Sales IQ Podcast - Neil Twa

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

What do you do when you have an incredible plan?

You're progressing well on that plan and everything turns upside down. In sales, we can often be faced with this same dilemma. What we do today is working well, and then tomorrow it just doesn't work. We could have a deal progressing or. The stakeholder, the prospect they're telling us everything. We want to hear.

They're doing everything that's telling us they're going to buy. And then all of a sudden they go stuff. That's what this episode's all about. We're going to talk to Neil twine. Neil trois has built an incredible business and e-commerce business. And you want me to saying e-commerce what the hell is e-commerce got to do with what I have to do?

I'm in B2B sales. I mean, B2C sales, but what's ecommerce. It's the story that Neil is going to share with us about his journey in business, his journey in sales and how he's turned a negative into an incredible positive. And I think for all of us is that sales has been, the emotional ride of selling has been incredibly interesting.

I think, you know, pre the, pandemic. There was always the up and down post a pandemic. It's gotta be an up, down left. Right. And, you know, things have been changing rapidly revenue operations is much more than words in a job title. It's a movement that is transforming sales, marketing, and customer success teams into high-performing revenue.

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And revenue intelligence platform for Salesforce customers learn how we can transform your results at ring day, night.com that's ring dna.com. So this is a great episode where we're going to buckle him. We're going to really dive into what is that mindset? What are some strategies that you can use when things don't go to plan to help you be the very best you can be.

Welcome to the show.

[00:02:27] Neil Twa: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:02:29] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah. I'm pretty excited mate, I think, any, any conversation about funnels buying process, um, what's required to get a person from a point of consideration to a point of purchase is a really interesting conversation to have. So I'm excited about today's convo, but before we get into it, we'd love to know a bit more about you and how you started in the world of.

[00:02:49] Neil Twa: Yes. Uh, you know, technology has been a big part of the selling for me in the background. I actually started consulting with a little, uh, company in, um, Midwest United States that basically, uh, sold to the banking industry. And I learned how to sell technology into that baking industry. Uh, I had jumped out of college because I realized I was going to die in entrepreneurial death in college.

I'd gone to school on a full ride music scholarship, and I'd kind of failed out. Uh, from the school and then realized that, uh, you know, business e-comm sales marketing were going to be my forte, but at that point, you know, I really wanted to do what was going on with the internet, really wanted to get out there.

And frankly, I'm dating myself a little bit. Uh, there wasn't any college skills courses or tracks. It would take me down that path. And so I had to go to the corporate world. And so without a degree, I sold myself into a consulting firm. Uh, I told them I could program. Well, I learned how to program. Uh, cause I really didn't know very well how to do that, but it's all myself how to do that on the fly.

And then I convinced them that I should be a full-time employee. And then I became one of the, uh, uh, five thousands of people to start sprint mobile at that time, which was pretty small. They just conglomerated people together and kind of said, Hey, we're starting this mobile division. We're going to sell mobile phones.

And we're like, oh, okay. Um, what's that about? So we got into that and, uh, got to be pretty good at relationship driven. Uh, which was at this point myself. Um, I did some side hustling and stuff around building game servers. Uh, and then the game server network ended up, uh, basically allowing people to do multi-channel communications, kinda like this zoom call, uh, when games didn't have it built into the native application, you had to have some third party service to talk in real time.

And so we had this server that was running like 20 game servers so that people could do multiplayer gaming. And I kind of played that as my side hustle. Uh, which was fun. And I was selling people into that on line because they were wanting to talk to each other. So I just provided a need and fill in the whole family needs and smelled it.

And then it started to kind of work and turned into a pretty good size little side household, um, without experience. And just being able to kind of understand the technology and business at that point enough to know, uh, how to be dangerous. So I succeeded on a project with a sprint that was the first knowledge management system they ever did.

Uh, and it was the festival and I was all bleeding that, and IBM came in to do a project and a couple of the executives saw what was happening and they said, Hey, we want to offer you a job. So they've limited. Armonk New York. And then I went to work for IBM, spent almost five years at IBM, working with some really smart people, um, realized very close, uh, very simple saying at that point for me, uh, in terms of sales, it really had to do with, uh, it's who, you know, they get you in and it's what, you know, that keeps you.

Um, with ethical practices, of course, uh, or selling myself at this case in terms of what I knew how to do, which just became a second. Um, you know, just second nature, uh, to my development. And I spent almost five years working with some super smart, double docs, MIT working on human machine language, learning, lightened, semantic search engines, um, and all kinds of really amazing things.

Um, and traveled the world, um, almost 300 days a year, which was. Uh, but flying all over the place, which was fun. And then I realized that, you know, I wanted to do more with my life. Right. And so I thought, Hey, you know, I could sell things, let's go out and do my own thing. So I left in 2007 to start selling and, um, basically into management consulting was teaching, you know, business development and, uh, and helping with, uh, knowledge and technology and made IBM.

My customer, one of my first customers was IBM. Uh, cause the end of the pay me like 10 times an hour was they were paying me as an employee, which is cool. Um, I didn't mind making 250 bucks an hour, um, to, to work as a contractor, um, launched some really great products and projects with them. Have a lot of fun, got involved in, uh, oil and gas tech.

So myself into that, we started with raising funds. Uh, for a really cool, amazing product that I'm actually patented on, uh, which is, uh, device connectivity and gigabit speeds over, uh, existing copper lines, like in the home or business. And I had to do with demand grid elasticity, like being able to. Make a whole house in a building respond positively or negatively due to power grid conditions.

And it had a lot of applications and we were talking to AAP about 6 million homes in America that were going get this. And I walked in on one Monday and realized my part for better sellers than maybe because they had actually sold themselves into the concept that they could cook two books. Uh, with investor funds.

And I was like, oh my gosh. So I got a lawyer and, uh, basically, uh, filed for bankruptcy, um, because I needed two of them and didn't notify me because they were messing with funds. And I knew that this was an sec violation and I had to get out. And so I had them indemnify me. And in the process, the lawyers were like, well, you need to go bankrupt because that's the best way to protect yourself.

And I'm like, well, crap. So I had to reinvent myself and since I knew how to sale a new technology, I could do sales and stuff. I mean, my life became a funnel. So I started into affiliate marketing and doing mobile traffic when it was just spreadsheet, uploads, right. Like into a server. And, um, we were just throwing hail Mary passes.

It's a spreadsheets. And just to see what would sell funnel was real simple. It was an ad that went to a mobile app and they were paying us like two bucks to get an install. Uh, and I'm gonna just make these little ads. It just, it ended up being dating apps where we ha I had a pretty good success. And all of a sudden I was breaking a hundred bucks a day and then 500 a day and then 750 a day, and then a thousand a day on profit.

And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm like, this is insane. Like I caught on to this and I did that for a couple of years. Really helps them companies with allegiance and literally it's the dumbest thing ever because I kind of fell into it. And it was by definition, I guess I'll funnel. When I had an ad that ran to a mobile app and they installed it and they paid me the cheaper, my traffic was obviously the more money I made.

So if I could get leads for, since then I get paid a buck 50 and it just turned and burned. Yeah. All day

long.

[00:08:37] Luigi Prestinenzi: Thanks for sharing that. I mean, what a journey, right? So.

You've gone product

yet when incredible journey, right. You've gone from sort of laundry, um, working in high-end enterprise across a variety of different sectors to getting to that point where, um, you had to start again and you used the word, which are, I kind of want to focus on reinvent yourself because I think that particular word would resonate with a lot of people at the moment, given that the last 18 months.

We've all had to reinvent ourselves in some capacity. Um, I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. So tell me a bit more about when you found yourself in that position, where things were a bit tough and well, yeah, you had to completely change. What did you look? How did you get to

[00:09:20] Neil Twa: that point as against the wall for a moment?

And I had heavily leveraged myself into this business. I had put money into the patents, I'd invested in it and I was really confident. That we were going to land these contracts and just, this was going to be a billion dollar idea. And frankly, I still believe it is, uh, it's just going to be the most amazing and billion dollar idea that no one's ever gonna hear about.

Um, yeah, well, uh, when they steal the money, there's nothing left to pay anybody. Uh, and I, I learned a very tough life lesson about getting too invested in something and not being willing to see it for what it was and by, and re-inventing myself. When I met was a, at that point I had, you know, kind of lost the connections and momentum for what.

It was doing, I was no longer in a that's space and business and technology that I was in before. And it was kind of like, okay, now, now what do I have that I could provide? What, what need can I fill? What do I, what do I know? What can I do? Uh, and what can I sell? And what I started to recognize was there was an opportunity to sell those physical products.

There's an opportunity for e-commerce. Uh, and as I started to recognize that I had this capability to basically talk to people about, you know, dating apps, which I think is silly, but at the same time, it was like, I've never done that before. So why not? I'd gone from like high-tech management to learning how to sell, you know, funding, to learning how to develop products and patents.

So why not learn how to just talk to people about, oh, and it seems sort of illogical, but okay. There it is. So that's that went to physical products, facts and help some companies actually to follow that process itself, physical products. And then I realized, well, yeah, Why can't I sell physical products too.

It was more like at a moment of epiphany, you can call it a reinventing, but it was more like happenstance. It was more like, Hey, yeah. I can kind of do this as just having success now, what do I do with it? Uh, and I got to talking to a friend of mine one night and he said, you know, I just listed some stuff for sale on Amazon.

And this was in 2011 and I said, you can list stuff on it. I'm just not playing what the heck. I didn't even know you could do that. He's like, yeah, there's this thing called fulfilled by Amazon. And you put your product on there and they ship it to the customers and you make money and I'm like, oh, okay.

Uh, I didn't know, you could do that. Show me what you're doing. And so I had been running all this traffic and stuff, and then he was like, you know, if he could just keep doing that for the physical products on Amazon, I bet you could make it really successful. And I thought, okay. Uh, and then I realized that Amazon was basically just a big surgeon.

It was like the search engines. We were developing for companies in IBM. And when I realized that I realized it was his own traffic source, that I didn't have to, um, run, paid traffic to it. I could use the traffic that was already there and the people who wanted to buy and who were buying like crazy, it was a two lane highway at that point.

And it's a 7 million highway now. Uh, but it just started realizing if I could just get in front of that traffic, if the engine tells me what it wanted. And so I started to just play with the engine. And just like spent hours for two, two years, literally throwing products@thissearchenginecalledamazon.com just to see what it would do, how it would rank.

And all of a sudden we were having these successes. People were just buying products, like crazy from us and started to realize that I kind of reverse engineered it a bit because I'd built these before. And it was a big search engine. So we started. Tell it what it wanted and it started to reward us and all of a sudden we're like, holy crap.

Yeah. Um, we're going to be in e-commerce now.

[00:12:27] Luigi Prestinenzi: I just want to pause for a moment because I think, and this is an incredible story, right. But I want to, because we've spoken about that revenge and what I'm hearing you say is you took a time to kind of reflect and think about, well, what are you actually good at?

Yep. How do I define a problem in the market and then use my skills to go and commercialize that opportunity?

[00:12:48] Neil Twa: How do I get paid?

[00:12:51] Luigi Prestinenzi: I think that's such a, you know, that's such the human spirit, right? We become very resourceful when we've got our back against the wall. Correct. Would you classify yourself as a sales professional or more of a tech

[00:13:03] Neil Twa: professional?

You know, now I look back and I would S I would have said I'm more of a technologist once upon a time. And then I actually realized now that, uh, that was the belief that mechanics button pushing and any Soros, you know, software and stuff would make me successful, would make me a, you know, a millionaire or whatever.

And it would make me, you know, run a business, uh, Sort of an automated hands-off kind of thing, which we all want sort of a passive way. And then I realized that, uh, to some degree I was actually better at marketing. I was actually better at the business. I was better at the relationship aspect. I was better at the communication side.

I was better at connecting disjointed, uh, in complex items and putting them together and realize that that was part that was really the summation of my history, that I had worked myself into a position where I could be between. Conversations. And I could bring two people, two parties together for a mutual win.

I could just see two disparate things and bring them together and say, Hey, here's a simple solution. Why don't we try that? And that process basically got to solving people's problems, which made it easier to sell people things. Um, when I stopped thinking about what was in it for me, um, And what I was going to benefit from.

And I started putting myself in their position and the other position of the person who started connecting them with what they needed. Um, all of a sudden things started to turn around. I stopped thinking about what I needed and started thinking about others needed,

[00:14:30] Luigi Prestinenzi: you know, and I think, I think that for me, that resonates at of everything that you're saying.

I mean, there's another, a number of things that are resonating for me, especially the fact that you've reinvented yourself. I just love the thinking that goes behind it. You know, what is the problem? Stop thinking about me and how I can benefit and flip it to, how can I help them? Um, and I think, you know, I think where, where I see a lot of sellers go wrong, or a lot of companies go wrong is they're so focused on them and their features of what their product does, that they're actually missing the mark and they're not connecting with the audience and they might have a really good product.

They might have incredible product. You know, I was coaching some people last night. They got an incredible product, but they're pushing the product features and people don't want more product features.

[00:15:15] Neil Twa: They want to answer that one. They want the benefits. What's in it for me, they want to come from hell island, heaven island, how you get me from hell on and to have an island.

And at the end of the day, it's really understanding what the customer differences, you know, what is it? They're in four, if you double your understanding of the customer, you're going to double your income. And if you spend that opportunity to learn, uh, about why someone might need it, why it's going to save them time, be faster, cheaper, easier, uh, why it might benefit them, their family, um, other aspects of emotional charges that touch on that person's need, then you will obviously make it easier for them to say, okay, tell me more about how we work together.

Uh, which changes from an attraction. Yeah. And

[00:15:56] Luigi Prestinenzi: I just want to talk about that because I think. You know, when you think about funnels and for most, I think for most maybe, maybe not for most, but I know me, I've certainly gone into a lot of funnels, right? I mean, the fact is I'm so intrigued by, um, the funnel process, but there's an element where in a really good converting funnels, engage with the emotion and they, and, and they they're messy.

Is so on point it will continue to help people progress through the funnel.

[00:16:28] Neil Twa: Um, it does. It really depends on what it is. Go ahead. Sorry to cut you off.

[00:16:33] Luigi Prestinenzi: That's what I want. That's what I want to find out from you. Like given that you've got such expertise in building high converting funnels, I think this is not just relevant for.

Consumer buy sales. I think it's relevant for the whole sales ecosystem, right? Um, yeah. Talk to us about the psyche and the process that's required for people to move from that point of awareness consideration. Right to that point of decision. And what process do you go through when building out those

[00:17:00] Neil Twa: processes?

Well, I think for me, one of the things that was really, um, this has been fascinating to watch, especially over the last year and a half is there's a lot of people who are really missing and craving sort of that connection, uh, to people, to sincerity, to, you know, a genuine conversation and not just a fancy sales pitch.

Um, and so while my funnels have been more complex in the past, they've actually gotten more simple. Uh, down to the fact where I just ask people a question and when they raise their hand, if I have an opportunity to get in front of them, even on a text message conversation, uh that's when I know I have them, if they've pre-qualified by, by actually receiving the opportunity to talk with me and I have the opportunity to be in their life for a moment.

Uh, then we have that relationship driven aspect. I'm just being real with them and have a conversation with them. Uh, many times we'll say, Hey, didn't even, you know, you're approachable. You, you were the one that messaged us. I thought, am I heard from your sales team? And it's, it's a different level of approach and consultation sale as opposed to just a, Hey, here's my stuff.

Um, and, you know, let me come over with all the objections and create this really powerful nine level deep funnel. That's going to take you through all these things when in actuality, most people aren't wanting that. In fact, if you go look at the statistics for direct mail right now, the highest demographic that is adopting direct mail right now is the millennial.

And if you think about it, they have been in bombarded their entire lives with technology phones and push, push, push. And they're actually the ones building and buying the fastest with the highest turnover of sales and opportunity at the postcard level, because they never get mail anymore. And so when people are sending them mail, they actually just love that opportunity to have something physical because they haven't touched it.

So one major changes. Yeah. And activity to that, even a simple funnel is just, Hey, you know, would you like to have a conversation about this product? You know, text me, uh, from a postcard, you're going to get sales, right? Because people are actually having that and, and, you know, keeping it simple. Right. Um, how complex does it need to be?

My sales funnel is a question that leads to an engagement. I don't have a bunch of fancy pages anymore. I'm typically selling at a higher price point. Anyways, I'm qualifying people very specifically within my avatar, uh, to, to make sure that they're both qualified with aptitude, with funds and with intent to understand the opportunity.

And more importantly, I'm not willing to just say yes to everything. I'm not willing to just take every person and handle every objection they have in order to convince them to buy from me. Uh, there's a very different level of performance in that than there is, uh, just saying, Hey, I got to close every person.

Yeah.

[00:19:32] Luigi Prestinenzi: But I think, and again, I'm so aligned with that because what I'm hearing you say is you going in with a very specific mind? And that's a mindset of, I'm not looking to convert the most people I'm looking to help the most people and potentially there's people that are just can't help. So you know what, I'm not going to sell to them just for the sake of selling to them.

Right. Um, and, and

[00:19:58] Neil Twa: you know what you'll find, you'll find that some of those people come back later and realize that they've missed an opportunity at that point, their mindset shifts. And it's a, it's two things that equal this in simple line items. It's fear and scared. If you have a fear or a scarcity attitude towards the sale, people can smell that that's like blood in the water.

Now you think they can't pick up on it. You think they don't get the language, but the minute you come from a place of fear of losing the sale, or you're coming from a mindset of scarcity about what you might miss out on, because don't have this lead in front of you again. You don't actually see the abundance and the amount of people that around you or the amount of money there is to be made and the amount of opportunity that you have in front of you and people can smell that like fear and scarcity,

[00:20:41] Luigi Prestinenzi: in your opinion, is this a strategy that is associated with C or do you, have you seen it adopted across both B2B and B2C from a, from a segmentation perspective?

[00:20:52] Neil Twa: Absolutely, uh, predominantly relies on the B2B side for those who might be doing more business to business type of selling, um, especially reaching and getting, you know, difficulty in reaching certain leaders at certain times based on their availability. I'll tell you what the number one way for me to reach people is texting.

Hmm. Um, and being able to communicate with them and the followup process is always very big. Um, certain code words, certain questions, uh, people forget the power of a simple question and they continually make statements to try to solve objections. That probably aren't even the objection that person has.

And instead of asking questions, That makes statements. Uh, and none of us like to be approached by that way. Right. We don't like somebody to come on and be like, Hey, yo, you don't like the red one. How about the yellow one? Instead of understanding that it has nothing to do with the color at all. Yeah,

[00:21:38] Luigi Prestinenzi: but I think that's because the question lead, the question is about getting them into a conversation.

And I think, um, again, I love the fact that you talk about text messaging and you talk about the offline conversation and, you know, I've had the privilege of working across both enterprise and consumer sales, uh, working with businesses that are spending, you know, two, $3 million a month on lead gen on inbound, and then finding that the highest converting leads are the ones that get into the offline conversations.

Um, as soon as they can. Right. It's a very interesting, um, uh, it's been, it's, it's actually a very interesting report and you see this time and time again, the leads that are spoken to earlier, as soon as soon as they engage, have a higher propensity to

[00:22:22] Neil Twa: convert and it's been spot on when you have a qualification that's yeah, absolutely.

Then when it gets down to a level of qualification, at least for what I'm selling, because I have a higher, you know, people are typically qualifying a 50 to a hundred thousand dollars, uh, for the things. Uh, so in that way, I typically won't, uh, address the person on a face to face phone call until I know they're actually serious.

And they told me they're in and they just have some questions. So I don't even go to the phone call level anymore. Um, I actually give them a scripted document that basically tells them exactly how we're going to work together. Um, once they've qualified the initial questions, it's like, Hey, you know what?

Check out this, uh, you know, ugly dock for a second. Forgive me. I don't have a lot of time on fancy funnels and stuff because we're all busy helping our clients. So here's my ugly doc. Take a listen to it. If you're in, tell me you're in. And if you just have a few questions you want to address at the detail level, I'm happy to have a 15 minute phone call with you.

But quite honestly, more often than not, I don't have the phone calls. I have people just tell me that they're in. And the first phone call they get is with my assistant.

[00:23:21] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah, that's pretty cool. So you've got a really strong qualification process. You're really clear on your buyer persona. And you're able to direct him to where you, where they need to be in order to progress the conversation with you.

So, you know, there's a lot, I think there's a lot of learning

[00:23:37] Neil Twa: in this really locking in really understanding that avatar and having a good conversation.

[00:23:42] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah. And talk to me about that. So how do you go about building your buyer personas and you advertise,

[00:23:48] Neil Twa: you know, honestly, one of the things that. You know, is, is really asking questions of my clients to understand why they are here.

And even after the fact in the first few conversations we do have, once they're in the consulting side, um, it's just being point blank. Why did you buy from me versus somebody else? What actually finally convinced you and then just listening and then giving that feedback to the next clients who might be considering working with us.

And it really has a lot to do with it. Uh, at the end of the day, because they will tell you everything they needed to know. I, you know, resonated with you because you were a family, man. I resonated with you because we have the same structure, a business background resonated with you because you do this or your business is doing that.

I just listen to the answers and then I'm able to basically speak to that. So a lot of it has to do with experience in the market. It has to be with the fact that we've been a seller for eight years. And we very much understand all the troubles that people are facing and have faced in this business.

And when we're able to speak to that level of daily, weekly, monthly activities of this business model that we do operate, um, while we coach and mentor others in our 12 month program, uh, we are sellers ourselves, right? We manage accounts for our customers and we sell products and we have businesses for sale right now.

Uh, that are going to market. Um, part of that just gets to, to really knowing what the pros and cons are and what the opportunity looks like, and being able to very succinctly tell them what they're going to face. Um, and when they hear that level of transparency, they know. Yeah. That's fantastic.

[00:25:18] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah. I'm really enjoying this conversation.

Cause I think. You know, again, we've broken it down. We're looking at mindset. Mindset is key. Um, then focusing on problems to say, Hey, uh, what is the problem that I can help someone solve when you realize there's a problem that they can help someone solve? You can commercialize that by helping him achieve something better.

And then some tactics around really driving conversations with those particular buyers as they progress through each stage of the farmer. So tell me, where do you see. Does buying process breakdown from your, like, from your expertise, having built these for a number of years, both from the sale sale side and the tech side way to buying processes broke down and what can people do to improve their buying process with their customers?

You

[00:26:08] Neil Twa: know, in my experience, the, the sales that break down with say qualified avatars that I know are a good fit for what we do. Um, and don't really join at the, at the time. It has a lot to do with timing and expectations. Um, at least on my part, if someone's not qualified, if someone's qualified, but doesn't start right now.

It just meant time. And didn't meet opportunity because I mean, they're not a great lead now. No, it means, I mean, come back in two or three months and that's okay. A lot of times it's time meets opportunity. Um, the second component of that is just a, a very clear and specific understanding of what the game is.

What actually is it that we're gonna do together? And one of the things I very much focus on is when you joined to do XYZ with a us, when you are going to sign up for our software, or you're going to sign up for our coaching, these are the things you're going to do. It's, there's a confidence level that comes with you sharing a plan with that person.

And saying, look, I know how you're going to get successful. And here's the 1, 2, 3, ABC. Thanks for going to do, to be successful because I know that this is going to work for you and that, that level of confidence and knowledge that it's a repeatable game plan, they just have to follow, uh, gives people an ability to overcome their objections.

If they do not understand that, uh, typically you just missed some qualification points that they either weren't willing to share and confide with me because it wasn't the time that they didn't trust. Uh, or they simply didn't know the question that they should be asking. And so they're a little bit lost at the moment.

So at that point, it's a matter of, um, being comfortable, putting them on a follow-up and setting them so resources that give them the opportunity, some podcasts and videos, some other objectionable material that they might be able to look at and say, Hey, you know what? You know, we're an e-commerce. Did you know, e-commerce, here's a Forester research from bank of America that says, you know, there was 10 years of growth in the first three months of 2020.

That's never happened. And oh, by the way, it's going to be $22 trillion in growth by 2040. Uh, well, I didn't understand that there was that much opportunity in the marketplace for e-com. Uh, so it really understanding what their objections are and getting them to a comfort level as a lead. And I do not match up at that time.

It's typically because there is an objection of understanding and opportunity to just. The right time. Yeah. Yep.

[00:28:18] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah. And, and you know what, that's the fundamental element of selling right. Is it's gotta be both parties need to see value in the opportunity that sits you in front. And there needs to be a clear amount of information that's being exchanged in order for some person to go from that point of, you know, consideration or awareness to that point of action.

So I think articulated, correct. Yeah. So I think that's fantastic. That's a fantastic sort of description of, of things that need to happen in the buying process for people to progress. So maybe before we sort of come to that point of a wrap up, I always ask my guests these questions. Um, or I try to, sometimes I forget because I get too wrapped up in the conversation.

Again, I think this is I'm really looking forward to your answer given, you know, you've spent time on both sides of the, or of the scale, but, um, is sales in your opinion, an art or a

[00:29:03] Neil Twa: science? It's a great question. Um, can I say both?

[00:29:08] Luigi Prestinenzi: So we have a lot of people say both. Maybe I need to change that question.

[00:29:12] Neil Twa: Well, okay, so let's, let's break it down real quick. If you don't mind me answering it this way. Um, w you know, as I mentioned, I went to school on a full, minor, a full ride music scholarship, but I didn't tell you is that it was, uh, predominantly jazz and classical. And between the two, you either have a specific science of the way that class.

Flows. You have to meet the crescendos. You have to meet the sync, a patient, you have a timing requirement. You're judged on it. It becomes of the, uh, the value of the museum to hit the mark within classical jazz. On the other hand is all improv. Okay. It's what you feel at that time. You can change the notes, the syncopations, the rhythm.

You can play around the music. You can create something different. You can create something unique. Uh, sales is like that. You're going to find a, whether or not you don't fit a particular process and it just doesn't work for you. Uh, or you're going to figure out that you'd rather play jazz in your sales process and create something different and be willing to test more things.

I don't think there's a right answer to that because I don't fit it. Don't think it fits the right person. You have to look at it from the angle of the person who's doing sales. People who are more strict and buy the book and science are going to probably attract those kinds of people. What you need to look at as the opportunity to understand what is the hell they're failing right now that you can work them out of.

If your answer is by the science, then how do you make a one tooth? Understanding for that person that resonates with that right. Brain. If they're left brain and they're creative and they want to go on the fly, how do you create an abstract word picture that says, Hey, we're going to go over to this mountain and we're going to go gold mining over here, because this is where the gold is.

And I'd rather not have you panning over in dirt river, uh, where you're not going to make any money. Let's go over here to gold mountain. See, I'm steal it all from smog. You're going to paint a word picture and an ideology with them. That's going to move them forward and understanding that while, or you're standing in hell, you and I are unhealed together and together, we're going to row this boat over to gold mountain where we're going to win together.

Um, so again, it's, it's creativity in the conversation at the end of the day, uh, to depend on art or. Um, whichever one you want to choose, I've seen them, I've seen them both work. Yeah. And

[00:31:14] Luigi Prestinenzi: that's pretty great response. I mean, you know, often here. Yeah. It's a bit of both and I mean, I'd like to, you know, I like to look at it as a sales for me, there's an art form, right?

Um, yes. The science component is all the performance metrics and, and things that you can kind of. Uh, you know, replicate in the sales process, but there's one thing that always changes and it's a person that you're engaged with. Right. And I was reading a status, looking at it as a stat on the buying journey and that, you know, 95% of decisions are made in the unconscious state of mind.

Right. And then people will justify the decision. Um, and so even if you try to look back and go, Hey, when, when did I make a decision when I was in this subconscious state? Um, and it's because the mind justifying it's the logical part of the conscious mind is actually justifying the decision they're making.

So you can never go back and find those times where you made decisions in a, in a moment of emotion. Right. So it's really interesting. So look, I've really enjoyed today's conversation and I think there's a lot of learning for sales professionals. No, when you recap this conversation, huge learning in that, I love that, you know, reinventing yourself.

And I think we're going to see more and more of that. I just think the global pandemic, all it did was accelerate a whole lot of change and change is going to become something that we're just going to have to constantly deal with. So I think the fact that you reinvented yourself really focused on that problem and then commercially.

Um, your, your business based around that is, is a fantastic learning. So mate Neil, where can our listeners find and connect with you, um, so that they can engage with you after this episode?

[00:32:53] Neil Twa: Absolutely. If you wanna talk about social media, you know, you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, you can find me on LinkedIn.

I have a very short, last name TWA. So if you just search her or may, or you go to those platforms, you won't miss me. Just Google. My name. You'll find me too, uh, not hard to miss. If you want to check out voltage digital marketing, which is my we'll put you in the show. Yeah, and you can go to voltage, dm.com, check out that on the system, as well as a video that explained a little bit more about what we do over there.

[00:33:21] Luigi Prestinenzi: Oh, fantastic. And we'll put that information in the show notes, but, uh, Neil, thanks very much for coming as a guest on the sales IQ podcast. And thanks for sharing. Yeah. Appreciate

[00:33:31] Neil Twa: it. Thanks for having me.

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