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Ep 326: Selling Like a Pro Explained with Ron Story
Are you struggling to make sales in your startup? Have you ever wondered why sales often take a backseat in the equation? Elzie delves into the importance of sales with guest speaker, Ron Story, a seasoned sales expert.
Elzie kicks off the conversation by asking why people don't prioritize sales despite its crucial role in business success. Ron believes that CEOs should be the best salesperson in their company, as they need to transfer belief in their product.
They explore different sales methodologies, such as transactional, consultative, and the Challenger sale. Ron draws parallels between the sales process and dating, stressing the importance of engagement, conversation, and listening to prospective customers. He emphasizes that the sales process should match the quality of the product to win customers, underscoring the need for alignment.
Listen to their discussion on identifying areas for improvement by asking customers for feedback and implementing changes accordingly and get valuable advice from Ron as he shares his approach of doubling value without additional cost, based on customer input. Tune in now to discover the importance of exemplary performance to create long-lasting partnerships and learn strategies to level up your sales game.
Episode Highlights
03:09 - At the beginning, you're told you can hire someone. If you have a good idea, you can hire someone to sell it for you. But you don't realize, as the CEO, sales is a transfer of belief. So, if you, as the CEO, aren't the best salesperson in your company, nobody else is going to believe in your product because you couldn't sell them on it. So, the CEO has to be the best salesperson.
06:32 - One of the simplest ones that everybody's used to is the one that we hate, transactional selling. That's when I'm just telling you, "Hey, you want to buy this? Hey, see this iPhone? It splices. It dices. It does this." That's the guy that we see on the infomercial that we don't want to be. We don't want to be Billy with the squeegee thing. We don't want to be Billy that can scrape the stuff off the frying pan to show it to people. That's more transactional selling. I have to get above it, all my information on you, in order for you to buy something from me right now. I don't care what you think. All I want you to do is to hear what I'm saying. That's transactional selling. Used car dealers, a lot of insurance agents are that way. Does that make sense?
18:26 - You have to be sure that your sales process matches your product. If I'm just selling an ebook online, it should be like McDonald's, because I'm only getting $7 or $20 or something. If I'm selling a $1,000 coaching program or something like that or some type of service, it's probably not going to be Ruth's Chris. It's probably going to be something like a Chili's. It's going to be not the best sales process, but not the worst either. But if I'm telling you, you should give me $5,000 a month on a three-year contract or $20,000 a month for one-month of consulting or for a speaking gig, I'd better smell Ruth's Chris. I better get that Ruth's Chris feeling. That's the important thing. If you have those things match up, then it's easy to win because there's congruency in the sales process.
21:54 - When you charge a certain amount, you should ask your customers, what would have made this better? Usually the things that would have made it better doesn't usually have a large incremental cost to you, but it's a large incremental increase in value. That's why you got to ask the questions and talk to the customer. How much more does it cost to leave some magazines telling them what to do? It don't cost nothing, but it gives you an extra start. You probably could add an extra $10 to your price for leaving the same magazines for everybody, something that tells them the best restaurants in the area and the walking distance, and stay away. The things that can add value usually don't have incremental cost a lot of times. Just by doing that process, you can find out what makes your sales process better.
25:51 - Let's just double what you've been doing so that you can adjust to it. Because taking somebody who's used to doing five appointments a week to five appointments a day, they're going to be exhausted. The adrenaline dump that they will receive on that first day that they do five appointments will be like nothing they've ever experienced, and they're going to hate me. We've learned to just throttle it for them. That's the ideal situation, is we work with you on a month-to-month basis that way we have some skin in the game. Where if we don't perform, you don't want to keep working with us, but you're not obligated to stay with us for 12 months if we're not doing our job. I believe if we're doing our job, you are not going to want to get rid of us. So, that's how that works.
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