Once upon a time there was a cubicle. It might have been the one next to yours.
A salesperson showed up for work one day, entered his cubicle, and found a magic lamp that he knew for sure had not been there the day before. There was an intriguing handwritten message on a Post-It Note affixed to the lamp: RUB ME.
The salesperson rubbed the lamp briskly, and watched in amazement as a Genie appeared. The Genie swirled around in a haze of purple and green smoke, and then asked, “WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?”
The salesperson thought for a moment, and then said, “I want to be the world’s best prospector.” The Genie nodded in obedience and granted the wish; ten years later, the salesperson retired.
Eventually, a new salesperson inherited the cubicle. This second salesperson also found the lamp, saw the note, rubbed the lamp briskly, and watched in awe as the Genie materialized and orbited in gusts around the room. “WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?” asked the Genie.
The second salesperson gave this some thought, and then said, “I want to be the world’s best closer.” The Genie again nodded and granted the wish; five years later, the salesperson retired.
A third salesperson inherited the cubicle, and that salesperson also encountered the lamp, read the note, and followed its instructions. The Genie materialized, circled the room, hovered in front of him, and asked, “WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?”
Instantly, the third salesperson replied, “I want to reach every prospect at exactly the right time!”
The Genie smiled, nodded, and vanished. That afternoon, the third salesperson initiated—and one week later closed—the biggest deal in his company’s history. He kept closing huge deals for weeks and months on end, shattering all records at his company. He retired within twelve months of his encounter with the Genie.
Moral: In sales, timing is everything!
Can you remember the last time you were in front of a highly motivated buyer at just the right time—and the sale almost happened by itself? Was your skill set better than it normally is when you closed that deal? Or was your timing better?
What if there were a process that allowed you to repeatedly get in front of the right person at exactly the right time? What if you could spend most of your time talking to people who were approximately five times more likely to buy from you than people you’re probably talking to now?
This is what SHIFT! is all about. It’s a new way to look at selling. It is about mastering the art and science of timing. It’s about SHIFTing your attention from things like prospecting and closing to things like the Trigger Events that make it more likely that someone will be highly motivated to buy from you.
SHIFT! is a result of years of real-world experience by two sales veterans who have succeeded on their own, and have now collaborated to bring you this unique approach that will help you to deal with one of the key underpinnings of success in B2B sales: timing. Everyone acknowledges that if they can improve their ability to connect with the right buyer at the right time, their results would improve.
SHIFT! gives you exactly that—the power to harness timing, the power to anticipate timing, and the power to increase your closing ratio while reducing the time it takes to close a sale now. Unlike the story of the Genie, there is no magic in this book (unless you count the increase in sales you will experience as magical). What you’ll find is a clearly laid out roadmap to things you can do to improve your timing and improve your ability to get ahead of predictable events so that you can leverage them by being there first. What you will find is the collective result of years of experience and success by two leading sales practitioners.
Between the two of us, we have half a century of B2B selling experience. We have each received numerous awards for sales success, and we have led our respective teams to consistent results. Nevertheless, when we first met, we were each convinced that our own approach was different if not more sound. Fortunately, while our approach to sales may not have seemed compatible to start with, we got along on a personal level and the dialogue continued. As evidenced by this book you are holding, we soon discovered that our sales approach and philosophy were not that far apart. In fact, once you took off the wrapper, there was a lot of compatibility between the two. This book is the result of our collaboration and work to bring these approaches together in a way that leverages our respective and collective experiences. As the reader, you have the benefit of the combined outcome. Together, we present you with the philosophy, process, and action steps needed to replicate the successes we have had. We bring together our individual and collective experience to help you improve your timing in sales and harness the power of Trigger Events to close more prospects more quickly and consistently.
Did you ever have a friend or a work associate where part of the relationship was a testimonial to the old saying, “opposites attract”? One of the things you probably noticed was that what first seemed to be evidence of the difference, after examination and much debate, turned out to be not that different after all.
While Craig and I did have our differences, it turns out they were based on the details rather than the big picture. After a lot of debates and discussions, you discovered that when you looked at the underlying philosophy or means of achieving objectives and results, things turned out to be much more in common than you first thought. That begins to describe how this book came together.
We first met in 2007 as a result of Craig reaching out to his network to find sales experts to participate in the Corporate Sales Challenge in Calgary. Someone in Craig’s network knew someone in Tibor’s network, and that led to our first discussion.
Before we met, Craig had sold for almost 20 years (as you will read in Chapter 3, that includes starting with WorldCom the day before 9/11, which was just a few months before they were exposed for $11 billion in accounting fraud). Craig also won a $1 million prize in Tim Draper’s Billion Dollar Idea Pitch Competition for a Trigger-Event-based company called InnerSell. When Craig became a first-time father at the age of 42, he left InnerSell (which had been moved to San Francisco to collect the prize) to focus on being a great dad. Upon his return to his hometown of Calgary, Alberta, Craig received numerous calls to share his Trigger Event Selling™ knowledge with entrepreneurs and sales team. He decided to do that on a part-time basis so that he could focus on being an active dad in his son Liam’s life (hence the term Dadpreneur, which was used to describe him on occasion). Since launching Shift Selling, Craig has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs and dozens of companies throughout North America. He has helped them to improve their sales methodology by adopting new ways to view and interpret the market, and new practices to capitalize on this new view. This has allowed Craig to validate and evolve his sales methodology in various real-world B2B settings.
Tibor founded Renbor Sales Solutions after a long, successful career in selling B2B services and products, including currency, financial services, and online information. Before starting Renbor, Tibor spent ten years with Dow Jones & Company in progressively more senior roles including Director of Sales Strategy and AVP of Client Solutions. It was during these last two roles that he not only honed his sales outlook and philosophy, but was able to test it in various regions across the globe and in many different sectors.
By the time Craig and Tibor began sharing their views on selling, they had both been able to test, validate, and refine the philosophies, methods, and tactics shared in this book. This is one of the key differences in this book, as it offers up equal portions of What, Why, and How. Many sales books will have the What and Why, while others will have the How without telling the reader Why. This “works for me, so just do it and it’ll work for you” philosophy was one reason that Craig and Tibor committed to offer all three elements needed not only for success, but to develop an ongoing process for improvement to keep up with the increasing demands made on sales professionals. To further this, we invite you to visit the book’s Website at www.ShiftSelling.com/book, where you will find more resources, examples, and tools to help you continue developing what you learn in the book and leveraging the events you’ll face when you start harnessing Trigger Events in your sales efforts.
In many ways, how Craig and Tibor came together on this book was a result of timing and doing what is outlined in the book. The more they worked together and shared each others’ approaches, the clearer it became that combining their methodologies would produce something that was truly greater than the individual parts. You be the judge.
To learn more about Trigger Event Selling™, or to have Craig or Tibor speak at your company or industry event, you can reach them at:
Craig Elias
Phone: +1.403.874.2998
Skype: Craig.Elias
E-mail: Craig.Elias@ShiftSelling.com
Tibor Shanto
Phone: +1.416.822.7781
Skype: TShanto
E-mail: Tibor.Shanto@SellBetter.ca
