[00:00:00] Luigi Prestinenzi: Welcome. This is the sales IQ podcast. My name is Luigi Prestinenzi, and I'm on a mission to help salespeople be the best sales professionals they can be each week. We'll bring you a different message from thought leaders from around the globe so we can help you master the art of selling another week down another sales IQ podcast for you to listen to.

And this week's a pretty cool episode because we're talking to a Canadian, a French Canadian by the name of Denis Champagne. And I've had the pleasure of working with Denis for some time. And Denis a bit of a veteran when it comes to consulting and coaching and spent a lot of time on voice. And this is a really cool episode because there are so many things in the sales process that we simply can't control. Right? We can't control the decisions the buyers make. We can't control many elements of the sales process, but there are many things that we can. And I think sometimes we get stuck in the circle where we just can't control things. And you know, when you think about selling, there are so many elements that make up a really good interaction between two people when it comes to the sales process and the relationship is absolutely fundamental.

And regardless when anybody says that, you know, it's changing, it's changing, it's changing selling. There needs to be a level of trust between the buyer and the seller. And we see a lot of data that shows that, that, that trust between buyer and seller is getting wider. Remember. And that's why this is a really cool episode.

Cause we'll talk about the power of voice tone pitch speed, and the impact that can have on building relationships with your prospects. So getting really, really listened to this episode because I, I really enjoyed it. Um, I've spent a lot of my career trying to craft. Do you know, slowing down cause I'm a fast pace.

I'm a fast talker. I am in pretty intense. When I get in the sales process, I get excited. We are dealing with people often that aren't like us and go back to the platinum rule from the great Dr. Tony Alessandra, which is treat others the way they want to be treated because not about us. Our role is to facilitate the process and help people arrive at a better state and help them get to that point of decision.

This episode is brought to you by Vidyard, (Vidyard), the online video tool for sales professionals, Vidyard makes it easy for sales teams to turn text-based emails into interpersonal video messages, and we'll help you engage with your prospects and create an incredible buying experience for them. Which will ultimately help you reach your pipeline and revenue goals.

So do yourself a favor, get to vidyard.com, sign up and start using video in your sales process. So buckle up, enjoy. I'm going to listen to this again and again, because there's, there's a lot of learnings from this episode. The other thing I want to share with everyone. We've got a couple of new podcasts starting we've some industry professionals who are incredible thought leaders and run.

Revenue operations for their companies in the tech space. This is awesome. One's called the revenue engine podcast and the other one is called the revenue architect podcasts. There's a launching in the next week. So watch out for the podcast. We'll actually start promoting it. We'll put in the show notes.

We can access these podcasts. We'll probably put it in next week. So these are incredible. Got some incredible guests. They really dive into some incredible topics and, you know, it'll help you be the very best sales professionals you can base. Enjoy this week's podcast with Denise. Welcome to the show, Denise.

[00:03:42] Denis Champagne: Thank you, my friend.

[00:03:44] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah, pretty excited mate, to have you on the sales IQ podcast. And, uh, before we get into all things, tone, speed, pitch, all the fun things that us as sales professionals need to execute when you know, building rapport and relationships with prospects. We'd love to learn a little bit more about you mate, where you come from, um, and how you got in the water.

[00:04:06] Denis Champagne: Uh, 30 well, 35 years ago. Um, I got called into a call center. And, uh, it was in a very short period of time. I was getting more appointments for furniture salespeople. My mother was an inspiration to me earlier on, she was multitasking in the kitchen while booking appointments for Tupperware parties. So that gave me kind of an inspiration in her heart and her kind of.

And our joy to help others and get to meet and greet people together was her greatest quality at when she passed away, the church was full. So that tells you a little bit about her legacy and that was inspired by her kindness. She was just an amazing lady. The door was a revolving come in for a coffee, anytime kind of thing at home.

So we always had people coming in our neighbors. That kind of community feel and caring for people and have, and just being happy with being around people. If something that she's inspired me to do so, so that's a little bit of my background, uh, was a squash and pro out a pro athlete, uh, an elite cyclist, but really in sales, I run my own call center from 90 to 2000.

And, uh, since then I've been selling and prospecting to C-suite in the last 15.

[00:05:29] Luigi Prestinenzi: Oh, fantastic. So it's good to see that your family was a big part of, of your why and how you started, you know, working with people and helping people. And I know that you've got such a focus mindset cause, um, obviously outside of our, this podcast, mate, we've got a good relationship.

So would love to know. I mean, obviously, you know, Um, sales, as you know, my opinion around selling is about helping people achieve better outcomes. You spend a lot of time focusing on voice and tone and pitch and speed when it comes to selling, um, the softer skill component versus the tactical part of.

You know, where did you find the time or where did the inspiration come from to learn about that?

[00:06:15] Denis Champagne: Well, it really was an internal thing. It was because I was sad and mad 20 odd years ago, I lost, I lost everything and I had a number of events in my life that brought me to that kind of. I guess more mad and more sadness and madness, but you know, it's a fine line between sad to mad.

And, uh, I realized I wasn't generating in my other company. I wasn't generating the kind of appointments just because I sounded too intense. Yeah. So it really comes down to that. Uh, the idea is that you must sound enjoyable. You must sound harmonious in a harmonious is not just with others, is with yourself first.

You can't project harmony. If you're not harmonious. Yeah, it's impossible. So I had to really look hard at myself and take a look and internally introspectively and observe my own heart and my lot in life and say, what do I need to do to change, to get results? Because I wasn't generating results and I was working hard, but you know, after a while being, being, being your head on the cement, it starts to hurt.

And you got to say, okay, wait. Uh, you know, change the course, uh, take another street if you're falling in the same hole. And so, uh, it took time and, and, um, as you know, I took on kind of a more spiritual path for myself to try to understand who I really was and the causes behind that. And obviously the effects that were generated.

And I started making more consciousness of how I speak and how I express myself. To be kinder, not only to myself, but you know, obviously to my parents, to my, my fellow friends. And because you can be one kind of person and be another kind of sales person, you are who you are, you carry it through. So that kind of component brought me to a become aware.

And obviously the phone was very big in those days. We had no video or no WhatsApp, or it was all phone, right. So luckily I could do I've practiced and improved my ability to engage, connect with myself and then with others. And then all of a sudden it started turning over. I started getting people to say, yeah, come on in, let's have a chat.

It wasn't as sophisticated as having the whole process of establishing the pains and under pain, they were interested in, you know, a solution. Uh, the, you know, when we talked in 25, 30 years ago, it's improved since then. I've improved since then. But then that was so that's a little bit of my journey in transforming.

[00:09:05] Luigi Prestinenzi: So, when did you realize the tonality component and the intonation was preventing you from progressing opportunities and building relationships with people?

[00:09:15] Denis Champagne: When I got real up, because prior in the eighties I had, I was managing a call center and I was listening to Zig Ziglar, Zig Ziglar made me aware of the power of the voice.

He was the first person to wake me up to that. Uh, and so, and, but then I went into other. Realms and other activities in my life came back to professional squash and then he came back and then I realized, yeah, I had to make a change. And, uh, is, was a couple of times when I had clients not respond to me and goes to me.

And I realized it was me, my intensity, my aggressiveness. It wasn't about helping the other. It was about getting a sale. That's when I decided no, that's not the right way you got to it's a two-way street. Obviously salespeople generate a revenue based on their service, based on their caring, based on finding the positive outcome for the client, as we all say it.

Right. It's sales IQ, the wonderful sales IQ group.

[00:10:22] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah, no, you know, it's, it's funny to me because. I think, you know, you can have an element of intensity and, you know, I think aggressiveness is probably, um, pushes that boundaries. Right. But when you've got the right level of intent and you've got the right mindset, you know, I want to help someone achieve something better.

It's okay to have that level of intensity, but being able to manage. The way in which the message is put across and receive from the other person is actually a skill. And one of the things that I've found really interesting is that 2021, a lot of the modern day sales training practices, and when companies, indoc sellers forget a little bit around that, the importance of.

The soft skills, right? Um, slowing down, speeding up a desk, you know, all the things that are so, so important. There's got to be a relationship between two parties and they've gotta be, there's gotta be an element of trust. Sure. You gotta reduce that, you know, reduce that relationship tension to get to that zone of influence.

And the only way you can do that is when there's a little element of trust. So talk to us about some of the strategies that you've employed over the years, because you spend a lot of time coaching sales professionals. On the power of voice. And you spoke about Zig talk to us about some of those strategies that you employ to help build trust through voice.

[00:11:42] Denis Champagne: Well, first is trusting themselves. So I, the first stages of coaching someone is developing their own esteem. I just finished actually two days ago with someone in south America, one of the four reps that we're gonna probably work together with. And one of them may is really, um, in terms of his self-esteem.

And so bill his self-esteem help him to build himself and appreciate himself for who he really is. Uh, far too many people come into the profession of sales or the job of selling. And, um, don't really know who they are, so they they're confronted with tactics and, and, and, and obstacles, but they don't know how to compose with it because they have never really taken the time to think.

When these things happen, what is the strategy? What is the way towards helping someone else? So there are many ways of helping people. Um, and so, uh, it's about the individual. The rep needs to be given encouragement, and it is so little. I mean, if you look at our family, your family life, my family life, um, typical family life, I think get a lot of encouragement from my parents.

It's not that they didn't love. They're just, it wasn't part of the, the culture of, I believe in you and you can do it, you know? I mean, there's overdoing it too. Like, you know, today parents think that their kids can do everything when actually they can't. So you have to be honest with them, but in our case, it was.

Valued. So we, Aaron given a lot of support and care and Andrew Carnegie from the U S steel corporation in the thirties was a mill billionaire in the thirties said I applied my only single management principle called encouragement. Just saying to someone I know you can do this. I believe in you 100%.

There's no doubt you can get this. There's no doubt about it. How and when and how fast we can work on that. People you can see in their face. When, if we do a zoom call and training people, you can see their face change. So it starts with encouragement and helping them to appreciate themselves.

[00:13:57] Luigi Prestinenzi: The first things first is having that self-belief in what you're doing. And building that inner

[00:14:05] Denis Champagne: fortitude

[00:14:06] Luigi Prestinenzi: in inside oneself. And then once you build that belief, what's the next tactic, or what's the next strategy that we need to employ to start?

[00:14:16] Denis Champagne: What I asked him to do is, um, and I'm so happy to say, to report that has worked for three out of the four reps in south America, and they all achieved three or four major opportunities that are on the table.

Even the vice president was a kind of, uh, gassed as the fact that it actually worked. It took me eight weeks to work with them. But, um, what I do is I asked him to write down in finer detail, tooth and comb. If you want all the implicit. Problems and impacts and problems that our clients have real, real problems, real serious problems, document them in your own way so that it flows from your mouth, from your thinking in a natural Ella, naturally eloquent coming from you as a new human being.

So that people sense that you're not. Uh, directed by scripts, but by natural, conversational eloquence of engaging and caringly approach, the person to have a conversation about their problems. So I want them to really document the problems so that we start from there as a, as a.

[00:15:27] Luigi Prestinenzi: Is that strategy, allowing the sales professional to have a level of empathy when they're talking to their prospects about,

[00:15:35] Denis Champagne: well, if they do enough research yeah.

If they do enough research Luigi and they take the time to, uh, research correctly over time, they'll start getting motivated because they start understanding. The intricate someone who took care of my father, a nutritionist, when he was unable to eat, uh, Todd knew something. He said, you know, Mr. Champagne expertise is expressed in the finer details.

That's when you see an expert. So the subtleties, right? Um, when I went from my, my tooth, you know, my surgery, the doctor did Paris on dentist. Talk to me about small smile and find your details or professional representative of a sales organization, uh, needs to talk as though the prospect, when he, or she hears you, it says, wow, this person understands my problem.

Okay, this is really good. Right? So the first step is to believe in oneself, um, create that self belief internally. The second step is really to clearly understanding the problems that you help prospects solve, and then try to identify that. And then how is it that we should be conveying the message? I mean, you talk again, you talk about a lot about tone, cause you would have.

People that listening to this will probably either are doing it just subconsciously. They're doing it every single day. They're mirroring tone. Um, but then how do we develop the skills to practice and improve the way in which we deliver messages?

Many years ago, I took singing live. Just just to understand using the quality because voice music choice is a VAR.

[00:17:14] Luigi Prestinenzi: I don't know if I can sing. I dunno if I can practice singing. And I don't know if Melissa and I are going to be practicing singing either, but they tell us more Denise,

[00:17:21] Denis Champagne: But it will make you better than you. Yeah. And that's the idea, right? It's to improve it's to get better at your craft, become a, a master of learning.

If there's anything we learn in sales is how to, uh, learn to learn and to continue to grow and enjoy. So the voice says the voice expresses the full person. You can hide your face. But you can't hide your voice.

Absolutely. And this is really interesting, right? So if we, if we're taking the time to really master the art of a voice, right.

Because I, I believe that I've, I've spent, uh, I believe I I've spent a lot of my career trying to get better at this. Um, because I too suffered from the, you know, the intensity, the sales intensity because of my eagerness and my drive and disc has played a really important part of my development. Um, understanding what my own style and understanding other people's styles and adapting my style.

[00:18:32] Luigi Prestinenzi: Often I hear a lot of people is fear in trying to adapt. Stall is they're concerned about coming across a bit disingenuous or a bit fake. How do you work through that so that you can adapt your stall and still be oneself and be authentic?

[00:18:51] Denis Champagne: Well, it comes from, and you're so good at this. You talk a lot about mindset and intent and when you're coming into the professional or the business of sell.

And when I give a lecture at the MBA program here in university, in McGill, I always write down on the screen. You want to make a sale or build a career because how you are permits the sale, the transaction, or the career, the long vision, then you will not be so. You know, caught up or drowned in a glass of water on the transaction, but more so on the relationship what's important to you becomes a person in front of you and that connection, and then you establish a calm conversation.

Of course, you've got to practice. If you're a hyper person, you have to practice. Well, I teach them, well, sit back. I had reps put their feet up on the chair in front to read you're relaxed because you think you change your physical posture. You'll change the, the vocal posture, the mental posture, the psychological composure.

It's all synonymous with being a bit more calm.

That's really interesting. So the, the body language component, right? Because I think for many of us now, especially since the, you know, the world's changed in the last 12 months significantly, and we've, everybody's moved to that virtual selling component. I think a lot of people will resonate with the fact that probably dress well up top and in their shorts and pajama bottoms.

[00:20:21] Luigi Prestinenzi: Right. But how important is it when talking to people that you're having that positive body language?

[00:20:31] Denis Champagne: Well, the voice actually expresses a lot of the body language that precisely my point, you cannot hide the voice. The voice says actually there were scientific research. I'll give you an example. A British magazine called nature many years ago, did a study on the relative credibility of various media.

Yeah. They use TV print and read. And they subjected the, he listeners to readers and the viewers to a false presentation, a false, a false team with someone and then a true one. Right. And they went through the whole process. Nine times out of 10, the tiller to television was the one they caught the bull, the bull or the BS right away.

Okay. Uh, no, actually. Rewind the TV fool, everybody. Yep. The radio 75% of their respondents or the listeners could pick up the false and print was a little bit in between 75. The radio? No, it was a radio experiment. It was a neuroscience study and they, they use various three media. This was in

what was the radio?

The one where people picked up that it was fake the voice.

Okay. So people could actually hear the neck. The last thing you need to do is to underestimate the intelligence of people when you speak, especially on the C-suite and that's all I've done. Yeah. So you gotta be correct. Hmm. That's really interesting people pick up.

I mean, I was very successful over time because I practice all the time to be authentic, to be myself. And there's a ten second throw off 11 second, throw off at the beginning of my call and I get them, or I don't, because that's what they're listening. Tony in his book, Connie Hughes in combo talks about.

People are carefully listening to who they can trust within those seconds. Yeah.

[00:22:49] Luigi Prestinenzi: So this is really interesting. Okay. So let's take this into a core process. So if we're, if we're making that outreach attempt, it's our first outreach attempt to an, a net new prospect. Um, you talk about that, that first 11 seconds, how should that voice be projected?

[00:23:06] Denis Champagne: At the lowest calm as possible?

You can be, you know, when a police calls you. How are they going to know

[00:23:15] Luigi Prestinenzi: I've only ever had I've only ever had them knock on my door

[00:23:19] Denis Champagne: or the doctor's office calls you some authoritarian. Officiality kind of call where they say Mr. Prestinenzi?

[00:23:30] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yes.

[00:23:31] Denis Champagne: Luigi Prestinenzi?

[00:23:34] Luigi Prestinenzi: Correct.

[00:23:34] Denis Champagne: Well, hi, Mr. it's Denise from sales IQ global.

Have you been. Not bad. Thanks. What's it called the about and then go right into it right now. You're playing a little bit the, uh, what you call about, you know, you're very officiality, but when I do that and I do it calmly, and then they say, I'm fine, what's it all about? Obviously it's raining outside today.

So, you know, I can't talk about the rain and I go right to the source of the problems that for which I called, like I noticed at your company, I did some research on your, a press release who just came out like a fine Tori trigger events, you know, there's other substance to of kind of information that's behind my call, but the calming part of the beginning does not create any reticence or resistance.

Or reluctance to want to hear the rest. They have to stand and say, yeah, this person's calm. Okay.

Okay. So w what happens if they're a fast paced social store, like their, a driver they're punching,

I'll do the same thing. I want change because of them, because that's who I am. What I will change is I will get to, when they say what's it about.

I know you're busy. I can tell that. Thank you for at least responding. And I get to it. I get to it real quick. There are virus, there are various character style grids and personality types and disk, you know, models and stuff, you know? You're right. Yeah.

Okay. So you would, you, you kind of just quickly adapt.

Yeah. And, and, and, and you are who you are. You're not going to change because this person imposes. You stay authentic to yourself. That is what I call being authentic is remain who you are, like don't adjust and frivolously because someone stimulates you like that. The strength is in nerves inside of you, not on the outside.

This is really good. So just to kind of go back a step so we can make sure we're summarizing some of the learnings from today's episode, we've got the first step is to really believe in oneself. The second step is to really understand the outcomes that you help organizations achieve will help people achieve and the problems you help them solve.

The third step is to really practice and get that, you know, the vocal tone become engaged in the way that you speak by practicing so that you can alternate your tone and the four steps so far from what I've heard you say, because you've only got a short period of time to build that trust on an initial call is to deliver.

Uh, calmness in the way in which you're speaking to people and then adapt it as soon as you can so that you can connect with them and give them what they need to move forward

and acquiesce and acknowledged that they are busy. But you say, I really appreciate, you know, the two seconds I know you're busy.

I'll get to it. Get. And if it's strategic it's numbers, if it's a high level problems that they are accountable to, of course, if you've done your research, you're talking to the person who is most likely to want to hear what you're talking about. Then obviously there's a relevance together. There's hyper scaling of the personalization, the relevance, all of those qualities and attributes.

You know, adjectives we use to in the world of selling now these days, there's all kinds of ways of saying it, but it's to connect it's just to make them realize you're not trying to bitch. You're just trying to have a calm conversation about something that's important to him or her.

[00:27:14] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah, I think, and you know what, you've actually identified again, it's not about pitching anything, right?

Because at that point of the conversation, especially if it's an initial outreach call you not at a point of advocating anything. Your primary objective is to just get some form of dialogue going. And so you're using voice as I suppose, as the tool to enable you to get to that next stage of the conversation.

And is that where you find a lot of salespeople fall over, is that they're trying to pitch their product too early in the conversation thread?

[00:27:50] Denis Champagne: Obviously, obviously they, they get to it instead of, you know, you know, it was kind of. It's not easy, but it takes practice and it takes awareness. Uh, I don't think that people are taking enough time to understand the problems of their prospects.

They talk about the word pain, but it would have a, what they call a it's not, they don't talk about it. Uh, paintings with a capital. They would have small P it's, all, it's a pain, the problems I've got my solution. I got my product. No, first and foremost, it's, what's making them hurt, focus on what's hurting them and find a trying to own in on those things, you know, become a chameleon of commercial conversations

[00:28:38] Luigi Prestinenzi: too, that you mentioned earlier that Zig Ziegler played a pretty.

Role in you focusing your, a big part of your career on voice? Um, what was that? Was that a book? Was that an audio tape?

[00:28:53] Denis Champagne: Chris? If I had the whole audio tape pack, it was taped, it was cassette tapes in those days.

[00:29:00] Luigi Prestinenzi: That's right. I've got records, man. I've got a record. I think I've got it somewhere of my mind.

So yeah. So tell me.

[00:29:11] Denis Champagne: Yeah,

[00:29:12] Luigi Prestinenzi: what's it called the secret to sale the secrets of closing the series. And I'm pretty sure that would be on all the bull, right? For anyone out there on YouTube. I still have. I think if you're in selling, you've gotta be, you've gotta be aware of Zig Ziggler, Zig Ziglar, big influence on

[00:29:28] Denis Champagne: a lot of salespeople, voice inflections, because voice inflections allows you to bear down on certain words.

Like you say something often when you coach, you said yes, and we're going to do this. Yes. That's your way of getting an inflection in the mind of the other person to acknowledge, to say, yes, we're going in that direction. It's like a leading a horse, you know, you kick or you, whatever. So it's, it's all about finding what works for you, but staying open and, and Zig, uh, just.

Everybody realized that you need to stimulate to, um, yeah. Stimulate is the best word. Um, you know, insight, excite individuals, you know, of course, with the understanding that they already are excited about wanting to buy this buying experience. It's not about a selling expensive. Absolutely. And used to help them.

You become an assistant buyer. That's another thing I learned. So the voice allows you to become that kind benevolent, calm, confident person when you're talking people. Yeah.

[00:30:49] Luigi Prestinenzi: This has been really, really interesting. And I think for all of our, all the listeners today, I think the fact is that you're right.

That voice, that tone it's, uh, it's something that you can learn. And for those that might not have been focusing on this, or feel like there's an opportunity to develop this skill. Um, I think the opportunity is right there in front of you and now more than ever, we're moving to virtual, um, practicing total.

And pitch and sound, et cetera, is, is such a paramount skill that we've got to get back to. So I really appreciate you sharing this with us today, Denise, but you know, before we wrap up, where can our listeners engage with you? Um, and find out a bit more about, you know, The teachings and principles that you spoke about today?

[00:31:34] Denis Champagne: Well, the Nishant bang, as you know, is the name is spelled D E N I S champagne like the bubbly stuff that you like to drink. And they talk a lot about, you know, I drink my sham. I drink my own champagne, uh, on LinkedIn. I'm there a Lotus calm, L O T U S C O M M as in mother.com. Yep. Then obviously sales IQ global.

Um, there. Yep. So, uh, an amazing organization. So those are three places where they can reach out and be happy. I have lots of different interviews and podcasts.

[00:32:08] Luigi Prestinenzi: Fantastic. Well, we'll make sure we put the show notes so that people can connect with you. Um, I know that you, you know, you share a lot of really good content on, on LinkedIn, but want to say, thanks for coming on the sales IQ podcast and your contribution to the industry.

You've been doing this a long time. Um, and yeah, I think w you know, some of the techniques and practices you speak. Is going to help sellers elevate themselves further in the eyes of the buyer. So thanks for coming on the sales IQ podcast.

[00:32:37] Denis Champagne: Okay. Well, thank you Luigi for having invited me and my last words to everybody, stay open to learning.

Find a coach, just like Roger Federer found a coach.

‍

This episode was transcribed digitally, some errors may be present.

‍