Ty Bennett is an expert in influence and is the founder of Leadership Inc., a speaking and training company.
In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Ty explains the principles of influence, if it can be measured and how we can use the power of influence both in and out of our sales careers.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- TyBennett.com
- Relevant Leadership Podcast
- @TyBennett
- Ty on LinkedIn
- Book: The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea
- Book: The Power of Influence: Increase Your Income and Personal Impact
- Book: The Power of StoryTelling
Transcript
Will Barron:
Coming up on today’s episode of The Salesman Podcast.
Ty Bennett:
Ultimately influence is going to impact results. So looking at results in the sales process, how we’re doing, if we’re closing deals, if we’re hitting numbers that we’re searching for, that’s probably the easiest way to gauge the level of influence that we have. Now, understanding the elements of what’s working and what’s not probably takes a little bit more investigation.
Will Barron:
Hello, Sales Nation I’m Will Barron and host of The Salesman Podcast. The world’s most listened to B2B sales show. If you haven’t already make sure to click subscribe and with that, let’s meet today’s guest.
Ty Bennett:
Hi, my name is Ty Bennett, I’m a keynote speaker and the author of four books. I’m also the host of The Relevant Leadership Podcast. You can find me at typbennett.com
Understanding the Power of Influence · [01:09]
Will Barron:
On this episode with Ty we’re diving into influence. Essentially the principles of influence, how to get it done, what you’re doing which is ruining your chances of having success of influencing anyone both from in B2B sales, at home, wherever you are, and a whole lot more. So with that let’s jump right into the conversation. How influential we are right now and how do we know what we’re perhaps doing wrong with our ourselves and our levels of influence before we get into how to improve it.
Ty Bennett:
Interesting question. I think that, ultimately influence is going to impact results. So looking at results in the sales process, how we’re doing, if we’re closing deals, if we’re hitting numbers that we’re searching for. That’s probably the easiest way to gauge the level of influence that we have. Now, understanding the elements of what’s working, and what’s not probably takes a little bit more investigation.
Ty Bennett:
I’ll tell you an interesting experience I had as an early entrepreneur salesperson, 21 years old. I was struggling to get people to buy from me and I really didn’t know why. I went to a mentor, a friend of mine, and I explained the situation. I said, “I’ll do anything. What should I do?” He said, “I want you to go to the last five people who told you no, and I want you to ask them why.” I was like, “I’ll do an anything, but that. Like anything else.” Right.
Ty Bennett:
But it was such an eye opening process because I did that. I went back and I asked them and they shared with me truth of things, blind spots that I didn’t realise were there. I think sometimes that 360 assessment, whether that’s coming from potential clients or it’s coming from a manager, a coworker whoever, sometimes that’s an eye opening process to go through.
The Multiple Ways of Attaining Influence · [02:29]
Will Barron:
That’s interesting, but it’s also interesting what you said on the results elements of this. Because in hindsight, that’s obvious, that’s obviously the answer to the question, but what I wanted to touch on was well when I think about influence, if I think about a stereotypical influential person, it’s probably a dude in a smart suit, a firm handshake. Whether you love him or hate him, we won’t get into the politics, but, a Donald Trump-esque character who’s hard-nosed and will get the deal done.
Will Barron:
People in B2B sales, some people with that kind of persona and that skillset might do well. But, especially the longer term deal cycles, it’s people who are perhaps a bit gentler who can add value, who can consult. Perhaps they’re more influential in those scenarios and there’s perhaps multiple ways of getting the same result. So what I wanted to ask you then Ty, was is there multiple ways to influence? Is it just the stereotype that I outlined or can we go about the getting the end result in different ways?
Ty Bennett:
I think there’s definitely multiple ways, and I think there’s a few factors that come into it. One, is that for all of us, we have to find our own voice and our own… What feels natural and comfortable to us. Because one of the things that I think affects our ability to connect with other people, which obviously affects our influence is being comfortable in our own skin. What you described as that powerful, aggressive kind of stereotypical salesperson is not me. If I try and be that, then I don’t come across the right way to people.
“I fundamentally believe that business is long-term, and business is about relationships. Sometimes that person who is more aggressive in your face and who’s going to twist arms and close deals, they might have short-term success. But, if we think about it long term, then there’s other approaches that may be more appropriate depending on the sales cycle that you’re working with.” – Ty Bennett · [04:01]
Ty Bennett:
I also fundamentally believe that business is long-term, and business is about relationships. Sometimes that person who is more aggressive in your face and who’s going to twist arms and close deals, they might have short-term success. But, if we think about it long term, then there’s other approaches that may be more appropriate depending on the sales cycle that you’re working with.
What To Do When Trying to Influence People, Build Relationships, and Achieve Long-term Success · [04:20]
Will Barron:
Let’s go the opposite of that stereotype then, because I think we can all understand why that is short term or potentially short term, it depends who you’re dealing with. I guess if you’re dealing with two… If two Donald Trumps kind of met in the room, they’d probably end up kind of being best friends. So it depends on the person that you’re negotiating with influence with I’m sure. But, if we go for that longer term approach, if we’re thinking about relationships first and perhaps we want to do one deal to get the seventh deal and that’s where the kind of 20 million dollar contract is. What do we need to do upfront to set ourselves up for influence success further down the line?
Ty Bennett:
Well, a friend of mine named Bob Burg, he wrote the book, The Go-Giver. for anybody who hasn’t read that book, I highly recommend it. But, the premise of his theory around influence is that influence is about placing other people’s interest first. So, if we approach influence from that standpoint in a sales process I’m looking at it not of, okay, what am I going to get out of it? What’s the commission that I’m going to get? How do I close this sale? But, how do I help you? How do I add value? How do I find solutions?
Ty Bennett:
I like the word that you used a minute ago in terms of a consultant type of role, an advisor, right? How do I become that trusted advisor? Which, means that I need to have knowledge. I need to bring a skillset to be able to connect and engage. I need to be able to provide solutions, but I also need to come in with your best interest in mind and say, okay, let’s get you where you want to go. How do we partner in that process?
The Core of Building Blocks of Influential Conversations · [05:50]
Will Barron:
And is that enough? And what I mean by that is on paper that should be enough. I want to meet with someone who’s got my business best interests at heart or my career and also the organisation that I’m working for their best interests. But, sometimes I don’t want to meet with these people and it’s difficult to put a finger on it. Maybe they caught me the wrong time of day. Maybe the email is just so drab and miserable that I didn’t want to reply to it. Would you say that’s the core of it, and then perhaps there’s other things that kind of turbo charge the influence as well? Is that a potential way to look at it?
Ty Bennett:
Yeah, I think that’s the core of it, right? I think that people who come at it from the standpoint of I want to contribute, I want to add value. I think that is fundamentally the right mindset, but are there other things that factor in? For sure. Are you going to have to be the kind of person who hustles, and who is creative to even get the meeting, to come at it in different ways. To be persistent in reaching out sometimes over and over again, to the point that you feel like maybe I’m pushing this too far. Yeah. There’s all of those elements. But, once you sit down in that meeting and have the opportunity to look at the situation and how can I help you then I think that mindset is really what comes into play.
How to Build Influence in Sales Using Positive Storytelling · [07:05]
Will Barron:
Sure. And then maybe storytelling comes into this to kind of like lead us on a rabbit hole here. For the core element of this, how do we demonstrate the fact that we do care about the person or we are willing to care about the person, if they let us and they let us help them. How do we demonstrate that?
“I think many salespeople come in and you can tell right away that they have an agenda and something that they have to get to. I teach people a lot to focus on being interested, not interesting. So instead of how do I come across, how do I position myself? I’m genuinely curious, but I want to know what you’re dealing with. What are the struggles, what are you seeking for? How can I help you? And in that approach, if I can be curious from that standpoint, I demonstrate my willingness to jump in and engage with you at a different level than just here’s my agenda, and here’s what I want to pitch you on.” – Ty Bennett · [07:29]
Ty Bennett:
I think there’s multiple ways in how you do that. Some of it is just in language choice and we can talk about storytelling and some of those things. But I think a lot of it also has to do with the approach. I think many salespeople come in and you can tell right away that they have an agenda and something that they have to get to. I teach people a lot to focus on being interested, not interesting. So instead of how do I come across, how do I position myself? I’m genuinely curious, but I want to know what you’re dealing with. What are the struggles, what are you seeking for? How can I help you? And in that approach, if I can be curious from that standpoint, I demonstrate my willingness to jump in and engage with you at a different level than just here’s my agenda, and here’s what I want to pitch you on.
Interesting and Valuable Questions You Can Ask to Show Prospects that You Care About Their Needs · [08:08]
Will Barron:
On that note, Ty, are there any counterintuitive or unusual questions that we can ask that can pour across the point that we potentially really care about this individual, and their business problems, or how we can help them? Is there any way we can ask a question that isn’t kind of what keeps you up at night and all these other sales cliches?
Ty Bennett:
You know, for me, I think right off the bat, not having a scenario in place, right. I don’t know that a specific question comes to mind, but as I would train our sales team we would always have conversations about how it’s the question after the question that demonstrates your curiosity. It’s not necessarily the perfect question but, when you ask a question they start to open up and you say, you know, that’s interesting. Tell me more about that. And you show that genuine curiosity and you dive in a little bit deeper. I think that’s where it starts to flush out.
Intelligent Consultancy: How to Know if the Questions You’re Asking a Prospect are Important and Relevant to Their Pain Points · [09:05]
Will Barron:
How does that look in the real world? And I know there’s no scenario here, so it’s difficult to answer some of these questions with specifics. We can make up a scenario in a minute, if that would make it easier. But how do we know whether… And this is something I struggle with because I will talk to anyone about anything. Well, I basically do all the podcast all day, every day. How do we… Because an intelligent consultant to stay on that theme, knows perhaps where the end point is and we want to lead someone to the end point or we want to uncover for ourselves if our hypothesis is correct. How do we ask a question after a question? And then probably after a question and drill down on the important bits. How do we know what’s important? And how do we know when we’re just chatting for the sake of chatting?
Ty Bennett:
Some of that just may be experience. And I know that’s kind of an interesting… It’s just funny as you say that, because as I learned these principles as a young entrepreneur. I remember having sometimes that I went down these rabbit holes and I’m like, this got me nowhere. I just asked a bunch of questions I was trying to… But, you start to learn how to ask those questions that steer conversation in the way the station needs to be led.
Ty Bennett:
Ad then you bring in your expertise, and you bring in some ideas of solutions, and you bring in your product or your service or whatever it is that you’re selling that could be relevant to the conversation. But you uncover that and it’s in a very natural way that feels comfortable. The ability to open someone up and have them share and feel comfortable with you and understand that you are seeking the right solution and that they trust you in that process. I think that’s the important piece is that there’s a level of comfort and trust that is started to establish. There’s so many little elements that go into that and that’s where that mindset back into play.
Why the More Experienced People Have More Influence · [10:58]
Will Barron:
We’ll go into comfort and trust in a second. I know the answer to the last question was essentially experience. I’m digging here for some silver bullet, for some one liner that’s going to blow people’s minds. And I found a lot of the time in these shows the answer is, experience, which is difficult to hear, right?
“You can speed up experience through the amount of effort you put in.” – Ty Bennett · [11:20]
Ty Bennett:
Yeah it is. Here’s the thing though, you can speed up experience. You can speed up experience through the amount of effort you put in. Some experience is going to come from role playing from being willing to put in the work, from being willing to get feedback and seek what other people are giving you as feedback. I started to carry a little… This was years ago, I bought this little recorder at RadioShack and I put in my pocket. I started to record every presentation, sales conversation that I had and would go back and listen to it. That sped up the learning curve for me so quickly because I was willing to put in the work. So you hear experience and sometimes you’re like, “well, I don’t have experience. What do I do?” You can create experience if you’re willing to put in the work.
Will Barron:
Yeah, because I wanted to stop in this point because I think this is fascinating and I’m guilty of this myself. I’m always looking for ways to shortcut things. I’m always telling myself that I could be thinking bigger and have bigger aspirations and goals and be putting more hours in or working harder. And as you said, you can learn things faster and you can gain experience perhaps quicker than your competitor if you both start off on the same territory with similar products at the same time.
How Important is General Experience in B2B Sales? · [12:27]
Will Barron:
But, how much with regards to being influential within an account or with a group of people and the ability to story tell, and all these other things that we know critical with the sales process and having success in business, and entrepreneurship, and people who market us to the show as well. How critical is just general experience, and is it underrated perhaps?
Ty Bennett:
I think so, but it needs to be the right experience that leads you down the road of developing the right skillset. If you are thrust into a situation where you’re learning bad sales techniques from somebody, and you’re maybe not having the right results then you could go spend five years there and it’s probably not going to be the kind of experience that puts you in a good place, right? And so the right of experience, I think it is critical to learn that.
“Sales is a craft. Being able to communicate and connect with somebody, being able to tell a story, all of the skills that go into it, that is a craft that needs to be developed. You’re not born with it and some people may be a little bit more natural than others, but as you put in the effort to develop the right skillset, you can be extremely effective.” – Ty Bennett · [13:36]
Ty Bennett:
That’s why for me, I love this podcast. Anybody who’s watching this or listening to this has a learner’s mindset, has a willingness to jump in and learn, obviously you’re here for a reason. That in and of itself I think is what sets apart most people is that you’re willing to put in the time and the effort to perfect a craft, right? Sales is a craft. Being able to communicate and connect with somebody, being able to story tell, all of the skills that go into it that is a craft that needs to be developed. You’re not born with it and some people may be a little bit more natural than others, but as you put in the effort to develop the right skillset, you can be extremely effective.
How Do Salespeople Know They’re Consuming the Right Information and doing the Right Things when Trying to Master a Craft? · [13:50]
Will Barron:
With that Ty, so I don’t want to lose half the audience here, not just from this show, but for unsubscribing forever. How do we know then whether we are listening to podcasts, we’re learning, we’re reading books. How do we know when we’re doing this? And it’s accelerating our experience, our knowledge. Especially if you are… I used to be in medical device sales. I wouldn’t perhaps read literature that was for surgeons, but I would read all our in-house literature and certain parts of certain procedures with the equipment that I was using. I could physically do on demo units and I could suture just as well as some of the registrars that I used to train on the Labscopes and things good as well. It was one thing that for whatever reason, I’ve got good spatial awareness and I could do pretty well. So I would go super deep into the knowledge of the niche, the industry, our products as well. But how do we know when we’re now just procrastinating versus doing things like role plays and just getting on the damned phone with people?
Ty Bennett:
Well, that’s a balance, right? For sure, in sharpening the saw one of the things I think that’s important is that you are constantly learning, but you’re also applying. It’s in the application that, that those things start to come in play. So let’s say you listen to this podcast at the end of this, what are you going to do with it? How are you going to take one of the ideas and go put it in place? So maybe in your next call, you realise that you’re going to ask that question and then you’re going to ask that follow up question and go, “That’s interesting. Tell me more.”
Ty Bennett:
Maybe that’s your takeaway. I don’t know. We’re going to talk about more things so maybe there’ll be better takeaways down the line here. But it’s in the application and so I think that’s one of those pieces is that learns mindset. I want to learn that, but I want to go in and apply it as quickly as possible. And realise that you’re not… I think a lot of times we step back and we go, “Okay, I’ve got to be in this perfect scenario to be able to make these calls.” And we kind of procrastinate with the excuse that I’m not quite ready and once I am, then I’m going to go after it.
Ty Bennett:
That’s just a bunch of garbage because the truth is we’re never going to perfect at it. We just have to get to where we feel like we can be confident in approaching it and we’re going to learn in the process. To me, sales is a game. If you treat it like a game that where you’re learning and you evaluate you go, “Okay, that worked okay. I could be better. Let’s try it this way. Okay, great. Next time let’s try it this way.” Then you’re constantly moving forward.
Sales is Quantifiable, But It’s More Than Just a Numbers Game · [16:14]
Will Barron:
Because it’s one of the only roles where there is a finite number that we either win or lose on, right? If you are even in marketing, it’s more difficult to measure a brand awareness and all these kind of things versus did you close number of sales today? Is that why perhaps sales is so ripe for kind of gamification?
Ty Bennett:
For sure. I think so, but the other piece of that, to the question you asked earlier is if it’s a game you have to be playing to participate, right? It’s not a spectator sport. It’s not a wow, look at all those people out there selling. You’ve got to jump in and you’ve got to talk to people every day. You start to look at those numbers and to me, if it’s a game it’s a learning process, and every one of those conversations makes you a better person.
Will’s Idea of a Selling Reality Show · [17:00]
Will Barron:
For sure. Talking about spectator kind of sports I don’t know how this isn’t the TV show. If I have budget and time and energy in the future it’s going to be called Will Sell Everything or Anything. I think it’d be hilarious to watch someone who’s perhaps a great salesperson and a terrible salesperson they make up a comedy duo and they go into a BMW dealership and try and sell cars. Then they go and try and sell helicopters and clearly the helicopters-
Ty Bennett:
[crosstalk 00:17:24] I think you’re on to something. That be-
Will Barron:
I thought that’d be an incredible reality TV show.
Ty Bennett:
Yeah, for sure.
Will Barron:
And they go and sell pizza, they go and sell whatever it is. We find some really ridiculous things that… Because when you look at it almost everything that is manufacture… Well, pretty much everything is manufactured is sold at some point, right? Even if it’s a tin of baked beans or at smaller source, it’s sold to the supermarket as opposed to just being lifted off the shelf. So I feel like there’s a show there, right?
Ty Bennett:
Yeah, for sure. I was actually reading some research yesterday out of the University of Chicago, Illinois. This researcher looked at like 140 million jobs in the US and across all sorts of people. Her conclusion was that 25% of the national income in the United States is based off of persuasion skills. That’s what it comes from. It’s based off of selling in essence. Presenting, selling, persuading and her estimates are that in the next 20 years, 40% of all income will come from those skills. And so this is such an important skillset, everything like you said goes down this road.
Why Jobs that Deal with Persuasion Skills are Going to Increase in the Years to Come · [18:33]
Will Barron:
Why is this going to go up Ty? And our hazard guess in that perhaps other roles will become automated. And so it be a bigger chunk. Is that kind of what we’re looking at with the data?
Ty Bennett:
For sure. Yeah. Right, the data shows if you look at historically, the change in terms of what we’re doing and what human being jobs are. Where so many things are being automated and so less and less workforce is being put into manufacturing, development, other things. And so more and more, we’re moving more towards the persuasion end of the equation. That’s where most people are going to find the ability to make a living. And so, yeah, for sure.
The Rule of Two: A Practical Framework for Establishing Connections and Increasing Your Level of Influence · [19:28]
Will Barron:
So this on multiple levels then, and we’ve kind of touched on the mindset and the motivations behind influencing someone and having the correct motivation of doing it for perhaps them versus for you. Are there any practical or physical things we should be doing to increase our levels of influence? Because we all know the cliche is like mirroring the person that you’re sat opposite against. And I don’t know whether you agree with this and there seems to be some data on it, but there seems to be a bit of a weird technique to do as well if you overemphasise it and someone sees you doing it, they’re going to be freaked the hell out. What should we be doing practically as we’re sat in the room or as we walk into the room to increase our levels of influence? Perhaps we’re going into a negotiation or something like that.
Ty Bennett:
Yeah. I’ll give you one simple thing that I teach quite a bit to salespeople is a lot of times in convers… Have you ever had a conversation where somebody seems to one up everything that you say? You know what I’m talking about? Where-
Will Barron:
I’ve got two friends… I just did it to you there. So I apologise speaking over you, but that sound unintentional, but I’ve got two friends who battle me on everything that I say. And I like to debate things as well so I can appreciate what you’re saying.
Ty Bennett:
Yeah. And here’s the thing I think in a sales role, we’ve been taught over and over that if you find commonality that’s the best way to make a connection, right? So you walk into somebody’s office and you see a picture, a sports team or whatever, and you like that sports team and you say, “Oh, are you a fan of whatever?” And they say, “Yeah.” And say, “Oh, I’m a huge fan too.” But what we do in that is we hijack the conversation, we make it about us really quickly. And so I like to teach people what I call the rule of two. And the rule of two is this. Whenever somebody says something about themselves, you have to ask at least two questions before you can talk about yourself.
Ty Bennett:
So in that same scenario, I would say, are you a fan of whatever sports team? And they say, “Yeah. And say, “Man, did you grow up here? Have you always been a fan?” And there’s a natural flow of the conversation where I say at least two, because maybe it’s two, maybe it’s five, but then there’s a point where I can come into the conversation. It feels comfortable, but I’ve made it focused on them and I haven’t just hijacked and said, “Well, let’s talk about me now.” And I that’s really how you establish a connection.
Ty Bennett:
So that’s a very practical thing to start to think about. But I think we all do that in an attempt to find commonality. But the truth is the best way to make a connection is to make it about them. And if we can do that in effective ways, then we kind of grow in their eyes because of it.
What Happens When Two Influential People Meet in a Negotiation Setting? · [21:50]
Will Barron:
What happens… I never really thought about out this before, but if two people listen to this podcast, perhaps there’s, for some reason, a professional buyer is listening. And for some reason, well, not some reason, hopefully it makes sense for a salesperson to listen and then they start to communicate and it’s potentially a great deal for both sides. So they’re both trying to influence each other into just getting a deal done quickly. So what happens then if you’re dealing with someone who is also a great influence like yourself, and you’re both trying to push the conversation onto each other? Does always lead to an interesting conversation or am I overthinking of this?
Ty Bennett:
Hopefully. No, I think that can happen and you can start to see people tend to navigate that direction. I think the foundation of all sales is that we’re in the people business. And that’s the hard part about sales is that in the people business there’s not a set protocol of you do A, you do B, you do C. It just happens, right. It’d be great if that were the case. That’s why like set scripts don’t really work, right? Because I can’t say the exact same thing to every person and it’s going to work out. And so you have to read the situation.
Ty Bennett:
I’ve been in some sales situations where the person said, “Look, I have five minutes, give me your best pitch. And let’s see if this is worth spending more time on.” It’s not an ideal situation. I would rather have more time to talk to him, but you adjust to the situation. You go, okay, jump in, boom. Here’s my best sales pitch and try and create that scenario. So you have to read the situation for what it is and adjust accordingly. And that’s the hard part in being in the people business is that it doesn’t always work out the way that you want it to, and you are going to approach it differently with every single person you’re in front of.
Will Barron:
And this is powerful, going back to the data we talked about earlier on from a 20% to 40 percentage of people, essentially the people business, in that if it was step by step AI would be able to do it for us, right?
Ty Bennett:
Yeah. And that’s the thing, we’d all lose our jobs anyway. But right now where we’re losing jobs is not in the element of persuasion and human connection. And so developing those skills is what’s really going to be relevant in the future.
Timeless Sales Principles that Have and Will Stand the Test of Time · [24:00]
Will Barron:
So Ty using kind of this thought process that we’ve carried on throughout the show, are there any other principles that are somewhat timeless? You know, if not completely timeless with regards to being able to influence someone. So one we touched on was putting other people’s goals, aspirations before your own, as you go into it, kind of a meeting or conversation and Verne was asking why multiple times, rather than throwing the spotlight back on you as soon as you see a commonality? Are there any other principles that are somewhat timeless that we can implement into our sales and just game in general?
“Any story that we tell, especially in business, for it to connect, it needs to follow the pattern of struggle to solution. So the way that it works is you hook people with the struggle, you help them with the solution.” – Ty Bennett · [24:48]
Ty Bennett:
For sure. What comes to mind for me is the skillset of storytelling. I think it’s one of the most underrated skills in business and sales. I think people engage with stories. We could go into all the statistics. I wrote a book on storytelling. I’m a big proponent of it, but I’ll give you just one idea around storytelling is any story that we tell, especially in business for it to connect it needs to follow the pattern of struggle to solution.
Ty Bennett:
So the way that it works is you hook people with the struggle. You help them with the solution. Now, this seems logical because when you think about it, any product is there to solve a problem. Any service is there to create a solution, right? We’re in business to solve problems. The problem is, is that for whatever reason, whether it’s egocentric or we just want to come from this power position, what we often tell our solution to solution stories. We come in and business and we say, “You know what? We’re great. And we’ve always been great and will always be great. And if you work with us, that’d be great.
Ty Bennett:
And people are like, “See you later. Great.” You know, like it just there’s nothing engaging about it. And so there’s a level of vulnerability and authenticity to tell a struggle to solution story, whether that’s your own experience or a client success story of where they were and how you have helped them, or the development of how this service or product came to be, what this struggle was and how you recognised that and now why it exists. But being able to tell a story extremely well, I mean the old adage that says, whoever tells the best story wins, I think is very true.
How to Implement and Add More Stories to Your Sales Arsenal · [26:05]
Will Barron:
How can we implement more stories our game, if clearly experience answers is the solution to this? But if we don’t have a tonne of experience, perhaps we’re somewhat new to selling and we’re tuning to the podcast for some tips and advice, and we’ve seen the word influence and we’ve gone right, if we can influence people, we can win new business, but I don’t have the stories to kind of leverage the point that you just made their Ty. What other resources or whatever angles can we take to add stories to our game if we’ve not been selling like me medical devices for a decade?
Ty Bennett:
Part of that, I think you can borrow stories for the time being. I think over time, the more personal the stories are the more powerful they are. But in the beginning you borrow stories, right? You get a new job as a medical device salesman and you go into. In the training, you’re going to hear stories from other salespeople that they’ve used. You’re going to ask, hopefully what stories do you use? What questions do work. If you go on a ride along with somebody, you’re going to start to look at some of those things. And so you’re going to adopt, steal and borrow some of those stories and start to make them your own so that you can get started in that process. And then over time you develop more of your own and you start to change those out.
Will Barron:
Perfect. That makes total sense. And that’s something we… I’m glad you said that, because we’ve touched on this on our episode of the show and I recommend people just keep some kind of… maybe not physical binder, but perhaps just an Evernote, which is software that allows you to put lots of data and notes and it’s all searchable, whether you’re taking a picture of something or whether you’re typing it up. Just have an Evernote of all the stories that your colleagues have given you and for specific products.
Will Barron:
Well, this is great in this scenario was rubbish in this scenario and then you can pick and choose them. And obviously they get ingrained into your kind sales pitch and just everyday chat as you go through, but for a new sales person, I think that’s incredibly useful.
Ty’s Advise to His Younger Self on How to Become Better at Selling · [27:50]
Will Barron:
Well, with that, Ty I’ve got one final question mate, to ask everyone that comes on the show. And I know you’re not kind of a “sales professional” right at this moment, but clearly you’re selling as we all do every single day so I’ll ask you anyway. And the question is, if you could go back into time and speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you’d give him to help him become better at selling that has nothing to do with storytelling or I guess influence skills?
Ty Bennett:
For me, that piece of advice would be, it took me several years to recognise the value of recording every presentation I was giving and going back and analysing it and learning from it. If I could have done that years before, I think it would’ve sped up the learning process for me. So it would be from day one, start to record. Now it’s so easy on your iPhone, you just hit the voice mail you know like you can record so simply, but to hear it real time what you’re saying and how you’re interacting is such an eye opener. I would’ve loved to do that sooner.
Will Barron:
For sure. And just to double down on this there’s brands like having the chorus.ai, gong.io. This is more so I guess for the sales leaders who are listening, but they will record sales calls, they will use AI or machine learning really, it’s not really AI to say, well you talk too much, you brought up price here when best people or the better sellers bring it up earlier in the conversation. You used negative language rather than positive language, all these kind of things which it is more for B2B sales calls and cold calls, as opposed to sales presentations, which are more, I guess, complex or bespoke, but there’s definitely kind of data and algorithms which can come along and help with some of this moving forward.
Parting Thoughts · [29:40]
Will Barron:
So I’ll plug those two brands, even though they did sponsor the show and they definitely should do because it’s the future. And with that Ty, tell us a little bit more where we can find out, because we touched on a couple of eBooks. Tell us about the books and where we can find out more about you as well, sir.
Ty Bennett:
So two books that I’ve written that really pertain to this conversation, The Power of Influence and The Power of Storytelling you can find those on Amazon. You can find them on my site tybennet.com, just my name. And I host the Relevant Leadership Podcast you can find that on my site or at anywhere you find your podcast and we dive into sales, leadership, I interview great people. It’s fun process so yeah, looking forward to connecting with everyone.
Will Barron:
Perfect. For anyone who’s joining this conversation very quickly if you’re on your phone, just go from your app straight search into that, download and subscribe to Ty’s as well. [inaudible 00:30:21] we talked about that anyone who’s running on a treadmill right now, and doesn’t want get kind of mowed down by themselves as they try and subscribe to your podcast site. I’ll link to opening the show notes to this episode over at salesman.org. And with that Ty, I want to thank you for joining us on The Salesman Podcast. We really enjoyed it.
Ty Bennett:
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
