59. A sales pro who knows the secret to selling (f. Alison Edgar)
How do you sell if you don’t feel comfortable selling? 🤑Our expert guest on today’s episode, Alison Edgar, knows the answer. A sales coach and downright institution in the UK, Alison gives Phil and Lauren the details on all things sales. From defining your value to mastering cold outreach, this episode will give you all the tools to have your customers begging for your product or services.
Episode transcription
Phil:
Well, hello there. You picked a very good episode to listen to. This is Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren:
and I'm Lauren
Phil:
Ah, we're so glad you're here. And I just say, this is a podcast where we help you with your branding challenged branding business. We use those terms interchangeably in and oh boy. Today's a fun one.
Lauren
I know I say this with every episode, but I really, really mean it this time. This is one of our best episodes ever.
Phil
We could literally put a montage of you saying that, I know I say this, but this is one of our best episodes ever.
Lauren
It is! We have a true sales expert on today. Alison Edgar and I read Allison's book last year and it quite literally blew my mind. She makes sales so easy for people who are not salesmen at heart. Well, salesmen and saleswomen, I should say.
Phil
That's true. That's true. You know, I love that she does this. I also think about, uh, one of our client projects, Dinesh who I've presented him around the world. He, Alison's approach reminded me of Dinesh with his approach of sales, which is really this idea of adjusting your mentality. Why do you think of sales as sales? Sales is icky, but it's only icky if you make it icky. Sales is a win-win. It's a win for you and it's a win for the other person. I read the book, I can't say read because I don't read, but I listened to her book and I thought about this, how she was very encouraging about adjusting your mindset, rethinking the way you think about it. And actually it's about creating opportunities. It's about creating win-wins with people.
Lauren
Yup. And you know, we could talk about it all day, but we're not going to talk about it as well as Alison does. So let's start the episode.
Phil
Oh wow. Let's do it. That's a good idea. Here is our conversation with Alison Edgar
Phil
You know, here's something I love me strutting through the airport. I do this. Okay. Easily. And turning to the right now that I'm based in London, spending time in all of these airports and I look at the bookstore and I walk over and I don't really like books but I'm there on a mission. I'm there because I have a friend whose book happens to be in this bookstore. Her name is Alison Edgar and she's a superstar when it comes to sales and life in general and right now she's on the phone with us. Welcome Alison.
Alison
Oh, thank you so much. It's just such a pleasure to be your friend and to be introduced at the big store. Oh, I can think of nothing better.
Phil
Well it’s pretty exciting that nowadays to get your book in a like so many people are self publishing and not that there's anything wrong with self publishing I've self published, but it's just really impressive that you managed to swing that it's, it's because you know how to sell, not only in terms of educating everyone around you and trainings and clients in book form, but it's actually proof of concept in the way that you've sold yourself to get a publishing deal and to be in the top rated bookstore in the country. This just happened. This was like literally a few days ago. I always sneak in to the bookstore and I always look to see if you're there and you're still there baby. You're still there.
Alison
Oh. So do you want me to give me the secret of how it gets there? Cause I think again, books are really topical at the moment, especially if you look at things like, um, key person influence, you know, loads of people think that the book is the key thing to elevate your profile. So for me it definitely was something that was always on the radar and I did have the option. So I think you make in the short term slightly more cash on self-publish cause you don't have the same overhead. But for me the book store, you know we are referring to, I'm not a big one for manifestation and abundance. I know where I want it and I can see in my head and I make it happen. And I knew that if I had self published it, I would really struggle as a debut author with somebody who's not coming from the top paid by TV or media. So I decided to go with an independent publisher because she has had books there previously. But for me, I did a lot of my own manoeuvring around things like LinkedIn and made with the distribution channels. And so again, there was a lot of manoeuvring, but regardless, it's about having a really strong strategy and putting the plan in place and really going forward to plan these things just don't happen by chance.
Lauren
Alison, let's talk about that plan. For someone who is not a salesperson, where do they begin with developing a sales plan?
Alison
So to me, I think it's about breaking it down. So again, if you relate it back to music, I like to certainly take back to music. So for me, the overall vision, and I think again, innovation is I want to be the Adele of sales training. But Adele didn't just go from being born. She had to learn how to sing. She had to go to things like Britt school skill to learn her talent and she had to play the clubs in the pub before she could actually become Adele and fill Madison Square Garden or Wembley arena. So I think that what you do need to do is break it down into little chunks and especially timeframe chunks. So, for example, if you were a service or a product based business, you have know what do I call it, the cost to open up the doors.
So what it really is, is your break even point. Cause again, you watch shows like uh, Dragons Den or Shark Tank and a lot of people get caught out because they don't actually know the numbers and how to make money. I mean anyone can start a business but the reason the start up figures are so high is we do know how to make money because fundamentally they don't really know how to sell, which is the biggest blocker. So you know, I think definitely who’s your ideal client, how are you going to get to them, what are you going to say and how are you going to make money from it? And you know, Adele didn't become an overnight success. And I think really being true to yourself on your expectations makes all the difference in the world.
Phil
So true.
Lauren
Yeah, it is true. We talk on this podcast a lot about figuring out who your ideal client is and also figuring out how to get to them. But I think Alison, the thing that you're an expert at that our listeners would find really valuable is figuring out what to say. What's your recommendation for knowing what to say when you finally found the person you want to reach out to.
Alison
So fundamentally everybody only cares about themselves. So I call it like the Titanic. If you're on the Titanic and it's about to sink, who is the first person that you want to save? But what the mistake, I think people who are not sales trained make, is they talk about themselves. Oh,I’m going to do this, and I’m going to do that, the person you told doesn't really care about you. They care about what you can do for them. And I think it's always really keeping that to the forefront, that every time you have that conversation, you're not talking about yourself. You're talking about what you can do to help them to make their life easier to make their life smoother. You know if you have a product based business, lets say its website design, it will be a gateway to raise their brand to raise the quality of their clients so that their customers even before we contact them can really touch what they do. For which will ultimately lead to more than enquiries, which they go out similarly leads to more conversions which will then ultimately make more money and allow them to grow because money and growth are two things that are really key to all businesses.
Phil
Alison you are so smart. I just love listening to you talk about this. By the way you also speak in perfect sound bites in case you needed another compliment. How do you recommend to someone like me who is kind of scared to sell? I like to charm and I like to talk, but the minute it comes to making a sale about something that I have for sale, even if it's clients, the client work and products, I get weird. I get clammy and nervous and icky. And so actually we often describe in our business that I open the conversation and Lauren closes it. When you want to talk numbers, I'm not the guy. I used to have to do it when it was just me, but now you know, Lauren, I think, looks more objectively at the situation and how much what we offer is worth. You know, this goes for everyone listening how much is what you offer worth and then negotiating that it gives me anxiety. And so what advice do you have for people like me that are just um, are just a bit scared?
Alison
Oh bless you. So the advice I've got for people that are scared, my mission statement is the business. And it's really interesting because when I started up the business, I didn't even really know what a mission statement was. But for me, again, I genuinely believe that if it’s delivered correctly, sales and customer service is exactly the same thing. So I think a key point is that you are not going to sell to everyone, not everyone needs what you’re going to sell. But when somebody doesn’t, it's really important to really understand your client. You know, statements like, you know, this is what I do. It may or may not be relevant to you and your business, but tell me a little bit more about who is your ideal client? How do you reach them and when you reach them what do you say? So again, you're asking good open questions.
So again from your side Phil, branding, you know your plan is a short window, you know, for, especially for service based industries. They don't have a high street, you know, this is the shop front, you know, what kind of shop front do you want to have? Do you want to have something like Harrods? Or, do you want to have something like a back street because there’s places for everything in branding. You know, you look at the supermarkets. They predominantly were known as the least expensive brand. We actually look at M and S and their top end and there's a room in the market for everything and it's just really getting to understand. So if they say, I really want to be, you know, like Harrods or whatever, if you really know that deep down you've asked the question again, like Todd's like Snap you are the match and the order isn't a difficult thing because you’re not doing a sale, you’re just doing really good customer service.
And when it comes to costing you have to know how to make money. So you can't go in at the cheapest of cheap. And another thing, again, this is why I think branding is so, so, so important because I've worked really hard in my own brand. You know, we've talked about this online and offline and face to face is that when you have actually elevated your brand into something that is desirable with premium, you can charge more. And again, I think for a service industry that doesn't happen in five minutes, that is again you play the pubs clubs before you play Madison Square Garden. So to me it's very, very important that you value that as a service. And when it comes to negotiation we can always negotiate down, but you can never negotiate up. So then it helps to have a service and product base. And again, this is what we do. So again, for our day rate, we encourage behaviour profiles because we do that through understanding the behaviours. We've also got online courses, so our day rate will incorporate production service and if we are out of the customer's budget and we can knock off some of the product and stick with the therapist or we can keep the product and reduce the time. And again, still really good value for money.
Lauren
That's a good point. Yeah. And, and I feel also your approach to sales is very altruistic. You're not trying to sell to make money, you're trying to help people and you should be making money from it. That's sort of the equation that's going through your head, right?
Alison
Yeah, definitely. For sure. And I think when, for me, so I've got two brands. I've got sales coaching solutions, which works with teams. So that's done as a consultancy day rate.So again that’s a five figure authority it's the kind of the bread and butter for the company. But not, everyone can afford that. And that's fair for me. I genuinely feel that. I know that I'm really good at what I do. So I created the Entrepreneur's Godmother brand. So it’s for the people who need me the most, but I have the least cash. I feel a bit, like Robin Hood, you know, I’m robbing the rich to help the poor. So that's where the two brands have come together. And I've got the book, which you can pick up in the bookstores for 10 pounds, or on Amazon or you can get it on audible. So even if you've got 10 pounds or $10 in your pocket, you can get something that will teach you to sell. So there's something for everyone. And the reason that I created that, as you say Lauren, money is a side effect. For me, one of the things that, uh, it makes me tick, it makes me get up in the morning is I get messages every single day from people who have either read my book, or listened to my TEDx talk or they've done something, I've touched their life in some way. And they will write me a message and tell me how much I've touched their life. That's why I do it. The money is a second to the other side of it. And don’t get me wrong, I have to eat, I have to holiday, I have to do all the bit. But if you really love what you do and you really make a difference, the money really just sort of flows in.
Phil
Okay, well let's pause for a second as we do. We'll pick up this conversation in just a second, but let's tell people, Lauren, what we have cooking this week.
Lauren
Oh man, it's really good.
Phil
How good?
Lauren
Okay, I'm going to explain it. It's so good. So I guess we're really inspired by Alison. So we wanted to create a whole bunch of resources with cold outreach so that you can start making meaningful sales for your company no matter what industry you work in. For our blog post, we're gonna have a tried and true cold email email template. We've tried it ourselves. It actually works. Yeah, yeah, it actually works. So we're just going to put our framework right out there for you and if you want some additional resources, we're going to have a free download this week with cold email templates that work. So if you like that first blog post, that's just the beginning, we're going to include a whole bunch in our free download.
Phil
I mean literally what more could you need? Really? What more could you need?
Lauren
Look, if you've got sales, you've got business. Boom. I just made that up. Allison Edgar proved that quote.
Phil
Speaking of Alison, should we get back to the interview?
Lauren
Yeah, let's go.
Phil
Let's do it.
Lauren
I'm curious to know because we're working this out ourselves is we get to a point where we've provided services already to someone and they're really happy and then it's kind of like, okay, we’ll see you later. And we're not the best. I think there's always, I mean we do have clients who come back of course, but I think that there's a lot of room for improvement with us in the way that we keep leads and keep past clients warm by offering something new. So what is your advice on managing your contacts and thinking of new things to sell people?
Alison
Oh, I think it's imperative. I mean for us, again, and even our content, I think it's a little about the content creation. How you monetize it. So our core content is sales. And then obviously I believe sales and customer service is exactly the same thing. So we've got customers who just buy customer service, but what we've done is we've created new content around intrapreneurship. So basically working with bigger companies teaching their team to think like entrepreneurs. So they make the decisions as if it was a little business without the rest. And it means that we can sell it to the same customers but in different departments. Because if you're in a non sales role, for example, if you're in procurement or finance or really from the outside, you'd think we had nothing to offer because we teach sales. So what we can do is create new content and the intrapreneurship, that's just ingenious.
So we are working with the Discovery Channel, working with their team. We're working with Thomas Cook air crew and their team to teach them around intrapreneurship. So on the back end of that we delivered in, they get copies of the course and that's an up sell. So I think it's all about, especially if you're working slightly larger companies, because the staff will expand and it's just literally keeping things fresh and thinking about that it's not what you want to sell them, it’s about asking questions to find out where the gaps are and what they need and then just to match in the gaps.
Phil
There's something I think a lot about that Lauren mentioned to me months ago that she read somewhere, and by the way, I don't read, but I have listened to your book on audible and I loved it. Um, there's something that Lauren mentioned to me the reader in this group, Lauren said, I can't remember where you read this, Lauren, but it was something to the effect of when you’re busiest with work, that's when you should be looking for new clients. Like when you're at the peak of your business, that's when you need to make time for prospecting. It wasn't something like that. Lauren, do you remember the exact quote?
Lauren
Yeah. Yeah. It was something like when you're at your busiest and don't have time to sell is when you should be selling.
Phil
Right.
Alison
Oh I completely agree with that because that's what happens. People get too busy to sell and then they don’t have a pipeline and then they trough, then they trough and then cashflow starts to get really tight. It’s really interesting because it's the same as change management really. Because people try when things start to get desperate and they’re not working, they go, “Oh let's change”. Never ever, ever change on the way down. Always change on the way up.I know that first hand because the company that I used to work for was a directory company, and literally when digital came into play, they were so complacent that they didn't need digital, that everyone was going to use paper directories, that didn't change. And it was the detriment of the company. So again, for me, even when things are going really well, we had a meeting recently about the rebranding of the brands. And in theory you know, I’ve got three brands and it would have been easy for me not to do that. Again, I'm always pushing it. I'm moving it on the way up and always looking to evolve. It's when people stagnate and don't concentrate on sales that you just become a cropper. Maybe not in the short term, but definitely in the long term.
Phil
Who inspires you? It doesn't have to be someone in sales. It could be an entrepreneur, like who are your brand heroes that give you a lot of inspiration for what you do.
Alison
So for me, it's really interesting for my brand heroes because you know, most people go, Oh my God, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson... Duh! So one of the things—you do this really well—is that I work with a lot of young entrepreneurs. So, for example, you got Ben Towers, who Richard Branson's got a blog about - he's 20—his multi million pound merger. You've got Jordan Daykin, he was the youngest contestant on Dragon's Den, like Shark Tank, to get funding from Deborah Meaden. At 23 his company valued at 20 million. You've got Simon Crowther, a young entrepreneur in the flooding sector, which again is so off the wall and yet you've got a multi-million turnover. These boys always inspire me every single day because they come at things with a different angle. The question here, um, and it's just, you know, I love the vibrance.
And again Phil, you inspire me and Lauren, you inspire me. You know, it's interesting that I'm on the podcast because we met obviously through a mutual friend and you did an interview for the podcast, and I'm going to do that podcast, I don't know when I'm gonna do it, but I was going to do it. So again, this is like a dream come true for me to be on the podcast, but it comes back to what I've seen earlier about setting new goals, know what you want, it may not happen right away but it doesn't matter what it is as long as you just keep chugging away. And if you chug away, keep it in the forefront put the strategy in place and all these things come together. I'm also inspired by my team who are young people. Just in general, those people inspire me because you know, I'm 51 years old and I still feel like I'm 21 because of the company that I keep and that also affects my outlook on life. It also affects the outcome of my business and you know, I'm really tech savvy, I'm right into my social media. Whereas a lot of people my age are wind down and I'm just on the wind up.
Phil
51 years young. Let me correct you what this has been really, I've loved this chat. I want to kind of round off our discussion with one question. It can be easy to get discouraged. Entrepreneurship can be lonely, in in terms of like what you have to deal with day to day. You wake up, you work really hard and it's kind of, you know, some days are not as great as others. What kind of tangible advice do you have for people to kind of push on to persevere? Because usually it's that perseverance, it's that last mile that lands you winning the race. But sometimes it's hard to see that in the moment,
Alison
You know, I’ve always been blessed with a positive attitude. Literally. I think I've always had a positive attitude and as we said, even in the most negative day, I am one of those people who probably say “well but on a positive note” for this happens there, “on a positive note”... Again, I don't know where that comes from. I don't know if it’s nature, nurture, mindset, but I think it's really important. And again, I love to sing, right. I'm rubbish at singing but I love to sing. And at the moment I think it's Ariana Grande’s new song, has got a mix in there with The Sound of Music, these are a few of my favorite things and they talk about scares on kittens and all that sort of stuff. And was like, actually it's a really valid point because anytime that you, you know when the dog bites and the bees sting, when you're feeling sad you just suddenly remember your favorite things then you don't feel so bad. And I think that even in one of these you can always find the process of and I think and the worst the days you look for your favorite thing and be able to help change your mindset.
Phil
Great advice.
Lauren
Do you think that small businesses should have a dedicated sales person?
Alison
Honestly, no, because I think with small businesses, it's about like a child. When you start a business again, for those of the listeners who have got children or know when they have the first baby, it doesn't come with a manual. You literally just have to touch it and see if it cries. or whatever it needs. You just get on with it. No one tells you, you just have to find out. And to me that's like having a small business. You can read all the books, but again, every business is slightly different. It's got its own nuances and you really want that business to grow again into teenage years, adulthood. And the difficulty I have, especially for people who don't feel confident in field, what they do is they'll say, I'm going to get a sales person. I'm rubbish at sales.
I'm not good, I'm going to get them in. Good salespeople are like diamonds and they cost as much as diamonds and unless you've got a really good investment at the start of the business, you won't be able to afford it. And the thing is, even if you do nobody loves your baby the way you love your baby. So nobody loves your business the way that you love your businesses. And to be able to sell anything, you have to love it. And that's why again, for those of you who are listening, you have to love it because, well maybe when you learn to love it can you become good at it. And you can learn it. It's like a sport. You can be good at anything you want. You just have to practice it, tweak it, practice it, tweak it. And that’s the same as sales.
Lauren
Beautiful. Beautiful. And do you have any systems that you follow? Like I met someone who tries to contact 10 people before 10:00 AM every day to just like warm up leads or their network. Is there anything that you do similar to that?
Alison
I mean like old school sales they call a lot of that the power of the universe. So you like switching off your notifications and trying those calls between nine o'clock and 10 o'clock but the difficult thing is with that to have that sort of really rigid time when you’re going to do that. That's not saying your clients are always available then. That might be where it's good for you. But to me I think it's especially not good for small business owners who are doing all the things in the business, I think it's about flexibility. I do think, again, it is good to allow an hour or two a day for follow up calls and make conversations and recharge previous clients. And you know, just touch base is good. But again, I'm kinda by antsy that we do that every Monday at nine o'clock because that's just not knowing when the clients are there. And today really interestingly, I've been training a sales team of mortgage advisors and one of the guys says, yeah, yeah we work from eight to five thirty and I went, I'm really glad that you worked from 8 to 5:30, but if I was getting a mortgage, the last thing I would want to do is speak to you during those times. So I want you to phone me at 7:30 or whenever. And he's like, no, no, no, no. I don't get paid for that. And I'm like, again, this is the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. So I do think as a small business owner, it's imperative again, you put those touch points for day in the diary for those calls. Also, I'm a really avid user of LinkedIn Okay. You put your LinkedIn time in there to proactively connect with people that you want to do business with.
Phil
Such good advice. So much here. Thank you so much for, and I also, I have to say this before I round it up, I like, I love how you sell yourself and I love your energy about all of this and if anyone is feeling nervous or scared, they shouldn't because really there's no difference between sales and customer service. I think that's a really important takeaway. Thank you so much for these inspiring words and for hanging out with us.
Alison
Uh, and I just wish I was hanging out with you in the real world. So one of the things that I got notifications yesterday that the publishers managed to get the book deal in the USA and Canada. So I’m hoping to do more work in the US. Phil I know you’re in London, we can hang out any time, Lauren, you and I are going to hanging out in the States.
Lauren
Oh my goodness. Congratulations. That's so exciting. I would love to hang out with you in the States.
Phil
We will celebrate with alcohol the next time I see you. How about that?
Alison
Oh for sure. But the next time lunch and then we can catch up!
Phil
I love it. Thank you so much again for hanging out with us on Brand Therapy. We'll chat with you soon Alison.
Alison
Thank you so much for having me.
Lauren
Bye
Phil
Always feeling pumped up after speaking to Alison. That's how I feel right now. That was great.
Lauren
I just wish I had her phone number so I could Facetime her every second of the day.
Phil
Well you’re going to have to pay five figures for the day with Alison and I'm sure it's worth it. You know, like it's just, she's so approachable. She's so kind. She's a, you know, so much genuine energy for when you see her in real life and then call up on the phone. But she's really good. She's really good at what she does. If you don't read, listen to her audiobook. If you do read, read her book. We didn't get into it today, but I love her philosophy on their different personality types for different selling personas. We've talked about that, but really cool. I think when it comes to selling anything, Alison has tangible advice that can inspire you to reframe your thinking so that you can do it, you know?
Lauren
Yeah, yeah. She makes something that feels like very intangible, like sales feel completely tangible. So what I found most interesting about this call with Alison is that she's really figured out how to break down like down to a science, how to sell when you're not a salesperson, don't you think?
Phil
Completely because I don't consider myself a salesperson, but I learned a lot from her. That makes it feel doable, you know?
Lauren
Yeah. What struck you about what she said?
Phil
I would say a few questions to ask yourself. Who is your ideal client? Not the first time that's come up on the podcast. Right? But the minute we started thinking about ourselves, let's think about what they want because this is a business, not a hobby. So who's your ideal client? What are their needs? Oh, I'm sorry. You're not sure what the answer is, ask them. Very simple.
Lauren
Yeah. Yeah, it's great because she, instead of figuring out what it is that you're trying to sell, she's more focused on the how and the why, which I think is kind of forgotten when people are trying to make money, you know?
Phil
Yeah. And I often get distracted with like, what do I say? What's my sales script? When I think if you know who your ideal audience is and you know generally how to get to them because you stopped for a second and thought about where are they spending their time? What are they putting their energy into? What's grabbing them day to day? How can you get in front of them? I think that you don't need to worry about a script. I think that you can actually just again, remind yourself, sales is customer service. They're not different. They're the same thing.
What would you say to someone that you're serving right, to make their day better or make their business better? It's the same thing.
Lauren
Definitely. And for the how do you make money question, I think what what Alison was trying to get at is that you can't sell without knowing what it costs to run your business. You know? You need to know what your bottom line is first and then figure out how you make money on top of that because the cost that you, yourself and me to run your business, you need to sell in order to do that, but you should also be selling to make money. At least that's what I took away from it.
Phil
Definitely. Definitely. What did you think of this? I love Allison's comment,” Fundamentally. everyone only cares about themselves” and that is so true. I'd love to know what you think. You listener, you spend a few minutes with us today. What are your thoughts on this? How are you selling yourself? Even if you aren't a salesperson? We'd love to hear, I'm @philpallen.
Lauren
I’m @thelaurenmoore
Phil
#brandtherapy to continue this conversation beyond the conversation we're having right now. If you've enjoyed this episode, then do us a quick favor. You've heard it before. Go to iTunes, leave us a review. Say something nice, because actually you doing that, taking a few seconds. Do it right now before you forget. That helps other people discover this podcast, which we work really hard to make. Thank you in advance for doing that. Thanks for spending a few minutes with us today and we look forward to seeing you on a future episode Brand Therapy. Thanks so much. See you then.
Lauren
See you then.
