Unlocking the Secrets of Persuasive Communication

Welcome to Life is a Series of Sales Situations.

If I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you, I am Patricia Fritt, sitting in Bob Fibbs, the retail doctor's fabulous office, amazing views from every window, and an incredible house. This is part of my birthday celebration extended for several months. As you may know, Bob helps companies increase their sales. I help put the words and improve the words in people's mouths. And a few years ago, I was part of my mastermind group meeting in San Diego.

And we had dinner. And after dinner, we were walking back to the hotel, and we decided we want ice cream. And we turned up at Baskin-Robbins exactly as the manager was turning around the closed sign. You could tell he was the manager, 14 years old, little white jacket and a cap. My pal knocked on the door and said, excuse me, 30 people for ice creams, 10 minutes work. The kid says, sir, we've closed. He said, $30 for you, 10 minutes work, sailor 30 ice creams.

We noticed that he huddled with his paths, a focus group to study the problem. He came back and said, could you make it $40? That young man realized two important lessons. One, life is a series of sales situations, and the answer is no if you don't ask. So often people think they're being pushy you walk in a store now i'm the perfect customer they see me coming and if you're nice to me and if you make it fun to shop i will buy more now what i would suggest you write down right now is life.

Is a series of sales situations, the answer is no, if you don't ask. And every time you think, well, this isn't going well, ask another question. Well, if you don't want this, had you considered that?

Now, Bob, you are brilliant. You have so many fans. I envy your fan base thank you fans we're glad what would you like to say about sales i would like to say about this woman that she is the youngest and the first female president of national speakers association she has literally changed the lives of probably tens of thousands of speakers as well as their audiences because she is so focused and i have a little surprise for you today i actually have my notes from 1999 this was one seminar from

friff and all of her conversations and how to do a one page and i i look at this because it's very interesting patricia going back to this you talked about gravity i have a diagram of gravity and you talked about all the points that bring in your audience if you have gravity which is exactly what social media is which is exactly what we're doing on LinkedIn. And most of you will probably watch this on a recording because you're busy and you got lives. We appreciate that.

But the important part of it, I think that we're here today is, look, people are talking about tariffs. What's the economy going to be like? The supply chain is disrupted. You know, when boats are coming from China with 40% less products, we know things are going to get weird out there. And I think it's the time a lot of people pull back.

And you shouldn't. Some of the best salespeople I've worked with, when everyone else thinking no one's buying in December, that's when they renew their focus because there are less distractions because most people aren't doing that. All we can do is control what we can control.

One of my favorite frifacisms and most re-quoted is, it is not your customer and client's job to remember you. It is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don't have chance to forget you. Now, all promotion, and when I began, I was a hairstylist. I started speaking to promote my business and then to hairstylists. And I realized that we have to be what I would call shameless self-promotion.

This is the queen of that. And what we have to do is you start promoting and on a regular basis, revisit, refocus, rescript what you're saying about yourself. So I would suggest you look at whatever it is, your social media, your website, and just think, is there a slight change I could make? Does this represent how I'm serving my customers better?

And when you are just looking at sales that didn't close or people who inquired and decided not to do anything, this is a time to say, do you need help? I'm here. Or, hey, I have lots of clients in your position. I thought you'd like my white paper that's very popular. You know where I am if you want me.

Yeah. And I think as far as retail, I started with Zig Ziglar back in the 80s. Patricia knew Zig very well, presented on the same stage as him. And the whole idea was you had to make somebody else's day before they're going to make yours. And I think we've lost that. We think, oh, I can use AI and it'll write the email And I'll have this company that'll send all these email blasts out with AI that will do the job. And it's not even transactional at that point.

It's some stuff below it. And so what I've tried to do in retail is to say, we've got to make it less transactional and make it so that it is specific that they remember you. I met Bob at the kite store. I met Jane at the beauty store and she taught me how to put it on right. And she made sure that I got the right sun protection and I didn't burn up. Like I always don't make a vacation, whatever it is. But I remember that was Jane. And transaction is, do you have this widget?

Yes, we do. It's over here. How much is it? Oh, it's, you know, well, it's a thousand dollars now. It'd be $2,000 after the tariffs kick in. What color do you want? that's where we've been trapped. And I think also in speaking in your sales coach, it's the same deal. You've worked with companies that are selling software, they're selling services. And I think it's easy to say, oh, what do you want? Here it is. Instead of taking a step back and saying, well, why do you need this?

And then you sharing something about something specific about what you bring to the table or a company you've done something similar with, instead of going into a rant about, here's all I can do, because we don't need a, here's all I can do. I need somebody that does one thing that takes it away from me, right? There's that one process, this one item it does.

And before I forget, Patricia's been here with me for a day. She's here for another couple of days, technically on vacation, but we're both speakers. We like to work together. And she has been pounding me on saying the word stuff. I tend to say that a lot or things or sort of. And it's all about taking the power away from me as a speaker. Can you help every, because I think that's important for anyone that sells anything.

Well, look, whether I work a lot with sales teams, whether you are working. Selling technology, or you are greeting somebody who comes into your store, A frippacism is, if you sound the same as everybody else, you have no advantage. And every salesperson in every company, whether they're selling a $10 item or a quarter of a million dollar item, have a tendency to say, thank you for your time. I say, don't do that. Everybody does that.

And a lot of my clients, tech companies, their sales are enormous.

What you say is thank you for the opportunity to discuss how our services might or could well be what you're looking for slight difference major difference there's nothing wrong with saying thank you for your time however see how you can upgrade it now when somebody walks in a store what do we use here can i help you no just looking let me know if you think i'll be over here or worse welcome in it's so unimpersonal like welcome in come into the

tent like a come in the tour bus welcome in the tour bus instead of you're greeting someone and understanding that first interaction determines everything right it's like we were she was at the national speaker association recently and your whole keynote was on make that first 30 seconds memorable because that's all you've got if you're going to make it or break or lose them well one of my favorite stories when i I used to talk about getting, keeping, and deserving customers.

One morning, I'd given a speech for the IRS. After all, they get enough of our money. I wanted some of these.

And afterwards, I was downtown San Francisco having an appointment with a gentleman who was considering hiring me. And his assistant said, Miss Fripp, he's going to be half hour late. Would you like a cup of coffee? I said, no, I'm just going to go to the store opposite and buy a pair of pantyhose. As I walked across the store, this store was called Daisy. As I walked in, this young woman said, well, hello, don't you look nice?

How can I help you? I said, well, I'm just looking for a pair of pantyhose. She said, well, they're over there. But if you come talk to me, I work in the shoe department. So I got a couple of pairs of hoes and I walked out the shoe department. She was so much fun. And we were really talking almost as if we were friends. And I thought, well, perhaps I could do with a turquoise pair of shoes.

So I'm looking down at the turquoise shoes thinking, well, I've never had turquoise shoes, but I have outfits that couldn't wear them. And she said, you know, you really do look nice. What you do. I said, I traveled around the world talking to people about good and bad customer service. And she said, I knew the way you were dressed, you were someone important. Now I thought, well, I got a few more minutes. Maybe I should tell her how important.

I said, you know, next week I'm going to a convention of the National Speakers Association and I am going to become the president. She said, for somebody that important, do I have a dress for you? Now, I went in to buy one pair of hoes. I ended up with two pairs of hoes, a pair of turquoise shoes, and an enormously expensive beaded evening dress. Do you know, until I met that young woman, I had no idea I was important enough to deserve such an expensive dress. I love that.

What she did was make it fun. She was welcoming. She was not pushy. She did suggest options, but not in a pushy way. And she deserved the same.

And I'm a great, but that's why my programs were how to get, keep, and deserve your customers. And, well, we've all got tales of people who could have got our money if they had been fun, nice, attentive, and at least talked to us. Well, and also, you made her day because she started to make your day, right? That's the whole point. And she couldn't have delivered that to me. I mean, maybe as I walked in, she'd say the same thing. I doubt I get the turquoise

shoes, but she might make that point. Oh, you look really great. You must be important. That is a great shirt. But at the end of the day, she had to think about it and realize the game of retail is I've got to engage your mind that says something different happens. What's going on here? And I think the challenge again comes down to as an economy, it probably slows.

A lot of you are looking around and saying, what do I do? we go back to the traditional ideas of there must be a quick fix and i don't think there's a quick fix in learning this right no well you you put a prop in front of me because years ago we did a couple of see i made some videos about what i learned as a hairstylist behind the chair and for many years i gave speeches everything i learned about business i learned behind a hair styling chair and i

had a wonderful young lady she'd worked for a friend of mine in southern california and and she was very nice she was a great hairstylist but she could not she could not suggest that they might like to try our shampoo and conditioner they are so i i put in front of her i said here's a stack of shampoo brushes they are 50 cents. And your challenge is nobody is going to leave without spending an extra 50 50 cents and I say all you do is say, What I want you to do is take this shampoo brush.

It'll really, it'll make shampooing much more fun, but it will really loosen any dead scales and it will really be good for your scalp. And just put it down. And the receptionist will add another 50 cents. They walk out and say thank you. Now, the next time you say, well, you know what would be even better? But you see, it's once you have a success.

When I work with clients about speaking you just have to give them one success one success and I'm going to my regular convention my payroll professionals and when I get presentation skills I always ask who is the most who will admit raise your hand if you're if you cannot think of anything worse than standing on a stage in front of the audience and you always have a few people that do And I go back and I take someone and I say, trust me, you do not have to speak.

And I take them and I say, you don't have to talk. I want you to just stand firm feet and smile at the audience and show our audience how you stand before you open your mouth. And then I say, I want all of you to stand and give him or her a standing ovation. I say, now, what I want you to do is text or call at the next break and tell your boss, this is my first payroll convention. And I was on stage with one of the main speakers and I got a standing ovation.

And I said, your challenge. Now, this principle, when you take it back.

If whatever industry you're in, any business, any shop, you have to make sure you find a way to have your associates win, to feel good about some aspect of what they've done if they're down. So you say, all right, so we have less customers today. This is the perfect time to look at the retail doctor's suggestion for today. And let's spend more time working at what are different ways we could greet our customers. What are another great way to say, had you ever considered?

Or you might not want it, but you know, there's always a time to buy a gift for your spouse. And these are 20% off. It doesn't matter his birthday's not for three months. Buy it now. Well, I love that because we've got to reprogram brains because a lot of people have, particularly in retail, have gotten into the idea that, oh, well, you know, they've never been taught. So they're just going to do whatever they've heard, which is, can I help me find something?

And it's boring because everybody says, what? No, let me look around. Leave me alone. And they keep repeating that. So the same idea with speaking somewhere in that person's life, they were told you, you, you can't sing, you shut up and, and, and sit down and all that got internalized. So the idea of reprogramming the brain, get up on the stage with me. You don't, I love the idea that you don't do anything. It's safe. You're safe. We'll give you a standing ovation. And what that reprograms

in the heart is, oh, a safe space is on stage. And the same thing in retail. Once you use SalesRx, I have an online retail sales training program, SalesRx. You can go there. Fripp has her version as well at Fripp.com. Yes. Go to Fripp.com and click on Fripp VT. There you go. That's Fripp Virtual Training. But when you start doing that and you take action, you have hope back in your body and you have confidence.

That's what I think we're missing in retail, which is why people don't talk to other people, which is why associates call out and they say, I'm going to switch jobs because they're looking to feel something. And what we have to teach them is the party's in the aisle.

You know, all the people that you can meet or in an audience in our way too, all the people you could meet makes your job so much more fun and interesting than in a call center or someplace like that. So taking that idea from you, if you want to put in comments, what's one thing you got out of our time here together? What's one thing you got out of it? And let me know any questions you've got because we are still live. We're going to do another couple of minutes.

And, you know, I'm going to open up my notes here and see what you said 25 years ago. And while you're looking at that, my friend Nancy and I go to Palm Springs every November. And we went, she's a bigger shopper than I am, believe it, because I have more clothes than most stores. And we went into the, we were at the outlets and we went to the St. John and I said, well, I really, and we had a fun, gorgeous, good looking, wonderful sales assistant helping us.

And I said, what I could do was a pair of black slacks. And she gave me, very nice. She said, well, we don't have black, but we have navy. You can try it on. We can order them. And I said, well, you know, I have a lot of navy clothes. And yeah, I know. And you can order the black. And then there's just one more. She said, you know, we have it in a cream color. I could have it mailed to you. Fine. I went in for one pair of slacks. I walked out with three.

She wasn't pushy. She was fun. Now, what did Alan and I say? You have a case history for people. And you say, I never get tired of telling the story of how we blank. Oh, yes. Would you mind telling me what you think we did? And then you say, what was the situation before I came? What was it I did for you? What were the results? And it's a 10 to 1 ratio. Make communication in saying, make the communication is how they gain sales. So where would that be appropriate for our audience? All right.

This is, we all want good references. And I'm sure this also can adapt to retail. So I say, we've all had customers we've had great successes for. Maybe we got a reference. Maybe we didn't. And my goal is to leave, not on their cell phone, on their business line, because your goal is to leave a voicemail and be the most interesting voicemail. So I might say, hey, Bob, this is Patricia Fripp.

Just wanted you to know I never got tired of telling the story about what a great audience you were when we were at such and such a location and remember how enthusiastic they were at the presentation skills training. Would you mind thinking about how that experience has changed your business? And is it okay if I use this in my sales conversations about past satisfied clients?

Have a couple of days to think about it let me know you can either leave me a voicemail or a time that we can talk thanks for being a wonderful client wow who doesn't want to leave a review for that way and i used to train my sales people you have to call some people could make their appointment a month but you know you have an open hour you don't sit and read the paper you don't file your nails.

You call clients who haven't been in for four or five weeks saying, you always say you've been trying to get in two weeks earlier, but you get busy. You would like to book an appointment now. You take action. You know, this is one of my, when I worked with, I've certainly worked with several conferences around hairstyles and products. And I always was shocked the day that I understood the power of scheduling because

so many hair professionals would be confident that I walked in, I got my hair cut. Great. And, well, see you next time. But the pros would have shown me what I should use for shampoo and conditioner. And the even better ones would say, what are you using to dry your hair and the brushes? That's like really elevated. But the pros would say, all right, so I have my book out four weeks from the day is. And they would make that commitment. Here's the point of that. I'm not saying thing. Notice that.

Is that it probably doubled their business. Because by the time, like right now, I know I need to get my hair cut. So now I'm thinking, oh, I get my hair cut. That was seven weeks ago.

So if you are a sales professional, you're a hair professional, that's your work walking around out there, right? That's your business card. Yes. Now, here's another principle. When I first went into men's hair styling, my stockbroker was supporting me. I was cutting his hair. And I said, well, how do you get business as a stockbroker? He said, we cold call. I said, what's cold calling? Not only did I not know what it was, I didn't know that a lot of people didn't like doing it.

He said, well, you call people you don't know. and see if they'd like to do this. I said, does it work? He said, yes, if you do it. He said, here's six of my friends and their phone numbers, call them and tell them you style my hair, would they like to come in? Because men's hair styling was new in those days. And I call and some people said yes, some people said no. And somebody said, could I have my first haircut for nothing?

And I said, yes, because, and this is the principle I teach to business people now, and I talk to hairstylists, it's better to do something for nothing than nothing for nothing. The time is there. It's not filled. Isn't it better to have a chance to charm and convert a new client who isn't used to spending quite that much for a haircut and to show them how to brush it, how to maintain it. And then, you know, they were going to go back and people say,

oh, you had hair done somewhere else. That looks good. Who is it?

You want your work walking around the street. Now, as a speech coach, I sell new coaching clients by, I sell by doing, I don't sell by telling. So, for example, I'll give you a perfect example. I'm a member of the Professional Speechwriters Association. While I was at their convention, I was speaking and schmoozing. And someone who was the head of communication for an executive with a Fortune 500 company.

And he said, my boss, Brian, just got promoted and he has to give a speech for this new conference. So we had a three-way call. And my speechwriter, communication director, Fred, said, will you tell Brian how you work with executives? Now, stop here for a moment. Brian has no interest how I work with other executives. Brian has only interest in how I work with him. And because I did my research and just checked out his bio, I ignored the question.

I said, Brian, congratulations on how you just turned around this division. How did you do that? He said it was a five-step process. and for 25 minutes, Brian told me how he did it and I didn't say a word and nor did Fred. I said, Brian, that's absolutely fabulous. I hope that will be the framework of your speech. Now it's two hours, are you the only one speaking? And he said, well, I have five new direct reports and I said, they as good as you.

And he said, well, no, I could do the two hour program myself. And I said, well, of course you do and you'll do marvelously well. However, if I was a sales professional, I really would like to hear from the person I'm now going to report to. And he said, yeah, that makes perfect sense. I ended up coaching six people rather than one by shutting up and listening and doing my research in advance.

Now, how would that work in your world, Bob? Well, I think that's a great point because I think we have a lot of times there's more information than we care to learn. In the old days, we would have a card. You would have a card with a preferred customer's name and you'd have all the items. Well, nowadays, a lot of the bigger stores, you have a history of what they have.

And if you know that, for example, if you knew that they had bought this outfit and you knew the brands that they had in their virtual closet, well, then wouldn't it make sense that you could actually use that when you're talking to them? Because I think what we're talking about is being memorable. And one of the stories that I tell sometimes is in Santa Monica when I was selling cowboy clothes.

Yeah, I don't have any of my cowboy pictures here today, but many years ago, and this young man walked in. He wanted a red bib shirt, which is the cowboy shirt goes on like that. And he had red hair, and I'm like, yeah, you know, you could get that, but we'd build enough rapport. I go, let's just try an adenal one just to see. Let's just see what that looks like.

And he tried it. I goes, yeah, this fits really well. And I said, yeah, I think you'll get more use out of this, and that's not going to work for the jeans you got. He got a whole outfit, I don't know, in those days, by 300 bucks. 300 bucks I write on a personal note, which is actually in my notes from you. And I said, thanks for shopping here. I hope your girlfriend allows that we got more. He ended up still, I said, we've got to get the red shirt for your girlfriend.

She's the one that sent you in here. So get the red shirt. You'll wear it once, but that's fine with me. He comes in two days later with his girlfriend and he says, I'm here for a whole new wardrobe. My girlfriend threw out my wardrobe before. And it all started by us building enough rapport where I could say, you don't want to just buy the red shirt. Yeah. Yeah. Let me be enough to push back because I think that's the other thing. We have to be able to put back and say, yeah, that might work,

but let's just take a step back. Now we have a comment here from Greg. I'm going to show Greg. I can't remember the last time I had a conversation with a sales associate inside a store. Yeah, I mean, and the worst part of that, Greg, is they probably would hunger to do that, but because they have been mute, right? We have generations of grown up on a smartphone, and they would rather text than talk to you.

They don't know how to do it, so they will pull back and wait for you to do the hard lifting, and I think that's really tough, because I think that's what you're saying is at a time when, and we're coming up on a half hour, I think we'll close at a half hour here, but at a time when you might have slowing sales, you've got to know these stories that you can pull out and share them to keep yourself going.

What do you have, what do you do that keeps you going? You've been doing this for a few days. I mean, what motivates you to get up every morning? Well, I love what I do and there's always so much to do, there's never enough time. There's never enough time to do everything. By the time you do your social media and you check your email and, you know, I have full PowerPoint presentations to do on the road, totally unrealistic.

No, I consider it a privilege to be able to help my clients and to make it it's wonderful when they do well and i would make one other comment yes about retail i was just in one of my favorite malls because i like going to malls and there's the stores but they're also the small i don't know what you call them but they're almost like stands little kiosks little kiosks yeah every single person was looking down at the phone,

you know young but they're not trained and I had an entrepreneurial father and so I knew when I went to work at 15 as a hairstyling apprentice I looked at the business from the owner's point of. I didn't have any of that, but I was still. How did you learn it? That's a great point. That's a great point. Well, I think I started selling greeting cards in the summer when I was in fifth grade to people. They were engraved and went door to door. There was no fear.

And I was in the scouts and, you know, they would drop us off miles from our house with bags and say, come back with items that you can use the charity auction. And we did it somehow and people trusted us. So I think I didn't have a negative about it. But I also realized that if I wanted anything, I had to work for it. I didn't have an allowance. So I went out and mowed lawns, knocked on doors.

And here's the problem that if you don't develop that muscle somewhere, I think you fall back and wait for the world to come to you. And I'm telling you, the world is being distracted a million times over news, over social media, over this big thing just happened. And we are so distracted that people aren't developing this muscle. We're looking for a hack, right? I can't tell you how many people you see from retailers saying, you know, they knew all the answers to my questions.

Well, yeah, it's on a YouTube video. You know, sell me this pen or some of those old hackney things. What you need to be able to say is, does this person, like if I was interviewing Patricia, I'd say, so tell me a time when you had a customer who you thought was going to leave and you won them back. That's much more interesting to me to hear them think, oh, or they'd say, oh, I never had a customer like that, or I don't care if they're back.

I want to know what they're thinking. I don't know what their experience was. Can they enunciate? Can they make me feel like they're engaged? Their brain's here with me. Otherwise, I think we're pretty much fogging a mirror. Can you work the shift? Go do it. And I'm just telling you the time now is to say it's back to basics. As the same if you're a speaker, you have to learn, what do I do in that first 30 seconds to engage someone?

Now, you had an amazing stat that she said in the middle of her speech. And then you give them something really to think of 92 percent of people in prisons don't believe okay 90 this 94 percent of inmates on death row do not believe they're responsible for the situation that put them there okay so that's an amazing statistic and then she pivots then where do you bring that around in the speech to us what do you go after that what's your transition because you say.

Well, what I was doing with that was I was giving options of openings, and an interesting statistic is one because a little later in the speech, I was telling the story of my friend who had opened the conference the last year about a story he told.

And he told at the end of the speech and i said i want to do at the beginning so i teased them to set them up that that's they didn't know but then they would see the tie-in and of course then the walk-in music was heroes and then when when you you add it might interest you to know my brother was played on that finish that finish that thought but your brother was is well he played on David Bowie's heroes and even David Bowie, it was the first take,

and even David Bowie said heroes would not be heroes without Robert Fripp. So I'm Patricia Fripp. I never got married because I like my name. That's not the only reason. The reason is, I always say, is because my favorite question is, if I may suggest, that line has kept me single my entire life.

Anyway, I digress. But that's the craft of speaking, right? And so when people talk about, oh, I have to give a speech, if you really honor the craft, a favorite quote of yours comes from Jerry Seinfeld, which is? He considered, Jerry Seinfeld considers it a good day's work if he can edit an eight-word sentence down to five.

In his case, it would be funnier. In our case, it would be more memorable because whether you are greeting people in a store, delivering a haircut, or any other interaction, you are speaking to be remembered and repeated. And here's your challenge if you're in retail. Create an experience and work with your team. I don't care if you're a three-person business.

Make the challenge of how can we make this interactive, this interaction interesting enough that when the spouse comes home and says, sweet up, what did you do today? Oh, I had the most fun conversation when I went to buy you a scarf. Yeah. Because there's always, and I should end there because you can see how she wrapped that up in a nice bow for us. But I always say, and we buy something, there's two stories. There's a story about the widget.

Yes. And there's a story about the person that I bought it from. And that's what we have to remember. We have to be more personable in an AI-driven world where impersonality seems to be the new brand. Anne, how can they find out more about you, my dear? Go to F-R-I-P-P, FRIP.com.

There's a button on the right, free resources. I have a master class coming up You just look at events And learn how to be more memorable and powerful And every presentation you deliver Whatever you define the presentation is You're going to learn secrets Actually techniques Because I'm telling you So they're not secrets How to take a good presentation And make it great And if you need a great speaker She's also phenomenal because not only does she know what she's talking about,

she knows how to get people to feel that same thing that I'm looking for when I'm working with my audiences and my clients, which is people who feel they matter buy more. And I think it's the same thing in speaking. People who feel that they were heard by that speaker on the stage feel like they matter and they tell their friends.

So with all of that, I hope you visit retaildoc.com because this is going on from my site, but frip.com to find out about her. And more importantly, just remember that we're about as happy as we make our minds up to be. No more garbage in. Find something to do in that free time. Make that call. Make that personal email or get that referral. But there's a lot you can do. So let's get busy. Because life is a series of sales situations. There you go. Bye.