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
What You Believe About Selling Is Probably Wrong
Bob Burg shares his journey from struggling salesperson to sales expert, revealing how learning a proven methodology transformed his results in just three weeks. He explains why selling is about discovering what others need and helping them get it, not convincing people to buy things they don't want.
• The etymology of "sell" comes from Old English "salan" meaning "to give"
• Professional selling means giving time, attention, counsel, education, empathy and value
• People buy when they believe the value exceeds the price or cost
• Value is always in the eyes of the beholder, not what the salesperson thinks is valuable
• Building trust requires both competence (skills) and character (integrity)
• Referral business is powerful because it's built on borrowed trust
• Great discovery eliminates the need for fancy closing techniques
• Address common objections proactively as part of your education process
• Sales is a noble profession when focused on helping others get what they want
Check out Bob's new book "Streetwise to Saleswise: Become Objectionproof and Beat the Sales Blues" co-authored with Jeff West. Visit burg.com for more information about Bob's virtual speaking for teams and events.
Check out more about your host, Morris Sims
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That encouraged me right there Master the art of selling. There's something to this other than just knocking on doors and trying to convince people to buy from me. The wee hours of the morning I'd be highlighting and underlying and tearing pages and, you know, practicing and drilling and rehearsing, and within about three weeks my sales began to go through the roof. Now, the interesting thing was, there wasn't a real lot different about me over those three weeks other than I had learned a methodology. I now had a system, if you will.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Commission Code Podcast. We're here to help you overcome the challenges that most of us face in our business. From time to time, you know things like feeling like you're on a plateau and you just can't seem to grow your business. From time to time, you know things like feeling like you're on a plateau and you just can't seem to grow your business. Or maybe feeling overwhelmed, just trying to make ends meet, and yet it seems like you're always working. Or maybe you've done quite well for a while, but now nothing seems to be working anymore. Well, we want to help you solve those problems and many more anymore. Well, we want to help you solve those problems and many more. Our objective is to provide you with practical solutions so you can grow your business and have more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Speaker 2:My name is Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for this show. I've spent years okay, decades really in the corporate world, teaching business owners how to increase their revenue and use professional sales processes and run their business more effectively and efficiently. I started my own consulting and training business about seven years ago, I guess and I'm helping my clients do just exactly that Get more revenue, increase their revenue and have more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Get more revenue, increase their revenue and have more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. But I got to tell you I'm having more fun than ever helping people build successful businesses. So, with all that said, let's get on with today's episode of the Commission Code for your Success.
Speaker 2:You know, when I start the Commission Code podcast, I generally tell you guys, gee, I'm really excited to have so-and-so on the show today, but it's been a while since I've had somebody on the show that I've known for a long period of time, even though we may not have kept up every year. But Mr Bob Berg is my guest today on the Commission Code and I truly am excited to see Bob and to get a chance to chat with him, because it was 20 years ago that he autographed his book for me when he spoke to us at New York Life. I'm so glad you're here, bob. Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 1:Thank you. It's a delight and an honor to be with you and it's amazing that it's been 20 years.
Speaker 2:Seems like yesterday, doesn't it? Yeah, Except I had a lot more hair back then.
Speaker 1:Bob. Well, yeah, and mine wasn't shock white.
Speaker 2:But it's distinguished Bob. It's so distinguished it looks great.
Speaker 1:Well, I figure, if I can have people actually think I'm wise, then I was about to say intelligent. But there's no way I can fool them into thinking that Me neither Me neither I don't go there.
Speaker 2:Bob is quite an author. He's written a series called the Go-Giver Series, which I just absolutely fell in love with, but his book that caught my attention was Winning Without Intimidation, and I still use things that I learned in that book today and taught them to my children. So, bob, again, thank you for being here. Tell us a little bit about you and about what you do today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean briefly. I started out many, many years ago in radio sports and then television news was not particularly. I was actually the late night news guy for a very, very small ABC affiliate in the Midwestern United States, was not very good at it and I could tell before long that was not going to be my career. So I like to say I graduated into sales and I was horrible at it because I had had no training. I'd never had any formal training and apparently the company where I was working did not either, because their their training was go out, talk to people and sell. Uh, you know that that did not.
Speaker 1:I go out and talk to a lot of people. In fact I thought I thought sales was talking right and I didn't do very well and I was very frustrated after a few months. So I go into a bookstore looking for an answer. Now, I wasn't quite sure what the question was. But back then remember you know, and this is 40 years ago unless you knew about things like sales, training, books, you know you didn't know. Not everybody knew that back then and I certainly didn't know. So I wasn't sure what I was even looking for.
Speaker 1:However, fortunately I came upon two books. One was by this gentleman named Tom Hopkins and another was by another gentleman by the name of Zig Ziglar. Two, of course, of the, the legendary hall of fame. You know leaders in our space and just seeing, you know, mr Hopkins' book was titled how to Master the Art of Selling. Well, you know that encouraged me right there Master the art of selling. There's something to this other than just knocking on doors and trying to convince people to buy from me.
Speaker 1:So I took those two books home, morris. I did not read those books, I devoured those books, and I mean until the wee hours of the morning. I'd be highlighting and underlying and tearing pages and, you know, practicing and drilling and rehearsing, and within about three weeks my sales began to go through the roof. Now, the interesting thing was there wasn't a real lot different about me over those three weeks, other than I had learned a methodology.
Speaker 1:I now had a system, if you will, and I personally define a system as the process of predictably achieving a goal based on a logical and specific set of how-to principles, the key being predictability. If it's been proven that by doing A you'll get the desired result of B, then you know. All you need to do is A and continue to do A, and eventually you'll get the desired result of B. Then you know, all you need to do is A and continue to do A and eventually you'll get the desired result of B. Now this is what you taught people for years and years in corporate life and what you're now teaching as a private contractor, and so this was very encouraging to me and I started to really just love sales and really dig in, wanting to reading every book I could, listening to every back. Then, of course, it was cassette tape albums. You remember those right?
Speaker 2:You mean those things that you'd use a pencil to get the whole bunch of those?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and you know, going to seminars. But here was really the interesting thing One of the most important things I learned about sales was that it wasn't just the learning, the how-to aspect that was important, that was baseline, I mean, you had to learn that. But it was really more developing yourself inside as a human being. And this is where you know they'd be recommending all the great books that we would consider the classics, right, those, the, the, how to win friends and influence people, the thinking grow rich, the magic of thinking, big psycho, cybernetics, and the richest man in Babylon, and you know all these things. So I'm just absorbing this, loving it. So after a few years and I, a couple other companies, I worked my way up to sales manager, yada, yada, yada, started teaching others how to do the same, began a speaking business and you know, fortunately I've had a career over 30 years or something, or 35 or whatever it is. That's been very, very fulfilling.
Speaker 2:It's just amazing, isn't I? And I I love the, the books you just mentioned. Tom has been on my show and uh I I haven't talked to him in a number of years now, but he was. He was uh enjoying his retirement in arizona, but still just as sharp as a tack.
Speaker 1:It was amazing yeah, um I, you know, I just look at those legends and I'm so thankful for them me too.
Speaker 2:Me too, I mean how to, how to master the art. I've not only used that and taught those concepts. I had a gig in in india for a couple of months and we wound up having that company buy his audio or no, his video series and I taught them how to implement that in their, in their training, because it just does the basics so very, very well exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:uh, I was. I was very fortunate that those were the first two and I think with with. First of all, I was very lucky that those are the first two books because, as you said, it's the building blocks, it's that first book. So you understand, you begin to understand human nature, you know why people buy, how the mind works. Zig Ziglar's, you know, is very much the same thing and both of them really teach from the point of view of the prospective client.
Speaker 2:And that's the key.
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of times Morris, people will say to me and I'm sure they've said this to you well, you know, I don't like selling, or I could never sell, I don't know. And here's what it is. It's not that they don't like selling, it's that they don't like the idea of what they think selling is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a total misconception about what professional sales, of course, and that's the word I'm using right now to differentiate it. It's the difference between professional sales and amateur sales.
Speaker 1:Ah yeah, because, let's face it, you know if you think selling as is often portrayed in the media, on TV, and just basic. You know if you think of selling as trying to convince someone to buy something they don't want or need which, by the way, is not selling.
Speaker 1:That's called being a con artist, right? Yes, it is. That's not selling. But if you think that's what selling is and you have a, you know, a moral component about you, well, no, of course you're not going to like that. But what if we look at selling as simply discovering what the other person needs, wants, desires, and helping them to get it? Now we're talking selling. You know Morrison, in the follow-up to the Go-Giver, go-givers, sell More.
Speaker 1:John David Mann, who's a wonderful wordsmith. I mean, you give him a word and before he writes about it he'll like, do a whole history of the word. You know one of these people. So he looks up the word sell and he finds out that the old English root of the word sell was salan, which meant to give. So when you're giving your literal, when you're selling excuse me, you're literally giving.
Speaker 1:Now someone might say, well, wait a second, berg, you know that's, that's fine, but isn't that just semantics? When you're selling, you're giving. What are you really giving? Well, let's say you're in a sales conversation with someone. You have a prospective customer or client right in front of you. You are in a sales conversation. What are you giving them? Well, we would suggest you're giving them time, attention, counsel, education, empathy and, most of all, exquisite value. So when we look at selling this way now, it no longer becomes a necessary evil that we have to do, but it's something that's very righteous. It's something we get to do because we're adding immense value to the lives of others, and money is simply an echo of value. So to the degree we add value to another person's life, we receive a fee or a commission, however you want to say it, and everybody benefits.
Speaker 2:It truly is a Covey win-win-win situation. Yeah, and that's exactly what it boils down to. I love what you just said and it is something I repeat over and over in my new course I'm building and I even I stole this from you, bob, but in the course that I just wrote, the lesson I just wrote, I used that whole derivative of the word sales because it was in one of your most recent daily emails that I get from you and it just caught my attention so beautifully. It just so easily defines what we're talking about here. And, bob, what do you think when somebody decides, you know they're out there running a business and, golly gee, it's not going just exactly the way I want it to go? I can't seem to get anybody to buy my product, and that's my thinking, right, I can't get anyone else to buy my product.
Speaker 1:You said that beautifully. I can't get that right. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:How do you start counseling a person that's in that position, Bob?
Speaker 1:So I think it first of all comes down to understanding why people aren't buying from you. Okay, and, by the way, of course, there can be many reasons within the greater reason, but it comes down to, as you know, that they don't believe that the value they would be receiving is greater than the price that they're paying. We could even say the cost, because price is just one form of cost. So you know, there's time, cost, price, cost, lost opportunity costs, frustration, aggravation, right. So so if the value is here and for those listening, I'm holding my hand up to a certain right and the cost or price is down here, they're not buying.
Speaker 1:Okay, so why? Why not? First let's look at the difference between price and value. So price is a dollar amount, it's a dollar figure, it's finite, it is what it is. Value is the relative worth or desirability of a thing, of something, to the end user or beholder. In other words, what is it about this thing, this product, service, concept, idea, what have you that brings so much worth or value to another human being that they will willingly exchange their money for this value, feel great about it, while you make a very healthy profit as well. Ok, so here's the thing. Value, as we said, is relative, which means value is always in the eyes of the beholder. It's not about what we think is of value, about what we're selling. It's not what we think they should think is a value about what we're selling.
Speaker 2:And it's not trying to convince them that they should believe what we believe.
Speaker 1:No, and that's the key. As human beings, we come from our own set of beliefs, okay, and we tend to believe that the way we see the world is the way everyone else sees the world, which makes intuitive sense. How could it be any different? Right? So what we find to be of value which, remember, is relative we assume they would believe is of value. And that's why you see a lot of sales people during their sales conversation, you know, spewing out all these benefits, but are they really benefits? Also, they're doing this without first asking all the discovery questions to make sure they know what this person needs, wants, desires and feels is of value.
Speaker 1:So, when we come from our own mindset, our own set of beliefs, the chances are we're not probably providing value to that person. So the first thing is and when people say, well, bob, but I'm providing value to people, well, is it value as you see it or is it value as they see it? Well, I don't know. Well, of course, and that's why asking questions, as you know, of course, is the key that the discovery, to me, is the most important part of the sales conversation. Right, and to me, yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:I mean that it is upon that discovery, or the answers in the discovery, the things you learn, the things you learn in discovery, that it should be the foundation of your recommendation. That's what you're, that's what you're trying to do is help other people get what they want. You said that earlier and you're so right. I agree wholeheartedly.
Speaker 1:You know it comes down to this, and one of the things I used to say when I spoke at sales conferences is and I'd often start out by saying this is that nobody is going to buy from you because you have a quota to meet or the mortgage is coming due.
Speaker 2:Or the mortgage is coming due, or you want to send your kid to a certain school or even just because you're a nice human being, they're going to do business with you.
Speaker 1:They're going to buy from you because they believe that they will be better off by doing so than by not doing so. And this is the answer to the question why aren't people buying from me? Because you're not doing things in a certain way that causes them to understand that they are better off doing business with you.
Speaker 2:And that is so vitally important. And isn't that based on a relationship of trust, bob? I mean they've got to trust that I'm telling them the truth, that I really do have their best interest at heart. In the old counselor selling system from Wilson Learning it was getting over the river of no trust and I still, to this day, believe that is so vitally important.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more. One of the things I said and I said this first in the first edition of Endless Referrals back in the 90s and I'd been saying it before this before that is that, all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know like and trust.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And Stephen MR Covey, the son of Dr Stephen Covey of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Stephen MR Covey is a magnificent leader teacher on leadership. He talks about trust being comprised of two things character and competence. And for any sale of and we're not talking about a candy bar, but of any sales of significance, you know, they need to trust you in both regards they need to trust your competence and they need to trust your character. And so, to me, the know like and trust is, you know is the key. And I let you know what you said about the bridge of trust Until you cross that bridge, you know is the key, and I, like you, know what you said about the bridge of trust Until you cross that bridge, it just probably isn't happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really isn't, and rightfully so. I mean, for years we heard caveat emptor, buyer beware. And that's kind of the mindset in the general population nowadays is somebody comes to my, my attention, and they they want to present an idea to me and help me decide to do something with that idea. The first thing you do is throw up the defenses and go wait a minute, stop. No, I don't want to listen to you. And you just got to get past that. And the only way to do that is with a relationship of trust.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and so much of that. And that's why you know, I believe referral business is so important. Because that referral, first of all, it's simply easier to set the appointment because you're going in on borrowed trust, borrowed influence, if you will. With a referred prospect, it's easier to you can sell on high value rather than low price because you come in again, borrowed influence, borrowed trust. You have that gravitas. You're seen as a professional salesperson instead of an amateur salesperson, so you're able to focus on the value rather than the price. You know, as you know, when you sell on low price, you're a commodity. When you sell on high value, you're a commodity. When you sell on high value, you're a resource. And so when we come in that way, through a referral, that helps in that way.
Speaker 1:The third real big benefit of a referral-based prospect is that it's easier to complete the sale. This again due to borrowed trust, or what we call vicarious experience. And this goes right to what you said. You know they haven't, no, they haven't bought from you before, but someone who they know like and trust has said this is the only person you need to see. They are, they will stand right by you, they are your, your advocate, they are, you know their product or service is great. They back at 100 percent of the company's family, you know, and so forth. And then perhaps the another big benefit of a referral based prospect is is that they're already of the mindset that that's how you do business, since that's how they met you. So in their belief system they see you as a sales again professional, as you said, as opposed to amateur. They see you as a sales again professional, as you said, as opposed to amateur.
Speaker 2:They see you as a sales professional who meets their prospects through referrals, who sells on high value rather than low price, who completes the sale and who is then referred to others as a natural part of the process. Bob, I can sit here and listen to you talk for the next hour at least, or more. It is just amazing.
Speaker 1:Obviously, I've learned a lot from you over the years, because I say a lot of the same things.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about the sales process. You mentioned the discovery part of that and we've been talking about that initial building of trust and relationship. So we've got the approach and the discovery part, Determining what the prospect needs is going to come from the discovery and presenting that. Let's talk about presenting the solution and what in the world of old sales they'd call closing the sales. I call it helping the prospect make a decision Right, Because I really don't care whether they say yes or no, I just want to make a decision so we don't just walk around procrastinating all day and I can move on to the next step, the next prospect, the next sale. Work in this, whatever the case may be. Talk to us about presenting that recommendation and quote unquote closing the sale. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that, to the degree that, as you were saying, to the degree that your discovery is fantastic, okay, that makes it easier to ask for the order and much more natural to ask for the order and much more natural. You know, in the old school there were, you know, and we talk about in the Go-Giver, and, again, this was one of John's brilliant writing parts. I could never have come up with this, but he's so good the A to Z remember the one, deborah, who was the salesperson who learned all the closes from A to Z, right, yeah, this close and that close and this close, um, and that's fine. But really, if you've done the discovery correctly, then at the very end you're simply asking that person to take action on something they've already told you they want to do. Yeah, and I actually learned that that phrase from a guy named Harry Brown, who was was one of my heroes, and and Harry wrote a number of books on different topics, from investing to philosophy, to, you know, politics and so forth.
Speaker 1:But he had this, this book and so forth, but he had this book. It wasn't a book. It was back in the 60s when he was training his sales team. He had done two small manuscripts, if you will. One was on understanding human nature and the other was on relating human nature to the sales process, and it was absolutely brilliant. So when he passed in I think it was 2007 or, excuse me, 2008, his widow found these manuscripts on his hard drive and she told someone about it. Who told someone about it? Who published the book? And excuse, excuse the pause, I just for those who are listening I just turned away to my bookshelf for one quick second so I could get the book to show Morris and the person named it the secret of selling anything.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, the Harry, the person titled it. This because in the book, harry tells the secret of selling anything and that is simply find out what the other person wants and help them get it. That's the big secret. So, as Harry says, the secret of selling need not be a secret, right? But Harry's the one who said you know, when he had a sales team, he taught them don't worry about learning any fancy closes. Do a great enough discovery closes. Do a great enough discovery right.
Speaker 1:Handle 95% of the objections within the sales conversation, because no matter what you sell, there's probably four, five or six objections you're going to get every time I call them baked in objections, okay, Depending upon your product and service you're going to receive. So them up front as part of your conversation. You bring them up first. When you bring it up, it's education. When they bring it up, it's an objection, okay. So learn right.
Speaker 1:And so, as and and harry said, you know so by the end, if you've done a good enough job, you, you don't need a fancy clothes. You know it's just. When would you like to get started or which of these. I love how you we talked about when we were talking earlier, how you did that with the one of your niche markets that you talked about and you gave them the choice of three things. They were all great choices that would benefit them greatly, that's it. And then ask them how would you like to write? Boom, that's it. You don't need anything fancy. You just ask them to take action on something they've already told you they want to do.
Speaker 2:And you know, bob, it's interesting to me, but you run into the folks that are still doing amateur sales. I'll never forget the car salesman who was obviously very new. In fact he even admitted to me, which I thought was really a lack of understanding about how we ought to deal with people. But you know, I've only been doing this for a short period of time. And later on the conversation, mr simms, what can I do today to earn your business? And I'm going, dude, let me teach you how to sell.
Speaker 1:Isn't that one of the worst things of being a sales professional or advocate like we are? We see every sales conversation when we're the prospect and we're almost like not paying attention to the product or service because we're listening to the sales. Oh, 100%, 100% product or service because we're listening to the sales uh oh, 100 percent, uh 100 percent and when it's like, and to this day, people still come to the door to sell things.
Speaker 2:I mean, I live in texas, so hail is always a problem and we're in a fairly new home and still the the roofing guys come to the front door you know, we had this terrible hail storm. I'll inspect your roof for free. And I'm thinking, yeah, you'll inspect my roof for free, you know. And and then they start into it. Or solar solar is another good one. That has come to the door a lot and it's like dude, I don't really want to know, thank you. And then he just keeps telling me the benefits of being in solar and having. It's just amazing how much more business people could get involved with and do if they just learned what Tom Hopkins taught the two of us 40 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, isn't that the truth? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And that's why I do what I do today, because I do believe that what you do, Bob, and what I do is so vitally important to help people understand that selling is a noble profession.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Just as much as your attorney or your doctor or your CPA. For a business, the world of sales, helping people make a decision is a noble profession, because you're going to help folks get what they want, and that's the bottom line of the whole thing.
Speaker 1:And we know what Zig Ziglar said, his most famous saying you can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want.
Speaker 2:Very good, Bob. I remember I listened to his tape like 20 times.
Speaker 1:That was very good. It was the first guy I ever saw.
Speaker 2:Like I always say in concert right, you know he was the first speaker.
Speaker 1:I ever I ever saw and I got his, you know, got his tapes and I just, I think I listened to them like I don't know, 20 times in a row. You know, going from. Uh, and he was. He was so wonderful.
Speaker 2:And that was that was automobile university.
Speaker 1:I mean, there was a call it right Automobile university.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was a cassette tape in my car all the way and and yeah, my kids and my wife finally figured out that this was important to me when, on the way to vacation one one summer, we listened to sales tapes the whole way from uh, where were we? We were in Little Rock, arkansas, I think. All the way from there to Florida we listened to all sorts of people talk about sales. It's amazing, when you immerse yourself in the system, the sales process, the sales system that all professionals use in one way or another, how much you can learn from that and how much better your business is going to be.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's amazing. Bob, thank you so much for being on the Commission Code, for your success today.
Speaker 1:Thank you. What a joy, and it's just so great to catch up with you. And when I received your email, I think it was a couple of weeks ago or something. Whoa, I can't believe it's for Sims. I didn't even know you were a subscriber to the daily email, so it was so wonderful to see you.
Speaker 2:It was. It's wonderful to catch up, bob, and to chat about things in the past that are still so very relevant today, that you know folks need to learn, and we're going to help them do that, that's for sure. Again, bob, thank you so much for being on the Commission Code today. I really do appreciate your time.
Speaker 1:My absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2:Oh and by the way, hey, bob has a new book on the street with his co-author, jeff West. The title is Streetwise to Saleswise Become Objectionproof and beat the sales blues. I have my copy in. I gotta admit I just about couldn't put it down to produce this episode. His other books have helped me all throughout my career. So, hey, go to burgcom, b-u-r-gcom for more information and don't forget, bob will join your meetings or events virtually and speak to your team or your audience. So check him out, bergcom. 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.