Changing the Perception of Sales with Leigh Cohen

Ben: Leigh Cohen, welcome to Berko and Beyond. 

Leigh: Thank you. 

Ben: Leigh Cohen of Sales Geek. Now we had to get you on episode three mainly because you were mentioned so many times in episode one and episode two. So you probably should have sponsored those episodes to be honest, but now you’ve got your very own, welcome along.

Leigh: Thanks very much. 

Ben: Tell us a little bit about Sales Geek, and actually tell us a little about the involvement as well that you have with Dacorum’s Den. 

Leigh: Maybe I’ll start with Dacorum’s Den. Yeah. I have known Christy for a while, since working in the local area and we’ve been talking, I got to understand a bit about what Dacorum’s Den was all about, which I absolutely love, and it nicely blended with the, kind of, mission side of the business, which is really just focusing purely on helping local businesses and understanding that those local businesses don’t necessarily have the commercial background experience that might be needed in terms of growing their business.

They’re on their own. They’re sitting there in front of their screens, and trying to build something from nothing, and experts at what they do, and just loved this idea that the council is investing in that and generating this, sort of, quite fun way of creating a bit of funding, and then finding out they’ve gotta again, go and pitch into the dragons, so I thought possibly there’s a need for a bit of training in that space if they haven’t had that before. And so we had a discussion and thought I’d run this, sort of, training bootcamp on pitching to help them put their best foot forward in front of the judges. And yeah. And be able to retell their story in the best way possible. 

Ben: Part of what we talked about in the last episode actually is, if you are new to business, as a lot of people are, or actually even if you’ve been around a while, you might not have done, certainly that kind of pitch, if any, pitching at all.

Leigh: Yeah. 

Ben: What’s the best approach to that for people who’ve done nothing like it? 

Leigh: I think it’s, we talk a lot about telling the story. And stories sell. We’re preconditioned to respond well to stories, that’s how tradition has passed through generations. And so if you are sitting there and telling people about you, everything about me, a lot of the things I talk about in my sales training is nobody cares about you. It’s a bit of a bitter truth, but we go out and tell everyone about what we do ’cause we’re excited and passionate about it. 

But actually, if we switch it and start thinking about what we’re doing for others and turning that into a story and what pain we’re solving and why we’re doing what we’re doing and being authentic and what brings us to do that at that time for which people, actually, it draws people in a lot easier, and so that’s the type of direction that I’m trying to deliver to those. sessions. 

Ben: Tell us a little bit about some of those sessions then that you run with Sales Geek. You’ve got a Sales Club, right? 

Leigh: Yep. So the Sales Club is something I’m really passionate about. It’s something I do, and will be doing for free for the foreseeable. It’s about once every six weeks and I do it in Watford, typically in or around Watford, and moving in, I’ve done some in Hemel and will be coming over to Berkhamsted as well in the near future. And that is a free session where I try and get a load of people together. There tends to be about 40 to 60 people in the room at the moment. We’re trying to grow it, and there’s obviously the networking opportunity with those local businesses, but also, we run a guess a free training session in that, and we’ll pick a topic each time. The last couple have been prospecting, so we did a sort of part one and part two, and we turn into a really interactive session.

So we’ll get everyone talking, discussing, debating around a subject. I’ll bring some theory in, get people thinking, and try and get people going away with some actions and holding themself accountable to where they take that from that point. But It is something that people can take away, get some actionable insights to take to their business to activate the next day or the next morning, and make it a really casual, easy environment to just get thinking about your business a bit more than being in it, working on the business but doing it in a really casual and engaged way, thinking about things you might not otherwise be thinking about. 

Ben: Why do people find sales so difficult do you think? 

Leigh: I think that comes down to the core of what we are about, which is trying to change the perception of sales. And I think sales, well not I think, I know, it’s got a bad rap, right? We try and shy away from being a salesperson. We all sell. Whether it’s, whether you’re running your own business and you are actually having to generate sales for your business or even selling to your family, your partner, your kids, you are selling all the time, whatever it might be. But this concept of being a salesperson is a challenging one because we have stereotypes associated with it, and that makes us feel a bit icky.

We picture the secondhand car salesman, the estate agent, and there are very good estate agents and secondhand car salesmen out there, but unfortunately, it’s the reputation that goes with it, or the double glazing salespeople. It’s being, trying to, you feel like you’re being sold something that you don’t necessarily want to buy, and being cornered in a pressured situation, and that’s what we put there as the stereotype for sales. Whereas actually it can be something very different. And so when we’re trying to change the perception of sales, we’re trying to make people understand that sales is more about problem solving, about being really interested in the customer, in the person who has that problem, understand the very nature of why they’ve got that problem, where it comes from, the implication of what that means if you don’t solve that problem, and then trying to match what you have, if you feel genuinely that you can solve that problem, then the challenge is how you match the problem with what you have to solve it. And then the art is then how you bring those two together and make sure that you are the solution that person’s choosing.

And that’s, there’s a lot of psychology that goes into that. We talk a lot about human behavior, about why people buy. There’s a lot that goes on in  our minds, and try to link those two together. So when you do that, you start, it starts to become more of a, almost like a sport with a set of rules, techniques, tactics, all that stuff in the right way, that you can become really good at, and there’s definitely an art form in that. That is the sort of the 80-20. The 80% is the science, and probably the 20% is who we are, our authenticity, our authentic self, bringing our personalities to the fore. But really the art of sales is the science. 

Ben: So business owners and business leaders, I talk a lot about those systems and processes, and sales is no different, right, if you get into that rhythm, you get into that cadence. And it’s about practice, as well, isn’t it? 

Leigh: Totally, yeah. The, and the Sales Clubs that we just talked about are all well and good and any training is all well and good, right? We can sit there in a classroom and learn the theory, but really until you put it into practice and you just do it more and more, you get the conference to realize actually.

You just get used to the process of what you need to do. And that comes down to just asking the right questions and then really leaning in and listening to the answers. And listening is something we all think we’re good at. Unfortunately, not a lot of us actually are.

That’s a lot of layers of listening that once you start to again, practice and really put them into practice, that you start to, it becomes second nature and just become better at it. So it is like any sport, the more you practice, the more you train, the more you actually get out there on the field and do it, the better you become.

It’s growing muscles. 

Ben: So full disclosure, we worked together before you were massively helpful with our business and in particular, I think for us getting us into our niche and finding just. Right person to talk to and the right person with the problem. So is that where every business should start or where’s the best place to start?

Leigh: I think yeah. And thank you for kind words. I think understanding your audience is really critical. We all, most of us, unless you’re in a really niche or unless you purposefully go into a niche right from the start, I think the belief is that everyone can be my customer and I wanna go out there and sell everything.

And if you niche, then I’m gonna miss out on a whole swat of business and it’s just not the case. And just because you niche, it doesn’t mean to say you can’t sell to everyone, but what it means, and we hear this term, ICP, your ideal customer profile, really understanding who your customer is, who is the customer that you would want to clone to make you really successful.

Understanding them means that you really understand the people and the business. You understand the industry. You start using the jargon of the industry, become relevant. Then you understand the people you’re selling to and the challenges they face every day, and the things that they want to achieve.

The gains that they want to see, the goals that they have. When you get a real understanding of all of those aspects, your positioning becomes so much more targeted and you become that much more relevant to the people you’re talking to, rather than this sort of one size fits all spray and pray approach, which doesn’t really land on anyone.

And as I said, if you. You may well get a customer that’s not your ICP come in. Then you get to decide whether that’s the right side of the customer that you should be working with. And if you want to, that’s fine. You can. It just means that when you’re going out to market, you are being precise and you know the conversation you’re having with the people you need to be having it with.

Ben: And I think repeating them, that message is the thing that. People are nervous. I said that last week and I did a LinkedIn post about that last week, and now I’m gonna say the same thing. Is that right? But no one’s gonna see that first message, are they? Or it, yeah, I think it’s about repetition.

Leigh: Yeah. Use the term professional consistency or professional assistance. More to the point. I think there’s a difference between being aggressive and getting in someone’s face and all the rest of the negative kind of words. We need to be persistent because we talked about this just on Thursday at the Sales Club last week, and we spend a lot of time crafting the perfect email, right?

We use AI to, to get the right words and we iterate and then we get the perfect headline with all the right little catches, maybe asking a question and emojis and all the rest of the things that we think are gonna absolutely hit the nail on the head with the audience that I want to connect to. And then we send it and we go, yes, they’re gonna come pouring in.

What happens is that email sits there in the inbox of 2000 other emails that are being aimed at that person every single day, and it just gets lost. And lo behold, nothing happens. Or we might put a LinkedIn post out there, as you say. And and again, it’s just lost in a sea of everyone else doing it.

But if we’re persistent in that communication in multiple channels, suddenly and most importantly we’re adding value then. Eventually the penny starts to drop, the name that I keep on seeing aimed at me or the emails that I keep on seeing coming to me or the LinkedIn message start to resonate.

They start to feed in. And then that point where you pick up the phone and you call that person and you say, Hey, I’m Leigh. Or I’m Ben. And I dunno if you’ve seen my messages on LinkedIn or emails, actually, you know what I have. And yes, you’ve finally broken through and I am interested.

Let’s have a conversation. It’s an ideal world, but it does work that way. You have to be persistent and continue that communication. 

Ben: I think the other word there is resilience as well, isn’t it? From, particularly if you are in the world of cold calling, but also if you, it, cold outreach on LinkedIn or as you say on email, anywhere else, you’ve gotta be resilient and keep going.

Leigh: It’s the absolute top word outside of listening and questioning, which are the key traits of sales. Yeah, resilience is big, right? And when you’re doing something like, literally cold calling or emailing or that prospecting side, it’s top there because it’s a numbers game.

It is. We talk about having a top 10 list of customers and really making sure that you are going deep and intentional with your customers that you really wanna reach out to. But outside of that, it is, you’re gonna be told no a lot and it is just the ability to just go, okay. It will happen and it becomes a numbers game.

Ben: So how does this differ? We’ve got people who watch the podcast and listening along different size business, different pla in different parts of their business life, but also some are gonna be B2B, some are gonna be B2C. How does that sort of sales setup look?

’cause it, is it different between the two or the fundamentals are just there the same? 

Leigh: Yeah I hear this a lot and actually one of, one of the most common things that. That I hear is, oh, have you got experience in this? This is what we do. Do you know about construction or plumbing or whatever it might be?

Yeah. And there’s two sides to that. Firstly, to your point, the. Sales challenges are Ty, broadly very similar right there. It falls into four main pillars, and these are the four main pillars that I’ll typically focus on when I’m working with a client. It is the proposition. So are we selling the right stuff to the right people?

Often we’re out there talking about what we do. It’s not necessarily landing because we’re not articulating that message to the right people, as we were saying before, the ICP. And it’s the message related to, who you, who wants to receive that message. So crafting that, understanding who your audience is, making sure the message lands the second is.

The pipeline. So where’s that business coming from? And that we often look through one lens, but actually there’s a really wide range of areas. You’ve got inbound and outbound. You’ve got partners, suppliers, you’ve got referrals, events, network. There’s so many different areas you’d like to call it a pipeline pie.

Think about a, pie chart or a pie. You’re splitting up into sections. And understanding, where, how, which, how you’re going to focus on each of those areas. Then we look at the process. So we have leads coming in somehow, and we talk about that in terms of where and how those leads are gonna come in.

But what are you gonna do with them once they hit? So how do you take them through the process to win that client? In the end, what do those conversions look like from stage to stage? What even does the stages look like and how do you craft it in a way that you can. Work in a system through a process to make sure that you are winning as much business as possible.

And that has, in turn, the benefit of actually realizing that you don’t necessarily need to fill the top of the hopper so much. You can actually look at increasing the conversions of your existing pipeline and make sure that you’re winning more of the customers that come in rather than filling more leads at the top.

So that’s the process. And then the final one is the people. So have you got the right people with the right skills doing the right stuff. And then we look at the training and how to sell the art of, I guess the science of selling that I referred to earlier. So those four pillars are fairly standard regardless of what you do, right?

You could be a 20 million pound organization or you could be a. A hundred thousand pound revenue a year. You still got the same challenges, the nuances sit on top of that, and yes, you need to be able to adapt to that. In one of my classes, one of my clients has a sales cycle that is five years, which is absolutely insane.

Five year sales cycle 

Ben: Wow. 

Leigh: To do with buildings. Architectural world. They get bought in before the building’s even been approved. Okay. And then before the sale happens, the building has to be up and built, which is madness. 

Ben: One of my questions was gonna be everyone talks about the 90 day sales cycle.

Is that the same across every other business? Clearly not. 

Leigh: Very not. And you can have one week sales or, product led sales or super fast. And then you’ve got the extremes. And so there’s part of that is, yeah, that’s uncontrollable, right? So you’ve gotta focus on what you can control and get really good at that bit.

Control the 

Ben: controllables 

Leigh: precisely. And then, you could, there’s the circle of influence. There’s what we can influence, but being conscious of what we can and can’t control and going, okay, let’s really hone in on what you can about the stuff you can’t. And that, brings me to.

The element of what Sales Geek is all about. Yeah. Which is a collective of, I think there’s 26, 27, it might be of us around the uk. There’s 65 of us around the world. We’re about seven years old. As a franchise and. We are all from very diverse backgrounds, but all of us from large, typically corporate environments of sales and sales leadership over the last 20, 25 years.

So if I have a particularly nuanced customer of a certain vertical, I can engage with any one of the group. Across the country, across the world, and go, okay, tell me what you know about this particular industry. Help me navigate what I know in the world of sales into this specific niche.

And we’ll have a call, a chat and may even bring them in if necessary, but typically it’s the surface layer that I need to understand and how it adapts to the fundamentals that I talked about. And from there, it’s very easy to move on And, hasn’t haven’t been stumped yet. 

Ben: Talk to me a little bit about your journey then, and your journey through sales, and then how you then went into the franchise.

I find that really interesting. 

Leigh: Yeah. So my career has been quite varied which I love and by design in some senses I actually purposefully wanted to get lots of different experiences through, through my life. But I started off, I actually ran my own IT services company about 25 years ago.

That was my first foray into sales and understanding that actually I enjoyed the problem solving bit more than I did the screwdriver bit. And went and sold that business and worked for an IT services company and moved into Telco and actually was selling into the public sector for quite a while, which is a really interesting space.

Utterly frustrating, but also thoroughly rewarding at the same time. And then moved down into sort of enterprise and mid-market and then actually navigated into the product and proposition space. Built a product line at Virgin Media Business. I was there for about eight years.

Of all the things that they didn’t do as standard. So it was we used to call them partner products, so people were selling through us and actually I got to sit on the other side of the table and be sold to by manufacturers who, and companies who wanted us to sell their products and services to our customer base.

I’ve got some great stories and memories of what a good and not so good sales person looks like. The persistence of, okay, I’m not gonna take no for an answer, I’m gonna go round. You get the yes and it will be dictated to you what you do. Utterly frustrating as a buyer. But when you’ve got a good sales person that knows what they’re doing and you are given A-J-F-D-I from your boss to tell you to do something, you are like, damn, that’s a good salesperson.

Done their job. Yeah, that’s a tricky situation. But anyway, the corporate world was what taught me a lot. Yeah. And then I was wooed over into the world of Silicon Valley and San Francisco startups and scale up companies.

And I started building and running sales teams here in the uk, Europe and overview into Middle East and Africa. Sales teams for American startups in the tech space. And that was just fascinating building teams and understanding what makes a great team and how you can basically start from nothing from zero revenue here in Europe and build it up.

And those companies just got bigger and I was running enterprise and mid-market teams for some companies that are just floated until it gets to the point where you are thinking, I’m not so sure I’m enjoying this anymore. I’m not so sure. This is living to my own internal values.

And I guess over 20 odd years you start to realize what makes you tick. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Leigh: And for me, the thing that sticks in my mind, the commission checks and the successful sales and all of that stuff, that’s great. And it, you live to your means and all the rest of it. But actually the things that make a difference and really stick with me still to this day are where I’ve taken people.

From 20% to 120% and seeing the effect that had on them, their families, their environment on them, their mental state. Just the difference you can make in people and helping people on their journey. And when you take that and then my growing fascination, and I guess, I used to refer to myself as a bit of a Sales Geek just ’cause I became.

Obsessed with the psychology, with the methodologies of all of, whether it’s Challenger, Sandler med Pick, all these different acronyms that fly around that most small businesses have no idea about. You get drilled into it through enterprise. But you take bits from all of them and you think actually I really like that bit and I really like that bit.

And you put it into practice and you see what works. And so how do I put those two things together? I thought, I can just go and do this on my own. And that was almost the path until I came across Sales Geek and met Rich Few who runs it and met the team up there James, Lucy, and Tom and the rest of the gang.

Really small bunch of people up in Blackburn. And I just thought there is a bunch of people that think the same way. I do that, approach it in the same way I do. Little bit. Not blue and gray. Yeah. If yeah. And just had a bit of personality about it, challenging the status quo.

Loved this idea of changing the perception. And I just thought, hang on, there’s a way in which I can grow my own business, do what I love, make it my own, but I’ve got the support. Learning and structure to, to give me a helping hand. Yeah. But more than that, the community that I mentioned before that I can lean into anytime I like and everyone is the same as me.

It’s quite odd that, we are very similar in our approach and our backgrounds as well. And we’re all, yeah, 20, 25 plus years in sales leadership. So together we’ve got over a thousand years and so it’s a tremendous vault of knowledge and experience.

Ben: So thinking about all that knowledge and experience across businesses, huge, large, medium, small. Is there a mistake that you see a lot, the same mistake that’s made in sales is there, if there’s one thing that you could, evangelize about saying, don’t do this, ’cause Yeah. This is the one thing that’s gonna kill it for you.

Leigh: What it is talking, it’s the same thing. Talking about us, talking about ourselves, which is really what I’ve just done here. 

Ben: Yes, that’s allowed on a podcast. On a business podcast that’s allowed. 

Leigh: Okay. I see it all the time, and in fact, I’ve seen it through my professional career in enterprise and the biggest companies.

I’ve seen it in the smallest companies, and we all do it. We all think that everyone wants to hear what we do. 

Ben: Yeah, so I, we’ve talked about this before. I refer to it as people who just wheel over themselves on their websites. So it’s, we do this and we do that, and we do the other. They don’t talk about their customer or their customer’s problem.

They talk about their grandfather who’s been in business for. Gazillions of years, that means absolutely nothing to what they’re actually selling. 

Leigh: It’s just missing a trick. And yeah it’s a real shame. What you want to see is people talking, people who see the content. Marketers talk about this, that when you see content, whether it’s on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, LinkedIn, you wanna see something and go, that’s me.

Like you’re talking to me. I get it. And stop someone in the tracks, the sad truth that the majority of the time we are looking at this stuff, on socials or Yeah. Instagram, whatever it might be. In bed or sitting on the toilet or whatever it is. Scrolling, right? And just scrolling and scrolling in a sort of weird hypnosis state.

And actually, what you want to do is get to that point where you’re going, hang on a minute, he’s talking directly to me and I get it right. And if someone’s sitting there talking about themselves, it’s just scroll past, no one cares. But if they’re talking to you, I’m mentioning something which is dear to you, then you are gonna go, oh.

Stopped me in my tracks. 

Ben: And you actually see that way more now in social adverts and social posts where it starts off business owners of Burke Hamstead. 

Leigh: Yes. 

Ben: Make sure you are listening to the Berko and Beyond podcast, or whatever it is. Actually, I should do one of those. Should I do a couple of those promos.

But yeah, and that is, that’s literally calling it out. You don’t get much more niche than that. 

Leigh: Yeah. 

I mean 

Ben: it’s a, you do get more niche than business owners, but see a lot of stuff on social now that is accountants. Have you got, 

Leigh: and that’s very specific targeted advertising. But the, and so you can do that.

You can really drill, you can drill into some ridiculous niches. If you are even looking for a specific one person, you could create, spend money on an advertising campaign to reach that person and the advert would say, hi Ben. If you are listening to this is just for you and my God, you’re gonna get that person’s attention.

Ben: Which we’re not far off and some stuff’s already happening, particularly in cold outreach. And that with using AI and other bits and bobs. 

Leigh: Exactly. 

Ben: What are the bits and bobs would be, it’s the ai. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, putting all those tech stacks together to do those. 

Leigh: But the key is then the messaging that comes behind that target needs to be.

Specific, and whether that’s on a website, whether that’s on what you are talking about, whether that’s on an outreach or even in a proposal, you’ve gone down the line, you are now at proposal stage to a client. The first thing I see in those proposals is me. Here’s what the customers we work with.

Let me talk about all the stuff I want to talk about us, our customers, what we do, how we do it. None of it. I’m just going 

Ben: to page five. It’s 

Leigh: just tell me the cost, 

Ben: right? Yeah. What’s the cost? 

Leigh: But if I’m really linked. Laser focused on you, your problems that I understand your problems, I understand the implications of those problems.

I understand I’m getting across how we’re going to address them. Then you, it’s gonna be a lot more attention. 

Ben: I think we’re touching here as well on the follow-up, aren’t we? And the fact that there’s, I mean for me that was, and it’s still is probably the place where I lack in my sales system or funnel is just following up more often, just.

On the, again the cadence. I think cadence is a great word in business anyway, but certainly in sales. Yeah, because it’s that, the atomic habits, the cadence, and just following up and just giving a bit of value or just without saying, just checking in 

Leigh: that the, just the word. Every time I hear myself say it, I’m like, stop.

Yeah. How do I say this without putting the word just. Mean the following up on something. There’s so much to that issue of following up 

Ben: That I’m just then thinking about this five year sales cycle for someone. 

Leigh: Yeah. 

Ben: That there’s a lot of following up in those five years, I presume there, 

Leigh: and a lot of different moving parts in that, in different areas of that, that, that cycle.

But I think that the key to following up is signposting it. The, again, one of the biggest things that are missed on every interaction with a customer, it is having a diarized follow up. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Leigh: Step. And that might be moved, might be why I’m a bit busy. Can we move it forward or back? And sometimes then you get ghosted and all the rest of it.

Ghosting a whole subject on its own. But making sure you don’t lose the opportunity while you’ve got that person to go, what does the next step look like? But then the next step has to add that. If you’re not adding value to that person, why on earth should they listen to you? And often it is. I wanted to check in.

I wanted to see how this is going. I’m just calling to see this. I would like to get a meeting with you because X, Y, Z, and we need to just flip the script 180 degrees and think about why that person would want to meet with you. Why would they want to have a follow up meeting? What value are they receiving that makes them want to take the next step?

Ben: I think one of the other approaches that works well is just wanted to know, do you still want to solve X problem with X solution? 

Leigh: Yeah. 

Ben: And ’cause often. It’s, so for us as a video production company, we’ve had that conversation. Often as we’ve discussed, people don’t want a video.

They want the problem solving. Exactly. They don’t realize that the video can solve that problem. See it as a nice to have. We talk about it being more than a nice to have. Then of course again, it comes to the ghost and it’s like they seem to have disappeared. It’s like they’re just busy. We’re all busy.

They’ve gone off and done something else. So sometimes a short email saying, are you still interested? 

Leigh: Yeah. 

Ben: Works as well as. I’ve seen this. Do you want, and this would be of interest to you, so it’s mixing it up, right? 

Leigh: Yeah. I think there’s definitely these are the challenges that we spoke about.

How are they still presenting themselves? How are you dealing with it? These sort of questions can absolutely help as much as it is delivering the value. But it is, yeah it’s just making sure you’re thinking about it from their perspective. For sure. And also you hit on a really interesting point there about the problem you’re solving.

We can, and there’s been a number of clients of mine where, again, focused on a service and solution that they provide, which is great. And generally really top tier capability. But it’s then you ask the question, and I am deliberately provocative in this. Why should I care?

And then because in your case, video production we make great videos. So what because it’ll make you look great and then you come down to the fact that maybe from a video testimonial perspective, for example. It’s easier to sell and get through that consideration phase when you’ve got other customers talking about you than you talking about yourself.

So actually, a really well produced video is going to help you do that, but even then it’s a So what? How are you getting your business at the moment? What’s your conversion rates? Is that looking okay? Is that where it needs to be? Not really. Okay. Should we work on your conversion of getting from interest to close?

Actually getting some testimonials out there and social proof is gonna massively help that. And this is how we go about doing it. It’s really nothing about the video production, it’s about solving a problem of sales and sales conversion. 

Ben: And that’s what worked really well for us. ’cause when we first met.

And I’ve always called it out with video production companies. They’ve got everything on their website, from drones to photos, to live streaming to this, to that, to the other. And actually you are talking to way too many people. And what you helped us do is get narrow on our IPC and then, and also on our offering on, which is not to say that we don’t do podcasts or live streaming or brand story videos, things like that, but it’s what essentially we go to market with and we talk to those people.

’cause we know we do those two things, case studies and testimonials brilliantly. You do. And that’s how we do it. Even though I’ve just said it myself, but thanks for confirming that. Listen, our time has nearly come to an end. Two things. One, tell us where everybody can find out about Sales Club and where they can find out more information on Sales Geek.

And can you leave us with a little gem of one little thing that perhaps people aren’t doing in cells that could just help turn that wheel a little bit more? 

Leigh: Okay where you can find me LinkedIn is probably the best base. So you can just search up Leigh Cohen that’s L-E-I-G-H, Cohen Sales Geek.

And you’ll find me yeah, with the Handle Cohen Sales Geek, 

Ben: all those links as well in the show notes. 

Leigh: And a website, Sales Geek.co uk you can find all the information there as well. And. Gem. God, that’s the tricky one. More than what I’ve said already. I would probably just sum up the two things that I’m maybe three things that are most important, which is knowing your audience and making sure you are really selling to that audience in terms of understanding not how you are selling, but why they should buy what’s going on in their world that makes you so relevant.

One of the classic things about sales. Is that we assume that we need to be this extrovert character, that we have to have the gift of the gab. I think that’s one of the, this sort of preconceptions of being a good salesperson. And I couldn’t disagree with it more. I think yes, you need to have a personality, you have to be engaging.

You’ve gotta be able to speak to people without a doubt. But actually some of the best salespeople that I’ve ever had the privilege of. Of managing, of working with. And if those people are watching, then you know who you are. But they are actually introverts and they’re not the sort of life and soul of the party.

But what they’re really good at is listening because they just shut up. They just sit there and listen really well, and really listen. They ask great questions in time. They don’t interrupt. And then they and then they’re just really professionally persistent. They see it as a science and they’re just really good as a result.

And for me, that’s more important than being this big, gregarious, extrovert sort of personality. It’s making real connection. 

Ben: Do you think that part of that is being an introvert? Do you think that also helps people? Does it help? Are they better at narrowing down on their ideal customer? 

Leigh: I think if you listen better, if you really tune your mind to the listening rather than the talking 

You pick up on so much more that you can become so much more relevant to that person. So yes, you. Knowing you’re I-C-P-I-P-C. 

Ben: Yeah. I keep saying IPC, which really would be better if, yeah. 

Leigh: Knowing your ideal customer means that you speak the language, you understand the chat, you inherently understand where they are, what they are, what they stand, what they need.

But then you are listening to the subtleties of what they’re saying, not only what they’re saying. Why they’re saying it. We have the logic behind people say things and we don’t often ask, why are you even saying that in the first place? And then there’s the emotion that carries beneath that. How are they acting while they’re saying that, is there fear?

Is there excitement? Is there concern? All of the emotions that sit there, gotta pick up on that stuff. And then really understanding what it’s like to be in their shoes, point of view. Can I be you? If somebody was interviewing me, can I understand it from your perspective? Do I really have all the information that I need to understand you?

And if that’s the case, then I’ve really listened. Then I’ve got all that information that I can process and turn into some amazing questions. It’s gonna help me really make sure that I’m tying really what you need to, what I have to offer. Think about the three questions when you’re talking to prospects.

They should change from what they’re doing at the moment, why they should do it now, and why they should choose you. You can answer, if you can even better get them to answer those questions, then you’ve pretty much got the sale. And in that it is making sure you are flipping it to thinking about them the whole time, not talking about you, but, you asked for one. I’m just giving you, I can’t help myself. 

Ben: This is why. Yeah. I like it. It’s always the added value when talking with you, Leigh. 

Leigh: And you mentioned it yourself, Ben, following up. It is literally, it is such an easy thing to do. We give ourselves a task, just reach out, find and connect to most people and do the networking and all the things that we do to try and get attention.

Then we leave it and we stop following up, or we don’t, with proposals out there or we have a meeting and we don’t, really follow it up properly. So it’s the thing we most often miss and I would, just focus on that and get some system, whether it’s, it can just be a spreadsheet, it can be a CRM, it can be anything.

People often ask me, what’s the right CRM we should use? Is this, that, it just doesn’t. It doesn’t matter. As long as you trust me is how you use it is the important thing. Any, you can have the best tool in the world, but if you’re not using it, it’s useless.

It doesn’t matter. It could be a spreadsheet if you’re using it. It’s great. Yeah, that’ll be, 

Ben: thank you very much o on that then I’m off to follow up with my prospects as soon as we’ve finished the record. Leigh, thanks for joining us on Berko and Beyond. 

Leigh: You’re welcome. Great to be here.

Thanks very much. 

Ben: Thank you for watching and listening to this episode of Berko and Beyond. The links to everything we’ve talked about or mentioned today are in the show notes or in the summary below this video, along with the links to all our social media channels where we’d really appreciate a follow and a share.

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Thanks again for watching, and I’ll see you next week.