Latest / The Life-First Solopreneur / 03. What Solopreneurs Need to Know About Sales to Be Successful With Greg Rutan
Transcript
- Greg Rutan (00:00): And inevitably people really appreciate that. And they say good things about you. And lots of times you get business back Intro (00:06): Bigger. Doesn't always mean better. Welcome to the One-Person business podcast, where people who are flying solo in business, come for specific tips and advice to find success. As a company of one, here are your hosts, Joe Rando and Carly Ries. Joe Rando (00:24): Hello, and welcome to the One-Person business podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Joe Rando. Carly Ries (00:30): And I'm Carly Ries. Joe Rando (00:31): And today we've got a really great show for you. Everybody that's has a One-Person business needs to do selling in some way, shape or form. And we have with us today, Greg Ruan, the commensurate salesperson, at least in my book. A guy that I've worked with in the past and has years and years of experience selling. Greg started out his career doing coaching, which maybe he'll tell us a little bit about, coaching for salespeople, and then worked as a branch manager and regional manager at accounting firms. He was the branch manager at Robert Half, went off to an organization called NICA, which sounds very interesting, but I'll leave it to him to tell us about it if he wants to. Then one that I'm sure a lot of people have heard of called EF, which did the college study tours. Joe Rando (01:21): And Greg traveled all around the world, setting up programs for international travel for college students, which put him way up in the status on Delta airlines. He's also on the Yale Board of Alum, because he's an alum of Yale and he has for the last almost 10 years, been Vice President of Sales at Trade Area Systems, a company that I co-founded and spent many years working with Greg. That's why I wanted to bring him on today because he really is, I don't know if natural born is fair, but you know, maybe it's learned and trained, but he is somebody that really understands sales and is going to help you understand what you need to know in order to effectively sell. I want to be clear, this is not about ABC, always be closing kind of stuff, Glengarry, Glen Ross. This is getting in the mindset of how you are going to help people with your solution and finding out what they need and bringing them to the place where they find that you are the solution for them, if you are. So we're not gonna be telling you how to be a shyster here. This is really about understanding people and how to help them come to a solution to their problems. So with that lengthy introduction, hello, Greg, how are you? Greg Rutan (02:45): I'm very well, thank you for having me. Joe Rando (02:48): It's good to have you. So given my extensive introduction, I guess you don't have much to say about who you are at this point, or maybe you do. A little fun fact, you are, if I understand it, distantly related to the Rutan who flew the, what was it? A solar powered plane or a plane across the ocean or Greg Rutan (03:08): Yeah, well, there's a famous aviator named Bert Rutan who is in fact a cousin of mine. Joe Rando (03:17): Yeah, he flew something really cool. I don't remember it was, it was a while ago Greg Rutan (03:21): Yes he did. Joe Rando (03:22): so look, let's just dig in here. What are the most important things that solopreneurs and freelancers people in One-Person businesses, working alone, what do they specifically need to think about when they're addressing selling in the sales process? Greg Rutan (03:37): It's a great question. It's one that's probably not asked enough, frankly. An individual proprietor or a single business owner, has to generate revenues. I think I'd like to take a step back and just mention something that you brought up. Part of that intro, which is so critical, is that a lot of people think of sales like Glengarry, Glen Ross, right. Always be closing. And maybe that was true back in the eighties or something. But the truth of the matter is that those of us who've enjoyed a long and successful life in sales have understood along the way that it really comes down to being able to build relationships and create value. Those are the two things that you need to think about as an individual business owner. How do I create relationships and add value and create value. Greg Rutan (04:27): I would start with this. Depending on the business that you're in, whatever products or services you're offering, do you understand the value statement that those products and services are offering your ideal customer. To that extent, do you know or have an idea what types of people would constitute my ideal customer? I think that's one of the places where, when I used to do a lot of coaching, we actually spent more time talking about what the value and what the audience were for anybody or any business' customer base should be. Much more so than any kind of sales techniques. So, what are you offering? Who benefits by it? And then how do I reach them are pretty much the key factors I would think in approaching a sole practitioner's business and trying to grow. Joe Rando (05:23): That's really a great point. Something that I always harp on is, understanding what you offer, what you don't offer, how are you unique? How are you making yourself special in the marketplace? And I think what you're saying speaks to that in the sense of saying who's my customer, who am I going after? Then you can say, who am I not going after? Because you don't want to spin your wheels. Greg Rutan (05:45): Absolutely. Then to take it a step further and forgive me if I'm going farther down the path than you intended, can I deliver on what this person wants to buy from me? Let's just say I'm selling a particular service and somebody wants to buy a bunch of my service, but it really is gonna require my entire month to deliver this. Will this one piece of business justify ignoring all my other potential customers for a month? A lot of people don't necessarily think about what the delivery is like. Can I actually effectively deliver on whatever it is I'm selling so that people on the other end, you know, my customers , are happy Joe Rando (06:27): When beginning the sales process with a prospect, what kinds of things should we focus on first? Greg Rutan (06:35): Once you understand what your value proposition is, and for the non-sales people out there, a value proposition is just simply, what am I offering somebody? Why are you gonna give me $50 for this particular product or this bit of advice, or this help with your taxes or whatever it is. So once I understand that, then I've got to talk to people about why my offering is either better, more convenient or higher level of service than your other options. Joe Rando (07:10): It also could be cheaper or faster, I guess there are lots of dimensions there, but I'm curious. What about dealing with people? Can you talk a little bit about the fact that yes, you've got this value proposition, you understand what you can do for people, you understand why you're providing value and what you're bringing to the table, but you're dealing with individuals. Is there anything that you would suggest people understand about dealing with specific individual people and their quirks and just their differences. Greg Rutan (07:44): Yeah, absolutely. It's a little bit of a side note here. It's kind of funny. A lot of sales people think they're psychologists, and we're not. I actually was raised by a psychologist and studied psychology at Yale. I can tell you that I'm not either. but there are a couple of tricks of the trade that we all should be using, especially those of you running your own businesses. So if you can remember these three little acronyms. They're called ERBN, LERBN and drab, and I'll explain those. So ERBN, is the emotional reason to buy now, what is it gonna do for me emotionally? Why would I buy this? Is it gonna make me feel good? Is it gonna be a special surprise? Is it gonna save me heartache, something like that. Greg Rutan (08:34): How is that going to affect me emotionally? LRBN is the logical reason to buy now. So is it, I can be more efficient. I can do a better job. So if you think about the differences, emotional reason to buy now is it makes me happy. I can go on vacation early. I can go to my kid's softball game tonight or baseball game or whatever it is my play, because I'll be able to have accomplished something. The logical one is, I will be able to get X amount more work done, or I can turn around and deliver this project more quickly. There is a business logic purpose behind it. DRAB, which is the dominant reason against buying is what's the one thing that's gonna stop me from doing it? Is it price? Is it I don't know enough. I don't feel confident enough. So, from a human perspective, rather than trying to become a psychologist, if we can simply find out what their emotional reason for buying would be, what their logical reason for buying would be. And what's the real big reason that they would not buy. Now, we have an opportunity to engage somebody in a value conversation and quickly determine whether they're a realistic prospect force or not. I know that was a lot in a short, little, condensed version, but does that make sense? Joe Rando (09:52): It does. And you know, it's a podcast that's recorded. People can replay it. So, quick question on that. We're looking at there are emotional reasons and logical reasons, from your perspective, do you find that most people act more based on their emotions or their logic emotions? Greg Rutan (10:08): Logic kind of creates the box that they operate in, but emotion is the one that makes the decision in my experience. Now that's not universally true. If you meet somebody who's an engineer by trade or a physicist or somebody who deals in really hard science, they may be choosing based on logic because they're using basically calculations. Whereas a lot of people tend to make decisions based much more on emotional reasons. Joe Rando (10:40): One of the things that happens whenever you're in a process of selling is there's this risk that the prospect says no. And that seems like the scariest, most terrible outcome in the world, right? Somebody says NO. Back when we were in junior high school, and we're gonna ask the other person to dance and didn't do it because the possibility that they would say no. Talk a little bit about how should people think about things when a prospect says no, and what should they do? Greg Rutan (11:13): We all go grocery shopping at times, right? Let's say, we're looking at picking bananas or oranges out of the bin. Do we just grab the first one, the one that's closest to us or do we kind of inspect them little, make sure it's not too ripe, not too raw, the right firmness, whatever it is. That process of us checking out the fruit before deciding what to buy is a lot like us trying to sell something, meaning that you're not always gonna just win the first thing that comes along. Personally, I think that nos are great. I love nos. The reason I love nos is because if you have an effective product or service and you have at least a reasonable idea of why it's valuable or better or cheaper or faster or whatever it is, you tell enough people that some are gonna buy it. So every, no is not a no, it's not a rejection. It's you getting one step closer to a buyer. If one out of 10 people buys for you, that's great. It means you've got to go through nine no's anyway, I'd rather get them out of the way fast and find number 10. Carly Ries (12:17): So I'm a people pleaser. You said you like no's, I do not like no's. And from a sales standpoint with people starting out as a solopreneur, that could be a hard thing to overcome. So is the only way to build confidence by actually doing it, or do you have any other tips and advice for people that are like me, who rejection is hard but they're gonna have to do it. What kind of advice do you have for those kind of people? Greg Rutan (12:43): That is such a good question. Carly. Best advice I can give you is, just be real. Don't try to be fake. Don't try to be one of these salespeople you see on a movie or TV or something like that. The truth of this is only two in 10 salespeople are any good, frankly. The reason that they're good is because they just do what they say they're gonna do. They're pretty much honest about everything. When you get into higher levels of sales, it's much more about that whole idea of how do I reach the right people, who are the right people and how do I more efficiently use my time. But in general, to answer your specific question, just be real. A no doesn't have to feel good. We can role play too Carly. Greg Rutan (13:26): So if I tried to sell you this cool pair of sunglasses and you just said, "no, thanks, Greg. I'm not interested." I might say, "Carly, no problem. I appreciate that. Can you tell me why not? Help me be better at my business here? Was it the design? Was it the price? Was it the way I presented it to you?" You'd be amazed. Some people will just say, I don't have time, click whatever, but other people might say, you know what? That's a really honest, fair question. Show them to me again. That kind of thing. So I would just say, be real, especially if you're an individual practitioner. The likelihood is that you're pretty passionate about what it is you're doing that will come through if you're just natural and real. Carly Ries (14:06): Great advice. Thank you. Joe Rando (14:09): I want to poke on this a little more. First I'm gonna tell an anecdote, a little story. Back in, I think it was 2012 when I was trying to hire a new salesperson for Trade Area Systems, I had just read this book by a guy named Chet Holmes called The Ultimate Sales Machine. He had this technique for hiring sales people that was brilliant and somewhat evil. The idea was that when they came in, you would do this interview and go through an extensive interview and have a really pleasant time of the whole thing. Just get to know them and understand them. Then regardless of whether they were good or bad, well, really more, if they were good, at the end you would say, "well, thanks a lot for coming in. Joe Rando (14:52): That was really great to meet you, but I just don't think you're right for the job." I did this and one of the candidates just said, oh, okay, thanks anyway. And shook my hand and walked out. I did this to Greg and he just looks at me and he smiles and he says "tell me why you say that." And he made me justify, which I couldn't because he was really great. Greg, can you talk a little bit about that process of responding to that No, with getting somebody to politely justify it. Greg Rutan (15:27): Absolutely. I think that, especially for somebody who is in this position of the people listening to your podcast, the individual business owners and practitioners, It's super important that we learn along the way. Things also change. What works today may need to be a little bit different 6 or 12 months from now. Whenever anybody says, no, ask why. Say "Hey respectfully it's your choice, but can I ask you why? What was behind the decision? Is it this, this or this? Or what can you tell me? Is there anything that would've made you choose differently? The point I was trying to make to Carly earlier is that, most people who are people pleasers or are not trained salespeople, that approach can feel a little yucky, right? Greg Rutan (16:20): It just isn't natural for me to say, oh, why. It's really a fact finding mission. Hey, I respect the fact that you just told me no. Can I ask why for my benefit? So I can learn on how to do a better job of this in the future, or make a better product or offer a better service. And when you ask people for their input and their advice, they generally want to give it to you. So when Joe said thanks, but no, thanks, I wanted to know for two reasons. One, I did want to know the reason. Two, I also wanted to see if he might have given me some constructive criticism on the way I approach the process so that I could learn from it. Joe Rando (16:57): Great. I think that's really great advice. So I'm thinking we've covered the basics here for what anybody going out and trying to sell their product or service should know, but perhaps we could talk a little bit about some things that top salespeople do to be more effective that maybe a few of the people listening to this will find helpful if they happen to be that natural born extroverted salesperson type. Maybe there is some masterclass stuff that that would benefit them in their sales process. Greg Rutan (17:29): Absolutely. So two things, one, for anybody still worried about rejection or "nos" is a little thing we talk about all the time, which is just, you've got to kiss a lot of frogs to find the prince or the princess. So don't be afraid to kiss a lot of frogs. It's okay. It's just part of the process. That's just understanding I'm gonna get some nos. It's just me kissing frogs looking for the prince. The prince in this case, or the princess is a valuable or a long term customer/partner. I also would suggest that anybody listening to this, consider your customers to be your partners because they have reasons that they buy your products and services. And if they would help you understand those reasons even better, you can actually do a better job of delivering products and services to more people. Greg Rutan (18:19): That brings me to answer your next question, Joe, which is how did the top sales people, the very top top sales people, and you mentioned it earlier, I had the good fortune of being a national sales trainer. I was out on tour with the likes of the Zig Ziglar and the Brian Tracy's and Tom Hopkins and stuff. I got to learn a lot from them and really what it comes down to is the very best of the best know which frogs to kiss. So what can we do to narrow the pool? If I've got to kiss a hundred frogs to find three customers, how can I make that 40 frogs to find three customers or hundred frogs to find three superior customers. It's a matter of understanding your marketplace better and then doing more research so the people you are reaching out to, or the messaging you're using to get people to reach you, is superior so that you have a better ratio of kisses to princes or princesses. Does that make sense? Joe Rando (19:15): Totally makes sense. One of the examples I like to play with is, somebody's a professional photographer. Maybe it's if they were working for companies, which industries were more prone to need photographers versus ones that wouldn't. If the company is producing charcoal briquettes, maybe they don't need photography as much as a company that's producing picture frames. I know I'm being simplistic there, but figuring out who's worth the phone call or worth the email is what you're saying. It makes you more effective because you can spend the same amount of time getting to more frogs to use your analogy Greg Rutan (19:58): Very much so. There's a part B to this though which is, I guess I'll use it in terms of MySpace, because it's hard to translate this into a bunch of other people's businesses, but I ask a lot of very deliberate questions. We sell a complicated piece of software solutions so it's a little bit different, but I want to make sure that what they're looking to solve, the problems they hope to solve, are really solvable by buying my software. If they're not, I'm gonna have a hard time delivering. I'm gonna have a hard time supporting. They are gonna be disappointed if their expectations aren't met. So I try to work around those things before we ever get into the selling process so that I'm actually able to sell something that I can deliver really effectively. Greg Rutan (20:46): And if what they need is not me, I refer to somebody else. I keep friendly relationships with my competition. If somebody is a better fit for them than me, I will gladly make the introduction, explain why and walk away so I can spend my time finding the right customer. Inevitably people really appreciate that and they say good things about you and lots of times you get business back. So to use your photography example, if somebody on this call is a professional photographer, really there are three types of people you want to look for. Somebody who is realizing they need a higher quality photographer to support their business. Somebody who doesn't have enough options for what their existing needs are, so they need to improve what they're doing. They need to find a service or a deliverable that is otherwise underrepresented, or they've had a problem with someone else and need to replace. So I think asking those questions, trying to find out which of those situations you're in and how you would respond to those questions, will help you kiss the right frogs. Joe Rando (21:58): Cool. What are some common mistakes you see people make and specifically One-Person companies. Perhaps you've had some dealings in your own life with people in One-Person companies and what kinds of mistakes have you seen people make or at least what are the most common? Greg Rutan (22:16): The most common and perhaps the most dangerous is lack of efficient or effective follow up. Solopreneurs tend to get very busy and a lot of times, and I've been one in my past so I know what it's like, sometimes everything happens at once. You just don't have enough hours in the day. But if you have a new or a prospective customer expecting something from you, at least a follow up and you just leave them hanging for a couple of days or a few days, or you over promise and under deliver, that is a very dangerous precedent because the single best source of new customers is existing happy customers. If you're giving yourself a pool of moderately or somewhat disappointed customers, it's gonna be hard to get new ones. Greg Rutan (23:04): I would say is as busy as you are, make your customers and your new perspective customers, the most important things in your professional lives. Even if it's making a 15 second phone call to say, Hey, Joe, I know I told you I'd have this today. I got super busy. I'm really sorry. Can Monday or Tuesday work, or do you need me to put time in over the weekend? You at least know that I find you important. It takes me no time to make that phone call and the delivery is going to be the same. Carly Ries (23:34): And I'm assuming that that helps with upselling and reselling too correct, Greg Rutan (23:38): A hundred percent. If you do a good job and people tell you, oh, that was a great job. I appreciate your follow through. Everybody makes mistakes. We all have troubles or we all have service issues. Software programs go down sometimes or supply chain is having a negative impact on whatever your business is. Everybody understands there are problems. It's how we handle them. And I think that being prompt and being upfront is the easiest way to do it because then people will trust you and trust is probably the single greatest tool you have for repeat business, upsells and referrals. Joe Rando (24:19): I'm sure you've said it already in this conversation, but if you could pick the one thing that you would want a person flying solo in business to take away from today, what would that be? Greg Rutan (24:31): Don't be afraid to ask people for business. Joe Rando (24:34): Cool. That was actually new. Do you have any resources you think would be helpful for a person going it alone? Greg Rutan (24:41): Yeah, there are actually quite a few. I've done a lot of sales training programs and read a lot of books so there's a whole bunch of those that you can cycle through. And Joe, I know there are some of these are on your favorites list as well. I think Anthony Robbins has a sales program that are really good. I don't know if you can find modular parts of it, but it's explained in very direct human ways as opposed to some of the old school stuff, which is that always be closing mentality and you gotta have a zinger for an objection handler and all that. I would tell everybody listening to your podcast that those kind of zinger objection handlings, none of them are still selling really. Because there is no real single resource. The problem I've got is, and I don't want to bash anybody selling sales books, but if you read enough of them, the common denominator comes down to, know who your audience is, find a way to reach out to them and then tell them a good story. Then finally, deliver on those who decide to choose to spend money with you. That's what every great sales book says. Joe Rando (25:52): That Tony Robbins one you referred to, I think it's a program on CD or now I'm sure you can stream it, called Mastering Influence, Greg Rutan (26:00): Mastering influence. Right. That would be the one. The only real problem with Mastering Influence for me is that if you were running a business, like I run sales teams. So for me to invest a week into all of these sessions and stuff like that was no problem. But for somebody who's not a professional salesperson, you might have to get some guidance onto which pieces of this puzzle are the most important and which ones cannot be done in isolation. Meaning if you listen to chapter 12, will it be irrelevant to you if you haven't listened to 9, 10, 11 as well, Joe Rando (26:34): Yeah. It's hard. If you think of anything after we can put that in the show notes. Greg Rutan (26:41): I'll give you something right now that can go in there. The single most important thing for anybody or the single best resource, that's a hard question to answer, cuz there are giant libraries of sales, sales for entrepreneurs, things like that, I would suggest that the greatest resource you all have out there is each other. So you must know other entrepreneurs, other individual business practitioners, find a way to network together, create a network if you don't have one. Talk about things that have worked and doesn't work and refer business to each other. Especially if you're the photographer Joe, and I'm a musician, we don't really compete. In fact, one might argue that I could go play the wedding and you could take the pictures, right? So let's create a little community around each other where we can not only support each other, but we can also perhaps refer business to one another. Joe Rando (27:33): Greg, You don't know this, but we launched a Community yesterday for this. community.lifestarr.com Greg Rutan (27:44): That's fantastic. Carly Ries (27:46): And just for a heads up when this airs, it launched November 11th, 2021. So if you're listening to this later, it is still live and awesome. Greg Rutan (27:55): I have to say, that's great. I'd love to learn more about it for my own purposes. It seems like people were left on an island to figure it out on LinkedIn. Joe Rando (28:06): Linked In is a little different. This is just for freelancers and solopreneurs and One-Person businesses. It is very specific. So yeah, we're excited about it. Greg Rutan (28:16): That's fantastic. Well, feel free to count me in later if there are some sort of content pieces we can help put on there for people that are even sort of, not necessarily live, but a Q and A type of system where people can ask questions and I can help find some of my other colleagues with expertise to provide responses that could be helpful. Joe Rando (28:37): Totally done. Thank you. Carly Ries (28:39): And if you're listing right now, we have more information about this community that will air at the end of the episode. So stay tuned. Joe Rando (28:45): So Greg, do you have a favorite quote about success or a favorite quote about selling? Greg Rutan (28:50): Oh boy, I do. It's another one of those things where you think you have a favorite and then somebody gives you another one, one day and you're like, oh, that's my favorite now. My favorite quote about selling, isn't really so much of a quote as it is an idea. It's not the "always be closing", It's not "we love objections. Objections are just the questions that are unanswered". "Nos don't really mean, no, they just mean not now or not yet.". There are hundreds of them. For me, it's just a matter of if I can be honest, ethical, and truly trying to offer value to the people that become my customers. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when it's gonna work. It's that simple. I try not to participate in any kind of deal that I wouldn't be happy to be on the other side of the deal of also. Greg Rutan (29:49): If you think of sales as, there is a winner and a loser. One day you're going to be both. If you look at sales or any kind of service delivery as I am providing a service, that's as valuable to the person on the other end of this deal, as it is to me, you will always win. So my favorite quote would be something along the lines of "if you can be ethical, if you can be honest and if you can deliver things that you would buy yourself or that you would find value in yourself, it is just a matter of time." Joe Rando (30:20): Thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're busy. I know you don't have any upside from doing this because you're probably not gonna sell a lot of retail analysis software to our solopreneur and freelancers, but you're just a good guy and you've helped out a whole bunch of people that are gonna listen to this and come away a little more knowledgeable about the selling process than they were before. We really appreciate it. Greg Rutan (30:45): My pleasure. I love to tell people that sales is not a dirty word. It's important. Joe Rando (30:51): It's true. It really isn't anymore. It used to be maybe, Greg Rutan (30:56): There used to be this sense that sales people were people you had to look out for, right? They were gonna take your wallets and flee you. I think it was certain sales people who actually created that image. In my world, sales people are super valuable because they deliver solutions and they create value. I would suggest that anybody who's an entrepreneur or solopreneur got into the business to create value and provide solutions. So we're really very similar. I just happened to do it for a corporate scale and your listeners are doing it for themselves. Otherwise there's not much difference. Joe Rando (31:33): Yeah. The psychology, as you said, is the same. Greg Rutan (31:37): Very much. Greg Rutan (31:38): Well, thanks for having me. I hope it was useful and helpful to your listeners. And, as you expand your user community that I just found out about, let me know, because maybe there's a way we can let people know that there's this cool group of professionals offering certain services, whether it's done locally through geography or through some sort of channels. There is a lot of emphasis now on doing business with small business or with local business, so anything we can do to support that, let me know. Joe Rando (32:13): Thank you, Greg. Carly Ries (32:15): Awesome. Thank you. And thank you listeners for tuning in today. It means the world to us. If you like what you hear and want to continue to hear from fellow solopreneurs, as well as experts like Greg giving actionable advice to help you build a successful One-Person business, be sure to subscribe, see you next time Closing (32:33): You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a One-Person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures. at LifeStarr, we're creating a One-Person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversation at community.lifestarr.com