EP 12 – The Importance of Energy in Sales – James Buckley

James: Yeah, that’s right. We only hire people with JB as their initials.
Gabriel: That’s really important. In my company, I had many people named Gabriel like me, so we were Gabriel on six pickles, so it was great.
James: That’s great. So it’s like Gabriel one, Gabriel two, Gabriel three.
Gabriel: Exactly. So just tell me a little bit about JB Sales and next we will discuss about energy today.
James: Absolutely. So JB sales is a organization, a small organization of people that are extremely passionate about sales. We cover the gambit. We do a lot of things. SDR, AI, customer success training, the overarching picture of what a sales journey looks like.
We invest in the front lines. We invest in the leaders. We train salespeople, how to sell better. We train them how to be very human in their process, know their sales equation. From there we train them how to close. We love sales, we are extremely passionate about the value that sales can bring to individuals contributors lives and how it can change people for the better.
So that’s what we do. We focus on the long tail journey of a sales professional from start to finish and anywhere you want to, you can jump into JB sales, no matter where you are on your journey. And I promise you, you will get some results.
Gabriel: That’s great. And you are all very famous on Linkedin with your companies. That’s great.
James: Thank you very much.
Gabriel: All famous on LinkedIn. It’s maybe because you have all a lot of energy and you wanted to discuss today on energy and how energy is important on virtual selling.
James: Yeah, so this whole concept of virtual selling, I think really was tough for people to grab onto that had never done it before because virtual selling is dependent on a transfer of enthusiasm and energy between one person and another.
And in the past, I’m going to say prior to 2019 , prior to 2020, most of that was done in person. So a lot of times we find that in person, there’s an energy exchange. That’s a little easier body language. You know, our nonverbal cues in our tones. We get that in person, but people really struggled to get that energy across in a virtual environment.
And I did not struggle with this. It’s something that came very natural to me, the way that I present, move my hands, use my tones, raise my voice when I need to, lower my voice if I need to, it became something that I was very in tune to. And it, I think it pulls people in our direction. It makes them more receptive and susceptible to what you’re saying.
Not because you want to convince them or persuade them. But because you need them to really hear you and process what you’re saying, and then you have to listen actively to what they’re saying back to you. So your energy is what provides the road, the Boulevard, if you will, of that level of communication, very helpful for sellers, very helpful for any business professional that’s in the current virtual selling.
Gabriel: 91% of salespeople doing virtual selling are complaining about not being able to engage your customers. So what you say is that energy is very important.
James: Yeah. Well, listen, when you and I got on this call, you immediately started smiling because I come on to calls hot. Right? You know, who else does that as Larry Long, Jr.
Our friend Larry Long, he comes into calls and his energy is so high. It’s hard for people not to smile and put their guard down, and then he’s able to build great rapport. That energy transfer is so important in a virtual environment.
Gabriel: Okay. So what are your tools to discover your energy, to build your energy? To be more energetic during a meeting?
James: Yeah. So if you’re preparing for a meeting that’s scheduled, you probably have a gap of time before the meeting starts. One of the things that Morgan J Ingram, my friend Morgan and John and I, that we do all the time is we have hype songs. Leslie Doug’s does this.
Shelly does this, everyone on our team, we have like songs that we listened to that get us excited. So we go and we put our headset on for the four minutes before the call. And we listened to that, you know, I have the tiger song. That’s not my song, but you know, I have the tiger, it’s something, right. We could really be effective in that way.
So we put the song on and then we come into the call feeling good. That energy is positive and that transfer happens and people feel positive on the other side of the screen, in the box, if you will, we all live in the box. That’s our home. Right. So we put our vibe on. So that’s one thing you can do.
Another thing you can do is get up for a minute and just go walk outside in your house, whatever it is that you do to like get that blood flowing. That blood flow will help you to dial in that positive energy, that upward inflection in your tones, that you need people to feel. If you want them to truly listen to what you say.
Gabriel: That’s great. And is it something that you train at JB sales also, or it’s a part of a program or it’s more like a tips that you share?
James: Yeah. So we are not a methodology. We are tactical takeaways that are complimentary to most, if not all methodologies. I think actionable is what people need in sales. It’s great to be like, you’ve got to stay persistent.
Okay. Well, what the hell does that mean? You gotta, you gotta come in positive, you know? Right. But how, right? Like the actionable stuff is this stuff that salespeople, I think really need in their lives. Things they can take away and really start doing right now that increase their results. So I think that when you look at our training what you see is a structure and a process that’s set in stone and all along the way, there’s these little nuggets of wisdom that get dropped all over the place. And one of those nuggets of wisdom is how to prep for a call. We use our hype song, we get up and we go and we, you know, walk around for a while and we get that blood going.
And that’s something that we do, I think pretty consistently I know that after this, I will take a five minute walk and clear my mind so that I can come back fresh to my next task. Right. That’s become part of my routine. My schedule.
Gabriel: Great. Do you have other routine to build the energy or the tips and tricks to, for people to have more energy during virtual call and to engage more customers?
James: Well, so this is going to sound like a completely disconnected tip. I’ve been on a fitness journey lately. Last year I was diagnosed with type two diabetes. So I started going to the gym. And when I, when I had the mishap, when I had the health issue, it kind of rocked me. I was a little bit scared, but in this process of get fit what I’ve seen is everything in my life go up into the right. Everything. Personally and professionally. So there is actually, in my opinion, based on my own personal experience, there is a correlation between fitness and success. The more I go to the gym and get my energy up in the morning, the better my day goes throughout the day.
I might be a little tired at night, but I’m supposed to be it’s nighttime, right? Like that that’s okay. So I really embraced this, like get up in the morning and spend at least 45 minutes. Sometimes I go an hour doing whatever it is you do to quote workout. It doesn’t have to be strenuous. I’m not telling you to go become Arnold Schwartzenegger in the gym.
What I’m saying is like, get up and do setups, get up and do pushups, get up and jog in place if you want to . Even if only for a few minutes, because I have seen a massive impact in my energy level and I already was high energy. Like before I got type two diabetes, I was already like this.
Gabriel: Yeah, I belive so.
James: It’s even more now it’s even more now just because I’ve started this pattern of getting up and getting.
Gabriel: Okay. And to succeed in engaging customers, I hear that you use your tone, that you use your voice. Do you translate that also in the question you ask them?
James: So it depends on the question. One of the things I point out all the time is from a former sales training professional. His name was Chad Holmes.
If you’re familiar with Chad Holmes, he wrote a book called the ultimate sales machine and what he talks about is tone with which we use to get past or get through a gatekeeper. And I don’t really like that language. Right? One of the problems we have is that we think that gatekeepers are not people they’re are obstacles that we are supposed to overcome.
This is not true. These people are allies, stop the conversation and ask them what their name is. Do you work directly for that person? Can I get you to write something down for me? This will help you build a relationship with that person so that they help you get connected to your decision maker, right?
Like important process. Treat them well, they will treat you well. But when you say something like, hi, I’d like to speak with Gabriel, please. And there’s this upward inflection in your voice. You don’t really own the outcome of that. They do, because they know that you’re not very confident in what you’re asking for, but when I say I’d like to speak with Gabriel, please, they go, oh, oh, that sounds.
That sounds a little different, I’ll we put you through to his voicemail, right? They don’t, they don’t quite, he’s not available. You don’t get that voicemail right away. Right. So I think the tone that we use that downward inflection puts us in a position of authority. Right? The same thing is true when we need someone to be receptive, the energy that I put out, all smiles, very positive uplifting makes people sit back in their chair, drop the guard, start listening. I’ll start listening too. Right. And we’ll have great conversation, good back and forth. Let’s be human beings together.
Gabriel: So how should I come up with my French accent and the difficulties for me to speak in English? Is there a trick to do that?
James: Gabriel, I don’t think you’re struggling to speak English. Did you know that the French donated over 10,000 words to the English language, historically speaking, any words that are court-related or church related like pulpit and pew, those are french words.
I didn’t
Gabriel: know that. So I feel a bit blocked by my English. I have to look for my words and I feel like being much lower in energy when I do a podcast in English than in French. Is that some tricks that you can.
James: I don’t think, I don’t think that you have low energy at all, and you want to know why it’s, because my energy is feeding your energy.
Gabriel: That’s true.
James: That’s the way energy works.
And I’ll tell you that you speak very good English and you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t shy away from that. You should have just as much energy as you do on the other band because the energy matters more than the language. I listen to a lot of radio. I listened to a lot of music and I spend a lot of time in other countries, specifically, West Africa.
And they speak Twi, it’s the language of the Akan people. And I don’t understand a lot of the things that are coming out of the radio when I’m there, but the music, the vibe, the rhythm, the tones, they catch you. The same thing is true on our sales calls. Yeah. You do need to know your stuff. Yeah. You do need to be valuable and relevant to the people that we’re selling to.
That’s a hundred percent true, but your voice, the energy that you give off. That’s what people respond favorably to. You know what I mean? People won’t leave JB sales because they’re loyal to us. You know, how many people have not left other companies that I’ve worked with because they have existing relationships with very positive people that treat them well that talk to them.
Like they’re human beings on the calls. I hear this all the time from customers. The reverse is true too. Oh, you know what? I was a customer there, but they treated me like shit. So I moved on. I’m ready for another solution. I wish I just want to be, I just want to be with a company that cares. You know, you’d get this stuff all the time.
You hear it from customers all the time. So when you’re that person that’s putting out that energy, that’s the thing they’re going to come towards. They’re going to run straight forward as fast as they can, and they’re going to stay with it for a long time.
Gabriel: True. Very interesting. Do you think that you can make more engagement during a virtual meeting also with tools with more interaction on the screen, with more things going on, all the things that are really related the human?
James: You know, it’s a great question. I’ll tell you that it depends on the format that you are going for. So for example, we are on webinars all the time. I host all of the webinars and I manage a lot of things on these webinars. I manage the chat, I manage the Q&A and I’ve managed the flow of conversation. I tee up the guests, I’m the intermittent host of between everybody. And I manage all this stuff together on the webinars. Do the polls at the same time, right?
Like it’s all me. When you look at that kind of engagement, it’s one to many, and that’s great for a webinars thing, but in a sales conversation, it’s usually one to one, one to two, one to six, you’re with a group of decision makers in a box. I think you want as little barrier in front of you as possible.
So yeah, I might put up a slide. But it’s going to be up for 30 seconds and then I’m taking it down and we’re back in the room together having a conversation so you can feel my energy, right? I don’t want the focus to be on this visual. I want to show it to you and I want you to be impressed by it, for sure. If you need me to pull it back up, I’m happy to do it, but in a sales conversation, I’m the value.
Gabriel: So there is to be short piece of content, short interactions and new being the people, making the interaction and making the link between every piece of the conversation.
James: Yeah, definitely. I mean, do you think people get, do you get excited, Gabriel, do you get excited when you jump on a call with, to see a new product and they have 75 slides that they run through and read to you? That sucks. Nobody likes that. So don’t do this. Instead have a real conversation about what matters to the person that you’re on the other phone, on the call with, and then show them the things that matter to them and nothing more because they’re not going to buy the whole kitten caboodle. They’re going to adopt the whole kit and caboodle, but they’re going to buy for that problem that they want to solve, or they’re going to buy for that situation they’d like to improve. That’s what they’re going to buy. The rest of this stuff comes later after they get to customer success and adoption and training, then they fall in love with the whole product . So at least that’s the way it should be. I don’t think it’s always that way. I think salespeople jump on and they just want to like throw up all the things that they do. Nobody cares about all that stuff. Find the two things that matter to the person and show them those things and then have a real conversation.
Gabriel: No. That’s very interesting. And I really do agree about being very short when you present something and still having some ability to go from one side to the other and keeping the flow going on.
James: You put it like this. If I jump on and I say, Hey, I’m going to share my screen. And then I’m going to run through this. Just stop me. If you want to ask any questions. It’s cool. What do you do? Everybody does the same thing. They turn, they look they’re there. They’re typing away. They’re working, they’re looking at their phone. They’re, they’re not very engaged, but if we have a real conversation, I say, Hey, Gabriel, what do you want to get out of this call? And you’re like, I want to know what’s included in the JB sales membership. Okay, cool. Give me seven minutes and I’ll run you through all of that. And then you can ask as many questions as you have. Yeah, I’ll show you everything.
Gabriel: What is in the JB sales membership?
James: Are you asking?
Gabriel: Yeah.
James: Well, that’s such a good question, Gabriel. Thank you for asking. So the membership includes all of our courses, technics, takeaways, templates, everything we do and then also access to our slack channel. And we’re doing, bi-weekly ask me anything sessions now where you can come in and, and like, none of that’s recorded. If you’re a member of JB sales, none of it’s recorded, you can come in with real deals and ask us questions. It’s not just me. It’s John it’s Morgan. It’s Leslie it’s Shelley. It’s all of us. We jump in there and we try to be as helpful as possible marketing questions, sales questions. Where are you in your journey? Man just hit us and let’s help you get through this hurdle. Right? So I really liked the live stuff. That’s been a lot of fun, but you get access to all of that for a dollar a day, 365.
Gabriel: Great. That’s a short and very effective pitch.
James: I think it took like a minute and a half maybe . No screenshare needed.
Gabriel: Yeah. If I need to make a pitch also about SalesDeck what is interesting, we also have this very short type of conversation because we split the meeting into cards. You have a card for a question. You have a card for an answer. You have a card for documents that you share. And I agree with you, the document should be one slide, maybe two slides, but not more because you can have more cards about other parts of the documents. So the way we designed the conversation and the interactive part of the conversation and a virtual call is really about exchanging cards. So you play together. You are in something that is not a one direction meeting, but a two side meetings. And we want that the buyer play with the seller and not having the seller playing alone.
James: I’ve been talking about this a lot. I think what you’re saying, what you’re describing here is the difference between presentations and conversations. There’s a time for a presentation. You’ll know when it’s time, because you will be asked for a presentation.
Gabriel: I did it.
James: Usually this comes from your champion or your group of champions and an enterprise deal. Well, they, where they say things like, okay, we’re going to hop on this call. Now this is the time where you get, you have to impress this person. Right. And then that person is expecting a full-on presentation. Usually the person is very clear.
Just present everything you have to this person and we’ll make a decision. Okay. Right. The conversations. That’s what leads you to the presentation opportunity. In that presentation, it’s expected that you will have multiple slides and an entire you know, delivery that you want to give. It’s probably still going to be relatively interactive or at least I hope it is because people like to be engaged. It turns out we want to hear ourselves talk who knew, but yeah, for sure. I mean, look, we all do right. Anytime you’re prospecting, if you lean on somebody expertise and you say I’d love to get your thoughts on this, because I know that’s your area of expertise. Most people are super excited to share with you what they know.
They spend a lifetime getting to know it. They want to share it. That’s literally what they do. So I think there’s a time for conversations and that’s usually throughout the sales process. And then there’s a time for presentations and that’s where you close.
Gabriel: And I think we will close also our episode on this sentence, if you have nothing else to say, but I am sure we could have a two hours conversation, but every good thing needs to end. Do you want to add something before I conclude?
James: I do. If you want to check out more about Joe, about JB sales and becoming a member, please join us@joinjbsales.com. That is where you can go to get a good look at everything that we do. We want to walk alongside you on your sales journey, no matter where you are in the journey.
Come walk with us. We will walk along side you.
Gabriel: I will look at it. Thanks a lot. This episode of the virtual setting podcast is over. Thanks for sticking around. Join us twice a week for a new episode, with new stories and challenge of giants in the field. If you enjoy today’s episode, we are always listening for your feedback, shares the show and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss any episodes. This episode was brought to you by SalesDeck.io, the virtual selling platforms that increase your sales team efficiency and sales readyness enable remote management and vemps sales operational excellence. Book your SalesDeck.io demo today to discover how you can close more deals with engaging and better prep customer meetings.
Thanks a lot. It was really a pleasure and it was full of energy.