Sales is not a Dirty Word – Industry Change Episode 7

You are currently viewing Sales is not a Dirty Word – Industry Change Episode 7

On this episode of Industry Change Richard is in Malaysia speaking with Jason Campbell at Mindvalley about the positive side of sales.

Mindvalley is an education company focused on filling the gaps left by conventional schooling. They specialise in teaching in four primary areas;

  1. Mind
  2. Body
  3. Spirituality
  4. Impact

The company’s founder Vishen Lakhiani, hopes to impact one billion lives worldwide, their vision is to push Humanity forward through education.

Mindvalley’s sales philosophy is based on their unique definition of sales. Jason describes sales as, an energy exchange between to conscious beings. When the sum of the energy that you provide is more than what you ask for in return. He defines energy as the sum of everything involved in the sale; time, materials, money, and, emotion. Put simply their philosophy is, if you want your sales to have a positive impact on both your business and the wider world, then you must incorporate the three loves into each and every sale. The three loves are;

  1. Love Yourself
  2. Love Your Product
  3. Love Your Customer

Watch the whole interview for more information on Mindvalley’s philosophy and the three sales loves. And don’t forget to check of the Mindvalley Academy Website to learn more about them and the courses on offer.

http://www.mindvalleyacademy.com

 

Video Transcript

Richard T.:                   Welcome back to Industry Change, and today I’m in Malaysia. I’ve got a really special guest today for you guys, Jason Campbell, welcome.

Jason Campbell:          Hi, thanks.

Richard T.:                   Well, I’m in your office, so we’ll reverse that. The reason why I wanted to bring Jason to the show is because we’re in a company called Mindvalley, and their mission is pushing humanity forward through education. I really thought that I wanted to touch in the topic of really sales, and I know that Jason, you do a whole heap of different roles in this place.

Jason Campbell:          Yeah.

Richard T.:                   I thought you’d be the best one to really dig deep, to figure out the new process of sales, and I love the concept that you teach around sales, and love the concept that Mindvalley does with education. I wanted to like, let’s just place the viewers where we’re at and what Mindvalley is first of all. We might go a bit deeper into your bit of specialty there.

Jason Campbell:          Sure. Before I even get to the specifics of me, pushing humanity forward, well every time we say that as a company people go like, well, we still don’t know what you do as a company. The best way we define it is we’re company that recognise that there’s a gap in education. Most people who went through the traditional schooling system say, “Hey, something didn’t feel right. I went to college, I went to university, but I didn’t really learn how to live an extraordinary life.” Like typically it’ll be a focus on skills etc.

What we notice is there are four major gaps in education. The first one is no training about the mind. Mindvalley actually started with doing a lot of training around meditation, visualisation, understanding that the mind is a powerful tool that you should train and you should muster, because once you do that, it facilitates a lot more aspects within your life, to move towards to the other three gaps.

The second one being the body. I know a lot of people that watch the show are in the health and wellness niche, nutrition, fitness. There’s a lot of change in that industry, a lot of new information coming out.

Richard T.:                   Definitely.

Jason Campbell:          So, we’re actually trying to make sure people are aware of the latest information, so that they can live their lives with the full capabilities that this body provides. We bring that kind of education as well. One aspect of learning that’s mostly neglected in today’s age, if you’re not very much involved in a religious practise is spirituality. A lot of people are questioning what is their spiritual identity, what’s the purpose of life.

We’re bringing a new models to awareness for people that maybe want to complement their religion, maybe want to replace what their beliefs are around their own religion. We bring a lot of spiritual teachings. You’re talking chakras, [Marians 00:02:32], energy work, it’s things that you’re starting to see surface more and more, and we want to bring more awareness to that. What is the reason we’re on this space?

The final space is the one I’m personally most passionate about which is impact. And I chose the word impact because everybody does something on this planet through their work, through building businesses, as a freelancer, as a volunteer. But we all are put on this earth to make it a better place for the next generation, and we call that impact. We want to bring the types of training so people have that kind of success mindset, understand the skills that are required to do better at whatever it is that you do.

Mindvalley recognises those four gaps, and we partner with the best teachers in the world, to bring these kinds of education through online and offline means. Offline being events such as A Fest, which I know you’ve had a chance to attend.

Richard T.:                   Yeah, definitely, been in events in different places around the world, and it’s always around the world in exotic locations.

Jason Campbell:          Yeah, we take like three or 400 extraordinary people to really see if we take some influencers together, teach them these four gaps and make sure that they’re well equipped to go make ripple effects around the world, because they all have ranges of influence. We do that through offline events. One of the things we’ve actually done really well at Mindvalley to bring these teachers, brings these education, is we’re actually extremely good at selling and marketing these concepts.

I don’t say this lightly and I say this enthusiastically, because if you want to make an impact in the world, your ability to market and sell whatever it is that you do is going to be critical to the level of impact that you will make.

Richard T.:                   Let’s talk about that. Before we do so, can we just quickly reframe about when Mindvalley was started. Just about the founder, just quickly, just so we can reframe our audience as well.

Jason Campbell:          Yeah.

Richard T.:                   And the mission to why start this forum.

Jason Campbell:          Yeah, Vishen Lakhiani is the founder of Mindvalley, and he’s my boss, an incredible man. What he has in mind right now is to push humanity forth, impact a billion lives.

Richard T.:                   Impact a billion lives?

Jason Campbell:          A billion. Some people might say well that’s a crazy goal. But fact is, communication channels are becoming more and more scalable. The ways that you can reach people is becoming easier and easier. I feel that in the next 10 years, that will not be an extraordinary feat. But if we can do it and bring the right kind of methodologies and the right kind of training for the people, it will make the world a better place.

Richard T.:                   Then I want to go back into the sales process, because when you’re impacting a billion lives, automatically I think things already start to shift when you say that.

Jason Campbell:          Yeah.

Richard T.:                   I’m impacting a billion lives, and then we talk about sales. Impact a billion lives, there’s obviously different ways to do that. One of the ways is to make sure your education pieces come to those people, I’m assuming.

Jason Campbell:          Yes.

Richard T.:                   And how you do that is you have to be great at impacting those people with your message.

Jason Campbell:          Yes.

Richard T.:                   And that has to be done through sales, is that correct?

Jason Campbell:          Yes, and I mean, if you look at the industry that’s trying to educate people, your choices if you look back let’s say 50 years from now, your choices were you go through the traditional education models, or you might be someone that goes into seminars. You might be reading a book. There are very transactional pieces, and it wasn’t as easy to reach the masses as it was when the big wave of the Internet happened. When the Internet happened, you used to have to go one to one to sell, to influence, you had to get people in a physical room.

Now, with the birth of the Internet, you’re seeing that information can reach around the world so much quicker, and you have these amazing platforms to get audience’s attention. Attention is hard to get, but if you’re able to understand that your message needs to be promoted. This is the biggest thing that gives me power working here at Mindvalley, is the fact that I understand that every time I put in that extra effort into the sales marketing, that’s an extra person that I can impact with a positive education model to bring in front of them.

Richard T.:                   It’s a really great way to look at it.

Jason Campbell:          Right?

Richard T.:                   If I put that extra energy in, I’m going to be impacting more people.

Jason Campbell:          Exactly, so I will not hesitate. That’s why I go to Google and we run AdWords. We’re running budgets that would scare probably most of the audience here. We partner with Google. We’re one of their biggest advertisers here in Southeast Asia. Same with Facebook, we run sponsored ads, we advertise like crazy. People are like, well, why do you focus so much on advertising? If you want to get to a billion, guess what, you need to make sure that people know that you exist.

Richard T.:                   That’s such a good point, because I think that possibly the market thinks that because you’re going to hit those numbers and you want to make those sales, that’s organically going to come. But you’re not saying that, you’re saying, “I’m going out there and I’m screaming the loudest through all the platforms that are going to reach a billion people.”

Jason Campbell:          Absolutely, and if you say you’re going to do it organic, well guess what, that is the sales strategy. If you say you’re going to go organic, well guess what, your sales strategy is I’m going to provide as much value upfront through content, and that will naturally get people to understand that I do provide value. So guess what, if you do have a paid offer, then they’ll naturally want to take that next step. So it’s just another sales strategy.

Richard T.:                   Great. Yes, it’s a really great insight there to understand that to give retail people that cost the money. I want to talk about you did a great talk at one of the Awesomeness Fest events and this Awesomeness Fest events just to recap the events, to bring entrepreneurs and business owners together, to really collaborate kind of that wave of the future.

Jason Campbell:          Yeah. What I did is this was actually in Croatia back in 2015. I got on stage and what happens is you have all these extraordinary people in the room. Guess what, even the people that have million dollar businesses, a lot of them still have a big hesitation when it comes to sales. It’s this thing that’s become taboo. Guess what? It’s the salesperson’s fault. There’s too many salespeople that …

Richard T.:                   So what you’re saying is salespeople have killed the industry?

Jason Campbell:          They have.

Richard T.:                   I prefer that saying with marketers, marketers kill every single person that comes [crosstalk 00:07:58].

Jason Campbell:          Everything that comes out will be good until marketers start playing with it. But guess what, it’s just let’s say you have a whole like a thousand sales people. It only takes five or one percent of them to actually decide to cross the line and do the bad things to rotten it for everyone else. I say that because guess what, people that have businesses still have that negative feeling or that negative association with sales, oh sales, that’s manipulative. Oh sales, that’s something … It’s like a necessary evil to be able to continue my business and get people on board.

Richard T.:                   Sure, sure.

Jason Campbell:          I think that’s like the worst premise you could have around sales, because I’m a salesperson, and like I said I wear many hats. I’m one of the co-hosts here at Mindvalley and also I’m the VP events. So one of the biggest things I do is ensure that I can fill up the room such A Fest etc. To me, my premise around sales is it’s actually a bit more of a call it a spiritual or a, some people will even use the word [wowo 00:08:50] way to describe it. I’m pretty sure no sales people has ever defined it this way.

Richard T.:                   No, I haven’t heard it [crosstalk 00:08:56].

Jason Campbell:          So, look at this guys, if you want to remove a [brule 00:09:01], which is like a bullshit rule that sales is evil, and you want to position a premise that’s very empowering. Here’s how I define sales, sales is an energy exchange between conscious human beings, actually, take away the human beings, two conscious beings. That’s an important difference, I’ll tell you in a minute. When the amount of energy that you give is more than what you ask in return, selling becomes the act of greatest love and care.

I’m going to repeat that. Sales is an energy exchange between two conscious beings. When the sum of the energy that you provide is more than what you ask in return, then it becomes the act of greatest love and care. There’s a few key points that I want to break down while we do this. First of, I do call it conscious being because guess what, sometimes you want to train a dog to do certain actions, and that’s a conscious being. That interaction you’re going to have with them is going to be an energy exchange. They are conscious. You’re going to try to use the tactics necessary to maybe potty-train a dog.

Richard T.:                   Yeah.

Jason Campbell:          The fact is that’s a sales process as well. The second thing is is I call it energy. I don’t use money, I don’t use product, I call it energy. Energy is the sum of everything. You’re talking about time, you’re talking about money, you’re talking about the product or service that was put together required the time and the money, the materials. All of that is energy. The final one that I add on top of that layer of energy is actually emotion.

That emotion is actually probably the most important part because here’s the thing, the majority of people that operate in a sales perspective, typically might be operating from an energy level that is maybe it’s guilt, maybe it’s shame. You know these people that come into a sales interaction and they’re like, they’re hesitant. Like they don’t even want to sell you, they’re kind of hesitant. And you’ll feel it, you’ll feel that …

Richard T.:                   Do you find those people sometimes salespeople or the owners of the business possible trying to sell?

Jason Campbell:          That’s the second one. Salespeople typically will be operating from one that is actually is much more dangerous, I call it pride. Some people that are very good at sales are in love with themselves, and they’re in love with the process of selling. What happens is they start operating from a pride energy level, and that’s the most destructive type of sale. That’s your one to five percent that ruins it for everyone else. What happens when you operate from pride, is you don’t have love for one of the most critical parts of the sale, which is love for your prospect, love for your customer.

Richard T.:                   Yes, that’s a great point.

Jason Campbell:          At the end of the talk, I do say that if you want to be a great sales person, a type of sales person that makes the world a better place for every single transaction that you make, you need the three loves, the love for yourself, and that’s the one that a lot of people have limiting beliefs around sales because they don’t even have love for themselves. So when they feel that they’re making an exchange, they’re selling something and collecting a commission for it, they don’t feel they deserve it.

Richard T.:                   Right.

Jason Campbell:          When they feel they don’t deserve it, guess what, every sales interaction eats them away. They feel like ah, this was wrong. Then every time you do that, the person you’re interacting with feels it.

Richard T.:                   Because they’re not loving themselves?

Jason Campbell:          Right, so if you’re not even loving yourself, you’re going hesitate on every sales scenario, and now if what you’re selling, which is the second love, the love for your product, if what you’re selling is truly something that makes humanity a better place, you’re selling something that is going to get people to have results with their body. Or it’s some nutrition plan that will actually get the results to give more energy, longer life to people, how could you not do everything possible to make sure that people understand what it’s going to do for them?

Richard T.:                   Yeah, that’s a really great point because we have a lot of health wellness and kind of lifestyle people on our channels and in our interaction, and they’re delivering the greatest products and services that you can actually deliver, to longevity of life.

Jason Campbell:          What a selfish person that doesn’t want to sell it.

Richard T.:                   I like that.

Jason Campbell:          Think about that. If you truly have a product that’s amazing, and I’ll say, I hope all of you are, because when I talk about product, I say there’s two schools of thoughts. If you’re not in love with your product, there’s one school of thought that says, fake it till you make it. I don’t like that one. I say instead, fix your product.

Richard T.:                   Fix your product.

Jason Campbell:          Fix your product.

Richard T.:                   Back to basics.

Jason Campbell:          It’s easy, okay. If you’re not selling something you’re absolutely proud of, take the time to fix your product, because every sale you’ll make will make the world a worse place.

Richard T.:                   Yeah, I think that’s a really great point to really resonate there, is fix the product, don’t fake it till you make it.

Jason Campbell:          Right.

Richard T.:                   Then that love will come out of that product.

Jason Campbell:          You got it. Once you know you have the love for the product, how dare you not sell it? How dare you keep that knowledge to yourself? How dare you prevent people from understanding the value that you provide to them, especially because if the energy exchange you’re doing, which I’m saying, you’re charging something, putting in the resources, the energy. What you’re charging for that from that person’s time, that person’s money, is less than what you’re giving them.

You’re basically creating energy for every transaction. More, you’re making the world abundant. You’re making renewable energy here, because you’re saying, listen, it’s a hundred bucks, but let’s say the real value, like the true value of what it gives is 300 bucks. But you’re charging a hundred. Then every time you make a sale, you’re making the world a better place.

Richard T.:                   What about we flip that and some viewers are going, well, okay, that sounds great. But I’m working for somebody, I don’t love their product, what do I do?

Jason Campbell:          You need to seriously go have a conversation with that CEO. If there’s truly something that you don’t feel right about what’s being sold, you need to have a serious conversation with the CEO. And you need to say, “Listen, I am full on for selling this product or service, if it’s the right kind of product or service.”

Richard T.:                   Sure.

Jason Campbell:          If you feel the marketing is dis-aligned, it is your job to be kind of an internal whistle blower, to make sure your CEO understands how you feel and guess what, if you recognise that the CEO or the founder, or whoever’s the manager, you have that conversation with, and they say, “Uh, don’t worry about it, just go out there and sell it.” Do you want to be part of an organisation like that?

Richard T.:                   So, starting to make sure you do have alignment with what you’re doing.

Jason Campbell:          Absolutely. Guess what, I mean, this is a sensitive topic. We actually talked about this where it’s like if you’re a salesperson, are you responsible and accountable for every sale that you make? The fact is there is a piece of you that goes into every sale.

Richard T.:                   Sure.

Jason Campbell:          I call that the emotion again. We talked about the shame and the guilt, and I’m not proud of every single sale I’ve made in my life, I’m not. In my early 20s, you’re a little ignorant, I was that proud salesperson. I went through that and I look back and I had this process where I started selling to people, and these were coaching packages for real estate education.

And after I did a couple, my CEO came to me, he’s like, “That’s great, you just closed $200000 in sales,” and I’m like, “This is not cool.” Like guess what, I’m the one who bridged the gap when the value that I gave was actually less than what I ask, what bridged that gap was my emotional strain. I got out of that.

Richard T.:                   This is a really good point. What you’re saying really is for longevity, now that I guess you’re saying the Internet, the Internet’s pretty much flattened everything.

Jason Campbell:          Oh, yeah.

Richard T.:                   We have all these opp- everybody has the same opportunities now. The one that’s going to spend the more and the company that’s going to be more successful are the ones that have that bigger vision, that want to reach those people, that are willing to market their product, but then be able to sell their product with integrity and with love.

Jason Campbell:          Yes.

Richard T.:                   Not just pushing, pushing, pushing.

Jason Campbell:          Well, there’s I believe it’s Ryan Deiss that talked about this, he said, whoever spends the most to acquire the customer wins the game.

Richard T.:                   Yeah.

Jason Campbell:          That’s a very solid marketing methodology and I do agree with that. But here’s the thing, whoever spends the most to acquire the customer will win the transaction. The difference with the Internet is as much as you have now much more power to reach everybody, everybody has much more power to reach everyone else that’s been touched by your businesses. That’s what’s flattening the marketplace.

When you do make that sale where it’s like, you know what, I’m going to crank up the price, I’ll crank up the perceived value, which is easy to do. If you want to just make a couple of bucks, get out, you can. But guess what, you will feel horrible and it’s worth it. Today, if you start doing that, it will be really quick when these people start talking, and they know how to connect on channels that you’re not even fully aware of. That message will go out quicker than ever. At the end of the day, why would you even want to operate that kind of place.

Richard T.:                   That’s the whole referral marketing that’s organic, it just starts to …

Jason Campbell:          Transparency is going both ways. Like you’re see that anything that you do is going to be under the microscope a little more, and every transaction you make, people will have a voice on where they’re going to go have that conversation with other people considering that purchase. I guess, you call it the zero, I forget the term Google called it, the zero point of purchase, where it’s like before you make any purchase, people Google things.

Richard T.:                   People Google everything.

Jason Campbell:          Right. If you took advantage of through a sales process, it’s not going to be long and it’s quite easy for me to go on any kind of forum, ensure that your keyword, your product is tagged with terrible.

Richard T.:                   I really think that’s a key point there, because even if people are struggling with this concept of loving their product and getting it out there, I think you got to go back and say, “Well, actually, have I got a bad rep? Have I got a bad name?” If I continue to go down this way with the review sites out there today, and the way that literally every night you can be shut down with these kind of reviews, maybe it’s time to actually make an adjustment here.

Jason Campbell:          Absolutely, and it’s the trends are just going to keep going. It’s going to become more and more visible every time you decide to act unethical.

Richard T.:                   Basically, it’s really you can’t get a businesses or a transaction or a sale going, unless you really believe and truly invest everything into this brand, because you can’t fake the market.

Jason Campbell:          No, you can’t. Well, hey, let’s be a hundred percent honest here for people listening going like, you know what, I’ve faked some stuff and I got away with it.

Richard T.:                   Sure.

Jason Campbell:          Sure. Good for you, you made a few bucks. But every time you’re going to go to bed, you’re going to realise that every time you make those sales, it doesn’t feel right. And this is the position that I found myself in. I just realised like you see all these people that are like really high positions that are doing sales, you see this depression levels, why do you think that is?

When people are like hot shot sales person, and they realise that every time they make the sale, it makes the world a worse place. You’re seeing people hit depression, you’re seeing all these like conflicts with the own personality. Like, well, I’m doing a good thing, but no, they’re taking advantage of people. If you want to have a good night sleep and a great life, start doing things that are good for the world.

Richard T.:                   Amazing. We could talk all day, I think.

Jason Campbell:          I think so.

Richard T.:                   This is really great stuff. Let’s list one or two questions, let’s talk directly to the sales person now, that doesn’t own their businesses, what’s the kind of one tip that you’d leave with them and say, hey this is what you can do to improve your sales?

Jason Campbell:          Yeah, to me, it goes back to the three loves, that’s the one I always bring it back. It’s like guys, if you’re having issues with selling is because you have your own doubts of not feeling like you’re good enough of a salesperson, you’re not good enough of a person. They say the resistance of the sale is always in the mind of the seller, not the buyer. You got to start with yourself, love yourself, you deserve this, okay.

Now, second one is the love for the product. We talked about this. Make sure that what you’re selling, you truly believe in. I’m talking about the true value and whatever you’re doing to ensure that the perceived value is very close and slightly above the actual value, you’re going to start seeing that you can actually make transactions and be profitable doing it. If not, fix the product or just the price. Third is, love the customer. Like every single transaction you’re doing, imagine you’re transacting with people you truly love and care about.

You’re just going to see that every time you make the sale, you have a smile on your face, and that will make you such a better salesperson, and it will take away all these limiting beliefs you have around sales, and understand that guys, guess what, every time I do a sale, I am making the world a better place because I’m delivering this amazing value, and what I’m asking in return is even less.

Richard T.:                   Amazing.

Jason Campbell:          Yeah.

Richard T.:                   Thanks so much. Where can people go now the next stage if they want to continue that process? Is there a lot of stuff on Mindvalley around sales?

Jason Campbell:          Yeah, what we’re doing right now is we’re building this membership area where we actually have a tonne of training, your training is included in there.

Richard T.:                   Yeah.

Jason Campbell:          This membership, you can start for a dollar. If you just go to mindvalleyacademy.com, look for consciousness engineering Mindvalley membership, there’s a one dollar trial. There’s over 50 hours of content. What it is is all the ways that you can reprogram your beliefs and see what systems and habits you can bring into your life, to live extraordinarily. If you guys want to check that out, you’ll see some training I have there.

Richard T.:                   Great, and I think that’s a great point. We’re going back to actually just thinking about your own internal and then your actual sales skills, which shine much easier.

Jason Campbell:          Yeah, I actually have a particular training in there that talks about how to sell with love, where I go even more deep in that subject.

Richard T.:                   And that’s your particular training?

Jason Campbell:          It is my training.

Richard T.:                   Amazing, check that out. Thanks so much.

Jason Campbell:          It was a pleasure Richard, thank you.

Richard T.:                   I’ll see you guys next time on Industry Change.

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