Sales Training London: Why I Plan to Fail Often and You Might Too

My life has been leading up to 2006.

Today, I'm often told I'm in too much of a hurry but after 20 years I think it's time to become an overnight success. Unlike many people I meet, I don't believe I have 1 year's experience 20 times over, I have 20 years experience notched on my belt, earned through blood, sweat and many tears My career began as I studied my degree in Middle Eastern Studies in Manchester in 1986. 4 years of watching spaghetti hoops wander across the page through bleary student eyes gave me a need to do something that brought in money, so I started selling water and air filters with NSA (MLM - hiss I hear you cry). I learned 9 valuable lessons.

1. Very hard work rarely gets you everywhere you want to go, working smart is better and faster 2. Goal setting works ...... if you do it!

3. Build your network deep and wide and WORK IT DEEP - 5, 10 generations, that is where the money is 4. Breaking even is not sustainable in the long term 5. If you need help, ask. There are often people wiling to help you, if they don't, move on and find someone who will.

6. I was destined to work for myself because I was almost unemployable thanks to a personality disorder (too much of a hurry to wait for corporate wheels to grind into action)

7. Giving within the network without expecting anything back is the only way to avoid massive disappointment 8. The best lessons came through failure 9. If you learn something you own it by teaching it within 24 hours to someone else Having bribed my faculty with regular meals and entertaining mistakes (in an oral exam in Arabic I was trying to say I planned to spend my summer holiday going down the Nile on a boat and instead told them that I planned to go down the Nile on a sailor) I scraped through my degree getting a Desmond (2:2) thanks to a lot of help from my friends and my tutors. Studying Arabic and Farsi was not playing to my natural strengths but it did prove that stubbornness can work in your favour.

At Uni I spent at least 40% of my time learning about NLP. That was time very well spent.

I then listened to the father of my NSA upline, Shay O'Brien who suggested I should go into sales. I thought "good money, and I get paid to talk, how cool is that?". How wrong Shay was! I was too stupid to learn but I was a catastrophic failure at sales. I could open almost any door because on the phone I was persuasive and charming, the problem was I couldn't close my way out of a soggy paper bag.

I spent half a night selling condoms in pubs but couldn't bear the shame. I sold advertising (a precursor to Talking Pages) and they saw I was good on the phone, and took me off the road (phew) to build the internal sales team. We hit the 3 month targets in 4 weeks. I recruited a team of 14 people in 2 weeks. Our MD had a nervous breakdown and the company folded.

I learned that recruitment could be done right, fast if you RECRUIT FOR ATTITUDE. I reinforced that getting in front of people (cold calling) was easy. The harder part was getting them to part with money. I also learned that if you depend on other people to sign your pay cheque, you are always at risk of them waking up at 3am and walking out on their wife and family because their marbles went.

I went to work for the Australian Consul in Manchester through nepotism as her assistant. This place was packed full of lifetime civil servants. On day 1 she asked me to come up with some revenue raising or cost saving ideas. I came up with 18, 17 of which she implemented on day 2. I discovered office politics on day 3!

I went to Holland as general dog's body in a publishing agency. It was owned and run by a lovable rogue who drank and smoked a lot even during Board meetings. After 3 weeks he fired the General, Manager and asked me to take the role. I was flattered, in a hurry to progress and totally unqualified for the job. Muddling by, I helped reverse the bad debt situation, took the company from crippling loss to small profit, recruited a sales team, put in place a sales process, expanded the international coverage form 11 to 18 countries and we placed our stories in major titles like Stern, Geo the Telegraph Magazine and others.

I learned how not to run a company. The effect of drink, drugs and egos on a business can be devastating. I learned how to upset my staff, how others could do an even better job of upsetting than me if I didn't get in between, that people aren't commodities or machines. I discovered how not to manage both up and down and to never work with people you don't trust to go to war with them by your side.

When our salaries weren't being paid I saw the writing on the wall and came back. I got treated like a commodity by recruiters and thought there is a better way to do this. 4 years into my headhunting career I had learned how to miss target, how to avoid cold calling despite being good at it because I feared rejection, and how to forecast wildly inaccurately. This also taught me what it is like to pay 29% APR on Corn Flakes as I could never depend on my income being steady. Familiar?

I got married and started to realise my world was bigger than me. And life became a lot more interesting.

But some valuable business lessons were learned. Focus on the candidate, their needs, their aspirations, their hopes and fears, their pressures and pains. And weave a great story around the job and them. That way, you'd get commitment and high satisfaction levels when they started the job, and low drop out rates. Satisfied clients and candidates were great and valuable but 3 lessons came out of that time.

1. You need to push the volume through and find ways to up your productivity as this approach is highly labour intensive 2. You can't befriend everyone, you have to hit target but NOT at the expense of your moral fibre and personal integrity 3. Recruitment is just a form of project management The next 6 years in recruitment were a little better. Higher income, greater successes and higher profile having become the first recruiter in Europe to specialise in the Single Currency. I made a decent living and developed a reputation for my specialisation, which resulted in publishing and public speaking. It was still hit and miss but the hits were bigger and lows less violent. During this time I learned that if I called high I'd be shown the lower levels soon enough if the CEO wasn't the right person but I borrowed their credibility on my way down. That was a valuable lesson.

But one of the most important lessons I learned from my mistakes was OK/Not OK theory and how you can turn around a stupid mistake into a positive selling opportunity.

I pitched chap called Nick Devine, the sales director at a software company. He politely listened and said "Marcus, that was one of the best pitches I've ever heard". I blushed shyly and felt a swell of relief until he said, "But you clearly know nothing about our company!" I looked up at my screen, realised my mistake. Unfortunately, I'd been so thorough in my research of 2 companies and so eager to make the more interesting pitch, I pitched him the wrong company pitch!! Doh!!!!

I blushed again, but this time it was beetroot and deep. I stammered, "Nick, I'm so sorry. I was doing my research and got so sucked into the whole thing I didn't realise I was pitching the Docent pitch instead of yours. Look I've taken up too much of your time already; I don't suppose you'd let me try to redeem myself, would you?"

He laughed and said "Yes" so I got his email address and wrote to him. The subject line read "The Fool on the Phone!" I sent it and within 20 minutes I had an appointment. As I thought he was doing it just to play with me and see what the idiot the other end of the line looked like, I went in with the attitude of "I don't need your business so a "no" can't hurt me".

I walked out of there like a bandit. 36% of first year guaranteed earnings on 2 senior vacancies. My fees for that month were £96,000. My competition had all been pitching at 20% of base salary. So from that moment on my fees went up. I even ended up working for these guys a couple of years later. 6 lessons in one call.

1. People will try to rescue you if you are feeling bad even in a sales situation if you have done enough to build and maintain rapport 2. It's OK to fail BIG and OFTEN because of 1 above 3. People sometimes perceive they're getting more for their money if they pay a high price and will respect you for it 4. Having the "I don't need your business" mindset makes you strong 5. Humour used at the right time breaks down barriers and aids the sale 6. High fees mean you have a great month, feel better about yourself and get to buy yourself some pretty excellent toys. I bought my first sports car. Yabadabdoo! That was fun.

Anyway, the writing was on the wall for recruitment, I'd made some friends along the way and former clients and candidates were courting me for new business ventures outside of recruitment. The recruitment market was hitting its latest dive and I got out with voluntary redundancy and a handsome payoff.

A brave new world beckoned. I was invited to join a former candidate and client of mine who had hired me once before selling high ticket consultants and programme managers into banking. I built a £3m pipeline (some of which might have been suspect but I didn't know that then) in 3 months. I was on a roll, spending a lot and suddenly September 11th came and went. And as it closed my pipeline went form £3 million to nowt. I started looking again and remember Nick Devine, well he and the two people I'd placed got me interviews. I was not in the software business where I learned the true meaning of free consulting and how a powerful client can suck you dry, spit you out and leave you for dead.

1. Never depend too much on one client for business 2. Never invest so much in a prospect before they commit to buy from you unless you want to become a free consultant and stay poor 3. Never commit resources until you have properly qualified an opportunity 4. Never expect loyalty from people whose self interest is not aligned with yours 5. Forecasting is a matter of doing the behaviours not believing the hype. A positive really is your worst prospect. They'll feed you lines to keep you on their case, steal all they can and then go into hiding when they've got enough. But they won't let you down in case they need to steal some more.

6. Always have a parachute We were killed off by one client draining resources, asking for incrementally more than was agreed and we died by the death of a thousand cuts. Ironically, this was a lesson I'd learned in recruitment but I was told by those who ought to know better that I was doing the right thing by working so hard. I lost evenings and weekends, built up a good sized ulcer and ended up in hospital just as we were all being made redundant. Nice! But a powerful lesson.

I got out of hospital and had a voicemail from my former FD who asked me to join his new company in a telesales role. Now, this wasn't my ideal situation but I needed work and accepted the position. As it happens this turned out to be a good move.

For 5 months I freelanced with them and built up an OK client base. But I ignored some sales training materials that were on the desk next to me for 5 months. The material was by an American called David Sandler. Eventually I cracked and took the CDs and book home thinking I'd learn 1 thing and that would be a good result. I was so wrong.

In the first 15 minutes I learned 10 things that were staring me in the face for the previous 18 years. I started to apply the stuff and my close rate plummeted for 2 weeks. Then I started to get the hang of it and my close rate went from 1:10 to 2:3 over 3 months. I was a happy camper again. I started to develop new clients and discovered that I could sell what looked like the same service to companies who were happy with their existing provider and charge between 7-12 times more than they were paying today. This was a big revelation. I discovered that money really isn't an issue in most selling situations. Wow! My mind began to race.

I explored where I could get more of this training and to my dismay, they had nothing here in the UK. So I went back to lesson 9 of my MLM days and realised that to own this material I'd be better teaching it.

I found a partner willing to go in with me to buy a franchise. Sadly the Master franchise had just been sold so we negotiated London as our territory. And then I went to Baltimore for initial training. That was a revelation. Liver failure was on the card thanks to way too much partying and having fun, but I met someone called Howard Goldstein, a.k.a. The Pain King. Howard is the most unlikely salesman. Small, hawkish features and softly spoken, in fact Howard doesn't say anything unless it has impact. He taught me the most 2 most powerful techniques I know in sales.

1. Pain 2. Negative Reverse Selling.

I can't thank him enough. Selling has been a blast ever since. My rates have gone up by a factor of 80 (eighty) in 2 years and they're still rising. I've developed a good sales training reputation on the back of what I learned and this means I can be parachuted (big parachute needed) anywhere in the English speaking world and I can make a great living in sales.

Howard also introduced me to networking. For which again, I must thank him. Without Howard's guidance in this area I wouldn't know you and you probably would never have heard of me.

My business life has turned a corner on the back of these lessons. I couldn't be as good at what I do without the mistakes I made in the previous 18 years and I'm stronger for them. Lord knows I made many more mistakes in 2004-2005 and learned so much more. It has been a rollercoaster thrill ride but I discovered 2 important lessons.

1. You don't need credibility to sell 2. You don't use product knowledge to sell - in fact using it can be lethal 3. You gain more credibility by the questions you ask than the information you give So as I look ahead to 2006 I can't wait to fail again and again and again. The mistakes I make I learn from. Every one is a hidden lesson waiting to happen.

Along the way I met some incredible people, the likes of Thomas Power, Rory Murray, Andy Fleming, and dozens of others. All taught me things I didn't know before. But it's Richard White I want to single out here in this part of my story. We met in February 2004 for a 121 when he talked about story telling as a powerful selling tool. Again, my slow mind failed to conceive of what he was saying, because he was struggling at the time as was I, but slowly as my own stories began to get richer and more powerful it dawned on me how much he has helped me change my professional life. I now use stories and teach people how to use them to great effect. Steal them, make them up, learn from your own life and adapt them, but parables have been one of the most powerful methods of conveying knowledge, squashing rumours, creating change and galvanising teams for thousands of years. It took me a lifetime to recognise them for their full potential.

People tell me I should slow down.

NO!

They're wrong. I am on a mission to become the best I can be and leave a legacy for my children they can be proud of and benefit from. I have learned one especially valuable lesson along the way. Think in terms of what is possible NOT what is probable. Because no one else has done it is not good enough reason for me not to attempt it. Failure is part of the human condition. The world is changed by unreasonable men and women. People with the vision to see what can be done with the right behaviours, attitudes, techniques and relationships are the ones who make things happen.

So I welcomed 2006 as an opportunity to fail big and often and to learn the lesson that will help me achieve my vision and get those around me to get their needs met too.

Happy selling! May you learn your lesson the hard way too and achieve what you deserve and more.

© Sandler Sales Institute 2006.

Regards Marcus Cauchi Managing Director S.A.L.T. (Europe) Ltd Sandler Sales Institute, 180◦ From Traditional Sales Training©

Sandler Sales Institute® - Licensed Franchisee Guerrilla Marketing® - Licensed Master Practitioners Mob +44 (0) 7876 616 983 Tel 0845 458 1237 (UK only)

London1.Sandler.com



Sales Training London: Why I Plan to Fail Often and You Might Too - To learn more about this author, visit Marcus Cauchi's Website.

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