Chapter 1
It Was Never about the Pen

60 Second Summary

Sales has changed.

Once upon a time, you walked into an office and knocked on a door and offered something to potential buyers. If they said they wanted what you had to offer, you negotiated a price. Once they paid, you moved on to the next office or knocked on the next door.

Sales is no longer transactional. It's now about relationships. You can't even get to the door upon which to knock without a relationship. You can't get into the office without a relationship.

If you want to sell now, you must start by selling yourself and selling your interest in helping the prospective client succeed.

What's in This Chapter for You?

This chapter will help change your thinking about sales and selling. You will begin to focus on relationships not transactions. When you do, you'll be in the minority: people leading a relationship‐based business today. This gives you an advantage.

Imagine that.

Your competitive advantage is the way you look at the world of business and the way you approach each person with whom you come into contact.

In 60 seconds, you'll open doors, deepen relationships, and make more money because you think differently.

The key concept you will discover in this chapter is called external orientation. That means focusing on meeting the needs of the other person before asking them to take action on your behalf. Understand them and seek to help them achieve a goal or relieve some pain before you sell to them.

This type of thinking is the ultimate competitive advantage.

The Dumbest Sales Interview Question in History

“Can you sell me this pen?”

One of the dumbest things I've seen is a sales executive, in an interview, use this hackneyed question to determine if someone is qualified as a sales professional.

You see it in the movies. You see it on talk shows. It's used everyday in sales interviews. The idea behind the question is, if you can sell the pen to the person sitting across the desk, under pressure, you can sell anything to anyone.

The problem: Before you get to have a conversation about the pen, you need to know the answers to a whole host of other questions, like:

Why is this person buying pens?

Does the person's success in a pen purchase advance his or her career?

What can you do, beyond providing this pen, to advance that person's career? How can you help the pen buyer succeed?

So what do you do? What's the correct answer?

The correct answer is to say: “Mr. Buyer, I want to help you with more than just the pen. I'm in this for the long term. Take the pen and use it for as long as you'd like. Now tell me a little about what you do here and how your success is measured.”

You're not in the business of giving away things you'd normally be able to make money selling, but if forced into a situation that makes you choose between a transaction and a relationship, you should choose the relationship every time.

Selling a pen to someone on the spot is a transaction. Helping the guy who buys the pens grow his business and advance his career is developing a relationship.

Office Supplies by Referral Only

Can you imagine a waiting list to have lunch with an office supply salesperson? Well, it actually happened to a man named Ralph Liparulo. “Mr. Ralph,” as he was known, spent the last decade of his 56‐year career selling office supplies. He wasn't focused on selling pens. He was focused on helping people make money.

How can the guy who sells office supplies become the person who influences careers?

Mr. Ralph was in and out of offices all day long. While he stopped in an office, he talked with the business owner or manager about what they did, who their clients were, and the value they provided.

One day, he stopped by a customer's office and found it was flooded. The carpet was soaked. Mr. Ralph jumped on the phone and called a carpet cleaning company, who also happened to be his customer. The timing was excellent, and they had water extractors on the scene within the hour. Both the carpet company and the customer with the flood were thrilled.

This gave Mr. Ralph an idea. Each week, he began dedicating two hours to calling existing clients and referring them to each other. He'd schedule one breakfast and one lunch each week to introduce his customers to each other. He wouldn't sell any office products at these meetings. He'd simply introduce the two people and talk about what they did and the value they provided.

His clients viewed Mr. Ralph as someone who took a genuine interest in them and the growth of their business. He wasn't the guy selling pens. He was way more valuable than that.

Over time, Mr. Ralph was able to stop cold calling. He lived off the referrals these clients passed him. His weekly introduction meals became almost a daily routine. His clients not only rewarded him with more frequent orders, they also introduced him to their colleagues.

Office supplies were a commodity, but a relationship with Mr. Ralph was a unique opportunity to grow your business with every order of pens, copy paper, and legal pads. People would buy office supplies just to be introduced to Mr. Ralph's network.

External Orientation: Relationships, Not Transactions

What did Mr. Ralph discover that his competition, and almost every sales professional in the world, missed? He unlocked the awesome power of relationship‐based sales.

Everyone else in his industry was knocking on doors trying to sell pens. Mr. Ralph was trying to help people achieve their goals. He had what I call an external orientation. This means he placed the benefit of the other person ahead of his need to achieve his goal.

If you want to connect with people in 60 seconds, you have to show them you can help them achieve a goal or solve a problem.

Here are three guidelines to keep you focused:

1. For every conversation, 70% should be focused on the other person. Stop talking. People do not care about you until they believe you have their best interests in mind. This means you have to shut up and let them do the talking.
2. When people talk to you, they tell you their problems and their goals. People want help but they don't want to ask for help. Sometimes they are too embarrassed to ask. Sometimes their pride gets in the way of asking. But if you allow people to open up, they will tell you what they truly desire. That will give you the opportunity to help.
3. When you solve problems, you make money. Most sales professionals look for problems their product can solve. When that particular problem hits them in the face, they are great at matching the benefits of their product to the needs expressed by the customer. Where they fall short is when the customer expresses a problem outside the scope of their normal work. Usually, the salesperson will run away as fast as possible. But that is a true opportunity to build a relationship.

Somebody Call Security

There are so many preconceived ideas about how sales is supposed to be done, we all fall victim to some bad habits that are thought of as accepted sales practices.

I made this mistake when I first began my career as a consultant. Based in New York, I flew to Boston for three meetings with prospective clients. The three meetings were set by a team member, and the first two went well. At the first meeting with a large regional bank, I showed up, asked questions, and offered thoughts on how we could provide value. The second meeting was a follow‐up meeting, and I shared some information on a solution we previously presented.

After lunch, I was scheduled to go to the third meeting. While preparing for the meeting, I was told the CEO of this men's plus‐size clothing brand wanted a presentation of my company's capabilities, so I dragged a projector and a computer along with me on this trip, and to the previous meetings, so I could do the full dog‐and‐pony show.

I arrived 30 minutes early for the meeting. I set up the projector and computer and tested everything.

When the executive and his entourage arrived, I introduced myself to all of them and immediately began my presentation. About three slides into the show, the CEO interrupted me and said, “Dave, just tell us what you think you can do for our company.”

I smiled and said I was about to get to that part of the presentation.

And I pressed on.

I continued to talk about our offices in 14 different countries and our vast research capabilities – never once asking about the CEO's issues or the challenges facing the company with whom I was meeting.

The CEO stopped me again:

“Can you just get to the part where you tell us how you can help us?” he reiterated.

I nodded and moved on to the next slide and before I got halfway through the points related to it, I noticed the CEO get up and pick up a telephone in the corner of the room.

About three minutes later, two large men in suits appeared in the doorway and escorted me out of the room. They waited with me in the lobby as an assistant packed up my projector and computer and brought them to me.

I had been physically thrown out of the meeting for not building a relationship.

On the plane home that evening I reflected upon my day. I thought about what went well in the first two meetings and what went horribly wrong in the third. When I got to the office, I put the projector away and never brought it to a “sales meeting” again.

I don't do sales meetings anymore. Sure, I still sell things. In fact, I sell something (or at least try to) every day. But the meetings I host and attend now are called business meetings because we discuss how we can work together and exchange value. My client needs help solving a problem or achieving a goal, and I receive financial compensation for helping achieve those outcomes.

That's business.

That's the tectonic mind‐set shift you need to make if you want to take greater control of your business, your income, and your life. “Selling” is helping. When you “sell,” you exchange value for compensation. If your prospective clients like you and trust you, they will invest in you.

My way of “selling” is by developing a relationship with clients, listening to them, and then helping them solve their problems. The key is to put the relationship ahead of any transaction.

That's your job in the first 60 seconds – sell the prospective client on a relationship with you.

Within the first minute of your interaction with any prospective clients, they are deciding if you care about them and their business or if you only care about closing the deal. If they sense any doubt about whether you have an external orientation, you will not be able to recover.

You've probably heard the phrase, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” Well, in business, if you don't demonstrate your external orientation within the first 60 seconds, you'll never have another chance with that prospective client.

People often tell me relationships are nice but they take time to develop. They say they need to make money today. They've got bills to pay and they can't wait to develop relationships with people who probably need what they are selling right now.

First: Those people are wrong. Relationships can be initiated, developed, and consummated quickly – like love at first sight.

Second: You already have relationships that you can count on to deliver business to your doorstep. You just have not cultivated them properly.

Third: The people who say this are focused on transactions. They practice what I call “hit‐and‐run” sales. They want to shake your hand when they meet you, spew some information about their product or service, take the money, and shake your hand as they leave the room. Then they move on to the next transaction.

Times have changed, and sales has changed. The hit‐and‐run sales approach doesn't work anymore. We are in a time when everything from shoes to airplanes can be researched and purchased without any human interaction. This means the experience of working with someone who can solve your problem must be outstanding. This experience starts with a relationship.

Why Relationship‐Based Sales? Five Reasons

In case you need more convincing, let me appeal to your self‐interest and give you five reasons why relationships are better than transactions.

MONEY ON DEMAND

When you focus on establishing and cultivating relationships, you have a limitless source of income. You can pick up the phone and have a conversation with a current client, former client, prospective client, or someone who refers you business, and any one of them can deliver some new revenue to you immediately. That is the pure 60 Second Sale.

CONFIDENCE

As a respected confidant – someone who is valuable and delivers valuable solutions to people – you are welcomed into offices, high‐level meetings, and confidential conversations. This boosts your self‐esteem. The key to success in offering solutions is having the courage to pick up the phone and reach out to people. People with high self‐esteem have no problem doing that.

In short, you feel better about yourself, and when you do, you reach out aggressively to help people. When you help people, you feel better. It is a cycle.

PRIDE

You're delivering value for people – everyone with whom you interact. You're connecting people with others who can help them, or you're solving problems for them yourself. That is a noble calling. Once you have success with this system, you'll want to do it all the time. It's addicting.

PAINLESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT

Sales professionals and business leaders are obsessed with their pipeline. Their future success is supposedly based on:

• How many new appointments they have
• How many meetings they have attended
• How many proposals they've written
• How many deals they've closed
• How many of their clients have paid

This is a typical approach to sales management. It is administratively onerous. It requires teams of people working behind the scenes just to keep track of the activity and reporting compliance. It creates layers of bureaucracy involved in supporting the sales organization.

With relationship‐based sales, you keep track of each relationship and make a few notes about the last conversation you've had and the goals, plans, and desires of your clients and referral sources.

There is no need for layers upon layers of management. There is no need for bureaucracy. There's also no need for endless, tedious meetings that keep sales professionals from doing what they should be doing – talking to clients.

RELATIONSHIP INCOME

A few times each month, people who know you, like you, and trust you will call and ask you for help.

You won't see these calls coming. They'll come when you don't expect them, but you will immediately recognize the name of the person reaching out to you. Maybe you helped someone with something small, years ago, or maybe you referred business to the person without even giving it a second thought.

That's passive income, and it arrives because of your focus on developing relationships.

Four Types of Income

In sales, there are four potential types of revenue (Figure 1.1).

FIGURE 1.1 Four Types of Income

AD HOC

This is transactional revenue. It is what the typical sales professional focuses on, and it is what 90% of the sales universe is chasing right now.

This type of income requires only enough trust to close the initial deal. If you are selling pens to businesses, it only requires enough trust that you will deliver pens that write, on time, and in the right color.

Attracting this type of revenue is tough. You have to go out and knock on doors over and over again. You bang your head against the wall 10 times to get one yes.

REPEAT REVENUE

This is revenue developed from contacts you initiate. You realize it from the sale of a product or service the client has not previously purchased from you.

You call the client and introduce him to a product or service he hasn't used from your company. This requires a high level of trust, because the client has not used your firm for this service in the past. It is not as difficult to generate as ad hoc revenue because the client already knows you, likes you, and trusts you – but the client doesn't trust your ability to deliver this particular product or service. That is still yet to be earned.

Revenue from cross‐selling is considered repeat revenue.

Note: If you are in a business where the repeat revenue must come from another service center, you risk losing control of the client relationship. That's why trust is paramount in the repeat revenue sector.

RECURRING REVENUE

This is revenue from the same activity done over and over again.

For example: You sign a contract with the federal government to provide desk chairs. Every time someone in the government needs a desk chair, you get the call. All day long you take orders for desk chairs and only desk chairs.

Here's a second example: You are a printer and you have a contract to provide printing to franchisees of a pack and mail company. You've negotiated a special price for three different documents each franchisee needs. A different company calls each day, but it is for the same printing package.

This revenue can come from the same client, as in the federal government example, or different clients, as in the example of the franchisee.

Recurring revenue is valuable to you because it is more predictable than ad hoc revenue. Recurring revenue doesn't need a high level of trust on the part of the client because you've proven your ability to deliver over and over again. There is little risk on the part of the client.

RELATIONSHIP REVENUE

The client calls you, unsolicited, for help or advice. These clients call because they trust you and know you have their best interest at heart.

My distinction of repeat revenue from relationship revenue is that repeat revenue is initiated by you and relationship revenue is initiated by the client.

There is another form of relationship revenue – referrals.

You can source referrals from clients who have used your services and you can receive referrals from people who trust you but have never used your services. We call the later evangelists.

Relationship revenue is the Holy Grail of sales income because it flows to you with no additional effort on your part. It is truly passive income that arrives on your doorstep while you sleep, go sailing, play golf, or take your family on vacation.

You Need a System

If you want relationship income to show up on your doorstep, you need to make sure you cultivate relationships. This is tough to do while you are developing new relationships, doing work, and living your life.

That's why you need a system.

Your system must keep track of the new people with whom you connect. The system must keep track of people who refer you business. It must keep track of everything you do with your clients. And it must cultivate relationships with all of those constituencies with frequency (Figure 1.2).

FIGURE 1.2 The 60 Second Sale System

If you tried to do this on your own, with no plan, no goal, and no system, you'd have a nervous breakdown…or you'd only be able to focus on one thing at a time.

60 Second Actions

• Now that you've finished this chapter, take one minute and think about the business you developed in the past six months. Write down how much revenue came from each of the four sources.
  • How much was ad hoc?
  • How much was recurring?
  • How much was repeat?
  • How much was relationship?
• Write down the names of the clients who provided you with relationship revenue. Make a quick bullet‐point list of everything you know about them and their businesses.
• Spend some time looking through your contacts. Is there someone you can introduce each of those relationship revenue clients to in order to improve their businesses or help them achieve their goals. (If you don't know the goals of these clients, get on the phone and start some conversations.)
• Make at least one introduction in the next 24 hours.