Geoff Burch: Treat Clients Like Gods, But Don’t Forget to Sell Them Business!

At Lider’s fifth conference Marketing and sales by numbers, currently taking place at the Tuškanac cinema in Zagreb, British motivational star Geoff Burch delivered a very entertaining online lecture on how to become a sales star, with numerous examples and comparisons from everyday life. He stated that the most convincing salesperson he has seen was a six-year-old child persuading his father to buy him a lollipop:

• Dad, can I have a lollipop?'
• No.
• Why?
• Because then you won’t be able to eat dinner.
• What if I promise to eat, can I then have a lollipop?
• No.
• Why not?
• Your mom will kill me.
• But what if mom doesn’t have to know?
• Okay, you can, but it has to be a fruit one.

Burch used this example to highlight that currently in the market among salespeople there are very few who directly ask and offer business opportunities. Salespeople, he says, want to maintain good relationships, especially with large clients, so they do not want to bother them, they do not want to push so as not to disrupt good relations. They do not propose business ideas because they think they will be rejected in advance and that they cannot sell something that people do not want.

– And the most exciting thing is to sell something to clients who do not want to talk to you and do not want your product. Selling something is actually simple. Therefore, it is crucial to introduce an entrepreneurial culture into the business system, one that will be adopted by everyone in a business community, from company service providers to managers. Let’s treat clients like gods, but let’s sell them business – emphasized Burch.

He also mentioned the example of a farmer who raises pigs and has his favorite one that he loves the most, even though in a week he will make bacon from it.

– When you ‘feed’ clients well, pamper, and take care of them, you will also get good bacon – says Burch.

He pointed out some basic mistakes that salespeople in the technology sector make. He says that we sell technology to people who do not know what technology they need to buy, but they know they need it. Another is that we explain to clients that it is all simple, but if it is simple, why do we ask so much money for it? Clients will pay a lot if they feel they will solve some complex, not simple problem.

He also talked about how in the first step of sales, one should insist on a face-to-face meeting. That we must not lose control in meetings with complicated clients, finance directors, or company directors because they want their superiority in negotiations. That sales is actually a journey from the point where the client is to the place where we want them to be.

Burch has been engaged by well-known global companies such as Phillips, Canon, British Telecommunications group, Heineken, etc., for training their salespeople. The star of the BBC reality show ‘All Over The Shop’, in which he helped British entrepreneurs improve sales live, is also referred to in business circles as ‘alternative business guru’, ‘rebel with a cause’, or ‘Hells Angel of business consulting’, as the Financial Times dubbed him.

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