The 5 Things I Learned Seeing Jack Daly Live

Winning Sales Strategies is a favourite of Australian audiences, evidenced by Jack Daly’s near decade-long relationship with The Growth Faculty. In 2019, the series kicked off in Melbourne earlier this week, before heading to Brisbane and wrapping up in Sydney, to a crowd primarily made up of sales teams and leaders.  

Jack’s sessions are not for the faint-hearted. He tells hard truths and boldly highlights the mistakes and missteps of everybody in the room, during a jam-packed session that moves rapidly and waits for no one. This year, he spoke not only from his experiences as a top salesperson, but also from the heart, sharing stories of his late wife Bonnie, his children, and what his 70 years have taught him about business, leadership and sales. 

To summarise Jack’s powerful lessons would be to write a Hyper Sales Growth companion book. Instead, here are the top five things I learned from seeing Jack Daly live in action. 

1. “Trust Trumps Price All Day Long”

If you’re not passionate about what you do, quit...if you don’t like what you’re doing, quit.

Delivered not as a harsh critique but as a genuine offering of advice. Selling is hard, and it’s passion that sells a product, more than any technique or strategy. And trust and authenticity are its key companions.

Selling is the transfer of trust. People do business with people they trust.

This means Jack helps customers with their needs, even if it means they don’t buy from him. 30% of all leads that come into his company are referred to another company instead.

When you care more about the customer than you do about the sale, you’ll sell more than anyone else out there.

2. Practice Makes Perfect

Sports teams are run better than most businesses.

Regardless of the sport or level of play, a coach wouldn’t run a team without a playbook, or without proper preparation, training and practice. And if you’re not practicing your sales technique internally, you’re practicing on your customer and it’s costing you money. 

Practice inside to get better outside.

3. Stop Trying to Sell

It may seem counter-intuitive, but Jack’s sales ideology is built on a simple assumption: people don’t want to be sold to. Moreover, most sales are based on emotion, not logic.

I listen for needs, opportunities and problems...I listen for pain and pleasure opportunities.

Instead of showing up and throwing up, the top salespeople ask questions and listen. 

4. Focus on High Payoff Activities

It’s essential to focus on High Payoff Activities (HPA), using your time on a selective tasks that serve your most important goals. That’s not to say other activities aren’t necessary, just not necessary for you to do. Welcome, The Assistant. 

If you don’t have an assistant, you are one.

Jack has a staggering six assistants, most of whom he has only met once. His priorities, which no doubt differ from all who were in the room, were simple: he speaks, he travels and he has fun. Any additional tasks that take salespeople away from their key operations are cutting into their hourly rate. 

5. Personality is Key

People do business with people they like. They tend to do business with people who like what they like.

And people do sales with other people, not with companies. That means understanding customer personality types, needs and pain points is crucial, as is a commitment to commitments.

Do what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it, whether you like it or not.

More Tips Than Time

The list of resources in Jack’s sessions and playbook are exhaustive, including effective systems and processes, pipeline management, customer profiles, recognition systems, incentive formulas and so much more. No doubt, the five key lessons that resonated with me are very different to the ones that resonated with others, but that just speaks to the power of his message and the scope of his material. 

Maya Angelou said, ‘At the end of the day, people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.’ But perhaps both are true of Jack, who left Australian audiences with more information than there was time to present, and a feeling of excitement, passion and a new drive to start making a real impact. 

To see all of the photos and highlights from the day, search #thegrowthfaculty on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. 

Thank you to all the Winning Sales Strategies event partners, particularly our Silver Partner, Family Business Australia. We have a full calendar of business and leadership events, and hundreds of videos at The Growth Faculty On Demand. Sign up and start learning today.