CHAPTER 2

Myths That Stall Promising Careers?

If a cat sits on a hot stove, that cat won’t sit on a hot stove again. That cat won’t sit on a cold stove either. That cat just doesn’t like stoves.

—Mark Twain

Just like the cat that won’t sit on a stove again, there are myths and false beliefs that many professionals hold about marketing and selling that are holding them back from reaching their full potential as rain makers.

The legendary Ben Feldman regarded as one of the greatest salesmen in the world, the equivalent of a Michael Jordan in selling. He was written up in the Guinness Book of World Records for his accomplishments. He was a high school drop-out who commenced his selling career as a ten dollar a week egg salesman and was rejected for a sales job because he failed the aptitude test. Ben made the record books by selling life insurance for over 52 years, his lifetime sales volume $1.5 billion, with one-third of his sales coming after he reached the age of 65.

The incredible part of Ben’s career is that he achieved his success working in Liverpool, Ohio, a small town of just 13,000 people. Ben’s secret, he mastered the basics, he was customer focused on helping them get what they needed and wanted. Ben was not born with these skills, the Feldman method according to his former manager Andrew Thomson, is mostly procedural—a step-by-step, well-planned, logically thought-out pattern for action leading to a sale that Ben learned from the experiences of others.

This chapter is about fear, regardless of where you are in your career, all professionals can make significant improvements in their capabilities, whether you have been in business five minutes or several years. As a sales leader, your job is to help your professionals bust these myths and false belief’s by overcoming their fears real or imagined that may be holding them and turning these fears into action. Gary Keller refers to these myths and false beliefs as myth-understanding, I don’t know if that’s an official word. However, I think the phrase is appropriate. By being able to recognize these fears as a leader, you will be able to help your professionals identify and take the necessary action to overcome.

The Seven Myths

I have come across seven-common myth-understandings that hold professionals back from becoming top rain makers:

Myth one:

I am not a natural born salespeople.

Truth:

Salespeople are made and not born.

Myth two:

I can’t find the time for selling.

Truth:

You are probably trying to treat all of your clients equally.

Myth three:

I don’t have the right knowledge.

Truth:

You know more than you think.

Myth four:

My clients don’t want to deal with a salesperson. Truth: Your clients want you to be successful.

Myth five:

I am not an extravert.

Truth:

There is no evidence that extraverts sell more. Myth six: I am an introvert.

Truth:

Many of the world’s top salespeople are introverts. Myth seven: I don’t know anyone.

Truth:

You know more than you realize.

Myth One

Myth:

I am not a natural born salespeople.

Truth:

Great Salespeople are not born; they are made.

When you hear the word salesperson, what image comes to your mind? Whenever individuals are asked this question, the top five responses are usually, used car salesman, the man in a suit, insurance salesman, real estate agent, and pushy. Dan Pink says, “There are no ‘natural’ salespeople, in part because we’re all naturally salespeople. I agree 100 percent, each of us because we’re human has a selling instinct, we were born with it.” This means that anyone can master the basics of moving others. Our beliefs about selling are often founded on outdated practices.

When I was growing up in California, in my neighborhood, there was a local Fuller Brush salesman who sold door-to-door; we also had the Avon Lady and Tupper wear parties. All these people were selling, as far I know, they made a good living from it and appeared to be enjoying themselves.

The good news is great salespeople are not born; they are made, selling is a skill, like running or public speaking that can be learned and mastered. As a leader, you can help displace this fear by having your house in order, for example, a clearly defined and branded selling process that helps guide professionals and provides step by a step training system that is clearly understood and used across the whole business.

This alone can help displace the fear with confidence. There are a few core traits successful rain maker’s process, such as empathy, persistence, and emotional intelligence, meaning they are able to do this more naturally than most people.

Serena and Venus Williams were blessed with good eye and hand coordination, however, they still needed to be trained and continue to be coached today to achieve the full potential. There is no such thing as a natural born salespeople; all of the skills’ capabilities required can be taught and learned through practice, coaching, and taking action.

Myth Two

Myth:

I don’t have the time for selling.

Truth:

You have priorities and you are probably trying to treat all of your clients equally.

It’s easy for professionals to fall into the service trap, especially as your customer portfolio grows. I have found professionals who struggle with time because there is misunderstanding regarding their roles and duties. When you try to treat all of your customers equally, you wind up providing “A” class service to “C” clients. The odd thing is that many of your bottom 80 percent of customers that contribute less than 20 percent of your revenue totals can take up over 50 percent of your time. Many of these tasks and requests can and should be handled by someone else.

An essential foundation to better managing time is ensuring and maintaining a clear division between sales and service. Begin by segmenting your clients, I see far too many professionals (farmers) trying to juggle 300 plus client relationships—they wind up becoming reactive instead of pro-active in managing their client relationships.

Better delegation of your lower value clients will dramatically increase the amount of time available for selling and marketing. Salespeople should sell, and service people should service, and top rain makers delegate work to the farmers.

In my work with financial services organizations, when there is a clear division between sales and service, everyone understands their roles, and professionals can focus the majority of their time on the critical functions of sales, customer retention, relationship management, and pipeline building who delegate routine work to support staff and team members generate more revenue; this happens because professionals—and their staff—can provide more time and services to clients, allowing the team to attract a wealthier clientele that demands more in-depth assistance.

So instead of increasing the number of clients per advisors, teams go upmarket with each client generating higher fees. I have several professional clients managing million-dollar portfolios, overseeing as many as 500 client relationships. These professionals delegate 80 percent of their work often consisting of the back of office work that does not require their attention. This means they only need to look after the top 20 percent of clients (40 to 75 key relationships) that are responsible for the bulk (up to 80%) of their revenues.

As a guide, 80 percent of a rain maker’s day should be focused on sales-related activities including getting results for customers, getting results for your business, obtaining referrals, building and strengthening relationships with existing clients and replicating your best customers.

Every professional, as you will learn as we work through this book, can better allocate portions of their day for marketing related activities, even during those times when being pulled by client demands or other parts of the business. Selling is something that everyone can do and should do. And the solution for “I’m too busy to sell is to make marketing and selling a priority by scheduling it on the calendar.

Myth Three

Myth:

I don’t have the right knowledge?

Truth:

You actually know more than you think.

John Savage once said, to be successful in selling follow the 95/5 rule, 95 percent people skills and 5 percent product knowledge, however, the real secret is learning as close to 100 percent of that 5 percent of product knowledge as possible.

Most professionals already process more than enough product knowledge to handle and answer 95 percent of customers questions. What is often is missing is knowing how to package your smarts to better attract prospective customers and that’s probably the reason why reading this book, you want to be able to differentiate yourself, and there’s no better way to differentiate yourself as being able to market and sell your expertise by packaging knowledge to meet your client’s needs, this will be covered in chapter five.

Breaking the Rock

The San Antonio Spurs NBA basketball team one of the most successful sporting franchises in the world with five NBA championships and 22 straight playoff experiences. They have a saying at the San Antonio Spurs, “Breaking the Rock” that is each day they swing that sledgehammer and just whack the Rock it will slowly chip away. The 1 percent solution says improved by 1 percent per day in 70 days is twice as right. It’s the same as breaking the rock principle is that each day you go in and just had a little bit more of that Rock, a little bit more. That Rock is your smarts and knowledge, being the becoming an excellent salesperson takes as long as it’s going to take. Applying yourself each day top salespeople are continuously hone and perfect their skill.

Myth Four

Myth:

My customers don’t want to deal with a salesperson.

Truth:

Your customers like doing business with successful people.

Genuine customers don’t want to be sold to; however, they enjoy doing business with people they know, trust, and respect. Your customers have problems that require products, services, and solutions that your company provides. Your customer loyalty lies with your ability and the capabilities of your firm to get the job done, to meet their needs, to help them achieve their objectives. If you don’t process adequate skills, they miss the opportunities to improve, and you miss out on future revenues. This why you owe it to yourself and business to develop persuasion skills.

Early on in my selling career in the insurance industry selling corporate insurance, I identified a gap in a existing client’s business insurance program to protect their key executives. I carefully outlined the features and benefits and provided claim case examples for the CEO, who was hesitant to spend any more money on their risk program.

We had a good relationship, and over time, I provided additional information to educated him. He also conducted his own research. He finally agreed to purchase the additional coverage, and a few weeks later, they had a major event and if they didn’t have that coverage in place, the company would have been in serious financial trouble. My client thanked me for being persistent.

I have always believed if a customer has a strong need and you have the products and services to address this need, then you owe it to yourself, your customer, and your business to make sure that you have the skills and capabilities to address your client’s needs adequately. That’s less about being a salesperson and more about looking after your customer’s best interest.

Myth Five

Myth:

What if I am not an extrovert?

Truth:

There is no evidence to support that extroverts are better sales people.

The extrovert and introvert personality types are actually a kind of spectrum, extreme extroverts fall on one end and extreme introverts fall on the other and most people end somewhere in the middle. An extrovert is someone who enjoys being around people; comfortable in social situations and assertive. This type of person sounds like the ideal salesperson; however, there is no evidence to supports this. Researchers have investigated the relationship between extroversion and sales success, and they have found the link to be flimsy at best. Non extroverts may feel that they are not cut-out for sales because they don’t have the gift of the gab. Extroverts may tend to have an easier time connecting prospects and building rapport, and don’t mind spending time cold calling.

Myth Six

Myth:

What if I am an introvert?

Truth:

Introverts are just as effective as extraverts in selling.

Introverts are often thought of as quite reserved and thoughtful individuals who don’t seek special attention or social engagements. There is zero evidence supporting a correlation between extroversion and sales performance. A Harvard Business Review reports that showy type salespeople are more likely to alienate prospects then close them and salespeople in the top 90 percent demonstrate traits of modesty and humility.

Ben Feldman mentioned at the beginning of this chapter was a shy, softly spoken, and very humble gentlemen. Successful rain makers come in all shapes, sizes, and personality types. According to author Dan Pink, the ideal sales professionals are ambiverts, a person who has a balance of extrovert and introvert features in their personality, they are flexible and able to use their heads and heart. When searching for rain makers, it’s a mistake to overlook someone because they are quiet and reserved the key trait you should be looking for is someone with empathy.

Myth Seven

Myth:

What if I don’t know anyone?

Truth:

You actually no more people than you realize, you; probably just need to organize your contact information.

As a professional, you know more people than you probably realize, however, your list of names is probably not organized, for example, LinkedIn ties in with the old concept of six degrees of separation, which is grounded in the idea that any person in the world is linked with any other person by no more than six people. Increasing the size of your network is one the secrets of the success of top rain makers, which we will cover in a later chapter. Successful rain makers have been using this concept for years, and LinkedIn has made it more accessible. According to researchers, the average American knows about 600 people. By building your contact list of everyone you know and then using LinkedIn to connect is a good place to start.

Case Study

CJ was as a sales executive with an advertising firm. New business development had always been a struggle and his superior was concerned about his performance. I spent a day in the field with CJ accompanying him on several calls. I noticed on the first few calls that he was nervous and did not appear confident.

It turned out this was CJ’s first sales job. He thought as a salesperson he needed to be a fast talker and an extrovert, and he was neither. During the next few sales calls, I had CJ write out his beliefs about the product he was selling and its benefits for customers. I instructed him before each call to read the card and to speak and simply focus and have a conversation about the customer needs. He was less nervous and closed a sale on his last appointment of the day. His firm continued to work with him, and CJ developed into a reliable salesperson for his company, regularly exceeding his monthly sales target.

Summary

As a sales leader, your job is to help your professional bust these myths and false beliefs, and translate fear into action.

There are seven-common myth-understandings that hold professionals back from becoming top rain makers.

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