The Sales Pitch Is A Conversation With An Outcome (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Donnie Boivin discusses the fact that a sales pitch is a conversation with an outcome. Donnie Boivin is the CEO of Success Champion Networking and the founder of the Badass Business Summit and the Growth Mode Podcast.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The idea of a sales pitch being a conversation with an outcome
The importance of authenticity in sales
Why “closure” matters more than “closing”

Conversation with an Outcome

Although sales pitches often seem like conversations for conversation’s sake, they are conversations with an outcome. Conversely, people often try to hard-close in sales conversations, and if you’re trying to hard-close in this day and age, you won’t get far.

If you want to succeed in a sales position, you need to understand that the more human you become, the more conversations you get into, and the easier the sales conversations get. Trying those old hard-sale tactics is a surefire way to get your teeth kicked in.

Authenticity

Even before the pandemic, people had begun to crave authenticity from salespeople and people in general, but COVID accelerated that. If you’re in sales today, and you’re not authentic and not taking a deep interest in what’s going on with your prospect, you will not succeed.

If you want to do your job right from a sales perspective, you’ll go into every conversation with a genuine approach. You’ll tell people that it is 100% OK for them to say “no,” and mean those words. If you do this, you will get closure in every conversation. You should note the difference between “closure” and “closing.”

Closure vs. Closing

Closure means getting to a “yes/no” or a significant next step. Closing means you beat the crap out of your prospect until they give up. For Donnie Boivin, it is all about getting the prospect comfortable and getting to actual closure. He does this in several ways. For example, he doesn’t believe in overcoming objections. You probably screwed up somewhere else in the sales call if you’re overcoming objections.

So, it is more about getting them to say “no” when they’re beating around the bush and giving you all these crazy excuses when they don’t want to do business with you. This allows you to focus on the prospects you can convert and make money on instead of wasting time on people who made up their minds long ago but don’t want to say it.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Why People Are Still Reluctant To Use Video In Sales (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Collin Mitchell discusses selling with video. Collin Mitchell is the founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Salescast and the host of the Sales Transformation Podcast.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

How some excellent salespeople were caught out by having to switch to Zoom
Why people are still reluctant to use video in sales
The fact that simply using video is enough to help you stand out.

Selling on Video

People have been on Zoom for the last couple of years, some of them forced onto it, especially salespeople. It’s interesting how some salespeople are phenomenal face-to-face, going into a room full of people and lighting up the mood, only to freeze entirely when faced with a web camera.

Selling into a camera puts people in a situation they’re not used to. These people often rely on reading body language, energy, “vibe,” and other things that humans typically rely on in an interaction. It is much more difficult to “read the room” on Zoom.

Reluctance

With everybody forced on Zoom due to the pandemic, people suddenly needed to learn about “virtual selling.” The truth is that virtual selling is just selling but with a camera. Some things have changed, but not a lot. You still have the same framework and the same process.

The good news is, especially if you used to sell in person or door to door, you could now meet with more people in a day without traveling. Despite that, and despite the fact that video was hardly an entirely new concept in 2020, many people were still very reluctant to start using it in sales.

Standing Out

Video has been around for a long time, even in sales. There are a lot of providers out there for those who want to do video messaging, for example. Yet, it still doesn’t feel commonplace. You still notice when you get a video message instead of a typical text message on LinkedIn or in an email.

Collin Mitchell is baffled that simply using video is still a way to stand out. He sends a lot of videos every week. Along with his team, he uses videos through all parts of the sales process, from the very beginning, all the way through to closing, in many different ways.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

How To Became A Successful Entrepreneur At A Young Age (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Brian Mayne discusses how he changed his life through Goal Mapping. Brian Mayne is a global speaker on personal development, seminar leader, author of four books on personal development, and the creator of the following empowerment techniques — Goal Mapping, Life Mapping, Action Mapping, and Self Mapping. He has worked with organizations like Microsoft, IBM, Disney, and many others.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

His early childhood and how he became a successful entrepreneur at a young age
How things changed for him radically in his late 20s
How he discovered the concept of personal development

Upbringing and Early Success

Brian Mayne grew up in a traveling funfair circus family and moved around a lot as a child. He left school just before turning 13 — a typical situation for traveling Gypsy children. He had no qualifications, had never learned to read and write, and worked for his father’s funfair business, which traveled around the country.

His father’s business thrived for many years, and from 13 onwards, he worked full-time. He became the youngest licensee in England ever when he was granted a liquor and entertainment license at age 18. He became very wealthy at a very young age, but obviously, he had a very unusual early sales and entrepreneur career.

A New Chapter

Things changed for Brian at age 29 when tourism ended on the Isle of Wight because airfare prices came down in the late 1980s and English people started taking their main summer holiday in the Mediterranean. His father’s business ended, so at age 29, Brian found himself in a lot of debt, with no qualifications.

Because he had never learned to read and write, Brian didn’t have a lot of options open on the job market. Luckily, some friends offered him a position in their direct sales team. He wasn’t very successful in sales at first, but this opportunity turned out to be the biggest blessing.

The Path of Personal Development

Enjoying the sales team put him on a new career path and, most importantly, introduced him to the concept of personal development. He used personal development, particularly the science of positive thinking, to develop himself as a person and advance his career.

He primarily focused on overcoming his learning challenges and teaching himself to read well. Once he had learned to read, the topic he wanted to read most about was personal development and motivational psychology, which he now uses in every area of his life.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Sell Without Selling Out: A Guide to Success on Your Own Terms (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Andy Paul discusses his latest book, Sell Without Selling Out: A Guide to Success on Your Own Terms. Andy Paul is the host of the podcast Accelerate with Andy Paul and an author of multiple books.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

His latest book, Sell Without Selling Out
The negative impact of aggressive sales tactics
How being strategic brings a lot more benefits than being salesy

Sell Without Selling Out

The need to write this book came from Andy’s work with various companies, the conversations he had on his podcast with sales leaders, and looking at the data. In essence, there’s this feeling that we’re not getting any better at selling, and arguably, we’re getting worse.

Andy was examining the reasons behind this and realized that we’re still relying heavily on these outdated salesy behaviors that cause people to believe that sales professionals are pushy, sleazy, and unreliable. In fact, he realized that we’re using some of the new technologies we’ve come up with to amplify the negative impact of these salesy behaviors.

Aggressive Sales Tactics

There’s so much transition and change going on at the moment. There is also the perception that the market is highly competitive and that salespeople are adopting tactics or being even more aggressive with their use of technology. This all leads to the realization that the entire sales sphere is becoming a huge pile-on instead of a strategic game.

We don’t do sellers any favors in the long run by insisting that this is the way to act. When Andy talks about this on podcasts, LinkedIn, and other places, he occasionally gets pushback from people saying that that type of behavior doesn’t happen anymore, which is simply not true.

Being Strategic

Andy Paul defines selling out as behavior that has no value for the buyer or the seller. He says that we could stop these behaviors cold turkey today. We need to agree not to do these things anymore, and no one would be worse off for stopping being salesy.

Unfortunately, there’s a nervousness and fear that you could be left behind if you take a more strategic, thoughtful approach, or progress will take a little longer. This is not the case at all; in fact, Andy argues that the opposite is true.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

The Role of Body Language in Communication (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Martin Brooks discusses deciphering what somebody is thinking through body language. Martin Brooks has always been curious about how the world’s top communicators use their body language to enhance their performance, make an impact, and boost their chances of success, which is why he became the Impactologist.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The role of body language in communication
How to use awareness to get the upper hand
Why body language matters even more in virtual meetings

Awareness

The main thing about body language, both reading other people and understanding the signals you are putting out, is awareness. We need to start paying more attention to body language when we communicate.

Most of us hate watching recordings of ourselves. It is essential to get past that discomfort and start paying attention to ourselves and what others give out. You can start by paying attention to people that you like, people that inspire, motivate, and influence you. This can help you learn what it is about their body language that is drawing you to them.

Using the Whole Package

So how do you make sure that you’re not communicating the wrong thing when you’re engaging with people?

The best presenters pay attention to how they will use their body, their voice, and the words they choose — not just the technical data that they need to present to win over their audience, but the whole package — what they say, how they say it, and how they look while they’re saying it. This gives them the best possible chance of success.

Body Language in Virtual Meetings

One of the biggest misconceptions going on right now is that body language doesn’t matter in virtual meetings. Martin Brooks argues that body language is even more critical virtually than when you’re talking with someone face-to-face.

This is because it is so easy to disengage from a virtual meeting. You can keep your phone just out of view of your webcam and scroll Instagram while pretending to listen. This is something you could never do in a live meeting. The counterbalance to that is to be engaging and shake your audience up enough with your body language that they’re just engaged from the get-go.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

What are the Common Investment Mistakes (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Michael Prendergast discusses common investment mistakes. Michael Prendergast is a Director and Advisor at Altfest. He helps clients with all aspects of investment and personal financial planning matters.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The phenomenon of recency bias and how it dictates many people’s decisions
How to avoid rearview mirror investing
Why it is crucial to diversify your portfolio

Recency Bias

With COVID and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there is so much investment panic. In fact, people had been panicked about investing even before these crises, so many people, especially casual investors, are confused about what they should do right now.

There’s this phenomenon called “recency bias,” whereby people tend to think that what has happened recently will continue to happen. However, it is essential to remember your goals for your portfolio. For example, if you’re saving up for retirement, it doesn’t make much sense to radically change your portfolio based on a short-term event, which would disrupt your chances of reaching a long-term goal.

Rearview Mirror Investing

One of the mistakes you should try to avoid when you’re starting in investment is “rearview mirror investing.” Often people take a look at their portfolio at the end of the year and get rid of the things that didn’t do very well while buying more of the things that did well.

This makes sense if you assume that the winners will keep winning and the losers will keep losing, but as we know, change is the only constant thing. The winners will not be winning forever, and the losers will not be losing forever. What you want is to have a highly diversified portfolio.

Concentration vs. Diversification

For a beginner or casual investor, it is imperative to understand the power of diversification. Instead of a portfolio concentrated on U.S. large-size stocks, aspiring investors should diversify their portfolios as much as possible.

This means having different types of stocks of various sizes, nationalities, value stocks vs. growth stocks, treasury bonds, corporate bonds, mortgage-backed securities, inflation protection securities, alternative investments like real estate, precious metals, infrastructure funds, etc.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

The Challenges & Opportunities Organizations Face in Hybrid-Workplace (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Laura Goodrich discusses Remote LeaderShift. Laura Goodrich is an expert on the future of work and technology with over 20 years of experience as an executive coach. She is the founder of GWT Next, which provides a unique process to transform the underlying assumptions of the workforce, and has been recognized by Thinkers 360 as one of the top 20 thought leaders in transformation, future of work, change, culture, and technology.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

Laura Goodrich’s motivation to create the GWT Next program
How the hybrid workplace will change the way businesses operate
Why companies will need to be more flexible and open-minded than ever

GWT Next

When COVID-19 began, it was immediately apparent that organizations would put their head down and plow into business continuity. And to the surprise of many leaders, particularly legacy industries that would have denied the possibility of that being successful, it worked.

If there is uncertainty, people will become tethered to what they know, even if it is not working. This is why it is essential to help leaders realize that reconstructing their social and emotional health would be critical to their ability to innovate and change, which was Laura’s impetus for producing the GWT Next program.

Hybrid Workplace

More than ever, people are reconsidering their whole approach to work in terms of who they want to work for, where they want to be located, etc. People are more hesitant to move close to their office in a high-cost area only to be shown the door when things go wrong.

All of this is creating quite a challenge for organizations. In the hybrid workplace of the future, some people will be in offices; others will work remotely; some will be employed full-time; others will be hired on a project-by-project basis or work part-time for several companies, etc. There are many more challenges to building a team and keeping it connected now than ever before.

Flexibility

Companies need to be more open-minded and more innovative now. During the lockdown, some people have realized that they prefer working from home and that they are perhaps more productive in that environment.

This means that many businesses will need to understand how to have a more results-oriented approach, be more flexible about the working hours, etc. Companies that keep trying to force people back into the way things were before the pandemic started will fall behind.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Selling with Love: Earn with Integrity and Expand Your Impact (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Jason Campbell discusses his book Selling with Love: Earn with Integrity and Expand Your Impact. Jason Campbell is an author, public speaker, sales and marketing consultant.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The negative public perception of salespeople and why it is inaccurate
The endless possibilities provided by the sales career path
How understanding your contribution makes you a better salesperson

The “Slimy” Salesperson Cliche

Unfortunately, salespeople have never been portrayed very well in popular culture, often being presented as “slimy” and manipulative. In reality, sales can be the most fantastic job in the world if you have the right mindset — salespeople bring solutions to people, and there’s no greater feeling in the world than helping someone.

Ethical business and mission-driven entrepreneurs are limiting themselves from the power of embracing sales to push their message forward because they associate it with all this negativity. Selling is nothing more than an energy exchange between conscious people, and when you know what you offer is so much more than what you ask in return, that’s where the emotion of love comes in.

Endless Possibilities

So many people default into sales as a secondary option, having studied marketing, for example. These people are often uncomfortable with sales and almost apologetic about where they ended up instead of embracing it as an opportunity.

If you look at the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, you’ll find that many of them have a sales background. So, although you’ve perhaps ended up in sales as a secondary option, you should understand that you find yourself in an industry with almost infinite possibilities of upward mobility and an increased potential of earning.

Mindset Shift

It is not necessarily about which position you have within the company, but rather whether you align with the impact that the company ultimately makes when every sale is made. If you can be clear with yourself on why you do what you do, you’ll have much more power as a salesperson.

The biggest reason aligning your sales success with a positive impact makes you a better salesperson is that it helps you stand out. Your customers are more likely to enjoy engaging with you if you genuinely believe that what you’re doing is benefiting not only them but the community in general.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.