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

Benjamin Dennehy is a sales trainer. Being able to sell is a skill many people want. The ability to control your income by selling things for other people sounds like a pretty easy way to make money. So why do so many salespeople struggle to be effective? Benjamin identifies the key failures he sees on the sales floor, breaks down his best principles for a good selling framework, gives his thoughts on Grant Cardone vs Jordan Belfort and much more. Extra Stuff: Check out Benjamin's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamindennehy Jordan Belfort vs Grant Cardone - https://youtu.be/-Ls3KDa7PMY Mike & Benjamin React To Jordan vs Grant - https://youtu.be/0WynqwgqtzE Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom #salestraining #grantcardone #jordanbelfort - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: modernwisdompodcast@gmail.com

Benjamin DennehyguestChris Williamsonhost
Dec 19, 20191h 3mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:10

    Intro

    1. BD

      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.

  2. 1:10 – 4:18

    Introducing Benjamin Dennehy

    1. BD

    2. CW

      I'm joined by the UK's most hated sales trainer, Benjamin Dennehy. Benjamin, welcome to the show.

    3. BD

      Thanks for having me, Chris. It's, uh, it's an honor to be here.

    4. CW

      Ah, no, we've got a mutual friend and past guest, Mike Winnet.

    5. BD

      (laughs)

    6. CW

      You've been spending a bit of time with him recently, right?

    7. BD

      Yeah. Yeah, I did. I was up there last week actually, filming another episode together. Having fun. Yeah-

    8. CW

      Yeah.

    9. BD

      ... he's cool. He's a good man.

    10. CW

      He's great. So why, why are you hated? Why are you the UK's most hated sales trainer? Why?

    11. BD

      (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.

    12. CW

      Have you got a mug? You must have a mug.

    13. BD

      I, uh, not, no, not on me. Actually, I do have a mug. It's, uh-

    14. CW

      Okay. You know, like, when someone gets an "It's number one dad" mug.

    15. BD

      Yeah.

    16. CW

      And it's like, "Oh, you got this, the awarding body for the number one dad."

    17. BD

      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.

    18. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    19. BD

      But yes (laughs) . So product placement.

    20. CW

      Nice. UK's most hated sales trainer mug, link in bio.

    21. BD

      Yeah.

    22. CW

      (laughs)

    23. BD

      (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?

    24. CW

      No.

    25. BD

      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."

    26. CW

      (laughs) And he got you by the book. What a bastard.

    27. BD

      Uh, yeah.

    28. CW

      (laughs)

    29. BD

      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.

    30. CW

      (laughs)

  3. 4:18 – 4:53

    Creating your own market

    1. BD

      it.

    2. CW

      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.

    3. BD

      Yeah.

    4. CW

      I mean, I think back to Mike's, the UK's number one de-motivational speaker.

    5. BD

      (laughs) Yeah.

    6. CW

      (laughs)

    7. BD

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

    8. CW

      Yeah, exactly.

    9. BD

      Stupid.

    10. CW

      You think you're hated?

    11. BD

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

    12. CW

      That's great.

    13. BD

      Yeah.

    14. CW

      So before we get

  4. 4:53 – 6:29

    Wolf of Wall Street

    1. CW

      into it-

    2. BD

      Hmm.

    3. CW

      ... 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?

    4. BD

      Well, I, me and Mike Winnet did a Gogglebox and we filmed us watching it and commenting on it.

    5. CW

      Amazing.

    6. BD

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

    7. CW

      Oh yeah.

    8. BD

      But what I saw, it was an interesting dynamic between these two.

    9. CW

      How would you, how would you describe it for people who haven't heard it?

    10. BD

      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?

    11. CW

      (laughs)

    12. BD

      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.

    13. CW

      I think

  5. 6:29 – 7:59

    Jordan Belfort

    1. CW

      so as well.

    2. BD

      Because-

    3. CW

      I mean-

    4. BD

      Yeah.

    5. CW

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

    6. BD

      Mm-hmm.

    7. CW

      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-

    8. BD

      Mm-hmm.

    9. CW

      ... "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-

    10. BD

      Yeah.

    11. CW

      ... 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.

    12. BD

      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.

    13. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    14. BD

      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-

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    16. BD

      ... 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-

    17. CW

      But when, when you're up on stage, you're always going to be an authority, right?

    18. BD

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

    19. CW

      (laughs)

    20. BD

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

  6. 7:59 – 11:39

    Absolute Basics

    1. BD

      but-

    2. CW

      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-"

    3. BD

      A charity fight. Yeah, you can see his ego's getting bruised and he's there.

    4. CW

      Oh, man. It's such, like, alpha posturing. Yeah, I, I really... Anyway-

    5. BD

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      ... 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.

    7. BD

      (laughs)

    8. CW

      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?

    9. BD

      Mm-hmm, yeah.

    10. CW

      That's the, the, uh, currency that you traffic in-

    11. BD

      Yes.

    12. CW

      ... the sludge and the mud and the feces and the blood and all that.

    13. BD

      Yeah.

    14. CW

      The hay bales and stuff.

    15. BD

      Snow, yeah.

    16. CW

      So let's, let's start absolute basics.

    17. BD

      Okay.

    18. CW

      What makes a good salesperson?

    19. BD

      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.

    20. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    21. BD

      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."

    22. CW

      (laughs)

    23. BD

      "That'll make me rich." Ah, it's bollocks.

    24. CW

      Difficult to repeat, difficult to scale those things.

    25. BD

      Yeah.

    26. CW

      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?

    27. BD

      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.

    28. CW

      Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

    29. BD

      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

  7. 11:39 – 12:48

    Reasons not to work with me

    1. BD

      me. So I'm gonna-

    2. CW

      Yeah, there's only, there's only a couple of reasons to work with you, but there's an entire-

    3. BD

      Yeah.

    4. CW

      ... universe of reasons to tell you to fuck off.

    5. BD

      Exactly.

    6. CW

      Yeah.

    7. BD

      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.

    8. CW

      ... your product.

    9. BD

      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.

    10. CW

      (laughs)

    11. BD

      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-

    12. CW

      (laughs) So for you.

    13. BD

      ... 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

  8. 12:48 – 17:02

    The sales floor

    1. BD

      get in."

    2. CW

      You're the final-

    3. BD

      That's why-

    4. CW

      ... the final button, you gotta have both the keys, turn them at the same time-

    5. BD

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      ... presidential order.

    7. BD

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

    8. CW

      (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 ...

    9. BD

      Oh.

    10. CW

      Got you back, mate. That's fine.

    11. BD

      Right.

    12. CW

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

    13. BD

      Yeah. Here, there.

    14. CW

      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.

    15. BD

      Yeah.

    16. CW

      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-

    17. BD

      (laughs)

    18. CW

      ... the alpha male go-get-it environment. So what happens when you step in and you start-

    19. BD

      (laughs)

    20. CW

      ... saying ... Well, I mean, what do you say to people first?

    21. BD

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

    22. CW

      (laughs)

    23. BD

      ... 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."

    24. CW

      (laughs)

    25. BD

      "Whatever." And that's, and when I see that, inside my head, I think, "Come on."

    26. CW

      Got you.

    27. BD

      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-

    28. CW

      Hmm.

    29. BD

      ... 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.

    30. CW

      Mm-hmm.

  9. 17:02 – 18:29

    What makes a good salesperson

    1. BD

      to see me.

    2. CW

      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-

    3. BD

      A framework.

    4. CW

      ... that they stick to, they follow it.

    5. BD

      Consistent. Consistency.

    6. CW

      Cool.

    7. BD

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

    8. CW

      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-

    9. BD

      Yep.

    10. CW

      ... 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.

    11. BD

      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.

  10. 18:29 – 21:31

    The job that is always available

    1. BD

      No one-

    2. CW

      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-

    3. BD

      Yeah.

    4. CW

      ... are the only thing that's left on this planet after nuclear war-

    5. BD

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      ... there's still gonna be a job for a salesperson.

    7. BD

      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.

    8. CW

      (laughs)

    9. BD

      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."

    10. CW

      (laughs) what do you mean?

    11. BD

      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.

    12. CW

      Yeah?

    13. BD

      Yeah.

    14. CW

      (laughs)

    15. BD

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

    16. CW

      (laughs) Before you've even wasted their time.

    17. BD

      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."

    18. CW

      (laughs)

    19. BD

      This is what salespeople are like, right?

    20. CW

      Yeah.

    21. BD

      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.

    22. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    23. BD

      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.

    24. CW

      (laughs) So,

  11. 21:31 – 23:43

    The power dynamic

    1. CW

      let's, let's sort of linger on this point for a second.

    2. BD

      Yeah.

    3. CW

      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-

    4. BD

      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-

    5. CW

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

    6. BD

      Not likable. Like them. So a guy in a Hawaiian shirt will sell to a guy in a Hawaiian shirt.

    7. CW

      Okay.

    8. BD

      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.

    9. CW

      Yeah.

    10. BD

      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.

    11. CW

      So what's the alternative? What's your approach?

    12. BD

      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?"

    13. CW

      (laughs)

    14. BD

      "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."

    15. CW

      (laughs)

    16. BD

      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."

    17. CW

      Power's shifted and, um-

    18. BD

      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."

    19. CW

      It's

  12. 23:43 – 26:12

    The common trodden ground

    1. CW

      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.

    2. BD

      Yeah.

    3. CW

      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.

    4. BD

      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.

    5. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    6. BD

      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.

    7. CW

      Yeah.

    8. BD

      But that's what I'm getting at.

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. BD

      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?

    11. CW

      Yeah. (laughs)

    12. BD

      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.

    13. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    14. BD

      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."

  13. 26:12 – 27:25

    The inflection point

    1. CW

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

    2. BD

      Yeah.

    3. CW

      ... 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.

    4. BD

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

    5. CW

      (laughs)

    6. BD

      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."

    7. CW

      That's awesome.

    8. BD

      Yeah?

    9. CW

      That is, that is, yeah.

    10. BD

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

  14. 27:25 – 29:27

    The art of human communication

    1. BD

    2. CW

      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-

    3. BD

      Uh-huh.

    4. CW

      ... 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?

    5. BD

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      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?

    7. BD

      Yes. Well-

    8. CW

      You want to be able to-

    9. BD

      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.

    10. CW

      And then we can scale, then we can replicate.

    11. BD

      And we can scale and we can replicate. And yeah, that, that's why I like it. It's theater.

  15. 29:27 – 33:57

    Sales managers vs team leaders

    1. CW

      Yeah. It definitely is. Um, so I wanted to move up a level now.

    2. BD

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CW

      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-

    4. BD

      Sure.

    5. CW

      ... 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.

    6. BD

      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.

    7. CW

      (laughs)

    8. BD

      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?"

    9. CW

      Yup.

    10. BD

      Well, no they wouldn't.

    11. CW

      (laughs)

    12. BD

      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.

    13. CW

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    14. BD

      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.

    15. CW

      Yeah.

    16. BD

      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."

    17. CW

      (laughs)

    18. BD

      "I do these things all the time, and I, I, I think juries just naturally warm to me."

    19. CW

      (laughs)

    20. BD

      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."

    21. CW

      (laughs)

    22. BD

      "Just luck, I guess."

    23. CW

      (laughs)

    24. BD

      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-"

    25. CW

      You wanna do it again.

    26. BD

      "... we can repeat it."

    27. CW

      (laughs)

    28. BD

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

    29. CW

      "Oh, they didn't want it. They weren't right."

    30. BD

      "Dividing."

  16. 33:57 – 37:17

    Why do people respect their team leaders

    1. BD

      well.

    2. CW

      I agree. So two things. I've got two doors to Hell open in my mind at the moment.

    3. BD

      Yeah.

    4. CW

      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?

    5. BD

      Mm.

    6. CW

      What's the solution to that there? Because you need to have that respect from the guys on the floor.

    7. BD

      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.

    8. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    9. BD

      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.

    10. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    11. BD

      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.

    12. CW

      Mm.

    13. BD

      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-

    14. CW

      Surely that's, that's the, that is the thing. That's the answer, that every salesperson-

    15. BD

      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."

    16. CW

      "I just-

    17. BD

      You know."

    18. CW

      ... I just turn up there and sometimes-

    19. BD

      You know."

    20. CW

      ... sometimes I win a case."

    21. BD

      "I think the guy in the wig at the top makes the decisions. I don't know."

    22. CW

      (laughs)

    23. BD

      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

  17. 37:17 – 38:22

    Worst salesperson to team leader

    1. BD

      the hell are you on about?

    2. CW

      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.

    3. BD

      Yes.

    4. CW

      Because you've muted their passion for the one thing that they-

    5. BD

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      ... enjoy doing, and they have absolutely no idea why they have success at that particular thing.

    7. BD

      Yeah, exactly.

    8. CW

      (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."

    9. BD

      Yeah.

    10. CW

      "And he's just got, he's got a natural gift." It's like, yeah, fucking leave him there.

    11. BD

      Yeah.

    12. CW

      Like, don't, don't (laughs) take him out of that role.

    13. BD

      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?"

    14. CW

      (laughs)

    15. BD

      "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."

  18. 38:22 – 40:11

    Picking your battle

    1. BD

      Yeah?

    2. CW

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

    3. BD

      Mm-hmm.

    4. CW

      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.

    5. BD

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      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."

    7. BD

      Yeah.

    8. CW

      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?"

    9. BD

      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.

    10. CW

      (laughs)

    11. BD

      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.

    12. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    13. BD

      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.

  19. 40:11 – 43:04

    Whats the sales process

    1. BD

    2. CW

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

    3. BD

      Yeah.

    4. CW

      ... 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...

    5. BD

      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.

    6. CW

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    7. BD

      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."

    8. CW

      (laughs)

    9. BD

      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."

    10. CW

      (laughs)

    11. BD

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

  20. 43:04 – 46:17

    Why do people buy

    1. BD

    2. CW

      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?

    3. BD

      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.

    4. CW

      Tube.

    5. BD

      You got a tube. I got a pump. Why? Ever thought about it? Why do you like the pump?

    6. CW

      No. I don't think, I don't think I like the pump. I, I think-

    7. BD

      There you go. "I don't like the pump." Utterly irrational.

    8. CW

      (laughs) Yeah. Right?

    9. BD

      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.

    10. CW

      Which, which, which by the way, is the least emotional product that I can think of.

    11. BD

      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."

    12. CW

      No. (laughs)

    13. BD

      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."

    14. CW

      (laughs)

    15. BD

      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.

    16. CW

      Mm.

  21. 46:17 – 49:27

    Grant Cardone vs Jordan Belfort

    1. CW

    2. BD

      They go to what you-

    3. CW

      That was a poi- ... That, that was a point there, um, that Grant and Jordan had a real back and forth about.

    4. BD

      Yeah.

    5. CW

      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.

    6. BD

      Yeah. Fish, wasn't it?

    7. CW

      Yeah. Fish.

    8. BD

      Yeah.

    9. CW

      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.

    10. BD

      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.

    11. CW

      (laughs)

    12. BD

      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."

    13. CW

      Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

    14. BD

      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.

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    16. BD

      You know?

    17. CW

      So you need to be top of the list of people to call when the fish-

    18. BD

      Yeah.

    19. CW

      ... hung- hunger strikes.

    20. BD

      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."

    21. CW

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    22. BD

      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-

    23. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    24. BD

      ... 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-

    25. CW

      Hmm.

    26. BD

      ... in the hope that I can browbeat him into saying yes. That's not selling.

  22. 49:27 – 51:11

    Separating your role from your identity

    1. BD

    2. CW

      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-

    3. BD

      Ah.

    4. CW

      ... 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.

    5. BD

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      I'm gonna guess that's pretty common.

    7. BD

      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-

    8. CW

      Well, I, I hope not.

    9. BD

      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?

    10. CW

      That's a... That's

  23. 51:11 – 51:49

    controllables vs uncontrollables

    1. CW

      impossible 'cause that comes back to controllables versus uncontrollables, right?

    2. BD

      Yeah.

    3. CW

      You can't, you can't control whether or not that person is ready to buy at that time.

    4. BD

      No.

    5. CW

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

    6. BD

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

    7. CW

      (laughs)

    8. BD

      Yeah?

    9. CW

      Yeah.

    10. BD

      And my job is to get them to the point that they wanna stick their hand into their wallet.

    11. CW

      Yeah.

    12. BD

      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.

  24. 51:49 – 55:19

    cold calls

    1. CW

      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.

    2. BD

      Oh, I do. Oh, yeah. I do.

    3. CW

      Do you, do you, do you find yourself, uh, allowing them-

    4. BD

      Buying the role.

    5. CW

      ... 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?

    6. BD

      Well-

    7. CW

      Or could it be you're just fucking sick of sales and you just, you, you wanna get off it?

    8. BD

      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.

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. BD

      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."

    11. CW

      (laughs) Just vengeful.

    12. BD

      It's got nothing-

    13. CW

      Vengeful purchase.

    14. BD

      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."

    15. CW

      And then justified it intellectually with the-

    16. BD

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

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    18. BD

      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.

    19. CW

      These symptoms are going to metastasize into a full-blown illness.

    20. BD

      Exactly.

    21. CW

      Um-

  25. 55:19 – 57:45

    not knowing the product

    1. CW

    2. BD

      And I'll be here.

    3. CW

      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-

    4. BD

      Yes.

    5. CW

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

    6. BD

      What do you fix?

    7. CW

      ... problems that it fixes?

    8. BD

      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.

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. BD

      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.

    11. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    12. BD

      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?

  26. 57:45 – 59:33

    what people think

    1. CW

      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.

    2. BD

      Half a day at the most.

    3. CW

      (laughs) And then you just-

    4. BD

      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.

    5. CW

      (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.

    6. BD

      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?

    7. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    8. BD

      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.

  27. 59:33 – 1:03:32

    the power of salespeople

    1. BD

    2. CW

      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.

    3. BD

      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.

    4. CW

      Wow.

    5. BD

      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.

    6. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    7. BD

      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

    8. CW

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    9. BD

      business. So they are under threat.

    10. CW

      Wow. So people need to up their skills.

    11. BD

      Yeah, without doubt.

    12. CW

      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?

    13. BD

      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.

    14. CW

      (laughs)

    15. BD

      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?"

    16. CW

      That's a great point.

    17. BD

      Yeah. I'm not a web designer. I built it myself.

    18. CW

      Congratulations.

    19. BD

      Yes. It was easy, but it's crap.

    20. CW

      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?"

    21. BD

      Yeah. It's brilliant, isn't it?

    22. CW

      I love it. I love that open loop.

    23. BD

      You've got to get them in. Yeah.

    24. CW

      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 ...

    25. BD

      Or my YouTube channel. I've got a YouTube channel.

    26. CW

      YouTube. We'll get that-

    27. BD

      And if you subscribe you can win a mug or a T-shirt or a cap.

    28. CW

      Fantastic. Make Sales Great Again.

    29. BD

      Make Salesmen Great Again.

    30. CW

      Wait, Make Salesmen Great Again. I, I see.

Episode duration: 1:03:32

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