Transcript
RICHARD:
Folks, today we have an extremely special guest, Victor Antonio. Many of you may already know about Victor, for those of you who do not,
let me give you a real quick brief introduction: Victor’s family came to the US in the 1950’s from Puerto Rico, and like
many families starting out, times were definitely very hard growing up. His
family depended heavily on government assistance, while living in one of
Chicago’s worst neighborhoods. Today, Victor Antonio is a sales trainer and a motivational speaker with
almost 20 years in sales. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in
engineering, as well as an MBA. He
was president of sales and marketing for a 420 million dollar a year
company and a vice-president of sales in a 3 billion dollar corporation. If
you ask Victor what made the difference in his career, he’ll tell you that
it was his ability to sell, whether it be a product, a concept or himself.
Victor, first, let’s start out with explaining to everybody how did you
get into sales to begin with?
VICTOR:
It all started when I graduated with my engineering degree. You know, I
thought that was the fast way to the money obviously - you got a technical
degree; you get the money, right? And
I remember one day I was working for a company – it was a wireless company
– and I put together this bid, and this bid was about 5 million dollars
worth, and it was a deal I’d worked on for quite a long time, fully
designed the system and the whole bid. I
was then told by the sales manager that we’d be doing a presentation for
this company.
To
make a long story short, the presentation was fantastic, I answered all
the technical questions, about a month or two months later we found out
that we had won the deal. When I found out what the salesman made for a commission on the deal, I –
it just made me nauseated because I realized that he made $50-75,000
dollars just for that one deal. And, Richard, what do you think I got?
RICHARD:
(laughter). Um, can I guess?
VICTOR:
You can guess, go ahead!
RICHARD:
Um, zero!
VICTOR:
I got a very nice lunch from the salesman! And I said– what the heck is
this? There’s something wrong with this picture! I put in all the work!
Obviously, the salesman really did a lot of work to get the actual
account. But
I realized the upside of being in sales, and being able to combine my
ability –my technical ability – with my ability to present and sell. I
said, you know, I could really do that job. So,
about 6 months afterwards a sales position opened up and that’s actually
how I just launched into sales right away. I
mean, I was naïve, I didn’t know everything about sales. But
like everybody else, I started to learn everything I needed to know about
sales. I think within a year- a year and a half my career just kind of
took off from there.
RICHARD:
Sales is an amazing and dynamic industry. You mentioned in you book that a
salesman has to behave like a torpedo. Can you explain that just a little
bit more? It kind of took me back a little bit, a torpedo, huh?
VICTOR:
Yeah, I think everybody asks me that question. It’s one of those things –
if you want to be successful in sales, one of the first things we all
learn in sales is you’ve got to know who your target market is. And
while I was working for Honeywell as a summer intern –did you see the
movie “The Hunt for Red October,” Richard?
RICHARD:
Absolutely.
VICTOR:
Ok. In that movie, if you recall it’s about two submarines, and they’re
going at each other. The
US submarine uses a special torpedo called a Mach 46, and I worked on a
Mach 46 during my summer internship, by the way, that’s my only claim to
fame, as far as the movies. I
worked on that torpedo, and the way a torpedo works, Richard, it’s
fascinating. What they do is they launch it either from a ship, or a
helicopter and they basically launch it into the water. The
torpedo then begins a circular pattern under water and then the sonar
kicks in and begins to ping; you know that “pinngggg” you always hear?
RICHARD:
Exactly.
VICTOR:
And it detects a signature, an echo, the silhouette of the submarine, and
so what it does, it continues to go into circular patterns and continues
to ping until it detects something that has the outline of a potential
submarine. Once it thinks it has acquired the target it moves off in that direction.
And, Richard, as it gets closer, it continues to ping. And
as it continues to ping, it continues to further define the object. And
as it gets closer it defines it even more. It
defines it even more until it gets close enough to say – “Nah, it’s a
school fish; it’s not what I want.” And
it goes back into attack mode again, into it’s circular pattern, begins to
ping again and then moves off in another direction, gets closer to this
object, gets closer to this other object and says, “No, it’s an underwater
rock formation.” And
I mean it can continue to do this. I mean, it can spot a whale, you don’t
want to hit a whale with a torpedo, because it’s overkill, you would
agree, Richard, right?
RICHARD:
Yeah, definitely, you don’t need a torpedo for a whale, for sure!
VICTOR:
And what the torpedo has is something, Richard, called artificial
intelligence, which you may have heard of. And
every time the torpedo goes after something, Richard, it becomes that much
smarter, okay? Every time it goes after an object it learns how to
discern objects better. And, for example, when it goes after the first object, it realizes that
characteristics of that first object are not what it wanted, and every
time it becomes smarter. And
I use this analogy when it comes to salespeople because when we talk about
the “mindset for sales,” and how to be successful in sales, is that a lot
of salespeople that go after something first of all don’t know what
they’re going after. They just want to sell something. And
that’s one of the biggest problems: you can’t sell to everybody. Like the torpedo, you have to be able to define your target market
upfront. What is it that I’m looking for? What is the customer
outline/profile that I’m going after? And, like the torpedo, once you begin to define your target market, all
the sudden it becomes that much easier for you to sell within that market.
Richard, when I tell people to behave like a torpedo, what I’m saying is:
go after something, and if it’s not what you want, it’s okay to change
your mind. But
what happens is, you inherently get smarter, and after so many attempts,
you’ll be able to narrow in and zoom in that one target, that one
submarine that is yours, that you want, and that’s your target market. So,
be like a torpedo: define your market, don’t worry about being wrong. I
think a lot of us have this notion that if we’re wrong, we don’t know what
we’re doing – no, sales process is an iterative process, which means that
you go after something, you do certain things wrong.
You’ve got to kind of back up, that didn’t work, but I learned from it and
go after it again like a torpedo. That’s what I mean by, “Act like a
torpedo in sales.”
RICHARD:
That’s excellent. You know, I’ve been in sales myself, sales and
marketing, for about 14 years. And
target marketing is definitely something that has come to the forefront of
the sales mentality. But I’ve never actually had anybody explain it quite
like that! And
identifying the analogy of a torpedo it’s probably the most perfect
scenario I’ve ever had outlined. That’s awesome, thanks a ton.
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Sales Mindset for
Success
Copyright © 2006 by Victor Antonio All rights reserved. These photos MAY
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including photocopying, as long as the author’s name, website and email
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including information on electronic licensing, should be directed to Victor Antonio.
The
LOGIC of Sales Success
