The Commission Code for Success
Does your gross revenue come from commissions, fees, and other types of 1099 MISC income? If you answered yes, then the Commission Code for Success is a podcast created specifically with you in mind. Each episode is designed to deliver a concept or idea that will help you increase your revenue and have more time to enjoy it.
If you are an employee on 100% commission or an independent contractor you are a business owner when it comes to how you go about doing your daily work. The mindset of a business owner puts you in exactly the right spot to maximize your revenue and maximize the impact you have with your clients and customers.
The Commission Code is the library of knowledge and the set of skills you need to grow your business and reach your desires. Please join us and our guests at The Commission Code Podcast! I look forward to seeing you there, I'm your host, Morris Sims.
The Commission Code for Success
Authentic Conversations: How to Sell Without Being "Salesy"
Brooke Greening shares her S.E.R.V.I.C.E. framework for authentic sales conversations that help commission-based business owners sell without feeling "salesy." Her approach transforms traditional sales techniques into a relationship-building process focused on truly understanding client needs before offering solutions.
• Setting expectations in the first 2-3 minutes establishes transparency and builds trust
• Establishing rapport should focus on meaningful business connections, not superficial small talk
• The first problem clients mention is rarely the real issue driving their buying decision
• Wait at least 5 minutes of questioning before attempting to solve client problems
• Objections are actually buying signals—indications that prospects want to buy but need help overcoming concerns
• Create urgency by providing clear direction and hope, not through manipulation
• Always establish specific next steps with date and time to prevent ghosting
You can find Brooke on LinkedIn under Brooke Greening or at buildingmomentum.info, where she offers a sales conversation assessment to help you improve your approach.
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A lot of times I just ask people because they're trying to figure out okay, how do I set the expectations in a way that feels authentic to them, because I can give them a script. But if they don't, if it doesn't jive with them, if they're not thinking that's really how they sound, that's not what we want to do. So we want to say, okay, first of all, what is the point of the conversation? Two, what are we going to be covering in the conversation? And three, what are the things that they can expect after we're done having this conversation? Like, what is the end result of this? So something that I say, and I encourage others to say, is I'm so thankful we were able to talk today. The goal of our conversation is for me to truly understand more about your business and the struggles that you're facing.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Commission Code podcast. Thanks for listening. We really do appreciate you being here. You know the Commission Code title is it's actually the Commission Code for your success. Our only objective is to help you maximize your business to get what you want. We focus on businesses where revenue comes from commissions or fees or most any kind of 1099 miscellaneous income. We just lump it all together, call it all commission. You're running a business and our content in this podcast is designed to help you run that business so that you can increase revenue and have more time to enjoy it. So if you're in any kind of commission based sales or consulting or professional training or most anything else where your income depends on you going out finding a client and somebody that's going to pay you for your services or product, you run that kind of business. We have stuff that's going to help you.
Speaker 2:I'm your host and my name is Morris Sims. I've been consulting, guiding and training commission-based business owners for well, a long time well over 40 years now. I've been consulting one-on-one. I do training in groups or individually. I've done speaking and keynote addresses and facilitate workshops and all other things as well as well. I ran a training department where our department wrote, designed and delivered training for owners of commission-based businesses. My clients today include insurance agents, travel agents, travel agencies, commercial product suppliers and just a bunch of others.
Speaker 2:I hope you will always find something in this and every episode you listen to that can help you in your business to get what you want. So, with all that in mind, let's get this thing started. This thing started. Brooke Greening is our guest today on the Commission Code, and I'm really excited about having Brooke with us because she's got some wonderful things to share with you, including an entire process and you guys know I love systems and processes and Brooke's going to share that with us today. But, brooke, rather than me trying to introduce you, you know you better than I do Tell us about yourself and what you do.
Speaker 1:Sure, thank you so much, morris. So you know, when businesses are really kind of getting stuck in that daily grind and they're trying to build momentum and they just can't really do that, we've created services in regards to strategic planning, marketing consulting and sales coaching to be able to help them build their momentum and maximize their effort, and so my role is that sales coach and marketing consultant piece. So before we started our business, I did that in healthcare and sales and loved being able to do that. But then we decided to start our own business about five years ago, and so I was a sales specialist where I would just walk into companies and start looking and seeing what's wrong, what's not moving things forward, where people getting stuck, fix it, train the new team, head out and do it again, and so that's a lot of what I get to do now.
Speaker 2:You know, brooke, a lot of the folks that I talk to, who are in the kind of audience that we work with on a regular basis yourself and myself the words I hear are Morris, I don't want to be salesy, you know, I don't want to sound like I'm, you know, the proverbial used card salesman with a plaid jacket and this kind of I don't want to.
Speaker 2:I don't want to go up and say, gee Morris, what can I do today to earn your business? You know we don't want that kind of how do you? What do you think about sales? How do you get out of that mindset?
Speaker 1:Well, the first thing is I actually have a master's in counseling, and so I've always incorporated my master's in counseling with my sales, and I believe it's really important, because the point of a sales conversation is one not for us to be talking all the time, it's not for us to try to get someone to buy something that they don't want. It's truly to be able to serve them and to understand what problems they're having. So we created the service framework to be able to help people follow that line of thought where they're not the ones talking all the time, where they're not winging it either, because I feel like if people are saying I don't want to be salesy, then they don't know what to do. They know what they don't want to do, but they have no idea what they're supposed to do instead, and then they don't know who to go to to learn that, because they're afraid it's just going to be like gimmicks and manipulation and all of that, and so that's why we created the service framework to be able to help with that.
Speaker 2:Well, let's get into it. Tell me about the service framework. That sounds interesting.
Speaker 1:The service framework was created to be able to help people walk through a sales conversation from the very beginning of it in regards to setting expectations all the way through and we use it as an acronym S-E-R-V-I-C-E all the way through, and we use it as an acronym S-E-R-V-I-C-E. It's not a script, because scripts are a little difficult when people aren't following the lines, so you say one thing and then they say something else and you don't know what to do because they didn't follow the script.
Speaker 2:Wait a minute, stop, stop. You're not supposed to say that. You're supposed to say yes or no. That was a yes or no question. I don't know where to go now.
Speaker 1:What are you talking about, right? And then they're they're nervous about that, and so this was created as a guide to help them, so that I believe one they don't need. We don't need to be talking all the time. We really want to be talking like 30% of the time, and they need to be talking 70% of the time. We can't do that if we're trying to wing it and we can't do that if we don't have really good, intentional questions that we're going to be asking them.
Speaker 2:And if I'm worried about what I'm supposed to say next, I'm not listening.
Speaker 1:No, and if I'm not?
Speaker 2:listening and I'm not learning about the prospect and what they need. Then how do I come up with a recommendation on how to fix it?
Speaker 1:Exactly, and we don't even get to that point a lot of the times, because when we have a sales conversation and we all know this the potential client is guarded. Their walls are up because they don't want to get pitched at, and then your walls are up because you don't want to come across as that way. So we're not actually having a real authentic conversation. So you have to start taking those walls down to be able to have that conversation, and so one of the first pieces is to be able to in the S part is to be able to set the expectation, and I don't think people do that very often.
Speaker 1:I think people are walking in and one the potential client either rolls over them and they take control of the whole entire conversation and they're just like I just want to know the price, I just need to know this, I just need to know that. And then they're stuck and they're kind of freezing. Or, on the flip side, they're nervous that the potential client is going to handle the conversation. So then they just start talking and they start throwing things at the wall, hoping something is going to stick. And people talk about well, you need to build value, but they're just kind of guessing and they're just throwing things out there.
Speaker 1:So the setting, the expectation, sets your client up for success, and it sets you up for success because everybody gets to know what's happening, instead of it being like they disengage or they're thinking do I have to talk to you again in order to understand what the investment is going to be? Thinking, do I have to talk to you again in order to understand what the investment is going to be? You line all of that up in those first two to three minutes so that then they'll engage with you more. And now both of you are being set up for success. It like, literally, you have a couple of minutes and if that's not happening, the sales conversation is going to go down from there.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're talking about building a business relationship here, because everything's based on relationships and, frankly, it's just like making a new friend. I used to say it's like sitting at the bar with a young lady or a young man that you want to become friends with. I decided that wasn't a good analogy. The fact is, though, it's true, we want to build a friendship here, and to do that you have to ask some questions and you have to listen to the answers, and when you do that, as you do that with any relationship, those walls begin to go down, and now we can talk about the truth. So tell me about some language you use to set expectations, because I love that part. That initial conversation is the first step in my sales process, so I'm curious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of times I just ask people because they're trying to figure out okay, how do I set the expectations in a way that feels authentic to them, because I can give them a script. But if they don't, if it doesn't jive with them, if they're not thinking that's really how they sound, that's not what we want to do. So we want to say, okay, first of all, what is the point of the conversation? Two, what are we going to be covering in the conversation? And three, what are the things that they can expect after we're done having this conversation? Like, what is the end result of this? So something that I say and I encourage others to say, is I'm so thankful we were able to talk today.
Speaker 1:The goal of our conversation is for me to truly understand more about your business and the struggles that you're facing. Then we're going to see if I'm going to be able to help. If I can, great, we're going to go through that investment and what that looks like, and if I can't, I want to be able to give you other resources so that you can be able to continue to keep solving your problems. I'm going to take a few notes. Is that all right? And I've got some questions before we start. That way they know okay, you're taking notes too, you're going to be asking questions, so I don't have to feel like wait a minute, where are these questions coming from?
Speaker 1:And three, we are going to talk about the investment, so they don't have to wonder is this going to happen later? So you just that's what works for us and the clients that we work with. So they need to look at what do you really want to accomplish in this conversation and how are? What is it going to look like afterwards so that they can feel comfortable with that? I just think so many times people think that sales is an act and all of a sudden, like I can have a regular conversation with someone, but now, if I have to talk about sales now, everything changes.
Speaker 2:And it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker 1:You want to be authentic all the way through. So I want to tell them this is what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2:Cause if you're not authentic. People know it, I know it, don't you know it? We all know it oh yeah, you know. Yeah, you know real fast whether somebody's authentic and whether they're going to be there for you or they're there for them. Yeah, if it's all about me making a commission, I'm sorry You're not the kind of person I want to be. It's not professional sales, by my definition.
Speaker 1:No, and I would say if, along with that, if people feel like they need to do something to help you, that's not a good conversation. If they're like oh okay, well, you have your due date here, or you have to do this, or you're trying to breach this commission like all of that type of language. You're not there for them to help you. It's the other way around.
Speaker 2:Yep, a hundred percent. So that's the S.
Speaker 1:I guess we go from there to e right well, if we want to dive through all of it, um, but then the next piece is like establishing rapport and so, just quickly, in regards to that, we do not want. It's not like oh hey, my dog was born on the same month as your dog was. That is not the appropriate way.
Speaker 2:Or I see that picture of your son over there playing basketball. My son plays basketball. Give me a break.
Speaker 1:I would highly encourage. This is where you're wanting to do it Like. We call it pre-call planning. We call it our homework. This is where you're going to spend a little bit of time, before you even have the conversation, to talk about what's important to their business. That's the establishing rapport. I saw on LinkedIn. You went so-and-so for a conference. What was that conference like? What did you find the most beneficial? I saw that you wrote a blog post on da-da-da-da. How has that been helping you in regards to your business? It is not a diagnostic type of thing where we're looking at their business to tell them what's wrong with it. Where we're looking at their business to tell them what's wrong with it, we are looking at their business to find out what's important to them and how can we be able to start establishing rapport that way. It takes effort to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love it. That's great R.
Speaker 1:Recognize the problem. So my biggest tip for this is, when we start asking questions, look at the timer and tell yourself I'm not going to solve anything until five minutes has come into play. Because what happens is someone shares one problem and then we're excited to help them and we dive into how we can be able to help them immediately, and the very first problem people share with us is not actually the real problem. That's not what's going to drive and motivate them to a buying decision, and so you want to know, okay, what are the underlying problems of what's happening. So that's where the intentional questions are coming in. So look at the timer and be like I'm not going to solve. I'm just going to start asking questions because I truly want to know what's happening. If we say in the setting expectations, I want to know how I can help you, then we have to be authentic in this piece and truly understand what are your problems, because I may or may not be able to help with those, and that's the goal of the conversation.
Speaker 2:Absolutely and within five minutes before I don't know what the solution is. I have no idea how I'm going to help you and your business in the first five minutes. I've got to learn. I had a lot to learn about you before. I'm going to be able to give you a decent recommendation, that's for sure. What comes next? Oh, go ahead and.
Speaker 1:I would also encourage that because people will ask they'll be like Brooke, that sounds great with setting the expectation, but someone tells me wait a minute, I just want the price. I'm like, well, that's why we go back to that and say I'm happy to talk about the investment, but in order for me to give you a realistic view of that, I just need to ask you a few questions before that. We people just assume I know your problem, I know how to fix it, and then off they go. But that's, that doesn't work in real life. I don't come to my husband and he's like I know your problem, I know how to fix it, we're going to just do it.
Speaker 2:Wait a minute, it doesn't work. I thought that was my job as a husband.
Speaker 1:No, no. Well, he's a great problem solver, but that is not how it's going to resonate with me, and it doesn't resonate with our potential clients either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I understand. And if they're coming into this thing thinking that you've got a box and you give everybody this box, your box is the solution here. I'm going to sell you the same box I sold Jane and Ed and Sam. We get a lot of work to do to build a relationship for you to understand who I am and what I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:So where are we V?
Speaker 1:V verbalizing the value. We cannot help solve problems or verbalize the value without actually getting the right problem. If you get the wrong problem, it doesn't matter, it really doesn't.
Speaker 2:It's like oh geez, I don't need sneakers. That's not what I walked in here for. I wanted a t-shirt. I don't want any damn sneakers. Give me a break.
Speaker 1:Well and also, but even when they're giving you the problem, if it's the very first one, you're going to try to solve it. That's not going to like land with them. They don't necessarily know why, because that's not really what's driving them. They're going to go to your competitor and they're going to figure out what the real problem is and then they're going to move forward with them.
Speaker 2:And then we're going to say, well, it had to do with price.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and it probably didn't. Yeah, and it didn't. And so you have to get the problem right. Assuming we've gotten the problem right, then verbalizing the value is we're just talking about the value of what you offer connected to the problem they just shared with you. We are not giving them a whole list of things, because that's not making the connection. You have to connect the bridge, and so verbalizing the value to exactly what they just told you that problem is, that's that next piece. And then we go into identifying objections, because I believe everybody has objections. When I talk to some of my clients, they're like it was a great sales conversation, they didn't have any objections, and I'm like, well, you're probably not going to hear from them again.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. There's a hidden objection there somewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we just need to give them the space to be able to share that. And so I just usually ask what questions or concerns do you have before we move forward? Not just what questions do you have, Because that's not what I'm actually asking. I'm saying what's going, what's getting in the way for us to start talking about investments and moving forward with me? That's a different question. And so to be able, to be able to Pardon me.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry my bad.
Speaker 1:No, go right ahead.
Speaker 2:I was just saying concerns, and it's one of my exciting parts of the sales process. I love this part. Concerns or objections are buying signals. Yeah, they're saying. What they're saying is gee, brooke, I want to buy this, but I need to get over this particular hurdle in order to say yes, but I really want to say yes. Can you help me understand about this part so that I can say yes?
Speaker 1:Yes, that's what an objection is, yeah. Yeah, because sometimes people are like for some because everybody wants to be, they want to be kind, they want to be decent human beings. So if an objection comes and they're saying, okay, hey, I can't, I don't know if I can afford this or I don't know if this is going to be the best investment in my time, sometimes then they're like well, I don't want to argue with that, I'm just going to completely back off and say I'm going to send you a proposal and off we go, where I would say, the fact that they've shared that with you.
Speaker 1:First thing you want to do is validate it, like let's just call it what it is. To do is validate it Like let's just call it what it is. We are not, we're not going around it. We're not trying to help you visualize what life is going to be like when your problems are solved. None of that actually works very well. Just validate the concern. I don't want to waste my money.
Speaker 2:I can certainly understand how you might feel that way, brooke. In fact, you know a lot of the people that I work with.
Speaker 1:They feel exactly the same way. Yeah, like I don't want you to lose your money either. Right, that's not. I don't want you to invest in our company and not get the return that you want, just starting to take that wall down. And then we clarify like, okay, what's happening in that objection, and then that's when we can then start to advance and say, ok, are we ready to keep moving forward? Have we realized, you know what? We missed it? This is not actually what you're looking for and you actually need something more. So now we're talking about other sources, resources that we can provide for them, or we've realized you know what this actually what we talked about, is not what you're looking for. This would be a better option and might be more of a downsell, but we don't just handle objections in regards to this is expensive and now we just slash our prices. That's not going to, that's not going to work, and so that's what I mean by identifying the objections. Then we create urgency and explain next steps.
Speaker 2:Explain next steps. I love it. And just the one oh, go ahead. I was just going to say that is the sales process practically in a nutshell. It's wonderful because you've hit on all the practical things that we have to do in order to help somebody get to the point where they see what their problem is specifically and how we can help them solve it. Brooke, that's cool. I love that.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you so much, and I just I always want to encourage, like when we talk about creating urgency. So that's when people are. That's usually when they're like aha, I knew you were sneaky and I was like I'm not being sneaky. We create urgency to give them direction and hope. If we are having a conversation with a friend and they are struggling, I don't look at them and say good luck with that and then walk away. Have a great day. See you later. Have a great day, call me if you have questions. No, I help them to say, okay, you've already given me the urgency that you have. If we're listening and we're asking the right questions, they've already created that urgency for us, and so then we go into the next steps and then that's, that's the last piece for a lot of people that I work with. They just feel like, well, it was a great conversation and I'm going to call them next week and that's where we're at. I'm like no, no, that's like how ghosting happens.
Speaker 1:That's why a lot of different things are taking place, and so I always encourage them. You have to know two things, like your client needs to know do I know what to do next date and time to be able to move forward with you? And you need to know if they're going to do it yeah, if so, when, if not, why? If those aren't set in place, then the followup just goes off the rails and you annoy them all of that, and you don't want that.
Speaker 2:No, and you don't want to sit around your office and listen to the crickets.
Speaker 2:No Are they going to call me or are they not going to call me? I wonder, if they're going to call me, should I call them? I don't know. It's only been a week. Should I really call them? Is it time yet? What am I going to do? I don't want to piss them off. What am I going to do? You know you don't want to get into that cycle, so let's make a decision, because people tend to procrastinate. We have to help them make a decision. I don't care whether it's yes or no, just make a decision so that I can move on. There's a thing that we used to teach when I was teaching brand new people who, frankly, the last thing they sold was Girl Scout cookies. And the thing that I had to get across to them is you've got to understand some people are going to do business with you, some people are not, so what Next? And you've got to be ready to say, okay, cool, next and move on, because there's somebody out there that will do business with you. It's your job to go find them.
Speaker 1:But if you spend three, four weeks trying to follow up with someone, you've missed the time of being able to talk to other people who are ready. That doesn't mean and you know this just as well as I do not everybody is in the buying time frame of 30 days. Then we have 30 to 60, 60 to 90. Then we have 30 to 60, 60 to 90. Figure out where they're at, though, so then they can go in what I call those appropriate buckets and have that intentional follow-up with those. It's not that everybody is going to buy at the very first part of it, but know where they're at. So you're not because we just take it so personally, especially if it's your own business, you're just like oh, what did I do wrong? What do I need to change? And it's like you don't need to change anything, you just need to keep going.
Speaker 2:You just got to keep working, keep working, keep working. Just got to keep going. Yeah, keep swimming, keep swimming. That's for sure.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Brooke, tell us how we find you, If this has engaged my mind and I want to find you and have a follow-up conversation where do I find you easiest?
Speaker 1:So want to find you and have a follow-up conversation. Where do I find you easiest? So there are two places where you can find me. I'm on LinkedIn, so just under Brooke Greening you can find me there. I do a lot of different videos, linkedin lives, different things like that, and then our website is buildingmomentuminfo. And then, if you're finding that the service framework is something that you're interested in or wanting to know more about, I have created a assessment, so it's a sales conversation assessment, and so I'm happy to share that link with you and then they can take it and they can get a report back of how their sales conversations are going.
Speaker 2:I love it. Buildingmomentuminfo.
Speaker 1:Not com.
Speaker 2:Info Correct. Do you know where buildingmomentumcom brings you to?
Speaker 1:Where.
Speaker 2:Not Brooke. I found that out this morning when I was rushing to do my homework that I didn't do beforehand. Buildingmomentuminfo and it works to go find Brooke and learn more about the service process and how it all comes together. Brooke, I love it. That was absolutely a wonderful conversation. Thank you so very, very much for being here.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Well, that does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the commission code to success in your business. Remember, go to MorrisSimscom for more information and in the meantime, hey, have a great week, get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission Code. Best wishes. I'm Morris Sims.