Take 5
Create Everyday Sales Excellence
With Dustin James
TRT: 4m 19s
Video Transcription

Dustin James directly addresses camera:  Every job you've had before your current one offers invaluable insights you can use to propel success. Hi, I'm Dustin James, keynote speaker and top corporate sales energizer. Let's take five minutes to talk about how you can leverage past work experience to create stronger connections and drive greater sales growth.

I'd like to share with you what I call the Million Dollar Onion. Now, first and foremost, million dollars gets you excited.

It can be an opportunity to make millions of dollars, save your company millions of dollars, or find that next top performer within your organization. If I were to ask you, think of all the paid jobs you've ever had in your lifetime. Where did it start? For some of us, might have been a lawn business, babysitter, that we had high school side jobs, the hustles, those college jobs, anything that generated revenue.

Now, I know we've only got five minutes, but your mind is marinating on that. While you're doing that, when we talk about the Million Dollar Onion, I want you to think about all the stories that can be tied to those jobs. All the value that you can bring. See, our experience is the most, most powerful things we possess. And we need to share that both in business and building relationships.

When we share our experiences, it's a powerful thing. Many people only see us where we are. They have no idea the grit, the resilience, the adversity of the things we've had to accomplish and overcome to get us to where we are now. And see stories. They touch our hearts. They ignite the brain. I can overload you with analytics and data, but sales stories connect with our customers, with our clients. There's great value and we need to share those stories in our business and with our customers.

So now that I've made my list of all the job experiences, the question is how can we utilize these as a tool? Well, first and foremost, this is how I hire people. Most people go into a job interview with their resume. If you're looking to add somebody to your team, have them make a list of all the jobs they've ever had and utilize it as curiosity. One of my last top performers, she was a recent college graduate. She came into our office with a resume.

I crumbled up, tossed in the trash can. Of course, her eyes get big, but she starts to make a list. And then I looked at the list and I circled this one that's at flipping houses with my dad. So of course I'm curious. What does that mean? So she starts to tell me, yes, my dad would buy houses.

We'd go in there and I take a sledgehammer and I tear down the walls, and then we'd putty it back up, put it on the market and look at our margins. Now, first and foremost, I wouldn't have guessed that this young lady was going to take a sledgehammer and destroy walls. But if somebody can tear something down, build it back up and look at profit margin. That's somebody that I want on my team. This is how we utilize it for any job interview within our organization.

Another activity is to utilize it with your sales team. Right. Many organizations have that top performer. Maybe they're well-dressed. Well, this organization had their top performer in the rest of the team. Massive disconnect. Well, I had them do this activity. And one of the gentlemen said, hey, can I put something that I bartered? Now, of course, as a facilitator, I was like, bartered exchange of goods. That's okay. What did you get? He goes, I got a goat.

I'm like, you got a boat? He's like, no bahh, goat. The animal. I'm like, seriously? How did you get a goat? Well, needless to say, he starts to tell this story that he did a missions trip overseas, and in return, they cooked him a goat dinner. All of a sudden, a team that thought this gentleman had no sweat equity, he came down, they came up, and now they're one of the most well oiled sales teams around.

Utilize this with your sales team. Have them tell a story. The hardest job they've ever had, the best leader they've ever worked for. These are great stories. And as salespeople, we need to be able to connect through communication. And there's nothing better than our experiences. We talk about the world of competition. Well duplication will never create differentiation. So when you can be original authenticity and utilize these stories becomes an astronomical benefit to your organization.

The other thing, by making that list, it creates great confidence. I can sit here and tell you I've had 59 paid jobs, 59, not 59. By no means have I been a job hopper. I've been a top performer in four different industries, but when you can see all your experience and see what you've done and where you're going to head, that's great confidence in everything you do.

So as you make your list, that million dollar onion, you're listing each and every one of those jobs. Anything that’s generated revenue. Understand how valuable that is, especially in today's world, because it's your experience and understanding when we're telling stories. We're building businesses, building stronger relationships. That's what it's about. And in today's world, things can get crazy.

Markets can be tough and challenging. Understand that when you're talking about your experience, you should have great confidence. Utilize that to connect with customers. Your team to grow your businesses. Build stronger relationships because we're in the people business.

So make that list and build your million dollar onion.