Transform Your FAKE Sales Process into a FREE Sales Process

Written by on September 5, 2016 / Archived Podcasts / Sales Strategy

In this episode, Dave talks about how to take your Frustrating Annoying Killing you Everyday sales process and transform it into a Fun Rewarding Easy and Engaging sales process.

Here is the transcript:

Hi there, everyone and welcome to another edition of this 60-second sales show. I am Dave Lorenzo, I’m your host and I’m the guy who helps you close more deals fast and helps you create lifelong relationships that not only add value to your clients, but also help you get home on time for dinner every single night.

Today, we are talking about how to transform your sales process from a fake sales process into a free sales process. That’s right, we’re going to take your sales process and transform it from being frustrating, annoying, and killing you each and every single day. That’s fake into a free process. Something that’s fun, rewarding, engaging, and educational. I’m Dave Lorenzo and this process was developed not only to help you, but I’m a convert of my own system. This process is something that developed out of necessity. This process is, there’s 5 real key elements to this process and there are 5 deadly sins, 5 mistakes I was making, and that’s why I develop this process to help myself.

My mission is to help transform your fake sales process just like my process was fake into a free sales process, 1 that you will embrace and enjoy every single day. Let me run down those 5 deadly sins that I was committing and hopefully help you transform your sales process from 1 that is frustrating, annoying, and killing you everyday into a 1 that is fun, rewarding, engaging, and educational. The first deadly sin that sales professionals make that entrepreneurs, that business leaders make, all the time is they give up control of the sales process, they give up control of the sales process, they’re like a sailboat on the ocean just drifting at the mercy of the tide.

You have the ability to control how much you make and when you make it, and you have the ability to control what you do with your life. Being able to sell, being a fantastic sales professional, being an entrepreneur who can sell, being a business leader who can help people for compensation because that’s what selling is it’s helping people for compensation, being able to do that gives you control of your life. I’ll tell you my story, I’ll tell you why this was so important to me in the hopes that will resonate with you.

For my entire career, I did things the way you’re doing them right now, I knocked on doors, I tried to help people. Most of them didn’t want the help I could provide. They give me knocking on a hundred doors and getting 99 no’s, but I lived for that 1 yes because I thought every time somebody rejects me I’m getting closer to a yes. My friends, that is a horrible way to go through life but that’s what I did. I did it really, really well. The first business that I built from scratch, from zero was a hotel, it was a startup and that hotel did $5 million a year an annual revenue by the time I was finished and I recruited our corporate accounts myself.

I was the general manager, I was on the road recruiting those accounts. The second business I built was a corporate housing brand for a large hospitality company. You may have heard of the Marriott Organization, I worked for them and I built their execu-stay brand in New York City, I took that from nothing to $50 million a year in 3 years and I did it by knocking on doors and convincing people to come and work with us. Imagine, 100 opportunities 99 no’s. I knocked down every door I could at a sales team of 12, they knocked down every door they could.

Then the third time I did this was a consulting company, the consulting company based in Manhattan did no business when I started, took them to over $200 million a year in annual revenue, knocked down doors the whole time and I’ll tell you my friends that is a painful way to go through life. Then 1 day something happened. I was at the mercy of my clients, always waiting, wanting, wondering when the next deal was going to come, then 1 day I was in my office and I’m sitting preparing a report for a big client, pharmaceutical company, waiting, waiting, waiting, for the phone to ring for my next sale. The phone rang and it was my client but it wasn’t about a sale.

My client saying that he needed to see me immediately with the results of this study that we had taken a year to produce, we weren’t supposed to deliver the results of this study to him for a number of weeks for 3 and a half weeks. However, he wanted the results now, I told him it would be difficult for me to pull this stuff together, it would be hard for me to get my team and come over at that moment. He said, “If you can get here in the next 2 and a half hours we’re going to pull our business.”

This was a $10 million year account. Guess what I did? I put on my jacket, tightened up my tie, grab the file, and went over with whatever I had even though it wasn’t ready. I walked out into the street on to 5th Avenue in New York City down toward his office I got 2 blocks for my office at the corner of 6th Avenue and 43rd Street. There were 30 people in the crosswalk, 29 of them were successfully able to avoid the taxi cab that hit me. The next thing I remember is I was lying flat on my back with no feeling from my arm pits down, looking up its ceiling tiles in the hallway of St. Vincent’s Hospital thinking to myself, if I had only had the courage of my conviction, if I only had control over my future, if I only had the ability to tell this client I just can’t over there.

Today give me 24 hours to prepare life would be different for me. I did what all of us would do, I did what anyone does when they’re in a situation like that I made a bargain with God. I said, if you get me out of this I promise I will make a change. I promise I will take back control of my career, I will take back control of my life, and I will never again be behold into the whim of a client. Well, as I’m happy to report, I was going to say as you can see but you can’t see me because this is radio, as I’m happy to report I am 100% healthy, I’m walking around, I’m moving, I have 2 beautiful children who I’ve fathered since that event. Everything works, and it’s important for me that you know that everything works.

I have fully recovered and I kept my bargain, I kept my end to that bargain. I changed everything from that point forward. I started my own business, I control my own destiny and I do not knock on doors to sell ever again. You don’t have too either. Our system the 60 second sale system puts you in control of the sales process and I’m going to tell you how that works. The second mistake, the second deadly sin that sales people make, that fake sales people make is that they are slow, the sales cycle is slow, the process is awful, and long sales cycles suck. I don’t want you to have to wait for your money, I don’t want you to have to wait to sell ever again.

Our systems beats it up and I’m going to show you how. We don’t knock on doors and we work fast, here’s how it works. We are invited in everywhere and I’m giving something a way there but we’ll get to that in a minute. You will go out as a sales professional as an entrepreneur, as a business leader and you’ll take the expertise you already have. Everyone’s in expert in something in your business you’re an expert and you’ll use that expertise to educate people. Once you go out and begin educating people, people view you differently they don’t think of you as a cold call pest banging on their door, they go to see you speak, they read the things that you write, they come up to you at networking events and they ask you questions and they tap into your expertise.

Once they realized that you’re this expert you’re magically transformed from an annoying intrusion into their day, into someone who has something a value for them. That makes it much quicker for people to do business with you, it shortens a sales cycle enormously. Here’s an example: 3 years ago I was invited to speak to a group of attorneys at the Litigation Counsel of America, this is the premier organization for attorneys who go to court. Like you see in lawn order, only not criminal court it’s civil cases. I’m invited to speak and they tell me that this is their complex commercial litigation institute, it is the top of the top employees in the field of litigation. They want me to come give a talk on how to sell when you’re a professional.

I said, I was happy to do that and they paid me very nicely to fly out to Las Vegas and spent 2 days with them, I gave a talk and then I did some 1 on 1 meeting with some of the attendees. As a result of giving that speech and all that speech was my friends was a promotional opportunity for me, it was an opportunity for me to connect with people and educate them on what I do, and demonstrating my expertise that was the opportunity I had. I gave them tremendous value, I gave them things they could take back to their offices immediately that would have an impact on their ability to make more money at the end of that 2-day period as I was going to the airport I had in my pocket over $200,000 in business commitments.

From a 2-day opportunity, the sales cycle in consulting is normally 18 months to 2 years. In 2 days I closed $200,000 worth of business simply by providing value and they invited me over to do it. We can do this with you as well. You don’t have to be slow. You don’t have to wait for the deal. The third deadly sin of selling is that you go out and you knock on doors of people who are not interested. We don’t do that fake sales people do it, free sales people are invited in. We sort our prospects by using education based marketing. We sort our prospects by using education based marketing. We provide value to everyone. The people who are interested raised their hand they invite us over, they invite us in to sell, we don’t have to knock on doors because we’re providing value to people.

They want us to help them and they’re there with their money in hand ready to give it to us. The fourth deadly sin is that fake sales people do not build relationships, they practice wham, bam, thank you ma’am sales, they are out throwing the bars like a casa nova looking for a 1 night stand. We don’t do that. We focus on long term relationships. I would rather educate you today and have you come back in 5 years with your money waiting to do business with me than make a quick deal now and never ever see you again. Why? Because we want a lifelong relationship because once, the most important thing our clients can give us is their trust.

The most important thing a client can give us is their trust and we will never ever take their money before they’ve given us their trust, because if they’ve given us their trust that means that we have the ability to provide them with value for the long term. If you think this does not apply to you let me give you some examples of industries where trust based selling our type of selling works. Private jets, how often do you think someone’s in the market for a private jet? I have a client who gets repeat business by selling private jets to fleet managers. Luxury automobiles, how often that someone buy a luxury automobile? Even if it’s every 3 years, or 5 years, or 10 years, and by the way that’s a same cycle as a private jet.

I have a client who gets 80% of his business as a repeat from repeat customers. If luxury jet sales can do it, if luxury automobiles can do it you can do it regardless of the industry you’re in. Wouldn’t it be great for you to make 80% of your customers repeat customers, so that you woke up and the first thing you thought about on January 1st of every year is, “I’m going to write down 80% of the number I did last year because I know those people are coming back.” That’s the fifth element. The fifth element is not only allows you to predict your income but you can also predict the increase that you’re going to get every year.

The fifth deadly sin is you never get to raise your rates because you’re always afraid that people are going to go away. In our system, you can command a fee premium because you’re an expert and you learn more with every client you deal with, and that additional knowledge allows you to provide additional value so you can command a fee premium, you don’t have to worry about price resistance because it goes away. When you’re a relationship based sales person, when you’re a trust based sales person you don’t have to worry about price. You wake up 80% of your business is already in the books and you know you can take a price increase any time because your expertise is that much more valuable with every passing day.

Once again, those 5 deadly sins, those 5 mistakes that fake sales people make, number 1 they have no control, number 2 they’re slow, the sales cycle takes too long, long sales cycle suck, we hate that. Number 3, they are out banging on doors they’re not invited in. Number 4, they don’t build relationships they’re in a wham bam thank you ma’am type sales opportunity or type sales mindset. We focus on relationships, 80% of your business comes from repeat clients. Then number 5, they can’t take a price increase, they are afraid of that price phone call, they’re afraid of being held hostage. You’d never have to worry about that in our system because you’re an expert, and your expertise grows each and every day.

If you’re a fake sales person and you’re out there right now and you want to become free, I need you to reach out to me and let me know you can reach out to me via email, that’s thelorenzo@dlorenzo.com. That’s thelorenzo@thelorenzo.com. Or you can hit me up on Twitter @thedavelorenzo@thedavelorenzo, Instagram, Facebook, same thing @thedavelorenzo, thedavelorenzo. I am the guy who helps you close lifelong relationships in 60 seconds or less and we’re here each and every single week.

All right, now, let’s open up the phone lines. Let’s reach out to a caller, I believe we have somebody on the line who wants to talks some sales. Nancy, who do we have out there?

Today we have Dustin, Dustin actually works in the music industry. He is an event coordinator and he wanted to talk to you today about how to amp up his business, how to get more people coming to his shows, and how to work a crowd.

All right, so Dustin welcome. Thanks for joining us on the 60-second sales show. How are you today?

I’m doing good. Thanks for having me.

All right, Dustin. Tell us a little bit about your job, tell us about what you do, and most importantly tell us why you do it? What gets you fired up to go to work every day?

I’m technically in 2 different jobs working with the same sort of thing, I’ve got 1 job where I am a booking agent for bands for our company. My second job is my own side project where I have, where I live right now I’m able to throw shows and I book my own bands and so on and so forth. Me, I get really passionate about music, I’m a musician myself, and learning the business behind, in creating a show has got me really fascinated and excited about things but I want to learn more. That’s where I am out right now.

That’s great, Dustin. You, you really do control your own destiny. You wake up every day knowing that no matter what you have the ability to take charge and make as much money as you want, right?

Absolutely. Totally.

All right …

I’m sorry to cut you off.

No.

There’s a couple little things involving that that I think I could work on and that’s why I’m giving the call, and yeah.

Tell us what’s on your mind, what do you need to change, what do you want to focus on, what do you want to improve in order that you can take charge of your business and your life?

All right, so first of all, the first job where I’m a booking agent, I have a lot of trouble, I shoot out a lot of emails to people and I pass their people back tack and I’m trying to set organization is 1 thing I need to practice, because I get emails from all over the place, I get the maybe’s, I get the no’s, and I need to figure out a best sort of system to keep myself in order. I’m always curious about how many times I should be sending out these emails to people. If I get a no, should I keep them coming? I’ve been told yes, I’ve been told no. What do you think?

I get it. Tell me a little bit about what are the email is all about? What do you sending out emails about? What’s your offer? What’s your pitch? Tell me what the emails are about?

I’ve got 2 clients and I’m in charge of booking world tours for them, and so I emailing and I’m in touch with lots of music venues and I’m trying to book these stores. There’s a certain order of things that I need to go through but right now I’m trying to find, I have a new clients that I need to get his first showed on figured out, but in order to do so I need somebody that’s going to be paying for his board and stay and his flight to wherever or so it is, and I would create the rest of his tour around that. I’m reaching out to a lot of music festivals. It’s been kind of a dead end in lots of places and I feel like maybe I’m expecting too much from that first call. That first gig. So that they have put, they have to fly them out.

Sure, absolutely. All right, so you’re out there now and you believe it’s 1 artist, or is it a band?

It’s just a single artist.

You believe in this artist, you like him and you think he provides a lot of value, correct?

Yes, totally.

Okay. What you’re telling me, by the way, Dustin, you’re doing everything exactly the way you should be doing if you want to be the cold call sales guy that I was describing in the beginning of our show today. You’re out there sending out emails instead of knocking on doors like I used to do all the time, you’re out there sending out these emails now and you really believe in what you have to offer, you know that this guy is good and I bet you’re thinking to yourself, and you tell me if I’m wrong, I bet you’re thinking to yourself, “If I could just get this guy in front of people they would be thrilled that they booked him.” Is that right?

Absolutely, he would sell himself, once they were able to experience it it would be a piece of cake.

All right. Couple of things, the first thing is that it’s going to be, I’m going to give it to you straight, Dustin, I’m not going to sugar coat it, it’s going to be really hard, I’m not going to say it’s impossible, it’s going to be really hard to pitch someone who provide such a visceral pleasure to people, it’s going to be really hard to pitch him over email because people can’t experience what you’ve experienced. They can’t get passionate about them because you really can’t convey that in an email. I’m not saying it’s impossible but if the odds of knocking on a door and selling a vacuum or 1 in a hundred the odds of you being successful with email selling an unknown artist like that probably 1 in 500 or 1 in a 1000, that’s just the straight scoop.

That’s a tricky thing about it. He’s not so much unknown but he’s more forgotten, he was really big 30 years ago. Nowadays it’s hard to get these festivals.

All right, but I’m going to tell you that can be something really great and the reason it can be really great is because if he was popular, even if it was 30 years ago those people aren’t dead, those people out there who really loved him at 1 point and there’s a bit of festival out there for everybody, right? I’m sure there’s a festival that caters to his type of music and there are people who would clamor to see him. I’m going to give you some thoughts on what you can do and it’s going to seem very odd because it’s not what you do. I want you to just give it a shot because if you give it a shot this could be the thing that could change everything for you and you don’t even have to get hit by a taxi.

What I’m going to tell you to do is I want you to take the expertise that you have, the expertise that you have Dustin is you know what it’s like to engage in audience because you have artists who engage in audience. Am I correct in that?

Absolutely.

I want you to start by putting together a report or a whitepaper on how to put on a festival that will engage your audience, get them to pay double what they normally would and have them come back year after year. That’s the paper I want you to write. You can put in there like 5 points for how to do exactly that, how to engage in audience, put on the festival that you can charge double for and we’ll keep your audience gladly coming back year after year. You can do a video it doesn’t have to be a paper necessarily it can also be a video or you can have someone interview you and do an audio program that you can send out. What we’re looking to do Dustin is we’re making you the expert on audience engagement. What you’re going to do is you’re going to offer promoters this report, this audio program, or this video for free in return for them giving you their contact information. You can do this, you can put it out on a website.

If you want to continue to do cold email selling, I’m not going to discourage you from doing that but your emails now will offer this free report. In my business I called this a honey pot, it’s an engagement device, you’re dangling it out there in front of them. Now, even the most grizzled promoter is going to say, “Who is this kid Dustin? He thinks he know something that I don’t know?” Then he’s going to read your report or he’s going to watch your video, especially if you’re an engaging guy a video would be great. He’s going to say, You know what? That third point that he said “I get it”, that guy knows what he’s talking about. After you send them this report, this video, this audio program you’re no longer selling something to them.

Now, you’re an expert on audience engagement. When you call them to follow up, you’re calling and you’re saying, “Hey, it’s Dustin. Just want to connect with you. I sent you my video on how to engage your audience, get them to pay double and keep them coming back year after year. What did you think? Did you like it? Do you have any questions for me?” The guy is going to say, “You know what Dustin, I really appreciate the fact that you sent that to me it was fantastic I’m going to use tip number 3.” Then you can say, “Great, glad you enjoyed it. And oh by the way, in case you ever need an artist I’m currently representing you’re going to give him the artist name and you’re going to say, man this guy absolutely blows the audience away, he’ll knock him on their asses, they’ll keep him coming back. If you ever need somebody like that let me know I’m happy to make them available to you.”

You see how the dynamic shifted there, Dustin?

Yeah, totally,

You’re no longer begging them to come in and pitch your guy. Now, you’re the expert they ask you for advice on how to engage an audience. Oh, by the way, I just happen to have this guy who fits the bill. You’ll go from 1 out of every 200t to everybody you get on the phone you have a 50/50 shot of getting your artist booked. I think this is something that I don’t think, I know this is something that transform my life the shift in mindset. Give it a shot, it’s something that will absolutely transform the way you’re going about what you’re doing, because you really are an expert in engagement of audiences. In audience engagement. I want you to leverage that expertise and your clients will benefit and that’s a very nice side benefit, by the way.

The side benefit is that, once you go through this with half a dozen artist or so, you’re going to get a reputation as the guy who people come to when they want great artist and then it will make it easier for you to attract artist and then you can really start to be selective as to who you, where you place them, and who you take on. Does that makes sense?

Yes, it does. Thank you.

All right, Dustin, thank you so much and thank you all for joining us. This is the 60-second sales show and Dave Lorenzo your host. I’m the guy who helps you close more deals faster, and I help you get home on time for dinner each and every single night. I want to thank our caller Dustin for a great question, and I also want to thank our producer Nancy Pop. You can find me Dave Lorenzo, right here at Davelorenzo.com, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @thedavelorenzo. Until next week. Just hoping you make a great living and live a great life.