Mastering the Art of the Close: Insights from Sales Superstar with Bob King

Andy Splichal:

Welcome back to the Make Each Click Count podcast, where we provide actionable advice for growing e commerce companies. I'm your host, Andy Splichal, and today we have an incredible guest who has made waves in both sales and the creative industries. Bob King is an accomplished author, closing coach, filmmaker, and sales superstar. His career spans from the retail floor to in home sales and business to business pitches, consistently turning total strangers into happy customers. Bob's directional debut, Psycho beach party, premiered at Sundance Film Festival. It also has been recognized as sales star of the year multiple times. At his current job, Bob is the guy who wrote the book on closing with his new book, the Joy of Closing, the Definite Guide to building trust, getting the deal, and creating happy customers. A big welcome to Bob King. Hi Bob.

Bob King:

That's me. Hi Andy, and hello to everybody at home.

Andy Splichal:

Great. Now you have an impressive background in sales and the creative arts. Can you share a bit about your journey from being an overlooked novice to becoming a master of closing sales?

Bob King:

Sure. So I was in the film business and I had more success than a lot of the people I went to school with, but not nearly as much as some others. And I never really made much money. I was busy all the time. But you don't always get paid for stuff in creative endeavors. And I sort of had other sources of income which blew up in this thing called the global economic cluster lapse. And suddenly I had to make money. And so I went on a bunch of job interviews, wound up taking a job working for this company that sold solar power because the guy interviewing me was very dynamic and I sort of, I love con artist movies.

Bob King:

I could tell he was a guy who could sell you a blender at the state fair on a day you never thought about blenders. And I wanted to know how they did it. And so I was curious. And they paid to train you. And my rent was 1200 bucks, and that's what they paid you for those two weeks. So I took the job that started.

Andy Splichal:

My journey got it now in your new book. I guess what brought you to writing the book? Where writing a book is a huge thing. So how did you decide to do that?

Bob King:

I worked at that job a very short time. I realized they were really up to no good. I worked for a couple of other companies, and then I wound up running sales teams for a solar startup and then going to another company that was a company where customer service was really highly valued. And my customers didn't ever regret the decision that they made to go forward. And so my journey from someone learning about this to a closer, I was trained as a closer. And all the things that, that I was learning to do as a closer, I recognized where the reason I was never hired in the film business, that I was doing all these things when I would, you know, meet with producers and things like that, that destroyed their desire to want to work with me. And even though I was kind of working for scoundrels with the first company, I was learning so much about myself and what it takes to earn someone's trust, what it makes, what it takes to make someone want to hire you, that these skills had great value to me. And then the journey for me as a closer was like doing it for a company that people wouldn't regret being in business with.

Bob King:

And as that became a part of my journey, I realized that the tricks that I used to engage the customer's greed really weren't necessary if I had belief. And so, so I wanted to put all that into a book, so that people starting off mostly for salespeople initially, so that they could come into the knowledge that I came into and be more effective. And that 80% of people on any sales team that are making 20% of the sales could come to understand what those 20% will never tell them, which is how to earn a customer's trust on the very first day.

Andy Splichal:

So let's start there. I mean, how do you do that? How do you build rapport with a new customer and potential clients, especially during the first meeting, before you start building.

Bob King:

Rapport, it really begins with belief. You have to believe in what you're doing, because if you don't believe that moving forward is the very best thing for your customer, for your company, and for you, hopefully, in that order, everything you say to that customer is going to be multiplied by zero. And that's really what a lot of salespeople do. And so you got to start with that belief that what you have is valuable and that you're willing to work with your customers resistance to get them something they want.

Andy Splichal:

You know, I mean, you touched on a great other point is tactical empathy. I've heard about it before.

Bob King:

Is that $5 word, Andy, for empathy?

Andy Splichal:

Now, is that what you're.

Bob King:

No, really? Yeah. So there's a, there's, you know, again, I think there's so many great books about sales and sales presentation that, and they, and I think of empathy is just a fancy way of saying caring about the person that you are sitting with, that you are supposed to be understanding their wants and needs and providing a solution for. If you pay attention to them, yeah, you're going to find common ground. You're going to hopefully find a sincere way to appreciate their creative expression, either through, you know, how they decorate their wall or what they do with their life. I mean, these are all really important, classic sales techniques in order to establish that rapport that you mentioned or find common ground or create the conditions. I call it the warm up that will allow them to start trusting you. But when they talk about empathy or things like that, it's really just, do I care about this person's wants and needs? Can I just pay attention to them? That's really what a lot of salespeople, they're so sort of just looking for a way to begin their pitch, if they even have a pitch that, yeah, it's really just caring and paying attention to. Paying attention to people is an incredible skill.

Andy Splichal:

So you had mentioned the 80 20 rule, which, for people that don't know, it's where 20% of anything produces 80% of the results. Now, with sales, I'd be curious, because you had also said, you know, the 20% won't tell the 80%. How does the 20% ever learn the different skills if it's a rule?

Bob King:

They probably haven't. Right? They just live in that world. Salespeople are incredibly well paid relative to the rest of the organization. So even that 20%, if they can keep their jobs, have a better job than anyone else in the company, they just don't have. Have. It's a couple of things. It's, number one, having a mindset that, the proper mindset. So you're multiplying everything by something other than zero.

Bob King:

And then in the book, I do detail, step by step outline with exercises about how to create what I call one call magic, which is getting that customer to make an impulse buy. The goal is to get them out of their lizard brain and into their limbic brain so that when you ask for the deal, maybe not the first time, but the second or third or fourth time you ask for it, they say, yeah, let's do this, because it feels right and they trust you.

Andy Splichal:

A lot of listeners on the show here are owners of websites, e commerce owners. Can any of this be applied to how you're communicating your offer online?

Bob King:

I think those things are being communicated every day online. I think online tools tend to communicate a lot of the techniques that I describe in the book better than most salespeople do. For instance, when I look for an airline seat or a hotel room and there's only one left at that price, that's what we call creating urgency. For instance, when I logo on a website and I read about GT Dave's mom for the Kombucha company, I get hooked in to that story or read any bottle of Snapple and it'll tell you which I'm sure if you go on their website, it's the same thing. Websites, online branders know how to tell a company story in an effective, powerful way with very few words, make you brand, identify with that company and want to be a part of their universe. They give discounts to make you feel valued by that company. When you find out you qualify for a discount, you feel valued. All those things are classic one call close techniques.

Bob King:

So I actually think there's a tremendous amount of that just in the culture of online marketing. But I think if people read the book, they'll probably discover a few more that they're not doing and maybe employ some of those.

Andy Splichal:

Another thing that I often hear is people feel they can't learn to be a better salesperson, that you're either born with the skill or not, I guess. What would you say to that?

Bob King:

You're talking to someone who has taken literally hundreds of people from salesperson to closer. I do it every day. I'm a closing coach. I talk to people every day that start off as salespeople and wind up closers. It's really a matter of stepping. It's allowing yourself to become vulnerable and committing the difference between a salesperson and a closer. A lot of times it's just the level of commitment, how committed you are. And how does that get communicated in how you talk about your product, how you talk about your company, how you consider your customers needs, how you know it's really easy to not be committed because the rejection isn't that painful.

Bob King:

You know, if you didn't really try, then if they don't say yes, it's not. It doesn't hurt that much. But once you realize the opportunity that you have, which is to work with someone's resistance to get them something they want, then the value of what you bring to it. You just can't not bring that value once you know how to do it. But people need to be invited into that kind of commitment. They don't do it naturally. The natural process is they take a sales job, they're really committed at first, maybe they make some deals off of that, they get enough success to know what that feels like. But then they get some rejections, and suddenly, you know, maybe a couple of jobs don't go the way they talked about it in the sales pitch.

Bob King:

They don't know how to handle that or whatever human nature gets in the way of them staying fully committed. And, you know, they wind up in this sort of middle ground salesperson 80% level when they could be invited into excellence. And that's what my book invites them to do.

Andy Splichal:

So you've, you've worked with a variety of sales teams and professionals, I guess. Could you share some stories of different average sellers who became closers like you have been talking about?

Bob King:

You know, there's a guy I play poker with, and I started consulting with him, and it's, and he shot from not the best performer on his sales team to by far the highest performer on his sales team. And that's awesome. And that just came from working on his pitch, making his company's story a little bit stronger, and giving him ways to talk about his particular field and why people engage his services in a way that helped the customer connect with the pain of their current situation and the pleasure of his solution. Classic one call closing stuff. And even though in his line of work, there's some stuff to review, so it's really second call, but people know if they're going to work with you or if they want to work with you on the first call. So even if you're not signing paperwork, the first time you meet with someone, theres still you only get one chance to make a first impression. And if you can build trust, if you can create that desire within them at the first meeting, theres no sales situation where that does not have value and where the difference between a salesperson and a closer is not going to become extremely relevant to your success. So I started working with them, became very successful, and then there was a second phase that we just started dealing with, where he was telling people in the initial meeting things that the company couldn't deliver on it exactly the way we wanted, and the typical salesperson, or even a closer reaction, which he's a closer.

Bob King:

Now his reaction was like, well, I have to make my company better, when really it turns out it was stuff he was saying that then needed to be adjusted. There's a whole third part of the book called creating Happy customers that is now the focus of our conversations so that he can set his company up for success. So that's one story that just happened literally last week. So it's on my, you know, a.

Andy Splichal:

Couple of times during the interview already you've made a distinction between closers and salespeople.

Bob King:

Sure.

Andy Splichal:

How do you define that?

Bob King:

Well, there's the 80 20 definition. There is the. It's really a level of commitment and success. The question is, if someone encounters a closer, they're either going to go forward. The biggest difference is a closer gets the customer to make a decision. A closer inspires the customer to make a decision. A salesperson will believe some lie they told them or take an objection as a condition. The difference between an objection and a condition is an objection is something the customer tells you instead of making a decision.

Bob King:

It's almost always a lie. They don't know it's a lie. They don't know they're lying to you. It's kind of a blizzard brain reaction to keep them from making a decision. And a closer stays with that customer, creates intimacy, and inspires them to tell them what's really going on. So that that can be spoken to by the sale, by the closer, and the customer is inspired to make a decision, hopefully get something that they want.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah. You know, I'm not really in this field, but I'm fascinated by it. And so I read quite a bit about it, and I'm curious, do you or the example of the person you train have different approaches based on different types of customers?

Bob King:

There's a lot of. It seems like there's a whole generation of sales stuff. It doesn't seem to be what's very popular right now, which that's good. That focuses on the different types of customers. I will tell you, it's so irrelevant to my perception of it that I can never even remember what the four different types of customers are. I know there's a driver, and I will tell you, I've been offered that training a few times, and it just never has resonated with me. I love sales trainings, and I tend to steal at least one thing that I will take away because you give me a new toy and I'll take it to a customer and play with it until I get a deal. That just happens.

Bob King:

A lot in practical sales trainings, generally, product sales trainings. Like a vendor will tell you something about their product and you're like, oh, ding, ding, ding. You tell your next three customers about it and they all buy, and you're like, okay, it's part of my pitch. Now. That's never happened to me with customer focused sales trainings. So the answer your question is they may work for some people, but it's not something that's ever been in my head. Having said that, I do pay attention to that. I think the main thing is just to give a shit about them.

Bob King:

Just actually pay some attention to who they are, which is hard to do online. But I would imagine even you have some kind of thing on that website, that little dialogue box that says, hi, customer's first name, can I help you with anything that feels personal to them? And so why wouldn't you in person give them, or online, or in a Zoom situation or something like that, give them that same, you know, talk to them by their first name and try and become as familiar with them as you can in whatever kind of artificial setting that is.

Andy Splichal:

Is there anybody that you have learned from? Not personally, you know, through books or you said some of the trainings, or has most of your experience been just.

Bob King:

Well, I mean, there's 40 pages of my book that just tells you how I came into the information that I came into. And I have lots of different influences in that regard that are pretty ironic, I would say, given, I mean, I learned these skills which changed my life and made it better from people with not always the best motivations or even most honorable. They just weren't working for good companies, but they were using these skills that were incredibly powerful. And I'm trying to turn that around by encouraging people to use closing skills to bring value to their customers, value to their companies, and to let it affect their personal life in all the wonderful ways that that can be if you really allow the value of what you do to resonate not just with your customers, but also with you. Having said that, I don't read. Every time I've ever tried to read a sales book, or especially a closing book, it's made my skin crawl. And I stopped reading, except for one. How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie.

Bob King:

I love that book, and I think it should be required reading for life, let alone sales. So that's a great book, but it was written a long time ago.

Andy Splichal:

What about the Wolf of Wall Street?

Bob King:

I haven't read it. I love the movie, but that's kind of the kind of closing that I think is, it's really what I'm trying to get people to at least see in a different way, because I love that stuff and I love the idea of getting people, of having another human being adopt. Your closing is basically getting another human being to adopt your agenda, which everybody has that skill. If you have kids and they've ever cleaned their room or their plate, you have the skill of closing someone, and you might have done it skillfully or not so skillfully. Your motivation might have been good or bad, but everyone has gotten pick the next book in their book club or the movie on a Saturday night. And so the question is like, how do you learn to value that and to bring those skills to other areas, especially if you're in sales? It's a great skill to have if you're in sales, Jeff.

Andy Splichal:

And if you're not in sales, I mean, you mentioned some examples. How important is it to, I guess, your happiness having some of these types of skills?

Bob King:

No one has ever tired driving home from a sale. There is something so powerful, and you could say it's rising to the top of the sales leader board or all the wonderful things you're going to do with the money for your family or for yourself. But you don't have that money yet. In sales, usually there's pretty long orbit between you getting the deal and actually getting paid most of the time, and a thousand things that could get in the way of that. And yet you feel energized and purposeful and satisfied on the way home. And so the question is why? And I believe it's because you have connected with another human being and earned their trust. That experience is so powerful. And once you start having it, it's a little bit of a high that you just want to keep repeating.

Bob King:

And hopefully theres something within you thats connected to that, that has meaning to you, that has value to your customer, that youre doing it for the right reasons and not for the shallow ability to purchase something. Even if its for other people, its still, theres something very shallow about just getting something financial from your customer. Hopefully, you are of service to them in a way thats more meaningful, hopefully more meaningful to them and to you. And really, I wanted to invite people. Its certainly been true for me. I didn't take a sales job to become a trustworthy person, but it turns out the best way to earn someone's trust is to become trustworthy. And that's been my journey, and I wanted to share that with others.

Andy Splichal:

Well, this has been great. What is advice you would give to somebody just starting out in sales? Or would that be it right there?

Bob King:

Read my book, the Joy of closing. The definitive guide to get earning, building trust, getting the deal, and creating happy customers. I think there are lots of tools and exercises in there that will help you become really good at what you do beyond the training that you're going to get in any regular sales job and will bring awareness to the more powerful aspects of why you're doing it and how to be of maximum service to your customers. That would be the first thing. And then the second thing would be believe in what you're doing and make sure you're working for a company where you can do that. Because not every sales job is for a product or a company that is working worthy of your customers time and money. So I'd say that's a really important aspect of it as well.

Andy Splichal:

And where can people buy your book at?

Bob King:

On Amazon. It's on Amazon. There's an audiobook that I recorded as well as a Kindle and a paperback. So whatever suits your needs the best, just look on Amazon.com or, you know, around the world.

Andy Splichal:

Well, this has been great. Is there anything else you would like to add before we wrap it up today?

Bob King:

You know, there's a lot of business owners that listen to your podcast. I am offering a free hour of coaching online or in person if you happen to be in LA, for every 20 copies that you buy for your organization. So get it while it's hot. Just buy 20 copies and I'll come out and inspire the troops.

Andy Splichal:

And that's if you buy it on Amazon or somewhere else.

Bob King:

Amazon. Or they can contact me directly, boboyoyofclosing.com dot if they're interested in that offer, I'm happy to figure out a way to make that work.

Andy Splichal:

Perfect. Well, thanks a lot. We'll put those links in the show notes below.

Speaker A:

Thank you, Andy.

Bob King:

What a treat.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah. And thank you for coming on today. This has been great. Okay, for listeners. Remember, if you like this episode, please go to Apple podcasts and leave us an honest review. And if you're looking for more information and connecting with Bob and that offer, you will find the links in the show notes below. In addition, if you're looking for more information on growing your business, check out our podcast resource center, available at podcast dot. Make each click count.com dot.

Andy Splichal:

We've compiled all of our different past guests by show topic, included each of their contact information. In case you would like more information on any of the topics discussed during previous episodes. Well, that's it for today. Remember to stay safe, keep healthy and happy marketing and I'll talk to you in the next episode.