Dave Thompson is a serial entrepreneur and sales guru. He and Ben met over twenty years ago, both growing up in Wellingborough and have recently reconnected.
Dave had a difficult upbringing and left school with no qualifications, joining the army at 16 and working in a shoe factory from 21, both of which gave him an appreciation for how systems are run in order to advance larger goals. However, his girlfriend at the time’s brother took a shine to him and felt he would make a good financial advisor.
Sales
After a brief stint selling insurance, he became a mortgage advisor and began studying different aspects of sales so he could continue to improve in his new trade. This led him to subjects such as neurolinguistic programming (NLP), insights from the philosophy of Socrates, and other ways of systematising sales. Over the course of his career, he has crystalised these ideas into a six-week training regimen for financial advisors and salespeople that has impacted countless lives over the years.
This system has been proven to work, improving sales at companies like the British Standards Institute by 40% after training their 400 salespeople on Dave’s methods. Dave encourages any business training salespeople to train them as holistically as possible before sending them out to begin selling, as an inexperienced salesperson will just burn through leads without success, emphasising the importance of efficiency with the conversion of lead to a sale. He likens this process to a pre-season for a footballer, ensuring they are ready to take on any challenge that comes their way.
SUADA
Dave’s current focus is SUADA, an education app that teaches his systems and provides a community space for people to share best practices. As the podcast draws to a close, Dave shares his recipe for success: find the best person in the world at what you want to do and model yourself on them.
Watch and listen to the full podcast for more sales insights and David Thompson’s full story:
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