Marylou:       Hi everyone! It’s Marylou Tyler. Today we have a guest from Brazil, whose name is Vitor Bruno. He is an English teacher in Brazil, has a very varied background, so I will let him tell you more about where he’s been and what he’s doing now. What we’re gonna talk about today is the differences in selling between Brazil, or places like that, and the United States. Specifically, we’re gonna focus on social tools.

                    Vitor, welcome to the podcast!

Vitor:           Hi, Marylou! Nice to talk to you, too. It’s a pleasure.

Marylou:      Tell us about your path, your background, and how the heck you got into sales.

Vitor:           As you said, my name is Vitor Bruno. I came to Florianópolis Metropolitan area, [ College Paleo Oso 0:01:11], where I came to sell a software that works with water and wastewater piping. But by that time, the economic view in Brazil wasn’t so good. After six months trying to sell or to make client lists and adding to the pipeline, I end up getting out of the company that I came to work, but I start to teach English. That is what I am making money actually.

Marylou:      Okay. English as a second language to Brazilians or various people?

Vitor:           Yes. And also English for special purpose.

Marylou:      Okay. Very good. We met, you and I, on LinkedIn, which is a social media platform. What is your experience on using social tools that you can share with the audience, and what is working for you now in terms of getting new business?

Vitor:           Most of all, I started to search for new customers or to understand the customers I already have by looking through their profiles. This way, I try to make a network web of people that can have the same interest. It helps me to understand better the audience and what they need or they don’t.

Marylou:      The equivalent here would be, in my new book, it’s looking at the prospect personas and getting an understanding of who’s gonna be sitting across the table from you, whether it’s virtual or not, what their characteristics are, and how to craft your sales conversation in order to speak with them in a way that gets them sort of leaning in and wanting to have a conversation with you.

                    You went through that process by looking at your files, finding out who these people are that bubbled up to the top of wanting to have a conversation, and then what did you do when you had these characteristics? What was your next step?

Vitor:           I started to take notes because I don’t want to forget. My memory is very fuzzy sometimes. I try to understand and to build like a character, not to be lying to the prospect, but to find the things that takes his guard off. Part of my teaching skills, I use what people want to know, what they want to learn, and what they needed to learn as a job or stuff like that. These two things work as motors to make people continue studying with more energy and more enthusiasm.

Marylou:      Okay. You actually went and worked through what we call a “pain matrix” which is taking all of the criteria or the aspects of that personality, that persona, and understanding what drives them, also overlaying that with what you think they needed in order to be successful. Is that correct?

Vitor:           Not exactly. I don’t use pain to sell. I use mostly what gives pleasure instead. For example, I have a student who loves a lot of rock and roll, so part of the course is to talk about rock and roll bands, to read the lyrics. He’s an oil and gas engineer in the state company so I taught him rock and roll. Then vocabulary – choose to learn better how to (I don’t know if it’s addictions) – it’s when somebody from the government starts to read or to check is everything is correct in the oil platform.

Marylou:      You actually use pleasure as a trigger in order to be able to engage your students, so that they would learn the material. That’s how you got them also interested in the service that you offered. Is that correct?

Vitor:           Yes. Exactly.

Marylou:      When you have these lists of people and you’ve worked through the desires that they have, how do you go about finding students or finding new people who could use your products and services?

Vitor:           I started to look at all my networks if I know someone or someone alike this person. For example, it’s a director of a big company. Who do I know that’s a director of a company, to make it like fake selling, not really selling. It’s like pre-selling, to know what this director would look for, what he wouldn’t like – to make fake selling, but also once I find this person in the company I want to sell, I start to look at him as an ambassador. He will help me to sell inside the company.

                    Like today, I went to search Sergei Foundation. It’s a start-up foundation here in Florianópolis. I said, “Okay, my friend, I know you like this and this and that. I need your help to introduce. You’re gonna help me to find the things that the other start-ups need in common so you can help me sell a better product, too, because it’s gonna be good for you as well.”

                    He said, “Okay. Let’s go for it.”

Marylou:      That’s great. A teaching point here, for those listening. What Vitor just talked about was what we really advocate – is when you find someone in a company, you’re looking for a champion, you’re looking for a referral source to refer you other business, and you’re building your network at the same time. But as Vitor pointed out, you’re adding value. When you are asking for a referral, you always add value to that person as to the why that they should refer you business. That’s great!

                    You go in. You get referrals, and then from there, does your process involve meeting them face to face? Or do you have a way to converse with them over the telephone? How do you take it from there?

Vitor:           Most of the time, I look to talk face-to-face and not very fond of using phone to sell. I think phone selling mostly, from my point of view, is a little bit too cold. Here in Brazil, people like to see people in the eye, to be sure that they are real. It’s not a fake proposition. It’s something more realistic.

Marylou:      Right. That’s a very different strategy than what we deploy here in the States because a lot of times, we use email first because it’s easier. But if we really want to engage someone in conversation and reduce what I call the “lag” in the pipeline, we utilize the telephone for that. It’s very uncommon here – at least I’m trying to think of any clients that I have that go face-to-face because of logistics, because a lot of times, we represent clients all over the country. It’s very difficult for us to travel like that.

                    It’s not that it doesn’t happen, but until they’re a client, we typically don’t – unless they’re a top-20 type of client, a core account, where it’s an account that has a large revenue potential for us and a longer lifetime value, we don’t necessarily do face-to-face here. That’s a big difference from Brazil.

Vitor:           Maybe mostly because my clients are not national wide. For example, I’m living here in Florianópolis and not county, sell to São Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city, to Rio for example. I try to focus first on my neighborhood, then to find, “Okay, I’m strong in my neighborhood. Now let’s talk around the surrounding cities.” My friends in other cities – to know what are their pain, and growing organically, instead of rushing like you all know I need to be the biggest of all the country, around. I think it’s not necessary to rush as much. Maybe it’s my point of view. It’s not really a Brazilian point of view.

Marylou:      Right. You’re building relationships. This is sounding very similar to the way our real estate organizations conduct business here in the States. It’s a very neighborhood type of sale. It’s referral-based. There is a lot of face-to-face meetings because buyers and sellers typically meet with the agent. There is some business that’s transacted over the phone, but primarily it’s a face-to-face transaction. That is similar to what you’re doing.

                    They rely on systems to help them talk to people, who are ready to go. That’s what the conversation in the work that I do is, “Can we put some of this into a system in order to be able to help you leverage the technology out there, but still have those meaningful conversations?”

                    My question to you, Vitor, is have you developed a system for this type of contact, using social media? Or are you set-up still, where you’re manually working through who you’re gonna contact, when you’re gonna contact them, and how you’re going to be meeting with them? Do you have a system around that now?

Vitor:           To be honest, not really. I use maybe a calendar. I put all the meetings I have. Try to make – once every 15 days to talk to the person, so they do not forget me. But nevertheless, I try to be in contact. It’s not a real system. What I try to make is to post with them on Facebook, to make small bursts (as you say) on the market, to go talk to some friends, or to leave some marks. And this mark-leaving – to make part of several groups. I myself have become a [0:12:32] businessman solutions.

                    I’m part of another coworking space. I can help people who work there. This way, they become my clients. Once I start to offer, “Oh, I know a guy who knows someone that can help you.” Therefore, I’m becoming one myself. I can help to close some links. I think this helps my nature that I like to contact people, to talk with other people, and to be part of several events at the same time.

Marylou:      For those listening, what I’m hearing is that even though you don’t have technology supporting you perhaps (you mentioned your calendar), there is a process. You have a system in place. It may not seem like a system, but you’re consistently doing the things that you need to do, and it’s almost habitual now for you, which is great. That’s what we’re trying to get to, when we’re working on a sales system, is to overlay the components of the system. In your case, there’s a lot of referral, there’s a lot of face-to-face, there’s a lot of building relationships, but it’s done in a way that’s consistent and habitual so that you can forecast your sales better.

Vitor:           Most of the times, I try to intend to be a real friend. I don’t want to be that pushy salesperson that I’m offering something that the client doesn’t need. As the course works, what people want and what people likes – this makes a lot of it less effort.

                    “Do you have time?” “Yes, we have time.”

                    “So let’s go for the course.” “No, I don’t have time. I don’t have the money.”

                    “Fair enough. There’s my card here. Let’s continue talking,” and we continue later.

Marylou:      Which is very authentic. It’s very endearing, but you’re building your network of people who can refer business to you and because you are able to say, “No, that’s fine. I respect that it’s not a good time for you, but maybe someday will be.” You keep in contact with them. You have them in your sequence. You have them in your tickler, your reminder files, to get back to them.

Vitor:           Exactly.

Marylou:      That’s great. If you had some advice, Vitor, of someone who’s just getting started in sales and really wants to bolt on a process or something that they could do consistently, what would you recommend? Where would they start? What was the first thing that you started doing when you started growing your business, that you think will be helpful for other people?

Vitor:           I think, most of all, to understand what the customer needs. What do they need instead of you offering a lot of things, and people are not interested. People receive a lot of noise around the day. If you check what they want, and if you don’t want what I’m offering, maybe you know someone that can help. It is where you can grow a network. I think networking nowadays is growing stronger instead of you being alone yourself. You can ask your referrals, and this will help you a lot.

Marylou:      I have a process that I teach that I actually borrowed from the real estate folks, and it’s called “first intent.” What I do is every morning, before I start my business day, I reach out to 10 people in my network, and I offer assistance if there’s anything that they need, a question answered, or if I can be of any help to them, “please let me know.”

                    Those people who write back to me and ask me a question – sometimes they’ll say, “You know, I’m so glad that you wrote to me. I was just thinking I have a client who needs some help here. Would you mind if I put them in contact with you?” You never know when you’re reaching out to help people, what you’ll get in return.

                    I recommend that as a daily habit, that you reach out to your network; offer assistance, guidance; offer to be able to answer any questions – whatever it is that they need and with nothing in return to ask for. Your network will grow like you would not believe.

Vitor:           I like this idea, Marylou. Do you have this written on your blog? I’m quite sure I didn’t read this before.

Marylou:      I did it over-the-shoulder. What is that called? A screencast. I recorded a video with me going into LinkedIn and actually showing people how to do that. I’ll be sure to put it on the page that we use for what I call show notes, which is how people can get a hold of you. I’ll make sure that I put that “first intent” process, so that people can start using that.

                    It’s a very rewarding process because it’s all about giving back. It’s all about just give, give, give. Those people who respond to you are gonna be your champions, are gonna be your ambassadors. You’re gonna have a network of people that refer business to you, and you refer business to them. I mean, it’s the perfect balance of being able to sell through referrals.

Vitor:           Exactly. I think it would be interesting. Also, as I said, you can understand what the market needs, and you can give exactly what they’re asking for.

Marylou:      Exactly. The lessons that we learned today are primarily the ones that are so important, and that is really understanding who your prospect is, working through – if you have the book Predictable Prospecting, in Chapter 3, it’s all about how to generate and how to build a really good prospect persona for salespeople.

                    Some of you have prospect personas, but they’re built by marketing, which is good. It’s a good baseline, but because the call to action for marketing is to get a marketing-qualified lead, and the call to action for us in sales is to actually get a first meeting – those two profiles are very different. Make sure you work through the examples. I actually have a worksheet that goes along with that chapter. I’ll post where that is as well – that you can work on getting that prospect persona.

                    Then doing this “first intent” using social media or whatever vehicle. Where your people are – that’s another thing that Vitor told us is actually be where the people are. It could be social. It could be face to face. It could having networking groups. But make sure you understand where those places are and do your best to be there.

Vitor:           I would like to add – I’m sorry to cut you – to be remembered. For example, I’m always wearing a red shirt. Here in Santa Catarina, it’s not popular because red color used to be another political party that is not good anymore. But I wear red because very few people wear red here. I’m a little bit far.

                    Also, people joke that I’m the little red point in the city because I’m everywhere, staying around. Of course, as I joke, I can use it to sell myself. “Oh, you’re gonna see a guy in red. That’s me.”

                    “You are Vitor from the Business Association?”

                    “Yes, that’s me in red.”

                    This makes people remember me. People are gonna remember, “Oh, (in English), there’s that guy in red. I don’t know him, but he’s always there.”

Marylou:      That’s great advice – to be remembered. Be who you are and add a little spice to that, and I think that’s great advice. How do we get a hold of you to have more discussion around this topic?

Vitor:           People can send me an email to chief@milestoneenglishcourse.com, they can send me messages through Facebook as well. You can find me with Milestone English Course there on Facebook.

                    I’m not sure if it’s very popular there in America, but people here in Brazil use a lot of WhatsApp to talk. They have a lot of groups as well. You can send me a message to the number +55 (that’s the Brazilian area code) 48 (Santa Catarina area code) 9080341615. That’s my mobile. I also reply WhatsApp.

Marylou:      Okay. What I’ll do is put all this contact information in the show notes so that people can select which one is relevant for them or easiest for them to remember or click through to. Thank you so much for your time. I very much appreciate all the way from Brazil! This is great!

Vitor:           Thank you, Marylou. I appreciate you as well. I hope we can have this again sometime.

Marylou:      Of course. Definitely. Thanks again!

Vitor:           Thank you!