Digital Sandwich presents... The Secret Ingredient - Vic Ing

The Secret Ingredient from Digital Sandwich

In this episode of the Secret Ingredient, Adam LaFaber is joined by Vic Ing, a business owner and author who has found success across several industries. Vic Ing is the founder and president of Viking Sales Consultants where Vic has helped businesses of all sizes simplify and clarify their selling process. With over 25 years of direct experience as a successful salesperson, leader, executive, and trainer Vic has proven why he is a top sales performer who constantly is going against the status quo while challenging what a salesperson can truly be. In today’s episode, Adam and Victor discuss Victor’s forthcoming book, Selling Is Easy: If You Know the Rules. They also discuss the importance of saying no and how Vic helps businesses analyze their sales process to continue to grow and flourish. Tune in to discover Vic Ing’s secret ingredient!

In this episode, we discuss…

[0:05] Introductions

[0:32] Show Introduction

[0:53] Introducing the Current Guest

[1:53] Start of the Interview

[5:03] Coffee’s for Closers

[6:20] How Vic Landed Where He is Today

[9:46] Increasing Quality of Life Through Learning to Say No

[12:12] It’s Okay to Say No and How

[17:26] Stumbling into Sales by Necessity

[20:21] Putting People into the Right Seat

[21:31] Educate to a Buying Position

[24:09] Slowing Down the Game

[26:33] Rethink Sales Training

[32:05] Everyday Selling

[44:49] Focus. Funnel. Foundation.

[47:34] Being Prepared

[51:04] Society’s Impact on Sales and Adam’s First Sale

[56:35] Vic’s Book Recommendations

[1:01:19] Who Needs More Training?

[1:05:15] Commission and Finding Your Role

[1:10:10] Not Having a Plan B

[1:12:50] Vic’s Ideal Client

[1:14:01] Final Thoughts

[1:14:31] 5 Rapid Fire Questions with Vic

[1:17:10] Closing Thoughts

Quotes

[0:53] “Today I am joined by Vic Ing, the founder, and president of Viking Sales Consultants. He helps businesses of all sizes simplify and clarify their selling process and target only the best prospective customers. He is assumed to be an author with his forthcoming book, Selling Is Easy (If you know the rules). Over 25 years of direct experience in the business world as a successful salesperson, leader, executive, and trainer. He has found success across several industries where he has been routinely recognized as a top sales performer.”

[5:46] “There’s also that stereotype of the sales and sometimes they’re one in the same thing. That’s what Glengarry Glenn Ross is about is that stereotype. But I think a lot of people do embrace sales, especially from a leader's perspective.”

[7:11] “What led me to that is… a lifetime in sales.”

[7:38] “Primarily a staffing industry but as a personal challenge, I make sure that I proved myself in a couple of other industries. So, I left staffing at the top of my game twice and went back into it. I also sold promotional products and more importantly at that company trained franchise owners in the promotional products industry. You really learn a lot by you know, teaching right.”

[9:02] “When I had an opportunity and a lot of it was out of necessity to start my own business. It was a quality of life thing. I’ve been working for others, made the millionaires richer and maybe some people millionaires. I’m not in it for the money, but I needed to make sure that if I was going to spend time doing something that when I was done, I could go upstairs where my family would be.”

[10:19] It’s called Selling Is Easy, and you I think resonates with you… It’s not supposed to be complicated. Back to your question, it’s kind of the same answer to why I’ve always bucked the status quo. How to make sure that when you’re an entrepreneur and a business owner that you keep things simple and sane is saying no. It is amazing that many people in all facets of their life do not have the ability to say no.”

[10:52] “It is possible to say no and most importantly to the kind of customers that you work with. One of the rules, the book, Selling Is Easy (If You Know the Rules), 50 short essays. One of the rules is a simple one, in fact they’re all simple ones. Don’t do business with slime balls.”

[11:54] “The reason I’m not thriving, I’ve had opportunities to do some business that you know they weren’t slime balls, but I just didn’t feel right.”

[16:29] “I always use a phrase, I borrowed from Alice in Wonderland. She goes down the rabbit hole and weird things happen. Don’t go down rabbit holes and I have to be cognizant of this because that’s my nature.”

[16:55] “When you should’ve said no and maybe you say I’ll look into it and you do. Well you should be spending that time if you really need new customers calling up the people who you know you can truly, and you have passion, and you know I can make a difference with this product or service that I offer. If I could just talk to him. Well focus on those people not the ones you stumble into.”

[17:51] “That stereotype of a salesperson and I think we’ve all met people who will say, certainly as a hiring sales manager as I’ve been, you’ll get… I could never do sales. They’re bucking against that stereotype.”

[18:11] “Everybody can resonate with us that obnoxious salesperson who really is just trying to push something on you that you don’t want or need. That was my starting point when I transformed quickly into a salesperson it was a staffing agency.”

[19:17] “Sales was not what I thought it was. Again, it’s not persuasion so many selling systems focus on the power of persuasion and all this different stuff. There’s validity in all of it, it’s really simple. If you know that, selling is easy.”

[19:36] “Know what you provide, find out how can benefit best from that and then get after them, that’s the starting point. So, I did that, and I was successful. The first time that I left the staffing industry I was that selling branch manager… I left because I wanted to try something new.”

[20:52] “You know passion is what you are talking about, you’re not going to have a successful business without passion and whatever it is you’re doing I thank you; you saw my passion.”

[22:16] “You know the best relationships that I’ve had and that’s what they really are, if you will a customer. The bestselling systems don’t even touch on closing because that’s the persuasion part. You don’t need it.”

[22:39] “The best relationship that I’ve built and the most longest lasting I walked out of those first meeting and it took me a decade or more… to figure this out. Wow, I never really talked about features or benefits. Sometimes I didn’t talk about what I do at all. They knew enough about what I could do, they saw the passion and I didn’t oversell what I couldn’t control.”

[25:30] “I think what you are describing is muscle memory… Humans can do two things that are amazing with their minds and bodies. One is you can train your body through training by the way sales no different than being an athlete… whatever career you are in. You train your body to respond to that but what your brain is doing… is looking for patterns. With all of that, you are filtering through things and you’re looking for what really matters.”

[28:18] “To ask them to role play, I say find. How do you best learn? How are you going to learn it? You’re not allowed in front of a customer until you figure this out and they’ve often done things. I’d give them ideas. Call yourself, leave yourself a hundred voicemails until you think you’ve got this down right. You have to practice.”

[31:03] “There’s a famous quote, sow me the man at five and I’ll show you the man at the age of 50 and that’s true. We are still the same kids we always were, but it’s a muscle. If you don’t use it, it will atrophy and die.”

[33:51] “This is all why I started my business to try to get companies to understand you know anybody can sell.”

[35:29] “That’s what I’ve tried to do through my career is I wasn’t natural at it. I was self-taught if anything and it’d be like if I self-taught myself piano and then try to come up with a method to teach others piano the way I learned. It might just work, that’s what I’m trying to do here.

[35:56] Stereotypes in Sales

[38:33] “As I’ve trained sales teams every time they pick up the phone or send an email the person on the other end and you can sugar coat it all you want, knows that you are trying to sell them something.”

[39:02] “It’s okay to say that you are trying to sell something but here’s the obnoxious sales thing that we all get especially on Linkedin … I know you’d be perfect for I told you about stopping a Ping Pong game by holding up the paddle and talking. You haven’t even started the game here they’re just walking in and holding the paddle up hiding right. The fact is you have to make sure that when you first engage that prospect that they understand you are maybe trying to sell them something but first and foremost and you got to get this out as part of your elevator speech if you will.”

[39:45] “What we do at Digital Sandwich is maybe not for everyone but for those that it works for they’re happy they met me and then you go into your little speech. Let them know that and what does it go back to? You’re prepared to say no if it’s not a good match.”

[40:24] “If you act like you don’t care they tend to buy… What you’re saying with your body language is that you are desperate and that you’re prepared to say no this isn’t a good fit. That’s really what that is and that allows truthful interaction to occur.” – Adam

[40:58] “When I got really into my sales career when it was having great success, I know there was a period of time where it got into my head right… You can’t do that; you have to be humble understand that there’s still so much to learn.”

[41:16] “Don’t forget what we learned this year, everything around us is changing constantly beyond our control.”

[42:29] “One of the rules in my book is if someone does say yes, that’s what we want. Make sure you understand what they’re saying yes to.”

[43:03] “With salespeople the cliché, the stereotype, the status quo- just get them to say yes. Get your foot in the door, all that stuff. I hate that. Get your foot in the door? What does that mean they need me to offer a whole bunch of value-added services, I’m not going to get my foot in the door.”

[43:35] “I think what is actually occurring, is you’re shifting the sale to the byproduct of the interaction. So, the sale rather than the attention now becomes the byproduct of good proper activity and interaction.” – Adam

[44:49] “Focus, Funnel, Foundation. That’s how I help businesses analyze their sales process and the focus is simple. Do you really know what your company can best provide? If it’s a product, what does it do? How does it change somebody’s life or business?”

[45:42] “The funnel concept is simple. It’s big starts up here you have every company possible in the universe and down here are the ones you are working with right now. The funnel is how do you decide and move a company down the funnel. This is important because everybody has customers, they’ve brought in. They don’t seek to replicate what work they’re making up the rules every time.”

[46:56] “The foundation are the tools. Are your salespeople pricing business wrong? Guess what I’m going to do here. I’m going to take two words and put them together. They need a pricing tool.”

[48:01] “No, I love scripts. Preparing is important, winging it is not good. You need to prepare for things it goes back to the training.”

[48:21] “Yeah you have to prepare, and a script is what does that. Now the beauty of a script is it’s really short and it’s built around keywords and you don’t memorize it.”

[50:07] “We would have script writing sessions and they were always one on one.”

[57:10] “There are seven different ways to make contact with the prospect. Marketing and networking are only one of them.”

[1:01:32] “This is a pattern that keeps hitting me in the face, and I have to make sure that I don’t just make assumptions. There are a lot of clients, I will meet with the owner. Usually mid-size companies so I’m meeting with the owner. Then they’ll introduce me to that sales manager and it’s that sales manager that explains so much of the issues that companies may be having. This is not an exception. The sales managers often need a lot of training… the biggest mistake is don’t take your top sales performer and turn them into a sales manager.”

[1:02:41] “Now what you can do and what I’ve tried to do is I’ve talked about the selling branch manager concept of small agencies and businesses not a fan of that, but there is nothing wrong with having a salesperson who is an extraordinary, be responsible for selling because if you take that away from them they’re not going to want to work there anymore. Have them sell but also have them cultivate and develop and mentor a team.”

[1:13:04] “Two things clients should look for so if you’re a business owner or responsible for the growth of a business in any way and that growth is stalling I guarantee you growth is always if not always a sales problem and from what we talked about sales problems have easy fixes.”

Selected Links from the Episode:

Want to Connect with Victor Ing?

Viking Sales Consultants

[vikingselling.com]

Vic’s Book Recommendations

The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation | Dixon and Adamson

[https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Sale-Control-Customer-Conversation/dp/1591844355]

Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time | Ferrazzi and Raz

[https://www.amazon.com/Never-Eat-Alone-Expanded-Updated/dp/0385346654]

The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field | Michalowicz

[https://www.amazon.com/Pumpkin-Plan-Strategy-Remarkable-Business/dp/1591844886]