do this.
Like, want somebody on the phone.
I mean, many times you do that now?
(22:29):
Like I want somebody on the phone.
Right.
So the companies that understand that thereversal is always ebb and flows with
technology and that that company says, we'regonna take this down and get on the phone and
talk to people person to person, probably be abig winner instead of just trying to run over
people and just do numbers game and get on thephone with people and you can get more
(22:51):
referrals like that than automating.
Because automation is great.
You sit there and you just make money.
It's a machine.
But doing it the old school way, people, youknow, will respect it more because I'm like,
oh, I don't at my limo company, I answer thecalls.
People are shocked.
They're like, oh, this, this is a real I'mlike, yes, how are you?
(23:11):
They're like, oh my goodness.
I've been leaving voicemails for all other limocompanies.
You answer the phone at 11:00 at night.
I'm like, yeah, because I'm in sales.
Right?
Want to be this close.
Don't want to be like out here.
I want to be this close.
I want to know why you're not buying.
You know, that's something that Grant talksabout all the time and it's understanding your
(23:37):
process, but understanding your client,understanding the reason why, and even asking
them, may I ask you why you're not, you know,why you didn't buy from me this time?
Because that helps you get better.
Yeah.
Because then you understand that you didn'tmaybe didn't understand the unspoken objection,
the thing that you didn't tell you.
(23:58):
Well, the scariest step is that we started offback in the day with the telegraph.
Right, and then we went from there to radio.
Yes.
You could reach the masses, then television,right?
And then from television, we got to what?
The telephone, which meant I didn't have towalk door to door anymore.
And then 20 years later, a thing came (24:15):
the fax machine.
Yes.
And after the fax machine, the Internet came.
So now instead of reaching hundreds, I canreach hundreds of thousands.
Right.
Like that.
And so people, you know, the technology iscaught up, and they think they don't have to do
it anymore.
I mean, everything is 3%.
(24:37):
Right?
Mhmm.
So they know the numbers, and the guys arereally capitalizing on that and running over,
but some companies can't afford thoseprocesses.
They can't do it.
They can't you know, those things cost.
So picking up the phone, I remember a longstory.
I talked to the owner.
I came over, and I said, I want you to pick outyour biggest leads that you have.
(24:58):
I'm gonna come over tomorrow, we're gonnahandle it and get everything done.
He was like, okay.
Came there, this is years ago, and he had itall written down, you know, spreadsheet.
And I was like, okay.
Let's go.
We're gonna call the first one.
He's like, what?
You know, he freaked out.
I'm like, you ready?
He's like, "What?
I'm gonna call him?" Like, the look on hisface, like, was antichrist.
(25:19):
"No.
I can't call him." Like a "Yeah."
We're gonna call him.
Yes, we're going to call them.
And just to get him over that confidence and,you know, understanding that he had left tons
of money on the table for not picking up thephone.
Okay.
So wait a minute.
This is important for our audience to hear thisbecause you weren't always like that.
(25:40):
From day one, you were willing to just pick upthe phone and keep doing and be in the boiler
room.
How did you start?
I want you to walk our audience into how do youstart and then how do you get that good where
you're that confident where you can walk intoan office and say, "Okay, you've got their
spreadsheet.
Here are the names.
Now get calling."
It's about your mentor.
Your mentor has to believe in you, yourteacher.
(26:01):
It's important that your confidence isconfidence, willing to fail because you're not
gonna win.
You're not.
And so what people do, if you're on the phoneconstantly, I was in that boiler room from 9 to
6 every day.
I mean, they wouldn't let us out until 6.
I mean, that's just the way it was.
It was pounding.
You weren't on the phone, it was like, therewere no computers.
(26:23):
So there was no dead time.
There was no email typing.
You were just boom, boom, boom.
So when we got computers, it was later, we werepissed off because it slowed us down.
I gotta input data into a database?
We just had sheets and a notebook.
So we couldn't be as productive as it was justgetting straight to people.
They're like, oh, we can send emails.
I don't need emails.
Put them on the phone.
(26:44):
I want them on the phone.
And so, you know, that evolved into emailcampaigns and, you know, Facebook and ads and
all this kind of stuff now that you can, youcould just blast it to everyone and you just
take whatever comes in.
But back in those days, we had our ad in theback of Computer Shopper.
Remember that?
Oh my goodness.
That was a long time ago.
With the cards you sent in and we were callingthose.
(27:06):
So it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
So there was no website.
There were no leads coming in.
It was just calling.
And you would get people.
I remember one time, one of my guys got a guythat, you know, it was computer repair that we
were selling, you know, A+ certification forcomputer repair when that first came out.
And we had guys like, one guy sold his tractorso he could get enough money to buy the A+
(27:31):
course for $500 to become a TV rep.
He was a TV repairman, wanted to be a computerrepairman because he saw it coming.
We had people selling it.
I mean, it was just amazing.
I watched Boiler Room, and I was like, That'show it was.
I mean, we were closed.
We closed everything.
There was no getting off the phone.
My last story, I broke the record in the room.
I wasn't the best salesman, but, you know, thefirst rule, teach people the rules of sale.
(27:54):
First one, talk loses.
So I had a headset.
I mean, I was upgraded because back then youjust had a black phone like this all day.
And so like a stockbroker.
But I had a headset and I had a little ball Iwould play with when I—so I'm going through my
process and I get to this guy.
He's on the phone with me.
He's from Texas.
Right?
So I get to the end, got them all set up,45-minute pitch, get to the end, what card do
(28:15):
you want to put it on?
Right then I hit mute, I start playing with myboss, I talk to my friends, hey man, this is
because it's part of the process.
Hey, what's going on?
What are we doing?
Uh-huh, uh-huh, and just waiting.
The manager knows if the guy is still on thephone.
You can't tell, it's just a black phone withnine buttons.
That's all you.
So you sit there, you just wait.
Two minutes and I look at the manager, he givesme the thumbs up.
(28:38):
Yeah, he's still on the phone.
So then you sit there, you're playing with theball.
You don't freak out, you throw on it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Four minutes in.
And.
Five minutes in, he calls the room.
Brown got a five minute on the phone.
Whole room goes quiet.
Everybody sits and waits eleven minutes andthirty seconds.
Are you kidding me?
(28:58):
And the guy finally goes, well, and then thirtyseconds later, he says, let's do it.
And that was it.
Now anytime before that eleven minutes, if Iwould've said, you still there?
You still thinking about it?
Hey, let me tell you what else we got.
You break down the house that you built.
So when you do a sales pitch, build the houseup.
So when you say what card you wanna put on yourclose, the rule is first one to talk loses.
(29:24):
That's the rule.
So if I would've said anything in that elevenminutes, I would've broken the whole house
down.
So eleven minutes and thirty seconds of deadsilence.
Wow.
That's a long time to not say anything.
It's a rule.
Playing ball.
Just waiting.
Waited a long time, but I don't think I'vewaited eleven seconds.
(29:44):
Eleven minutes.
Eleven minutes
and thirty seconds.
That's a long time.
That's that's that's yeah.
That's the rule.
The rule.
I call them laws because you don't you breakrules, but you don't break laws.
Right.
So it's a So
true.
So you break the law, break, you're going tojail, so you know not to break the law.
(30:05):
And he just sitting there, my manager whotaught me, he's like, and we just, and he was
like, eight minutes.
I had a clock on my desk, I would click, likewhen you play chess, and I'm sitting there
looking at it.
I, no sweat on my face, I was just sittingthere.
They were like, Brown got one.
Everybody's getting quiet, I'm just sittingthere like this.
Wow.
It's like incredible.
(30:25):
Nine minutes.
Don't play with the phone.
Because I knew the process so good.
I did my job so good.
I didn't have to worry about the back end.
I had my confidence level was extreme.
I did everything right in the first nine steps.
So I had nothing to worry about.
Just sat and waited.
And it came out.
And so what do you think that does to yourconfidence when you finally get that one?
(30:48):
You're like, this really, really works.
It does work.
Right.
So what advice would you give our audience onhow to build that kind of confidence?
I say sales is simple, but it's not easy.
It's
simple, but it's not easy.
To build the confidence, you have to have proofof concept.
(31:14):
You have to get out there and try it.
You know, it's like somebody riding a bike.
You can hold the seat for them a little while,and then after a while, you're gonna have to
let go and let them.
They might fall down.
They gotta, hey, you gotta get back on thebike.
You know?
And once they're able to do that, and itdoesn't matter their personality.
I've had people who had interest.
(31:35):
They say, oh, this guy could sell ice toEskimos, had that personality.
They came into our company because we turnedand burned salespeople all the time, and they
were like, I came here selling this, and it waslike, well, if you did so well, you wouldn't be
here.
And like, listen, this is a process.
If you can't stick to this, you're out of here,and they're like, oh, I can come in here and
sell.
And they'll last about a month because theydidn't adhere to the rules, the process.
(31:59):
They thought they knew it all, and they thoughttheir personality.
But there's some people that didn't have thepersonality of a piece of dirt that could just
listen to the process, and they did very well,right, because they stuck to it.
Other people try to put their personality ontop of it.
Right?
(32:19):
Because when you have that personality and thatego, you're not tracking what you're saying,
you're just going by with no process.
You don't know what mistakes you're making, andthose guys like that, they'll do well in the
beginning, but when you're tired at 3:00 in theafternoon and been doing it for five days
straight, you know, you're still relying onthat stuff.
You start skipping steps.
You start not remembering.
(32:40):
You start doing it.
And your sales start going down, and you can'ttrack what he's done wrong because he's just
winging it the whole time on personality.
There's no steps.
So when I listen to a recording, I can go inthere and say step number six, you're not doing
it.
Like, I can simply figure that out and we couldchange it so your stats don't go like this for
weeks at a time.
(33:00):
Cause as it's going down, you're blamingeverybody else.
Oh, it's bad leads.
It's not working.
This might not be for me.
Right.
Maybe I need to go back to shipping.
You know, this is commission only.
I gotta pay bills.
So good.
Right?
So what would be another teachable that youwould be able to give our audience?
(33:20):
The biggest thing is to save time in a step isasking for the sale before you present.
So in my book, the process is called set up thepresentation, which was one of the major steps
that I learned, is asking if I could, wouldyou?
What that means is before I present to you,before I waste my time, like you're selling a
car, they sit down with you and ask you allthese questions, right?
(33:43):
Then they go out and test drive the car, hopingthat the test drive will sell the car.
Well, a good salesman sells the car before hedoes the test drive.
So if he knows that if you're not gonna buy it,I'm not gonna go and test drive because I can
go to somebody else.
So it's only a certain amount of time you have.
So the question that I ask, and I can ask you,Katherine, who's more important?
(34:04):
The salesperson or the customer?
Who's more important?
The salesperson or the customer?
I mean, the customer's important.
No.
Yes.
But no.
The salesperson?
You would say the salesperson.
I have the solution.
Oh, I see what the question is.
I apologize.
Yes.
I see.
I
have the solution.
(34:25):
Have only if I have the cure for cancer and Iknow it, I can only get to so many people.
Right?
If you like it, what I tell people, I don'tmess with people if they don't like or love the
product.
Like it, love it, or leave it.
Right.
If you don't like it or love it, leave it.
Because you gotta feel like you're on a skywaybridge with a sign going, you need this product
(34:48):
now, like, it's gonna save your life.
That's the kind of enthusiasm you have to havefor your product to get through the hard times
that they're gonna put you through.
And so if you don't have any of that, if youdon't believe in the product, you know, it's
not gonna work.
It's not gonna work.
So when I talk to people, I'm like, do you likeor love the product?
And I can tell.
(35:09):
And I go, we're not gonna go there.
It's gonna be a waste of time.
Right.
You're going to flub your way through it.
You're going to give up and it's wasting mytime and wasting your time.
I know what it's like.
I've been in the trenches.
I know I've been on the phone.
I've been at the car dealerships out in theheat, you know, waiting for ups.
I've done all this, you know, it's not like Icome from theory.
(35:31):
I get guys that we go up against that just gotout of college the last couple of years talking
about sales.
I'm like, you never been in, like, in bootcamp.
You know what I'm saying?
So, you know, knowing coming from that, I cantell in the voice and how people carry
themselves.
It's a performance.
So you can't perform, it's not gonna work.
That's right.
That's right.
Awesome.
And if you wanted to leave our audience withanything, what would that be?
(35:55):
Anybody can sell.
They just have to learn the skill and the skillcould be done both ways.
It could be done through emotion or it could bedone through the process.
You choose that and if you could do either.
So everyone can sell.
Sales is around us all 24/7 with our phones allthe time.
So it's already around us and you're in arelationship with marriage, you're in sales.
(36:16):
That's why you get divorced, you stop selling.
Right?
So everything amounts around selling.
So people are like, I don't like sales.
Well, you're already in it.
You're in a capitalist society.
Everything is sales.
Inside your house, outside the house.
When you drive down the road, the billboards,the radio stations, the commercials, the cell
phone, the computers, the pop-ups, there usedto be the pop-ups, you know, go to YouTube, now
(36:39):
you go to Netflix, you got commercials.
You go to YouTube, you don't pay, you gotcommercials, you're inundated.
You're surrounded by it.
So you're already in it.
When you learn it, most of the time whathappens after about 45 days for somebody who
doesn't understand it, when I explain it tothem, it takes about 45 days and they come back
and they go, now I understand what you mean.
(37:00):
It's easier than I thought.
Yeah.
Because you'd never thought about it.
It's like being in the Matrix.
Now I know what sales is everywhere.
I'm like, yeah, you've been doing it on yourkids.
When they ask your dad, can we go there?
Let me ask you a question.
And you start selling theirs, either sellingyou or you selling them.
That's right.
That's right.
That's the truth.
And that's exactly right.
(37:22):
Sell them and be sold.
That's Grant Cardone right there too.
He talks about that being sold, selling, orbeing sold.
And, and that's why you have to be soldyourself.
Yep.
First.
First.
Confidence.
Confidence.
Yes.
Well, Ben, I just thank you so much for yourtime today.
And again, please tell our audience how toreach you.
(37:46):
They can go there and schedule a session orone-on-one and find out what the problem is.
Sounds great.
I want to thank you so much for your time, forall of your teachables, and for just helping
our audience to understand that sales literallyis a process, and you have to be sold yourself
first.
So thank you so much, Ben.
(38:06):
I really appreciate your time today.
And, this is Katherine, your host with TheBeyond Business Podcast.
Excited to have been with you here again foranother show.
Well, if you made it to this point, then youmade it to the end.
And you are my star.
And I just want to thank you from the bottom ofmy heart.
(38:27):
I hope that you enjoyed the conversation withtoday's guest.
And if you did, please leave us a review onApple Podcasts and Spotify and share this
episode with others who may be interested inthis topic.
Also, please feel free to let us know whattopics you'd like to see covered in future
episodes.
Get in touch in the comments or on RocketGrowth's social media platforms to have
(38:52):
conversations with me.
My booking link is in the comments.
See you next week for an all-new episode.
I am Katherine Martín-Fisher, and I helpbusiness owners who have lost their vision
because they're struggling with cash flow,sales, and marketing, which also affects their
company culture.
By showing them how to implement proven systemsthat increase their revenue by 30% in 90 days,
this allows them to reignite the passion andthat big dream that they started with.
(00:28):
So, the reason that I started this podcast wasto celebrate businesses that have overcome
adversity and have come out on the other sideof it.
And I want you to know that you are not alone.
Good afternoon.
This is Katherine, your host with The BeyondBusiness Podcast.
(00:49):
I'm excited to introduce you to Ben Brown todayon our podcast.
Ben, thank you so much for being here.
You're very welcome.
Such a beautiful day out today, isn't it?
It is.
So Ben, tell us and tell our audience actuallywhat it is, like, who is Ben Brown?
What do you do and how do you serve the world?
(01:11):
Well, I own four businesses, but the one Imajorly work with is 360 Sales Consulting,
where I help people learn the language ofsales.
It's a gift that I love giving back to peoplebecause it's a language that most people are
losing right now due to the lack ofcommunication and technology.
When you do sales, it is a form ofcommunication, and it has to be taught.
(01:34):
It's a skill.
And so being able to do that for a lot ofpeople, it's a lost art because of all the
emails and things that we do to sell at adistance.
Being able to do it verbally is something thatI love doing.
Plus, I know everything about sales.
That's why it's 360 Sales.
So anything from what type of a CRM you need touse to hiring salespeople, all the range.
(01:57):
So I've been doing it for over 25 years.
kind of fell into it like the acting bug.
It's something that I was really good at andalso good at teaching.
So I pass that on to other people and use thatas a platform to gravitate towards other
businesses and entrepreneurs that need thattype of service.
So you say you have four businesses, and thisis The Beyond Business Podcast.
(02:21):
So in this podcast, I like to explain to ouraudience, if you have four businesses, how are
you able to manage the four businesses?
Well, it's called time management, but the limobusiness kind of runs on its own because it's
automated based upon the clients.
I have over 3,500 clients.
I've been doing that for 15 years, so that isgreat.
(02:42):
I also work with, and I'm not a business owner,but I work with a publishing company for doing
books for people who want to get themselvespublished.
They do all the back-end stuff.
You come with a manuscript and a title and doall the work.
I fell into that because that's one of myformer student's businesses, and she asked,
because she's an introvert and I'm anextrovert, can you talk to people?
(03:03):
Because I went through the hell of putting abook out, which is really crazy.
It's a lot of work.
And so I understand how that is.
So it's not really selling.
It's only a couple of calls for that.
Then I coach.
And then I just started my new endeavor lastyear, which is another passion that I'm getting
into.
The website just launched today.
It's called Veterans Claims Direct, and we helpveterans get the disability that they deserve
(03:29):
with the process of getting their disability.
I am 100 percent disabled based upon that, andit's a benefit that I should have had many
years ago, and it's a process.
So we help them navigate the political and alsothe intricate part of getting what they
deserve, and it changes people's lives becausethose benefits really help out people for PTSD,
(03:52):
as disabled, and the medical and all thataspect, and the money side, and, like, my
children get to go to college for free now.
So, you know, these types of things are reallybeneficial for and there's no really billboards
out there for it.
And so I, ten years of working on it, I figuredand devised a program to help other people do
that.
And so that's what I do as well.
(04:14):
You know, I just had a conversation.
This is kind of a side note here, with agentleman in the construction industry.
And we were talking about the veterans and whythey don't a lot of times you ask them, well,
you have all these benefits.
Why don't you apply for them?
One of the things that I found very interestingis when you're in the military, you're kind of
(04:34):
taught to just do just do what you need, youknow, what you're told to do.
You don't think of how to go get benefits andthings because it's almost like, you know,
you're responsible for you.
And it's so interesting because that issomething I feel like they, you know, how do
you get that information out?
So you're helping with that.
(04:56):
Well, I have to do therapy on some of thembecause I've been there.
I'm a Gulf War veteran, the PTSD, thedepression.
There's also survivor's guilt.
I don't need it.
Somebody else does or somebody that's notaround anymore.
And I don't want to get involved with thatbecause of that different deal.
He didn't have an opportunity.
So I have to go through the mindset ofsometimes an hour-long call telling them, that
(05:21):
out and reconstructing it where they canunderstand.
And only it's three, four months later and theygo like, I'm ready.
I'm ready to do it now.
Because their mind was trained to be like that.
And so a lot of guys, I can tell in the voice,that's why I talked to them and I've been
through it, a civilian normally can'tunderstand that type of situation.
(05:41):
And so, by having those conversations up front,I get three different types of rejection and a
survivor's guilt.
They think they don't deserve it or they thinksomebody else needs that money and telling them
how the system works.
And finally putting that in their head a coupletimes.
I just had a gentleman I talked to today, tooktwo months for him to come to the table, and
(06:04):
he's in Vietnam, and he's an Agent Orangeperson, he already goes to the VA, he has all
these things, no disability whatsoever.
And so he's at 0%.
And so he was a customer of mine in the limobusiness and talking to him on the way to the
airport for four months.
And finally, he came, you know, went and didhis research and everything else.
(06:24):
He finally came to the table and he said today,thank you, you know, for finally getting me
getting in this because I'm talking toeverybody else and everybody's telling me I'm
doing the right thing.
And it took that long a period of time for himto convince himself to go get what he deserves
because a lot of the benefits take care of youand your old age that you need.
You can go to a retirement home without anyproblems, you know, income every month that
(06:47):
comes in, all these different things that youhave with no taxes on your home, you know,
money, tens of thousand dollars in benefits,nobody tells you.
And so when somebody starts to tell you, youdon't believe it or you just go through that
until you see other people and you startunderstanding, which takes a while.
But, yeah, I've had guys breaking down on thephone after about an hour because in the Marine
(07:09):
Corps, I have a Facebook group of 181 guys Iput together when I started getting my benefits
in 02/2014.
So I went 20 years without even knowing aboutit.
So I missed out on 20 years of benefits.
I went to one of my guy's retirements because Ionly did six years, and he was like, why are
you not getting your benefits?
I'm like, dude, I run 12 miles a week, I'mgood.
He's like, no, you're not good.
(07:30):
You're not good.
I'm like, how many hours a night do you sleep?
Like four hours.
It's like, that's, you know, when you go to thebank, what's the first thing you do?
Case the joint, figure out who I'm going totake out, where are the exits, where I'm going
to come.
If somebody pulls a gun, go that you're doingthat.
When you go to a restaurant, where do you sit?
Facing the door, never put your back to thedoor.
(07:51):
So all these things are ingrained.
This is the PTSD.
You're always like this, you know, but you livewith it.
So you think it's normal.
I love that you're using this because you'vehad quite a bit of challenges to have to
overcome through different parts of your life.
How do you help someone who is struggling insales to be able to overcome what they have to
(08:17):
overcome in being able to close a sale, let'ssay?
Well, normally what I learned in the beginningis I can't teach you what you don't already
know.
I can't come in and just teach.
I did that when I first tested my process onwhat I did for a first sheet, six months and it
wouldn't get anywhere.
And I'm like, I'm telling you how to do it, whyit's not working because I had to find out why
(08:38):
they were not selling.
Okay.
So anybody can sell, but I had to find out whyyou're not selling as much.
So I had to go back and find out what washolding you back psychologically, something
from your childhood, somebody told you youcouldn't do it, why rejection, all these
different things before I add the tools in.
(09:00):
So once I was able to go back in and figure outwhy you're not selling psychologically, then
when I add in the tools on top of that, doublethe amount.
Let's talk a little bit about the tools.
What do you do that helps your clients overcomethat piece of not being able to close a sale or
(09:21):
not close as much as they should be able to?
Well, most people don't have a process.
The biggest critic is yourself, but mostsalespeople blame it on what?
Oh, they weren't ready.
They didn't have the money.
It wasn't the time of the year.
Salespeople are good at selling everythingelse, but sometimes the sale.
They'll tell you every reason why they couldn'tget it when really the problem was their
(09:45):
performance.
So what is the process you use, the steps thatyou use?
It should be repetitive because either you'regetting better or worse every day in sales,
it's not a continual thing.
It's a performance skill.
So if you don't practice it, you're not gonnabe good at it.
So who do you practice on?
You don't practice on the customers.
(10:08):
Role play.
That's something
we talk about all the time, the role play, roleplaying.
So you're not practicing on the customers.
You don't know how you sound.
Right.
You don't know what you said.
Right?
And so being able to do that, you know, Italked to people who've been in the game for 16
years.
I said, when's the last time you recordedyourself?
I'm like, I never.
(10:28):
You don't even know how you sound.
Your tonality, the way it comes out, peoplecould smell fear in your voice.
They could smell anxiety.
They could smell all of that by hearing you.
You're just talking.
You're not, and most of the time, the threethings you have to do in sales simultaneously,
you gotta know where you're going.
Right?
You gotta listen, right?
(10:48):
And then you have to close.
And most people, and you have to do all threeat the same time.
So you gotta know exactly where you're going inthe steps to do that confidently.
You can't be fumbling it around.
It's like an actor going out there, you go toBroadway, and the person comes out there and
says, To be or not to?
That's why you practice.
People are like, What's going on?
(11:10):
Not to be.
Not to be.
That is the question.
And people are like, oh, I need to get my moneyback.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like
I love it.
How do you, so give us an example of a clientthat you've worked with that was able to
overcome and get to the other side of what youwere teaching them?
One of the deals I worked with a client namedKen.
(11:33):
It took a while, but I had to go back into ittook about a month to get back into his
childhood to realize there was an instance inhis life that debilitated his ability to
overcome because closing is just aboutrepeating the steps over and over again and
having the confidence.
Eighty percent of sales is confidence.
(11:54):
Mhmm.
Eighty
That's why you have the rip-off artists and thenegative aspects of sales.
Those guys are very confident.
They're selling crap.
They might be ripping you off, but they soundso good because they're confident.
So when people put a negative connotation insales, it's this car salesman.
The guys who are very confident and they don'tget what they want in the end, but they don't
(12:17):
care.
So people are passionate about their productsbut not confident in selling it.
I love that.
What would you equate your success in beingable to, because you have four businesses,
you're obviously good at closing, you know,there has to be some sales skills in there.
What would you equate your success in havinglearned that skill yourself?
(12:38):
I came up in the old school way back in the'90s where we didn't have computers.
When I started in the gym business, I wasthinking about him today, a guy named Stuart
Vespe.
I remember my first mentor and him bringing meinto the game, Pinnacle.
And he gave me a skill that I was able to gofrom company to company to company to utilize.
(13:01):
I've sold cars.
I, you know, worked at a Ford dealership.
I sold that for a while.
I found out that I was doing Verifone, if youremember that back in the day, payment systems,
stuff like that.
But when I got into software working for acompany in a room, it was if you ever seen the
movie "Boiler Room," that was basically it.
We had 25 guys in a room.
(13:22):
You had a desk.
You had a little thing like that.
That's all you had.
You didn't have any drawers and you had a blackphone and you had a notebook and you were doing
about 20 to 60 outbound calls a day.
No auto dialer, no nothing.
And you were just and we were closing and 25people closing half a million dollars a week in
sales on credit cards back in '96.
(13:44):
Half a million on products that ran from $50 to$1,500.
So when you talk about systems, I love thisbecause that would be, that's a system.
Oh, it was a system.
It was a machine.
You're like a machine.
But then how do you fast forward that to todayand what kind of systems do you propose to your
(14:05):
clients that they use?
So it's very simple.
What I did over the years of learning is thatyou keep it simple, stupid.
So there's 10 steps.
Every sale has 10 steps in the process, but youdon't have to use all 10 depending on the
product or service.
So when I teach you the 10 steps, depending onwhat you're selling, we pick the ones that work
(14:26):
for you to comprise something that'sconsistent, that you can use over and over
again and improve.
So people come to me, I don't know if we canwork with this, we do this.
I don't care what you're selling.
It's not about the product.
It's about, it's about, it's not about theprocess.
So I can have you selling Learjets on Friday,we could sell refrigerators on Monday, and you
(14:48):
won't even skip a beat because you just put theproduct inside the process.
Wow.
So people get so caught up in all thisjibber-jabber stuff, but it's really about the
process and you could just put the product inthere and you just roll with it.
And I've done that with people.
So I've worked with people in insurance.
I worked with people who did software websites.
(15:09):
I've done medical.
I've done, you know, in the same deal,customizing a process that they can use on a
regular basis so they can grade theirsalespeople because it always goes up and down.
Sales is like this.
So if you don't have something that you canlook at and say, this is the benchmark, you're
just winging it all over the place and you'rejust throwing marketing at it.
(15:30):
Right?
We need more marketing.
We need more leads because you're burningthrough leads.
Right?
Some of the companies I go into at 360, I canfind money that they're already losing in their
database.
You go back through the database, so you don'tneed it.
You go back through and you resell some of thepeople that's constantly in there.
You find 30% of sales is through the databasethese people already have.
(15:54):
Because they just turn it and burn it.
Right.
So I only work with people.
I tell people, you don't pay for me; yourclients do.
I find the money inside the company that'sgonna pay for me; you don't pay for me.
That.
So who would be your ideal client?
Well, I work with companies that are between ahalf a million and 10 million and also
(16:14):
entrepreneurs.
But my sweet spot is around, you know, $2million companies, salespeople anywhere between
one to 10.
And I built sales teams from scratch, companiesthat had everything going but a sales team, and
came in and built a sales team for thatbusiness and gave them the keys and walked
away.
So I could do that too.
The hiring, the whole entire deal, theinfrastructure.
That's a big project.
(16:36):
That's like six months.
I don't like those anymore, but I've done themand done them successfully.
So mainly one-on-one with people,entrepreneurs, doing a lot of role-playing,
things of that nature, and getting the benefitthat they can get from that.
Right.
Right.
And so you have a book that's coming out,right?
Oh, it's out.
(16:56):
It's out.
Okay.
Sale.
There it is.
Closing the sale.
Mastering the Art of Closing the Sale.
So how would you compare? Did
Did you have, along your journey as anentrepreneur, have you had other mentors,
coaches, people that you've sought, you know,some advice from?
Yes.
Entrepreneur game is all about that.
(17:18):
It's about failure.
I tell people entrepreneurship, and my ex-wifeis like, when is this all gonna be done?
And my accountant goes, it's never done.
It's entrepreneurship.
It's never.
It's never, never done.
It's a drug.
You know, this is never done.
When's the website done?
Never done.
It's always upgrading.
She was like, what is this?
(17:40):
I'm like, mhmm, this is entrepreneurship.
So mentorship, I was going through, I think,yesterday thinking about all the mentors I had
in sales that led me down the right way ofteaching me the sales game on different aspects
of it and realizing, you know, it can come fromdifferent ways.
I tell people it's like, you go to school andyou get your butt beat, and then your parents
(18:02):
say, you know, we're not gonna put up withthis, we're gonna go to Yellow Pages and find
you a dojo or karate place to go to.
Right?
So which one is gonna be the right one to goto?
The one that you're gonna pay attention to.
Because you could still win with Aikido, youcould win with karate, you could win with
jujitsu.
All of them are self-defense.
Just like my sales process, somebody else'ssales process, the one that you're going to use
(18:25):
is the one that's going to be more effectivefor you.
That's right.
So I'm no better, no worse than Grant Cardone,Jeffrey Gitomer, all these guys that's out
there.
It's like, are you going to use it?
Because it's not theory.
Right.
Right.
I love that.
So tell me how, someone is saying, you know,kinda like this guy, I think that he's got a
(18:48):
lot to offer me.
How would they find you?
How would they do business?
I use this keep it simple.
So I bought the URL meetwithBenjamin.com, andyou can go there and schedule a call.
That is amazing.
That's awesome.
So I do want to ask you one last question.
How do you, let's say you have someone whowants to start with you, walk us through what
(19:12):
their beginning stages are to work with you.
It's based on analysis.
What's the problem?
We're all problem solvers, right?
What's the problem?
Is it the sales?
Is it your confidence?
Is it your systems that you have in place?
Is it, you know, old systems?
You need new systems?
What's going to get them from marketing to acustomer that's going to give you a referral?
(19:38):
Because step number 10 in the sales process isgetting a referral.
You can only do that if you have a smooth salesprocess.
Right?
If you try to be too archaic, too fast, peopleare, if the sales process is rough, they're not
going to give you a referral.
Right?
So there's businesses out there, Amway, networkmarketing that don't do any marketing.
(20:00):
It's all referral base.
Right.
So the end point of the sale is not to get thesale, it's to get the referral.
That's right.
That's right.
You've got it.
Hit the nail on the head.
So Ben, thank you so much.
This has been really awesome.
I, you know, I feel like there are differentpodcasts you and I could do together because
(20:21):
there's so much conversation too that we have.
Absolutely.
But the, you know, I would love for our people,if you can just tell them where to get your
book.
Oh, on Amazon.
It's "Master the Art of Closing the Sale" byBenjamin Brown.
It was published in February 2016.
So it's almost nine years old.
So yeah, they can go there or they can go to360 Sales Consulting.
(20:43):
You find me there or just meet with Benjaminand schedule a call and do an assessment to
figure out if I can help.
Sounds great.
Thank you so much.
We really appreciate you being on our podcasttoday and sharing with our audience.
Yes, ma'am.
Do you know Grant Cardone?
Yes, I do.
Oh, if you've heard of him.
(21:04):
business coach.
I see the book back there.
Has he written that?
Yes.
That's awesome.
He's, actually I'm a 10X business coach withGrant Cardone and, and what's really nice is
all of the things that you're talking about oreverything that we teach our clients is
(21:25):
everything is a process and it is all processesand following the process is the most
important.
So, and if they don't know you, they don't flowyou.
That's a Grant Cardone quote.
And so one of the biggest things is obviouslyin sales is you want to be omnipresent.
And so being omnipresent is super important.
Right.
(21:46):
Gotcha.
So how do you do that?
Well, it's in the step.
It's called connect and relate.
Right?
And do you so do you find because you did thisin the nineties and you did this in the boiler
room and you did the way in those thoseprocesses that you have in place.
Do you find when we move to digital that youkept up with doing it digitally, or do you
(22:08):
still do it more with the people connection oneon one and phone calling?
Funny thing.
I've found an evolution that's going to comeback because people are so used.
I had my first, I think AI call the other dayand I'm old school.
So I'm like, you could tell it was AI.
I'm like, I'm not going to do this.
Like, want somebody on the phone.
I mean, many times you do that now?
(22:29):
Like I want somebody on the phone.
Right.
So the companies that understand that thereversal is always ebb and flows with
technology and that that company says, we'regonna take this down and get on the phone and
talk to people person to person, probably be abig winner instead of just trying to run over
people and just do numbers game and get on thephone with people and you can get more
(22:51):
referrals like that than automating.
Because automation is great.
You sit there and you just make money.
It's a machine.
But doing it the old school way, people, youknow, will respect it more because I'm like,
oh, I don't at my limo company, I answer thecalls.
People are shocked.
They're like, oh, this, this is a real I'mlike, yes, how are you?
(23:11):
They're like, oh my goodness.
I've been leaving voicemails for all other limocompanies.
You answer the phone at 11:00 at night.
I'm like, yeah, because I'm in sales.
Right?
Want to be this close.
Don't want to be like out here.
I want to be this close.
I want to know why you're not buying.
You know, that's something that Grant talksabout all the time and it's understanding your
(23:37):
process, but understanding your client,understanding the reason why, and even asking
them, may I ask you why you're not, you know,why you didn't buy from me this time?
Because that helps you get better.
Yeah.
Because then you understand that you didn'tmaybe didn't understand the unspoken objection,
the thing that you didn't tell you.
(23:58):
Well, the scariest step is that we started offback in the day with the telegraph.
Right, and then we went from there to radio.
Yes.
You could reach the masses, then television,right?
And then from television, we got to what?
The telephone, which meant I didn't have towalk door to door anymore.
And then 20 years later, a thing came (24:15):
the fax machine.
Yes.
And after the fax machine, the Internet came.
So now instead of reaching hundreds, I canreach hundreds of thousands.
Right.
Like that.
And so people, you know, the technology iscaught up, and they think they don't have to do
it anymore.
I mean, everything is 3%.
(24:37):
Right?
Mhmm.
So they know the numbers, and the guys arereally capitalizing on that and running over,
but some companies can't afford thoseprocesses.
They can't do it.
They can't you know, those things cost.
So picking up the phone, I remember a longstory.
I talked to the owner.
I came over, and I said, I want you to pick outyour biggest leads that you have.
(24:58):
I'm gonna come over tomorrow, we're gonnahandle it and get everything done.
He was like, okay.
Came there, this is years ago, and he had itall written down, you know, spreadsheet.
And I was like, okay.
Let's go.
We're gonna call the first one.
He's like, what?
You know, he freaked out.
I'm like, you ready?
He's like, "What?
I'm gonna call him?" Like, the look on hisface, like, was antichrist.
(25:19):
"No.
I can't call him." Like a "Yeah."
We're gonna call him.
Yes, we're going to call them.
And just to get him over that confidence and,you know, understanding that he had left tons
of money on the table for not picking up thephone.
Okay.
So wait a minute.
This is important for our audience to hear thisbecause you weren't always like that.
(25:40):
From day one, you were willing to just pick upthe phone and keep doing and be in the boiler
room.
How did you start?
I want you to walk our audience into how do youstart and then how do you get that good where
you're that confident where you can walk intoan office and say, "Okay, you've got their
spreadsheet.
Here are the names.
Now get calling."
It's about your mentor.
Your mentor has to believe in you, yourteacher.
(26:01):
It's important that your confidence isconfidence, willing to fail because you're not
gonna win.
You're not.
And so what people do, if you're on the phoneconstantly, I was in that boiler room from 9 to
6 every day.
I mean, they wouldn't let us out until 6.
I mean, that's just the way it was.
It was pounding.
You weren't on the phone, it was like, therewere no computers.
(26:23):
So there was no dead time.
There was no email typing.
You were just boom, boom, boom.
So when we got computers, it was later, we werepissed off because it slowed us down.
I gotta input data into a database?
We just had sheets and a notebook.
So we couldn't be as productive as it was justgetting straight to people.
They're like, oh, we can send emails.
I don't need emails.
Put them on the phone.
(26:44):
I want them on the phone.
And so, you know, that evolved into emailcampaigns and, you know, Facebook and ads and
all this kind of stuff now that you can, youcould just blast it to everyone and you just
take whatever comes in.
But back in those days, we had our ad in theback of Computer Shopper.
Remember that?
Oh my goodness.
That was a long time ago.
With the cards you sent in and we were callingthose.
(27:06):
So it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
So there was no website.
There were no leads coming in.
It was just calling.
And you would get people.
I remember one time, one of my guys got a guythat, you know, it was computer repair that we
were selling, you know, A+ certification forcomputer repair when that first came out.
And we had guys like, one guy sold his tractorso he could get enough money to buy the A+
(27:31):
course for $500 to become a TV rep.
He was a TV repairman, wanted to be a computerrepairman because he saw it coming.
We had people selling it.
I mean, it was just amazing.
I watched Boiler Room, and I was like, That'show it was.
I mean, we were closed.
We closed everything.
There was no getting off the phone.
My last story, I broke the record in the room.
I wasn't the best salesman, but, you know, thefirst rule, teach people the rules of sale.
(27:54):
First one, talk loses.
So I had a headset.
I mean, I was upgraded because back then youjust had a black phone like this all day.
And so like a stockbroker.
But I had a headset and I had a little ball Iwould play with when I—so I'm going through my
process and I get to this guy.
He's on the phone with me.
He's from Texas.
Right?
So I get to the end, got them all set up,45-minute pitch, get to the end, what card do
(28:15):
you want to put it on?
Right then I hit mute, I start playing with myboss, I talk to my friends, hey man, this is
because it's part of the process.
Hey, what's going on?
What are we doing?
Uh-huh, uh-huh, and just waiting.
The manager knows if the guy is still on thephone.
You can't tell, it's just a black phone withnine buttons.
That's all you.
So you sit there, you just wait.
Two minutes and I look at the manager, he givesme the thumbs up.
(28:38):
Yeah, he's still on the phone.
So then you sit there, you're playing with theball.
You don't freak out, you throw on it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Four minutes in.
And.
Five minutes in, he calls the room.
Brown got a five minute on the phone.
Whole room goes quiet.
Everybody sits and waits eleven minutes andthirty seconds.
Are you kidding me?
(28:58):
And the guy finally goes, well, and then thirtyseconds later, he says, let's do it.
And that was it.
Now anytime before that eleven minutes, if Iwould've said, you still there?
You still thinking about it?
Hey, let me tell you what else we got.
You break down the house that you built.
So when you do a sales pitch, build the houseup.
So when you say what card you wanna put on yourclose, the rule is first one to talk loses.
(29:24):
That's the rule.
So if I would've said anything in that elevenminutes, I would've broken the whole house
down.
So eleven minutes and thirty seconds of deadsilence.
Wow.
That's a long time to not say anything.
It's a rule.
Playing ball.
Just waiting.
Waited a long time, but I don't think I'vewaited eleven seconds.
(29:44):
Eleven minutes.
Eleven minutes
and thirty seconds.
That's a long time.
That's that's that's yeah.
That's the rule.
The rule.
I call them laws because you don't you breakrules, but you don't break laws.
Right.
So it's a So
true.
So you break the law, break, you're going tojail, so you know not to break the law.
(30:05):
And he just sitting there, my manager whotaught me, he's like, and we just, and he was
like, eight minutes.
I had a clock on my desk, I would click, likewhen you play chess, and I'm sitting there
looking at it.
I, no sweat on my face, I was just sittingthere.
They were like, Brown got one.
Everybody's getting quiet, I'm just sittingthere like this.
Wow.
It's like incredible.
(30:25):
Nine minutes.
Don't play with the phone.
Because I knew the process so good.
I did my job so good.
I didn't have to worry about the back end.
I had my confidence level was extreme.
I did everything right in the first nine steps.
So I had nothing to worry about.
Just sat and waited.
And it came out.
And so what do you think that does to yourconfidence when you finally get that one?
(30:48):
You're like, this really, really works.
It does work.
Right.
So what advice would you give our audience onhow to build that kind of confidence?
I say sales is simple, but it's not easy.
It's
simple, but it's not easy.
To build the confidence, you have to have proofof concept.
(31:14):
You have to get out there and try it.
You know, it's like somebody riding a bike.
You can hold the seat for them a little while,and then after a while, you're gonna have to
let go and let them.
They might fall down.
They gotta, hey, you gotta get back on thebike.
You know?
And once they're able to do that, and itdoesn't matter their personality.
I've had people who had interest.
(31:35):
They say, oh, this guy could sell ice toEskimos, had that personality.
They came into our company because we turnedand burned salespeople all the time, and they
were like, I came here selling this, and it waslike, well, if you did so well, you wouldn't be
here.
And like, listen, this is a process.
If you can't stick to this, you're out of here,and they're like, oh, I can come in here and
sell.
And they'll last about a month because theydidn't adhere to the rules, the process.
(31:59):
They thought they knew it all, and they thoughttheir personality.
But there's some people that didn't have thepersonality of a piece of dirt that could just
listen to the process, and they did very well,right, because they stuck to it.
Other people try to put their personality ontop of it.
Right?
(32:19):
Because when you have that personality and thatego, you're not tracking what you're saying,
you're just going by with no process.
You don't know what mistakes you're making, andthose guys like that, they'll do well in the
beginning, but when you're tired at 3:00 in theafternoon and been doing it for five days
straight, you know, you're still relying onthat stuff.
You start skipping steps.
You start not remembering.
(32:40):
You start doing it.
And your sales start going down, and you can'ttrack what he's done wrong because he's just
winging it the whole time on personality.
There's no steps.
So when I listen to a recording, I can go inthere and say step number six, you're not doing
it.
Like, I can simply figure that out and we couldchange it so your stats don't go like this for
weeks at a time.
(33:00):
Cause as it's going down, you're blamingeverybody else.
Oh, it's bad leads.
It's not working.
This might not be for me.
Right.
Maybe I need to go back to shipping.
You know, this is commission only.
I gotta pay bills.
So good.
Right?
So what would be another teachable that youwould be able to give our audience?
(33:20):
The biggest thing is to save time in a step isasking for the sale before you present.
So in my book, the process is called set up thepresentation, which was one of the major steps
that I learned, is asking if I could, wouldyou?
What that means is before I present to you,before I waste my time, like you're selling a
car, they sit down with you and ask you allthese questions, right?
(33:43):
Then they go out and test drive the car, hopingthat the test drive will sell the car.
Well, a good salesman sells the car before hedoes the test drive.
So if he knows that if you're not gonna buy it,I'm not gonna go and test drive because I can
go to somebody else.
So it's only a certain amount of time you have.
So the question that I ask, and I can ask you,Katherine, who's more important?
(34:04):
The salesperson or the customer?
Who's more important?
The salesperson or the customer?
I mean, the customer's important.
No.
Yes.
But no.
The salesperson?
You would say the salesperson.
I have the solution.
Oh, I see what the question is.
I apologize.
Yes.
I see.
I
have the solution.
(34:25):
Have only if I have the cure for cancer and Iknow it, I can only get to so many people.
Right?
If you like it, what I tell people, I don'tmess with people if they don't like or love the
product.
Like it, love it, or leave it.
Right.
If you don't like it or love it, leave it.
Because you gotta feel like you're on a skywaybridge with a sign going, you need this product
(34:48):
now, like, it's gonna save your life.
That's the kind of enthusiasm you have to havefor your product to get through the hard times
that they're gonna put you through.
And so if you don't have any of that, if youdon't believe in the product, you know, it's
not gonna work.
It's not gonna work.
So when I talk to people, I'm like, do you likeor love the product?
And I can tell.
(35:09):
And I go, we're not gonna go there.
It's gonna be a waste of time.
Right.
You're going to flub your way through it.
You're going to give up and it's wasting mytime and wasting your time.
I know what it's like.
I've been in the trenches.
I know I've been on the phone.
I've been at the car dealerships out in theheat, you know, waiting for ups.
I've done all this, you know, it's not like Icome from theory.
(35:31):
I get guys that we go up against that just gotout of college the last couple of years talking
about sales.
I'm like, you never been in, like, in bootcamp.
You know what I'm saying?
So, you know, knowing coming from that, I cantell in the voice and how people carry
themselves.
It's a performance.
So you can't perform, it's not gonna work.
That's right.
That's right.
Awesome.
And if you wanted to leave our audience withanything, what would that be?
(35:55):
Anybody can sell.
They just have to learn the skill and the skillcould be done both ways.
It could be done through emotion or it could bedone through the process.
You choose that and if you could do either.
So everyone can sell.
Sales is around us all 24/7 with our phones allthe time.
So it's already around us and you're in arelationship with marriage, you're in sales.
(36:16):
That's why you get divorced, you stop selling.
Right?
So everything amounts around selling.
So people are like, I don't like sales.
Well, you're already in it.
You're in a capitalist society.
Everything is sales.
Inside your house, outside the house.
When you drive down the road, the billboards,the radio stations, the commercials, the cell
phone, the computers, the pop-ups, there usedto be the pop-ups, you know, go to YouTube, now
(36:39):
you go to Netflix, you got commercials.
You go to YouTube, you don't pay, you gotcommercials, you're inundated.
You're surrounded by it.
So you're already in it.
When you learn it, most of the time whathappens after about 45 days for somebody who
doesn't understand it, when I explain it tothem, it takes about 45 days and they come back
and they go, now I understand what you mean.
(37:00):
It's easier than I thought.
Yeah.
Because you'd never thought about it.
It's like being in the Matrix.
Now I know what sales is everywhere.
I'm like, yeah, you've been doing it on yourkids.
When they ask your dad, can we go there?
Let me ask you a question.
And you start selling theirs, either sellingyou or you selling them.
That's right.
That's right.
That's the truth.
And that's exactly right.
(37:22):
Sell them and be sold.
That's Grant Cardone right there too.
He talks about that being sold, selling, orbeing sold.
And, and that's why you have to be soldyourself.
Yep.
First.
First.
Confidence.
Confidence.
Yes.
Well, Ben, I just thank you so much for yourtime today.
And again, please tell our audience how toreach you.
(37:46):
They can go there and schedule a session orone-on-one and find out what the problem is.
Sounds great.
I want to thank you so much for your time, forall of your teachables, and for just helping
our audience to understand that sales literallyis a process, and you have to be sold yourself
first.
So thank you so much, Ben.
(38:06):
I really appreciate your time today.
And, this is Katherine, your host with TheBeyond Business Podcast.
Excited to have been with you here again foranother show.
Well, if you made it to this point, then youmade it to the end.
And you are my star.
And I just want to thank you from the bottom ofmy heart.
(38:27):
I hope that you enjoyed the conversation withtoday's guest.
And if you did, please leave us a review onApple Podcasts and Spotify and share this
episode with others who may be interested inthis topic.
Also, please feel free to let us know whattopics you'd like to see covered in future
episodes.
Get in touch in the comments or on RocketGrowth's social media platforms to have
(38:52):
conversations with me.
My booking link is in the comments.
See you next week for an all-new episode.
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