Time to cross that bridge

In all my years, in all the different careers I’ve had, I have never been blindsided and fired like I was from the Beer Store. 

I’ve been a tool and die maker, spent some time in paramedicine, been an IT guy and computer tech and finally a 16 year career at the Beer Store.

I’ve been around the block and even though I was blindsided by the Beer Store, I’m extremely grateful for that now as I valued my time in each of these careers as they all taught me vulnerable lessons. Lessons I still use today and apply different strategies that I’ve learned.

Since I’ve talked about the Beer Store in the last few weeks I’ll continue to do so and talk about some of the lessons I learned there. Now, I didn’t know it at the time but when I had conversations and engaged with my customers, I was using something similar to what Russell talks about in his Expert Secrets book.

Now, most of the retail outlets for the Beer Store run on an outdated system where you simply walk up to the counter, order your beer and an employee walks to the back to get what you ordered and then slide it down the rollers on the other side of the store. Like I said, very outdated.

That’s not to say they don’t have any new stores, and those stores are where you really get to engage with your customers as they are fully open and self-serve stores..

A few weeks ago I talked about serving your audience, and in a blog post, I talked about how I was labeled “The Beer Guy”. This was a perfect way to engage with customers, work on my communication skills and really learn how to sell.

Although, I hate that term “sell”. For me, it was all about having a conversation with my customers and showing them the value in what they were buying. It could be something as simple as getting a 28 pack for the same price as a 24 pack. It could be something like, talking to them about a new brand or package size from a brewer they loved that offered more value.

Beer is and was something I’m very passionate about and I never felt like I was “selling” anything to my customers, I was there to provide them with value and help them make a decision that worked best for them.

Just recently I had a conversation with a good friend of mine who’s a beer rep in Windsor. She is one of the most knowledgeable people in that area and is great at selling beer….yet hates “selling”.

As we talked over a pint, she explained that she felt she “wasn’t great at selling” because it’s something that made her feel awkward and yet, from the outside looking in, everyone knows how good she is.

As we had our conversation I told her not to think about it as selling, think about it as having a conversation with her customers and when doing that, her passion and knowledge will do the selling for her. She was already providing value to her customers by engaging them and that’s what selling is all about. It’s not some sleazy car sales person pitch.

Something Russell talks about in his Expert Secret book, is the epiphany bridge script. This is something Russell uses to relate with his audience to help break the wall of disbelief down. 

When it comes to selling, relating with your audience is key and using emotion is a great way to do that. Talk about a story in your life that will relate with what you’re talking about and create emotion with that. From there you will want to talk about how you learned or earned whatever it is you’re trying to sell.

That is how you will bridge the gap with your audience and start to not only build a relationship with them but start to build trust.

Once you have that, you can then start using logic and providing value to  your audience in order to sell them on whatever product or service you have to offer.

In the last few weeks I’ve talked a lot about my years at the Beer Store, how I was let go and through that experience, I’ve learned and earned what I have today. 

That’s just a small example of how, not only the Hook, Story Offer script works but also what the Epiphany Bridge Script looks like.

I can’t stress enough how useful that is as well as everything else Russell teaches in his Expert Secrets Book. That’s why he uses that framework to coach his clients starting at $10k.

Now like me, you don’t want to pay $10k for that information and that’s why I have a link where you can get that book for free. All you have to do is pay the shipping.

If you want that book and want to see how you can use the epiphany Bridge Script in your marketing strategy, just click the button below!