Enhance Your Personal Selling Skills for Life Sciences

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it was hailing bombs in Beirut Lebanon and as a family with my father my mom my sister's my two younger sisters we escaped by boat to Cyprus I was about nine years old and I vaguely remember my father arguing with the Border Patrol man to let us through he was not listening he was being aggressive and the Border Patrol man was not happy with my father so you can say that the Border Patrol men sent sent us back into Lebanon Beirut into the war zone now what did my father lack in this situation well he lacked rapport building skills he lacked listening skills and most important he lacked the right mindset to stay calm under pressure but another time my father did a brilliant job at selling we were stuck in traffic and I was about eight years old and now imagine a 1980s summer day in Beirut there's old forts everywhere Mercedes Benzes smoke beeping sounds and those men with mustaches because massages went in back in the 80s right and my father must have angered a man into road rage this man suddenly appeared at the window of my father's car he aimed the rifle straight to my father's head but this time my father remained calm under pressure he built rapport he negotiated and in just a few minutes my father had sold the man out of pulling the trigger my stories may be a little bit extreme maybe dramatic and to be honest I wasn't going to share them I was kind of hesitant but then I thought back you know most things in my life whether there were life and death or whether they were subtle depended on the art of selling and negotiation because they could not only save your life but the life of those that you loved and also knowing how to sell can help you get ahead in life I personally loved the word sales and I don't try and sugarcoat it for anything that it's not now here when they hear this word sales they feel a bit uncomfortable yeah okay this word is a little bit taboo but we have to accept and embrace and accept that we are all salespeople whether we like it or not whether you are selling yourself on a first day whether you are selling yourself at a job interview how about if you want to start a business you need to know how to sew right or whether you want to be the person that you want to be in life so we must first embrace an acceptor or be the person in that corner of the room watching everybody with envy getting ahead because I'm gonna be blunt right here right now it doesn't matter how talented you are how smart how pH did up you are or technically brilliant you are if you don't know how to sell and communicate you're not gonna get very far in life but I want to establish the two types of sales people out there who has seen this film it's a great film however this film has ruined it for a lot of sales people out there this is not the true portrayal of what happens in the business to business world where trust and relationships are the foundations of closing high value sales and if any sales person pulls off those sons that they pulled off in that film that would be out the door in less than a week now I want to talk to you about the two types of salespeople you've got the pushy salesperson and you've got the consultative salesperson now the pushy salesperson they have acronyms like ABC always be closing the consultative salesperson they have the same acronyms ABC however they actually mean something totally different always be connecting pushy salesperson they talk a lot they don't listen to what you have to say and they push their products and services on to you within seconds of meeting you consultative salesperson they listen and find out how they can solve your most important problems and change your life pushy salesperson they walk into networking situation and they think I wonder who I can take from here today consultative salesperson they walk into a networking situation and things I wonder who I can help here today now that I've established the two types of salespeople and the difference between them and why knowing how to sell is important I want to share with you how knowing how to sell has changed my life and how it could help you be the person that you want to be first of all it has helped me become a more confident person I learned pretty quickly that it didn't matter how well I knew my pitch or how well I knew my products and services if I did not know how to sell with confidence and be a confident person I was not going to get very far now how did I learn this well it was through this one particular experience in Mexico years ago I worked in selling timeshares in Mexico and to get a job in this resort you had to know how to speak English and you had to know how to sell and there were two sales reps in particular one was called James and the other one was called Santiago James James he was English he had a great accent he was tall handsome dressed in those three four piece suits he had a PhD he knew his pitch inside out and he was well-spoken this guy was pretty smart now Santiago on the other hand he was his English was not great he had a heavy accent he was a high school dropout he didn't dress well he was taught a bit stompy and he did not know much about anything now who do you think was a top salesperson out of these two Santiago correct and some people were surprised how is Santiago is selling I mean compared to James he didn't have a chance and I did wander and I had the privilege of shadowing both these guys and befriending them now Santiago his secret was he had unshakable soft confidence in himself and in his abilities no matter how many knows he heard no matter how many failures he faced it did not falter his self-confidence knowing how to sell has helped me build rapport with just about anybody people by people this was one of the first phrases I learned in one of my very first sales job the trainer Doug he wrote this phrase on the board and he said people buy into you before they're going to buy your products and services so if they don't like and trust you you can be sure they're not really going to buy unless they're dying in a hospital bed and you're the doctor that they don't like so at the end of the day we have to start with building rapport and Trust with people now most of us know that building rapport has to do with a genuine smile open body language taking an interest in the other person even mirroring and matching the firm handshake the eye contact all that stuff yeah but I want to take the concept of rapport further I want to take it on to the into the online digital world where we spend a lot of our time now I want to ask you how many times have you strolled your Facebook feed your Instagram or LinkedIn feed and you going through the feed and you are making mental notes about people on your feared whether they're your friends family or strangers oh I like him he's so inspiring oh Jesus this woman's so negative I need to block her block this happens all the time so we are basically building virtual rapport with people online and people are building rapport in connection with us when they don't even know us now I had to learn this the hard way I learned this about six years ago I became a vegan and I wanted to spread the vegan message and the best way to do that obviously was on Facebook so I started spreading my vegan message in a quite aggressive angry way and no one was listening and then one day as I was I thought what's going on no one cares about animals and I was kind of feeling sorry for myself then I remembered the phrase that I learned so many years ago people by people and I thought of course I mean I've been applying this to my sales life and through my I've been coaching this too many salespeople once I applied this concept of people by people into my animal advocacy I saw a tremendous change people started to message me saying I want to go vegan or tell me I've been being inspired by your posts so no matter what you want to sell whether it's your product services your philosophy or ideology or political beliefs always think do people like me and trust me before they open to my message knowing how to sell has helped me persuade and influence like a magic wand you know no I'm joking it's not a magic wand but it's helped me persuade an influencer now persuade and influence can have a bad connotation because at the end of the day to be honest with you it is not a magic wand nobody is going to be persuaded and influenced by anything you have to sell if that I want to buy because at the end of the day people need autonomy in their decision making studies show that and people we cannot trigger their fight-or-flight response so the more we push the more we're going to trigger that but we can do something instead and also studies show that by asking smart questions and getting somebody to think for themselves when we're more likely to be able to influence their decision there are three things I want you to remember before going out into any sales interaction whether you're selling your products services or selling your ideas number one people are more likely to buy when they are talking then when you are talking number two people are more likely to buy when it's their idea than when it's your idea and number three you should never ever begin by pitching selling preaching or providing solutions before the person you're dealing with articulates what they want to gain achieve now why is this well sales does take a lot of concepts from psychology and understands human behavior and they've done a lot of studies on this and what they understand is when we ask questions people are more likely to be open so let me give you an example say I went to see the psychologist and I said to the psychologist well you know my husband is an abusive alcoholic you know I don't know what to do the psychologist is not going to say to me you need to leave that jerk before he kills you but the psychologist is instead going to ask me questions in order for the decision to be my own they're going to help me create unique insights and alissa my own thinking so that psychologists might ask me okay so Tommy what would you like to change most about your current situation and then I'll start thinking what I'd like to change most and then the psychologist might ask okay so based on the challenges that you're having in your relationship how has this been affecting your life let's explore how it's been affecting your life and then they'll say okay what solutions do you think you might need to take or what action do you think you might need to take in order for me than to be driven to take action rather than the psychologists telling me what I need to do now I want to take the same concept and I want to apply it to a product say for example I'm trying to sell you a printer and your printer is not working and I went to you and I'm trying to sell to you the printer I'm not gonna go and tell you how brilliant my printer is because you're not gonna listen I'm gonna say so tell me about your current printer what would you like to change most about this printer then I'll say okay based on what you've told me about this printer and the problems you're having how is this printer affecting your work productivity and so on and so on so as I said always think about getting people to think and believe that something is their idea rather than you pushing something onto them that's how we persuade an influencer knowing how to sell has helped me learn how to understand how to communicate to people's values now many times when we are communicating to people we in the values that resonate with us and not with them how many times have you tried to convince your child your spouse your colleagues based on your own interests and what you value the most now I'm gonna give you an example there was a lady who was I was coaching and she was a travel agent who name is Maggie she told me a story about how she was trying to sell a vacation to a guy called Tony now what was important for Maggie was she wanted on her vacations she wanted to relax at the nice beach she wanted to sunbathe nice cocktails restaurant foods and Wi-Fi that is not important for her Tony on the other hand was very different in his holiday approach Tony was an introvert so he wanted to have a nice modern suite he wanted to have his bodybuilding food so he needed a kitchen to cook his bodybuilding food he needed to have a gym at the hotel and because he's an entrepreneur Tony needs to have very fast Wi-Fi so when Maggie was trying to sell this car the vacation she was talking based on her interest and she lost this guy within minutes so think about when you are trying to convince somebody whether it's your child your spouse your colleague or your client are you talking in a language that resonates with you or with them and how do we understand their language obviously we need to do a discovery and ask smart questions now finally I want to leave you with a story which helped me tremendously be the person who I am today and it's led me onto my personal development journey they all started with a sales role that I had I was working in a sales role and I was not selling in this role and I was quite frustrated so I was reading every book on sales and one day I was sitting in the staff room and I was reading about how to overcome objections and there was a sales mentor he saw me and he said I want you to throw this book away your only objection is your mindset what I want you to do right now I want you to try something different and I said okay I'm open Tommy what is it and then he said close your eyes and I want you to visualize and feel you are with your customer right now and that you are building amazing rapport close your eyes and feel and believe that you are helping them by asking great questions and they're telling you all of their issues visualize and feel that you are going to change their life with this product that you're selling visualize and feel that they are so open that they are signing the contract and they're so happy and visualize and feel the number that you're gonna sell and I want you now to open your eyes write down the number that you're gonna sell now when he first told me this I'm a very logical person I thought what is this hocus-pocus magic is not gonna work and then I thought you know what I've got nothing to lose let me try it so I did try it and within not even a week I started selling and I started to do this everyday religiously and then I thought imagine what this can do to my personal life so I started to apply it to my health my fitness making money my business going on dates and then I took it further and started to apply it to my morning meditation and I started to manifest the life that I have today I've been in sales for 20 years and I've something that I've learned through the years there are three things that you need to have to be successful in sales or in business number one is you need to have courage courage is about going out there and understanding yes I'm gonna get rejected and it's okay and just keep on doing it number two you need to have patience there's something called the compound effect you plant seeds today they'll grow tomorrow but many people they plant seeds they stop being patient and then they give up and the last thing is you have to have a relentless work ethic there's no such thing as overnight success I've paid lots of the money for these overnight success courses and they are all bs you need to work really hard and it's gonna take time anyway thank you for your time and go out and sell [Applause]