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The Greatest Sales Question Ever Asked | A Conversation With Author Brent Long
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On Today's Episode of Inkspired, Bailey sits down with Author Brent Long to discuss his new book "The Greatest Sales Question Ever Asked", a dive into ethics in sales, navigating business with integrity and finding the right way to lead a sales team.
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But I also have to protect myself against the sales stereotypes because they're trying to do something to me. Because I'm protecting myself from the sales pressure coming at me. But if I have a servant standing in front of me who gives me the freedom to go either direction, I'm much more open and receptive to whatever that message is that's coming in.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to another episode of Inkspired. I'm Bailey. Today I'm joined by Brent Long, author of The Greatest Sales Question Ever Asked. Welcome back to another episode of Ink Inspired. Really excited. We're here with Brent today and your book, The Greatest Sales Question Ever Asked, which is a pretty daunting title, right? It's it's like definitely saying this is the greatest question. So let's get into it. When in your life did you decide I'm gonna write a book about the greatest sales question?
SPEAKER_01Never. It was not my idea. I am the I am the worst aspiring author on the face of the earth. I never wanted to be an author.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um, but I did not like what I saw going on in the sales industry and the sales training and coaching industry.
SPEAKER_02Can you tell us a little bit about your history, a little bit about that? Because that is such an important thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So um I had to learn how to pay for college because some things happened in life, and I needed to learn how to pay for college, and so sales was it. And so got you know involved in sales and started selling different things and making really bad life choices and life decisions, and it just led more into sales.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And then I decided I want to get good at sales, and so I started to look into sales coaching and training to help me get better and better and better at sales.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And what was available on the marketplace to me at that point in time, it made me feel like I needed to take a shower at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_00Like it just yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so I could either complain about it or I could embrace my newfound faith that I had found in Christ and ask God for help.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01And that literally was the birth of the heart change in my life to get me to the point where I could start to understand maybe, well, let me back up. The Bible does not talk about sales, it is not a book on sales, it is not, it has nothing to do with sales. And yet I do believe that if you ask God for help in an area that maybe he has chosen for you to go into, um, I believe he will provide the help. Absolutely. And that was the foundational formation of my heart's desire to start exploring the scriptures as it relates to helping me personally in sales.
SPEAKER_02And the this book is very much rooted in biblical insight, mixed with that real sales experience. How do you think those two worlds, which seemingly, as we talked about, kind of don't really feel like they fit, but yet you blend them so perfectly together in this book.
SPEAKER_01Well, I appreciate I appreciate that for compliment. Um here's the idea is that um we are we are given the opportunity to serve people as believers, as people full of faith, who are truly practicing our faith and following Christ. We're given the opportunity to serve people in many, many, many different ways. In today's marketplace, there's often a dollar sign attached to that. Okay, so do we want to shy away from the dollar sign or do we want to pay attention to the world's methodology on how to generate the dollar? Is God my provider, or do I need to do certain things to certain kinds of people to generate the revenue that I need for my household? Which one of those is going to win out? And so in the faith world, in the Christian following of Christ world, I'm tired of people who are believers who write a book on the world's methodology of generating sales versus let's just call it out and let's look at the model life of Christ and see if we can't learn something from Jesus and how he conducted himself with people.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Right? Now, we know there wasn't a dollar sign attached to a lot of those any of those relationships or a lot of those relationships, right? But if we can extrapolate and learn from that, then we can literally ask God, how do you want me to live this out in the marketplace while I'm trusting you as my provider, knowing that I need a dollar sign to eventually show up in my bank account to pay my mortgage and my food and blah, blah, blah, but you know, that's the key, right? And this is just I I can't explain it. I'm just saying that's how I started to think through this and explore this whole book idea.
SPEAKER_02So, about how long did from that first initial thought to then really weaving into it, what was that time frame look like? What did it look like to have those hard conversations with God about okay, what are you calling me to do? How are we gonna make this happen? Can you talk to me a little bit about that process?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 30 years.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01Um, 30 years. Um, you know, roughly 30 years, give or take a few. Here, here's the thought. I was a believer. I was a follower, I was participating in sales coaching and training that made me feel uncomfortable as a believer. I started to study the scripture and beg God for help. I actually tried to get out of the sales coaching and training world. Uh, I would have done anything else, yeah, so to speak. Um, and so I literally struggled for many, many years asking God to help me. And what, you know, and I also tried to guard my heart about complaining about where I was and what was going on and what was happening. You know, and one of the passages of scripture he took me to was Habakkuk. Habakkuk chapter one, Habakkuk's complaining. God listens to his complaint. Habakkuk chapter two. Write down what you want to see happen. I'm tired of your complaining, Habakkuk. Here's the deal write it down, make a plaint upon the tablets, and he who reads it will run with it. You're gonna wait a while, but I will bring about what I'm gonna do, and I might actually use you to do it. And started, I started to feel like I was being challenged to do something about my complaint and about the industry that I was a part of. So I started taking notes, and over the course of 30 some years, I have built a sales coaching training model literally from the study of scripture. Now, I'm not saying that it is this is what scripture says. I am saying this is what God gave me to record and write about that has now turned out to help bless multiple organizations all across the United States. I have watched salespeople confess faith in Christ in a sales training session.
SPEAKER_02That's, I mean, yay for the kingdom, right? Talk for the kingdom. Talk about the kingdom alive and work, you know, the Bible, a living, breathing document, speaking wisdom to us years and years after it was written. Like that's something only the Bible can do.
SPEAKER_01Only the Bible can do. I I I I could not have created anything like that, but then in the formation of this particular book, what you will find is there is no bio of Brent Long in the book. There's no picture or bio of Brent Long in the book. And people said, You made a big mistake. You didn't put an about an author page in there. Yeah, I did. The whole book's about the author. I didn't write the main book that this came from, but I tried to use the book to point people back to the original author, right? So if we are going to understand how what it looks like to follow Christ in the world of sales, we probably should read the Bible to do that. You don't have to read about Brent Long. You need to read the scriptures to understand, God, are you showing me a way to follow you as a salesperson, as a revenue generator, as a business owner? What are the teachings and the principles that come from the truth of God's word that will help guide me out in there? And if we're not pointing people to Jesus, we're falling short. We're only giving them principles, we're not giving them the person behind the principles.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And to talk a little bit about you say there is no about you in it, but you do get all these real life experiences from real people. And that I think, I mean, it's great to, it's great. It's a great book. But having that in there of these real life people who have been through the seminar, who understand it, to have their testimony and to see, I think that's like gold, right? To be able to see how the Lord has influenced their business, their life, their sales, even mindset. Yes. Um, so if someone walked in and they're like, hey, I'm reading your book, what is that initial mindset that you kind of need them to put their walls down? What are some walls that you'd be like, you gotta put these down if you want to get the most out of this?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, don't don't think that we well, let me let me back up. So um I I come from a football coaching background.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Right? And and football coaching is a behavioral-based, attitudinal based. You you have to put forth practice and effort, right? If you want to learn how to do something, you got to put the book down and put whatever the book's teaching you, you got to put it into practice on the practice field in order to learn to score a touchdown or whatever that is from a football standpoint, right? Sales is a behavior attitude-based profession. We can read all kinds of books. We can.
SPEAKER_02And there's so many out there. So many sales books out there.
SPEAKER_01But unless we are learning to put into practice everything that we know, we will never score. We will never, whatever, we will fall into the same traps. So the idea about this book is we may know what to do on a call, but that's only knowledge based. So do we put into practice and try to get better at the things that we know we should be getting better at? Like learning to serve people, learning to ask the right questions, learning to ask the right questions at the right time, things like that, right? So take down the knowledge. I don't care if you've been in sales 30 years, 20 years, whatever. Take down the knowledge of what you know and ask yourself can you behave that in the moment at the right time in the right way that honors the person across the table from you?
SPEAKER_02That I think that's key, right? To make sure that that person feels heard. And I do, I love this was in your seminar and this is in the book, talking about never let someone be a five.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_02And my husband hates it now because I never, I'm like, what are we gonna do for dinner? He's like, I don't care. I'm like, nope, one to ten, and he'll say five. And it's but like, even just that mindset of like with my husband trying to figure out dinner, it's just a mind shift. Stop being so complacent, right? Or stop have an opinion. And your book talks about this, but not shoving it down the person's throat. It really is with their heart and their intentions at the front, at the forefront.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so think about this. If if I have a problem that I'm trying to resolve, the last thing I want is somebody to forcefully try to sell me a solution.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I might actually want to visit with somebody about what I my options are and what that looks like. I want an opportunity to buy, but I also have to protect myself against the sales stereotypes because they're trying to do something to me. So I'm gonna put up a wall. My wall might look like apathy, even though my pain level is extremely high. Okay, if my pain level is extremely high and I'm acting in an apathetic, uncommitted way, it's because I'm protecting myself from the sales pressure coming at me. But if I have a servant standing in front of me who gives me the freedom to go either direction, still cares about me, still wants to serve me, and asks me questions that allow my heart to be revealed, I'm much more open and receptive to whatever that message is that's coming in. And that's where we start to see the formation of the greatest sales question ever asked, right? Yeah, and the and the person had a problem, the solution asked the question, and the the person did not know how to I'm not sure how to answer that. Yeah, because obviously I have a problem, but you kind of sound like that might be a harsh question. But and so we're struggling with it. Do we care about the person that's struggling with that and their pain and their level, and they're stuck in their between their problem and their goal, their solution that's there? It's available to them. Do we care about that? If so, don't let them get stuck in their own decision-making process.
SPEAKER_02And so are you feeling like throughout this book and throughout your sales training that you are able to kind of pinpoint some of those stereotypes or some of those behaviors of people getting stuck and be able to try to not swoop in and save the day, but try to help lead them out before they're sadly maybe months or even years stuck in this place of not growth.
SPEAKER_01Right. So, one of the things, and and you're aware of this, but one of the things that I did is I I actually hired my children, some of my children, to record for me every question that Jesus ever asked anybody in a direct conversation. And I studied those questions, and I studied those questions, and I still studied those questions, and I've studied those questions for almost 27 years now. Okay, and we start to see a framework of how to serve people based on the way he asks questions. But one of those questions stuck out, and that is if there's a person who has an issue that they would kind of sort of like to see go away and resolve, and I don't engage in their mess, then I'm really not a servant to them. And so when I show up, do I know how to get the question away from their head or their thinking intellectually about how to respond to something and go directly to the heart of that individual? The heart of the individual will help them make a commitment one way or the other.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And they don't want to be stuck either as much as I don't want them to get stuck. I'm okay if they commit away from me because I'm gonna force them to buy from me. Yeah, but I'm also very receptive if they make a commitment towards me. What we can't afford is if we have this non-relationship of non-committal where both parties don't know, I don't know what's happening in our relationship because there's no commitments being made. Okay, that's not a relationship.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And that's what all, you know, that's what sales is about. That's what being a servant is about, is having that relationship, wanting to understand and help one another. You talk a lot about faith, which is awesome. You just talked about how you hired your kids to read the Bible. I love that. I think that's awesome. Like parent tip 101. How has your personal faith been able to grow? How have you been able to see the Lord not only moving your lives but your clients' life throughout that huge mind shift of stop being a salesperson, but being a servant, being able to be in front of them, getting them to stop thinking with their head and really focusing on the heart issues?
SPEAKER_01Well, it took me a really, really long time to understand that I was a son. Um, a son of the most high king. And as soon as I started to embrace the fact that I truly was a son and I could, I could, I could accept the father's love for me as a son without having to be perfect, that was huge in my own faith journey. Okay, then you go into am I even in the right job, so to speak? Well, um, I've written a ton about calling and done about assignments and stuff like that. But all that to say is the book itself chronicles a lot of my own personal faith journey from brokenness in many ways to being confronted by the question, not only personally, relationally, professionally, vocationally, I've been confronted by the greatest sales question ever asked multiple times in my life at multiple levels. The question is designed to bring somebody towards healing. Okay. And so if I have a problem in my life that I would kind of sort of like to go away, am I still looking at that question with fresh eyes and saying, God, how are you going to speak this question into my heart? Because he didn't ask it to the head, he asked it to the heart. How are you going to speak this question to my heart? Because I want to heal from this. I do want a solution to this issue. That is part of my own faith journey. And if you, you know, you read the book, you'll see he has made some really stupid decisions in his life of certain things that he has tried to sell, including himself, right? And so it's like, ugh, I get it. So that whole the whole idea is my faith journey somewhat is chronicled in the book. And then I get to see it in my clients. I get to see clients whose marriages have been saved and repaired. Clients who've been broke so broken in a marriage that they lost that they had to beg God to help them, and now that person is growing in another area of life, right? Businesses that were going out of business that have been turned around, and they have a client comes to mind who had a business that was in an industry that was completely plateauing, make a decision that they were going to serve people in a different way at a different level based on the content of some of this book, watch their business flourish for five years until all the employees bought the company.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01Right? And now the employees are still working, the the owners out, but all the employees have taken over the business. I mean, think I can't create these kind of things. I'm just saying there's dozens and dozens of stories like this.
SPEAKER_04That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01A business owner in the construction trades who increased the revenue of his company 473% in less than five years. But we celebrate his coming to Christ in the sales seminar program.
SPEAKER_02Because I mean, at the end of the day, profit, great, business growth, great, but like growth for the kingdom? Amen.
SPEAKER_01I mean, that's that I just had lunch with him again this week, and um it's fun to see fun to hear have him tell me stories now about his adult children who were little kids when he was a client of mine, and his adult children and the impact that they're making out in the marketplace.
SPEAKER_02That's amazing.
SPEAKER_01Amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing.
SPEAKER_02And all because of the greatest question ever asked. We've been hinting around it. Do you want to share it or do you want to leave it so people are so intrigued if they read?
SPEAKER_01No, I what I really want people to do is read the Bible. That's really what I wanted to do. But if you can't read the Bible and you want to know the greatest sales question ever asked, just read this book called The Greatest Sales Question Ever Ask, right? John chapter five. If we understand John chapter five from a marketplace language kind of thing, Jesus walked into the well of Bethesda, the portico of Bethesda, in which lay a multitude of lame, blind, you know, withered, paralyzed, whatever all the ailmas were, right? Which obviously immediately says he has done his market, his target research market practice, right? He knows where his market is. I came to seek him to save the lost. Look, there's a multitude of them laying right there. He walked into the well of Bethesda, walked up to one man who had been laying there for 38 years, which if you do the math was roughly six to six and a half years before Jesus was a baby in the manger.
SPEAKER_02And like that, even that mindset of like he Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I did the math, and and the math is 1976 Sabbaths later, Jesus asked that man, Do you wish to be made well? Do you want to be healthy? Do you want that problem that you are living with to go away? He didn't ask him, Do you need the solution? He didn't ask him if you need to be healed. He said, Do you want to be? I know that you've been laying there a long time. I'm asking the question directly into your heart, do you want that problem to go away? And I, as the one asking it, don't have to say, I'm the only one who has the power to back it up. No, if I if I have the power to ask the question, which Jesus did, he only does what the father directs him to do. Salespeople listen to that. You should we should be listening to what the father is directing us to do on a sales call. I'm not there just to get to business, I'm there to honor the Lord in the way that I serve this person. Sometimes that means I don't think you should be compliant. But I gotta ask the question to your heart do you want to be made well? Okay. Now, what we know about that is uh it's the right question of the right person at the right time in the right way for the right reason. Five rights from John chapter five. So the greatest sales question ever asked, teach every salesperson the five right things that they should do on a sales call every time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that's it's it's can get so muddy right in our brains about well, how do I tailor to this? What research should I be showing? But really, like it's it's right there, simply in those five questions.
SPEAKER_01Now, what we also know if you read the rest of the John chapter five is Jesus did not even reveal himself to that gentleman at that moment in time. He waited until the man was walking, healed, knew where he was going to go because he had not been able to worship correctly for 38 years because he was unclean, could not get into the temple, right? And so later on that same Sabbath day, Jesus met him in the temple. That's called follow-up and customer service, right? And then said, I am Jesus, basically be healed and go sin no more, right? He he he completed that whole uh picture because of the fact that he followed through to make sure that the gentleman was going to get up and walk and whatever. Now, Jesus also kind of started a fight that day with some people who didn't want to want this to happen, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you think about the timeliness of this and the element, all these factors go into making a sales call a successful call as a servant, not as somebody who woke up to do something to somebody today, but as somebody who woke up with a desire to help that person today in their business grow or whatever.
SPEAKER_02And whatever that looks like. Even if that means maybe we aren't the right fit for you. Maybe that's you know, it's it's really that whole servant mindset. And perfect. I just I love the simple like the simplicity of it, right? Because, you know, I've been in a lot of sales trainings, I've gotten to read a lot of books, and they're great. But when it's like it's really spelled out, it's like, oh, it's it's really just like one simple question with the right heart. Yeah. And I think that's the biggest piece is that the heart has to be in it. We have to be able to surrender ourselves and surrender, come under God's control and say, Let me be a servant to your people.
SPEAKER_01Right. And you probably heard in the program that I did here, uh gonna sell from the heart to win the heart because sales is really it's really when two hearts come together in agreement on something that's right if at the at a base level now we throw a dollar sign in there we get all freaked out and it's like right but the reality of it is if we think about the fundamental relationship building aspect of a sales process it is to see if what you want done and the value that you need done for you solving a problem accomplishing a goal if I have that value we actually have to come to some form of an agreement at the heart level where I want to serve you and you want to be served by me versus before there's any money that trades hands. Right? We do this automatically in so many other areas of life but for some reason oftentimes in the Christian community if we add a dollar sign to the issue people kind of shy away from it right yeah I don't I don't think my personal opinion I don't I don't think God has a problem with profit whatsoever. I don't think he does I think what he wants to do is I own it. I want you to steward it for me. Yeah and I have made you a servant as my son or my daughter and now I want you to go serve people. And if you get compensated for that not a problem because I don't I don't mind that right in fact I'm your provider so maybe we should think about that a little bit more.
SPEAKER_02Do I trust him on this I'm not asking him to give me the sale I'm asking him to help me honor him while I'm there trying to serve which is like I'm like it truly is just a little bit like the idea is that in the book it's not just the content it's like here's the way we practice even getting access to the point where we can ask these this kind of a question. It really is a a step-by-step program ability to practice ability to take what you're learning and not just let it live in your brain but get it out you know do put these in practice so if people are interested and they've read the book and they have more questions or they want to take that next step wait what what would you have them do?
SPEAKER_01Uh well first of all I'd have them read the Bible. I'd have them read the Bible and I would have them ask God for help. That's the best that's the best first and foremost. Secondly if they want to contact me uh the greatest salesquestion ever asked dot com uh longonlife dot com saltysales training dot com any seven steps to sales excellence dot com any of that kind of stuff because it all points to the same thing um by the way they can call the station and there we we have your information we'll be more than happy to pass it along let's say but the the idea is truly truly here what I'm saying is I'm not advocating that anybody ever buy this book and read this book. What I'm advocating is this book is an example of somebody who has who has searched the scriptures asking God for help in a very specific aspect of life and I believe it's possible for others too. If they want a little help with that there's this book called The Greatest Sales Question of Rest that can guide them it can help them. It can help them start to apply this and understand where some of the scripture is coming from for this.
SPEAKER_02And if so that that's thank you. You know it's really it takes a humble person to be able to say this is okay but this, you know, and obviously the living document the Bible is of course always going to in some way right truly some way is going to give them the answer because that's what we get when we serve a living God who gives us living documents.
SPEAKER_01So if people have more questions could you just give us some more places where we can find you can you just say say those one more time for us yes um the greatest sales question ever ask they can learn about the book and you can actually purchase the book there greatest salesquestion ever asked dot com longonlife com. It'll lead it'll okay saltysales training dot com.
SPEAKER_02Which challenged me a little bit I'm when you came in I was a little bit like I was shook a little I'm gonna be honest.
SPEAKER_01Yeah well salty and sales are both acronyms from the study of scripture and and the life of Christ about how we might need to add a little bit of salt to our practice so we don't get trampled on out there. Exactly exactly we lose our saltiness because we don't think we have any value. So yes um you know people uh people can reach out to um to me directly the nice thing if you do get the book there are uh QR codes at the be at the end of almost every chapter in the book and says if you want this material scan this QR code I just got two of those scanned last week and was able to send content directly to people that I perfect other parts of the country whatever no strings attached if they want to use the get the exercises from the book it's awesome. Wonderful but that's a way that's also a way for me to and I do that myself like I it's not automated. I want to I want to pray for these people and I I want them to understand that there's a bunch of humans behind this that are helping them get better and better and better at what they what what God's put on their plate.
SPEAKER_02Well thank you thank you for sharing your heart with us thank you for encouraging us to get in scripture which is the most important so thank you so much for being here.
SPEAKER_01Hey thanks for having me appreciate it