How to Turn Rejection into Opportunity: Winning Sales Strategies from Ironman Finisher Rich Greene

Freddy D: 00:01:44

Doctor Richard Green is a seven time Ironman triathlete, performance expert and business coach. His Ironman sales success formula has been featured on abc, cbs, NBC and Fox.

His client list includes Microsoft, Whole Foods, Target, JPMorgan Chase, CVS, Coors, the Mayo Clinic and Coca Cola, among many, many others.

He has more than 30 years experience as a successful sales professional across a variety of industries, helping his clients sell well over $100 million in business.

Rich discovered that the Ironman athletes have a unique way of thinking about success and that their mindset is so powerful that it enables them to face extreme challenges and succeed where most people would fail. Dr. Green has distilled the Ironman mindset into an elite executive training program called the Iron Code that can make your success unstoppable.

Most importantly, he has found his mission of helping ordinary people do extraordinary things. Good morning, Rich. Welcome to the Business Superfans podcast. How are you this morning?

Richard Greene: 00:02:53

I'm great, Frederick. Good morning to you as well. Thanks for having me on the podcast.

Freddy D: 00:02:58

So tell me a little bit about your story and how you arrived to where you are today doing Ironmans and talking about mastering sales and all those kind of really cool things.

Richard Greene: 00:03:09

All right, where shall we start? Maybe we'll start at. You just mentioned Ironman. Maybe we'll start there.

Freddy D: 00:03:15

Okay.

Richard Greene: 00:03:16

So it all started with me and this was actually a transformational point in my life. It all started for me at 50 years of age. I hadn't been feeling well for a long time.

And on my birthday, actually my 50th birthday, I just decided including to the doctor because I was getting dizzy. And at this point, particular point in time, I was 50 pounds heavier. Blood pressure was. They knew it was high, I just didn't know how high it was.

I hadn't taken care of myself. So I went to the doctor and didn't have an appointment. I waited for almost an hour in that waiting room.

Then when I got called in and I went into the examination room, it was cold. I could smell antiseptic in the room and thought to myself, this is a place where people go to die. That's how bad I was feeling.

So anyway, the doctor comes in and he takes my vitals and he has a concerned look on his face. He left the room a few minutes later, came back with a nurse and they were pushing his big machine. It was an EKG machine, heart monitor, just for me.

Frederick. I knew that wasn't normal because typically they just write you a prescription and send you on your way, right?

Yeah, we got hooked up he read my vitals and I could tell he had a concerned look on his face. And I said, doc, what is it? What is it? Nevermind. I know I'm gonna have a heart attack, aren't I?

He said, no, Rich, you're not gonna have a heart attack. But if you don't change your ways, probably gonna have a stroke. I'll tell you what. I got dizzy all over again.

I had been standing up and I sat down in the chair. And the first thing in my mind, Frederick, was my two daughters were 12 and 14 at the time. I thought I might not get to see them grow up.

And I knew at that point in time that was a change. That was a change in my life and I needed to make some dramatic changes.

That particular afternoon I, after the doctor's office and I went to the health food store and I bought two bags of fresh fruits and vegetables and all kinds of stuff. I'd never gone to the health food store before, so I didn't really know what I was doing. I'm just looking at what I thought was good.

There's one thing I did know and, and one of the things, first things I did was I threw away all the junk. The Doritos, the Ho Hos, the Red Bulls.

And I don't know if any of you out there listening have any of that stuff in your house, but it's not good for you. Yeah, I even threw away my kids Pop Tarts. Cause I didn't want to be tempted. So I embarked on a new diet.

And then along the way I realized I never moved a muscle my entire adult life. My entire adult life. And I figured I needed exercise. So one of the things I started doing was swimming was in High School, 40 years ago.

that point I was a swimmer. And I thought, I'll get some exercise and I'll swim.

Frederick that lasted about two weeks because I got bored just back and forth in the pool looking at that black line on the bottom. So I did some Googling because I'm a type A and I figured I needed to get a, an event in front of me.

And I found this 12 and a half mile swim around the island of Key West. And I thought, that's what I'll do. This is ridiculous. Because I couldn't swim eight laps in the pool without getting out of breath.

Twelve and a half miles wasn't long before I figured I needed to get a coach. So I got a coach to help me with this swim. She said to me, bridge is not all about swimming. It's about endurance. Do you ride a bike?

I said, no, coach, I haven't ridden a bike since I was 16. Why would I ride a bike? I drive a car. And she said, I think you should get a bike and ride. So start riding a bike. Got a bike.

Start riding a bike and start riding a lot. And about six weeks later she says, do you run? And I said, hey coach, I got a bad back. I got one leg that's half an inch shorter than the other.

No, I, I don't run at all. And she said, I think that's even more the reason why you should run. Go figure this out, Frederick. I start running and before I know it, here I am.

I'm swimming, I'm biking, I'm running. I'm accidentally training for a triathlon. Got tricked into that whole thing.

And she told she one day she said, hey, the guys are doing this Olympic distance triathlon. Do you want to give it a try? So I, I said yes, obviously. And I did it. It was the hardest thing I have ever done.

I got so excited that I crossed that finish line. Here I am just or 50 years old and I thought, hmm, I wonder what the hardest one is. So I did some more googling and I found the Ironman.

For those of you who don't know, and Frederick, I know you and I know each other for a while. That Ironman is. It's a long day. Yeah, very long. It's crazy. It's a 24 mile swim and then when you're done with that, you do 112 mile bike ride.

And then when you're done with that, you put your running shoes on and you run a marathon. So I come up close to up to 17 hours doing an erase. So it's a very long day. So here I am today. I've taken care of my blood pressure.

It was 209 over 107 and normal is 120 over 80. It's normal now. I lost that 50 pounds weight. I've done eight Ironman. The last one I did was the world championships. I did that at 60 years of age.

Freddy D: 00:08:14

That's amazing.

Richard Greene: 00:08:15

That's, that's amazing considering that I never.

Freddy D: 00:08:17

Gained muscle at all. Yeah, the key thing that you, that help. You got a coach. Most people don't understand the benefit of a coach, but a coach is a game changer.

You look at sports teams, they've got coaches, executives, they have a coach.

You look at movie stars, they've got acting coaches, you look at musicians, they've got coaches with that so everybody that is ultra successful has got a coach.

Richard Greene: 00:08:48

You are so right. It wasn't until later in life that I learned that.

Because a lot of us think that we're smart and we want to try to do things ourselves and we think that we're very capable. But you know what?

If you want to do something you've never done before and you want to get there fast and you want to ensure your success, Frederick, you're right. You got to get the coach.

Freddy D: 00:09:06

You can't talk to yourself. Talking to yourself doesn't resolve anything. Okay, what am I think? What do you think you should do? I don't know. I think we should try to do this.

You go around in circles versus getting a completely different perspective, which changes your mindset, and you go, huh, I never thought of that. I never looked at it that way. And that's the difference. That's the important part, as well as the encouragement. Hey, we all need to be encouraged.

We all need to be appreciated and recognized. So you got someone that's going to say, hey, Rich, you just did two mile swimming. That's amazing. Those kind of things.

Richard Greene: 00:09:43

One of the things that maybe they'll fit into this conversation or not. But one of the things I developed was the four leadership styles of the Ironman. And along that lines, one of the leadership styles is the fan.

We all need fans, all the athletes, because what do you do when you're out there on that course and you just feel like you want to quit or you want to die and you've got the fan that's cheering you on.

So there can be fans out on the course in sports, there can be fans in your family for those family members that are supporting whatever you're doing, There can be fans in business. So anybody who thinks that they're not a leader, the fan is a really good leadership style.

Supporting others that you work with in helping them and the company get to where they want to get to.

Freddy D: 00:10:29

That's why I wrote the book Creating Business Super Fans. It's all about transforming your employees, your customers, your business allies, your suppliers, the whole ecosystem.

You get them to being your champions. Using a sports term, or like I called them, business superfans is basically brand advocates on steroids.

Richard Greene: 00:10:50

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And I love your approach and I love the super fans.

And I have to tell you, that thing that we just talked about here, the fan, that leadership style, that's just one little piece. And I know you talk about this all the time. There's just so much more to it.

But I Didn't know that I had at this point, I'd already had almost 25 years of sales experience and so I was just slugging away out there. And the things I learned doing the Ironman allow me to create all sorts of processes around mindset. Because what do you.

What do you do when you run into a hurdle or something that won't allow you to move forward and maybe you have to change direction or you lose a sale? Do you tuck your tail between your legs and saunter off or do you figure out how to move forward and make a success out of it?

Freddy D: 00:11:38

It's an excellent way to transition into the business part of the conversation here because we talked about how you transform yourself personally and changed your whole outlook on things. Let's talk about some of the successes and things you've done in sales and what you've.

Just like you mentioned what you learned from training for the Ironman for triathlon type events, applying it into business, and more importantly, the sales aspect of things and creating super fans out of customers, whether you win or lose, which is. We'll talk more about the second part.

Richard Greene: 00:12:13

Yeah, okay. Yeah. What is winning and losing? We'll talk about that, definitely. I'm a big believer in process. I love processes or formulas or recipes.

Something that you can follow, right. That somebody has already put together that has achieved success with.

And you can either follow it to the letter or you can follow it and maybe modify it a little bit for your situation. But a process that you can take step by step to go where you want to go. And of course in sales, we all want to get that. Yes.

But along the way, especially when you're getting started out, there's a lot of no's and it can be demoralizing and a lot of people just quit. You know what? I read an interesting statistic, Frederick, about goal setting. And this was two studies that were done.

One was done by the University of Scranton and the other was done by LinkedIn. And the university of Scranton did a study and they found that 92% of the people who set a goal, 92% don't achieve it. Wow, that's huge.

LinkedIn was 89%. So really high. I believe in working with lots of people myself in business and coaching other executives in business that a lot of it's just mindset.

People get moralized. They don't realize there is a formula to help you move forward. And by the way, it's not all about thinking positive thoughts.

That only gets you so far. Right. You've got to have strategies too.

Freddy D: 00:13:34

And got to take action.

Richard Greene: 00:13:35

You got to take action. Absolutely. Absolutely. For me, that winning and losing thing is a mindset. We can use the sports analogy because we just talked about it. Sports.

Usually in professional sports, you know, there's a winner and loser or there might be a first, second and third place.

Freddy D: 00:13:52

Right.

Richard Greene: 00:13:52

And that's it.

But if we apply that to life and you consider yourself a winner if you only get first, second and third place, man, there's a lot of losers in the world. So I think that's screwed. I don't really believe that in. Unless you're a professional in sports or something like that.

I don't really believe that's the right way to measure things. So I've created a whole new concept of what winning is. And it's all centered around those, those two studies that I talked about. The 92%.

How do you not be the 92%? How do you beat the 8%? So that's one of the things I learned from the Ironman and having some setbacks along the way. Sure, I finished all my Ironman.

But it's a long day. Things happen that you just don't expect to happen. And you may have trained for a year and then something bad happens.

So what are you going to do if you train for a year?

Freddy D: 00:14:39

Quit?

Richard Greene: 00:14:40

No. So it's the same thing in life and it's the same thing in business.

Freddy D: 00:14:43

Yeah, absolutely. You look at the Olympics going on in, in France right now and you've seen athletes like you just said train for years and this is their big moment.

They're running and all of a sudden they trip. And just like that, things change and they get back up and they still go.

Richard Greene: 00:15:03

I love that. It just keep going no matter what. I love that. And that's actually one of the steps in my success process.

So if you like, maybe I can share with you my four step process for winning. I've got two that I love to share with your listeners. One is a gift we can talk about later on, which is my program, how to win in sales.

A hundred percent of the time, even when the prospect says no, I'd like to win even when someone says no. And I'd love to chat a little bit about that.

Freddy D: 00:15:31

Yeah.

Richard Greene: 00:15:31

With you. Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:15:32

Because you know, we talked about before we started recording the show and a no necessarily doesn't mean a no.

Richard Greene: 00:15:38

Right. I mean, I don't know enough about you or no, not right now, or all sorts of things.

Freddy D: 00:15:43

Yeah.

Richard Greene: 00:15:43

Why don't I talk first about before we go into, we'll talk a few things about the winning and sale. Even when you get a no. But why don't I back up and talk to you about how it first started, how I had started the mindset and then the process. Sure.

And then how you can use that four step process in your life. You can even use it in your business. My sales one is very specific towards sales.

So I'm going to stay with the Ironman thing because that's where I learned it from my very first Ironman. I learned so many lessons. It was 108 degrees that day in Coeur d', Alene, Idaho. It was a 50 year high. It was completely unexpected.

So can you imagine running 140 mile race in 108 degree weather? My morning started off fine. Cause I'm in, in the water, right. You, you start that 2.4 mile swim, that's okay.

But getting on the bike and it hit 108 really early in the morning and getting on the bike and slugging through that is really tough. And at one point I found myself at mile 81. It was a rest station and I'd run out of water and I was getting dehydrated. I know.

Cause my hands were like, they were like raptor's claws. They were just seizing up on me. I get to that aid station, there's no water. We're in the middle of an Idaho highway and there's no water.

There's nothing to be found. And this is where I put my step one into place which was what are you going to do? You've declared yourself a winner.

And I think that's the first thing you need to do. Whatever you're doing, you need to say I'm going to win, I'm going to finish. I'm going to achieve my goal no matter what.

And so that's the first process is getting that in your mind. And so I got to this aid station. There was no water. But I saw a kiddie pool. Those blue pools. I don't know if your mother puts you in one of those.

In the summertime.

Freddy D: 00:17:24

We have one for our dogs. So. Yes.

Richard Greene: 00:17:26

Yeah. Yes. Dogs like them too. Yep. At the this event they had it filled with ice and water and Gatorade and all sorts of things.

I could tell that because I could. I went to the pool and I looked at it and there was labels floating in the water.

It was also grass and bugs and some other things and the water's dingy brown. But I needed something to keep me going. So I did the unthinkable for a lot of people.

I just kneeled down and scooped up some water from that kiddie pool and I started drinking. So I've already declared myself a winner. I needed to do whatever I need to do to win.

So that got me going again about after 10 minutes and I got back on the bike. I rode it all the way to the finish line, to the transition where you get off your bike and you put your shoes on and you run a marathon.

Unfortunately, as I got off the bike, I had done something to my back over that 112 mile bike ride. And I had electricity shooting down my back, down my legs, into my feet. I couldn't stand up straight and I had to run a marathon.

So this is where, yeah, this is where the rubber meets the road. This is where you really start to figure out what do I need to do? I need to reframe the sit. So step two was reframe the situation.

And the situation was this. I had wanted to finish this race in 13 and a half hours and it wasn't going to happen. I had 17 hours to do it.

So I needed to reframe the situation in my head. You know what? I'm not quitting, but I'm going to finish. And that alone is not enough because then you got to get a strategy right.

So I looked at the time I had left and I realized that I did some quick calculation and I realized that if I did a fast 15 minute walk, if I could do it, I couldn't stand up straight, I could finish within the 17 hours. And I have to tell you, it was the hardest 26 miles I've ever done. I had tears rolling down my cheeks. People were asking me, are you okay?

And I just kept saying, I'm great, I'm good, I'm going to finish. This is number four. Step number four is finish what you start.

I just kept saying to myself, the whole 26 miles, finishers are winners, finishers are winners. I'm going to finish. And I did finish. I finished just 13 minutes shy of the cutoff.

Freddy D: 00:19:30

Wow.

Richard Greene: 00:19:31

If you know anything about the Ironman, if you finish that race in 17 hours, in one second, you're not an ironman. You gotta get under that 17 hour period. I didn't know that I was able to do it with that four step process.

And that four step process will work for anything in life, any sort of a setback. So that's one of the things that I teach people. It's one of the things I use all the time. Because nothing ever goes your way completely.

Freddy D: 00:19:52

Right, right. Throws you lemons, you gotta make lemonade.

Richard Greene: 00:19:58

Absolutely. All the time. So that very first Iron man, that's what started the whole thought about processes and mindset and winning.

I just started developing more and more processes around the things that I learned and then teaching them to business people. That's a foundation of it all. Then out of that came lots, as I said, lots of different processes.

But the one we were, we just mentioned, which was how to win in sales a hundred percent of the time, even when the prospect says no. And we were talking about that and I love. You have the exact same winning philosophies, which I really appreciate.

But those disappointments in life and how you move forward.

Freddy D: 00:20:35

Yeah, it's very important how you handle that because I've done sales on a global level. And you've got language barriers, you've got cultural barriers and everything else. You've got to adapt. You've got to be able to pivot and adjust.

You know, I shared a story and I'll share it again.

We were doing a presentation to this one company and I'll name the company in a minute, and it was a division, they liked it, but they did not have the ability to make a purchasing decision. It had to be done by corporate. Flew back to the United States and this is for a $10,000 software sale. Okay, so not a lot of money.

And then I flew back as my distributor in Germany set up appointment at corporate, two flights there and back and hotel and everything else. So profit in the deal is zilch. We do the presentation and the software crashes in front of all the decision makers.

We talk about situations and mindsets and how do you handle when Murphy's Law kicked in and all is going south. So it was lunchtime and they had invited us to lunch. I says, no, thank you. We're going to take a look at what's going on.

So fortunately, the time zone worked out to where people back here in Scottsdale were in the office. So I called them and we checked it and we validated that there was a bug in the software. And it was. So when he came back to lunch, I basically.

And I could read the audience. And so first off, we're going to come transparent.

There's a bug in the software and we're going to show it to you and we can repeat it and with teams already on fixing it. So I neutralized the issue. I realized most of the people were glassy eyed because they didn't understand because it was new technology. Actually.

I had come up with the term machining intelligence because it was for programming milling machines, lathes, wiredms. So it was basically MI was our tagline for it.

They didn't understand it because based upon the geometric shapes, it would decide the tools and the tool path the program and all that stuff automatically. I says, we're going to start the whole presentation over.

And I told my distributor, slow down, they don't understand what's happening, so let's start all this all over. So we start a whole presentation and we went very slow and made sure that every step they understood this brand new technology.

And people started to smile and people started to get engaged because now they were starting to understand what this tool could do. It was ahead of its time. And at the end everybody was smiling, everybody was happy.

They say, we're going to buy this system and we're going to approve it for this location. That company was Bosch. Wow.

Even though it was a $10,000 sale and we made no money on that deal, my distributor was able to go to all the suppliers and say, hey Rich, you want to take a look at this technology? Bosch is utilizing it and so you might want to take a peek at it. And sales just exploded because we now were able to name drop from that perspective.

Just like you said in your Ironman, you had setbacks, but it's how you handle the setback that is transformative. So same thing. I can share it from a business perspective.

So let's go into the aspect of how do you apply your four step process into the sales aspect?

Richard Greene: 00:24:09

Sure, absolutely. And you know what, can I just come and that's a great story by the way. Thanks for telling that.

There's some of the things that, that you did that I think were, are really key at creating that super fan that you did where you were honest and you were transparent and that, that is one of the keys. Nobody likes somebody who's too slick or feels not telling the truth or they aren't telling the truth.

Being honest when things go wrong because we're all human. I think people connect more when you're that way. So you're honest. Yeah. And you already have people working on it, fixing it.

That, that says something right there. The other thing was you connected with your audience because you were, you could see that they didn't understand. So you were.

I was present, yeah, you were, yeah. You're present. You're putting yourself in their shoes. And that's another great aspect.

And the last thing that I really got out of that, which I love because first when you said it's a $10,000 sale, and I'm thinking you already flew over once. That's probably eaten up in the travel and entertainment right away. Then you flew over again. And it wasn't just necessarily that.

It was the marketing, the name, which is a great name, but you actually invested in your customer. You didn't say, you know what, this doesn't make any sense. I'm going to be negative when I get through with it. Cash wise.

You went for it anyway and you help them out. And because of that called karma or whatever you want to call it, you got all these other deals.

So this is all mindset about not being greedy and looking for ways to help people and never giving up when things go wrong.

Freddy D: 00:25:35

That's key right there. Never giving up.

Richard Greene: 00:25:38

Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about the. I lost the sale.

Freddy D: 00:25:41

Yes.

Richard Greene: 00:25:42

What do you do?

Freddy D: 00:25:43

Yeah. Cause I think you and I have a same similar approach, but I'll let you, I'll let you run with it.

Richard Greene: 00:25:48

Well, you and I have talked and I know what kind of business person you are. You're a great, you're a great businessman.

And one of the things I really appreciate that you do and that I think is absolutely key to creating super fans is to be thankful for the opportunity. So I don't care if you, you got the sale or you didn't get the sale, Be thankful that you were able to make the pitch.

You met somebody new, you helped educate them. Remember, in sales, our job is to get decision, yes or no. Hopefully we get the yes decision.

Freddy D: 00:26:17

But maybe it's not a decision.

Richard Greene: 00:26:19

Maybe it's not a decision. That's right. That's right. And there's all, there's all sorts of techniques around that whole maybe thing.

It's our job to get a decision and we want to get the positive decision for ourselves and our companies. But sometimes that's not the way it works. So I think the first thing is being thankful. You and I have talked about this in the past.

What are you doing? Lose a deal? Do you just say, screw them, they don't know what they're talking about, and never call them again?

I think one of the first things you do is you reach out and you say, hey, I appreciate the opportunity that you gave me.

Of course I'm disappointed that we're not going to be working together, but just because you didn't buy from me doesn't mean that we can't stay in touch. And I'd be happy to Be a resource to you.

If you ever have any questions about anything in the industry or the software, whatever, feel free to reach out anytime and thanks again for the opportunity. I think that's where it starts.

Freddy D: 00:27:09

It totally starts there because things change and your product, tool, service, whatever it is, may not have fit them at that point in time and it may down the road or they may run into somebody because business owners talk to business owners and they may say, you know what, that product that Rich had, I think it'll work for your business. You should give this guy a call. And now you've got a.

Basically a super fan, super fan that's referring you even though they're not your customer, referring you to somebody else. That's a done deal.

Richard Greene: 00:27:47

Yeah, absolutely. I think even if that doesn't happen, we do things without the expectation of return. You'd be surprised.

It'll come around some way or another, but you should do it without the expectation return. I worked in the market research industry for three of the largest market research companies in the world over a 12 year period.

I kept getting hired away.

You know, I had some success and then the competition would hire me away and I had some great success with that company and then the competition would hire me away. I had the exact same customers with all three companies. So what do you think? I, I did.

You think I'm going to go into the customers say, hey, I got a new business card, I'm not working with these guys anymore. That stuff was junk that I sold you. You need to buy this stuff now? Of course not.

Freddy D: 00:28:31

They're never going to gone just like that, right?

Richard Greene: 00:28:35

Gone. So I think if you always approach it, I'm trying to help people out.

Hopefully what I have to offer my product or service will do it, but if it doesn't, I'm gonna try to help them anyway. And you're right, that's how you get that referral. Because you're just good dude or dudette.

Freddy D: 00:28:51

Yeah, you're right. Because back in the early 90s, I worked with a manufacturing software company and got one account in Illinois. Worked with them for a year.

They were just a 40 man shop at the time. It was a tool and die shop making molds. And they were happy with the technology, the competitive technology. I knew the guy and he knew me.

And my joking way of saying is we would bow like two samurai warriors. We would go into an account, one of us would win, one of us would lose and we would come out bow again and that was the end of it.

Richard Greene: 00:29:27

On your way yeah.

Freddy D: 00:29:28

One day I get a phone call from this guy, and he invites me for lunch. I'm going, what's up with that? He goes, I'm buying. Okay.

So we got together, and it turned out he got promoted to major accounts in the company and thought enough about me to have me become his replacement as a district manager for that company. So I took over as district manager and. Okay, where do I go? I go back to my other customer and I told them the story.

They were like, wow, congratulations. And we've looked at this product as well. It turned out because it did some things that the other product didn't do.

So they ended up buying again from me, just like you just said, using both products. They did different things. Similar, but different. And they became my biggest superfan.

That account propelled me to being one of the top sales guys in the company because they were my superfans. So when I would be talking to a new prospect, I would say, contact Bob over at Such and such company. By the way, that was his real first name.

Richard Greene: 00:30:39

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:30:40

He'll tell you about the product, and he'll tell you how I work and all that stuff. They were my reference. They were my superfans. The last time I visited them, they wouldn't let me in the door. And I says, what's up, guys?

And they go, every time you walk in here, you cost us a hundred grand. Yeah. You bought the building next door, you built the breezeway. You bought the building on the other side, you built the breezeway.

And you're now 140 people, company from 40. Always about how I could help them achieve their vision of where they wanted to be.

Richard Greene: 00:31:15

You were thinking you were looking out for their best interest, so they kept buying from you even though you worked for the competition. You know, the thing that strikes me that I hadn't ever thought about before, Frederick, was you created a super fan of your competition.

You got hired by your competition.

Freddy D: 00:31:30

Correct.

Richard Greene: 00:31:32

Because you just were honest and forthright and you did business in an upstanding way.

Freddy D: 00:31:38

I'm still friends with that guy today.

Richard Greene: 00:31:39

That's great. That's a cool story. Along that lines, when they.

When they don't buy from you, you just talked about the fact that they gave you referrals, but you can get a referral even when they don't buy from you.

Freddy D: 00:31:51

Correct.

Richard Greene: 00:31:52

And that's one of the steps in my. In my process also. When you get the. No.

Freddy D: 00:31:56

When.

Richard Greene: 00:31:56

What do you do? Well, you thank them first. You. And think about this. If most people that are nice, that are decent people. They don't like to tell people no.

They feel bad that they rejected you. This is the perfect opportunity for them to feel good about themselves.

So I would say when you're faced with that, when someone just said no, and you've had a good experience in dealing with them, and you've done your best and you worked your hardest, now's the time to ask them for a favor.

Freddy D: 00:32:25

Especially if you built a relationship with them through that whole process that's even more so because you're right now you got an emotional connection and they're going, yeah, he's a good guy. And unfortunately, it's not what we're looking for at this point in time.

I know somebody or I may know somebody who may be able to benefit from what they're offering.

Richard Greene: 00:32:47

So this is the time to do it. Don't wait a day, wait a week, don't wait a month.

Right away, when the emotion is the kind of that guilty feeling they might have is wrong, and go ahead and ask and they'll feel better. You'll feel better. I'll tell you, one of the just popped into my head.

But one of the things that when you ask for a referral, probably get this about 80% of the time, someone, they'll just automatically respond, I don't know anybody. I don't know if you've ever had that before. I just don't know anybody.

And when that happens, because they're doing it automatically, I'll give you a little tip here. You want to break the pattern in their head, in their brain, right? Because it's a pattern that's been built in.

They're used to coming up with that answer because they get it all the time. You want to break that pattern. So ask this question. It's going to sound ridiculous, but it works. It'll work. It'll work. You'll just be shocked.

Okay, I understand. But if you did know somebody, who might that be? They just told you they don't know anybody, and then you ask them again.

It's a strange way to ask the question, and it breaks that pattern in their brain. And I'd say maybe about 50% of the time they'll come up with a person or a company. It's amazing. It's an amazing process.

But yeah, you want to strike while iron's hot and ask for a referral.

The other thing that you want to do also, and I don't care if you own your own business and you're just a single person or you're In a big company, you want to tell that individual that they're going to be getting a survey from your marketing department. So I help people with surveys that ask about how you performed with that. How was Rich? We had experience with Rich. Was he professional?

Did he help you with the situation you're in there? Those kinds of things. And this is a great way to get marketing material, people saying good things about you that you can use in marketing.

So I say, listen, my boss is going to be looking at this, so hopefully you'll say something nice.

Freddy D: 00:34:38

Reviews is the new word of mouth. So that's a brilliant way of getting reviews.

Even though you don't have that individual, that business as a customer, they still gave you a review that you can show to somebody else.

Richard Greene: 00:34:52

It works and it works great. And you'd be amazed at the things that people will say about you when they think they're helping you out.

So I say is, go get a survey monkey or something like that. Write up some leading questions, like leading meaning what did you like best about working with Rich?

And then they'll think about, oh, I liked this, and they'll write it down. Now you've got some good stuff that ideally you're right about the reviews. You want people to go online and say things about you too. Right.

But I think this is the. A good first step because it can be very quick and very easy.

I've got almost a 95% success rate with people doing this because it takes less than 30 seconds. So that's another step in the process.

Freddy D: 00:35:34

Yeah. And again, when you're meeting with somebody else in person, you can show them the feedback. Yeah.

Richard Greene: 00:35:41

A lot of times I'll take the. What somebody said about me and say, hey, listen, would you mind just taking this and putting it on LinkedIn?

Doing a review on LinkedIn for me and my company, LinkedIn reviews are great too. So there's all kinds of places you can put that review. But I think that's a critical thing that most people forget about and it's really easy to do.

Just a few things you need to set up. And the email doesn't come from you, it comes from the marketing department.

There's all sorts of things you can do to make that happen, but that's important. And I think the other thing that is critical is staying in contact with them.

Freddy D: 00:36:12

Absolutely.

Richard Greene: 00:36:13

You didn't get the deal, but you want to be able to stay in contact with them. Please don't do. I'm just checking in because that's just a waste of time.

If you're going to make a contact with somebody, be prepared when you call them to give them something of value. I saw this. I think this might be great for your business. I just thought about you and I wanted to send an email or phone call.

People still answer the phone today and people really appreciate that you're not pushing yourself on them. You're just being helpful.

Freddy D: 00:36:42

Correct.

Richard Greene: 00:36:43

That's in the book. Those are the things about developing that superfan.

Freddy D: 00:36:46

Right, Right.

Richard Greene: 00:36:47

That person is the company. They'll be that super fan. And if they leave the company, they'll go to another company.

Freddy D: 00:36:52

You just hit another topic right there because that sale may not have happened at that particular company, but that individual knows who you are and you followed up and you stayed in contact in a positive way.

All of a sudden they get another opportunity, they move on to another place and go, you know what that product, that or service that Rich had, this company could use. And next thing you know, they're reaching out to you.

Richard Greene: 00:37:17

If you, you spend any amount of time as a sales professional, and I've got decades right, it, it comes back at you. You'd be surprised. People move and this has happened time and time again where I worked with someone in one company, they moved to another company.

They liked our interaction, they were a super fan of Rich and they called me and I got more business.

Freddy D: 00:37:37

Yeah, same thing when I was selling manufacturing software. Exactly the same thing.

Richard Greene: 00:37:42

Yeah, yeah. These aren't difficult concepts. They really are, but they're really powerful and really important. I think Nike had the right slogan.

You just got to do it. Don't think about it. Just do it. Get it done. So going back to that winning first, first, second, third place or I won the sale.

I lost the sale if they said no and didn't buy from me. But they gave me a review, they gave me a referral, I got a new friend. Did I really lose?

Freddy D: 00:38:09

You got a W. You got a.

Richard Greene: 00:38:11

W. It's just a different kind of W. But it's a W. And that's where I help people. I know you help people as well. Get right up here.

The right mindset about doing business with people and with the goal of creating a super fan for Link.

Freddy D: 00:38:25

Exactly. Exactly. So, Rich, let's transition into the last part. Here is talk about your giveaway and how that can benefit people and how can they find that?

Richard Greene: 00:38:36

We talked a little bit about it and I've got a video that I put together. It's about a 30 minute video that goes through the process of how to win in sales a hundred percent of the time, even when the prospect says no.

And you'll get all the detailed steps. You'll get an actually survey, I've written survey with examples that you can use and teaching you exactly how to do that.

That survey part's a little bit tricky.

A few more things that you need to do to make it look like it's not coming directly from you, that it that really is a third party or a marketing department or whoever. And if you're a solopreneur, you are the marketing department.

So I'd like to give that to the listeners because I want everybody to win even when they're told no. And that you can pick that up for free at www.v101 00 100% winner. Www v 100% winner. Again, it's free.

Just stick your name and your email in there and you'll get access to it instantly.

And furthermore, if you've got questions or you're doing it, I've got a way that you can get in touch with me and I'd be happy to help you through the process, any questions that you have. So hopefully it's a real value to your listeners and you're winning all the time.

Freddy D: 00:39:51

Excellent. Rich, it's been great having you on the Business Superfans podcast show.

We shared a lot of great nuggets here for our audience and they can continue the conversation in the Business Superfans accelerator and they can get your information on the show notes. And I look forward to us continuing the conversation down the road.

Richard Greene: 00:40:12

Absolutely. Frederick, thanks for having me on your show today. I really appreciate it. And thanks to your listeners as well. Everybody keep winning.