How to Close More Business in a Down Economy

In this Member Workshop with CPSA, learn about the latest sales tools, methods and techniques to help you close more business in a down economy.

Event Information

Recession remains a real risk and it has already impacted new business and sales teams as they are finding it more difficult to close deals with clients. In 2023, there is likely going to be more unpredictability and many organizations will experience a rollercoaster of peaks and valleys in their sales revenue.

In this workshop, you’ll learn what’s changed about selling in today’s economy, and the tools, methods and techniques that high performing sales professionals use to close business in this down economy.

Learning outcomes:
How to create a sense of urgency to close the sale without reducing price.
Increase the size of every sale to generate more revenue with less effort.
How to engage your network to sell on your behalf.

Workshop Video

Thank you for your interest in our event! The event has now passed, but we are pleased to share that the recording is available for you to review. Catch up on all the valuable insights and information shared during the event. We hope you find it informative and useful.

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How are you?

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Markham Room: Good afternoon, everyone.

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Markham Room: Hi. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Aliaa Alsafarjlani. I'm a senior manager for Member Development here at Toronto Region Board of Trade

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Markham Room: again. Thank you for joining us for this member workshop that we we are hosting today at our new facility. Hey? At the waterfront? I don't know if you had a second to check that the facility we have a beautiful 38,000 perfect facility. We have a lot of different boardrooms, event spaces.

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Markham Room: and a big patio that we will be opening a very soon. We can't wait actually for the summer to open it up. So maybe, after after the session you will have a look to check out our beautiful facility.

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Markham Room: All these again, all these spaces are available for our members at discounted rates at 25% discounted rates, and also for non-members if you're interested in venting them

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Markham Room: speaking about unforgivable experiences today, we will come one of our value members, a Canadian Professional Sales association to walk us through how to close more business in a down economy.

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and this member workshop cps a will be sharing the latest sales, tools, methods, and techniques.

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Markham Room: As we begin, I acknowledged this land is home to many diverse first nations, in which and many people our offices are located on the traditional territory for many indigenous nations who believe and integrate intergenerational responsibilities for the well being of today and tomorrow.

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Markham Room: as a reminder, we will have refreshments and snacks after the session at 1 15, just outside the room here at our trade cafe, where we will be meeting the rest of participants from other workshops.

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Markham Room: Please also, Don't, forget to check our website for up upcoming events. One of the latest events that we are launching is Ev Breakfast Series. In that series. We will be having discussions around the provisional provincial infrastructures and investments.

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and how we're making the transition to Ev fleets across transit and logistic operations.

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Markham Room: And now I will hand it off to Ashley Tompkins, Director Band Community partnerships at Canadian Professional Sales Association Cpsa to get us off started.

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Markham Room: Hello! Good afternoon, everybody. I'm not used to using a microphone because i'm a super loud talker. So this is bizarre for me. It's really nice to see you all. We're really happy that everybody came out today to the beautiful space we want to thank Toronto Region Board of Trade as our partner for hosting with us here.

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Markham Room: Just want to do a few introductions before we get started. So.

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Markham Room: and we have Marlin here, who some of you have probably chatted with. He's one of our corporate account executives at Cpsa. We have a whole range of solutions whether you are running your own business.

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Markham Room: leading a sales team you're selling. You know your business yourself, or anywhere in between. We have so many different options and solutions available both through us and through our partners, so please, you know, take some time to chat with Marlin after in the networking portion, and chat with him about your sales, challenges, and and anything sales related or otherwise, that you, you know, want to talk about.

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Markham Room: I also want to introduce everybody to Rob from broker link insurance. Brokerlink is a long-standing partner of the Cpsas. They offer preferred rates on home auto and business insurance. To our members.

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Brokerlink also invests a lot of time and energy to ensure that our members are really informed on insurance, and are making the best possible decisions, regardless of who their providers are, but certainly a very good partner and resource for our members, and our members also enjoy interacting with the best of the best agents at broker links. So they really receive superior service. All of the agents at Broker Link are fantastic, but we get the creme de la creme, so please make sure that you chat with Rob as well. During the night

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the networking session. and finally I'm thrilled to introduce Shawn Case More, who is a partner of the Cpsa? He is an experienced Sales leader. Keynote Speaker Sales consultant Sales coach. He is a partner we turn to for our own sales, coaching and consulting needs frequently, who we also recommend and and work with for many of our members, and he's also the author of the Unstoppable Sales Machines. We're very lucky to have him here with us today, and I will.

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I'll turn it over to him now.

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Markham Room: Great thanks, Ashley.

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Good afternoon.

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Markham Room: Good afternoon. There we go, all right, so we

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Markham Room: there's a post here. I don't know.

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Markham Room: So some of you are going to have the pleasure of seeing me, and some of you won't, but I want to thank you this afternoon for joining us here. We're probably gonna a few more people join as we go. I'd encourage you. And and actually, just before we get started, let me ask a question. Just give a shout out relative to the I'll see the sector

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Markham Room: that you work in right. So so legal insurance, whatever it is. So just start shouting out with sectors retail

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Markham Room: consulting services. Okay. What's that? Hospitality

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Markham Room: media marketing for, or just marketing for everybody?

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Markham Room: Okay, digital marketing online, Excellent. Who else? Finance. retail.

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Markham Room: corporate tax, residential outdoor construction. That's

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Markham Room: What's that? Swimming Pools. Excellent government relations. This is business coaching. insurance.

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Markham Room: insolvency, industrial distribution.

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Markham Room: Staffing. Okay, all right? So as you can see, we have a big cross section of different sectors and industries here. So here's my ask of you today.

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Markham Room: Consider your business as we're going through this.

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Markham Room: as you can imagine. I can't design this for everybody, but everything i'll cover is applicable to every single sector that you explained.

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Markham Room: But I want you to be asking yourself questions as we go As far as how does this apply to my business? What can I do with this? And at the end. If you have, when we have questions that i'll leave some time if you want to discuss that.

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Markham Room: by all means. Okay, that's what I ask. So in getting ready for this, and I guess i'll face the post so I can see everybody on both sides.

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Markham Room: and getting ready for this. I was thinking. Well, you know, we're coming into an odd time in the economy. I just read yesterday on globe and Mail. They said that the signs of an an economic, slow down or not what they normally are, because if it comes to vehicle sales, for example, they're saying vehicle sales are still up now. A lot of the stuff they quoted was from about a year ago.

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Markham Room: and I know some people in vehicle sales and things are not up.

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Markham Room: They're flat. They're they're actually below flat.

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Markham Room: So i'm wondering if the article which is optimistic

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Markham Room: is a little bit dated. I don't know i'm not sure, but nonetheless depending on the sector you're selling into. You may be finding things slowing down or just concerned. But thinking back to the last time we had an economics slow down, something struck me. There was a client of mine. Anybody ever bit up near Sudbury.

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Markham Room: up north? Yeah.

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Markham Room: Long drive right? 4 h straight.

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Markham Room: Yeah. Pretty long drive. By by the way, I live 2 h north, near a place called on Sound, which, if you ever go to Sba Beach for, like the near north, how's that? But nonetheless? So I was thinking about this client, because when Covid hit and it's the last time we'll say that word today, because we're all tired of it. They had a little bit of a challenge.

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Markham Room: so they sold mining equipment into the mining sector. and they call me this Shawn, and we have an issue. We're getting feedback that customers aren't buying mining equipment anymore.

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Markham Room: right? And we're talking half a 1 million dollar pieces of equipment. So we've got production. People. They're building equipment customers. Aren't buying sales have given up. This is not going to happen. What do we do?

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Markham Room: So I said. Well, let's bring everybody together. Now, this is a small business. Okay, so it wasn't one or 2 people, but it was like 22 people wasn't a huge business. So let's get everybody together talk about the situation and see what ideas we can generate. So we got the one engineer into the room.

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Markham Room: We brought the 2 sales people into the room. We brought the finance. The Cfo came into the room. We even brought the receptionist. We all sat down. We talked what was going on, and of course, sales said, Well, here's just going on customers, Aren't buying.

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Markham Room: They don't want to spend a half 1 million. They don't have a half 1 million. They're not buying. We're in trouble. So we started talking about. Well, what ideas do we have that we think could be helpful to generate sales.

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Markham Room: We just started going around the room, and little bit of brainstorming, Nothing overly complex. Something you can easily do with. You know other people on your team, or if you've got people outside your business that help you to sit down, start brainstorming. But I give you some examples of things that started coming out of those conversations.

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Markham Room: So one example is, the engineer said. Well, I got an idea. We've been talking to some of our customers already in their engineering department, and we've been trying to find new components that suit the fit form function, but we can actually get them there's no supply chain delays and the cost isn't bad.

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Markham Room: Do you think if we could actually integrate those and reduce the cost of it in our equipment, our customers would be interested. What do you think?

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Markham Room: Would they be interested. Heck: yeah, right cost is coming down. You got my interest now. We're developing, maybe a little bit of a competitive advantage here.

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Markham Room: So then the finance, guy. So let me let me ask something here. I could go to the bank and potentially get extended finance terms and better rates than people could get on their own. Do you think your customers would be interested in that?

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Markham Room: What do you think? Absolutely they would?

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Markham Room: Long story short, what happened just through some dialogue and discussion is ideas started to come out of the people who were not in sales relative to how do we navigate these times? The best idea came when production stepped up and said, we have a problem. We're building equipment that you're telling me nobody is going to buy. So now we've got these new piece of equipment just sitting here. What do we do?

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Markham Room: And the general manager said, Well, could we rent these things out? It Could we maybe create a rent to buy program or something. People rent them for. I don't know 12 months, and they can either buy the motor, return Them maybe in 12 months will be through Covid. We'll see how it goes. Those 3 years ago today the best program they offer that their competitors don't

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Markham Room: is a rent to own program because they can rent it out at a premium. Bring it back quick, refurb, and now sell it as used equipment at a discounted rate, actually making more margin on the on that product.

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Markham Room: Here's what I want to suggest in that when it comes to the economy slowing down. anybody here, sell yourself you're out selling. Okay.

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Markham Room: Got a few, not everybody, though, if you over here great.

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Markham Room: If you're in sales, if you're selling for your company, your business, don't let your mind run away with you.

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Markham Room: Say that again, Don't. Let your mind run away with what happens to people in sales when the economy slows down. What do we do?

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Markham Room: Panic, Uh-oh! I talked to 2 customers today. They said they're not buying anymore. The world's coming to an end, and if you're in sales. It's the biggest psychological kind of role you could ever be in in your life, probably maybe other than a like a surgeon.

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Markham Room: Right like. Am I going to screw this up? I I hope Not right. I'm sure that goes to their mind. In sales we get feedback, and it can affect us. You don't make a sale for a period of time. It can affect us, and the problem is when it creates that environment for us. We carry that with us. We go in. The next customer. Go. Well.

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Markham Room: I've talked to a few people I know. You know things are slowed down. You're You're probably not interested in buying right. What do you say? No, I I guess not. So there it is again, right that happens. So be aware of that

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Markham Room: is in your own mindset. Now, that's not why we're here today. You want tactical things we can do, but so I want to start with this when it comes to selling in a down economy. If things slow down.

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Markham Room: The success rate you have in selling your existing customers or clients is going to be the best direction to go.

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Markham Room: What I mean by that is Don't focus so much on capturing New Market share, and i'm going to come back to that. I'm not saying, Don't, capture new markets here. I'm not saying, Don't, go after new new customers, but focus intently on your existing customers and broaden your perspectives. Broaden your ideas, and how you can help them.

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Markham Room: Has there ever been a situation where a customer came to you for something you didn't normally offer? And you were able to help them out. Anybody had that situation. I can tell you of companies that did that, and that became a whole new business line.

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Markham Room: So you've already got an existing relationship. They already trust you. They're potentially going through some downtimes, just as you are.

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Markham Room: Focus on the relationships with your existing customers or clients.

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Markham Room: and it can be as easy as dropping in or picking up the phone or sending an email and saying, hey, I wanted to check in. How are things Don't go with the intent of selling go with the intention of helping.

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Markham Room: Okay.

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Markham Room: So again, not trying to oversimplify this, but too many of us, when the economy changes we find our new prospects are harder to close. That creates frustration. What do we do? We just work harder at the same thing.

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Markham Room: and if you do have a bigger company where other people are servicing your existing clients, you may find You're a bit disconnected with them. You have to reconnect with them. Okay, we'll talk more about that in a few minutes here. So

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Markham Room: here's what happens when the economy

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Markham Room: slows down typically first off. And I i'm saying suppliers which is meant to represent us. You might not consider yourself a supplier depending on your clients. But you know what i'm saying right? So typically what tends to happen is a company engages less

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Markham Room: sorry engagement with existing suppliers increases, so it's what we just said a second ago, which is the economy. Slow down. Who am I going to buy from the people I already know, like and trust? I know what i'm getting. I know what to expect and think about Covid. Right? People actually created little networks of their suppliers, little communities to help one another out.

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Markham Room: So there's great opportunities with existing clients. However.

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Markham Room: the willingness to entertain new suppliers, new companies, external tends to diminish. Why? Because we don't know them that well. But there's a scenario where they may consider external suppliers.

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Markham Room: What would that be? What's the situation that may say? Yeah, you know it's interesting. Tell me more.

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Markham Room: One work. price.

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Markham Room: You can have a lower price. Oh, interesting times are tough. This person's got a low price. Let me hear what they have to say is that where you want to be

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Markham Room: getting your foot in the door with a lower price. Not necessarily. It's hard to move them back up that ladder when the economy rebounds right, so we have to consider that

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Markham Room: your customers, your clients, are more willing to engage with the suppliers the contractors right. The people they already know number one number 2. It's harder to get in the door of new companies who don't know you unless you're willing. I shouldn't say, drop your pants is inappropriate, but unless you're willing to drop your price, and that's not where we want to start. The third thing you have to consider is that even past customers or clients, there's still a relationship there unless it did not end well.

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Markham Room: If it just ended, maybe they found somebody else. Maybe they moved. Maybe your price was a little bit off, but the relationship was still there. There's still a source there.

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Markham Room: So the reason I share this, and what I want you to be thinking about is not necessarily generating new business. But think about what was the last time I connected with my existing customers and my existing clients.

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Markham Room: How's their business going?

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Markham Room: Where they at? Is there something I can help with? Second to that. Think about past customers or clients? What's the last time I talked to Joe at Company ABC. That we ended business with, maybe a year or 2 ago. Those are your best 2 sources of opportunities when the economy slows.

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Markham Room: because there's already an existing relationship.

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Markham Room: Now, here's the caveat. I'm not suggesting you, Don't. Go after new business, because let's face it.

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Markham Room: If the economy slows some of your competitors will slow their business development. They'll focus internally, right. They'll say, okay, we're going to cut some staff. We're to slow things down. We're not going to invest in marketing and advertising. That could be an opportunity for you to gain some market share.

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Markham Room: So i'm not suggesting Don't go knock on the door of new companies, but I am suggesting Don't. Make that your top priority start first with the people that know you make sense.

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Markham Room: Yeah, okay, all right. So I wanted to put this into perspective again from the perspective of your customers or your clients. When the economy sells down, where does their head go? Well? They make decisions based on 2 main factors, number one urgency

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Markham Room: and number 2 value. So, for example.

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Markham Room: if the urgency for what they need is low.

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Markham Room: and the value of what you provide is low. So this is like selling ice in the middle of winter.

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Markham Room: Not a high demand, I mean, I guess, in some situations, or is, but not a high demand. Right? So that, said they'll just dismiss it. They'll say, I don't need this right now. It's not. I don't see anything of value. No urgent, nor would you need. I'm just going to dismiss this.

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Markham Room: But if the urgency increases, so now I need this. It's the middle of summer, and I do need ice. But what you're offering me is the same nice everybody else offers. I gotta go pick it up. The price isn't anything special, so there's no value there for me.

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Markham Room: Then I go, hey? Maybe I can invest this elsewhere, maybe going to invest in a nice machine. Maybe it's time I get my own cooler and hold on to my own ice right

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Markham Room: now. Let's say you increase the value. What you're You're delivering ice door to door and 30 degree temperatures in a cooler hand it over. You'll even walk it into their freezer

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Markham Room: that has value. especially if they're having a pool party, and by pools right. They're in the pool party in the back that has value.

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Markham Room: But if the urgency isn't there, I show up on Tuesday at noon, when they're at work.

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Markham Room: Are they buying my ice

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Markham Room: now? What they're going to do is delay. The investment. They're going to say, Well, we'll wait. We'll wait on this, you know. I mean, this sounds great.

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Markham Room: but I really don't need it right now, so i'll wait. Hold on.

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Markham Room: That's what happened. Think about it during Covid right? The reason we had all of this built up demand is because people were sitting on cash. We heard at the time Nobody had money right. Remember that companies don't have money. Nobody's buying. That was baloney. They were sitting on money which created the boom afterwards, because they said, Well, look at all this money. Let's go spend it right

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Markham Room: where we really want to focus on is where we're creating urgency and value and what we're selling.

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Markham Room: So what I want you to be thinking about from your customer or clients. Perspective is, how can I create a sense of urgency? And we'll talk more about that? And how do I add value?

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Markham Room: And that can be as simple as asking yourself, what are my competitors offering today? And how can I differentiate myself?

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Markham Room: I because they're in the same boat as you.

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Markham Room: You're offering the same thing as you, and if we do what they do, we're not going to stand out. We're not going to be able to suggest the value or help creators to see.

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Markham Room: So it takes a little bit of creativity.

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Markham Room: all right. So started, simple, maybe jumped a little too complex, too quick. But let's go through the steps I want you to take as it pertains to your business, and dealing with.

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Markham Room: let's say, a slower economy. All right. So

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Markham Room: first thing

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Markham Room: you have to consider this: this is a study done by Gartner, released end of 2,020, so it's not that old, and they study. Now, if you're selling to business, They studied B Twob. Transactions, and they said.

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Markham Room: How much time are people spending when it relates to making a business like a buy decision today. So they broke it down in this manner. So i'm going to start at 120'clock and go counterclockwise. So Top left, they found that people are spending 27% of their time researching online

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Markham Room: really no surprise if we think about all of us. Right? We go to Google. We go online and we research but 27% of their total time is spent on research online

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Markham Room: now across from that if you go diagonally. 18%

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Markham Room: is researching offline, Otherwise go to a conference. Go to a trade show, call somebody I know. Drop by a storefront. Okay.

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Markham Room: put those together almost 50 of their time they spent researching before they buy.

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Markham Room: Okay, now, you'll notice the 22% bottom left right around 70'clock. If this was a clock that's meeting with a buying group. The other thing to study found is that buying decisions are rarely one person nowadays. It's more people.

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Markham Room: So i'm bringing in more people the decision to try and make a better decision. But 22% of our my time is actually meeting with those people, and each one of those people is coming to that meeting With what

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Markham Room: what do they bring into the meeting?

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Markham Room: Their own research? Right? I was online. I found this. Oh, you were online. You found that. And we're okay. Well, who's right? Who's wrong? And what's the best decision?

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Markham Room: The study also goes on to talk about how making a buy decision is becoming more and more difficult for people actually buying, and that making by decisions most of us regret it

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Markham Room: afterwards, because we hear new information we go. Oh.

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Markham Room: what have I done? I shouldn't have done this right. The 16% is spent on other stuff. We won't worry about that. I want you to notice the top

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Markham Room: right corner. 17 is spent meeting with potential suppliers

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Markham Room: A. K. A. U.

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Markham Room: Now the kicker here is that that 17 is split up, based on the number of suppliers they're meeting with. So it's not 17 for each of the 2 or 3 companies. It's 17, divided by the 2 or 3 companies. So very. We have very little time.

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Markham Room: right of our customers of our clients actually make the sale, and if you're in sales, that's a challenging situation to be in, because you're paid to sell right. So if you're finding it difficult to sell, even in an up economy.

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Markham Room: This might be one of the reasons why economy slows. As I said, things shift a bit. Okay. Anybody feeling excited, rejuvenated, and ready to walk out here at this point

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Markham Room: to sell, or if I depress the heck out of you. Yeah, almost You're almost there. We'll get you there. We'll get you there all right. So I had a client who sales brackets. You could not find anything more exciting.

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Markham Room: Then. Metal brackets of all sizes and shapes. That's sarcasm. By the way, the metal brackets is not exciting. They've been doing it for 100 years. It's an old manufacturing plan. They saw brackets, so

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Markham Room: I was actually helping them launch sales in Mexico. A lot of if you know much about manufacturing all the big companies like caterpillar, and such are in Mexico. So I was going down with one of their employees, and we're trying to get some business going.

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Markham Room: So long. Story short, met with a gentleman several times, and he seemed excited about their brackets, which surprised me. But that's good. So I finally go back to seeing but the fourth time, and I said, hey, i'm back again. Great to see you, you know. Appreciate those drawings. I gave you a quote. What do you think

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Markham Room: it's just Shawn? I got to be honest with you. I mean. Why would I change my current supplier to you? Like

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Markham Room: It's brackets, I think, like your brackets, their bracket, their brackets, your bracket, you got the same steel, the same coding. Okay, your prices maybe a hair more. But the time I train everybody I get rid of my inventory I bring it, he said. It's it's not worth it to me.

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Markham Room: It's not worth it.

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Markham Room: And I thought, oh, my gosh, right! I just realized that when it comes to making a new sale. This is when the economy is up. The challenge is not just that i'm trying to convince this person to buy for me. But i'm also trying to dethrone the existing relationship they have with somebody else, and unless that person is not doing well.

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Markham Room: that's challenging. If they've got a good relationship.

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Markham Room: right? That's a big barrier to overcome and see if you have you going? Heck: yeah, right? So what you have to think about. And when I had to go back in this situation and figure out is what is the business impact

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Markham Room: of making this shift to this other? This Bracket Company right. And here's why I say business impact. If I go in and say we've got nice brackets, good quality brackets. So what so does our current supplier? If I say we've got a good price in our brackets. So what

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Markham Room: But if I can demonstrate a business impact, meaning if you start to buy your brackets from us. We're going to store brackets on our site and in Mexico, so you can access some in under 24 h. We will have them on your door each and every morning only the number of brackets you need

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Markham Room: right rather than we'll ship you a truckload, and you got to store those brackets somewhere as you use them, and then remember to order. We're gonna manage the inventory for you. We'll house it like not even an hour down the road every day. You just tell us which need will ship it to you. No more inventory. You gain back floor space.

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Markham Room: Right quality issues is less to deal with, because i'm shipping a fewer brackets if there is. And by the way you won't have quality issues with these brackets. Now, that would have an impact on their business because their number One issue was, we know, a floor space.

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Markham Room: all right.

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Markham Room: So you have to think about your product or service in terms of from your customer or clients standpoint, and ask yourself what is an impact of buying from me or buying our thing?

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Markham Room: What is the impact on our customer or client that makes sense. It's not an easy question, because we typically go to quality responsiveness, price, right? But that's your competitors are doing. You gotta start to think a little bit creatively. But what's the impact

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Markham Room: that I can have right? And then, when you talk to them, you speak from that impact.

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Markham Room: So going into the next company in Mexico, the first thing I led with was the impact. As you know, we're just talking Xyz Company, right? Not a competitor. One of the things they were interested in hearing about was how we were going to actually manage the inventory of brackets.

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Markham Room: They didn't have them on the floor they save floor Space, by the way, is is for a space a challenge for you here. Yeah, Absolutely. Oh, interesting. Okay? Well, here's how we the program we're going to set up for them. Is that something you're interested in?

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Markham Room: So I led with the impact and suddenly they're willing to listen. Versus yeah, yeah, get back to me raising brackets. Who cares? So you have to think about the impact your product or service has on your customers or clients. And if you don't know if you think and you're stuck, what could you do to figure out?

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Markham Room: He guesses?

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Markham Room: Ask them, Take a good customer or clients in. Let me ask you a question. You can call them after this session today.

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Markham Room: Actually, I dare you. after today's session.

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Markham Room: take an existing customer client. Call them up. How are you? How are things? I just heard Some guy can't remember his name talking about sales, and I got a question for you. You've been dealing with us for whatever 6 months, 6 years it over the cases, presumably things are still going well. What is the impact that our product or service has had in your company.

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Markham Room: and they might go. Oh, impact keepers, I don't know. Then you say you know what I've just thrown this at you.

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Markham Room: Do me a favor if you want some time to think about it. Can I call you a Friday and just check him? They're probably going to say Yes, you call them Friday, right?

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Markham Room: Your customers or clients will tell you what the impact is, and you may be surprised at what they share. But when they tell you that that's gold. That's what you lead with in the next conversation. Not your price, not your responsiveness, because people expect that

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Markham Room: that your competitors are talking about

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Markham Room: right? So you've got to figure out what the business impact is on your customer or client.

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Here's a simple formula: If you want to figure out. How do I calculate this?

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Markham Room: Take the benefits of your product or service that you identify, or that your customers or clients identify. identify the potential impact on customer revenue.

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Markham Room: You see, in a down economy. If I can support my clients in a way that saves the money or avoids cost for them. That adds value. That is, impact.

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Markham Room: right? So i'm selling you something for 10 bucks. But by buying my thing, maybe i'm reducing the risk that has a cost associated.

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Markham Room: And what are your customers or clients thinking about when the economy is down?

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They don't want to spend money.

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Markham Room: so if we can tie back what we're offering to reducing cost, increasing efficiency, reducing risk and stick a dollar number behind that.

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Markham Room: Now we're showing impact. And now we're getting people's attention all right

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missed opportunity cost. If you don't start today

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Markham Room: right. We could have done this 3 years ago. Think all the mighty was saved, and then pick a reasonable duration. 3 years might be a little bit excessive, and there you have it. Now one thing I want to say, i'm happy to share these slides to whomever to get these back to you at the end. So don't don't worry about that. Not many of you look worried, but if you are, i'll send them through. You'll get a copy if you want. Okay.

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Markham Room: All right. So business impact.

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Markham Room: I said, I want to go through. I'm gonna i'm gonna keep this rolling just to make sure we end on time. So that is a picture of a truck that is very similar to a truck we bought last year 2,016 for all right, and bought the truck drove at home. So I bought it in a really live near on sound. I told you Driving at home is a vibration in the truck.

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Markham Room: so they get home. My call makes it a vibration, they said. Okay, bring it back. We'll rebalance the tires so great. Take it back 2 h next weekend, right balance of tires driving home. What do you think? I have

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Markham Room: still got a vibration? So I go to my local for deal, and i'm like, Look, I drop it off the service tech she's like, okay, we're gonna take care of this for you. I tell her the tires have been balanced.

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Markham Room: So don't worry about that. There's something else going on.

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Markham Room: so I get a call trucks ready. Going to pick up the truck, she says, okay, so we bounce your tires

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Markham Room: as you what

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Markham Room: I I told you don't buy on. No, I don't need to tell your mouse, I told you, and it said, let me go Talk to the service Manager Service manager comes out to me.

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Markham Room: he says, sir, where did you buy this truck. I'm like, oh, here's the pitch, right? Because I didn't buy from them. He's gonna I. So I bought it. And really, he says, okay.

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Markham Room: so we have balance of tires. We did that to eliminate that. I said, Well, so did the other person, but he said, there's something I want you to know. These trucks have an issue worthy and I'm. Not a mechanic, but the ring and opinion in the rear end can prematurely wear, causing a vibration in the drive train.

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Markham Room: I said, oh.

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Markham Room: and he says, do you have warranty in this truck? I said, yeah, it was 30 days. It ended about 3 days ago. Right, is it? Well, I would suggest, because, he said, I can take it apart and verify that for you. But by the time I take it apart. You're 800 bucks in. You might as well do the work.

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Markham Room: Oh.

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Markham Room: so I called the other dealer. They were nice enough. I can't speak highly enough. They actually talked to that dealer. Let that dealer do the work. $2,457 later there. Was a ring and venue issue ring and opinion issues. Excuse me.

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Markham Room: So what I want to suggest you with that example is that Service manager did not have to come out of the back room to say that.

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Markham Room: but he peaked in my interest when he did, he got me thinking a little bit differently about the situation. I mean it's just a vibration right. The tires are probably at a balance. If it's not that it's probably the drive shaft. I don't know right.

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Markham Room: but he come out with some information that maybe go. Holy cow. I never thought of it that way.

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Markham Room: The second thing you've got to think about when it comes to getting the attention of clients, past clients, and even new prospects during the downtime is identifying blind spots that require your buyers immediate attention.

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Markham Room: You've got to sit back and look at your client or customers business, and say, what are they not thinking about right now that I could use when i'm speaking to them that's going to get their attention. Well, could I share? What information could I provide? What insights could I share and think Back to that shop manager to him. And here's the Kicker right to him.

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Markham Room: That was just no big deal. Yeah, these trucks are known for their 2,016. It's been going on for years. I had no idea.

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Markham Room: Now you Google, it it's all over the place. But I had no idea. So just because for you it's obvious doesn't mean it's obvious for your client or your customer.

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Markham Room: So you've got to challenge yourself to say, what are some blind spots, some things that my clients, your customers might not be thinking about that. By working with us, using our services or product we can help them avoid.

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Markham Room: That makes sense. Right? So again, you'll get a copy of this. So you Here's kind of a definition of what I want you to think about and think back to that Service manager who did not have to come out of the background. Now they made a 2,457 sale

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Markham Room: The parts I think were like $500. It's all labor.

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Markham Room: So essentially, whether you like it or not, he made the sale right. He didn't have to tell me that he could have taken this 150 bucks for the tire balance and moved on. But he made a sale, kept his people busy.

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Markham Room: and made me believe or not a happy customer. I'll take anything back there now. I trust that guy with any vehicle I have.

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Markham Room: and this will probably be the last forward Pick up. I buy that, said the next thing I want you to think about When it comes to the economy being down or slow, we often think about discounting right. We think about price

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Markham Room: number one, maybe because you're getting some push back on price. But also we're thinking I got to get some business in the door. Here. I'm going to reduce my price to try and get make that happen.

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Markham Room: There's some problems with that, and we talked before. But as soon as you drop your price. It's hard to get people back up. We've been through an unusual time

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Markham Room: during Covid. I don't know about you, but i'm pretty sure people are still using Covid as an excuse for price increases. Anybody else have that feeling. My wife says to me she goes. She calls me one day from the grocery store. She says, okay, I've had it.

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Markham Room: I like, Where Where are you? She says. I'm. At the grocery store. I said, okay.

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Markham Room: how is a jar of peanut butter. $8 that doesn't make. It was $5 last week now is $3. Was there a peanut shortage somewhere, and I said, I don't think so. I'm not really sure. And then we went on the hunt for cheaper peanut butter. Now i'm not saying craft is trying to take advantage of the situation.

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Markham Room: But what we're experiencing in inflation, and I've heard, heard some economic economists excuse me, say, this is that ultimately there's been some price increases have happened that maybe weren't necessarily because of covid or supply issues. Right?

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Markham Room: So that said customers were accepting of that.

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Markham Room: the tides have changed, especially if the economy sold down customers. Aren't: necessarily going to say, yeah, yeah, it's okay. Go ahead. We just need it. Send it right. Help me. That's that is shifting quickly. So if you've been on that boat

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Markham Room: right, it's maybe time to realize it's going to slow.

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Markham Room: You've got to come up with other reasons and and more value, never go back to value and urgency that you share. So you've got to make sure, though, that you avoid discounting Don't. Drop your price, so maybe you can't, jack the price up. But you don't want to drop it, either.

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Markham Room: and there's a few reasons why

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Markham Room: on the far far left. Well, far, yeah, far left to both of you Caving the price pressure leaves our buyer with one question: how low will they go

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Markham Room: now? If you're thinking. Okay, now, I don't think that's the case. Shawn.

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Markham Room: Early Early early in my career I worked in purchasing

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Markham Room: had a degree that did a little side thing, and I I was a purchaser. I was a buyer for a company, and anytime anybody gave me a lower price. That's the question that comes up. Okay, you discounted, even if you give me a good reason. So well, it's it's I don't know Monday at 9 am. And typically we drop a price by 5%

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Markham Room: right to make sure we don't have to wait till noon to close this. I mean, the question that comes up is okay. So I got 5. Can I get 10? How do I get 10?

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Markham Room: So there's a risk of dropping your price, especially if it's requested of you because you leave them with the question as to how long will they go? And even if you say, well, this is a one time thing. The next time

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Markham Room: they're gonna Say, i'm gonna call that person right? I'm gonna call Shawn because last thing we drop this price. What if I could get that discount again, or maybe more of a discount.

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Markham Room: I'm not saying, never discount. I'm seeing being very selective.

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tie your discounting back to that value.

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Markham Room: So if i'm adding value, i'm helping you with something. Maybe i'm going to sell you insurance. Who's insurance insurance? So it's all right. So yeah, broken like right? So maybe going to sell you insurance, and this is a bad example. But i'll i'll use it anyways, going to sell you insurance, and typically we would do that virtually.

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Markham Room: But i'm talking to somebody who's a little bit older, and something that's going to make them more comfortable if I can go to their house, and they happen to be on my way home. It would add value to stop buying. So if you're more comfortable seeing somebody face to face, i'll stop by. I'll walk you through everything you'll get to know who you're going to be dealing with, or at least one of those people right? So there's simple ways to add value. But if they say, i'm not willing

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Markham Room: to pay your price. Well, then. unfortunately, I can't stop by

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Markham Room: right. When we reduce value we can reduce price, but don't just drop the price for the sake of drop in the price, or because you get feedback, You've got to reduce the value of what you're offering, and you do those things in parallel, then it makes sense, because later I want the price to go up. I increase the value.

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Markham Room: Say, Well, last time you didn't get this thing if you want this thing. Here's the price, right? The second thing I want you to consider is that objections push back counter offers are all a sign of interest. Anybody here still get prank. Call not prey calls. What do you call them?

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Markham Room: Cold calls people calling you to sell you something. Anybody Get those Still.

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Markham Room: Wow! I do. You need to register some domains. You'll get constant calls right trying to build your website. I don't know how they get your name, but nonetheless. So when you get these calls, if you don't want to talk to the person, what do you do?

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Markham Room: Hang up, don't answer it right. Don't. Give them any of my time

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Markham Room: if somebody takes the time to tell you. You know what, sir, what's your name?

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Markham Room: Andrew? Okay, Sorry. I just keep looking you. This I'm going to use as an example. Let's say, Andrew calls me your financial

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Markham Room: corporate tax. That's close.

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Markham Room: I did financial kind of right. So so Andrew and I are having a conversation. Andrew suggests to me You know how I can maybe help him. He gives me a proposal, maybe for what he can do to help me out. I say, no, Andrew, that's you know. It's really good. I appreciate you, you know, putting time into this proposal, but I just

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Markham Room: I don't think right now. It's it's a good time for us right.

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Markham Room: I just invested a minute of my time, and and probably more than that to get back to you. What what the objections tell us is there's something there.

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Markham Room: right? And don't jump to the conclusion. This price, even if they say price. Everybody says Price, you know why? Because it's the only thing you can compare on any quote You give me a quote, and I get a quote from somebody else does something similar.

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Markham Room: I don't understand the technicalities of what you're doing. The only thing I can compare is what you're 3,000, and they're 10,000 right? That that's the only thing I can relate to, because i'm not the expert you are

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Markham Room: so when it comes to me investing time in telling you this. Can't do it, or price is too high, or it's just not going to be soon enough. I'm investing time. If they didn't care they wouldn't invest the time. You'd never hear from them again. It'd be over. So if somebody is taking the time to object, you should be excited.

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Markham Room: Somebody says you know what your price is is too high, and that's great

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Markham Room: right, because i'm thinking they're talking to me. We're having this means. There's still a chance here that we could do something with this. So Don't get discouraged objections or sign of interest; and last, but not least, we talked about this already value influences price.

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Markham Room: so the greater the perceived value of our product or service, the higher the expected price. If you are pushed on price don't discount without reducing the value. Intern.

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Markham Room: Okay.

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All right.

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Markham Room: The other thing to consider here. Is it so? This is a quote from Gerald. So 95 of our purchase decisions take place unconsciously. The reason I put this in here is you have to realize that in somebody is objecting

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Markham Room: right, and they're they're telling you this isn't going to work the decisions off. Times are made in the subconscious mind, not the conscious mind, meaning what I tell you is not necessarily the reality.

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Markham Room: And here's an example that you can probably all relate to. So anybody here who bought a car

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Markham Room: used or new right most people have.

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Markham Room: So at the time you're considering buying a car. There was probably a problem with your current car. Either you didn't have one where your current was breaking down or you have an issues start thinking. Maybe I better buy a car. You do some research. Remember that earlier we looked at how time spent you do some online research, maybe talk to some friends, you notice suddenly. There's you know, a 1 million Toyota cameras or Honda Civics out there. You never noticed them before, right. But nonetheless, we do the research. We start considering the car.

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Markham Room: We're like, yeah, okay, I don't know if it was the right time. A lot of money, you know. and then it just sits with us. One day the car breaks down the side of the road leaves the Strand to relate for a meeting

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Markham Room: right, and we go home that night for her new car right, or go to a dealer that night trade in the car. We're dumb with it.

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Markham Room: The reason why that happened is because, although that decision has been sitting there, and we've been processing it unconsciously, it's the emotional trigger of the car breaking down, being late for the meeting. That makes us go. That's it.

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Markham Room: It might be the emotional trigger of somebody buying a car and bringing it over going. Oh, my gosh! If I look at these! This is an amazing car. A car buying a car is an emotional experience, whether you know it or not.

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Markham Room: So it's emotional triggers that set us off. But the decision making is actually going on for people in behind the scenes. So when they're raising an objection, you have to realize they've been processing and thinking about this all along.

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Markham Room: right. They've invested more time than just that moment.

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Markham Room: and so don't take objections as something to move you away. You don't want to be annoying and keep going after it. But the logical questions, and it says your prices to all your delivery is too long. Right? Just don't need this right now. Say, okay, and this is a trick we used to use. I sold cars and by sole cars here, you know

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Markham Room: I sold cars for period time, so you probably recognize this. So so what's your name, Richard? So let's say, Richard, you come in. You're looking at a an on the suite right looking at the Honda Civic. We talk about it, and you say you know it's, John. I

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Markham Room: I I I don't. I don't think this on the same to me. You know whatever prices wrong, colors wrong, and I would say, Well, let me ask you a question, Richard.

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Markham Room: If I could get that red color you're looking for today, would you be willing to sign the agreement? Right?

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Markham Room: You might say, yeah, so that right. And what i'm doing is i'm taking that objection and flushing it out. I'm trying to figure it as there's something behind it, because a lot of people say it's the price, but it's not the price, or it's the color, but it's not the color. There's something else might find out that Richard wants to bring his wife in to test, drive the car right before

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Markham Room: right. It makes sense. So you can challenge people when they give you an objection. Say, Well, if I can solve that for you here, now or today.

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Markham Room: are you willing to move forward? And then you and see what they say? Okay, you'll find out if that's the true objection. Or if there's something else going on. Okay, all right.

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Markham Room: Number 4. Introduce offer urgency. Ain't ever heard of the book words that sell. If you're in sales, and you do not have this book, I would highly recommend it. It is a book packed full. It's about 200 pages of words and phrases. They're all emotionally laden words, and they give you when you will use these phrases or words, how you can use them.

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Markham Room: So if you realize that it's emotional triggers that get people to buy, we've got to make sure we're using emotional language both in our conversations and in our proposals and quotes.

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Markham Room: So I've given you some examples rather than say, Well, this is new. You could say this has never been seen before. This is unheard of right. These are all emotionally charged

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Markham Room: words and phrases, but what they do is they're meant or designed to trigger the person to want to actually make a by decision. Okay, so I highly recommend that book. If you're anything to do with sales.

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Markham Room: but also you can incorporate scarcity. Now, I said earlier, you know, as as far as Covid being over, a lot of people are a little more relaxed. We're not pushing for so much urgency, but people were also trained

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Markham Room: that it's not uncommon if I can't deliver something to you today. If you want our services, you want our insurance, you want our legal firm to help you. And I say it's going to be 6 weeks right. People are a little more patient than they were pre-covid not everybody, but many people, because they're accustomed to waiting

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Markham Room: right. So you can still use this when it comes to trying to make a sale.

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Markham Room: So you're trying to close it today, and they're saying, Well, we're gonna think about it. It's gonna be a month before we get back to you. You could say, Well, that's absolutely understand.

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Markham Room: You you need to take time to go through this. I completely understand. First off, if I answered all of your questions today and they say, yeah, absolutely say, okay, something. I should just let you know

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Markham Room: we've got 3 other clients looking at something similar. So if you decide at the end of the month, which is absolutely fine, and it will follow up. We might be bumped out a bit, because our capacity may be constrained, but I feel it's my obligation to let you know

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Markham Room: right polite way of saying, hey, you know what you should commit today, and then you can follow that up with something like.

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Markham Room: and recognizing you're maybe not ready to make a decision. Another thing we could do to hold your spot is just

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Markham Room: right. Put down a deposit. I'll. I'll guarantee you i'll give it back. If you change your mind. We can take step. One I guarantee i'm not going to make you commit to step 2. If you decide not to receive right, because once I get them there I just want to take a single step. I'm looking for one. Yes, from them to get this rolling.

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Markham Room: Okay.

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All right.

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Markham Room: Number 5 for you.

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Markham Room: The main focus is to control your time

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Markham Room: when it comes to. So for those of you who are in sales. I'm going to ask you, and is not a trick question if You' to look at your calendar.

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Markham Room: and I asked you how much of your time, and your weekly calendar is actually spent selling like talking to prospects and clients with the intent trying to sell them. Would you say that is greater than 10 h a week, or less than 10 h

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Markham Room: greater.

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Markham Room: about 10 h. So that's a so a good example. So about 10 h. and yet there's 40 plus depending if you're a entrepreneur on the plus side. But there's at least 40 h of work week. But there's all this other stuff we have to do right. We have to attend internal meetings and external meetings. We've got personal obligations. We got paperwork to do.

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Markham Room: but the problem is

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Markham Room: when the economy changes. We have to look at that calendar and say, Where am I spending my time? 10 h as an example? Maybe that should be 20 h. Maybe it should be 30 h.

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You need to dedicate more of your time to revenue generating activities.

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Markham Room: And this is something I I almost want to suggest. This is a I don't want to say a trick. but i'll go in and work with sales, teams.

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Markham Room: and the first thing I do is say, open up your calendar. Okay, highlight all the selling activities. Usually it's like 8 h a week.

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Markham Room: No, and that's on average. And I said, Well, first off, let's just start to block out more time

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Markham Room: right to do, because the number one complaint is, I didn't have enough time. I'm too busy just to be able to. How can we clear some meetings and block at some time and dedicate it to selling activities and then or organize your day? So you're not coming in and go. Okay, it's 80'clock. What am I going to do today? Right. Plan your day, the end of yesterday for the day before. So you're ready to go when you hit 80'clock. You know what you're doing

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Markham Room: right. We really have to focus our time and revenue generating activities. That's your biggest risk. Not being able to sell, because people still need what you have to sell. There's still demand might be less, but you can get it, but not if you're not spending your time focusing on.

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Okay, the other thing I wanted to just and we're gonna wrap up here in a minute. But

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Markham Room: I want you to think about it this way. We talked at the beginning about the the opportunity with existing clients and past clients for this already. Trust. What you have to realize is that when it comes to selling

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Markham Room: every opportunity that you close right, every new sale is at least

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Markham Room: 3 additional sales right because I've got the initial sale.

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Markham Room: I've got the upsell, so maybe you can sell them a longer term, more coverage. A bigger pool features for the pool right? There's the upsell opportunity. Then there's the resell.

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Markham Room: The resell is even with a pool. Eventually they'll need a liner, or they're going to move and need a new pool right. That insurance term is going to be up, and they're going to be considering their insurance again

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Markham Room: right? So there's always a resell the differences depending on what you sell. But that length of time may extend. But last, but not least, there's referral opportunities.

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Markham Room: So if you go to the idea that okay, yeah, it makes sense. It's easier for me to sell to existing clients and customers when the economy slow, because they know me, there's there's trust there already.

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Markham Room: because they trust you know you. They're your best source for new opportunities.

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Markham Room: They can help open the door to new opportunities. You just call them up. How are you. How are things good to hear from you? It's been a while, etc., etc. I had a question for it. We've actually been able to, you know. Wrap up some big projects.

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Markham Room: and i'm just curious. Is there somebody else, you know, in the retail sector insurance, whatever whatever it is, you're selling to whatever sector you're selling to, that you know that you think might be interested in our services.

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Markham Room: And then the key is, you don't say anything. You sit there in silence. The first person that steps in the silence loses.

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Markham Room: If your salesperson that'll get you to stay there in silence right because in sales we want to jump in. It's silence for 2 s. We're like, you know. I just see this at yeah, so i'll maybe call you back tomorrow, and then they dismiss it. So you got to ask the question, and then sit there and wait. And if they say

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Markham Room: you know what i'm just i'm not really sure right now you say I completely man, I kind of threw this at you. It's not really fair. Can I give you a call back Friday? How's 10 am? Look just 5 min. Give you some time to think through

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Markham Room: who you think might be interested if they say No, no, I don't really know anybody. Say, okay, you again completely understand. Are there any associations you ever been to like a Toronto Board of Trade Event? Anybody you met as a member there that you think right, so I can keep going. But if you realize that, why, i'm going to reach out connect with existing clients, they can open new doors for you.

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Markham Room: and it's going to be so much easier than you Trying to open those doors.

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Markham Room: Referrals is the number one underrated strategy of any sales professional period. I think the stats are something like 43% of top performing sales. Professionals actually ask for referrals like not even half of the top top top performers.

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Markham Room: So you can imagine, if you started doing this, ask one client or one customer every week for referral just one.

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Markham Room: How would that expand. because they might give you 2 or 3 names.

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Markham Room: And even if you go to try and sell one of those, and you don't close it, Here's my favorite strategy. When it comes to referrals

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Markham Room: you put a proposal forward

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Markham Room: right? The person says, You know what. Now we've we've decided we're not going to move ahead. You try and flush out the objection, but it becomes clear right now. Is not the time. Okay, that's fair.

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Markham Room: Let me ask you a quick question. Is there somebody else, you know, in the industrial supply market around here that might also appreciate our products or services?

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Markham Room: I'm. Asking for referral from a lost account.

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Markham Room: and it works because they feel guilty, most of them for not moving ahead with you. Right. There's a little bit of an exchange there, so it's my time to capitalize on that by asking for referral people will actually be guilty. And yeah, you know what? Yeah, I kind of feel bad. Let me introduce you to Bob. They might need your services. They're down the road.

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Markham Room: so you can ask for referrals, and I would suggest, as far as new business acquisition during slow times. This is the strategy you focus on. Ask for referrals from existing clients, past clients, and even new clients. If they don't become a client.

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Markham Room: You do that. It's gonna be a lot easier for you. A lot easier than picking up the phone, knocking on doors, mailing letters.

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Markham Room: right?

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All right.

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Markham Room: So here's what we touched on, as it relates to selling. When the economy slows.

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Markham Room: you have to make sure you focus on demonstrating a business impact. You have to get clear on what the impact is for your products or services on your customer or clients business. And if you don't know, ask them. Ask a computer from existing clients. Get their feedback. Use that in your language and your meetings and in your interactions

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Markham Room: be provocative, share blinds, but share perspectives that your clients or customers might not be thinking of things that could place them at risk. that they're not seeing.

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Okay.

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Markham Room: avoid discounting. And if you do have to discount, make sure you reduce value along with reducing price. Those go hand in hand.

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Introduce, offer urgency, use more emotional words. If you're somebody that's

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Markham Room: let's say more of a

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Markham Room: trying to say this correctly. Anybody ever done like a disk assessment like a behavioral assessment at all right. You find there's there's highly analytical people and highly outgoing people. There's drivers right there's all these different styles. If you're somebody is more of a maybe an introvert.

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Markham Room: or you're maybe not as outgoing. This is going to be hard for you, but you've got to start to use language and words, and even your own energy right to try and influence people because it's a motion that makes people act

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Markham Room: information logic. They're just going to think more about. Oh, that's great thanks for more information on that number. One thing sales people say, oh, you're not ready. Let me give you some more information. It's just going to get them to think more about it.

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Markham Room: I want to get them to act, and the only way to do that is to trigger some emotions which I can use with my language, whether it's in person or through the proposal, or quote and give me some examples of that. And then last, but at least control your time. Focus on where you're spending your energy. I challenge you to open up your calendar. If you're in sales, take a look at how many hours you're spending on selling activities and double it.

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Markham Room: Double it, because you and I both know if you're having some success today, and you double down on the time you're spending

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Markham Room: you, you're gonna have more success right as simple as that.

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Markham Room: So this guy here kind of creeps me out every time I see him. But that's why I put him up here.

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Markham Room: He is meant to represent your competitor.

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Markham Room: and you've heard me say a few times today that if you're trying to deal with a down market a slow economy. So is your competitor.

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Markham Room: You've really got to start asking yourself. What is my competitor doing.

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Markham Room: and how can I do it differently? How can I do it better? How can I position myself so that I stand out? Because remember the people you're calling on are getting the calls from your competitors.

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Markham Room: and if you happen to be doing, I mean some of you might have worked for the competitor.

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Markham Room: So guaranteed You're doing the same thing. They are because you're learned at one company, and you're taking to the next right. We've got to change our ways, and the best way to do this is focus on that business impact that's your starting point. Ask your clients or customers. See impact or product service has head on your business, or maybe could have, if you haven't sold it. Let's figure that out, and you lead with that because your competitors aren't

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Markham Room: guaranteed they aren't So they're meant to this guy's meant to look evil because he's your competitor. Is that fair?

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Markham Room: Not meant to scare you? Don't have. Don't have, an I probably scared the baby. Now, right didn't. See that. Okay, All right. Cool.

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All right. The youngest person. It should be an award for the youngest sales person in here today. Right?

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Markham Room: Awesome, All right. So, as Ashley mentioned here, and I'm going to jump into some questions for a few minutes. But, as actually mentioned, I wrote a book came out last summer the unstoppable sales machine. If what I say makes sense to you, i'd encourage you to grab a copy if you're dying for one, and you can't afford the 20 bucks an Amazon

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Markham Room: email me, and i'll send you a copy. The only thing I asked is, you give me a

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Markham Room: It doesn't have to be a good, a good review, but give me your view on Amazon, and i'll send you a book. Okay, my dime your review. That's the Exchange, all right if you do want to connect. I'm on Linkedin. There's websites happy to have a conversation if you are in your own business, struggling a bit, and just want to brainstorm, and that's not a pitch. We'll just have a conversation.

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Markham Room: I work with all sorts of businesses, so maybe I can share some insights might be helpful. So with that said, we are at 108, one, fifteen's end time. So I wanted to leave a few minutes for questions. So

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Markham Room: questions.

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Markham Room: Yes, sir.

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Markham Room: Yes, yeah. Oh, so much.

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Markham Room: I don't think so. No little bit. If you think about consumers, I mean when it if i'm selling B to B. It's a little more formal, a little more structured. There's it's easier to create expectations. Because

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Markham Room: yeah, exactly deal with consumer. I might have one consumer that's really nice. Now it's it's crazy right. And and i'm dealing with all sorts of people.

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Markham Room: And so again, though the focus has to be on the person the rules still apply. I I mean, if you're in retail, it's it can be stressful

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Markham Room: right, because you deal with so many people, so many different needs and expectations, and you've got to manage all of that, and somehow try and have a process and a method that allows you to be efficient, which is challenging.

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Markham Room: but I think the rules still apply. I've worked with both retail. I've worked a lot of B Twob. Rules are the same.

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Markham Room: So Yes, sir.

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Markham Room: we talked about that

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Markham Room: Answer your time.

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Markham Room: Sure. What I do about that.

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Markham Room: Yeah.

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Markham Room: yeah, as long as and here's the challenge. Not necessarily a few, for for all of us. So if you heard the question, a lot of his time is spent with. let's say, referral partners, if I can call them that right. Other other businesses and my deal with the same end customer. He's building relationships with them. The ideas will refer back and forth, which is a great strategy. So that is definitely revenue generating as long as and what I find happens is.

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Markham Room: you know you've referred me somebody I've referred to somebody. It happened 3 years ago. Now we've become buddies. We go for beer, and I just love talking to you, and so I tend to avoid the actual. So what do you got for me? Here's what I got for you and I day I was the wife I was the kids. That was your holiday, right? So the challenge is revenue. Focusing is in the task as well.

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Markham Room: We've got to make sure that that conversation that interaction is, yeah, some small talk, right social side. But let's also make sure we talk business, but absolutely

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Markham Room: it. It happens to all of us right. It's it's too easy, like i'm in sales, and I would just rather talk about anything but sales. Sometimes you sit down, somebody, and i'll find I'll get to the end of a sales call. Somebody calls me, and we sit down, and if the conversation takes off.

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Markham Room: and then i'm looking. Going to Crap, I got 10 min left. We Haven't talked a thing about their business right, or anything I could do to help them. So I get. I fall in the same trap. So I got. I go into every meeting, every call with a minimum and a maximum goal. What's the minimum? I'm going to walk away from this meeting or call with what's the maximum? So minimum might be. We're going to agree to a second meeting.

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Markham Room: right? Minimum might be we're going to agree to a a referral maximum. Might be I'm going to close the deal right here right now.

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Markham Room: so it helps guide your time within the time minimum maximum goal for every interaction and but to your point. Those are great revenue generating right? If you get the right people connectors right. I've got a guy that runs a CEO Forum.

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Markham Room: and I get about one or 2 referrals a week

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Markham Room: like I just spoke for him. I got maybe one a year, and all of a sudden, every week he send me something since I spoke for his group. It's crazy. I'm like I gotta take this guy for coffee steak, whatever he needs, right? So great.

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Markham Room: Yeah, let's do that let's connect absolutely absolutely anybody else. Questions.

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Markham Room: Yes.

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Markham Room: all

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okay.

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Markham Room: Austin. Bye.

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Markham Room: Okay. So that's okay. I'll repeat, i'll repeat the question. So it sounds as if and i'll use my words, but you can change them here. It sounds as if you've You've talked to somebody. They're excited to work with you. You might have sent them a proposal. Maybe not. But either way they're interested, and all of a sudden they fall off the face beer.

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So again, every situation is a little bit different, but i'll share a few different views. First off

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Markham Room: the If you think about the conversation that leads up to a proposal, or a quote or whatever it is you're sharing that proposal the whole. I sorry that meeting that discussion, the whole idea is so that when they get the proposal there is no surprises.

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Markham Room: right? So price even

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Markham Room: right. Sometimes, you know, I always tell people if i'm coaching them, you gotta give them an idea of what the price may be, the idea is not to shock them

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Markham Room: right? So the the proposal or quote is simply a summary of everything you talk about in the meeting. So there's 3 ways we could go about this option. One is this 2 is this 3 is this: you know, typically for work like this the price is going to range from a to B right. Is that sound interesting? You? So i'm using the meaning to validate

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Markham Room: the proposal or quote so, for example, for myself, I rarely. I'm almost late sending a proposal or quote

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Markham Room: because I want to make sure we're there. I don't want to go through the work of putting a protocol, a pro quote for proposal together, and they have it disappear. And what can what's, what's probably happening is, I mean, it's there's a chance. Priorities change.

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Markham Room: Something else happened. But if it happens more than I mean once is a you know what's what's the saying? Once is a once. It's something twice as acquaintance and 3 times as an issue, right? So if it's happened more than once.

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Markham Room: Yeah, you got to start to ask yourself. Maybe i'm missing something, an initial conversation, and my guess would be just treat that

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Markham Room: pre proposal meeting as if I want to make sure when you get this, that there's no surprises, and you can even say that

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Markham Room: my proposal I I don't want to be surprised, so i'm going to tell you what it's going to look like what's going to be in it. What the price range is going to be. Is that okay with you? Yeah, Great. Let's go through it. And then here's the key. Before you leave that meeting before you go back to the proposal, you say, let me ask you. Let me ask you a question before we're done here today.

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Markham Room: Is there anything else that's stopping us from moving forward? Is there anything else from stopping us to begin working together, and then to sit there in silence. Okay.

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Markham Room: So so if you're depending on your sequence, if you have one meeting, then a quote or a proposal, then it would be at the end of this first meeting. If you've got 2 meetings, it's the end of the second meeting right? Cause what you'll find is, that's where they'll say.

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Markham Room: Actually, you know, I have to run this by my wife.

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Markham Room: You're like oh, my gosh! There was 2 people should have been involved in this the whole time. And I said, You know what

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Markham Room: I completely appreciate that. Let me ask you a question while we book a second meeting, and all 3 of us can get together and talk this through right? Because then you realize in that case there's 2 people involved. So

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Markham Room: yeah, Great, any other questions before we

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Markham Room: pop up.

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Markham Room: Yes.

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Markham Room: What's your recommendation for

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Markham Room: yeah government relations right over here? It's a

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Markham Room: It's a slow process. highly frustrating. But all the rules apply. So I've sold into government. I find it's very much still focused on relationship, even more so because they're not necessarily playing around with their own money.

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Markham Room: You're selling to a business that's their money. They're trying to decide. Do I go to Barbados or spend on you right? But you're on the government. They're like I got a budget.

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Markham Room: So the good news is there's not necessarily emotional attachment to money. The bad news is there's so many steps to go through. So you just have to be prepared for a longer cycle, and you have to be figuring out in the very beginning stages. Who else may be involved in this decision, because you've got to get to that buying group, and you want to get in front of them.

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Markham Room: Don't. Focus all your time on one person, because I guarantee you're going to get down the path. Think you're good, and then they're going to say, oh, I got to talk to Bob, and you're! Like? Who's Bob? Where did he come from? Right so flush that out in the early stages, and then invest your time building all the relationship. I called the decision-makers, and the decision influencers. You got to get them all

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Markham Room: because they're all going to sit down and make a decision if they move ahead.

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Yeah. awesome. Well, look, I think we're on to. Is it time, Ashley? Here? My.

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Markham Room: I think we're on time. Yeah, 1 min after i'm late. Anyways, listen. I really appreciate your time hopefully. You took at least an idea away from that. I'm happy to send those slides through to you. I mentioned the book offer, and that's it. So unless somebody else you you want to give closing comments for anybody or

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Markham Room: put you on the spot. Thanks, everybody appreciate it.

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Markham Room: Thank you again. It it was great session, and and i'm sure every salesperson here has a lot of ideas and inspiration ideas.

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and maybe best practices. Please help yourself for a quick networking event for the rest of the 45 min left until the 2

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We have some refreshments outside and the rest of the groups from the other workshops will be there waiting for you. So thank you again for for coming up today.

This event is co-hosted by Shawn Casemore, a CPSA partner, keynote speaker and author of The Unstoppable Sales Machine.

Get your copy of Shawn's book here.

Workshop Agenda

12:00 PM - Check-in
12:15 PM - Workshop Programming + Lunch
1:15 PM - Networking

This Lunch & Learn workshop is free to attend!

Your admission includes a light lunch and refreshments provided by Oliver & Bonacini.

About our member:

Canadian sales professionals count on the Canadian Professional Sales Association (CPSA) to be their trusted partner in building knowledge and skills to optimize sales performance. From coast-to-coast across all industries, their 13,000+ members gain competitive advantage with proven learning resources, standards-based professional designations, a network of industry experts and community building events, and access to exclusive member privileges and cost-saving benefits.