Tom Hopkins

We really have to be spending the time to get to know our client and their family and their situation and how they enjoy the system in their home or don't enjoy the system in their home, what they would change if they could.

And I love to always circle back to Tom Hopkins needs formula that I learned at his sales boot camp back in 04 or 05? NEADS, what do they have now? What do they enjoy about what they have now? What would they alter if they could? Who are the decision makers? And what is the solution needs formula? And we're not going to write down the letters needs and then start filling in below them.

But these are the questions we need to be getting answered during our presentation.

And third, if we can't explain what makes an option better without using the word better, we may not understand our own recommendation as well as we think we do or as well as we should.

We want to make sure that we use the appropriate greeting and the greeting has to be appropriate to the culture, appropriate to the context, appropriate to, you know, whatever it is.

So, in fact, if you listen to, I think it's Tom Hopkins, Tom Hopkins says that the way you address, and the way that you will greet somebody.

If you're a salesperson and you're selling to a farmer, it's different from how you address and how you greet somebody if you sell financial advisory services to high net worth individuals.

So, greeting, there's no fixed greeting.

What's in it

for me? I mean, I know I just dated myself because I think I heard that from Tom Hopkins 80 years ago, but it's still true.

We're all looking at what's in it for me.

And when you just talk about product and that conversation doesn't go any further, then you're making me do the work to connect me to your product, to you.

And you're telling them to ignore their intuitions.

So you are the one as a business owner, as a founder, as a salesperson who has to demonstrate trust, which is why on this podcast, I keep talking again, again, and again, and again about the work of Tom Hopkins.

Now, Tom Hopkins says that we establish trust by commonality, competence, and credibility.

So, commonality is where we're able to build rapport with someone and to show that, you know, we're kind of similar, we're kind of safe, we kind of know each other, we kind of understand each other, we kind of like each other, you know, all those things.

That is commonality.

When you're able to establish rapport and commonality, you can see that the walls of distrust will come down.

So, please, as you're listening, start thinking.

Have you been having conversations with people? And have you been able to establish rapport? Have you been able to build some commonality? Have you been able to show that both of you are similar or kind of the same or have sort of like the same interests? Have you been able to establish that? And if you haven't, can you see why there is a certain air of a lack of trust? Now, Tom Hopkins also says we try and establish some competence.

And I go, "You are an world-renowned sales prospecting, sales, you know, uh, engagement strategist along the lines of," you know, pick out a couple.

And I'll sit on the Chat- on ChatGPT and I go, "Who are the best world-renowned," you know, you know, let's just say it's Tom Hopkins and Zig Ziglar, which it isn't.

Sure.

You know? And but I'll name those people and then I'll say, "I need you to help me, um, outline, understand signals that might be in the marketplace that I would see either on LinkedIn or that, or, or on, um, Google Alerts even-"

So now chapter four, and the title of chapter four is that "People buy from people: Building credibility, trust, and rapport." Again, chapter four, "People buy from people: Building credibility, trust, and rapport." Now, for those of you who've been listening for a very long time, you can see now why I keep saying that it doesn't matter which, uh, sales book you read, and it doesn't matter which authority or which trainer or which guru you follow, because essentially they are all saying the same thing.

So for those of you who took my earlier advice, that's early, early, early when I started the podcast, and I used to talk about Tom Hopkins, and you people started reading Tom Hopkins.

Can you see that something that somebody was saying 1976, 1986, you can see that in 2023, another person is saying the same thing.

Chapter four, "People buy from people: Building credibility, trust, and rapport." For those of you who've been following me, I keep on talking about Tom Hopkins' framework for reducing sales, uh, resistance, and he says that it's essential, all right, that you need to build your credibi-credibility.

You need to show competence, and then you also need to establish rapport.

So you can see that these are two different professionals.

But if you are in sales and the only book you find was written in 1952, my brother, you are fine.

Because from this chapter heading, you can see that this woman is saying stuff that I have been referencing from somebody else who wrote his own book in 1976 or whatever.

And because I worked in retail and retail sales before, I had heard the name but never really studied him.

Tom Hopkins was always like the guy that, you know, I studied.

Mm-hmm.

And I saw Grant at the time had, I don't know, 15 videos on his YouTube channel back then.