You Need to Talk to People with Alen Mayer #superentrepreneurs #shahiddurrani

[Music] welcome to super entrepreneurs podcast today we have with us ellen mayer how are you alan doing well shaheed thank you for having me oh it's my pleasure always i'm so happy to meet people and i'm so glad that you took the time to meet with us you know being such a celebrity in the sales arena i had to meet you and have to pick your brains to find out what's going on in there but um yeah and actually impact other people out there you know because there's as you know a lot of people struggle with sales and and the information that we can talk about today if it can allow if it can give some sort of guidance or something that they can get out of this episode that can help them you know we have done our our work you know that's really important right so i'm glad to have you here with me uh we always like to introduce i mean allow the guests to introduce themselves um in your own words please sir stage is yours thank you so much 29 years now in sales first 10 years in europe rest in canada and the last 15 years i'm doing uh global sales training and i'm actually honored that i had a chance to meet people uh in their offices on all six continents delivering trainings from south africa kenya egypt across asia australia new zealand even oh my god that's so far to fly and all the other continents yeah yeah so but but i'm a b2b sales kind of guy and but the message here is for entrepreneurs and for b2b sales guys it's the same message yes yes you need to talk to people and especially during pandemic people forgot this part you're dealing with humans i'm dealing with one big corporation and they're dealing for example in germany a 60 billion revenue company and they said they never have money say no no they have a pile of money they have no money for you you know that's a big difference so and during pandemic lots of people are struggling with working from home handling kids you know not monitoring teams and this and that and it impact everybody the only thing is what i suggest talk to people show some empathy come on like we all going through the same things i spoke last week with one team in germany they are probably going into lockdown i said reach out to your customers talk to them hey how you handling these new changes new regulations like how are you doing like this basic stuff you know five minutes of this it's gonna go a long way and that's that's i believe it's very important you know we get so consumed with the strategies and tactics and you know we hear someone say something do this way and then we say oh you know i don't want to miss out and then we jump on that right we're always shifting but really it comes down to the human component of who we are right it's the connection it is i mean if even if you deal i mean for canadians if they rebel and rogers of the world i mean you're not dealing with them you're dealing with people who work for bell or rogers ibm's of the world right and these people have frustrations they have emotions they have they have apis they are measured by something and yes my personal definition of sales is helping others reach their goals if i help my customers save money make money whatever reason it is they're going to talk with me yes you need to talk about people yeah you always you know you're you're not doing something to someone you're doing something for someone right and the entire component of um humanizing things like you mentioned like you're not doing business with the building right you're not doing the business with the actual logo you're doing business with the people right it's all about the people and especially now doing pandemic people are suffering i mean i can give you a quick example of one customer of mine he's dealing with the guy who's doing the lockdown he's handling three kids at home virtual school for kids he's working on 200 million dollar deal and at the same moment his wife is actually teacher who's working from home doing delivering virtual virtual schooling so imagine balancing all of this and then you dial in say hey you know i need to sell you something like forget it i don't have time like i'm like my head is going to explode right so yeah think about it the challenges that we all experience especially during this pandemic well luckily everything is opening up so oh well it depends right i deal with lots of europeans oh my god they go to lockdowns now like austria slovakia yeah they just austria actually they they went like two three weeks of lockdown i was supposed to fly to europe and i'm not going because slovakia today announced italy has some problems germany has like the biggest city yeah i will avoid news so yeah we are not exposed here i'm listening i'm hearing from my customers this kind of stuff it's like wow like we are lucky we are yeah we're lucky everything is opening up you know so yeah so yes this is good for me personally i don't know covert has been probably the biggest blessing of my life um but also the fact that what you're saying about the schedule component you know i'm lucky that my my wife doesn't work right she i have three kids so she takes care of them she manages them to imagine if i had to do i don't know i you just put something in my head that if i had to take care of all that and the business i don't know how it was it's hard it's hard to many people i mean the entrepreneurs especially you try to do your job but you have a external forces that change your day-to-day activity yeah and you know you have to take this in account the same thing with your customers even if you're a small local print shop your customers are suffering right and we forgot this human touch sorry i'm pushing this but no it's true i'm a big introvert i hate talking to strangers but you know like with my customers if i show empathy if i show interest in their situation i know i'm gonna receive it back so that's you know you give john no no for sure one of the reasons why i was excited to meet you is because of those principles they're aligned with me you know it's everything is about that connection is about the understanding right and you mentioned all these things it takes my attention towards mindset right now what what do you find in people in sales when it comes to this kind of stress outside circumstances fluctuating you know it does a tremendous has a tremendous impact on their sales performance do you help in that in those terms with mindset what changed actually i in during pandemic i have a contact with one big corporation and they asked me can i create the two different trainings one on resilience and one on uh on the sales mindset and i spend lots of time developing the special training for sales guys on sales mindset how to take more how to be accountable during challenging times but more importantly like this little tweak like if you're 20 years in sales you think you know everything about sales but this little tweak like this fixed mindset always creeps in right yes and we have to constantly remind ourselves the growth mindset is i'm like what do you do when nobody is looking basically right i was director of sales for a big corporation and you know i have a my policy was i'm leaving i'm not gonna micromanage you right i need to know what's happening with deals but you know you are intelligent human beings like i don't need to talk with you every day but on monday when we talk i want to hear how we progress through this that deal right but many people abuse that they think oh like i don't need to do anything for a week well guess what you have your measurements you have kpis yeah but if you are not driven from within if you understand me right if you're not driven from between growth mindset means like i'm gonna listen to shaheed's podcast i'm gonna learn something i'm gonna get the book i'm gonna go on youtube i'm gonna you know i don't know what resilience is where can i find you know books materials anything about it right so that's that's the drive that sales people should always cultivate always be curious actually i read this many years ago leonardo da vinci said 500 years ago abc always be curious and that's my mother like if i don't know something i was developing training on resilience yeah i did no psychological part i know sales part and i did the homework and did my research oh my god like resilience is everywhere like it's it's a part of sales people i mean if you're longer than six months in sales or being entrepreneur for longer than six months you know you need to bounce back from difficult calls difficulties right you do this subconsciously but there's a structure to everything yeah yes alan is so true and like for me for us for example we focus on on sales people but we're focusing on the mindset component so we put like majority on the internal work right what makes them tick because once you have that inner strength you can withstand anything that comes to you on the outside you know you can become stronger right resilient like you mentioned so it's so important when you go into a corporation for example do you do you do you check the the culture of the corporation to see if they have um attention towards mindset and what kind of attention you know what i mean because you don't when you go into a corporation you're working with teams right and they're sales teams so you want to know if they have some kind of a structure is that important to you because you want to tell them to do things and you want them to execute right if they don't execute then what's the point of your job right well if i may go step back yeah please you are if you are if you are doing a training any kind of thing like sales training yes starts showing that 90 percent of cell standing fails after 20 30 years right and why is it so because people are not embracing it right so i want to check before we start doing something i want to check like what did you do before how did it work for you like what the people are struggling with and then it's all about like in terms of resiliency you know you can be the most resilient sales person in the world but you depend on your team and your team is weak or they're not really their heart is not in the right place so how can it be extremely resilient if team is not and then companies out there so you have to align all of this and i did some cult some culture changes with one software company in u.s we did a culture change where company needs to show from top down we are resilient company we want to stay on the market we want to fight the market this way that way pandemic everything and then we're going to transfer this down to teams and then to individual level if this is aligned people accept people learn things people are willing to learn people willing to invest time and effort otherwise it's just throwing money out of the window basically right the same training yeah yes millions of dollars are spent on training keep under they keep putting the knowing knowing learning learning learning but the power center is within right the power center is where you know you can make things work if you have the drive if you have like you mentioned the drive the excitement each day sales is so much fun if you're like if you're if you're pumped up for it if you're like popped up on a daily basis it's fun if you don't have that drive all bad sales is like it could be a drag that's why actually i made my website sales is easy sales is easy.com exactly if you know what you're doing if you believe in what you're doing like like yeah i'm maybe not going to find the best words but people feel my enthusiasm my passion oh yeah talk with you about things that i'm passionate about people at least listen and same thing with any sales person right you have to believe in what you're doing yes yes i resonate with you so much my friend i'm so happy to meet you actually i'm on i hopefully you know because your your thinking patterns are are very um aligned with my belief system what i think and stuff like that so i'm grateful to have met you so i'm glad what work you're doing what you're doing out there because you know what nothing starts without something being sold so people like you when you go into corporations and you're doing that for businesses you're making their product which is good because it's helping people get to more of the consumers hands or businesses hands to help them as well so you're like a very like sales people and the sales training and coaching and all that they have they have a very intimate connection to our overall connection as human beings i think because we're always in service to each other so it's all about like even if you're dealing like a huge cooperation to a huge corporation i mean you need to understand the psychological elements of the conversation you need to be flexible if you have i don't know i had a good example there was a cfo big corporation and the guy didn't like any chit chat any small talk okay then don't go with that go with fax you want like include him somehow yeah and what happened actually they had good meetings with technical guys everybody but they actually they knew the guy cfo was a little reserved so they tried to avoid him and then when a time of presentation came what they did they got you know all yes's cfo stood up and he said there's nothing in it for me goodbye and he left and they never close the because my guy has money but you need to evolve even the people you don't like it's not about being liked or hated you don't understand what takes them he was actually he was ignored because they had the wrong understanding you need to include everybody even if you entrepreneur if you talk to small businesses talk to people involve them you're going to hear some negative stuff there is adversity there are challenges there are problems we want to hear this kind of promise because then you will tune in you tune up basically your message why you i'm always saying to sales people think about it why you you know not company not a product because products are so similar in this day and age right yeah so i mean you can have something unique you know why you what do you bring to a table yeah what you bring to the table and and one guy said i don't know what i'm bringing to the table are you available when your customers call are you available to answer the questions will you help them with technical issues with accounting issues yes that's not what everybody is doing that's your advantage be there be available right so this awareness it's so hard with many sales people because they are pushed with so many trainings about the cold calling and handling of objections the next generation feeling the pipeline yes i mean there are millions of things i read millions of books i've wrote books about it as well yeah it's not what what makes the things different it's you human human element yes wow amazing i love it i love it and i'm so glad i could see that you're so successful because of these principles um because you know strategies are everywhere you know if you look anywhere you'll you'll see strategies and there's always a twist to strategies you know a lot of the sales techniques tactics uh you know kind of principally like foundationally they're the same kind of shifting a little bit to pronounce it or to introduce it and with you know some intelligent wording it feels like wow you know this is it right but the problem is i feel like it's a it's a waste of money if you don't actually fix what's going on inside the human beings that are in the business that you're operating right and that part that you mentioned about awareness awareness is such a huge thing and we're always in level of awarenesses and my question to you is like when you see sales performers right can can you tell the level the difference of level of awareness from the top producers and the ones that are struggling that you try to help what can you talk about you know what's the big differentiator here yes yeah top producers are not afraid to reach out for help yes they reach out no ego internally they have i mean sales if they need help they're going to reach out to this department that department they're going to dig through they're going to find help yeah find a solution resourceful and resourceful exactly and people who who think they are successful but they are not they think i need to be it's all about me me me i need to be a star sales person i can do everything yeah maybe if you're small entrepreneur yes but if you're in a bigger team no you need to understand what you need how you feel when you need to reach out for help when you need to make some adjustments improvements like this flexibility this awareness everything what personal adjustments needs to be made from your side then you gain the knowledge you gain the information you can't access the information you need like so it's it's i mean nobody's all alone out there right you work even if you work on a smaller project there are other people and if you are reaching out if you support people when they are needing the support then you're going to get it back right the same with customers they feel that they have their ups and downs they have projects they're stalled they need to make decision fast you are one of the vendors who should i trust how should i approach things you know like talk with them understand what's important to them what takes them on individual level what's the goal they want to get promotion they want to get bonus like you know try to get this emotional goals or personal goals if you can i mean i mean yeah it's not going to happen on a first meeting but i'll give you a quick example to your listeners you know when you walk into the meeting and you know or call customers that you know just ask him hey what does it mean if you complete this project what's going to mean to you right it's this kind of questions where you try to understand why did you think because you shahid has you have personal goals i have personal goals everybody has these goals and the real question is why do you do what you're doing right now why right you don't need to answer it but just think about it and your listeners should always think of why do you do what you're doing right now yeah do you want to feed themselves you want to get money you want to get promoted you want to you know fulfill your dreams whatever it is this why and same thing with your customers if you can uncover their why you're good yeah and you know these intelligent questioning um connects the salesperson with the prospect or the companies um subconsciously right and that's what you're pretty much talking about here i feel you know because when you're asking those questions and you're connecting you're actually connecting heart to heart you know and what are your what are your what are your thoughts on that like in the sales process do you find it's important to connect heart to heart with people yeah once again the good question one thing is i work with some salespeople on the same team i manage some guys they think it's sales is based on their personality and it's not that's not you cannot replicate personality you know i i work with some guys they can be friends with you in two minutes i'm not this kind of guy but when i ask questions when i show interest in customer situation they feel like oh allen is actually really interested in my opinion my situation my problems my challenges and slowly you build around that so because i had guys with with lots of ego trying to sell something to me and i'm big introvert so i stopped them like you know i don't know we're not going to become friends today you know like why are you here and they don't know they're like fish out of the water because they don't know how to handle this kind of like they call it cold customers no it's not cold yeah i don't want to be i don't need your friends you know why are you here what you want to sell software okay how this thought is different than the other software well you know let's let's go for a drink no i'm not going for drinks let's talk about practical stuff so you know this kind of approach but if somebody approaches me try to ask me like you know what are you currently using what kind of crm to organize your customer database how you do this how you do that i have millions ideas include me and sales people think that's why i'm saying sales is not easy because if you think you need to show and tell forget it it it worked in the 80s and 90s in this day and age you need to include people in the comments engage in dialogue basically that's the message here right and engage in dialogue do you is it do you do you feel like it is that connection as well when you're engaging dialogue you're connecting with their desire right like what's important to them like what's important to shaheed what's important to you why you want to do this like how are you going to be so important it's simple simple things but it's almost about other side you know think about the focus of salesperson should be on the other side not on me my company is the best my products right yeah what's information and that's that's such a such a great point and it brings me to this next question about ego empathy balance right because you know it's important to have ego because that drives you right but empathy is that's the connection heart to heart so what are your thoughts on ego empathy balance well ego sells people i met guys with the huge ego it's fine right if you have a huge ego good luck with that but for the majority of population right ninety-five percent of the rest of salespeople out there it's all about not showing empathy like oh your dog is sick your kids are sick this kind of empathy but business empathy right understanding you know how you're handling pandemic how are you handling your customers like what's happening with your customers during pandemi and how you suffer like you know what kind of challenges your team experience currently and then seeing if you can squeeze yourself in to solve the problem for them because you want to be problem solver for your customers yeah right but yes but nobody's going i'm not gonna you're not gonna open up your heart on the first meeting with somebody because you know they are friendly no it's not about that well it depends on the questioning what exactly is that like if the question yeah if the question is is as uh intelligently directed um they will they will you will start connecting with them right because you don't want to say you know i want to be your best friend like i want to come to your birthday party or something right but it's more about that connection with the question you know what's one word that's missing from this interview yeah preparation preparation that's where that's okay they don't prepare no no there's always excuse no time for this call no that's actually like back to uh mindset again it is it is it definitely you know it's a power center yeah yeah and and yeah sorry just anybody please any salesperson i mean i try to demystify on my website i also have some podcast my recordings without interviews like a little podcast on that but it's all about understanding how can you grow as a human being and as a salesperson to be able to really help others people i mean i had the sales guy a few months ago he called me and i'm calling you and i would like to develop relationship with you i don't even know who you are you already tried to like it's same thing going for a date with the girl and already deciding his names come on slow down like you know relationship is built it doesn't come you know because you said so or trust me i'm not trusting anybody right now prove me so show interest in their situation yes prepare questions like yes like i'll tell you what there was a one company they had big problems with the attacks on their networks i said you know how did you experience attack do you know who's behind him how did you protect them what you're going to plan to do in the future and the guy looked at me saying nobody ever asked me this kind of question they all tried to sell me solution well how can i sell you solution if i don't know the scope of your problem like what's bothering you don't know that no so you have to prepare your questions dig deeper dig deeper and dig deeper constantly it's always about your customs and you will but if you pay attention you if you ask good questions people will tell you everything that's bothering them but you have to be focused on them and really explore much in depth the conversation you can yes so amazing sorry i'm passionate about it i can talk no me too that's why i'm enjoying this i'm mad absolutely i feel your energy ellen like i know what you're talking about i totally get it and and you know it brings me to to to the attention of of so many people in this game um that that are they're struggling right like it it hurts you know and i want to i want to bring like people like you onto platforms like this and i hope you have more and more exposure because the more people hearing this kind of stuff the more awareness they're going to get is that take a step back fix what's going on inside you and then whatever strategies they're all there like the doing part the execution is where you need to put the attention and i hope that awareness comes to more and more people so they can improve the quality of their life you know sales profession is the highest paid profession but you've got to get your game right cool and it's all about again why you i had a conversation recently with one friend of mine and i said like you know no matter the product no matter the service no matter the political party you belong like whatever it's always the answer should be why you and what happens with junior sales people or entrepreneurs who just started they don't know they think sales is something mystical go out talk to people ask them how you currently like talk about present situation how you currently do x y and z and then whatever they say then think about how can you do it better easier faster cheaper that's definition of capitalism basically right yeah so but it's all about talking to people and people feel like especially i was i was invited to manage i have to tell you this story there was a company before pandemic and they invited me like how to how to teach millennials to sell and two-day training i said you know what i can do it in 10 minutes but you're not gonna like it right i can fly to new york you're gonna pay me my fee that's fine but i need 10 15 minutes pick up the phone people that's the message yeah and they didn't like it they said like you know you're selling software to other companies you think linden will do it for you twitter is going to do it facebook for sure now like you know you can create interest it's your marketing but it ultimately somebody needs to talk to someone and the only way i don't know any other way but we need to reach out to customers is it text message is it the pigeon with the message around the leg or is it the phone whatever it is you need to reach out to people there should be a start of conversation understand you know the story the famous story of charles dickens the three go the christmas carol and now it's christmas coming so everybody knows this story three ghosts they visited the guy charles dickens wrote 123 years ago like you have a ghost of past present and future yes yes and the guys the guys visited by this so for salespeople we talk so much about future you know if you buy this you're gonna get this you know like talk about future without fully understanding what's the present situation and what's the past how they make decision to buy your competitors product how they make decisions to do something before to understand the mindset how customers think and then try to when you understand the mindset try to put yourself and i can do this in a different way but it's going to stay the same or it's going to change this or or but for that again dialogue conversation yeah and you know that's so funny that you said i could do it in 10 minutes they're gonna say wow what do you mean you're charging so much yeah but it really comes down to that right it comes okay if you're 20 or 60 years old right i don't care like if your job is to sell guess what you need to talk to somebody they will not come to you then you know yeah we wish but yeah never gonna happen no i'm never gonna and you know it it comes down to do the do and that's the biggest problem that you know people have is doing and and the doing doing is the issue once they fix a doing then you know that's such a great recommendation get on the phone get in front of people you said something about knowledge and learning i love i love learning i have tanzania mutual always reading but and you know i think francis bacon said knowledge is power but for sales people there is a big difference we know what we need to do we know we need to reach out we know what's the message we're not doing it so applying your knowledge basically i mean in my personal life i know i need to go to gym yes or or else right i know i should not do this i should exercise more am i doing it yeah no pandemic kids you know i find the excuses same thing with sales guys the team last time i managed it's always it was all about results or excuses and i heard all of your users i created millions of different excuses come on like yes even if if you're running your own business you know you will start if you not sell if you don't sell if you don't promote your stuff so same thing if you work for big comp and you're still working for yourself you need to feed your family go on go out and do it such a great uh recommendation you know as we get older we start we we know more right we continue to learn and people keep going to events seminars keep learning learning so they're getting their conscious mind really really powerful but where the power comes from is the doing is the subconscious part of them right that's the majority they don't put any attention to that part unfortunately but they just don't seminar one more book i need to read they're not gonna be great one more strategy one more strategy this strategy that this person is saying is going to work i know it let's go for it spend you know five thousand dollars learn it for two three months come back same situation the doing has to be focused they're doing part of their existence if your listeners are like this i have a bridge to sell so they can come to me yeah i'm a joke you know no problem like like you know there's no silver bullet in selling there's no one book one technique it's a mix of things right it's up to you be flexible in your approach if one thing is not working what else can i do like but it's always always about again really doing it yeah it's doing it you know it's a sales game for me is a it's an emotional game and um i love strategies but you know that's not where the results come from unfortunately so you know it's been a great great interview i always like to ask our guests you know what their inner super power is that got them to this point in their life can you share you want to hear it oh yeah of course everybody wants to hear it i didn't mention this but i'm a certified mind reader so i can read your mind so oh no did you did you did you i guarantee you i guarantee you it was all going to be good though listen i can guarantee you that and uh the superpower is i'm a great listener never ever in a history of business your customer will tell you you listen too much never but when we talk too much clients will they'll tell us you know just stop talking or can you skip next five slides okay like that yeah you know when we talk too much and sales people we like to talk we like to yeah and the way but the worst thing listen to this like one guy stood up in one of training i said i'm a great listener i said i know you it's brian i know his name brad i know you're a great listener you love to listen to yourself talking right shut up i know those people you know but yeah that's you know that my my i would say i'm married for many many years so you know you have to listen to the other side right that's how you train yourself yes that's the truth that's a great thing but the easiest strategy for many salespeople is just cover your mouth listen to your customers and and ask follow-up questions ask follow-up yes and you're going to understand the situation they will never tell you you listen too much i guarantee you that so true so true alan you're like on on spot i love it and i i love the information that you're sharing and the results that you're getting for corporations such big corporations with this knowledge because you know sales people when they actually i call it exclusive listening right when they have like um when they really actually focus on listening they'll understand what the prospect is saying but they don't understand how to create those what you mentioned the follow-up questions so they're able to bring up more and that's the that's kind of the recipe of digging deep right but most sales people they keep talking about the benefits benefits and they are waiting for customers to shut up and then let me tell you why we no like if they said hey what you mean by that can you can you give me a better exam elaborate like i had one meeting with the customer we had agenda we didn't touch agenda for 45 minutes and i'll just let him talk and he said wow great meeting i said yeah because you were talking all the time for me for you good but i learned so much and then you know the best thing is next meeting what what your listeners can actually do next meeting you start with hey thanks for being on a call with me in our on our last call you told us this this and this this right and this they start noting you're already putting them in a positive mindset somebody was paying attention to my words somebody understand my problematic and somebody prepared the solution to what i need like it's it's like almost like they're selling to themselves yeah that's the best way to sell because that's really honestly i think only way to sell is when they sell themselves right they just have to figure it out so and it's that's why i said sales is easy if you know this magic or you know like if you know this little strategies how to make customers to talk because the the sweetest words in customers minds are beside their name their own words and you know i can follow up with you he'd say hey on our last call you told us efficiency is very important to you and you start knowing yeah ali is listening to me efficiency okay here's what we prepare how you can be more efficient you told us all right so it's a it's a cycle but it's amazing amazing thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show it was a great meeting great conversation hopefully it served people in the audience ladies and gentlemen take this information hopefully you took notes connect with ellen um you know everything will be provided in the show notes below um you know at the end of the day the more people understand that sales is uh you know our success is an inner game and they start realizing the power center you'll start shifting what you feel your results are today and and people like alan are the people that are making that change and i hope this message finds everyone well and get in touch with us you know message us dm you know whatever you need to do we love people we love meeting people so um thank you everyone for listening and alan thank you so much for coming on the show it was a pure honor to have you on here please keep in touch all my amazing relationships i'm building is through this podcast so if any way i can help in any way let me know um any kind of like i'm resourceful too so if you if anywhere you need anything or anything let me know i'm i'm very very honored for that kind of request supporting people yeah no definitely i love your stuff that you power belief and mindset and it's so important especially challenging times like pandemic yeah right so yeah great message and i'm really honored to be here and please spread the word because you're doing a great job thank you so much alan have a great day thank you thank you [Music] do [Music] super