Benjamin Tyler is the founder of Client Enrollment Academy and host of Sales for Coaches and Consultants podcast. As a speaker and coach, he shows coaches, consultants and service based businesses how to attract high quality leads and enroll them into their services to help them build successful businesses around their gifts and talents.
Show Notes:
If there’s an exception to every rule, is there an exception to that rule?
I have no clue, you’ve already stomped me.
Tell us about your upbringing?
A defining moment in my life, I was 12 years old and I sat my mother down and just bawling and pleading for her to show me some sort of affection. She was obsessed with making my sister the Prom Queen by giving my sister the life that she never had and she didn’t have a lot of time to pay attention to me and when she didn’t do that after I asked for love and affection, I told myself I would never be hurt again.
That led me into a place where I became a perfectionist; I was a high achiever. I also closed myself off emotionally. The soul needs a companion, for me that was drugs and alcohol and gambling. I started taking ecstasy and cocaine by the time I was 16 years old.
How did you make the transition from where you were to where you are now?
From the point I was showering with the garden hose to where I finally said enough; I wanted to change my life and I finally took responsibility, I quickly excelled. Fast forward 2 years, I’m living in New York City, I’ve got a 6-figure job, stature, going places in my career; I’m living the Bachelor life in New York, dating 3 different women. My ego was higher than it ever was when I was on drugs.
One day I was sitting on the subway coming home after a long day and thought, ‘why am I still unhappy?” It was at that point I realized that I always wanted to share my voice to impact people with my message, speak and allow people to stand in their own greatness and feel like they are good enough to have what they wanted. When I went off to New York, starting my personal development brand, I started as a Life Coach. I would get blank stares when I said that. I tried to lead with how great my life was and that I had all my stuff together but it wasn’t working and nobody wanted it. One day out of frustration I said, I’m going to go to this networking event and share my story.
I walked in and shared my issues with addiction and how I overcame them. I’m successful in my career but more importantly, I wanted other people to feel like they are good enough to have what they wanted in their life. All of a sudden people were interested in what I was doing and I wasn’t just a life coach. I realized this is what people wanted from me and I founded the Client Enrollment Academy and I still lead with my story as I find that’s what people need these days.
You go on Facebook and everyone is tooting their own horn but people really care about not just the solution but who we are buying from. More people need to share the core of who they are not just in their struggles but in their greatness too.
How do you think we got there, thinking we have to put up a facade to get people to buy from us and why is our story so important?
I’ve gotten trapped into the ‘fake it till you make it’. A lot of the time when we take someone else’s mission, it’s not authentic to us because it is not who we are as a person. I did that when I started Client Enrollment Academy but it wasn’t working for my. My messaging is that we have a story and we want to impact the world, the money will come but that’s not the root of what I want to do. I want to share the message of my story instead of what everybody else is saying.
Our story is important because the decisions we make in this world are emotional. Our buying decision is emotional. Ninety percent of our buying decision is done emotionally. Too many people are trying to sell through their solutions and that’s rational space of ‘I don’t have money’, “I don’t have time’, ‘are you even qualified?’ ‘I’ve got to talk to my partner, etc. – the rational mind is filled with all those objections. If you’re trying to get clients from the rational place, you’re in one of the biggest battles in the world. Why not go and spend the time in the emotional space and inspire people by sharing who you are and where you came from. Look at the biggest speakers in the world, the biggest influencers in the world; the biggest movers and shakers, they are all great story tellers – they get people emotionally charged to take action in their life.
Why do people fear telling their story?
It’s challenging; I have a story that my mother doesn’t necessarily like to hear. I lead with only one way and that is sharing with authenticity. I want people to know who I am. I want to work with people that are going to become my friends. I want to work with people that are willing to become vulnerable with e and I need to lead the way so is my system of leading with my story going to work for everyone? It is not going to work for everyone, I understand that but my people are the ones that want to share their message with the world.
What does it mean to stand in your authenticity?
It being able to share who you are; having a voice, have an opinion, an idea – to speak your truth. Whatever makes you feel real when you speak. So often people in the business world can’t say that they do.
How are you helping people to live their dreams?
I’m Founder of Client Enrollment Academy and what I do is I help people create their brands, stand in front as their businesses, stand in who they are as a person and having an authentic messaging whether it’s speaking or building an online presence, I help people leverage that and emotionally charge their audiences to want to work with them.
I help people attract their ideal clients and have sales conversations where it is authentic. I speed up the enrollment process for people through something that is natural, authentic to allow people to create the impact they want in the world. I work with Coaches, Trainers, Consultants by helping them create the growth in their business by doing it in a way that is true to them.
What is the underlying reasons why some Coaches fail?
It is consistency and understanding that you have to show up for world before it shows up for you. When you start your business, you’re not going to get that client in the first week. You’re not going to send out that one Facebook post and all of a sudden people are going to run to you. It is consistently showing up each and every day and finding a system that you feel in your heart will work and consistently showing up and pushing forward. If you keep doing that 1000 the world will start bending for you and you will see results. Too often, people give up way too quickly. Entrepreneurship is not easy, especially in the beginning. We look at the people we aspire to be – Gary V, Tony Robins, Brendon Burchard – you look at that person and you forget that most of them have been doing it for 25 years and you’ve been doing 1 or 2 years. You’ve got to keep going and keep pushing. You’ve got to have some patience.
How can we enjoy the sales process?
It starts with the mindset. We walk into a conversation in our world with an objective that we want, when you lead into a sales conversation with that kind of energy, it’s going to be very hard to close, because it’s a very ‘me-centred’ conversation. Instead, if you have a conversation where you are willing to serve somebody and focusing on that other person and getting into their world and figuring out what they need and building that rapport and that relationship, it becomes an authentic conversation.
Of course, we want to lead the conversation somewhere and we want to figure out their problems and we want to lead them to a solution to make that vision they have a reality but it really starts from the conversation in the beginning. Understanding that it’s not about me selling a product it’s about me going into a conversation and serving somebody so that I can help them.
In the book, SPIN Selling by Neil Rackman – it took 7.82 conversations to close a high-end sale and we as sales people we think we are supposed to get it in the first conversation and if we don’t get it in the first conversation, it’s like we loss. It’s continuing to have that conversation and not give up on that person. very few people follow up with me when they try to have a sales conversation and I say now is not the right time. They gave up on me before I was ready for them.
Sales is about friendship.
Focus on their vision and the results that you can bring. It’s not about their problem, it’s about focusing on what they want to create. That’s where we want to position ourselves. That’s the 90% emotional place.
What do you want people to walk away with from your message?
I want people to realize that whatever is in their heart, to really do. Whatever that feeling is, that deep down that greatness inside of them that they can have it and that they deserve it.
Main Take-Aways:
Ninety percent of our buying decision is done emotionally.
We must be consistent – understand that the world doesn’t show up for you until you show up for it.
Focus on their vision and the results that you can bring.
