On this week's episode, A Biblical Approach to Selling, with guest Tim Brown, founder of Three Creative. Welcome back to Theology of Business. I'm your host, Darren Shear, author of the book Marketing Like Jesus, and this is the show that helps marketplace leaders to partner with God in business to change the world and make a difference in eternity. The Theology of Business podcast is sponsored by Hybridgebooks, which provides professional book publishing services for inspiring thought leaders. You can take the next step toward getting your leadership, business, or personal growth book published by requesting a free three-video author training course at highbridgebooks.com forward slash course. This week we're going to be discussing a biblical approach to the sales process. And we're joined by sales and marketing expert Tim Brown, who is the founder of ThreeCreative, a leadership company out to positively impact one million lives through life-changing books and trainings. Tim has a passion for developing individuals responsible for sales and business development and creating momentum around powerful sales engines. He was previously the president of Concord Energy Holdings. And prior to Concord, he was a founder and CEO of Radius Media Holdings, which provided a variety of marketing services ranging from radio broadcasting, including 12 locations in Colorado, 18 owned and operated live events in the Colorado Resort communities, a large format printing company, and a sponsorship marketing agency. He's worked with companies like Cisco, Nortel, American Power Conversion, Zircom, and he's also the author of Jumping Into the Parade: The Leap of Faith That Made My Broken Life Worth Living. And he's partnering with God every day in his business to make a difference in society and an eternity. So welcome to the Theology of Business Podcast, Tim.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Darren. Good to be here. Thanks for having me on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, it's an honor to have you. I mean, your resume is just incredible. I mean, I read some of the sales accomplishments that you've had, and I would love for you to share some of those as well. But you were the guy that I wanted to have come on as podcast to talk about a biblical approach to the sales process. And so before we kind of get into this, just tell us a bit about uh how you started partnering with God in your business and a little bit more about your background.
SPEAKER_01Great. In terms of how God entered my business life, it was definitely me watching my former father-in-law in terms of how he conducted himself in business. And it was common for us to have a lot of conversations around developing spiritual muscle, around developing good perspective on how you treat your employees. And one time I had asked him, I said, if you could give any advice to someone starting out in business, what would it be? And he said, always surround yourself with people who are smarter than you, and then you allow them to create and to make mistakes and create an environment that allows them to thrive, and you'll always do well. And it's no accident that the second word in the Bible is created. And I think that humans, we're at our highest and best form when we're creating. And as leaders in all aspects of our lives, whether that be in the community, in our professional life, in our family life, in our spiritual life, we all have an opportunity to constantly be creating. Every day, every moment is an opportunity to create.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful, beautiful. Well, bringing the conversation uh to our focus today, which is the sales process, tell us how do you integrate your Christian faith and values into the sales process?
SPEAKER_01Well, when you look at the difference between transactional selling and consultative selling, really at the heart of that, with transactional selling, it tends to be very self-centered oriented. It tends to be very short-term in your mindset and not necessarily a trust-building type of an annuity that you're going into. A consultative sales process is really about long-term relationships and taking care of the customer and being a connector where you're able to bring in outsourced outside resources if they need that. And you're always serving your customer and serving authentically. And that's what I believe is so fundamental about if you want to be successful in sales, if you go into it with a Christian mindset about serving others, you become much more powerful in that because all of the things that you're doing are intentional and you're constantly showing gratitude for your customers and you're putting their interests first, and it shows.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And it's because as a Christian, your bottom line is eternal. It's not just financial. So when you when you look at it that way, I mean that that immediate sale is not the is not the ultimate goal for a person's life that has a sense of purpose the way that you that you have it. Um there's a statement that I've heard heard uh kind of often that it says always be closing. What do you think about that that statement?
SPEAKER_01That's funny. In my second book, I talk about that, always be closing, and I call it always be serving.
SPEAKER_02I love it.
SPEAKER_01So very different mindset. Uh I think of always be closing as a transactional mindset and always be serving as a consultative mindset. So great distinction there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because I mean I think people are they will write off entire industries after having come in contact with sales professionals that are just transactional, and they'll just say, uh, oh, they're you know, guys in that industry are just money grubbing and that they're just out to kind of take advantage of people. Um but when you have that, do you find that it's that it's rare for people to come in contact with salespeople that really take that can consultative approach?
SPEAKER_01I I don't know how rare it is. I would say in my experience, that probably half of the people that are out selling, I think, are are wired in a good way, and that they care about that, that they they have good listening skills and they've got uh a good heart about them. So I you know, I but maybe I'm more of an optimist, I don't know. Um I think that we everybody is is are good people and it's just um we can be taken astray and and you know we all deserve second chances too or third chances of getting things right, but definitely um most of the people who I've come in contact with, I think generally speaking, are good people.
SPEAKER_02So, what have been some of the most challenging ethical dilemmas that you've faced in the sales process? Because I mean, I I've talked to people where um I mean, especially if you're working as part of a big sales operation as as you've worked in in uh you know in your in your past, um there's a lot of pressure on people to to meet quotas and so forth. And um and and they might be pressured to to do things or say things that just uh could be considered manipulation. Um have you ever come in contact with anything like that?
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. Uh more than once.
SPEAKER_02And what was that experience like?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, I had uh one particular uh person in that um when I owned my printing company that was very unethical and was looking for us to essentially pay a third party under the table, and that that would be how we would generate more printing business for him, where he would send printing business our way by taking care of someone else. And you know, I absolutely shut it down. I said, that's just not the way we operate. Everything is very ethical and above board. And uh, you know, I think he was legitimate in terms of he probably could have sent a lot of business our way, but that's not the way we do things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, I mean you you could have made you could have stand to gain more money in the short term, but again, as a salesperson, your your ultimate bottom line is eternal, and it's it's pleasing the Lord. It's not about uh it's not about getting the sale, but but even as a result, I mean you've had incredible success in in selling. Like what is what have been some of the results that you've generated by applying this consultative uh sales model versus a transactional model?
SPEAKER_01Well, with sign language, our printing operation, we took that from a startup uh company, and there are three different disciplines of printing. There's the major big offset printers, there's screen printers, which are that industry is dying pretty fast, and then there are digital printers, which they call large format, that print billboards and wall scapes and retail signage. That's what we did. And we grew that company from 220,000 our first year to 15 million in our fifth year, and grew that organically. And we did that by what I call doing the right thing when no one is watching. You know, and anytime you you you have a new salesperson that comes in, part of what I tell them is if you're ever wondering whether you're doing the right thing, the litmus test is if you don't feel comfortable doing it in front of your pastor, in front of your wife, or in front of your children, then you probably know the answer.
SPEAKER_02But uh that's really good.
SPEAKER_01You know, and so I think that in terms of of how we have built our businesses over time, it's been the way we've shown up in the world. We go in with good listening skills, we really try to learn a lot about uh what the drivers are of the company, whether that company is playing defense or offense, because that will also predict a lot about that relationship moving forward. Are they living in fear or are they living in courage as a company? And it's being you know very mindful about how you serve and very intentional in terms of if I tell you I'm going to do something, that I deliver on that. Um, a lot of times new salespeople aren't sure what to do when something goes wrong that they've caused. And I like to point out that you have a huge opportunity to build more trust with the client when something does go wrong, because that tends to reveal a lot of character. And if you go back to rule number one of sales since the dawn of time, which is people buy from people they like and trust, people really don't, if if they have to choose between working with somebody to send their business to who they like or somebody who they trust, they'll always pick someone that they trust. And to me, that's what you you're constantly doing is most people also don't realize that we are either building trust or losing trust through direct and indirect means at all times. So when you don't return voicemail by close of business as an example of that, you're losing trust with someone because they don't trust that their business is important to you. You know, when you send an email to someone with a lot of typos, that's another example of that. When you send an email to someone and you blind carbon copy another party who then replies all to that email, you lose trust. You know, there's a ton of different things, right? Where if you're anticipating your customers' needs and you're trying to serve and you're thinking about your customer and what would I do if I were them, you'll always do a always do the right thing and you'll always be in a good position.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So so what are some of the other things that you do to build trust? I mean, obviously, the more that you I mean, like violating email etiquette and and things like that obviously can breach trust. Like, how do you build long-term trust with people?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think it starts with how you show up, the type of humility you have. And I tell new sellers that I use what I call the 5-1 rule where you listen five times more than you speak. And it's asking questions that are trying to pull out information that you think will be helpful and never using a why-based question. When you ask why-based questions, you put people on the defensive.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Another way is you know, most people think that the first impression that they make is face-to-face. And the first impression that you make is not face-to-face anymore. It's on LinkedIn or other social media profiles, and it's how you're representing yourself on there. It's your picture and what you write, and how, like I said, how you show up in the world is really important. Um, how you respond in terms of urgency. Urgency has a half-life. And the average salesperson takes 44 hours to get back to a customer that calls in and inquires about something. And 54% of all sales will go to the first person to respond to a customer inquiry. So, I mean, pretty powerful statistics when you think about that.
SPEAKER_0254%.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And when you respond with urgency, it's important to a customer. It shows that you care about them. You know, it's an example. On my phone right here, I carry under iBooks all of the PDFs, the generic PDFs of all the businesses that I represent in the products, so that if you call me up and I'm at lunch, I can email that to you right from my phone and you'll have the information at your fingertips within four minutes at the most. I make sure that my email signature on my phone matches my email signature on my email. I make sure that I'm constantly providing all the ways to contact me in my email signature. I want people to have my physical address, my email address, my mobile phone. You know, um it doesn't build trust with people when you go on vacation and you don't have an out-of-office assistant on, but it also doesn't build trust with people when it's been a week after you came back from vacation and your voicemail and your out-of-office assistant are still on. You know, it's those types of things, right, that you just need to be mindful of. Um because, like I said, there are ways to directly lose trust, like lying or not showing up on time, or being pushy and disingenuous with how you with how you carry yourself. And then there are the indirect ways of posting things that are inappropriate in social media, or wearing a lapel pen as an example that is offensive to other people in the room. I mean, those types of things which a lot of people overlook, at least in my experience, has been the case.
SPEAKER_02So being just being available for people and not taking forever to respond back to them is one thing I hear you saying. And then as well, you you first were talking about asking questions and and putting yourself in a in a place where you can truly find out what that person's needs are. And and it sounds kind of like the difference between the Greek education model and the Hebrew education model, whereas the the Greek model is, okay, I'm the professor that that wears the cap and the and the hood, and I've got all of the expertise just kind of sit at my feet and let me tell you everything that you need and everything that you need to know. Whereas the Hebrew model is a discipleship model where we're on a journey of discovery together, and there's a lot of questions that are being asked. And and that was one thing that I observed from Jesus is just the way that he would ask, he would respond to questions with another question.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02And and because it's such a a better way to really arrive, help somebody arrive at their own conclusion of what their own needs are if they can wrestle with those questions themselves. It sounds like a powerful technique.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think of Jesus Christ used very much of a what I would call an empowered learning model, where you take emotion plus experience, and that's how learning occurs. And powerful questioning, right, will will pull out emotions. Powerful questioning will also shift perspective and will also enable people to experience things differently. And that that's you know, I I I'm on um involved with a nonprofit called Lead Like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01And it's an incredible servant-based leadership model where you know they've taken all the biblical um teachings of Christ, and then how do you apply that in your day-to-day life in terms of how you're conducting yourself and how you're leading your businesses and things like that. And you know, it's all about that what you just said, you know, that that method of teaching and really trying to help people. One of the things that I love about um uh about Jesus Christ is I feel like you you read time and time again how he could see goodness in people that they at the time couldn't see from themselves, yeah. And he helped draw that out and helped them see it for themselves, right? And it completely transformed their lives because of it.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful. Well, what advice do you have for people that are struggling to increase their sales? And I'm I'm also curious when you when you came into this printing company that was doing annual sales of about 200,000 when you first kind of came into it, right? Well, that's when we started it. Right, when you started it.
SPEAKER_01Well, we started it from brand new from week one. Okay, okay. Yeah. Wow. Literally grew it from that to 15 million in just over five years.
SPEAKER_02Wow. So so I mean, like, what are what are some of the first things that you put in place when you come into a company to help them with their sales?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think the the big one is you have to understand what your unique value proposition to the market is. And when you start to understand that, you know, a rule of thumb that I use is when you're a startup company. It's not who you know, it's who knows you. And I always like to buy a box of business cards of 500 business cards. And my feeling is by the time you give out your 500th business card, your business will be in a good position. It will be cash flowing. And it's just a matter of you know being very vigilant about how you spend your time. And also making sure that you're very focused in terms of how you spend your day. What percentage of that is cold calls? What time of the day you're cold calling, what time of the week you're cold calling. I don't cold call on Mondays or Fridays as an example. It's only Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays. Because statistically, most people are checked out. They're either catching up on a Monday or they've got other things going on on a Friday. I do a lot of research in terms of the people who I'm calling before I get on the phone. My rule of thumb is every breakfast and lunch during the week, you're in front of a customer. And then you're with your family for dinner most of the time. And you just build those relationships. But you you do it in a in a very respectful and and humble way.
SPEAKER_02I love it. And uh and that's I mean, that sounds like some of the the basics that I mean that's something I'm in a startup company myself, um, which is a publishing company that's been been going now for uh about two years. And and so these are some of the things that that I'm trying to get into place right now as a you know as a small small operation that hopefully won't be small for too long. Uh so Tim, what are some of the things uh or or what's the one big thing that you're working on this month that you're excited about?
SPEAKER_01Um I'm doing the final edits to my book, Old School with New Tools, that comes out in July, which is a sales-driven book about how do you build trust. And the the model that we use is called Cut. Um and it's it stands for the C is for communication plus urgency equals trust. And the analogy that we use is in karate, the difference between going to the board or through the board is five percent more power, yet the results are 180 degrees different. And if you go back to the number one rule of sales, people buy from people they like and trust. My book was a very much this is the last 5% that you can do to constantly ensure that you're building the most trust possible. And um, and so I have you know a couple hundred different tips and narratives throughout the book. So it's been a lot of fun to write. Much different than my first book, which was also fun to write, but in a different way.
SPEAKER_02What are some of those new new tools that you talk about?
SPEAKER_01Um basically the premise of the book is the old school aspect are all the core tenets, uh the core values that have been around in sales in terms of how you develop a relationship face to face with someone, kinds of questions that you ask, the way you show up, the way you present yourself, what it's like to present to people, and powerful listing that goes with that. And then you uh but it's really I consider it like an operating system, which is driven off of a servant-based leadership operating system. And then you overlay that all of the digital tools that are available to us today to activate, amplify, and accelerate our personal brand on a lot faster, you know, more thorough basis than we've ever seen before. And the reality is that you need both old school and new tools together. But if you're using new tools on top of a servant-based architecture, it's an incredible combination. Um and so that's essentially the where I'm I'm driving with that is you know the new tools that are available to us, like Evernote is a great example of uh a place to collect everything so that you can quickly get back to people. Um the way that I file everything, you're whenever you send a file to somebody, if you don't have an extension on the end that has the date that the file was created, it's a freshness date, is what I call it. And if it's two years old, people don't trust the information that's been sent to them. Right? Because it's two years old in today's world that we live. You know, I I talk about other applications like there's um if you're friends with people on Facebook, you can use an application called Shoppy Cat, which looks at all of your friends and and what they post and what they talk about, what they like, and then it makes uh gift recommendations for them at the end of the year, which is kind of neat. Um, some other applications I talk about Dropbox and how to effectively use that, how to effectively use social media and LinkedIn. Um and then other specialty applications like JotNot for uh scanning documents off your phone right there and things like that. So it's fun, you know, those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_02Well, where can we find out more about the book? Um and actually get in touch with you. What's the best place to connect with you on the internet?
SPEAKER_01Um www.threecrumber eight.com. Um or you can you can always call me 303-882-4631. My mobile number is also on my website as well. And then you can get to to both books and and both of the websites from the three creative uh main website.
SPEAKER_02And you're offering consulting services too, right?
SPEAKER_01I do, yes.
SPEAKER_02Because that's kind of the main thing that you're focused on these days, right?
SPEAKER_01It is, yeah, definitely working in both uh sales turnaround uh type uh uh capacity, and then also for companies that are looking to go through um fairly accelerated growth and how they want to brand and position through that.
SPEAKER_02Well, Tim, I don't know of any business owner out there that doesn't feel like they need more help with with sales, and and your approach is is one that we can be confident that this is consistent with a biblical worldview, with Christian values, this this model of of consultative sales where you're actually trying to discover somebody's needs and and teach them and help them to uh and and helping to meet their needs that way versus just a purely transactional uh sales model, which I think we've all experienced at one point or another. So would you pray for us, pray for our listeners that uh God would just help us to do sales more effectively, the way that He wants us to do it?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Uh Dear Jesus, we ask that you you pray over all of our listeners today and that you place on our hearts the the ways that that you feel will be most effective in following you and your word and your ways, and that will help serve other people as powerfully as we can and will help us create meaningful and and loving and lasting relationships. In your name, Jesus, we pray, amen.
SPEAKER_02Amen. The number three CR number eight, three cr eight.com is the website where you can get in touch with Tim. I'll have the website as well as uh might not put the phone number on there. This is gonna be only for the listeners only, they're gonna get that phone number. But Tim, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and expertise and and just sharing your passion for partnering with God and business. Continue to go forward and do great things.
SPEAKER_01Darren, I'm uh it's been an honor to be on your show. So thanks so much again for um for your own servant's heart and and having me uh join you today. It's really been wonderful.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. We'll looking forward to continuing the conversation.
SPEAKER_01Same. God bless.
SPEAKER_02That's all for this week. I'm looking for stories to feature in a book that I'm currently working on. So if you have a story of how you're using your spiritual gifts and your work in business, I'd love to hear from you. You can share your story by contacting me through the contact form at theologyofbusiness.com, or you can email me personally at Darren at hybridgebooks.com. And if you don't know what your spiritual gifts are, you can feel free to email me as well, and I will send you a draft of the assessment that I've been working on that will help you identify what those spiritual gifts are and help you take the next steps toward applying those in your workplace. Thanks for listening and keep partnering with God in your business.