B2 b sales success with Dylis Guyan - international sales trainer

Interviews with Influencers by Dallas McMillan
Title
B2B Sales Success with
Dylis Guyan
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Interview URL:
http://digitalinfluence.com.au/b2b-sales-success-with-dylis-guyan/
Video URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrUBweC3yPY
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Dylis Guyan - Sales Success Page 2 of 14
Dallas McMillan:
[00:00:09]
Well, hello. Welcome to Digital Influence. Today I'm interviewing Dylis Guyan. Dylis
is a sales specialist. She has been working in sales for decades now and has taught
hundreds and hundreds of business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals how
to improve the sales process so they can get the right clients coming to them and
get sell more work and at higher prices. I've been following Dylis's work online for
months now, and really enjoyed some of her training and resources, and I knew
she'd be perfect for the show. Really excited to talk to her today.

Welcome Dylis, thanks for coming on.

Dylis Guyan: Thank you very much, Dallas. It's an absolute pleasure.

Dallas McMillan: Fantastic. Just tell us a little bit about your background. I know you've got a great
story of your origin story as a sales success. [crosstalk 00:00:58]

Dylis Guyan: You made me laugh when you said I've been in sales decades, and you're absolutely
right. If you cut me in two, I've got sales in sales management and marketing
running through my veins. It's just what I have always done. I actually started in the
bank, and then moved into bank insurance. I became a financial advisor. I
absolutely loved it. That was my first sort of ah-‐ha moment in terms of selling that
people don't want what you're selling; they want what your product or service will
do. In financial services, I wasn't selling life insurance, pension, income protection, I
was selling that financial safety net of security for individuals and for businesses in
case their income stopped for whatever reason and they couldn't maintain their
standard of living. I was like an evangelist, you know? I was out there, because I
had experienced my father dying and leaving my mother without any life insurance
and how difficult it was for her. I was really passionate about that.

After nine months I was promoted to Field Sales Manager to grow my own team.
They were a fabulous team to work with. They always achieved top five percent of
the country. A few years later I was promoted to Regional Director, so I was
managing seventy advisor field technologists and responsible for the bank branch
targets in my region. Again, absolutely loved it, and I shared my passion with them
and the steps. My motto was, "If you want excellence, show what excellence looks
like." It was a case of developing both my managers, and for the managers then to
develop their people to have that passion. For them to go out and put that safety
net in place for families and businesses. Of course, investment, too. Making sure
people are getting the best return, and it wasn't enrolled in the capital.

We were like a band of men, you know? And women, of course, I have some
fantastic women out there.

I'm 1999 we achieved top spot in the country. We were at the conference. We
were receiving all of the awards for everything, for recruitment, for retention, for
compliance, which of course was a big thing, and against Target.

I'm just going to very quickly tell you about then. The bottom fell out of my world

really. My boss, who'd been my boss for seven years, who I highly respected. He
was excellent. He taught me lots. We got on brilliant [inaudible 00:03:55] and all of
sudden he changed towards me a started this awful harassment campaign. I didn't
know why.

It was a few years later I found out he died of motor neuron disease, and I
wondered if it was that that triggered this change of behavior. Whatever it was it
was hideous, I was really quit stressed with it.

I thought you have two options you either put up and shut up, or you get out. I
tried to fix it and couldn't. I though in my wisdom, I'm going to leave and set you
my on consultancy.

I literally went from from board room yo bedroom. I was a single parent with two
teenage children. I though, I've got to make this work. I thought I need to work with
people who can pay and will pay.

My market, of course, was financial services. I thought, right, I'm going straight into
the blue chip market. That was [inaudible 00:04:56] big learning experience for me.
This, darling, how important... you knowing who your ideal client is. Then you can
tailor... You can do your research, of course, on these client and find out about
them. You go on with knowledge, which really elevates you above your
competitors.

If you know about your client and you understand the world in which they operate,
you understand the competitors, you understand the client, it makes the job so
much easier.

So there I was, literally boardroom ,to bedroom, and I put my plan together and set
my goals. Which, again, is really really important. This Harvard business school did
some research that showed.. think they went back 20 years and visited students
that had been through the unive4ersity. Only 3% of those people had written down
their goals and their plans. Only 3%, I was quit shocked at that.

This 3% earned more collectively than the other 97% put together. If nothing e4lse,
write your goals and your plans. I remembered this, and so I diligently wrote out
my goals and my plan because I ha some quit high goals. I been on a very high
income in my corporate job.

I was on my own, I had to earn the money to pay the mortgage and everything.
That was all written down and my plan.. .I literally then started set up my prospect
list and literally started with the yellow pages we have here. It's a business
directory on the telephone and letters. That was how I started, and within a moth I
had a contract with [inaudible 00:06:59] as was then, which is Zureck now. I then
went on to Nora Junion, which is a veva, Barclay, Barclaycars, HSPC, I often worked
for and many of the financial services business.

I was focused on that and this another learning, is that you focus on your ideal
client, but that doesn't mean your avoiding everyone else, and no one else knows
about you. Then I had other types of companies come to me and say, "Look can we
talk."

I did work with Pepe Jeans, the post office, I often worked with pharmaceutical
companies, and Fountains Chocolates which is a big national company here. In fact
I ended up doing work for them on and off for eight years.

One of the big learning from that was, I went in to do a small piece of work and
then I went deeper and wider in the business. I did the first piece of work, I
identified an opportunity for then to increase the corporate sales thought he retail
store, and put a program together for that. It increased those corporate sales from
126 thousand to 1.1 million in 12 months.

Understanding the companies your working with, and looking for the opportunities
to help them. It's about the insights that you can being and being that twisted
advisor, the partner, because I was very much the partner in the business.

The went on to do a huge piece of work in Fountains Direct which is all about the
systems and the marketing program, the sales program. To be honest the processes
and systems are not my forte, but it was around the sales marketing it all fit
together.

Dallas McMillan: I suppose your experience with being an internal provider first made it very easy
for you to move into the trusted advisor roll as an external consultant.

Dylis Guyan: Very much so.

Yes. Actually this trusted advisor piece is really important. I think it's Charles H.
Green, I think I've ego theta name right. He wrote a book about this. He's written a
number of books.

With trusted advisor, I love this formula. It's credibility, plus reliability, plus
intimacy, divided by your self interest.

Dallas McMillan: Okay,

Dylis Guyan: So it's about doing everything to make yourself credible. Your knowledge, your
understanding of your client, their wells, their product and services... knowing your
products and services. Know your company and the different departments in your
company, if your working in a larger company.

That all helps towards your credibility. The reliability is about doing what you say
you're going to do. SO if you're going to get a quote to someone, or you can reply
to a proposal by a certain date. Do it by the certain date. If you're gonna call then
call them. Just be that person that people say, they always do what say they'll do.


Dallas McMillan: For sure, and that [inaudible 00:10:40] of trust.

We can have trust, but then it's when you promise and deliver, then the trust is
confirmed. Up until then it's a guess, but when you even glierign on the smallest
things like signing at 9 o'clock when you say, or making sure you lock the door
when you go out.

Their little things, because people cannot really tell how good you are at your job,
they can tell whether you look nice and tidy, whether you turn up on time, whether
you do what you say you'll do, or rather things that are sort of an expected
performance, or behavior [inaudible 00:11:14].

Dylis Guyan: Yeah.

Absolutely. You know you can easily say, "I'm highly reliable," but until you show
those actions it means nothing. It's just empty worlds at that point. So you're
absolutely right.

You've got your credibility, reliability, and your in this inclemency it's about how
close are we. Or how underdog are we, how much will I share with you, that I
would trust you with. Information.

When you get that relationship and just feel, "Yeah I can trust this person and I will
tell them things. It sets a element of intimacy. Out of all of those the higher you can
elevate those scores the better. The real kicker is that you divide it by your self
interests.

If your self interest is high, in other words it's all about me, it's all about my
company, it's all about my product, it's all abut me hitting my targets, it's all about
me getting focused on getting them to sign on the line. That will bring your trust
score right down.

It's about being costumer focused. I honestly, I band on about this and I talked
about being an evangelist when I was a financial advisor. Coming in an evangelist in
this face of sales and law [inaudible 00:12:45]. People tent to want to pay too soon.

They want [inaudible 00:12:53] too soon. So the market thing would be full of the
products, feature, benefits and so on. When I hear people making phone calls, and
I'm working with a company, I listen in to see what their doing.

The first opportunity they get, their reeling, and paying too soon. Their talking
about the product and the service before they know, really what's relevant to each
individual client.

Dallas McMillan: For sure.

Dylis Guyan: Face to face it's very similar. They're doing the same.

Dallas McMillan: Thinking of that formula. What was the first one?

Dylis Guyan: It was credibility. Plus reliability, plus intimacy, divided by self interest.

The lower your self interest goal, the higher your trust worthiness.

Dallas McMillan: Is there a tiss? I know myself that once you're consulting with a client ad their
sharing details about their business that are private, that indicate trust, then you've
reached a point where you can start to flush out some sort of agreement.

If you try to do it earlier, then you don't have the basis for negotiation. You don't
even have... you're not even on the same page yet.

Do you have anythings that you look for through the sales process to say, "look
we've achieved that trust of advisor status now. Are there specific thing you look
for before you proceed to a product reveal?

Dylis Guyan: I think you have to build this. I don't think you just become the trusted advisor at
your first meeting. I think you are trusted sufficiently to get that first sale.

Certainly the thing that I look for, and I'm sure you've experienced this yourself
Dallas, and in fact when we very first spoke I experienced it. I hope you did too. You
have two people who've never met before, and you start to talk. When there is an
interest shown in the other person, and you listen. You listen to understand not
just listening to hear with the next question on your mind. Really be interested, you
know I was interest to hear about the fact you're married to an English girl and of
course that was interesting to me, and about where you, and what you're doing,
and all of those things.

You have this distance and all of a sudden it just closes.

Dallas McMillan: Right.

Dylis Guyan: You feel like... I don't know how to even explain this, other than it's a connection
formed where you like the person

Dallas McMillan: Yes.

Dylis Guyan: And you feel that bonding.

[crosstalk 00:15:58] even at that early stage.

Dallas McMillan: [crosstalk 00:15:58] is that the intimacy component?

Dylis Guyan: I'm sorry.


Dallas McMillan: Is that the intimacy component?

Dylis Guyan: Yes I think it's a lot of the self interest there as well. When you're interested and
focused on the person you're self interest is lower. Of course you share the
conversation.

I used to talk about this a lot in financial services actually. I used to feel it very
much when I was in someones home. That's a very intimate space. You're a
complete stranger going in there. You would have to develop the conversation and
be interested in them and it was literally like I can feel a barrier, literally go down.

It was like that. I used to feel it and think I've connected.


Dylis Guyan: Then as you develop the relationship with the business that you are selling to. Of
course, it always a person. You're not selling to a business, it's a personal thing. It's
thinking about those things and knowing your stuff and being up to date.

Even if you don't know everything, at least know where to go to look for it.

Building that credibility, doing the things you say you're going to do, maintain that
intimacy, prove it. I think that's great what you said Dallas about... It's never just
saying it, you actually have to prove it. Even when people have to understand...

That can share things with you, and trust sufficiently to do that.

*phone rings* Excuse me I really should have turned that off before this. Let me
just turn that off.

Dallas McMillan: I'm not married to an English girl, just in case I get in grief from my girlfriend.

Dylis Guyan: Oh no.

But she's engaged.

That was me not listening properly. I hope that hasn't thrown out trust out of
[inaudible 00:18:08]

Dallas McMillan: No, not a problem.

Dylis Guyan: Well, maybe she might listen to this and think, "there's maybe something in the
wind."

Dallas McMillan: Look out.

Dylis Guyan: SO I think building the trust is an ongoing thing.

Dallas McMillan: That all really comes down to interest in the costumer and you need that to
develop an understanding of the costumer which as you've said is essential to have
before you even think of marketing or trying to sell to someone.

Dylis Guyan: Absolutely, so this research before is absolutely critical. You must look at the
website. You have to look at the profile, or link in. Goodness, we've got so much
now these days with all of the technology.

Google business and if you've got businesses on your prospect list, put them into
google alerts. This is Google.com/alerts and you can put any company in there, any
company names, any individual name, a product type. You could put financial
services, changes in financial services, and the whatever is happening on the
internet you will get an alert depending on whether you want it daily, weekly,
monthly, however. It really does give you some great intelligence on your
perspective clients you've got on your list you want to do business with.

I can give you an example of that, if you like me to share this with your audience. I
had a pharmaceutical company on my prospect list and I put them into
google.com/alerts, and this particular day I got an alert to say that they had issued
their financial report.


Dylis Guyan: I had a look in their and in the executive summary the chairman had said what a
fantastic year they had had. They were us 20% which was pharmaceutical, really
pharmaceutical result, but that they were being negatively effected to the 25% on
currency fluctuation.


Yup.

Dylis Guyan: I though, wow fantastic. So I cut and pasted that paragraph out of the financial
report and I sent an email to this guy called Mark, who I knew was the decision
maker. I said, "Dear Mark, I not6iced in your recent financial report that your chair
man," whatever his name was I can't remember now, " said," and I copied in that
paragraph.

I then went on to say I worked with pharmaceutical companies just like yours
helping them to increase the sale revenue, which of course would [inaudible
00:21:02] that currency that they negative effect of the currency in-‐fluctuation. If
you're interested in increasing your sales and reducing to help [inaudible 00:21:15]
that please call me on or email me at...alternatively I'll call you on Thursday
morning at 8:35.

I got a call that morning, and he said, "Dylis how on earth did you know about this."

I said. " I read it in your financial report."

He said, "Yeah, you may have but how on earth did you find our financial report."

I said, "I'm interested in you as a company. I've been following you and I got that
information."

It was like, wow, you know? Come and meet us. It just elevated me above any
competitors who might write and say, "My names Dylis Guyan or Joe blow and I
work for Size Edge sales marketing company. We help companies with training
programs," blah blah blah.

The usual delete, or the usual letter in the bin.

Dallas McMillan: I guess you probably know before your prospects in many cases, they wouldn't
necessarily know everything that going on in the [cut off 00:22:15]

Dylis Guyan: Right from that subject line. So the subject line can reflect whatever that is going
on in your particular market place. [inaudible 00:22:26] some valuable information
you can bing your clients.

Of course once they open the email, that first paragraph has to grab their attention
sufficiently, for them then to read on. The following needs to light the fire. It needs
to grab their interest and create the desire for them to take some action.

That first piece is so so important. You can look at newspapers in your industry, or
industry magazines. Whatever your niche is and just really keep yourself ahead of
the game.

Position yourself in that way. I can guarantee you most competitors are not doing
it. Most are still product jumping. They're talk about features and advantages, and
benefits. With technology now you an go onto someones website and find out all
about their products and services.

[crosstalk 00:23:32] It's not like

Dallas McMillan: [crosstalk 00:23:32][inaudible 00:23:32] just completely changed hasn't it, because
that was the only channel for people to find out information about the product.
You know? You had to meet the sales person and get the brochure to learn about
it.

Now we can [inaudible 00:23:45] months in advanced and know what all the
competitors are like, get reviews so we can be fully informed about the product.
Unless the salesperson can add extra value they're pretty much irrelevant to the
conversation.


Dylis Guyan: Yeah. Why would they need you. They might as well just look on your website and
order whatever it is. We don't need a third person. The role of the salesperson has
changed, absolutely completely and so you have to be the person who can bring
those insights. Who can help other businesses to achieve their goals.

Again, I'll go back and this is very simple but it's not about the product. It's what the
product will do.

Dallas McMillan: Yes.

Dylis Guyan: How it can be used. Also understanding, what is it all. Why should they choose you
over your competitor. You need to understand what is different about you.

Just an example of that, for me as a day to day, you might call me basically a sales
consultant, but actually I don't just look at the sales. I look at the whole process. I
will help businesses with their attraction, in other words the marketing, because
that's so critically important. That you have enough quality leads coming in from
the people that you want to do business with.

I help them with that, and the sales process. So it's attraction, conversion, and it's
on good being great at sales if you haven't got enough quality leads, and it's no
good being great at bringing in the quality leads if you can't convert them.

Then I look at putting a retention strategy in place, because if you put all of the
work in to attract and convert them into a higher paying client. You really need a
strategy that keeps them and prevents them going to the competitors.

The competitors will be slapping at the heels of your best clients. So must have a
strategy in place that says this is going to be my touch program for my existing
clients.

This is what I'm going to do. They'll get a phone call. Your best clients might get a
phone call every quarter. You might take them to an event. You will send them
valuable leaks to things. The twist equation that I was talking about, I sent that to
many of my clients to say look I've come across this I think you'll find this really
interesting.

It's all of that sort of thing. I remember, I sent them cards from when we first did
business together. Sort of like our anniversary of meeting. Which is just a little bit
different. You know?

A birthday card, a Christmas card, I would send them a thank you letter, and I send
it hand written. Thank you!

Dallas McMillan: Which really stands out today.

Dylis Guyan: Yes.

Dallas McMillan: [inaudible 00:26:56] embrace technology in many ways in your business, and I'm
sure emails, I find, are a big part of it. We're so used to getting an email, and so
rarely get decent mail these days, it really stands out if someone takes some time
to write you a hand written note.

Dylis Guyan: Yeah, absolutely.

When I ask the question when I'm working with you, and I say how many of you
have received a hand written thank you letter. Hardly anyone, and the odd people
who have I ask them how did that make you feel. Oh my goodness I was absolutely
thrilled.

Just yesterday, I don't know if you can actually see that. Over here, can you see in
this spot. I did a speaking engagement on last Thursday, and this [inaudible
00:27:50] came in the coast yesterday. It's got on it funky dentist and it's printed
and I got lovely little card. They wrote, you're so inspiring and so on. I was
absolutely thrilled to pieces.

You know I was...[crosstalk 00:28:07] and it doesn't take a lot.

Dallas McMillan: [crosstalk 00:28:07] the best thing [inaudible 00:28:07] used to work for the
chocolate company.

Dylis Guyan: I'm sorry.

Dallas McMillan: It's the best gift you've had since you used to work for the chocolate company.

Dylis Guyan: You're right.

Yeah it is.

I used to come with the outters, they called them outters. Plastic trays with all of
the chocolates, and I used to come home. They used to give them to me, and say
here Dylis here have these chocolates and my kids used to say mum did you get any
chocolates. I'd say, yeah look at this. You know?

We'd have friend over for a chocolate party.

Dallas McMillan: That is a great job for sure.

Dylis Guyan: Yeah, absolutely.

Dallas McMillan: What kind of currency mostly working with at the [inaudible 00:28:49] because I
know you do a lot of sales training now. Do you still so consulting work?

Dylis Guyan: I do. I was working 100% with the big corporates and international corporates. I
was traveling around the world to America, and Canada, South America, Europe,
and so.

I think I'm just 27, but clearly I'm not 27. I though, I can't keep doing this traveling,
so I started to make a shift in my business model. I started to bring my skills to the
SME market. Business who have got 5 to 50 employees, but don't have a sales
marketing department or training department to help support the sales effort.

The sad thing with these people is they would get sales people who join, but they
don't really get any deep sales training and the pressures on for them to perform
and if they don't perform they get pressure on from the manager, and eventually a
lot of them will leave and join another company and go through the same rinse and
repeat. Get frustrated, and feel a failure and so on.

I'm very committed to the sales people of these SME businesses. Businesses maybe
where the business owner is doing their own selling. I have a particular passion for
these people because I think I mentioned to you before that my father went
bankrupt when I was 16. We had the official receivers in, and they valued
everything. It was just hideous, and he just about had a nervous breakdown
actually.

His behavior became so awful, because we lost the house. We lost everything, the
house, the business, the cars, everything. I went to what we call a counsel house,
here in UK. His behavior was so bad that the mother and four kids went and left
him.

He ended up in my grandfather garden shed for a week, and then in a caravan for a
number of years. Then they got back together, and then unfortunately died when
he was 52. It was such a horrendous experience.

He went bankrupt because he didn't know how to bring in new clients. He didn't
know how to attract. He didn't know how to convert. He didn't understand the
sales marketing. He was expert at what he did, but he didn't understand that he
needed to be expert in sales marketing.

This where I bring my skills and my passion and my knowledge to the SME market,
to help if it got sales people or if the business owner is doing the selling then I will
help them with their marketing activities getting the right message out to the right
people in the right way. To bring the kind of people in. Those quality leads into
their business and then I help them with the process of converting.

Good selling shouldn't be pushy, and having all these nasty sales tactics. It's about
being completely 100% costumer focused, and taking someone from a position of
interest. Where they said hey I'm interested I'd like to learn more, to a position
where they say, actually I want to buy your product.

That is true questioning. It's an understanding the process of that questioning and
getting deeper and really challenging what your clients are saying to get them to
think deeper and differently about the business, and then where their in a position
to say yes I would like to buy from you.

So that's what I help the SME market do. Now, I'm still in this sort of transition
phase because I've still got corporate asking me to work for them, but I'm doing
more of it in the UK more than traveling abroad now.

I run my own workshops, companies can either come in and join the workshop. I
still do in company work, or I have private coaching clients. In terms of my
evangelistic activities and making sure I get my message out in a bigger way, I'm
working on pulling an online program together.

That will be launched in September. Contact to contract, so you won't be surprised
by that name, it's the contact to contract blueprint and that part is the attraction
piece. That's about how to bring in those quality leads. That will be followed by
another program on the conversion. Converting them from a prospect to a client.
So that's what I'm up to.

Dallas McMillan: I agree entirely about the need for the owner to be a sales person, even if they're
not selling externally. They've got to be selling internally. They've got to get people
exited about it, or when their talking to the CEO, business owner of an [inaudible
00:34:24] organization. Being able to say, "look this is what we're doing, this is how
you can get on board". Having that sales skill is really essential to running a
business.

I know in myself it's only as I started to finally get the hang of that that things
started to come together in other parts of the business. Even if you're not selling a
product, you're selling an idea. Whether you're trying to convince your child to cut
the TV off or trying to convince your partner to take the [inaudible 00:34:56] out.
Whatever it is, we're constantly having to negotiate and try to...

B2B Sales Success with
Dylis Guyan
Image
Interview URL:
http://digitalinfluence.com.au/b2b-sales-success-with-dylis-guyan/
Video URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrUBweC3yPY
See more Digital Influence Interviews:
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B2 b sales success with Dylis Guyan - international sales trainer

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