In this age of Zoom calls and social media, using the phone for sales may sound old school, but behind this quaint device is a power that cannot be underestimated even today. There is power in the phone that can potentially speed up and make a difference in your sales. Take it from phone professional herself, Shanti Rae. Shanti started out hating sales, but she eventually gave it a second look when she ran into an approach called natural sales, which focuses on interacting with people not only at a business level, but at a personal level as well. In this conversation with Elliot Begoun, she states some of the advantages that communicating with the phone has over emails and other contemporary communication tools. If nothing else, you will learn two very important things from this episode: one, that phone professionals are not telemarketers; and two, building relationships over the phone is an art, period.
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Old School Or Real Cool? The Understated Sales Power Of The Phone With Shanti Rae
We’re going to do something a little bit different and talk about the use of phone, the power of the phone. I felt this was an important topic to surface because so much has changed in the way we interact with buyers, with all the people in our sphere of influence post-COVID. We’re doing more by Zoom, but the key is how do we reach or how do we make things happen when we can’t physically go into the stores as easily or travel as easily? Awhile back, I met Shanti, who you’ll soon learn is one of the coolest people. She is a self-described phone professional. She helped me understand a bit more about how when done in the right way, the right vibe, right cadence, you could use the power of what is now completely old school, the phone, or as some would call it telemarketing, to speed and make a difference in your sales. We’re going to have a cool kickback conversation with Shanti. Shanti, thanks for joining. Why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about your background and how this all started for you?
My name is Shanti Rae. I am in my own little flow here. I feel extraordinarily grateful to be quite ahead of the game because prior to COVID, I have been working on the phone as a professional for close to two decades now. It originally started and it’s funny that Elliot chose old-school in his introductory here, because that’s the first thing that comes to my mind. Although I don’t look, feel or live old-school, I practice a lot of old-school things that I feel are extraordinarily rewarding, and also somewhat of a lost art. That being said, many years ago, I met John Roulac of Nutiva. He invited me to come work as customer service at Nutiva.
The company was doing about $250,000 a month. I kept my foot in the door. I’ve been huge into the natural food’s movement, natural channel. I’m personally a raw vegan. What I eat and what my loved ones, friends and family eat is extraordinarily important to me. I found quite a liking and a niche in the natural channel. That being said, my work was on the phone. I did not go visit stores. I did not touch in with buyers unless I was doing my regular shopping. Prior to that, I had done a lot of work in not only personal development but mentorship with different success coaches, that types of things, all different kinds of sales. In all candor, I used to hate sales.
I did not like getting phone calls. I didn’t like talking to people when they were calling, trying to sell me something. I always felt they were trying to sell me something and not giving a hoot about me and what I might want out of the situation, and when I might be looking to do to develop it. Along my journey, I ran into an approach called natural sales. I hit my rhythm points then because I would describe myself as very natural. Being able to approach people in a way that feels compassionate and human was important to me. These are ideas and concepts that I learned before email. It was right about then with technology that I feel this art and this trade that I’ve been able to hone over the past two decades went to the wayside in a lot of the ways that we interact with people, not only at a business level but at a personal level too.
An email or a text is not at all hear my voice or feel my vibe. Can you sense my emotion? Can you feel where I’m at? Those things, unless you are an incredibly stellar email writer or copywriter, those things are extraordinarily hard to capture. At any rate, I found quite in the niche, then COVID hit. The people are waking back out to the world right now. Thank goodness, the world is turning back on. We hit a phase where no one’s being able to walk into a store and talk to people or shake hands or get that face-to-face vibe. I felt very fortunate because what I’ve done for my past experience has been predominantly building relationships and learning how to best appropriate myself into someone’s life via the phone.
It’s an interesting endeavor. Over the past several years too, I’ve also gotten a good positioning in calling anybody. Throw me a number, I’ll call it. I’m fine with it. If that person hangs up on me, that’s fine. If they call me an asshole, that’s fine. It doesn’t matter. None of that stuff fazes me anymore because I understand. As long as what I’m doing is full of intention and it’s choreographed with people that I know are doing good things, and the purpose of my call originates in that positive state, then I’ve done my thing. If the other line doesn’t receive it, that’s their business. I move on. I pick up the phone and I call again. At any rate, that’s a little bit or more than my background.
I want to talk about some of the myths or closely held thoughts around phone work. I hear this all the time. Whether it’s phone or even email, people are worried about disturbing people, interrupting people, being a nuisance, all those kinds of things. That’s especially true with phone. The reason we feel that way is because most of us who get a phone call that is all in the realm of sales think of it as that telemarketing call or that robocall or spam. Shanti, give us a feel for what is like to nurture and build a relationship over the phone with a buyer? How you go about doing that?
A lot of the ideas that we have about sales are deep rooted in most people’s consciousness. It’s quite a battle. The first thing that has to be preferenced here is that if I pick up the phone and I feel, “This person may not want to talk to me or I know this guy is totally busy. He’s got a Unifi load. He’s sitting in his dock.” Whatever might be coming up for me, that is what I have come to learn my responsibility to let go of before I’m able to connect efficiently and effectively with this person that I’m calling.
The biggest point to get over that is rooting ourselves in a foundation that what I’m doing is okay. I have no idea where this person is. It’s my responsibility and duty to relax enough to be able to tap in to where this person’s at. That being said, I have an approach very often, especially if my phone call is not expected. I’m reaching out, “Hello, buyer. This is Shanti. I’m with whatever brand I’m working in the moment. I know you’re totally busy and my call wasn’t expected. I want to make sure that you’re aware of this.” Whether it’s a brand, whether it’s information, whether it’s a promo, etc.
It took me a while for it to sink in. At one point, I believe I got it, especially with my work on the phone in professional life and real life. One of the key mottos that I have is people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. We should absorb that into our experience. That’s a wonderful life project. That’s it for me. As far as talking to strangers on the phone, it’s putting yourself in that person’s shoes. I’ve been in the field and I understand what it’s like to unload. There are all kinds of different things that I can put myself in relationship to. Most salespeople though get onto the phone call and all they have is, “I need to sell.” If that’s the vibration that the salesperson has, from my experience, that will push that potential buyer right off the door.
You’re going to vibe them with your neediness right off the phone. It’s important to be able to identify and relate with this person brand new, fresh out of the gate. That’s why I always take it back to being able to feel good in yourself, being alright. Spirituality, success, sales mentors and coaches, and I did say spirituality, sales and success all in the same grouping there. It’s a lot of the same teachings and same education. It’s understanding and learning about yourself, seeing yourself in different situations. This phone call is not going to be designated to personal growth, but there’s no way in the world that I could speak with integrity to anyone without putting in there that it takes some personal work to get comfortable with ourselves. Most of us know that.
Shanti, you make two important points. One of the biggest blockers for anything that we do, and especially anything that we do that feels remotely uncomfortable is our own self narrative. We’re great storytellers to ourselves. We’re going to tell ourselves the things that we think we want to hear and all the reasons why picking up the phone and being involved in the sales process that way isn’t going to work and how it’s going to be viewed as spammy or solicitous or how people are going to get mad, and all of those kinds of things. In over 90% of the cases, at least in my experience, that is just self-talk. It’s bullshit. It’s not true. You need to have the ability to slow down enough to recognize that self-talk. To have the mindfulness to see, “Wait a second, how do I know that’s true? How do I know that’s going to happen?” That’s what I’m telling myself.
If you go in with that mindset, you’re likely creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is very important. This doesn’t hold true for making uncomfortable phone calls or sales-driven phone calls. It pertains to everything that you do in your pursuit of your business and in life in general. The second thing you mentioned is empathy. If you can’t put yourself in the shoes or look through the lens of the person on the other end of the phone, then you’re never going to ring true to them. You’re never going to create a connection with them. Those are two important things. Jenny has a question for us and her question is, “Are there certain pitches or things that don’t work over the phone?”
Phone Power: If the salesperson’s vibration is always, “I need to sell, I need to sell,” it tends to push a potential buyer right off the door.
There are a gazillion things that don’t work. As far as the technical verbatim, what words those are, I don’t know if I’d be able to identify that other than share this with you. What I find works is leading with connecting over leading with product or announcement or whatever you might be calling for.
Go a little deeper into that, Shanti.
When I’m talking about connecting, first is being able to identify if your call is expected, then that’s another kind of conversation. I’m going to answer this as if it were a cold call. The things that I find worked for me, you asked what doesn’t work. What doesn’t work in my experience is having a script in front of me with a pitch that I’m not willing to flow with, absorb, articulate and manipulate to the person on the other line. Scripts are fantastic. They often will highlight and touch upon great points. I do not work off of a script anymore. I might put some words together and know some key topics that I want to talk about when this person answers.
To me, what doesn’t work is trying to sell that person right out of the gate. I would be more comfortable answering what does work, and this is what works for me. If it’s a cold call, I’m not going to ask that person, “Is this a good time for you?” Most people have this consciousness that, “It’s a salesperson. I don’t have time for this. I don’t want to have time for this.” Unless they’re super cool like you’re calling the co-op chains or something, and you’ve got a lot of kickback buyers. I don’t even know what industry you all are in, but at any rate you can tell my industry. What doesn’t work is a pushy energy, trying to look at your list of stores that you’re going to call.
This is a little bit of a tangent, but it’s relevant here. Knowing that you’re in a state of lead abundance. This call that you’re making is not the only opportunity you’re going to have to close business. That helps our psyche on the phone. Always be in a place of abundance like the industry I’m in, the sales channels. There are stores forever. I can’t ever run out of leads. I don’t have to worry about the lead piece of it. To wrap it back up. What doesn’t work to me is salesman-y like, “This is Shanti, I’m with Real Cocoa.” I can’t do it anymore because it’s not natural.
What doesn’t work is something that doesn’t feel natural to you and your ability to connect with this person. I will share with you this, cold calls are always where’s this person at. How do I get around not asking them if this is a good time for them? My call is something like “This is Shanti. I’m with,” whatever company I’m with. I want to make sure that they’re the person that does the buying. If that’s the case, “Listen, I’m not going to take up too much of your time,” because my call wasn’t expected, “but I wanted to make sure you are aware of this,” then I stop and what I mean by, “You are aware of this brand, this meeting,” whatever it is.
I stop and let the silence sink in for at least 2 or 3 seconds. If they don’t say anything, I’m like, “Great, listen” because they know I’m not going to keep them. I’ve already set the pace. I’m not going to keep them that day because my main identifier on a cold call is to get the buyer’s information, to let them hear my voice, let them feel my vibe. Maybe they’ll get a little bit about my brand. I might throw out 2 or 3 key notes or bullet points about the brand. From there it’s like, “What’s your email address? I know you’re busy. Let me get your email address. I’ll send you some information and then we’ll follow back up.” My initial first call is short.
Let’s explore a few things. Let’s talk about that cold call process a bit more. Of those that you call for the first time out of the blue, you’ve never called them before and aren’t expecting your call. How many of them immediately get off the phone, hang up or rude?
It doesn’t happen. Maybe less than 1%.
Everybody who’s reading this is in the natural product space. One of the advantages that we have in this industry is that for the most part, people are doing it for the right reasons. It doesn’t mean there aren’t people who you’re going to meet them in the moment where they’re hurried or aren’t appreciating the disruption or interruption. For the most part, if you approach it in the way that Shanti does, which is all about connection first and giving people not the opt-in, that’s the risk. If you say, “Now’s a good time,” you’re giving people too much of an opportunity to opt-out, but more level setting expectations.
One of the things that is important to me with these TIG Talks is that the people that are reading or subscribing to this show walk away with actionable things. I know that there are a lot of people right now who are thinking about, how do I improve my sales reach? It’s such a different world than it was several months ago when I could have people, whether those be our employees or brokers and so forth in the stores, they’re going to be in the buyer’s office. They’re looking for ways to be able to influence their buyers and get people to buy their product to put in their stores or to make sure that promotions are being executed, etc. If you were to map out or if you were going to give advice to those people reading who are considering implementing or starting a phone effort, putting some professional effort behind phone work, how would you take them through that journey? How would you suggest that they start?
I would suggest everyone to start with a little bit of introspection. I’ve done a lot of network marketing and multilevel marketing build outs. Mindset is always the first place to start. Whatever that sounds like to anyone, you can’t avoid it. As far as beyond that, everyone’s clear that if you are doing phone work or even if you’re doing face to face work, you have to feel good. You have to be fully entrenched with what you’re doing for it to be a success, unless it’s an easy deal. You got a corporate buyer that wants what you’ve got. Stuff like that happens, which is beautiful. Stuff like that happening more, the better you feel about yourself.
To get things going or to set up a sales division in your organization, what’s that look like, the phone piece of it would be connecting with the person who’s going to be on the phone. If it’s you all that are here on the call, you can take it like this or you’re going to transfer it to some of your staff. It’s a matter of feeling good, making sure that you are identifiable with your product, your brand, your purpose and the nature of your call every time you pick up the phone. Does that mean that every time I pick up the phone, I’m saying that to myself, “I know my purpose and my intention?” No, because at a certain point, it comes into being a natural resonance. It’s going to happen as you do this.
Phone Power: Mindset is always the first place to start.
Most people are afraid to pick up the phone. There is some level of fear, anticipation, worry, “What if this person hangs up on me?” It’s important that the caller gets beyond that. Once that is done, you got to get beyond, “This person might say no to me.” All noes will eventually equal multiple yeses. We have to get through the noes first. The idea or how I would set it up would be essentially working with the telephone person, creating a little bit of a setup script. I say script because that’s what everybody can identify with. Maybe some key talking points. I want to forward because we’re in natural sales. These people are busy and they’re not expecting our calls.
Whatever we can do to make the first intro reach out short and quick. What I have found is that when I am like that, when I am going, “I’m not going to keep this person on the phone. I’m going to make sure I get their email. I got to get their email and I got to make sure I get them an email.” That’s the main thing I’m looking to do there. If I’m focused on that, it often will open up the other person. They’re like, “Tell me a little bit more about what you’ve got.” Give them the opportunity to ask you, instead of you right out of the gate throwing up your brand all over them because that doesn’t work.
What works is connectivity. What works is, “My goodness. I’m meeting a new friend. SLO co-op and this person Raymond is going to be my friend for a while because I love what I do. I love this brand. I want Raymond to know how much I love this brand because he’s my new friend too.” Wrapping it up, getting back to more of a relationship type of an effort over a sales type of an effort. I don’t like telemarketers. I know some people will call me, “I heard you’re a telemarketer.” I am a telemarketer. You don’t see my video because I don’t do video. I do phone work. Starting it off with getting the person on the phone comfortable being on the phone, comfortable with what their objective is. At that point, letting go and seeing where that positioning sets the call up for or what it sets it up for.
The key is get your mind around it and also make sure that if it’s not you, the person that you’re asking to do this is the right person to do this. A few things that I’ve learned over time and all the research says is it takes 7 to 12 conversations or touches or whatever you want to call it until you’re likely to get a transaction. It’s not about selling. From the very first time I talked to Shanti and she described herself as a phone professional, there’s a big difference between a phone professional and telemarketer. A phone professional is just that. It’s somebody who’s trying to build relationships and nurture relationships over the phone, and building a process around it and building a conversation or friendships.
Sometimes that might mean, and I’m sure this happens to you pretty regularly, Shanti, that you have a conversation with a buyer but you never spend much time talking about the product or the brand or what the ultimate goal is with them. Whether that’s to sell in a new skew or get them to buy the product for the first time. It may be that particular call is a relationship cultivation call, and you call them the next week. I want to come back and revisit all that stuff, but I want to jump into a few of these questions to make sure we get to them. The first one is, “If the buyer asks us to send an email because they don’t have the time, and they never respond to that email, what’s the best suggested follow-up?”
What I would do on that point is I do what they asked me to do, “I don’t have time, send me an email.” I’ll send an email. I will make a note for a week later, seven days out and I will call again. If I get the same response, “Shanti, I’m still busy?” I’ll say, “Great, John, did you get the email that I sent? Have you had the chance to look at it?” People tell me when they haven’t. People tell me when they have. How do I know? I don’t. I’ve got some cool CRMs where I know if people open my mail. That’s always handy when you have a CRM to let you know if people are reading your mail.
I know I have that in my pocket. Other than that, I would call again. If he says, “No, I haven’t had the chance to read it.” What I would do is resend it and in the subject line, I would put “Resend, John,” whatever the subject was. What I do with my subject lines too, and this is standard no matter who I’m working with. It’s buyer’s name, so “Elliott, I’m OC foods for the co-op” or whatever brand it is. That’s my standard. Whoever I’m talking to it’s like, “Elliot, I’m OC food for the co-op, per our conversation,” I look to personalize it. You’re not going to get away with not remembering that you talked to me and that’s not out of my arrogance. That’s out of my professionalism. This is what I do.
The other trick that I’ve learned over time too is that in the email, remind them that you’re going to remind them. That’s the other thing, “Shanti, thanks for the quick call. Following up per your request with an email. I’ll give you a few days and then I’ll circle back and give you another call to discuss this further.” That’s a very nice way of letting them know that you’re going to continue to pursue it. I’m a believer that a lot of people confused not now with no. There’s a big difference between the two. Not now is busy, “I don’t have time for this. Maybe you’re not finding me the moment in my life where I’m open to new opportunities or new ideas,” but that’s not no. That’s not now. No is, “Don’t ever call me again or I’m taking a restraining order out.” That’s no. There’s a difference. A couple of more questions, “Given the time whereby we live multiple vehicles for communication and the ability to deny calls with Caller ID, let things go to text, voice mail, etc., I feel like it’s a good sign when somebody answers the phone. Do you take that as an immediate positive opportunity and let go of any doubt or insecurity, the fact that they picked up the phone?”
I’m 100% grateful in those moments. I know that the buyer feels me elated like “You answered, great. I’m not going to keep you. This is Shanti I’m with,” whatever brand. I lead right into it. I am exalting in that moment that they picked up the phone. It dissolves all doubts.
Shanti, thanks. A follow-up question that I have is, when you do wind up in with somebody’s voicemail, do you use it? Do you leave a message? What do you do there?
Always leave a voicemail and that’s how I roll. Talk about old-school, I do all of my business on a ground line. I’m not looking at a call log. I’m not doing that in my life. When people call me and don’t leave a voicemail, I don’t call them back. I can look at a call log, but I don’t do that. If people don’t leave a message, they don’t want to talk to me. That’s how I go. That’s how I roll. I always leave a voicemail. I will make that voicemail as efficiently as I can and as expansive as I can. Something like, “This is Shanti. I’m with Real Cocoa. I wanted to make for sure that you knew about our UNFI coded brand.” Whatever it is, I will leave a voicemail, “I’m going to fish around, see if I can find your email. I’m going to send you an email and if not, rest assured I will give you a call back. My number is this.” I always tell people what why I’m calling.
Lauren has a great question here and that is, “Knowing how busy everyone is, how do you take the time to build relationship over the phone? What does that look like for you?”
It looks like this. I worked for Nutiva back in the early 2000s. This is in 2001. People that I met during that timeframe, I had about an eight-year tenure with Nutiva. I have people to this very moment that I will call and say, “Diane, it’s Shanti. I got a brand for you,” and that’s many years later. How did I develop that? I don’t know if there are rules around it, but my goal and objective is for people to want to do business with me. I desire people to love doing business with me. We’ve gone through this awakening period over the many years of people self-talk that thing, setting yourself up with positive affirmations.
Phone Power: When somebody answers the phone, take it as an immediate positive opportunity and let go of any doubt or insecurity.
People love doing business with me. That’s how I roll. Do I run across people that don’t? Of course, but it’s rare. Often, they’ve got so much drama. They can’t even feel my vibe trying to press into their world. I let those people go. As far as building the relationship goes, it’s a matter of not putting your product first. We have to do business, but letting people know. One thing that helps me turn is if I’m calling California. Here lately we’ve had the California wildfires. The conversation might lead something to, “This is Shanti. I’m with the OC Foods. I want to make sure you’re aware about our brand, but how are you guys up there? Are the fires affecting you?” Being able to pull something out of current events in the geographical location that you’re calling to help them feel that you care more about them than making sure your product gets onto their shelf.
People have said to me before, “That’s like you’re being fake. Do you really care?” I may never meet this person. A lot of these people I have in different expos and events, but if I can be nice to someone and show someone that I care, and I’ve got a minute to ask them about something, to me that’s the medicine that the world needs. It’s the medicine that every person picking up the phone and telemarketer wants to take for sure because it will help heal the whole paradigm that people have been in with sales calls. Picking up current events or locations.
It’s being human. Dell has another important question that I’d love to get your take on, “Is there a difference between calling independence and chain store buyers? Is that the same process for you?”
It’s different. Often, you can have one phone call, talk to the buyer in that same call. You might even make a deal that same call. Corporate and chains are different. I often say I’m not feeling the love. The corporate chains, depending upon the chain, you don’t feel that love as much because it became systemized and standardized. You got to send an email. Yes, there is a difference. However, maybe even a Safeway, a Vons or an Albertsons, I know that person wants an email. There’s no way we’re going to get around not sending this person an email right out of the gate, but I will call them.
Will they pick up the phone? Ninety percent chance they won’t. Sometimes they do. Again, my jaw drops. I’m like, “You picked up, great. I got a break here,” but often they don’t. Leaving the voicemail, “This is who I am. This is the purpose of my call. Look forward to some information. I’m going to send that from this email address.” It has this subject line, “John, be sure you look for that email. It’s going to be on its way in a few minutes.” Corporate is different, but the vibe thing, the ability for someone to respond to your vibe, it’s the same with corporate buyers. They’ve got a little more armor-up. They’re living under more rules and strategic alliance kinds of things other than a one-off independent or co-op.
People are people. There may be more formality. There may be more process, but building a relationship is building a relationship. Here’s a question from an anonymous attendee, “How often and how long after do you follow up a good phone call with a summary email?”
It’s five minutes. I have one in the dock. I’ve got one drafted. I hang up the phone with the person. Now I have worked because this is all about individual personal management too. Sometimes doing all of the phone work is a great idea than coming back and doing an email. The roll I’m on right now though, this is what I’m doing right now, is if I hang up the phone with the person, as long as it’s in my flow, I don’t have to take another call. I’ll send that email straight away as soon as I can. My schedule is such that it flows. It’s like a river. If I don’t do it, I don’t want it to get too far down the river. I take care of it right out of the gate.
To follow up to that, Shanti, what is your normal cadence in terms of how often do you usually reach out to buyer once you’ve established a rapport or relationship?
If I’ve got the deal, I might schedule a phone call. Once I know the product has landed, I’m always leading with, “Let me know how we can support you the best. I’m here to support you at a high level. You got to let me know how I can do that the best. You know your store better than I do. It’s important that you let me know how I can make this work so beautifully for you.” I’m always putting it back that way. If I don’t have the deal yet, a week. I’ll follow up usually weekly until they either say, “Look, not now” or “Let’s do it.”
One of the most important things and often missed is it’s all about the persistence and the follow-up. It’s making sure that you don’t let people who you’ve piqued their curiosity, or who have said not now, or haven’t made any commitment go cold by lack of follow-up. I hear that from buyers all the time. We did another episode with Saj Khan from Nugget Market. The question that was asked was, “What’s the biggest mistake made by a lot of brands?” He said, “Lack of follow-up.”
The fortune is always in the follow-up.
Lauren has another interesting question, “When you work with a brand representing them, what does that relationship look like and what is the brands part or role in that process with you?”
It looks like this. This is my deal. I’m an independent. A brand will call me if I vibe with the brand, then I’ll explore whether I want to help them come to market. When I call out first time for these individuals, because I’m not an employee of the company but people believe that I am on staff with that company. Now I do juggle a few brands. Once I’ve developed my relationship and people know that I’m legit. I’m going to honor them and make sure that I stick to my guns and do what I tell them I’m going to do. That’s when I will start to open up my other brands to that individual.
Phone Power: If someone knows you’re with the company, they feel like you’re more invested.
There’s another brand that I’m working with right now. They call me their brand educator. I work a few hours a week. I work from home. I’m not in Auckland, New Zealand where they are. What it looks like from the buyer’s end is that I’m with the company. I make for sure that every brand that I work with, and I know that other people do this, because I’m not a broker. What can happen is that people might confuse me with being a broker or doing this a little bit differently than I do it. For the most part, until that relationship is nice and flush with people, it looks like I’m from the company. I have an email address that is always with the company that I’m pitching to in that moment. I have all kinds of email addresses for the brands that I’m working with. It always looks like I am with the company and not an independent, which I personally think goes far away. I don’t know about that for sure, but in my experience, if someone knows you’re with the company, they feel like you’re more invested. That’s what I want people to feel, that I’m invested in what I’m doing.
The key that I know from my time with you is and you mentioned at the very beginning, you have to vibe with the brand. You have to believe in the brand. I want to ask my own follow-up to that. As talented as you are, you can’t clone yourself. There needs to be more people doing this if we’re going to have many brands begin to use the phone as part of their strategic approach to sales. If I’m a founder or an entrepreneur, I know it’s not going to be me. I don’t have the timeframe. I want to go out and hire somebody to represent my brand, to be the voice of my brand to buyers, etc. What are the traits that I should be looking for? How do I find that person? In your experience, what works?
It’s a head-hunting game. Everybody is in their own world doing their own thing. The things that I look for are charisma. A lot of you all have been in a store, and you want demos in your store, and you check out other demo people, how they’re demoing another brand. The things that interest you, “How is this person able to engage with me?” If someone is very fluid with information about a particular brand or topic, that is something that I would explore a little bit more. When I’m talking on the phone or people in my past, I listen to what they sound like on the phone. In other businesses that I’m a part of, that’s one of the major things because I still recruit for other business.
I’m looking if someone sounds not lively on the phone. This is not going to be the right person. It has to be someone, it comes back to the personal growth of, “I can stand in my office by myself, totally alone with a phone and a computer for six hours. This is what I’m doing.” Someone has to be able to do that and to know that that’s what they want to do. The characteristics are good personality, someone with intention, integrity, people that are into spirituality that also are okay with abundance, which is part of spirituality. If they’re doing a little bit of personal work and they have an understanding about the Law of Attraction. I know that I am going to put out into the world what I would like to get back, having an attitude of gratitude and the human thing I feel especially right now.
This is the biggest teacher from COVID is the people do love each other. We want humanity to succeed, but it’s been so unfortunate over the past however long it’s been, that we’ve lost that disconnect. Whatever we can do to regain that understanding and that energetic to develop is important. People that you like are good candidates, people that you enjoy having a conversation with. Someone who is interested in their own personal success or personal growth, those people are interested too because they’re going to be more committed.
Every bit of that is great advice. What I don’t think it is, is your prototypical salesperson. I don’t think that works anymore. The world has changed in the fact that we now have the ability to find information the way we want to seek information. Many years ago, salespeople were the source of information. If we wanted to learn more about a product, find out pricing, all of those kinds of thing, the only real way to do it was to have an interaction with the salesperson. There was that symmetry. That’s gone now because you can find it online. You can get the information. The art of sales has changed and the art of relationship building, nurturing and letting people know that they are cared for valued, heard and respected.
That’s the kind of people especially on the phone. The other point you make, that mindset of abundance and the ability to turn off the self-talk because we have made this sound wonderful. Why isn’t everyone doing this? How could you not be doing this? That is somewhat the message I’m trying to communicate here. I also don’t want to discount that it’s hard. If you take getting people getting hung up on or told that you’re too busy, or that you’re being a nuisance, or any of those things, and you internalize it and take it personally, then it’s going to be a tough and painful job. The other thing is if you bring someone into your organization as you would a physical salesperson who doesn’t embody what your brand is. If you all work so hard and building a brand that represents what you want it to and shows up in the world the way you want it to show up. You need to make sure that the people who give voice to it and who are leading relationships are doing so in a way that’s aligned with that. A couple more questions before we wrap up. Dell has another one and that is the role of data, whether it’s syndicated data from spins or anything along those lines. What role does data play in your conversations or in these kinds of conversations with buyer?
It doesn’t play a lot in candor. I wouldn’t categorize myself as a number person although I like math, but what I like to riff on often is what the brand tells me that is going on within their organization like, “I’m working with a brand right now who’s got a partner who’s going to be involved in a reality TV show.” Something like that is the kind of information that I like to share with people or, “This brand is in Sprouts across the nation.” As far as data goes, that’s about as much as I personally touch onto because I’m not doing a lot of corporate calling. My niche is in independent, mom-and-pops, small, ten or less chain stores, types of a thing. Not that I haven’t called on Publix and all the big people, that’s fine. What I’m doing right now is more geared towards what I believe based upon many years of experience is that there are gold mines in this country alone. With little one-off mom-and-pop independent stores, there is so much business. If you put the focus on developing a relationship with a smaller business, you will be in business with that person for as long as your product is available.
I want to add to that too because the other reality is with the democratization of the way product can get to customers, especially if you have the B2B capability and a wholesale part of your own website. These smaller stores will buy direct in many cases. If you make that easy for them, if you give them the ability to do it through not only credit card, but you can do it through ACH or even sending the check and invoicing, and having a good phone professional who can do that, who can sell product and not be at the mercy necessarily of a unifier KE coding, or even not wanting to do that. It’s a great way to augment it. A couple of questions before we wrap up. One from Lauren which is, what CRM do you use? I think the answer is you use the CRM if the brand uses a CRM. You become part of whatever they’re doing, correct?
That’s correct. I always recommend the CRM for anybody on the line. They are super helpful. You don’t have to go to Salesforce or huge investment, but they’re certainly helpful. Whatever the brand is using, I fold into.
We use a CRM here. We use HubSpot and I don’t think it necessarily matters which you choose, except I would tell you a few best practices. One is, the less complex, the better. The two things that are hugely important to have in any CRM, one is sequences. For example, almost to Shanti’s point, we have multiple sequences built in our CRM. A lot of them are going out to, for example, we have an investor outreach sequence or industry friends’ sequence. As much as I’d like to say that I can stay on top of shooting out an email to check in with a friend and say, “Hey, how are you doing?” Life gets in the way and it makes it difficult to do that. It is important to me that I do it and I do care. I use the CRM to help me do that. We have the sequences that we put people into. It may be every three weeks. It may be every fourteen days. They might get a simple email from me, “How you are doing?” Because I know that if I’m left to my own accord, I won’t do it. There are a lot of ways to do it.
The other is workflow so that you can set up certain workflows. If this happens, then you get this notification and so forth. I’m going to use Tony’s question as the last one, but one other question that I wanted to ask Shanti is, we talked a lot about first call, cold calls and so forth. Talk a little bit about how you can build and establish a rapport with stores at either store level or it’s still a buyer level for brands that are already doing work and already carrying product. Welfare calls and relationship calls. Explain a little bit how you might approach that.
That’s like the follow-up after the follow-up is done. After you get the business, how do you succeed and how do you carry on the business for as long as you can? Where I put my focus very frequently is on high level support and brand education. I know all of you reading, I don’t know what brand you’re with. I can imagine because you’re with Elliot, you’ve got a story and those stories go so far. All of you have something that you can share like, “Wow, this is super cool about my brand,” that I can talk about it on my brand. It’s stuff like that and educating people maybe occasionally. I always recommend to brands that I’m working with to, “Every lead I give you, I’m developing business for you.”
I would start a file and I would start a newsletter, blog, whatever you want to do to help get and garner people’s attention that you’re connecting with. Newsletters are definitely great. Ongoing training and support, once business is flowing my call rate goes to maybe 30, 60 days. It depends upon the brand and what’s happening. I would imagine, most of us on the line would work with a brand who is developing, who’s going to be adding more skews and developing their product lines. Always having that relationship, if you start it right, anytime you expand the line, you’ve got an easy in.
Phone Power: If you put the focus on developing a relationship with a smaller business, you will be in business with that person for as long as your product is available.
It’s not like, “I made the deal.” A year later, “I’m back, my brand is expanding.” That’s not what you want to do. That’s the energy that will turn a buyer off. Along the way, being able to share like you would a friend, because this person is a friend to our brand. They want to be friends with us because they might get deals from us. We might have something in our pocket. If they have a good relationship with us, they might get it. Buyers are always looking for all kinds of perks and stuff like that. I like to give the buyers anything that they want, as long as it’s in the budget of the company. I don’t mean like give the farm away.
I’m like, “You want some samples? Great. You’ve got somebody you’ll do passive demos. Awesome, I’m going to send you some samples.” Whatever it is, but ongoing stuff is real. Being able to garner all of the information that you collect from these people and carry out a conversation. When we’re talking about building relationships, it’s not like you’re going to be marrying this person. Let go of that. You’ve got five minutes with this person. Make those five minutes as effective, as fluid and as compassionate as you can. Identify with the person. We’re all together in this. Identify them and see how you can take it moving forward.
Before I ask my last question, I want to read something that Bernice sent. She said, “Shanti’s who I want to be when I grow up.” Tanya is going to bring us home with this last question and that is, “Shanti, are you for hire as a salesperson or trainer for a sales team?”
I am not available right now for a hire for sales. Elliot is so kind, he’s brought me some of the most incredible brands. I am learning on my own personal growth of I can’t take more than I can truly handle. I can’t because one thing about what I do is it helps that I have time for myself. That helps to keep my mindset and my vision where it needs to be. However, I can offer training, consulting and that type of a thing. I’m a very simple professional. What I do is it’s totally doable by anybody. I don’t have any copyrights or anything like that on anything that I do. If you feel like you’d want to spend some time with me or I could help you with answering questions and that type of a thing, I would be happy to have all of those considerations with anybody that Elliot would send my way.
For anyone reading, if you are interested in introduction to Shanti, reach out to me directly, I’ll be happy to make that. Shanti, thanks. I knew this would be a cool episode. It’s important that brands think differently and start thinking seriously about adding this as one of the arrows in their quiver of sales. The brands that do will outperform the brands that don’t. I appreciate you joining. I appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences. Thanks, everyone, for being a part of this.
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