When it comes to a career in sales there are some seriously awesome benefits that most people never think about. As a sales trainer at an 8 figure marketing agency, I have a unique perspective on why you might want to consider getting a job in sales.
Looking for some sales motivation?
Might be good to remember how good you have it, too. If you want to get your hands on the exact same sales system I’ve used to land opportunities with BP, State Farm, Discovery Network, and more then head here: https://www.HighStakeSales.com
(If you’re an old timer, you still might want to check it out.)
Every year businesses focus on scaling. That means less time spent on soft skills and more time spent on automation. This creates an environment that forgets the essential ingredient of long term success: people.
Every part of your business involves a person at some point. Arguably, this makes the human dimension of your company the most important deciding factor of success or failure.
No matter how big or small your business, it lives or dies on trust.
Now that the old world of “word of mouth and handshakes” has been thrown into the digital marketplace, it’s even more difficult to create genuine connections with your customers.
How can you help build trust in a digital context?
That’s Where Soft Skills Come Into The Picture
Soft skills is a broad heading that includes a lot of different techniques, mindset shifts, interpersonal skills, time management, and more. Broadly speaking it’s anything that helps you connect with other people.
Hiring for personality first, and technical ability later (because you can teach skills but you can’t teach disposition) is an integral skill for any hiring manager.
As a leader you need to be able to get your company on board with your vision in you want an effective team. Getting buy-in from your company is a soft skill.
If you are looking for investors you know that you don’t need to just find money; you need to find the right money. This is a function of finding someone who believes in the value of what you’re doing, and trusts your ability to deliver on your word. This is the world of soft skills.
If you are a salesperson looking to land more business, you need to be able to connect with a lead and help them feel like you understand their situation. Only then will the trust your advice on what will solve their problems. How quickly you can do that is part of your soft skills toolbox.
Even if you are an e-commerce / dropshipper! Soft skills are essential. You need to be able to communicate through your website’s copy and visuals to your customer. They will either trust the site with their credit card information, or they’ll just “not feel right about it” and bounce. Understanding their experience is a soft skill.
Maybe you are in the research and development team at a Fortune 500 company. You’ve just made a huge discovery that will make the company millions of dollars. You try to tell management, but they’re “just not getting it.” That is a failure of your ability to communicate the value of your discovery. And you guessed it, a failure of soft skills.
What, exactly, are soft skills?
People do business with the people they trust. They’re more likely to trust you if you like you. They will like you if they can understand what you’re trying to say to them. So, soft skills are the areas you need to practice in order to connect with people in less time with less effort.
Basically it’s everything that’s not technical skills.
Communication skills
It’s not what you say; it’s what your audience hears. This is difficult enough in person even when you can see body language, hear tone of voice, eye contact, etc.
Online it’s even more difficult when you’re staring into an unblinking lens with zero feedback about how well your message is coming across.
On the sales page communication is the most difficult since you’re relying entirely on the written word (and the reading comprehension of your customer).
Rapport
One of the goals of communication is to help your audience feel a connection with you and your message. It loosely translates to “likeability” or “trust.” It’s agreement, mutual understanding, and empathy all rolled into one that makes communication easier.
Motivation
One of my mentors told me there are three elements to motivation:
You can’t motivate anyone
Everyone is motivated
They’re motivated for their own reasons
From a leadership perspective, the trick is to build a relationship where the employee feels comfortable explaining why they keep coming to work.
I want to buy a house
I’m providing for a family
My parents need some help
Once you know why they’re showing up to work every day, you can help them understand how doing their best at work is the best strategy to achieving those goals. Now their natural motivation is aligned to the mission of the business. None of this would happen without trust, communication, and rapport.
Flexibility
Every successful business has processes built in for every step of the acquisition and delivery part of the company. Sometimes, however, teams can get too focused on the “how” (process) and forget the “why” (to help our customers).
When your team says things like “but we always do it this way” you’re running the risk of ignoring situations where that process doesn’t help a customer. You might even be outsourcing a lot of the pain of solving problems onto the customer just because your process demands it.
This is very bad business.
If, instead, you have a team that understands the goal, you can remain open to new ways of delivering results. This is the heart of flexibility.
Most people are resistant to change, so rewarding innovation and new ideas is a profoundly effective soft skill.
Problem Solving
This is entwined with flexibility. Finding new ways of thinking about problems, opportunities, resources, and connections is all based on creativity, innovation, and non-linear approaches to resource management.
That’s just a fancy way of saying soft skills.
Why Are Soft Skills Important?
Hopefully I’ve already made the case clear. Every single part of your business is affected by how well (or poorly) your people can connect with each other and your customers.
If you have spent a majority of your time focusing on the technical side of your company (scale! automate! outsource!) then you have a lot of opportunity to improve things by addressing the human side of things (connect! communicate! commit!).
If that’s you, send me an email about how we can get you one of my training workshops. They are available online as well as in person (when they’re safe to do).
This is one of the most destructive beliefs I see on a regular basis:
“My idea is so good it sells itself.”
~Every Misguided Entrepreneur
For three years I was a mentor at the world’s number one tech incubator, 1871, which is located here in Chicago. Once a month I’d have office hours where entrepreneurs could schedule one on one strategy sessions.
From that project alone I got to chat with hundreds of very sharp business owners.
The one thing they all had in common?
Horrible sales skills.
Terrible.
They’re brilliant people.
Researchers, innovators, big thinkers. But they’re not sales people.
Their work could change the world, and it was so painfully obvious to them how it would happen that they couldn’t understand that nobody else could see it.
That’s when I’d hit them with this quote:
“Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.”
Howard Hathaway Aiken, Computer Pioneer, (March 8, 1900 – March 14, 1973)
Their Biggest Problem
Over and over again I would see the same issue.
They were so impressed with what their product/service did that they wouldn’t tell me what it did for me.
They would explain features instead of telling me the benefits.
“It spins faster!” vs “Saves you time.”
Exactly Backwards
You should always start with what benefits the customer gets.
Only then can you explain how it happens.
What Happens If You Don’t
Every company needs all the help it can get.
I don’t care if you found the cure for cancer. You aren’t going to be successful unless you tell the world about it, and ask them to pay you for it.
Your business makes the world a better place, and if you don’t learn how to explain that then you’re going to have fewer sales. That means a smaller budget. That means a smaller salary (if you’re lucky enough to have one at all).
That means you suffer. That means your family suffers. That means all the people who could use your help suffer.
Failing to work on your sales skills means you’re directly responsible for the world being worse off than it could be.
Where To Start
I’ve been in sales my whole life. My first professional engagement was at age 13 when I got paid $200 to entertain a company’s employees at a summer picnic.
Since then I’ve been the top sales person at the highest grossing 3rd party vendor at an international tourist destination, sold 5 and 6 figure deals, and taught Fortune 500 teams how to improve their sales, negotiation, and presentation skills through my company, ZAVANT enterprises.
I know not everyone has the luxury of having the company footing the training bill, so I’m currently working on an online training process to help individual entrepreneurs and side hustlers make more money with better sales skills.
If you’re interested in learning more, go check out the project site, and sign up for email notifications as it gets closer to completion.
The short answer: A mentalist is a type of magician who has specialized in the art of mind reading tricks.
The long answer: A mentalist is someone who is fascinated by the way that the human mind works. They are dedicated to understanding the far-reaching implications of unlocking the fundamental mental processes that guide our every decision for ourselves, our romantic partners, in sales, negotiation, presentations, and beyond.
What Does A Mentalist Show Look Like? 👇
It looks like this from my perspective.☝
I could tell you what I’m thinking, but that would be extraordinarily unimpressive. It would only be amazing if I could tell YOU what YOU are thinking.
That would be a damn fine trick!
And so it is.
A mentalism show is essentially the performance of uncanny mental powers like reading minds, predicting the future, defying the laws of physics, and leaving an audience questioning the limits of their imaginations.
It is completely based on audience interaction and participation.
Without minds to read, there’s not much of a mind reading show, is there?!
This means that mentalism is much more about collaboration and the wonders of truly being in the moment together than any other type of entertainment.
Where Else Is This Useful?
Everywhere.
Mentalism works because it leverages the fundamental processes that we humans use to interact with reality. When you understand that system to its core, you realize it has implications in any area that involves a human being.
It’s also the source of my books focused on mind power, motivation, mindset, self confidence etc etc.
My Background
At 5 years old I saw a magician on television, and it looked like the most fun anyone could ever have. That’s the moment I knew what I was doing with the rest of my life.
Most of my time outside of school was spent in the county library reading every single book they had on magic. Each one was full of enchanting illustrations, secrets, and outdated patter.
I loved it.
I began practicing coin tricks, rope tricks, and tricks with things around the house. Quickly, however, I realized that the “mind reading” tricks seemed to get bigger reactions, so I was naturally drawn to those.
At 13 years old I got paid $200 to entertain families at a company’s summer employee picnic, and I’ve been supremely unemployable since then.
Applicability
As I explained briefly already, I have worked hard over the years to extract the psychological secrets that I’ve learned on the stage that can help business owners be more successful.
Conclusion
That’s the quick version of what a mentalist is, and what you can learn from their secrets!
You’re planning a high stakes event with valuable attendees, and every detail matters. The speakers you choose will determine how people talk about the event afterwards. My goal? Make you look like a rockstar.
My Guarantee
If I do or say anything on or off stage that reflects poorly on you, the organization, or the event then you don’t have to pay me.
My Message
Most of the time I speak about creativity, innovation, and the psychology of sales, negotiation, marketing, and online business.
Every presentation leans heavily on audience interaction, live action demonstrations of the ideas, and unforgettable experiences that are fun, dynamic, and tweet-worthy. 👇
My Topics
Think Like A Mind Reader: 30-45 minute presentation focused on the power of creative problem solving, innovation, and thinking outside the box. The takeaways will help you create more a more powerful business with a better sales team, website, and marketing materials.
Secrets Of [Ethical] Persuasion: Influence is at the heart of all sales, negotiations, business, and life. The better you understand how it works, the better prepared you will be to apply it ethically, and protect yourself from unethical applications.
Inspirational: Your life is limited by your imagination. If you can’t even picture an ideal outcome, how could you make it happen? This presentation will show you how powerful your imagination can be, and share tools to help you unlock big results in life & business.
“It was one of the clear highlights of the Expo and Learning part of the conference. Most mentioned how they appreciated the presentation itself and the dynamic content.”
Every show I do is an opportunity to get real-time feedback from real-live people on what works, what doesn’t work, and what I should work on.
Shows are composed of hundreds of experiments. I play with language, timing, positioning, tone of voice, physicality, scripting, lighting, information order, and thousands of details that make the show.
Every reaction (or lack thereof) is it’s own data point, (more…)
There’s no shortage of articles explaining how “business is war,” and they almost all start with pull quotes from Sun-Tzu’s Art of War. They go into granular detail about the strategies & tactics of warfare as a way to help you understand how to apply those lessons in the boardroom.
They explain how to deceive your enemies. Confuse your competitors. Outsmart those who want to eat your lunch.
But they’re almost all missing a key component:
Mindset.
The mindof a warrior is their most valuable weapon; this can’t be overstated.
To achieve the mood of a warrior is not a simple matter. It is a revolution. To regard the lion and the water rats and our fellow men as equals is a magnificent act of a warrior’s spirit. It takes power to do that. ~Carlos Castaneda
A warrior understands to underestimate an opponent could spell disaster. Treating everyone & everything as your equal is a way of respecting their potential to teach you something (like you’re mortal).
3 Aspects of a Warrior’s Mindset
1. Focus on Victory
The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. ~Miyamoto Musashi
Complete focus & dedication to success is absolutely essential in making it a reality.
If your mind is concerned with anything other than the job at hand, you will lose.
Most people are “interested in being interested.” They dabble. They dip their toe into the water. Their mind is always distracted with “what if.”
They have crippling FOMO.
Those who lack total commitment to their goals wind up drifting through life. They never enjoy the benefits of a hard-earned reward. They go for the easy route.
You, on the other hand, can sustain a laser-like focus on what you want. Dedicate your incredible willpower to making it happen, no matter what stands between you and what you want.
There will be people who will tell you ambition is unsustainable. This is their own fear of failure being projected on you. They love you, and don’t want you to suffer the pain of disappointment when it doesn’t work out (like what happened to them). Don’t limit your life to someone else’s comfort zone.
Be of a single mind that is solely focused on success.
2. Know Your Capacity
“I was just doing what anyone in my situation would have done.” ~Every Single Hero on TV
There’s more inside you than you realize. You are capable of amazing things; both good & bad. Familiarize yourself with your potential, and then train it to a high degree.
This takes incredible mental strength that is already inside you.
The trick, then, is to create a safe setting where you can explore your inner warrior so you can learn how to call on it. Just like you can find yourself in a state of flow, you can develop a sense for your own inner warrior who is capable of fighting tooth & nail like your life depends on it.
Because it does.
What would you do differently if you found out you’re dying? Would you call the people you love? Would you finally start that hobby you’ve been putting off?
Because you’re dying. Right now. And so is everyone you know.
None of us is getting off this ride alive.
Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death. ~Miyamoto Musashi
So don’t hold back. Don’t wait for a better time. Train your mind to be its best. Now.
3. Advance
Approach the enemy with the attitude of defeating him without delay. ~Miyamoto Musashi
It’s an unnatural thing to move towards danger. Our first instinct is to withdraw to a safe distance.
This helps those who would do you harm.
If, on the other hand, you move towardsa person/situation, it will surprise them. It stifles how much room they have to maneuver around you.
In life, every action you take has the potential to be good or bad. Only move if the odds are heavily in your favor; otherwise, stay put.
Moving with no clear purpose only serves to expend your energy, and cloud your ability to see the most advantageous options available to you.
When making a big decision, don’t rely solely on momentary consideration. Really lay out everything that could go right & wrong.
Want to start your own business? Make a list.
Want to pursue a new relationship? Make a list.
No matter what the decision, make a list.
This will keep you from reacting to momentary distractions. This will help you consider all possibilities, and avoid the pitfalls of moving for moving’s sake.
To ignore this detail is to invite disaster.
So move when it’s in your favor. Stay put otherwise.
Retreat only when absolutely necessary.
Conclusion
Most people are content with their lives. They’re fine with cruise-control, and letting others set their course.
This article was not for them.
If you’ve made it this far, it’s likely that you understand that you have to fight to stay human, & the most important part of that process is the mental part.
Hopefully you’ve gotten something worthwhile out of the article, and if you think someone you know would appreciate it to, be sure to share it with them.
Sidenote: You might have noticed several of the quotes were from the same person, Miyamoto Musashi. He has a fascinating story. He was a samurai who fought his first duel at age 13, killing his much more experienced opponent. He eventually won 60+ duels before retiring from a life of fighting where he spent years reflecting on the nature of life. You can read his book, “the Book of the 5 Rings” to find out more.
Whenever I talk with anyone in sales, this question invariably pops up:
“How would you suggest I deal with objections?”
Short answer:
Don’t do anything objectionable. Long Answer:
Take a seat.
Objections can take many forms. Maybe it’s about budget. Timing. Needing to talk with a partner before making big decisions.
Whatever they’re telling you, it’s a smoke screen.
The reason they give is never what the objection is truly about. No matter what the excuse, here’s the real issue:
Lack of Trust
Maybe they don’t trust you. Maybe they don’t trust themselves. Maybe they don’t trust whatever you’re selling to do what they need done.
Maybe they don’t trust their ability to do what you say they can do.
Maybe they don’t trust their team to follow through.
How do you find out?
You’re not a mind reader, so the only other option is to treat their objection as a request for more information. They need to know more about you, what you’re selling, other people who have bought from you previously, their results, how people like them have fared with your services, etc.
Objections are really only objections when you’ve done something inappropriate. Otherwise, they’re a request to build more trust.
Socrates was a master at looking like an idiot while being the smartest person in the room. It’s an incredibly effective strategy, and there’s even a term for it: The Socratic Method. It’s the process of asking innocent questions that trap your target before they’re aware anything’s wrong.
Basically, it’s the skill of being stupid like a fox.
“Stupid like a fox,” is one of my favorite lines of all time, and it perfectly encapsulates the strategy we’re going to explore together.
In some ways, Homer is the epitome of the Socratic Method. He’s a bumbling idiot that everyone underestimates, yet everything seems to work out in his favor.
Over the years I’ve used the socratic method mixed with a healthy dose of human psychology to create something I call “Socratic Espionage.” It’s the closest you’ll get to being a master spy who can find out everything you need to know about someone, without them being able to stop themselves from sharing it.
Answers Without Questions
How many times have you been at a coffee shop, and overhear an incredibly personal conversation between two people? It’s amazing what people will share when they think nobody else is listening, isn’t it?
The instant they know you’re paying attention, though, they clam up. And, what would happen if you were bold enough to ask them a point blank question?
They’d tell you to get lost, right?
People hate telling you things. (Especially if they think it can be used against them!)
That’s why they won’t answer your questions. Information is power, and by refusing to answer you questions, they’re trying to maintain control of the situation.
Ask someone what their budget is for hiring speakers? Forget about it. They’re not going to tell you. They want you bid low because you’re desperate. They save money, and you miss out.
Need to know what the political landscape is in an office? Nobody’s going to take off the gloves and tell you what they really think of their manager. . . unless they’re an idiot. They don’t know where your loyalties lie, so they’re going to play it safe.
The more you appear to need something, the less willing people are to give it to you.
I wish it weren’t true, but it is. That’s just how things are. So how do we get around this?
Secret of Comedy
Humans laugh for only 2 reasons:
They feel superior
They feel surprised
That’s it. I’ve just ruined your ability to enjoy anything funny from now on. I don’t care what situation you propose, if it’s funny, it’s because it’s one or both of these things.
Socrates + Comedy = Success
People hate to tell you anything, but they love to feel superior.
More than that; they love to let you know they’re superior.
That’s the secret formula.
By using strategically incorrect statements (instead of fact-finding questions) you are going to by-pass your mark’s in-born hesitation to answer questions, and trigger their deep desire to demonstrate their superiority over you.
In Practice
Let’s say you’re trying to find out how your friendly competition has been getting so much work lately. You could ask them, “What’s your marketing strategy?”
Since it’s a direct question, you’ll get a vague answer. No good.
Try this instead.
Say something like, “I’ve been using Facebook marketing, and it’s pretty much useless.” You’ve demonstrated you’re failing which allows him to feel superior.
He will respond with one of two possible answers:
Are you kidding me? We’ve been using them for 8 months, and it’s like printing money!
Oh man, I feel you on that. We sank thousands into Facebook ads, and never saw a penny come back.
Either way he’s told you a very valuable piece of information about his marketing strategy. So who cares that he thinks you’re stupid?
When I was 14 I almost got arrested for juggling fire. Well, not for juggling, per se, but for drawing a crowd big enough to block the sidewalk & forcing folks into the street who wanted to get by.
Fire & street performing taught me a lot of what I use every day in my business, nearly 20 years later.
It’s all about triangles
Triangles are everywhere, and for good reason. They’re simple, strong, and infinitely variable.
Once you see it, you’ll notice them everywhere.
3 legged stools are stable on any surface. Triangle chokes in martial arts are nearly infinite in number.
Ever heard of the fire triangle?
Fire needs oxygen, fuel, and heat to exist. Remove any one from the equation, and it goes out.
Turns out there’s a “fire triangle” of doing business online. These are the 3 essential elements to successfully doing business on the internet. Get any single one wrong, and you’re not going to be toasting any success marshmallows.
</mangled metaphor>
Website
You have to have a place where you can build your presence. Some people use Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I prefer having my own website.
Hey, look! You’re on one right now!
If you’re building on someone else’s platform, they can change the rules overnight, and you’ve lost all your hard work. (Ask me about my friend who lost his 40,000 YouTube followers due to their mixup, never to get them back.)
A website is always available. Multiple people from different places on Earth can visit the same website at the same time. That’s like being in 2 places at once.
You can’t do that.
Your website is your best tool for telling people who you are & what you’re about. When we do that in the real world we call that having a conversation & that builds trust.
Your website is your virtual handshake and trust builder with potential customers & clients.
Social Media Marketing
You have to tell people you exist.
I get it. You want people to find your organically. You want to feel like people are connecting with you based on the value of your work.
You want people to like your page because you’re just that wonderful and they should just know. You feel like if you tell people about your work, you’re being sleazy.
Well, consider this.
What if you created the cure for cancer in a lab in Antarctica? What if you didn’t tell anyone you created the cure for cancer? What if you thought,
“I’ve worked hard creating this cure. People should know how amazing it is. I shouldn’t have to explain it to them. I want them to come to me here in the frozen-ass wasteland where I live.”
For shame! How dare you hide the cure from the world like that! You have a moral obligation to tell as many people in as many different ways you’ve done this amazing thing.
Telling people you’ve cured cancer is marketing. Helping people understand how valuable the cure is, is sales.
Now, if your cure is just water, and you’re telling people it’s the cure for cancer, then you’re lying & that’s sleazy.
But, there’s nothing inherently wrong with telling people what you offer is valuable, and the best place to do that nowadays is online.
Email
Think about someone asking you to marry them on the first date.
Sure, there might be a situation where you’d say yes (Maybe it’s me: devastatingly handsome, charming, and successful. I get it, but my heart belongs to someone else.), but the chances are you wouldn’t have enough context to make a decision. You barely know the person.
If you ask too early it’s gonna be awkward. Too many people ask for the sale right away and they wonder why they get turned down.
Think of email as a way to court your customer. Help them understand how wonderful you are. You show them you can be a good conversationalist. They have a good time whenever you show up, and eventually they look forward to hearing from you.
That’s what email can do for your business.
Put It All Together
If you apply these three things in juuuuust the right way, you’ll have a successful business that you can run from anywhere in the world.
Don’t know what your fuel is? Tried it before but it didn’t work? Let’s chat about it. This is what I do for a living! I help people turn their experience into a successful business by helping them create their own holy trinity.
If you’ve read this far, let’s talk about how we can make this happen for you. Join my secret email society with the form below.
