Sales Psychology Decoded

Peter Anthony (00:00)
G'day, AJ.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (00:01)
Hi.

Peter Anthony (00:01)
AJ, you're an expert in Lumina Sales psychometrics and I was really curious to understand why would anyone be interested in psychometrics in a sales environment? If I'm running a sales team or I'm a CEO of an organization, I'm thinking, why would I bother considering psychometrics in my sales organization? What are your thoughts on that?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (00:22)
Well, for me as a business psychologist, I'm going to go, of course you should be. Let me in general would just say, what am I like? What are my traits? But if you have a psychometric which is focused in the sales space, it might look at who am I and what are my traits and how is that likely to affect and show up as a salesperson. So for me, that's the kind of way in that psychometrics that are focused around the sales activities and processes can shed light on the way your people operate.

Peter Anthony (00:27)
Yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (00:50)
and that's something that you can use to make them be more effective.

They go back to the psychology and psychometrics go back to Jung in his book in 1921 on understanding personality types, but things have moved on and you're absolutely right. The OCEAN is the current way by which people understand how you and I may differ, how one person differs from another. And in a sales team, you can have a mix of different people with different gifts and strengths. And some we've got different capabilities that might get in their way. And that's part of the why where psychometrics can help you.

Peter Anthony (00:58)
Okay. Okay.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (01:19)
understand that stuff and move people to be higher levels of performance and better revenue streams.

It's not measuring competence, which is somebody's ability to do a particular task or set of skills. What it's measuring is their inclination, their preference, their capabilities and the degree to which they inhabit particular ways of being. So that sounds a bit loose and baggy, but it's like saying, if this is what I might like as an individual, how

how am I likely to behave or perform in certain competencies or situations - sales.

Peter Anthony (01:46)
Yes.

So am I more likely to be process -orientated or people -orientated, for example? Where's my preference? Yeah, where's my preference?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (01:52)
Absolutely,

Yeah, what drives me? What do I do easily? What comes naturally and comfortably to me? And what is more of a stretch and more of a reach, which again, could look at how we can develop people.

Peter Anthony (02:06)
Yes. And one of the age -old questions in trait psychology is, is it nature or nurture? I understand the current view is it's a bit of both. It's a combination of both.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (02:17)
That's very true. Yeah. And what you read and depend on where you are. Absolutely. But if anybody's on the call and it's interesting that you've got maybe two or three kids, you'll find they all come out different. So there is some degree of genetics, some degree of disposition. There's also a wide variety of variety. And as a business psychologist with a twin brother, I can tell you that it's not all genetics. There's a lot of it. We were born and brought up the same race, in the same household, the same parenting and the same genes. But actually, we still have individual variation based on

Peter Anthony (02:28)
Yeah.

Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (02:46)
Reference and choices.

Peter Anthony (02:49)
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? If you are a parent, you'll notice the personality of your child coming through relatively young, like maybe three, four, five years old, you start saying, that's who she is, that's who he is. And they just grow into that. So there's definitely a nature aspect of it.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (03:02)
for sure.

And if you look at children, even if you look at one of the most well -known psychometric traits like introversion and extroversion, you may have two or three kids and they'd be differently attuned in terms of their degree of extroversion or their degree of introversion. Absolutely. Interestingly thinking of...

Peter Anthony (03:19)
Yes, yes. And that's interesting one too, because you think of like, if you think of like, in a sales perspective, introverted or extroverted, you think, well, a lot of that is also very situational too, isn't it? Because how introverted or extroverted I am depends upon who I'm with, how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking about. It might, it might vary. It's, yeah, I'm not sure if anyone's a complete introvert or extrovert.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (03:39)
Yep, exactly.

You're right, the modern tools like the ones that we're talking about, for instance, say, Lumina or other sales effectiveness tools, they would look at measuring both how much introversion and how much extroversion as opposed to which are you. So you're absolutely right in terms of flexing, depending on who you're with, who's the buyer? How much do I need to be leaning into my introversion or leaning into my extroversion? And if we have an idea of how comfortable that is, you're right. And interestingly, I saw some research on...

Peter Anthony (03:59)
Yes.

Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (04:14)
introversion and extroversion in selling. And the graph is a curvilinear graph. So there was evidence that I went to have a French client who said, I've got all the salespeople, they will be extroverts. I will not be hiring any introverts. Actually, you're thinking, whoa, whoa, there's an increase in revenue towards extroversion up to a point. At that point, increasing the extroversion brings the performance down again. There's too much.

Peter Anthony (04:31)
Yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (04:42)
because it's over the top for some buyers. So there's enough and there's much. Probably true for quite a lot of behaviors, depending on being able to adapt the client and the buyer in front of you.

Peter Anthony (04:46)
Yes, yes.

Yes.

It's pretty what a lot of sales teams often employ clients or employ people from client organizations because you want people that are, you're likely to have people that are similar to the clients or customers that you're selling to. If you're an engineering consulting firm and you're selling engineering consulting, you wouldn't want like a lot of very extroverted people selling to them necessarily. You might want someone who's a little bit closer to their introversion.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (05:21)
Absolutely. If you look at things like the big four consulting firms, the EYs and the KPMGs, they will have people who come from those industries. If they're dealing with, I don't know, defense contracts, it'll be people who've come from the defense sector who typically behave and operate in those ways. You're right. Absolutely. Yeah. Though there is always, my belief is there's always the scope for somebody who's slightly...

Peter Anthony (05:38)
Yes, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (05:47)
out of step with the context in which everybody else is that can bring difference and variation and can also be successful if they're trained and motivated. But the majority will tend to be more likely to be similar to the natures of those that we're selling into.

Peter Anthony (06:04)
Yes, more similar to the clients. So that's what...

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (06:07)
Yes, so pharmaceutical sales would be a great example. You would need to have a biomedical science background to even be considered to be a pharmaceutical sales representative. The big pharma companies who put a lot of time and money into bringing the people in would insist that you've got some pharmaceutical background which tends to be evidence -based, research -driven, and that kind of trait is valued and appreciated in that context.

Peter Anthony (06:19)
Yes.

Yes.

Yes, and I guess even in that medical sales environment would depend upon whether you're selling to say specialists or GPs or selling to hospitals. It'll vary again, won't it? Because a lot of big hospital sales are bought by administrators or buyers who aren't necessarily medical in their background. Whereas if you're selling to say specialists, you'll need to have a very high degree of skill and knowledge to even understand the conversation you're having with them.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (06:57)
to you.

Yeah, the credibility starting point is quite high in some of those complex sales cycles. Absolutely right. Independent of your personal traits. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Peter Anthony (07:05)
Yes.

So the Lumina, what I really like about the Lumina sales model is it takes the presumption of six stages in the sales process, like from researching and acquiring market knowledge to prospecting to developing needs to making recommendations right through to managing the relationship or managing the account. And there's six stages that are true in almost like any sales environment.

And then you think those 24 traits are then consistent with those stages. So we have what, four traits per stage.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (07:35)
They are.

That's right, there's different styles. So there might be a different style for prospecting, depending on your personality, or you might have a different preference for the pitching stage, or you might have a different manner by which you go about doing the research. Absolutely. And that's certainly for a start, interesting to know. And if you've got enough people in a sales team, you can see which of those seem to work best, which approaches, which particular sets of traits can be more effective in those stages of the cycle. Absolutely.

Peter Anthony (07:54)
Yes.

Yes. And each of those traits we just mentioned is measured independently. So even though they're grouped by sales stage, but they're measured independently. So each individual is measured independently on those traits within those six sales stages. So if I'm a sales director, I'm thinking, well, I'm curious.

as a sales director, what stages make the biggest difference in my sales group? And then within that, what traits are more likely to move the needle the most or to be most effective, if you like?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (08:52)
Yeah, exactly. And if you've got enough salespeople in your team, you can probably get that data and look at it. Who are my top performers? What particular patterns and traits do they exhibit that make them effective? But once you start diving into it and having those conversations around the various stages, you can see how they do it. So not just are they performing higher, but whereabouts in that sales process might there be particular strengths that enable them to perform higher? Otherwise, it can be a little bit of a mystery. Yes, these are my top performers, but what are they doing?

What are the particular activities that they are doing that some of the others may not be? This is what that's where the psychometric will shed light. That gives you that spotlight on things to explore. And actually often sales is an individual sport. So you never actually see what they do when they're out live with the clients. You know, they're all off on their own. You're not accompanying them. You're not taking them there. And actually the whole, the whole essence around being able to understand the qualities and gifts that they bring in each of those stages.

Peter Anthony (09:25)
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (09:48)
and be able to articulate those. And that's the stuff where the richness lies in terms of sharing that and working with that across the team.

Peter Anthony (09:54)
And it could be, I know a lot of high performing sales people I've worked with, a lot of them don't know what they're doing. I mean that respectfully, they're very intuitive. They've been doing it for a long time, they're very intuitive and they just sell. I think why just go out and sell to people? I think, well, even for the high performers, it could give them insight into what makes them high performers, what is it they're doing, to what degree that is going to help them become more successful.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (10:00)
some of them will be at the end.

Absolutely, if you ask somebody what makes you successful at what you do, often the answers are a bit vague and a bit loose. Well, I've been doing it for 15 years. I'm highly motivated. Great, so what are you doing though? And that's not saying what's your past history or your inclination, but saying, well, what are you doing? And you're right, that intuition may not work. And if you look at things like maybe a core sales capability might be adapting and changing the behaviors to suit your buyer. So they say, yes, of course, I just adjust my buyers. And you go,

Peter Anthony (10:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yes.

Yep.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (10:49)
How? What's the process? And it's, well, it's just learned over time. So you're right. It's often at the unconscious competence level and bringing it down to the conscious awareness can allow them to really process it and have more of a deliberate conscious approach to the way in which they engage with different clients and different styles of buyer. And that vocabulary, yeah, that vocabulary and being able to articulate it,

Peter Anthony (10:51)
Yes.

Yes.

Yes, and be consciously competent. Yes, yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (11:19)
can then be shared across different salespeople in a sales team, for instance. They can have a conversation.

Peter Anthony (11:23)
Yes, yes. And it's curious too, I was working with a client recently, AJ, and I said, what is it about your best guys? What do they do well? And he said, well, they just close more than the others.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (11:40)
That's three, that's symptom number one.

Peter Anthony (11:41)
which is like a, which is like, which is like cart and horse. They close more. Okay. That's why they sell more they close more. But I said, but I said, but I said, what in particular, what in particular about how they close makes them better? Cause, one of the great insights that Lumina sales can, can give that sales director is the different type of closing that could be relevant. Cause it could be that there are, they,

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (11:47)
Yeah, exactly.

Peter Anthony (12:08)
that they're a collaborative closer, which means they're building relationship and collaborating and closing that way. The client almost closes themselves. Or they could be a decisive closer where they're putting pressure on the old school challenger model. They're almost pressuring the client to buy. Or it could be more intuitive close, where they just get a sense of this is the right time to ask. Because I've got that intuition. You think, well, there are three different ways of closing. And you think, well,

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (12:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And there could be... Yeah.

Peter Anthony (12:37)
Yeah, you're not quite sure what they're best at and to what degree. And if you're thinking, well, I just want them to close more, what type of closing works with your particular clients? Because I'm sure in each environment, different clients like to be closed in different ways.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (12:51)
completely. And there's a list of closing techniques from the Assumptive Closure, the Alternative Closure, the Minor Point Closure, and stuff. Interestingly, before I was coming on to for this interview, I said to my wife yesterday, I said, I'm going to need a joke or something about sales. And my wife said, well, you can tell them that you got to date me by using the Alternative Closure, which was exactly the way I first date with my wife. So you're right, there are different closing techniques for different circumstances. But the conscious awareness of

Peter Anthony (12:55)
Yeah.

Ha ha.

Yeah, different. Yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (13:19)
what the preference is and how you make those choices. Are they deliberate? Are they intuitive? Are they unaware? Are they conscious choices? That's the sort of stuff that the psychometric tool would shed light on and illuminate. So you can say, actually, I alternate between the push close and sometimes I use the pull close or the collaborative close. Then you can say, what makes those choices for you? And they can say, well, it's a, I don't know, pace or style of the bio or it might be around.

Peter Anthony (13:32)
Yes.

Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (13:47)
the journey cycle and the work that they've done before in the proposal stages or whatever it might be. Interesting.

Peter Anthony (13:52)
Yes, yes, it is. And you think a lot of that closing, that ability to close could come from stages that you did well earlier. Like maybe you understood their needs better. You're better at asking questions and understanding needs and therefore you could close better. Or maybe you're better at making recommendations.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (14:09)
And the.

absolute

Peter Anthony (14:18)
Or maybe you're better at prospecting and maybe the prospects that you're closing are better prospects are more likely to be closed than the other people who aren't prospecting as well. Because they're not closing as well because they're closing the wrong people or the wrong clients.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (14:27)
you were screening.

Yeah, you weren't screening the right people in the first place who are more likely to be able to be able to commit. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, if you...

Peter Anthony (14:40)
Yeah, yes, which is why each of those, that's why I like those four key traits in each stage because they all could be important for different reasons. And one of the things I love about Lumina Sales is how you can correlate the traits. You can look at the high performers and say what combination of traits at what level makes them successful.

or makes them the most successful. It's not just one thing. It's not just being able to the ability to close. There will be a lot more than just that.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (15:02)
You can.

Absolutely. There'll be a whole series down the process in terms of their journey to get from initial targets to close and actually account management, you're right. And actually they may be unaware of the combination and sequencing of the gifts that they bring to that process. And this gives them the opportunity to look at both the particular gifts and also the way where they use them well. Interestingly though, in terms of sales effectiveness,

Peter Anthony (15:24)
Yes. Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (15:35)
You can also look at what do they do to get in their own way? Because even the skilled and experienced salespeople will have their own patterns and routines. And sometimes they may overplay parts. They may be on that kind of unconscious autopilot and actually holding back might be more effective. Which they don't know which bit they're doing less well.

Peter Anthony (15:50)
Yes.

Yeah, because I like that.

Yes, so you think, and that's the side we haven't spoken about yet, AJ, we think it's not just these 24 traits at the effective level, it's the 24 traits at the overextended level as well.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (16:08)
Yeah, exactly. What am I doing? What am I doing? It's my performance. What am I doing? Where am I tripping myself up? Where am I pissing the clients off? Where am I doing things that actually inhibit their ability to commit? Now, do I, there may be salespeople who over talk and the moments past, they over sell, they've sold the product in and then they've bought it back again before the client had the chance to commit. And you think, whoa, whoa, whoa, or they, or the client was, was wrecked.

Peter Anthony (16:17)
Yeah, yeah.

So to buy it, to buy it. Yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (16:36)
to move in terms of where they were in the buyer cycle, but actually the individual wasn't tuning in enough to notice that moment and it passed. Yeah, so I think both of those are.

Peter Anthony (16:44)
Yes. You're looking at that from really two ends of the stick. You're looking at that highly effective and effective qualities and the overextended qualities for the high performance, but also for the lower performance. And it was interesting in a project I did just recently, the low performance, their overextension.

was conceding close. What they did most when they were overextended was they conceded, right?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (17:14)
Yeah, if you're a people pleaser if you have that inclination or if you're or if you're driven by pressure and desperation to achieve targets You might you might actually feed into your absolutely right

Peter Anthony (17:23)
Yeah.

You might be conceding. Then you think, and this is the conversation I had with the sales director. We had this conversation around, well, what's causing them to concede? Is it because they don't really understand the value proposition well enough? Like if I'm selling whatever, I'm selling pharmaceuticals, I'm selling engineering services, whatever I might be selling, if I don't understand the value proposition well enough that holds the price.

Maybe that's why I'm conceding or maybe I'm conceding because my targets are too big or maybe I'm conceding because I'm scared of my, there could be lots of different reasons why I'm conceding. Couldn't there?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (18:04)
And actually, yeah, in terms of getting into the helping the individual salesperson understand their own thought patterns and minds again, there are skilled and effective leaders and sales directors and sales leaders who will notice those areas. But actually, again, a psychometric will give some some clues into some of the areas that the individual might be driven to be out of confidence or concern or.

worry and the stuff. I've been self -employed independent for 30 years. I am the manufacturer of my own prosperity by selling. And actually, there were times when I was under pressure and not delivering performance and not hitting targets. And of course, times when I was knocking it out of the park. But actually, that psychology stuff of what it is that bends you out of shape that might lead to, for instance, concessions, conceding at the end can be something that can be understood and then worked on.

That's the trick.

Peter Anthony (18:54)
Yes, yes. And you think in a sales environment, there's more likely to be overextended behavior, because it's more likely to have a, there's the stress around targets and sales and everything is so measurable, because it's one of the most measurable roles in the world that you could have.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (19:10)
I compare it with things like sports people, Olympic athletes, you know what your best time is. When you're in sales, I don't know about you, but when I was in sales in an earlier part of my life, they had the stories that the scores were on the board in the room, there was 20 of us in the room, and you could see who was doing what, who would deliver what each day. So there was high, high visibility. And when you were at the bottom of that list, or lower down, it does get to you for sure.

Peter Anthony (19:14)
Yet, yet, yet.

Yeah, yeah.

It's humiliating. And you'd be thinking that even the sales team as a whole, even the high performers are going to be in a stressful, challenging, target -driven environment. So you think where I go when I'm overextended or what behaviors I exhibit or what my preferences are when I'm overextended is really important for me to know and really important for the sales leaders to know.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (19:39)
It's a yes.

Peter Anthony (20:01)
if they're managing and leading those people.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (20:03)
And yeah, exactly. And there may well be ways in which they can develop strategies to mitigate that impact of that. And that some of that is about leadership, I agree. But some of that is about tailoring that to each individual so that they don't get in that state where they are then, as you say, losing their grip on the value of the propositions that they sell. And then that affects their confidence. Absolutely right. Yeah, I think that's the whole variety of it. And actually, if we look at the role of those sales leaders,

Peter Anthony (20:15)
Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (20:30)
they probably got where they were by having great gifts, but they did it in their own style. The other issue about bringing the psychometric to bear is that maybe that there are some of your high performers who are delivering really well, despite your style, Mr. Sales Leader, they may have their own way of doing it, which was the sales leader underhand that actually John and Simon do it differently and they are also performing really well, even though they are very dissimilar from the way I learned to do this. So there's that.

Peter Anthony (20:36)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (20:59)
almost that diversity of different ways of understanding how people can be effective in the roles they have in that context with that organization, those clients. Because our sales leaders often were almost high individual performers first, not necessarily people developers. Yeah.

Peter Anthony (21:05)
Yes.

There's a couple.

That's true that they're likely to become sales directors or sales leaders because they are great sales people, but they might not be great sales leaders. Because often what happens, like you'll promote a great salesperson into a sales leadership role, and you've lost a good salesperson, you've got an average manager or an average leader running the group, which is... I would like that leader that would stick. And I've seen that. I've worked with people that got promoted in those senior roles and...

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (21:24)
Yeah, gives them tools.

reluctantly. You're right.

Peter Anthony (21:44)
They requested to get unpromoted or demoted back because they didn't like that leadership. Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (21:49)
It's a different skill set. And actually giving them a tool in their hands that they can help them have those better conversations with those that they lead. That's another upside for the psychometric stuff. Once you understand the tool, you can have much more detailed, focused, personalized conversations with each of your salespeople. That's the gift that you'd make. Otherwise you are probably using your own particular style approach and sales techniques that you had to bear on each and every individual, which may not be the whole picture.

Peter Anthony (22:06)
Yes, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And one of the awesome outcomes of using Lumina sales in a sales organization is that it gives you a common language and common approach to have those conversations. So if you're talking about closing like an intuitive close, we both know what we're talking about. It's not like you've got your version, I've got my version. We're both using the same language and the same approach and the same process. And it's there for us both to see. So it makes us easy to have that conversation.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (22:45)
And it also allows us to consider there may be other approaches. So if you look like just a push sale versus a pull sale, actually it may be that I'm coming from a push style. I only do sell, I do sell and persuade. I don't really do pull as much as I would like. I do it in other areas of my role. But actually if people are being effective with a pull style, for instance, that values their approach and it may well be that's the case. And actually there are some core elements.

Peter Anthony (22:54)
Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (23:14)
which all sales folks need, you need to have empathy, you need to be able to engender trust, you need to be able to do an approach which requires some of that pull. At some stages in the sales cycle, pull is gonna be something that you need to be able to step into. And it gives people a trade even if their natural style is on the push style, or the same as vice versa. There are times you need to push and that's the closed stage. So it gives people a sense of kind of, where am I natural inclinations?

Peter Anthony (23:19)
Yes, yeah.

Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (23:42)
supporting me in various stages around the sales cycle, where might I need to add to my repertoire? What might I include? And one of the things that's great to do when you take Lumina Sales to a team is they can have those conversations and say, how do you do an intuitive close, Peter? Okay. Where and how do you do your, your network marketing? How do you, how do you do that engaging with the marketplace marketplace? How do you do your research? I may find something that I can learn. So that's stealing of best practice.

Peter Anthony (23:57)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (24:12)
is very rare within sales teams, very rare. I say dealing in good...

Peter Anthony (24:16)
Yes. And it's interesting too. When I look at my sales pitch for Lumina Sales, when I'm talking to a sales director, one of the first things I say to them is that they'll say, you just want a big sales training budget. And I'll say, no, what I'll be doing is helping you to reduce your sales training budget and increase its effectiveness. Because it's likely that...

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (24:38)
sweet!

Peter Anthony (24:41)
Because it's likely that it's very likely that once we understand these traits and their effectiveness in terms of how much the clients engage with those particular traits, you can coach each other. I can just help you identify how to go about doing that, like what you're coaching each other on, like what you're what you are superb at and how you can teach that to your colleagues if it's a if it's a trait that because ultimately it's not so much the traits that work with clients. Right.

particular combinations of traits that the clients are engaging with. So it's really about the clients and some of the interesting work I've seen over the past couple of years is where sales culture is measured and then client experience is measured and they predict each other. The client experience predicts the sales team culture, the sales team culture predicts the client experience. So wherever you go, there you are. You can't hide from the clients when you're in a sales role.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (25:13)
Yes.

to it.

Peter Anthony (25:36)
So you can coach each other. So it actually, using a tool like Lumina Sales can help you spend a lot less because otherwise if you're running generic sales training programs and everyone's getting the same dip of the same course, it may not work at all or it may work a little bit on some people and not at all on others. So you think some of your best sales coaching can be happening from inside the organization.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (25:55)
Absolutely. The sort of universal.

Peter Anthony (26:01)
but you're paying them already, you may as well get full use of them.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (26:05)
Exactly, and once you've trained people on your sales techniques or processes for your organization, doing that again and doing it again or doing it differently isn't going to move the dial as much as understanding how are they executing the processes and the procedures and the ways in which that you engage with your clients in your.

Peter Anthony (26:19)
Yes, yeah. How do we do that here with our clients, with our products, with our services and with our clients? How do we do that? Because there's going to be something like if you think I'm in a big four consulting firm, everyone says they're all the same, but they're all a little bit different. Once you get inside them, they're a bit different. They've got a different culture, a different way of going about things. You think, well, how do we do this at EY? What is the EY way of doing this, for example?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (26:45)
That would be the corporate culture and the values. And actually, again, if that's the way we want to be known, the way we want to be experienced by our customers, we can see which of those traits support that. And we can emphasize those all of our salespeople. And we can look at which bits others bring from their own gifts and styles that they bring that helps them be effective. Yeah, I concur. It's...

Peter Anthony (26:55)
Yes.

Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (27:05)
that whole process of chasing new sales performance, sales processes and techniques, it's limited, you can spend a fortune on those every year. let's have another training, let's have another training, rather than saying, well, they're quite well trained. What we want to do is make them more effective. Personally, each one of them, and find the bits that work for you, the bit that works for me, the bit that works for her, the bit that works for him. And for that, you need to find out where they are. And that's where the psychometric comes in. That other side of the coin. There's the...

Peter Anthony (27:16)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (27:35)
The process that got the organization the values on this side, the other side of it is where are you? If we can join those up and get the how to be more effective, that's money well spent.

Peter Anthony (27:44)
Yes. Yes. Because that then puts those values in action. It makes them verbs, not nouns, right? It makes them things we're doing, not just... Yeah, it makes them verbs. It makes them things we're doing. I mean, people can walk in and feel it. If I'm a client of that big consulting firm, I can feel those values. I don't need to see them on the wall. I can feel them in how I'm being treated.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (27:51)
Boo -la.

Yeah, you'll meet it at a reception and the way you're greeted you'll probably find it before you get to the meeting room.

Peter Anthony (28:11)
Yeah, exactly. It's interesting, I just wanted to circle back. You were talking about diversity a moment ago. It's something I'm really curious about. I'm a big fan of the wisdom of the crowd. I like the idea that are, and I've shown this in workshops in groups of people, like a...

a smart well -formed team makes a smarter decision than its smartest member, for example. And part of that smartness is diversity of thought, right? And you think, okay, so to an extent, the more diverse the thinking is, the smarter the decision's going to be. But then you think, well, but in a sales team, there would need to be...

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (28:39)
That's true. That's true. That's for sure.

Correct.

Peter Anthony (28:59)
there's likely to be some boundaries around that diversity only because there's likely to be some common behaviors and some common ways of thinking that are more likely to deliver a result for that client in that particular organization. So it might be a few more, like a few more guide rails on that than in a regular team.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (29:19)
I think that you're probably right. It depends where you want to go with this because some sales leaders might want to say who's the right player for the play. So which particular of my sales crew is best and appropriate for this particular either buyer or client organization. So there may be enough, there may be a choice of.

Peter Anthony (29:21)
Is that something that you... Yeah.

Yes, yes, yeah.

Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (29:42)
who gets which accounts. And again, some sales folks will move accounts around. It depends whether you're more into the account management or the acquisition, the account acquisition. So the hunter gatherer model, you know, if you're looking at account management, there may be people who are better suited to account management of this client than that client, and they shuffle those around. And that would certainly be the case in the big four consultancies. In terms of the client acquisition, that's a slightly different issue because you may not know the client well enough to work out.

Peter Anthony (29:53)
Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (30:10)
which of your sales team is most compatible with those. But certainly one or two of the consultancies I've worked with think about who's the right player for the play. For sure.

Peter Anthony (30:19)
Yes, they do. They have someone leading the pitch that's likely to understand that client environment better than others. I just think, or may have sold something similar to a similar sort of client. Like if I'm working for a big consulting firm and maybe I've got a big bank or a big insurance company as a prospective new client and I've already worked on a big bank or a big insurance company, I'll probably more likely be picked to lead that.

You'd at least understand how it works and the culture and the business dynamics and the business drivers. Someone that maybe came out of pharmaceuticals or a different sort of background potentially.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (30:55)
To a degree, that's about relevant experience, but there may also be particular styles. So, you know, there was, yeah, so I mean, when I was a young man as a salesperson for an oil company, there were some clients that I just hit it off with and had a ball with. There were some that I had to really work hard at. There was one who was my biggest accounts. And the guy who ran it, the guy in the service station that I was looking at, who was my biggest client, was detailed beyond belief, was deeply structured, was a...

Peter Anthony (31:02)
I see.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (31:24)
a very contained guy. I was like a young man full of, you know, gung ho. He had a large desk with nothing on it. And I'd come and sit in and he'd open the drawer and pull out this leather book, which he would open and there was tiny writing. And he'd say, AJ, yes, things I need to discuss today. And then we'd go and he'd put it in his drawer and lock it and we'd walk around the site. I was never got, we never did first names. It was formality beyond my expectations. And...

there would have been other people who would have been way better suited to attending to his account than me. As it happens, it was geographic and I got all the people on my territory, whether they suited me or I suited them, but I learned a lot, adjusting my style from clients. I was dealing with a particular region and some were more formal, some were less, but in some places it may well be possible to assign the right style of representative to the right client.

and people might shuffle accounts in some places to make that work.

Peter Anthony (32:23)
It's tricky that isn't it AJ? I mean, I know when I was a kid, I'm thinking six, seven, eight years old, I was a very introverted kid. I loved sitting in my bedroom reading books. There was a little library on the way home from my school. I'd walk home from school. I'd get books and I'd come home and read them. And my mother comes from a very big Irish Catholic family. And every weekend there'd be relatives coming over, particularly her brother would come over with his kids. And

So I come out and talk to your uncle Harry and I'd be like, yeah, no. And she said, just ask him questions and listen to the answers. And I did that. I asked him questions and I got great answers. a lot of people think I'm an extrovert, but I'm actually very introverted, right? I just like asking questions and listening to answers. And, but to the point about adjusting style, sometimes,

it can appear to be disingenuous if you adjust too much to the people that you're with. Like if they're very quiet and you become very quiet or they're very noisy, you become very noisy or they're very detailed and suddenly you're on end of the detail. It may be respect, which it is, but it may also just appear to be, this is a bit disingenuous because it keeps changing depending upon who he's with.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (33:37)
I would kick back against that and say, if say you and I could develop a broader vocabulary of behaviors, so that we become natural and we can inhabit those, then actually we will be able to have more flexibility and still be who we are. So I don't think we're taking up amateur dramatics. I think you're right. If we try to act like somebody else and step into a different role, it might be disingenuous. But what if we could help each and every member of the sales team get a broader vocabulary of ways of...

Peter Anthony (33:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (34:05)
working in various stages of the sales cycle, then actually, the fact that you became comfortable with asking questions to Uncle Harry, that was genuine after a while, you got quite good at it. You'd rather be in your room reading your book, but you learned, okay, I can do this and I can do that. So we can add additional breadth. So instead of having narrow span here, we can have a broader span of behaviors that we can call upon that are practiced, that are skilled and are authentic. That's the trick. And that's where we can learn.

Peter Anthony (34:08)
Yes, yes, yes.

Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (34:33)
other people's styles in the sales team. What do you do in your research stage? What do you do in your proposing? What are the questions you in your need identification sessions? What are the questions you use? Maybe I can use those and find they work for me too, even if I ask them differently.

Peter Anthony (34:39)
Yes.

And to be thinking too, if I think of those six Lumina sales stages, I'm thinking like researching and acquiring market knowledge, maybe a more introverted, analytical type of trait. If I love researching and acquiring market knowledge, whereas if I'm someone that's more into intuitive closing or collaborative closing or making recommendations, maybe I'm a little more...

extroverted. So we may not get the same people being good at all the necessary traits. It might be, which may be why some organizations have all the researching and planning done by a different group of people than the client facing.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (35:21)
No.

Exactly. Well, you mentioned the six stages earlier, some organizations divide those stages up. So the, for instance, the sales, the genuine sales, client acquisition folks, the business developers may not do the market research, they may have a different team that does market research belonging in marketing and the account management, the final stage of sustaining the account over time might be done by a different group of people. Sales folks might specialize on.

Peter Anthony (35:55)
Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (35:55)
maybe stages two, three, four of the process or two, three, four and five. So there's somebody else doing the marketing with corporates and without bands and with centers that do that or other social media based acquisition issues. Whereas the face to face stuff might be for the sales professionals. And actually they may have, you're right, a more defined.

Peter Anthony (36:01)
Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (36:15)
set of traits that suit them in those markets in those contexts. Absolutely right. The everyone being everything is unlikely. By the way, in terms of the market research, the analytical data driven based may be different than say my approach, which might be attending conferences and trade shows. And if I don't pick up some business while I'm there, I feel I've had a bad day out. So it would be done live at trade shows rather than others who might be doing a much more, as you say, reasoned.

Peter Anthony (36:39)
Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (36:43)
thorough, meticulous and discipline driven approach to market information and intelligence. But both might have a place and actually sharing those between each other. Others could, I could learn from the people with that more detailed analytical approach. They may also learn from me. So there's, when you get sales teams in the same room, which is a thrill, I think you've been off the road for a while and you start looking at some of these traits and looking at how do you do that? What makes you effective in that part of the sales cycle? And then I say, well, well,

Peter Anthony (37:11)
Yes. Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (37:12)
we can steal from each other.

Peter Anthony (37:14)
or effective in different ways. I recall going to a conference recently and I went to, it was a banking and financial services conference and it was full of potential clients. I went with two colleagues, one who he is exceptionally extroverted, he is never alone and he never stops talking and the other is exceptionally introverted.

she finds it exhausting being around people. And there were several breakout sessions where we had to network. And I was curious about how they're going to go about their networking and who would work the best. Who would it work best for? The interesting thing was the extroverted guy came back with probably 20 or 30 contacts in his phone. They'd exchange their profiles and...

their LinkedIn's and had like a huge list of people he'd spoken to. Whereas my introverted colleague, she only spoke to one person, right? But she basically sold her entire organization to that one person in that conference. So she was actually more successful because she had one conversation. Right?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (38:19)
Mm -hmm.

have no.

It's depth versus breadth.

Peter Anthony (38:30)
And he was bragging afterwards about all these contacts he'd made, all these people he'd spoken to. And she said, I only spoke to one. And he was looking down on her as, you only spoke to one. That's not great. But it was one that represented a very large potential client, which she did win. And she pretty much won them over by talking to them.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (38:44)
and she's got an actual.

Interesting that reminds me of a quote that Changed my life around that which is the what experience do you bring when people meet you like that one individual lady you said she represented the organization to them to a large clients and they they they were in some way bought into who what she is I want to share a quote with you, which I think will help which transformed my ability to understand

Peter Anthony (39:13)
Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (39:16)
what it is I did and what I sold. The quote, it came from a book I was reading from Tom Peters. If you remember him in the old days, do you remember Tom Peters?

Peter Anthony (39:23)
I remember Tom Peters, how to master the art of selling anything.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (39:26)
Well, he also, had books on business and his was about your personal brand. And he said, experiences are as different from services as services are from goods. I'll give you that one more time. Experiences are as different from services as services are from goods. So as a consultant, I was selling services. You need some business psychometric stuff. You need some team development work. Actually, when you meet somebody at a conference,

Peter Anthony (39:34)
Yeah.

Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (39:53)
What are they buying? They're not buying those services. You get that later after the proposal and after the sign off. What they bought is experience. So the experience of that one lady, your colleague, that experience that they had of her at that conference, that's what they bought into. The rest of it will follow about proposals and pitches and sales and stuff. And if salespeople are able to know what is the AJ experience, what is the Peter experience, what is it the clients get if I meet them at a conference or I...

Peter Anthony (39:59)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes, yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (40:23)
at a meeting, could they articulate what that is? Do they know what it is that the client gets well before the sale point? That's stuff that I've been working on for probably 15 years or more to understand what it is, the effect that I have when people encounter me in a sales context. Now for that, something like a psychometric really help. I'm not gonna put you on the spot and say, what's the Peter experience? I know what that is, what I know what my experience of it is.

Peter Anthony (40:44)
Yes, yes, yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (40:51)
Could you could you articulated could that one lady that you took to the conference say what's her name by the way? First name So what yes, I was Katherine experience that that client bought could could Katherine tell you what that is That's the left where I'm going with this So the an interesting

Peter Anthony (40:58)
Her name's Katherine. Katherine with a K. Yeah.

Yeah. Yes, they're buying. And it's interesting. It reminds me of some research I read recently from Wharton, Wharton Business School, and they exit interviewed a whole range of clients that had recently bought in B2B environments and asked them, why did you choose one supplier over the other? And they were interested in like from the client's point of view. And the number one, the number one,

factor was that we felt or I felt they uniquely understood my needs and my experience. They demonstrated they uniquely understood me, all right, or my problem or my environment. Yeah. And because, yeah, and, yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (41:41)
perfect. So the ability of the people to show that they understand deeply is probably the experience that they were buying from that Lady Katherine.

Peter Anthony (41:49)
Yeah, yeah. And I think the big, I'd say her selling point is that she's got two C's. She's very curious and she really cares. She's smart, she's curious and she really cares. And she doesn't like selling anything unless it's right for the client. She doesn't like selling.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (42:03)
And that is that.

That's enough.

That's perfect. That's perfect.

Peter Anthony (42:15)
She said, I just like helping people, I understand what they need and helping them. I like help them, but if I can't, I won't. And she

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (42:20)
it. That's perfect. I get it.

Peter Anthony (42:23)
She is so considerate. It's almost, it's, it's, AJ, it's almost annoying being around her. She's so considerate.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (42:31)
I get that completely. So I have very few superpowers, but one of mine is curiosity. And I love that. And actually if they can genuinely bring that curiosity to bear on what's going on for the clients, that can be one of the things that makes the difference. Interestingly, a while to develop that as a trait, but it can be taught.

Peter Anthony (42:34)
She told.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (42:55)
ran a masterclass during lockdown, one of the clients that I worked with who's involved in sales of high -end luxury automotive products. I can't mention a particular German car manufacturer, but they sell that around the world. So they work for a particular German high -performance sports car model, and we work with the team in the Middle East, Africa, India and the UK. So when the lockdown came,

couldn't do the face -to -face training programs around behavior and empathy and the mindset of selling and all that kind of stuff. But we did master classes and we did one on curiosity. And I believe, yes, you can. And there are books and there are ways and there are processes that enable people to connect with their own curiosity, which actually is one of those things when you have a great salesperson and the sales leader is saying, how did you do that? They say, well, I was just doing this. I showed interest. And again, you can pick on that and find out.

the degree to which their curiosity is in them. What are they curious about the person? Is it about the business? Is it about both? So when they're hitting the right buttons, if you wish for the salesperson, for the sort of buyer to feel comfortable, they're probably hitting the personal and the business need, the rational and the emotive. You know the old story about people selling for IBM. You probably know this one about why people bought IBM. The salespeople would say, no,

Peter Anthony (44:08)
Yes.

Yeah, I do.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (44:15)
Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM.

Peter Anthony (44:18)
got fired for buying IBM, no one ever got fired. It's interesting, that was my first sales experience. My first role out of university was selling at IBM. And I, I

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (44:25)
Wow.

did they mention the FUD? they mention fear, uncertainty and doubt? They said, IBM don't sell computers, they sell...

Peter Anthony (44:37)
Yes, they did. It disappointed my mother hugely because she wanted me to be a lawyer. But I joined IBM because they're paying twice as much. There's three reasons. They're paying twice as much as anybody else. I got a car and I got a year of sales training. So then I go there, I get the car, I get the money, take a year of sales training and leave. That's what I thought. And when I joined, they...

You had these branch office periods of about two weeks a month and then two weeks, the other two weeks you're off at workshops being taught the IBM way of selling. And I was fortunate, I was given a really good person to mentor me and his name was Rod and we sold a lot together. And I was making what they call the 100 % club. And then the more into the sales training I got, the less I sold.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (45:08)
Wow.

Peter Anthony (45:26)
And Rod tapped me on the shoulder one day, my mentor, he said, can you stop doing that stuff? Right? Can you stop doing that stuff? And I stopped.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (45:30)
That's decent

Ha ha.

Peter Anthony (45:35)
Because I was really curious. I was really eager. I was really curious. I was working my butt off for Rod and for the clients and the prospective clients. And I became quite a maverick because I was selling a lot and going to these 100 % clubs around the world and not following the process.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (45:55)
wow.

Peter Anthony (45:56)
because I found the more I followed that structured sales process, the less I sold. Because I was just, I'd say my biggest sales trait there was just gratitude. I was so grateful and so keen and working so hard. I saw that and they bought from me because I worked hard for them. And I remember my boss saying, who are you working for, Peter? Aren't you working for IBM? I said, no, I'm not. I'm working for the client.

It just so happens I'm selling them IBM gear and if that's what they need, that's great. But if not, you know, but that worked because the clients felt that the clients felt that and Rod was the same. Rod really cared.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (46:31)
You had their back. You cared. You were interested. You cared. And you were curious about how you could help. That was...

Peter Anthony (46:37)
We're working for them. We would actually almost work against their own quota to sell them what they needed, not what would work best for us. And they knew that. And that's why we sold more.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (46:47)
perfect. That's because they felt that your interests were, your self -interest was low. Interestingly, that sort of, are you here to help the client's agenda or your own agenda? That's a fabulous area to explore with sales folks. And again, a psychometric can shed some light on where your focus is. But if you, are you there for the client's needs or are you there for your targets? And how do you reconcile and overlap those in ways experienced authentically by the buyer?

Peter Anthony (47:03)
Yes.

Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (47:13)
You know, you probably know that the trust formula, you probably, everyone knows the trust formula these days, but the self -interest, the one underneath is the one that actually destroys the trust in the mind of the buyer. So actually if your interests were clients needs first, if I happen to hit my target, that's great, but I'm interested in the client's need first, that's what they were buying.

Peter Anthony (47:16)
Yes.

Yes, yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (47:34)
Yeah, nice.

Peter Anthony (47:35)
Yes, that's what they're buying. And you mentioned Tom Hopkins, another old school sales guru, was a zig -ziggler, wrote a great book called I'll See You at the Top. One of his great lines was, in a sales role, you'll get everything you want when you give them everything they want, but they've got to go first. You give everything...

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (47:53)
I love that. I'm going to give you one of my... Yeah, I love that. I'll give you one of my... You know Neil Rackham, he says, the best selling isn't all about your products and what you can offer. It's very much about the customer and their needs. That's Neil Rackham. Same, same. You've got to get what they need first. Then you'll get what you want. I love that Zig Ziglar one.

Peter Anthony (48:09)
Yes. He was the spin selling guy, right, Neil Rachman? He wrote spin selling? That's right. That's right.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (48:14)
Yes, he was half weight, yeah, that's right. He did indeed. What I love most was he had, back in the old days, videos of watching people for hours and hours and hours, like hundreds of hours of watching people. And one of the things that I stole from the research that I read on his was there was four behaviors that differentiates the high performing sellers from others. And it was, they asked twice as many questions, back to you and Uncle Harry, they asked twice as many questions.

Peter Anthony (48:42)
Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (48:42)
It summarized twice as much. So the clients knew that they were being, they were felt understood, which links with that stuff you shared about Wharton research you just read. The third thing was they were much more inclined to identify common ground between what the client needs and wants and how we can be engaged with that. The fourth one was one which is no one ever remembers, which is curious, which was called behavior labeling. They did behavior labeling four times more than less effective.

Peter Anthony (49:00)
Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (49:11)
So let me tell you what behaviour labeling is. I've just done it. It's telling people what you're going to do. So what I'm going to do now is talk about the money side of things. I'm going to ask whether you're prepared to buy at this stage. So I'm setting it up. I'm telling you what I'm doing. I'm letting the client know what's expected. So there are twice as many questions, twice as much summarising, three times as much common ground, and four times as much behaviour labeling.

Peter Anthony (49:17)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (49:35)
just as while we're doing tale stories. So there are some of these sort of behaviors, again, that you can identify and teach, but they're also, if we have a psychometric, you can link with what's people's natural preference, inclination, and disposition towards those kinds of behaviors that drive effectiveness in sales.

Peter Anthony (49:52)
Yes, yeah. I think it is love that are reminisced on the Zig Zigalers and the Neil Rackmans and the Tom Hopkins and those guys. And they were very successful for a long time for very good reason. I feel now we've reached a new generation or a fresh perspective, which is a lot more scientifically based, a lot more trait based and a lot more

individual specific and even client specific if you like, rather than here's the four things, the six stages, the five closes, Everyone learns in every... Like whether you're working for a big consulting firm or a pharmaceutical company or a photocopy sales organization, you're doing the same thing. Well, maybe not.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (50:27)
you.

I agree. I think those processes where people cracked, these are the things that tend to help, was a good start. I think you're right, we've moved on from that and it should be more personalized. It should be more evidence driven. There is more science around it. And actually, even just if you step back to the evidence and the science, here's something that the psychometric can do for the sales individual. It's going to help them have the language to identify more about their buyer.

Peter Anthony (50:46)
Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (51:02)
What do I see? What are the behaviors I see from my buyer that's likely for me to be able to adapt and connect with them personally? Still authentically, not doing your acting and your disingenuous, which is the risk. But so for me, it might be slowing down my behavior a little bit more. And it might be being a little more detailed and precise in my language rather than my high, wide and handsome vocabulary.

So I'm not doing it because I'm trying to take money off their wallet. I'm doing it because it helps them and helps me connect and it helps me build the rapport, which is at the heart of all sales. So yeah, if people can articulate those differences in personal style, they can then be more effective in the way they consciously make those choices for each client. Absolutely. It's personal.

Peter Anthony (51:39)
Yes, yes.

It's interesting. It's interesting you bring the client into the conversation because the project I worked on recently where we use Lumina Sales and compared it to revenue and compared traits to traits to revenue. So we know exactly what degree of what trait is likely to produce the most revenue. The conversation I'm now having with that client is they want to research their clients and ask them

how would they like to be treated, if you like. It's like a Lumina sales client survey, if you like, to see how closely what the clients are looking for. Because the assumption is that if you measure the sales traits and sales performance, that those high -performing salespeople...

perform highly because they exhibit those traits, which is true. But potentially, there could be other traits or different levels of expression of those traits that the clients are looking for that we're not aware of because we don't ask them.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (52:45)
And it could be that also the degree to which we tune into those is a driver or an inhibitor of revenue. Do we tune into the behaviors that the clients particularly appreciate or value? Do we know what they are and do we tune into them or not? That's the other side of the coin around what behaviors does the sales professional exhibit particularly, but there'll also be other things that the client particularly appreciates and values.

Peter Anthony (52:52)
Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (53:10)
from that experience. That's a great way. I don't know of much research where people research the clients about how it was for them, but the Wharton experience, the Wharton research you mentioned, probably gives some indication of that.

Peter Anthony (53:11)
Yes.

It does. I've seen research where you can mirror the culture and the client experience. What I haven't seen yet is research around sales, traits, and client experience. Like earlier, we were talking about closing, for example, and we said collaborative close, intuitive close, decisive close. And in this particular team, I was talking about then,

the collaborative close was highest and the decisive close was lowest amongst the two highest performing people on the team. Now, it may be, maybe if we ask the clients, they might like a more decisive close. They might like someone coming in with a firmer recommendation about what's required, possibly. Because we don't know, just because the high performers aren't doing that, it doesn't mean it's never gonna work on a client. It'd be interesting to get the client's perspective.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (54:14)
It would, and actually, yeah, the process of getting that client data, it might vary by individual as well as by organization.

Peter Anthony (54:15)
Be really curious.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (54:21)
So the

Peter Anthony (54:21)
Yes, it might. Although the way we're thinking of framing the questions is how you experience us, but I guess us would be that salesperson. That's the relationship they have. It'd be interesting to... I'm really interested to see the outcome of that because my client has agreed to do that research. And we're framing it now. And I'm really curious about the results.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (54:40)
That's interesting.

me too. That's a fascinating piece of work. Yeah, that's very curious. And I love the idea of that kind of depth of understanding of the other party. Because sales is a two party process. There's us on our sales team and us. There's the people on the other side of the table who are also absolutely integral to the performance and the revenue.

Peter Anthony (54:54)
Yeah, it is.

That's the best for us. But is that combination of traits or the way those traits are exhibited, is that most effective for the client? Because if you think of how, and this is a lot of the big Japanese organisations are very strong on this indispensable idea. They have this idea of being ideal for clients.

And they think, well, because some other work I was shown by a client said that satisfaction is not enough because 80 % of clients that are satisfied with their service are happy to change provider. The Japanese frame this well when they say we're looking for an indispensable relationship where the client sees us as being indispensable to their

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (55:47)
That's a nice adjective.

Peter Anthony (55:49)
Way above satisfaction? I'm satisfied. It's like, if I said to my wife, honey, I'm interested in a satisfactory marriage, right? I'd like to be satisfactory to you as a husband. I don't think it's gonna work. I'm not a marriage guidance counselor. I don't think it's gonna work. Or if I said to my kids, look, I just wanna be a satisfactory dad.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (56:01)
I'm not sure that's a great.

Yeah, I would be so glad.

Peter Anthony (56:14)
So if we say to our clients, we're looking for client satisfaction, it's almost an insult. We want you to be satisfied with us.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (56:20)
Yeah, well, satisfaction is a sort of broad, loose, it's a broad, loose bucket where I might be generally satisfied with the performance of Amazon delivering my goods. Why? Because I don't really care about the delivery that much. You know, I hope it's going to be there on time. It's a whole raft of stuff that goes beyond satisfactory. Interestingly, I was reading a very simple book about customer experience, and it's the book is about called Tiny Noticeable Things. Very simple, easy trait, very easy thing, which is.

Peter Anthony (56:22)
It's almost in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (56:50)
What are those little personal touches that move you beyond satisfactory into that kind of, wow, it's not the same as indispensable, which is can't live without. But the tiny noticeable things are the personalization of the sales process for each customer. And that personalization, and I got it from work that I do in high end luxury sales. And I'm talking proper high end. I could mention, you know, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Cartier, because obviously that would then you know who I was talking.

Peter Anthony (57:05)
Yes.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (57:19)
But I'm working with proper high -end luxury where the customer experience is absolutely critical as well as the product or the service. If you're dropping 25 ,000 euros on a handbag, that's not the same as buying something at a supermarket. The tiny personal touches are how it makes you feel. Those are those areas that get beyond the satisfaction and into high levels of rapport, connection, which are...

Peter Anthony (57:29)
Yes, yeah.

Yes.

Yeah. Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (57:46)
part of the sales journey in that context. And actually, sometimes is important.

Peter Anthony (57:52)
it's part of that brand experience. So if you're buying that high end luxury handbag or that high end luxury bracelet, it's the way that you're treated in store, the way that the whole experience is part of what you're purchasing. That whole brand experience is part of what you're purchasing. And that's just that's like me. I feel like luxury. I feel like I'm being spoiled in this experience.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (58:06)
It is.

Absolutely, everybody's got their own indulgence, whether it's your own favorite jar of high -end peanut butter or whether it's a particular tennis racket or a pair of sports shoes. Everyone's got their own indulgence. And actually, in these cases, in some types of sale, there may actually not really be a genuine need. There's a want. So yes, you could buy any trainers you like, but there's a brand that you like. That's a need. Is it? No, it's just a want. You could buy a 20 dollar pair, you could buy a 200 dollar pair.

Peter Anthony (58:34)
Yes.

Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (58:43)
There are some purchases within organisational settings which are also tied up with that stuff around a want as much as a need. And some of the.

Peter Anthony (58:50)
It is. If you think about that from like if I'm a client experiencing a salesperson or a client management person, I'm thinking I want that special experience. I want someone that uniquely understands my needs and my environment. And why is that important? Because I'm willing to pay more for that.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (59:11)
Yes, it's part of the value.

Peter Anthony (59:12)
Because if I've got a parity perception, if I see them all the same, I'm just going to drive the price down and go for the lowest price because they're all the same. Whereas if I get something unique and different, I'm willing to pay more for that if that value proposition can be established. Circling back to that Lumina sales piece, it's about how those recommendations are made. Does that recommendation express a unique understanding of my need?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (59:20)
Absolutely.

Peter Anthony (59:41)
And therefore, I'm willing to pay more for that or decide more favorably or recommend this provider to my organization. Yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (59:51)
or at least not try and chip away at the pitch into some sort of kind of market trader haggle basis, I may at least understand that that is the price, which seems a reasonable and fair price that's been put on the table. The issues about haggling and price negotiations are varied by culture and by region and by industry and by sector. But actually, if we position the experience of the sales process in such a way, sometimes clients don't even consider.

Peter Anthony (1:00:04)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:00:20)
asking for a discount or a rebate or a deal because the sales approach and style has suggested that that is the value of the way things are and people go okay and they roll with it. It's an interesting process.

Peter Anthony (1:00:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

And I mean, a very early boss of mine, when I first started consulting, she was an American lady. I loved her. She had this phrase called sticker shock, which I'd never heard before. She said, Peter, you got to give him sticker shock. You got to give him sticker shock. And I said, Leslie, what's sticker shock? And she said, her father,

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:00:44)
Interesting.

Peter Anthony (1:00:55)
and her brother were car salesmen working in a car yard, right? And they had this idea that like people walk around the car yard and there'd be a price of the car on a sticker on the car. It'd be high enough to get, on the screen, it'd be high enough to give the potential buyer a sticker shock. They were shocked at the price. And she said the two big benefits of this, one is they think, well, this must be better than it looks because it's quite, it's quite high, highly priced. It must be good.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:01:06)
the screen, yeah, I remember.

Peter Anthony (1:01:22)
But the second is it gave the salesperson space to negotiate. Like so AJ, I understand you think they're a bit expensive, but you're a really good guy. I love what you do. For you today, I'm just going to take 10 % off that right now. All right. So it gave them some bargaining.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:01:37)
Sure. And that's a...

Yeah, everyone's looking for a haggle in a sin.

Peter Anthony (1:01:41)
Yeah. So she liked... Because we were working for a consulting firm then, which even I thought the fees were really high for what we were doing. We were like triple what anyone else was doing. We're basically doing the same thing, I thought. And she thought, and her view was you have to justify that value, right? You've got to justify that price. She said, we are the best.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:01:56)
Wow.

Peter Anthony (1:02:09)
We are the best at what we do. And you've got to communicate that to the clients. You've got to make them feel that way. You've got to dress that way. You've got to talk that way. You've got to ask questions that way. You're the best. We are the best. And when you get up and run workshops, you've got to be the best because that's what they're paying for. And she taught me, because I was very reluctant to give them proposals. She would tell them the price on the first phone call. She would say, look,

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:02:33)
Interestingly,

Peter Anthony (1:02:35)
it very early on, she'd say very early on, she'd say, look, look, look, AJ, you're looking at least $100 ,000 for what you're talking about. So unless that's in your budget, we shouldn't really continue the conversation because that's where it sits. If you want to get those sorts of outcomes and we can uniquely give them to you, it's going to be 100 ,000. And she'd mention that very early on. Give them sticker shock. And they'd be going, that's a... which is the opposite of how most people sell, right?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:02:55)
I

reached my own understanding of doing that in terms of the way I sell my consulting practice and stuff people will say you know need to find how much it's going to be I say well first of all it's going to be hugely expensive it's going to cost you a fortune as my opening comic just in that casual conversation just like I did and they say you know can we get some ballpark money for a two -day event to work with our sales people using Lumina sales for example I say well it's going to cost you a fortune and then I'll send them through and then they'll go to nature and we'll talk about what I think

Peter Anthony (1:03:20)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:03:32)
on the grounds that you're not selling just the time, you're buying the expertise and the uplift you're likely to get from your... If one or two of your salespeople get three bigger deals over the course of a year, you've made your money three times over. I mean, it's one of those things where if you don't value what you're bringing, don't sell it. And we're onto a different area, but that's something that I concur with.

Peter Anthony (1:03:38)
Yeah, yeah.

if we're talking to a sales director or a sales leader and we're talking about a measurable scientific way of looking at how traits are driving sales success, it's very easy to justify a.

a budget that is requisite to the task of uplifting that sales revenue. Because even if the uplift is only half a million dollars, or the uplift is a million dollars, surely an uplift of a million dollars is worth spending $50 ,000 on. Or an uplift of $5 million is worth spending $200 ,000 on. I mean, you think, well, how much is that uplift worth to you?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:04:39)
Yeah, exactly. That reminds me of the very old story about the cellar. Sorry, go ahead.

Peter Anthony (1:04:40)
How much is it worth? And...

And.

How much of a sense of certainty would you like? I mean, we can prove it with the numbers. You can give us your salespeople, we'll show you the traits, we can measure it against the sales revenue and show you exactly what your best people are doing best.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:04:59)
Yeah, and we can do the differentiator. Yeah, and that that that reminds me of says, what if I spend all this money and then some of my people leave to which the standard response will be, what if you don't spend all that money and they stay?

Peter Anthony (1:05:01)
How much more certain can you get?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:05:14)
and some of them leave, yeah, that's a risk. If you don't, you're missing out that uplift that was likely to be X that you're walking away from by not investing. I'm with you.

Peter Anthony (1:05:24)
one of my favorite football teams in this part of the world, they, they keep losing players because of the salary cap. And because that because they've got such a good system and they have such great plays that what would you rather have a team of players that no one wants to buy? So you don't lose any players or a team of champions that other people other other teams want to buy? I mean, what devil what devil do you prefer?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:05:30)
-hmm.

or a team of players, everyone.

Yeah, no, I'm with you. The fact that there's some evidence and that you can get customized evidence for your own populations and in terms of their effectiveness mapped against revenue, that's a different approach than a generic, hey, here's how some sales techniques or here's some closing principles or here's something that's applied. But actually, for me, the...

Peter Anthony (1:06:02)
Yeah. Yeah. Why don't we all do challenges selling or why don't we all do spin selling or why don't we all do whatever the current program is? Well, maybe, maybe, but how do you know? Like the question I'd be asking is, how do you know it's going to work? How do you know it's going to work? That's the, well, show me. Whereas

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:06:22)
and the.

And the other benefits that are once you understand the drivers of what's working, you can use that in all sorts of ways. You can use it in your selection. You can use it in your development paths. You can use it sharing best practice across your team. And you can use it to inform the kind of areas that you want to explore further. Like, okay, if those are the traits, who are my outliers? What else is working? And I loved your build that you were talking about with the client where you were trying to find out validating it at the client end.

Peter Anthony (1:06:36)
Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:06:54)
So there's a whole door that it opens that takes you down a ways that can start driving performance over the short, the medium and the longer term. Once you've got the data.

Peter Anthony (1:07:01)
Yes, yes. We can ask the clients, what does an ideal experience look like for you? Because we are like, I'm talking now as the sales organisation, we are keen in being indispensable or ideal for you or being your preferred partner in this part of your operation. What does that look like for you? Asking the question rather than us sitting in a room and guessing what that might be.

Why don't we ask them? And it's interesting, when I've been involved in this sort of client research, AJ, often the people I suggested to say, I'm not sure we should really ask the clients, they're a bit shy about it. But each time I've asked clients to engage their clients in this work, the client organizations love giving their opinion. They think, wow, it's so nice that you've asked us this.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:07:51)
Well, it's actually.

Peter Anthony (1:07:51)
It's so nice that you care enough about our relationship that you're asking us these questions. We're not pissing them off. We're actually... Yeah. And you think, okay, where are we now? Where are we now? We're on a level six. Where would you like us to be at level eight? Well, we're committed to getting from six to eight and we're gonna come back to you each month until you're happy that we're at an eight. God, I love these guys. These guys care.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:07:57)
Yeah, you're valuing it.

Exactly right.

Yeah, we're into that second stage later around the prolonged customer experience in terms of account management and continued process beyond sales. But actually, the evidence could come from the initial parts of the sales at first, as well as the account management stuff. Yeah, it can be across the piece and you can look at various questions.

Peter Anthony (1:08:33)
It could be. It could be.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:08:34)
Yeah, you can have the questions to focus on the first part and.

Peter Anthony (1:08:36)
It could be the marketing communications, it could be the social media, it could be the sales collateral, it could be anything. Because one of the things that surprises me about sales organizations is how they sit in a room and try and guess what the client's going to want.

And I think, well, why don't we just ask them?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:08:53)
Yeah. Yeah. Why don't we get some data? Why don't we get some information? What?

Peter Anthony (1:08:55)
Why don't we just ask them?

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:08:57)
Exactly. And I think with with you're right about the clients not being as shocked, surprised or reticent about such engagement. If the relationship is intact and it's gone well to the point where they've actually purchased, the chances are they've got some favourable goodwill and happy to be asked. I guess the only question that comes the other way would be what about those that we didn't get, the ones that got away. That's a whole different issue about getting that data.

Peter Anthony (1:09:15)
Yes.

Yes.

It's actually a bit easier because there's another part of this planning piece. There's opportunity win planning. If you're working on a bid or a pitch and you'll go through opportunity stages. And the last stage is, say, close one. The first stages are like getting a client compelling event, understanding the client needs, finding the internal sponsor. It works for opportunity stage. Comes to you and it's close won or close lost. And...

When it's close won or close lost, when it's close won, there's a win review to say, why did we win this? If it's close lost, what I recommend you do is to invite the client in and ask them why. Not in an aggressive way. Just say, AJ, I understand you decided in favour of our competitor for this. We understand that decision and respect it. We're not trying to convince you otherwise. We're just really curious if you could just spend 20 minutes with us, just debriefing us on what worked or what didn't work.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:10:02)
Mmm.

Peter Anthony (1:10:18)
for us what the other guys did better that made you choose them. We're just curious, right? That closed loss review, that closed loss can be really important. It actually teach you more. You can maybe learn more for the ones you lost and the ones that you won.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:10:23)
That's that.

Exactly. I think that's a great process. It's not that universal. It's not that widely practiced. And actually, if you actually individually ask the salesperson, they'll give you a whole pile of reasons about that, which may not even be valid. clients.

Peter Anthony (1:10:44)
Yeah. And it won't be their fault. It'll be someone else's. It'll be someone else's. But it's interesting in those conversations how honest the clients are. And they'll tell you. And they're not mean. They're not like a witch hunter just saying, hey, you know, you guys were great. And this happened and this happened and this happened. But there's always a but. But they did this, which we're really impressed by. And that's why we bought it. And we think, OK, well,

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:10:50)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (1:11:11)
That's something we should be doing more of because that's what the clients are after.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:11:14)
Absolutely. It's a pretty rare, it's not that often.

Peter Anthony (1:11:18)
It can be really informative.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:11:21)
Yeah, for high value sales with high long relationship and long time, it's a great, great piece of work to do. A lot of clients don't go that far. And it may be not appropriate for some types of sale settings, but I like it. Yeah, really cool.

Peter Anthony (1:11:23)
Yeah, it's interesting.

It may not be yet. Yeah, but it's not appropriate in some, but it's appropriate enough to at least consider having that conversation. And the clients are happy to share it, to share it.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:11:43)
very much so, I like it, that's a really classy move, yeah it really is.

Peter Anthony (1:11:51)
AJ, you are an absolute treasure. I've known you for many years, sir. And every time I get an opportunity to engage with you, I'm delighted and informed. It's been awesome getting your insight into Lumina sales and how it can demonstrably impact sales organizations.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:12:00)
Well, thanks again.

Peter Anthony (1:12:09)
In the show notes to this podcast, there'll be some contact details where people, if they would like to reach out for you to help you in their organisations, they'll be very happy to make that happen. But for the time being, AJ, I just wanted to say thank you very much, sir.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:12:23)
It will cost them a fortune as we've already declared. I would be thrilled to help any of the clients that want to have a conversation and a chat in any way that I can.

Peter Anthony (1:12:29)
Hahaha!

Yes, it'll be very expensive but we're worth every cent.

Andrew Jones 'AJ' (1:12:38)
Not at all. Thanks indeed. It's been a pleasure. I wish you well and I'll catch up with you again.