Cold calling and pushing your way into an office or a living room creates an atmosphere of adversity and distrust you must overcome before you close the deal. With those tired tactics, you're swimming upstream, against a strong current, with a bag of rocks tied to your waist.
Sales has changed.
Legacy sales gimmicks destroy relationships right from the first minute.
This book offers you a turnkey system for building profitable, lifelong relationships. Whether you work with affluent consumers or sell to senior executives in FORTUNE 500 companies, this step‐by‐step guide will help you open doors, close deals, and make more money in a way that leverages your natural strengths. That's the magnificence of the 60 Second Sale system. You get to be yourself and build your business.
The relationships you develop using the system outlined in this book create the atmosphere that allows you to sell in 60 seconds.
When I take the stage to speak to an enthusiastic audience of business executives, or when I walk into a room to train 50 high‐achieving sales professionals, or when I enter a boardroom to meet with a CEO and the company's leadership team, two questions go through the mind of each person staring at me:
I've got 60 seconds to answer that question or I'm done.
My name is Dave Lorenzo, and the information I'm going to share with you is going to help you make more money and get home, on time, for dinner every night.
If you like money, and you like having control of your life, invest a couple of additional minutes reading this introduction.
In 2003, I was a partner at The Gallup Organization, an international management consulting company. One day, my boss walked into my office, sat down in the chair across from me, and said, “Dave, listen. I have something I want you to do, and it's something really personal to me.”
I sat up, leaned forward, and listened intently as he described a situation in which his ex‐brother‐in‐law, the guy who had divorced his sister, had stolen one of his most prized accounts, a national clothing retailer. He described the pain he felt when his brother‐in‐law not only humiliated his sister by divorcing her but also stole his account.
He said, “I need you to do me this favor. I need you to drop what you're doing and go after this account as hard as you possibly can. I want you to land this account, and if you do it in the next 60 days, I'm going to give you a $50,000 bonus.”
You and I both know that money is a huge motivator for successful sales people, so I sat up in my chair and said, “Boss, you can count on me. I'm on it.”
Keep in mind, this was a massive industry. Big ticket, business‐to‐business consulting is uber‐competitive and normally, each deal requires an 18‐month (or longer) sales cycle. The minimum size account our company would even consider had to be worth at least $1 million in revenue to us on an annual basis.
I just promised my boss I was going to do this in 60 days.
I slowly looked around the room and I said to myself, “How am I going to make this happen?”
I went into my computer and looked through my contacts file. I searched for people who had been to my speaking engagements who might be able to connect me with someone at the target company. I saw there was one person from this company who had seen me speak and subscribed to our email newsletter. I picked up the phone, gave her a call, and set an appointment to meet her.
At that meeting, I used the techniques we discuss in this book. I created a personal connection with her: I took an interest in her career – in the success she personally desired. In the weeks that followed, I made a genuine effort to help her become successful and, in doing so, closed a deal that produced over $5 million in annual revenue for my company, successfully wrestling the business away from our rival.
The best part?
Because of the trust she developed in me, we cut through all the bureaucracy and reduced an 18‐month sales cycle down to close the deal in 60 days. Through this whole process, nothing was more important than the first 60 seconds. The bond between us occurred in that first minute when I demonstrated an external orientation and offered to help her become personally successful.
The 60 Second Sale is all about creating a lifelong bond with your clients – a bond that allows you to become successful by enabling their success.
My career has taken a lot of twists and turns. I started working at the absolute bottom. I was a dishwasher out of high school at a small Italian restaurant and then I became the guy that made the salads. I thought this was my calling, so I went to culinary school. That was an absolute disaster – I hated it.
So, I switched gears and I went to college to pursue a degree in hospitality business and administration while working as a bellhop at Marriott. I worked my way up to manager and eventually managed the Marriott ExecuStay team in New York when it started. In just three years, we went from nothing to $50 million in revenue. After 12 years there and the 9/11 devastation that led to loss of colleagues and clients, it was time move on. I went back to school and got a couple of master's degrees – an MBA from Pace University and a master's degree in strategic communications from Columbia University in New York City.
I was recruited by The Gallup Organization to head up its newly formed Manhattan consulting team. Well, at the time, the team was just me. I worked there for six years, and during my tenure, I developed relationships that produced hundreds of millions in revenue, closed the two largest single consulting contracts in the company's history, and helped keep a huge team of consultants, researchers, and administrative people gainfully employed. My team went from just me with zero revenue to a massive consulting portfolio, generating enormous value for our Fortune 500 clients. I was successful in all the standard ways. And then everything changed…
Are you in control of your business, your career, and your future?
One cold winter morning, I was not focused on the answer to that question. I was not focused on anything. I was flat on my back, strapped to a wooden board on a gurney. I stared at the ceiling, counting the tiles that passed by as the paramedics and doctors pushed me faster and faster down a seemingly endless hallway. Everything below my shoulders was numb. My mind was making up for the lack of motion in my body. It was racing with blistering speed. I was not thinking about the things I would not be able to do if the feeling did not return. I was thinking about my priorities. I was thinking specifically about all the family things, all the life things I had put off because I thought my work and my life could not coexist.
It is amazing how your life can change in a split second.
Earlier that morning, I was at my office at Gallup and I made a choice to drop off a file at a client's office instead of meeting my wife for lunch. I could have sent a messenger with the file. I could have emailed the documents. I could have done several different things, but the client demanded I bring the file personally so he could review the work and give me immediate feedback.
I walked at a brisk pace as I stepped off the curb with the rest of the pedestrians crossing with the light, in the crosswalk. I was not on my mobile phone. I was not distracted. I was thinking about crossing the street.
When the Yellow Cab hit me, time stood still. I could see the horror on the faces of the other pedestrians as I flew 24 feet, 7 inches and hit the ground with a sickening thud. I remember hearing the commotion as a group of good Samaritans chased down the cab driver and pulled him out of the cab. I also remember the kind woman who asked me if she could call someone as they loaded me into the ambulance.
Back in the hospital, my focus changed when the ceiling tiles gave way to a long metal tube into which I was carefully loaded by four hospital staffers. The only thing louder than the annoying hum of the equipment was the sound of my thoughts. Thoughts of things I had yet to do. Things I had put off. Quality time I had not spent with people in my life who really mattered.
Don't worry – things worked out for me after that day…in more ways than one.
By the grace of God, I suffered no lasting injuries from that accident, but it served as a wake‐up call. I made the decision that from that day forward, my work was going to be something that enabled my life. I was going to be passionate about every aspect of my work and I was going to delegate things I did not enjoy. I was only going to accept clients who energized me, and I was not going to let anyone dictate the terms under which I would operate. I would take time to do things that were important both for my clients and my family. And I would make those two previously competing forces live in harmony in my life.
Over a decade later, life is still a work in progress, but it is a process I am enjoying, each and every single day.
Not long after that accident, I went out on my own. Again, I started from scratch. I had no accounts. No prospects – my noncompete agreement prohibited me from even talking to clients and prospects I had worked with or called on while at Gallup. The only thing I had was a burning desire to help people take control of their future through relationship‐based sales, something that I was innately good at.
These days, I define success a little differently. Success to me today isn't only about the biggest client I can get or the biggest sale I can make. It's about doing those things on my own terms. It's about controlling my own destiny and my own time – what I want to do, when I want to do it.
That's the value I provide. That's what this system does. It helps people make lots of money without compromising their beliefs. It helps people take control of their lives.
Ask yourself these three questions:
If you answered no to any of those questions, this is the most important book you'll read this year.
I was able to answer yes to those first two questions but not to the third. It took getting run down by a taxicab for me to realize how important the answer to that question really is.
Your life can change in 60 seconds.
Just as importantly, you can help change the life of someone else in 60 seconds. Make them matter. My mission is to enable sales executives, business leaders, and independent professionals in all industries make a great living and live a great life.
My 60 Second Sale process makes each minute a profit opportunity for you.
In the pages that follow, I will lay out an entire system for you and give you the step‐by‐step activities to help you open doors, deepen relationships, and make more money.
Here is a sneak peek at what you are about to discover: