Adventures with Lyrical: Buying a Business (REPOST)

consensus said:

how would you create a concise presentation for maximum effect.

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It takes time and thought. When I had a Manager and Secretary in place, all I did was plan things out. I wasn't visiting customers non-stop like I am now. I spent two solid days going over our selling points with a professional graphics company. I have a laser printed brochure on my company, which highlights all of the reasons why people choose us. I try to get it down under one minute. I always go over the brochure BEFORE I give them their price. If I hand them an estimate before I go over the company, they no longer focus on what I'm saying. All they can think about is the price, at that point. You have to talk value before you go over the price, unless you are the lowest guy in town. And who wants to be positioned there? The guys in my industry that are the "bottom of the barrel" are the ones who work all the time, and can't make ends meet. Anyhow, we have contests where everyone who estimates or sells goes over the brochure to try to win $50. Whoever is the smoothest is the winner. I tell them that no one give a shit about them, if they live in a cardboard box or in a mansion. WIIFM (google it) is the only thing people care about. They don't always care about lowest price. Find out what's important to them and hammer it home. When you say to the customer, "Please buy, because I have a wife and kids to feed" is when you lose the sale. No one cares.

Also, I justify our pricing. We had a job for a Doctor where he insisted we could get it done in ten minutes. It took a day and a half, and his wife sat there to make sure we were working the whole time. I charged him $3,600 and ended up eating 1,200 from being too low. Bottom line is that he's think 100, and the price should have been 5k. Everybody wants something for cheap, and you have to bring them back to reality.

I also did fuckton of sales training when I got out of college, to help me close. It's funny, I have the best close rate of everyone in my company, and they are all White, and I'm Black. When I ring their doorbell, if they can't see my uniform, they think I'm trying to break in. I still close them. But I've also spent over a decade in sales/marketing with a Fortune 100 company. I remember being forced to sell products that were absolute dogshit. I remember the stress of being threatened with being fired if I didn't sell $4 million in product by the end of the day. As stressful as all of that was, it's so much easier to do this now. The reason I left was because I was selling $200 million a year at that company, but barely made 80k (non-comission). Now I sell $4,500 a day, of which one-third goes into my pocket. I make more in a day now than I made in working a week and half when I was with that company. Again, people that are really successful not only know how to sell value, but they know what they are worth.

consensus said:

you know shonuff, I live for that kind of shit and I need tons of training. It is pretty much ON THE GO training at my place. I attend conferences and seminars but nothing significant outside of franchisee paid presenters.


Grant Cardon is pretty good, but near bullshit and probably shittest customer satisfaction way to close. I will probably not get a single be-backs.

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My employer paid for me to complete several different Dale Carnegie classes ("How to Win Friends and Influence People"). Zig Ziglar is also a good read. And I always asked for tips from the guys who were doing well. I made it a point of grilling anyone that was making six figures in sales at every opportunity.

consensus said:

I've been to about 4 to 6 dealership to copy their style lol.

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Dealership style only works if you are dealing with a short sales cycle. Most people buy a car within two weeks of visiting their first dealership. So dealers can't let you leave, because they know they are losing a sale. Also, it only works if people expect that from your industry. I'm very low pressure. It's all about finesse.

Big_w_powah said:

My brother, for all the shitfuck he is; Is the best goddamn salesman I've ever seen.

His theory? You can sell anything you love.

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You are correct. If you love the product, it's infectious. If you don't, it shows and they don't buy. When I run bids, I tell people how many times other companies tried to get me to buy them. Since I bought one of them out, they all think I've got too much money. And every time they wanted to sell, I passed because they had a subpar product. There's not one company in my area I covet, as they are all smaller than I am, and have employee issues. Some of them tolerate their employees being drunk and high at work. Not a good policy with all of the heavy equipment.

In the past, when I was selling shit products, I had to go to a different place. I imagine I'm in an alternate universe where my product is the best thing since sliced bread. This is a product that is 10x better than the best poontang you ever had. And I tell the customer that, as I go over the features/benefits. I've brainwashed myself into believing it's the best product ever. In my job as a District Manager for a manufacturing firm, we had a portfolio of products. 20% of our product lines had almost zero demand.

It is a level of depravity that some people never reach. But if you can reach it, you will be a millionare. I've seen some salesmen make $1.5 million a year working for someone else. How, you might ask? They find high margin tickets to sell (like helicopters), where the owner is paying at least 10% of the gross profit. So if you sell an item with 50,000 of gross margin, you get 5k.

Big_w_powah said:

When I sell my contracts/services to my company's clients, its all computer related. I just let myself get excited about what we can do for them, how much fun I have playing with the tools we'll be giving them, etc..Most of the time they want an estimate before I can even get back to the office to generate one.

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If you can't get excite about your product, get excited about your commission. Or find a product you believe in.

moonarchia said:

This is why sales is mostly a black pit of soul devouring evil.

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Actually, when I close a big deal, it makes my dick hard. I imagine that it's like going to a bar trying to pick up some pussy. The bigger the deal, the longer and harder they want me to give it to them. Smaller deals are them allowing me just a quicky. When I close a day's worth of work, they want it all night. This works with men also. This is just how I've programmed my brain to like sales. It's worked well for me.

I get so high when I'm having a good sales day. Higher than any drug could get me. Funny thing is, I used to hate sales when I first started. Then I made my first sale, and got my first rush.

Am I screwed up in the head a little? Yes. But most successful people are a little deranged.

moonarchia said:

What you wrote about selling products you knew were shit is the old "lying to yourself before being able to lie to others". I said it was effective, but it is still pretty awful all around. It ends up with an unhappy customer and ultimately an unhappy salesperson. You've been talking about your business here for a while, so I know you like what you do and what you are offering. Being able to sell that is a vastly different wad of bills. If it gets you off as well, more power to you.

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I did like the other 80% I sold for my employer. If I didn't sell it, someone else would have been in my spot. And who am I to judge who likes what? Some people like apples and some like oranges. Part and parcel to sales is "putting lipstick on that pig." It's your job. I remember when I hired on, they told me they only hired us to sell the slower moving product. The other product sold itself, they said.

consensus said:

Customers have the most fucked up expectations I have seen. I do not respect my customers. I see them as fucking parasites who are looking for any excuse to fuck you up. I mean sure, some customers are nice enough but a lot of them have the absolute ass of attitude.

Best I can say is I've increased my professional attire and avoid any talk of personal bullshit.
Straight to business. No ego pleasing. Sell sell sell.

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But it's all about rapport. I remember when I started in my business, and was getting trained by the seller on how to run estimates. Ironically, we were running an estimate for a car dealer and his wife at their gated estate. The wife had a bunch of work going on around the house. I asked her about her projects. She ended up showing me around her estate, for over an hour. When it came time to sign the contract, she didn't hesitate. It was a $4,100 sale. When I drove off, I asked the previous owner if I did something wrong. I said I didn't want to waste company time. He tells me I did the right thing. If you can get people talking about themselves, and have a decent conversation, then they sign. No one wants to tell a friend no, or that the price was too high. To date, I have the highest close rate of anyone in my company. Because I always try to find a way to make a connection. I'm like a detective when I'm on their property. Usually there's some sort of flag or bumper sticker around. If I can get them to BS with me about sports, it's a sale. I do raise the price 15% for Cowboys' fans.

One thing I know about your line of work, is that people have a higher fear of buying a car, than they do of death. This is shown in research. If I read correctly, you are in a dealership setting? You've got to get them past the fear of just walking into the dealership. And then build rapport from there.

After awhile, you learn to fake to customers that they are the most interesting people in the world. When I'm with a customer, they are more important to me than if the President. Sometimes, I have good conversations and get to meet interesting people. Other times, I fake the conversation. I build rapport when I'm really not that interested in them. But in general, I've learned to love my customers, even the difficult ones. The only ones I don't like are the ones who try to stiff me on the bill.

One thing I've learned after 20 years in sales, if you didn't close the customer, you didn't make a connection with them. The company I was in, I managed about 1,000 salespeople. We did survey data. Lo and behold, the guys with the lowest close rates were the guys with the lowest scores on likability. I'm not saying that to be insulting. I've been in that boat before. Everyone goes into a sales slump. Usually, our close rate goes down when we talk to 20 customers in a day (because each bid should take an hour). We just throw the ticket at them and run to the next appointment. When things are slower, we can give customers more TLC, and the close rate is 20% higher. I have satellite trackers in all of my vehicles. When guys aren't selling, I look to see how much time they were at a customer's residence. I tell them to double their time, and they start closing again. I ask the Estimator how they expected to make a sale, when they visited ten customers that day, and didn't spend more than five minutes on each property.

Palum said:

The only thing I'll add is that it's important to read the customer quickly. It's all well and good to be the "rapport" salesman but you need to be able to change modes to suit the customer if you want to maximize sales.

Lyrical's buddy approach works (I use it when needed) but not with me, for example. I'm the type of person who is a prepared shopper and the second you ask something about anything personal I've already decided no because now you're wasting my time.

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A successful car dealer once told me that you have to be like a chameleon. 95% of the people want to talk. The other 5 are tapping their foot impatiently the whole time. You really have to be paying attention to their verbal and non-verbal cues. Alot of times, the ones that are impatient will sign up if you give them a fair price, because they don't have time to negotiate with other companies. They want to get back to work.