You don’t have a sales problem!

“What most of you suck at is getting to that damn conversation. Because no one teaches it - or very few at least.”

By Donnie Boivin

I don’t care what the gurus say; there’s only thing that separates good salespeople from badass salespeople. That’s business development. Let me explain.

Most people who teach sales or selling, built their career in transactional sales. One time closes and they didn’t care if the individual ever came back.

What most of their training and coaching focuses on what to say and do once you’re in a sales call or conversation. What they suck at telling you is how to actually get into that call or conversation.

Why? Because most transactional salespeople have customers coming to them. They walk on a car lot or in a store and already are looking for what you sell.

Man, if people came to me over the years already looking to buy, I would have made a helluva lot more money. Unfortunately for most people in transactional sales, their commissions suck ass.

When you learn from people who only know transactional sales and not how to build relationships you learn conversational tactics. Mindgames, where you learn to say x when a customer says y.

They are wicked smart in that conversation, and they can show how to quickly manipulate a person into giving up. I don’t know how they sleep at night, but they are good at it.

Here is what I know. Most of you reading this have had some amazing conversations that lead to awesome relationships that ultimately lead you to have a client for life.

That conversation for most people is really simple. Focus on the person, listen to their needs, bond with them, get real with them and they will agree to work with you. Because you both win.

What most of you suck at is getting to that damn conversation. Because no one teaches it - or very few at least.

So, for the rest of this article, I am going to teach you what I know about what has worked for me to get to those conversations.

You ready? Let’s do this shit.

Business development and sales are not the same thing. Sales is the result of business development activity. Easier said. Business development is all the things you do to get to a sales conversation.

It’s the reach outs, the networking, the referrals, the speaking, and, yep, the phone calls.

I’m going to go through each one of these and give you the tips and tactics that have worked for me over the years.

Reach outs

Also known as DMs (Direct Messages), PMs (Private Messages), and those fucking things I hate doing because I hate to get them from people who just want to sell me shit. Yep, those wonderful things.

Reach outs have become my goldmine for all my programs, groups, and conferences. People want to talk if you will just let them. Unfortunately, most people suck at reach outs because that’s all they want to do is sell their shit.

Here are the “Don’ts” of Reach Outs.

Don’t copy-paste your initial reach out – Trust me you will forget to change a name and all of sudden Donnie becomes Jasmine (it happened and now people in the Success Champion Facebook group call me Jasmine) that’s what I get for showing them. lol

Don’t sell on the first reach outs. It’s like going to the bar seeing a hot person and walking up and saying “let’s get married” it might work but it’s a guaranteed recipe to be married to an asshole.

Don’t verbally puke all over them about you or your company because guess what they don’t give a shit about you

Here are the “Do’s” in reach outs

Have an easy yes on the first reach out. If you are connecting with someone tell them why without selling them shit. For example. We have Virtual networking groups all over the world. I send DMs all the time that say. “Hey Mike, we have a Virtual Networking Group in Chicago would that be something your interested in?” Or you could say “Hey Mike do you use labels on your products?” or “Hey Mike is Branding on your radar this year?” All of these are easy yes/no responses and the responses are high. Why because you are asking a question that they can say yes or no too.

Realize that most people are LinkedIn were guilttripped on to the platform. Some guru told them that to be professional they needed a LinkedIn profile. So, they set it up and have never looked at it. Really this one should have said expect a very low response rate from reach outs. That’s ok when they do respond it’s a better conversation.

Stay consistent. I’m nuts, I do 100 reach outs every day. Why because I know it takes a lot of damn reach outs to get to a “hell yes.” You should do 10 a day no matter what to your ideal perfect avatar.

Have patience, just because you’re sitting at your computer sending messages doesn’t mean that they are. Shit for me I get a response from messages I sent over a year ago. Remember the whole guilt trip thing?

The bottom line on reach outs is to be a fucking human that actually likes themselves and is interested in other people. Go have conversations and quit trying to sell your shit.

Here is a good conversation flow for reach outs. This is a real conversation from LinkedIn with the name changed.

Donnie Boivin - 6:59 AM - Danika, can you tell me more about what you do?

Danika Smith, MBA sent the following message at 7:02 AM - Hi Donnie, I’m a financial advisor. I help people achieve their financial goals. For example, I help them retire comfortably and stay retired.

SUNDAY Donnie Boivin sent the following message at 7:58 AM - Would you be interested in a virtual networking group we started in the Barrie area?

MONDAY Danika Smith, MBA sent the following message at 11:22 AM - What’s it called and the goal of the members?

Donnie Boivin sent the following message at 1:36 PM Success Champions Networking. The focus is simple if I can get you to the right prospects and the exact people you need to me then all business wins. Networking is about growing other people’s business.

TUESDAY Danika Smith, MBA sent the following message at 2:23 PM - That sounds reasonable Donnie. Let me know how it works and let’s see how we can make something happen. I’m open to it.

TODAY Donnie Boivin sent the following message at 6:37 AM - We meet Fridays at 7:30 am via zoom. If you can make it here is a link. ***Zoom Link***

Danika Smith, MBA sent the following message at 8:38 AM - I’ll jump on this Friday, I’m looking forward to participating.

Donnie Boivin sent the following message at 9:34 AM – Looking forward to meeting you

Networking

Networking is growing other people’s businesses. Yep, it’s knowing exactly who other people need to meet to grow their business then making that connection.

The “Don’ts” of networking

Don’t be that guy. You know what I mean. The one that jumps on a zoom call and won’t shut the fuck up and only wants to sell their shit and could give a rat’s ass about you or your business. You’re are literally a dollar sign to them. Shut up and get curious about people.

Don’t do other shit why you are having a conversation. Even in the days of zoom we all see you playing a game on your phone, reading emails, or posting on social media. Be into the conversation. If the conversation sucks either call it or fix it.

Don’t sell unless they know it’s a sales call. Nothing worse than expecting to have a “get to know you conversation” and the person you’re talking to goes into some presentation about their shit. If people are interested in your shit they will tell you so. If they do ask if you can transition into the conversation into a sales conversation or if you should schedule another call: let them dictate that. Its karma - trust me - it comes around.

The “Do’s” of networking

Give a shit about people. Invest in their story and want to learn about them. This is about getting to know them so well you can introduce them to your best clients. That’s a lot of trust in introducing people to your best clients. To do that you really got to get to know somebody. Be “In” to them and understand their world. You did it right if you walk away from that conversation with two or three people they should meet.

Always have your introduction radar on. You have people they should meet. I don’t care what you do unless you live in a cave on a rock island in the middle of nowhere you got people. Open doors for others. Be the person that is always top of mind when they need a product or service. Be a walking contact list. You are doing this right if you are constantly getting asked’ Hey Sally who do you know someone that does X

Do make an introduction and referrals. An introduction is two people that need to meet. A referral is someone is looking for the services of the other. I needed an article for this magazine, so I asked the networking group who could do that and I was paying and guess what a bunch of names came up and referrals were made. That’s a referral. I need some Get shit done people who could start networking chapters. A ton of introductions have been made and some of those have started groups. Those are introductions

The bottom line in networking is to grow other people’s business. Don’t worry the world will take care of you. You just open as many doors for others and good shit happens.

Referrals

Now you know what a referral is let’s dive in.

Referral Don’ts

Don’t assume a referral is a closed deal. Actually, assume it’s just an introduction and the other person has no clue why your meeting. Why because otherwise you will get too excited and fuck up the conversation by becoming a salesperson. Go into it to have a conversation.

Don’t hound the referral; we are all fucking busy. Well except for Timmy he is shuffling business cards across his desk but the rest of you know you got a lot of shit on your plate. Just like dating. Follow up the referral immediately then let it soak for a couple of days. If you get no response send another message. By the third time, reach out to the person who referred and let them know.

Don’t make the person who referred you look bad. You fuck them doing that and you screw yourself too. Make the referrer look like a fucking Rockstar.

The Referral Do’s

Do go into the conversation praising the person who gave you the referral. Say shit like “Man, Laura is a badass and when she tells me I need to meet someone I know it’s gonna be a fun conversation” Put the refer on a pedestal. They just put their brand on the line introducing you.

Do go above and beyond to get to know the person you got referred to. Even more so than on a networking call. Dive into the person to understand them. Don’t try and sell your shit right out the gate. (See Don’t ins networking)

Do follow up with the person who referred you. This is a killer. Ever given a referral and have no clue what happened to it? How else are you going to teach people what a badass referral is and what shitty referral is? Tell them what happened.

The bottom line on referrals be a badass for them. Treat it like a get to know ya, and enjoy the conversation.

Speaking

Ok, soapbox time. I feel like I have had quite a few so far but here is one more. If you are NOT speaking virtually or in public you are missing a huge fucking opportunity in your business. Get over your fear and get in the game. But - but - but… and hush; just go speak. I know that’s tough, but damn, so much business comes from being in front of people. Learn, embrace it, do it. Go speak.

Don’t of speaking.

Don’t drone the fuck on. Speaking is like having a conversation with a group of people. Don’t keynote - just talk and let them ask questions. If the audience isn’t engaging, then you’re just being a college professor and not helping them.

Don’t be perfect. Oh, this drives me fucking nuts. So many speakers have been trained to follow some sort of routine when they speak. Stand here when you say this. Stand here when you say that. Use this hand gesture when you say that. Fuck all that. You are a person and not a robot. Have fun.

Don’t follow a script verbatim. Ok, I am not 100% against notes or a PowerPoint as long as they are not a crutch. Too many people read from slides and such, and never talk to the audience. I’ve giving multiple-day workshops, trust me it’s ok to have shit to keep you on point. Just know that what it is for. Just like a page of contents in a book they just need to know what the next chapter is.

Don’t give your life story just to prolong the presentation. Holy fuck its annoying when someone spends 45 minutes of an hour-long presentation touting their accolades and not teaching shit. Nobody gives a shit how many years you have been in business or what awards you have won.

The Do’s of speaking.

Edutain. Educate and entertain.. It’s a speech, not the Gettysburg address (even though I bet that was a badass speech). Give them information, keep it light, let them ask questions, and for the love of Gawd, laugh especially when you fuck up. I have another nickname it’s REX, I fucked up my own acronym on stage it was supposed to be RELAX and I forgot the L and the A. (Ya the champions won’t let me live that shit down lol.) But I stop midspeech and laugh then ask the crowd why they didn’t call me out. They laughed; I laughed, and I went back to cover L and A.

Be yourself. Seriously relax and just be you. This isn’t a popularity contest this is you helping others with your message in your style. Speak like you speak and talk like you talk. Be you. It’s the only way to truly connect with your audience.

Have a purpose and takeaways. Know what they should learn and the takeaways they should get and then help them learn them.

Phone Calls

I used to teach cold calling by standing in front of a room of people and doing live dials on speakerphone. Why? Because it scared the shit out of me, and it showed what I was teaching was working.

The Don’ts of Phone calls

Don’t “just” – Don’t use the word just. I am just calling, I just wanted to say. You are literally trying to justify what your calling about

Don’t smash them over the head. Have you ever gotten a phone call where the person calling immediately goes into a 100 mph sales pitch? Tell them why your calling. I work for XYZ company do you use labels from products?

Don’t keep it about you. Shut up and ask questions. The greatest skill in sales is the ability to ask the right questions.

The Do’s on Phone calls

Relax it’s a conversation. Don’t worry about your pitch; get to know them. Speak to them how you would like someone to talk to you on the phone.

Have fun. One of my favorite things to do is to tell them what you’re doing. If it’s a cold call tell them if it’s a get to know ya tell them. Don’t hide that stuff, it makes you human.

Always get to the next step - One thing a lot of people screw up is getting closure. A yes let’s talk further or do business, a no it’s over for now or scheduled next step. Don’t leave any conversation without closure.

Zoom Calls

If I am awesome I don’t do phone calls anymore unless it’s a family or friend calling. Technology is amazing and I would rather see who I am talking to. I’ve told companies that try and sell me their stuff, no, simply because they wouldn’t jump on a Zoom call. Are you really that insecure? If you are that insecure about you how am I supposed to have confidence in what you will deliver?

The Don’ts of zoom calls

Don’t use your computers camera and speakers. Upgrade a little bit. Use AirPods, a headset, or anything to keep the noises in your office or house from playing through zoom. Get a better camera. We want to see you.

Don’t have shitty internet. Upgrade and get better internet. It sucks to listen to someone talk and most of what they are saying is cut out.

Don’t railroad the conversation. It’s called a conversation, you know two people talking, back and forth. Learn to shut up and get curious about them.

The Do’s of zoom calls

Have a cool background. If you don’t have one jump on amazon and buy a cheap backdrop you can set up and takedown. This is what I do.

Stand up – your body posture and your energy change when you stand up, so get in the game. I

bought a standing desk so I can raise and lower it as needed.

Have fun and be yourself – Connect by being who you are in all its glory. The more real and authentic you are the better the conversation will be.

Here is the thing guys. Business development is about getting into the game and doing the work. I’ve built my business on doing a minimum of 10 reach outs every day no matter what. A lot of days I do a bunch more but come hell or high water I’m doing the reach outs.

Do the work and you will build the business you have always wanted.