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How to Communicate Value – a conversation with Luke Jorgenson
10 Plays2 days ago
The most effective way to sell is by communicating the value of your proposition to your potential customer.
Luke Jorgenson started his sales career in commission only door to door sales. If you don’t learn quickly how to sell, you don’t eat.
Luke did learn to sell and as a result he dined well. He also learnt how to deal with a lot of rejection and worked out how to recognise people who were most likely to buy.
Nowadays, Luke is a sales coach.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds Luke explains to host Michael Millward that the secret of his success was not his ability to sell, but his ability to engage in two way communication.
Michael and Luke discuss
- How selling door to door is taking the market to a totally cold customer.
- The importance of demonstrating your interest in how your potential customer lives and their challenges
- Understanding the causes of your customers problems not just the symptoms
- The role that educating your customers plays
- What putting the customer first really means
- Facilitating buying decisions
- Knowing when to walk away
This is the podcast explains how your sales team could sell more.
Discover more about Luke and Michael at Abeceder.co.uk
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Transcript
Introduction to Zencastr and Independent Minds
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencaster, the all-in-one podcasting platform that makes every stage of the podcast production process so easy. Use the link in the description to zencaster.com. There is a built-in discount.
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abbasida and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:35
Speaker
I'm your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida.
Learning from a Sales Coach: Luke Jordansson
00:00:40
Speaker
Today, I'm going to be learning about how to communicate value to someone else, from Luke Jordansson, who is a sales coach.
Travel Tales and Ultimate Travel Club
00:00:50
Speaker
Luke is based in Utah. I have visited Utah. It was a very quick visit. I can't claim to have actually left the airport in Salt Lake City, but my plane had been diverted. I claim it as a visit, though.
00:01:03
Speaker
If I go again, i will book my travel through the Ultimate Travel Club because at the Ultimate Travel Club, I get trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, and all sorts of other travel-related purchases. You can do the same by using the link in the description, which has a built-in discount.
Podcast Purpose and Utah Weather Discussion
00:01:21
Speaker
Now that I've paid the rent, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Mind that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to. Very importantly, on The Independent Minds, we don't tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think.
00:01:38
Speaker
Hello, Luke. Hi, Michael. Thanks for having me. It's a great pleasure, but you're going to tell me how warm it is in ah in Utah at the moment, so aren't you? Oh, this week we got 105 degrees Fahrenheit. 105 degrees Fahrenheit, which is like, it's ah the morning start off of about 52 and then it rises to about 72. And I feel that is very warm.
00:02:04
Speaker
No, I'd need ah i need a jacket and a coat if I was there. As we say in Yorkshire, there's no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing choices. So you'd be making the right choices.
00:02:16
Speaker
I like that. So you're a sales
Luke's Career Journey: From Teacher to Sales
00:02:20
Speaker
coach. Yes, sir. right How did you become a sales coach? What's the career that Luke's had? Oh man, it was quite the path. um How much time do we have on this? No, I'm just kidding. and So I was a a high school teacher and looking for, like many teachers do, looking for a little summer summer side gig to you know help pay the rent a little bit more. And so I looked at sales and during my college years, I knew of teams that would go out during the summer and sell. And then you know they'd make all this money and come home and they wouldn't have to
00:02:56
Speaker
work during the school year. And so I knew it was kind of a ah thing and a possibility to do something ah that could help pay the bills a little bit more. So I looked at it and then honestly, I decided to just jump and I changed careers. Me and my wife moved across the country, went over to the East Coast, started selling and and did that door to door. So this is a door to door team and we sold solar energy and I sold solar energy for the next 10 years and sold it door to door and crazy, crazy life, crazy stories, but all fun, all rewarding. And i got into sales and I realized that that that industry is full of amazing, amazing salespeople.
00:03:43
Speaker
And the rest of the world kind of is not full of amazing salespeople.
Communicating Value in Sales
00:03:50
Speaker
And so the trend, and I've always known that, you know, through the years, but now I'm transitioning full time to Teaching teams, teaching individuals, and teaching companies how to communicate better, how to sell better, but not in your typical kind of, you know, quote unquote, cliche kind of sales way. But it's more about creating, communicating value that you have to other people.
00:04:16
Speaker
Right. Because I don't have any experience of selling door to door myself. And I haven't he had very many experiences of people knocking on the door trying to sell me something.
00:04:27
Speaker
But I imagine that selling door to door in America might be somewhat different to selling door to door in the UK. So what's it like selling door to door?
00:04:38
Speaker
Selling door to door here is so we're, the idea is to take the product to the customer and we sold solar energy. And so was a fit because you're kind of out there at their house and it was, you know, obviously it's going to go on their house. So you're right there at their house, but the idea is taking, bringing the market to them and they might not have been aware. They might not have been looking at it. So you're literally taking people that are one hundred percent cold to piquing their interest, you know,
00:05:07
Speaker
explaining about kind of what's going on, the problems that they see. So oftentimes it's educating people on the problem. They do not even know there is a problem. And then taking people from that mentality of, oh, what's going on to, oh yeah, okay. I'm interested to all of a sudden now they they want the product and they're getting the product, you know, on their installed on their home.
00:05:31
Speaker
And it wasn't just a, you know, it wasn't just $25, $50 product. i mean, you're talking, you know, it's a big decision and a big, uh, a big decision and takes lots of steps and it's a long process and all that, but a lot of rejection on the door, lot of, you know, obviously you're going to, uh, the good people sell every day, but sometimes those first initial sales, they back out. So a lot of not just rejection, but rejection later also.
Dealing with Rejection and Coaching in Sales
00:06:01
Speaker
So rejection after you're on a high and then the rejection later. So, yeah getting over that rejection and the fear of rejection and getting, i mean,
00:06:13
Speaker
you've got to be, you've got to be up for that world. It's a, you know, if you have a bad day, the way I described it with my, my wife's like, like, if I'm having a bad day, I might as well not even go out because I mean, it's not like I can just clock in and clock out and kind of go through the motions. Like you go through the motions selling door to door, like you'll get eaten up and spit out real fast. So yeah you got to be on your A game pretty much every day. Wow. And I suppose if you'd go out and create a bad impression with a customer or a potential customer, you can't go back and knock on their door the next day when you're feeling better.
00:06:48
Speaker
No, no, no second chances. You very much got your shot. And, you know, if the door stays open, you might have a second shot and maybe a third shot if the door's open. But if the If the, uh, yeah, you don't get second chances typically. You gotta be ready to give your best pitch and your best shot.
00:07:07
Speaker
Right. And it's not sold until the money's actually in the bank. Yeah, that was a difficult thing. um With solar solar energy, you made a you know a little bit more money per cell, but it took a little bit of time to get there. And it was all 100% commission. So yeah yeah you you you ah eat what you catch, so to speak. Yes. And those 100% commission jobs so exist in America but don't exist quite so much here in the yeah UK nowadays. But it's certainly one way to learn how to sell because if you don't sell, you don't eat. Yep, exactly. So you got to get good real quick and there's no time for, i mean, one of my big things is, one of my big themes is everyone needs a coach.
00:07:55
Speaker
And, you know, not just because I'm a sales sales coach, but I mean, I just think it's super smart. If you look at all these athletes and I always had it, you know, always come from an athletic background. i always had a coach and I felt like those coaches could get more out of me than I got out of myself. Right. Yes. So whether that's through feedback, whether that's through, you know, uh, speeding up the the trial and error period, whether that's through, you know, uh, not making the mistakes that you might've made without their guidance and without their helps. And so,
00:08:28
Speaker
I mean, it's Wimbledon right over there, right? Right now? Yes. Wimbledon's going on. I mean, you look at all these great athletes. I mean, they all have, they're tremendous athletes and they all have a coach. So we should all like be a little bit more like that. Like we should all have coaching. And here we are just starting to learn and we don't want to coach, which makes no sense to me.
00:08:50
Speaker
We are coached. A football player will be a soccer player from your perspective. We'll be training five days a week for 90 minutes of work or on the sixth day. But when we're at work, it's the other way around if we're lucky. So you're a sales coach and you've taken all of this experience of being a salesperson where in sales, if you don't sell, you don't eat. And you're transferring all of that across into systems which enable people who are salespeople to be better salespeople, but also for people who are not in sales,
00:09:24
Speaker
to actually learn from the skills of a salesperson which is all about really communicating value to someone else who doesn't necessarily appreciate the value that you're communicating to them like you say when you're selling solar energy door to door then a large part of your job is actually to educate people about the the challenge and the problem and then the solution so How do you go about communicating value to someone who doesn't or isn't looking for the value because they don't understand or recognize that there is a challenge?
Sales Strategy: Problem Identification and Buyer Focus
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, you bring up a great point. So the problem piece is really key because a lot of times I see people... Um, a big mistake is they jump right into the solution or the value proposition or even the features, you know, of their product or service. And I'm like, wow, you like missed a big, big step, like a huge step. A key step is getting that problem.
00:10:30
Speaker
So, you know, let's say you're a CEO and there's a problem in your company. Uh, and you need to, you might need to explain that you might to, need to communicate that first. You might need to realize how the other people in the organization realize there is a problem because what, who cares about a solution if they don't understand a problem or if they're not aware that there is a problem? Like why should there even be a product if there's not, it's not solving a problem.
00:10:58
Speaker
So people got to back up a little bit and really dial in and focus on that problem. A lot of times it's asking questions. It's, ah you know, listening to what people are are are saying. It's guiding them to kind of get what their real problem is because sometimes people say, oh this is my problem.
00:11:17
Speaker
But that's not really the problem. The problem is like maybe two or three layers deep. And so sometimes they'll just take what they say for face value. But really, you got to like dive into it a little bit more. And so I would say you got to talk about the problem as much or more than the solution.
00:11:38
Speaker
Yes. I think when you mentioned there about people talking about the problem from their perception of the problem, they're probably talking about the symptoms.
00:11:49
Speaker
And as the salesperson, the person is going to have to communicate the value. You've got to understand the cause of the symptoms before you can actually demonstrate the value.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. I love that. Yeah, you gotta, you gotta to play a little doctor right there, right? You gotta to figure out what's, what's the underneath problem, right? So, well, communicating value would be about creating a cure to the challenge that that individual faces. Right, exactly. So the, it is a, it is like in many ways, quite a medical type of situation, I suppose, but you get, yeah, when you listening to you talk and explain it and thinking like, yeah, when lots of people talk about their problems, They talk about the the problems that the real problem creates and you've got to get to the real problem, which causes the the visible, the experiential. And then you can start talking about how you're going to to solve that, which will remove the the the experiences that people have.
00:12:48
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. i mean, it's just as simple as like going in and buying a car and, you know, the salesperson doesn't understand your needs and what you want. And like, say I walk in to a, you know, to a dealership and he doesn't ask me about what I want, what I'm meeting. And he assumes that he knows and he's trying to sell me a sports car. And also, you know, I don't need a sports car. I actually need a family wagon. You know, I need a van like, you know, like, so,
00:13:19
Speaker
But you would think, okay, that's pretty obvious situation, but I've seen it time and time again where people literally just don't dial in the problem. They don't, they might not teach it.
00:13:30
Speaker
So now there's awareness and then they might ask people about how it's affecting them. ah What if, you know, a great way to do it is like, okay, if, if nothing changes in your situation,
00:13:41
Speaker
what What trajectory are you on? That's a good way to to talk about the problem. So you can get people to, because sales is just getting people to act. It's getting people to do something that they're not doing already. Otherwise, you know, why are you selling something, right? So they don't have something, whether that's an idea, whether that's a product, whether that's a service.
00:14:02
Speaker
It sells as getting people to act. To act in the way that you want them to act, so that they buy whatever it is that you want them to do. And that doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be a financial transaction. It could be that you are...
00:14:17
Speaker
The person with the idea that is going to solve the problem but you're the junior person and getting senior people to understand that you've identified an issue, a challenge, a problem, choose whichever word you want and that you've come up with a solution is equally as difficult as selling to the person who doesn't actually realise that they've got the problem that your product solves.
00:14:40
Speaker
Yeah, luck I love that. Yep, that's great. Yeah. So it's like, very often, when you mention cars and going into car dealerships, I think it's one of the big purchases that people make on a semi-regular basis. You know, every few years, people think like, oh yeah, I need a new car, or you know, this one, I loved it on the day I had it, but you know, now we're no longer in love, right? We need something else.
00:15:05
Speaker
And very often you can find car salespeople who will sell the car that they think they're selling, not the car that you need to buy. They haven't investigated it enough about, like you say, the lifestyle that someone has, which influences the car that they need to drive. Like, I always talk about you know two elderly people, senior people walk into a car showroom and the salesperson assumes that they're pensioners and that they will need this particular type of car.
00:15:37
Speaker
But the car that they need is a car with child seats in it because they're the people that take their grandchildren to school and pick them up from school because of the work pattern of their parents. But unless you actually... get into a conversation with people and understand the world from their perspective, you're never really going to be able to sell what that person really wants to buy, are you?
00:15:58
Speaker
No, that's great. I love that. Because sales is, i I always have thought like, why do we make so much money as salesmen? And then I finally like a light bulb went off. It's as salespeople, we connect the this product service idea to the buyer, right? So we're bringing those two.
00:16:19
Speaker
ah the The company needs a buyer. The buyer needs this problem solved. And we're the mediator in between. and so one one thing that I you know i think i I really like to hit on is, and one thing that really changed my trajectory is a mentality shift. And that mentality shift was I stopped selling for myself and I started selling for the other person more in mind.
00:16:48
Speaker
And so what happens when we do that, we keep the other person in mind. So we're mindful about their needs, not what's in it for you. But if the cell goes through, you know, you know you're going to benefit. But just during the process, try to sell from their perspective, getting their shoes and seeing what their needs are. And then honestly, like sometimes it's not a fit. So it's not a fit. Like walk away. That's like who like,
00:17:16
Speaker
you know, we're not trying to sell everybody. We're just trying to sell the people that this is going to solve the problem for. And so it's okay to walk away. It's okay to say, Hey, this is not, you know, this is not for you. Right.
00:17:28
Speaker
Like a 95 year old lady, you know, I'm not selling solar energy to her. I mean, right. This is not for you. Like just live out your life, do what you, you know, do what you need to do. Like, this is not for you. Like I'm walking away. I have that person's perspective in mind more than my own.
00:17:48
Speaker
And what that does for you is people can see that they can sense it. They don't know. They might say, you know, I like this guy. I'm not sure why, you know, they, you know, but they, we feel this, we know these things. Like we have a sixth sense because we're dealing with people all the time.
00:18:05
Speaker
Yes. But in some ways, it's the difference between a good salesperson and a not so good salesperson is the ability to identify those situations that you need to walk away from.
Efficient Prospecting and Communication in Sales
00:18:17
Speaker
You can spend a lot of time, a lot of energy trying to sell to someone who is never going to buy and being able to identify that your product, your service is not right for them is a way of...
00:18:29
Speaker
this is Increasing your chances of making better sales because you're able to focus on the people with buying potential. Yeah. And you may might not waste your time, right? So wasting your time, wasting their time is never a good thing.
00:18:43
Speaker
Never a good thing at all. Time is not something that you can replace. So in terms of communicating value, and which is what a sales process is, we're communicating the value of what we have to sell,
00:18:58
Speaker
to someone who has a problem that what we can sell to them will solve and prevent reoccurring. So that's where we get the the communication of the value.
00:19:09
Speaker
And we first of all, we need to understand the problem from the other person's perspective, not necessarily what they experience as the problem, but what causes their experience of the problem.
00:19:22
Speaker
And then we need to ask the sorts of questions that are going to help us to understand what that person sees as the ideal solution. Yeah, i love that.
00:19:33
Speaker
but The thing is within that though, there isn't an awful lot of selling. is that It's about understanding the other person. When people talk about sales, lots of people who have no experience with sales will be thinking about, oh, that's the pushy person. you they'll They'll interpret, you no means, oh, not at the moment, not now, rather than what somebody else might think, is no, they're not going to buy it or But you are not just talking about you're not talking about that type of hard-hitting boiler room type selling process.
00:20:11
Speaker
You're talking about getting to know and understand the person that you want to sell something to, that you want to add value to. Yeah, I think that's like a ah misconception is like I got to to to sell more. I got to be more pushy. And that actually 100 percent backfires. So it's not a good process for you. It's not a good process for them. So, i you know, becoming a top one percent in my industry all time in the career, I didn't do it being pushy.
00:20:41
Speaker
Like I, I created, I, I did this process, right? Like I talked about the problem. I talked about the solution and then I made the process easy for the, for the person to say yes.
00:20:55
Speaker
So whatever it is that you can do to make that an easy yes, you make the process because when, think about it in their shoes. So, If you're, let's say you're buying something, do you want this to be hard? Do you want this to be overcomplicated? do you want like this process to be painful? do you want it to be like stressful? Like, no, of course not.
00:21:19
Speaker
So you want it to be, you want the person to communicate the value, show them how it fits their needs, and then show them the next step and the next path and make that next step super easy.
00:21:31
Speaker
So a lot of times people, we think about, you know, the idea of closing, you know, Hey, I'm, I'm a closer, you know, I go in and I close people and I stick my hand out and I shake it and that the deal's done.
00:21:45
Speaker
And that's so like, that's so not it. Like, you know, I, I very, very, very rarely, i'm talking rarely did i ask someone if they wanted what i had what i did is i showed value and then i took them to the next step and if they went with me to the next step that's them saying yeah i want to go the next step and then when they went with me to the next step after that they're saying yep i want to go the next step never very very rarely was it like hey there's this moment where like we're agreeing to do this
00:22:18
Speaker
And so we look at closing as a process, just getting them to the next step. Make it easy. make it Make it the way you would want it to be.
00:22:29
Speaker
And that's a good a rule of thumb for people. Yeah. So you're not, even in that closing process, you're not actually selling to them. You're facilitating their buying decision. Yeah, exactly. you just You're just taking them from a to B and then take from B to C. And then if there's more steps, just keep going. That's all you want to do in sales. Like that's all you want to do. So it might be taking them from a quick pitch to getting a meeting.
00:22:54
Speaker
It might be from getting that meeting to getting that next follow up meeting. It might be You know, a quicker like um a quicker kind of ah process, but you're just trying to go from a to B. And then at the end is the cell. And that's all you're trying to do.
00:23:10
Speaker
you're you know You're not trying to make this big you know aha moment. People don't want to make decisions. They don't. We don't want to make decisions. We have what's called decision fatigue. People are making thousands of decisions. So if you can make this not be a real decision and a real big like, oh, I got to make a decision, right? My feet are to the fire. If you can just make this a slow process, right?
00:23:36
Speaker
um I kind of give an analogy of like the way I like to close is like the sun coming up as opposed to flipping on a light switch. So one is a immediate, abrupt, and the other one is like gradual. Well, when did it when did the guy close? I don't know. When did it get light in us when the sun's coming up, right, and the sunrise is coming up? When did it get light?
00:23:58
Speaker
I don't know. It just got lighter and lighter and lighter. Well, that's how selling should be. They just got closer and closer and closer, and then they have the sell. Oh, the romantic. It's just the desert. You live too close to the desert. It's making you all so romantic about it. But I totally get the analogy. The desert concepts are real. They're amazing.
00:24:19
Speaker
They're amazing.
00:24:23
Speaker
I can imagine. i can imagine. But the this idea that actually the hard-hitting close is less likely to be successful than one that is... So the hard-hitting light bulb type close is likely to be less successful than the sunrise type close, which almost creeps up on you.
00:24:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's all really very interesting. And it's interesting that we're talking about selling without really talking about selling. We're talking about the communicating of value and getting people to see that value. But even so, you know, in the time that we've had available, I think we're really just scratching the surface of what is a really interesting and fascinating topic. So if people want to find out some more, what is the best place to find you?
00:25:11
Speaker
So they can go to my website. It's Lukejorgenson.com. And you spell my last name with a S O N. So Lukejorgenson.com. Uh, I always have some free stuff on there. People can start some, um, free resources, some free trainings that kind of rotate through those and, or they can find me on Instagram at coach underscore Luke J. And so that's best place to find me.
00:25:35
Speaker
And like I say, on Instagram, I only post stuff that actually works. I'm not posting anything. That's just fun. that's fluff. So only, only proven, proven things that I've actually experienced and done. No, no, no theories and no ideas.
00:25:49
Speaker
Okay. So practical, provable, workable solutions. Yeah. And I, and I'd invite people to come on there that, cause we've been talking a lot about sales and, Hopefully a lot of your people didn't turn off because they're like, oh, I'm not a salesman. But it's it's when, if you need to have, you need to communicate something of value, that is a sales kind of process. You might not have the title of sales. You might have a different title. You might need to get a raise. Like you have an idea, you have something of value that you need to communicate to someone else. That's a sales process and you can benefit from that. Yes.
00:26:24
Speaker
yeah You're based in Utah, but if someone is in another part of the world, you do things online as well as face-to-face? Oh, yeah. yeah Yeah, mostly online.
00:26:34
Speaker
Okay, so the website is Luke Jorgensen, which is J-O-R-G-E-N-S-O-N. All details are in the description. You'll find out lots more information there. You know, Luke, it has been really very interesting. I've really enjoyed it, and I've learned a lot. Thank you very much. Oh, thanks for having me, Michael. been great Thanks so much. Pleasure.
00:26:55
Speaker
Pleasure. My pleasure.
Episode Conclusion and Health Advice
00:26:57
Speaker
I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida. And in this episode of The Independent Minds, I have been having a conversation with Luke Jorgensen from lukejorgensen.com, a sales coach. You can find out more information about both of us at abbasida.co.uk. There is a link in the description along with a link to Luke's website, lukejorgensen.com.
00:27:22
Speaker
Being successful in sales with your working door to door like Luke did, you've got to be healthy and one of the key parts of staying healthy is knowing the risks early. That is why we recommend the annual health test from York Test and we recommend it for everyone, not just door to door salespeople.
00:27:39
Speaker
York tests provide an assessment of 39 different health markers, including various different chronic conditions like diabetes, vitamin levels in different areas, liver functions and other organ functions, and also includes a full blood count.
00:27:54
Speaker
The annual health test is conducted by an experienced phlebotomist who will complete a full blood draw at your home or workplace. Hospital standard tests are carried out in a UK AS accredited and CQC compliant laboratory.
00:28:08
Speaker
You can access your easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime by your secure personal wellness hub account. There is a link and a discount code in the description.
00:28:22
Speaker
Now, I am sure that you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of The Independent Minds as much as Luke and I have enjoyed making it. Please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe.
00:28:38
Speaker
Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.