2099 – The Role of Process and Personalization in Sales with marcusevans Group’s Geoffrey Reid

0:05Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, influencers, influencers, and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt-in required where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments.

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1:05With us right now, Jeffrey M. Reid. Jeffrey, you are the CEO of Marcus Evans Group, but you are also a consultant. You are a professor. You are a best-selling author, and you're a speaker. Your book is The Revenue Catalyst, Mastering the Art of Sales. Really excited to talk about this topic. Your website is JeffreyMReid.com. Jeffrey, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Josh. Such a pleasure to be here. Yeah. Yeah. Well, give us, you know, I kind of teed you off here, but I'd love to hear in your words, your impact today, what you do in the world. Yeah, well, look, it's been quite a journey because, as you mentioned, up until taking on the venture of my book, I've been CEO of Marcus Evans for the last 10 years.

1:55And prior to that, went from fundamentally sales executive with no experience in sales to someone that could write a book about sales. So there was quite a journey in between about that. And it really, it started with my work, you know, shortly after graduate school when I was a younger man. I entered a consulting group with a bunch of older, very credentialed lawyers and mediators. and we set up a really strong business at a time where there was the market conditions were right everything was was was perfect but getting into that business it was pretty clear quite quickly that nobody really knew anything about sales and and I wondered why and look after having done that and I would say it was a successful venture rather than pausing and shifting into another the next phase of my career, I decided to pause a little bit and really explore why this was.

2:57Why did nobody know anything about sales? And what I realized is there really is a lack of sales education. If you look at how any business school is structured, people are in finance, accounting, human resources, and marketing. And whilst there is some sales in marketing education, it really is a different venture. How does someone generate revenue? Do they obligate people to buy for them? Do they go to a convention and shake a lot of hands? Do they strictly use their network? How do they build up those networks so that it's valuable? So this led me down a journey of really trying to look for some very strong sales experience that could help fill this void in my credential.

3:37And that helped me stumble upon Marcus Evans, which was reputedly extremely strong in sales. And as it turns out, I was good at it. I had other things to offer and that helped me grow to the top of the organization and have an opportunity to develop a global and contribute to a global workforce of people who could also do the same thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, I'm really excited to talk about your book. I mean, first off, I mean, I would love to talk about your state of the union, if you could give one, regarding where we are in sales. It's my belief, And I'll just kind of start with this and I'll let you kind of take the ball and run with it, is I believe that there are fundamentals that I think are pretty tried and true that I think have been incredibly relevant forever.

4:28And then I also believe that there are likely things that have evolved pretty, I mean, they've been evolving, but I feel like there's been some evolutions that have been quite abrupt over the past maybe five, six years or so. But I don't know if that's true for you, but maybe you could kind of give us a lay of the land. Yeah, look, I think I've heard different people talk about different assumptions when it comes to sales. Are salespeople are born? Are salespeople made? Recently, I had a conversation with someone who referenced the movie, Glenn, Gary, and Ross, which really professed that salespeople are born, not made.

5:11And I would argue that that's probably the biggest myth in sales. Look, sales takes courage. It takes proactivity. It takes drive. But we all have these attributes. And these are things that need to be developed in people. But when one is strictly relying upon their so-called talent when it comes to their ability to schmooze and speak to people, in many ways, it's a non-renewable resource in the sense that it's hard to replicate. It really does remain with that particular individual. So, and it is true that there has been a changing of people's understanding of sales over years that organizations have to become better and better and better in order to be able to achieve the same results.

5:54So fundamentally, what I profess in the book is the need to develop processes that are replicable and be able to measure data and performance in a way that allows us to make isolated, nimble adjustments along the way to find a way of optimizing sales. um look in business for whatever reason there is this assumption that there's a much greater control over costs than there is over revenues and uh and and that's because when you look at costs we're looking in the future and saying how much are we going to sell and that's a that could be pretty daunting uh exercise if one doesn't have a methodology um what what what i feel is available now and what i write about in the book is the ability to uh lay out a series of processes that are fundamental, that can be taught to a broad range of people, that can be tested so that by making small adjustments and measuring the data, one can optimize sales and have predictable revenues and be able to reverse engineer people's incomes if they're rewarded by those sales revenues.

7:00This would apply to businesses and this would apply to entrepreneurs. It really is a universal opportunity I feel that we have in 2024 with all the runway that we have behind us. Yeah. So Jeffrey, you know, an area that I spend a lot of time in is going to be folks that are doing more. Like we work with a lot of B2B service providers, a lot of higher ticket type engagements. Usually there's some longer sales cycles involved. But, you know, what we really love is working with the type of professional who is very consultative and relationship focused in their approach to sales. Any thoughts on that topic about approach?

7:43You know, you had mentioned Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, right? And so my biased view is that that is absolutely a relic. Does it work in maybe some timeshare environment? Sorry, I don't mean to be bad mouth in a certain sector, but my other persona is that of a consumer advocate and expert. So I do have some biases on this. But I'd love your take on this concept or this thought. Look, 100 % of things have evolved to the point that there are a lot of issues with the stigmas around sales where people don't trust the of us that they're getting from salespeople and that they're not and that people are in it for the money or people are in it for themselves.

8:24and being able to squash those stigmas, which I think do relate back to the lack of sales education. You know, business schools do make sales the career of last resort in business because they have very much to offer to it. And so there are so many stigmas. But getting out from underneath that type of rock and being able to say, look, this is an important exercise and being able to go out and ask, you know, sales is all about asking questions and it's all about finding out about the needs of the clients and being able to uncover what they could be doing better in a unique way through deliberative exercises and being able to tell them that maybe something isn't good for them and having the courage because you want to build a sustainable relationship.

9:07These are all aspects that are opportunities that we have now if things are approached correctly. But the problem is with a lack of sales education, when we're children, we're taught to be persuasive. You know, please, please, please buy me this, buy me that to our parents that we become teenagers. Let's go here. Let's go there. And then when people go out to sell without the right amount of education, you know, often they're out doing things in a in a haphazard way that that is buy from my uncle obligating people to sales or, you know, or I call you every month, you know, buy from me. that, you know, that's not a meritorious way of being able to present oneself, whereas where salespeople have the opportunity to add a lot of value to the decision making and propel companies forward in their ability to achieve what they want, if we harness those opportunities.

9:58You know, I believe that, you know, and I share this, you know, much like entrepreneurialism, business leadership, that sort of thing. I think overall, I mean, obviously, there's always new challenges and new opportunities as we go. But I think generally, you know, when you find something, you get good at it, you master the mundane, you master those simple repetitions. I do like to let beginning salespeople know or beginning entrepreneurs know. I say generally on the whole, I need to let you know that it is going to get easier for you overall. You're still going to have ups and downs, but you're going to find that so much becomes innate.

10:39And I'm wondering, that obviously is a big part of this. And I don't know that you can necessarily teach innateness other than, you know, the activity knowledge is going to be so much more powerful. Like we need the learned knowledge, right? But it's applying that and testing that and getting the wisdom. It's, you know, we, it's like, well, I did that. It turned out okay. And so that reinforces that it's okay to ask for a follow-up conversation. Whereas before you may have been uncomfortable with that. I know that was, you know, one of the things I struggled with sometimes is I felt like, well, if I ask for a follow-up conversation, they're going to think that I'm being pushy or audacious.

11:16And I'm like, no, if my heart is truly in providing value first and just showing up in a way that I can be of greatest service, then no one would ever. So it took me a few times in practicing that. And then sure enough, I got comfortable with that thing. And so I'm saying, Again, a long, long, long, long question to just talk about maybe the value of experience, doing the thing and activity. Look, you're spot on when it comes to the importance of practice because nobody really knows how to do this. And that is why being able to work with a structured system, you know, which might start with, you know, how does one create a pitch that is going to be layered and intriguing and sensible?

11:58And then how does one test the, you know, make small little adjustments to the things that we have under our control when we are presenting things? You know, our tone, you know, is it a needy tone or is it a neutral tone or is it a rapport breaking tone? You know, these are all things that we need to consider. The pace at which we describe things, once we have the perfect pitch, you know, do we speed it up to create information entry? Do we slow it down to create pauses and awkwardness? you know around information and then be able to give up more you know how do we how do we use silence as an effective thing to create awkwardness and and then continue and so all these little decisions are variables that go into a perfect presentation what's amazing have have tested that then we can replicate it you know practice it 10 000 times as malcolm gladwell might yes might say and and and then all of a sudden the information becomes knowledge and and i do sort of end the book with that, where I, you know, after having done this for so long, you know, I could be on the sidelines listening to one of my best salespeople is saying, and I know exactly what they're going to say, where they're going to go, because it's a methodology, it's universal, and it's been tested so many times that it is the highest impact way of using that time at any given moment.

13:19And that's where we kind of get to after going through this learning curve. Yeah. Jeffrey, I want to use the last handful of minutes that we've got here. I want to talk about your book very specifically, and then I'd really love to talk about the work that you do. So for a friend that's listening to this conversation, you may be of help to them in more ways than once. Can we start by talking about the revenue catalyst specifically and kind of what the transformation that may take place, you know, if they really dig into this? And by the way, congratulations on the launch, or at least paperback I see went live just a couple months ago.

13:59So congratulations on that. Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, there's been good momentum and really good feedback. And look, really what I've tried to do is approach the book from the point of view is, you know, what if, you know, as a former university professor, as someone who used to teach graduate school, I really approached it. If I had to build a fifth dimension of sales school, you know, business school beyond finance, accounting, marketing and human resources, how would I build a sales division? And I really wanted to be able to take this and sell sales from scratch, you know, starting off with, you know, simple things like product positioning.

14:33You know, are we creating a scarce product or an abundant product? You know, how are we positioning it in the market? You know, where, you know, are we using IP and branding to be able to establish our value? Or are we, you know, like, you know, are we having to build all that up and use salesmanship as the driving force of everything to educate people? Like, these are really two, you know, different extremes. And then how do we choose a sales process? Is the sales process one that's persuasive? please buy my product, like, you know, like a lot of people are taught to just be a little bit too needy on sales, you know, whereas when you really reflect on it, some of the best sales processes are invisible, you know, banks and universities sell, you know, when a bank will say, why should we give you the loan, you know, a university will say, why should we admit you into our institution, and then it's up to you to prove to them, and so it's more of a resistance model, and between those two extremes of persuasiveness and resistance lies a smorgasbord of options that we have at our disposal and making good choices.

15:37You know, when the processes are pure, the outcomes tend to be pure and predictable. And it really takes perspective around all of that. You know, in addition to that, how to build a high performance sales team, how to develop that sales team, and how to evolve over time, and how to do high probability prospecting, and then how to apply state-of-the-art processes and closing techniques to really be able to maximize and know, am I going to close one out of every five qualified prospects that I target? Or is it one in 10? Or is it one in 20? And how do we improve upon that? So taking all of these things into account is kind of the journey that the book takes.

16:15And then for people along the way who already have established sales processes, sometimes a fresh set of eyes, you know, is a good thing. So one of the things that I've been asked to do a lot of time is just come in and watch and look and listen and see if there are obvious improvements that could have a massive impact on a business's, you know, revenue stream. And they're just simple things along the way that can be done that can have, you know, 10, 20, 30 % upticks on sales just by having that look. So these sales audits are the things that I'm, And, you know, I'm doing more, you know, more and more looks at.

16:53And it really seems to bring a lot of value, you know, and a tangible way of being able to increase revenues. And I think that's where everything is going as a result of the book. Yeah. Well, listen, Jeffrey, while we were, sorry, I was kind of looking at my, I don't know if you noticed me kind of looking away. I was buying your book while we were talking. So I just got it on Kindle. Obviously, it's on Amazon. But to our friend that's listening, go to JeffreyMReid.com. And that's where you'll see a lot more about the book. There's a link. You know, I like this book that you did or the link you did because it'll automatically, this is very cool of you.

17:30It's Select a Country. I've never seen this before. But what I'm just going to say is to our friend, go to JeffreyMReid.com, click on book, and you can see what I'm talking about with kind of the language or country selection. That's kind of cool. You have a very international audience. And Jeffrey, talk about like someone who should probably reach out regarding maybe services or inquiring about a speaking opportunity, that sort of thing. Yeah, everyone can do that through the website. And I'll be quite responsive to that. If anyone, you know, did want even just a fresh look at what they're doing to see if there are even any room for improvements, I'd be happy to have a look at that.

18:07It would just be a matter of inquiring through the website. You can either write my email directly or there's a little form there that's been prepared. And that, you know, look, if there is an opportunity to improve anyone's sales by having a fresh look and really applying state-of-the-art methodologies that have not always been shared, that's certainly something that we have the capacity to be able to take on. And happy to look at that, you know, just to really see if there is potential for that. Yeah. Jeffrey M. Reid, again, your consultant, a longstanding CEO, again, professor, speaker, and author.

18:50The book, again, is called The Revenue Catalyst, Mastering the Art of Sales. Of course, it's all over Amazon, but you can also get to it by just simply going, Jeffrey, to your website, JeffreyMReid.com. To our friend that's listening, click around in your podcast app, click on the cover, click on where it says details, show notes, information, whatever. ever click there and we'll have a direct link so you can open it up directly in your phone but jeffrey emery thank you so much great conversation thank you for the work that you're doing um and helping great people get great business done really appreciate it just for all fronts and uh look forward to the next time

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