[E161] Optimizing Lead Generation with Nelson Bruton – Part 2 of 4

Jason: Welcome back to the sales experience podcast. My name again is Jason Cutter, so glad that you’re here. You are catching this in part two of my conversation with Nelson Bruton. Make sure that you checked out yesterday’s episode and if you’re not, make sure to subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast. Also, if possible, rate the show and leave a review because it really helps other people find this show as something that might be valuable to them, whether they’re in sales, their sales manager or leader coach or they own a business with a sales team. Nelson and I continue our conversation where we started off talking about marketing and lead generation in his business, which focuses on chat interactions in on websites to move people through the sales process, but then we jump quickly into sales, sales success and Nelson shares a lot of what he’s found to be successful in mindset and with sales in general. So here we go. Part two, enjoy.

Nelson: As soon as the technical question come in or a sales related question, we don’t want to train them to answer those questions. We want them to say, let us have an expert help you with that. Can I have your phone number and email, boom. At that point we get the conversion, I eat, we’re going to walk them over to the person in the booth that can answer that technical question. So we’re not really training our chat people to be salespeople on the site. We’re training them just to convert the visitors into opportunities.

Jason: Okay. And then what about on the sales side? So in your sales experience or with the salespeople you have on your team, you know, what are you doing or how do you build that great sales experience for your customers?

Nelson: Well, first and foremost, I mean it’s, it’s just do the right thing and do it consistently. And that’s a fundamental of sales that I don’t think is taught often enough. It’s work, you gotta put the work in. If you want the results and you gotta do it consistently, nothing comes easy in the sales world. That’s a fundamental that I was taught a long time ago. What I tell people, especially starting off in sales, you’re going to put in at least three and a half years of hard, hard work and tons of hours before you get to a point where maybe you can let off the pedal a little bit. Or Zig Ziglar has an amazing video out there. If you do a Google search and search for a Zig Ziglar prime the pump, he talks about how back in the day you had used to have that pump a water pump to get the water going. I’m almost spoiling the story. If you want to learn what the first few years of sales should be like, go to Google, type in Zig Ziglar, prime the pump, and it’s an amazing five minute video that’ll, uh, make it very clear on all the necessary work that needs to be done up front.

Jason: And then what’s interesting, and I’ve seen this and you can talk about it in terms of sales, business, professional sports, music, anything like that where you’re putting in the effort, the hours, you know there’s the 10,000 hour concept from Malcolm Gladwell and it talks about that, but what’s interesting is that when you put in those two, three, four, whatever years it is hard work and learning and growing and developing, and then it starts to get easier. Most people then don’t back off. They go more in because now it’s easier and they can make the fruit. You’re seeing the fruit. It’s tough when you don’t see the fruit. When you plant that Apple tree in your backyard and then you’re waiting years for it to grow, that sucks. And that’s tough for a lot of people to be patient. Once it starts growing and fruit comes out, you’re like, okay, well how do I get more fruit because it’s working.

Nelson: Yeah, absolutely. And for me, you know, I took, I take a little bit of different approach than that. I once I got to the point where it’s a little bit easier. I am a big believer in, you know, the work life balance and having, you know, kind of the, uh, the lifestyle business. And so for me, I was like, okay, how can I optimize my days and my weeks and my months so that I’m doing what I want to do, I’m having fun, I’m really looking forward and I’m, I’m happy and excited everyday when I wake up. Right. So finding that balance was key for me and for me, you know? And it’s going to be different for everybody. I get my workout in 8:00 AM to about nine 30 every morning, you know, I mean, I do my stuff with the family before that give me my son off to school and then, um, get my workout in.

Nelson: I come home, I’m charged up, ready to go, and I worked the rest of the day. Uh, but I have to get my workout. Yeah. You know what I mean? That’s something else I do is I make sure that I’ve planned things to look forward to. And uh, our CEO taught me this a long time ago. You can’t just grind and grind and grind and grind. You’ve got gotta have things you’re grinding for in the near horizon, whether it’s a golf trip with friends, whether it’s a ski vacation, whether it’s a, you know, whatever it is, you know, whether it’s just a round of golf one day, you have to have continuously have things planned to look forward to. And that helps with the mindset of family.

Jason: And some of that is like the big picture goals of like what would be on your vision board. Like what do you want to attain? Like what are you working towards? And then I think that’s a great reminder. I know I tend to not do that enough, which is okay, here’s this thing I’m looking forward to that’s coming up, I’m excited about. And I know that if I put in the work and just working in general, then I also have this reward. Right. Work hard, play hard kind of balance.

Nelson: Absolutely.

Jason: So talking about mindset, let’s talk about that because I know this is an important topic for you and something you know, we were even talking about before, which is the mindset in sales. So let’s talk about that.

Nelson: I have a, uh, I have an Evernote with, uh, with, are these, these nuggets of wisdom? So I’ll just kind of go through a couple of my favorites. Other, there’s so much, but I think, uh, let’s see here. Let me just pick one. Zig Ziglar again, you can have everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.

Jason: That’s my favorite quote. That’s all over everything I have.

Nelson: Yup. And that puts you in the mindset of helping people, not selling people. That’s a big difference, you know,

Jason: And abundance that, you know, let’s look at it. There’s over 7 billion people on the planet. You can be successful at anything you want by doing things the right way and helping enough other people like there’s enough out there.

Nelson: Absolutely not. You even refer to that in one of your emails that you sent to me. You know, you said even if we’re competitors, I don’t care. I want to talk to competitors because it’s the abundance mentality versus the scarcity mentality. And that is something we truly believe in. And it’s so important to have that mentality. You see the people who have the scarcity mentality and it’s just you don’t want to live that way, you know?

Jason: Yeah. Well, and another visual I think is important. I forget about this one, but I think this one is key is that, and I forget the exact one, so I might butcher this, but you don’t have to like put out somebody else’s candle to light your own candle, right? Like you can light your candle from them and now there’s two candles and then there’s more light in the room. So for example, like when I was going to start this podcast was thinking, well, does the world need another podcast? There’s 700,000 podcasts. There’s probably 500,000 of those are motivational or sales related and feels like, and it’s like, but why not? Like people want to listen to other things and there’s a different voice.

Nelson: I never know when or where they’ll find it. And if it helps them, then

Jason: you know what, that’s all that matters. And you know, if you can give to other people enough, then it will always work out. That’s such a, such as my opponent.

Nelson: I like to start with, let’s see here, fail faster. Don’t be scared to fail, especially early on in your career. You know, the fear of failure can prevent you from having experiences that it’ll, it’ll get you to places you wouldn’t even imagine. So fail faster or something that truly has helped me over the years.

Jason: So let’s talk about that real quick. So with that as a mindset for sales people, right, specifically salespeople, what not, so what does that look like in your experience or opinion with failing faster in sales and then, you know, obviously being successful with that strategy?

Nelson: Yeah, I mean, so the easiest answer is, you know, then I still experience that every day. I mean, yesterday I got beat up, you know, people telling you no, you’re going to get no, you’re going to get rejected. It’s not you. It’s not, don’t take it personal next. Right? So you’ve got to have that mindset of fail faster next. And don’t worry about it. Don’t let the behind every, no, there’s some yeses are behind all the nose. There’s a yes coming. So dealing with rejection, you don’t, don’t feel, don’t fear rejection. Don’t feel fear of that failure or take it personally in sales. That’s part of it. And so I think that’s how it applies to me. If you allow your fear of failing to prevent you from taking action, then that’s just a huge disadvantage you’re going to have and trying to attain a level of success. You want to, I mean action is the key to anybody who’s ever been successful. They take action regardless. You know, the people who take action with the most risk are usually the people who have the most success.

Jason: So, and the one thing I want to add to that, which I think is important, you know, especially for salespeople is fail fast is important and be smart about it. And strategic, which means almost like professional sports would do, is watch the replays. Listen to the recordings, listen to the feedback you’re getting. If you’re hearing no a hundred times in a certain way, maybe your strategy isn’t right. Like you don’t want to just fail for fail sake or take action to take action, right? Like I think the best way to express this as, you know, the quote is typically practice makes perfect. Well it doesn’t because if you’re practicing it wrong, you’re going to be perfectly wrong. And so perfect practice makes perfect. And so just always, you know, fail, take action, try something as fast as possible and then tweak and adjust and get better.

Nelson: Why did I fail? Or why am I failing and then adjust. Absolutely.

Jason: And is it about me or is it just the other person? Right? Because you know, it could just be that other person. So you can’t take it all personal, but also don’t beat your head against that brick wall. And mostly if there’s a better way, but definitely do it. I mean, you’ll never know until you try.

Nelson: Let’s see here. Uh, this one is a, this is kind of in line with what we talked about earlier. When I said next care, but don’t care too much. Don’t get too invested in a sales opportunity. Don’t get too invested in a sales meeting to where it’s going to destroy if it doesn’t go as you think it should. So care, but don’t care too much. Let’s see here. Make sure you celebrate small victories.

Jason: Mmm, I’m terrible at that.

Nelson: Uh, I, I am an eternal optimist, so I’ve always been pretty excitable even at the smallest things, so I’ve never had a challenge with it. But I think it’s important for a lot of sales professionals to don’t just focus on the clothes. I mean there’s small victories along the way that happened. Having a good meeting with your team I five afterwards, you know what I mean? Talk about what you did good and celebrate that stuff, you know, and a lot along with, you know, what you could’ve done better. So I think celebrating small victories along the way, it’s a big deal. Don’t spike the ball on the one yard line.

Nelson: Don’t dropped the ball before you cross the, the, the end zone when you’re running for the touchdown. Right?

Jason: Yeah. Yup.

Nelson: And so make sure, you know, don’t get excited about a deal until you got the money in the bank and the contract is signed uh, I don’t know how many times sales people get so excited. They get a yes, they get a verbal and they go spend the money. You know what I mean?

Jason: Spend the money, put it on the board. High five ring the bell. Always land the high, the high five before it’s done. When do you think it’s done? Is the curse? Like I’ve seen reps do that and they’re like, yeah. They said yes and next thing is they’re going to sign and they want to give me a high five. I’m like, you can just delete that file now because you’re just, you just, it’s literally toast and I think it’s important too is not even just that, right? So don’t spike the ball on the one yard line. It’s also potential, like don’t spike the ball in the end zone until the game is over because it means nothing. Because in most sales cycles, you still have to sell past the close, which means after it’s closed, after someone buys, there’s fulfillment, there’s account management, there’s relationship, there’s expectations, and you can’t just celebrate and then move on and dump it and then, you know, take off your Jersey and your shoes and just assume like you’ve won the game when you know, still time on the clock. Alright, that’s it for part two of my conversation with Nelson Bruton. And again, make sure to go to the website cutterconsultinggroup.com you can find the transcript, all of his links information on there. Connect with me as well. And as always, keep in mind that everything in life is sales and people remember the experience you gave them.