Business Builder Breakfast Recap: SALTY SALES Training™ from Brent Long

Brent Long engages with his audience in a very powerful way. It’s not different from the way he engages with someone in a one-to-one conversation. I like that, because it’s authentic.

He’s insightful, he’s very direct, and he’s proven to get results. What he is ISN’T is comfortable. His mission is to coach sales people to success, not to comfort. That’s probably why his presentation morphed from the original title to one that is much more impactful…and takes a lot more to explain.

Brent started by asking for us to share some of our actual specific (and sales-related) goals and the individual problems that we want to solve by achieving those goals. The examples were not surprising but they were a great place to start.

“Your greatest motivation is NOT your goal.”

Everything that came after this was described by one attendee as really a true “paradigm shift”. Definitely.

Yes, we all have goals, but what we really want is to eliminate the pain of a problem. Some pains are naturally more painful than others.

“Do you want to be healed?”

Brent asks what he calls the Greatest Sales Question Ever Asked.  In other words, “How badly do you want this pain to go away?” The answer to this question is directly proportionate to your chances of making a sale.

So, how, you may ask, do we discover the degree of this pain?  That is the key to Brent’s SALTY SALES Training™ and the key learnings to keep in mind on your next sales calls.

“Have you ever thought about putting your heart into sales?”

That’s a pretty salty start.  I don’t especially enjoy sales so it’s hard to think about putting my heart into it. I can’t get passionate about it. Brent says that anyone who says they wanted to grow up and be a sales person is lying. I’d probably agree with that. I love learning and I love making connections between what someone wants and their best option for getting it. Huh, turns out, that just might be “sales”.

SALTY SALES™ takes sellers into the marketplace with a heart for service: serving their prospects by helping solve their most painful problems. 

SALES reminds us that effective selling is never about “us”, the seller. It always has to be focused on the listener, the target.

S = Serve from the heart to win the heart.

A = Ask penetrating questions

L = Listen to the honest answers

E = Excel in delivering the best product and service

S = Solidify the relationships you make

The SALTY part is what helps you uncover the true pain so both parties can make the best decisions more quickly. SALTY is an acronym for good, probing questions to lead you to the heart of the pain and help you clearly identify whether this is a good prospect for you to work with.

S = Simple

A = Aimed at the heart

L = Leading to the solution

T = Timely

Y = Yielding; does the answer move them closer to your solution or farther away?

Along the way, Brent dropped many other spicy nuggets for sales success that hint at the depth and breadth of his sales coaching at Long on Life. He shared a diagnostic tool for achieving results that he uses with his clients to identify the holes in their processes and he generated many comments on his unique lead scoring and prospect assessment. All good stuff.

I have several takeaways for myself and I noticed that most of the attendees were taking notes, too. That’s what we expected and Brent Long certainly delivered.

Note: SALTY SALES Training™ is copyrighted trademark of Brent Long and Long on Life. All rights reserved. Brent has nearly 30 years of coaching sales to stellar results and he was very generous in sharing that experience with us. For more information, don’t hesitate to find him online at www.longonlife.com or Brent Long on Linked In.