Resources in this Episode:

Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hi Gorgeous. This is episode number 088. We are having the wonderful, Sonny Tannen, back with us on the show today.

Sonny Tannen [0:11]
Hi, this is Sonny Tannen, and you’re listening to, Heart Sells! Podcast, with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:18]
I’m so looking forward to dive in deeper into the conversation with, Sonny Tannen, and to really find out what the first thing was he’s ever sold. But before we do that, hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/, find the podcast tab. And there you find all the podcast episodes that have ever been published, including the transcripts, the show notes, the key points, all the resources we talked about, as well as all the links to the guests. So everybody is just one click away. So you have the opportunity to follow them, to see what they are up to. And to really watch what Sonny, for example, is doing that he creates so many connections on LinkedIn, and managed to go from 500 to over 10,000 in only one short year. Today we’re focusing on the value of retaining a client. And as well, Sonny is going to share what the first thing is he’s ever sold and how successful he actually was with that thing. Before we dive in, let me give you a little bio of, Sonny. He is a veteran, award-winning business developer and philanthropist. And he was offered the opportunity to become one of LinkedIn’s first video content creators. He took that opportunity and created a series called, Through the Eyes of Om. Om, actually is his cute little son. And together they show their audience. The approach to see life is more creative activity and curiosity by capturing day to day moments in their lives and give readers and viewers the three takeaways to encourage others to focus, collaborate and inspire themselves. They hope to inspire children and their parents to live life as more curiosity and enthusiasm for other adventures to come. So let’s dive into the next adventure with, Sonny Tannen. Well, I am so excited to have you back on the show. Welcome, Sonny.

Sonny Tannen [2:38]
Christine, thanks so much. I’m Sonny Tannen and you’re listening to, Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Hope you enjoy the next episode.

Christine Schlonski [2:45]
Oh, yeah, I enjoyed the first one, I’m quite sure the audience did as well. So we want to make sure that they can get more information on you a well. You have this amazing page called, https://eyesofom.com/ where people can actually check in and they find all the information on the podcast page as well. I just wanted to make sure that we do not forget to mention that. Because all the great stories you’re sharing and the learning and perspective, from a three-year-old to an adult lesson is just amazing. And I love that inspirational and very creative piece.

Sonny Tannen [3:28]
Thank you so much.

Christine Schlonski [3:30]
Thank you for sharing with us today. Do you remember when you did your very first sale in your life?

Sonny Tannen [3:40]
Wooooh, very first sale. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t remember it, but I could probably give you a good idea of what it was like. I’m pretty certain, so in my family, I’m the oldest, I have a younger brother and we’re a pretty tight-knit family, we’ve always kept in touch with each other, even though we’ve lived in different parts of the world. I think that probably my very first sale was convincing my parents that a toy that was broken was my brother’s fault. I love him to death, if you’re listening to this, I’m so sorry. But it was, as an older brother you had to kind of set the precedent, and my younger brothers extremely intelligent, so proud of where he is today. Just an extremely thoughtful and just kind-hearted person. But as an older brother, you have to teach your younger brother to kind of be tough and make sure you’re preparing them for the real world. I’m pretty certain that when I was younger, I used to love playing with GI Joes, but I love to take them apart, and then put them together and try to interchange them with other pieces. I’m pretty sure in this instance, I probably, either pieces broken or piece was missing. I think that it got caught in my mom’s vacuum cleaner. When they were like, “Oh, gosh, whose toy is this?”, and I was like crying and just trying not to get in trouble. My parents, they’re so smart. They know that 95% of the time if something was being done, it was probably my fault. I don’t think that’s ever changed. I think my first sell, our first sell attempt was to kind of push, push the blame onto my little brother. That’s being a good Big Brother, right?

Christine Schlonski [5:30]
Yeah, well, I’m not quite sure about that. But I think that’s what children do, right? They think of ideas of how to keep out of trouble.

Sonny Tannen [5:42]
That’s right. That’s right.

Christine Schlonski [5:43]
I only have one brother, I mean, sorry, right?

Sonny Tannen [5:47]
There’s no one else I can find.

Christine Schlonski [5:49]
You gotta find a way you couldn’t say it was your mom or your dad. So I see that options were limited. When you could choose, I know that some people, they sold cookies at school to be able to go to camp or, some people are very creative and they started at a very young age to collect just random stones and paint them and sell them to the neighbors. Do you have any experience where you actually like an energy exchange, so money switch from one person into your hand in exchange for a service or a good?

Sonny Tannen [6:31]
Yeah, so definitely, I sold chocolate bars at my school when I was growing up. I look back at it now. I think that was absolutely brilliant, how I figured that out at the time, I had no idea what to do. But chocolate bars, they came in boxes of will just take 50 in this instance. And so you would have these 50 chocolates and then at the end of the selling period, you would turn in whatever remaining chocolate to you hadn’t, you had to have the exchange of cash. If you sold 20 of them, well, then you should have enough money to cover the 20. And then 30 better be returned back. And if not, well, you needed to find the money to offset that cost. And so for me, that I remember this pretty vividly, the very first time that we did the chocolate sells, it was for raising funds for our sports team. So for uniforms and or traveling to go to different competitions, so that was what the money was going to be used for. And for me, you have anywhere from 50 to 100 kids that are doing the exact same thing, selling the exact same product to the same target audience, which is just like your mom and dad, and or wherever they worked, right? It was, nine times out of 10, it was the parents taking it and saying, “Hey, we’re gonna put it in our office and people might buy it”, and then at the end of it will pick it up and take it back. When this particular instance, what I ended up doing was, I had those 50 chocolate bars. And I didn’t know at this time, so I can’t not take credit for this. But this chocolate bars were delicious. And so I would open it as I was going to sell them and I was eating them. And then people would see me eating them and say, “Looks really good.” I’ll take one, I was demonstrating the use of my product, my stuff because I believed in it so much that it tasted so good. Now that I think about it, and people would buy it more often when I was eating chocolate bar. Now the only problem was I really liked eating a lot of those chocolate bars. And so at the end of it, I had to find money out of my own pocket to support the chocolate bars I ate but thankfully my parents helped out with that as well. But it was demonstrating the use of the product that made people more likely to buy the product.

Christine Schlonski [8:52]
That especially at that age. Did you go and knock on neighbors doors or did you wait at the corner of the street? How did you go about this?

Sonny Tannen [9:03]
Yeah, I grew up, I spent some of my younger years in the state of Texas and our neighborhoods where I lived, you get open the front door, walk in, like you had this great group of community members where you can just walk in and you need the parents you can sit down, have a meal and whatnot. The first 50 bars that are the first box that I sold, and I and I actually remember this part of it too, is I actually ended up going through two or three boxes. Because I would just walk into the door just say, Mr. Simmons, or Miss Jones, so thanks for you know, sit down and have some dinner. If you don’t have dessert, here’s a chocolate bar. And then by the time they’re opening and eat it, by the way, you owe me $1 for that chocolate bar. So it was, being able to cold call, if you will, so knocking on doors and boots on the ground, very much about going to the people that I knew first. So selling to people that knew me, and selling to people that I knew as well. That was where I started, I think where I eventually ended up going, I guess broader if you will, or kind of opening up the channels of selling was telling, asking my parents, “Can you take these? Can you sell them? Because I only have one day left and I have 30 bars left. Can you sell it?” I have no doubt that my parents probably just bought the 30 bars themselves and gave me the money. But I’d like to think that they found 30 people that found those chocolate bars delicious and ate them. So I definitely utilized the networks, I guess you would think of them as my first connections in the business world.

Christine Schlonski [10:39]
Yeah, and it’s so important to have these networks because people who like us, who trust us, it’s so much easier to buy. So what I would love to know, because you figured that out at a very young age. How has this affected your business and relationship building today? Because winning a new customer is, I think like 13 or 14 times more expensive than just retaining a customer and making that person happy. What advice would you have for an entrepreneur who might struggle a little bit on the sales side and who’s looking to maximize the resources and the customers they already have?

Sonny Tannen [11:29]
Yeah, that’s actually, a great point and a great question. I’ll even add one more piece to that is, I hear a lot of people talk about scalability. And recently, I actually had somebody asked me the question about the concept for the book that I’m launching, and the idea behind it, and they said, “It doesn’t seem very scalable”, and I looked at him, I said, “What makes you think it’s not scalable?” “Well, you know, in the traditional sense of this”, I said, “Well, that let’s let’s take a pause right there.” I said, “You’re concept of scalability may be very different than mine.” For example, this particular person represents, VC, like investors, so multimillion dollar investors, and I said, “I’m writing a children’s book, that’s not going to make me, my name is not JK Rowling. I’m not going to net millions of dollars on books and videos and movies. You have to put into perspective, what is your definition of scalability.” So I mentioned that because, then you talk about the networks, and your audience, and the retention customer versus the new or the acquisition customer. So for a startup, most likely, they are in the position of they are acquiring customers versus having retention customers, where I think a little bit of a disconnect sometimes happens is that they get so busy chasing the acquisition, or the new customers that when they have those retention customers, sometimes they don’t have a good enough plan in place to nurture and cultivate those relationships. And I saw this, a lot in a nonprofit sector, where it is very much about service and customer service, because you are asking for, in essence, the goodness of people to make a difference in the world, where it’s impacted by most likely their pocketbook, and or time and across any business, it’s money and time. Those are two biggest things. And they’re not always interchangeable. Sometimes one is more important than the other. And so when anybody startups, entrepreneurs, existing businesses, forget to pay attention to their attention customer, and they lose it. Well, it’s usually that loss that causes them to go chasing after them again, and there are chances where you can bring that customer back into the fold. However, it is definitely much easier to treat, to nurture and cultivate that relationship with a known customer, versus going out and acquiring a customer, especially if that new customer doesn’t even know you. So here’s the other thing, here’s the way that you tie that together. When you have customers that have been doing business with you for some time, they know you, they trust you, they like you, they continue to do business with you. Those are your best sources or referrals, right? Those are customer stories. Those are case studies. So I don’t think all businesses and some of them do it really well. But I don’t think all businesses give enough weight to those customers that are loyal customers to them. Loyal business and utilizing them to bring on new customers or new referrals because of the word of mouth like a warm introduction, if you will, so much more powerful today than just a cold attempt or trying to reach out blindly to bring on a new customer. So there is that. How do you bridge that gap of finding that core group of customers that that exists today and making them your ambassadors? They’re the ones that you want to shop how great it is to do business with you the surface, the product, whatever it might be. Those are your internal champions. Utilizing them to bring on new customers as often as possible.

Christine Schlonski [15:09]
When you think about approaching somebody you don’t know yet, like a cold call, or at networking meetings. What is the number one advice you would give to somebody who is not yet really good at selling? I’ve seen it so often that people just jump on other people, which usually doesn’t help the relationship. So what have you experienced and from that experience, what advice would you give to somebody learning the process?

Sonny Tannen [15:49]
Yeah, great question. I’ll speak about it both in person, so real time. And then virtually, because once again, social media, that is where a lot of sales activity takes place today, in both cases are both instances the exact same. So I can tell you right now, when I meet a person for the very first time virtually or in person, the minute they try to sell something to me, shaking a hand, here’s a business card and selling me I can tell you right now my brain turns off. Absolutely, we’re not building relationship unless you’re somebody that I’ve been meaning to meet for some time, or you have something as an organization that I know somebody else either needs, even if it’s not just myself. I can tell you right now, that is the number one turnoff moment right there, and I always like to liken it to this, right? So in the dating world, I’m married now. So this is different conversation today. But imagine in a dating sense, will just use the bar as an example, you go into a bar, you’re a single guy or gal, and you walk in. Would you just stand in the middle of this bar and yell, “I’m single, I’m ready for everybody come in here. Let’s go, let’s do it”? I mean, how successful are you going to be at, you might, but how successful you going to be finding a respective date, versus you go up to someone, and you take some time you, whatever it might be, like, if it’s a compliment on something, if it’s an icebreaker, if it’s just a conversation starter, but you build rapport, you have a conversation with that person. And then perhaps at the end of that conversation or time, “Can we have an exchange of information? Can we continue to converse it?” I think your soft skills, you’ll hear not the hard clothes. So it’s very much about building that relationship. It’s not always going to happen in one conversation. So I think most people, like you mentioned that are new to it. They want to get right into it. And I use the dating one, as the example. Because I say, are you just going to walk into a bar and be like, “I’m ready to get married, let’s go do this”? You don’t jump right to the conclusion of things. You have to learn about the person, you have to learn about the likes and dislikes. What drives them? What are they passionate about? And what I found works well is, it seems very counterintuitive. But when I actually go in to these types of events, or even on social media, I actually asked the other person. How can I help them? So what value can I bring to them before ever asking them. Like for me, if 80% of the conversation is that person talking to me, that’s a win for me, I am, I am learning about that person, and what is important to them. What they want to talk about, you’d be surprised at how much information you can find out from somebody just by asking really good and high-quality questions, probing questions, if you will. You don’t go into the mindset to say, “Okay, I’m going to ask this question and this one”, that’s not very natural, right? Once again, go back to authentic. So you really have to think about, “How would you like somebody to approach you?” That’s what I’ve done a lot about, it’s like, well, how do I want somebody like the people that I want to do business with, how did they approach me and why did I choose to do business with them? I find out what they did really well, and what made me if you will, attracted to doing business with them. And then I tried to do the same, or at least I tried to learn those types of things and then apply them. The other direction, I can tell you this. Once again, even on social and in person, the minute. Actually, I remember this pretty specifically, I actually had somebody approached me and just said, “Hey”, this is so funny, but they’re like, “Hey, I really liked what you said about this.” So they reference something that they had heard me over, talking with somebody else are saying, “Hey, are you interested in this? I had a question about this, and then asking for advice.” There’s something that they knew I could answer for them. For me, that means that the person is; a.) paying attention, and; b.) they want to learn more. For me, that’s a huge driving force for people actually want to learn. I’m a big fan of education and in all forms of capacity, but it just means that they want to open up a dialogue and have a conversation. So that to me, that’s important as you want to create conversation.

Christine Schlonski [20:05]
Yeah, I think, because of the quality of questions. So often, people are not aware that the better questions they ask, the better the outcome is going to be. When you really genuine interested in the other person, that is what creates a strong relationship. So just asking questions, because I know I’m going to sell better if I asked more questions, doesn’t really make a lot of sense for the long run, because you’re not creating that deep relationship. But I think when you really ask a question, because you, you’re not just asking to ask, but you are interested in the answer, then you have the place where really magic can happen.

Sonny Tannen [20:53]
That’s a really good point, you can ask good questions, but then you can tell when people are either just going got some a script, or where they’re not paying attention. They just ask something, and then they just move on with the part another, you brought up a really good point. Another part that is, you can go in a good direction or a bad direction is. When you ask a question, I’ve done this to people before, just not intentionally, but just to see what would happen. You provide an answer that would ultimately allow them to lead down a different path. But sometimes they don’t take that and they just jump right back into whatever it is that they preconceived what they’re going to ask them to do. I think you can tell pretty quickly, who those people are and what kind of relationship you might have and then you categorize them in the way that you want to. So that’s really good. That’s a great point, Christine.

Christine Schlonski [21:40]
Yeah. So right now, when you look at Om the question he is asking. We see that in children, children, they don’t make up questions to ask questions. They don’t know that concept. So I think it’s fascinating if you take that world with the eyes of Om, and you put that into your business, because you are curious, because you want to know more because you care. You want to learn, then that will have like this magic effect. Because you’re coming with a different mindset to that game.

Sonny Tannen [22:20]
Yeah, I agree completely. And I think it also comes down to being able to break kind of traditional mindsets or preconceived notions of what this is just how businesses done. Let’s do business differently. Not everybody will get it, which is okay.

Christine Schlonski [22:36]
Yeah, that’s what we’re trying to do with the podcast, right? See sales differently. Embrace, love it and just serve more people. The money will follow.

Sonny Tannen [22:47]
That’s right. I love it.

Christine Schlonski [22:48]
Wonderful. So let us know again, where people can find you to wrap up this wonderful episode, that they have a chance to connect as well.

Sonny Tannen [22:58]
Wonderful, I appreciate it. So you can find this, our website is, https://eyesofom.com/. You can find us on pretty much every social media platform as well, you can just look my name up, Sonny Tannen or you can look up, Eyes of Om, we’re on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. And we’re about to launch on YouTube as well.

Christine Schlonski [23:21]
Wonderful. And all the links will be provided at the podcast page at https://christineschlonski.com/ So thank you so so much for sharing your knowledge with us today for being an inspiration to really take it to the level of a three-year-old and and learning how to switch that to the adult level. But we forgot everything about being children, about the fun, the play the curiosity, because once you kind of loosen up and you embrace the creativity and the fun part, I always notice that you make more money, you’re more successful, because you are your kindness from the side of wanting to play.

Sonny Tannen [24:16]
Yeah, and I think we would be remiss if we didn’t give a special thank you to, XXX, for connecting us because that really does talk about the connectivity of people. Finding people that are in your network to say, I think these two people might really hit it off in some capacity, shape form away. And to your point, driving business, and if it’s, making money, if it’s finding fulfillment, if it’s freeing up more time so that you can do the things that you love to do. I think that success is defined in a variety of ways nowadays.

Christine Schlonski [24:49]
Yeah. Thank you so much for having been on the show. And yeah, can’t wait to see all the amazing things you are going to do in the next months and years to come.

Sonny Tannen [24:59]
Awesome. Thanks so much. So to the audience out there, don’t forget to subscribe to, Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Thanks again.

Christine Schlonski [25:07]
Thank you. Bye. I hope you had as much fun with these episodes of Sonny Tannen as I had. Hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/ find the podcast tab and there you have all the episodes including the show notes, the transcripts, all the links to the wonderful guests and you know Sonny is just one click away. So hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/ Enjoy. Have a wonderful day. I hope you are leaving this with inspiration and curiosity about what adventure is to come next. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world and I’m saying bye for now.