Transcription

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:27:09

If you’re watching this video today, it’s because you want to learn about how to become a sales superstar. And selling can actually be achieved. Succeeding in sales can be achieved by anyone. If I did it, if Paul did it, you can do it again. So I want to share with you here a story of, Paul Bradberry.

00:00:27:11 – 00:00:55:10

How are you, Paul? Good. Thank you. Wonderful. So Paul is a graduate of our systematic selling strategies program, The Fundamentals. And, I invited him because, he’s got he’s got some stories to share. And, so just maybe, in a couple of sentences, a bit about your background. Yeah, absolutely. So, I started my career working with the health service work in information management, where, that that was in Manchester, back in the UK.

00:00:55:10 – 00:01:19:03

In the UK. Yeah, absolutely. And then after that, I started to work in cybersecurity. I’ve worked, in IT security enough for ten years. So started in the Royal Navy working in cyber defense and then after that moved on to sell cybersecurity products of networking and security products. That was for a large UK reseller. And then post that moved out here to Dubai.

00:01:19:05 – 00:01:41:11

Working with Chris now and I work with our customers, mostly existing customers, just ensuring that they’re getting the most out of their annual maintenance contract with us and making sure that as a company, I aligns with what the customer requires. And people that don’t know. Chris, this is Chris Morley from Unified Micro System. Hello, Chris. Perfect.

00:01:41:13 – 00:02:05:08

So, you know, we talk about the three pillars in our sales, sales program. We talk about mindset, we talk about activities, and then the engagement with clients. When you think of mindset, what is one thing that you, that has made an impact on you? Paul, that allowed you to, see results from the course?

00:02:05:10 – 00:02:27:13

Absolutely. So one of the, one of the key areas was definitely discipline. I found that, really good. Everyone needs to be reminded to be disciplined at every point in their life. Realistically. It was so. So the context where people don’t know. So discipline was that. So we talk about there are certain traits that will guarantee success for a sales professional.

00:02:27:15 – 00:02:54:18

And these traits are courage. Yes. Humility and and discipline. So discipline was something that was dear to you I guess in this case. So tell us more about that. Yeah, absolutely. So, I, I could tell, you know, I needed the course, I absolutely did. I could tell that were a point, within the company where we, you know, I need to be putting a strategy in place.

00:02:54:23 – 00:03:14:13

And I could see that in order to put a strategy in place, because the information is coming thick and fast, there’s a lot of information, a lot of lessons to be learned. Yeah. And they needed to be put into practice really, really quickly. Yeah. So realistically I had to invest a lot of time not just in class but outside of class and outside of working hours, of course, to make sure those strategies put in place.

00:03:14:13 – 00:03:34:18

Amazing. Make sure that we’re trying things out, because as a company, I had to make sure that we were doing these things otherwise, well, the results wouldn’t manifest themselves, you know? Thank you so much. And you know what they say, if you keep on doing what you’re doing, you keep on getting what you’re getting. You know, unless you change the input, you won’t change the output.

00:03:34:20 – 00:04:03:19

And because of the world is changing quite fast today, if you keep on doing what you’re doing, you will no longer keep on getting the same because of change, because of competition. So the key here is you needed to, find new strategies and find the time. You know, they say, I think it was Jim Rohn who said, if you work, if you work with Jim Rohn or Zig Ziglar, if you work 40 hours, you work for survival, 60 hours, you work for success.

00:04:03:19 – 00:04:24:20

Now, that extra 20 hours isn’t necessarily working in the job, but it’s working on on you. And that’s what I commend you on, Paul. Because week to week you’ve been you kept the lessons, although you took some time out for a certain vacation, but you came back and, you know, kept, kept going there. So discipline is really is really critical.

00:04:24:24 – 00:04:51:17

You know? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. So today, it’s one thing to know, the other things to apply and to apply, you need the discipline to put the time. But let’s talk a bit about courage. Right. So sometimes fear stops us from taking certain actions. Yes. And we were talking about the one, the opportunity that you converted where normally it wasn’t your comfort zone to ask.

00:04:51:19 – 00:05:09:21

Ask for what. Can you tell us that story. Of course. Yeah. So in terms of asking for a referral and I think this is a good story that takes into account, courage and humility as well, to some extent. You know, actually, kind of putting your pride to one side and seeing someone listen. Well, who will you provide me with some more business?

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And the question is, as simple as that is scarily as simple as that, because you don’t want to say something so simple. But actually, when you build relationships with people, they’re actually very happy to do that for you. So, they, they want their colleagues or their, their peers to, to experience the success or experience the experience of working with myself that other people have felt.

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And it’s important to, in fact, be proud about that. And you know, that fear is always, not always, but it’s often irrational. You know, there’s definitely some irrational fears other for fear stands for false expectation appearing real. So you make a shadow bigger than the actual a cat and that looked like a lion, you know, or the hand looks like a monster across the wall, you know?

00:05:56:16 – 00:06:22:15

Of course. Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s so happened. Yeah. So, our colleague, sorry, our our, client. Customer partner. I prefer to say, he’s one of what we’ve now called. I would now thank you to the, to the course I would now refer to as a golden goose. He works with, the same client base that I work with, but he works in a completely different industry.

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So he works for a law firm. So he put me in touch with another law firm now moving over from the US to actually multinational already. But this is their first foray into the Middle East. They’ve already got one person out here doing procurement but he’s really struggling on his own. He’s only just moved over from London, really struggling with the with the maze.

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The is procurement in Dubai. So off the back of one phone call with him, there was a 100,000 term order, which I couldn’t believe that I’d closed that amount of money and just one phone call and it was literally less than 30 minutes of explaining exactly who we are, how we operate as a company, and how I would be overseeing every step of the way.

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And I knew that as long as I kept that promise, then I would then have a future customer as a result. Obviously he’s going to work i.t over here so he wouldn’t need what we’d call like a typical, AMC, annual maintenance contract, but they’ll definitely space that for us to keep working together in the future.

00:07:22:24 – 00:07:43:02

So I really look forward to that. Also, off the back of the initial 100,000 dirhams, there was, $20,000 worth of upsells later on in the sales cycle. One of the important things this is also something that you touch upon a lot is to keep going back and find those regular touch points in order to build warm relationships with with customers.

00:07:43:04 – 00:08:03:07

Yes. And in order to keep doing that, I kept going back at every single kind of milestone. We happened in procurement cycles, and sometimes they wanted to substantive. But okay, these cameras that you’ve ordered, there’s actually a two week delay and there’s nothing we can do about it. Off the back of that who then opened up the discussion about the cameras last, how they’d been that way.

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It’s not severe. If you wouldn’t want any of the code on the devices basically like small tablets throughout side of room. Yeah. Looking forward. Yeah. So the there was $20,000 worth of, of upsell just from touching base regularly. You know, they say it’s five times, less expensive to sell to an existing customer than to go find the new customer.

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And in this case you went to an existing customer, ask them for a referral. Yeah. Say, hey guru, you know, you think would benefit from my utilizing my services. Just like as I’ve helped you who? It’s like, oh, I have a friend, you know, and sincerely, to be able to actually get to what Paul got, which is.

00:08:42:07 – 00:09:01:09

Yeah, someone and then he gave him and in one conversation you get you got 100,000 there. I mean it’s it’s less than 1%. Okay. That’s not going to happen. You know every single day. But the beauty of it is it does happen because you missed the shots that you don’t take. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

00:09:01:11 – 00:09:28:14

It’s only when you are following consistently certain steps, certain actions. Every action brings a reaction. So here, remember in our, dashboard and our sales, activity tracker, we ask our team members to simply track what you’re doing. How many calls are many referral calls, how many follow ups, etc. and at the end, whatever is coming on the outside is reflected by what is going on on the inside.

00:09:28:14 – 00:09:56:01

So well done man. Thank you. So let me build there Paul on and something that you you know you’ve talked about a the idea of generating a referral. And another thing, another program we have is something called the Aged Account program. So tell us what happened when you discovered this program and maybe what happened with you and one of the the customers that you decided to, to practice this approach on them?

00:09:56:07 – 00:10:25:06

No, absolutely. So when we discussed the aged account, that was really illuminating for me, actually drove me to go through our entire accounts book and look at those customers whom I don’t actually speak to very often at all. There was one customer whom I had not spoken to for three months, which we had done a project with them where we’d set up the, the, their office in Abu Dhabi, and we just I didn’t really touch base.

00:10:25:08 – 00:10:50:16

We were still processing tickets for them, and we just started really giving them the care and attention that the, the, their other entity, separate company, but same overall, they were in Dubai. We hadn’t really given them that same care. So that’s in Abu Dhabi and one in Dubai. Okay. So okay. Yeah the the wanted to buy is a regulated sensitive the FSA regulation which is companies in the JSE or many companies in the DFC.

00:10:50:16 – 00:11:18:06

Yeah. Regulates them to that entity. And this companion on B2B does want to be regulated by and Abu Dhabi global market. Eventually it’s in their roadmap. And we had to really touch base on how much they don’t have in the maintenance contract compared to how much the DFC regulates density to. As a result of that, a touch base with the I.T manager there on the on their office manager.

00:11:18:08 – 00:11:42:07

And so there was one particular glaring issue for me, which is access control. You should be having access control systems in place and they should be managed XYZ. If it’s not working for you, your office manager is going to say, okay, it’s not working. Never mind, let’s just turn it off, you know, or let’s wait for a contractor who we don’t even know or who may not have worked on such systems previously.

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There is risk if they turn it off. There’s all these things, which then eventually can make them lose the ability of getting, registering part of this, the entity you’re talking about, it’s huge. Yeah. Absolutely huge. Regulated entities don’t just look at your current behaviors to look at previous behaviors, and they want to see that if they’re up in issues previously have you rectified those problems.

00:12:03:22 – 00:12:22:09

But when you’re when you’re an office manager and you’ve got everything to manage. Yes. You know, thinking in those terms all the time. So it’s important to come to people such as myself who work at companies such as ourselves. Yeah, you actually had the vision you compared, you saw was shot, you saw a gap. And as simple as looking at existing accounts.

00:12:22:11 – 00:12:39:22

And we are always looking for new clients. While they say that is there are acres of diamonds in your backyard, of course, you know there are acres of diamond. Oh, what you gotta do is just go and start digging. You just got to go and start digging. Definitely. Yeah, definitely. And you know is. And whether that result in,

00:12:39:24 – 00:13:03:14

Yep. So that there was a good uplift in the size of the contract. But also we’re providing a lot more services as a result. So the access control, provision that does increase the actual value in revenue rose by 20% per month, which is fantastic, brilliant. And says the revenue, but also now we’re giving them those that peace of mind that actually you are now approaching the level of your of your peers in correct.

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And in Dubai, when you do want to, you know, when you do want to go to be regulated since to be in a much better position he now knows is working with someone who’s really, you know, professional, knows their business, knows cares about our interests, not just theirs. So it’s a win win. Yeah. When you win, they win.

00:13:24:00 – 00:13:48:03

The relationship wins. Absolutely, absolutely. And yeah. And then there’s the future discussions there. So, you know, I can work with them more closely now and help them to build that roadmap. For example, there’s no camera pointing towards the server room that will need. So it’s now at some point you always have to have a camera on your server, and it’s always little bits of information that, okay, the regulators may allow it and they’ll tell you that you need it and you think, okay, yeah, I need that.

00:13:48:03 – 00:14:13:17

Never mind. When they come around in three months and you don’t you still don’t have a lot actually that license I’m just giving you I can revoke it right now, you know. So, And that does happen. It happens off a lot. And people don’t listen to the right people. So enable me to be there, show myself as a trusted advisor and and really, really add value, and wonderful strengthening relationship that realistically wasn’t there and it should have been there.

00:14:13:21 – 00:14:33:05

It absolutely should have been. So thank you for that. And know the as you said at this time is in your backyard, but I just know that focusing on what we call aged accounts and it feels painful saying that. But, you know, when you focus on aged accounts, I know that we’re going to grow as a company, I’m going to grow as a salesperson, and our customers will grow as well.

00:14:33:07 – 00:14:58:05

Absolutely. Thank you for sharing there. You know that there is a scenario where today, after going through this journey and this transformation, you’ve learned and you’ve been able to kind of put on multiple lenses, multiple layers, whether the layer of the mindset, the layer of the referrals, the layers of the, opportunities of aged accounts and many other layers.

00:14:58:07 – 00:15:23:03

So now, you know, yes, if you go back to when you started selling ten years ago or, you know, and today you can imagine people watching us today thinking, you know, I’ve been in sales for ten years. I’ve been in sales for 15 years. Right. What would you tell yourself? 15 years, you know, 15 years ago to possibly, look at investing in yourself.

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Look at educating yourself and putting on these lenses that help you achieve the success that you’re achieving today. Absolutely. Rightly so. Invest in yourself is incredibly important, and people are always a little bit scared there because it’s always going to cost money. That’s why it’s investing in yourself. I mean, that’s what you did. You know, you invest money but also invest your time.

00:15:44:14 – 00:16:10:13

You can spend time practicing and disciplining yourself where you can spend time, you know, going to, you know, to veracity or whatever, you know, so no, absolutely, absolutely. But, yeah, if I could go back, it would, it would be to be a good listener. I never stop being a good listener because when you, you know, the the day that you tell yourself that you’re a good listener is the day that you’ve actually stopped listening.

00:16:10:15 – 00:16:33:09

So it’s important to keep listening and then keep telling yourself to keep listening. And one of the ways that you can do that, and one of the ways that you can actively do that in is to invest in yourself, read those books, but take on board what the books are telling you. Go to the courses and find positive mentors and yourself, and make sure you listen to those people, because otherwise you just you just got a great run in the room and you’re not listening to it.

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Also, you know, and yeah, same same Chris, you know, like it’s importance of of those people in the room with you to find those people and make sure you’re listening to them. So, yeah, if I could go back to any point in my life but yeah, ten years is a good point. I would say keep listening and never stop.

00:16:50:17 – 00:17:14:04

You know, I think this is a brilliant, brilliant point because today, listening there are multiple levels of listening. You know, we don’t we go through the five levels, but at the very basic core, you know, the solid core level three is where you’re actually actively listening. You’re nodding, you’re clarifying what someone is saying, you’re understanding not what they’re saying, but what they mean by what they’re saying.

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And as I say, professional, if you’re able to do that, you know, you you actually are starting to build that relationship, starting to build the trust. Yes. You know, there are two more levels which we won’t go into right now, but but the point is that, listening is, is the if you if you find someone that is listening to you, do you like them more or less?

00:17:38:04 – 00:18:00:00

Significantly more. Yeah. And studies have shown it, as I should say. And we did an exercise to prove it, and it was across the board, when someone noticeably stopped listening to you, you know, so simply just it’s just you just give up. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Yeah. My course mate job. He, he said I didn’t even look at enough for you.

00:18:00:00 – 00:18:20:03

Stop listening. I just I just gave up. I think I got a bit, and I was just like, yeah, whatever, you know? Then that’s that’s a classic one. That’s a really classic. And so thank you for sharing and for the audiences today. Just again, something that you can do is are you really listening? How can you become even a better listener?

00:18:20:03 – 00:18:44:23

Because it gets what Paul said is when you think you know it is, when is the, the moment you actually stop putting in the effort, you know, it does take effort to listen. Even I write, especially when I have I’m in a hurry. I have certain things on my mind. I might not listen as good. But when you are with a client from mobile is off and you are 100% sensor’s aware of what’s going on.

00:18:45:00 – 00:19:11:17

So what are the things is is in getting commitment with clients, getting the commitment, closing the deal or starting the relationship, negotiating, any any changes that you’ve seen in the way that you are working, and has and has it brought you some results as well? Absolutely. Yeah. So one area that you’ve, that you really communicated a lot during the course was the more you, the more you put into your preparation.

00:19:11:19 – 00:19:33:03

The less time you spend into your negotiation, which is good because negotiation slowed things down. They’ll cause friction that could eventually damage a deal, could eventually damage a long term relationship because of that friction. So it’s important to keep negotiation in as friendly and as quick as possible. Preparation is key for that. So I’ve been working. So that was a bit more about this preparation what type of you know.

00:19:33:03 – 00:19:52:09

But just go go ahead. Absolutely. Yeah. So we’ve we’ve I’ve been putting a lot of procedures in place now, internally, really try to drive those myself. So as soon as a customer will come to me asking for, say, a laptop, something very simple. Yeah, that could be their specification or their model. The looking at.

00:19:52:11 – 00:20:09:18

I’ll get back to them as soon as possible and say, yeah, absolutely. I can look at getting this laptop for, you know, everything’s available in Dubai. I mean, you do have, you know, single file. Apparently it’s quite a Lamborghini. I’m not quite there yet, but you can if you want a certain laptop, then, you know, you may struggle for it.

00:20:09:20 – 00:20:28:11

So. Yeah, I’ll. I’ll get back to them. And I’ll, I’ll make sure that I say I’ll also look into these options for you, because then if I’m putting other options forward, the one person’s coming to one supplier in three. Good options instead of going to three suppliers and getting one good option of, So wow, what I’m getting here is what you’ve learned.

00:20:28:11 – 00:20:52:13

You’ve actually helped your internal process and teams to apply. And now the whole, the whole department is benefiting from these ideas, which is fantastic. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it is really important that that I do that, you know, it’s important that I share, you know, and and of course, when you’re teaching someone something, what does it do to your own ability to apply it?

00:20:52:15 – 00:21:13:15

But if it makes it so significantly easier, makes it easier, it makes it, you know, I think the level of mastery that people can achieve in this course is not just taking the course, but teaching it to others. When you’re teaching the ideas to others, you really are getting to that next level. And it just stays with you, you know?

00:21:13:17 – 00:21:34:01

You know, there’s a strong coaching ethos in the way the the course is delivered anyway. And there is a strong coaching ethos in the way the oh yeah is delivered and the course is delivered. I never felt that yourself or any of your colleagues like, Philip Marcus, when and, how and of course you do for once, the ones with.

00:21:34:03 – 00:21:52:08

Yes. Yes. I never felt like they were telling me, you know, it was always asking me and getting the best out of me. And. Yeah. So tell us a bit about these one on one sessions that we know we’ve had. So we’ve had these group sessions, but then we, we had certain touchpoints with you throughout. Yes.

00:21:52:08 – 00:22:11:15

And how have these helped you? You know, you started describing that anything you will want to say on those. No. Yeah. Immensely. Yeah. So so touching base evolving. But every other week, we’re going to great detail in terms of what I’m getting out of the course at the moment, how I think I can be improving.

00:22:11:17 – 00:22:34:06

And, you know, anything that I’ve used that that week or in that fortnight, that I take from the course. So I’m always, you know, it was always good to, to be able to. And Alan’s got a wealth of knowledge, by the way, he’s from a similar industry as myself. Really, really knowledgeable guy. And anything you could throw by him, he would probably have the right answer.

00:22:34:08 – 00:22:52:15

And he just knew how to how to coach all of you and, the process was, processes was that was a big thing, that he really fed into as well. But you know, how much of this can you change process. And at first, a failure in humility was I was like, oh, God, 9001 a very process driven.

00:22:52:17 – 00:23:09:19

And then my absolute I thought on the answers like that was not the right answer. Like, I don’t know how he’s giving me the right answer that. Well, yeah. How much of this can I put into process? You know. And so I really start working towards, and we’re doing, you know, as a, as a department, we’re doing significantly better.

00:23:09:21 – 00:23:25:23

And the way they’re engaged. So a lot of improvement to be done in that, that will never change that, that will always come out of my mouth. I’ll always say, still a lot of improvements a little. You know, the concept of your cup is full. If your cup is full, we can’t put more. We can pour. You gotta go empty your cup.

00:23:25:23 – 00:23:50:12

So you cut yourself, then say oops. My cup actually is not that full. Please give me some notes. So it’s, he’s there to help. So basically any, any other, let’s say, points of advice or tips you would like to give individuals. That are considering, let’s say, going for this, for this course. Yeah, absolutely. The key is to always invest in yourself.

00:23:50:14 – 00:24:16:22

Invest in yourself in the right areas, invest in yourself in the right people as well. I can testify there, as a disclaimer out to the right people. But it’s important that you do find those people in every area of your life if you want to improve the way that you sell, the way that you approach sales, the way that you think about the bigger picture, about what sales achieve, you know, then this is definitely the right course for you.

00:24:16:24 – 00:24:34:24

Yeah, I think I think it’s the right course for pretty much any salesperson who wants to do the right thing in being a salesperson, which is to add value into the room that they step into. Aren’t they the industry that they step into? A salesperson, is there total value and an added value? They just taking money that they can value.

00:24:35:01 – 00:24:55:24

So are you a giver or are you a taker? Are you giving value? Are you adding value or are you taking value from your clients and you know you can take so much, but only after you give enough. You got to have a lots of deposits to then make some, make some withdrawals. Absolutely. And you know what they say when you’re ready, the teacher appears.

00:24:55:24 – 00:25:14:22

And whether it’s the teacher, meaning a person who’s teaching you or the book that you find or the person that you, you get to interact with. And I think here, what I really love about you, Paul, is, your your humility, your excitement. You know, when you first day, the first day you came and you said at the very end of the room at the corner.

00:25:15:03 – 00:25:37:02

But as time came out, you just kept, you know, coming out and participating. And again, what you put into it is what your, what you’re currently getting out of it. And the more you put into it, the more the more you got out of it. And it’s, it’s exciting to, to have you here and to award you with your, certificate of completion for the for the program.

00:25:37:02 – 00:25:58:13

What do you think of that? Perfect. All right. So miraculous graduations again. Thank you so much. Looking forward to seeing you and the advanced programs to come back. Thank you.