• 38:54
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Business model, product selling, sales strategy, client relationships, emotional bank account, adding value, business development, sales consulting, product features, client needs, sales techniques, relationship building, sales performance, client engagement, sales training.
SPEAKERS
Sara Murray, Damon Pistulka
Damon Pistulka 00:08
All right, everyone, welcome once again to the faces of business. I’m your host, Damon Pistulka, and I am so excited to once again have a repeat offender here with Sarah Murray, thanks for being here today. Sarah
Sara Murray 00:22
Damon, I’m so happy to be back on the faces of business. Thanks for having me. Oh, it’s
Damon Pistulka 00:26
going to be fun, because today we’re going to be talking about how to sell a business model rather than a product. Sarah, you’re the first person that brought this concept up to me, and I’m so glad we can talk about it today.
Sara Murray 00:39
I can’t wait. It’s something I’m really passionate about. I think it’s something a lot of people don’t know how to do. And even if they know how to do it, we forget and we just go into our product you know, I call it, I call it product vomit. So today, love to talk about how to not puke on our customers.
Damon Pistulka 00:57
That product vomit that I first time I heard you say that I was, like, That is so funny, and I am so guilty of it
Sara Murray 01:04
happens everywhere I went into I’m, I’m, I like to ride a bicycle, and I’m toying around with getting a road bike, but I it’s like a hobby I’ve never done before, so I don’t know a lot about it. And I walk into a bike store the other day in my neighborhood, and I told the guys that I’m not here to buy I just have a couple quick questions. This is sort of a beginning of a fact finding mission. And he immediately goes into, well, we’re not based on commission. That’s irrelevant, because I just told you I wasn’t here to buy anything. And then I got 30 minutes of just carbon versus aluminum versus blah, blah blah versus blah, blah blah, buddy. All I wanted to know is, can I put my feet on the ground when I ride a road bike and I stop pedaling like that was my only question. And it was so bad. It just got to a point where I just shook the guy’s hand and walked away. Because, like, I can’t keep hearing about these bicycles when I’m not asking you these questions. It just happens to us all the time, and I would love, you know, if I leave this earth at one point, hopefully years and years from now, we stop vomiting on people with product facts. Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 02:08
that is a great example, though, because it, you know, I think sales people for for lack of better training, lack of something to say, sometimes they’re, they’re with the or not remembering that questions should come first in every sales conversation, I think, from from a salesperson. But that’s a great example. That’s a great example.
Sara Murray 02:30
Just happens all the time, and I think, you know, I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining about it, but it’s something where the more you’re aware of it, the more you’re going to start to see it.
Damon Pistulka 02:40
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Sarah, let’s start off like we like to do. Let’s hear your background. How did you get into doing what you’re doing and then how you’re helping people today?
Sara Murray 02:55
Sure. Thanks for that. Damon. Um, so my name is Sarah Murray. I have a consulting firm really around business development, sales consulting, I’ll work with different teams to really help them create an action plan, how to develop relationships, how to get to their client, and then how to execute but my background has always been in in sales roles, and I usually joke my first job ever was at a country club, and I worked at the country club for six years. And looking back, I think working at the country club helped teach me how to work with luxury clientele. And I don’t know, Damon, what was your first job?
Damon Pistulka 03:33
Let’s see. No, I was, I was doing engineering work. Yeah,
Sara Murray 03:36
yeah. I mean, it’s funny when you look back at like, I know we’re not going to go all the way back to 14 at the country club, but it does kind of lay these little breadcrumbs to how your career moves. And moved to Los Angeles after after college, and I got a job in construction. And sometimes I kind of joke Not, not I wasn’t building. It wasn’t building, but on the sales side. So I was selling construction materials for luxury residences, multifamily residences, commercial buildings, you know, hospitality projects. And so I had three different roles at three different global organizations, leading their sales team. And I had one mentor. His name’s Jamie Heil. I don’t know if he’s watching, but if he is, shout out to Jamie. Jamie really taught me the concept of selling to business model versus product, and it works so well I could always get to the decision maker, because I could show how my product or service either made his business money or saved him money. And so that’s one big like line in the sand for anyone listening. You want to start to ask yourself, How does my product or service make my client money or save my client money? Because that’s a much different conversation than here’s all the information about my product that’s just going to roll off your brain because nobody remembers it. So in all of my corporate jobs, you know some of. The things that people would tell me, you know, how are you, how are you this good at networking? How are you getting to the decision maker? How are you getting these meetings? And I just kind of sat with it, and I said, I think I could teach people how to do this. And so that was sort of the part of the origin story of my consulting firm, which founded in 2022 and and so we just celebrated three years in business, and things are going good,
Damon Pistulka 05:23
nice, nice. So one of the things you’ve talked about before, and I love to just cover briefly, is the relationships, the long term relationships you built in sales, and how you continue to do that, even with your clients today, but people from the past. How is that really, when you learned that? Was it something you learned, or was it something that was always there, or you think you just have have developed it with what you’re doing now, I think
Sara Murray 05:53
it’s a combination of both. I think sometimes when we think about like my parents and my grandparents are amazing people. My grandparents are no longer with us, but my grandma was a stickler for the Thank You card. And she was kind of like, if you don’t write a card, you will never get a gift again. And all of her friends were terrified of Esther Mac because, you know, did their grandkids right? Esther, yeah, because grandma would cut them off, you know. And looking back, that was a really healthy habit that I learned because I am just the queen of thank you cards, because it was beaten into me as a kid, for lack of a better word, yeah, a birthday gift, if you don’t do this, thank you card. So, you know, my parents are very thoughtful. They, you know, when they pick you up from the airport, they have a water bottle and snacks or cookies. You know, they’re just thoughtful. And so I think I learned at a young age how to be thoughtful. But when it comes to business, one of the things that has served me really well, and what I teach in my workshops, and I work with my clients on, is this concept of the emotional bank account. I’m sure you’ve heard that before. Damon, right. Stephen Covey, I didn’t make it up, but we practice this a lot, whether we know it or not. And in this concept of the emotional bank account, our relationship with other people has this kind of emotional deposits and withdrawals. So, you know, Damon asks me to be on his show. That is, you know, Damon has an emotional bank account deposit in my bank. So what you want to always be doing, I call it A, B, A, V, always be adding value. And any type of situation, even if it’s the valet guy at the corporate office building you’re at, or the front desk person or a random stranger on the street, you’re almost thinking, how can I add value to the other person? And when you shift into that mindset, you’re always filling the bank wherever you go, and I think that’s something that serves you really well in business, because you never know whose bank account you’re going to fill, who might actually be someone who can help you in your own further mission. So ABA, be always be adding value is like the number one thing that that really helps when you’re trying to develop relationships,
Damon Pistulka 08:02
I agree and and it’s and it carries through all the way no matter what you’re doing. I mean, if you’re doing or sales or marketing or leadership, it it that that concept helps you in all those areas, that’s for sure, and in life.
Sara Murray 08:16
And I think the key is this just has to be part of who you are. And that takes some practice, you know? And so I like to say to people like practice with the barista at the coffee shop. You know, you find ways to practice, practice using their name, practice, smiling, practicing, thank you. Practice writing reviews on their podcast, watch their LinkedIn lives like there’s all these different ways we can be giving these bank account deposits. Because what I’ve found is the sales part becomes a lot easier once you have a full bank. Because why wouldn’t that person work with Sarah? She knows all about my family. She’s invested in my well being. You know, it just becomes a lot more seamless and less salesy.
Damon Pistulka 08:58
Yeah, Agreed. Agreed. So on, on your journey. Let’s talk a little bit about this selling a business model rather than a product. When did, how did it first start clicking with you? I know you said your mentor helped you understand it, but how did it really start to click with you? And then how did, how do you see people applying that today, as you’re teaching them and doing but how did it really start clicking with you? First,
Sara Murray 09:25
it’s it’s a very straightforward story, but I used to sell, one of the products I sold in my career was a bioethanol fire pit. So picture a regular fire pit, but a stainless steel container that would hold bioethanol, which is like vodka or whiskey or ethanol, but it would burn really clean, so you could use it inside. You wouldn’t need a vent, you didn’t need a gas line, all this stuff. But when I’d be talking to a hotel owner or any type of decision maker, and you start getting into the product questions, what’s the material? How. Hot does it get? What if my dog jumps into the fire? What is the fuel made of? Where do I get the fuel? What does the fuel cost? And you’re just in this back and forth, you know, like question, return answer. Question, return answer. And number one, nobody’s retaining those facts and figures. If I tell you, Damon that This fireplace is 18,000 BTUs, you’re going to forget that the second this session is over, right? Nobody remembers facts and figures. And it just got to this point where the second they’d be asking these questions, then they’d be pulling out their calculator or their phone, doing the math on what this fire pit is going to cost them. I would lose the sale, because all they would see is this thing’s going to cost me money. So instead, if I can understand the decision makers business model, and I’m going to use a hotel example here, but hey, Mr. Hotel owner, where are you considering fire on your property? Oh, the pool deck. Oh, okay, you know, because I know his business model. I’m thinking, Do you happen to do events out at the pool? Oh, yeah, all the time we use the pool deck for events. Oh, great. One of the cool things about bioethanol is there’s no hard gas line, so you can move this fire pit just like a piece of furniture, and you get that fire pit off the property for your event. Ooh, okay, now they’re thinking that way. Then it’s, let me ask you this too. What are what type of programming do you have on site for people to hang out and order drinks? Because this fire pit, really, what I see with my other clients is it’s now, it’s a marketable amenity feature. You can advertise it on your website. You’re giving people a place to gather. It’s an extra light source. It adds romance and ambiance. It’s an extra heat source, you know. So we’re talking about all these ways that this fire pit is going to add value to his business. Oh, and guess what, sir, yeah, it’s gonna cost you 80 bucks a night to operate, just like a propane one would. However, you’re gonna pay for that $80 in the first round of drinks from people sitting around this fire pit. They’re gonna hang out on property and spend their money with you. And now all of a sudden, this guy’s thinking, this fire pit is gonna make me money versus cost me money, and just asking those questions and understanding what happens on a hotel property or what he or she cares about, that shift changes all the conversations, and you get in the room with people because you understand their business, and you’re showing them how your product or service helps serve their business.
Damon Pistulka 12:21
And and then compare that to someone else that’s coming in there and talking about the product and features and maybe benefits and some other things about it, they really are not equating that into either, as you said before, it’s going to make more money or help me make more money or save more money. Yeah. So they’re
Sara Murray 12:39
just talking about it’s made of concrete, and it’s made of concrete, and it’s available in these finishes, and blah, blah, blah, blah, business people don’t care. They really don’t like the product doesn’t matter. And I think that’s one of the biggest takeaways I’ve learned, is the actual widget and stuff that will matter eventually down the road, but for the first couple conversations, you’re figuring out how you can solve their problems. And then we can get into the specifics. If it’s necessary, it might not even necessary to get into the how, most people don’t care about the materiality or the price point, or, you know, what grade of stainless steel it is. They just care it’s not going to rust next to the ocean, you know, and so that, you speak business model. But I think that it’s, it’s something that takes a lot of practice, and it almost sometimes just requires you to ask your client what is their business model. And so if you’re going into a pitch or a meeting, you might say, hey, Damon, I understand. You know, I think I have a pretty solid understanding of what exit your way does, and who you serve. But before we get into our discussion, would you mind sharing a little bit about your business model? What are you focusing on for the future? Like, where do you get your clients? Like, you can ask these questions. I think people are afraid to ask, yeah,
Damon Pistulka 13:55
yeah. That’s great, because when you start off like that, asking questions first of all, I think, is good, and then getting to know their business better is always helpful, because then you can sell, and I shouldn’t say, sell, you can talk about the right things that will help them really achieve what they want to with your product or service,
Sara Murray 14:15
absolutely. And sometimes they end up selling it for you. They might say, actually, this could help us over here with this project we’re working on. And it’s like, Great, let’s, let’s double click on that. Yeah. So it, you’re, you’re, you’re the guide. You’re guiding the client towards a solution. But if you just come in and and throw a product Damon all over them, you’re just going to lose every time.
Damon Pistulka 14:40
Yes, so in, in your helping others. Now use this understand how to sell better. What are some of the common things that you run across now with sales people that’s really holding that are that are really holding them back.
Sara Murray 14:59
I think. There’s a big lack of fear around this concept of asking a prospect what their business model is. I think that there’s a delicate balance between coming across confident and not wanting to ask questions, because you fear that the prospects gonna think you don’t know anything about their business. And I would like to challenge anyone listening to think about like, let’s use a pharmaceutical sales rep. For example. You know, you’re selling pharmaceutical meds to a surgeon or a doctor. Someone who went to medical school for a 1318, years, go to school for a long time, you know? And so if I’m a pharmaceutical sales rep, and I come to a surgeon, and I act like I know everything about his job, like, of course, I don’t know everything about what it takes to be a surgeon. I’m not a surgeon. I’m pharmaceutical sales rep. So I think it’s okay for people to understand your role in sales isn’t to sell, but it’s to solve problems. And I’m not an expert at your business. I think I know enough to be dangerous. I work with similar clients like yours, but I would love to hear from you, what is your business model? What type of clients do you work with? Who are your clients that you serve? And that’s one area of just getting over the fear of asking, because most people won’t bat an eye and they’ll just go right into it, and it’s a smarter way to run a meeting?
Damon Pistulka 16:21
Yeah, and when they just start without asking those questions, it said you don’t, you don’t as a salesperson, you don’t get the background, the foundational knowledge to really address their main concerns. And asking about that business model, asking about what are the challenges that they’re seeing now, and those other things, which aren’t always comfortable questions, but they do help you really understand, if I’ve got a product or service, and I find somebody that says, This is exactly, you know, they’re saying this thing that I exactly do together, it’s very good for them, yeah,
Sara Murray 16:57
and it makes it a lot more organic to bring it up, because then you’re using their own language back to them. Hey, Damon, you mentioned that this was a pain point for you. One feature you might be interested is, you know, the fact there’s no hard gas line. So when you have events, you can clear the pool deck with this fire element that doesn’t have a hard gas line. You weave in the product features and the product information in a way that serves the solution. And if we don’t ask, we waste a lot of time, we waste the other person’s energy money on the table, and we do not position ourselves as a professional business person, really, to be that blunt,
Damon Pistulka 17:37
yeah, that’s great. I really liked what you said there about serving this, showing them how that the solution applies to their business model and really and how it can enhance it. That’s great. So as as you’re helping people, and they’re getting this, what are some of the comments that you get back?
Sara Murray 18:06
One of the things, well, I think one like, I’ll give the listeners a little roadmap on how to do this, and then we’ll talk a little bit about, yeah, okay, yeah, let’s do that. What I like to especially in B to B, there’s a lot of different people that might interact with your product, right? Yeah, might sell an OEM component that you sell to the actual, you know, final manufacturer. But then where is that product being deployed or installed? And then, even though maybe a hotel, and it will just continue our hotel example, maybe the hotel is my client, but the guest is still going to interact with my product. Or the the staff, the housekeeping, the pool staff, you know different people interacting with it. You need to kind of make a map of all the different people who might interact with your product along the sales channel, and it might be people who aren’t decision makers, but selling a business model that hotel owner cares about his guests, because those are his clients or her clients. And so even though we might not ever sell to that person in B to B land, we still need to be mindful of how our product or service impacts them, because then we can change our positioning and our language around it. And so some of the things that have been really cool to see, and I’m actually presenting a keynote on this in November for for hotel properties in particular. But there’s a lot of ways that we leave money on the table, and they’re little, they’re little things, and so I kind of have a list of examples of things properties and businesses doing it really well, and properties that don’t do it well, I’ve been traveling a lot, and so I’ve been staying a lot of hotels. And have you ever used that app called hotel tonight? No, it’s like, if you need a last minute hotel, cheap, you know, it’s like the third party booking, but go to Palm Springs a lot, and, you know, it’s a long drive. So I’ve been using hotel tonight, and I’ll just bop around all these different hotels and try them out. 100 bucks a night, right? And so I check in a hotel. It’s 930 at night and I’m tired and I want to wake up early the next morning. And the gal says, okay, the pool opens at 6am great. All right, I probably won’t use the pool because I’m it’s not as a business trip, but thanks for letting me know. So next morning, I wake up early, I walk to a Starbucks a mile away, make a phone call. I made it covered. Productive walk. I walked back. Yeah, I’m checking out. I look around the corner, and there’s a coffee bar right around the corner from the front desk, and I walk over, said, What time do you guys open? They said, six o’clock. I just walked two miles this morning to get a Starbucks when you were right here. The gal at the front desk could have said, Hey, our coffee shop and our pool opens at 6am just little things and I so I think when you think about the different people who interact with your stuff, you want to make sure that you’re offering things to people they don’t know it exists. How can they buy it?
Damon Pistulka 21:05
That is a huge thing. That is a huge thing. And you’re exactly right, we can overlook something which seems very minute, but it can be a big deal to our business. Yeah,
Sara Murray 21:16
and I think that this applies everywhere. I mean, I was on a meeting earlier today, and we had a certain time slot, and then for an extra 30 minutes, the team just received product information for 30 minutes. And at this point, I’m getting, like, a little spicy. Sarah comes out sometimes, not very often, but she does, and I’m getting irritated because I’m like, we’re going 30 minutes over like this is costing us money, because now instead of going out and making sales and responding to emails, we’re giving 30 extra minutes we didn’t allocate for yes and and I don’t, I don’t, and I think that this happens a lot where people don’t realize. They think, oh, I’m having such a great meeting. Oh, we talked for two hours. No, that person was too polite to tell you that you’re costing their organization 1000s of dollars because the team has to sit through this meeting. So like being mindful of time. If you’re selling to an architecture firm and they bill 100 bucks an hour, and then you have a lunch with 10 people, you know that your presentation costs that firm $1,000 so it’s not a bad thing. They need to know the stuff usually. But you want to think, how am I making sure that there’s an ROI from any type of meeting that I have? And this is like, I know we’re talking I know we’re in a lot of different directions here, but it all ties together in this concept of adding value and speaking business model. Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 22:44
you that it’s a great point. Is the ROI for meetings, and part of it is stopping the meetings at the appropriate time. You know, if you schedule for an hour, but you’re done in 30 minutes, it means that you get 30 minutes of your day back. They get 30 minutes of their day back. Everybody wins. And that’s a great point. You don’t you don’t have to use that time to fill it in.
Sara Murray 23:07
And if you’re working with professionals, they probably have a hard stop. But now you kind of did yourself a disservice, because you didn’t leave time at the end to discuss next steps, to recap action items. And so there’s it all ties together, and it takes a lot of practice, you know. And this is something I’ve been doing for my whole career, so I’m well versed in it, and I teach it, but it takes a lot of practice. And so I would just encourage anyone who wants to flex their business development muscles to really find ways to add value, but also making sure, if you’re respecting their time in business model, you’re honoring that hard stop too.
Damon Pistulka 23:46
Yeah, that’s a great two things you said there. First of all, they are making sure that you’re providing a good ROI on their time spent with you in the meetings. I think that’s that’s awesome. But and, and if you can stop earlier, you said, if we, if we all have back to back meetings, if we stop 1015, minutes earlier, we can finish up the meeting in a in an appropriate time, follow up questions, decide who’s doing what, what are the next steps, and still get out of that meeting probably 10 minutes before The the next meeting comes up, and you will leave a positive impression on whoever you’re meeting with from for none other than they gave me some time to be able to collect myself before I did something else, rather than boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and they’ll forget you, because as soon as they start that next meeting and and things start to happen, they forgot what happened? Yeah,
Sara Murray 24:42
especially if you’re just filling their minds with product facts that just rolls off their brain. So yeah, in there, you’re not giving them anything to hold on to. So that’s why we gotta weave in storytelling. We have to weave in how this product or service impacted their clients. And I had, you know, some of the stuff that. I do in my business, all I have a sales program, but construction, commercial construction takes a really long time to build buildings right, and delayed gratification. I’m sure a lot of our your clients listening. Have you know, long sales cycles, so sometimes it’s hard to quantify. You know, your team sales are going to increase by 20% if you hire Sarah like, I don’t really have the hard data to do that, because it requires, you know, but if you can weave in anecdotes, like, Hey, I had a client who had a similar situation. Their team was responsible for business development, but they’re very technical. Or their project managers, this isn’t their core role, but they have sell as part of their job. I you know, then we can start pulling in stories of how, if this person was able to, you know, in conjunction with me, we put together a panel discussion, and now they’re adding value, because they’re reaching out to their prospects to be on a panel that they’re hosting. So now they’re elevating that person’s business model, and now we can build deeper relationships, because I’m not pitching them products. And I think it’s just all these different creative ways to add value. It takes practice, it takes trial and error, but you just got to start. And I think that’s, I think the action and execution to your point earlier. Damon, like ending the meeting early the people who execute are the ones business professionals remember,
Damon Pistulka 26:25
yes, yes. So you’ve been at your coaching now for a while. Wait, so it’s three years. What do you love the most about
Sara Murray 26:37
it? Now that I’ve been working with clients for a longer time period, I get to see the wins and like be part of the win. So that’s been very cool, because when you’re first starting out, it’s like, you, you think it’s good, you you feel really confident it’s good. It’s worked for you before in corporate, but until you start to see how it gets integrated into another company or an individual or a team, and then you see them deploy it and have wins. That’s really cool. And actually Kurt, Kurt was one of my first favorite wins when we were talking about ABA B years ago, you guys had me on manufacturing, e commerce, we’re talking about ABA B, and Kurt shared a story of running a trade show in Buffalo, and he’s thinking, how can I add value? And he sent out a Word document with all the great Mexican restaurants, Italian restaurants, everybody in Buffalo, we’re going to Niagara Falls. And he told me later, I was Mr. Popular at that show. And we kept running into people at the restaurants we recommended, and people the organizer came to thank him. And he wasn’t sending out the typical come visit the booth, see the new product, schedule an appointment like everyone else, like you have to stand up from the noise. So hearing stories like that is is super fulfilling, because it shows that it works and and it just helps people’s businesses, which is what we’re all about.
Damon Pistulka 27:59
Yes, yes. Well, and that that too. I mean edgy. It goes back to everything about your products, about your services, that can can really help them and as them, as people as well, right? Because I think that one of the things that well, and I used to be this, this way a lot, is that if we’re so focused on the product or the service that we provide, that we don’t see the humans, the human interactions and what they’re going through, even care about what they’re going through. You miss a great opportunity, because it could be that there’s a connection between you, between an event, between them and something you know, crazy good happening in their life, challenging happen in their life, that really helps you to build that relationship that is much deeper and much, I think, more important than the the sale itself.
Sara Murray 28:59
Do you hit the nail in the head right there. Because if you connect as the people first, like the the H 2h, human, yeah, first, the business stuff becomes so easy. And I think that we oftentimes go into situations thinking, how can this other person help me? And it come from the ABA B mindset of, how can I add value to them? It just makes it a lot more organic and more comfortable. And then people will work with people they like, and what’s going to happen is you’re going to find clients everywhere. Like I’ve met people on the chair lift. I met, I met, I need a patent lawyer for something. And I had this whole day at a museum on Saturday with and we were in this little sketching group, and this gal turned in my little friend in the group, turns out she’s patent lawyer. We didn’t figure it out until like three hours after us talking, and I said, Actually, can I ask you some questions? So now I have a lawyer I need. But it happens all the time. I was at the pool the other day and chatted with the gal for an hour. Turns out she’s a potential client, and you just. Never know. And I think that’s what’s really fun about it, is you’re not coming from how can this person help me? How can I how can I get what I want out of yes, you’re just connecting as humans, and the business happens organically. And that is like, what’s so fun about this?
Damon Pistulka 30:13
Yeah, and I think that that is lost on a lot of people, and especially with sales people that don’t understand that. If you focus on that, and you focus on that from the time you wake up and until the time you go to sleep and when you’re out networking, it’s not hey, you know, I do this, but you’re really just getting to know people, your business will take care of itself, like you said, it will take care of itself and and if you, if it’s not working, do more of that
Sara Murray 30:46
totally. Oh, yeah. I think there’s a book called Give and Take by Adam Grant, and he talks about, like, the givers. You know, there’s the givers, the takers and the neutral people, and the givers end up, some of them end up on bottom, because sometimes you have to, you know, sometimes I’m guilty of this too, where just giving, giving, giving, giving, then I don’t ask for anything. Yeah, but I know if I needed to ask for anything, I got a whole bunch of full bank accounts. And people in your example, you just shared, they’re trying to draw from an empty bank, so not going to get anywhere, and you might accidentally put negative bank deposits in that bank account, if you’re just slapping people, if you’re just asking for things, you’re getting negative deposits in the bank, which is even worse, and that’s what. So you just need to always be adding value and thinking about how you can help others. Even if it’s a book recommendation or a connection or a podcast episode. There’s all these ways to to add value, and if you have that handy, then it’s, Hey, Damon, let me grab your cell phone real quick and I’ll text you that podcast episode we were discussing. Yeah, I have your phone number, and it’s not that hard. It’s just we have to be thinking about it and mindful of it.
Damon Pistulka 31:57
Yes, and I mean it’s fun too. I mean, it’s just like, it’s fun, it’s fun in on that’s something that I think, if we, if we look at it that way, and really embrace how much more fun it is just to be helping people, and I think, and just hit me, but I love being able to finish a meeting a little bit early, right? So if you’re going to finish 1520 minutes early, just ask people, what’s going on. How are things? And if you spend a few minutes on that, that always be adding value can come in so big, totally. The End of meeting like that, where you say, we, I know somebody that had that happen before. Do you want me to figure out how they did it and or, or something like that, or this is something we’ve done that’s been really enjoyable, or, or just whatever, the the ways you can help them in that part of their life or business, you know, whatever it is that they they can, I think that that helps you to seal The deal and want them to in and not fake, but real, and to be able to continue doing and building a relationship and working together,
Sara Murray 33:08
you know, it’s so funny, Damon, because when I first started my business, it was all around, like, helping your team build relationships. And some of the VPs of sales I was talking to was like, there’s the door, Sarah, we don’t need that. That’s a soft skill, you know. And, and a part of it was me learning how to position it correct, yeah, part of it, but at the same time, this was all before AI happened. So it’s kind of funny to see how quickly things have changed. And really the biggest competition we have is not the competing product or service. Our real competitor is the relationship that the competitors sales person has with our ideal prospect or client. So we’re competing against competitive relationships. And your point Damon of just like asking these little icebreakers, like I was chasing the largest construction project in North America, and the executive vice president is now a good friend of mine, but at the time, he was really tough. He was the hardest guy I’ve ever had to sell to, and now that we’re friends, I asked him, I said, What? What was up with that you were so intimidating? And he says, well, Sarah, everyone in the world was trying to get on this project, and I had to develop a filter system, yeah, because I can’t field inbound vendor calls from the whole world, who’s trying to get on the largest project in North America. But I set up a meeting with him in Las Vegas, and I gave the wrong address accidentally. And so I sent this guy, and Vegas is not a easy place to jaunt around, and it was 100 degrees, so he shows up an hour and a half late to my meeting. He’s pissed. I’m embarrassed, but, you know, I’m like, I’m not going to give any fluffy icebreakers, you know, let’s just get into this meeting. And so we did, and we all kind of calmed down. And then at the end, I had ordered all this food to that, like, Vegas wanted to take away, because, yeah, before our window and and so we’re kind of eating the food, because I think he recognized, like. It obviously was a mistake, but yeah, still not the best first impression. And at the end, we’re kind of snacking, we’re all calmed down a little bit. And I said, So do you have any fun trips coming up? And he says, Yeah, I’m going camping with my kids and the Poconos. And now all of a sudden it’s like we could talk about camping, we could talk about his kids, we could talk about the Poconos. Like I threw out the bait, and I got three different paths I could take it down, and now we became friends. But you just have to use some of these strategies and questions tactfully. But once you do it on a regular basis, it becomes very natural,
Damon Pistulka 35:35
yes, yes, and it really is the feeling that people have when they leave bingo. That matters. I may not matter the most, but it is probably the most impactful
Sara Murray 35:50
Big time, big time, and I think that’s the thing they don’t remember. All the facts and figures they remember is this someone I want to work with?
Damon Pistulka 36:01
Boom, right there is this someone I want to work with. Yeah, and that’s, that’s the heart back to the age stage. It just is always be adding value, putting things you know in their perspective, and really showing them how your products or service is going to help them make more money or save money. Awesome stuff. Sarah, so thank you for being here once again. We’re going to wrap up today, but I want you to leave us with one piece of advice, if you could today.
Sara Murray 36:35
Okay, well, we talked about ABA B quite a bit. Always be adding value. So I’m just gonna, like, put a pin in that. And then I think the other thing that I would really like to leave your audience with is this concept of, like, take time to really understand yourself. You know, like, what are your core values? What are you passionate about? Like, what are your strengths? What are you good at? I don’t think we always take the time to sit and think about what makes us special. So I’d like to invite everyone, like, think about what makes you special, and then you know what makes your company special, and from a business model standpoint, not a product feature standpoint. So how do you solve problems for your client? What are some of the wins that you can, like, take ownership of? Because when you have all of those ingredients together, you can really show up as your authentic self and just like, be cool, be yourself, like people want to work with real people. And sometimes, when we get into business mode and sales mode, we try to be this person. We think the other person wants them to be. And really, if you just like own and embrace your authentic self, you give the other person permission to be their authentic selves, and that is like, what creates that instant connection. So just be cool, love yourself, get to know yourself more if you don’t know it and and just show up authentically.
Damon Pistulka 37:50
And that’s all it takes. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So Sarah, if someone wants to reach out to you to talk about, you know, helping their team build better relationships and really improve their sales performance. What? What is the best way to get a hold of
Sara Murray 38:05
you? Yeah, I’d love to, love to chat. I have a six month and 12 month programs. We’ve had some really killer wins of teams, big and small. So it’s been really fun to be a part of that and be part of those teams. I’m on LinkedIn all the time, Sarah Murray. And my website is Sarah murray.com and that’s S, A R, A, M, u, r, r, a y.com,
Damon Pistulka 38:23
nice. Well, thanks for being here today, Sarah, hang up. We’re gonna we’re gonna wrap up offline. Hang out. We will wrap up offline. Couldn’t even say it, but we will be back again next week. Thanks everyone for here. I saw some of those comments coming in. I see that we’ve got listeners out there that aren’t commenting. Appreciate you always. Thanks for being here with us. We’ll be back again. Thanks again, Sarah, thank you all right. You.
