Talking To The UK's Most Hated Sales Trainer | Benjamin Dennehy | Modern Wisdom Podcast 128

Benjamin Dennehy 0:00 Most people think selling is the gift of the gab, the ability to convince, uh, and the ability to get across complex ideas simplistically. Most salespeople are losers. They went into s- well, think it, no one's in sales out of choice. Most people at school when they were asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Uh, uh, maybe one in every 10,000 said a salesman. 99.9% of people in sales fell into it. They needed a job and they ended up in the sales, and they got stuck. And about three or four years in, they realized they had no transferrable skill. So then they just go from sales job to sales job. And what happens is, is most salesmen, when I ask the average MD, "Be honest, be really honest, do you have salesmen or do you have order takers?" And they scratch their head and they say, "I'd say I have order takers." 'Cause they work out that most of their sales come from existing customers who just give them orders. Most sales, yeah, they came to us, they needed what we had, and we were able to fulfill. So they placed orders. And when you break down the actual selling, which is finding people that didn't know they needed what you have and then enabling them to discover that you did. They go, "No, we don't do that." Now that's selling.

Chris Williamson 1:11 I'm joined by the UK's most hated sales trainer, Benjamin Dennehy. Benjamin, welcome to the show.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:18 Thanks for having me, Chris. It's, uh, it's an honor to be here.

Chris Williamson 1:20 Ah, no, we've got a mutual friend and past guest, Mike Winnet.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:24 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:24 You've been spending a bit of time with him recently, right?

Benjamin Dennehy 1:26 Yeah. Yeah, I did. I was up there last week actually, filming another episode together. Having fun. Yeah-

Chris Williamson 1:31 Yeah.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:32 ... he's cool. He's a good man.

Chris Williamson 1:33 He's great. So why, why are you hated? Why are you the UK's most hated sales trainer? Why?

Benjamin Dennehy 1:38 (laughs) I get asked that all the time. In fact, I gave a speech on it last Thursday to a room full of businessmen. Um, there's no international standard by which this is measured.

Chris Williamson 1:48 Have you got a mug? You must have a mug.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:50 I, uh, not, no, not on me. Actually, I do have a mug. It's, uh-

Chris Williamson 1:53 Okay. You know, like, when someone gets an "It's number one dad" mug.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:56 And it's like, "Oh, you got this, the awarding body for the number one dad."

Benjamin Dennehy 1:59 I have. I can get it for you seeing as we're, we're at mobile and I'm, I'm in a hotel room, for anyone that wonders why it looks all weird, 'cause I'm up in London on business.

Chris Williamson 2:08 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 2:08 But yes (laughs) . So product placement.

Chris Williamson 2:11 Nice. UK's most hated sales trainer mug, link in bio.

Benjamin Dennehy 2:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:15 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 2:16 (laughs) So, um, I created it. Um, I created the character. Uh, I was given some advice by a very ... by a man who created his own brand. Uh, have you ever heard of Brad Burton?

Chris Williamson 2:32 No.

Benjamin Dennehy 2:33 He's the UK's number one motivational speaker. And I asked him how did he become, uh, number one? And he said, "Read my book page 26." So I read his book page 26 and he said, "I made it up."

Chris Williamson 2:45 (laughs) And he got you by the book. What a bastard.

Benjamin Dennehy 2:48 Uh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:49 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 2:49 And I thought, "Well, that's quite genius." And basically the rule to I guess. I'm not, I'm not a marketeer, never trained in it, never studied it, but it's not hard to realize that the easiest way to get known is to create a message and just keep hammering it. Like, let's get Brexit done. That was a classic, you know? Or take back control. Simple message, just push it out over and over again. So I created the UK's most hated sales trainer by, um, first of all what did nobody want to be? And I looked at LinkedIn and everyone's number one, the best leader, professional guru, Jedi, all self aggrandizing BS.

Chris Williamson 3:26 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 3:26 Well, I thought what does no one want to be? You know, no one wants to be hated. And so I thought, well, I'll go, I'll go with the UK's most ... And then I thought, it makes no sense. And I thought, well, that's what makes it genius. It makes no ... Why would you be hated?

Chris Williamson 3:38 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 3:39 And then it gave me carte blanche to just be myself, which is naturally quite blunt and direct.

Chris Williamson 3:44 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 3:45 So that worked well. And the weirdest thing was standing up in a meeting and introducing myself-

Chris Williamson 3:52 I am ...

Benjamin Dennehy 3:53 ... as you, the UK's most hated s- And people would look at you and say, "What the hell is this guy? What? Why are you hated?" No reason, I just, you know, just ... Yeah. So it was weird.

Chris Williamson 4:02 It's an open loop. It's definitely an open loop.

Benjamin Dennehy 4:04 But it's grown into something quite, well, bigger than I thought it would get. And people constantly say it's a great brand. "It's amazing what you've come up with. It's just brilliant. How did you think of it?" And it literally is. I just create a space and own

Benjamin Dennehy 4:18 it.

Chris Williamson 4:18 I like it. Well, and niching down's something that a lot of people in business will get advised to do, right? And I mean, if you create your own market, you are by v- by virtue you are the market leader.

Benjamin Dennehy 4:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 4:28 I mean, I think back to Mike's, the UK's number one de-motivational speaker.

Benjamin Dennehy 4:33 (laughs) Yeah.

Chris Williamson 4:35 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 4:35 Exactly. Yeah. I mean, who, who, who possibly could come into my world and say, "No, I'm more hated"? I mean ...

Chris Williamson 4:43 Yeah, exactly.

Benjamin Dennehy 4:43 Stupid.

Chris Williamson 4:44 You think you're hated?

Benjamin Dennehy 4:45 You can't do it. Yeah. No, I'm more hated. It's like, it's not a competition, you know? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 4:50 That's great.

Benjamin Dennehy 4:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 4:52 So before we get

Chris Williamson 4:53 into it-

Benjamin Dennehy 4:53 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 4:54 ... I know, I know that this is what you spoke about with Mike. And if Mike puts that episode up, uh, before this one goes, uh, the link to, um, the particular episode I'm talking about will be in the show notes below for anyone who's interested. But Wolf of Wall Street, real Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort and Grant Cardone did a podcast together about, it was actually three months ago now. I don't know how it slipped through my, s- slipped through my little web of internet stuff. But for anyone who hasn't seen it ... Well, actually you've, you've seen it, right?

Benjamin Dennehy 5:20 Well, I, me and Mike Winnet did a Gogglebox and we filmed us watching it and commenting on it.

Chris Williamson 5:26 Amazing.

Benjamin Dennehy 5:27 And I, we, uh, we didn't watch the whole thing so I've, I must have watched maybe a third of it.

Chris Williamson 5:30 Oh yeah.

Benjamin Dennehy 5:30 But what I saw, it was an interesting dynamic between these two.

Chris Williamson 5:33 How would you, how would you describe it for people who haven't heard it?

Benjamin Dennehy 5:37 Um, it's two very, uh, uh, uh, uh, I'd say ego men, uh, put together in a room. Um, and obviously Jordan has set this up, so you just notice in the cameraing and the lighting he looks much better, you know?

Chris Williamson 5:53 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 5:53 They're all rigged from the, the, the, the start against poor old Grant. Uh, Grant is on the back foot, I would say, throughout most of the interview. Uh, and I think largely because when you actually ask him specific questions-... he can never give an actual answer. He's a lot like a politician, you know. There's no substance behind what he's saying and he gets caught out very, very easily. And obviously, Jordan is doing this on purpose, and Jordan's obviously a smart guy, and so he's ju- he's just setting the guy up to look stupid. And I think that was the whole point behind it for Jordan.

Chris Williamson 6:28 I think

Chris Williamson 6:29 so as well.

Benjamin Dennehy 6:29 Because-

Chris Williamson 6:29 I mean-

Benjamin Dennehy 6:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:30 ... I'm about to say, for the people who haven't seen it, Jordan Belfort is verbally incredibly articulate and very agile.

Benjamin Dennehy 6:37 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 6:38 And he's, he's a, he's a quick thinker, whereas Grant appears to have a party line. He does sound like a politician. He's got that-

Benjamin Dennehy 6:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 6:45 ... "This is, this is what he said before." And every so often it looks like, it looks like Jordan Belfort's skipping down the road, and Grant every so often trips over his own feet and finds something he can rely on to say and then keeps-

Benjamin Dennehy 6:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:58 ... on drilling that. And you are right, I mean, in every internet review of that, uh, exchange, Grant comes out as a real, a, a sort of a, a real charlatan, I think, a real bad guy.

Benjamin Dennehy 7:10 He does. He, he, 'cause he's used to the... I think our Nick Mightn't Mightn't win it, Mightn't Win It, refers to him as a studio salesman.

Chris Williamson 7:17 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 7:17 As in he's a showman. And he gets up and he's used to talking to audiences. And when you're in an audience that can't ask questions back or challenge you and they just absorb what you're saying, you remove that into the real world with a guy that knows what he's talking about and is quite shrewd, and he just fires questions at you. Just like Andrew Neil does with the politicians here in England when, you know-

Chris Williamson 7:38 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 7:39 ... he rips you apart because they don't have any, any specific detail or, you know. And that's what happened to him. So I think-

Chris Williamson 7:44 But when, when you're up on stage, you're always going to be an authority, right?

Benjamin Dennehy 7:48 Mm-hmm. Exactly. But when you're reduced to just you and a guy that knows more about you and has got the questions-

Chris Williamson 7:54 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 7:54 Yeah, it's tough. And Jordan did it on purpose. He, he set him up. It was a bit cruel,

Benjamin Dennehy 7:59 but-

Chris Williamson 7:59 Yeah, a little bit, yeah, and then there's been some after beef and stuff like that. And during the middle of it, Grant Cardone's saying like, "We should do a, a MMA fight and a-"

Benjamin Dennehy 8:08 A charity fight. Yeah, you can see his ego's getting bruised and he's there.

Chris Williamson 8:10 Oh, man. It's such, like, alpha posturing. Yeah, I, I really... Anyway-

Benjamin Dennehy 8:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:15 ... for the people that are more interested, uh, link will be to that podcast plus when it finally goes up yours and Mike's Gogglebox episode, which I can't wait for.

Benjamin Dennehy 8:23 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 8:23 Um, that will be linked in the show notes below, so you should totally go check it out once you've finished listening to this. So we're go- we're talking about sales today, right?

Benjamin Dennehy 8:29 Mm-hmm, yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:29 That's the, the, uh, currency that you traffic in-

Benjamin Dennehy 8:32 Yes.

Chris Williamson 8:32 ... the sludge and the mud and the feces and the blood and all that.

Benjamin Dennehy 8:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:35 The hay bales and stuff.

Benjamin Dennehy 8:37 Snow, yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:37 So let's, let's start absolute basics.

Benjamin Dennehy 8:41 Okay.

Chris Williamson 8:41 What makes a good salesperson?

Benjamin Dennehy 8:44 Ooh (laughs) . Uh, it's like what makes anybody a professional. Uh, and a professional is someone who's mastered the basics, has consistent habit and behavior and belief. So it's all the unsexy stuff actually. Um, a golfer, Tiger Woods is good because, A, he probably... he had some natural aptitude. Let, let's not fault that. But he spent his life practicing how to make every swing work, getting in the right mindset. Every stroke is planned, prepared, choreographed, mapped out. He knows what's going. And every shot he's in, he's present. He's not thinking about the last shot, he's not thinking about the next shot. He's in total control. That is a professional, just like a top lawyer or a top surgeon. They're in total control and they've done that cut a thousand times. They've asked that question a thousand times, and they just know how, when, and where to deliver it and where to cut. And so it looks like you're... you've got an amazing talent.

Chris Williamson 9:47 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 9:47 It's like, "Yeah, I do, but do you know how many times I've done this?" And, and that is it. It's, it's, it's, it's learning to follow a process and get good at it. And that's all I got good at doing. I just read books and started doing stuff that people said you should do to get good at it, rather than just read them like most people do and then stick it on your shelf and take, "You just need to think better." "All right, I'll be more positive today."

Chris Williamson 10:09 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 10:09 "That'll make me rich." Ah, it's bollocks.

Chris Williamson 10:12 Difficult to repeat, difficult to scale those things.

Benjamin Dennehy 10:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:15 So what are, what are those characteristics? What are the, what are the, what are the strategies or the, the particular approaches that someone should have? They've got a, a approach to sales, as you've said. What, what are the things they should be drilling every day?

Benjamin Dennehy 10:28 Well, prospecting. Every business sinks or swims on your ability to generate leads. And I hate the word leads, but basically, uh, I want to talk to decision makers in my target market that may or may not have problems I can fix. Now, I don't know if they have problems I can fix until I phone them and ask them. Now, I've chosen them because statistically, they fall into a category of person that should. Doesn't mean they will. So my job is to consistently be speaking to people that may need what I have, diagnosing if they do, and if they do, we figure out how we move forwards or we figure out they do need me but they can't afford me, or we figure out they do need me but they, uh, can't make a decision or the decision's not there. So it's all about prospecting, is the... And prospecting bizarrely isn't selling. It's a different word, prospecting.

Chris Williamson 11:19 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 11:20 It's a skill set in and of itself. Getting in front of people is a skill, then once you're there, you begin the sales process. And to me, selling is all about disqualifying, not qualifying. It's the exact opposite. And why do I say that? Well, put it this way, there are more reasons for a person not to work with me than there are t- to work with

Benjamin Dennehy 11:39 me. So I'm gonna-

Chris Williamson 11:39 Yeah, there's only, there's only a couple of reasons to work with you, but there's an entire-

Benjamin Dennehy 11:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 11:42 ... universe of reasons to tell you to fuck off.

Benjamin Dennehy 11:44 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 11:44 Yeah.

Benjamin Dennehy 11:45 So I'm gonna figure out all the reasons why you can't work with me and have you argue with me over why I'm wrong and that's not a reason why we can't. And when I go through that process, it's completely reversed from what most salespeople are used to do. It works because the prospect does all the work. They're the ones arguing with me that, "No, no, no, no, no, we don't want to try outsourcing our prospecting. We don't want to hire new people. We don't want to fire people. We don't want to increase our prices." They rule out all the alternatives and then what's left is me.

Chris Williamson 12:14 ... your product.

Benjamin Dennehy 12:15 My product and me. So, yeah, there are many ways to fix a sales problem. You don't need a sales trainer. Put your prices up. It's easy.

Chris Williamson 12:24 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 12:25 But our salesmen can't sell at that level. Right, so you can't put your prices up. Uh, fire your crappy salesmen. "We don't wanna fire 'em, we're nice people." You say, or there are many alternatives. And my job is to get them to rule out all of them. So what they're left with-

Chris Williamson 12:38 (laughs) So for you.

Benjamin Dennehy 12:40 ... is me. And some people drop out on the way. I tell people, "I'm the nuclear option. I'm the last person you should

Benjamin Dennehy 12:48 get in."

Chris Williamson 12:48 You're the final-

Benjamin Dennehy 12:49 That's why-

Chris Williamson 12:49 ... the final button, you gotta have both the keys, turn them at the same time-

Benjamin Dennehy 12:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 12:53 ... presidential order.

Benjamin Dennehy 12:54 Turn your key. Exactly. And if you're not ready to turn your key, don't get me in.

Chris Williamson 12:58 (laughs) Do you have many, um, salespeople, so I can only imagine what it might be like with you going in to an established sales floor. You've got this quite brash gut ...

Benjamin Dennehy 13:15 Oh.

Chris Williamson 13:16 Got you back, mate. That's fine.

Benjamin Dennehy 13:17 Right.

Chris Williamson 13:17 It's a pre-record anyway. Where are we? Two 11:50.

Benjamin Dennehy 13:21 Yeah. Here, there.

Chris Williamson 13:21 There we go. Um, I can imagine when you go onto a sales floor, let's say that a company does decide to bring you in.

Benjamin Dennehy 13:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:29 What's the atmosphere like? Because again, I've, I've spent my total career of, of being an adult, I've spent about nine, nine months in sales for a particular insurance company, uh, doing outbound warm sales. But during that time, even my small exposure there, a lot of posturing, a lot of like, sort of the, the Grant Cardones of this world, right? The-

Benjamin Dennehy 13:50 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 13:50 ... the alpha male go-get-it environment. So what happens when you step in and you start-

Benjamin Dennehy 13:55 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 13:55 ... saying ... Well, I mean, what do you say to people first?

Benjamin Dennehy 13:58 It's funny, uh, the first time I walk into a building, I get this look of disdain. Um-

Chris Williamson 14:04 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 14:04 ... people see me and, I mean, I'm o- I'm what? 42? Uh, slightly overweight. Uh, I have long hair. I wear a cap. I wear braces. Uh, I look a bit of a moron. Uh, and I walk in and I get this look, and I get this look all the time. It's this look of, "What? This guy."

Chris Williamson 14:23 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 14:24 "Whatever." And that's, and when I see that, inside my head, I think, "Come on."

Chris Williamson 14:31 Got you.

Benjamin Dennehy 14:32 Yeah. And so I'm used to people giving me a look of contempt, which is the look I'm looking for, because it means part of their defense wall starts to drop. So when I first get into a room, um, and I, I won't mention the company 'cause I'm working with them, but I got put in a room full of a lot of, you'd say, alpha males, uh, in a very, very, very tough sales sort of environment. There I am, and I'm sitting in this room, 8:00 in the morning, uh, e- I couldn't even figure out how to turn the lights on. Uh-

Chris Williamson 15:01 Hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 15:01 ... and I'm waiting for these people to come up for the training. And their CEO had hired me and hadn't told them that I was coming in. He basically just put in their calendar "training". Uh, and so they start to trickle up one by one, and one of them recognizes me eventually. He says, "No, I recognize you. You're, you're the guy from the YouTube video." I go, "Yeah." He goes, "Oh. No, no one told us you were coming in." But anyways, I get 15 guys in the room, all alpha males, and then there's me. And you could tell they all looked bored. They didn't want to be there.

Chris Williamson 15:32 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 15:32 They were off their phones. Uh, five hours later though, after the first session, I walked out with, uh, an- another ongoing order with the guy singing my praises saying, "It's unbelievable." And I, I, I only recently learned that, uh, the CEO had put a plant in the training 'cause they've built a very successful business off the back of telephone prospecting.

Chris Williamson 15:54 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 15:54 And basically his brief was, is, "We're really good. This guy cannot be as good as what we are. So find the holes, find out what ... just find the flaws."

Chris Williamson 16:05 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 16:06 And that guy became the biggest champion. (laughs) You see?

Chris Williamson 16:09 Amazing.

Benjamin Dennehy 16:10 Uh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 16:10 It's like the ultimate ... What is it? S- is it Stockholm Syndrome?

Benjamin Dennehy 16:13 Stockholm s- yeah. Well, that's with hostages. So they were hostages-

Chris Williamson 16:16 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 16:16 ... and they kept me bonded. We bonded. Uh, and so that is quite common, 'cause people look at me ... And again, it's all choreographed. I do ... Everything I do is deliberate. And so I want people to think that. I want people to think, "This guy can't sell." I want these thing- people to think, "This guy looks a bit of a ... Well, what the hell would I learn from this guy?" Because what happens is, is their expectations are, are, are set, that when I challenge them and get them to realize that I know more about their problem in a very non-aggressive, non-ego-driven way, they start to move. And yeah. And that's, that's why I like it. I love walking into a room and getting that look of disdain, 'cause then I think, "Got one." 'Cause if they're all happy to see me, then I know I'm screwed.

Chris Williamson 17:01 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 17:01 Couldn't be happy

Benjamin Dennehy 17:02 to see me.

Chris Williamson 17:02 Yeah. I bet. So we've talked about what you think makes a good salesperson, that is someone who drills the basics, who has a f- a framework-

Benjamin Dennehy 17:10 A framework.

Chris Williamson 17:10 ... that they stick to, they follow it.

Benjamin Dennehy 17:12 Consistent. Consistency.

Chris Williamson 17:14 Cool.

Benjamin Dennehy 17:15 And prospects every day, a little bit often. I'm not talking seven hours straight, but consistent prospecting. Yeah. Very important.

Chris Williamson 17:23 Cool. Okay. So that's what makes a good salesperson. So what are the common things you see that make a bad salesperson? Because from my experience, I've, I know a number of people that are in all sorts of sales, from normal telesales on bottom-end consumer products, B2B, B2C, IT stuff, recruitment, uh, and there's some guys and girls who are in those positions, and I think you've got that job because you're a bit extroverted, you're a gobshite-

Benjamin Dennehy 17:51 Yep.

Chris Williamson 17:52 ... and you've managed to fall into a position that it looks like you have the simulacrum of competence. What you have is l- sort of loudness and brashness.

Benjamin Dennehy 18:02 Yeah. That's very common. So, uh, yeah, most people think selling is the gift of the gab, the ability to convince, uh, and the ability to, uh, get across complex ideas simplistically. Uh, most salespeople ...... people hate this, but I say it 'cause I, I am one, so I can say it. Most salespeople are losers. Um, they went in to sa- well, think, no one's in sales out of choice.

Benjamin Dennehy 18:29 No one-

Chris Williamson 18:29 It is kind of like l- last, last ditch, isn't it? It's like the, the job that is always going to be available, even when the, the cockroaches-

Benjamin Dennehy 18:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:36 ... are the only thing that's left on this planet after nuclear war-

Benjamin Dennehy 18:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:39 ... there's still gonna be a job for a salesperson.

Benjamin Dennehy 18:41 Exactly. So most people at school, when they were asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Uh, th- maybe 1 in every 10,000 said a salesman.

Chris Williamson 18:50 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 18:50 Yeah. So for those who watch this, who wanted to be a salesman at school, don't write me and say, "Well, I wanted it." I get it. 1 in 10,000. But 99.9% of people in sales fell into it. They needed a job, and they ended up in sales, and they got stuck. In about three or four years, then they realized they had no transferable skill. So then they just go from sales job to sales job. And what happens is, is most salesmen, when I ask the average MD, "Be honest. Be really honest. Do you have salesmen or do you have order-takers?" And they scratch their head and they say, "I'd say I have order-takers." 'Cause they work out that most of their sales come from existing customers who just give them orders. Yeah. Most sales, "Yeah, they came to us. They needed what we had, and we were able to fulfill." So they placed orders. And when you break down the actual selling, which is finding people that didn't know they needed what you have and then enabling them to discover that you did, they go, "No, we don't do that." Now, that's selling. And then I ask them to close their eyes and listen to them on the phone. And I say, "Do you hear grown-ups or do you hear a little wimp kid or do you hear an angry kid?" And they say, "I hear children."

Chris Williamson 20:02 (laughs) what do you mean?

Benjamin Dennehy 20:04 If you listen to the average salesperson on the phone, they're very needy, beggy, and pleady. "Uh, sorry to disturb you. Is now a good time?" That's a losery thing to say.

Chris Williamson 20:15 Yeah?

Benjamin Dennehy 20:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:16 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 20:16 You've just interrupted a busy person and y- your first thing to do is apologize for wasting their time.

Chris Williamson 20:21 (laughs) Before you've even wasted their time.

Benjamin Dennehy 20:23 Yeah. And it's like, "Well, you sound like a bit of a loser." So, uh, yeah. So, a- and you hear them begging people, and then they start arguing with people. So imagine being a doctor who specializes in the flu, and you phone people up and you say, "Uh, people typically have an appointment with me because they have a running nose, they, uh, they're feeling lethargic, uh, and they got a sore throat." And the guy says, "I don't have any of those." You go, "Well, yes, you should."

Chris Williamson 20:47 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 20:49 This is what salespeople are like, right?

Chris Williamson 20:51 Yeah.

Benjamin Dennehy 20:51 And they argue with prospects a- and because they're so in... and, uh, because they said, "Well, you must, you must have these problems, and we're phoning you 'cause we know you're a company that should." That's true, but maybe not right now. Just like everyone will get the flu at some point, it doesn't mean the moment you call them, they recognize it.

Chris Williamson 21:09 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 21:10 And, and so when you listen to them on the phone, they're very needy, very beggy, very pleady, very, um, subservient. Uh, they're scared to ask a question, and they spend most of their time doing the talking, 'cause all a prospect has to do is fire one question in, "So what is it that you do?" And then they vomit on them.

Chris Williamson 21:28 (laughs) So,

Chris Williamson 21:31 let's, let's sort of linger on this point for a second.

Benjamin Dennehy 21:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:34 What, what is the power dynamic that you want to have? Is it the complete reverse of that? Is it halfway between the two? Is it-

Benjamin Dennehy 21:39 Parity. So I spent my life phoning MDs and CEOs. I have to sound and act like an MD or a CEO 'cause they, that people buy people like them. It's not people buy people... If people bought people, there would be no sales problems, would there? So-

Chris Williamson 21:56 You sign the most likable person that you can, put them on the phones, and then they'd sell everything.

Benjamin Dennehy 22:00 Not likable. Like them. So a guy in a Hawaiian shirt will sell to a guy in a Hawaiian shirt.

Chris Williamson 22:06 Okay.

Benjamin Dennehy 22:06 A guy in a Hawaiian shirt talking to the guy in the pin-striped suit, it ain't going far very quickly 'cause they're two different characters.

Chris Williamson 22:14 Yeah.

Benjamin Dennehy 22:14 One will talk one way, the other, the other, so they don't, they're not like each other. So when you phone up an MD or a CEO, you have to sound and act like one. And what do they sound like? They're short, sharp, clipped, authoritative, and direct. If you don't sound like that when you get through to me, I instantly hear, "Oh, I'm so sorry to disturb you. Uh, l- l- let me just have 30 seconds to introduce my company." I think loser.

Chris Williamson 22:39 So what's the alternative? What's your approach?

Benjamin Dennehy 22:41 My approach is just blunt. I say, "Look, I'll be upfront. This is a sales call, so you can either hang up or let me have 30 seconds. What do you wanna do?" Force them to make a choice. And most say, "Oh, go on then. What's it about?" I go, "Well, look, if you don't like it, we can end it at 30 seconds. Fair? Fine." And then I talk about what I fix very authoritatively. And if you ask me a question, "Well, what is it that you do, Benjamin?" "Well, I fix problems like this. You're gonna tell me that doesn't interest you, right?"

Chris Williamson 23:09 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 23:10 "Uh, well, no, no, no. No, well, how do you f- oh, how do I fix it?" "Well, uh, I'll be upfront with you, sir. That's what you're gonna pay me a lot of money to figure out, right? If I tell you that now, you won't need me."

Chris Williamson 23:21 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 23:21 And they go, "Well, no, no, that's fair." "So my question is, do you recognize these problems in your world?" "Yeah." "Okay, so a few more questions before I agree to meet with you."

Chris Williamson 23:32 Power's shifted and, um-

Benjamin Dennehy 23:33 It's all about, "I'm in control. I know that if you have problems I can fix, you should be grateful I phoned you."

Chris Williamson 23:42 It's

Chris Williamson 23:43 a great way to put it. Another thing as well that, that I've got in my head is that if there are any salespeople that are listening, you are ringing people and speaking to your prospects or your leads, whatever the terminology that you prefer is. You're speaking to them every day. This is, for you, common trodden ground. Whereas, like, even me, who has had the same phone number since he was, like, 14, so I'm on, I'm on, I'm on, like, a bunch of different, like, cold call lists and all the rest of it, even for me, I only get one a week, maybe, or maybe one every two weeks.

Benjamin Dennehy 24:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:15 So for me, this isn't, this isn't my environment.This isn't where I'm supposed to feel comfortable. It's you. You're supposed to take charge. Don't get on the bus and then there's no bus driver there and they go, "Oh, yeah, you've got to drive it yourself." Or get into the, the operating theater and they go, "Well, right, there you go. There's the sutures and there's the, the scalpel and you better open yourself up," and bla, bla.

Benjamin Dennehy 24:34 Yeah. No, you gotta be in control. I know what I fix and I'm damn good at it. So the question is, do you have problems? And I need you to feel and believe, "Maybe this guy's got something. He certainly sounds like he knows what he's talking about." And that's not blagging, and that's not, not, not gift of the gabbing, and it's not the crap you see on The Apprentice and all that.

Chris Williamson 24:51 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 24:51 You know? In the real world, that doesn't work. You can badger someone into buying from you. Don't get me wrong, but these are the people that then phone up a few days later and said, "Actually, I've changed my mind." That's, there's nothing successful about ... It's almost like a lawyer winning trials and then the jury comes out and say, "Actually, we changed our mind and we, we don't go along with that. Actually, you were wrong." So yeah, I mean, that can't happen. It's a bit flippant.

Chris Williamson 25:13 Yeah.

Benjamin Dennehy 25:13 But that's what I'm getting at.

Chris Williamson 25:14 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 25:15 Um, and so it's not hard to steal money from people. It's not hard to lie to people. I mean, all of these can be done. Just 'cause someone gives you money doesn't make you a salesman. Yeah? A salesman. I mean, just 'cause you represent yourself in court a couple of times doesn't make you a lawyer. Yeah?

Chris Williamson 25:31 Yeah. (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 25:32 Just 'cause you pull a splinter out of your foot doesn't make you a surgeon. Yeah? So you can do things and maybe have some success, but it doesn't make you a professional at it, 'cause a professional has consistent outcomes and they're more interested in how they get to where they're going as opposed to whether or not they get there. That is the key thing. I don't care if someone buys from me. What I care about is how I got to the point where they made the decision they weren't gonna buy from me, 'cause if they should have bought from me and they've decided not to, it means I've done something wrong, which means I can fix it.

Chris Williamson 26:04 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 26:04 Whereas if we get all the way and they buy, I can say I know exactly why they bought, as opposed to, "I think it's 'cause they liked us."

Chris Williamson 26:12 Yeah. You were saying to Mike that you, you're able to walk backward through your particular sales pitch to most people-

Benjamin Dennehy 26:19 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 26:19 ... every w- every which way, dissect it however it needs to be dissected. Here's the inflection point. Here's the question point, et cetera.

Benjamin Dennehy 26:25 Yes. If somebody, if I was to ask the average salesman, "Talk me through your last sales call," backwards.

Chris Williamson 26:33 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 26:33 And they'd, they'd, uh, they'd struggle and I'd say, "Well, this is it. Uh, I gave him one last reason, uh, uh, uh, not to meet with me. We then, uh, before that we agreed what would happen by the end of that meeting. Uh, before that I asked him to invite me in. Before that I finished on a series of six questions which are designed to move from intellect to emotion. Before that I got permission to ask those questions. Before that, uh, I asked him did any of the three pains that I suggested relate to him. Before that I did my, uh, uh, 30-second pain commercial. Before that I did a patent interrupt to get permission to do the 30-second ... Before that I thought to myself, before I picked up the phone, this guy's lucky I'm calling him."

Chris Williamson 27:16 That's awesome.

Benjamin Dennehy 27:17 Yeah?

Chris Williamson 27:17 That is, that is, yeah.

Benjamin Dennehy 27:18 Yeah. And that process, its structure, and every call I make goes the same way. It never changes.

Chris Williamson 27:25 Well, again with that, so there'll be some online marketers listening. Yousef and Johnny, two co-hosts of the show, will be listening as well, and they, they traffic in d- Grant Cardone's world, right? They-

Benjamin Dennehy 27:34 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 27:34 ... traffic in the world of, of click funnels and of, of online marketing, and they actually now coach coaches online to start their own FitPro businesses. But they want the, they bizarrely actually want the same thing as you. So Johnny always says to me that the single most painful sale that he can make is one where someone's typed in the URL of his website and then gone through the process from there, because he has no idea where that person's come from. Did they see an advert online?

Benjamin Dennehy 28:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:03 Did they once watch a, a, an, a, a, what is it, a blog post that's then been expanded out into an article and they've seen somewhere? Was it a referral? Was it a podcast? Was it a this? He's like, "I need to be able to track what's happened so that I can then dissect it, scale it, retarget, do all that stuff." And what you're talking about here, it sounds like, is the, uh, verbal equivalent of that, right?

Benjamin Dennehy 28:26 Yes. Well-

Chris Williamson 28:26 You want to be able to-

Benjamin Dennehy 28:27 Process and structure. Uh, uh, selling and, and, and on the phone and face to face is the art of human communication. It's a communication skill, which means you have to have a structure to that communication in order to des- which is designed to move a prospect from a point to a point. And at any, m- at any point along that journey, they can exit it if it's not right for either of us. But if we get through it to the end, we're gonna work together. And so I'm not really a sales trainer. I just teach people how to communicate and I give them a structure, how to ask questions, how to nurture, how not to ask questions, how when t- knowing when to struggle, the art of deliberately struggling, the art of getting things wrong on purpose. So my job is to teach what a rookie did out of ignorance, a professional does on purpose, but deliberately.

Chris Williamson 29:19 And then we can scale, then we can replicate.

Benjamin Dennehy 29:20 And we can scale and we can replicate. And yeah, that, that's why I like it. It's theater.

Chris Williamson 29:27 Yeah. It definitely is. Um, so I wanted to move up a level now.

Benjamin Dennehy 29:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:31 And I wanted to, there will be a number of people I know that are listening because I'm gonna send it to them once we're done-

Benjamin Dennehy 29:38 Sure.

Chris Williamson 29:38 ... um, who are either managers, coaches or CEOs, team leaders within businesses that are doing sales. And I know that all of them have ... There's, there's a real, a real unique atmosphere between a, a, a m- team leader, coach, m- manager, whatever it might be, and CEO and, and the guys on the sales floor. And I think it's a very, a very unique dynamic between them. I wondered what you typically see in terms of good and bad, um, uh, strengths and weaknesses when you do see this relationship when you go into businesses.

Benjamin Dennehy 30:12 Well, often sales managers are good salespeople that got promoted. Uh, and the problem with that is-... sales management skills are different from being able to sell. So what happens is you often lose a good salesman but get a shitty manager.

Chris Williamson 30:26 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 30:26 So ... So that, that, that, that's quite a lot. Uh, a lot of times, uh, CEOs and, and business owners, they've slightly lost touch with their sales team because they've extricated themselves from the sales, but they know how to do sales. And so most, most MDs and CEOs I get in front of, they often say to me, "You know what, Benjo? I just wish my guys were like me when I set up this business. I was out there bang, bang, bang." And I say, "Look, that's why you own the business and they work for it, 'cause if they were genuinely like that, do you think they'd be here working for you?"

Chris Williamson 30:59 Yup.

Benjamin Dennehy 30:59 Well, no they wouldn't.

Chris Williamson 31:01 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 31:02 No. No. We have to appreciate that most of the ... and the good ones. So what we need to do is find the ones that we can invest in. Uh, coaching is about the getting best out of. So a sales manager has two roles: hire the best people to get the best out of them. That's it. One of the biggest problems is that most sales managers in most companies have their own styles targets.

Chris Williamson 31:22 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 31:23 So the problem is you've got actually now ... Where do you think they're going to spend most of their energy and effort? In hitting their sales target. So they spend more time focusing on the thing they shouldn't be focused on. So a sales manager should not have a sales target. He should be targeted on what all his guys do, so his job is to get the best out of them, to monitor their minimum behaviors, to hold people accountable, to challenge them and ask questions, not to accept excuses. You know? And they accept excuses left, right, and center. Don't accept excuses. They need to give their people structure so that they can f- hold them to it.

Chris Williamson 32:01 Yeah.

Benjamin Dennehy 32:01 The bigger problem with salespeople is we like to leave them to their own devices, and that's what salesmen love. It's a, it's a badge of honor. "Ah, I don't need a process. I'm all right with this. I, you know, I've done a million of these meetings. I just go in there people by people. They like me, and I'm good at presenting." It's like imagine asking your lawyer, "Why are you so good?" He goes, "Ah, I don't know."

Chris Williamson 32:24 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 32:25 "I do these things all the time, and I, I, I think juries just naturally warm to me."

Chris Williamson 32:31 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 32:31 It'd be like, "What the f- ... I'm not hiring you." And a- and he g- you ask a professional, he goes, "I'll tell you why. It's because I do this at every single time. This I challenge. I challenge this, this, this, this. I know where I'm going. I have this right." Same with a surgeon, "Why do your patients not die?" "Ah, I don't know."

Chris Williamson 32:49 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 32:49 "Just luck, I guess."

Chris Williamson 32:51 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 32:53 Uh, you know, salesmen love that, you know, 'cause you ... And then you ask the average salesman, "Why did we win that order?" And they say, "I don't know. Doesn't matter. We've won." And it's like, "Well of course it fucking matters 'cause if we know why-"

Chris Williamson 33:06 You wanna do it again.

Benjamin Dennehy 33:07 "... we can repeat it."

Chris Williamson 33:09 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 33:09 "No, no, no, no. Don't worry about that." And then when they lose, it's never their fault. "Ah, wrong topic."

Chris Williamson 33:14 "Oh, they didn't want it. They weren't right."

Benjamin Dennehy 33:16 "Dividing."

Chris Williamson 33:16 "They weren't this, they weren't that."

Benjamin Dennehy 33:17 "Bloody Brexit." Whatever. It's like-

Chris Williamson 33:19 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 33:19 "... it could be you." "No, no, it's not me 'cause I sold last week." Oh, for fuck's sake.

Chris Williamson 33:24 With your unscalable and repeatable sales process.

Benjamin Dennehy 33:27 Exactly. There's nothing, nothing about that that's good. That will only get you so far. And don't, don't get me wrong. You can make a lot of money doing it that way, and, and most, most salesmen do. But it's very frustrating, and it doesn't improve you as an individual or give you better skills.

Chris Williamson 33:43 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 33:44 Uh, and, and I, I think ... I, I'm in this just to get better at what I do. The money comes. It's a byproduct of doing something well. And successful people tell you that. Money is never the end goal. It happens to be a byproduct of doing something

Benjamin Dennehy 33:57 well.

Chris Williamson 33:58 I agree. So two things. I've got two doors to Hell open in my mind at the moment.

Benjamin Dennehy 34:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:01 The first one is if you don't promote the people that are good at selling to be the people who lead the sellers, why do the people that are sellers respect their team leader if they haven't come up through the selling process? Let's say that we have some alternative arrangement whereby it's not the best seller who's been there for a while that then becomes team leader. We get someone in who's a particularly good manager, but maybe not amazing at selling, or else you just have them as a salesperson, right?

Benjamin Dennehy 34:29 Mm.

Chris Williamson 34:30 What's the solution to that there? Because you need to have that respect from the guys on the floor.

Benjamin Dennehy 34:35 This is true. Um, that's a good question. Learning management skills, uh, I've just said it there, it is a skill which can be learned.

Chris Williamson 34:46 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 34:46 So you need to invest in upskilling people and reminding you're no longer a salesman now, and the key thing that you need to focus on is getting the best out of your people. So if you ask, and this is would, would be a good test, is you need to ask your top salesman who you want to promote, "Why are you such a good salesman? What is it that you do? Can you, can you distill it? Can you, can you systemize it? Are you able to repeat it? Or is it," what most salesmen say, "it's just I just have unique b- just my ability. It's just, just what I do." It's like, no, you see, if you can't distill that yourself, you're never gonna be able to pass it on.

Chris Williamson 35:23 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 35:24 You need ... So you need to do some academic understanding of why you're good at what you do. So a lawyer can become a law lecturer. You know? And most lawyers have been lecturers, or most lecturers have been lawyers at some point in practice and law, 'cause they can do what they teach. But they also understand why what they do works.

Chris Williamson 35:44 Mm.

Benjamin Dennehy 35:44 So that is, that, I think, is fundamentally lacking, 'cause if you, if you every- if you ask the average salesperson, it doesn't matter how many years they've been in sales, "Why do people buy? What's the process a human being goes through to buy?" Most people look at me blankly, and they don't know. Yeah, but tell-

Chris Williamson 36:03 Surely that's, that's the, that is the thing. That's the answer, that every salesperson-

Benjamin Dennehy 36:07 Why do people buy? What are ... Yeah, what, what's the process they go through? And they look at you, and most people then have some idea. They say, "Well, they, uh, they buy out of need." No. Uh, well yeah, they do. No, no, no. Well, I know, but that, that's, that's not the answer. What is the process they go through? Well, how does a human being buy? And they look at you blankly, and they, "I don't know." And then they go, "Well, they buy emotionally." You go, "Yeah, uh-uh, we're getting there. And what else?"I don't, I don't know. So you've been in sales for five years and you don't know this? That'd be like asking a lawyer who's been practicing for five years, "How does the High Court work?" He goes, "I don't know."

Chris Williamson 36:48 "I just-

Benjamin Dennehy 36:49 You know."

Chris Williamson 36:49 ... I just turn up there and sometimes-

Benjamin Dennehy 36:50 You know."

Chris Williamson 36:50 ... sometimes I win a case."

Benjamin Dennehy 36:52 "I think the guy in the wig at the top makes the decisions. I don't know."

Chris Williamson 36:57 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 36:58 Uh, you know, and, and so it's... If you don't understand the basics, and this is it, because people don't believe selling is a profession or a, or actually a skill. They call themselves professionals, and they say selling's a skill. But when you ask them, "Can you quantify and tell me why you're good at what you do?" They look at you blankly and say, "I don't really know." Well then, what

Benjamin Dennehy 37:17 the hell are you on about?

Chris Williamson 37:18 I suppose as well, that, that means that the worst person that you could promote from salesperson to team leader would be the naturally talented person who's maybe not too self-analytical and has a passion for sales.

Benjamin Dennehy 37:32 Yes.

Chris Williamson 37:32 Because you've muted their passion for the one thing that they-

Benjamin Dennehy 37:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:35 ... enjoy doing, and they have absolutely no idea why they have success at that particular thing.

Benjamin Dennehy 37:40 Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 37:42 (laughs) Conversely, I, I'm gonna guess probably why a lot of team leaders will be made team leaders, "He, you know, he's just so passionate about sales."

Benjamin Dennehy 37:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:49 "And he's just got, he's got a natural gift." It's like, yeah, fucking leave him there.

Benjamin Dennehy 37:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:52 Like, don't, don't (laughs) take him out of that role.

Benjamin Dennehy 37:54 Well, this is it. But we live in a world which constantly bangs on about, you know, uh, uh, work on your weaknesses. The school system is terrible for that. So you remember at school, you get your school report, and it would say, "He does really well in math, does all right in English, but his geography, he needs to try harder." And it's like, "Why?"

Chris Williamson 38:14 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 38:14 "The hell is he gonna do with geography?" What they should say is, "He's bloody good at math, and he should really spend more time doing math."

Benjamin Dennehy 38:22 Yeah?

Chris Williamson 38:23 It is interesting the fact that we, we go from this sort of, um, shallow and broad to narrow and deep.

Benjamin Dennehy 38:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 38:30 And, you know, anyone who's read James Clear's Atomic Habits from this year knows that you cannot be the best in your field at everything. You need to pick your battle, and you need to try and win it over and over and over and over and over again.

Benjamin Dennehy 38:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 38:42 And there is, there's some point, there's some like weird age, it's like 18 and a half or something, and you hit 18 and a half and everyone on the planet is like, "Right, we don't care about how broad your skill set is. We just want you to be brilliant at one thing."

Benjamin Dennehy 38:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 38:58 And that it's all about how good you are at that one thing. But you're right. Before that, it's... You, you do, you need to cover this incredibly broad range of subjects. You don't, you've got, you haven't got a statistical brain or you just love sport, you know, these guys that love, love sport throughout school and are forced to study all that time. You think, "Well, how much better could I be if I was playing sports throughout school?"

Benjamin Dennehy 39:17 Yeah. That's it. So don't work on your weaknesses. You work on your strengths, and you find someone who has strengths and your weaknesses and you buddy up. That's how businesses work. You know? This is why the MD and the FD are so different. One's good with numbers, one's not good.

Chris Williamson 39:33 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 39:33 One wants to spend money. One's job is to stop them spending money. One's blue sky thinker, one's a bean counter. But they complement each other, and that's how they work. And it's just like, you know, marriage opposite. You see, you see, it's how did she get with him? It's one of those things, you know? But it's 'cause they're so different to each other that they, they complement each other with their different personality traits. You know? You always get a really thin guy with a large woman or, you know, (laughs) it's odd.

Chris Williamson 40:00 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 40:01 Opposites. They, they, they, they do... And, and, and that's, that's what it's like. And so find out what you're good at and just get good at doing it. Don't, don't worry about trying to be a jack-of-all-trades.

Chris Williamson 40:12 Got you. So that was the first door to hell. Second door to hell, we'll close this one now-

Benjamin Dennehy 40:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:15 ... is if there is a problem with the process, is that not the issue with the company rather than with the salesperson? Should the company not have either more stringent, uh, sales processes that people need to go through? Like...

Benjamin Dennehy 40:32 Well, most salespeople, most companies confuse sales process for the structure they follow. Uh, and by that, when you say, "What's your sales process?" They go, "Well, we have a first meeting, then we do a proposal, uh, then we'll go to pitch, uh, and then we'll win, and then we'll map out." That's their stuff, but that's not a sales process. That's a structure you seem to get trapped into every time you meet a prospect. No, I'm saying when you get in front of a prospect, what's the game plan? When you walk in there, do you know how you're going to move that person from intellect to emotion, then back to intellect? 'Cause that's how they're gonna buy. 'Cause first of all, it's gonna be all intellectual. They're not gonna tell you the truth or open up to you. So what's your game plan for getting the CEO of that company to open up to you about the real reason why you're sitting in front of them? "Uh, well, we just tend to go on and talk about what we do." Yeah. Okay. So that's not really a process. Uh, selling is a communications. I need to get a human being. I know he buys emotionally. So how do I get that guy emotionally to open up to me about why I'm there? Very hard to do if you don't know how to do it. It's not coming to vomit features and benefit. So it's... Is it a company's fault? Yes, 'cause most companies don't know how to sell. Most companies sell all... And, and, and I, again, when, when people see what I teach, I point out that most... The buyer has created a system whereby they're always in control, and every now and then they let salesmen win.

Chris Williamson 42:03 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Benjamin Dennehy 42:04 And most salespeople don't realize it, and they think they're selling, but what they're really doing is taking an order 'cause the buyer has... "Actually, I already decided I wanted to work with you guys. I've just put you through your paces, but I was always gonna buy." They'll, they'll never tell you this. They'll give you some cock-and-bull story about how, "Oh, you know, we just felt there was a fit," and blah, blah, blah. But no, "I, I knew from the very beginning we were gonna work with you, but I didn't tell you that." So most buyers are, you know, they, they, they, they are willing... They're, they're ready to place an order, and most salespeople go and they do the dog and pony show, give the intellectual justification to the prospects, says, "All right, I'm in."And they think, "Fuck, we're good."

Chris Williamson 42:45 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 42:47 No. They'd already decided to buy before you got there. You just gave the intellectual justification for them to exercise their emotional decision. "No, no, no, no, no. It was down to me." Say, "Oh, fine."

Chris Williamson 42:58 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 42:59 So why did you lose that other deal where you did exactly the same thing? "Ah, well, you know, it's just wrong timing."

Chris Williamson 43:04 So you've, you've, you've touched on the question I wanted to ask, and I don't know whether this is the one what the, uh ... I'm gonna have to crowdsource a lot of people to pay you money for, but why do people buy? Why does a customer buy?

Benjamin Dennehy 43:15 Well, again, people buy emotionally, justify intellectually. So in order for someone to give you money, they have to feel it. So think about this. Um, the toothpaste you have in your bathroom. You've either got a tube or a pump.

Chris Williamson 43:32 Tube.

Benjamin Dennehy 43:33 You got a tube. I got a pump. Why? Ever thought about it? Why do you like the pump?

Chris Williamson 43:40 No. I don't think, I don't think I like the pump. I, I think-

Benjamin Dennehy 43:41 There you go. "I don't like the pump." Utterly irrational.

Chris Williamson 43:45 (laughs) Yeah. Right?

Benjamin Dennehy 43:46 It's an emotional thing. Yeah. Every morning, you brush your teeth and the last thing you wanna do is be bitching about the device which dispenses your toothpaste. So you buy toothpaste emotionally. It's bec- ... I buy the pump 'cause I love the pump.

Chris Williamson 44:01 Which, which, which by the way, is the least emotional product that I can think of.

Benjamin Dennehy 44:04 Yeah. But it's emotionally driven. I hate mint, so I buy plain. I don't like the stripes 'cause I hate stripes, so I get the other one. You know? And it's ... All of it is irrational. But when you're in the supermarket making a decision, you buy the one that makes you feel the best. So every purchase is emotionally driven. So British Telecom knows that to get you to pick up the phone, right, and call your mom on, uh, this weekend and pay no more than 1p for the whole call, uh, i- is intellectually dry. How do you get people to act on that? You can't. So they, they, they hire an advertising agency and they create an advert. And in this advert is a little old lady. She's sitting in a chair. The camera slowly pans around. She's got a bun in her hair. She's knitting away and it's very soft focus. And then the voice just says, "Have you talked to your mother lately?" And you think, "Fuck."

Chris Williamson 44:54 No. (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 44:56 They hook you with guilt. That's a feeling. And then they say, "Oh, by the way, call her this weekend and pay no more than 1p." So every advert is designed to hook you emotionally, to get you engaged with it. Selling is the same. When you get in front of the CEO or the buyer of whatever your product is and they say, "We're very interested in your new software," you don't talk about the software. It's like, "Well, why do you need the software?" "Because we're having problems." "Well, how big are the problems? What have you done to fix it? What's the impact on the busi- ... How does it make you feel knowing that all this is happening?" And you'd soon discover they're buying not because they care about you or your product, but, "If you can fix this for me, you're gonna take away a lot of grief in my life. That's what I want the software for." It's got nothing to do with the, the, the certification or the, the widgets or anything like that. It's, "If it can fix this, if it can get my boss off my back who every bloody Monday is bitching at me, I will pay double."

Chris Williamson 45:55 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 45:57 Yeah? So that's the business we're in. So people buy emotionally and they justify intellectually. Our job as a salesman is to find out what is the compelling emotional reason. "Why do you need to do this, sir? And if you don't, how does that make you feel?" And if the answer is, "I don't really care. It doesn't bother me," they're never gonna spend money.

Chris Williamson 46:16 Mm.

Benjamin Dennehy 46:17 They go to what you-

Chris Williamson 46:17 That was a poi- ... That, that was a point there, um, that Grant and Jordan had a real back and forth about.

Benjamin Dennehy 46:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 46:24 I think Jo- Jordan Belfort was adamant there are buyers and there are non-buyers. Grant Cardone was, there are only buyers. Everybody wants to buy something. And his argument was, "I need a wide enough product range so that when I need to speak someone, speak to someone, they can buy anything." Uh, which was then framed by Jordan in a really unethical, (laughs) unethical way that made Grant look like a complete dick.

Benjamin Dennehy 46:44 Yeah. Fish, wasn't it?

Chris Williamson 46:46 Yeah. Fish.

Benjamin Dennehy 46:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 46:47 What if they're not buying fish? Well, they are. Well, no. No, they're ... No, Grant, they are not buying fish. This person has said they don't want fi- ... Well, they are. (sighs) And that was it for two and a half hours.

Benjamin Dennehy 46:57 Yeah. So (sighs) yeah. Exactly. I mean, uh, Jordan is, is right, but it goes back to I ... That's why I prefer the doctor analogy 'cause it's more accurate. Everybody at some point is gonna get the flu. And everybody at some point therefore is gonna have symptoms that indicate they may have the flu. So my job is to look for people that have the symptoms, because actually some flu symptoms are also flu symptoms that could be cancer. So it turns out when I get there and I diagnose, it's actually you don't need a flu specialist, you need an oncologist, and I don't sell oncology services.

Chris Williamson 47:30 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 47:30 So what happens is just because someone has symptoms of a problem you can fix, doesn't Jor- ... Uh, I, I think, uh, Grant's approach is, "If someone has a symptom, I'll give them a product. If I'm an oncologist, I'll sell them a cancer solution."

Chris Williamson 47:42 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin Dennehy 47:43 Whereas w- I ca- I can see the point to that, but then you are the jack of all, master of none. Uh, whereas Jordan is saying, well, no, some people will need what you have at a particular moment in time and others won't. The guy doesn't want fish, he ain't gonna buy fish, but in three weeks he may want fish.

Chris Williamson 47:59 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 48:00 You know?

Chris Williamson 48:00 So you need to be top of the list of people to call when the fish-

Benjamin Dennehy 48:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:04 ... hung- hunger strikes.

Benjamin Dennehy 48:06 I ... Yeah. This is why we develop prospecting profiles. Our profile, our ideal prospect is a company in this sector turning over this, who probably buys this sort of equipment. So that's my profile. But I don't know at any given point in time when that particular prospect in that profile will need what I have. That's why I prospect. So I'm talking to them, and at some point, they say, (fingers snapping) "You called at the right time, Benjamin. I do have all of those issues. I didn't six weeks ago when you called."

Chris Williamson 48:38 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 48:39 This is why you phone someone up and they say, "Ah, we've literally just bought that solution."The, "Oh, you should've called earlier." "Well, I've been trying. I've been calling you for years." "Well, well, that's the way it works." You gotta call at the time when they have symptoms. If they don't have symptoms, they're not gonna talk, simple as that. It's very easy selling. And that's why, uh, that's why salespeople are so frustrated, 'cause they spend their whole life trying to argue with people why they should be buying from them. As soon as someone says no, I do one last question, fire out one thing to see if they, if it's a real no or if it's a fake no-

Chris Williamson 49:13 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 49:13 ... and then I'll move on to the next prospect. And that's exactly what Jordan says. I'd rather talk to the person who's likely to say yes than have an argument with the guy who's told me no-

Chris Williamson 49:23 Hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 49:23 ... in the hope that I can browbeat him into saying yes. That's not selling.

Chris Williamson 49:27 I imagine as well... So my, my brief stint doing, uh, upsells to an existing, uh, motoring product, uh, up here in Newcastle, um, I struggled to remove myself from being emotionally invested-

Benjamin Dennehy 49:43 Ah.

Chris Williamson 49:43 ... in the outcome of the sale. So I would... If I had a good day, I would feel good. If I had a bad day, I would feel bad.

Benjamin Dennehy 49:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:51 I'm gonna guess that's pretty common.

Benjamin Dennehy 49:52 Uh, very common. Um, you've gotta separate your role from your identity. So y- y- y- a salesman is a role. It's just a function that you perform. You're a salesman when you go into the office. When you walk out, you're, you're a, a, a... I don't know if you're married or have kids, but you're a father, a brother, a husband, a son. Those are also roles. And so what people do is they allow role bleed. So you, you all- you allow your behavior and your role to bleed into how you see yourself as a human being, as a person. So I had a shit day as a salesman, ergo, I'm probably a pretty crap person, so I feel bad about myself. Whereas you gotta actually know. Do you think your lawyer bursts into tears at the end of a trial 'cause he loses? He-

Chris Williamson 50:42 Well, I, I hope not.

Benjamin Dennehy 50:43 No. He takes off his wig. He goes, "Well, you know, you win some, you lose some. We did everything right. We always knew it was gonna be tough. We always said the outcome could go either way. It went the way we didn't wanna go. That's the way it rolls." I'm not a shitty person 'cause I didn't win. I don't feel bad. I haven't had a bad day at the office. I may be slightly annoyed 'cause I had, I did wanna win. But when I look at everything we did, we did everything right. So what's the problem?

Chris Williamson 51:10 That's a... That's

Chris Williamson 51:11 impossible 'cause that comes back to controllables versus uncontrollables, right?

Benjamin Dennehy 51:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:15 You can't, you can't control whether or not that person is ready to buy at that time.

Benjamin Dennehy 51:19 No.

Chris Williamson 51:19 If they're not ready to buy at that time, you are never ever going to sell to them.

Benjamin Dennehy 51:23 All you control is everything up to the point they have to put their hand in their wallet, which is a lot.

Chris Williamson 51:31 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 51:32 Yeah?

Chris Williamson 51:33 Yeah.

Benjamin Dennehy 51:34 And my job is to get them to the point that they wanna stick their hand into their wallet.

Chris Williamson 51:38 Yeah.

Benjamin Dennehy 51:38 If I've got to the point and it comes to them sticking their hand into their wallet and they're not willingly put it in there, I've screwed up earlier on. I should've got out earlier. So that's why it comes down to how you disqualify.

Chris Williamson 51:49 Do you ever find yourself listening... I don't know whether you've got some special agreement with UK-wide sales companies where they, they do not get your number. But I don't know whether you ever receive cold calls or whether you receive sales calls.

Benjamin Dennehy 52:02 Oh, I do. Oh, yeah. I do.

Chris Williamson 52:03 Do you, do you, do you find yourself, uh, allowing them-

Benjamin Dennehy 52:06 Buying the role.

Chris Williamson 52:06 ... by playing the role of a customer just to sort of listen to them and assess? Do you ever, do you ever use it as a little case study for yourself?

Benjamin Dennehy 52:13 Well-

Chris Williamson 52:13 Or could it be you're just fucking sick of sales and you just, you, you wanna get off it?

Benjamin Dennehy 52:16 Uh, I listen to them and I humor them 'cause I behave like a prospect, 'cause I count fail at being a prospect, so I can behave how I like. But this is a true story. I, um, I think it was last year. No, uh, the year before. The year before. Oh, no, last year. It was last year. Anyway, anyway, last year. So, um, I, I was making some prospecting calls and my signal kept cutting in and out, and on two calls talking to a managing director, the phone line just pissed off. So I was annoyed. So anyway, that afternoon, uh, uh, my phone rang and I answered it and it was some guy selling telecoms.

Chris Williamson 52:51 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 52:51 Now, normally you tell them to, you know, "F off. I'm not interested." But I, I, I, I said, "No, no. No, no, I'll hear you out." And the guy was all right. He asked some good questions and I quite liked what he was doing. And I said, "Do you know what?" I said, "I'm in. Let's do it." And he goes, "Really? You, you, you want..." I said, "Yeah." He goes, "Okay, um, well, moving forward." I go, "Can I ask you a question, though, before we move on?" I said, "Do you know why I'm buying from you?" And he said, "Well, yeah, because, um, you were saying..." Well, he goes, "We're giving you an extra 10 megs of data. You're gonna... Unlimited." All of this ISIS, it's got none of that. He goes, "Uh..." I said, "I tell you what. This morning, two calls of mine screwed up. I'm pissed off at O2. I have no idea if you're gonna provide a better service. At this point, I don't care. All I know is, is that they're not gonna be getting my money from today. I'm buying out of spite and out of frustration."

Chris Williamson 53:50 (laughs) Just vengeful.

Benjamin Dennehy 53:51 It's got nothing-

Chris Williamson 53:52 Vengeful purchase.

Benjamin Dennehy 53:53 I say, "I don't need 10 megs. I've never used 10 megs in a month in my life, and you offered me a discount before I even asked. I'm gonna take it, but you were too quick." I said, "You're giving me a great deal, but it's none of that is why I'm changing. I only listened to you 'cause I was pissed off. I was emotionally annoyed. You got me at the right time."

Chris Williamson 54:14 And then justified it intellectually with the-

Benjamin Dennehy 54:15 And then intellectually he gave me the reason. "All right, fine. I'm in. Let's do it." Yeah?

Chris Williamson 54:20 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 54:21 So that is it. So this is why you got to know what to say. How... And you can, you can create that feeling though. So it's important what you say on the phone. So I'm very big on you don't talk about what you do, you talk about what you fix. So you identify the three biggest symptoms that your prospects are likely to suffer from and ask them, "Do you have them?" 'Cause they may say, "Actually, I do, now that I'm thinking about it. I do. Yeah, I have noticed that." Now we're gonna have a conversation.So that's my job, is just... I know what I fix and I know what it looks like in your world. You don't know what I fix, but you do know what the symptoms in your world look like. All I've got to get you to admit is you have one sum or all of those symptoms, and we're going to have a chat about how I can help. If you don't recognize any of it, I'll call you back in three months, because at some point you will.

Chris Williamson 55:14 These symptoms are going to metastasize into a full-blown illness.

Benjamin Dennehy 55:17 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 55:18 Um-

Benjamin Dennehy 55:19 And I'll be here.

Chris Williamson 55:20 So I, I know that you mentioned that you've done some live sales calls before where you actually essentially don't know the product, where you've gone into-

Benjamin Dennehy 55:28 Yes.

Chris Williamson 55:28 ... companies and, and sold whatever it is not knowing it. And I suppose that that is... Okay, what does it fix? What are the-

Benjamin Dennehy 55:36 What do you fix?

Chris Williamson 55:36 ... problems that it fixes?

Benjamin Dennehy 55:37 What, what, what, what, what, what, what is a managing director in your target market bitching about that you fix, but he doesn't know you're the solution? So I do, I work with a company that sells valves, and we had to go through this process. And they said, well, th- they, they're constantly annoyed at price increases in this product range. Okay, what else annoys them? Um, sometimes they have problems with, with, with cladding. It's very specific.

Chris Williamson 56:01 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 56:02 And so the water gets in. That can be frustrating. Okay, what else? Uh, and another one is, uh, well, I suppose if you order these things, it can be lead time. If you've got a project, uh, and you can't get them in quick enough, it can have a knock on... Okay, fine. Right. That's all I need to know, right? Let's make some sales calls. So then I just phone up engineering directors and I said, "I'll be upfront. It's a sales call. You can hang up." "No, no, fine. What do you sell?" So look, I get invited in by engineering directors. Uh, they're often in the, uh, oil industry, such as yourself. And I'll be honest, they're probably already using a certain valve, but some of them complain that sometimes they have water ingress issues, and as a result, the valve is leaking. Others say their biggest concern isn't that, but sometimes lead times can be challenging, and if they don't get a part, that can have a knock on... And a few tell me that their biggest concern is... and I can't remember what the third one was.

Chris Williamson 56:54 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 56:55 I, I say that. I go, "But I, I get the feeling you're going to tell me you don't recognize any of that." And it's amazing. They all go, "Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I, I recognize that. We, we, we do suffer from that." "Okay, well, of those three things, uh, water leaking into it, uh, uh, uh, a lead time, or whatever the third one was, if you could pick one of those to fix, which would you pick?" "Uh, well, I'd s- I'd, I'd say it's the water." "Okay. Oh, look, I've had my 30 seconds. Can I speak to you for maybe two more minutes?" "Yeah, sure." "So when you say the water ingress, what do you mean exactly?" And then they start talking to me about their problem. They don't realize it. That's all I got to do. It doesn't matter what I sell, it's what do I fix? How does what I fix manifest itself in my prospect's world? How do I talk to them about that?

Chris Williamson 57:45 So I suppose thinking about it in that sort of a way, you are very much a Swiss army knife as someone who has selling ability, and you need, what, a week's training probably on even the most complex of, uh, of products.

Benjamin Dennehy 58:00 Half a day at the most.

Chris Williamson 58:03 (laughs) And then you just-

Benjamin Dennehy 58:04 Takes about an hour to figure out what people fix. It's funny because most people don't... And it's funny, every company I go into and you ask them, "What do you fix? What do you fix? How does it manifest?" And they look at you blankly, and it takes ages. And isn't, isn't this fascinating? You spend all day of your life phoning up people telling them, you know them, you understand them, you live and breathe their world, and you can't tell me what you fix? I say, "That's shameful, isn't it?" Imagine your doctor not being able to answer that question.

Chris Williamson 58:32 (laughs) Well, there's people, sometimes these people come in, "Yes, and?" "Well, sometimes they're not very well." "Yes, and?" Fucking hell, like drawing a lot- a horse to water.

Benjamin Dennehy 58:41 Yeah. It's ridiculous. So this is what my job is. I help- I get people to discover it, I get them to figure it out, and then I teach them how to say it, because it's all theater. It's all acting, and, and everything I say is choreographed. You've got to say it in the right way. You've got to ask the question in the right... You've got to pause at the right moment for effect, because my job is to create emotion. It's acting. What's the difference between a good actor and a great actor? It's not the script, it's the delivery of the script. Yeah?

Chris Williamson 59:10 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 59:11 A great actor takes the script and turns it into something, but he doesn't have to alter the words. He just delivers it, pauses in the right place, emphasizes the right thing. And that's my job on the phone and in person. It's all choreographed to make the prospect feel okay about themselves and comfortable and open up to me.

Chris Williamson 59:33 When you say it like that, thinking about the power that a salesperson has, someone with a real sales talent, salespeople must be good, properly good, scalable, replicable framework-based salespeople, must be some of the most valuable workers on the planet.

Benjamin Dennehy 59:52 Yes. The whole world is capitalist. It's buying and selling. That's it. The whole world turns on that. So selling... Um, a lot of sales jobs will be replaced by AI. Uh, a lot of these phone-based ones, because all they're doing up is taking orders, and you can teach an algorithm. I've listened to these Google AI things, and I've heard one make a phone call and make an appointment, and you wouldn't know you're not talking to a person.

Chris Williamson 1:00:22 Wow.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:00:22 So all you got to do is program a computer who has no emotion, has no feelings, and only will follow an algorithm and do the same thing well over and over again. Before long, most salespeople, you won't need them.

Chris Williamson 1:00:35 Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:00:35 And this is my biggest fear, is a lot of salespeople don't realize they're not going to be required unless they have that skill themselves, like the algorithm, because they're going to still need you in the face-to-face higher level

Chris Williamson 1:00:46 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:00:47 business. So they are under threat.

Chris Williamson 1:00:50 Wow. So people need to up their skills.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:00:52 Yeah, without doubt.

Chris Williamson 1:00:54 Well, Benjamin, it- today's been absolutely amazing. If people want to find out a little bit more, where should they head? What can they... where can they get you?

Benjamin Dennehy 1:01:01 Well, LinkedIn is the best place to find me. So if you just put in UK's Most Hated Sales Trainer or Benjamin Dennehy. My website, funnily enough, is UK's Most Hated Sales Trainer.com but it, it, it's nothing sexy. It literally is a brochure designed to take card payments.

Chris Williamson 1:01:19 (laughs)

Benjamin Dennehy 1:01:20 I've actually had people say, "Your website's shite." I go, "Well, you're not hiring a web designer so what's... why are we having this conversation?"

Chris Williamson 1:01:27 That's a great point.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:01:28 Yeah. I'm not a web designer. I built it myself.

Chris Williamson 1:01:31 Congratulations.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:01:32 Yes. It was easy, but it's crap.

Chris Williamson 1:01:34 I, uh- I saw an example in behavioral economics today from Richard Shotton, who is the author of The Choice Factory and a previous Modern Wisdom guest, and this example said, "Outside of a, a butcher's shop," he said, "sausages inside, 10 pounds." But sausages had too many apostrophes in it. He said the number of people that walk into the shop and said, "You know, um, you know that your sign outside has like two apostrophes in sausages and essentially it doesn't need any?" And he says, "Yeah, I do. Now how many sausages do you want?"

Benjamin Dennehy 1:02:05 Yeah. It's brilliant, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 1:02:09 I love it. I love that open loop.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:02:11 You've got to get them in. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:13 So anyway, everything that we've spoken about today, Benjamin's website is fantastic, LinkedIn, where he keeps on putting up great content, and his Twitter, which I've actually managed to ...

Benjamin Dennehy 1:02:21 Or my YouTube channel. I've got a YouTube channel.

Chris Williamson 1:02:23 YouTube. We'll get that-

Benjamin Dennehy 1:02:24 And if you subscribe you can win a mug or a T-shirt or a cap.

Chris Williamson 1:02:27 Fantastic. Make Sales Great Again.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:02:30 Make Salesmen Great Again.

Chris Williamson 1:02:32 Wait, Make Salesmen Great Again. I, I see.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:02:34 Deliberately to r-r-wind up the woke folk of today.

Chris Williamson 1:02:38 You do indeed. That doesn't surprise me at all. Also, you're going to have at some point in the future, might be having a digital product coming out, which you might be able to ...

Benjamin Dennehy 1:02:45 Yeah. Touch wood, it'll launch in January. It's an online training platform, so a lot of people can't get to me here in the UK to come to my events, but they'd love to do some online training, so I've filmed these events and I've chopped it all up and turned it into a training portal which people can, uh, buy a subscription to. So that'll be ... I don't know all the specifics yet, but it should be next month. But it'll all be on LinkedIn and marketed through LinkedIn. So ...

Chris Williamson 1:03:11 Perfect.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:03:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:11 I love it, man.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:03:12 Thank you.

Chris Williamson 1:03:12 Benjamin, thank you so much for your time. It's been great fun.

Benjamin Dennehy 1:03:14 Oh, appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. (upbeat music)