The deeper you understand humans, the more confident you can be – Talk Marketing 079 – Simon Bowen
The deeper you understand humans, the more confident you can be - Talk Marketing 079 - Simon Bowen
The deeper you understand humans, the more confident you can be – Talk Marketing 079 – Simon Bowen
Click through to the good bits.
00:00 Introductions.
02:36 How did you go from education degree to business degree?
18:50 How are you qualified to talk about using visual models to sell?
31:52 30 years of drawing.
1:21:57 Who do you work with and how do you add value to their lives?
1:22:09 What is your recommendation for anyone who is looking to apply this kind of thinking to their situations?
1:23:21 What should people read?
1:29:38 Who would you throw under the bus to have conversations like this with me?
Martin Henley
Hello there, my name is Martin Henley. This is the effective marketing content extravaganza. And if you’re new here, you won’t yet know that I am on a mission to give you everything you need to be successful in your business. Providing, of course, that is the what you need to be successful in your business is to know more about and be better at effectively implementing marketing and sales in your business, which is, of course what you need if you’re going to be more successful in your business. So I’m here giving you everything I know about sales and marketing, we are bringing you the marketing news, we are reviewing the very best and the very worst of marketing content on the internet. And I am pulling in anyone I can find with experience that will be useful to you. If you are looking to be more successful in your business, you can support us in this initiative. And simply by watching the video simply by taking something from the video and implementing it in your business. And talking about that success in the comments below. You could also like and share and do all of that good stuff. So today is talk marketing. So we have a guest for you.
Martin Henley
Today’s guest has a Bachelor of Education and a Bachelor in Business he graduated way back in 1992. From what I can tell, he has only had two jobs since then, and he is still involved with both both of those jobs. He has been working for Rosscrae International for 26 years as change manager, strategic planner, sales coach and strategist, management consultant, and CEO advisor among other roles.
Martin Henley
He is also the founder of The Models Method, which transforms business sale systems, using bespoke visual models. He is the creator of the genius model, founder of The Models Method, and the world’s number one authority on visual models that sell he was introduced to us by Ben Jones, he is the author of How to Take Massive ACTion. And what you may not know is that he started his working life in electronics. Today’s guest is Simon Bowen. Good afternoon, Simon.
Simon Bowen
How you going? Great to be here.
Martin Henley
It’s great to have you here. It’s really great to have you here. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. It’s interesting, because it’s connected, that you started work in electronics, how did you go for how did you go from education degree to business degree, the four years that are missing on your LinkedIn profile into only having these two jobs for your entire life, I’d had two jobs before I was 12.
Simon Bowen
Well, both of those jobs are companies that I own. It’s easier. It does make it much much easier. But I you know, when I I started my life in electronics, and you know, basic, I have a brain for science, I like science, and I thought I would teach you know, so after I’d worked in in electronics and electronics for a while I went and did my Bachelor of Education and they sent me to a school in Western Australia that is designed to test the vocational fortitude to see if you can cut it with teenagers for the next 40 years. And I I knew within a matter of months that that was just not going to work. So I had to go and do something else in business. And adults made a whole lot more sense. And so you know, but however, I also recognise that, and a lot of teachers don’t see this one of the teaching is one of the most portable skills around because there are if we think about business, but really it’s business in life, but let’s just stick to business because that’s we’re talking about business and marketing and sales. The two most important systems in business are the system for thinking and a system for influence. You know, when people think about the systems in business, I think about the sale system, the marketing system, the fulfilment system, and so on. But I actually think of the thinking and influence as systems. And so business is only as good as the idea on which it’s built and the quality of thinking that’s driving it. And then the ability to influence the choices people make so customers to buy from your staff to work hard for you, regulators to give you this the licence to operate suppliers to serve you banks to fund you and so on. And so I went hunting For the, you know, what is the system for thinking and influence and, and it brought me back to this recognition that the teaching the skills that I had acquired, were a central part of that. So then I started unpacking what that looked like. And I came to recognise that using visual models using frameworks to think through and then communicate through, we’re, in fact that system for thinking and influence. And so it became the way I facilitated, it became the way I ran my consultancy business, you know, the government would hire me. And they’d say, we’re going to put 200 people in a room, they’re at war with each other over an issue, but they’re unified in their hatred for us. And you need to get them to agree, you know, you’ve got them for two hours, and I kind of recognised and the thing is, I’ve walked into a room with teenagers trying to teach physics, there’s nothing else can do that can scare me.
Simon Bowen
So, you know, give me those people in the room. And we’ll sort it out. And I just discovered that if you frustrate people for long enough, they actually ultimately want to get to an outcome, the energy builds, and they want to get to an outcome. So I’ve gone for two hours, and I just frustrating for three quarters of the available time, 90 minutes. And then I just go to the whiteboard and say, Hey, listen, I think I can draw this. And I start drawing a model on the whiteboard and facilitate the room and get them to build a model with me, we reach agreement, and we do it every time. And I got a reputation for being able to do this highly contentious and complex facilitation work. And, you know, it was really using these frameworks of thinking these visual models as a system for thinking and influence. And it was also the way that I naturally naturally sold as a consultant, I would grab a pen and draw models for the client and show them you know, what the outcome could look like. And, and then people started saying you should teach this and, and it kind of all blew up from there, and people worldwide are using our models to sell.
Martin Henley
Yeah, I mean, that’s really interesting. The thing is, I think that teaching does give you amazing skills. Like I did some volunteering in schools, and it was torture. Because I’m a bit of a presenter, you know, I like to present I got much better at presenting when I was doing that. Because when you’ve got an audience of 30, people who don’t like you and care about you, and you have to present for six hours, you get really good at presenting Do you know, I mean, I did, I might have done 20 or 30 days in my life, people are doing 20 or 20 days a month for the winner, they don’t work as much as they should teachers, they’re doing 20 days a month for nine months a year. You know, that is an amazing skill. So that’s where the best presenters are. I really like your idea, thinking and influence. And then you have to influence people to buy from you people to work from you, people to supply you. Because what I’ve said forever, is that everything in business is effectively sales or marketing. It’s effectively a pitch, you know, if you’re convincing anyone of anything, but your idea that it’s actually influenced, I think is is even sharper. I’m feeling like I’ve met a kindred spirit today already, man.
Simon Bowen
Yeah, it’s, you know, well, there’s some shared experiences there. I, you know, one of the most robust training environments for people in sales, would actually be to go and teach a high school class, you want to teach a group of 15 year olds Ohms law, you know that the current flowing in a circuit is directly proportional, proportional to the voltage applied and inversely proportional to the resistance in the circuit and have them understand why that’s important. They couldn’t care less. They couldn’t be less interested. And you need them to commit it to memory so they can pass the exam, how you’re going to get that done? And you’re measured on how many of them pass the exam? How are you going to get that done? How are you going to influence them, to committed to memory, how you’re going to get them to understand that you the quality of the thinking that you put into how you’re going to get them to buy into that, and then how you’re going to influence both their absorption in the information and the decisions they make to study determined success. And then on top of that, they’re picking you apart at a very personal level, you know, gee, you’re a bit thinner on top, you don’t have much hair. You know, you’re, you’re kind of old and you don’t like your beard or whatever the case might be because students are brutal, right? Yeah. And, you know, a lot of salespeople will talk at me. I mean, we live in the same sort of world in marketing and sales and there’s, you know, there’s some to a big obsession with impostor syndrome, and all this sort of business, well, you know, if you want to live in the world of marketing and sales, it is the best school in psychology on the planet. And it is a full contact sport. And so you know, you need to you, you need to have a level of resilience about it. And you need to have a level of calmness, about more importantly, you know, this whole conversation about impostor syndrome and things like that.
Simon Bowen
The deeper you understand the human dynamic, the more powerful you become as a salesperson as a marketer. And the more confident you become when you can out, think, out, sell and out, serve your marketplace. Everything else falls in falls into place for you. And our thinking about selling the marketplace really comes down to understanding more about the human condition and the human dynamic than everybody else. It’s not about knowing more about your product, it’s not about knowing more about how to frame what you do into or an ROI argument for the customer and sales cycles, and click funnels and lead magnets and all this sort of stuff. All of that’s important. But the people that understand more about the human condition and the human dynamic, and two fundamental truths, tend to win. And those two fundamental truths are not truths that people really like to admit to that match, right, or at least one of them isn’t.
Simon Bowen
The first truth that people don’t really like to admit to that much is that actually everybody wants to win. Everybody wants a better car than the neighbour. Everybody wants a better house than the neighbour. Everybody wants to win. The second truth is everybody’s scared. Everybody wants to be made safer. And so if you’re in the world of marketing, and sales, and you can frame your message, you can you can, the way you show up, allows your prospect to know that if they go with you, they will win and they will be safe. You’re halfway home. It doesn’t matter what the product is that you sell, if the if in the person that they meet. And then the solution that you’re proposing, causes them to go, okay, hey, if I buy this thing, I’m going to be just a bit better than everybody else, I’m going to win. And I feel safe with you. I coined this term buyer safety. You know, one of the key things that everybody should do in any marketing and selling is make sure that every step of your marketing and sales process, the prospect feels safer with you than they would without you.
Simon Bowen
And when the prospect feels safer with you than they will without you the safest thing for them to do is to buy from you. But so much of our selling is industrial age selling it’s come from the old foot in the door, door to door sales person high pressure scarcity and urgency. And of course, the customer feels less safe with us than they than they would without us they feel more under pressure, they’ve, you know, the customer comes to the buying experience with an underlying suspicion they’re going to get ripped off. And so you know, we’ve got to overcome them. And we have to overcome that by making them safe and actually making it okay for them to win. So the deeper you understand the human condition in those kinds of dynamics, the more confident you can be, you know about how you market and how you sell, and really the product is irrelevant. Just I’m just going to be at my microphone while I cough. Okay.
Simon Bowen
So I don’t want to upset the recording would be coughing noises. So, you know, it’s yeah, it’s kind of a fascinating world. But that and so what, what sits behind that quality of the thinking, the quality of the idea behind the business, that’s a you know, Michael Gerber, who wrote the E Myth 100%, one of my favourite books. Fabulous, right. But a better book that he wrote, is a book called The most successful small businesses in the world. And here’s the 10 principles and the most successful small businesses in the world. Now, the first principle is that a business should be built to grow 10,000 times its current size, and he’s chosen that number deliberately. So if you’ve got one little retail store, you should be running that retail stores if you were going to grow up to 10,000 stores, you know, and that changes your frame of reference to what you should be doing inside that business. But another one of the principles is in fact that a business is only as good as the idea on which it’s built.
Simon Bowen
And that’s actually true. You know, if your idea is half baked, and like everybody else’s, you got your commoditize and you’re going to struggle, but you know, a lot of our clients And we have people in about 25 Different countries using our selling system. And a lot of our clients are redefining their market space. I think the more interesting conversation for business these days is not how do we differentiate in our market? The more interesting conversation is how do we completely redefine our market? And that comes down to, you know, how good is the thinking in the business? And then how do you influence people to come with you?
Martin Henley
Okay, good, you’re gonna have to slow down because you’ve, you’ve already given me about 10 Headlines already with what you’re saying. I want to go back a little bit because like the the thing that you’re saying, that definitely correlates is like the first like, you’re saying, how do you get the students motivated to want to learn the stuff to put in the hours to be committed to to actually pass the exam? And I think the answer to that is to get them to care. And that translates 100% in a sales relationship, the first thing you have to be able to do is get them to care. Now, I don’t think it’s 100%, necessarily, but it’s really useful if then, they come to like you. I remember, he must be retired. Now, I had this little boss once was a little guy, his name was Leon. And I’ve lost count of the amount of times that he said to me, how do you get these clients to like you? And why don’t they like me and so much. And what I used to say to him is because I don’t give a shit if they like me or not, you know, I mean, he’s, they’re having to say all the things he thinks he has to say, to get them to like him. And I’m just there being kind of reliable and dependable, and saying what I mean, and doing what I might do you know what I mean? So, so that’s really interesting. And then the other thing you’re talking about is everyone wants to win. And everyone’s scared. And there’s an interesting dynamic in that because everyone wants to win, and they’re scared at the same time, which very often makes people quite defensive, and then quite aggressive. And then they often think that the way they win is by beating you, and not necessarily working with you to win a bigger battle. And this is then exacerbated because, you know, salespeople are winners, I don’t know Glengarry Glen Ross always be closing all of this stuff. They don’t come on a lot less they wish to buy all this stuff. So this is brilliant, this idea of buyer safety. I’ve never heard before, and I absolutely love it. And then they’d like to bring us right up to what you’re saying this thing of redefining markets is interesting, the quality of the idea is interesting. Because everyone knows that idea that businesses are built on really good ideas, like everyone has to have an idea for a business. But very often the idea is really poor. But everyone’s so impressed that you’ve gone come up with an idea that everyone kind of tells you it’s brilliant anyway, I’m gonna make a video called why small boy Bad small businesses think they’re good or why good? Or why something like that, when they’re actually bad? Because that goes on.
Martin Henley
What did I want to say? Let’s bring some order to this, because it helps us with the editing anyway. You know, there’s these five questions. So the first question is, how are you qualified to talk to us about using visual models that sell? That’s question number one. Question number two, then is who do you work with? How do you add value to their lives? Question number three is how do people get better at using visual models to sell? Question number four, really easy. What should people read? You’ve already given us a couple of recommendations. Question number five, who can you throw under the bus? Who might endure to have a conversation like this with me?
Martin Henley
How are you qualified Simon Bowen to talk to us about using visual models to sell?
Simon Bowen
Sure. You know, the only qualification really that matters is time spent in the trenches. so the world
Martin Henley
Can I just qualify that a little bit? Because I interviewed somebody. And he said, that isn’t what matters. What matters is the time you’ve spent in the trenches being successful doing this thing, because there are people who have entire careers in the trenches and never achieve anything. So I’m sure you have been successful. So I’m just going to elevate you If I can’t, if I may.
Simon Bowen
Yeah. Let me add some I agree with it. I agree with that comment and let me put some kind of further context or structure to that. The world has taught people to believe that what you need to do is go and get an education and then get a job. So go and study the theory of something and then hopefully go and apply it. Now I also lectured at University for a period of time. Good university lecturers absolutely understand that most of what they teach the students at university isn’t going to help them in the real world. What you’re doing at university is teaching them to be thinkers, basically. So when they get in the real world, hopefully they unpack things and think them through. But the world has kind of created this picture of go and study and learn the theory, and then do it. What you’ll find the most successful people have done is they’ve gone and done it, and then studied. what’s happened? and fix things and tweak things, and then done it again, and then studied what’s happened and fix things and tweak things and then study data again, and then realise is a bigger picture and study that and then apply that.
Simon Bowen
So you seldom, you seldom see elite athletes or Olympic level. And I’ve worked with a number of Australian sporting teams and the military and things like that. You seldom see elite athletes who have studied the sport for years, and then train and try and go to the Olympics, what do you usually see as someone who’s trained for years, and then studied the detail and the finesse to actually get better at it. And so I’ve spent the better part of 30 years in sales at all sorts of levels of industry, and all kind of product and price positioning levels, I’ve led quite substantial business units inside large Australian companies. And we’ve we’ve had our own management consultancy now for 25 years, where I’ve been tasked with the job of getting, you know, people that are a war over an issue, to agree to it, you know, the government would hire me and say, we’re going to put them all in a room, they hate each other, but they hate us together, collectively, they universally joined in their hatred for us. And you got to get them to agree.
Simon Bowen
You know, I’m not an engineer, but I keep getting hired by mining companies to sort out their, their project management divisions. You know, I’m not, I’m not a pharmacist, but I get hired to facilitate the control of the cost of, of the most expensive pharmaceuticals into hospitals across Western Australia. I’m not, and have never been in the military, but I get hired to work with the military and the Department of Defence and contractors on how we’re going to deploy bases, you know, for the Australian military into war zones. I’m not a doctor, but I get hired to facilitate all the clinical networks and clinical pathways for the health system, and workforce planning for, you know, for a new multi billion dollar hospitals being built. I’m not an architect, but I get hired to facilitate all the stakeholder engagement for $1.4 billion sports stadium that is five kilometres from where I’m sitting right now that that then wins the best stadium in the world last year.
Simon Bowen
So I have none of these expertise. But what I am is a phenomenal facilitator and thinker and influencer. And so I can take any number of people in a room and get into an outcome.And I do it. Because I draw, I draw visual models at some point, I know I’m going to get a bit of geometry, and draw a model and bring everybody into the model. And if I can draw, I can show you the secret behind it if it’s okay for me to draw something for you right now. And I’ll draw it so that people can picture it if they’re just listening to this on the audio, right? When two people are in a discussion about something, you have one person who’s pretty happy with their idea. They’re the proponent of the idea and this is their truth. Then you’ve got the other person who’s not sure. And the person with the idea wants to push their idea to the other person. As soon as you exert any kind of force on somebody, whether you push or pull, they will automatically exert the opposite force because people are basically scared. And so their job is to push back. So you’ve got two people pushing and so you get this kind of compete and retreat dialogue going on.
Simon Bowen
So you put 200 people in the room that hate each other over an idea. This is all that’s happening. I get a whole lot of people from different kinds of perspectives talking, and this is what’s happening. Now we know that in conflict, if you really want to resolve conflict, you would put a mediator into the mix. And the mediator creates completes the coaching triad and the mediator might go to now, in every conversation, in every relationship, this is not going to make anybody feel good, unfortunately. But in every relationship, whether it’s a marriage, or a business relationship, or whatever, the person who is least emotionally invested is in control. Can I repeat that, in any relationship, the person that is least emotionally invested is in control. And so if you want to control a communication or a relationship, you need to have the other party more emotionally invested than you. And so, in order to deal with that, we use this kind of mentoring or coaching triad where you have a person who is not emotionally invested at all. And that allows him to be in control of the conversation, and they can perhaps help the two people that are in this competing retreat dynamic.
Simon Bowen
And so the mediator might go to and is also often a weaker partner, or a stronger partner in the in, in the situation, and the weaker partner is usually the person that knows less. And the stronger partner is usually the person with the idea or that knows more. And so the mediator can go to this person, we let’s call this person, the customer. And they can ask them what’s going on for them. And just that act of asking starts to build buyer safety. And then, and then this person might share some thoughts with them. Now, this is absent of any kind of sales, positioning or posture from the other person. And then the mediator can inform this person and in marketing terms, we might call that Intel. And then this person go, oh, okay, if that’s what they’re concerned about what they’re thinking about, let me share this insight that might help them. And then the mediator who skillful can go and share that insight through another question. Because big because behind every question is a statement.
Simon Bowen
And then they share a bit more information, they inform them, they share more insights. And so what we end up with eventually, by elevating the conversation, we elevate value. And what we end up with is this. We, we gather intel, and we get their truth. And so what we end up with at the top is this shared truth. Now, the problem is you can’t take a mediator with you into a conversation, or certainly not into a sales conversation. And so I stumbled across, I didn’t totally stumble, it was sort of planned, I stumbled across this, this idea that instead of taking a mediator into sales conversations, or marketing conversations with me, what if I made the model the mediator, and instead of me trying to tell them my idea, I’m just sharing a model with them. And now instead of it being me, versus you, it’s the two of us looking at a model together. Now we’re actually side by side, talking about this thing in the middle, and building it together, and the entire dynamic changes. And once that shift has occurred, we can influence any kind of conversation. And so you know, it’s
Simon Bowen
it, you know, just entered exploded as a concept. And I and I started selling like that. So while everyone else was carrying a line, notepad, I was carrying a sketch pad. And, you know, in the large corporate environments, I helped us do chips, who are $51 billion company out of Australia building 10% of the US Navy fleet, I helped build their global sales process, it takes them about a year to sell a ship that’s worth about $150 million. And so, you know, we taught, you know, we taught them how to have conversations with clients, let the client feel like they’re being facilitated rather than sold do. So one of the superpowers is learned to facilitate rather than sell. And that’s a big, which is really what I’ve just described in that little in that little diagram, and it’s how I used to sell so I’d walk around with a sketch pad with the forward Scout that sent out by the corporation to see who could help them. And I’d sit there and sketch draw models and they’d go, Oh, that’s amazing.
Simon Bowen
That makes sense. Or that would work, you know, I need to tell people back in the office about that, and I’d tear out the page and we go, why don’t you take that and I’ll take a photo. And off they go. Now, that Ford Scout has turned into an internal salesperson for me walking back in with a hand drawn artefact of our sales conversation, which wasn’t contrived, because it’s not a PowerPoint deck, or anything like that. And they’re saying, we need to talk to this guy, because he’s got this really interesting model, I can’t explain it properly. But he has agreed to come in and have a meeting, and take us through it. Now I’m going to get in front of everybody that’s involved in the decision. And I’m going to repeat that conversation. And then the other thing is, they will have never seen anyone sell like this before. And the great innovation in business is how you sell. So there’s a lot in this, there’s a lot in this, I could go on about it all day. But so what qualifies. I’ve been doing it for 30 years and testing and trialling and modifying and studying and learning.
Martin Henley
Yes, okay, good. I’ve got some things to say. So let’s start with that. I think like this distinction that I can’t remember the guys name. But this distinction that the guy said, like there is a difference between having done something for 30 years, and then having done it successfully for 30 years, there is a world of difference in those two things. And I think the difference is the having the ability to consciously evolve, or even unconsciously evolve, but to evolve. So you can do stuff and do stuff and do stuff. But if you’re not looking, especially if in like the sort of work that we do, if you’re not looking at how this works for the people that you’re presenting it to, like it does feel like you’re just hitting them over the head with it, if it feels like that for you. And you want to know in the hitting, imagining how it feels for them, you know. So that’s the one thing I want to say the one thing I really want to say is, given you spent the last 30 years drawing, I did expect you to be much better at drawing than you seem to be.
Simon Bowen
That’s one of the things. One of the things that people say to me, I want to I want to actually backtrack on that first comment you made. But one of the things that people haven’t saved me is I. But I can’t draw and I go, can you draw a circle, a triangle, a square and a line? Because that’s all you actually need? Yeah. And it’s quite in. It’s quite interesting mountain. People don’t care how messy you’re drawing in. And here’s, here’s, here’s the deeper psychology of this. We live in a digital world, but humans are analogue. I want to repeat that we live in a digital world, but humans are analogue. And so the analogue TV used to get the, you know, the snowy pitcher, flaky pitch, and then you find the perfect pitch or the digital TV just heads picture or blue screen, right? Yeah, humans are not ones and zeros. Humans are analogue. And PowerPoint is a digital medium, click Next thing, click Next thing, and the human brain is trying to, I was still looking at the last thing, and the next things come up and your mouth is moving. When you draw, like I just did, they’re seeing it come this, the presentation is analogue drawing is analogue. And when you draw, you draw people in, and, and adjust. And there’s some deeply powerful psychology behind this. The first thing a child usually commits to paper is a really bad drawing of mum and dad and the family. And they get loved up like you wouldn’t believe as a consequence of that it often gets framed and put on the fridge or whatever, right? And so there’s this deep connection to drawing that we have because it’s the first thing we did cursive writing and cursive text was not the first thing we did. On paper. Often, it’s the thing we learned to hate because of how it’s taught in schools, right? The oldest form of the oldest form of recorded human communication is cave art.
Simon Bowen
Our Aboriginal peoples 60,000 years old, right? And it’s drawing, quite frankly, when you draw you draw people in. And so I never use PowerPoint, if I can avoid it. And in fact, we don’t we teach people not to use PowerPoint, the sales process, but actually to draw. And you know what, when you draw badly, what it says to the client is, you have all of this in your hand. None of this is pre prepared on a slide. You know, your staff, because you just produce that off a blank sheet of paper or blackout and blank iPad screen. You know what you’re doing, I feel safer with you. Because you know what you’re talking about? And if I back it up, and then back up there, so you know, people go, Oh, you know what, I’m such a bad drawer I got it doesn’t matter. They don’t care if I present at a conference. I’m walking around the room with my iPad drawing, and it’s going up on the screen behind me and everybody else uses PowerPoint. And I know I’m going to be the highest
Simon Bowen
I need to speak with that conference. Because I’m the only one that’s actually doing that. And you’re so humble as well, you know. People constantly go, we need your slides for the conference, I go, I don’t have slides, but I’ll give you the PDF afterwards, you know, but I’ll be producing, I’ll be producing the, you know, the visual stuff as I go. Now, what it also affords me is enormous flexibility. I’m not trapped inside a digital sequence, which is what PowerPoint is. So if so, if the room moves or reacts to something I’ve drawn, I can instantly go deeper on that. And so it’s a real time testing and measuring. The other side, have you done it for 30 years? Did you do you know, if you’ve done it once, over and over again, for 30 years? Or if you’ve got 30 years of experience? I think the real measure of what did you learn from being in the trenches is being able to teach it to other people and getting them to get the same results. That’s the real measure. And, and, you know, we’ve we’ve just taught hundreds and hundreds of companies to do this. And you know, that the first, the first time we teach a company, a model, they usually, you know, make, it’s not uncommon for them to make the biggest sale they’ve ever made. You know, people’s competence levels goes up. But the real measure of what qualifies you to do something, is have you been able to teach other people to do it and get the same results without you there? That’s what qualifies somebody, you know, is this thing repeatable? Can you instal it into other people and have them get the result. That’s why teaching is such a important and powerful skill set, you know, interesting, really, really interesting. Now, we are definitely piece from a pardon. This is a little bit cringy, because it’s only me saying this to you. I mean, I’m hoping I’ll convey this to you.
Martin Henley
Also, like when I teach, I draw on the flip chart, but when I used to pitch when I was at an agency, and I had to pitch, I had like an a4 pad and it was lined, but I would always turn it horizontal landscape, and then write and draw across the lines. And then I would take pictures of it, and I’d tear the pages out and give them to them, they were completely useless to them, I’d have no idea what any of it referred to after I left. And then also, I’ve done talks, where somebody has come up afterwards and offered me like actual money for for the pages that I’d been drawing on, you know. So this is hugely powerful. So I obviously didn’t develop this into a career, I had no idea how important and powerful it was, until you’ve spoken to me now. But why also did is get to the principle or the conclusion that you’ve got to, which is I’ve got a presentation called the most powerful clothes in the world. It’s about how you close sales. Because everyone’s terrible at closing, they’re not terrible at closing, they’re terrible at opening, I’ve got no interest in what these people want to buy. And then they’re really upset when I don’t buy it. But part of this is about objections and negotiation. And what I do is I set up like a little tug of war. So somebody has to give me a buying signal, somebody has to give me an objection, response, objection response. So I’ve got four or five people on each end of this rope. And then we have the tug of war. And it’s all gets very exciting. And people are old, and they’ve got bad backs and stuff. And it’s, it’s like that. The point of this is if they continue to ask questions in exactly the way you’re saying, like if someone objects if they if it’s price, for example, they might say it’s too expensive. Well, you ask a room of people, they will come up with 20 Different things that somebody might mean when they say it’s too expensive. I don’t have the authority, I can’t present that to my boss don’t have the budget, that is way more than I expected, etc. There’s 20 things. Now, if you just immediately respond with your stock response, you’ve got one in 20 chance of getting it right, which isn’t great odds. If you say What do you mean by that? Then they’ll tell you which of those 20 is, and you’ve got like you say you’ve got the Intel to say okay, well if not right now, if right now is the issue. What about this? What about this? Why is right now the issue and that’s it? Well, right now, it’s issue because bla bla bla bla, and then you’ve got this intel, so in a different way have come to the same conclusion, which is they say selling isn’t telling us and selling. And then they just go out and tell people and hammer people over the head and hoping they’ll buy it. Like just find people with an interest who care already about what it is that you’re offering, and try and work out with them how they could actually go about implementing this value in their lives and paying you some money. You know, it’s so it’s the same conclusion.
Simon Bowen
We may well be piecing apart it’s you know, I mean, we there’s a lot of shared thinking there. As soon as someone says it’s too expensive my stock responses compared to what Yeah, because they’re because they’ve said to ya T wo it’s the it’s comparative right? And so it’s too expensive compared to what? Compared to your budget compared to your affordability. Because if it’s too expensive compared to your affordability, that doesn’t make it expensive, that just means you can’t afford it. Yeah. You know, compared to what? And then let’s have a conversation about that. But people are kind of afraid to push back. People are afraid to ask provocative questions. But, you know, if you’re in marketing and sales, you must become a master of framing.
Simon Bowen
It context gives everything meaning. And yet context is the you know, if we think about a conversation, there’s been three parts, three circles stacked on top of one another context concept, and then content context is the big why and comparison. And people can only judge value in comparison to something else value is only value as a comparative analysis. If there’s nothing to compare to, there’s no value, right? Yeah. So whether it’s the comparison is what it looks like with it, versus without it or whatever. So context, gives everything meaning. And then concept is the thing that you’re going to do for them. And then the content is how you actually go about doing it. So so many people are selling at the content level, here’s how we do it. It’s this many days, we provide you with these tools, we deliver it like this. And as soon as you’re in that world, you’re in the price based conversation concept is about here’s how we have redefined this space. But context is wider to matter. And then the fourth thing that really matters is contrast. What is it that we’re not what is it that this is not, and people don’t have a complete conversation. So you know, price is simply the place that people go to when context contrast and concept haven’t been explained properly. Price is where it will go to when you’re already at content level, and the rest hasn’t been uncovered. The other thing
Martin Henley
Sorry, can I just stop you there as well, quickly, because the other thing about this is it’s too expensive. And I only know this because I used to ask rooms always what they mean. Every time I ask a room, someone will say, that’s just what I say when I want to get rid of salespeople. Because there is something about price? Well, because every sale, every salesperson on the planet doesn’t believe there’s value in what they’re selling. This is the truth. So if you want to get rid of them, you just say that’s overpriced, or it’s too expensive, and they just run away and they go back to their business. And they’re like I told you it was too expensive. I told you it’s
Simon Bowen
There’s actually the end, there’s a there’s an even deeper psychology or human dynamic underneath that to everybody in customer mode knows how to ask for a better price. And it’s actually the customers job to get the most that they can for the lowest price. Yes, that’s the customer’s job. It’s actually the salespersons job to defend value. But most people sell based on the way they buy. So they know that they would ask for a better price if they were buying a car. And the customer they’re talking to is gone. Have you got a better price. And their job now is to defend value. Yeah, and they don’t know how to do that. And it’s even worse if they don’t think that what they’re selling really is that spatial, that variable. And so a big part of what we’re doing when we’re teaching people to draw the model is we’re actually saying just sell the model, let the customer arrive decision themselves, right. And it’s almost like a takeaway of SAS. So here’s, we do a lot of work with SAS companies, right? And SaaS companies use the product demonstration as the primary way of selling well, that is way into the content. Here are the here are the features of the software. Let me show you how the how the user experience of the software now we’re into the content. So how much is that per month for the platform? Right? We’re already at that conversation. I teach SAS companies to you know, particularly in enterprise selling, where they go, can we see a product demonstration, the customer says, can you see a product demonstration a SaaS company should say, we’re not there yet. Behind every great SAS platform, you should be able to see a powerful design model. And I’d love you to walk you through ours and then we’ll do the product demo. Would that be okay? In that heartbeat? The customers just had a paradigm shift. What do you mean this should be a powerful design model? Yeah, for for great for a great software platform. Someone should have sat down and put together an actual model of what that platform is going to do and how it’s going to work. And they should be able to show it to you without talking about one line of code. And I can walk you through them. at all, and then the demonstration, the product demo will make a lot more sense would it be okay if I walk through the model, now just sell the model. Because deep thinking has gone into that model, now you’re actually selling the depth of your thinking, not the product. Because the product is never the product. I’ll give you an example. We’ve got a client that runs Motorcycle tours on the Cape York Peninsula in North Queensland. And it’s a multiple day motorcycle tour, right and, and so they camp out and then you ride right up to the tip of the Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost part of Australia, and your tickets about motorcycle tourism and motorcycle experiences in tourism. But they had a client, a lady and her children who wanted to do the tour. And the reason they wanted to do the tours because her husband and their father had passed away. And they decided that as a family, they would tick off his bucket list. And this motorcycle tour to the top of the Cape York Peninsula was the last thing on his bucket list. And I got to the top of the Cape York Peninsula at the end of the tour and in a ticked off the box on the bucket list. And his woman said, Can I write a book about our experiences during the motorcycle tour? We’re talking about customer testimonials. So she did. And so people go What’s the tour like, and they go read a book that one of our clients wrote about us, you know, but it’s not about the motorcycle tour. So they can sell to tourists or they can sell to experience seekers, memory makers, we have this idea that we want. Can I I’m going to draw again for you and okay, this is going to be a little bit confrontational and provocative. But you know, let me draw that again. I have to say, I don’t really agree with Simon Sinek. And saying that in a conference, you can the room murmurs, it’s like heresy. You know, it’s like, you’ve just committed one of the greatest kind of, you know, crimes against humankind. But the reason I don’t totally agree with Simon Sinek is because he, you know, Simon Says, people don’t care what you do, until they know why you do it. I don’t care what a company’s charity is, when I’m buying their product, right?
Simon Bowen
He says, find your why. I think a more accurate statement would be people don’t care what you do, until they know that they are the reason why you do it. And that little distinction makes all the difference. And so every business is why every business is why should be their customers, ultimate success. And nothing else. And yet, you know, find your why has led us to, you know, the purpose driven business, I want to have impact on the world, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but your y should be your customers ultimate success. And so, if we look at the world of business, people were taught, in the old eight days of marketing Turn, turn your thing into a product or a system. And you’re down here in the red zone, where you’re basically a vendor of a product or a system. Now the problem is that customers want to buy products on price. And also, your product is easily compared to everybody else. And so that ran for a while in the history of marketing. And then people went hang on a minute. When it’s commoditized, we’re selling at a commoditized level, oh, what we’ll do is authority based marketing. This is where it gets a bit provocative and maybe rocky for people, authority based marketing, put a lot of content out there, etc, etc, and become a thought leader. Now, the problem is that thought leadership is entirely commoditized in today’s world. And we know that because we see people putting a post in LinkedIn that has two people view it calling themselves a thought leader. And if you’ve ever met someone call themselves a thought leader and you thought you are not a thought leader. People could be thinking that about you. If you call yourself a thought leader. To be a thought leader, you need two things. You need an original thought and you need followers. If you’ve got an original thought and no followers, you’re just a great thinker. And if you’ve got followers and no reasonable thought, then you’re a teacher, right? But people go to the Thought Leader for information and usually they want it for free. And so will the woman okay, this is where this authority base marketing is really challenging. What’s the next level at the next level, you become a hero to your client. And that’s actually not bad place to be because people go to the hero for strength. And selling strength for your client, who’s basically who wants to win and is scared in the same moment is is a pretty good place to be. But it can create victim customers. And so there’s another level above Every hero has their sage. Luke Skywalker has Obi Wan Kenobi and then Yoda. And Yoda picks up the lightsaber and says, Luke attack me. And Luke says, No, master, I’ll kill you. And he says, No, come on, attack me, and event and he just keeps blocking Luke’s attack. And eventually, Luke gets angry and closes his eyes and gets angry and goes at him. And Yoda closes his eyes and disarms him in a second. Because the sage has wisdom. And the hero knows the sage has wisdom, the sage has three key qualities, the sage has profound genius around what they do these two levels of the hero, and the thought leader must sell on ego, they must sell on the basis of, I’m the thought leader, I know more about this than anybody else, I’m the hero, I’m going to save you. And the problem is no one wants to buy your ego. Everybody wants to buy their own identity, their own ego. So you must have profound genius, you must move away from selling on ego and sell based on wisdom. The second thing is sage has is this concept of powerful, calm. When people, when people kind of come into your orbit, they just feel safer. It’s no longer selling from pressure. But rather selling from presence. People just feel like being around you is going to be better for them. And then the last thing is this idea of practical simplicity, you cannot sell a complex problem. So moving from complexity, to clarity, you cannot sell a complex solve a complex problem with more complexity. And so it’s this idea of profound genius, powerful, calm and practical simplicity. And a funny thing happens when you become the sage to your clients. And you vacate this space who gets to occupy it?
Simon Bowen
And the answer is the client. And the moment you shift all your marketing, messaging, and all your sales messaging to away from the concept of an ideal avatar, which quite frankly, is something we do so we can search for them on LinkedIn, you move away from the concept of an ideal avatar and you move toward the concept of a hero client. And here our client has four things, they have character, they have a cause that they’re pursuing. They have a commitment to it. And they have a calibre about their ability to actually do something the moment you make the client, the hero. Everything about the sales process changes. And yet we’re still selling to victims. We’re still selling the ideal avatars. And we’re still trying to sell from this ego place of thought leader or hero. And you know, the bit that makes people uncomfortable is when I stand up in front of a roomful of people and say, for goodness sake, folks, stop calling yourself thought leaders. You know, it’s just kind of fascinating.
Martin Henley
Wow. Well, I mean, that really is good. Thinking. I mean, that’s amazing. Good thinking. I mean, I liken myself to Toto. You remember toto from The Wizard of Oz. So everyone, they go on this epic journey to get to the Emerald City, they go in, there’s fireworks, there’s smoke, there’s noise, there’s colours. There’s all this stuff. And toe toes the one that goes and pulls down. Yeah.
Simon Bowen
You’re back now I think. Yeah.
Martin Henley
Okay, so toto is the one that goes and pulls down the curtain. And you can see it’s just the old geezer turning the thing. Do you know I mean, because
Simon Bowen
I’m so toto
Martin Henley
right. So toto is my brand hero. Because they go on this epic journey to find the Wizard of Oz. They get to the Emerald City, there’s fireworks, there’s smoke, there’s lights, there’s colours, their sound. It’s all kicking off. And toto is the one that goes to the corner and pulls down the curtain and you see it’s just the the old geezer like turning the wheels you know, I mean making all happening because this it seems a little bit like Plato’s cave a little bit like Marx’s alienation a little bit like everything. The absolute opposite is the truth. And this seems to be more the case in sales and marketing than anything else. Everyone knows that the only person who knows why they’re going to buy something is the prospective customer. The only person who knows why they buy something is the customer. The only person knows why they continue to buy something is the ongoing customer. Just go and ask them. Why is this valuable? How is this valuable? So when
Simon Bowen
just get into a real conversation, Tyler is actually the most important character in the movie that was?
Martin Henley
Oh, yeah, 100%
Simon Bowen
It’d be the Wizard of Oz is a fascinating piece of work. I mean, if it is true that it’s about the gold standard, and what was happening in the US economy at the time,
Martin Henley
I didn’t even know that I’ve
Simon Bowen
never heard that it is, which is actually you know, what it’s supposedly about. And, you know, the Wizard of Oz, you know, follow the yellow brick road, right, the Wizard of Oz is the gold standard, that the bullion is no longer there in Fort Knox. And, you know, the characters will all have relativity to what was happening economically at the time. And moving away from the silver standard to the gold standard. The Wizard of Oz is an economic story. Wow. Study it, go and have a look, you study it?
Martin Henley
Okay, I will go and study it. Because I’m really interested in those kinds of stories. But just to come back to what you were saying is that, I don’t remember quite exactly how you phrased it. But you said you don’t know why people don’t want to ask questions. Like salespeople don’t want to ask questions. Now I know why. Because I remember why. Because Fortunately, I was taught this at the very beginning of my sales career, they taught us to ask questions. And we all resist it. And I remember exactly why is because all the time I’m talking, I know what’s going on. And I’m in control. And as soon as I stop talking, I’ve got no idea where this conversation is gonna go, or what question they’re gonna come up with. So it took me, I think I got there pretty quickly. But it took me some time to realise that actually, if I’ve got the longer list of questions, I’m always in control. And I do this when I present, you know, I’ve got a handful of questions. If I run out of things to say, I start asking the audience, and then the audience get involved. And then I know, you know, all of that stuff. The value is always in the by eye of the beholder to go to your motorcycle story, I would never have guessed that they were doing that journey for that reason, looking for that outcome I could never have guessed. And if I’m not asking them, then I would never have known, you know, at all no one would have ever known. And this comes to a bigger idea. For me, I had a brilliant conversation a couple of weeks ago with a guy called Mark Carter, I don’t know if you’ve encountered him. He’s there with you. He’s written a brilliant book called add value. And he’s come up with five value models like that. Typically, whatever value somebody’s getting, well, we fall into one or a number of these categories. Because he’s asked, he’s been asking sales managers and salespeople for years, what is value and they don’t even know what it is alone, what the value is that somebody might be taking from it? Well,
Simon Bowen
you know, value value is interesting. I use an iceberg to talk about value. My okay. And there’s three levels of value. The tip of the iceberg, the the bit that sits above the waterline is transactional value. Everybody knows how to ask for that. This is the known problem. Everybody knows how to ask for that. And I’ve got a cousin is a non surgical dermal therapist. And so someone will go here and say, can you treat my acne? And she goes, of course I can. It’s a shallow conversation to shallow request. And it’s like the tip of the iceberg. It’s $365 of treatment, and you’ll need five treatments. They say well, I’ve seen people online advertises for $90 a treatment. And she said, I know that’s true, because asking for treatment for acne is shallow, but we could go deep but what would you like to do stay shallow we’ll go deeper. And most people won’t say I’m a pretty superficial human being so let’s stay shallow. So oh, what do you mean well below the waterline? You know, the real power of the iceberg is the 600,000 tonnes of ice at the base, not the 10% that you see above the waterline and immediately below the waterline, you know, I am one of the best nonsurgical thermal therapists in Australia being voted the best nonsurgical do more therapists 10 years in a row by my peers. I have a 100% clean up right. This is going to happen fast. And I’m going to give you perfect skin. How’s that sound? And they go wow. Because this is the hidden problem. The tip of the iceberg is a known problem. This is the hidden problem. The hidden problem is stuff they’re hiding from themselves and stuff they’re hiding from you. The stuff they’ve hiding is I’ve tried a lot of stuff, but all So I know I’m not eating healthy. I know gut health is impacting my acne. I know that my lifestyle is impacting my acne. I don’t really want to change any of that stuff. I still want to eat crap. I don’t particularly want to exercise. But can you fix my acne? You know? And the answer is no if we don’t address everything, right. So this is the hidden problem. But they go wow, yeah, perfect skin fast. 100% credit. Wow, that’s amazing. And she goes, but wow is cosmetic. Wow is a drug. When you give someone a hit, they become addicted. They need a bigger hit. What I want to know is what would it mean for you? If I fixed your acne, and this is the base of the iceberg. And they usually burst into tears. And they say I’d go on the trip. I’ve always wanted to go on I’ve been a partner, I wouldn’t wear a hoodie in summer hide my face. She goes, That’s right. I believe a wonderful person like you truly deserves skin you love living.
Simon Bowen
As it isn’t that all you really want your skin you love living. And they go, Oh, now that sound, ah, is one of two sounds humans can make. And it’s universal. It means the same thing in every language, the first sound is up, which is the universal sound of I don’t get it. The second is that sound of deep, profound release. And when that happens, the unknown problem has been addressed. The customer will never think her customers never think that come to her and say can you give me skin I’m going to love living in they don’t ask for that. But now that that hidden problem that tight, so the top is transactional. The middle is transformational. But the base is timeless value. I want skin that I will love living in for the rest of my life. Can you help me with that? Yes. What’s happened with that three minute conversation is she’s just neutralised everybody else in the market to transactional and shallow. She has taken them through Wow. Which is sexy and sexy cells. And she’s taken them to profound, which is this timeless change and profound will outsell sexy every day of the week. It’s just that most people never take their value conversation too profound. Because they don’t do the thinking work required to get there. They you know, they’ve read the product, the product brochure, you know, they’ve got the spec sheet, etc, etc. But they haven’t the fundamental question is what would it mean to you if this happened? Not not, you know, how much do you what would it mean to you? What would change? What would the timeless change be? If this happened? What would it mean to you if, you know, if you had perfect skin and you got it fast? I’d find a partner I mean, and they’re talking about timeless things, my life would change. Great, you deserve skin you love living in? Isn’t that what you really want to go, I hear that now. Now sales is comparative. And now they’re listening to everybody else through that lens, and no one else is going to be saying it. You know, now, that price point of $365 a treatment just evaporated once we got to the base of the iceberg. It disappears. And they usually pull out the credit card and pay straight away. So you know, the levels of value is an interesting conversation. Most salespeople that I meet that best have only thought value through to the transformational level from transactional transformational, but 100% And so 100% of the clients that we work with have not gone to the timeless level. And that’s actually what we help them to find they haven’t gone to the timeless level where they pin down this powerful skin you love equivalent, you know, and once that gets out of the bag that you can’t the client can’t stop thinking about it. Yeah. People are trying to well, people are trying to sell too well. And we should be selling to you know, wow service. Wow, this wow, that wow is a drug. It’s cosmetic. It’s a narcotic sell to this deep. Where they just, I’m safer with you. And I know I’m gonna win, you know, this space of certainty. Yes, 100%. That topic, but it’s a big topic value.
Martin Henley
It’s a big topic. It’s definitely a big topic. And I think most salespeople don’t even get to the transactional value. I think most salespeople just think, thank god somebody bought this. And they’ve never even even stopped to think about how why have they bought this thing? Like what is the value that they’re going to take about it away from it? Because there’s a weird dichotomy is it it’s not like an opposition. If you’re selling it, you’re not the target market. You’ll never know what the value is, you know, unless you really tell Take the time to understand from prospects and customers what that value is, and relay that that value to other people.
Simon Bowen
Well, the thing is never usually the thing. Yes, the motorcycle tour isn’t the motorcycle tour. It’s about the memory. I. So an interesting thing that people don’t really know about is I’m fascinated with patterns. And I’m a pattern watch, I’m fascinated with patterns and patterns are not about the components can patterns are about the connections. The thing that makes something a pattern is the connection between the components, not the components themselves. And so to spot a pattern, you’ve got to look for connections. Now, if there are components, there will be a pattern. And most people don’t find patterns, right. But when you find patterns, you get ahead of the game. And I was a bit obsessed about this. And I thought, What’s the most random thing I could think of? I thought luck. I’ll see if luck has patents turns out it does. There’s a professor in the UK that published a paper called The luck factor. And I and I started studying luck and luck is actually predictable and repeatable. And so to prove it, my wife and I and our daughters started entering competitions, you know, sweepstakes in America competitions in the UK, in Australia, when a car win a trip and all this sort of stuff. And to date, we’ve won about a million and a half dollars worth of prizes. We average about $50,000 a year. It’s completely predictable. We’ve been to family trips to Disney World in Florida, to family trips to London, we’ve won a car, we’ve won, everything in our house is a prize, the two microwaves in the kitchen and the televisions and stuff and when our daughters were young, they’d win a pushbike. And then they’d say, my bikes too small, we’d say best one, another one. And so they would. And if we teach people what to do, they usually win a trip within about three months, because lack is actually more predictable. And people think, and I’ll just give you one example. People enter a competition that says, hey, 25 words or less? Why do you want a new hire and I excel, and people will say, because I’ve got a clapped out, Obama, I’m a poor Uni student. I’m a single man, what, blah, blah, blah. We found out that this was an early form of crowdsourcing, where companies were getting consumers to write taglines beans means Heinz was ruining competition entry. Right? So we just became masterful at crafting 25 Word or less statements that companies could use in advertising, jingles and marketing. So bumper to bumper end to end Hyundai Accent a girl’s best friend, well, we knew that car. And we tested and measured so we’d send an entry in, if we didn’t win, we’d contact them and say, Could we get it back again? And they’d say, Well, we’ll have to charge you postage we go, no problem. And they, they’d say, what’s your entry, and we, because you’ve got to get it open. First. You’ve got to get it open. And then then then the entry has got to gotta convince them to give you the prize. And so first of all, the packaging is is noticeable enough to get opened. And they go, Well, tell us about your engine. We tell the guy you’re so close, it was second. And I got interesting. What was the winning entry, and they told me now that’s all that’s the only reason I need to get this entry sent back. At that point, I would have said, you know, I would have been happy to say and don’t worry about sending it back. But you know, like I said, we’ll send it back and we’ll charge I go, No problem. That competition is going to run again next year. And I now know what I need to do to blow it out of the water and I don’t go 1% Over we go 10% over and we win the car. We’ve won five international trips for the same 25 words or less because we’ve tested and measured bumper to bumper end to end Hyundai Accent your best friend doesn’t win but bumper to bumper end to end Hayato accent a girl’s best friend does when so does bumper to bumper end to end Toyota echo a girl’s best friend and bumper to bumper end to end. Ford Ford car a girl’s best friend. It’s just marketing, a 25 word or less as a headline without copy. That’s all it is. And so lack has patterns. And patents are formed by the connections and the moment you become a patent reader. Everything changes. And so you know you what most people do in selling is that make it up as the worst thing that selling was ever told was the gift of the gab. You could just get in front of a client and make it up and expect it to work. All we’re doing with the models is giving people patterns that we know work frameworks that you don’t have to have any words in at all. And it allows you to freestyle inside of the framework. I’ve done an exercise where I’ve stood on stage at a conference
Simon Bowen
called someone I’m going to sell their product from stage to someone in the audience at twice the price they charge using models, and I don’t know anything about their product. And I tell the whole audience this. So everyone knows the rules of the game, but the rule is it’s a real sale. So if you’re the person still standing at the end, and we’ve agreed the price, you’re going to buy that product from that other person right and then we’ll go yep, right and And I asked people to call out what they want to sell. And then I pick somebody and I find out their price. You know, my favourite one was a guy that sold training in the hospitality industry. And I said, What’s your price? He said two and a half $1,000 a day for training. Okay, great. And I just started and geometry is really powerful. So I used a model for what the perfect hospitality training would look like. And facilitated the model out of the audience. So I said to the ones Hey, folks, I think there’s three dimensions to this. But I’d be interested what you think the three dimensions are? Now I’ve got this is like, if you want to be in control, the geometry puts you in control. Now, I’ve limited into three dimensions, not 10. What would you think the most important three dimensions are calling out random microphones I call stuff out. And again, I go, we need to vote on this, because there’s only three and we get it down to three, right? Inside those three dimensions, I think there’s probably a couple of two to three things that are really critical inside those three dimensions, what would they be, and they call it out, and I put them on my triangle. And you know, what’s really important about this is what happens when in the intersection between the two. So between each of the pairs of sides of the triangle, that’s where the value is created. If you put this together with that, what happens is when when that happens in training, and people call it out, and I draw on the model. And so the model was built, and I’m going you know who’s in hospitality stand up, you’re free in hospitality. Now. The audience was hassle, half hospitality because of where the conference was. And I was done. I said, How many people would love this kind of training? Now, at this point, they’ve forgotten the whole setup that I gave him at the start, and that this guy said, it’s two and a half $1,000 a day. Right? Who wants this kind of training for your staff? And everyone? Yeah, well, the people standard citizens, I’ve got to eliminate the cheap steaks. Now the cheapskates sorry. And I drew a bell curve, which is one of the fastest ways of getting rid of lowest price. And I drew the bell curve, which basically, I’ll actually because this could be useful to people, just let me draw a show you on the screen again, just put my drawing on the screen, if you would. So now we set up the model. And so listen, if you think about it, there’s training in the hospitality industry, that’s down here in the red zone. And it’s Oh, my goodness, kind of training, which means it’s dreadful. And you know, people charge a lower price for that. Usually, there’s training here in the Amazon of the bell curve, I mean, that the key to the bell curve, of course, is there’s a lot of average. And so there’s training that is okay. And people charge it, you know, a commoditized price for that. Then there’s training up here in the light green zone, there is wow, is going to have a lot of happy sheets from staff and people charge quite a quite a price for that. Who would want that kind of training? And everybody put their hand up? And I Okay, but there’s another level above. Wow, isn’t there? Everyone’s got Yeah, yeah. But what is it? It’s the level of like, wow, is an iconic, it’s a drag, oh, is this deep, deep, embedded change in your people, they come back from the training as different human beings notice the change in voice and tonality. This is the level of realisation they don’t come back happy, they come back changed. What’s that training worth to you? And people are priceless. And that triangle that we’ve just built, which do agree is delivering that kind of training. And I will wait yet. But I can with the guy’s name calling Fred. Fred is promising this kind of training, not at the price of Oh, but at the bid at the price at the upper end of Wow. Which is $5,000 a day, who’s, who’s up for it, who wants to buy it? And three people put their hand and I said Remember, folks, the rule was, this is a real deal. This is a real sample. So you need to get a friend now. And by his training of $5,000 a day, right? And Fred went
Simon Bowen
up and I only charged two and a half $1,000 a day I could have slapped him. You know, we just sold three people in the room without me knowing anything about what he does. And so in front of the room, I’m saying, Fred, seriously made? Does your training, deliver what that triangle is promising? And he said, absolutely. I said, well, there are three people that are going to pay you $5,000 a day for the training with their teams. In the break, you need to undo that deal. Now, whether he did or not, I don’t know. But that’s up to Fred’s. own personal kind of stuff that might be going on. But you know what we do? We don’t need to do all the talking. But we do need frameworks we do need structure that allows us to freestyle inside of that, and do some magic. I mean, it’s one of my favourite things to do is just sell other people’s stuff on stage. I don’t need words, I can get the audience to give me the words, when you shift to facilitation, rather than selling. You become the sage and so much changes. As long as you sell, you’ve got to be the hero, when you shift facilitation, you become the sage
Martin Henley
100%. And this is I think, what I’ve been trying to tell people my whole life, I’ve not done it as eloquently as you are with the glorious, you know, art that you have. What’s the thing? Yeah, it’s genius. Man, I love everything that you’re doing, because it’s true, because it’s exactly the opposite of what everyone thinks, which is where the truth is, you know, it’s like, if everyone’s do it, like everyone hates sales, sales is the best job in the world for me. Like you go out and make friends with people help them do I mean, motivate them to do stuff that they need to do. You know, I think it’s a great job. Everyone thinks it’s about hammering over people over the head and getting them to buy stuff that they don’t really want to buy, which is counterproductive, you know, actually makes you look bad. I’ve got some good news for you. Do you want some good news?
Simon Bowen
I will have the good news. But I think there’s a really important point that you’ve just made, that I think we need to make sure that we keep reinforcing as professionals in the marketing and sales space. Yes, yeah. I think business is the most powerful force for good on the planet, if it’s in the hands of the right people. Yes, it can do, it can do things that government and charities can’t. And if business is the most powerful force for good on the planet, then selling must become the most noble thing that any of us do. And I talk to, you know, when I’m talking to health professionals, and doctors hate the idea that they would ever have to sell, you know, it’s like it’s below us
Simon Bowen
make, that the sale is the first step in the treatment process. You don’t get to treat the patient until you’ve made the sale. So if you’re a neurosurgeon, and you need to operate on a tumour, the treatment process only starts once you’ve made the sale, how dare you consider sales to be below you, you’re you’re professionally corrupt, if you’re not willing to sell that surgery. Because if you’re not willing to sell the surgery, you either don’t believe the surgery is the best option for them to take. Or you don’t believe you’re the best person to do the surgery. You know, you’re not actually committed to the well being of the patient.
Martin Henley
Yes, B C, is the is the is the crime Do you know I mean, be an A, a probably the reality, nobody is actually confident. Very, not so much in the in the heart surgeons, but in the business world, no one’s really confident that what they’re doing is the best thing for people, and they are expecting to get found out, but close that loop. Just go and ask your customers who continue buying from you what the value is, and you will know exactly what the value is. And then you’ll be confident, you know,
Simon Bowen
and, and make selling the most noble thing you do? Yes. So how do you do that you make sure that every sale is actually an act of service. Yes. And elevate to this position of facilitation where you become the sage that has profound genius is powerfully calm, and communicates with such practical simplicity that people are just blown away by by by what you say, you know, it’s I was having a conversation with some people yesterday and I was saying how is it that you have created this profile globally and that you are able to stop rooms. And my response is because I go there with the intention of stopping the room. Like it’s intentional, I’m looking for something to say and put in front of people that is going to rattle every cage in the room. I’m not going to commoditize a conversation. And you know, it might feel like you’re flying without a safety net. But the safety net for me are the models. I mean when someone came up to me after that presentation on stage where I saw the other guys product, a really experienced marketer and salesperson who was running the company so I can’t believe how you get on stage and fly without a safety net over and over and over again I’m going Mel the models are my net Yes, I’m carrying them with me and my iPad may you know the it’s just that no one sees them like that. So salespeople need to have the right safety net and what they use as their safety net as they talk and talk and talk their product brochures and stuff like that, you know, have a safety net that allows you to freestyle.
Martin Henley
Here’s their here’s their safety net is evasion. Is is this is my other big thing is is actually not Putting yourself in the game, not putting yourself in a situation where if you wait, you find out, is this going to be of value to them? Or otherwise? You know. So that is the safety net is like, I didn’t risk anything. Do you know what I mean? I didn’t upset anyone didn’t offend anyone didn’t excite anyone didn’t. But I didn’t lose anything because I didn’t risk anything. So yeah,
Simon Bowen
how about that? That’s an uncomfortable truth.
Martin Henley
It really is. But I, I’m loving these conversations that I have. I was speaking to a guy, they call him the phone assassin or something they call him, which is really bad. And he accepts his bad. But he calls himself a conversation architect. And in the conversation I was having, because I started on the phone selling on the phone. So I also think like, now I know it exists, but also think of myself as a conversation architect. But I was thinking about his marketing. Here’s his tagline should be if your salespeople are doing all right now, imagine how good they’re going to be when they find out how easy it is. You know, it’s like, because everyone thinks sales is the hardest thing in the world, but you just phone people up and make friends with them, dude, I mean, see if you can help them. You know, there’s there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Are you ready for the good news yet? Yes, the good news. Good news is it’s only take us an hour and a half. But I am happy to report that I think you are adequately qualified to talk to us about using visual models to sell stuff. We have gone for an hour and a half. I mean, we’ve gone half an hour over the time you committed to me are we still call? We can wrap this up in 10 minutes? I think. And if we could have conversations in the future that would that would, I would love that.
Simon Bowen
Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Let me I’m sure we can push on.
Martin Henley
Okay, well, we need to get it done in sort of 1015 minutes, because I’ve got other things coming up as well. There’s still four questions remaining. This is the beauty of the four questions.
Martin Henley
The second question is, Who do you work with? How do you add value to their lives? I think you’ve amply demonstrated that. And you’ve listed all the types of businesses that you’ve helped. So I think you’ve answered that question already.
Martin Henley
Question three is, what is your recommendation for anyone who is looking to apply this kind of thinking to their situations, and you need to tell me the answer to this in like, less than two minutes, because this will go on tick tock, we’ll click this off. So
Simon Bowen
the reality is I created this whole process. And so there aren’t any books around what we do. That people can go and resource. There are books about models that you can get, you know, management models and that sort of thing. There’s a I think there’s a book called 61 management models, everybody should know. There’s just not a whole lot of resource around this topic, worldwide. People I mean, people can go to our website I have I do have a whole bunch of video content on there, people can see a bunch of models in action and find out more about it. And we teach a lot of stuff around this. But you know, if people start studying management models, that’s that’s really where the thinking started for me. I think the some of the stuff that brings into play some of the thinking behind it, rather than the models themselves. I think one of the best books I’ve ever written is by Napoleon Hill. And it is not thinking Grow Rich. It’s a book called Outwitting the Devil. And it is a truly profound book about success and performance. And if you read it, you really get it, you really understand what he’s saying. You know, it’ll change the way you think about things and the story. of it, he wrote it. After he published to think and grow rich, he didn’t really feel like he’d hit the mark with thinking grow rich. And so he went away and wrote this book and came back in I think, 1928, any literary device, he was using words, he was having a conversation with the devil devil. And he said to the devil, tell me how you cause most men to fail at life. And the devil said, I will tell you, so long as you call me, Your Majesty. And so he has this conversation with a definitely asked him a whole bunch of questions. And the devil gives him his answers. And then he documents that he came back and his wife said, Are you crazy, they will put you in an asylum and run us out of town. If you publish a book that you’re talking to the devil, so made a promise to her that it wouldn’t be published until she had died. And so it was not published until 2010. And it’s a fascinating book. I would recommend people consume any of the Challenger sale content that they can. And I don’t know if you’ve read the Challenger sale material.
Martin Henley
I’m familiar with challenger sales.
Simon Bowen
They released that about 10 years ago. And that really shaped because my style of selling is actually challenged by selling. And that’s what the models are. We’re challenging people to think at a deeper level as a customer, right, that a deeper level than price. And then the Challenger sale, follow up research, which has only just been released, you know, the next level of saying beyond the Challenger sale is sense making. So you’ve got to challenge the customer. And then you have to be a sense maker, which is the sage basically. So I think if people consume the Challenger sale, and the follow up material around that, that’s, you know, fundamentally useful for them. And I, I think one of the you mentioned that book about from Michael Gerber about the most successful, small business in the world. But there’s a, there’s a book called I think, I’m not sure if it’s called The Art of the noble sale or something like that. That is an equally good piece of work. What I would encourage people to do is also go back to the world. I know, there’s more than two minutes, but the world has fascinated itself with inbound selling lead funnels, lead magnets, did digital sales systems and automations to get the customer to opt in, right? The world of outbound selling, like if you sell to enterprise clients, and you want about 30 clients a year, all you should have is a list of the 200 companies you want to work with. And be in an outbound sales process with them, marketing directly to them and picking up the phone and calling people and building the connection and hanging out and doing as you said, becoming, you know, friends with them. And I would encourage everybody to invest investigate the world of outbound selling, and two of the best thinkers around outbound selling, Anthony in Reno, his is the sales blog.com. And Jeb Blount, B, Liu and T sales gravy. Great stuff. Great stuff. So there’s plenty there that people could play with
Martin Henley
100%. Brilliant. Well, now you’ve answered question number four, which was what should people read? So now I need to check in with you. And I need to hear from you how you’re feeling about having been part of the talk Marketing Show experience. How’re you feeling about it? You look quite happy?
Simon Bowen
Well, of course, you and I had a really interesting conversation beforehand, talking about things that we shouldn’t mention.
Martin Henley
Now the world knows we’re busted.
Simon Bowen
Yeah. But look, I love these conversations, because I think that we need, you know, we need to start a different kind of movement and sale. And I like it when I have conversations with people that are that, that are there as well. And you clearly are, you know, we we just need to challenge people we need to the Industrial Age of selling has gone. Yes, different space. And so I think these kinds of conversations, I It’s been great fun, but it’s also really important that we challenge people to think about the science and the art of selling and its role. You know, it is the thing that drives economies. Sales is the only thing that drives economies. Yes, you know, and we need to, we need to encourage people to become salespeople, we need to encourage people to make it an art form, make it a craft, you know, and I’m a real, you know, and I’m very committed to the idea of biosafety and high integrity, no selling. So I’ve had a great time.
Martin Henley
Excellent, cool. And I’m with you, I think, apart from being the most noble art, or the most noble practice, or the most noble profession, whichever of those three words it was that you used, it’s the most necessary. If you’re not bringing money into your business, you don’t have a business. You know, it’s as simple as that. And people barely have businesses, because they’re not invested enough in marketing, and then the selling you know, that’s how I feel about it.
Martin Henley
Okay, good. Well, I’m glad that you’ve enjoyed this experience, because now you should find it easier to throw a couple of people under the bus, who might also enjoy to have conversations like this with me, and it needs to be people you can introduce me to and the nice thing about this is that the universe is leading this this, this little endeavour rather than me. So you know, I’ve got no idea who you might think might be interested in having a conversation.
Simon Bowen
Yeah.
Martin Henley
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