06 Sep September 6, 2019 – Po-ling Power Betty Ng and Sales Secrets Laura Burton
“The audio file was removed when we switched hosts. Sorry. The cost was prohibitive. If you need the file, contact us and we will send it.”
Betty Ng – CEO of Inspiring Diversity, Builder of Inclusive, Collaborative, High-Performing Organizations. Bestselling Author of Po-Ling Power: Propelling Yourself and Others to Success
Po-ling Power, when you really look at it, it’s about how do you
propel your authentic self, be genuine, be true to who you are,
while also helping others to succeed, but doing so in a way
so you’re managing what matters.
Betty Ng is a tech and media entrepreneur, author, trainer, professional speaker, consultant, and thought leader. She is the CEO and creator of Inspiring Diversity. Her company works with clients to create an inclusive, collaborative, and high-performing work environment. Their PO-LING POWER events and workshops restructure your team’s environment, leading to a work culture with more focus, authenticity, respect, and collaboration. Consulting and detailed programs are also available to help companies continually implement PO-LING POWER. Betty’s book, PO-LING POWER: Propelling Yourself and Others to Success lays the groundwork for these programs, as well as being the basis for the company’s app, videos, and workshops. Inspiring Diversity has helped many prominent companies, including American Express, the American Red Cross, United States Military Academy (West Point), the Marsh & McLennan Companies, and Harvard Law School Women’s Alliance. Betty achieved an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and a B.A. in Economics with honors from Stanford University.
Laura Burton – Sales & Marketing Executive and Sales Coach/Trainer – Read interview highlights here
A hundred years ago there were newspapers and it took 7 times
for someone to see an ad in the newspaper before they became
a customer. It’s a little different now-a-days.
People do their own research.
Laura Burton shows individuals and businesses of all sizes how to maximize their sales and scale their businesses successfully. She applies 30 years of sales and marketing experience including cold calling, warm leads, inbound leads, and face-to-face sales to other businesses and end consumers alike. Her vast experience selling all kinds of items to all kinds of people makes her understanding of competent closing especially prescient. She’s analyzed over 15,000 businesses, developed marketing strategies, written sales scripts and systems, and built and managed sales teams. Linda is owner and CEO of 416 Sales, and has written 12 Secret Sales Hacks That Have Stood the Test of Time.
Highlights from Laura’s Interview
Sales is something that a lot of people have opinions about, and everyone is selling every day of their life, whether they know it or not. And either they’re good at it, or they don’t know how to do it. But everyone sells to get what they want.
Unless you teach someone how to sell, and give them an understanding of what the mechanics are behind it, and what they’re trying to do, they’re not going to learn it. When I was eight years old, I asked my dad if I could go somewhere, my mom was out. She was always my go-to, and I had to ask my dad. He was busy working, and I was interrupting him. I was scared to do that, so when I came up to him, and asked him, I was really timid. I mean, I wasn’t confident at all. I interrupted him, and he got mad. I asked, he said no. And I was just petrified, and I was disappointed, and I went to walk away. Now he was an advertising guy, and he saw that he had just devastated me.
He called me back, and he said, “Do you want to do this, Laura?”
And I was shaking and ready to cry, and I said, “Yeah.”
And he said, “You didn’t sell me on it.” And he gave me my first sales lesson. He taught me to be a negotiator, and I became a note negotiator from that point on.
What my dad pointed out to me is that if I wanted him to agree to something, or I wanted to sell him on it, I had to understand what he needed. I had to be able to present something that he wanted, or give him an understanding of why it would benefit him. It was like, “Okay, you didn’t catch me at the right time. It didn’t tell me what I needed to hear.” I can go back and figure it out, and come back with a better approach. And so to me, no was never a problem. I became this relentless person of pursuit, because I knew that no was just, maybe I caught you at a bad moment, maybe you’re having a bad day. But if I really believe in something, it’s something I really, really want, I will do everything I can to convince you that it’s something that you should have.
He was able to be comfortable that I was going to be in a safe environment, that I was going to be able to do something that would be fun and enriching to me as a person. And as a father, he’s very interested in raising me to have a well-rounded life and to be a thoughtful person and to have good experiences. So it was on the basis of being able to give him the criteria of how he was going to feel comfortable that I could go and do that. I was eight years old, so it really was about letting him know that I had everything set up, so he wouldn’t have to worry about me going, and he wouldn’t have to pick me up or do anything for it.
A lot of times people are going to buy something that they want, that they think is going to make themselves better. Everyone wants a better life, everybody wants something new and great and different. A lot of what we see in the media, and a lot of the ads that are thrown at us have to do with, “This is going to make you better, this will make you prettier, this will make you more attractive.” So when it comes to selling something like a new website, or something that’s a luxury item that may not be needed, it’s really understanding your prospect, what are their goals, and what are they thinking about? And you may not have a fit, if you don’t have someone who’s really motivated to do something. But if you know somebody loves Rolex watches, and they have the money to buy a Rolex watch, and you’ve got something that’s really cool, that’s unique that they just can’t get, and you’ve got it, some of its going to be timing. In sales, it’s important to really understand who your client is, who your customer is, what motivates them, and understand their perfect timing for being able to get something done, and staying with them until you are there to be able to fulfill that.
Today, you are probably looking at anywhere from 12 to 15 touches to sell something. Now, 100 years ago, there were newspapers. And it took seven times for someone to see an ad in a newspaper before they became a customer. Now, it’s a little different, because people can do their own research. Salespeople are not needed in the same way that they were before, because right now, what happens is someone goes online when they want something. The only time they bother going to a place or getting on the phone to talk to a salesperson is they can’t get everything they need answered by themselves. People are self-sufficient, online shopping is huge. When you look at all the distractions, when you look at all of the things that they’re doing, and all the different places where they’re out doing things, you’re not only competing with your competitors, you’re competing with your own customer vying for their own attention. Everyone’s on Facebook, everyone’s being a sensation. You’ve got to stay in front of them. Now, there’s going to be a percentage of people who have done a lot of research, who have come to you, have happened to find them when they’re just ready, and they just need a few more things, and they can go right away. If you have something that is a staple, people are typically going to get going to need something like this, you can usually do it. But a lot of times only 3% of the people that you’re going to be talking to are going to be ready to buy, you have to have a good follow-up system, and you have to have a way of staying in front of people that’s engaging and fun. That’s why when you sign up for something, you’ll see tons of emails going out on a regular basis, because when you’re ready to go, that person wants to be in front of that customer.
What I’ve done with the sales funnel is, when someone goes to 416sales.com, they’re going to be able to download my free ebook, and that gets me an email contact. Then I’m able to do email marketing. From there, they’re able to go and check me out as a sales coach, and they’re able to book a 30 minute free consultation, because right now what I’m doing is, I am bringing on more one on one coaching clients. With the 30 minute consultation, I’m able to talk to the person, get to know them, and see if there’s something that they need that I can help them with. If I can’t, and we just had a great conversation about them, and we had a great time and they’re on my email list. If they do need something, then we figure out what’s going to work for them. They get a free download of a book, The 12 Secret Sales Hacks that Have Stood the Test of Time. That’s how they become onto my email list. And what’s been told to me, and what’s kind of out there in the world, when you have a solid email list, every time you email an offer, you’re going to make money. So for every dollar, you get $1 per month for every person on your list if you’re active in your email marketing, so the more you build the list, the better. For people who have their following on Facebook or their following on Instagram or Twitter, LinkedIn, if you don’t pull those people out of those platforms into your own control, then you are at the mercy of those platforms, and you may lose those people one day if something changes with the platform. So you want to be getting them engaged with you in your own environment, as Steve also says, in your own ecosystem.
PT Barnum is the first source, and it’s his book, The Art of Getting Money. The second source is William Walker Atkinson, and it’s The Psychology of Salesmanship. PT Barnum was brilliant. He was a master at understanding how to captivate audiences with something unusual or out of the ordinary. And William Walker Atkinson, what really caught my attention about him is that he only wrote one sales book. He was a pioneer of new thought, the occult, mind reading, yoga, everything that’s new age, law of attraction. And these guys were writing about sales over 100 years ago. So I was really interested to see where all this sales secret knowledge came from, that people are teaching now. So I went back in history to find some of the source material.
Perseverance is one of PT Barnum’s secrets, and I love it. Basically with PT Barnum, he’s, “Don’t be lazy, don’t give up, and don’t lose confidence.” In a nutshell, you have to persevere, you have to do what isn’t really that glamorous, and you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. He was such an innovator, and he was very creative. He probably would have been at the forefront of all the special effects and the people who are doing what is fantastic and out of the ordinary now, because that’s who he was. Everyone in their time becomes who they need to be for their purpose. And I think that if he had been around nowadays, he would have been a technology genius, because he would have learned it, because that’s the medium that was available. He used what he had at the time. He would use what he had at the time now.
One more PT Barnum. Advertise your business. This goes back to what you said earlier, how many touches does it take to get a customer? And his whole thing was, if no one knows you, they’re not going to buy from you. It takes seven times. Back in his day, it was seven times for someone to see an ad in a newspaper. He felt that if you weren’t advertising, you weren’t going to stay in business. You had to get out. He would put up big banners, he always was out there, he was in front of people, putting out flyers, whatever you had to do. When you’re in business, what’s brilliant about business for entrepreneurs right now is there’s so much available online that’s free. You can do webinars, you can do Facebook groups, you can do Facebook posting, you can do live videos every single day on multiple channels, you can do so many things to get in front of an audience. People need to keep doing it, and not give up early. When people fail, it’s usually because they stopped too soon.
It is so important for entrepreneurs to be efficient with their time. They have to really understand what they’re good at, and what they should outsource. There are so many choices. I talked to a lot of small business owners, and the first that they have is that there’s so many things being offered to them every single day that they just want to shut down and say, “I don’t want to talk to anyone anymore.” Because they’re overloaded, and everything sounds good, and everything costs $100 and go broke if they spend it on everything. So it’s important to understand your business, understand your customers, where are they? What are they doing, and what do they need from you? And continue to be in front of them in a way that doesn’t take up hours and hours of your time every day. You have to be able to get a system in place. And that’s one of his systems, and one of his secrets is to be systematic, is you have to be able to be efficient, and get everything done. So any tools you can find, any systems you can create that are going to give you back your time, you’ve got to implement that.
It’s funny how things get passed on from generation to generation, and the person who comes to marketed as their secret seems to be the father of that, or the mother of that at the time when they’re promoting it, until they’re forgotten, and somebody else does it. What I loved about William Walker Atkinson is, because he was all about the mind, and the psychology of things, he really touched on things that are so important. The mind of the salesman is one of his secrets that I pulled. It has to do with how you show up as a salesperson. You have to have self esteem, you have to be confident, you have to have poise, you have to be cheerful, you have to be polite, you have to have hope, you really have to believe in what you’re doing. You have to be enthusiastic, and you have to be determined. If I know without a shadow of doubt that what I’m offering is a slam dunk for you, is going to help you, is going to be your solution, is going to make your life better, you are going to buy it from me. And if I’m excited about it, because I’m doing the right thing for you and giving you a great deal, you will definitely want to buy from me. If I have any doubt whatsoever, you’re going to have to think about it, you’re not going to be sure, and you’re not going to want to work with me. So the mind of the salesman is hugely important in being successful, when you’re going to be in business out selling to people.
An Atkinson secret that was one of the most important, the psychology of purchase. This is where most people lose deals on a regular basis. He points out that there are 10 different stages that someone goes through in a buying process, when they’re going to decide if they’re going to buy. And it’s very easy to be deceived or misled by somebody’s curiosity or their interest in what you’re doing, and think that they’re going to buy, when they have six more things they’ve got to go through in their mind before they’re going to actually pull the trigger and give you a credit card or a payment. Even if they’ve made a decision that they want to doesn’t mean that they’re going to do it right now. And so sometimes a salesperson will jump ahead, and think they’ve got a deal without taking the time to go through what the buyer needs to go through in order to be able to follow through and complete that transaction. It’s very, very easy to kill a deal when you misread where the person is in the process.
The 10 steps are involuntary attention, impression, curiosity, associated interest, consideration, imagination, inclination, deliberation, decision, and action. If a sales person looks at your associated interest and decides that you’re ready to buy, you’re gone. And getting someone’s attention, that’s the hook, the involuntary attention, the thing that grabs them, even if they don’t want to be grabbed. And then the first impression, that’s where the salesman has to be so terrific, that the person even wants to listen to them, and then you get their curiosity. But that doesn’t mean they even have money or that they would buy what you have, so you really need to take them through all these things to understand what’s going on. When you get to the point toward the end decision, that’s when the other decision maker that was never mentioned before, or became a decision maker that was made up out of thin air because the person doesn’t want to do anything, is going to show up. You have to be prepared to understand the stages of how the psychology is of the buyer. You have to have an understanding of how to answer any of their objections, and really answer those objections while you’re going through the process, so they don’t have any at the end of the whole presentation of what you’re doing.
If you go to 416sales.com, you can put in your email and download the book. You can find me on Facebook under 416sales, you can find me on LinkedIn at 416sales, and I’ll be happy to connect with you.