How to Sell Without Being Sleazy in the Recession [This will surprise you]

two weeks ago my wife and I inquired about getting work done in our house one of the companies that we reached out to immediately sent out a sales rep and within minutes of talking to this gentleman I felt weird have you ever spoken to someone while they're trying to sell to you and you just don't feel right and what's amazing to me is I was interested I was highly interested I was the one that reached out to them and after this gentleman left my house I was certain there's absolutely no way I'm gonna do business

with this company he came across as extremely salesy a week later I reached out to another company and spoke to another sales rep and I was so impressed that I didn't even ask about pricing in fact I asked for more what else can you do for my wife and I when it comes to different fixtures in our house I was so interested and excited to work with this company what is it though what is the difference between individuals who are okay a at sales and those that crush it that's going to be the topic of

conversation today because today I'm joined by Marcus Chan who is the founder of thenly Consultant Group and six figure sales Academy in addition he recently put out an Incredible Book into the world six figure sales Secrets welcome to the show Marcus hey what's up Matt first of all thank you so much I'm excited to be here and I appreciate you sharing that story because I've definitely been so many similar situations you know personally where you're ready to buy but that person based on how they ran that sales call turns you away so I totally feel

that I was already sold and he was trying to sell me on the different features that I didn't care about I'm like calm down like I'm already ready to buy like my wallet is about ready to open I want this I called you and it became so slimy and salesy it was I was giving him an alley-oop all he needs to do is just take the ball and put it through the basket and it's amazing how many people are teed up they're ready to go and they just blow it because they're so into this like

the sale they need to close they need to do this it's not about that and you know that so I appreciate your time today I'm really interested in unpacking what's the difference between someone like that and someone who actually is crushing it in sales such a good example of um I think a transition a lot of people end up making hopefully they eventually make it when they actually become great sales because you go from pushy pushy pushy have a commission breath or if you're a an entrepreneur with a profit about the revenue you're trying to

close because you need the cash flow or whatever it is but if you can make that shift to become a trusted advisor then just like your second person you talk to you see them as a resource in fact you're actually asking more questions like hey how how else can I spend more money with you you may not say those words necessarily but you may say hey I'd love to get your opinion on this what do you think about this and they can help share insights and actually help guide you to make the Best Buy decision

for you because you actually feel hurt sure I really like that that trusted advisor because what's amazing to me and we'll unpack this because there is a story that you mentioned in your book that almost speaks exactly to this but what's amazing to me is the scenario that I mentioned where I was really excited to do business with the other company I was excited to work with this sales rep this trusted advisor they were asking me question after question after question to make sure that they were actually in alignment with what I wanted the other

sales rep just continued to talk at me for Ad nauseam really selling me on things that I didn't care about I didn't care about different elements of the company I didn't care about you know X Y and Z all these things that he was trying to sell me and it's amazing you actually mentioned a really good story in your book that I want to get to now before we do I do want to dive into more about your background your history your story because I find it fascinating so I really want to start there and

I want to I want to talk about personality as well um so you had mentioned in your book when you're talking about your story you said I wasn't born with all the qualities it takes to be a top performer you had mentioned your parents so they were immigrants they come over here they have an 8th grade education they're unbelievably hard working they open up a Chinese restaurant in Eugene Oregon that you start working at very young I believe you're five years old you mentioned that you were one of I believe six in the family living

in a tiny house so you were raised with gut-wrenching hard work right 100 like when you think about Madison's hierarchy of needs at the very base levels like survival right you're Basic Essentials and that's how we grew up early on so as a family in an Asian culture pretty tight-knit so you know even though yes we had no money but we were a family so we all worked together and everyone pitched in regardless of age so growing up I saw that but I also saw what my parents sacrifice and how hard they had to work

to build the life that they wanted to really have and for them that was that was you know working 80 to 100 hour weeks working non-stop and I saw this and I was part of it growing up and it's interesting because as you grow up in this environment you experience different things you know for example when kids would get out for school even in Entry School they'd be like Oh I'm gonna go you know play with us you know go someone else to play except like where did you go I want to go to the

restaurant I'm gonna go chop mushrooms in the back like what you know so you have a different idea about life about childhood about money about scarcity about selling about business you just grow up so differently and you have different feeders because you were shipped by what's around you as well so early on that I was instilled very deeply to me is you got to work hard to have results and I don't realize eventually later on I feel like one part of the equation sure I appreciate you mentioning that because I somewhat similar not not exactly

your your specifics as far as the work ethic and what you saw but for me when I was born from the time I was born so about the time I was 11 my father was doing double Iron Man triathlons so for those of you listening that aren't aware of double Iron Man's go look up an Iron Man Triathlon and then double it it's it's absolute craziness right and that was what I saw I saw my father who was an absolute machine I mean unbelievable work ethic and that really positioned me just like your story positioned

you that we both get into sales and the work the quote unquote work I'm using air quotes because the work is so subjective because what I witnessed my father go through what you witnessed your parents go through it almost is far superior work wise to what we experienced in sales and I found it very difficult because I get in sales and now it's I want to go go I keep I I'm banging my head against the wall I'm I'm aggressively going after it and as you know and you speak a lot about this in your

book there wasn't any strategy behind it I could work hard I could work so hard on blacking out due to stress I could work so hard so many sleepless nights that's good hard work but now let's put strategy behind it first off do you think that in order to be successful at sales you need a specific personality and you need to have a heightened level of work ethic what a great question um I think it definitely helps right I think what helps even more is is if you have massive cell awareness because when you have

massive self-awareness then you actually know what you do which ends in what type of result and I think early on I didn't have a self-awareness all I knew was I could work really hard and in the past roles I was in that I was good enough that was good enough to have you know pretty good grades like I think about even school and some people are going to disagree with this but I believe if you go to college or go to high school if you just show up and try you'll probably get B's and C's

like you don't have to be that smart to get B's and C's right C's get degrees you can just kind of show up but if you are a little more focused on what you can write behaviors within that work you might be able to get A's a pluses Etc um and I've always had kind of mindset and you know when I got into sales I first tried the work ethic piece because I thought that that could be I'm like I've always like I've always worked hard like that's what's got me here and to a certain

extent that that may work but I think I was also blessed with the gift of starting B2B sales in the last recession meaning there's less money out there less Capital less funds people more resistant so hard work by itself wasn't gonna cut it I actually had to be better at my job so when I first got started I applied the same work ethic that I did that I've always had I was out working everyone I made the most cold calls I walked the most businesses I did those cold emails my activity was easily three four

five 10x everyone else but I had the worst results so like work ethic wise first in last out like I was that guy but the result's not aligned to it and if you don't have that self-awareness you'll just keep trying to do that and I try to do that right but it'll burn you out and you'll just get depressed hate life want to quit sales so that's why I think it's definitely one key component to have that because if you have some really good self-awareness any of work ethic then you know what things to work

on that actually move the needle but if you have only work ethic the truth is I know a lot of broke people who work way harder than I do so work ethic at low by itself will not get you to where you want to go it's working on the right thing the high leverage things that actually move the needle they'll generate The Highest Potential output you know it's interesting listening to you talk about self-awareness you actually mentioned massive self-awareness and to me a lot of that comes back to humility it's actually us humbling ourselves enough

to recognize there are weaknesses that we have that we need to potentially surround with strategy to overcome and what's interesting is typically you don't hear sales rep and humility in the same sentence right because you know a lot of times we're egotistical and we're ego driven and we really want to go go and we want to crush those sales goals and we want to achieve right but I do think there's an element of humility with this because and you you speak to that indirectly in the book that you know you're working really really hard but

you recognize there are things happening that you need it to humble yourself to really seek the proper wisdom to do what you needed to do so I really appreciate you mentioning that self-awareness it's extremely important I want to shift gears with something that you mentioned that I thought was really interesting that I want you to talk about you had mentioned scripts verse Frameworks I really like this you said great actors and actresses have a script but how how they deliver their lines determines the impact everything matters you go into inflection Pace pauses in a different

personalities but once they know the lines well then they can adjust on the Fly based on the partner that they're with based on what's happening within different scenes and different reactions that are happening so I want you to talk about the difference between the scripts and framework awesome so um I'll share a little background right because this is like this is something I've learned over time and I remember when I first came across this concept in my first like real like shirt and tie job if you will it was an internship well for a major

major Fortune 500 companies selling car rental insurance right so like people rent a car I had to sell them insurance and I remember in the very first week we had like there's like a one-week internship boot camp right we're in there and they're teaching us the sales script for this and I remember like it was a class like maybe like 15 20 other interns and I remember like taking them like okay like I would read it I'm like I sound like a robot so that whole week every night because I was living Eugene at the

time and I came up a whole week in Portland for the whole week so every night in my hotel room I like once again it gave us a script on Monday I would go through literally hundreds of times like memorizing it because I was like so anxious about saying just like in college we do these presentations with the group I was so scared to look bad I wanted to have it so well memorized that I knew that it would sound good it was not natural so that whole week everything I'm practicing it have it memorized

you know by the middle of the week and it's flowing it was really interesting at this point it was still a script now fast for the following week I had a chance to actually start using it because I was live in a branch and the first person I did a script on I actually closed and sold them into the insurance and fast forward 30 days later I'll go on the top reps in the whole region and this is out of all the full-time employees who is this kid what is he doing and the second month

again I'm on the top again and this is like there's like probably 50 60 different like different like other like you know like reps interns managed trainings Etc and they're like and I remember this is like it was July at that time July 2005. and I remember one of the other interns called me who was on the very bottom of all the rankings he's like dude what are you what are you doing I'm like how are you doing all this like are you are you being said something weird something different I'm like I'm like I

didn't know I understand like what are you talking about he's like what are you saying exactly I'm like let me just kind of run through and run through my whole script he's like dude that's basically what they toss in training I'm like yeah I know like I know I'm like it's it's a script but I took it and I've done it so many times now now I'm able to adjust a little bit to fit me so it's not even a script really a framework and if I understand as a framework I can adapt on the

Fly because I know it so well and he's like that sounds Supernatural I'm like I know because I'm literally at this point done a thousands of times but before I even got on a call with the Potential Prospect or a customer I had already gone through at least a thousand times before our first time wow so I could make it natural and sound natural to me and the way I picture a script or even a framework whatever you want to call it to me I use almost interchangeably it's it's much like driving on an eight-lane

freeway everyone's head in the same direction but based off the traffic and what's going on other cars you might speed up slow down change lanes go you know slow down go other lanes maybe not the merge off merge back on but you're still going the same Direction and that's what a script or framework is designed to be like and this is why when you see the greatest actors and actresses they all have a script but it's how they deliver the script that makes it personal human just like them it does not sound robotic and when

you start to internalize that you start looking back and realizing every single word that you I anyone says is actually from someone else that we learned every single word we say even our little mannerisms it's because we've learned from someone else which is basically their script and all of God's taking that and put it into our head and now repeat it and we don't even realize that's what it is that's why a young kid who lives in a completely different culture pick up multiple languages because they're picking up a script from somebody else so we

start realizing scripts are just Frameworks all around and they come from everywhere if you know how to focus your energy to have the right type of scripture to follow how to adjust it then you can make it natural and you can make it fit the situation the context you're selling them to sure I love that I love it's like same bones different muscle that's it's having different muscle with what we're doing depending on who we're working with I love the eight Lanes of traffic right because sometimes we need to gauge hey if we if we're

all the way over in the left lane and we got to get over to that one exit we got to make that right we need to figure out do we need to speed up do we need to slow down how do we safely navigate that to do I love that example that you mentioned so let's talk about practice because so many people will ask how to make sure that it doesn't become robotic mechanical it doesn't become mundane and boring how do you balance the two between a heightened level of practice and going over potentially role-playing

potentially going through that script again and again and still being energetic and having enthusiasm and having some emotions to back that up how's that Balancing Act great question so the first piece is understanding like when you think about really anything if you look at if you look at enough of the same thing you start to see patterns right if you look at enough essays you see a pattern if you look enough content you see there's patterns on top of the right posts you look enough books the same thing if you look enough your sales calls

you start seeing there's a pattern and when you understand there's a pattern to it that means there's a process in place and the best sales people understand there's a process it doesn't necessarily mean linear like okay I'm gonna hit step one step two step three steps over five in the sales call but they understand that there is a process so the first step is being massively aware what is the existing process you're doing that's the first step and I think the mistake a lot of people make is you know they get a copy my book

well they see something on YouTube and then I'm like all right this is a better process let me completely change everything and I'm doing I think that's a huge mistake because there might be parts that you already did a really good job but you just need to make a little bit better you know it's kind of like if you get a brand new car you know I personally like music a lot well I get a brand new car the stereo settings aren't quite right so I don't need to get a whole new stereo I just

need to First adjust the treble adjust the bass adjust maybe the style of music so it comes in the way I want this out so we take a look at your current processes the same thing you take a look at what am I currently doing do I have at least a core fundamentals you know do I have maybe at least a kind of an agenda the very beginning kind of set the tone and then do I have some specific questions I want to ask and what type of questions are they and then once you have

that do you have a follow-up next step or a close at the very end how does that actually look you start mapping that out that's a first step so you have an idea about of processes and then how can you tighten up even more how can you improve a little more so I'll give you a little example so I'll listen to a call recorder informed with students in my program Superstar this guy is uh one of the top 50 reps at his company's a major company and he sent me a call record for a discovery

call which is like the first intro call kind of dive into the situation he did an amazing job right and looked through fundamentally he had all the core things and the only thing we really need to add which is really nightmare now I'm really script it's really be able to take one question and go even deeper and that's really it and sometimes reality is is like when you're on a sales call they're a human being so you have to be able to understand the whole process so you know to go deeper right or another example

is um you know another call recording a newer sales rep and they had these questions they wanted to ask so as they started running through the call it becomes almost robotic and then the customer early on the conversation asked you know starts sharing something that eventually you want to find out anyways right they start sharing a little bit about uh the decision making process which is very important to understand they started early on the process and the sales person is like oh cool thanks it down onto the next question but the reality is is they

only got this surface level without question they actually need to go deeper but in their head they're like well that's the further than the process so we go back to the eight Lane highway it's like the base of how other cars are driving that's an opportunity you're already there you might as well you might as well you know go all deep deeper in that hole uncover the whole process and then transition to the next question so the first step is being really aware what your current process is mapping out what are the stages that you

want to cover what are the things you want to know and then from there you start to tweak it and start to improve each part to get to where you wanted to go and one really simple way to uncover what you need to improve in your even your sales call is just look at the last 10 opportunities or last 20 opportunities that you did not close you did not close what exactly was it that you did not uncover abroad that you could leverage to close it in the back end so give a really simple example

so I'll watch another call recording from another rep and what ended up happening was is they have to do let the CFO know to get buy-in right so now that the deal's been stolen for like two months now we don't know what the CFO is we haven't talked to CFO at all there's been no engagement so that's why this deal sold out but if we don't be really common common challenge of why deals get stalled out and why not you've Incorporated the top of your sales process and you dive in deeper up front and you

get them involved to get their executive buy-in before you move deeper in the process so when you start thinking this way you're able to actually reverse engineer your process but it starts number one knowing what your current process is how you stage it and how do you start tidying up and improving it and how can you sort of reverse engineering areas that you missed back into the beginning that's awesome so it almost reminds me of like looking at analytics with video so you know there's a lot of different platforms out there you put out a

video you see all right people will get to the third minute and when they're at the third minute sometimes they rewind why are they rewinding oh is it because this one point I need to expand it and then maybe they're only getting to the seven minute Mark and then it stops even if it's a 15 minute video why is that it's almost like you're you're reverse engineering the entire meeting to try to put different questions and scenarios up front I love that that is awesome wouldn't it be amazing to have like analytics on all the

the meetings like that the in-person meeting things we have that would be amazing but oh yeah I mean it takes but the first step is just even just watch your own call recordings sure right sure just you'll see like oh geez like I really didn't articulate that very well or oh I could have gotten deeper there that sure right that's a really good then you'll start seeing you'll already start seeing that without any analytics sure that's a really good point so one of the things that you mentioned about the human being element so as good

as it is to see the numbers and the analytics and everything as far as maybe I could have done this right you had mentioned at the end of the day it is another human being that we're doing business with right and you mentioned in your book about the difference regarding numbers game and the relationship and I think that you mentioning you know it's a human being I think that's a really good segue so about 10 years ago I read a book called go for no and it was really good for me at the time okay

and it was good for me at the time because it gamified my business when it came to a sales perspective and what I did was I literally put on my wall different numbers and metrics on how many no's I wanted to get in a specific month basically looking at all of the different numbers saying if I get x amount of no's it's going to equate to this amount of business so it was good to gamify it was good to really focus on the numbers but then at the end of the day I had to really

say what you just said is that you're talking to a human being they're not robots they're they're they're they're people and I think there is a balancing act you speak very very eloquently too in your book but you talked about getting crystal clear on your ideal customer and then you said have you ever had a sales manager that said it's about the numbers or smile and dial and the more hands you shake the more money you make so can you talk about that Balancing Act between the numbers and the metrics and then also the human

element absolutely you know I think in my opinion I think a lot of people interpret the numbers game in the wrong way because I find really weak sales leaders in my opinion their go-to answer for someone underperforming is to say it's a numbers game crank it the activity I want you to make more calls I'll just send more emails I want you to keep you know knocking on my doors I want you to just ramp everything up I want you to see more people do more demos I want to do all this to me that

is much like a doctor trying to prescribe a solution or medication without diagnosing the situation because the reality is is if the emails let's just say for example emails if the emails are only getting a five percent open rate and they're like a point zero one percent reply rate throwing more emails that are only scales crap so if you're trying to scale crap sure you do that right or you can focus on the right type of numbers and actually Improvement the better question is we're worth five percent how can we make it 30 40 50

open rate uh I don't the the reply it's not very good how can we improve that improve the email copy right and we started thinking this way you're actually working improved conversion ratios versus just playing a high quantity game and when you start thinking this way you start shifting how you think you start shifting thinking about okay if I'm the other person receiving this email or this cold call or the sales presentation how would I feel how would I react to that and you start shifting from thinking about just numbers by itself but you you

start thinking about selling as really you know serving at the highest level and if you really believe your solution can truly positively impact another company a person their lives their organization their niches across the board to sell them is ultimate service to them but you can't do that through just like hitting them super hard Non-Stop and having bad messaging and playing the quantity game you have to do it through quality because the funny thing is is on the opposite side that sales manager who's saying then play the numbers game they themselves hate getting cold called

they hate getting cold emails they hate getting put into a sequence so we already know we don't like that behavior so why not change it and what happens is when you start making this shift even from a targeting perspective you start realizing not every Prospect is the same instead of just Mass blasting everyone I'm gonna focus on this specific mark that I know I can help and I know their pains wants desires or interferes all their thoughts I can read their mind essentially if you focus on that one specific Niche and you go after that

and you truly serve them they'll feel it too they'll feel in your messaging they'll fill in your Outreach they'll feel everything and it's funny because for opportunities we have in our Pipeline and we sell to some of the most skeptical people in the world which are sales people which are very skeptical it's funny how many how often they'll comment and comment you know just our process and they'll be like this is exactly how I want to do it I'm like yeah because you're a human being like when you play the numbers game it's understand how

do you interpret that is it I'm gonna play the quality or is it I'm gonna make sure the right number right right conversion ratios which truly serves the other person's receiving it it's so powerful it's so powerful and and several years ago I heard a gentleman say to me you know if you're a doctor and there's someone that is out there that's sick and you actually have something that they need to make them better it's almost heinous and evil to withhold that from them like your duty as a doctor is to help people as much

as as they can be helped and I it's speaking to your point that if you have a service you have a product that you know will significantly enhance someone's life to hold that back is doing them a major disservice we have to figure out a way to really get it in their hands get in front of them in the most human way possible and I think that's a good transition to your story regarding the Doctor Who worked with you because I think this adds to the human element I love this story that you mentioned in

your book this is one of the many reasons why I just love your book The Six Figure sales secrets you it's just Gorge with Incredible stories that are learning opportunities and then backed with different scenarios it's it is just Gorge with info and wisdom and I really appreciate it one of the stories that you mentioned was you were in a sales role and two months in you get called into your boss's office and he's threatening to give you a performance Improvement plan everyone hates those and you have this sense of fear of stress and then

soon after that you went and you met with your doctor and you mentioned that she barely talked she wasn't talking at you she was asking questions that led you to a certain decision-making process and after the meeting you had you talked about just how blown away you were that she actually sold you on something she sold you a specific idea and you did most of the talking so can you talk about that a little bit more yeah absolutely right um and the reality is if we as salespeople say it it's probably not true but if

the prophet says it and it must be true and when you understand internalize that you realize the way to sell is not through telling it's through asking and this is why I remember that specific experience where I look back I'm like wow that was really impressive and when I really think about the whole situation how the doctor sold me into completely changing my diet and everything it starts with the whole process of how even doctors are structured in an officer structure so when you think about this when you go book an appointment with a new

doctor or existing doctor you go first and you feel like an online questionnaire or you know a paper questionnaire and even many times they make you refill it every so often and then when your appointment comes first a nurse comes brings you in and they start asking you questions first they start asking more questions what brought you in they're taking your blood they're weighing you they're doing all they're taking a blood pressure they're doing all these things even before the doctor comes they're asking all these questions they take all that data the input into their

laptop or on their board or whatever they're doing and then the doctor comes in and the doctor again revalidates and that's something times even the same questions in a different way and they're asking more and more questions to cover your situation and then based off that then do they prescribe a medication a next step or whatever it's going to be and often and what happens is because you are being forced if you will to answer questions and also to really think and pause now you internalize the situation much more and as suddenly before you know

it even you have what's I call a late need which is a need that you did not know you have versus an activity and active need means you actually have a need so for example if I like been thrown up I don't have an acne for some sort of some sort of help a late need is something's going on I have no idea that doctor that I was with based on the questions based off what she was measuring she's like hey like you've gained some weight since we last saw you you know like you've also

your blood pressure has really Skyrock pocket which made sense because all the new B2B sales roll right so it's like wow that's really enlightening so now I'm sold that I have a problem so what happens once you're so um you have a problem the natural next question is how do I solve it now I'm open to that conversation so she sold me two things or once she told me at a problem then number two she's showing me the solution the thing is when she saw an ad problem she doesn't ask me questions and then provide

a summary inside I'm like oh my gosh you're right like when you're stuck when you're stuck in the woods you don't see the forest right so and then she's able to recommend that and I think about a sales boss is so much like this where if it's an inbound Prospect usually they already know they have an active need they're just looking at other options but you still want to dive in deep you know run like all the 90 10 rule which is 90 Assets in question 10 actually go over your solution assuming it makes sense

right and if you do that it's a super easy close or if it's completely cold or outbound and you book that meeting you definitely need to do 90 10 because they don't believe you have a pain so you just you know you happen to book the meeting so now you have to be able to go through that right and I'll give you a really really good example how apologies really can be so this is a couple years back and I was one of the brand and we had actually we did a door knock we walked

in this business happening to get the owner it was it was a world grocery chain and he owned multiple operations and we walked in happened to get the owner the owners like yeah I got some time I got five minutes so we sit down in his office and we just do a deep dive and fast forward 45 minutes in this guy's like entrenched in our conversation wow we haven't told him what we do what we sell any of our Solutions we simply have asked some questions and I remember because it was a lot like it

was right before it was like 10 45. he's like oh crap we've been here like 45 minutes he's like I'm really sorry guys but I have a huge lunch rush from everyone coming on lunch break the next couple hours I'm gonna make sure the troops are ready to go so can we accept another follow-up meeting like I'm like I'm really interested and I remember this I almost like laugh he's like guys I don't know what you have to sell me but I know I have a problem I need to buy whatever you have to sell

me that's amazing I was like wow this is amazing right and we uh we we look at me for the afternoon and uh we leave every time I remember we're like laughing I'm like I mean this is the power like we literally presented absolutely nothing he went from a complete doing his own business had no idea he had an issue to we took him from a latent need to an active need in 45 minutes not by telling him anything by simply asking questions he came his own conclusions but he had a big problem and of

course my rep went back after noon closed them super easy awesome huge opportunity and now that was that super simple right but that 10 of the presenting was so so easy like half the time if you do a good job if you do an amazing job on the front end they're not even asking about the price they're just like dude I need this what do I sign yeah and that's an amazing story I very much appreciate you sharing that now one of the things that I will say though is how much of that speaks to

us growing as people as us really learning how to communicate learning you know relationship Dynamics how to truly connect because I mean you at that point in your career more than likely you had had some reps with actually talking with people learning how to have a conversation learning how to respond versus react so when a lot of that go into our ability to actually just communicate as people so I I think as one part of the equation right and we go back to the self-awareness piece and I'll give you I'll share with you what I

end up learning so early on I was told I had zero self-awareness all right still working on it okay still work out and I remember early on I was told this and I felt it in my sales calls I frankly did you know I would have a book some terrible meetings I'd walk in and it was supposed to make a 30 minute meeting it'd be like maybe five to ten minutes based off how I was carrying myself based on that question I was asking and early on I would blame them oh that's just a bad

Prospect Matt he's just he's just a heart he's a hard guy like that's how he is like it's the economy it's a recession this is why not me right it had this ego that's what it was it was an ego and eventually I came across a book called by Tony Robbins called awaken the job within and one of the things he mentioned in there is if you don't like the answer ask a better question I remember like reading that over and over I'm like if you don't like the answer ask a better question if you

don't like the answer ask a better question like oh interesting so I'm like okay so these calls aren't going well walking it differently how can I better engage them what can you do like how could I adjust my tonality how can I adjust what question I how can I just how I prepare how can I control what I can control how do I get a better end result so when I started asking these questions I started getting different answers so when I started doing this this start helping me improve every part of my process and

the most beautiful part about sales is you can have metrics for every part of your sales process so if I had a discovery that did not convert to the next type of presentation that told me something I'm like interesting if five percent of 10 people or I have 10 Discovery calls and only one go to the next step why what happened another night what could you do differently was it better targeting could do a better job on the call what are you doing to get that to say two out of ten not three out of

ten so by doing this and becoming forcing myself to look at the Hard data I even didn't like it and really understanding my metrics across the board allow me to have awareness to start improving like the first step to grow is being able to look in the mirror and say I have to improve and that's really hard to do for a lot of people it's so much easier to blame other people so for me personally if you get to that point where in that situation with taking a complete cold Prospect and to walk in and

close them for a like a 20 30k opportunity in 45 min that's that didn't happen over tonight that that's that stemmed from me focusing on improving the game and even to this day now I've been I've been in the B2B sales game for over 15 years now I still measure every part of the process and I still reflect I still you my own call record for sales calls I still think dang it I probably could have done a job here I think I could refine a little more I think I didn't read them properly because

something went in the moment you just flow so that's why it's important to remove that ego and to pause and always constantly improve yourself so you can actually improve your communication so I'll give you it's a little extra additional things to think about as well a lot of people don't realize this but I grew up with a speech impediment English is my second language I didn't start speaking until I was four years old and when I started speaking I had huge issues I went to speech therapy classes for years this lets me being very insecure

unable to speak not able to talk definitely on a camera in front of people I can barely talk or am I facing those demons and those fears was able to start working on it and I'm still working on it every single day wow that is extremely powerful and hopefully it gives hope to people out there that do feel inadequate when it comes to their communication because you had mentioned that you felt that you have a low sense of self-aware people told you that you're not as self-aware I never would have thought that I feel like

you have a very heightened sense of self-awareness based on interactions I've had with you in the past knowing different elements of how you're conducting a conversation I think that that's in it was very interesting for me to hear and also for you to say that English is your second language and you had to work really hard at it that for anyone that follows your content they're probably bewildered by that because they've seen you on camera time and time again so hopefully it gives people hope out there so I very much appreciate you mentioning that absolutely

an in addition I really appreciate your time with this conversation Marcus because I know you are extremely busy thank you so much I do want to do a recap based on what I got out of our conversation today I know there are others that might have gotten something else but I got three specific things out of our conversation today that I want to thank you for the first is I really appreciate what you said regarding work ethic is good massive self-awareness is great I love that I love really focusing in on self-awareness and being humble

enough to get feedback there's a tremendous amount of wisdom in that the second thing I got which I really appreciate mentioning is be present enough to uncover patterns this is huge you're talking about different processes be present enough to uncover patterns within those processes love it and then the third and final piece I really appreciate you you mentioning that this is that typically when we say something our Prospect might not take it as truth but if they say it it is true because they're the ones saying it how do we get them to sell themselves

and then present the solution to improve their situation so those are the three top things I got from this conversation thank you again if anyone wants to get more information on you what you do they want to learn more about the book where would they go to get that information awesome so you can find me on LinkedIn super easy look at Marcus Sharon your hand with my website bentleyconsulting.com and if you want a free copy of my book just paper shipping handlings had to close with chand.com perfect so I will include that in the show

notes I'll make it super easy for everyone I highly highly recommend people follow Marcus on LinkedIn I have for quite some time every time you post something I am learning and in addition and I kid you not this book that I read of Marcus is the six figure sales Secrets it's one of the best sales books I've ever read and I mean that sincerely highly highly recommend checking it out and Marcus thank you again for your time I very much appreciate it thanks for having me on