Bob Urichuck is an explosive sales expert who has a counter-intuitive sales system that gets results. As you will hear, I didn’t agree with everything Bob said in this episode but the show did produced a tonne of practical sales advice for #SalesNation to test for themselves.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- VelocitySelling.com
- @VelocitySelling
- bobu.com
- Linkedin – Bob Urichuck
- BOOK: Velocity Selling: How to Attract, Engage & Empower Buyers to BUY
Transcript
Bob Urichuck:
… because if you don’t believe in you, nobody else will believe in you. If you don’t believe in your product, nobody else will believe in your product. As a matter of fact, if you don’t believe in the pricing of your product, you’re going to end up discounting it and that’s not selling, that’s giving away the shop.
Will Barron:
Hello Sales Nation. I’m Will Barron, host of the Salesman podcast and welcome to today’s show. On today’s show we have Bob Urichuck who is a genuine sales expert and has, and we talk about it in the show, counterintuitive sales system and it genuinely fascinates me. But on today’s show, we are diving into the world of beliefs, the world of behaviours, and essentially what the sales elite are doing so that we can copy that and put it into our game so we can have the same success that they’re having as well. You can find out more about Bob over at velocityselling.com. Everything we talk about is available in the show notes over at salesman.red/219. And with all that said, lets jump in to today’s episode.
Will Barron:
Hey Bob and welcome back to the Salesman podcast.
Bob Urichuck:
Well thank you, Will. It’s good to hear your voice again.
Will Barron:
I’m glad to see you, have you on, and dive into another sales conversation with you, Bob. Today I want to talk about, and this over overlaps with your work as well, but it’s two things that I think are super important. And when I deal with, speak to the elite sales people in our audience, the people that are better than myself, for sure, I was always in the top kind of like 20, 30%. Never really top of the leaderboard. So I appreciate I’ve got a lot to learn from conversation with yourself as well and the audience as well get a lot from this. But when I deal with the elite, the people that are always the top of the big kind of tech organisations or the medical device organisations or I was dealing with … I say dealing with, chatting with essentially, he wouldn’t like me to call him this if we were chatting, but essentially he is an arms’ dealer.
Attitudes and How They Impact Sales Success · [02:00]
Will Barron:
He was selling helicopters. So that was like kind of the top of the realm of sales as far as I’m aware and making crazy money, but even in his team of the company he works for, there’s a leaderboard and he’s at the top of that. And there’s two things I notice from these people when I hang out with them, it is they’ve got a unique set of attitudes and the way that they kind of hold themselves, and we can dive into the difference between attitude, beliefs, and all this kind of stuff as well, but they’ve also got a very unique set of behaviours. So we’ll come on to behaviours at the end of the show. I want to start with attitudes and let’s get super basic with all of this so that we don’t miss myself, we don’t miss anyone else whose listening. All the attitudes that suit themselves to sales people and are people born with these attitudes or are attitudes things that we learn and develop over time?
“Your beliefs determine your attitudes, your attitude determines how you feel, how you feel determines the actions you take, the actions you take determine the results you get.” – Bob Urichuck · [03:12]
Bob Urichuck:
Well, you see attitudes come from our beliefs. I have a system … part of the velocity selling system, what we do is we discuss attitudes as the foundation, behaviours as your bottom line to things you do on a daily basis, competencies and discipline. So the system itself covers all components. When we look at attitude, the first thing we look at is attitude towards yourself. When we look at attitude towards yourself, we have to understand one thing and we call this the [Befar 00:03:12] system. Your beliefs determine your attitudes, your attitude determines how you feel, how you feel determines the actions you take, the actions you take determine the results you get. Did you get that? So beliefs determine attitudes. So when we take a look at beliefs, well, what do you believe about yourself? Here’s the thing. If you don’t believe in me, if I don’t believe in me, will you believe in me?
Will Barron:
No. It’s almost contagious, isn’t it?
Bob Urichuck:
Exactly. So what we’re doing is we’re reflecting that in our outer. Our inside is reflected on the outside. For example, a lot of times, we call this externalisation and we point the finger at others and we say, “You didn’t do this. You didn’t do that.” Well, really when you’re doing this, you got to remember that there’s one finger pointing outward, but there’s three fingers pointing inward. And what you’re doing is you’re reflecting your inside to the outside. You’re putting the blame on others. You’re externalising. You’re blaming all the other things in the world for things that are not happening when they’re your own fault.
“If you don’t believe in you, nobody else will believe in you. If you don’t believe in your product, nobody else will believe in your product. As a matter of fact, if you don’t believe in the pricing of your product, you’re going to end up discounting it and that’s not selling, that’s giving away the shop.” – Bob Urichuck · [04:19]
Bob Urichuck:
So one of the things we have to do in attitude is start, in sales particularly, is build a solid foundation because if you don’t believe in you, nobody else will believe in you. If you don’t believe in your product, nobody else will believe in your product. As a matter of fact, if you don’t believe in the pricing of your product, you’re going to end up discounting it and that’s not selling, that’s giving away the shop. So we look at attitudes in many, many ways. If you like-
Will Barron:
Let me jump in here a sec.
Bob Urichuck:
Yeah.
Are Our Attitudes Malleable? · [04:44]
Will Barron:
Just before we get too far deep into this. Are attitudes malleable or are we trying to change our beliefs, which then in turn change our attitudes? Just so I know the kind of biggest leverage point here for us.
Bob Urichuck:
Yeah. First, yes. We have to change our beliefs. Now, we’re all over 18 years of age. We should know the difference between fact and fiction. What’s real and what’s not real. Is it fair to say that we’re all walking around with a lot of beliefs that are holding us back?
Will Barron:
Yep. So I’m a big fan of Tony Robbins. So I’ve looked at a little bit of this in more detail. So go deeper into that though because I think there’s a lot of people listening to this right now. They may be successful, but perhaps they’re not self-aware enough to understand that point themselves, if that makes sense.
Bob Urichuck:
Well a big part of it is, is I can’t change your beliefs. Only you could change your beliefs, but you got to take time and reflect on yourself and ask yourself some difficult questions. What are some of the beliefs that are moving you forward and what are some of the beliefs that are holding you back? And how can you change those beliefs? And it takes practise like usually 21 consecutive days to change a habit or through our monthly monitor chart you could do 25 out of 30 days.
“If you’re not getting results, it’s because you’re not taking action. You’re not taking action because you’re not feeling right. You’re not feeling right because your attitude’s off and that comes from your beliefs. So what you believe about yourself is the basic foundation of where to start” – Bob Urichuck · [05:55]
Bob Urichuck:
But the point being is you got to first believe in you and change your beliefs. Start by looking at your beliefs because the outcomes of that are the results. And if you’re not getting results it’s because you’re not taking action. You’re not taking action because you’re not feeling right. You’re not feeling right because your attitudes off and that comes from your beliefs. So what do you believe about you is the basic foundation of where we start.
How to Understand Your Beliefs and Decipher Whether They’re Detrimental to Your Success · [06:10]
Will Barron:
On this very point, I want to get super practical with this because I think there’s loads to go at here. How do we know what beliefs we have and how do we know whether they are good or bad for us? Because there’s going to be some people listening now, and this is myself when I was younger, when I first got in sales, I was pretty arrogant. I was confident, but in hindsight I wasn’t really confident. I was overcompensating because of a lack of confidence. So-
Bob Urichuck:
That’s right.
Will Barron:
Without having a kind of psychoanalysis session with every single person listening, how do we know what beliefs we have and how do we know whether we want to move away or towards from them?
Bob Urichuck:
Well, what we do usually is we get people to understand their rights as human beings first to help them identify some things. And let me ask you a few questions and I’m going to pick three of the top 10. Do we have the right to fail, Will?
Will Barron:
Yes.
Bob Urichuck:
Okay. So why aren’t you failing more often?
Will Barron:
Because I don’t like to look stupid.
Bob Urichuck:
Okay. So that’s one reason. What about, do you still have the same level of courage that you had when you were six years old or five years old and you learned how to ride a two wheel bicycle?
Will Barron:
So I’m going to probably throw curve ball at you here, but I think I’ve got more courage now because I was definitely shyer as a kid than what I am now.
“We grew up in a society that influences us to believe that you shouldn’t fail, but let’s understand something about fail. Fail is F-A-I-L, first attempt in learning. You have to fail often to succeed once.” – Bob Urichuck · [07:25]
Bob Urichuck:
But you see what happens is we grew up in society and society kind of like influences us that you shouldn’t fail, but let’s understand something about fail. Fail is F-A-I-L, first attempt in learning. You have to fail often to succeed once. When I was 20 years old I gave myself permission to have 10 learning opportunities a day. In other words, permission to go out and fail, try something I’ve never tried before, fail at it and learn from it.
“What stops people from trying? It’s fear. F-E-A-R, false evidence appearing real. Evidence is only in your head, but to get over the fear you’ve got to take that step forward. So, you do have the right to fail. Give yourself permission to fail and to fail often because you have to fail often to succeed once” – Bob Urichuck · [08:01]
Bob Urichuck:
If you don’t give yourself permission to fail, well that’s affecting your attitude. You’re never going to learn. You’re never going to take risk. You’re not going to have the courage to move forward. And what stops people from trying? It’s fear. F-E-A-R, false evidence appearing real. Evidence, it’s only in your head, but to get over the fear you got to take that step forward.
Bob Urichuck:
And by taking that first step forward, you’re going to accomplish and overcome that fear and then that fear will be gone. It’s the same with beliefs. We’re influenced all around us by all these different beliefs, from education to politics to family. We come into this world as perfect 10s. We’re miracles when we come in. We then get exposed to family, religion, education, politics. We take these external influences, we internalise them, and we become who we are today. And if you want to change who we you are today, you’ve got to go back internal and see what some of those beliefs are and start changing them. One of them is you do have the right to fail. Give yourself permission to fail and to fail often because you have to fail often to succeed once. Would you agree?
Failing and Being Rejected in Sales · [08:55]
Will Barron:
Yeah. Relate this back to sales, Bob. Let me put my twist on it perhaps. Are you saying that it’s fine to be rejected 10 times because you’ve got to go through that perhaps to get to the close at the end?
Bob Urichuck:
Well, let’s understand something. Under traditional sales, and I was part of it, I used to get rejected a lot, but today the way we teach it in velocity selling it’s you’re the sales professional. It is your job to qualify the buyer and reject them if they’re not qualified. Is that not correct?
Will Barron:
True.
Bob Urichuck:
Okay. So it’s not me that’s being rejected. It’s me that’s rejecting others while maintaining the relationship with them for future potential business. So I don’t see rejection as a thing. Here’s an example how I do it. Let’s take a look at a sales call. When you go on a sales call, there’s really four positive outcomes from a sales call. One is you get a sale. We call that a yes. Would you agree that’s a positive outcome?
Will Barron:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bob Urichuck:
What’s another positive outcome? What’s the opposite of yes.
Will Barron:
No.
Bob Urichuck:
Would you agree that that’s a positive outcome?
Will Barron:
Sure. You’ve kind of not wasted any more time. You know where you’re at with the prospect.
Bob Urichuck:
You got it. If they’re not qualified and they’re not going to do business with you, I’d rather get a no and not waste any more time and move on on the next one. So a yes and no is two positive ones. The third one is what we call a clear future. A clear future is where you get a commitment from the buyer as to what’s going to happen next. So if they say, “Okay. Leave it with me.” “Okay. I leave it with you. When can I hear back from you next, Will?” And they say to you, “Next Wednesday.” “Okay. Next Wednesday. What time?” “Two o’clock.” “Great. If I don’t hear from you Wednesday at two, is it okay if I follow-up with you on Thursday?”
Bob Urichuck:
In other words, you’re always getting a commitment from the client so that you’re getting what we call a clear future of what’s going to happen next. If you don’t get a yes, you don’t get a no, or a clear future, if you don’t get one of those three, I would say you failed. Now, what did you learn from that? So the objective on a sales call, you’re going in for a yes, no, a clear future. And if you don’t get one of those three coming out, you failed. What did you learn?
Will Barron:
The takeaway for me would be that you as the salesperson have done something wrong in the process. So I’d go back-
Bob Urichuck:
Exactly.
Will Barron:
And look at the process. But let me-
Bob Urichuck:
Exactly.
Bob’s Dedication to Learning 10 New Things Every Day · [11:10]
Will Barron:
Let me take you back to what you said before of it’s fine to fail and you might have just answered this in that last part of your answer then. But if you’re going to set yourself as a salesperson 10 learning opportunities a day or however you want to frame it, what should they look like? Should they be to have that conversation and to force one of those free and then to very consciously not be upset that you’ve failed, but then to very consciously go back and kind of review and edit what you’ve done to that point and that’s where you’re learning from? Is that correct?
Bob Urichuck:
Correct. It’s like when you pick up the phone and you want to use the phone as a lead generator. You pick up the phone. Well the first thing you should do is script it. What’s the objective of this call? What’s the major benefit statement for the client? What’s in it for them? So we go through, “Hi. My name is. I’m with. We work with organisations like yours to increase the performance of its salespeople while contributing to your bottom line. Is this a good time to talk?” So you script it out. Call number one. Will it be good call?
Will Barron:
Probably not, no.
Bob Urichuck:
No, but you see, call number one is your warmup call. So you call a low level client. Call number two, you’re going to improve on it. By the time you do call number three, you’re going to master it and you’re going to get on a roll. So it’s everything we try that’s new, we have to try two or three times to really learn it, to apply it. And a lot of the techniques in the velocity selling system are nontraditional. They’re the opposite of selling. So it takes people a lot of trial and error because part of it is they have beliefs of doing sales a certain way and we’re changing that belief. We’re trying to get them to do the opposite of what they’re used to doing. So they have to unlearn and relearn and to try it. And that’s why the coaching is so important when we do the training because it gives them an opportunity to go out and talk about how the call went. What went well, what didn’t go so well, and what did we do differently?
How to Reframe Your Fear Into Something Positive · [13:20]
Will Barron:
So what do we do if we’re still paralysed by a belief and your fear of failure, the first instance because I see what you’ve done here and you can explain this further if you’ve consciously done this, but you’ve essentially reframed fear to be something that isn’t negative. Is that what we should be doing or should we be trying to change the underlying belief that, I don’t know, someone told you that you failed so you suck and you got bullied for like 15 seconds in primary school and that stayed with you. Should we be trying to change that deep down thing or just reframe it so that it’s not that?
Bob Urichuck:
Well we have to go back and look at where the belief came from. That’s the stem of it. Where did the fear come from? For example, you might have fallen in a pool when you were young and almost drowned. So you have the fear of swimming. How do you get over that fear? Well you got to face it. So to face it, maybe you put your foot in the water. Maybe you jump in the pool where there’s a bunch of friends ready to catch you. But if you do nothing, that fear is going to always be there. So it’s taking action in direction to overcoming that fear and taking action to changing your beliefs at the same time.
Will Barron:
So you’ve just given a real practical angle on this and the answer might be to just, and I hate this phrase, but to man up and get on with it. But there seems-
Bob Urichuck:
Yeah.
Practical Steps to Overcoming Fear · [14:30]
Will Barron:
To be a paradox here of, to get to the third call you’ve got to face your fear and do the first call. And so you can’t have success without going through this period of being uncomfortable. Is that the answer then to just man up and get on with it? Is that the kind of takeaway for a lot of this fear, a lot of this attitude, a lot of this belief faced stuff that until you’ve done it a few times, no one’s good at it and anyone who has good at it, you’ve got to just get on.
Bob Urichuck:
Yeah. In my book, I have a book called Discipline for Life, You are the Author of your Future. And it’s an interactive book where I share my stories … excuse me. But I also ask you questions to help you discover your fears and how to overcome them and the action steps you take. So we’re coaching you through the process, not just doing it full blast out on your own. It’s good to have some guidance and some coaching to get through these things.
Will Barron:
Cool. All right. So I want to move on to behaviours now because I’m conscious of time and we can talk about beliefs and attitudes all day. So behaviours obviously follow on naturally from this.
Bob Urichuck:
Yes, but before you go on, Will, I just want to share one other one with you, which I think you and your listeners will relate to from a belief point of view and the importance of this. The question is, do you have the right to ask?
Will Barron:
I would say it depends.
Bob Urichuck:
Okay.
Will Barron:
And you’ve just asked me point blank here and we’ve not prepped any of this, but I would say you’ve got to earn a little bit of, whether it’s trust or however you want to frame it, before you can just make an outright ask. Otherwise the answer’s going to be no.
Bob Urichuck:
Okay. So here’s the thing. If I don’t ask, what’s the answer?
Will Barron:
There is no answer. You’re in Schrödinger’s cat land at that point.
Bob Urichuck:
Okay. So let me try to change your beliefs. If I have the courage to ask, what are the odds of getting a positive response?
Will Barron:
It depends. It’s contextual. If someone comes to me and says, “Hey, do you want to buy this Porsche?” I’m going to say outright no, but if someone has earned a little bit of trust with me prior to that and there’s a bit of context around it, then I’m going to be more inclined to at least engage with them and have a conversation.
Bob Urichuck:
Okay. Will, let’s keep it in its simplest form. If I don’t ask the answer is no and I’m losing face to myself. If I have the courage to ask, I’ve got to 50/50 chance, do I not, of getting a yes?
Will Barron:
No. I don’t know the math behind it. It’d probably be really complicated, but you’ve got a chance, whereas before you had zero chance perhaps, but I don’t think it’s 50/50.
Bob Urichuck:
It is 50/50. Basically it’s yes or no. There. You got 100%. You’re not going to get 100% yes or 100% no, but you got a 50/50 chance of getting a yes or a no. Now if I get a no, did I lose anything?
Will Barron:
I’ll play the conversation then I’ll tell you my thoughts. No, at that point you’ve not lost anything. And if we’re on a macro scale-
Bob Urichuck:
Exactly.
Will Barron:
Conversation.
“People don’t have courage to ask questions. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. And this is a fundamental belief. You do have the right to ask. People don’t have the courage to ask because of the fear of rejection, the fear of getting a no. And this is where you have to overcome that belief and realise that you have that right.” – Bob Urichuck · [17:15]
Bob Urichuck:
So yeah. If I get a no, I didn’t have anything to lose in the first place. So no is okay. But you see, the people don’t have courage to ask questions. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. That’s the thing. And when you think about it, A-S-K stands for something. A stands for ask and you will receive, S is seek and you will find, K is knock and the door will be opened. When was the last time you sat down and looked at the most important person in the world and asked that person what you want on out of life? Because only when you know what you want out of life can you go seeking. It’s in the seeking that the doors of opportunity come in front of us and then we just have to have the courage to knock or ask. You don’t ask, you don’t get. You don’t knock, the door’s not going to be opened.
Bob Urichuck:
And this is a fundamental belief. You do have the right to ask. People don’t have the courage to ask because of the fear of rejection, the fear of getting a no. And this is where you have to overcome that belief and realise that you have that right. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. I can remember one time walking in Singapore down the main street and I see this store that says Rolex. My gut says to me, “Bob, go in and ask for a watch.” I go, “Oh, come on.” I go up to the door, the door is locked. The next time I was back, the door was open. I look around at the watches. I ask for the person in charge. That’s Mr. Taylor upstairs. I go visit Mr. Taylor and he finally comes out and meets me, he says, “How can I help you?” I said, “I’d like to get a Rolex watch somewhere around $5,000.” He says, “Well we sell those downstairs.” And I said, “Oh, I wasn’t planning on buying one.”
Bob Urichuck:
And he looked at me, he says, “What? You think I’m going to give you one?” And I said, “Yes.” And then I explained to him how I was willing to trade a sales session with him in exchange for a watch and he loved it, he agreed to it, and we went forward. If I didn’t ask, would I have gotten it?
Will Barron:
It’s an interesting kind of conversation here Bob, but I think that by saying that, I don’t want to kind of [dislude 00:18:55], especially some of the younger audience members who then will go out and spam a million prospects, whether it be cold emails, cold calls, or whatever it is on the probability that they will get some yeses out of it. Because I get what you’re saying. I appreciate that.
Bob Urichuck:
It’s just not yes or no. What I’m trying to demonstrate here is the fundamentals of asking. You got to get over that attitude. You got to realise that you have the right to ask and you got to ask the right questions. Now it’s not just the yes, no. I’m trying to get people. I have to get them thinking that they have the right to ask, believing that they have the right to ask, and then have courage to ask the right questions to get them where they want to go.
Fact: You Have the Right to Ask Questions · [20:00]
Will Barron:
Well there’s another way of looking at it perhaps that you can earn the right to ask and then you can put so much forward in the beginning of the conversation that it makes the efficiency of … I’m talking practical here, not less sort of mindset perspective, but then-
Bob Urichuck:
We call this setting the parameters. How much time you set aside. Is it okay if we ask each other questions? Do you mind if I take some notes?
Will Barron:
But before all that, just even getting someone on the phone can be difficult if you’ve not given a little bit and you’ve put a little bit up front there. I’m just talking about my experience as well with medical device sales. Going to a surgeon and asking them the question, whether I’ve got the right to take their time, is a totally different conversation then saying, “Hey. I’d love to offer you value up front. Blah, blah, blah,” and then make an ask later on.
Will Barron:
There’s the simplistic kind of get everyone riled up and excited and leave the episode and the kind of like survive for a day by doing it versus perhaps the high level conversation, which I think balance out and they both need to be had. But I’m just conscious of when I say stuff on this show, a lot of people take it as gospel, especially when the guest say it as well and if I agree and reiterate of it. So what I’m getting at Bob is there’s a bigger conversation around just asking I think.
Bob Urichuck:
Okay. Will, maybe you got to go back and take a look at your beliefs and some of the reasons why you’re shy of asking or not wanting to ask.
How to Differentiate Practical Beliefs From Limiting Beliefs · [21:10]
Will Barron:
Perhaps, but I don’t think I’m shy of asking. I think if I’ve earned the right to ask, I will ask anyone anything. Okay. So this is an interesting conversation. So is there a difference between having a belief that works, even perhaps if it’s not efficient. I take it you’re the expert on this. So chances are I’m wrong. I accept that. Is there a difference between a belief that is kind of like crippled versus a fully limiting belief and how do we differentiate between the two? And perhaps we can use me as an example here.
Bob Urichuck:
Well, again, I don’t need to use you, Will. I like to use the salesperson buyer approach and how sales people, it’s all about them. They’re always going in, talking, doing their presentations. Let’s flip that around and let’s put the focus on the buyer and become buyer focused.
Will Barron:
Well that’s what I’m doing by saying you’ve got to earn it a little bit surely.
Bob Urichuck:
Okay. But this is where you become buyer focused. So the first step you need to do is build that trust. How do you build trust?
Will Barron:
I build it by, if you’re talking very practically, it’s rapport and adding value.
Bob Urichuck:
How do you build rapport and add value?
Will Barron:
Practically again, doing a bit of research, knowing context around the conversation, and knowing that you can help them.
Bob Urichuck:
And asking questions of them. Will, if I was to take the time and ask you questions, we just met. Hi Will. Great to meet you.” What are some things you or any prospect would love to talk about the most?
Will Barron:
Themselves.
Bob Urichuck:
And so what I need to do is ask open ended questions to build rapport. I would ask you about your job, your family, your life, get you talking. The more you talk, the more I listen, the more I learn, the more you’re going to trust me. So right off the bat, very first thing, it’s about asking questions. It’s not about you. It’s about the buyer and engaging them in the whole process. And then of course step two, once you have the trust and the rapport, step two is setting the parameters. How much time do you set aside? What is it you’d like to accomplish? Is it okay if we ask each other some questions? Do you mind if I take some notes? And by the way, if I can’t help you, is it okay if I say no, so I don’t waste your time?
Bob Urichuck:
These are little ground rules or parameters that we could set to move the process along and shorten the sales cycle at the same time. But again, we’re going back to attitude and the foundation here of we have to believe in ourselves. We have to know that we got the right to ask. We got to deal with fear. We got to deal with failure. We got to believe in ourselves and our products. We got to take actions. All these things. And we got to understand, there’s a lot of things I could share. An attitude from role and identity in that, but once you have a solid foundation and your attitude straight, then we could get into what we call behaviours and the daily disciplines that you have to apply in your life to become successful.
Will Barron:
Well let’s [crosstalk 00:23:47]
Bob Urichuck:
In sales or an individual.
How to Use Willpower to Change Your Bad Behaviour and Develop Good Habits · [23:54]
Will Barron:
Let’s touch on this before we wrap up Bob of the behaviour side of thing because you’ve just alluded to a question I wanted to ask here of what’s important, forcing yourself with willpower to behave a certain way or perhaps putting that willpower into habits and ways to change your behaviour over the longer term? Which one should we be focusing on?
“The thing with habits is you cannot drop a habit, you can only replace a habit. So we have to look at our ineffective habits, identify them, and replace them with the opposite habit.” – Bob Urichuck · [24:19]
Bob Urichuck:
Well the way I like to explain it is get people to define what are your ineffective habits and what are your effective habits? The thing is with habits, you cannot drop a habit, you can only replace a habit. So we have to look at our ineffective habits, identify them, and replace them with the opposite habit. It takes 21 days of application to make that happen.
Will Barron:
What’s an example of that for a B2B sales professional?
Bob Urichuck:
Let’s see here. An ineffective habit would be to never follow-up or to give a thank you for the order kind of comment at the end of a sales call. In other words, if you don’t maintain the relationship after the buyer buys, well that’s an ineffective habit. What would be an effective habit? Replacing that with within 24 hours of making the sale, sending a thank you note and giving them more value, giving them other things that could help them, the things that you didn’t talk about, that’ll give them more value and to appreciate the product or service that you sold even more.
Will Barron:
It’s funny. Everyone watching on YouTube will be able to see me look at my laptop now. Everyone listening on audio of course can’t, but I’ve got a question here, which the example was a perfect summary of that of why do people not follow-up with prospects when they say they’re going to and why do sales people let the customers down by not taking enough action after the fact? So for us both to have written that down, it’s clearly something that is common within the sales industry, within sales people. But-
Bob Urichuck:
Now Will-
Why Don’t Salespeople Follow Up Even Though They Know It’s The Right Thing To Do? · [26:00]
Will Barron:
Let me just go at this because this is really interest to me. We know consciously that we should follow-up with the customers after the fact. There’s probably more business coming down the line and it’s a sensible thing. No salesperson would say that that is a bad move. That that is a bad 5, 10 minutes of time to even just write a thank you note, depending what your industry is. Things of that nature or a thank you email or to send a piece of content to make an introduction. Whatever the value is afterwards. No one in their right mind would say that that is a stupid idea, but consciously we know that, but we don’t do it. Why is that?
Bob Urichuck:
Laziness, other things on our mind, a busy plate, lack of time management. This is what I call a daily discipline. A daily discipline is setting up yourself the things you need to do on a daily basis, like emails. How quickly should you reply to emails?
Will Barron:
I’m found the worst person for this, but within 24 hours I think is reasonable.
Bob Urichuck:
Exactly. That’s a daily discipline, to reply to all emails within 24 hours, to reply to all phone calls same business day. The other thing that’s a big discipline is stop giving commitments to buyers and start getting commitments from buyers. In other words, stop saying you’re going to follow-up with them next week, get it from them. Will, what should we do next? And let the buyer say, “Well let’s talk again next week.” “Okay, great. And if I don’t hear from you, can I get permission to follow-up with you?” And these are the kind of little techniques that really help build and solidify the relationship at the same time.
How Much of a Salesperson’s Success Comes Down to Daily Discipline? · [27:34]
Will Barron:
So I’m totally on board with you here. I think the basics are so overlooked. We’ve just had a 30 minute conversation now, perhaps not even diving into the basics as much as what we should do. So I’m going to wrap up the conversation with this, Bob. How much, percentage wise if possible, how much of a salesperson’s success comes from how you describe it of daily discipline versus anything more complex, anything more brain taxing than just having the basics nailed?
Bob Urichuck:
Yeah. I think attitude is the foundation. Behaviour are the things you do on a daily basis. It’s your habits, the things, but just to do them is not enough. You need to track your behaviours so that you could identify your call to close ratio, for example. If you track your behaviours and where your time goes all day, how many phone calls does it take to get an appointment? How many appointments do you have to go on to find a qualified buyer? How many qualified buyers actually buy and what’s the value of that buy? So if you track your behaviours, you’ll start to see where you’re getting the best results and that’s where you start to say, “Okay. Daily disciplines. Here’s what I need to do each and every day so that I could accomplish that.” And we always have to look at the end result.
Bob Urichuck:
It’s sort of like, let’s say your objective is a million dollars this year. Well, it sounds like a big number, but if you break it down by quarters, that’s only 250 a quarter, but take the quarters and break it down by months. It’s only like 80,000 a month, but take the month, break it down into weeks. That’s 20,000 a week. Take the weeks, break it down to days. That’s only 4,000 a day. So what do you have to do on a daily basis to sell $4,000? And if you track your behaviours you know what you got to do. So many phone calls, so many follow-ups, cetera, it works.
“Stop chasing and selling buyers, start having buyers chase you and buy from you.” – Bob Urichuck · [29:27]
Bob Urichuck:
Now one of the nice thing about the velocity selling system is we create a secondary sales force. When you follow the system and go all the way through the end and maintain the relationships, guess what? It’s those people that become your secondary sales force. They start sending you leads, word of mouth, referrals, and then next thing you know, you got buyers chasing you versus you chasing them. And that’s really our message is stop chasing and selling buyers, start having buyers chase you and buy from you. And that’s what’s going to be the major attraction for sales people.
Your Value as a Salesperson is More Important Than You Think · [29:40]
Will Barron:
And final thing on this, is this a mindset shift at the base of everything that we’ve talked about here of you as a salesperson realising that you are valuable as opposed to the kind of stereotypical salesperson, which is what I was when I was younger, kind of going out there, overcompensating, being cocky and annoying and following up and just chasing people because I was almost desperate for them. I didn’t feel worthy of kind of the business. So I had to over push my attitude and everything towards them. Is that the general gist of the conversation? Is that the things to take away from this episode, that we as salespeople are super valuable and we shouldn’t think any other way of that?
Bob Urichuck:
Will, I believe the sales profession is by far the most important profession of all professions in the world. Without sales there’s no transactions. Without transactions there’s no revenue. Without revenue organisations would not exist and no one would have a job. The world revolves around sales. However, traditional sales no longer works because we’ve got the internet now. We could buy anything we want. And the biggest complaint about salespeople is they waste their time. And even if we were to play a game called password and I said salesperson, what words come to mind? And you’re going to get a very low reading of salespeople. Cheaters, money hungry, [inaudible 00:30:57], used car salesman. That’s not what we are anymore. We are a profession here and we bring so much value to the table and that’s why this profession’s going to continue to survive and be one of the best professions to be involved in.
Bob’s Advise to Sales Nation on How to Become Better at Selling · [31:34]
Will Barron:
Love it. Bob, thank you for that. I love it when guests come on and really get passionate. Behind our audience as well because I’m super into that. I’m super into changing the stereotype of what salespeople are to kind of what you alluded to then of what they really do and the value they put into society. So with that, Bob, I’ve got one final question for you mate. I’m going to re-twist this from last time you were on the show. If you could sit down with every single person who’s listened to this now 10, 20,000 salespeople, but you can only offer them one piece of advice each to help them become better at selling, what would one piece of advice be?
Bob Urichuck:
I’m going to say to live your life from the inside out and stop living your life from the outside in. In other words, take the time to know yourself. We’re so busy out here that we don’t take the time to go in here. When you take the time to go in here and understand yourself, what you want out of life and you set personal goals, that’s the foundation and from there, you’ll find your passion, you’ll find your ways, you’ll improve. But you got to get to know in here. Everybody is so busy out here that they’re no longer going inside. And my advice is live your life from the inside out.
Parting Thoughts · [32:22]
Will Barron:
I appreciate that, Bob. Tell us more about the book and then tell us more about where we can find out more about you as well.
Bob Urichuck:
Well okay. Well velocityselling.com is the website. The book is called Velocity Selling, How to Attract, Engage, and Empower Buyers to Buy and I also have another webpage, my own webpage, bobu.com where there’s a lot of free resources and tools that people can use and even download chapters of the book as well. Now one of the things we also offer, Will, which we only have so much time in this programme, but if you really want to learn a lot about velocity selling, you could sign up and get a seven day free trial offer, at no cost. We don’t ask for credit card or anything like that.
Bob Urichuck:
It’s your choice. We do not push. We like to attract buyers, but it’s there for people to try out. And in seven days you could learn a lot. Now mind you, there’s over eight hours of finished video, but it’s one-on-one interactive video with workbook exercises, real life application, and testing as you go. And then for organisations, of course, we also have monitoring, tracking, and management reporting as often as you’d like on the process. So it’s quite an interesting system. It’s one of the best platforms in the world hosted by LightSpeed VT. So I encourage everyone to give it a try. It costs you nothing and you could learn a lot.
Will Barron:
Good stuff. We’ll link to that in the show notes over at salesman.red for this episode and with that, Bob, I want to thank you for your time. I want to thank you for going back and forth with me as well. I appreciate that mate because a lot of people come on the show and it’s not that often that I am pretty adamant about something like that like I was and a lot of guests will kind of back down. So I appreciate you didn’t. It shows that you believe in what you teach. So I appreciate that. And I want to thank you for joining us on the Salesman podcast.
Bob Urichuck:
Thanks a lot Will and continue to ask. The more you ask, the more you get.
