Episode 106: Stop Acting Like a Seller and Start Thinking Like a Buyer
Jerry Acuff
Jerry is the Founder & CEO of Delta Point, a sales consulting company that works with sales leaders to implement innovative ways to market and be effective in today’s crowded marketplace. Delta Point's client list includes 20 of the top 100 companies in the world. Here are just a few highlights from Jerry’s career: - Ranked one of the top 5 sales experts in the world - Named one of the 50 Best Salespeople of all time - Awarded the International Strategic Consulting Company of the Year 2 years running - Trained sales teams for 15 of the top 100 brands in the world - Increased market share for a brand by 36% resulting in $360M in new business - Exceeded client’s forecast by $130M in the first year.
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Anytime somebody says something to you that you don't understand, here's what you say. You have me at a competitive disadvantage.
Those, that exact, those words.
You have me at a competitive disadvantage. And they will say, well, what do you mean? I said, well, I have no idea why you said what you said. And his response was, your company has never done a drug study with me.
My response was, have they ever asked you? He said, yeah, they did. And I said, so why are you mad at me? Good. And that was the beginning of our relationship.
You're listening to Prospecting on Purpose, where we discuss all things, prospecting, sales, business, and mindset. I'm your host, Sara Murray, a sales champion, who's here to show you that you can be a shark in business and still lead with intentionality and authenticity. Tune in each week as we dive into methods to connect with clients, communicate with confidence, and close the deal.
Jerry Acuff is the founder and CEO of DeltaPoint, a sales consulting company that works with sales leaders to implement innovative ways to market and be effective in today's crowded marketplace. DeltaPoint's client list includes 20 of the top 100 companies in the world, and here are just a few highlights from Jerry's career.
Ranked one of the top five sales experts in the world, named one of the best 50 salespeople of all time, awarded the International Strategic Consulting Company of the Year, two years running, Trained sales teams for 15 of the top 100 brands in the world exceeded clients forecast by 130 million in the first year and he is also the author of four business books, including Stop Acting Like a Seller and Start Thinking Like a Buyer, which is one of the topics we're going to get into today.
Jerry, welcome to Prospecting on Purpose.
Well, thank you for having me Sara. Really appreciate it.
I'm really excited about our conversation because I know that we have probably a similar viewpoint with sales and especially when it comes to authenticity. But with your background and your expertise, I am just going to be a sponge today and learn from you today and I know that our audience will feel the same. So I really appreciate coming on the show.
Well, I appreciate you too.
Well, let's just jump right into what does it actually mean to stop acting like a seller and start thinking like a buyer?
Have you read Jeremy Miner?
No.
You should read Miner, read one of his books. I was reading one of his books on an airplane in New Jersey. In there, he said, stop acting like a seller, start thinking like a buyer. The reality is I said, that makes all the sense in the world. What kills me is if that's true, if you stop acting like a seller and you start thinking like a buyer, then why are we teaching people to be aggressive? So it's idiotic. I mean, essentially what you want to do is you want them to want to, hey, listen to what you have to say which means you might be fairly clever when you open the call. And then secondly, you want to try and find out what they think. I had a customer tell me one time, this is one of the most profound things the customer ever said to me.
I was working with a sales rep and I made the call. He says to me before we go to the call, you will never sell this stuff. I said I don't want to sell. I just want to try and find out, you know, how does he typically think about our product. So I go and I ask him some questions and at the end of it, I said, look, the next time, you know, sales rep comes, I'll have him tell you why you ought to think about our product a little more often.
He said, well, no, I want you to, and I said, I'm not going to tell you. I promise you when I came in here, I wasn't going to sell you. He said, look, you're not leaving till you tell me. Now I'm thinking, is this guy going to fight or something? I mean, come on. So I said, really, I promise you I wouldn't do it.
He said, no, I really do want you to tell me. And I said, well, can I argue it? And he said, yeah, you can argue with me. And I said, well, you said this, and I would say that that's not exactly the way I see it. Now, if you want to know how I see it, I'll be happy to tell you. He said, no, no, no. I want to know. So I tell him, he was a doctor and we're talking about a prescription product and he picks up the phone, he calls the hospital and he asked me, okay, how do I dose this product?
I just told him and he said, okay, tell the nurse. Okay. I want you to take them off that, put them on this spot. And then the next thing he hung up and he called and said, on their standing orders, anybody who comes in here with community-acquired pneumonia, I want them to get this product. And then he hung up and he said this, he said, you know, you got a great rep here, but he's never made me think.
Interesting.
I said, Oh my goodness, that is our job. We are got to get them to think. Because they go in with a, it's not like they're, they're, they're bad people. It's just that they have a mindset about,You know what they historically have believed. And when you can challenge them in a kind way, man, I asked for permission, can I argue with you
And he said, I said, well, this is what you say is important. And I would submit to you that I said, well, let me ask you another question. I said, when you're sitting at the nurse's station and you're trying to decide what product to put them on, at what point in time do you absolutely unequivocally know what, what the pathogen, well, I never know.
And I said, that's my point. I said, you're using is not going to get all of these bacteria. Our product will. So anyway, my point is I want to think like the customer, but you can't think like the customer until you find out what the customer thinks.
Right. And I have, I have a couple of comments on that, Jerry, because I think that we have this misperception that sellers have to know everything and be an expert and it's insulting. If you go to your client who went to medical school and act like, you know what they think, like you don't know. And I think there's a lot of like strength and power and asking those questions and I liked the other comment that you made that you have to get them to listen to you first. Can we, can we talk about that a little bit? Like give us a little bit of orientation on how do we get people to listen to us?
Well, I mean, you're going to have to capture people's interests and you know, my view of the world is, is I'm not very complex. I mean, you know, I got a degree in English. You know, from the Virginia Military Institute, I was on academic probation every semester, except the 1st and the last, and, um, I had no science background.
I didn't think anybody would ever hire me to do anything scientific, but, but I did, I did learn a lot that people are not going to listen to you and they think, unless they think you've got something to actually say to them, that makes them want to understand. And so I say, basically, people fall into two categories.
One is people have a relationship with. So if I have a relationship with you, then the opening is going to be different than if I don't have a relationship with you. If you don't have a relationship, we have to say something that's thought provoking, grabs their attention. So it doesn't have to be anything complex.
Now, one of the things that you've talked about, and I love this too, because I think it's 100 percent true. An I teach everybody that I work with, you have to be your authentic self. Just because Jerry says it this way doesn't mean you have to say it this way. You have to say what makes you comfortable.
But it's not hard to say, can we do something different today? See, when you say that, then they'll hear that. And they'll say, what do you want to do? Because their curiosity's picked, right? And then I say, well, I don't want to sell you anything today. And the moment you say that, then sales resistance goes down and I say what I'd like to do, if it's okay with you. And if you don't have time, that's fine. Because I'm always giving them opportunities to back out.
I like that.
I say, what I'd like to do is to try and get some insight about how do you typically, now typically and ordinarily are two words that are far, far, far misused or not used enough in selling. How do you typically approach this situation? When you say typically, they know exactly what you're talking about. And if you ask a question and the answer to the question is, it depends. I don't know. You ask a lousy question.
Yeah. Okay. That's ooh, that's good too.
So what I try and do is to say, look, I just try to be me. I say, look, I got a degree in English. I'm not sure I'd listen to a thing I have to say. I said, but I, but I do have some interest in this topic and I'd love to have a conversation with you. Is that okay? So I'm, I'm big on asking permission.
Yeah, well, I liked what you, so I want to break that down. So you asking, I want to do something different.
So that automatically peaks the interest. Then you tell them you're not selling anything on this first one. And that moves resistance. And then you're asking permission throughout and giving them opt outs. I also really liked what you said, Jerry, about, you know, how do you typically approach this. That's such a helpful framework.
If you're getting the answer, it depends, or I don't know, you're asking bad questions or not efficient questions. So I appreciate kind of these, these tips that we're getting into, because I like the nitty gritty stuff. Can you give us some examples of what makes a really great question?
Well, there's three elements to a great question. The first one is intent. And 10 is why are you asking the damn question?
Just that's such a good one to ask ourselves to.
Yes. Why are you asking it? I mean, you know, there's certain things that you don't really need to know. The next thing is, what do you want to know? What do you want to know? So if I want to know, how do you typically youu know, decide on which vendor to use for sales training. Okay. I'm going to ask that question now. I'm going to, then I'm going to create what I think is the most important part is, how am I going to ask it so that you want to answer it?
Ooh, that's a good, that's a good framework.
So it's intent, content and then it's getting the customer to actually want to listen to what you have to say. So, and oftentimes what you have to do is you have to, you have to give them the feeling, and it has to be genuine, that you don't care what the answer is. I could care less. And sometimes it's, it can be very, very simple.
I mean, I remember when I first started in the pharmaceutical business and I was going to the university of Virginia and I was a dog in the wrong pen. But, the guy who wrote the book on infectious disease, a guy named Gerald Mandel, he was big shot at UVA. He's a big fan. You go, go in almost any doctor's office and they'll have his book on the shelf.
And so my boss said, you got to go meet this guy. Now. You know, I'm 27, 28, whatever I am, and you know, and I'm talking to this guy who's a national hero. So I walk in and here's what he says to me. I hate your company
Oh, no. That's how starts this conversation?
Yeah, well, but I'm about read, to tell something that I hope a lot of people will understand
Anytime somebody says something to you that you don't understand, here's what you said. You have me at a competitive disadvantage. Those that exact those words, exact words, you have me at a competitive disadvantage. And they will say, well, what do you mean? I said, well, I have no idea why you said what you said.
And his response was, your company has never done a drug study with me. My response was, have they ever asked? He said, yeah, they did. And I said, so why are you mad at me? And that was the beginning of our relationship.
Oh my gosh. But what I like about that is I think most people, probably myself included, would go back on our heels and then you go in a defense mode instead you got curious and asked questions.
Well, I had one doctor that told me he was going to write a letter to the food and drug administration to have our drug removed from the market. It had only been out for two months. So he called my rep and he said, have your boss be over here tomorrow morning. He had 17 internists in his practice.
He was the head one. We walk in and he walks in and he says, says, I want you to know That I'm going to write a letter to the Food and Drug Administration to have your drug removed from the market. Now, what did I say? I said, you have made a competitive disadvantage. He said, what do you mean? I said, well, I have no idea why you said what you said.
He said, I put five people on your drug and four of them died. Now, what's the next question? I said, well, you're sitting at the nurse's station trying to decide what product to put them on. At that moment in time, how did, how many did you think would die? He said, well, I thought they'd all die. I said, would you repeat that?
He said, I thought they would all say, so you're telling me that you have a patient live today because you chose our product. I gotta be honest with you. I don't think that makes it a bad product. Now, you have to report that to the FDA. Absolutely. You have to do that. I said, but there's also another question here and that is.
When these patients have that degree of sickness, you might want to think about using this product a little bit earlier and this guy became one of our biggest prescribers. I think a lot of it is, first, you have to think when you're selling, you know, and so I'm saying to myself, what if he had said, I thought one would die.
Then my response would have been, then let's get this damn thing off the market. So I don't know what his answer is, but what I know is I need more information to ascertain whether do I have a problem or is this something that actually can be mitigated. But I think the way you get people's interest is number one, we use, you know, mystery, surprise and curiosity.
If I come in and say, you know, I'm driving over here today and I can't stop thinking of two things that you said to me last time I'm here and they're just bothering me. Shut up. They're going to say, well, what happened? Now I'm going to have to have had that situation. Right? But, you know, that's mystery surprise is, you know, I want to do something different today.
And they're going to say, well, what is it? Cause they're, they're expecting you, if they've been calling it, if you've been, you know, talking to them over any length of time, they're going to expect that you're going to be at the same sort of, you know, pitch that you ha d before. Now, my bias is I don't care if you everybody, because if, if you don't have a real use for it, I got no business selling it to you.
One of the things that I find Sara, that is most. Now, maybe I'm the only idiot in the world that feels this way. If, when I asked organizations and I'm talking about big ones, I'm talking about ones with big time names. You wouldn't know when I asked the question, do you have an organizational definition of selling ou know what the answer to that is 95 percent of the time.
What? I'm sure.
It's stupid though. The first place I learned this 30 years ago is selling is two things. Selling is teaching and every successful sale, some education takes place. Now we're not preaching to them, but we should be asking questions that uncover do they have a legitimate issue or not? The second thing is selling is finding out what people want and helping them get it. Now here's the big problem. Most people don't know what they want, but they think they do. So our job is to actually resurface that. I used to have a house in Flagstaff, Arizona, and we had one in Scottsdale.
And when we bought the house up in Flagstaff, I wanted to get a printer because I wanted to spend some time up there and I want to be able to print documents and stuff. And so I go to Lowe's, I mean, not Lowe's, Staples. Walk in the door, 21 year old kid got a town. I'm sure he went to Northern Arizona university and he says, are you looking for anything in particular?
He didn't say, can I help you? Are you looking? And I said, yeah, I'm looking for a print. He said, let me show you where they are. I said, sure. So he shows me where they are. There's six of them. And he said, here they are. He said, these three, you know, for, like, printing and these here are for, like, you know, photos and he says, so what are you going to use a printer?
And I said, well, I'm going to use 1. I'm not going to do photos. And he said, well, these 3 of the ones that I would recommend, because they're typically for that. And then he starts to walk away and I said, but get back here. I said, if you were me, which one of these would you buy? He said, well, kind of candidly, I'd buy the one in the middle and I said, well, why would you choose that? He said, cause it's clear. You don't know what the hell you're doing. And, he said that one is the easiest one to actually put together and make it work. And I said, okay, well then put it in the cart. So then he asked me this question. Now this is brilliant. He says, is your house one story or two?
I said, it's two stories. He said, well, let me ask you this question. Do you think, where are you going to put this thing? And so I'm gonna put it in, you know, in the bottom of the house in a spare bedroom, you think it'd ever be upstairs with the computer and you want to print downstairs? And I said, yeah, I said, do you have a router?
I said, I don't even know what a router is. And he said, well, a router would enable you if you were sitting in the kitchen, you could, you could print on the, and I said, we'll put that in the thing and he said, what do you have, do you have cables for it? I said, look, pal, if I don't know what a damn router is, I certainly don't have cables.
But my point is I walked in there thinking, and I'm a reasonably intelligent man, I mean, my transcript doesn't show that, but, I never thought about to that level of depth. But to me, that is the embodiment of what great sales is, is finding out what people want and helping them get it. Now, if I said, I don't give a darn about whether I can print or not, then he would have said, all right, you don't need a router. But anyway, I got a router and I used that thing until I sold the house.
Oh, the wireless printer is amazing. And it's funny because I think, I love that example because it's so simple, but it shows it can be stretched simple or it can be stretched to really complex, long sales processes. And I liked that he was just being himself. He gave you a little sass.
And I wanted to hire the guy when I left.
You just never know on his side too, you know, I think you never know who's coming in the door.
Where do they teach that? I mean, everybody, you know, when you go into any retail store, they say, you know, can I help you? You know, this guy said, you know, are you looking for anything in particular? And I'm thinking, well, that's a really good answer.
I mean, I'm going to guess he probably started by saying, can I help you? And just nowhere. And he got bored at work and let's mix it up and try something new. And I think that's really what differentiates like the great sellers from the good sellers is the people that get curious and they want to continue to like practice and grow. Like he was probably just viewing you as practice. He had nothing to lose if you didn't buy anything.
But he was really good. But, um, but to me, that's, to me, I want my, my company has a definition of selling and so to selling is teaching, selling is finding what people want and helping them get it.
But most people don't know what they want because they don't know what's available. And the job of the salesperson is to enlighten them about an offering or an opportunity that they never thought about because they've just never thought about. It's not that they have any malice. It's just that, hey, I didn't understand it.
So I think that's probably. Let's just like those examples I gave you, those other people, they just never thought of it that way. Yeah. Our job is to actually reorient their thinking, and if it's, if their thinking is not right, they'll come to their own conclusion.
Right. And talk a little bit about selling as teaching too, because I think that, That's a nice reframe instead of like pushing people to buy our stuff. If you look at it as that, I'm educating my industry. I'm educating my prospects. I'm a guide to my customers or my clients. That's such a helpful way to change it if people have resistance to, you know, being salesy.
Yeah. Well, I think most people have lots of resistance to salespeople, but the first place I, I like to, I, Hey, look, I would say this. If you, if you look at the sales process and you start with the opening, you go to the closing, etc. there's only one thing is standard in every one of those steps, it's asking questions. You ask questions during, you know, the objections, you ask questions to try and understand how they think.
But you have to get them to want to have this conversation with you. But in my mind, you just simply have to go in and say, look, I'm not sure that our product makes any sense for you or not. And I won't know until I get some information from you. Is that okay? I like what I call permission-based questions.
I want to ask their permission that I can, you know, have this, this, this exercise. And if I, that's why something as simple as, can we do something different today? It works all the time because nobody else says it. Typically it's, it's what Brendan Kane says in his book, hook point. It's pattern interruption that makes them want to learn more.
New you also have to use phrases like, I know there's a good reason why you don't think about our product a little more often. Can you help me understand what that might be? So one of the things that I'm really big on with documents on this, how do you use soft words? Very often salespeople use hard words.
So for example, and I learned this from my wife, one word that you, in my mind is probably verboten, the Germans would say is ‘should’, my wife does not respond to should, and neither do customers. Yeah. So I use phrases like, you might want to think about this. You know, there, this might be an option for some of your, I'm actually doing the thing right now for a client where they want me to create their openings.
Now, several things about openings. One is you got to try and get their attention and that's mystery, surprise, and curiosity. And this is how you use the words that actually gets you into the conversation. But you also have to sound like you're not trying to sell them anything because you really aren't what you're really trying to do, especially early on in the sales process is trying to understand what the heck do they think?
I don't know what you think. I mean, I remember being with one of my reps one time and she was wonderful. And she asked me to make this call on this doctor, and I went with her. I asked him three questions. And at the end of the third question, I said, look, doc, it was great to meet you. And he said, you're not going to tell me about your product.
I said, no. He said, why? I said, because you don't have any use for it. He said, well, no one's ever done that to me before. And I said, well, I'm going to do it today because you don't have the kinds of patients that would benefit from our product. So I'm wasting your time and candidly, I'm also wasting mine.
So when I got out, when I got out, in this woman's name, but data, she says, well, when do I, you know, when do I go back? I said, you don't go back beneath it. So maybe go back once a year in case this practice, you know, has had changes demographically, but we're not for everybody. Our products are not for everybody.
I'll give you a simple example. Years ago, one of the biggest, and I can't tell you what the product is, but one of the biggest products in the history of the pharmaceutical business over the last 20 something years, they asked me to go find out that 2 other products that they had 2 products that were competing against.
They were the 3rd problem. The other 2 products were once. Every, every week, four times a month, this one was once every other one. So they asked me to tell them, how do we make our difference in dosing matter? So we'll just put me in front of a doctor that did registration trials. And I'll come back and tell you what I think.
So I go see this guy in Phoenix. Nice guy. I asked him a couple of questions and I knew the first question I asked, I knew exactly what his response would be, but I thought I'd ask it anyway. And, it was about the efficacy of the products, which you couldn't tell because none of the drugs had been studied against each other.
So I said, well, let me ask you this question. I said, the, the only real difference between these two products is once, you know, twice a month and the other ones are once every four weeks, I said, just out of curiosity now, I know when I go in that his market share is 10 percent of this. Okay. That means 90 percent of the time he's not using.
I said, so let me ask you, I said, if you were me, how would you sell this? And he said, well, I tell you exactly what I do. He said, you know, your biggest advantage is the fact that you only have to give it twice a month. And I said, well, what percentage of the patients that you typically treat would you say that would be meaningful for? He said, I don't know, probably 30 to 40%. Now, what do I know his share is?
10%.
So I said, is that reflected in your prescribing him? He said, no, but it should be, shouldn't it? I said, I'm not answering that question. I said, I got a degree in English. And I don't think you should be taking advice from me.
I'm not a doctor.
I said, but my question is this what specifically can you do to make sure that that percentage of your population actually gets an offering for this? And he called in his nurse. He said, all right, here's what we're going to do. And he told her exactly what he was going to do. Now, what's interesting, this was in the first six months of this product's launch. And if you look at the product later on, it was the number one product history until a couple of other drugs came back. The share was 37. This is exactly what he told me 20 years ago.
Wow. Well, what's kind of what is so helpful about these examples, Jerry, is you're showing that you're like the guide for them, but they're almost selling
Like it sells itself when you position it that way. And that's one thing I've really noticed too. There's been times where you go into a presentation and say, Hey, you know, tell me a little bit abou yourr business model. Tell me a little bit about what projects you're working on. And when you just start out by asking questions and getting curious, and I liked some of your language there, like, you know, how do you typically do this?
I'm curious to learn from you this. What I've noticed is once you kind of get into product stuff, sometimes the customers start selling it on your behalf. I've seen, like, the owner of an architecture firm turn and say, this would be great on this project because blah, blah, blah. And I'm taking, you know, mental notes.
Like, I got to follow up and use that in the next presentation. But I think that there's so much, Power to this. And I also think that this is really likead varsity team stuff, you know, the folks that listen to this podcast, I think that they have a knowledge for learning and growing. So I consider every listener a varsity player.
But one of the things that I want to talk to you about, because you talked abou soft words and just, you know, being mindful of the language, and how you use that with your clients. What are some tips you can give us when it comes to like the mindset of sales and kind of, that words matter conversation there?
Yeah. I always start by telling everybody that you have to be your authentic self. I mean, I may be one of the top sales experts in the world, but I mean, I'm just a redneck from Memphis, you know, and I do what I do and I do it because it's who I am. And you have to be who you are. So don't get, you know, don't get tied around the axle here about exact language and stuff.
Ask yourself, what are you comfortable saying? And then what are you comfortable asking? And the other thing is, you know, I write in my, this book, Stop Acting Like a Seller. In the first chapter, I say, the less you care about the sale, the more you sell. And in far too many people are, they care about the sale.
I don't care about the sale. What I care about is, am I good at understanding whether this person needs a product that I can actually do? I'm working with a client now that I think needs something that they haven't asked me for, and I'm not going to ask them that you need this. Now, at the end of this project, I probably will say, you know, your next question is what questions do you ask these people right now, I'll show you how to get them interested to talk to you.
But I think the other thing is. I'll tell you, this is a really interesting story. One of the things I wrote a book called the Relationship Edge in Business, and it's, how do you build relationships with people that you don't naturally connect with? So I got on an airplane in Chicago one day and I sat down, I was in first class and I sat down next to a guy named Larry Winget.
Do you know him? He's a really great speaker, but he's a very unique looking person. He's, you know, 's he's bald. He had nine rings on, had an earring. He had blue jeans, starch, blue jeans, cowboy shirt, purple boots. And so I sit down, I'he, in the window. He's in the aisle. He puts a book in front of in place in the middle, and it says “how to sue the person sitting next to you on an airplane” that he put that in so I could read it.
Okay, that was his icebreaker to you? Haha.
So anyway, so I looked at it and I looked at him and I had seen him on television in things. And so, uh, when we started to take off and he put his earbuds in, I tapped him on the shoulder and I said, say, man, can I ask you a personal question? Now, that's actually a question people need to learn to say, can I ask you a personal question?
That's good.
Because when you say that, almost everybody says, yeah, what do you want to know? Now, if it's, where did you come from? What'd you make, want to be a doctor? You know, anyway, so I said, say, can I ask you a personal question? He said, yeah. I said, haven't I seen you on television? And he ripped those things out of his ear so fast, he talked to me for three hours from Chicago.
And he, he told me his whole life story, you know, and some of the things he should not. So we landed in Scottsdale and we landed in Phoenix. And so he jumps up. Now he talked the whole time. Now I, I was having fun because I'm saying to myself, okay, I'm the jerk that you didn't want to talk to. Right. Uh, and now you're telling me your whole life story.
And so, and he was very nice. So when he got ready to leave, he stood up and he said, say, man, um, let me have your card. And I said, sure. Why? He said, because you are the most interesting person I've ever met. Now I'm saying to myself, how in the hell would you know? You don't know anything about me. He sent me his books.
He sent me his information, et cetera. But I say to myself, if I can build a relationship with somebody who absolutely does not want a relationship with me, then I can show you how to build a relationship with other people. Now, does it work all the time? No, there's only six levels of relationships that you can have.
And so we teach people, how do you go up the pyramid? But I do think that if you're going to get people's attention, it's a lot easier to get people's attention that you have a relationship with.
Yes.
Or if somebody has referred to you. So for, let me give you an example, I'm assuming, and it's probably a bad term, that if you're in our business, anybody who's listened to you probably has people that they would like to meet, but they don't know.
Now, if, if, if you simply do what I'm about to tell you, it'll work 40 or 50 percent of the time, you just simply have to say, you pick 10 people that you've got a good relationship with, and you go in and you say, can I ask you a question? They'll say, sure. I said, how, how well do you know Sara Murray, if at all?
Now, if you ask 10 people the shot, there's a chance that one of those 10 are going to say, yeah, I know her. Now, what's the next question? The next question is, how comfortable would you be introducing? You only get two answers to that question. Well, she's a little weird, which means they don't really know you very well, or they're going to say, I'd be happy.
Now I've used that. I wanted to meet the basketball coach at the Arizona state got him. Herb Sendak fourth youngest coach to 400 victories in all of college basketball. And I love college basketball now, I play football, but I mean, I love college basketball. So I asked 10 people. How well do you know her to send back?
If at all 1 guy, the last person I asked said, yeah, I know. I'm really well. I said, how comfortable would you be introduce me? You want to have breakfast with him next week? I said, sure, and so I have been working as his mentor free. For 18 years.
Wow.
But when he, but when he asked me, what do you want from me?
And this is a really important part, he says, what do you want from me? I said, well, coach, I gotta be honest with you. I think your T-shirts are ugly, so I don't want any of those. I got enough money I could buy my own tickets. I don't need your tickets. And I said, but let me ask you this question. I said, you got how many people in that locker room?
You got 15 of, right? I said, how many of those kids are gonna be able to make a living playing basketball and never have to get a job? He said, none of them. I said, well, let me tell you what I want to do. I want to teach those people. How do you build relationships while they're in college that will last them the rest of their life?
He said, can you do that tomorrow? And I said, yeah. Now what's interesting is one of those people called me last week and he's actually living where you are. In fact, you should meet him.
Oh my gosh. Okay. Put us in touch. I'm taking a look at it.
He's good looking movie star. He was the only one who the day after I met him, he called me and said, can we have breakfast?
And he started, he, so he wanted me to teach him about goal setting and, but he wound up playing basketball. And then he transferred to Marquette. Well, at Marquette, I had been mentoring that coach too. And he's now at Texas A& M. Trent and I have stayed in touch now since I think 2015, over 10 years. But he lives in LA and got a 14 month old baby boy. He's happy as a clam, but he played basketball in Russia, China, all over the place.
You know, cool about that too, Jerry. I love the, you know, looking at who you want to meet and asking 10 people that could potentially know the person. So it's almost like your, your social capital or like web of connectivity.
And I feel like with my personal sales success and business success, It's literally just talking to people that I know and meeting new people through and like connecting others. I'm a big connector of others too. When people ask me, I'm always trying to think, how can I add value? Who can I put them in touch with if it helps their business?
And that puts you, I mean, and I find joy from it. So I'm living in my authentic self, but I think that's one of the most underrated things that people don't realize is that. It's really not that hard. And once you start to do it, there's a lot of layers of connection we don't even know.
Right. Well, and you also develop some incredible. I mean, when I met her, you know, it was 18 years ago. And, I mean, he called me and told me he was getting fired. What do I do? And I said, well, I'll take exactly what to do. And then he had an opportunity to get another job. He called and asked me about that.
Then he called me and asked me if I would talk to one of his daughters and it actually becomes something that's, That's real. It's a real, wonderful friendship and same thing with Buzz Williams. Buzz is at Texas A& M and Buzz is one of the most unique people I've ever met. But, you know, but I got introduced to both of those people by somebody else.
Well, that's I think the, the part of business and humanity and creativity where they all kind of intersect and I think that's really cool and compelling about it. And I think if we can look at sales as value adding, being a teacher, understanding how people think, and then using these tools that you've been sharing with us, that's going to set us up for success. So I just, I'm so grateful that you were able to give us your time and come on the show. Before we start to wrap up, is there anything else critical you want to make sure you leave our audience with?
Well, the one thing that I'm working on now, which is, I think analogous to what we're talking about here. I find that too many people that are sales leaders don't know how to teach somebody how to sell. And so I'm creating, and I'm almost done with it.
A program that I call sales leadership, excellence development. And, it's basically the six kinds of things. If you're a leader, the six critical things that you need to do to be great. The first one is, you got to create the right culture. If you don't get culture right, nothing else. And then you actually figure out how do you actually get the right people on your team and I teach people, how do you actually find out who can help you? And then the third thing is actually teach people. And this is something I find most people don't do is teach people the three or four skills. How do you workshop those without me or anybody else? So how do you get people to ask questions?
How do you get people to know how to do pattern interruption? How do you deal with people that you can't get a relationship with? How do you actually deal with people that are in, you know, that are not nice to you? So, this is a six week program. And I think that's really important because I think the speed of the leader is the speed of the group.
So, if you're really, really a good manager, if you're a good leader of people, if you create an environment where people want to, you know, succeed, you know, I was a district manager for 8 years. I stopped being a district manager in 1989. That team still wants to have a reunion.
Wow. That's cool.
30 years ago but you create the right culture and the other thing I found, and I probably shouldn't say this too loud, but one of the things I found when I was running a drug company, women are better salespeople than men, period. End story.
We put at the top of the interview, Jerry.
But it's a hundred percent true. It is. I mean, you know, and I looked at our top performers, you know, they were predominantly women. I mean, we have, you know, we had people that were very successful, but my company now, I think we've got more women than we have men.
Oh my gosh. We're going to have to do a follow up episode, Jerry. So we can dive into that topic as like its own content, because I have so many questions now. I mean, what are the, what are the fourth and fifth and sixth? Parts of the program.
Yeah, the fourth is providing coaching with meaningful results and, and that also includes how do you give bad news? In other words, somebody's not performing because I've had a lot of people who weren't performing and I have turned them into very successful people with just one simple conversation.
People don't understand their own potential. The manager's job is to understand their potential. Teaching the leader how to best model excellence. We have far too many people that ride in a car, watch the person make a call, and they don't let somebody see how do you really do it? Now, I can tell you, you know, I hired 20 people in eight years, 20 people I hired, hired one after three weeks.
He was the first one, and then the other 19 were all in the top 50 out of 600 people within two years. Seven were the number one rep in the country. 13 of those people got promoted. And so I was really good at figuring out, okay, who can come to work for me. But I will tell you, I only hired one person with sales experience.
Interesting.
So I hired a fifth grade math teacher for 11 years, and she's one of the best I ever had. So, but I learned, let me tell you what I learned. If you're a good manager, you'll learn a lot from your people. The very, first person that I hired after the other guy, he was, He was a C. C means I will never see.
And he finally, he reaches my wife at home in Birmingham and says, Hey, can I talk to your husband? And so she says, you got to talk to this guy. I said, this guy's a pest. I don’t want to talk to this guy. So I said, just send him to me. And so anyway, he talked me into an interview and I hired him ultimately. and that was, I wanted to hire a woman. Her name is Betsy Rucker. I'll never forget her name. It was 30 years ago. But, I got five letters from, from, uh, people that told me I was nuts if I didn't hire him and I had already called him and told him I wasn't going to hire him. One of them was from the governor of Alabama.
One was from the president of Auburn university. Now they had 19, 000 students, you know, over here we had 1200. Nobody would write a letter about me. There was five, I got five letters the day after I told him I wasn't going to hire him. So that, then I called him back and I said, I'm going to hire you now.
He goes to the training thing. He flunks the train. And so anyway, I finally said, just, just see if you can get him a 70 and bring him home. So then I go work with him and Sara, this is the truth. So I go work with him and now he's never sold. He was 23 years old. And, so I said, well, I'll make the call.
So I made the calls. And, at the end of every call, here's what he said. I can't do that. I can't do that. And I said, you can't do what he said. I can't do what you did. I said, why not? He said, it's not my style. And I'm saying to myself, you ain't got a style pal. That's why I'm here. I'm here to give you style.
And this is my very first real employee. So I work with him for three days and I'm so frustrated because he won't even take a call. He won't even do it. So when I got ready to leave, I said, we were launching a new product. I was leading the country in sales with like 5, 000, you know, per person a week. And I said, he says to me, well, what do you want to do?
And I'm thinking I'm going to fire you. I mean, I got to figure out how do I get this past my boss? So he said, well, what do? I said, well, we just got this new product. I said, why don't you go see some hospitals and see if you can get it stocked. So he calls me the next Friday. I'm not ready to fire him. And he says, well, Hey, what do you want me to do with these orders?
I said, what orders are you talking? He said, well, you told me to get these orders. I said, how much is it? He said $26000. Now, average rep was doing five. He did 26, 000 in one week. And you know what I said? I like your style.
That's not my style. And he was being his authentic self.
Exactly. That's what I learned. Don't. I just because I don't want you to be me. I want you to be your best you and John taught me that. Now john is still one of my favorite people. He took my place. He's had some health problems, but he's, he's one of the most incredible people I ever met in my life. And within two years, he was the number one rep in the whole country.
Oh, my gosh.
I still like his style
And what's number six, Jerry?
It's the power of relationships to drive sales and leadership excellence. You got, you have to show people, you have to show people, how do you get somebody to you know, to, to want to talk to you, you got to figure out how do you get in to see somebody that's difficult to see, I mean, to me, if you can't model it, then why are you not, I mean, what are you doing?
Our job to me is to model it. Now, I can tell you as good as I could model it, I had five people that would kill me in sales, because they were so dadgum good, but also learn from them what to teach other people.
Right. And that's how you grow as a leader too, which is, well, I'm interested. Tell us where people can learn more about the, about this training program that you're launching for leaders.
Probably jerryacuff.com.
Okay. And I'll link everything.
I'm going to start running some ads here in a couple of weeks.
Oh, awesome. Well, let me know when you do, cause it might be coinciding with this episode release date so we can be great. How about the audience where they can find you, Jerry, where can they learn more about you and learn from you?
Well, jerryacuff.com is one place. And then you can email me at jacuff@deltapoint.com, that's all one word. com. You know, I'm a very, I'm easy to get in touch with. I'm easy to respond. Most people don't respond. I mean, most people, you know, I tell people all the time people come up and give me a card.
You know, they say, can I have your card? I'm gonna call you. Nobody comes. I might get 1 out of 7 who call.
I've been making phone calls from business cards lately. And that is the biggest pattern interrupter. And then we usually chat for 15 minutes. And I get it. It's been a pattern disruptor to stand out. So I, appreciate that,
Jerry, I'm so happy you were able to come on the show and, and I learned a lot. I'm excited to have a relationship with you. If somebody asks you, how well do you know Sara Murray? You're welcome to share my contact info as well.
So I'm not through talking to you.
So I know I'm so happy that we are friends now.
Well, so much for joining us on prospecting on purpose. And, um, and we'll probably have to have you back next season. All right. Thank you. Bye bye.
Thank you so much for listening to the Prospecting on Purpose podcast. If you loved what you heard today, subscribe to the podcast and please rate and leave a review for more info on me, or if you'd like to work together, feel free to go to my website Saramurray.com on social media. I'm usually hanging out at Saramurraysales. Thanks again for joining me and I'll see you next time.
Connect with Jerry
www.linkedin.com/in/jerryacuff
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https://www.saramurray.com/
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