Introduction:

Discover unexpected sales wisdom from an unlikely source in this eye-opening episode of Connect and Convert! Hosts Dennis Collins and Leah Bumphrey reveal how Gino, a charismatic bartender, teaches invaluable sales techniques through his exceptional customer service. Get ready to transform your approach to sales and customer connections!

Key Takeaways:

• Learn how to create unforgettable customer experiences that drive sales

• Discover the power of remembering personal details to build lasting connections

• Understand Jeb Blunt's 5 silent questions every customer asks and how to address them

• Find out how to spot sales lessons in everyday life situations

Resources and Links:

• Jeb Blunt's "5 Silent Questions Every Customer Asks"

• Free 60-minute Connect and Convert discovery call

• Wizard Academy: https://wizardacademy.org/

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Introduction and new discovery call feature

00:02:15 - Leah's unexpected sales lesson from her son

00:04:30 - Dennis introduces Gino the bartender

00:07:45 - Breakdown of Gino's sales techniques

00:10:30 - Jeb Blunt's 5 silent customer questions

Connect with the Hosts:

• Dennis Collins: https://wizardofads.org/partner/dennis-collins/

• Leah Bumphrey: https://wizardofads.org/partner/leah-bumphrey/

• Email: dennis.collins@wizardofads.com, leah.bumphrey@wizardofads.com

Recommended Episodes:

• "The Art of Storytelling in Sales: Captivate Your Audience"

• "Building Trust: The Foundation of Successful Sales Relationships"

• "Unconventional Sales Strategies That Actually Work"

Welcome back to Connect and Convert, the Sales Accelerator

podcast, where small business owners tune in every week to

hear insider tips on how to grow their sales faster than ever.

Join today as always.

By my lovely partner in crime, Leah, I'm free.

Welcome back.

Glad to be with you.

Always, as always before we get into today's topic,

which I think you will like, it's a fun topic.

I want to talk about a new feature that we are

introducing on this podcast right now, today, we want to

announce our new opportunity for our small business

owners, our Target listeners.

Those are the folks we hope are listening.

We want to give them a possible next step.

The first step would be our connect and

convert discovery call.

Yes, a discovery phone call with you for 60 minutes.

Okay.

It's waiting for business owners willing to take a step back and

take a look at the difference is what the difference

would be working with us.

We can make a difference for some.

We're not for everybody.

We acknowledge that, but a 60 minute phone call.

We can figure that out.

So email us.

The emails are posted there.

Dennis Collins at wizard of ads.

com and Leah Bumfrey at wizard of ads.

com either one or both.

We will send a questionnaire and arrange a 60 minute

virtual conversation.

You'll love it.

And so will we.

Let's connect.

Okay, Leah today.

We sometimes in these podcasts end up talking about alcohol.

I don't know how we get on that topic.

We had one time of one episode with our producer, Paul, and the

whole thing was about alcohol.

That was a good one.

That was a good one.

But anyway, I am going to talk today About

sales lessons from Gino.

Okay.

And before I jump into that, I would like you to tell our

audience about possible lessons.

You've been in the sales business.

You have been a pro in the sales business for some time.

What sales lessons have you learned from the most unexpected

sources, a situation, a place, a person that you never thought.

Could teach you anything about sales.

You know, that's a really interesting question because

sometimes we think of sales inside of a bubble, Dennis,

and it's not sales and sales skills are everywhere.

And I always think of.

I think of my siblings, or I think of and growing up in a big

family, or I think of my kids.

I was blessed with three beautiful boys.

You've met Fletcher, one of them, and this actually,

this story actually is about Fletcher when he was in piano.

Now, we made sure, being, you know, very diligent parents.

Our kids had a sport, and they had a a musical or an

artsy type of venture that they were doing every year

during the school year, and piano, all three of them took

piano for a number of years, and they were pretty good.

Now, Fletcher was he was going into a music festival,

which is a big deal.

was at the university and he was sitting down and he had

his piece already and we're watching and it's being this

is being curated and he's at this and you have to imagine

this little guy in the little glasses he's probably about 11

11 years old at the time and he gets a little tie and it's this

huge magnificent Grand piano that he sits at, and we're all

poised, waiting for him to go.

And what does Fletcher do?

He looks, and he goes on the keyboard, and picture

the 88 keys of a keyboard.

He's checking the tuning.

He's checking the tuning of a grand piano in a concert hall at

the University of Saskatchewan.

The whole audience, including the judges, cracked up.

And you think, what does that have to do with sales?

Sometimes we think of sales as just barreling ahead and doing.

But sometimes sales is about stepping back, making sure

we know where we're at.

And that's what this 10, 11 year old kid was doing.

And it was a magnificent, and it is a magnificent

story of wait before you go.

Now he ended up nailing his his piece.

No surprise.

No surprise.

So that, that came to mind when we were talking.

That's a very interesting story.

And knowing Fletcher a little bit I can see him doing that.

That doesn't, that rings true with me that that he

wants to be totally prepared for any situation as we

should be in sales, right?

As we should be in sales, great.

lesson.

So now I guess I should tell you a little bit about Gino.

Okay.

I remember the first time I met him, it was a beautiful

summer afternoon in Key Biscayne, Florida, just off

the Miami on the causeway.

Beautiful, nice cooling breeze blowing in

on there with you.

Oh, it was nice.

I walked by a very crowded pool bar at the Sinesta Beach

resort, which was one of the nicest resorts on Key Biscayne.

It's a beautiful place.

I mean, and you could hear the laughter.

You could hear the friendly banter from the people

gathered around the bar.

All the stools were taken.

And the crowd was about three deep standing behind each stool.

I said, what the heck is going on over there?

Maybe it's free liquor today.

Maybe so hey, thinking that I inched my way closer.

I said, Oh, I spotted the bartender, a 30 ish year

old, maybe a little older.

He was putting on a show.

He was mixing drinks in that very flamboyant style, making

jokes with all the customers.

And what I thought was most amazing is calling people

by their first names and asking if they wanted to

Yeah, and asking if they wanted their favorite drink.

Now, why was that so impressive?

This was not a neighborhood bar.

Okay.

This was not a neighborhood bar.

This was a resort.

Okay.

All the guests, almost all the guests were from out of town.

Some of them visited only once a year for a short time.

Some came back every year.

Some like me were locals.

Okay.

But what was going on at Gino's bar that made it so special?

What are the lessons that I learned about people, about

persuasion, about influence?

Leah, when I was finally able to fight my way through the

packed crowd and actually sit on a stool, I got a ringside

seat to one of the best sales lessons I've ever learned.

Isn't that funny?

At a bar.

Who would ever think, right?

It can happen.

I love it.

I love it.

Yeah, I wish you had been there.

You would've enjoyed this

, but what I love is you're calling it Gino's Bar, which

I can see a neon sign saying that, but it wasn't Gino's It

Bar, but yet it was his own.

Lemme.

No, let me assure you it was Gino's bar.

He owned that bar or not literally, but

figuratively, this man.

Okay.

So what was going on?

So I sat on the stool and what am I hearing?

I'm hearing connections.

I'm hearing him.

Listen I'm hearing him relate stories to people that maybe

he sees once or twice a year.

And he had your name.

He had the name.

He knew, obviously, where you were visiting from.

He had family information.

You know, he knew, hey, how are your kids?

How's your job?

Of course.

And the most important thing he knew was your favorite drink.

And he'd always ask, are you still drinking

the blah, blah, blah.

And, you know, they weren't just, you know, regular drinks.

They were special Gino drinks, because he would always say,

let me add a little special Gino touch to your drink.

Do you mind if I add a little touch?

Who would say no to that?

So his attitude set the tone.

I mean, you know, we talk a lot about Attitude.

We talk about mindsets.

This man made you feel like a million dollars

just sitting at his bar.

You couldn't help but have fun.

You couldn't help it.

It was laughter, it was conversation.

He took pride in introducing his guests to each other.

Hey, Dennis, there.

I want you to meet this guy, Joe.

He's from New York, or whatever, and start up conversations.

You know, we talk a lot on this podcast about storytelling.

Gino had a magical way of introducing you to a new twist

to your favorite cocktail.

He described exactly how he would make your special drink.

And he would make it there right in front of you.

Now I'm going to put a little of this, I'm going

to put a little of that.

You've probably never had it done this way before, but just

for you, I'm going to make you this special cocktail.

And I bet you nobody asked him how much they cost.

Are you kidding?

That was never discussed.

I never, I don't even think there was a menu or anything

showing the cost of the drinks.

That was never an object.

Why do you think that was Leah?

He took you down a process and you were part of it with him.

It had nothing to do with money.

It was everything to do with the experience.

And.

As you said, the connection, that, that is not, that's

not buying off the right hand side of the menu.

That is being involved.

That is being made to feel part of someone's business.

And you want to you're going with your wallet open going.

Yes.

Yes.

I want to be part of this.

It has nothing to do with the cost.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

And I don't know this for a fact.

I wish I knew, but I believe his revenue figures for that.

And it wasn't a huge bar.

I'll bet his revenue figures rivaled some of

the most successful bars.

in the United States, maybe even in Canada too.

Amazing volume.

He had a lot of offers over the years to go here, go there.

He was recruited heavily to move, but he never left there.

Unfortunately, they closed the Sinesta Beach hotel.

And I believe for a while he went next door to a Hyatt.

And then I moved out of South Florida and I've lost touch

with them and shame on me.

Shame on me because he should be our guest on this show.

Darn it.

If I knew how to contact him, but I have to tell

that story because he made everyone feel they were the

most important person at that bar, even when he was slammed.

Do you know if you're listening, get ahold of us

because we want to interview you and see what happened.

Are you out there, buddy?

It's Dennis.

You remember?

We had a lot of good times.

Cause as you know, I was in the radio business in South

Florida, in Miami, and we did a lot of entertaining

at the Sonesta Beach.

It was a very, it was very convenient to downtown Miami,

just across the causeway.

And our customers, our clients love being there.

So we would do lunches, we would do dinners, we would

do cocktail parties, we would do all kinds of functions.

So I got to know Geno pretty well.

Unfortunately, stupid old me didn't keep the contact up.

So let me pull this right back in to sales, okay?

You know I quote a guy by the name of Jeb Blunt a lot.

To me, he is one of the modern day sales gurus.

You know, we've had Zig Ziglar and we've had Dale Carnegie.

I mean, we've had gurus in the sales and persuasion

business forever.

But to me, the modern day guru is Jeb Blum.

And he says, there are five questions that every customer,

I don't care if you're buying.

Whiskey at a bar or a house or a car or whatever.

They silently ask these five questions to themselves and

all five Leah must be answered.

Yes.

Or you're not going to get a sale.

So how did Gino stack up against those five?

Okay.

What are the five?

The first one is do I like you?

How could you not like Gino?

Number two, are you listening to me?

Gino could repeat things that he heard once or twice

a year ago with precision.

Yeah, he was listening.

Number three, do you make me feel important?

Yeah, because he made a drink just for you with

his own special touch.

He made you feel important.

Hey, do you understand me?

Do you get my stuff?

Yeah.

Cause he'd ask about the kids.

How's the family?

How's the job going?

He made an effort to really understand.

That life situation that, that people were going through.

And of course, number five, do you trust, do I trust you?

I mean, Gino, who knows what he could be putting in

those drinks, but you know, by that time we trusted him

and we were never wrong.

We were never wrong.

Wow.

What an experience.

That's a great story.

And it makes me think of Breakout challenge that we

should give to our listeners for this coming week.

And before we do that, can we pause for just a moment?

I want to talk about wizardacademy.

org.

Okay.

What is wizardacademy.

org?

It, you talk about an experience.

I just shared an experience that I had with Gino the bartender.

Leah shared an experience she had with her son Fletcher.

I'm going to tell you, you're going to be sharing some cool

experiences with your friends, your family, your coworkers,

when you attend wizardacademy.

org.

Go on wizardacademy.

org and look at the list of classes.

It is an unusual.

Business school, not your typical business school, but

the knowledge that you come away with is more than typical.

It's outstanding.

Leah and I are frequent flyers there as well as producer Paul.

We encourage all of our viewers and listeners to

check out wizardacademy.

org.

So breakout challenge.

Breakout challenge, honestly, everyone listening, everybody

watching this week, Look for those lessons in your everyday

life that have nothing to do with your business, nothing to

do with sales, nothing to do with your ultimate financial

goals and where you are.

Look around and see, you'll be surprised if you're open to it.

You know, we see what we seek.

So if you're looking for them, you're going to see them.

And you're also going to see where They could help

you impact your business and shoot us an email.

We do have let questions from our listeners,

questions from our viewers.

And that's a huge part of what we do.

And we, I want to emphasize what Dennis said at the beginning.

Certainly send us the individual questions based

on things that you're hearing from us, but don't hesitate.

Shoot us an email and say you would like to take part in our

60 minute virtual introduction.

We're going to meet each other.

We're going to find out a little bit about your business.

We're going to see, hey, how can we help you convert and connect

and convert more with your,

With your potential customers, with your staff, with what

you're doing for business.

It's a big part of what Dennis and I just value is helping the

people that are listening to us.

Well said, Leah.

I mean, I was just in your beautiful country as as we

record this, I just have come back from the western part of

Canada, the Canadian Rockies which are just magnificent.

And, you know, I bought a lot of services while I was in Canada.

Food services, you know, we had took some excursions, et cetera.

And I watched the salesmanship or lack of, in some cases of

some of these folks, it is amazing what you can pick up

a little phrase that they use a word that they use a little

something that you didn't even expect would hook you.

And it hooked you.

It gotcha.

And, you know, and not in a manipulative way.

That's the challenge.

Send us an email.

Tell us about how the challenge went.

We're going to be back next week with another edition

of Connect and Convert.

We'll see you then.