Clip from Episode 32: Ryan Alvord – Top Sales Professional at Paychex:

They need to figure out their why. Right so they need to figure out why they’re doing it. So whether it’s for you know supporting their family, giving their family a better life whether they just want to make a certain amount of money just to just to tell themselves they did it. If it’s a recognition thing if it’s money to invest in other businesses they need to envision what that can provide for them. Right. So what is it going to do for them if it’s picturing finishing number one that’s what that was. That was what it was for me a couple of years ago. I pictured what it would feel like to be number one to have everyone at our president’s club trip having a thousand people congratulating me that was important to me that something that I was trying to achieve. So they need to know their why. Like why are they doing it. And then they need to know that specific goal and then they need to work backwards from that. They would just say hey what is it about. What do I need to actually do to achieve that. Right. And they need to break that down by month. And they need to work backwards into some sort of specific activity that they need to put forth to accomplish that. So again starting with their why working backwards into you know those particular goals and you know daily goals and again for different companies different organizations that’s always going to be a different type of metric. But they need to they need to work into that math.

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Clip from Episode 32: Ryan Alvord – Top Sales Professional at Paychex:

It’s a great question. I think number one is sitting down and figuring out their why. I think that’s number one. If they don’t already know why they’re doing what they’re doing. I think you have to know that first before you can do anything else. So I think sitting down figuring out your why you may need to talk to some people about that. It may take you. It may take you some time to figure that out. And again it’s something that may change it’s probably different than what it was when they first started their career or you know it’s going to be different when you’re 20 than when you’re 40 right. So I think that’s that’s number one is figure out that why. And then looking at things from a goal perspective looking at things over the course of you know a few years maybe over the course of a year and then figuring out what is it that I need to do how much I need to actually sell how much business do I need to bring in to hit that goal and what does that look like on a monthly basis. What does that look like on a weekly basis. What does that come down to on a daily basis. How many calls do I need to make. How many people do I need to talk to. You know you got to work with what your closing percentage looks like and what your activity looks like. But I think just getting that down on paper and my challenge would be to hang those goals up. Have them on your mirror or have a postit on your mirror that they look at you on your bathroom mirror that’s going to remind you of what you need to do for the day. And you know what’s your why. Why are you doing all these things so I think we are all capable of a lot more. You know I know that we’re all capable of a lot more than than we actually do and if there’s a goal that you want to hit and it’s important to you write it down and look at it everyday. Figure out what exactly you need to do to accomplish that particular goal. That would be my challenge for people.

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Clip from Episode 32: Ryan Alvord – Top Sales Professional at Paychex:

And I don’t think that that is necessary. I think that reps should be willing to meet with anybody at any point. And this may vary a little bit by industry and by company and that sort of thing but for what I do. You know I work absolutely everything. If a client tells me that they’re not going to buy for two years I’m still going to meet with them. Even if they say hey we don’t have any intention of ever changing. I say that’s great. I don’t really have any intention of selling anything today. I would love to just meet and get to know what you’re looking for. How you do things and just get a good feel for for them and then stay in touch with them and it might be five years later. But I tell them that I said I say you know it doesn’t make a difference if you buy this quarter this year or if it’s five years from now. Nobody likes a pushy sales rep. It’s important to let them know that you’re there. You’re going to be patient and you’re going to help them. You know that’s the most important thing with all this is that you’re going to help them with improving a process at some point and they need to know that.

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Clip from Episode 32: Ryan Alvord – Top Sales Professional at Paychex:

The most important part really there is the activity a lot of people get a little bit caught up with what you’re saying and what your message is. And there are a lot of times or just in sort of indecision state there of what to do. And that’s not as important as just doing it, right. So you know it’s like the squirrel in the middle of the road that can’t decide which way to go you’re better off just go in one direction than being stuck in the middle of the road. And so that’s the biggest thing. I mean it’s just making the calls and sending the e-mails. It doesn’t have to be anything special it just has to be you just need to stay in front of these companies.

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Clip from Episode 32: Ryan Alvord – Top Sales Professional at Paychex:

I think the amount that I worked in the beginning so again if we go back to those first couple of years I was definitely working 70 plus hour weeks and I think a lot of people thought that was probably crazy. The good news is that you don’t have to do it forever. I didn’t have to do it forever. It pays off. It pays huge dividends later on down the road. So I think that that’s probably one thing that people thought it was a little nuts that I would wake up on Saturday mornings back then and jump on my computer and spend you know spend half a day following up with prospects that I talked to that week. That’s probably the biggest thing but you know you don’t really have to do that forever. And again it pays off big time later on.

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Clip from Episode 32: Ryan Alvord – Top Sales Professional at Paychex:

I’m really motivated by rankings so I’m a super competitive person I have been my whole life. The competition is very important to me. So having rankings that we can look at on a daily basis and see where you stand is huge to me. I mean I certainly am motivated by money as well. We can we can talk about that a little bit. But you know that competition is probably at this point number one for me. I motivate myself by having post it notes up around my house so on my mirror I have postit notes with monthly revenue goals on annual goals that I want to head rankings that I want to hit. I have to see these goals every single day. Something my dad taught me when I was a little kid like you have to have these written down. You have to have them in plain sight for you to see constantly. So that’s really big for me. Again motivated by money. That’s a big thing. Money means options. Money you know gives you the ability to save to buy nice things to to invest in you know other businesses that you might see as you know good investments for the long term. But I like having a comfortable lifestyle. I couldn’t do that. You know I couldn’t do this job with money alone right so I need those rankings. I need that recognition to really succeed.

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Clip from Episode 32: Ryan Alvord – Top Sales Professional at Paychex:

I would say my sales philosophy can probably be most closely identified with story based selling. I tend to always tell stories about other companies that are brought on board to help bring other companies on board. So I think it’s much more powerful to explain to a client reasons that another company came on board. That may have been in the same position as them rather than just talking about their issues in particular and telling them that we can fix their issues really showing them that hey there’s another company down the street that was in the same position as you and we were able to fix this issue and this is how we were able to do it. I don’t really ask as many open ended questions as a lot of people do in those cases I really lead them down that path and I say you know what this particular you are a restaurant there’s another restaurant with 25 locations headquartered down the street from here. And they came on board for these particular reasons. Can you identify with any of these and they without fail can typically identify with half those reasons and the reasons that they probably wouldn’t have given for reasons that they would have made a switch anyway. So it’s really just suggesting those those types of things through story based selling.

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Clip from Episode 32: Ryan Alvord – Top Sales Professional at Paychex:

You know getting these partners within my organization or outside my organization is probably the most relatable type of example I can give. Because instead of reaching out manually to these companies and calling or emailing them. If you can build up a good enough relationship with these other people they’ll essentially be bringing you business right. So they’re going to be referring you business they’re going to be letting you know companies that are looking to make a switch. And you don’t need to be constantly staying in touch with those companies. So if you can build up a handful those relationships. really you can you can you can you know generate a lot of a lot of business from that. So let’s let’s talk more about that. How are you. Kind of establishing those relationships how are you maintaining them in such a way that they do lead to consistent new opportunities.

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Clip from Episode 32: Ryan Alvord – Top Sales Professional at Paychex:

So I don’t usually show this part, but typically the first thing I do I when I get up is I put on headphones. I have these big Bose wireless headphones I put on and I put music on really loudly on them. So it’s nothing in particular but just like music that’s going to pump me up for the day basically. So you know EDM music or just top 50 Global Top 50 music is something like that. So I put those on and then I make a list for the day a goal list for the day. So this is before checking email. This is before having breakfast anything like that. I get out a sheet of paper you know nothing fancy, no apps or anything like that but I get out a piece of paper and I write down on that paper what it is I want to accomplish for the day. And this is not just business things. These are you know these are professional things if want to read something in particular that day if I want to you know make sure I go to the gym or whatever I’m putting everything on that list. But certainly a lot of work related items as well. And you know that’s number one that’s really what I do first thing in the morning and then after that I mean I’m…

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Clip from Episode 32: Ryan Alvord – Top Sales Professional at Paychex:

The first few times especially presenting to companies of more than a few people that I was meeting with was very very difficult for me. But I think getting over that fear was accomplished by just a lot of practice. Just again meeting with a huge volume of companies. You know ironically enough I guess when I when I finish number one last year and I had to present at our Presidents Club in front of 1000 people. I was less nervous probably for that than I was in the beginning when I had to present in front of a few people you know early on so that was probably the biggest challenge for me over the years.

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