Sabrina’s Journey

Hi, my name is Sabrina and I grew up in a family of small businessmen.  So, without realizing it, the world of sales was always in my life.

Growing up I remember that my father had 3 men’s clothing stores at the time and he was doing very well.

The secret of my father’s success was that he didn’t let his clothes sell themselves, he sold them to you.

How many times have I seen my father kick people out of his business because they didn’t want to be served?

What made my father sell so much?

First, his attention, second, his clothes came from Paris (it was the only one in all of Malaga), and third, he offered you a seamstress so that his clothes would fit you like a glove.

He certainly had no competition. Did Zara or El Corte Ingles offer you the same service? The answer is no.

People felt special when they entered my father’s store,

it was clear that his way of providing service was not for everyone, those who appreciated him the most were the clients who had money. Those who know the quality of service, attention, and exclusivity. That is why most of his clients were foreigners. The Spaniards bought, but they were the directors of banks, owners of car dealerships, etc…

His clientele was the elite.

So, since I was a little girl, I always thought that to serve people and sell them something, one always had to do a little more. A little more affection, make them feel special, offer a coffee, and make sure they always FEEL GOOD.

This treatment was already implanted in my subconscious since I was little.

Then in high school, I worked for my mom at her electronics store. She was fourteen years old and I was very good at sales. There was a part of the store that sold perfumes and sunglasses and that was the section that I liked to work on the most.

But I didn’t like working with my mother very much, it was what I considered “bad pay” and I felt that I didn’t earn well considering my sales.

Even as a girl I knew that I liked commissions.

So I decided to work for the big box stores and went to JC Penney.

I remember that I lied about my age to get the job (I was 15 years old, but I looked older) and that’s how my first mentor Inés appeared. With her I learned everything, she knew how to get the best salesperson out of me. She had already impressed him enough, but I needed polishing to bring out my potential. So after Color Me Beautiful, we went to Chanel, LaMer, and Givenchy to Christian Dior. I managed to get sales records in each company.

They all wanted to know what my secret was.

My secret was simple, each client was treated special, I liked to educate them, and I highlighted her potential (her eyes, her lips, etc…) but I did something that no one else did. When I did makeup for a client, I always did half of her face. Yes, yes, only half of her face, so that later she would learn how to put on makeup the same way when she arrived at her house. And yes, it took me a little longer for her to do it.

But guess that? The client who came for lipstick only left with mascara, lipstick, eye pencil, rouge, eyeshadow and makeup remover, moisturizer, and even serum.

THAT WAS MY SECRET. EXCEED MY SERVICE.

People don’t know exactly what they want until you offer it to them. You have to anticipate their needs before your customer knows what their needs are.

As Henry Ford said “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have told me faster horses”

If I had listened to my clients I would never have sold the thousands of dollars I was selling a day. I was the expert, and as a beauty expert, I had to advise you (sell) to choose the colors that favored you.

She gave you a look that seemed appropriate to your taste (if she had beautiful eyes, but she was ugly, I did spectacular eye makeup for her. If she had a very round face, I taught her how to use contour to look slimmer) details that concluded the sale.

And so, one friend told the other and the other and now she had a loyal clientele. I did makeup for weddings, I was hired many times as an Image Consultant and I was hired to train new salespeople in several cities in the United States.

Everything was going well, I earned well, and I was happy because I did what I liked.

I got married at a young age, but very much in love. I think my partner was one of the best salespeople I knew. Marcio was very charismatic and everyone liked him. He was dedicated to the sales of Timeshare or Time shared. He earned very well, but it was another type of sale that I did not understand much about, pressure sales (as I called it).

Then, due to life circumstances (infidelity), I decided to divorce Marcio after 20 years.

It should be noted that we both had mutual accounts and that he was in charge of making the house payments. I never checked the accounts because he had a lot of confidence. During the time of my divorce, I also lose my job at Christian Dior and when I go to check the accounts, there was no more money.

My ex had spent it all on “gambling”.

So, jobless, divorced, with two small children, in the middle of moving, and only $1,000 to my name. After having a job that made $80,000 and Marcio $120,000, in a half-million-dollar house, and now I had nowhere to drop dead.

I couldn’t believe it.
But desperate situations lead people to do desperate things. I found a job at Sephora and got a job at Westgate in Timeshare sales. She was so hungry to get ahead that she worked 15 hours a day.

My challenge was to learn how to sell an intangible product, a dream, a $25,000 idea in just 90 minutes my audience is a family that comes for a discount because they want to save $200 at the Disney parks.

It is a challenge? Definitely.

So after 10 tours and no sales, I started to get discouraged. I wanted to return to what I knew and felt comfortable with, the world of beauty was my thing. But no, just when I was going to throw in the towel, my Mentor Iván appeared, with whom I finally learned the psychology of this type of sales.

It took many hours and hours of training until he finally “clicked” on my head. I had my first sale, the next day again, then another and from then on nobody stopped me.

I understood that sales, like the world of any career, needs to be polished, it is necessary to learn from those who have already been successful. I ate book after book. Brian Tracy, John Cardone, Tom Schreiter, Phil M. Jones, Robert Greene, and more. He wanted to know everything, how to debate objections, how to lower resistance, how to close more, he wanted everything.

Little by little I had my fans and also my not-so-fans. I saw many sellers with potential but who were still clumsy. Many came to me asking for help. And that was how I began to train one by one the salespeople that I liked and that I saw if they could sell. I remember that I had read a book by “Big Al” Tom Schreiter that made a big impact on me.

The book categorizes the different personalities that exist in people in 4 colors.

I found it funny and even, I’m not exaggerating that the book helped me sell more. Also, I liked using this technique because I saw that when it came to training someone in sales, people seemed to grasp everything much better.

There you could see me, listening to a colleague because his client didn’t buy from him, and I answered

“you didn’t sell to him because you had a Green client and you spoke to him in Blue!

Once, Mario, a client, had bought me a week of Timeshare, such was the impression that I caused him that he asked me to go to his country to train his salesmen. I refused at first because the truth is that I would have to miss many days of work and that translated into a lot of money. He offered me $20,000 to go for 2 days to train his salespeople. Accept.

What was supposed to be a 4-hour workout ended up being 10 hours. His people didn’t want to let me go. We had such a good time and it was so much fun that we didn’t even realize how much time passed. They thanked me with the most beautiful words I had ever heard. Without a doubt, the sales system using colors became a triumph.

Today, Mario keeps contacting me to tell me that my training has made a huge difference to his salespeople and his pocketbook.
Then talking with my dear friend Javier (Vacation Sales Director) I told him about my new sales technique. He thought he was so good that he made me another proposal. So for 2 days, I went to Punta Cana to their sales room to train using the 4 colors. The next day, I’m not exaggerating if they had a sales record in that room.

No one on your team was left without a sale.

Everyone understood to the point that the results were there, 80% more closings!

Training in Sales became my new passion. Because I don’t consider myself a Sales Coach so much, I’m on a mission to help other salespeople earn more, work less and enjoy life without compromising their values.

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