Ep 227 | It's Time to Master Sales with Niraj Kapur

Its Time to Master Sales with Niraj Kapur

 [00:00:00] 

We're in for a treat today. Niraj Kapur is joining the Sales Made Easy podcast. He is the founder of Everybody Works in Sales. He's recognized by Salesforce as a top sales influencer and also recognized by LinkedIn as a top voice in sales over the past four years.

He is a three times author and TEDx speaker. I'm very excited to have him. Niraj, welcome to the Sales Made Easy podcast. 

Niraj Kapur: Thank you so much.

I think we last spoke about two or three years ago, so it's brilliant to speak to you again. 

Harry Spaight: Yes. Uh, we did have a few conversations over the years Niraj. One of the things I'm seeing about sales these days is a lot of businesses here in the States are just holding off, making decisions, and I know you and I were gonna talk about business in Q4.

But this topic has gotten a lot of people frustrating. They're frustrated, they're getting desperate at times. They're starting to try pressure tactics and [00:01:00] so forth. So I'm curious what's going on in Europe about the decision making process these days? 

Niraj Kapur: Well, it's fascinating 'cause I, I do business, I would say about two thirds of my business is UK and Europe and about a third is North America.

And sometimes you guys are way ahead of us, but in this case, we're experiencing the same frustration. Things are really slow here in terms of decision making and if you happen to know the person, have a great relationship with them. It's slightly faster. So the two big corporates I work with, I happen to know them very, very well, so I can move faster.

But it's not fast, it's just faster. 

Harry Spaight: Yeah. I mean, what do you think is this we're trying to guess what the reason is. We're trying to think. Well, maybe it's the market. There's uncertainty in the market. There's uncertainty about tariffs, but I've gotta say that it's been a little bit where this has been going on, where there's just been delayed decisions for the, where I've [00:02:00] been.

I'm thinking this is more like what people never wanted to see is that sales was changing. But I think sales is changing and people know the sales person is there. They know the solution is there, they're just, they've got other priorities and they'll get to it when they get to it. I see that more, uh, but maybe that's just my perception.

What's your thought on that? 

Niraj Kapur: I partly agree. I think it's more than that. Anytime my generation, anytime we buy anything, we always like to speak to a salesperson and I, I got to the point, I'm so frustrated with bad salespeople. I've now started buying things like even talking to people. That has never happened in my life because salespeople are so bad at their job.

You look at how much the world's advanced Harry in the last five years. With technology. It's been an unbelievable pace, but yet salespeople have barely evolved much, which I think is actually a shame and a disappointment for our industry. It really [00:03:00] is. So I think that's the first problem. Uh, the second thing is the recent research shows 56% of people are stuck at indecision.

And I've been trying to look into reasons why that might be. And I think part of it is overwhelmed. People are generally overwhelmed with so many choices. They're overwhelmed with looking at their phones every five minutes. They're overwhelmed at, they have ai, they have chatGPT they have podcasts, they have Claude They have so many different options that sometimes it just freaks them out and they go, yeah, let's make no option. Which by the way, it's the wrong decision to make, but. That's what a lot of people do. And then there's, of course, there's a groups of people who have invested a lot in these terrible business gurus, these awful LinkedIn influencers who say, you know, I will get you 75 leads a week.

I'll help you make six figures a month. And they're brilliant at copywriting and marketing. But they cannot deliver the end goal. And there's a lot of very disgruntled businesses out there [00:04:00] who've had very bad experiences with terrible sales trainers, terrible branding experts who aren't branding experts and terrible LinkedIn influencers who are not influencers.

They're just brilliant at copywriting and saying the magical words, but they cannot deliver the end goal. So I think it's a mixture of all, all definitely a mixture of all three of those things. Yeah. That's really a, a great observation. I think one of the things I wanted to touch on here briefly is where you say that salespeople have not progressed, like the world has progressed.

Harry Spaight: What comes to mind for you when you say that? Because I agree, but I'm curious as what your thoughts are. Yeah, sure. I mean, look, I spend three days a week working with companies. Either on a group level or on a one-to-one level. And what I do during those three days a week is I spend time listening to phone calls, or I spend time observing demos.

Niraj Kapur: One of the two. Yeah. And people are still making the same mistakes Before COVID. They still go to a call and say, let me tell you about myself. I'm like, [00:05:00] no, stop. That wise up. It just, no, nobody wants to hear about you. Okay. They're still doing demos that are feature driven. Far too long and far too wordy.

They still have no idea how to engage with a customer and they have no idea how to share insights. So now I'm doing a, just say I'm pitching for a new client. Okay. The first thing I will do is talk about the client, something I read in their website or something I read on LinkedIn that shows I actually, I'm paying attention to what they're doing.

'cause most people don't do that. The second thing I'll say is, here are three of the biggest challenges people are facing right now on LinkedIn. Are any of these affecting you at all? So again, you make it interactive. You show them that you have knowledge in your sector, but also, is this affecting you? It is.

Let's talk about that. It's not, well, what is affecting you? And it's almost like I'm there to help them and serve them and really uncover what the problem is, rather than just do a demo for 20 min, [00:06:00] 29 minutes, and then in the last minute try and close a deal. So it's just almost about.

Understanding human beings has never been more important, and most people working in sales have zero understanding of psychology. There's not taught psychology in sales training. The few of them have actually had sales training. They're not taught psychology. They're, taught a bit of soft skills, but they're taught too much about technology and too much about closing and not enough about opening people relationships, ghosting.

Overcoming objections. These are all key things that everybody, whether they're an SME or a corporate is struggling with right now. And you have to understand people. Doesn't matter how big AI becomes and AI think will keep becoming bigger, you have to understand the person you're dealing with, otherwise you're in real trouble.

Harry Spaight: Yeah. Amazing. This, this challenge of where, you know, [00:07:00] you're trying to trace back where the problems begin. Business owners, they want sales. Yeah, right? So the demands are there for sales. Sales people get hired to make sales. They're not there to build trust. Right. They're not there to build relationships.

Say that's a problem. It is all about getting the sales. So the pressure from above, even though a sales leader may know that we, it's, we've gotta build relationships, we've gotta get trust, we've got to play the longer game here, which isn't really longer in my mind. It speeds things up. But when people.

Start talking a little bit about someone else's business. They're thinking how far can I go? 'cause I've gotta close, I've got 26 minutes here left and I've gotta do my demo and then I gotta ask for the business. They're not thinking along those lines. They're think, I mean, they're thinking more along those lines instead of building the [00:08:00] trust and treating each other as a human.

And that I totally agree, is lost somewhere. But it's a big problem because it's not, it's not just salespeople. You gotta look at the sales leader and it's like, what are you doing? And then you look at the owner or the group, the that's running the show, so to speak. Uh, the pressure and the demands are very high.

So to say that this is a, there's a better way of doing it, requires some convincing for some of these people. What's your thought on that? 

Niraj Kapur: No, absolutely. The very first thing you said that blew my mind because they're there to make sales. They're not thinking about trust. Yeah. They're not thinking about playing the long game.

And that's a major problem. But I think there has to be two sides of a coin is very important here. So CROs and sales leaders are not investing properly in their teams. I literally have started turning down for the first time in my corporate career. My business, I should [00:09:00] say, I have started turning down half day of sales training.

I'm like, no, I'm not gonna do it. And they're like, why? 'cause it's not gonna benefit you, 

Harry Spaight: right? 

Niraj Kapur: Half your team are gonna forget what they've learned Tomorrow. 90% will be forgotten in a week. That means I'm not helping you. And you're losing money about pay me for something that's not gonna work, right?

Here's what will work. Instead of doing a half a day, let's do eight training sessions over eight weeks. Okay? So week one, we'll look at mindset routines, habits, you know, week two, we'll look at opening week three, we'll do role plays. Week four, we'll do this. Week five we'll do LinkedIn, you know, and everything is split out.

Now if you do this, you'll learn five times more. And often I hear, well, we want things done quicker, or we only have budget for half a day. I'm like, fine, get the budget for a full day. Then who have you gotta speak to? Yeah. And sometimes these people have spent six months fighting with a financial director to try to get budget.

They don't wanna spend another six months fighting for a full day of budget. So they say, look, half day or nothing. And I actually turned on, I'm gonna write about it on LinkedIn very soon. 

Harry Spaight: Yeah, 

Niraj Kapur: I'm gonna write about this. 'cause I turned on a client. It would've been very good money. I'm getting [00:10:00] married in a few months time.

I need that money 'cause it's cost me a fortune. This wedding, it's cost me so much. The small wedding has now become medium sized, um, wedding plus a mini moon, plus the engagement. Nice plus everything, man. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful the 

Harry Spaight: pressure is on to get some sales for this wedding for crying out loud.

It 

Niraj Kapur: was really difficult for me to say no. It was really hard. They were paying very good money and I said, no, I'm not gonna do half a day's. Training Your team need a minimum of one day, which is it, sessions over eight weeks or love it. You have to. You can do it sessions over four weeks, twice a week, but you have to be doing it because if you learn regularly, you learn better, you'll learn smarter.

You'll take action, you'll get results. You'll hit your pipeline, you'll hit your target for the year, and that's the first problem. And not, not, companies are thinking smarter. They're thinking quicker but not smarter. Yeah. Yeah. But the second half of the coin, unfortunately, does rely on the SDRs, the AEs, and the sales execs because when I'm in a company, of course I'm learning [00:11:00] from the one of the top performers, but then I speak to a lot of the bottom performers who aren't hitting Target, and I say, okay, so what book have we read recent?

And they look at me completely blank. If they're young kids, I'll say what podcast we listen to? And they'll say, they'll mention a Joe Rogan. I'm like, Joe Rogan, shut up. No. What what, sales podcast we listen to. Okay. Not Joe Rogan. What sales podcast we listen to? Nothing. Okay. Maybe you like video, young people like video.

What, uh, what have you watched on YouTube? What have you learned? They're not learning, they're not developing, they're not growing, but they're very quick to blame their manager for not investing in them. So yes, companies need to take more responsibility. Absolutely, 100%. They need to think smarter. When it comes to investing in their staff.

At the same time, staff need to change their attitude. 'cause too many have a negative attitude. They blame the company, they blame the commission structure, they blame the economy. In the last few months everybody is blaming Trump's tariffs. Yeah. I'm not saying tariffs were a smart idea. I [00:12:00] think they were.

I'm not gonna tell you what might think because conversation, but. You can't sit there and blame the president for your problems. I'm not saying it didn't have impact. Of course it did, but guess what? In the UK we have a government making up appallingly bad decisions and I'm having my best year yet. 

Harry Spaight: Yeah, nice.

Niraj Kapur: Because my attitude is, I don't care what the government does. Love it. Okay. I am gonna go exactly. And I'm gonna earn a great living and serve my clients and serve my future clients as much as I can, regardless. Regardless of tariffs and regardless of corporation tax, 

Harry Spaight: so good. The advice I've always given sales teams is you have to view this as your own.

Yes. I love that. Right? It is. This is your franchise. You cannot complain to the franchisor. This is on you. You bought into it. And when you look at the money that can be made in sales, there's a lot of franchises [00:13:00] that would love to make that kind of income, that just don't. And one of the biggest reasons they don't is because they don't sell.

They open up the door and they hope people will come. But salespeople, if we, we frequently, we will get a salary. We'll get an office, we get a computer, we get phones, we get some periodic training. We get insurance, we get all this stuff. So we end up viewing sales like a job. And so we don't, we show up expected to get paid versus showing up as.

A leader showing up as someone that is going to win like a paid professional athlete. This is, it's a big difference between the mindset of the bottom versus the top, unfortunately. So we wanted to talk a little bit about. Steps that someone can take, that a salesperson can take to turn [00:14:00] around Q4.

Have a great Q4, which may turn around a year. Uh, so Niraj, what are some ideas that you have for that? I can't wait to hear. 

Niraj Kapur: Okay, so I made a note about what's working right now and it is very important to say that 'cause I'm a modern day sales trainer. When I do coaching, I don't say, you know what, six years ago I did this.

It was brilliant. Good. I have to talk about what is working right now. So this is a mixture of stuff that's really easy and stuff that's maybe you haven't thought of. So the really easy stuff is know how to follow up. 72% of salespeople give up after one attempt. I think it's 90% give up after three attempts.

Now, bearing in mind, most people take at least five to eight attempts. What are you doing? You can't give up that easily, and apart from my two biggest clients who came through me through referrals, every piece of business I went after has took me between eight to maybe 11 attempts. Okay. Salesforce, who I won last year, I did one-to-one coaching there.

I did a post on LinkedIn, which went huge, and I think I mentioned I got rejected [00:15:00] 30 times by Salesforce. Over two years. 

Harry Spaight: Okay. 

Niraj Kapur: 30 times. Yep. And not only was I getting rejected by them, I was getting rejected by kids in their thirties, which as a, a man in his fifties is actually really, it's, it hurts your ego.

These kids look at me like, this guy's as old as my father. You know? Or some kids probably thought their grandfather. But yeah, 

Harry Spaight: that's me. 

Niraj Kapur: It's like they looked at me like, you're so old. Why? No. And a lot of 'em just work with people their age, which is stupid. You don't, young people have no idea. People our age, believe it or not everybody my age dislikes young people.

Not everybody my age goes, oh, these young people dunno how to communicate. No, I have three daughters in their twenties. And I coach young people in their twenties. I have an incredible understanding of young people. I get your strengths and not just your weaknesses. I understand your strengths, which by the way, younger generation of strengths, my generation certainly don't have on so many levels, and I acknowledge that and I respect that.

So I would say to young people on a separate note, [00:16:00] stop judging old people as just being old. Some of us actually do care and some of us really have knowledge that can help you. So please keep that in mind. 

Harry Spaight: And I would like to add that some of us still think we're young. Yeah. And maybe we still act young and maybe we're fun to be around.

Sorry, attitude. Continue my friend. 

Niraj Kapur: Knowing how to follow up. So important. And by the way, when I say follow up, I do not mean put me into your automation. 'cause most automation sucks. Whenever my clients and myself see automation and it's generic copy and paste, most of the time it's delete, unsubscribe, delete, block, and it's just you get nowhere.

And most people get nowhere with automation. Just to be clear, most people, because it's impersonal. Okay, and it's copy and paste, and unless I really know and trust you, or I'm subscribing to someone like Tony Robbins, yeah, I know he does copy and paste. I accept that he's Tony Robbins, but if I don't know you, you have to make more effort [00:17:00] with me.

That's just what business is like. So learn how to follow up. Second, really, it's probably the easiest thing you can do in Q4 by a mile. The clients you work well with, you have a good relationship with, or. You have, you've worked with for years and you've worked well together, ask them for a referral. Now.

By a referral, I mean, you know, I would say to my customer, what's been the experience like working with me? And you listen to what they say, like, wonderful, have I over delivered to you in any way? I always ask that question 'cause I always overdeliver. I listen to what they say and that's wonderful. Thank you.

Look, I'm sure you know referrals are very important for small businesses. Who in your industry do you think could benefit? From my services, and that's exactly how I word it. Who in your industry do you think could benefit from my services? I've tested this a thousand times. I got it wrong most of the time, but that works well and getting referrals is one of the easiest [00:18:00] ways to win business.

Nice. It is my, uh, one of the clients I'm working with right now, literally, I worked with 'EM years ago. We worked together in the same office d different divisions, and that was an easy win. I asked somebody who do you know who you can recommend me to? And he recommended me to this guy. I'm like, I worked with him years ago.

Can you do the introduction anyway? Which he did and he remembered. But having a referral makes a big difference. It's a sign of trust and it's an easier way than trying to get somebody you've never spoken to before on an automated email list. It just doesn't work. So those so good. 

Harry Spaight: So I just wanna just pause here for a second because that line and that approach is so good, Niraj.

First of all, from my understanding of this, is that you are having a conversation getting, you know, you're getting commendation, you're getting the uh, what is the word? The blessing, the, uh, the, uh, my mind is [00:19:00] escaping me. But you want, you're getting the love from your buyer. Your customer before you're asking for a referral.

Yeah. And so just explain what is the psychology behind that. Why not just go up to say, Hey Harry, we've been working together for a while. Why don't you gimme a couple of names of people that you know, or can we look at your LinkedIn connections and see if we can find a few people you might refer me to?

I don't know if you've ever heard anything like that, but that, has happened by some 

Niraj Kapur: I, know that when I do this in, training sessions with sales teams, they actually say to people well, I guess I would say, Hey, can you refer me? I'm like, Hey, no, can't. First of all, you don't call your customer.

Hey, and second of all it just shows respect and professional courtesy and, thirdly, there's, there's always reasons why I do things. There's a lot of science behind saying to somebody, what was the experience like working with me? Because it'll tell you the good stuff. And then you ask, did I overdeliver?

'cause most people do not over. Most people do the bare minimum. Bare [00:20:00] minimum, sometimes even less. So if you overdeliver, you will stand out. Nice. Yeah. I and there's a, and by, you know, saying to somebody, Hey who do, you know that, uh, can do business with me? That's a bit over the top. And certainly in Europe, parts of Northern Europe, and many parts are very conservative and that would be considered very heavy selling.

In New York, maybe not as much, but in certain conservative parts is too much. But by saying, who else do you know in your network, who do you think could benefit from my services? It's a smart way to use language and again, in sales, not, not, people think about language. And how they communicate with people.

I mentioned earlier about the importance of human beings in psychology and the language you use with people. It's so important and most people give it zero consideration 

Harry Spaight: a hundred percent. And the, the approach, the emotional intelligence, how relaxed you are. Your [00:21:00] eye contact. You're not sitting on the edge of your seat like this is I'm really eager to get referrals, but this is a conversation and I just love how you approach it.

It's just a conversation, asking a few questions and then making the ask there, like, I mean, what are they gonna say? No, I really don't know anybody. I mean, I'm sure some people say that, but I mean, you're putting your heart out there. People wanna help you, especially if they feel like you've gone you've gone above and beyond what most would be doing.

So good for you. It's great to learn. This is a, uh, a clip that we need to play over and over again. What else do you got for us, 

Niraj Kapur: Niraj? Thank you. Okay. The next one's a bit out there. And it's something that I never see anybody do except myself. But I mention it a lot because it's so effective. And that is letter writing.

So instead of sending an email, 'cause let's be realistic, nobody needs more emails. I've never, in the last seven years as a business owner had a single CEO or a business [00:22:00] owner or a sales leader say to me, you know what? I just wish I had more emails coming in. You're right. Nobody, but I send, instead of sending an email.

'cause I know my clients are bombarded with emails. I know if I send. An email in a letter format. Mm, with a really high quality piece of paper. A beautiful envelope, handwritten with a stamp, and then I signed the typed up letter. When they get that in the post, majority of the time, I would say 80% of the time.

They're pleasantly surprised. 20% of people go, Ugh, what a show off. But any take time, they really like it. And sometimes people will get back to me saying, you know what? I really respect what you did. It's not for me, or I'm not the right person. Or they'll make excuses, but at least you get an answer from them.

You don't often get an answer on email if somebody says no, but on letter my response is just 65%, which is incredibly high. I mean, that's just one of the best ways, but it's [00:23:00] important 'cause it shows effort. I have to write the letter, print it out, sign it, put it in an envelope, write the person's address on it, put a stamp on it, which costs money, and go to the post office, which is not outside my house.

It's a 10 minute drive and that's what I have to do and clients really appreciate that. So that's a good, I would call that being different or outside the box. So good. Do you follow up with a phone call in a few days or what's the approach there after the letter is sent? I used to follow up with a follow up letter, but that was too time consuming.

Don't follow up with the letter with a, I mean, you kind of be like, but I just, I don't find much success. I will then contact them. Phone is ideal, but unless you have somebody's mobile. Which does help. Again, not everybody answers their mobile. Yeah. Um, I tend to call mobiles in the afternoon. I have no success in the morning.

People are just busy in meetings, getting into work meetings about meetings. They're just doing their own stuff. Mm. I find the afternoons after people have [00:24:00] been on Zoom or teams all morning and then quite often spending lunch glued to their screen on LinkedIn or dating apps or whatever they're doing that come two o'clock in the afternoon.

I find people are often craving a human connection. And so I tend to make my phone calls two o'clock to three o'clock and I just find that's it. I don't prospect all day. I haven't got time to do that, running a business as well. But one hour a day in sales if you wanna be successful, isn't that big a deal?

Today it was just half an hour. 'cause I left my office to rush home to be here because I wanted to do this podcast with you. Nice. Today was just half an. I made seven phone calls five voicemails, spoke to one person, had a really good conversation. One person was busy. He's gonna call me back tonight.

That's okay, but that's more successful sometimes than just doing another email. Love it. I love this whole approach here. So we've got the follow up first, right? Be great with a follow up, ask for referrals in the ne Ka per way, which is great. And then finally [00:25:00] here. Letter writing. Ladies and gentlemen, this is, this is really good.

Harry Spaight: I know people have done it. I am not a good letter writer myself, but doesn't mean I can't learn. And if we're looking to move someone down the sales cycle that's stuck out there, why not try something different? That's my first thought to myself. What's your thought? Nash? Exactly. But then again, for an a four sheet of paper that's folded in half, you don't have to take up the entire Air Force sheet, please.

Niraj Kapur: Sometimes it's just half a sheet. Okay? Okay. Again, I'm not saying hi. I am an award-winning, you know, sales coach. I'm a LinkedIn influencer four years in a row. I'm, bestselling author of three books. I'm a TEDx speaker. I never mentioned that at all, ever. Mm. I simply say from businesses your size I'm speaking to right now, the biggest challenges they're facing are A, how to deal with AI and not getting overwhelmed by it.

B, coping with coasting, uh, ghosting, sorry. C. 56% of people cannot make decisions right now. How do you hit target that way? [00:26:00] If any of these things are affecting you, here are three solutions. Blow that. I deal with it. If this is of interest to you, I'm happy to talk further. All I have done is I've talked about a problem they're most likely having, I'm giving a solution, and I've said, if this is of interest, I am happy to talk further.

Not here's my CALIE link for a 50 minute conversation. It's your Thursday not, uh, DM me. No, it's just, it's a very different approach. So I'm just smiling at, I have a feeling you think like I do when you send someone a Calendly link, say, pick a time. I'm not a fan of that at all. Am I? Okay. Tell me what's, what comes to mind for you for that?

Yeah, I mean, 'cause again, people, no matter who they are, no matter what their position wanna feel like you're at least making some kind of effort. And they also wanna feel, if I spend money with you. Are you gonna be a jackass and not return my causes often [00:27:00] or show as much enthusiasm? That's my first thing.

'cause as a business owner, I'm buying things all the time. And last year I made quite a few investments, which didn't work out with people and I was very hurt and disappointed 'cause they both came recommended actually. They just weren't very good at their job. And the second person, especially when I gave 'em my money, went quiet for two days.

I said to him, is everything okay? He goes, oh yeah, I've just been busy. , Not thank you, Niraj, for the payment that I made. Right. Which was incredibly huge. Probably the biggest payment I made in my career to this person for their services. It was just arrogant. It was, now he got the deal, he didn't care.

Yeah. And I felt like that the whole process and people wanna feel that when they spend money with you, you're not gonna change your attitude towards them and slow down and become a bit lazy, which again, so many salespeople do this. They get the deal and go, who next? Right. You cannot do that because if you really overdeliver to somebody and you take great care of somebody, you have a chance, A, to upsell to them, B, to potentially cross sell to them, [00:28:00] and C, to get referrals.

This is gonna benefit you long term, right. You can't be selfish about it. 

Harry Spaight: Absolutely. Okay, so we got these three things. What else do you have for us? Do you have a strong Q4? 

Niraj Kapur: Uh, simple. I'll do a simple one next. See your customer face to face if possible. Now, I say if possible, if you live in the west coast of America and your clients on the East coast, it's a bit more challenging, but Right.

You can still go to the East Coast for three or four days and go see. Six to 10 customers, depending on location, you can't do that. . And you achieve more in a face-to-face meeting. Again, nobody needs more Google Meets or Teams or Zoom. They just don't I'm personally bored by the afternoon of looking at Zoom.

I love Zoom, but I don't wanna see it in the afternoon. I wanna be around humans. Or do a bit of coaching or do a bit of networking or listen to a podcast. I just don't wanna start my screen. So face to face, again, I'm seeing this a lot, ironically, from America first. I saw this a lot in January and February this year, and now July, August is kind of [00:29:00] making its way over to Europe.

A lot of Europe slows down in August, so I'm thinking come September people will be going on planes. I know a lot of people who are booking flights in October already to go see customers. So it's a really simple thing to do If you can I say the word if I know it's not possible for everybody, right? But if you can do your utmost to go see a client face to face.

Harry Spaight: Totally agree. I mean, when, when it makes sense, uh, you gotta look at the dollars and cents and say, well, is this just a quick transactional sale? Or is this a consultative sale that leads to a big investment? Is one thing. Transportation? Does it make sense that like some people were in sales, they're, they're selling geographically into the, there's neighborhoods, basically.

So for those people, it's really easy. But for those who are selling nationwide, yeah, that's a little bit more of a challenge. But you gotta weigh the risks and rewards when you do that. Right? There could be huge rewards with just the chemistry [00:30:00] of the interaction is different face-to-face versus on screens.

Niraj Kapur: There's a huge American construction company called TerraX, and they're one of the biggest companies. Where I live in Ireland, and they take up the entire countryside of dunga. Okay. I mean, miles of countryside with their diggers, with their construction. $4 billion a year. Huge. . And when they hired me for training, I could have said, look, it's an hour and a half in the countryside, an hour and a half home.

I do not wanna be driving on small, crappy back roads with potholes against your, I just don't wanna do that. Let's do it on Zoom. But I didn't, I said, I'll come to you office face to face if you hire me. I don't care about traveling expenses. If I was flying, I would, but I don't care. . I would go see you face to face.

'cause your team will learn more face to face with me than they ever will on Zoom. Yeah. I won't charge you for it's three hours extra of my time, but I promise you, you will learn more. Nice. And I work with TerraX four times now in eight months. Four times. 

Harry Spaight: They like you. And 

Niraj Kapur: the marketing must be getting 

Harry Spaight: results.

Niraj Kapur: It is. I get [00:31:00] results. Of course you have to. But it's because I made the effort. Yeah. Nobody else did. Everybody else like, ah, we'll do it on Zoom. Like, no, no, no, I will do it face to face. Yeah, and it's worth losing the time to earn the trust. 

Harry Spaight: Totally agree. All right. Face to face, what else do you have for us Ra?

I'm gonna 

Niraj Kapur: do my last one here, which is leveraging LinkedIn. So a lot of people on LinkedIn, I, I think up until about a year ago, people said, oh, just show up. Be consistent. Be authentic. That's not good enough anymore. You have to do a lot more than that. So of course you have to give value, you have to be authentic, you have to be genuine.

That, that, that goes without saying, but the business on LinkedIn takes place in the LinkedIn dms. That's where the magic happens. That is where I speak to people for at least one hour a day. People don't publicly go, oh my God, I must hire you now. Please give me your details. They will speak to you on LinkedIn.

DMS and I tend to communicate through voice notes. Or if I've been to the gym in the morning and I'm feeling good and I'm dressed well, I'll do, I shoot a video. Wow. And again, [00:32:00] people overthink this. Yeah. They think, you know, they have to get the lighting right. I have no fancy, I got a ring light in this room.

I have no fancy editing software. I have no fancy background. People don't care about that. They care about the value you give them. And I will leave a 62nd voice note or a 32nd video. And I get more response from that than I ever do from a type message because your tone, your energy, your enthusiasm, everything comes across so much better on a voice note or a video and you stand out.

'cause everybody else is sending copy and paste messages, 

Harry Spaight: so good. I mean this, this simple little act of separating yourself from the pack by leaving your voice message on LinkedIn. People do that to me. Like, again, shamefully, I have not done used these tools enough, and I'm like, wow. Just listening to you is like, oh my God, this is brilliant.

[00:33:00] Who, who wouldn't respond, right? I mean, at least. And they're going to watch it and they're going to see you don't turn down. It's like when you see a little video or a picture of someone's there that you know the video's gonna play. You hit play, 

Niraj Kapur: you'll listen to it. A video, especially people, they may not always respond, but they will listen to it.

They, yeah. 

Harry Spaight: Outstanding when, so if someone wants a Q4 that's strong in Raj, I can ask, when do you start doing this stuff? 

Niraj Kapur: ASAP. You know a lot of people when it comes to Q4. So if Q4 say is October, November, December, it terrifies me the number of people who think, okay, October the first, let's go. I'm like, no.

You know, August is quiet, it's quieter than usual. It's not completely quiet. People are still working. Yeah. And it is quieter for me than usual. I'm getting ghosted more than usual. Decisions are taking longer than usual. That happens in the summer, but I'm still prospecting every day, and I will be right up until first week of October, and then I go help bent for leather and I try to rebook my clients [00:34:00] for 2026, and I'm keeping an eye on 2025.

You have to do both. You just do, but you it, doesn't start in October. If I start in October, I'm not gonna hit my target for the year. Yeah, and that's why again, just daily habits post on LinkedIn a few times a week trying to arrange a networking, attend a a business event once a, at least once a month.

Listen to a podcast. Before I came on the show today, I actually just rocked up to your show. To those of you who are watching, this is my piece of paper. I spent 20 minutes making notes before I came on this call. I then spent a further half an hour listening to your call with my friend Jim Irving, who you interviewed.

I didn't have to do that, but I really prepared for this. 'cause when you care about something, you will make an effort. 

Harry Spaight: Totally. Yeah. This has been super Niraj, so you'll be getting married in the near future. 

Niraj Kapur: Another big sale on 

Harry Spaight: your end. 

Niraj Kapur: That's probably the best investment I've made, I think in my career.

Um. The worst was a divorce, [00:35:00] but yeah, the best is getting remarried to somebody else. Alright, right. Um, 

Harry Spaight: well congratulations. I'm sure it's gonna go swimmingly for you. 

Niraj Kapur: I'm really looking forward to that. Yeah. 

Harry Spaight: All right. And where can people find more of Neraj Kafer? 

Niraj Kapur: Okay, so neag kaur.com or everybody works in sales.com.

Uh, you go onto my website, it'll get a good easy going 15 page PDF on sales that will help you. Or if you don't want a PDF in sales, you don't wanna look at any blogs or articles I've written. Just go straight to LinkedIn, send me, send to me. I I, heard you in Harry's podcast. Be lovely 'cause I do reject a lot of invites I get if I don't know people.

So if you message me or say I saw you in Harry's podcast, that would be awesome. Nice. I will accept your invite straight away. 

Harry Spaight: Outstanding. This has been a blast. Neraj. Thank you so much for joining me and sharing your insights. There's some great steps in here and hit in the old school ways from the old guy.

Hit rewind to get back to some of these, but we'll definitely have some clips [00:36:00] available. But look up Niraj, he will help you in sales. Thanks again, Niraj. This has been great. 

Niraj Kapur: Great to see you, Harry.