SECRET SKILL. HIDDEN CAREER. The Truth About Sales

To become an outstanding communicator, you must ask questions and listen to the answers. They will tell you everything you need to know as you search for the most important thing in sales: the truth. Too often, though, people don’t find out the truth and their ability to satisfy their customer becomes a lucky dip. There are five key benefits to asking questions in sales conversations and these are discussed with sales leader John Pentin and entrepreneur Jamie Lester. With host, Paul Owen, they examine the importance of listening in sales, discuss the benefits of listening well and explore why people often fail because they’re simply not interested in any voice other than their own. 

With 20 years’ sales experience, Catherine Schalk is a certified coach, speaker and trainer for The John Maxwell Company. She also runs her own sales enablement business - Inkwazi Communications - and has been involved in over 3,000 sales enablement initiatives across the globe. In 2015, Catherine was named the Top Female Executive for Excellence in Professional Training and Coaching. In this episode, Paul Owen asks Catherine about the lessons learnt early in her sales career in South Africa (including the warning about 3 strikes and you're out!) and how those lessons enabled to build her own successful company working with sales professionals across the world. 

The words you say matter most but the way you say them helps too. In this episode, our host, Paul Owen, is joined by entrepreneurs Josh Cohen and Dominic Cotton as they discuss the key factors to help present your stories (and your business messages) in the right tone of voice to create the right impression. How do you add credibility, gravitas and humanity to the words you use in business conversations?

Having created and grown a company, BigHand, with his brother’s best friend, Gordon McAlpine sold it and is now an Executive Mentor and Coach plus a bestselling author. Despite being responsible for sales at BigHand, Gordon started his career with no interest in sales, only applying for marketing jobs. A quiet kid at school, he thought sales wouldn’t suit him yet soon discovered that salespeople are made, not born. In this episode, you’ll hear why Gordon believes his first job in sales was the most influential career step he took and why he recommends other people consider the same path into business. 

The first step of a sales conversation is the shortest part, it’s the easiest part to prepare and it’s the easiest to practise. However, it remains the hardest part to do when you first start selling. Our host, Paul Owen, is joined in this episode by Catherine Schalk and Ben Rowland as they discuss how to create the best first impression when starting conversations, whether over the phone or face-to-face. Get the first few seconds right and you’re in with a chance of success; get it wrong and things finish pretty quickly. Getting names right helps too! 

Former MD of Metro Bank and one of the UK’s most prominent executive leaders, Chris Brindley MBE left his Manchester school at 16 with very few qualifications. The excellent reports on his people skills from teachers were a far better indicator of his future success than any exam result or academic achievement. How did Chris turn those skills into the secret of his incredible success and what can we all learn from his life?