Colinism 001 - 3 Simple Tips to Put Some Awesome Back Into Your Selling

8/6/2019 Colinism 001 - 3 Simple Tips to Put Some Awesome Back Into Your Selling

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COLINISM

www.colinjbrowne.com ENTER >

SIMPLE TIPS TO PUT SOME

AWESOME

BACK INTO YOUR SELLING


2/13

COLINISM

The rst question is likely to be why? Why another book about sales making a

claim to be able to solve your problems and put you on the road to better

results? Isnt there already too much crap like this in the world?

Probably.

But heres the thing: were collectively, as sales professionals, still making all

the same mistakes we have been making for years. I spend a lot of time either

pitching ideas of my own or working with salespeople to help them improve

theirs and the lessons in this short book are ones I absolutely know to have

made a massive difference to my own results.

In the end it just seemed wrong not to share them.

- Colin

www.colinjbrowne.com < 1 >


3/13

Geng to the top in anything from compeve

athlecs to professional sales is fundamentally about

the same thing. Learn the basics, see which points

youre specically great at and focus on making those

awesome. But its also about embracing your individual

style, shaping and perfecng it unl it is absolutely

outstanding.

COLINISM

Geng from okay, or evenprey goodto awesome in

sales may be a lot simpler than youd imagine.


Most things in life are actually prey simple. Even complex projects like the training that goes into

creang an Olympic Gold athlec performance or climbing Mount Everest can be broken down

into a very simple set of tasks.

The whole self-help industry depends on that being true because otherwise there would be no

hope at all of the average person making the journey. The success of ideas such as Body-for-Life

for example rely on the fact that geng into the best shape of your life is a prey simple maer.

Its a simple maer because you know what you ought to be doing, even without being told. Eat

dierently. Work out more. Run. If you do basic, simple things it is a guarantee that youll get in

beer shape. And yet, despite it being so simple and that most of us are prey disased with our

bodies and would like to improve them, most of us are doing nothing about it. Why is that?

The reason probably is that just because these things are almost childishly SIMPLE, that does not

make them EASY.

It isnt EASY to get out of bed early and run down to the gym rather than hing the snooze buon

for een minutes more. It isnt EASY to turn down a lunch me cheese burger and eat the apple

and the banana you brought from home.

It isnt EASY to choose to miss watching the match this evening because Wednesdays are for chest,

shoulders and arms.


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5/13

Time in sales always has a gurave bomb aached to

it. You never have as much me as you think you do

and things can have a habit of blowing up if youre not

on top of them. And since revenue not generated has a

perpetual knock on eect, its all about starng RIGHT

NOW. Theres never going to be a beer me when the

clock is aached to tubes of scary-looking explosive

stu.

Recently I was watching one of those TEDx talks that are freely available on www.ted.com starring

an awesome lady named Mel Robbins who made the point about as simply as it can be made. She

said:

YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO FEEL LIKE IT

There is never going to be a me when you feel like geng started. Waing for a beer me is

just waing for a me that will never come. This is you, baby, right now.

If you can embrace the concept of starng right now, youll be beer than almost everyone

around you, bunch of procrasnators that we are. That will give you a head start and buy you

more me at the end of each sales cycle when otherwise you might be desperately trying to close

any piece of business just to make your numbers.

But while deciding youre going to become the master of doing it now is, I think, one of the big

three for outstanding sales success, it isnt the whole soluon to the problem that ails many sales-

people today. While increasing your sales acvity is outstanding winning behavior, youll limit your

eecveness if you merely do much more of the same old stu.

The world is full of sales theory saying there are very specic ideal ways to achieve a basic sales

task; to make a cold call or to strike up rapport with a customer for instance. I think its all bullshit.

I think such theory recklessly ignores the fact that more sales are done when creave individuality

is the dening principle.

COLINISM

http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxSF-Mel-Robbins-F-YOU-How-Tohttp://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxSF-Mel-Robbins-F-YOU-How-To


6/13

Geng creave in sales is a lile like playing make-

believe the way you did as a kid. As you get deeper

into the business of sales, you get to thinking that only

serious answers can solve the serious challenges you

face. Dont you believe that for a second, however. A

lot of current thinking is prey clear that allowing the

childlike part of your brain to run riot now and then is

great for creavity. Even the iconic Steve Jobs advised

Stanford graduates to stay foolish.

COLINISM


Its been my observaon again and again that when salespeople allow their own quirky individu-

ality to come out and be part of their process, theyre beer able to focus on the actual task of

selling which is frankly, demanding enough as it is. Being an individual is key to solving the second

part of our three-part sales dilemma:

WERE OUT OF PRACTICE IN THE ART OF FINDING CREATIVE SOLUTIONS

I think that loss of truly creave problem solving in sales is a massive force in prevenng us from

being genuinely awesome. I also think it is what is holding us back and creang lacklustre perform-

ances that are just geng harder and harder to keep doing on a daily basis.

I believe that there are simple ways to change that however.

Children very oen hold the key. Give a ve year old a box of crayons and a colouring book and tell

them there is only one way to do it and theyll look at you like youre nuts because they can see

hundreds of possibilies. It hasnt in fact, ever occurred to that ve year old brain that there might

be a limit to the possibilies.

Theyre right of course. There isnt a limit. But weve forgoen its possible to think that way andeven feel were being nave when we do.

Were so oen locked into the same red old approach to sales in which grim determinaon

trumps childish invenon and enthusiasm that weve stopped looking for completely new ways to

do things.


7/13

Its prey clear that people buy from people they like.

You can be the most professional, well-versed, experi-

enced salesperson in the world, but theyre sll going

to buy from someone more awesome than you, given

the chance. Your best chance in sales: be more awe-

some. More original. If youre having more fun with it,

that will show and that can completely change your

customer relaonships.

Let me give you an example of how it couldbe. This is a true story about a guy called Michael. A

real guy; the head of a 500 000 000 division of one of the major mobile phone service providers

in South Africa. In his early 40s he is a man with a Porsche and all the toys you can think of. He has

a Black Belt Second Dan in karate. Hes sort of an over-achiever all along the way.

When he started out in sales some 20+ years ago, it was selling dinner sets door-to-door. Cases of

matching plates and cups and bowls.

The young Michael was super-charged with enthusiasm so it was a hard trip down to the pave-

ment when his rst 50 door-knocks told him to bugger o. Those rst few weeks were, to para-

phrase Jerry Maguire, an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege.

But this guy wasnt then and isnt now, the sort to say die. Instead he decided to get creave.

The rst step was to work out why he wasnt geng anywhere. He decided it was his choice of

customers that was wrong. He didnt know anything about them and that meant it was lile more

than a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.

As he thought it through, he realised that his best shot at repeated success was to target singlepeople. Married couples were likely to already have a dinner set because at the very least they

would have been given one as a wedding present.

This is basic stu, but it s so important that marketers give it the fancy name of market segmenta-

on.

COLINISM



8/13

Give a ve year old a box of crayons and theres no

limit to the creavity theyll come up with. We were

all ve once and we all did this with the same enthusi-

asm. That atude is more important in sales than you

might imagine because the more creave you can be,

the more youll stand out from a generally not-very-

creave crowd; important if you want to be properly

awesome at sales.

Understanding that, he turned his mind to where he would nd lots of single people. In South Af-

rica at that me, many government employees were given subsidised living quarters. Apartments

for the single people and perhaps a home with a small garden for those married with children.

And because single people have dierent social behaviour to that of families, they generally lived

apart so that there were whole blocks of apartments where single hospital employees or single

policemen and women lived.

It was a realisaon that changed things for him dramacally. But then he added the cherry on top

by geng hold of the shi details for the people he intended to target so that he knew whether

he should knock on their doors in the morning, the aernoon or even late at night.

SIMPLE stu. CREATIVE stu. Within a year he wasnt just the best salesperson that company had,

he was the best one they had EVER had.

That may be a dierent story to the one youre used to being told. The one that says sales is only

about the numbers and nothing else. The one that insists that exing from a very rigid approach is

forbidden.

Had the young Michael not invented his own customer set, and re-invented his working hours in

order to reach those customers, some of whom were on night shi and were home by day and

some of whom were on day shi and were home by night, it would be a very dierent story.

As it is, the reality is audacious enough to be sales genius level.

COLINISM



9/13

Ah, if only. If sales was even one one-hundredth this

easy, books like this would be unnecessary because

youd be too busy scuba diving o Aruba to worry

about making your target. I understand that its tough.

I also believe however that with fresh thinking, it can

be the second most fun youll ever have (Im not going

to lie; scuba diving o Aruba is always going to be the

winner).

COLINISM


Oh, and it goes without saying that he had FUN. Lots and lots of it. Its always fun when youre

winning.

That is principle number three that I think has a big part to play in holding us back:

WE FORGET TOO OFTEN THAT THIS STUFF IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN

I met a dynamic duo of salespeople at a publishing company in Dubai once who got around their

fear of cold calling by making it a game between them. They encouraged each other through an

energec hour to come up with the most awesome opening line or to include a simple, inoen-

sive, but arbitrary word in each pitch. As one of them would t it in, the other would fall apart

laughing.

Counter-producve? Dont you believe it for a second. Considering the alternave, that they sat

alone in separate cubicles without encouragement, not really knowing where to start, this was

creave wizardry. These two were the number one and number two salespeople in their team,

prey consistently.

I know a guy who gets through a vast number of customer calls as long as he is able to walkaround the oor with his golf driver, playing an imaginary game of golf as he goes about it. Who

knows whats going on in his head? Personally, I dont think it maers, as long as it works for him.

I know a guy who ends every day with drinks or a cup of coee or an ice cream sundae with a cli-

ent. For him, relaonship building is everything so that hes not just the guy that sells them stu.

Hey, while you were out

getting coffee, 47 randomcustomers called asking ifanyone could help them buyloads of the stuff we sell.

I said youd call them backwhen you have the energy.

COLINISM


10/13

Youre never going to be as good at anything as you

are things you consider to be fun. Sales is hard work

at the best of mes and if youre not having fun with

this emoonally-charged pursuit, youre less likely to

be successful. You can do a lot of jobs if youre not that

into them, and complete them successfully even on

days when youre not feeling up to it. Not sales though.

If youre having a bad day or a bad month, it will show

and it will have an impact.

I know another who put together a very clever (and very funny) PowerPoint presentaon present-

ing him as a hot new product and describing the benets of having him in your life.

I know a guy who has hands down the cleverest way to get in front of any customer I have ever

heard. And I know a girl who outsold an exisng team of eight men, beang their annual totals

though she had only six months to do it, just by doing one SIMPLE and CREATIVE thing. If you want

to know these two stories, drop me an email; my address is on the last page and Id be delighted

to share them with you.

Taking these lessons, and many others like them, I believe these three ideas to be hugely impor-tant if you want an awesome sales career:

1. Remember you are never going to feel like geng started.

2. Get back into the mode of thinking creavely.

3. Remember that this stu is supposed to be fun.

Okay, its play me! Go sell!

COLINISM


COLINISM


11/13

1. Never say NO to anything for at least 72 hours. We are so pro-

grammed to be risk-averse that when we approach a new idea our

insnct is too oen to say: Yeah, but heres why that will never

work ... When we walk into a new situaon, we look for the things

that make us feel uncomfortable and that we want to avoid. In so

doing, we give over control of our thinking to the creave luddites

that dwell in almost all of us. Dont. Let new ideas breathe for a

while. Rather than looking for the negaves, look only for the posi-

ves, and dig deep. You can always ditch the idea in a few days if it

isnt turning out to be a winner.

2. Get up from behind your desk and go looking for ideas. Speak to

your colleagues; visit customers; go for a walk around a shopping

centre; ip through a bunch of magazines you wouldnt ordinar-

ily ever look at. One thing is for certain, making some changes to

your environment, your inuences or your roune can change the

context of your thinking. No new ideas are going to suddenly jump

o your computer screen while you sit behind your desk. Get out

more. Observe more. See more people. The ideas are out there,not in here.

3. Get out a colouring book and some crayons. Forget that you feel

silly. Beer yet, do it with a bunch of kids. Children are wildly

idealisc, untainted yet by dramac life failure and braver and

more extreme than you can possibly imagine unl you spend me

with them. Youll likely have to reframe your problem and lose the

business-speak so that their young minds can grasp it, but put it in

terms that t their frame of reference and even if you dont come

up with anything useful or meaningful (which is probably likely

since buy a bunch of angry dinosaurs and make them eat your

competor isnt enrely praccal in this day and age), youll at

least delight in the radically dierent approaches to problem solv-

ing that exist in young minds that are freer than yours.

4. Always be asking quesons. Never take things for granted. Youdbe surprised what soluons are already out there in the collecve

life and work experiences of the people even in a small organisa-

on, just waing for you to ask about them. Lew Pla, the celebrat-

ed former CEO of Hewle-Packard once said: If HP knew what HP

knows, we would be three mes as protable. Similarly, the story

goes that when Virgin Atlanc was a young airline, Richard Branson

used to hold massive pares for his employees where he could nd

out their opinions and hear their ideas. Ideas such as the placing of

individual TV screens into seat backs was given to him by a VirginAtlanc cabin crew member.

5. Forget status altogether. In fact, specically spend me with the

most customer-facing people in your organisaon: the receponists

or the switchboard or call centre people for their insight into what

makes your customers ck. Their jobs mean they deal with custom-

COLINISM

Ten ps for thinking more creavely so you can add some AWESOME to your sales!

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12/13

COLINISM


13/13

COLINISM

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Colinism 001 - 3 Simple Tips to Put Some Awesome Back Into Your Selling

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