The car salesman bias

Most consumers are leery of car salesmen. And that’s understandable because car sales usually means a lack of price transparency, a high price tag, and pressure.

As soon as I walk into a car dealership – and I’ve purchased more than my share of used cars! – my hackles rise up because I’m approached by salespeople looking for a fresh victim.

Attitude, first

Everything in sales comes down to the salesperson’s attitude.

Here are a few tips:

As a salesperson, your attitude matters more than anything else.

Be aware that the customer is likely to be skeptical and hold a “used car salesman” bias. Counter that narrative by being different from any other car salesperson the customer has met before.

Build community loyalty

Pressuring a customer to purchase can work in the short term. But it never results in long-term loyalty.

And since word of mouth referrals – people talking about you to their friends – is the ultimate mark of success in any business, a primary goal of your salespeople should be building loyalty within your local community.

This can mean the subcultures that each of your salespeople lives within – a neighborhood, the local recreation league, someone’s favorite coffee shop – and also your city itself.

People talk about their experiences. So it should be the job of each of your salespeople to create positive experiences and generate goodwill towards your business.

Become the mayor

You want your business to become the “mayor” of your city. When people think of your town, you are one of the first names that comes to mind.

This can either be you, as the owner of the business, or something that represents your business, like a mascot or the logo.

One way to approach this is to run for local office: city counsel, leader of the Parent’s Association, etc. But this can also be implied power.

Doing things that someone with deep ties to a community would do is a way to generate goodwill.

The value of cold call

Doubtless, you’ve already considered the benefit of having your salespeople make cold calls. But I think that the likelihood of actually selling cars by “dialing for dollars” is very low.

To do so a salesperson has to reach someone who is:

If any of these four aren’t true, then cold calling damages the reputation of your business.

Instead, I suggest cold calling for a completely different purpose. Teach your salespeople to make cold calls to collect information.

Here’s a script:

Hi there –

Do you mind if I take 3 minutes of your time?

I’m calling from your local BMW dealership 
but I am not calling you to try to sell a car. Instead, I’m just collecting some demographic information about local residents so that we can be a better part of this community.

Again, I’m not here to sell you a car. Do you mind if I ask you three brief questions?

If they respond in the affirmative, proceed:

Do you own a car? If so, what make and model?

What is your perception of BMW cars?

What is your perception of car dealerships?

End the call by asking if they would like to be added to your free monthly newsletter, which is about the goings-on in your region. Thank them for their time, appreciate them for the time you’ve spent together and encourage them to reach out if you can help them in the future.

This approach will help your salespeople get better, spread the brand of your business, and generate future leads. The last question, What is your perception of car dealerships? will highlight for your salespeople the perception that they are having to combat to build customer loyalty in the region.

The prospect will be pleasantly surprised when the salesperson doesn’t try to sell them a car at the end of the call, thus ending on a positive note.

Hire great people

It goes without saying that you want to hire great salespeople. But instead of focusing solely on people who always hit sales quotas, hire people who add to the reputation of your company through goodwill and long term customer loyalty.

A great salesperson who also alienates customers or employees does more harm to your business.

Define what a great salesperson brings to your company, and don’t settle for less.

Company culture

We often overlook the importance of company culture in sales. After all, the purpose is to close more deals and make more money!

The cohesion of your sales team matters. One overly pushy salesperson can model for the rest of the team an approach that will alienate customers.

When we put a smiling face on what is actually an unhappy working environment, our customers can tell the difference. Similarly, customers know when a member of your team really, sincerely enjoys their job, and is excited to be a part of the company.

A culture that derides the worst performing salesperson or hazes newly incoming team members creates an environment that will, invariably, trickle out to the customer’s experience.

I’ve written a book about the importance of team culture, so start here.

A culture of feedback

One important aspect of company culture, particularly in sales, is creating a culture of feedback.

Sales teams often only provide feedback during the onboarding process of a new salesperson. But every salesperson – and everybody! – can benefit from feedback. And in a thriving company culture, every employee should want to.

Here are a few ways to incorporate feedback into the daily cadence of your company:

Be generous

One of the phrases least likely to be uttered about a typical salesperson is that they are generous.

The common perception is that a salesperson wants to take advantage of the customer. It is your responsibility to contradict this narrative by being incredibly generous with your time and effort on behalf of each customer that you work with.

As often as possible go to the extra effort with each person you come into contact with to help them – even if that help has nothing to do with the sale you are aiming for.

By being unexpectedly generous you foster long-term relationships and make it more likely that a customer will come back in the future.

Until next week,
Robin

How to sell without a network or connections

In 2016, I was given an amazing opportunity to take ownership of a global community called Responsive.org.

After running my first ever business event early in the year, I decided to create my first business conference, Responsive Conference, 9 months later.

I’m a circus performer. I had never attended a business conference, not to mention produced one, so that first year of selling tickets to Responsive Conference was a madhouse.

That was also the same year that I started Robin’s Cafe, so any moments that were not spent behind the counter, or hiring and firing baristas, I was on the phone with everybody I could think of asking for advice.

This distinction is key: I wasn’t trying to sell tickets to the conference at first. Instead, I asked for advice.

Ask for advice

I brought 275 people to Responsive Conference 2016 by asking people for advice. It is really that simple. I turned to the founders of Responsive.org, everybody who had come to my free event earlier in the year, and everyone else I could think of.

When you ask for advice, you create the opportunity for excitement and support from people who might not otherwise be open to purchasing. People get enthusiastic about your cause, regardless of whether they’re interested in spending money – or attend my conference.

By asking for advice, you create advocates who want to see you succeed.

Practice telling your story

One of the things that making those hundreds, even thousands, of calls in the first months of Responsive Conference gave me was practice telling my story.

I was new to Responsive.org. By luck and good timing, I was able to bring together 150 people for a free event at the start of the year and there was a lot of interest in our topics. But I was no expert!

By asking everyone I could think of for advice, I got a lot of practice telling the story of the ecosystem and why I wanted to create Responsive Conference.

Build a network

When you are beginning to sell something new, you probably don’t have a network or a reputation. But what you lack in network you can make up for in short calls with strangers.

Ask everyone you talk to refer you to three other people. Quite quickly, the size of your network grows!

It takes time and effort to take calls with so many people, but you’ll also go from no contacts to hundreds of potential prospects in a very short time.

The final step is to ask

The final phase of this saga, once you have enough experience telling your story and have built out a network, is to begin selling. Change your pitch from “Will you give me advice?” to “Would you be interested in purchasing a ticket?”

Several months into asking for advice, I’d talked with hundreds of people and generated a list of prospects in the thousands.

It takes courage to ask people to purchase. You can’t hide behind the “I’m just learning how to do this” anymore.

The final step is to muster up the courage and ask, “Would you like to buy?”

A word on authenticity

This approach to learning how to sell something new only works if you are sincerely interested in what people have to say.

If you go into an “advice call” with the desire to sell, the other party will know and be turned off by the experience.

Be humble, stay curious, and look to learn.

Homework

If you don’t need to, I don’t recommend spending hundreds of hours on the phone with strangers asking for advice. That said, the practice of building a network is incredibly valuable. This is the same process I use anytime I’m starting a new business or exploring a new opportunity.

Your homework is to call one person in the next two days and ask them for advice. The rules are simple:

And just like that, you’ve landed your first advocate.

Until next week,
Robin

Responsive Organizations with President of Pepsi, Simon Lowden

My guest today is the President of Pepsi Global Foods, Simon Lowden. Simon has been the driving force over the last 10 years at turning Pepsi into a forward-thinking and self-iterating company. He is incredibly thoughtful when it comes to marketing and Responsive organizations, and in today’s conversation, we dive deep into some of the philosophies that he has implemented over the span of his career. He offers tactical advice on how to work well with teams and build a future focused organization. I hope you enjoy!

Podcast Notes:
3:00 How Simon found Responsive
5:00 Building a team
7:45 Why Pepsico brought Simon on
10:45 How Simon stays current in marketing
12:45 Balancing the internal politics of the organization
with staying fresh with consumer attention
15:45 Marketing platforms on the rise
18:15 Plastics Project
21:15 Three local rules of the Plastics Project
25:30 Simon mentions: If by Rudyard Kipling
26:00 Simon’s thoughts to the Responsive community
28:00 Steps towards being plastic-free
31:30 Begin with trust

Ryan Holiday on Practical Philosophy and Books to Live Your Life By

RyanHoliday

“Some lack the fickleness to live as they wish and just live as they have begun.”

– Seneca

This episode of the podcast features an interview with prominent strategist and writer Ryan Holiday (@ryanholiday). I became familiar with Ryan’s work when a friend recommended his reading list, which remains one of the few newsletters I’m consistently grateful to receive.

Beyond being a prolific reading (and recommender) of books, Ryan has published three books and consulted on media and marketing with best-selling authors and musicians. The Financial Times called Ryan’s first book Trust Me I’m Lying an “astonishing, disturbing book.” I have used ideas from his second book Growth Hacker Marketing in marketing my own books.

After dropping out of college at nineteen to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, Ryan went on to advise many bestselling authors and musicians. He served as director of marketing at American Apparel for many years, where his campaigns have been used as case studies by Twitter, YouTube, and Google and written about in AdAge, the New York Times, and Fast Company.

I admire Ryan’s strategic thinking and application of  philosophy to solve practical life problems. In this interview we discuss how Ryan trained himself to become a media strategist. He has developed the marketing campaigns for best-selling authors including the controversial Tucker Max, Robert Green, Tim Ferriss, and Tony Robbins. This post by Tim Ferriss recounts some of the bigger marketing stunts Ryan did while he worked as Director of Marketing at American Apparel.

In the interview, we discuss Ryan’s most recent book The Obstacle is the Way and delve into the practical approaches to philosophy, and especially Stoics philosophy, that he lives his life by. I very much enjoy the no-nonsense approach with which Ryan tackles challenges.

Growth Hacking A Book Launch – “Autism Breakthrough” Case Study

Ever since reading Ryan Holiday‘s book Growth Hacker Marketing I have been applying what he calls the “growth hacker mindset” to business projects.

This post is about using a growth hacker’s creative and analytical mindset to radically change the launch and long-term success of the book Autism Breakthrough by my friend Raun Kaufman

autism-breakthrough

For background: Raun Kaufman is the son around whom the Son-Rise Program was created. The Son-Rise Program has since been run by thousands of families with children with autism around the world and helped kids recover from autism. Raun is the Director of Global Education at the Autism Treatment Center of America. For more information this fascinating study examines the efficacy of applying the Son-Rise Program with special needs children.  

What Is Growth Hacking?

I first encountered the term growth hacker in an essay by Andrew Chen:

Growth hackers are a hybrid of marketer and coder, one who looks at the traditional question of “How do I get customers for my product?” and answers with A/B tests, landing pages, viral factor, email deliverability, and Open Graph.

I was immediately struck by the similarities to what I have always done. Maybe its just that I’ve never had a big budget or that I was taught young not to spend money if I wasn’t sure of a return. Regardless, analytics and creative problem-solving have always been part of my work, whether for Move Autism or in any of my previous positions. I’ve always asked about processes with an eye to improving them.