491 | These 5 Universal Sales Principles Made Me Millions
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00:00
Chaz Wolfe
You've got to have intentionality throughout each step. If you're not owning it as the entrepreneur or salesperson or the person who's leading the sales team, and then eventually your salespeople are owning their own pipeline, then nothing ever really truly comes out the other side. You can have leads coming in the pipeline, you can have some deals coming out, but it won't be this efficient machine of leads coming in, being worked properly, and then popping out as many deals as possible.
00:25
Chaz Wolfe
What's up, Driven to Win Nation? Chaz Wolf, coming to you here today. What if you could master sales in just a few principles? That's what we're going to talk about here today. I've got a background in all kinds of sales development personally, but then also I've trained probably at this point, thousands of salespeople and entrepreneurs.
00:44
Chaz Wolfe
And my hope here today on this episode is to bring some just tried and true principles to you that can elevate your business or your sales team to the next level. And we've been able to do this repeatedly in my own companies, as well as when I was a sales coach before for multiple other companies. These are tried and true principles. And so I just want to give you what has not only made me Personally millions in W2 commission as a salesperson, but also principles that have created millions in revenue for my own companies. We're going to go to jump right in here. Principle number one is mindset and ownership. There's a mindset of ownership and then you have mindset and ownership. And so we're going to kind of break this down just a little bit here.
01:24
Chaz Wolfe
But you have to have a resilience mindset when you're a salesperson or when you're training your sales team. And it's not going to get you through everything in sales. But that, but that thick skin, that ability just to keep on going is absolutely a principle that you've got to hold on to. So if you got to ask yourself some tough questions here. Do you like rejection? Well, the answer should be no. Not, not any of us like rejection. However, I became addicted to the rejection when I realized that and when I switched my mindset from, you know, that I was afraid of it or I didn't want to, you know, get to it from that to if the more I got to it, the more money I made. And so the more no's that you get, the more deals typically that you close.
02:10
Chaz Wolfe
And that feels backwards until you've been in Sales or you've been, you know, building your company for a while and you understand what I'm saying, but it still feels a little sticky. And so that's the mindset portion of understanding what persistence and resilience looks like, is that it looks like picking up the phone no matter what and making a sales call or following up on a lead no matter what. And almost separated from the emotional tie of whatever response that you get, right? The emotional response of the client, whether they're signing or telling you to never call again and hanging up on you. All our response as salespeople or entrepreneurs has to be one of resilience, which is just. I'm just going to keep going, and it doesn't actually matter what response I get.
02:53
Chaz Wolfe
In fact, I start to then realize the more calls I make, typically the more nos or rejection I'm going to get. But in the mix of that, I'm going to close more deals. And so that's the mindset portion of it. Ownership is. As a salesperson, you might be listening to this, but a lot of entrepreneurs listen to the show. And so as an entrepreneur, you've got to own your pipeline. As a, as a salesperson, you have to own your pipeline. As an entrepreneur, you own your business. But there is a, what we're talking about is like an ownership factor of the pipeline. And you've got to, you have to have a sales process. That's a little bit of a given. I'm just assuming that you have a sales process.
03:27
Chaz Wolfe
If you don't, then feel free to reach out to me at gathering the kings.com and we can chat with you about your sales process. I don't train specifically on sales process any longer, so I'm not going to sell you anything. I'm happy to go back and forth with you on that. I did create a sales course years ago that we give to all of our members at no additional cost. But you have to have a sales process that you're following. But in the sales process, you're owning each step along the way. And really that's because you've got to have intentionality throughout each step. And so if you're not owning it as the entrepreneur or salesperson or the person who's leading the sales team, and then eventually your sales people are owning their own pipeline, then nothing ever really truly comes out the other side.
04:07
Chaz Wolfe
You can have leads coming in the pipeline, right? And you can have some deals coming out, but it won't be this efficient. Machine of leads coming in, being worked properly, and then popping out as many deals as possible. Unless the person that's working the pipeline has this ownership mentality where I'm owning every single step of the sales process. I'm owning every single step of the follow up process and I know exactly where my prospects are in the pipeline and I know what deals are coming. Deals have just been sold, because I just sold some deals, I know what I need to go do as far as prospecting and refilling the pipeline. All of those things are like a knowledge confidence piece because I own it.
04:44
Speaker 2
Right.
04:44
Chaz Wolfe
Is that ownership or that extreme ownership mentality? Okay, we're going to jump into core principle number two here. This is building trust and understanding people. I love building trust and understanding people. And you obviously have to do this as an entrepreneur, you know this. But you might be thinking, I'm super introverted or I've never had sales training or I don't know how to work a relationship with another person very well. I'm just kind of bumbling around. And what I would say first off is you don't have to be anyone that you aren't. And that might sound like a little bit of a conundrum, but you've got to be genuine, you've got to be you. And so if you are really outspoken and you like to use your hands when you talk, then great, you should do that.
05:26
Chaz Wolfe
If that's not you, then don't do that. So I'm going to just set you at ease knowing that however you are, your genuine person, that's how you should be with your prospects in the sales process or your clients as you're even working with them after you've sold them. You shouldn't ever try to be something or someone that you're not. They're going to pick up on that. And that doesn't build trust. Some other things that you can do to build trust though are going to be, you know, being systematic. Right. So as they're following you through the sales process, they can trust that you are confident that you know what you're doing, that you've done this before because you're at ease, because you're following, you know, a process. Notice how I didn't say necessarily following a script.
06:07
Chaz Wolfe
It's okay to have a script, but you know, some things come out a little differently each time because maybe their needs are a little different. The general flow should be the same. And that's what's going to give me the confidence to the client That I know what I'm doing. I've done this before. They can trust me. And so there's some other elements here, you know, around active listening. I used to teach in my sales course, and with thousands of the salespeople that it was like going on a date. And I just imagine sitting down, you know, to a first date, and I immediately lean over with my notepad and my. My pen, and I'm going, okay, what's your favorite color? What's your Social Security number? What's your favorite food? Where did you grow up?
06:45
Chaz Wolfe
Like, kind of weird to just do that in that order, you know, as opposed to when you are actively listening. This is a skill set that you have when you can listen to the answer that they've given you and then formulate your next answer based on the answer that they just gave to you. So you're going to formulate your next question. Sorry. Based on the answer that they just gave to you. So you might say, you might still have these list of questions that I just asked, these kind of random questions, but instead of saying, where are you from? They answer, and then you say, what's your shoe size? Which has nothing to do with the answer that I just got. I'm going to actively listen to what they just said. They're from Columbia, Missouri. Oh, are you a Tigers fan?
07:25
Speaker 2
Right.
07:26
Chaz Wolfe
Because I know that's where Mizzou is. Or maybe I didn't know that. You're like, oh, Columbia. Where is that?
07:30
Speaker 2
Right.
07:31
Chaz Wolfe
The next question that I'm formulating is based on my skill set of active listening to the answer that they just gave, and I'm going to formulate another question based on that. Okay. That will be one of the quickest ways to develop trust with another human. And you can do this with anybody. Is not just a sales prospect or a client. Try next time you go to a. A barbecue. Try just swifting away into a conversation and asking a question, listening to their answer. Formulate the next question based on the answer that they just gave to you. And keep doing that. And. And I. I kind of have a visual in my mind of, you know, you ask a question, and then they give you answer, and then you're going to ask a question based on that answer.
08:07
Chaz Wolfe
You just keep going deep, and eventually you're going to maybe transition and ask another type of questions over here, maybe a different, you know, vertical of. Of questions. But you can go a lot deeper than you realize. And specifically in sales and when you're building trust with clients, the deeper that you can go the better because it gives them an opportunity to share probably things that most people don't get to ask. And as entrepreneurs and if you are either leading a sales team or you're doing the sales in your business, those things that they're sharing are probably likely the very things that you're going to need in order to a, know exactly what they want and then to be able to B, sell them a specific product that you have that can solve that specific problem.
08:47
Chaz Wolfe
But if you're asking no questions or shallow questions, you're not building trust and they're not getting out the things that they need to share so that you can deliver. Well, hopefully this is making sense, guys. Understanding people. Man, this is such a superpower. I have studied, you know, personality traits for a very long time. Okay? Lots of different books, different assessments. Inside of Gathering the Kings, we give access to the predictive index for all of our clients and predictive Index along with many others, but it's the one that we use. I just find it's the most scientific. I feel like it's the most collaborative. It's they. They use the most technology.
09:23
Chaz Wolfe
Regardless of all that, though, what I'm able to learn from an assessment like that or different personality books is I can know who I'm talking to, but before I can know who I'm talking to, I know who I am.
09:33
Speaker 2
Okay?
09:34
Chaz Wolfe
And so you guys have probably, if you listen to this show before, maybe you're new here. You don't know that I'm a serial entrepreneur. You don't know that I've had a lot of sales experience. And some of these things are learned for me. I am not like, if you had surveyed me, you know, 15 years ago, I would not have shown up as an extrovert. But the predictive index assessment that I just took just a few months ago shows me extroverted and not by a little bit, but by quite a bit. And so why is that? It's because I've been able to modify myself because I value what it means to be energetic and have a pleasing personality and to have a presence.
10:09
Chaz Wolfe
And so all of these things that I find value and I've now then modified myself so that I can show up in a different way. Right. So can you imagine me doing this episode right now? Whether you're listening or whether you're watching on the, on YouTube and me talking like this and me being a little bit more interest into introverted and maybe not as much energy. Right. You probably wouldn't listen for very long.
10:28
Speaker 2
Right?
10:28
Chaz Wolfe
But if I can be theatrical and I can give some energy to the call and I can speak up and use my diaphragm and speak like I'm trying to deliver some passion to you, then you're probably going to receive the information a little bit better. That doesn't mean that it's not me. It just means that I know how to show up in this environment in order to deliver the information properly. And I know that because I know me. I also know the other person on the other side. You're, you're an entrepreneur, you're down to earth, you're family oriented, you're growth minded. And so you're probably listening, you know, in between a job site or you're listening while you're working out or on your way back home from the office and you're going to meet up with your family because of these things.
11:05
Chaz Wolfe
I can, I can deliver information in a specific way and you can do the same things, know yourself and then know others. I can get on a phone call or zoom with you right now and within seconds probably. But let's just say at worst case, a few minutes, I can know generally what makes you tick and not just because of the questions I'm asking and the information that you're giving. But yes, that's some of it. If it's the interaction between the two of us, right. I know how detailed you are. I know how extroverted that you are or lack thereof. Right. And I can know these things within just a few minutes. And because of that knowledge, I can then modify myself in a way that would deliver the information properly. Okay. Same thing for kids.
11:45
Chaz Wolfe
I have, I have four children, four absolutely different personalities. Right. And so you know, you're listening right now, you're a parent, you get it that you have to deliver information slightly different, the same information, but you're delivering it different to each of your children in order to get the best results. And that's why understanding people in your sales process is so, is so important. Okay, Core principle number three. Mastering the sales process with consistency. We've talked about having a sales process. You know, the general flow of the process that I used to teach is open, Discovery, Presentation close. Those are the four steps of any sale. Open, discovery, presentation close is going to go in that order and it's going to go in that order every single time, no matter what. Unless you mess it up.
12:28
Chaz Wolfe
And so that's the consistency part of, is that I know what order I'm going in. I know what I'm going to do in each step. I know my goal in each step. Right when I'm opening up the call or the meeting. My, my goal is to create authority and to let them know the purpose of the phone call or the opportunity that we have to meet together that day. Right. I'm going to get right into discovery where I'm asking questions, getting to know them, building trust. We kind of just talked about this a little bit active listening unto being able to pull out information that I might need. Maybe it's their pain points, maybe it's what they're trying to accomplish so that I can see if I can help them. Right?
13:02
Chaz Wolfe
Then I'm going to move into my presentation where it gives me the ability to capture their attention and present my product in a way that matches what they've just told me in the discovery. I'm going to keep it short, I'm going to keep it simple. I'm going to make it make sense. I'm going to keep it logical and make numbers and you know, dot t or dot eyes and cross T's for them in a simple way. Because a confused mind doesn't buy, right. And so I want to bring it all together for them and then go, yeah, this is exactly what I need.
13:31
Speaker 2
Right.
13:31
Chaz Wolfe
And then obviously in the close, I'm just assuming it mostly, but there's obviously objection handling if necessary. Typically for us with, especially with gathering the Kings because we're, you know, pretty relationship based and it's, and it's a community of entrepreneurs. I'm not really interested in just like slamming somebody in. I'm interested in the harmony of the group. And so we've got certain qualifications and I'm way more interested in like pressing on them a little harder not to overcome their objection, but to align with them. Whether it's their decision making timeline, whether it's something that's going on in their family that's keeping them from being able to, you know, sign today. And there's a lot of other people that do this differently. A lot of people try to force that sale on the same meeting, the same call, same day.
14:11
Chaz Wolfe
And we do the same thing. Even in my construction company, we offer, we ask for the business right then and there when we give them the presentation, there's nothing wrong with that. But also knowing the audience, knowing the offer and how those people are going to Best respond to that is going to be very good. Okay. So knowing the sales process, mastering the sales process is doing it the same way every single time, no matter what. And then, you know, get some feedback, listen to your calls, listen to your zooms, listen to your meetings, record yourself, have somebody else listen to you and get some feedback to where you guys can continue to, to grow. I, when I was a sales trainer, I used to, you know, meet with salespeople that were the best in the company, but I still met with them.
14:52
Chaz Wolfe
It's not like because they were the best, they didn't need help anymore. Because we all have, you know, maybe tendencies or maybe bad habits. And it doesn't take long for a, a person, entrepreneur, salesperson to kind of fall off the wagon because they start ad libbing, start doing things outside of what they've been doing. It's so funny how we do this as humans. We start doing things that were different from what got us to where we are. It's just the oddest thing. Like we work out and then we stop working out and then we wonder why we've gained weight or lost muscle. It's the same thing with sales. You've got a process. If you don't have a process, you need to create the process. You can use the framework that I've just given you can reach out, we can help you with that.
15:29
Chaz Wolfe
But in that, you got to keep doing it right. It's the repetitions that make you better and then it's the little tweaks of listening to the calls and getting better with tonality and knowing personalities, all the fun stuff that can make you better, but you also don't. You're safeguarding from falling off the wagon. Because I've seen it time and time again where people just start to do things a little different. It's probably just our crave for something different. Maybe a crave for a little chaos, maybe a self sabotage sometimes. But for whatever reason, we just start doing things a little different than what has got us the success that we have. As opposed to safeguarding and going, no, this is the process. Open discovery, presentation closed. These are the questions that I'm asking. This is what leads to success.
16:09
Chaz Wolfe
I'm going to do it this way every single time, no matter what. And that consistency will breed confidence. And the more consistency and more confidence you have, the more deals you close. That's just how it works. Okay? Core principle number four is confident closing without hard selling. I kind of just Hinted on this a few minutes ago. It is such an incredible power, a superpower really. If you are able to get to the end of the sales meeting and they are just super excited to sign up or to purchase your product.
16:39
Speaker 2
Right.
16:39
Chaz Wolfe
And you don't even really have to ask. I mean I'm always going to suggest that you ask, are you ready to sign up?
16:43
Speaker 2
Right.
16:43
Chaz Wolfe
Could, could we have the honor of remodeling your bathroom? Like you got to ask for the business. However, in that moment you're either going to hear I would love that or yes, or you're going to hear objections.
16:55
Speaker 2
Right.
16:56
Chaz Wolfe
And it's my firm belief that the hard, you know, have to overcome objections. Got a one liner for everything. Typically that it's a little bit older mindset when it comes to sales. There's definitely still sales training systems that promote this, but it's not relationship based, it's not active listening based. And if you're doing those things correctly earlier in the sales process, then guess what, this person feels comfortable. They feel confident that they can trust you, that your product is what you, what they need. And all of these things lead to a non hard sale at the end because you've already done the work in the discovery of learning what they really truly need, building trust and rapport and then presenting in a simple way where it makes sense for them. Yeah, why wouldn't I do this? This makes too much sense.
17:43
Speaker 2
Right.
17:43
Chaz Wolfe
The hard sale typically comes from the person that skips over asking questions or they don't ask very deep questions. And what that tells me is that person really doesn't care. They don't really care about the prospect, they don't really care about their position, what they truly need. They're really just commission hungry. And so that person then has to be really good at overcoming objections, really good at the hard sale. And I've just never seen that personality inside of sales do well long term. Eventually they fall off whatever horse that they're on. But the ones that I see doing extremely well over the course of a long time have the principles that we've discussed here.
18:23
Chaz Wolfe
And so the confidence, without confidence in closing, without doing the hard sale are going to come from genuine, you know, approach to learning about your customer, learning about what it is that they need, recognizing buying signals throughout the process.
18:37
Speaker 2
Right.
18:37
Chaz Wolfe
And not trying to close too soon.
18:39
Speaker 2
Right.
18:40
Chaz Wolfe
They're ready to close when they're ready to close, you know, and of course we could probably speed up the process. We can kind of maybe Force them into a decision today. There's a lot of people that I have conversations with around, you know, gathering the kings and joining our mastermind community. And as you can imagine, there's different reasons why someone doesn't join today. It's usually timing a little bit money related. We're not the cheapest, but you know, timing or maybe family timing. And that's okay. What I want to do is align with those things. So that way I'm not trying to just overcome this secret objection. I'm sure probably some circumstances where I missed the opportunity to like overcome it right now and get the sale today.
19:19
Chaz Wolfe
But what has served me so well, not just even in the pretty transactional advertising sales I used to do versus a very relationship sale with selling a mastermind community. What has served me in both of those is being very relational, being very understanding of the other person. And even in that I can help them understand their timeline better, I can help them speed things up. But what I'm doing or not doing is giving a hard sale and just throwing them in because they're not going to stick very long anyway.
19:49
Chaz Wolfe
And I've just found it so much better on the backside for them and for me rather than a member looking to quit three months from now or you know, an advertising client being upset with how we're working things because they really didn't want to sign up anyway, but we convinced them and so they spent all this money and then it's just like were never going to win for them anyway. You know, this is speaking of some of my ad agency days. It just, were never going to be able to get them to a place where they trusted us fully because the sales guy just threw them in, you know. All right, core principle number five, reviewing and reflecting performance. I mentioned this earlier, but the best salespeople don't just work hard, they work smart. There's all kinds of technology opportunities around recordings.
20:29
Chaz Wolfe
Even AI can do assessments and call recording coaching for you. You know, you can put your recorded call into AI and out pops a, an assessment. Where do they feel like you lost control of the call? Where do they feel like, you know, you could have asked better questions, been more in tune with the customer's needs? I mean, there's just so many tools today that there's just absolutely no excuse. And typically what I find is that people say I just don't have time or I don't like to listen to myself and a master of their trade. You know, whether we're talking sales or just as a business owner, it's our absolute job to master things. Otherwise you're always going to be average. Average input doesn't get extraordinary or above average output.
21:12
Chaz Wolfe
You've got to, you've got to really master the things that it takes on the inputs in order to get this just incredible result. So if you want to double, triple your business, you can't just go get more leads. That's, that's a good portion of it. You need double, triple the leads. But if you don't increase your ability to close via the things that we've talked about here, these principles, it's just not going to matter that much. And so reviewing your performance tonality, reviewing how many calls you're making, reviewing the stats, reviewing, you know, your closing percentages, reviewing how well you stayed on track in the sales process, like all these things that you can review and have AI help you with, it's just, there's just no excuse for it. Especially if you have a team.
21:53
Chaz Wolfe
You should, you need to have a, an environment inside the business where reviewing calls or getting together on a regular basis in a huddle to work together on being better is absolutely a must needed thing. I mean, I can remember role playing every single day in a huddle when I worked in like an office environment, even remote. I mean you could role play every single day if you wanted to. It's kind of cool. With, with Gathering the Kings, we've got a couple different offers. We've got a family mastermind vacation that we do that we get leads in for. And, and then of course our mastermind community has all different types of tiers and stuff, but those calls sound a little differently.
22:28
Chaz Wolfe
But generally my team knows, you know, what those calls sound like, what they're trying to accomplish, whether they're setting an appointment or whether we're signing someone up. But knowing those types of calls and then reviewing them in a specific way that gives you the ability to get better is absolutely leverage for getting more sales. All right, real quick recap here. We talked about principles that will help you master sales. And those principles are this core principle number one is mindset and ownership. The mindset we talked about was around resilience and owning the pipeline for the ownership piece. Core principle number two was building trust and understanding people. We could do a whole show just on that. It's incredible. You need to know yourself, you need to know other people and you need to act with other people in a way that builds trust. Okay.
23:13
Chaz Wolfe
Corporate number three, mastering the sales process with consistency. There is an absolute sales process. If you don't have one, you need one right now. Don't scroll past this until you've written down open discovery, presentation, close and figure that out for you. You can also reach out to us@gatheringthekings.com and schedule an appointment with us. We can help you with that. That's no problem. Core principle number four is confidence in closing without the hard sale or the push doesn't mean that we don't help people in their decision making or help them or guide them to a good decision today or maybe later today or tomorrow or next week, it just a matter. It's doing the work earlier in the sales process, you know, to help align and get people where they need to be based on what their needs are.
23:55
Chaz Wolfe
And then core principle number five, reviewing and reflecting on performance, just so important. The top salespeople, top business owners do what it takes to master these skills and master the statistics that go along with them. So that way you know where the breakdown is. Okay, guys, I hope this was good. We haven't done too many of these solo episodes, so if this is good and this is helpful, give us some comments down below. We appreciate you and of course, we're always willing to help. Whether you are a solo entrepreneur or you are doing, you know, tens of millions of dollars, there are people just like you inside of Gathering the Kings. We meet together weekly, monthly, quarterly, sometimes even in person. And we're helping each other win in all areas. And business, sales, all this stuff is part of that.
24:36
Chaz Wolfe
We're also winning in family, in marriage, health, faith, lifestyle. And if you need to be in a room of other winners in 2025 because you want to grow to the next level, then reach out to us@gatheringthekings.com and you can fill out an application there. We can chat with you about one of our membership tiers. Whether it's our family membership tier or one of our business tiers. We can definitely help you out with that and get you in a room of people or families that want to go to the next level in all areas. We appreciate.
What if I told you that mastering sales was as simple as learning five universal principles? Drawing on years of experience in sales, building companies, and training thousands of salespeople and entrepreneurs, I’ve discovered that success comes down to just a handful of core principles. So, in this episode, I will unpack what it takes to consistently close deals, whether you’re a salesperson or entrepreneur. You’ll learn to build trust, create genuine connections, and confidently close deals—without resorting to high-pressure tactics.
Chaz Wolfe:
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