Sell Like a Spy – In Just 7 Minutes with Jeremy Hurewitz

Resources/Links:

• To know more on how to make ultimate promising sales, click here: Selllikeaspy.net

Summary

Have you been sticking with those overly data-driven sales tactics that nobody ends up listening to you?

Do you want to know how to keep your prospect hooked with what you have to say and make instant long-term sales?

Jeremy Hurewitz’s Sell Like a Spy program helps salespeople connect more deeply and overcome challenges by leveraging spy tradecraft. He is a former journalist and consultant and is the Founder of Challenger Hill Consulting.

Grab a drink and listen in to how Jeremy sells like a spy and get instant sakes by establishing a human-to-human connection through empathy and emotional intelligence.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:22 – Jeremy’s ideal client: I think the ideal client would be a B2B company with a revenue recurring retainer-based sales model with you know, fairly big ticket 5-, 6-, 7-figure sales models. That’s a lot of the sales that I’ve done.
• 02:31 – The problem he helps solve: Well, I think I help solve the problem of greater connectivity with client bases. So, you know, having come from the business development world, and you know, with leavened with a healthy dose of intelligence.
• 03:37 – The symptoms of the problem: Well, either you’re an inexperienced salesperson, and you’ve been given kind of a roadmap about how to sell or you’re an experienced salesperson who’s kind of had the same bag of tricks for a while.
• 05:35 – Clients’ common mistakes before consulting Jeremy: Some of the things that I’ve talked about before, again, rogue behaviors that they’re taught to do, you know, call thirty times and then give up or send the following email with the following language.
• 06:29 – Jeremy’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): Just a quick one to kind of, you know, the tip of the iceberg, but mirroring is taught in a sales context. That’s the physical replication of somebody’s behavior.
• 07:32 – Jeremy’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): To know more on how to make ultimate promising sales, click here: Selllikeaspy.net
• 07:50 – Q: Sales quotas and how everybody is just chasing a sales quota. A: It could be a bad market. It could be a tough time for the product or service you’re selling. You can be the greatest salesperson in the world and not, you know, attain your quota.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Empathy is the WD40 of communications.” -Jeremy Hurewitz Click To Tweet

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Welcome, everyone, to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I’m Tom Poland joined today by Jeremy Hurewitz. Jeremy, a very warm welcome from Down Under, sir. Where are you hanging out?

Jeremy Hurewitz 00:20
I’m in Brooklyn, New York.

Tom Poland 00:21
Brooklyn, New York, home of the who? What’s the team you’re supporting there?

Jeremy Hurewitz 00:26
The home of the who and what team am I supporting?

Tom Poland 00:29
The baseball team that you support?

Jeremy Hurewitz 00:31
I’m a big Yankees fan. New York Yankees.

Tom Poland 00:34
Okay, cool. Go the Yankees! How about them Yankees? All right. So, folks, off baseball, which is one of Jeremy’s passions, on to business. Jeremy’s Sell Like a Spy Program is very, very clever, by the way, Jeremy. The whole positioning of that, it’s unique, And it’s clever, and it’s insightful. Folks, we’re going to learn more about it in a moment. He helps salespeople connect more deeply and overcome challenges by leveraging spy tradecraft. A former journalist and consultant, Jeremy is the founder of Challenger Hill Consulting, and the Creator of Sell Like a Spy, which is the title of our little interview here. Jeremy, thank you for being here. Our seven minutes is going to start now, sir. Question number one, who is your ideal client?

Jeremy Hurewitz 01:22
Well, I think the ideal client would be a B2B company with a revenue recurring retainer-based sales model with you know, fairly big ticket 5-, 6-, 7-figure sales models. That’s a lot of the sales that I’ve done. It means that a sales organization should be investing heavily in relationship development, both in the early stages of recruiting the client and then retaining the client. There’s a saying that a good spy re-recruits their agent in every meeting. So, it’s not just about closing that initial deal. But I have built Sell Like a Spy for more transactional quicker sales, whether it’s for a product or for smaller revenue sales. And one of the spies that I worked with to develop this, we talked about this, and she talked about how, if she had only an hour with an Iranian scientist in a hotel in Vienna, she would leverage the same skills and tradecraft to connect with that person even if she had months to do it. So, it’s a question of just making it more abbreviated, but, specifically, to circle back to your initial question, it’s about, you know, B2B, bigger ticket, sales organizations are probably the most ideal clients.

Tom Poland 02:25
Perfect! Thank you for that. Six minutes left, what would you or how would you define the problem you solve for those organizations?

Jeremy Hurewitz 02:31
Well, I think I help solve the problem of greater connectivity with client bases. So, you know, having come from the business development world, and you know, with leavened with a healthy dose of intelligence. Having worked in corporate security consulting, I’ve done many sales trainings, and I’ve frankly, found them to be not that effective. I feel like a lot of people do the training or, you know, not necessarily socially gifted people who have sold a lot themselves in my experience. And I think that you don’t have to be the most, you know, loquacious person to be a great salesperson. But I think that the market for sales training is overly data-driven. And I’m trying to solve for creating a little bit more emotional connectivity to know clients and overcome some of the problems that will result in human-to-human contact.

Tom Poland 03:15
Very interesting! Humans buy, right? Organizations that actually buy humans, individuals buy, and they-

Jeremy Hurewitz 03:20
People buy.

Tom Poland 03:20
We are often emotionally driven, and so on. So, what would you say are some of the typical symptoms, this is question three, that your ideal clients are experiencing before they engage with you? We’ve got over four and a half minutes left. What’s going on in their organization that will give them a heads up that they should really find out more about what you do?

Jeremy Hurewitz 03:37
Well, either you’re an inexperienced salesperson, and you’ve been given kind of a roadmap about how to sell or you’re an experienced salesperson who’s kind of had the same bag of tricks for a while. But I think that same data-driven approach to sales has kind of corrupted the way we might approach things a little bit. And there are tools in the toolkit of emotional intelligence and connecting with people that I help people discover inside of themselves that are very innate that they can bring out, such as humanizing yourself. I spend a lot of time on that, and people really connect to that idea. So, I think that people also wind up just kind of doing the same behaviors but doing it more intensely, where they get a little bit of sad, or they point fingers, and I am helping people kind of, you know, solve these problems and get around some of these issues with new tools to put in their toolkit.

Tom Poland 04:22
So, if you’ve got, say, a sales director in an organization, and it’s big-ticket items, like you said, they’re expensive. How would that person know they need to talk to you? What’s going on with their sales team? Are they just- sales ratios or conversion ratios dropping? Are salespeople saying they don’t have a connection? What’s going on there, do you think?

Jeremy Hurewitz 04:43
Well, I mean, it varies from organization to organization, but I think that people wind up again pursuing their narrow lane about how they sell and you know, they might think, “This person doesn’t want to be sold to and they’re just a jerk” or something like that. Whereas, you know, I talk a lot about that. And there’s a quote from Abraham Lincoln, “I don’t like that person. I must get to know him better.” So, you start with that as a challenge, and you think about how spies leverage radical empathy to connect with criminals, terrorists, you know, diplomats from some terrible places. They overcome significant challenges to make a very popular sale. So, there’s no reason that you selling that software or something that can overcome the challenge, as well. So, I think that helps inspire.

Tom Poland 05:20
So that might lead us nicely to question four. Three minutes left. The common mistakes that individuals or organizations make when trying to solve this problem? I guess one of them is blaming the prospect, what else? What else have you got that people try that just flat out isn’t going to work?

Jeremy Hurewitz 05:35
Yeah, I mean, you know, some of the things that I’ve talked about before, again, rogue behaviors that they’re taught to do, you know, call thirty times and then give up or send the following email with the following language, you know. And I teach people, “Look, that might work, and that’s a great template. And I know you have to hit 100 emails or whatever. But take a look at their LinkedIn, you know, profile and see if they’re University of Kentucky basketball fans or something and see if you can, you know, find something that you can bring into an email or a cold outreach call that can create a lot of personal connectivity.” So, I’m trying to disrupt that space a little bit. And, there’s some difference-

Tom Poland 06:09
And that goes back to that empathy you’re talking about with the spy in the hotel, or the terrorist, or whatever. It’s fascinating!

Jeremy Hurewitz 06:16
See, empathy is the WD40 of communications.

Tom Poland 06:19
Jeremy lubricates it very well. So, question five, valuable free action like a top tip. One minute, 45 left. What’s one quick tip you could give folks?

Jeremy Hurewitz 06:29
Yeah, just a quick one to kind of, you know, the tip of the iceberg, but mirroring is taught in a sales context. That’s the physical replication of somebody’s behavior. And subconsciously, it’s been shown in the behavioral science that a little shortcut to the rapport-building, cycle, and creates a little bit more connectivity. So, if your client is leaning forward, elbows on the table, you want to mirror that. And so, I talked about that, but I talk about what I call the “varsity level mirroring”, verbal mirroring, which I also talked about a partner from the FBI, a former Chief Hostage Negotiator. And we talk extensively about how FBI hostage negotiators leverage verbal mirroring to connect with people when they can’t be face-to-face with them. But you can be face to face in the sales context by leveraging some of the same words, and I have some tricks that I teach about, you know, really doing that well. It’s something to really think about to connect with people. So, start with basic physical mirroring, and then talk with me about verbal mirroring to take that to the next level.

Tom Poland 07:21
The sorts of phrases or words that they use on a regular basis, you drop them into your responses and questions, and that will-

Jeremy Hurewitz 07:27
Yeah, I don’t want to give too much away but it’s about particularly looking for colloquialisms and pet words, right?

Tom Poland 07:32
Perfect! Thank you for that. A valuable free resource, folks. I’ll answer this for the sake of time. Go to selllikeaspy.net. You’re going to find a fascinating video there on Jeremy. You can connect with him on LinkedIn as well. Selllikeaspy.net. 20 seconds left, Jeremy, what’s the one question I should have asked you, but didn’t?

Jeremy Hurewitz 07:50
Sales quotas and how everybody is just chasing a sales quota. It could be a bad market. It could be a tough time for the product or service you’re selling. You can be the greatest salesperson in the world and not, you know, attain your quota. So maybe you could ask me why sales have such a high turnover and I’d start pointing to that.

Tom Poland 08:06
Jeremy, thanks so much for your time!

Jeremy Hurewitz 08:08
My pleasure! Thank you for having me.

Tom Poland 08:09
It’s been interesting. Thank you.

Tom Poland 08:11
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.