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chapter three: FUEL FOR THE MOTOR

SHUT YOUR MOUTH (AND OTHER SALES ESSENTIALS).

put that coffee down! Coffee is for closers only. Oh, have I got your attention now? Good.

This is from Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992

Every day there are a million things you could spend your time doing to keep the ride in motion and your business moving. From shipping, quality control, and vendor selection, to arranging financing, invoicing, and paying the bills, there is an endless stream—a raging torrent, really—of things to do, contemplate, and decide.

Each one feels critical. Each one screams for your attention. Each one can seem as urgent as the next. When you look at it all, it seems daunting and overwhelming—a blur of scenery as you whiz past, your shoulder harness secured, your mind unable to focus on any one thing.

One of the scariest parts of this ride is deciding where to spend your precious time and attention. This is no false threat. Wasting too much time on things that don’t matter and neglecting the things that do will send your cart hurtling off the tracks and headed nose first to the ground below—a short ride on an even shorter track.

But how do you decide where to spend your time?

THE CHOICE

Imagine for a moment that one afternoon before closing up shop for the day, you find a golden lantern lying in the middle of your conference room table (just go with me here). Curiosity overcomes you, and after looking over your shoulder to make sure no one else is in the office (because they would certainly call you crazy), you pick up the lantern and wipe away a thin layer of dust to get a better look. (You know where this is going, right?) Immediately the lantern begins to rumble and out pops a big, brawny genie.

Unfortunately, this genie has his loincloth in a bunch and is not really in the mood for the standard “three wishes” nonsense. Instead, he promises to grant you instant “best-in-your-industry” status in just ONE category.

Which would you choose? For the record, this isn’t one of those “there are no wrong answers” kind of questions. There is a wrong answer. You run through the various options in your head.

BEST PRODUCT EVER

The highest-quality and best product wins. Right? Not necessarily. Of all the fancy five-star, Michelin-rated restaurants run by celebrity chefs and those promoted wildly on reality TV shows, what’s the number one restaurant in the world?

Answer: McDonald’s.

One of the most competitive businesses on the planet is the wine business. After all the art, science, label design, heritage, courting of tastemakers and connoisseurs, what’s the number one wine in the world?

Answer: Franzia.

Yes, that’s the stuff that comes in a box!

I have watched thousands of entrepreneurs collectively spend millions of hours designing, creating, and perfecting the awesomeness of their products. Unfortunately, I have also watched many of these same entrepreneurs close their doors or file for bankruptcy while their awesome “perfect products” line the walls of their garages, collecting dust.

Like it or not (and I don’t) it’s not a whoever-has-the-best-product-wins world.

TOP-NOTCH MANAGEMENT

Perhaps you’ve often thought that if you could just gather the right team, you’d have the competitive edge. But countless “dream teams” have failed miserably.

Companies like Enron, Bear Stearns, WorldCom, Pets.com, Webvan, and eToys assembled some of the most incredibly talented corporate leadership teams in the history of business. All went bust.

The movie Oceans 12 had one of the greatest star-studded casts ever to grace the screen during a single movie, but it grossed less worldwide than the star-less My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Other movies like Ishtar, The Green Lantern, The Lone Ranger and The 13th Warrior also come to mind.

Remember the USFL (United States Football League) and XFL (Xclusive Football League)? Probably not. They lasted three seasons and one season respectively, even though they were led by and had recruited some of the most notable talent in football history.

The 2004 Olympic basketball team was built from the ground up with nothing but NBA stars (dubbed the “Dream Team”). Who could beat a team like that?

Lithuania, apparently. The U.S.A. came in third. Ouch.

Assembling a dream team is just that… a dream. It’s not the real crux of success. The right people focused on the wrong priorities can turn the dream into a nightmare. Just ask Enron.

OUTRAGEOUS MARGINS

Well then, what about the highest margins? Certainly your accountant and CFO would support that wish. Just imagine all that profit. And isn’t that the goal of a business?

But margins don’t matter a bit if the product never sells.

100 percent of zero is still what?

Yep, zero.

AWE-INSPIRING SALES AND MARKETING

Apple was not the first to deliver a mobile digital media player (or MP3 player) to the market. Not even close. In fact they were the eighth, and four years late to the party. Companies like Compaq, Archos and Creative had MP3 players with larger hard drives, which could hold significantly more than 1,000 songs before one of the most brilliant marketers the world has ever known, Steve Jobs, touted (and persistently repeated), “1,000 songs in your pocket.” So who won?

Apple.

Why?

Oh, don’t argue that the iPod was a significantly better product. Certainly their brilliant marketing has helped convince us all of that. The reality is Apple won because of their awe-inspiring sales and marketing.

When the iPod was announced, the tech tastemakers weren’t impressed. Rumors were that Apple would release a revolutionary PDA. Instead they “just” unveiled a music player and sales didn’t take off for a long while. The year Apple launched the iPod (2001) they declined in revenue, going from 30 percent revenue growth the year previous to -33 percent. The following year, 2002, was also a negative revenue growth year at -2 percent. In 2003 they recovered partially to a positive 18 percent. It wasn’t until 2004, three years after the launch of the iPod, that they got back to 33 percent growth and then dominated the digital music player market, claiming a 90 percent market share for hard drive-based players and over 70 percent of the market for all types of players.

What happened to turn the tide those three years?

Sales and marketing happened, that’s what!

When it comes to the entrepreneur roller coaster, there is one critical thing that will keep your ride from coming to a screeching, flaming halt.

Like it or not, the one thing that matters most in determining whether your business succeeds or fails miserably is sales.

Here’s how it works: The ultimate success of a product or service is 10 percent product quality and 90 percent sales.

Nine times out of ten it’s not the best product, management, or margin that determines the leader in the industry. Whether it’s clothing, cars, restaurants, CPA firms, real estate agents, lawyers, furniture manufacturers, refrigerators, or fishing tackle—the companies that become the biggest are the ones who market themselves the best and sell the most.

I don’t necessarily like that fact, and I bet it makes you uneasy, too. I believe the quality of a product or service should be what’s most important, and it should stand entirely on the value it delivers. But that’s just not how it works in reality.

“The person who knows how to get, keep, and cultivate a customer gets paid the most. Period.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

So make the right choice. No genie needed, this is the real world where, like it or not, sales is king. The person who knows how to get, keep, and cultivate a customer gets paid the most. Period.

YOUR NUMBER ONE JOB

From the first glow of your computer screen in the morning to the last loose end you tie up before heading home, you need to be selling. You don’t get to hide from it. In fact, there is no place to hide. Whether your business has one employee or one thousand, you have to sell.

Even if you have a sales force selling your product for you, you’re still going to be selling “big ideas” to partners and “the vision” to your employees. You’re going to be selling to new recruits persuading them to join you, banks to back you, vendors to trust you, and the manufacturers that make your product to speed up production and keep up the great work. You’re going to be convincing people to do their best. You’ll be asking people to lower their prices. You’re going to push, pull, persuade, negotiate, wheel, and deal.

You’re going to sell. All day. Every day. That’s business.

From now on, selling is your number one job, your top priority, the only thing that will give you the speed you need to survive the twists, corkscrews, dives, drops, and inversions along this ride.

Why is it more critical than other business essentials? A few good reasons:

Everything starts with sales. Nothing matters until you sell something. Nothing. You can vision cast, dream board, draft fancy business plans, meet with consultants, design a nifty logo, get pretty business cards and letterhead made, but there is no business until a sale happens. A sale tells you if you even have a business. A sale starts the entire process and is the first thing every new business needs.

Everything is sustained with sales. It’s the lifeblood of the business. Have a problem? Sales will solve most of them. And the most common problem you will run into when it comes to surviving and sustaining your business is, guess what? Yes! Sales.

Everything ends with sales. It doesn’t matter how environmentally friendly or socially conscious your product is. It doesn’t matter how important your cause or critical your mission or how awesome your culture is. If you don’t sell enough, you’ll be out of business and fast. There are no bailouts for small businesses or entrepreneurs. There are no safety nets on this ride. Your only insurance policy is to go sell something.

If the idea of sales as your top priority every day is making your stomach queasy, then you’ll need this spoonful of medicine: Suck it up, and go sell.

A lot.

Every day.

Because this ride runs on sales.

THERE’S NO HIDING

I have my grandmother to thank for many of my best attributes. You already know that she helped me open my first bank account, which launched my wealth-building ambitions. She was the first believer in my entrepreneurial dreams by being my first customer (and she and my grandfather financed the cleanup costs, without complaint). Any affection I show is a result of the love my grandmother showed me. But perhaps the most visible effect of my grandmother’s influence was not my strength of character, but rather my sense of style.

Yes. My grandmother turned me into a fashionister. A bona fide clotheshorse.

My grandmother had impeccable style and swore by it. “Never trust a man with scuffed shoes or a wrinkled shirt,” she would tell me. It was not uncommon for us to spend an entire Saturday afternoon wandering the grand hallways of I. Magnin—or Neiman Marcus, discussing color, cut, and classic fashion. “Your clothes are your wrapping,” she would say. “Everyone treats a beautifully wrapped gift with more care and reverence than one wrapped in a paper bag.” It’s no wonder, then, that when I began to earn a little extra money in my water filter business that I headed straight for the mall—Nordstrom’s, in fact—for scuff-free shoes and enough fine shirts to impress the millions of future clients that were certainly awaiting my arrival.

I actually spent a lot of time at Nordstrom’s. I would wander the racks of beautiful men’s clothing, moving in the same pattern—first the shirts (by brand, then back through by color), then the slacks, suits, ties, socks, and wrapping up in the shoe department for the grand finale. I rarely purchased anything, though—I was, after all, still in the early stages of my business and most of my money was being poured back into the business and the costly office I had conveniently located adjacent to the mall. But I loved to dream of the clothes I would be wearing when I began to dominate the world of water filters.

What started as a once-a-week trip soon became twice a week. Then three times. Then the only days I wasn’t at the mall were on the weekend—what fool faces the masses when he has the flexibility, the luxury, to peruse the best in men’s fashion, uninterrupted, all week long?

Truly, truly, this was the kind of life only afforded to the most successful. And while my bank account didn’t reflect it yet, it was only a matter of time, I told myself, before I arrived. After all, who’s to say the next superstar-water-filter-salesman to join my team and make me millions in residual income wasn’t waiting just on the other side of the designer underwear? So I was prospecting, right?

Late one Tuesday morning, I was well into my Nordstrom routine. I breathed deeply as I took in the familiar sounds of the piano music, the murmur of salesclerks admiring clients, and the occasional overhead paging with unknown codes to unknown people. “Paging Frederick Randall to the men’s department.” I loved all of it.

I had just finished admiring a pair of gray herringbone Ermenegildo Zegna slacks when I could see, out of the corner of my eye, someone approaching. He was a handsome African American man, about my height, in his late fifties. He came right up to me, placed his hand on the back of my arm, and asked (in a voice less friendly than I expected from a Nordstrom’s associate), “Can I help you, young man?” Taken aback slightly (this salesman was more aggressive than I was accustomed to), I looked more closely at him. I wasn’t sure if I wanted his help; his style seemed a bit too gruff for my taste, and I didn’t trust his judgment. He wore a one-tone dark navy ensemble that looked more like a jumpsuit than a business suit. I looked to the shiny gold name badge clipped to his pocket: WAYNE.

“No, thank you, Wayne. I’m just looking.”

“I’m sorry, son, but you’re going to have to come with me.”

Wayne escorted me away from the racks of clothing, out onto the shiny-tiled walkway, and straight out the door to the parking garage.

It turns out the overhead page I had heard earlier wasn’t really a page for Frederick Randall. It was a shoplifter security alert, a.k.a. ME! And Wayne was not a salesclerk; he was a mall cop. My frequent, leisurely trips to Nordstrom’s were about to become, forcibly, a lot less frequent… “It has come to our attention that you spend a lot of time here. Too much time,” Wayne said, his voice echoing in the nearly empty parking garage. “You loiter in the men’s department and never purchase. To us, this either means you are shoplifting or casing the joint for something bigger. We kindly ask that you not return.” I stared at him blankly, still in shock.

Wayne paused for a second, as if realizing that I wasn’t much of a threat, and then continued in a less scripted tone. “Don’t you have something better to do with your time, man? You’re dressed nice enough. Shouldn’t you be out lawyer-ing or sitting in an office or selling something? Not wandering around a mall.” My brain was still locked up. I couldn’t say a word. Wayne shook his head and muttered something like “good-for-nothing kids these days,” and “nothing better to do” as he headed back into the store where I was no longer welcome.

I stood there for a moment, watching the glass door with the worn gold handle close behind him, then slowly walked to my car.

As I started to drive away from the mall (for the last time that year), I realized that, even though I had declined his initial offer for assistance, Wayne really had helped me. I did have better things to do. More important things than mall-lurking. I had been hiding in Nordstrom’s to avoid doing them.

I had been avoiding sales. I was dreaming of sales and everything that came with them, but I wasn’t doing any actual selling. If I wanted to dominate water filters, I was going to have to go sell some water filters!

That was the day my roller coaster ride started to pick up speed.

Trust me when I say that I know sales can be scary. I hid among the mannequins and mirrors in a department store for weeks to evade the pain and struggle of selling. Just like many budding entrepreneurs, I worked to avoid the anxiety associated with prospecting, the unique sting of rejection, and the fear of making a fool of myself. I disguised my procrastination as productivity and used all the classic tricks of the trade to escape the inevitable truth: My business was nothing until I sold something.

“You don’t have a business until you sell something.”

@DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

Learn from my early mistake, and don’t hide from the pain and emotional toil that accompanies selling. Every day millions of businesses fail because their owners are hiding somewhere—hiding behind to-do lists, incessant email checking, social media monitoring, mindless meetings, or unnecessary paperwork. It’s time to quit hiding and start selling.

Every single morning we awake, that same truth hangs over our heads as real, as fresh, and as urgent as the day before. Wayne helped me. Now it’s my turn to help you: Shine whatever shoes you’ve got, iron your shirt, and head straight out the door—it’s time to go sell something!

YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW TO SELL

Trust me, you know how to sell—you’ve been doing it your whole life. We all have. Selling is one of the first skills we learn as humans. Before we can even speak, we learn that we can influence our parents through the appropriate cry. It’s no small feat to persuade a sleep-deprived parent to rise from slumber, stumble through the nursery, and retrieve a fallen pacifier or “snuggle bear” at 3 o’clock every morning. Baby’s got skills! And that baby was you!

Crying is the first sales tactic we learn to get people to do what we want. (Unfortunately, some people stick solely to that strategy into adulthood.) As children grow, they get even better at sales. Have you ever taken a toddler to a grocery store? A child who wants an ice cream or a toy sitting on a store shelf will use every selling skill in the book with relentless persistence. Kids are masters of sales. They know how to overcome objections, push through stall tactics, handle rejection, not take no for an answer, and continue to ask for the order… until the deal is sealed (or until they have to be removed by force).

Think back to the letters you wrote to Santa at Christmas or to the nights when you really wanted to stay out past your curfew. It may have been several decades ago, but you were once a child with the same natural knack for persuasion.

We all sell—all day, every day. I always have to laugh a little when someone says, “Oh, I’m not a salesperson.” Then they launch into a ten-minute, detailed “sales” presentation—complete with bullet points and case studies—selling me on the fact that they’re no good at selling.

We all make a dozen sales presentations every day. We sell a friend to go see a particular movie or try a new restaurant. We sell why we’re late for an event or can’t make a party. We even sell ourselves on why we should skip a workout or buy something we don’t need.

And if you’re a parent? You’re working overtime refining and mastering your selling skills. You’re constantly selling your kids on something. “Eat your vegetables.” “Use your words.” “Don’t hurl yourself off the back of the couch.” “Texting and driving will kill you.” If you’re a parent, your sales skills are already in heavy use.

Don’t fool yourself. Everyone sells. Even you.

So grab your headband and water bottle. We’re about to do some P90X on your sales muscles.

“In today’s age you’re not competing only with competitors. You’re competing with prospects, friends, and their adorable baby pictures.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

BUILDING YOUR SALES MUSCLES: NINE STEPS

Just because everyone sells doesn’t mean we don’t need to get better at it. In a world awash in sales solicitations, your prospects are far savvier than they used to be. Consumers have become very good at avoiding marketing and advertising. They’re skipping commercials, turning a blind eye to website banners, and passing right by billboards without seeing them. Our culture has become so overwhelmed by commercial sales messages that we have become immune to most of them. And in today’s age, you are not competing only with competitors. You are competing with prospects, friends, and their adorable baby pictures.

Now more than ever, the fate of your business, your dreams, and your future hinges on your ability to sell better than your competition. Otherwise your roller coaster ride is going to come to a screeching, whiplash-inducing halt. The rest of this chapter is dedicated to equipping you with the standout sales strategies that, when used, will break any previous roller coaster speed records.

So put that coffee down, and let’s get started!

1. DON’T KILL YOUR CUSTOMERS

After I started my real estate business, I would occasionally meet with a man who became an unofficial mentor to me in the industry. I liked his style and admired how easy he made it all look—as if buying a multimillion-dollar home was the most obvious choice any of his prospects could make. I also admired his watch, his car, his home—well, all of his homes—and everything else that went along with being a wildly successful entrepreneur.

This man was the most skilled salesman I knew at the time, and I wanted to hear anything he had to say. One day we met for lunch, and I expressed my frustration with my latest sales numbers. They just weren’t where I knew they could be, and I couldn’t figure out why.

“Let me see your prospect list,” he said.

I opened my briefcase, pulled out a file, and pushed it across the table to him. “These are the prospects in my sights right now,” I said, ambition dripping off every word. He raised an eyebrow at my comment and, looking down, opened the folder.

Inside was my prospect list. It was a few sheets of worn paper with listing names and contact information recorded on them. In many ways, this list was my prized possession. My future success (or failure) was dependent on what happened with the names in this file. At the top, in thick black marker, I’d written, “HIT LIST.” He raised another eyebrow.

“Well,” he said and pushed the file back to me, “I can see the problem.”

“What is it?” I looked down at the list, anxious to know. Did I not have the right information for my prospects? Were there too few? Was I not being aggressive enough?

He leaned in and squinted his eyes in the way masters do when they’re about to impart great wisdom to their pupils.

“Let me ask you this: If I had a list like this and your name was on it and you saw it… how would you feel? How would you feel about being on my hit list? About being in my sights like you were looking at me up the barrel of a loaded gun?” I quickly closed the folder and shrugged like a kid being chastised for skipping school.

“No one wants to be your next hit, Darren. They don’t want to be your next victim. And when you label them that way, you think of them that way. And when you think of people that way, you treat them that way. They know it and feel it. They can tell.” He pulled a pen from his pocket, reached over, and reopened the file folder. He crossed out “HIT LIST,” and with a fast and steady hand wrote, “Families I’m Going to Help Next.” “Now,” he said, placing the pen back in his suit coat, “Get back out there. You’ll notice a difference right away.” He was right. I immediately began to see a difference in how I approached people and, more important, how they responded. Before I picked up the phone, I’d look at my list and I’d think about the family I was calling. What did they need help with? Were they struggling in a home they couldn’t afford? Did they need a bigger house now that they had children—one in a better school district? Were they first-time buyers overwhelmed and nervous by the thought of such a large purchase?

As soon as I shifted my perspective, my success rate improved dramatically, and my sales shot up. But the best part of all? I really began to enjoy the process. What had started out as an exercise in sheer brute force had become something I felt good about—for more than just the size of my commission.

What my mentor was doing, I realize now, was reframing the whole idea of sales. He could have changed my “pitch” or my wording, but he knew that what people were really responding to was my misdirected intention. Whereas before I had always thought of sales as a way to get something, I could now see it as a tool for giving. For the first time, I began to understand the strange, wonderful irony that sales isn’t about selling at all.

Sales are critical to grow your business. But if you make only one change in your sales strategy, make it this: Stop selling.

Really. Stop it right now.

You’re killing yourself and your customers. You are alienating the people who might love what you have to offer, and you’re missing out on the huge upside of using your product or service as a tool for helping others.

If you’re the type of person who’s always thought of “sell” as a four-letter word, this is good news for you. You can now replace that with another four-letter word: HELP. How can you help? How does your product or service address someone’s deepest need or fear? What problem does it solve? How does it make a positive difference?

“Want to sell more? Stop selling. Help instead.”

@DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

Don’t sell—HELP.

And if what you have doesn’t help?

Then you’ve either got the wrong prospect or the wrong product.

1. GET IN BED WITH YOUR CUSTOMER

Once you have reframed the entire notion of sales—once you start focusing on what your prospects want versus what you want from your prospects—it’s time to change the messaging to match your change of heart.

To help you do that, let me ask you this: What do you think is the number one quality of the most effective sales and marketing messages?

Passion?

Enthusiasm?

Conviction?

Urgency?

Desire?

Nope.

It’s empathy.

Now that you’ve got your prospects out of your crosshairs, it’s time to get in their beds—mentally, of course! If you want your sales and marketing messaging to connect with people on a gut level, if you want to grab their hearts and move them into action, then you have to get in their gut. To connect with, not just communicate to your audience, you have to feel what they feel, experience what they experience, and think like they think.

When I teach this strategy to CEOs and leadership teams of high-growth companies, I simply tell them to crawl into the bed of their client and imagine what they are thinking and feeling. At the end of a long day… in those few moments before their eyes close and they drift off to sleep, what are they thinking about? Seriously, ask yourself: What are they thinking about?

What are they worried about?

Who are they worried about?

What do they fear?

Who do they fear?

What do they hope for?

Who do they hope to impress?

What are their desires, ambitions, and goals?

What do they think they need help with?

What resources, ideas, or assistance are they looking for to overcome their unspoken fears or accomplish their innermost desires?

Don’t just think about these questions, feel them. Climb into their beds and into the worries of their minds and the hopes of their hearts. Write down what you feel, and be as descriptive and raw as possible.

After you answer those questions from the viewpoint of your prospective client, look back at what you wrote. Examine the specific language you used to describe those feelings and thoughts.

You will find much of your best sales and marketing language in those words—language that shows you know who they are, who they are trying to become, and what they are trying to do. You will create language that is rich with empathy. With it, you’ll be able to speak from their perspective and straight to their hearts from your own.

1. DON’T BE A FIRST DATE FRED

Back in my early twenties when I was living the bachelor life in Southern California, I had a buddy we called “First Date Fred.” Fred was a nice, good-looking guy, wrapping up his first year of med school. He was also desperate to find the perfect girl and fall madly in love. Every night of every weekend you could find Fred at one of the fancy beachside hotspots wining and dining another beautiful woman. Fred seemed to have it all figured out.

The problem was that while Fred had a date every weekend, he never had a second date. Ever! Fred would have one amazing evening (he always claimed it was amazing) and then never hear from her again. Ever! His first dates wouldn’t return his calls. They’d avoid him at the local hangouts. And there was more than one awkward instance in line at the grocery store.

One day at the gym, in an effort to solve the second-dateless mystery, one of our other buddies saw one of the (many) women who never called and asked, point-blank, why.

“You know,” she said, “he was a nice guy and certainly nice to look at… but he didn’t ask a single question about me. He just kept talking. He told me how he wanted to find a woman and treat her like a queen and how he didn’t want the woman he married to have to work another day in her life. He told me how many kids he wanted and the neighborhood he wanted to move to. He said that everyone says he’s the perfect guy, and they’re shocked that he’s still single. But the kicker? It was when he told me he thought we really had a future together! He barely knew my name, much less anything that mattered to me.

“I don’t need to be treated like a queen,” she clarified. “And I own my own clothing boutique, so I plan to keep working. He made some pretty broad assumptions about me and got it totally wrong.” She wasn’t buying what Fred was selling because Fred was selling all wrong.

Fred isn’t the only one who screws this up. I was working with a CEO recently, and he said, “I want my marketing message to speak what is in my heart.” I responded, “No, you don’t.”

Have you ever been subjected to someone’s passionate (probably long-winded) pitch about something they’re all fired up about but that you couldn’t care less about?

“Sales is filling a customer’s perceived need, not your need to sell something.”

@DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

Yeah, me too. It’s painful.

Undaunted, the CEO said, “I see a great need for this in the market.”

I said, “Then that makes one of you.”

He was making the same, common mistake that so many First Date Freds and entrepreneurs do: focusing on what they are passionate about and the need they see. They’re following the old sales adage of “finding a need and filling it.” Well, Fred, the old sales adage is wrong. Sales is not about finding a need and filling it. Imagine that you sell cars and see someone driving around an old relic. “Seeing a need,” you approach the guy to pitch him on the fact that his car is old, ugly, and beat-up, and it’s time for a new one. Guess what? You might get beat up yourself. It turns out he loves his old classic. It was his grandfather’s, and he remembers driving to the lake with him in it every summer. It’s one of his most prized possessions. You might as well have called his child ugly.

No. Sales—effective sales—is not “finding a need and filling it.” Effective sales is about finding a perceived need and helping someone fulfill it. If the customer doesn’t perceive the need, there is no need.

The misguided drive to “create” a need is why we see so much chest-beating, egocentric marketing out there. It’s obnoxious, exhausting, and what’s worse, it’s ineffective. Don’t be a First Date Fred.

Pull—don’t push.

Investigate—don’t present.

Probe—don’t pitch.

Ask—don’t assume.

How?

Talk less—listen more.

Make fewer statements—ask more questions.

If you want to master one skill that will skyrocket your sales success, learn how to ask better questions, not how to do a better presentation. Ask questions, find answers that serve as solutions, and then (only then) build your presentation or sales message around the answers you receive.

As soon as we figured out that was where First Date Fred was going wrong, we put him through his first sales training (something they didn’t teach him in med school). Shortly after, Fred met a great woman, and, yes, he even secured his first second date. After asking her many questions, properly assessing her needs, and determining that he could fulfill them, he made the biggest pitch of his life.

She said yes. She’s now Mrs. Fred.

1. SELL LIKE JOHN LENNON

I have a real estate agent in South Beach, Miami, whose name is John Lennon. (Really. That’s his name.) In the past 19 years, John has sold more than $3.7 billion in real estate. Three billion. If you do the math on his 3 percent commission, he’s done almost as well as the other Lennon!

What’s even more impressive, though, is that he’s sold all that real estate on a single street in just six buildings.

John sells on a street named South Pointe Drive, located in an exclusive area called SoFi (South of Fifth) in South Beach. His sales territory consists of six über-luxury high-rises along the cruise ship waterway and Miami Beach front. That’s it. One street. Six buildings. Three billion dollars.

“Well,” you might be thinking, “of course he’s selling like a rock star. The price per square foot would make anyone as wealthy as a Beatle.” Stop right there—don’t be fooled by the ZIP code. The prices are high, but so is the competition. There are hundreds of agents trying to work in John’s area, and he’s outselling all of them many, many times over.

John took my wife, Georgia, and me to lunch, and I was pressing him to share some of his story. He’s clearly at the top of his game, and of course I was curious to know how he did it.

“When I started out,” he told us, “I was in an office with four other agents. We took turns handling incoming foot traffic, and we all had the same number of prospects to work with. Each of the other four would close a deal once every three to four months. I mean, these are big sales, and they don’t necessarily happen every day—for most people. But I was closing 31 per month. One a day.” I’m pretty sure I choked on my iced tea when he said it. I mean, I had a pretty solid run in real estate myself but couldn’t imagine closing 31 multimillion-dollar deals a month!

“How do you explain the difference?” I asked. “You’ve got the same leads, the same territory, and even the same apartment units. But you’re getting completely different results.” “The difference is…” he paused as he wiped his mouth and placed his napkin on his plate. This was about to get serious, I could tell. “I don’t sell what they sell.” Georgia and I exchanged glances—we knew John sold high-end condominiums and that his competition sold the exact same units. How could he be selling something different?

Sensing our confusion (and clearly entertained by it), John Lennon explained: “Sure, we sell the same buildings and the same units, even, but I sell something different for every different person.” I knew the next words out of his mouth were going to rock my world—and I was right.

“One time,” he continued, “the building developer called to ask what I had sold that day. I said, ‘I sold a $4 million parking space, a $2.8 million gym and spa access pass, and a $6 million closet. And each came with an apartment included. The developer said, ‘What do you mean you sold a $4 million parking space?’” John went on to explain to the developer that in each case he discovered what was most important to each client. Take the parking space, for example. The buyer had vintage cars and had a bad experience in a previous building. John spent an hour explaining the security, safety, and cleanliness of the underground parking. “The buyer couldn’t write the check fast enough,” John said.

The secret to John Lennon’s success, and to your success in sales, is that he is the ultimate Connector. John finds his client’s most important desire, need or hot button and connects the solution he has to meet it.

We’ve already discussed the importance of asking questions and listening to the answers. But simply asking questions for curiosity’s sake is not going to earn you an income worthy of a multi-platinum artist. If, after the questioning is done, you launch into your same old First Date Fred pitch, you’ll end up like one of the other four guys in Lennon’s office with nothing but a wide-open schedule and a gaping hole in your bank account.

The true genius behind “Selling like Lennon” is that once John figures out what is most important to his prospects, he focuses all of his effort and education on their number one need or desire. Then, when the time comes to show the unit or “make the sale,” the same unit in the same building that’s been shown many times is transformed into something entirely new, totally different, and completely personalized to the client walking through it in that moment.

By approaching each sale in this way, John is not limited by the number of buildings or units. His options for closing a deal are as vast and varied as the people looking for real estate in Miami, which (if you’ve spent any time in South Beach, you know) are infinite.

So let me ask you: Are you selling like Lennon? Do you connect to your customers by asking questions and genuinely listening to the answers? And if so, do you take the extra step to connect those customers to expertly personalized solutions? Do you take time to drastically adjust your message to meet each individual customer’s needs?

If not, it’s time to get started. After all, “You were only waiting for this moment to arise….” (get it?) 5. FIND A BRIDGE

If I were to guess, I’d bet someone, somewhere told you that in order to excel at sales, you have to get good at making cold calls. Yuk! Even the words “cold call” send shivers up my spine—not because of the temperature, but because making cold calls is awful. I bet you feel the same way, dreading picking up that phone only to hear the disdain in the voice on the other end.

If that’s the case, then you’ll love this: Don’t make cold calls.

I don’t make cold calls (anymore). You shouldn’t, either. No one should make cold calls (I learned). Cold calls are for rookies, and you don’t want to be a rookie.

“Cold calls are for rookies and weirdos. Don’t be a rookie or weirdo. Find a relationship bridge.” @DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

There is no reason to waste your time (and it’s irresponsible to waste the time of the person you’re calling on) when there is a very easy way to warm that chilly prospect up. You need to find a bridge.

I’m contacted a dozen times a week by someone asking me to endorse his or her book. If I don’t know the person or their work personally, I can’t even take the time to respond. The amount of time I would spend on the “not at this time, best of luck on your future success” emails alone would burn entire afternoons. That’s time I just can’t afford to lose.

But recently Harvey Mackay, a colleague whom I trust and respect, asked me to review a book by his friend. It was a simple request: Read it, and if I liked it, would I please provide an endorsement. I did, and I did. And it was the only book I endorsed that month. The rest might have been worthy, but the rest were not referred to me by an already trusted source.

Rather than just being some Joe or Jane Shmoe contacting important prospects cold and out of the blue (classifying you as a rookie in their mind), find a relationship bridge between you and your desired client. Get referred from a credible and trusted source.

Brainstorm who knows the person or company you want to do business with. If you don’t know anyone right now (be sure to check your LinkedIn connections), then find out who their vendors are (CPA, attorney, etc.). Find someone to get you personally introduced.

In today’s world you are no more than two to three degrees from just about anyone on the planet. Identify those two or three dots to connect, and walk confidently across that bridge. They’ll likely be happy to see you when you get to the other side.

1. SELL IN BULK

I recently had lunch with a CEO friend, Mark, who owns a commercial construction management company valued at about half a billion dollars. I negotiated to pay the lunch tab if he’d tell me the secret to his fantastic success. So for the price of a spinach and strawberry salad with salmon, Mark told me the story of discovering the greatest sales strategy of his career—a strategy he stumbled upon while trying to impress a girl (of course).

It was the spring of his sophomore year of high school, and the season of the annual Student Council candy bar drive. The seller of the most candy bars would win a trip to Washington, D.C., and Mark was in it to win it. Not the trip to D.C., mind you. He didn’t care much for history or politics. Mark’s motivation for winning was Cindy Mason, the reigning candy bar champ.

Cindy was a senior and the most popular, most beautiful girl in school. She also had a three-year candy bar sales winning streak and a burning desire to close her career 4 and 0. With typical 15-year-old guy-logic, Mark thought winning the candy bar drive would capture Cindy’s attention and affection. Misguided? Perhaps. Nevertheless, Mark was determined.

As soon as he got his first box, Mark approached his three best friends who, instead of buying candy bars, convinced Mark to give them candy bars for free. Mark then went to his brother and sister, who went “half-sies” on one bar. His calorie-counting parents turned him down flat, explaining he needed to figure it out on his own (parents, take note).

In just one afternoon, Mark had exhausted his entire network, and his sales were in the red. Meanwhile, Cindy Mason had candy bars flying out of her locker… and was still oblivious to the fact that Mark even existed.

Despite these setbacks however, Mark’s determination did not falter. Instead, he suspected he needed to take a different approach. One night, his parents had their friends Bob and Nancy over for dinner. Mark suggested candy bars for dessert (for the bargain price of only $1 each). With caramel dripping down his chin, Bob said, “You know Mark, these are really good. If you give me a box, I could probably sell them at my office.” Sold!

The next day, Bob came back with an empty box, an envelope full of cash, and a request for more.

As he pulled another box of bars from his backpack and handed them over to Bob, Mark knew he was onto something. Instead of trying to sell candy bars one by one, he would sell them box-by-box. He immediately began targeting several more of his parents’ friends who had access to offices filled with candy lovers. Daily, these well-connected people emptied boxes of candy for him and returned with envelopes of cash begging for more chocolate-caramel goodness.

Mark not only won the candy drive, he crushed the school’s sales record, including that of the previously undefeated Cindy Mason.

Unfortunately, contrary to Mark’s original hope, Cindy was not impressed. In fact, she was so unimpressed that she made it her mission to see that no girl at Mark’s high school would be caught dead with him on a date. Mark’s winning strategy had cost him the girl and sentenced him to many a date-less Friday night, but he didn’t care (not much, at least). Mark had gained something much greater, discovering the single most important sales strategy of his professional career.

Aside from those first few failed candy bar sales attempts, Mark has never sold accounts one by one. In the decades since crushing the candy bar contest, Mark has looked instead for influencers: people with their own large networks who, if sold on his idea, venture, or opportunity, could potentially generate entire volumes of transactions for him. Not just one. Time and again, this strategy has worked, and Mark has millions in the bank to show for it.

Take that, Cindy Mason.

If you really want to add some speed to your roller coaster ride, shift your thinking. Instead of taking each sale one by one, use the Mark approach and sell in bulk, box by box. Seek out influencers, those who are connected to broader networks of potential customers. Sure, it might mean you don’t have a date to the movies, but sometimes that’s the price of success.

1. DELIVER SHOCK AND AWE

I started selling real estate when I was just twenty years old. I was the youngest in my office by twenty years, but I didn’t let that hold me back. What I lacked in age and experience, I made up in hustle and aggressiveness. I knew that if I was going to be successful, I was going to have to go big. So I developed a plan.

The most competitive prospecting group for a Realtor is expired listings. Expired listings are homes that were listed with a different agent, but the home didn’t sell and the contract expired. When this happens, an alert shows up on the Multiple Listing Service notifying all other agents that this listing is back up for grabs! Immediately several dozen real estate agents pounce and start calling on the owners who were unable to sell their home with “the other guy.” It was tough to stand out in the sea of hungry agents who, in a two-hour window, were all laying on their best pitch. It was competitive for sure, but if you can rise above the madness and clutter, expired listings can be very lucrative.

I knew this, so I developed what I called my Shock and Awe Blitz Campaign. Once I set my sights on you, you were either going to love me or hate me. But two things were certain: You would not be able to ignore or forget me.

The campaign went like this. Between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. the morning your listing expired, I’d be standing on your doorstep asking to re-list your home with me (immediately separating myself from everyone else and delivering a little shock). Sometimes this was all it took, but if not… Later that day you would get a package hand-delivered by an assistant—a package that we affectionately called “Da-Bomb” because it was big and stuffed full of combustible materials explaining why I was “Da-Bomb.”(Cheesy, yes, but it worked!) And if it didn’t… Then in the early evening, an assistant would show up, hand them a SOLD sign, and say, “This is a gift from Darren Hardy—you’ll need it soon after you hire him to sell your house.” (Boom!) Later that evening, I would stop by in person and ask for the listing again. If the listing still hadn’t been secured, I would have something hand-delivered or mailed to them every day for at least two weeks along with a daily call or visit from me personally.

It wasn’t long before they would call exasperated, exclaiming that if I would market their house like I marketed myself, I had the job.

I’ll admit that my Shock and Awe campaign was a little extreme. But this isn’t about aggressiveness for aggressiveness’ sake. In competitive markets, things happen quickly. In real estate, for example, when it comes to expired listings, more than 50 percent of the time the listing is won or lost within the first 24 hours. That little window of time means you can’t be casual unless you want to be a casualty.

Will you lose some prospects this way? Certainly. And that’s okay.

Maybe the best sales advice I ever got was from this mega-successful mortgage broker named Mari Mahoney. She did more business than any ten “successful” mortgage agents combined. When I asked her how she did it, she quickly responded, “I lose one out of five for being too aggressive.” She paused for effect, then added, “But I get the other four!” “You lose 1 out of 5 prospects for being too aggressive. But you win the other 4!”

@DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

That statement changed my life.

Before then I was overly concerned about being too assertive or over-bearing. If someone got mad or called the broker (my dad!) to complain that I was calling too early, too late, or showing up on the doorstep too often, I was horrified. After my lunch with Mari, being aggressive became my goal.

Ask yourself this: Are you shocking enough in your approach? Are you awe-inspiring? If not, it’s time to stop being scared of scaring clients away. Instead, be excited about the customers who will admire your willingness to go big!

1. SELL TO THE BEST, FORGET THE REST

The challenge with shock and awe is that it uses up a lot of resources. After all, you can’t be standing on everyone’s porch at 6:00 in the morning. To maximize your efforts, you need to narrow your sights and go after the “best buyers.” Best buyers are about 10 percent of your client base, and you can probably picture them in your mind: They love your product or service.

They buy your best products.

They buy in bigger quantities.

They buy frequently.

They’re a joy to work with.

They love to tell their friends about you.

What’s magical about those best buyers is that even though they only make up 10 percent of your client base, they generate 90 percent of your profits! And the rest? They generate 100 percent of the headaches.

As a result, just one best buyer can be worth 100 times an average one. That makes the solution easy: Spend 90 percent of your time focused on the 10 percent client type.

So, what do these best buyer clients look like? Of all the potential client target groups, how do you distinguish the 10 percent from the other 90 percent? There’s a very simple way to filter your list. Identify which ones meet the following three criteria: Easy. They’re readily accessible and easy to reach, costing you little advertising, marketing, and sales effort.

Fast. They have the greatest, most obvious perceived need, so when presented with your solution, they see the value quickly and are quick to make a decision and purchase.

Profitable. They are the type that once converted, their lifetime value is high because of their transaction size, upsell purchases, frequency of repeat purchases, and referrals.

Naturally, there are always fewer best buyers than average buyers. Successfully using this strategy requires you to narrow your target client group. Yes, I said it, narrow your list. Focus on fewer people. Tighten up the clients you will serve to the ones you can serve best. At first, this can feel wrong, even painful. You’ll feel like you’re leaving money on the table or ignoring opportunities you can’t afford to ignore.

Let me tell you: You can’t afford not to.

The key to greater profits is rarely capturing more clients.

The key to greater profits is capturing more valuable ones.

1. FIND YOUR DREAM 50

Now narrow even further. If a best buyer client can be worth 100 times the average client—and cost you a lot fewer headaches and wallet-aches—what are the “Best of the Best” worth? A lot. How do I know? This Dream 50 strategy is the very reason SUCCESS magazine is in business and thriving today.

You may already know that the first issue of SUCCESS magazine had a record-breaking launch: over a million copies sold. The biggest first-issue magazine release EVER.

Bigger than Oprah.

Bigger than Martha.

Bigger than all things Condé Nast, which launched a similar magazine at the exact same time called Portfolio. Heard of it? No. That’s because it’s gone.

While the numbers tell you what we accomplished, now I’ll share with you how we did it.

In March 2008, we re-launched SUCCESS—a venerable magazine with a rich history. Originally founded 120 years ago, it was published for decades by various luminaries in the personal development field. Unfortunately, for years prior to our taking the reins, it had failed, spectacularly, three times in a row under three previous publishers. The publishing world mocked our beloved magazine with the favored punch line: “SUCCESS Fails Again!” Not only that, but in 2008 we were at the forefront of the economic recession, and magazine ad revenue plummeted more than 50 percent—all this right at the time when many claimed print was dead! “Paper is extinct—Long live digital!” could be heard from the rooftops of many a New York City skyscraper, as print operations braced themselves for certain Armageddon.

From the outside looking in, we weren’t launching a magazine. We were digging a grave—our own.

From the inside, the view wasn’t much better. We had spent every dollar we had on acquisition, development, and production. I remember looking at the budget and seeing a big, fat ZERO in the “Marketing” column. We had a magazine, yes, but we had absolutely no conventional way of telling people about it.

Under these dire circumstances, we implemented the Dream 50 strategy. With the content complete and the pages in final editing, the team at SUCCESS got together around a conference table under fluorescent lighting and asked ourselves: “How can we sell magazines not one by one, but by the tens of thousands?”

“Who do we know who is responsible for large networks of people who yearn to be inspired, empowered, and more successful?” “Who are the 50 people we need to sell on the idea of a magazine that teaches the secrets of success, a magazine for achievers? Fifty people who, if they believed, could bring us millions?” Once we had our list of 50, we focused all of our time and energy on selling them (and only them) on SUCCESS, on what we stood for, and on what we could do for our readers.

That Dream 50 made our dreams come true.

From a modest conference room in Lake Dallas, Texas (not exactly the epicenter of publishing, media, or… well, anything, really), that list of 50 people was all it took to outsell the other publishing behemoths. Instead of focusing on the million individuals we wanted to reach (expensive, time-consuming, and not likely), we focused on a few key relationships that could connect us to the rest.

In fact, not all 50 engaged. Not even half of them did. Candidly, SUCCESS broke a multi-decade losing streak with the help of eight believers. Just eight people who saw the vision and got on board.

While I am extremely proud of the one million copies sold of that first issue and humbled by the many millions that have been sold since, the bigger lesson here is this: Think of what your Dream 50 can do. You want to turn your roller coaster into a rocket ship? Here’s how you do it.

If you could build a dream list, who would be on it? Narrow the universe of available prospects down to that best of the best. Often, your Dream 50 will consist of people you don’t currently even have on your prospect list. You might not have had the courage to write them down before. Add them now! Make a Big Kahunas list—those you dream of being in business with. These are prospects who, with just one or two converted to clients, could change your world and the future of your family.

Since you’ve made it this far, congrats! By now there should be no doubt in your mind that the only fuel you need to make this ride race forward at speeds that defy gravity is one word: sales! Your entire business starts, is sustained by, and ends with sales.

“You are one or two dream clients away from changing your future. Go get ‘em!”

@DarrenHardy JoinTheRide

Stop hiding and start selling. You know not to put your prospects on a “hit list” but to climb in bed with them instead (metaphorically, of course!) so you can feel how they feel and help them solve the problems that keep them up at night. Talk less, listen more, build bridges, and don’t be afraid to shock and awe your way to the top!

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