33 Sales is a Verb Not an Adjective!

Today's episode is entitled, Sales is a Verb, not an Adjective haha. Yeah.

So when I went to school, which was quite a long time ago, we learned this in English class. A verb is a doing word and an adjective is a describing word. And for many people actually describe themselves as being in sales. I'm in sales! They aren't. Right. The rainmakers do sales. They take action.

Sales is a verb. It means to take action and sell stuff. So today I'm gonna cut through the fluff and get real about what it takes to make sales. By the way, make is another doing word!

So many people talk about sales as being an adjective. In fact, they'll even say that you, they'll describe you as either good or bad at sales, like it's some genetic code hardwired into your very being.

But you know, that's a bunch of baloney. Sales isn't an adjective. It's a verb. It's about taking action. Look. I get it. The whole sales game can be daunting. The pressure to close deals, meet quotas. Raking the dough can make anyone feel like they're drowning in a sea of rejection. I myself have sat down and cried after a loss.

I didn't want to get up. I'm sitting in the comfort of my chair. I'm drinking my beer. I'm drowning my sorrows. I don't want to take any more action. I just want to feel sorry for myself.

But here's the deal:

When you start treating sales as a verb, something you do and take action on, rather than an innate quality that you possess, the game changes entirely because here's the truth, action beats talent.

Now, you might think some people are just born salespeople. I talked about this in episode 16, how to be a Born Closer. You know those people, they've got the gift of the gab, they've got charisma that lasts for days. They've got a silver tongue. But let me tell you, I. Talent isn't worth squat if it's not backed up by action.

Sure, you might have a natural flare for persuasion, but if you aren't putting in the work, you'll be I outpaced by the folks who hustle harder. I mean, successful salespeople, you know, taking action. They're action driven machines:

• They pick up the phone. You know, overcome phone phobia is one of the episodes earlier on in this series. You should look at that.
• They hit the pavement,
• they shoot off emails, like there's no, tomorrow.
• They watch ttheir prospects on social media. They even, they even hound them.

1. I had one marketing director and, I'd created a video, message for a prospect I was about to have a meeting with.

 In that video, I, took A picture of his LinkedIn and talked about his journey and I said, look, you've clearly got these qualities. You're going to be interested in what I'm talking about. My marketing director said, Mick, you're stalking people. It's creepy. No, it's showing, showing interest.

Right. I've discovered things. I know about them as a person about their life, and I'm going to make that apparent that I've done my homework. I comment on their posts. I send postcards. I had some humorous postcards, and I hand write these postcards and send them. I attend network events and I speak at association meetings.

These are all the actions that you can take to build up your relationship network and to flush out opportunities. Look, rainmakers and sales sizzlers don't wait around for opportunities to fall into their laps. They go out there and they create them by. Beating the bush.

Sales isn't a spectator sport. It's full contact, rough and tumble. Get your hands dirty kind of game.

And what separates the wannabes from the heavy hitters is the fact that they learn, they adapt, and they evolve. Particularly when you get a rejection. Look, a no is just not now. When they say no to you, it's just, it's just another level of interest.

Like no interest would be, they don't know who you are, never heard from you. Now that they've heard from you and said, no, there's a level of interest there. They've listened to what you said. They just said, no, not now. So what you need to be able to do is to adapt your approach and evolve into an unstoppable force of nature.

I talked about this in, I think the first or second episode, compel or repel. You want your prospects to see that you are absolutely committed. You believe that you've got the best product and service, and you can help. And they'll find that palpable and exciting. Even if they don't think that your solution is right for them at that moment, they're never going to forget you.

You cannot be forgettable in sales. If you're forgettable you are in in trouble. Forgettable is a describing word. You don't want to be that.

And so I'll give you a little example of 1 thing that happened to me in learning and adapting from failure.

 I was selling, consulting programs and I was meeting with decision makers all over the US and I'd flown to Detroit, not one of my favorite places, but it, the airport has improved over the years and I went to meet the general manager of a bottling plant and I was going to talk to him about how I could help him get more bottles of soda out of his facility, upgrading the facility, productivity, et cetera. But the plant was too small, and the GM really wasn't that interested.

I was very, very frustrated. It took me a whole day to get there. I had nothing else to do in Detroit. So, I'm driving back to the airport in my rental and as I pull off on the rental car drive, I see a building on the side.

 It just a, a block away. It had a name of, of, of a company that my company had worked with in the UK very peripherally many years ago. Well, that was it. I decided I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go and make a cold call. I'm just gonna go and pull in and asked to see the plant manager. So I went in, knocked on the door.

I said this is Mick Holly. I need to see the plant manager, please.

Oh, that's Glen. I think he's busy.

I said, well, just let him know that I'm here.

So Glen comes out and I find out that he's relatively new in the job. He's wrestling with, trying to make these automotive components a lot of issues with production and capacity.

I said, that's exactly what I do. I can help. So he said, alright, then come back next week and, and, and give me a pitch.

I went back and, and we, we undertook a four week analysis to show how we could turn this plant into a highly profitable, highly productive low defect manufacturing machine. And, we put together then an implementation program to do just that.

And I got an A no, no, we can't do it. M no. And I'm sorry. We appreciate the work that you've done and I'm licking my wounds thinking, ah, damn, you know, we did such good work. Anyway, I thought, well, I'll, I'll call somebody else outside of my decision-making circle to try and find out why we didn't get a a Go ahead.

1. And this gentleman said, Mel, Mick, we've got 40 plants and the costs that you have proposed in this one plant, we couldn't possibly scale that across 40 plants, so we're gonna go with a different program driving, a change program across all those 40 plants. I said, well, I can do that. You just didn't ask me for that.

And they said, well, you can do that. I said, yeah. They said, well, can you meet us tomorrow morning in Pittsburgh airport at Sbarro's Eatery? So I did, and we put a piece of napkin on them and we sketched out a three site analysis and ultimately came up with a multi-site multimillion dollar program and the last step was that we would need to meet with the C E O, who hadn't met up until that point.

And he wanted to meet me on December 23rd. And I was going back to the UK, I think on the 18th. Taking my family back home. And, uh, I thought, oh man, I only just got home enough to come back. So I went to my boss and I said, okay, there's a big deal on the table.

I can get it, but I need you to fly me there and back by Concord. You remember the Great Concord? Oh wow. I was three and a half hours instead of eight. It just, it was just a majestic experience, and it was so high. You flow so high, 55,000 feet, you can see the curvature of the earth. , it's, one of the highlights.

So I fly in, I do the meeting, I get the deal, I fly back on. On, on, on Concord. Got the, got that deal. And so that's my cold call to Concord story from, from nothing, from a cold call, hustling. Biting, haranguing, all the way to sitting with the rich and famous, uh, on, on Concord was just brilliant.

Anyway, less about me, but the lesson being right. You don't, I didn't take the No, I, well, I did for a few days. I got a little depressed. Then I thought, no, I'm not taking that. I've put a lot of work in. I know that they need to do this. I've just got to find a different way of getting it in there, which I did.

So you, you need to be able to embrace every No, as an opportunity to grow. Don't get salty and bitter. Ask, what could you have done better? What can you do differently? How can you improve your pitch? And more, most importantly, how can I provide more value to my customers? I mean my customer was prepared to pay more money, but I hadn't actually uncovered the true value of what we could do.

And once we did that, it, it, it was successful. So remember this phrase,

the road to Yes is paved with No's

so take action now. Confidence is key, but so is humility. Confidence is like a secret weapon in the world of sales. People can smell fear and uncertainty from a mile away, but don't mistake confidence for arrogance, the best salespeople know how to walk the tight ope.

Exuding confidence without crossing into obnoxious territory. It sales isn't about you, it's about your customers and how you can help them. So be confident in your abilities. Stay humble, listen, and understand their needs. But you make sure that you follow up, you connect, you reiterate, you make your presence felt that you stay connected with them, and that's where the magic happens.

So here's the bottom line fellow sales Sizzlers, sales is a verb as far as we are concerned.

It's all about action, hustle, grit. Now, some folks may have a head start 'cause they've got a lot of talent, but talent alone won't cut it. It's the doers, the learners, the adapters, and the confident, yet humble warriors who dominate the sales game.

Next time someone tries to label you as a good or bad salesperson, flip them the bird. Flip them the bird and remind them that sales isn't an adjective. It's a way of life.

Embrace the action. Embrace the grind and go out there like a sales boss. Close deals and take names.

Keep sizzling my friends. The world of sales awaits your action-packed journey.

Hope you had fun listening to this, and we'll see you next week.