Experience is irrelevant, its about success – Talk Marketing 038 – Tony Morris

Tony Morris is an absolute legend. His sales superpower is cold calling the audiences prospects on stage. Think about that – people are reportedly more scared of public speaking than dying, people are petrified of cold calling. Tony Morris does it on stage. You should listen to this. 00:00 Introductions 06:36 How are you qualified to talk to us about sales conversion strategy? 12:10 How many touches does it take to converat a prospect into a customer? 19:07 What is teh value of a sales pipeline? 29:39 What is it that sets good sales people apart from the rest? Martin Henley 5:53 So the first question is, how are you qualified to talk to us about sales conversion strategy or sales conversion? The second question is, who are your customers, who do you work with, how do you add value to their lives? The third question is, what is your recommendation for anyone who is looking to do better with their sales conversions? The fourth question is what do you recommend people read? And the fifth question is who can you throw under the bus who might enjoy or at least endure, to have one of these conversations with me? So that’s the five questions. So let’s start at the beginning. How are you qualified to talk to us about sales conversions? Tony Morris 6:36 I want to pick up on a word you mentioned earlier, because I push back on this word, you said, I started my career in 2001 in sales, you said I’ve got 21 years of experience. I’d like to change that word experience, and I don’t say this to be arrogant. I say this to all of my clients, that experience is irrelevant, it’s about success. So what I’d say is, I’ve had 21 years of success. I use an example I remember I used in a meeting many, many years ago with a big manufacturing company. Bear in mind. This was 11 years ago and I said to the sales director, who would you rather be if you were going to be in a boy band? Would you rather be Duncan from Blue or Harry Styles from One Direction? He laughed and he said I am a worst singer, I said, well, they’re not that great and I said, who would you rather be? And he said, well, obviously Harry Styles for One Direction. My following question was, who’s got more experience? Because at the time, it wasn’t Harry Styles, but Harry Styles had far more success. So for me, you can have 40 years of experience by being totally average or seven years of outstanding success and I know what I would rather be. So I think to answer your question, how do I qualify? Or, or why am I here now speaking about this subject is fortunately I’ve had 21 years of success doing this for my personal career. I have as you mentioned, I’ve helped over 36,000 sales professionals in the last 16 years, I set my business up in April 2006, with my then business partner who I bought out three years ago now. What was interesting is my first ever client was a company back in 2006, called Cornhill Asset Management. They sell something called IPOs and the way I won them Martin was, one of the ways I used to get leads is I still look at the Evening Standard, the London newspaper and look at who was advertising for sales jobs, because to me, that told me two things, it told me one, they were growing and if they’re growing, they’re sort of company I want to work with. Or it told me that they’ve got a sales team that’s underperforming and that’s why they need new blood into their business, either way, I could help them. I saw this big advert for a company called Cornell Asset Management. I looked them up on Google, and saw that they sold IPOs and I’ll be completely honest, I didn’t have a clue what IPOs were. I did a bit of research and sort of understood it stood for initial public offering, I sort of understood that it was about high risk investment that are extremely high risk but obviously, if you’re correct in your risk, the results and rewards are massive and significant. They had 16 sales people and I met with James Almond, the director, and I understood the business a bit better and I went into the company, they were based at number one Corwin Bank, opposite the Royal Exchange, and I did sales training for them. Tony Morris 9:56 With this group of 16 salespeople I tripled their conversion, from a phone call, to contact, and from a conversation to a deal. It made me realise that I’d never sold IPOs up to that point, I didn’t know what IPOs were properly; but what I’m good at is helping people articulate their proposition better. I’m good at asking better questions, and listening effectively, listening to not just what’s said, but what’s not said. Based on that, I created a methodology of how you can increase the probability of a successful outcome.

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