Watch this TV interview where Patrick Valtin shares some secrets of salesmanship in the new era of selling (31 minutes).

Arte Maren: Welcome to “BusinessWise”, the show that provides you with management technology, effective management technology as developed by Ron Hubbard. Tonight’s guest is all about sales. I’m Arte Maren, your host, and this is a show you don’t want to miss, I promise you.

Arte Maren: Welcome back to “BusinessWise”! And as promised tonight’s show is all about sales. Our guest: Patrick Valtin. Patrick has trained 60,000, that’s 60,000, sales people and sales managers over many, many years. He’s also a certified Hubbard management consultant. I want to welcome Patrick Valtin to the show. Patrick, welcome! Patrick Valtin: Thank you Arte! How are you?

Arte Maren: How did you get involved or start in the whole sales process in the first place? Was there something that particularly appealed to you about sales? I mean, some people become engineers, some people do other… What was the appeal to the selling?

Patrick Valtin: Well, the appeal… I think it’s the same for most sales people, is to be in touch with people. If you like people you’ll try to find a job where you can have fun and, as a sales person, if you don’t know how to deal with people and if you don’t like to deal with people, you don’t choose that job. So the appeal is: relationship. Arte Maren: OK. That’s an interesting point, coming from somebody who has an MBA in international marketing. So the striving towards education and all of that was also a part of being connected to people?

Patrick Valtin: That’s a very good point! Because, you know, if you look over the last twenty years focus has been put on marketing. Because if you can see what’s happening in America, and all over the world actually, the population is oversold. People are oversold and the way the corporate world is trying to handle that is by applying an effective marketing. But guess what: as long as someone hasn’t sold something to someone, nothing happens! And after my MBA I actually decided to take a sales job, which was pretty much a challenge. You know, usually after an MBA you get on to a management position, and I took the challenge to take back a sales position basically to find out what was the best way and the most effective way to reach out to people and sell them something.

Arte Maren: So you did that, you took a corporate position in sales after the MBA…

Patrick Valtin: Yeah, absolutely.

Arte Maren: What happened then?

Patrick Valtin: Then, of course, obviously I was lucky enough to be a good sales person and having a lot of fun with the job. I was offered a sales management position pretty soon and I just decided by myself: “OK, I’m going to take that job under one condition: I’m really going to help my sales guys to bloom their sales.” So I started to do a lot of research, besides doing the sales job myself, on: what will make the difference? What is the missing ingredient that I need to find in order to make a big difference? Whether I sell in France, in Italy, in Russia, or in America.

Arte Maren: Yeah, we should mention then that your company, which I think is headquartered in Europe, trains managers all over the world.

Patrick Valtin: Yes, that’s true. That’s true. And, again, my challenge was, you know: if you don’t know how to sell something, whether you’re a salesman, a sales manager, a corporate executive, a business owner, you’re in trouble. So I really wanted to find out: “OK, what will make the difference? In a world where people are oversold, what will make the difference that someone wants to give you his money?” And that was a big challenge.

Arte Maren: Now, on that very same subject… Selling I think has also gotten a sort of a bad reputation over the years.

Patrick Valtin: That’s a good point.

Arte Maren: It’s been redefined! You know, selling means forcing something on somebody they don’t want, can’t afford, didn’t need… You know, that’s a sale.

Patrick Valtin: Yeah, so much that it does affect the position of a sales person. Selling does not have a good reputation and I tell you it does not depend on which country you are looking at. But my observation was: “Good sales people sell better than others because they do something that others don’t.” And you know, Arte, I’ve been in so many sales training myself over the last thirty years, I could not detect what would really make the big difference, and I still could not understand why is it that those top sales people where different? And then I did some research, and I did find the difference.

Arte Maren: And we have millions of people out there who would like to know what that is.

Patrick Valtin: You know, those millions of people, if they are involved in sales, I’m pretty sure that they have themselves been in so many sales seminars, they have read so many books on sales… And don’t get me wrong, there are very good sales people and very good sales trainers out there, great people. But you know what? The problem is, when you are a good, natural sales person you can talk about it but then it’s not so easy to duplicate it.

Arte Maren: Meaning some have a flair and they’re a good sales person because of that, but how do you get the fundamentals that’ll work for everybody.

Patrick Valtin: Yeah, exactly. That’s the big challenge. Because once you get that, you can duplicate it. And you can change, I promise you, almost anybody into a great sales person. So what is that missing ingredient that needs to be there so that someone who doesn’t know what do in life or someone who is not really successful as a business owner or as a sales person… What does it take for that person to make a customer not only willing but wanting to give their money to you? That’s the point and, you know, I don’t want to keep the secrets any longer, but one day I read a book and the book was “Dianetics” which was basically explaining everything about what’s going on there. [points to own head] What’s going on there?

Arte Maren: Meaning the connection between selling and the mental process about the customer.

Patrick Valtin: Exactly. You see selling — and this is not new by the way — selling is 90% the ability to understand and to manage what’s going on in the customer’s mind. You know, it’s the ability to manage his emotional position and reaction towards the act of buying. And that’s the point! So if you master the emotional side of the buying process you increase by a hundred, two hundred percent, your chances of closing the deal.

Arte Maren: And that emotional mastering comes about how?

Patrick Valtin: Well, it comes about… I’ll tell you one thing: most sales people have been taught to give the best argument about the product or about the service. And again, they are good arguments for good products. The problem today is: you take your product or your service, chances that you are the only one on the planet to sell that product or service are none. And the best argument that you are using today, I guess maybe 10 to 20 to 30 competitors are using the same argument.

Arte Maren: There’s a lot of noise in the marketplace.

Patrick Valtin: There is a lot of noise and the way companies are trying to handle that is by being more effective on the marketing side, which is correct. I mean, you have to be more effective on marketing but at the end of the day, if the customer doesn’t trust you he’s not going to buy. And the other point is: today the customer will buy not because he needs something, he will buy because he wants to buy from you. And what I found out 20… well, almost 17 years ago with the Hubbard technology is that if you master that emotional side of the buying process you definitely hit the target.

Arte Maren: So you’re referring now to Hubbard’s discoveries on the emotional tone scale.

Patrick Valtin: Yeah, I believe you have a book on that. It’s called the “Tone Scale Book” and that book explains exactly what’s going on in the customer’s mind, why he makes a decision. Actually right prior to when he has to make a decision.

Arte Maren: I should mention at this juncture that there’s a booklet that we’re providing from BusinessWise on the emotional tone scale which goes into great detail on everything that Mr. Valtin is going to be covering on this fascinating subject of the creation of understanding or the achievement of understanding with that customer, which you’re saying is the fundamental for selling. Those viewers who’d like to have a copy of the booklet, it is complimentary from the show, just call the number that’s on the screen. Patrick, I guess this is kind of a very simple question but, you know, there’s all this technology of selling, all this “Do this, do that and do this!” You seem to be undercutting it by saying that the Hubbard system simply is built on this “liking factor” or this understanding of the customer.

Patrick Valtin: Yeah, I didn’t say the on this “liking factor”, I said the understanding factor. The fact that the customer, or the prospect, is going to like you is not so much important. What is important is that the sales person understands the fundamental motivations of a customer to buy. The buying process responds to emotional factors much more than to rational factors. So, if you’re asking me, the key difference between those technologies that are in the market and the Hubbard technology regarding salesmanship is exactly that. How can I understand and manage better the fundamental motivations of my prospect, of my customer? On the phone or a face to face meeting you must be able quickly to understand, find out, detect what’s going on. I give you an example. A prospect who tells you: “You know, I’m very interested. Let me think about it. It’s a great product, it’s cheap.” He never buys. What went wrong? What did the sales person miss? Now, the Hubbard technology, and specifically the tone scale technology, is allowing you to find out before it’s too late: what’s going on here?

Arte Maren: So this is very different from the scripts that say: “When the customer says ‘I’ll think about it’ then you say this and then they say that.” The Hubbard emotional tone scale is a scale of emotional tones that you could recognize.

Patrick Valtin: You could recognize and it will allow you to decode what the customer is saying. When the customer is saying, you know: “I need to think about it.” Or “Let me talk to my wife.” Or “Let me talk to my partner.” Or he just says: “I like it. I need to sleep on it.” If you don’t know how to decode that you have a 90% chance of loosing the sale.

Arte Maren: And this decoding is simple to learn?

Patrick Valtin: Yeah, it’s very, very simple to learn. Absolutely.

Arte Maren: We’re going to take that up after out break. I want our viewers to get the scope and, again, understanding of the scope and effectiveness of Hubbard management technology around the world and you’re going to see that in a moment. [commercial break]

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