It’s Time to Earn Your Black Belt in Sales

The following is adapted from Sales Jiu-Jitsu by Elliott Bayev and Daniel Moskowitz.

Only old-school, outdated sales theories and philosophies frame sales as a “fight.” Winning modern sales philosophy frames the sales engagement as cooperative, collaborative, and supportive. Current high-performing sales teams frame sales as a service, and this shift has been responsible for explosive growth within the organizations that adopt it. So why are we writing a book that’s using fighting as a way to teach sales? Because there is an art that uses connection over aggression. In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu there is no hitting — instead you look to connect with the opponent, to get close enough to them that you can predict, guide, and even control their movements. Taking out striking each other allows participants to give 100 percent without hurting each other. It allows for an engagement that’s competitive, playful, cooperative, contested, supportive, and fun in the spirit of mutual benefit.

“The best athlete wants their opponent at their best.”

— Tao Te Ching

Jiu-Jitsu shows you that if you really want to serve your sparring partner, you bring your best self — your greatest strategies, efforts, and techniques. The best thing they can do for you is to hold you to a high standard by giving you the best possible challenge. But none of this is antagonistic. After even the most competitive matches, challengers hug in mutual respect and appreciation.

If you have something worthy of high-caliber clients, you have a duty to use every ethical, effective best practice and strategy available to help you show them how much you can help them. You want high-caliber clients to challenge you with their toughest questions, requirements, and standards. Iron sharpens iron. Every “fight,” every sales engagement, is a collaborative, galvanizing mutual leveling up.

There has been a revolution in martial arts over the last hundred years, created by the birth and rise of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), which has consistently dominated when tested against any single martial art. There is a reason Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is so effective. It follows fundamental principles — which apply everywhere in life but are easy to see and tap into through such a physical practice. There are distinct phases of engagement, parallel dynamics, and strategies that we can take from physical engagements and apply to sales engagements.

Rather than try to glean actionable principles by analyzing the physical art of Jiu-Jitsu, however, Sales Jiu-Jitsu uses The Jiu-Jitsu Success Formula — a four-part system Elliott developed that outlines the process of preparing for and winning Jiu-Jitsu competitions. This formula for training for, engaging in, seizing, and learning from challenges can teach us about the processes for achieving success anywhere. The Jiu-Jitsu Success Formula uses a match or a fight as an analogy for any challenge we face in life. Sales Jiu-Jitsu applies that system to the sales engagement.

Through the study of success on the mats, this book teaches a system of proven success practices designed to help seasoned Black Belt salespeople become sales champions.

Using the language of Jiu-Jitsu and lessons from competition, we take an original approach to outline proven tactics, strategies, and standard operating procedures for developing world-class sales teams.

The Jiu Jitsu Success Formula

The Jiu-Jitsu Success Formula is built around four primary phases necessary for winning in competition:

• Pre-fight — what we do to prepare for a competition
• Fighting — the match itself
• Winning — the seizing of victory within the match
• Post-fight — what we do after the match, win or lose

As competition is the aspect of Jiu-Jitsu that most closely resembles a sales engagement, we can apply the same system:

The Sales Jiu Jitsu System

• Pre-fight — what we do in advance of the engagement
• Fighting — the engagement itself
• Winning — the obtainment of victory (for both you and the client)
• Post-fight — what we do after the engagement, win or lose

Each of these phases has its own frameworks, philosophies, and strategies. To win consistently over time, it’s important to study, understand, and master the components of each phase.

Apply any of the ideas in here to make an impact. Use them all together and the impact will be beyond belief. Make them a habit, a routine, and a system and the impact will be game-changing.

To learn more about this unique approach to sales, Sales Jiu-Jitsu can be found on Amazon.

Elliott Bayev is a lifelong martial artist having practiced various arts for more than 30 years, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for the last 23. Elliott is an entrepreneur not only founding and growing one of Toronto’s longest running and most highly regarded martial arts academies, OpenMat Mixed Martial Arts. He is an innovative educator focused on uplifting people everywhere. He is the founder of GlobalUnity.org, a new movement working to bring the world together.

Daniel Moskowitz has been in sales for 25 years, since getting duped by a salesperson and becoming determined to not only never let it happen again, but to understand what strategies and techniques that person used to get him to a desired result so effectively. Thus began his journey of studying the best practices and high percentage strategies that lead to true sales success. Currently, Daniel is working as the Director of Sales at Advance Your Reach, a company which helps individuals, entrepreneurs and organizations leverage speaking on stages as a major client lead source. Daniel helped to grow the organization into an 8 figure privately held company.