[00:00:00] Luigi Prestinenzi: By the Sales IQ Network, this is the Sales IQ Podcast. I'm your host, Luigi Prestinenzi, and each week we'll be going on a journey that will inspire you, motivate you, and help you be the best sales professional you can be. Our focus will be on mindset, tactics, and the strategies that will enable you to create more pipeline, and win more deals. 

Welcome back to another episode of the Sales IQ podcast. I'm your host, Luigi Prestinenzi and I want to thank you for joining us again for what will be another incredible episode. And if you're a first time listener, welcome, thank you for stopping by. We hope this content resonates with you and helps you on your journey in being the very best sales professional you can be.

And if you liked this content, please don't forget to give us a, like, rate us on the podcast player you listen on because you're right. Allows us to reach more sales professionals just like you so we can help them be the very best sales professional they can be.

And this week we're talking about things that you probably shouldn't do when it comes to selling. We have a great guest, we have an incredible guest. Who's going to share with us, her story on how she achieved her success from a numbers perspective. So she absolutely hit her target, but upon reflection, she probably didn't do it the right way. Now, what do I mean by that? And she's going to dive into this.

She sold to people that potentially might not have been the right. For the product and service you are selling in a world where it's really important, that personal brand, that you're building a personal brand, not just so that you can achieve your numbers today so that you can build a sustainable future for yourselves.

And you've heard me talk about this before. You've heard me talk about the premise of a sales professional. He's one that puts the customer at the center of everything you do. It's one that says, right, I'm here to help. I'm here to serve. I'm here to guide our buyers to arrive at a pointed decision because at the end of the day, our buyers put trust in us.

They trust us to make the decisions they don't trust themselves to make, but if we're not putting their needs first, if we're not thinking about. And what's going to be best for them and putting our needs first, then we're essentially doing our customers and our potential customers, a disservice. And what I love about this episode is Charlotte doesn't hide behind the fact that she had a period of her time, a period of her sales career, where she didn't put them at the center of everything she did.

So I think this is going to be a great episode because I think for all of us, for any of us, I know that. I've had those type of moments in my career where I was so focused on getting the result that kind of might've cut a few corners. I might've thought, you know what, this isn't a perfect fit, but they can make it fit or using my optimistic what's possible mindset to justify why I was selling to this particular person or this particular company.

But as I've become a bit mature as a, as I've, as I've built my career, I am really focused on making sure that I'm helping on guiding, you know, thinking about those words navigating, because the trust that they put in us, we need to respect that trust.

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[00:04:14] Luigi Prestinenzi: And this is why this episode is going to be great for any of us that are really trying to elevate the profession and be the very best sales professionals we can be.

So welcome to the show. Charlotte.

[00:04:27] Charlotte Lloyd: Thanks very much for having me Luigi.

[00:04:29] Luigi Prestinenzi: I know, I know we've been trying to coordinate this decision for a wall, so I'm really excited that we finally got the opportunity to connect and have you on the Sales IQ Podcast. So, and before we get into today's session cause today's sessions or how to sell commission only, but also how to do it in an authentic way versus a very disingenuous way. But before we talk about that topic, I would love to learn a bit more about how you started in the wacky world of selling.

[00:04:58] Charlotte Lloyd: Great, fantastic. Well, I started in sales and I made a conscious decision to go into sales, which I think about 1% of salespeople actually make that decision to actually want to go into sales.

I was very academic at school, very academic at university. I loved exams. So I really thrived in that sort of pressurized environment doing exams. And I finished university graduated. Studied languages slipped in Brazil spoke French. I thought I want to be a translator, did translation for six months and absolutely hated it.

People really unfriendly where I worked nothing, you know, being on the phone, talking to people, helping people. So I ditched that and I said to myself, I want to go into sales. What are my options was to be a lawyer, which I didn't really didn't didn't interest me. And I thought I'll go into sales because the lure, I think, yeah, being able to help clients, but also the commission and being able to double your income and to constantly be putting yourself out there and learning. They were sort of the key factors that pushed me towards a sales career and wanting to get into business in the B2B world. I think. I don't come from an MBA background or you know, I didn't study marketing or business at university. So it was also that, that pushed me into sales. Okay.

[00:06:35] Luigi Prestinenzi: So you went one way in your career and you didn't really enjoy it, but what actually, like how did it go from, could be a lawyer translator to what opportunity presented itself. That made you then take that role and start working in selling?

[00:06:55] Charlotte Lloyd: Yeah, no, I think the idea of being a lawyer just bored me a little bit.

It meant it was actually when I was, you know, deciding which university college to go to and studying law meant I would have had to go to you know, university in London. It was going to be more and more and more exams. Yeah, I don't want to be a lawyer. So came out of university and thought, you know, the, the idea of selling to, to businesses really appeal to me.

So I started out selling business information reports, analysis companies like Coca-Cola done on 100- 250 calls a day. So really smashing the phones, using a script, which, you know, what, back when you're 22 years old is, is something that you need. And I enjoyed it. I was also selling in French. So I have my script in English.

I have my script in French and a lot of the tactics that I was using it back then, you know, getting people to stay on the phone. Have a conversation, have a meeting seemed to really work. And I got to that point where sort of 18 months into my first role at tele sales role in London, I was getting awards for energy, for enthusiasm.

And I was top of the leaderboard. And I managed to more than double my income in, in that sort of first year in the role. So sort of the energy, the enthusiasm, the fact that I could earn a lot of money really is what sort of kept me going.

[00:08:30] Luigi Prestinenzi: Okay. So there's a couple of extrinsic motivators there that, and that I would do to build your career, but so tell me, like, as you've worked, you know, prepaid debit, 10 years in a commission, only role.

And for a lot of sellers, you know, that's quite a daunting and highly, I suppose, what's the word I'm looking for credit. A lot of anxiety, right? Not knowing when your paycheck's going to come in. If performance, if you don't hit the performance targets. Yeah. Again, tell us what motivated you to go from a paying base and sell and comms to completely commission only.

[00:09:07] Charlotte Lloyd: I was told that I had the option of being an employee, but the option of, of being commissioned only was, again, that it was, it was more rewarding income wise. So I thought I'll go with that. And there's something that I learned early on in sales is that you're only as good as your last sale.

[00:09:27] Luigi Prestinenzi: Absolutely. Right.

[00:09:29] Charlotte Lloyd: There's no room for complacency. So this was like the acid test of upselling. Because obviously I couldn't invoice the company. I worked for work for a big brand financial times. So, so very well known in the world of selling two locations at that I was working with. It, it became second nature.

It just was something that I enjoyed and it seemed to work well. I would travel a lot in that role. So, you know, I'd be away twice a month in all kinds of different locations from Turks and Caicos St. Lucia to us you know, all around Europe and meeting clients face to face prospects, face to face. It just seemed to work.

[00:10:17] Luigi Prestinenzi: Okay. So you jumped in the role, your commission, only you making good money, right? You're making six-figure income commission and you've got freedom. So the role was working well. Tell us a little bit about some of the challenges that you faced being commissioned only because I think for many sales professionals or many.

You know, it's hard when you don't hit target, but if you're in a base you kind of got that protective, you know, safety net of still getting paid each month. Commission only, you got no safety net. If you don't sell, you make no cash, you make no money. Right. Tell us a little bit about some of the challenges that you had to work through and, and how you dealt with.

The fear of not making money each month.

[00:11:03] Charlotte Lloyd: Yeah. Great question. I think some of the challenges that I faced was I would probably, you know, it would horrify a lot of salespeople I'm going to say, but I did a lot of things that were quite on Orthodox, not I'm serving the client, the prospects. So, you know, to bring a deal in faster, I'd offer a discount have to get this deal in.

Now I think I would also, you know, one thing I would do was really be a lot more aggressive in booking a meeting. So, you know, we talk now in sales it's we want to every objective of every email outreach every call. To have a conversation. And then, you know, with that conversation, you booked the meeting and yeah, we want to eventually sell our solution, but we want to uncover.

Yeah, the problems, the challenges that our prospects face so that we, you know, we might have to turn them away and say, well, you know, this is not the right fit for you. We're not the right fit for you. I don't recommend that we work together. That was something I would never would have said when I was commission only like literally dancing for my.

Every day. So I would try and find something that I could sell within the brown that I was working for. You know, it could be a lower price. There was always something that I would do and it would all be. Focus more on my interest rather than the prospect's interests.

[00:12:37] Luigi Prestinenzi: Okay. So one of the things that you found you were doing more of is really focusing on your own needs and regardless if it was a good fit for them, if the opportunity, you know, if you saw the opportunity to, for them to buy, you basically got them to buy.

[00:12:53] Charlotte Lloyd: Yeah. Correct. And a lot of the D the deals that I was working on were shorter sales cycle, lower value deals than what I'm working with now. So again, more of a transactional sale, you do have a bit of margin to be able to do that. I have to say I was a little bit reckless. So, you know, from being in sales for pretty much 20 years now, It's constantly changing and you know, your why is, is still your why.

But you have to accept that things are going to change. You have to look at your process. You have to adapt, be agile. Look at new techniques. I think I see a lot of salespeople still. In that old mindset and then that old way of working where they're doing the same thing over again and expecting the same results.

[00:13:49] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah. The definition of insanity. Right. So, yeah. So tell me, like, obviously, you know, you've spoken about the things that you might not have, you might not be doing today. Right. Which is some of the focusing on your stuff versus them. But I mean, and that's the reality, right? The reality is we have needs and it's very difficult to put our needs here.

But I think this is where trust often gets it breaks down with the people that we're serving the prospects and our clients, because if we're only serving our needs, then they can smell that. Right. They're like, well, there's commission breath. I'm not ready right now. You're trying to push your own agenda.

I've got my own agenda and you're not worried about what I'm going through my organization in my life. Right. So obviously you know, there were moments when you didn't execute the professional sales professional mindset, but tell us a bit about the relationships you did build when you were able to focus on them versus you.

[00:14:46] Charlotte Lloyd: Yeah. So yeah, it's a great question. I think transitioning to, so the role that I'm in now, I'm actually selling to a lot of the prospects clients that I had in my previous. So the solution that we're offering this market is completely new. So I liked you had Anthony Iannarino on your previous podcast and he talked about, you know, how we're shifting to problem-based solution selling for prospects.

And he talked about, you know, before you had it, Uber you would get in a taxi and you know, you'd have to, and this is something, I think it's a great story and this is more or less the describes the product, the service that we're offering the Uber now to, to the, to these prospects who might client base.

And it's, it's about sort of showing them that they. Do things differently. Challenge them to also think about how they're doing their business, as well as solving their problems. So what I'm finding now is, you know, if I feel that they don't have a problem that, that my solution can fix, I'm going to tell them that.

And I'm going to say, you know, I don't recommend that you work with us. You know, we can't serve you. So I think that in itself is. Sort of it's a huge shift compared to when I was calling some of these same prospects, ah, the previous company that I worked for and, you know, for them it was, yeah, we'll do this.

We like it, some advertising. Now the challenge is to get them to think differently about their business and about the problems that they might, if they don't have these problems now, are they going to have these problems in the future? And, you know, how does my solution help them overcome those, those problems and challenges.

[00:16:49] Luigi Prestinenzi: It didn't any of the previous prospects that you sold to and you're trying to sell to in this role, didn't some of them feel like let down that what you sold to them last might not have been, you know, fit to purpose.

[00:17:01] Charlotte Lloyd: Yeah, no, that's another great question. The, the previous product that I sold. Less sort of results, ROI driven. So they, you know, they, from a branding perspective and it was selling them, advertising, traditional advertising some impressions click-throughs w with digital advertising. So it was something that, you know, th they didn't have to be in it for the, for the long game. Whereas now, You know that we're working to help them with their marketing.

And this is something that is much more focused on results on being able to track that. So they realize that they have to, to see this, you know, for the longterm rather than the short-term.

[00:17:50] Luigi Prestinenzi: So one of the things I want to go back and step, if that's okay, I want to go back to the moment. Cause you had 10 years, that's a solid period of time selling commission only, right?

It must've been, and I'm only assuming there must have been days where. You weren't producing results, right? There were, and mindset would have been challenged. And I think again, for a lot of sellers, When things go wrong is when you know your true character comes out. But, and I was coaching somebody yesterday around this, right.

Have put results. Haven't been the best. And the negative self-talk is starting to really creep in. Right. And I could see that there was a lot of blame going with justifying certain results. You know, not taking accountability for not prospecting. You could say is dipped a bit below that line. Can you share with our audience.

When you did get to that point of, you know, you were dipping below the line from a mindset perspective, what did you do to get yourself out of that dip so that you could then reframe the way you think and then start producing results?

[00:18:53] Charlotte Lloyd: I think when you get into that dip and it happens, you know, a lot in sales, you go back, I go back to, you're only as good as your last sale.

So I focus first off on. Exercise a lot. I pay a lot attention to my physical health, as well as my mental health. I track my results and I measure and quantify my success. And this is something that every sales person should know. Whether the company has, you know, a specific tool like an outreach or SalesLoft, that's tracking that and automating it.

Every sales person should be tracking everything they do. So how many meetings did I have today? How many emails were sent today? How many cold calls or how many videos did I send? All of this needs to be tracked? And the sales person needs to have. Because, you know, you can look back and say, well, in this period, this is what I did, and this is why I was successful.

What were the factors affected my success? Was it summer in one country where people on holidays, vacation, you know, you can look at certain things, but you can also look at sort of your effort on, you know, what I do when I, when I reach one of those sort of negative points and depths, I'd look at my sort of work hour by hour.

So I'd say right, I'm going to focus now on an hour of cold call. Then I'm going to focus on an hour of sending emails and just really time-blocking planning my day. And one thing I like to do, and I only started doing this 18 months ago. So I think this is really, really important. And Amy Volas she's very, very big on this and I learned this from her quadrant journaling journaling.

Every day and it started the week. What are your top three priorities for the day? Or if you want to put it top three priorities for the week and at the end of each day. So you write this down and at the end of each day, look at what you did. So what did I achieve? Celebrate the successes because there's always something small that went well.

Yeah. If you had, you know, if you got home lock on. Okay, that didn't go well, but you may have got a referral. You may have got a meeting. You got a sale, you know, but even when, when things are not going well, you need to really write everything down and focus on those core things. And then you also want to write what didn't go so well.

So what are you sort of, what did you not do? What did you, what do you hope what's holding you back? Once you write it down and you keep it and you reread it. So it started the day end of the day, started the week and of each week. Then it becomes very clear. Are you emotionally reacting to this? Is this really a DEP?

Why is this step ha you know, you're going to be able to see with much more clarity what's happening. And as you know, Luigi, like salespeople, we can control them. We can't control the output. We can't say you've got to let go of the things that you can't control.

[00:22:10] Luigi Prestinenzi: I actually love that. Right. And my listeners, this is not foreign to them.

I keep, you know, always talk about the fact that the circle of control when we actually focus on it, can. You know, so big it, the, the, our, our ability to control things just gets bigger and bigger. But if we focus on the circle that we can't control, all of a sudden, we feel like the things that we can't control is actually quite small.

So I really do love that. And I, I love the fact that you talk about the power of reflection, because again, I think it's very easy for us to look at what we don't do well and go, you know, I fucked up here or this happened or whatever. But it's actually, it takes discipline and it's hard to reflect on what did work well.

Right. And I have these, every time I run a session, I'll run around multiple sessions a week with my clients. And the first thing I say is let's share a win because it's usually weekly. Let's say something that you're proud of in the last week. And I had one last night in Europe, I had like 40 seconds on the call and I said, you know, let's share a win.

It was like the old Western, you know, with the, with the bio going through the street in eerie silence. And I'm like, I had to really, you know encourage people to share something and it's, it's actually hard to reflect. The things that worked right. Or the things, because we're so focused on the end result.

And I love the fact that you said, you know, I can't, I can't control the, I can't control that, but I can't control my inputs and I've got to celebrate those inputs. So I absolutely love that.

[00:23:47] Charlotte Lloyd: Yeah. And I think there's a tendency as well for salespeople to be very overly, sort of hard on themselves and beat themselves.

Well, when things don't go well and you know, it's important to stay humble, but it's also important to tell yourself that you are successful and you can do this. And for me, you know, the power of journaling and writing it down has, has made me realize so many different things. There were so many things in my head that were just in my head.

And it's also, when you write something down, When you're writing down your priorities for the week, you are holding yourself accountable for those priorities. And that is really important. And we all know that in sales, accountability is paramount.

[00:24:36] Luigi Prestinenzi: It's interesting. You know, my son who's 15. He wants to be a professional footballer. And for those that view, that call it soccer, but he wants to be a professional footballer and he's doing everything in his power to make, to, to, to, for a tap. And he trains well he plays well and I've recently helped him find a mindset coach, you know, like an ex pro he's got this incredible course and that's one of the activities they're going to do every day.

He's got to do a little bit of journaling every day. He he's got to write stuff down and go back to his goals and really think about preparation. And you know, I think, I think that's great for, for everyone, not just athletes. I think we've all got to do it. We've all got to sit there and say, right.

What are the things that are important for me today? Because that's the other thing that I find. And I find this myself right when I haven't got my to-do list ready. And when I say much to Julie, so I'm very clear on some of the key things that I want to achieve today. My I can get busy and I'll finish the day.

And I'm looking back on, spend the 8, 10, 12 hours today, right there, the word I hate those days, I actually hate them because I feel no sense of satisfaction. I feel like man, the days just own me. I haven't owned that day. Right. So I absolutely loved the fact that you talk about journaling and why it's important to give you focus and clarity and rear, and then allows you to reflect.

[00:26:01] Charlotte Lloyd: I know some other good tips is so when you have an activity or you to do list, write down the time that you want to spend on doing that. So I've got my, you can see, but you can't really see a scribble here, but I've got to do some slides. So I'm going to spend 30 minutes on that. But that really helps you see then once you finish that task, so it's timing yourself.

There's actually an app, which I've just started using called time Mueller. So you set. Time Mueller, you go on your phone, you set time either for 30 minutes and the beep goes off. So you start the task, obviously. And then, you know, after 30 minutes, if you spent 30 minutes on it and then you have to record, do you know, did you spend 30 minutes or did you spend 40 minutes or did you spend an hour?

And then when you look back at that, it's incredible to see where you're actually your, how you're allocating your time. Well, you're wasting time.

[00:26:57] Luigi Prestinenzi: That's like a modern day time analysis, you know, instead of using Oxbridge, it's like, or a little card you're actually doing. That's pretty good. Yeah. I actually liked that concept.

Well look, I think this has been awesome, Charlotte. I think you've, you've really helped, you know, for me, just some of the concepts that you're talking about, talking about the fact that you and you own it, right. You own that, that when times when you needed to get a solid cross, the line, you kind of focus on your own need versus theirs.

And. You know, not own call that the professional sales mindset, right. Because that's a mindset. Just the stereotypical sales person mentality, but I love the fact that you owned it. You, you, you're talking about it and you recognize that you need to change in the modern world. Right. And I really love the fact that you talk about some of the strategies that you use to get yourself out of the dip and keep you focused every day.

Just before we wrap up for our listeners, where's the best place for them to find and engage and connect with you?

[00:27:51] Charlotte Lloyd: So you can find me. Charlotte Lloyd. I have a podcast coming out myself called simply sales and marketing. Yeah. Looking at. Great tips for salaries for marketers, how sales and marketing teams can work better together.

[00:28:07] Luigi Prestinenzi: Awesome. So that alignment we'll make sure we put the show notes. We'll put a link. If you have the podcasts live, I think it's going well. Is it live or is it going live?

[00:28:15] Charlotte Lloyd: It's going live next week,

[00:28:17] Luigi Prestinenzi: Next week. So we might not be able to put the show notes, but we'll make sure you put your LinkedIn and so they can connect to the on LinkedIn and say, hi so look, I just want to say Charlotte, thanks so much for being a guest on the Sales IQ podcast.

I appreciate you know, the content that you share and I've, I've, I've loved learning more about you through the world of LinkedIn. So thanks so much for being guests on the podcast.

[00:28:38] Charlotte Lloyd: Thanks for having me and yeah. LinkedIn is great, brought us together.

[00:28:43] Luigi Prestinenzi: This show has been recorded remotely produced by Sales IQ Global, audio editing and music production by Stefan Malliate. Show notes by Victoria Mathieson and graphic design by Julie Marshall. Don't forget to leave a rating and review on your podcast player. And if you want to find more about the programs that we offer at Sales IQ, head to www.salesiqglobal.com.

This episode was digitally transcribed.