In 1991 a Xerox regional office in Atlanta had a problem.
Their top salesperson was doing $4.2 million a year. Their second best was doing $800,000. Everyone else was below $400,000.
Same products. Same territory split. Same commission structure. Same manager.
The VP of sales flew in and spent three days trying to understand what the top performer was doing differently. He watched him make calls. Sat in on meetings. Reviewed his pipeline.
He couldn't find it. The guy didn't seem to work harder. Didn't seem smarter. Didn't have better accounts.
Then he watched him walk into a cold meeting with a procurement director who had already said no twice.
He didn't pitch. He didn't present. He sat down, opened a notebook, and said one sentence.
Before I show you anything, I'd like to ask you a few questions about what's actually slowing your team down.
Forty minutes later he had a $340,000 deal.
The VP flew home and hired Brian Tracy.
Tracy had spent 25 years studying exactly what that salesperson did instinctively. He had walked into rooms where every single person on straight commission was making over a quarter million dollars a year. Most of them were making over a million.
He interviewed them all. Studied every pattern. Spent thousands of hours finding what separated the top 10% from everyone else.
His conclusion was not what most people expected.
80% of sales success is psychological. 20% is technical.
Most companies do only technical training. 70% of companies do no sales training at all. They hand people a brochure and say good luck.
The Xerox salesperson in Atlanta was not smarter. He had simply figured out one thing that most salespeople never figure out.
He did not see himself as a salesperson.
Do customers like salespeople? No. Because salespeople represent someone who is going to fast-talk and maneuver and sell them something they don't need with money they don't have.
Do customers like consultants? Always. Because a consultant walks in with one question. What is your problem and how can I help you solve it.
Within 30 seconds of meeting a prospect the prospect knows which one they're dealing with. Tracy said there is no way to fake this. The way you see yourself determines how you walk, talk, ask questions and listen. The customer feels it before you open your mouth.
Top salespeople also see themselves as doctors of selling.
Doctors never skip steps. Examination. Diagnosis. Prescription. In that order. Every time.
A doctor who prescribes before diagnosing is committing malpractice. A salesperson who presents before understanding the problem is committing exactly the same thing. Except the customer just calls it a reason not to buy.
The new model of selling is an upside-down triangle.
40% of the sale is building trust. 30% is identifying the problem. 20% is presenting the solution. 10% is closing.
The old model had it reversed. 40% closing. That's why it stopped working.
He asked thousands of customers across his career to describe their favorite salespeople in one word.
The number one answer across every industry was the same.
Nice.
Not smart. Not aggressive. Not persuasive. Nice.
When he asked what they meant they said positive, easy to talk to, trustworthy. I like them. I feel good when they walk in.
He said everything you do with a customer adds to or takes away from that feeling. Nothing is neutral. Everything counts.
The Xerox salesperson in Atlanta retired at 51. The VP who hired Tracy said it was the best $40,000 the company ever spent.
Tracy recorded the full seminar in the early 1990s. Free on YouTube. Just over an hour.
Almost nobody outside of professional sales has watched it as a complete explanation of why two people in the same office with the same product end up in completely different income brackets for their entire careers.
Have you ever experienced the power and the mystery of the Holy Spirit? It is unfathomable.
“If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.
The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him.
But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you.
Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will live.”
John 14: 15-19 (NLT).
Senator Hawley: “Can you tell us what this image depicts?”
Tim Tebow: “That's a DOJ database. In every one of those red dot maps is a unique IP address that is downloaded, shared or distributing child rape images, almost all under the age of 12. And that's just a six month screenshot of it. There are over 338,000 on there."
HORRIFIC: Tim Tebow warns that child exploitation victims are so young that many are still in diapers and says the United States has only ten specialists trying to identify nearly 90,000 children worldwide.
“We have to be willing to be uncomfortable one day so that these boys and girls can be comfortable.”
Ten people cannot fight an evil this massive. We owe these kids more than excuses. ��🙏🏾
@TimTebow I gladly donate each month to support your mission and have asked congressman @RepDonaldsPress to pass the bill. What more can I do to stop these demonic predators?
One of my daughters was a victim so God has called me to help.
Here I am Lord, send me - Isaiah 6:8
Humbled and grateful for the chance to testify yesterday in the Senate on behalf of all the unKNOWN boys and girls who have no voice.
Child sexual exploitation is not shrinking. It’s growing. Live-streamed abuse. Sextortion. Grooming. Runaways being targeted.
We aren’t winning. We are losing every day in this battle.
Every minute we hesitate, more children are harmed. That has to stop.
Our country’s most precious and vulnerable lives have been forgotten.
Every day, these children lose hope… but we believe this is a problem we can solve. Lives can be redeemed, and these children can once again find hope. Just with the three sprints through Operation Renewed Hope, we identified more than 1,100 of these boys and girls, and rescued more than 550 already.
@repdonaldspress Over 50,000 unidentified children are waiting for rescue. Urge Congress to move on the Renewed Hope Act to rescue children seen in abuse images. These children cannot wait! Thank you and God bless you.
Thank you for all you’ve done in Congress for Southwest Florida and our Nation.
I look forward to the day when I can call you the Governor of the great State of Florida!
@TimTebow I financially support your mission every month and am happy to do so. What else can I do to help you rescue children from the demonic monsters who prey on them?
”Here I am Lord, send me” - Isaiah 6:8
One of my daughters will have emotional scars the rest of her life because of a sexual predator so I have a calling in my soul to stop children from being abused and abducted.
What more can I do for your cause?
May God bless you and your staff.
Absolutely.
Otherwise, the filibuster will be killed immediately if Dems get the House, Senate and Presidency in 2029.
They already tried to do it and were stopped by Manchin & Sinema, who were then kicked out of the Dem party.