Episode 114
An Algorithm for Sales Success with Igor Portugal | Biz Bites
Join Biz Bites as we chat with Igor Portugal, an IT veteran turned author and sales consultant, about his unique approach to bridging the tech and sales worlds.
He shares insights from his book “Unasked Questions”, a fiction-infused guide to sales techniques, inspired by classics like "The Goal," and discusses the importance of human connection in sales, the role of AI, and mastering the art of asking the right questions.
Discover how to blend technology, sales, and personal life, and learn valuable networking tips.
Listen now to gain actionable insights, learn from Igor's journey, and subscribe to Biz Bites for more expert conversations!
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Connect with Igor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/igorportugal/
Check out his website - www.igorportugal.com
Feel free to check out Igor’s book: https://www.igorportugal.com/unasked-question
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Transcript
This is the magic source.
Speaker:This is what I want to write about.
Speaker:They're buying and what you're selling is commodity.
Speaker:It's just as good as being on the shop front on the supermarket shelf, right?
Speaker:It doesn't need to be sold.
Speaker:It needs to be marketed.
Speaker:Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Biz Bites, proudly brought to
Speaker:you by CommTogether, the people behind Podcasts Done For You, because we're all
Speaker:about exposing other people's brilliance.
Speaker:Don't forget to subscribe to Biz Bites and check out Podcasts Done
Speaker:For You as well in the show notes.
Speaker:Now, let's get started.
Speaker:Let's get into it.
Speaker:Hello everyone.
Speaker:Welcome to another episode of Biz Bites and a little bit of a different one today.
Speaker:My guest is an author of a different type and I'm really
Speaker:excited to hear more about this.
Speaker:So without further ado, I'm going to introduce Igor.
Speaker:Welcome to the program.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you for having me.
Speaker:I've been in the New Zealand and Australian I. T.
Speaker:Industry for over 30 years.
Speaker:And in the last few years, I've been learning the craft off Writing
Speaker:fiction a little bit more about this later later in the podcast, but one
Speaker:of the things that I had an idea last year is having been developing my
Speaker:sales skills for for over 20 years, they'll be good to create a book that
Speaker:introduces people to the art of sales.
Speaker:And what I've done is I've combined my new found passion and skill of writing fiction
Speaker:with with a sort of a how to manual on the modern business to business sales.
Speaker:So that's what this is all about.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And we're going to get into that in some detail as we go through.
Speaker:I, I just love the idea before we get into the specifics of it
Speaker:all, because it's really important that people do understand.
Speaker:We're going to get a lot out of this in terms of both technology and sales.
Speaker:There's a lot to cover, but Talk to me about the idea of, this is new.
Speaker:I'm sure there are others out there, but I'm not, particularly aware of
Speaker:this being a huge genre at the moment, but you've actually taken what is
Speaker:really a, actual situations that happen to people, but instead of giving it
Speaker:the traditional manual or just using case studies, you've just built.
Speaker:The piece of fiction around it is going to be very relatable to everyone.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:This is exactly what the idea was.
Speaker:And, the I thought about, writing a sales book for a little while.
Speaker:But we all have this as authors.
Speaker:When you decide to write something, you start with a
Speaker:battling the imposter syndrome.
Speaker:I'm not good enough to write about sales.
Speaker:And that's despite 30 years of experience of building businesses I've built.
Speaker:Two businesses that I've sold made some good money, created some
Speaker:products that were fairly successful in both New Zealand and Australia.
Speaker:In fact, one of one of the companies I've built is still going and still selling in
Speaker:New Zealand, Australia and further afield.
Speaker:But despite that, you sit down and think, no, little old me cannot write
Speaker:a book that everybody's going to enjoy.
Speaker:And, um.
Speaker:I drew the inspiration from the goal.
Speaker:So the Eliahu Goldratt wrote this book, The Goal.
Speaker:He's really the father or the grandfather of just in time manufacturing.
Speaker:So he introduced this boring topic of manufacturing and managing a plant.
Speaker:In a fiction novel and this was written in the 80s and at that
Speaker:time it was quite revolutionary.
Speaker:And a lot of people read it since then.
Speaker:It ended up being the foundation of the modern manufacturing process and
Speaker:how you run run a a production plant.
Speaker:And then there, there was another book that followed is called the
Speaker:Phoenix project, and that Phoenix project was written in the same genre
Speaker:and also taking the same principles.
Speaker:of managing manufacturing, but applied to IT department,
Speaker:again, written in the style of the novel, of a novel, very engaging read
Speaker:an interesting story and engaging story.
Speaker:And the Phoenix project.
Speaker:laid the foundation to the modern DevOps practices.
Speaker:So what people use now as a DevOps practice, a lot of the agile methodology
Speaker:actually came from the theory outlined in the Phoenix project in that novel format.
Speaker:And so those two books, they really gave me the inspiration
Speaker:that actually I can do that.
Speaker:I spent All of 2023, writing a science fiction novel we, which was my
Speaker:bucket list project and spent all the year learning how to write fiction,
Speaker:learning how to structure a story, learning how to engage the reader.
Speaker:And what actually the other thing that gave me an idea that I want to write
Speaker:it in the book is that this was my passion project from many years ago that
Speaker:I wanted to kick off the bucket list, but I kept on coming around podcasts
Speaker:where people were saying, Oh, if you want to be a consultant, or if you
Speaker:want to launch your book your business, you got to write a book and it's going
Speaker:to be the book with the business.
Speaker:So we hope you're enjoying listening to the biz by its podcast.
Speaker:Have you ever thought about having your own podcast, one for your
Speaker:business where your brilliance is exposed to the rest of the world?
Speaker:We'll come talk to us at podcasts done for you.
Speaker:That's what we're all about.
Speaker:We even offer a service where I'll anchor the program for you.
Speaker:So all you have to do is show up for a conversation, but don't worry about that.
Speaker:We will.
Speaker:Do everything to design a program that suits you.
Speaker:The strategy right through to publishing and of course, helping you share it.
Speaker:So come talk to us, podcast done for you.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:au details in the show notes below.
Speaker:Now back to biz bites launch your your business.
Speaker:You've got to write a book and it's going to be the book with the business.
Speaker:So last year I started sales consulting to a number of IT companies.
Speaker:And I thought, Gotta try this, writing a book to support it, but as
Speaker:I said, imposter syndrome kicks in.
Speaker:You're not good enough to write a book, right?
Speaker:And I thought the goal, the Phoenix project, I've just
Speaker:learned how to write fiction.
Speaker:Why don't I just do that?
Speaker:I love it because it's such a, it's one of the interesting things that you,
Speaker:we've all read plenty of business books.
Speaker:I'm sure everyone listening in today has read their fair share of
Speaker:them and they vary in their value.
Speaker:Some are better than others.
Speaker:Some you think there's one little concept that they've got and.
Speaker:They've taken many pages to give you one concept, others.
Speaker:It's just littered with things, but I think one of the challenges is
Speaker:always is keeping it entertaining, engaging along the way.
Speaker:And often they give examples.
Speaker:And I think I often think to myself it's great if you have worked with.
Speaker:Big companies, and I've, again, we've all read books where they're quoting
Speaker:big, well known brands that everyone can relate to, but not everyone has worked
Speaker:with big, well known brands, which doesn't mean that you haven't got some value to
Speaker:add in the expertise that you've got.
Speaker:And in your case in sales and also in technology.
Speaker:And I think that The beauty of fiction is that you can create something and not
Speaker:have to worry about the real examples.
Speaker:I guess the challenge is making sure that fictional character is or characters
Speaker:are relatable and not that far off.
Speaker:Someone who's reading it would be.
Speaker:So the challenge I suppose is, did you have particular people
Speaker:in mind when you were writing it?
Speaker:Or was it really just some, something that's just completely
Speaker:created from a whole collection of different people over the years?
Speaker:That's a great question.
Speaker:I, I.
Speaker:I didn't have any particular people or person in mind, but
Speaker:I love dealing with people.
Speaker:I love spending time with people and relating and learning about their life
Speaker:and their journey and their stories.
Speaker:And I guess all of that.
Speaker:That is is sitting in my brain of I also had a very long career creating
Speaker:business and learning and taking the same journey of the learning.
Speaker:But if you listen to any authors talking about their journey of creating
Speaker:characters, every author at the end of the day writes about themselves.
Speaker:And so one of the most common questions that I get asked from
Speaker:people that I know when I tell them.
Speaker:About about my book is they go, Oh, Igor, is this an autobiography?
Speaker:It looks like an autobiography, right?
Speaker:And I go no, it's not an autobiography, but I did draw a lot on my experience.
Speaker:The other thing that I've been getting from a lot of my advanced readers, and
Speaker:I had about 20 odd people read the book already, and a lot of them come back and
Speaker:say, Oh my God, you're describing my life.
Speaker:This is me.
Speaker:I've been there.
Speaker:I know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker:I've had a lot of feedback that the characters are very relatable.
Speaker:People recognize places, people recognize things that they've done.
Speaker:And it's yes, this is exactly what I did.
Speaker:And this is exactly what I shouldn't have done in that situation.
Speaker:So it's so good.
Speaker:That's, and that's the true, that's the true art of making
Speaker:a some content like that.
Speaker:Is it has to be relatable?
Speaker:And I think people forget that cause again, a lot of business
Speaker:books, they're just, they're hard to read because they are very much
Speaker:a how to style and that can be.
Speaker:Difficult to take in enough information along the way, but when you get
Speaker:absorbed into an individual's journey and you can learn from that, I love
Speaker:that opportunity that it presents.
Speaker:And so it's certainly a fabulous concept.
Speaker:So that I want to ask you again, before we get into the detail of one other question,
Speaker:which is Is the title of the book, because here's the thing is that I think
Speaker:this is where you've got a tremendous advantage because again, books that are
Speaker:tend to be business books, the titles are often, they're fairly straightforward
Speaker:and often to the point and.
Speaker:What I find interesting is that yours is intriguing.
Speaker:And so how did you get to the title and what's the significance of it?
Speaker:Getting to the, I don't even remember what the original title
Speaker:that I started writing my book was, but it was completely unrelatable.
Speaker:Again, this was drawing a little bit of my experience last year, writing my
Speaker:science fiction novel, getting feedback from readers, changing the title.
Speaker:What titles attract people.
Speaker:But the main thing about this title is it actually distills the essence of the book.
Speaker:And that is it really about teaching salespeople when they engage in the sale
Speaker:to ask questions, because if you don't ask questions, if you don't know, what
Speaker:it is that your customer needs, you're not going to be able to tailor the right
Speaker:solution or the right proposal for them.
Speaker:You're not going to be able to sell to them what they need.
Speaker:And one of the things that You know, I drew on, and this is my own experience.
Speaker:I actually wrote in the book as well as at one point I was a chief digital officer
Speaker:for a food manufacturing company, right?
Speaker:So I was on the flip side of the fence on the buyer side,
Speaker:rather than the seller side.
Speaker:And the amount of times salespeople took me out for a coffee or out
Speaker:for lunch and invested an hour of.
Speaker:Their time and wasted an hour of my time, and they didn't ask me a single question.
Speaker:They just talked with me for an hour, about how wonderful their
Speaker:company is, how great their products are, all the innovations they came
Speaker:out with in the last 12 years.
Speaker:AI and all the great stuff that they've got, but not a single question.
Speaker:About what I actually need.
Speaker:And you walk away from this kind of engagement and go, what a waste of time.
Speaker:I'm very grateful for lunch or coffee or whatever it is that they invited me to do.
Speaker:This was.
Speaker:It's a waste of my time and there's, and needless to say, no transaction
Speaker:happens after a meeting like that.
Speaker:And so one of the, one of the tidbits out of the out of the book, there's one of
Speaker:the character tells to another is that one unasked question can cost you the sale.
Speaker:And I have experienced that myself, even using these techniques, there's sometimes
Speaker:there's one thing you didn't find out.
Speaker:And that will impact the whole deal.
Speaker:It's so true.
Speaker:And it's, look, it's one of the reasons why I love podcasting.
Speaker:And it's one of the reasons why I started my podcast originally
Speaker:was because I was having these conversations with people and.
Speaker:Thought what a great way of being able to share that and being able
Speaker:to just ask people questions rather than them having to come back and
Speaker:ask me things at that point in time.
Speaker:And I think it's many of the networking groups that you join often tell you that
Speaker:you should have two sessions, one that's, about you and one that's about them,
Speaker:which is all very well and good, but it takes a lot of time to be able to do that.
Speaker:And most people don't obey those rules.
Speaker:So it's so important that what you're saying though, that.
Speaker:To the art of listening is often lost and it's if you go on a date, if you
Speaker:go and you just talk about yourself the entire time, you're hardly likely to
Speaker:impress the other person if you haven't shown one bit of interest in them.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it really isn't any different.
Speaker:It's a relationship building exercise.
Speaker:And so you want to find out things that are going to keep you in common and
Speaker:want that relationship to continue on because otherwise, as you say, it just
Speaker:gets left in a nice to meet you, but don't think it's going to go anywhere.
Speaker:That was, it was a long waste of time just to enjoy a cup of coffee.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:A hundred percent.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And of course.
Speaker:There is a lot of the book that, that is focusing on the ways that you do ask
Speaker:questions and actually demonstrating the strategies for discovery,
Speaker:for questioning techniques, the strategies to understand the customer.
Speaker:And it's, I can't stress how important it is in the, in a sales process.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And I think that what's really important to me as well is, and often I find
Speaker:the same thing again in the podcasting sphere is most people think of it
Speaker:as almost like an interview and that they've got to ask a series of questions.
Speaker:But in fact, what you actually have to do is have a conversation with people
Speaker:and conversation doesn't necessarily mean that everything is a question.
Speaker:Conversation is intrigue and bouncing off one another because it's when you find
Speaker:that The relationship builds absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I wanted to.
Speaker:Ask you then about the next part, right?
Speaker:But which is interesting, just if you want to just read out the subtitle, which
Speaker:is sitting beautifully behind you might have to shift a little bit to the side
Speaker:so everyone that's watching can see.
Speaker:It's really it's really interesting here because it's also very
Speaker:current, so you're talking about a technologist's quest to unlock the
Speaker:sales algorithm, technology algorithms.
Speaker:Sales.
Speaker:These are three key words in this day and age.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:You've managed to get them all in together.
Speaker:Finding that intersection with all of those things is
Speaker:a difficult path, isn't it?
Speaker:I'm a technologist and I play in in technology, software, hardware, IT
Speaker:information systems cyber security.
Speaker:And One of the, one of the things that's fairly common to a lot of really good
Speaker:technologists is they they have a bit of a disdain for the sales profession.
Speaker:And I draw this from myself.
Speaker:So when I started my very first business, I used to be a software
Speaker:developer and It was in the nineties and this was the whole dot com thing.
Speaker:And we used to read newspapers about overnight millionaires, people creating
Speaker:dot com startups and making money.
Speaker:And, it's Oh yes, we're in the right space.
Speaker:Let's make it happen for ourselves.
Speaker:So I wanted to go into business and I went and I set up my first business, but
Speaker:I was fundamentally a software developer.
Speaker:With a veiled disdain for salespeople and I've tried for two years to run a
Speaker:business without selling It doesn't work
Speaker:It doesn't does it the same can be said for marketing by the way, of course and
Speaker:then Once I realized what was going on.
Speaker:I spent the next 20 years learning how to sell learning there are the art of sales
Speaker:and so one of the reason I'm getting a lot of my fellow technologists that, that,
Speaker:that read the book saying my God, this looks exactly like me because I describe a
Speaker:fairly typical journey and my protagonist is a CTO who accidentally becomes the
Speaker:CEO and just focuses on technology.
Speaker:And the thing just falls apart.
Speaker:And, being a fiction novel, it's not just the company's falling apart,
Speaker:his personal life falling apart.
Speaker:He's losing his family, back to that relatability question that you were
Speaker:asked, that you've asked one of my.
Speaker:Friends said, Oh my God, I had exactly the same conversations with
Speaker:my wife and it was really that close.
Speaker:Luckily, she didn't dump me.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:That is a worry.
Speaker:That is a, spoiler alert.
Speaker:She does dump him in the book and he has to figure out how to rebuild on it.
Speaker:What a great idea.
Speaker:There are so many lessons to learn out there from these kinds of things.
Speaker:So exactly.
Speaker:And so the idea is to show technologists why sales matter and
Speaker:why salespeople are the way they are and get them to understand.
Speaker:How the whole business.
Speaker:Works not just technology because one of the things that technologies are
Speaker:excited by is the tech that they've creating and they in and we can
Speaker:create some really cool tech that can help people in their lives and their
Speaker:businesses, but you're going to sell it.
Speaker:And you've got to deliver it to the customers, the whole
Speaker:package that that matters.
Speaker:And quite often they have this, Oh, this is the other side.
Speaker:We don't, we don't want to go there.
Speaker:We don't know it's black magic, it's black art, but reality is it's not.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's and that's one of the great things is I gather you've been able to have a
Speaker:bit of fun with this all the way through.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Lots of fun.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:I wanted to ask you about, we've talked a little bit about sales,
Speaker:a little bit about technology, but the algorithm the algorithm is so
Speaker:important these days, isn't it?
Speaker:People think about it in terms of particularly in terms of social media.
Speaker:And now we've got AI coming into it.
Speaker:So the technology and algorithms seem to go hand in hand with one another.
Speaker:And the thing about it is that anyone that you talk to about, oh, trying
Speaker:to understand the LinkedIn algorithm.
Speaker:Is virtually impossible.
Speaker:In fact, I'm not sure that the people at LinkedIn understand the
Speaker:LinkedIn algorithm half the time.
Speaker:And so it's, but it is, it's that almost never ending quest.
Speaker:Isn't it?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm glad you asked about the algorithm.
Speaker:So I've chosen the world algorithm specifically to IPO.
Speaker:To the technologists, because technologists, we're all about creating
Speaker:algorithms and, creating a sequence.
Speaker:One of the things I've done in the last few years, so I've been
Speaker:20 years building businesses and when I sold my last business, I was
Speaker:thinking I better get a. Otherwise nobody's ever going to employ me.
Speaker:So before we're going and applying for jobs, I thought
Speaker:what do I want to do, right?
Speaker:Cause I've been an entrepreneur for 20 plus years.
Speaker:I know how to build technology.
Speaker:I know how to do sales, marketing, all these different things.
Speaker:And then I decided.
Speaker:Actually, sales is what I enjoy the most because I enjoy being with people.
Speaker:I got myself into a sales career and then I realized that despite all
Speaker:this experience in building my sales skills, I was still not quite there.
Speaker:I've read a lot of sales books to hone my skills I've even had one job where I had
Speaker:a a great coach coaching me on sales guys.
Speaker:Name is Miles Valentine.
Speaker:He's built a large telco software company here in New Zealand and sold
Speaker:it to a Canadian Canadian company.
Speaker:And so I've had, I've read all these books and I've learned from miles
Speaker:and a few other mentors and coaches.
Speaker:And in the last couple of years, I've created.
Speaker:a more or less system that I've applied now to a couple of businesses.
Speaker:And a few of them were looking at our win rate and we were getting to the point
Speaker:where once we get to present our solution, we get 85, over 85 percent closing rate.
Speaker:And I thought, right, this is the magic source.
Speaker:This is what I want to write about.
Speaker:And it's not something.
Speaker:necessarily I've created.
Speaker:I've just distilled a whole bunch of recently released sales books, and I
Speaker:referenced them all in in my book some of the recent ones, some of the older
Speaker:ones but a lot of the sales techniques that we've all seen, but I put them
Speaker:all together and added a little bit of Australian New Zealand flavor to it.
Speaker:What a fantastic way to do it as well.
Speaker:And I think that's also brings it in relevancy, isn't it?
Speaker:By by bringing that local flavor to things to make it
Speaker:seem that familiarity to it all.
Speaker:I just want to get back to the algorithm thing and understand.
Speaker:Because yes, salespeople, I'm sorry.
Speaker:I should say technologists do think about the algorithm, but I think increasingly
Speaker:every business is thinking about the algorithm, because as I mentioned,
Speaker:it's thinking about it in terms of social media, in terms of artificial
Speaker:intelligence, and how do we use.
Speaker:The algorithm or feed into it.
Speaker:It's almost like this wave that you're trying to ride and how
Speaker:do you get to the front of it?
Speaker:And how much time needs to be spent thinking about the algorithm?
Speaker:I think is about from both that, from, you've got, and I'd
Speaker:probably put it from three sides.
Speaker:You've got the technologist cause you there at the forefront from
Speaker:a, operational point of view.
Speaker:You've got the sales is trying to sell it.
Speaker:And somewhere in between, you've got the marketers who are trying to, and
Speaker:all three are involved in an algorithm to a degree as well.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And what unasked question delivers.
Speaker:To you is an algorithm for the sales people.
Speaker:So this is not a marketing book by any stretch of imagination.
Speaker:And it's not something you can necessarily call them to AI.
Speaker:a little bit of a conversation there where the the CTO with a well
Speaker:designed for sales goal, actually.
Speaker:I don't need salespeople.
Speaker:I'm just going to employ this AI thing that's going to do everything for me.
Speaker:And he just works on that project much to dislike of his wife because
Speaker:he wants him at home with kids.
Speaker:But there's a conversation about it.
Speaker:So one of the things about sales is.
Speaker:Fundamentally, especially in the business to business settings and the
Speaker:high value sales settings, that's one of the skills you still need human input.
Speaker:You cannot code it.
Speaker:You can code some of the marketing.
Speaker:You can code some of the initial interaction.
Speaker:But when it comes to The the art of the deal, as they say, you still need
Speaker:people, you still need the human sales professional to turn up and understand the
Speaker:human and build that human trust, right?
Speaker:It.
Speaker:In asking you about that, is that prefaced on the basis that what you're
Speaker:selling is significant and not your standard kind of his subscription type
Speaker:stuff, because I've certainly seen with some companies where they have.
Speaker:Introduced AI salespeople now to handle those queries and to make
Speaker:some of those, to handle some of those basic introductory messages
Speaker:before you actually might get to it.
Speaker:In some cases, you never get to a human contact.
Speaker:Look you can use AI to handle queries and you've, I think
Speaker:you've nailed it perfectly.
Speaker:Handling queries.
Speaker:AI is perfect.
Speaker:Commodity sales.
Speaker:Nowadays, you don't, if your customer knows what they're buying and what
Speaker:you're selling is commodity, it's, it's just as good as being on the shop
Speaker:front on the supermarket shelf, right?
Speaker:It doesn't need to be sold.
Speaker:It needs to be marketed.
Speaker:But yes, when I'm talking about the art of business to business sales.
Speaker:We're talking about larger ticket items bigger sales, somewhere where
Speaker:you need that human strategy, human interaction, and human contact.
Speaker:And by the way, even with these small deals, I don't think you will ever get
Speaker:rid of the, of that human interaction.
Speaker:It may, your human may not sell each individual item.
Speaker:But you will have, brand loyalty.
Speaker:You can't win brand loyalty without somewhere.
Speaker:somehow emotionally appealing to your customer and having that interaction
Speaker:with a brand before they become loyal to the brand and just keep buying from it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It's a, it's you're right.
Speaker:It's such a balance these days, isn't it?
Speaker:It's more complicated than it's ever been because you now do have to think about the
Speaker:top, the technology playing a part at some point and indeed That point ends and the
Speaker:new, and the human interaction begins and how clear you have to be in that process,
Speaker:but still, ultimately you start building a relationship, even if it is through
Speaker:technology and have to transfer that to the human to take it to the next level.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that relationship between the brand and the, and your customer
Speaker:is quite, it's quite important.
Speaker:It's quite big.
Speaker:And, um, one of the ways you build relationships is by asking questions.
Speaker:Keeps coming back to it, doesn't it?
Speaker:It keeps coming back to the questions because you just don't know.
Speaker:And I often think that's one of the things that we've spoken about in the
Speaker:past on the program is around networking.
Speaker:And people often struggle with I'm in a networking group,
Speaker:how do I refer one another?
Speaker:But sometimes it's just about being able to ask.
Speaker:It's questions of people and it's not a leading question and it's not saying, Hey,
Speaker:by the way, do you have a such and such?
Speaker:Because I, boy, if I got a person for you, it's more about listening
Speaker:to where they're struggling and where their problems might be and seeing
Speaker:whether there's opportunities there.
Speaker:And that's essentially what the sales process is about as well, isn't it?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Oh my God.
Speaker:I'm glad you mentioned the whole networking thing.
Speaker:Cause that's also covered a little bit in in, in the book.
Speaker:One of the things that gets me is that people turn up to
Speaker:these networking events, right?
Speaker:Where you've got a speaker and you've got a drink and nibbles and you've got
Speaker:networking and all they do is they either stand in the corner and quietly drinking
Speaker:and consuming food or they just talk to their colleagues that they came with
Speaker:and they never talk to anybody else.
Speaker:And that, that's amusing because and people ask me, oh, how can you
Speaker:go and meet so many people when you turn up at a networking event?
Speaker:And I've got a real simple answer.
Speaker:The funny thing is everybody who came to the networking event
Speaker:came there to meet somebody else.
Speaker:So even before you start asking them questions and finding out
Speaker:what they need, the first thing you can do is you can do them a favor
Speaker:and go and introduce yourself.
Speaker:Because that's literally what they came there to do.
Speaker:They're just too shy to do it.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And you're 100 percent right.
Speaker:I think one of the things that we often forget is that There are, if you dumb
Speaker:it down, there are two types of people.
Speaker:There's introverted and extroverted.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And often we spend so much time catering for the extroverted that the
Speaker:introverts get left out of the equation.
Speaker:And the truth is, there is a majority of people that would prefer to be standing
Speaker:in the corner, observing than being the ones going and asking the questions.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:It takes a fair amount of energy and effort for those
Speaker:people to be able to do that.
Speaker:Equally, on the other side, it often takes a fair amount of energy
Speaker:and effort for the person is the extrovert to probably shut up and
Speaker:listen and ask questions themselves.
Speaker:So you've got this kind of interesting space where people
Speaker:have to find each other.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:And you know what I was in.
Speaker:My natural state is I'm shy.
Speaker:I was a shy person.
Speaker:I, I always struggle with imposter syndrome.
Speaker:As a lot of I'm not good enough to talk to this one or that.
Speaker:But once I got this whole idea about actually they came here to meet me.
Speaker:So it's okay to go and introduce myself.
Speaker:Doesn't matter what they want.
Speaker:Doesn't matter what they need.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:Once I get this, got this through idea, through my, through myself,
Speaker:networking became easy, because the least you can do is go and, shake
Speaker:somebody's hand and say, hello, my name is Igor, and they say, my name is
Speaker:Andrew, and and they go, okay, hello, what do you do, what are you here for?
Speaker:All of that conversation and then it's not out of asking questions
Speaker:and figuring out what it is.
Speaker:That interests them, right?
Speaker:And we've all, a lot of us read this, back to Carnegie's book, How
Speaker:to Win Friends and Influence People.
Speaker:It all goes right back to there.
Speaker:But this is an art that's comp Completely forgotten, isn't it?
Speaker:Oh, so much it's and it's really interesting.
Speaker:And I think even more so is the it's changing because the younger generations
Speaker:don't have that same level of human interaction that we grew up with.
Speaker:Now, we remember a time when we didn't have computers and we certainly
Speaker:didn't have social media which in real terms is not that long ago, but
Speaker:to younger generations as what do you mean there was no social media
Speaker:and, these days, ask children to pick up a phone and make a phone call.
Speaker:They're scared to death of that idea.
Speaker:They'd much rather.
Speaker:Send a message on whatever the favorite app is, and that's more likely to get
Speaker:a response than actually picking up the phone and speaking to someone,
Speaker:whereas, probably our generation much prefers the actual conversation and
Speaker:cut through all of the various other correspondence that you can have.
Speaker:So it's going to have to change as and as you're dealing with different age groups.
Speaker:It is and it isn't.
Speaker:Look, I when I was a kid.
Speaker:Team I probably was very scared of picking up the phone and
Speaker:making a phone call myself.
Speaker:I got over it.
Speaker:And interestingly enough I went last week to a meetup with a whole bunch of young
Speaker:something talking about AI and marketing.
Speaker:And there was a Gen Z guy that said, look, gen Zs, you got.
Speaker:You've got 50 percent of us scared to pick up the phone and call and
Speaker:the other 50 will just pick up the phone and call without thinking.
Speaker:And, to me that, that's not too dissimilar to to our generation.
Speaker:It's, uh, back in the day when telephone was the only way you could
Speaker:do things, there'll be a chunk of the population that would dread picking up
Speaker:the phone and making that phone call.
Speaker:I don't know if that's Is that new or that different with the
Speaker:younger with the younger folks?
Speaker:I hadn't thought about, I hadn't thought about it in that way.
Speaker:And I think, look, I certainly remember in my days when I was at university
Speaker:and having to, studying journalism and one of the things you have to
Speaker:learn is that ability to make calls to strangers to ask them for information.
Speaker:And you have to get over that fear pretty quickly because.
Speaker:You're forced to make many of those calls on a daily basis.
Speaker:For most people, it's terrifying, isn't it?
Speaker:For most people, it's terrifying.
Speaker:It's just, it's, and you don't even know what you're terrified about half the time.
Speaker:It's one thing if you're a journalist and you're having to deliver bad news
Speaker:to people which some people end up with that kind of round of things,
Speaker:although probably less so these days.
Speaker:But it's, it is this whole idea of picking up the phone and talking to a stranger.
Speaker:But then if you realize it's just as hard for them to want to talk to you.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:It's it's difficult.
Speaker:I, you, it's a bit like when you sit on a plane or in a, or some sort of
Speaker:transport and you watch some people that will engage the person next
Speaker:to them, cause you just never know.
Speaker:And I, I've certainly met a few people.
Speaker:I don't tend to do that, but I have had a couple of people that have approached
Speaker:me and Had some amazing conversations.
Speaker:In fact, I think it's about 18 months or so ago.
Speaker:I was invited to a, to, to make a particular trip to another state
Speaker:for something and The truth was, I wasn't really sure why I was
Speaker:doing it, but ended up doing it.
Speaker:But the best part of that trip was at the airport, someone approached
Speaker:me to, he had his headphones on and didn't hear a message that was come
Speaker:across, asked me about the message.
Speaker:Then, we started a conversation, ended up engaging with him and have carried on
Speaker:that kind of relationship well beyond what anyone else I met at the actual event was.
Speaker:So you just never know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Things Bill.
Speaker:A lot of the time for people picking up the phone it's the fear of rejection.
Speaker:They already think that they're going to get rejected before, before they
Speaker:even get, get on, on, on the other side.
Speaker:And then of course there's a new found fear that we all have when we try and
Speaker:reach out to call centers and things is waiting for half an hour on the
Speaker:phone listening to to, to whole music.
Speaker:That's dreadful.
Speaker:Don't get me stuck.
Speaker:Don't get me started on that one.
Speaker:Anyone that's moved house as I've done recently and you have to ring certain
Speaker:some companies you have to ring to make some changes or to organize new
Speaker:equipment and those sorts of things.
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:We could trade horror stories for a while on that one.
Speaker:We won't go down that path.
Speaker:We have to wrap things up in a minute.
Speaker:So I just wanted to turn my attention to I guess away from the stuff that you're
Speaker:doing as far as an author is concerned and what you do day to day and of course
Speaker:you're working in the consulting space.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:And on the basis of that, I always ask this question of my guests.
Speaker:What's the aha moment that people have when they come to work with
Speaker:you, that you wish they knew they were going to have an advance?
Speaker:The aha moment.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Usually it's maybe the amount of experience that I have.
Speaker:Maybe the thing that the things that I know about business, some of the
Speaker:insights But I've got a I've got I'm working as a fractional executive
Speaker:across four different businesses, right?
Speaker:One of them is a cyber security business where we sell penetration
Speaker:testing services, and that's the business that I've now.
Speaker:Created the sales process down to the fine art that we get over 80%,
Speaker:over 85 percent closing rates.
Speaker:And it's been growing like crazy.
Speaker:So last year was for many people in businesses in New Zealand, at
Speaker:least I'm not, I'm sure Australia as well was pretty terrible year.
Speaker:We had a quite a bad recession in this country, but with Blacklock,
Speaker:we've managed to triple our revenue.
Speaker:So that was that was okay in a down year it was it was not bad.
Speaker:And I think the aha moment was there that actually this stuff's working.
Speaker:The strategy, the sales strategies.
Speaker:Working.
Speaker:And I'm getting the sale.
Speaker:Same.
Speaker:How moment in my other business that I've built.
Speaker:So I've created a business called Octavox.
Speaker:And you'll be laughing at that business is exactly designed to
Speaker:destroy these call wait times.
Speaker:So those businesses those businesses that you were dreading to call, I would like
Speaker:to have some context in there because we may be able to help them remove
Speaker:that with actually with the help of AI.
Speaker:Hi.
Speaker:And we've been we're a startup, so we only got a a couple of clients
Speaker:that we delivering right now.
Speaker:We're not an established company.
Speaker:And one of my business partners come, comes from Cisco ex, ex Cisco guy.
Speaker:And, um, he tells me, look this whole.
Speaker:Sales process for a startup that's completely go runs country to everything
Speaker:I've been taught at Cisco, but he's a, how moment is, but it works.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And that's look at it.
Speaker:I tell you what the heart moment I'll give you back as well.
Speaker:That I think anyone listening in today will go you talked
Speaker:about imposter syndrome.
Speaker:I don't think there's any of that, but you need to worry too much
Speaker:about The book is such a great idea.
Speaker:And as we as we go to air with this, the book is just being released and we're
Speaker:going to include a whole lot of details about how to access copies of that book
Speaker:in the show notes, unasked questions.
Speaker:You'll get a lot of questions answered when you read the book, no doubt about it.
Speaker:So I'm looking forward to having a read of it myself.
Speaker:So you got, thank you so much for being an amazing guest on, on this bites.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you for having me, Anthony.
Speaker:Appreciate it.
Speaker:And to everyone listening in, of course.
Speaker:Don't forget to hit subscribe and we look forward to your company
Speaker:on the next episode of Biz Bites.
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