Episode 56
Unexpected Sales Lessons from a Master Bartender
Introduction:
Discover unexpected sales wisdom from an unlikely source in this eye-opening episode of Connect and Convert! Hosts Dennis Collins and Leah Bumphrey reveal how Gino, a charismatic bartender, teaches invaluable sales techniques through his exceptional customer service. Get ready to transform your approach to sales and customer connections!
Key Takeaways:
• Learn how to create unforgettable customer experiences that drive sales
• Discover the power of remembering personal details to build lasting connections
• Understand Jeb Blunt's 5 silent questions every customer asks and how to address them
• Find out how to spot sales lessons in everyday life situations
Resources and Links:
• Jeb Blunt's "5 Silent Questions Every Customer Asks"
• Free 60-minute Connect and Convert discovery call
• Wizard Academy: https://wizardacademy.org/
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Introduction and new discovery call feature
00:02:15 - Leah's unexpected sales lesson from her son
00:04:30 - Dennis introduces Gino the bartender
00:07:45 - Breakdown of Gino's sales techniques
00:10:30 - Jeb Blunt's 5 silent customer questions
Connect with the Hosts:
• Dennis Collins: https://wizardofads.org/partner/dennis-collins/
• Leah Bumphrey: https://wizardofads.org/partner/leah-bumphrey/
• Email: dennis.collins@wizardofads.com, leah.bumphrey@wizardofads.com
Recommended Episodes:
• "The Art of Storytelling in Sales: Captivate Your Audience"
• "Building Trust: The Foundation of Successful Sales Relationships"
• "Unconventional Sales Strategies That Actually Work"
Transcript
Welcome back to Connect and Convert, the Sales Accelerator
Speaker:podcast, where small business owners tune in every week to
Speaker:hear insider tips on how to grow their sales faster than ever.
Speaker:Join today as always.
Speaker:By my lovely partner in crime, Leah, I'm free.
Speaker:Welcome back.
Speaker:Glad to be with you.
Speaker:Always, as always before we get into today's topic,
Speaker:which I think you will like, it's a fun topic.
Speaker:I want to talk about a new feature that we are
Speaker:introducing on this podcast right now, today, we want to
Speaker:announce our new opportunity for our small business
Speaker:owners, our Target listeners.
Speaker:Those are the folks we hope are listening.
Speaker:We want to give them a possible next step.
Speaker:The first step would be our connect and
Speaker:convert discovery call.
Speaker:Yes, a discovery phone call with you for 60 minutes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:It's waiting for business owners willing to take a step back and
Speaker:take a look at the difference is what the difference
Speaker:would be working with us.
Speaker:We can make a difference for some.
Speaker:We're not for everybody.
Speaker:We acknowledge that, but a 60 minute phone call.
Speaker:We can figure that out.
Speaker:So email us.
Speaker:The emails are posted there.
Speaker:Dennis Collins at wizard of ads.
Speaker:com and Leah Bumfrey at wizard of ads.
Speaker:com either one or both.
Speaker:We will send a questionnaire and arrange a 60 minute
Speaker:virtual conversation.
Speaker:You'll love it.
Speaker:And so will we.
Speaker:Let's connect.
Speaker:Okay, Leah today.
Speaker:We sometimes in these podcasts end up talking about alcohol.
Speaker:I don't know how we get on that topic.
Speaker:We had one time of one episode with our producer, Paul, and the
Speaker:whole thing was about alcohol.
Speaker:That was a good one.
Speaker:That was a good one.
Speaker:But anyway, I am going to talk today About
Speaker:sales lessons from Gino.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And before I jump into that, I would like you to tell our
Speaker:audience about possible lessons.
Speaker:You've been in the sales business.
Speaker:You have been a pro in the sales business for some time.
Speaker:What sales lessons have you learned from the most unexpected
Speaker:sources, a situation, a place, a person that you never thought.
Speaker:Could teach you anything about sales.
Speaker:You know, that's a really interesting question because
Speaker:sometimes we think of sales inside of a bubble, Dennis,
Speaker:and it's not sales and sales skills are everywhere.
Speaker:And I always think of.
Speaker:I think of my siblings, or I think of and growing up in a big
Speaker:family, or I think of my kids.
Speaker:I was blessed with three beautiful boys.
Speaker:You've met Fletcher, one of them, and this actually,
Speaker:this story actually is about Fletcher when he was in piano.
Speaker:Now, we made sure, being, you know, very diligent parents.
Speaker:Our kids had a sport, and they had a a musical or an
Speaker:artsy type of venture that they were doing every year
Speaker:during the school year, and piano, all three of them took
Speaker:piano for a number of years, and they were pretty good.
Speaker:Now, Fletcher was he was going into a music festival,
Speaker:which is a big deal.
Speaker:was at the university and he was sitting down and he had
Speaker:his piece already and we're watching and it's being this
Speaker:is being curated and he's at this and you have to imagine
Speaker:this little guy in the little glasses he's probably about 11
Speaker:11 years old at the time and he gets a little tie and it's this
Speaker:huge magnificent Grand piano that he sits at, and we're all
Speaker:poised, waiting for him to go.
Speaker:And what does Fletcher do?
Speaker:He looks, and he goes on the keyboard, and picture
Speaker:the 88 keys of a keyboard.
Speaker:He's checking the tuning.
Speaker:He's checking the tuning of a grand piano in a concert hall at
Speaker:the University of Saskatchewan.
Speaker:The whole audience, including the judges, cracked up.
Speaker:And you think, what does that have to do with sales?
Speaker:Sometimes we think of sales as just barreling ahead and doing.
Speaker:But sometimes sales is about stepping back, making sure
Speaker:we know where we're at.
Speaker:And that's what this 10, 11 year old kid was doing.
Speaker:And it was a magnificent, and it is a magnificent
Speaker:story of wait before you go.
Speaker:Now he ended up nailing his his piece.
Speaker:No surprise.
Speaker:No surprise.
Speaker:So that, that came to mind when we were talking.
Speaker:That's a very interesting story.
Speaker:And knowing Fletcher a little bit I can see him doing that.
Speaker:That doesn't, that rings true with me that that he
Speaker:wants to be totally prepared for any situation as we
Speaker:should be in sales, right?
Speaker:As we should be in sales, great.
Speaker:lesson.
Speaker:So now I guess I should tell you a little bit about Gino.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I remember the first time I met him, it was a beautiful
Speaker:summer afternoon in Key Biscayne, Florida, just off
Speaker:the Miami on the causeway.
Speaker:Beautiful, nice cooling breeze blowing in
Speaker:on there with you.
Speaker:Oh, it was nice.
Speaker:I walked by a very crowded pool bar at the Sinesta Beach
Speaker:resort, which was one of the nicest resorts on Key Biscayne.
Speaker:It's a beautiful place.
Speaker:I mean, and you could hear the laughter.
Speaker:You could hear the friendly banter from the people
Speaker:gathered around the bar.
Speaker:All the stools were taken.
Speaker:And the crowd was about three deep standing behind each stool.
Speaker:I said, what the heck is going on over there?
Speaker:Maybe it's free liquor today.
Speaker:Maybe so hey, thinking that I inched my way closer.
Speaker:I said, Oh, I spotted the bartender, a 30 ish year
Speaker:old, maybe a little older.
Speaker:He was putting on a show.
Speaker:He was mixing drinks in that very flamboyant style, making
Speaker:jokes with all the customers.
Speaker:And what I thought was most amazing is calling people
Speaker:by their first names and asking if they wanted to
Speaker:Yeah, and asking if they wanted their favorite drink.
Speaker:Now, why was that so impressive?
Speaker:This was not a neighborhood bar.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:This was not a neighborhood bar.
Speaker:This was a resort.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:All the guests, almost all the guests were from out of town.
Speaker:Some of them visited only once a year for a short time.
Speaker:Some came back every year.
Speaker:Some like me were locals.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:But what was going on at Gino's bar that made it so special?
Speaker:What are the lessons that I learned about people, about
Speaker:persuasion, about influence?
Speaker:Leah, when I was finally able to fight my way through the
Speaker:packed crowd and actually sit on a stool, I got a ringside
Speaker:seat to one of the best sales lessons I've ever learned.
Speaker:Isn't that funny?
Speaker:At a bar.
Speaker:Who would ever think, right?
Speaker:It can happen.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Yeah, I wish you had been there.
Speaker:You would've enjoyed this
Speaker:, but what I love is you're calling it Gino's Bar, which
Speaker:I can see a neon sign saying that, but it wasn't Gino's It
Speaker:Bar, but yet it was his own.
Speaker:Lemme.
Speaker:No, let me assure you it was Gino's bar.
Speaker:He owned that bar or not literally, but
Speaker:figuratively, this man.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So what was going on?
Speaker:So I sat on the stool and what am I hearing?
Speaker:I'm hearing connections.
Speaker:I'm hearing him.
Speaker:Listen I'm hearing him relate stories to people that maybe
Speaker:he sees once or twice a year.
Speaker:And he had your name.
Speaker:He had the name.
Speaker:He knew, obviously, where you were visiting from.
Speaker:He had family information.
Speaker:You know, he knew, hey, how are your kids?
Speaker:How's your job?
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:And the most important thing he knew was your favorite drink.
Speaker:And he'd always ask, are you still drinking
Speaker:the blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:And, you know, they weren't just, you know, regular drinks.
Speaker:They were special Gino drinks, because he would always say,
Speaker:let me add a little special Gino touch to your drink.
Speaker:Do you mind if I add a little touch?
Speaker:Who would say no to that?
Speaker:So his attitude set the tone.
Speaker:I mean, you know, we talk a lot about Attitude.
Speaker:We talk about mindsets.
Speaker:This man made you feel like a million dollars
Speaker:just sitting at his bar.
Speaker:You couldn't help but have fun.
Speaker:You couldn't help it.
Speaker:It was laughter, it was conversation.
Speaker:He took pride in introducing his guests to each other.
Speaker:Hey, Dennis, there.
Speaker:I want you to meet this guy, Joe.
Speaker:He's from New York, or whatever, and start up conversations.
Speaker:You know, we talk a lot on this podcast about storytelling.
Speaker:Gino had a magical way of introducing you to a new twist
Speaker:to your favorite cocktail.
Speaker:He described exactly how he would make your special drink.
Speaker:And he would make it there right in front of you.
Speaker:Now I'm going to put a little of this, I'm going
Speaker:to put a little of that.
Speaker:You've probably never had it done this way before, but just
Speaker:for you, I'm going to make you this special cocktail.
Speaker:And I bet you nobody asked him how much they cost.
Speaker:Are you kidding?
Speaker:That was never discussed.
Speaker:I never, I don't even think there was a menu or anything
Speaker:showing the cost of the drinks.
Speaker:That was never an object.
Speaker:Why do you think that was Leah?
Speaker:He took you down a process and you were part of it with him.
Speaker:It had nothing to do with money.
Speaker:It was everything to do with the experience.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:As you said, the connection, that, that is not, that's
Speaker:not buying off the right hand side of the menu.
Speaker:That is being involved.
Speaker:That is being made to feel part of someone's business.
Speaker:And you want to you're going with your wallet open going.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I want to be part of this.
Speaker:It has nothing to do with the cost.
Speaker:Nothing.
Speaker:Absolutely nothing.
Speaker:And I don't know this for a fact.
Speaker:I wish I knew, but I believe his revenue figures for that.
Speaker:And it wasn't a huge bar.
Speaker:I'll bet his revenue figures rivaled some of
Speaker:the most successful bars.
Speaker:in the United States, maybe even in Canada too.
Speaker:Amazing volume.
Speaker:He had a lot of offers over the years to go here, go there.
Speaker:He was recruited heavily to move, but he never left there.
Speaker:Unfortunately, they closed the Sinesta Beach hotel.
Speaker:And I believe for a while he went next door to a Hyatt.
Speaker:And then I moved out of South Florida and I've lost touch
Speaker:with them and shame on me.
Speaker:Shame on me because he should be our guest on this show.
Speaker:Darn it.
Speaker:If I knew how to contact him, but I have to tell
Speaker:that story because he made everyone feel they were the
Speaker:most important person at that bar, even when he was slammed.
Speaker:Do you know if you're listening, get ahold of us
Speaker:because we want to interview you and see what happened.
Speaker:Are you out there, buddy?
Speaker:It's Dennis.
Speaker:You remember?
Speaker:We had a lot of good times.
Speaker:Cause as you know, I was in the radio business in South
Speaker:Florida, in Miami, and we did a lot of entertaining
Speaker:at the Sonesta Beach.
Speaker:It was a very, it was very convenient to downtown Miami,
Speaker:just across the causeway.
Speaker:And our customers, our clients love being there.
Speaker:So we would do lunches, we would do dinners, we would
Speaker:do cocktail parties, we would do all kinds of functions.
Speaker:So I got to know Geno pretty well.
Speaker:Unfortunately, stupid old me didn't keep the contact up.
Speaker:So let me pull this right back in to sales, okay?
Speaker:You know I quote a guy by the name of Jeb Blunt a lot.
Speaker:To me, he is one of the modern day sales gurus.
Speaker:You know, we've had Zig Ziglar and we've had Dale Carnegie.
Speaker:I mean, we've had gurus in the sales and persuasion
Speaker:business forever.
Speaker:But to me, the modern day guru is Jeb Blum.
Speaker:And he says, there are five questions that every customer,
Speaker:I don't care if you're buying.
Speaker:Whiskey at a bar or a house or a car or whatever.
Speaker:They silently ask these five questions to themselves and
Speaker:all five Leah must be answered.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Or you're not going to get a sale.
Speaker:So how did Gino stack up against those five?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:What are the five?
Speaker:The first one is do I like you?
Speaker:How could you not like Gino?
Speaker:Number two, are you listening to me?
Speaker:Gino could repeat things that he heard once or twice
Speaker:a year ago with precision.
Speaker:Yeah, he was listening.
Speaker:Number three, do you make me feel important?
Speaker:Yeah, because he made a drink just for you with
Speaker:his own special touch.
Speaker:He made you feel important.
Speaker:Hey, do you understand me?
Speaker:Do you get my stuff?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cause he'd ask about the kids.
Speaker:How's the family?
Speaker:How's the job going?
Speaker:He made an effort to really understand.
Speaker:That life situation that, that people were going through.
Speaker:And of course, number five, do you trust, do I trust you?
Speaker:I mean, Gino, who knows what he could be putting in
Speaker:those drinks, but you know, by that time we trusted him
Speaker:and we were never wrong.
Speaker:We were never wrong.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:What an experience.
Speaker:That's a great story.
Speaker:And it makes me think of Breakout challenge that we
Speaker:should give to our listeners for this coming week.
Speaker:And before we do that, can we pause for just a moment?
Speaker:I want to talk about wizardacademy.
Speaker:org.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:What is wizardacademy.
Speaker:org?
Speaker:It, you talk about an experience.
Speaker:I just shared an experience that I had with Gino the bartender.
Speaker:Leah shared an experience she had with her son Fletcher.
Speaker:I'm going to tell you, you're going to be sharing some cool
Speaker:experiences with your friends, your family, your coworkers,
Speaker:when you attend wizardacademy.
Speaker:org.
Speaker:Go on wizardacademy.
Speaker:org and look at the list of classes.
Speaker:It is an unusual.
Speaker:Business school, not your typical business school, but
Speaker:the knowledge that you come away with is more than typical.
Speaker:It's outstanding.
Speaker:Leah and I are frequent flyers there as well as producer Paul.
Speaker:We encourage all of our viewers and listeners to
Speaker:check out wizardacademy.
Speaker:org.
Speaker:So breakout challenge.
Speaker:Breakout challenge, honestly, everyone listening, everybody
Speaker:watching this week, Look for those lessons in your everyday
Speaker:life that have nothing to do with your business, nothing to
Speaker:do with sales, nothing to do with your ultimate financial
Speaker:goals and where you are.
Speaker:Look around and see, you'll be surprised if you're open to it.
Speaker:You know, we see what we seek.
Speaker:So if you're looking for them, you're going to see them.
Speaker:And you're also going to see where They could help
Speaker:you impact your business and shoot us an email.
Speaker:We do have let questions from our listeners,
Speaker:questions from our viewers.
Speaker:And that's a huge part of what we do.
Speaker:And we, I want to emphasize what Dennis said at the beginning.
Speaker:Certainly send us the individual questions based
Speaker:on things that you're hearing from us, but don't hesitate.
Speaker:Shoot us an email and say you would like to take part in our
Speaker:60 minute virtual introduction.
Speaker:We're going to meet each other.
Speaker:We're going to find out a little bit about your business.
Speaker:We're going to see, hey, how can we help you convert and connect
Speaker:and convert more with your,
Speaker:With your potential customers, with your staff, with what
Speaker:you're doing for business.
Speaker:It's a big part of what Dennis and I just value is helping the
Speaker:people that are listening to us.
Speaker:Well said, Leah.
Speaker:I mean, I was just in your beautiful country as as we
Speaker:record this, I just have come back from the western part of
Speaker:Canada, the Canadian Rockies which are just magnificent.
Speaker:And, you know, I bought a lot of services while I was in Canada.
Speaker:Food services, you know, we had took some excursions, et cetera.
Speaker:And I watched the salesmanship or lack of, in some cases of
Speaker:some of these folks, it is amazing what you can pick up
Speaker:a little phrase that they use a word that they use a little
Speaker:something that you didn't even expect would hook you.
Speaker:And it hooked you.
Speaker:It gotcha.
Speaker:And, you know, and not in a manipulative way.
Speaker:That's the challenge.
Speaker:Send us an email.
Speaker:Tell us about how the challenge went.
Speaker:We're going to be back next week with another edition
Speaker:of Connect and Convert.
Speaker:We'll see you then.
