Unlock the secrets to skyrocketing your sales skills as we sit down with Benjamin Brown, sales coach extraordinaire, who brings over two decades of experience to the table.
Benjamin's journey from salesman to master of the trade has culminated in a revolutionary 10-step sales framework that's boosting business revenues left and right.
Get ready to transform your sales language, ramp up your confidence, and learn why role-playing isn't just for actors.
This episode isn't just a talk; it's the key to unlocking a treasure trove of sales expertise, complete with advice on overcoming the fear of rejection—a priceless lesson for rookies and veterans alike.
Don't miss out on this goldmine of growth tactics—Benjamin and I are handing you the blueprint to sales success, no strings attached.
Remember, your next level of sales mastery is just a play button away!
Unlock the secrets to skyrocketing your sales skills as we sit down with Benjamin Brown, sales coach extraordinaire, who brings over two decades of experience to the table.
Benjamin's journey from salesman to master of the trade has culminated in a revolutionary 10-step sales framework that's boosting business revenues left and right.
Get ready to transform your sales language, ramp up your confidence, and learn why role-playing isn't just for actors.
This episode isn't just a talk; it's the key to unlocking a treasure trove of sales expertise, complete with advice on overcoming the fear of rejection—a priceless lesson for rookies and veterans alike.
Don't miss out on this goldmine of growth tactics—Benjamin and I are handing you the blueprint to sales success, no strings attached.
Remember, your next level of sales mastery is just a play button away!
What's up guys? This is Kaylee Johnson here with Digital Journey. If you're a person that's wanting to learn social media, maybe that's just for you personally, maybe it's for your business. This is the right place for you. Hey, everyone, today we are joined by Benjamin Brown. Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2:
Always glad, glad to be here.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so Benjamin is a sales expert, author and speaker. He's worked in sales for over 23 years and is the owner of 360 Sales Consulting, which is a company that specializes in boosting sales for businesses of any size and industry. So really really wide range there. So tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get into sales? How did you get into the place where you are today?
Speaker 2:
Well, basically, in the next couple of minutes I'm going to explain to you how simple sales can be and actually following a process and implementing and practicing it. You can make sales so simple, whether in your life or in your business, to convert and make more sales. So I got into sales basically by accident, in the gym business from being recruited, just like acting I tell a lot of analogies, how acting and dating is in sales. So people have to get it and understand what sales is all about. Sales is simple but it's not easy. So people always try to think about the hard part of sales, which actually is, and once you understand the nuance of it is, then you're able to understand how it works.
Speaker 2:
So, over the years working in various industries, working at different levels as far as management, team building, hiring for salespeople, I started about six years ago, started my consultancy firm, since I've had the vastness of experience putting together the 10-step process, which is every sale is based on 10 steps, and putting it together, and then started testing it in a pilot program. After about six months I found out that most of the people that qualified for the program or what I was doing, was generating normally between 20 to 60 percent more sales. It's because they had a great product, a great service, but they couldn't sell. So, kaylee, the thing is, the sales is a language, okay, so it's just like speaking Spanish. So most people are talking at people, explaining what they do, things that, but they're not selling. So what I have to explain to people what a sale actually is and once they understand that concept changes and a lot of people don't like sales just because mostly self-esteem reasons. People have very little self-esteem these days and can't take rejection.
Speaker 1:
Very true.
Speaker 2:
And that's part of the game. That's part of the game. And so being able to do that, very true, and that's part of the game. That's part of the game, and so being able to do that. 80% of sales is confidence 80%, wow. In the beginning, working with people, the first thing I normally have to do is work on their confidence and being able to understand that and realize that once they get confidence from me and working with me, the difference in me is that you work directly with me. It's not like it's a program or like you know. I have the book Master. Your Articles in Sales Gives you a Guide, but sales is a skill. How do you learn a skill?
Speaker 1:
You have to practice Right Right.
Speaker 2:
So that's why, people, you can never practice on clients so that's why, people, you can never practice on clients.
Speaker 1:
They'll never give you feedback very true.
Speaker 2:
So when you work with a sales or sales mentor, it's the role playing and figuring out what you're doing wrong on a regular basis, practicing that over and over again to build your confidence and that would increase your sales and also ability to even do outbound call, because most people just like the inbound. So I didn't grow up with that. I grew up with a black phone and a notebook back in the days. No computers, no laptops, no cell phones and just straight doing 180 dollars a day, and I did that for three years straight. So that was like camp.
Speaker 1:
So you started from the basics and moved on up to this point.
Speaker 2:
Yes, so you know, people know a lot of people are not willing to do outbound calls.
Speaker 1:
Right. Well, it's intimidating, you know. You look at it and you're like where do I start? You know, when I started my business, the thought of it was so overwhelming and you know you have to warm up to be like. You know, it's OK, People sometimes aren't going to answer, People are sometimes going to be rude, and that's OK, you know. But you need it, you need to keep going with it.
Speaker 2:
So the three things in sales you must do in a sale is that you got to know where you're going. You have to listen, you have to be confident. Now you have to know where you're going. You have to know what you're going to say. So anytime that you're bumbling your words, your confidence level drops and the client doesn't believe you. So these are the things that people have to do in the beginning.
Speaker 1:
So when we role play. You go through that and I'm analyzing exactly what you're doing. That's great, that's awesome. So you said confidence is one of the biggest things that you find. What's a tip you give someone if they're struggling with their confidence or their self-esteem and coming to oh, I just can't do sales? You know, some people are like I can't do it, I can't learn. What would you say to someone who presents themselves that way?
Speaker 2:
Okay, I'll give them an analogy. Do you have children? Are you around children?
Speaker 1:
Yes, yeah, I have a bunch of siblings.
Speaker 2:
Okay. So when they go around and they ask you to pick them up, pick them up, pick them up, pick them up, pick them up, pick them up. What is that?
Speaker 1:
Continuing to ask.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that up, pick them up. What is that continuing to ask? Yeah, that's a close.
Speaker 1:
We're all born to sell. You want milk, you want to get something you're selling.
Speaker 2:
When you go in the store, when you're dating, you're selling. Everything goes around selling right? So when people say I can't do it, you're doing it every day.
Speaker 1:
You just don't know there's transactions being made around you all the time.
Speaker 2:
It's just taking notes from that well, it's a little bit more complicated than that, but getting people to realize that you're already in the system. So what I do is wake you up in the matrix because, after working with me only for 30 days, people go oh, now I know what you're trying, now I get it. I'm like yes, it's all, it's around you the whole time, right, plus, people don't know. You can go into a store and you can negotiate, you can sell, get discounts on everything, because everything is actually a sale. We live in a Western civilization where we have to go earn it. If you don't have the money to pay for it, you leave it alone. No, but you can ask for it in other civilizations.
Speaker 2:
Third and fourth, you know third world countries, it's all about negotiation. But in America the only thing we negotiate is cars and houses, and people don't like to buy houses, I mean, and cars is just frustrating. But you're doing it on a regular basis. If you go to India, if you go to Israel, those cultures always negotiate. It doesn't matter what they're selling, it's part of their culture. They're always selling.
Speaker 1:
I'll tell you an interesting story. I grew up in Macedonia, third world country, right above Greece, and so I grew up bartering, you didn't necessarily have a place like Kroger or Walmart.
Speaker 1:
You would go to the market and that's how you would barter. Well, when I came back to America around five years old, I walked into Walmart, had something I wanted and I went up to the cashier and started bartering with them and my mom was like Kaylee, this is not how this works over here. You can't just go and be like, no, I'm not paying this price, give it to me for $1.10 cheaper. You know. So I think you know. And then when I go overseas now and go with people and I'm in the market, they grab me and they're like hey, you know how to burger, you know, will you come and get me this item 40% off? They know I'm a tourist and I'll be like sure, you know. And it's being confident and building those skills and building those skills and you know what you're doing, you've practiced enough. And it's the art of being able to walk away from a sale in order to say, no, I know what my product is worth, I know what my services work.
Speaker 2:
Because what happens is, I say, in the end you go to college, you go to school, you go start your, you go to work for someone, then you start your own business. In business, like Mark Cuban said, the first thing you need to learn how to do is sell. But the problem is your muscle has atrophied so many years from a child into an adulthood that your confidence level is done. So when you start your business, you're not even asking. You're worried about your website, your business cards, your marketing. How am I going to get the low-hanging fruit? How do I get people? Just click and buy like everyone else? No, so you have to learn how to actually sell and turn that back on, because your parents told you, like you said in the walmart, can't do that. But you actually can. You actually can. I was out hanging out this weekend and the guys with whitney and I was like went in stores and it was prices right there and we negotiated and got 30% off. You know that's awesome.
Speaker 2:
People just don't ask, they don't ask.
Speaker 1:
We do that. I do that sometimes when going into, like a Home Depot. If I'm trying to buy a refrigerator, I normally do it with bigger items and it's like, excuse me, there's a small scratch here. I want 10% off and, excuse me, there's a small scratch here, I want 10% off. And they look at you and they go, yeah, we can do that, you know. And it's like, yes, exactly. And it's again like you said, that confidence and if they say no, being like okay, and a lot of times, okay, come on back, come on back.
Speaker 2:
You know we can give you 10% off. You know because people want to make that sale. So that's why what I teach in a number of steps is 10 steps in every sale. But not every company or product needs those 10 steps, but it's 10 steps in there. So that's why, when I do the book, once you know the 10 steps, I'm able to customize it based upon your product.
Speaker 2:
It doesn't matter what it is, I don't care whether it's a Learjet, refrigerator toaster, it's the same thing, it's a process. So when people work with me that's been in sales for a number of years and they came from this background to this background they learn how to sell. I'm like no, simplify, Just same process. Just input the product or service into that.
Speaker 1:
Hmm, so would you say sales are the same for selling a product and a service, or are they different?
Speaker 2:
So what is the purpose of a sale? You were going to ask me that, right?
Speaker 1:
Right, yes.
Speaker 2:
So what do you think the purpose of a sale is?
Speaker 1:
To close the deal? No, okay.
Speaker 2:
Again, it's more simpler than that.
Speaker 1:
What would it be?
Speaker 2:
So the purpose of a sale is to get someone to move.
Speaker 1:
Hmm.
Speaker 2:
Click on this, go here, scroll here, give me your email, answer this question, call this number. All these little baby steps in a progression towards helping you with a product or service that you might want or need. If I turn that want, that need, into a want, it basically means it's going to sell, because people buy what they want, not what they need, true, true. So analyzing that, so being able to get someone to move, is the quintessential part of sales. So if not, then you're talking at someone You're just trying to close.
Speaker 1:
No one wants to be talked at. No one wants to be talked at.
Speaker 2:
No one wants to be talked at. So most of the time, if you don't know what you're doing, that's what you're doing. You're alienating yourself and your potential client if you don't know how to sell. So it's a number of baby steps in the process, 10-step process, that you go through. So in the end, when you learn how to sell properly, who's the?
Speaker 1:
most important person in the sales process? Is it the seller or is it the buyer? The buyer Really how?
Speaker 2:
so I have what you want, or? Need I have to figure out if you qualify to waste my time to get what I need to help you. I'm not trying to sell you. I'm trying to figure out because I have other people I can help. So I'm qualifying you most of the time to figure out if I can help you rather than trying to sell you.
Speaker 1:
That makes sense. Yeah, one thing we always do when we have a call at Digital Journey is you know, if you are not right for this program, we don't want you to pay for it. You know we have people. We want this to be since ours is also a group coaching company, you know we want it to be that you're going to be a right fit for this and that you're going to see results, because this isn't just about at least for Digital Journey this isn't just about making money for us. You know, money is great, it's needed, but we want to see changes in our customers and we want to see a good fit for them, so that makes it like they need to want the service.
Speaker 2:
Hence the bottom line getting more clients and referrals. Step number 10 the end of the sale is getting a referral, a testimonial. Yes, so I teach that because if you generate that on a regular basis, when I work with clients, I figure out, based on this system, what they're using and I figure out where the money's going to come to pay for me first, before I do anything. And what that means is by finding the money that you're missing that helps pay for your coach. So maybe nine times out of 10, I tell people you're not going to pay for me. You're next to a client.
Speaker 1:
Exactly yeah. And so many people that come through our program, you know, while they're in the program they're like, yeah, I've already made my money back double. And it's like exactly. So when you think about it, the course didn't cost you anything because it helped you so much, it propelled you on so much, so being able to say next customer is paying for it. I like that angle.
Speaker 2:
That's a good way to think of it. Absolutely, that's what it's about. If you look at network marketing, that's a sales system that works based purely on referrals and test referrals. Right, yes, market is just the next person that finds the next person and you pay a percentage of that person to refer you. That's all that is.
Speaker 1:
Well, and so much. Nowadays, especially when you get into online marketing and social media, it's just buy the product, buy the product, buy the product. And there's so many different products out there. You know you're not the only one in your field selling what you're offering.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
And so it's like what makes you stand out and referrals are one of those main ways. That's how I get. Most of my business is through referrals, because people want to be able to trust you. They want to be able to know if my friend has gotten the results. I can trust this person and my friend's not going to refer me to this person if they haven't gotten the results. So it's that trust building thing which is lost today in the digital landscape a lot of times. You know sales is being pushed so much and it's just my product's the best, my product's the best without any proof or reasoning why.
Speaker 2:
Because the ultimate thing of a sale is to help someone.
Speaker 1:
And most people are not helping. They selling telling, not selling exactly, and that's. That's a game changer. One thing I like to say is like authenticity is key, because people are going to be able to pick up and see are they trying to sell me a product just to make them money? Or, though, do they want to see me succeed? And if you're wanting to see the person succeed and grow, that's how you're going to get referrals, versus people thinking they're just trying to get my money. Why would I want you know, why would I want to refer my friend to them, when they're just going to try to take my friend's money?
Speaker 2:
well, the thing also is that people that can sell have a choice whether to use it for good or bad. Yes and so most people only identify the bad. They don't identify the good, and so that's why they have a negative connotation when it comes to sales. So most of the time when I work with individuals, I have to get that out of their mind as well.
Speaker 1:
Right. Get out the common stereotype between sales and put into what it could be.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. It's a beautiful thing when it's done right.
Speaker 1:
I love that. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I know I learned a lot and I know my listeners, especially, are going to really take into use some of the things you've taught us today. Where can we find you? Where can they reach out to you if they're wanting to hear more about your program? Where?
Speaker 2:
can they reach out to you if they're wanting to hear more about your program. Three ways they can do that. First of all is I made a link to make it easy for people to get in contact with. It's a URL. It's called Meet with Benjamin. You click on that. You can actually schedule a call for an assessment. My website is 360 Sales Consulting and the book's on Amazon. It's called Master the Art of Closing the Sale by Benjamin Brown on Amazon. But meetwithbenjamincom is basically a call to action where people can schedule a call, sit down and actually get an assess. So, Kaylee, based on everything, what was the two biggest?
Speaker 1:
things that you learned in the call to action, the two biggest things. So the first one would probably be the seller is the important one, because they have to need that and you know they need to find that aspect of that. And then you know outbound calls aren't done. You know, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in my industry that does outbound calls, and it's encouraging to hear other people are doing it too.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. You have to do that in order to sustain because what happens? Competition, all these things that are coming in the market. Most people don't start focusing on sales until something tragic happens yes they don't look at growth, they look at repairing something that was damaged. Exactly. That's when my phone rang is when they're on the downside. I knew we had to do something. Um when, if you knew how to do it from the beginning, it could be a whole lot easier.
Speaker 1:
Very true. Well, we'll link all of that stuff down below. So if you're driving, mowing the lawn, doing laundry, don't worry about stopping. Keep on going with that. We'll link it all down below, Benjamin. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. It was a pleasure to have you.
Speaker 2:
Awesome. You guys make sure you sign up up, click and subscribe and get the links in the digital journey with kaylee. Pull over on side the road and get it done.