Episode 3

Unveiling Habits of Highly Ineffective Salespeople

We've got Dave Salter and his rockstar sales trainer, Dennis Collins, joining us on Connect and Convert. They're going to spill the tea on the seven habits of highly ineffective salespeople - yes, you heard that right, they're going to talk about the worst practices out there. Dave and Dennis share some personal stories and anecdotes that will have you in stitches, including one about a car salesman who walked away from a customer who didn't have cash in hand.

But it's not all fun and games, folks. Dave and Dennis also deliver some seriously valuable insights on why empathy, listening, and asking the right questions are key to connecting with customers and making that sale. They also touch on the importance of identifying great prospects and following a sales process. And while they may make it sound easy, they know firsthand that sales is tough but incredibly rewarding. So if you're ready to up your sales game or need to help someone else do so, check out this episode of Connect and Convert.

Transcript
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​ Dave Salter: Hey, I'm Dave Saulter and

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where we share some insider secrets for small business sales success.

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I'm joined as always by our.

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Resident rockstar sales trainer, Dennis Collins, who's got almost

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four decades, um, of doing this.

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Our specialty is small business owners.

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Dennis, say hello.

Dennis Collins:

Hello, Dave.

Dennis Collins:

How are you?

Dennis Collins:

Good to see you this morning.

Dave Salter:

Hey, we're gonna talk we, we stole this from Steven

Dave Salter:

Covey, but today we're gonna talk a little bit about the seven habits

Dave Salter:

of highly ineffective Salespeople.

Dave Salter:

Yeah.

Dave Salter:

And, and I wanted, it's not negative.

Dave Salter:

It, it sounds negative, but, but here's the thing.

Dave Salter:

There's so many, there's, there's so much, uh, there's books, there's podcasts,

Dave Salter:

there's, um, interview, all kinds of stuff about what a good salesperson should do.

Dave Salter:

And I'm gonna tee you up with a story that's gonna, that's gonna illuminate

Dave Salter:

how we're gonna examine this today.

Dave Salter:

So I get out now.

Dave Salter:

Now this was, this is like centuries ago.

Dave Salter:

I just got outta college.

Dave Salter:

I'm gonna buy my first new vehicle.

Dave Salter:

So a buddy of mine was a used car salesman.

Dave Salter:

He says, I'm gonna go, how about I go along with you and I'll help

Dave Salter:

you cut through all the jargon and BS and we'll get a good deal.

Dave Salter:

I said, Hey, that sounds great.

Dave Salter:

So we finally, we rolled into places.

Dave Salter:

We roll into this place where I was pretty sure this was the vehicle I wanted to get.

Dave Salter:

Guy jumps up from the sales desk, gets in, you know, invades my space and he asks

Dave Salter:

me how I'm doing, what I'm looking for.

Dave Salter:

And then he says to me, "do you have money to do a deal today?

Dave Salter:

Like right now?"

Dave Salter:

Yeah.

Dave Salter:

And I said, I said, I don't, I was, I was honest with the guy.

Dave Salter:

I said, listen, I'm looking, I've been to, you know, x, y, z place.

Dave Salter:

I said, I'm pretty sure this is what I wanna buy, but you know, I'm just looking.

Dave Salter:

I wanna do a test drive.

Dave Salter:

He walked away from me and went to a, to a another prospect that

Dave Salter:

had walked into the sales room.

Dave Salter:

And I looked at my buddy and I said, what the F is up with that?

Dave Salter:

And he said, You won't believe this salty, but he's the most successful salesperson

Dave Salter:

in this dealership and that's why his desk is in the middle of the sales room floor.

Dave Salter:

And I said, well, I think that's bullshit.

Dave Salter:

I said he, he just violated, you know, every like, common sensical thing you

Dave Salter:

would expect out of a salesperson, right?

Dave Salter:

So sometimes Dennis looking instead of looking at the best stuff, sometimes

Dave Salter:

looking at opposite, at the, at the worst practices helps inform how we do our job.

Dave Salter:

Um, how about you jump in on.

Dave Salter:

On

Dennis Collins:

that.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

Somebody told me that once, Dave, um, you know, sometimes you can learn more

Dennis Collins:

from what not to do than from what to do.

Dennis Collins:

So therefore sparked the topic for, for today.

Dennis Collins:

We have all just like your story.

Dennis Collins:

It's funny, I just bought a car and I know the guy, I know the dealer.

Dennis Collins:

I mean, I, and this guy knows me and I push back on a couple things, right?

Dennis Collins:

I said, I don't need this and I don't need that, and I don't need this.

Dennis Collins:

And all of a sudden the switch turned on and he just started

Dennis Collins:

vomiting features and benefits.

Dennis Collins:

Well this but this and that.

Dennis Collins:

I said, dude, do you know who you're talking to here?

Dennis Collins:

He said, oh, I'm sorry.

Dennis Collins:

I'm sorry.

Dennis Collins:

I'm sorry.

Dennis Collins:

I had actually trained him at one time.

Dennis Collins:

I said, boy, my training Phil fell.

Dennis Collins:

Are you untrained?

Dennis Collins:

But uh,

Dennis Collins:

By the way, today is not about any specific person or any specific company.

Dennis Collins:

We've all run into this.

Dennis Collins:

Dave has, I have you have.

Dennis Collins:

Everybody listening has run into this.

Dennis Collins:

Uh, here's my issue.

Dennis Collins:

The sales profession, and I'll call it a profession, already has

Dennis Collins:

somewhat of a sketchy reputation.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

And that is for a number of reasons that we'll talk about in another podcast.

Dennis Collins:

There are some good reasons for that.

Dennis Collins:

Yep.

Dennis Collins:

So a bad salesperson simply feeds that fire, flames it up,

Dennis Collins:

and it becomes a conflagration.

Dennis Collins:

Okay?

Dennis Collins:

So my goal, one of my goals in light is to stop that.

Dennis Collins:

We don't have to be bad salespeople, we don't have to be ineffective.

Dennis Collins:

There are ways to be very effective.

Dennis Collins:

So that's what I'd like to talk about today.

Dave Salter:

Stop using big words like conflagration.

Dave Salter:

I'm, I, I, I don't even, I I wouldn't even know where to look that up in Websters.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

It's a big fire, a big, huge fire.

Dave Salter:

Bigger, bigger than a dumpster fire.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah, it's a dumpster fire.

Dennis Collins:

That's a good way to say it.

Dave Salter:

So let's get down to business.

Dave Salter:

You, you've got, uh, you, you've sort of got, uh, uh, seven, uh, tidbits of, uh,

Dave Salter:

what bad salespeople do that can sort of inform, um, what we should be doing.

Dennis Collins:

I do.

Dennis Collins:

The first on my hit parade, this awful ineffective hit

Dennis Collins:

parade is, lack of empathy.

Dennis Collins:

Okay, what is empathy?

Dennis Collins:

Empathy's not sympathy.

Dennis Collins:

Empathy is feeling, understanding the way another person feels.

Dennis Collins:

Okay?

Dennis Collins:

That is step one to making a connection.

Dennis Collins:

And if you intend to make a connection, which by the way, making a connection is

Dennis Collins:

mandatory today in person to person sales.

Dennis Collins:

You have to show some empathy.

Dennis Collins:

Empathy makes connection possible.

Dennis Collins:

That's, in my opinion, number one and most important.

Dave Salter:

Doesn't that make you soft though?

Dave Salter:

I mean, you, you gotta be, you know, you gotta have that

Dave Salter:

edge to make the sale, right?

Dennis Collins:

That's the old school.

Dennis Collins:

That's right.

Dennis Collins:

You have, it's a battle.

Dennis Collins:

You know, you read the books they used to teach me to read books

Dennis Collins:

about war energizing in war.

Dennis Collins:

To learn how to sell.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

It's not a battle today, David.

Dennis Collins:

The customer wants to know that you're on their side, that you have their back.

Dennis Collins:

Empathy.

Dave Salter:

What's your next point?

Dennis Collins:

There was a song in the sixties.

Dennis Collins:

You talk where he meet that, I mean, I forget who sung it.

Dennis Collins:

It was a one hit wonder.

Dennis Collins:

Don't talk back.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

You remember that song?

Dennis Collins:

Uh, guess what?

Dennis Collins:

Win Sales David?

Dennis Collins:

Listening.

Dennis Collins:

Listening.

Dennis Collins:

Win.

Dennis Collins:

Sales not talking.

Dennis Collins:

I was taught to present.

Dennis Collins:

I was taught to talk.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

Listening.

Dennis Collins:

Win sales.

Dennis Collins:

Talking too much kill sales.

Dennis Collins:

The 70- 30 guideline, the salesperson should be only talking 30% of the time

Dennis Collins:

and most of those should be questions.

Dennis Collins:

The customer should speak 70% of the time.

Dennis Collins:

I just reviewed a tape from a client from one of their sales calls in a state, by

Dennis Collins:

the way, where it's legal to record calls, and guess who did most of the talking?

Dave Salter:

The salesperson.

Dennis Collins:

70% or more to the salesperson, and 30% to the customer.

Dennis Collins:

That's called a no sale.

Dave Salter:

That's ab.

Dave Salter:

You're not getting that sale.

Dave Salter:

Sorry.

Dave Salter:

Negative.

Dave Salter:

Talk about, uh, your next point is, is something that, uh, you know, we,

Dave Salter:

we talk a lot about listening, um, but talk about, uh, asking the right

Dave Salter:

questions or the wrong questions.

Dennis Collins:

Well, we talk a lot about listening, but you know,

Dennis Collins:

what are you going to listen to if you don't ask the right questions?

Dennis Collins:

So they kind of work together except obviously asking comes first.

Dennis Collins:

Here's the deal if sales were a language, it would be a language of questions.

Dennis Collins:

Your toolbox needs to be crammed full of questions for every occasion.

Dennis Collins:

There's a different question for every moment in the sales call, and

Dennis Collins:

if you don't know that, you're going to be an ineffective salesperson.

Dennis Collins:

So asking too few, number one, and asking the wrong questions.

Dennis Collins:

There's a right question and a wrong question to ask.

Dennis Collins:

Reach in your toolbox, employ the right question, listen, and

Dennis Collins:

you'll probably win the sale.

Dave Salter:

And just to expound on that, I, as a customer, I, you also feel

Dave Salter:

that if they ask the right questions and engage in, uh, active listening

Dave Salter:

You feel like you're important to that person and it and so you kind of

Dave Salter:

eliminate or you break down that wall a little bit between the resistance from

Dave Salter:

the customer and, and the salesperson.

Dennis Collins:

People want to feel important, dave, you just hit

Dennis Collins:

on something and you don't feel important, if somebody is lecturing

Dennis Collins:

to you or doing a monologue mm-hmm.

Dennis Collins:

You feel important when somebody asks your opinion.

Dennis Collins:

How do you feel about that?

Dennis Collins:

How would you like this process to go?

Dennis Collins:

That's when you start to be only important, and we're gonna do

Dennis Collins:

another podcast one day on why so many salespeople knowing that

Dennis Collins:

asking is the key and listening is the key why they feel to do that.

Dennis Collins:

There are some interesting reasons that we'll get into in another version.

Dave Salter:

I think your next point is, incredibly valuable because we all see

Dave Salter:

this where the salesperson walks in with an array of brochures and information

Dave Salter:

and an outline, and you know, they spread it out in your dining room table and

Dave Salter:

you're exhausted before they even start.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

Well, that's the product push.

Dennis Collins:

That's how I was trained.

Dennis Collins:

You gotta be a great presenter.

Dennis Collins:

Mm-hmm.

Dennis Collins:

I'm not gonna say that you don't have to have presentation skills today,

Dennis Collins:

but that is far below asking the right questions and listening to the answers.

Dennis Collins:

Okay?

Dennis Collins:

Mm-hmm.

Dennis Collins:

What the old style selling was is the minute a customer asks a question or makes

Dennis Collins:

an objection, you get a torrent features and benefits and facts and figures

Dennis Collins:

and data, most of which is irrelevant.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

An ineffective salesperson is a product pusher.

Dave Salter:

Yeah.

Dave Salter:

So in a previous lifetime I had my real estate license the first task

Dave Salter:

that my lead realtor gave me was to call all the expired listings of other.

Dave Salter:

Oh o o of other realtors and see if they would sign up with us.

Dave Salter:

Yeah.

Dave Salter:

And I had a tremendous, um, avoidance of rejection.

Dave Salter:

So talk about your next bullet point.

Dennis Collins:

I'm sorry you had to go through that.

Dennis Collins:

Uh, rejection hurts.

Dennis Collins:

Point blank period.

Dennis Collins:

End of sentence.

Dennis Collins:

No one is looking to be rejected, but here is the deal.

Dennis Collins:

An objection in sales is not personal.

Dennis Collins:

It's not really a rejection.

Dennis Collins:

It's basically a question, a request for more information.

Dennis Collins:

So what we train effective salespeople to do is to not look at it as a

Dennis Collins:

personal rejection of them as a person or, um, their personality.

Dennis Collins:

It's just a request for information.

Dennis Collins:

So it's not personal, it stings.

Dennis Collins:

We teach people how to be rejection proof.

Dennis Collins:

An ineffective salesperson doesn't know how to do that.

Dave Salter:

And I think this leads into your next point, which is that

Dave Salter:

to me, I think inherently when I was doing those cold calls for expired

Dave Salter:

listings, it, I, I felt like we were chasing bad, bad prospects.

Dave Salter:

Talk about that a little bit.

Dennis Collins:

Well, again, a moral sin of ineffective salespeople and

Dennis Collins:

sometimes it's their ineffective manager who, like you referenced a,

Dennis Collins:

uh, a manager who put you on that task.

Dennis Collins:

Uh, you wanna talk about somebody getting totally upset and pissed off at sales.

Dennis Collins:

Let them handle anybody and consider them a prospect.

Dennis Collins:

No, no, no, no, no.

Dennis Collins:

Qualify your prospects.

Dennis Collins:

That's the new way.

Dennis Collins:

Not everybody is a fit for what we do.

Dennis Collins:

Let's go and find the right fit for what we do.

Dennis Collins:

Everybody is not a prospect.

Dennis Collins:

Ineffective salespeople don't get that.

Dave Salter:

I'm, I'm sensing that there may be an episode

Dave Salter:

about identifying great prospects.

Dennis Collins:

I feel that one's coming.

Dennis Collins:

Yes.

Dave Salter:

Yeah.

Dave Salter:

And, and finally, you, um, this is your, your mantra and, and I, I think because

Dave Salter:

of your experience and your success, it's a, it's an accurate one, but talk,

Dave Salter:

talk about not following a sales process.

Dennis Collins:

It would be like a pilot, Dave, you know, getting in a, uh, a jet

Dennis Collins:

liner you're gonna take from, uh, Orlando to Boston and they had no game plan.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

How are we gonna get there?

Dennis Collins:

I don't know.

Dennis Collins:

We're just gonna get up and head north and we'll, we'll find a way to get there.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

Would you get on that plane?

Dennis Collins:

Negative.

Dennis Collins:

No.

Dennis Collins:

Would you, would you trust a salesperson who doesn't have a process or a plan?

Dennis Collins:

I wouldn't.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

No.

Dennis Collins:

Ineffective salespeople think they're just spontaneous and they're gonna

Dennis Collins:

come up with the answer sitting there on the spur of the moment.

Dennis Collins:

It's just gonna happen.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

It's just gonna happen.

Dennis Collins:

Let it happen.

Dennis Collins:

I don't need a process.

Dennis Collins:

They're ineffective.

Dennis Collins:

Mm-hmm.

Dave Salter:

So if I sum this up in, in two points, I would say, The

Dave Salter:

two issues that, that underlying issues of what you're talking about.

Dave Salter:

One is the salesperson has a bad attitude.

Dave Salter:

Yeah.

Dave Salter:

And two, that they don't have the proper training and to compound

Dave Salter:

the lack of training is they don't practice what little training or

Dave Salter:

knowledge they may have gained.

Dave Salter:

Would that be accurate?

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

Those are the two reasons that ineffective salespeople will continue

Dennis Collins:

to be ineffective and the one I can do something about is number two.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

If, if you haven't been trained properly, and if you haven't practiced

Dennis Collins:

properly, I can help you with that.

Dennis Collins:

And sales is a tough, but it's rewarding.

Dennis Collins:

But you have to have an attitude that you wanna learn and grow.

Dennis Collins:

Okay?

Dennis Collins:

Mm-hmm.

Dennis Collins:

From the outside looking in, it looks easy to be in sales,

Dennis Collins:

let me assure you, it's not.

Dave Salter:

No, I don't, I, I think it'd be foolish to think that I, I ha

Dave Salter:

having, uh, minimal personal experience, uh, I, I have enough personal experience

Dave Salter:

to know that that is not the case.

Dave Salter:

Right.

Dave Salter:

Um, Dennis, I think we covered everything today.

Dave Salter:

Is there anything I forgot to ask?

Dennis Collins:

Well, we, at least, at least we covered the seven.

Dennis Collins:

Uh, there's a lot more, but I tried to get it down to seven, but I hope

Dennis Collins:

that's useful for our listeners.

Dennis Collins:

If, if you are that person.

Dennis Collins:

Please get some training and do some practice.

Dennis Collins:

If you employ that person, please help them.

Dennis Collins:

Please help them.

Dave Salter:

Yeah.

Dave Salter:

And I think, uh, the, the other key today was looking, you know, we so

Dave Salter:

often, fall, romantically into , reading all the things on what we should be

Dave Salter:

doing when sometimes , it's as simple as looking at what's not working and,

Dave Salter:

and then do the opposite of that.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

Well, again, that's the purpose of today.

Dennis Collins:

I hope that sparked some thoughts.

Dennis Collins:

Maybe you come up looking really good.

Dennis Collins:

That would be good, but if not, Get help.

Dave Salter:

That sounds good, Dennis.

Dave Salter:

Thanks for your wisdom and insight today, folks, that is a wrap on another

Dave Salter:

episode of Connect and Convert, the podcast that lets you behind the

Dave Salter:

curtains with some insider strategies for small business sales success.

Dave Salter:

This is Dave Salter and Dennis Collins.

Dave Salter:

Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time you next time.

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Dennis Collins

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Paul Boomer

I help businesses grow up after they've grown their revenue. Think about that for a moment. You'll understand what I mean.