Fred Copestake, Founder, Brindis
Founder of Brindis sales training consultancy and best-selling author of 'Hybrid Selling' and 'Selling Through Partnering Skills'. Since 1999 Fred has been around the world 14 times visiting 36 countries and working with over 10,000 salespeople.
He encourages sales professionals to be more collaborative and believes sales is about "good people doing good things in a good way."
What is your favourite social media platform, and why?
LinkedIn. That's where I spend the most time. That's where most of the people I would tend to communicate with are hanging out. So, even though it can be quite frustrating at times, it's really what you make.
If you talk to the right people and engage in decent conversations, you can get a lot out of it. Try to avoid getting involved in all arguments and petty bickering. Keep your feed clean with intelligent interactions, and it's a great place to be.
Tell us about you and your current role or area of interest.
As a founder of a training company, one of my main goals is to share best practices with as many people as possible. That's why I wrote the books, and we use these as a basis to put together training that we can use to help people make a difference in what they do.
My role is to make sure that everything we're doing, people can take away and they can use immediately. So, a lot of the focus at the moment is on how can we drive the right behaviours. I want to bundle up and package as many different things as possible into what we offer to help people in the way that they do their work day-to-day.
Whether that's a robot coach, they can talk to for morning mindset check and evening reflections. A platform where they can capture information around the accounts they are working on during and after the training. Digital support, the community, recommended podcast episodes - if it's going to help somebody, it's in!
What do you like about your career or area of focus?
I like making a difference. I love it when I know that somebody has done something due to the training, and it's helped them in their role or their life. It gives me a real buzz, which is a very privileged position to be in. It is one that I must take quite a lot of responsibility for, but when I can do that, it's highly fulfilling.
What is the best advice you have ever received?
"Don't fiddle your expenses". An old boss did tell me that early in my career. He also told me that "It's okay to make mistakes", as long as we learn from them.
And then we only made that mistake once as a subsequent, uh, as, a consequence of that, the learning. So, it was probably some of the best advice I've had. And is something I still live by and share with the team.
What inspires you, motivates you, or helps you to move forward?
Knowing that I am in a position where I can make a difference. On a more practical level, I use the coaching app we include in our training myself - Rocky.ai. Morning and evening, I answer his questions, and it helps me keep focused (Yes, I probably do personalize 'him' too much)!
What are you proud of in your life so far?
I'm certainly proud of the books that I've written. If you told me a few years ago that I'd be in this position, talking about them, I might well not have believed you. They both impacted me, more importantly, the people reading them.
That's the feedback I'm getting, which is very flattering. So, indeed it is a little bit surreal at times, but certainly, something that I know I should be proud of.
What is your preferred way to meet new people/network?
If this is a question about whether we should be face-to-face or virtual, it doesn't matter to me. I'm not somebody who's massively hung up about virtual not being as good. In fact, I think it can be better in some ways because it means that we can get in touch with more people more often. It makes the world a smaller place and makes networking a lot easier.
How networking comes about is usually interesting to me. Suppose it's forced event networking, then I'm not such a fan. But, I like this: if people are making recommendations, I should speak to somebody or vice versa. They tend to be the very best conversations.
What skills or qualities do you feel have helped you?
Curiosity. I'm certainly curious. Quite nosy, you could say. But it is about wanting to learn, understand things, and try and make sense of stuff. It's something that helped me along the way. I think I've got a growth mindset. I'm always trying to get better, and curiosity is part of that. I'd also say flexibility and adaptability.
They have stood me in good stead. Certainly, with the amount of travel I have done and working with different audiences, different people. So, it has always been important to read the situation and be able to do something about it.
What do you wish you had known when you started out?
I wish I'd known that the business training you get at university is different from the business training you need to be an entrepreneur. It is a different set of skills, a different set of thinking.
It served me well in my first job in a more corporate environment, but there are different things that you need to know and do when running your own business. When you are looking to grow and expand, I wish I'd known about those differences a bit earlier so I could have done something about it faster.
Who do you most admire in business, academic or creative circles and why?
I admire anybody that's running their own business. It's a tough job with so many different things to consider. So, anybody doing that at any kind of level gets my admiration. It's tough but also very rewarding.
I'd also say that people are doing that from the point of view. They will be at the front of the business and be the face of the business. They'll put themselves ahead of a brand or a logo. They help people make sense of what they do and make themselves part of that. Again, hats off to them because that can be a tough role.
Outside of your professional/work area, what hobbies or interests do you have or what other areas of your life are of real importance to you?
I love sports. Rugby in particular. I used to referee to a pretty decent level and put a lot of time and effort into that though I was rewarded for my efforts with some nice trips to Holland, Ireland, Canada and Argentina. I also like cricket and enjoy a day out watching that.
Has the pandemic had a positive or a negative effect on you and/or your business, and how have you managed it?
I sometimes feel a little guilty that the pandemic positively affected my business. Or maybe it would be fairer to say that my response to it meant I am in a better place now. Having to adapt quickly to how we deliver the training was something I wanted to look at anyway, so that just forced my hand. People are now more receptive to having virtual instructor-led training has been a bonus.
But I don't think that is an excuse for poor production values, so I'm always looking to improve on that. HD cameras, a great microphone, good lighting, and novel ways of presenting are important elements of how I want to do things. But the classroom bits shouldn't be the only part of the offer, so I worked tirelessly to add other elements to make the experience better and drive results.
My first book, "Selling Through Partnering Skills", was written pre-pandemic and published at the beginning of the lockdowns. The challenges it helps salespeople address with a more collaborative approach are still relevant. However, the pandemic has also caused other challenges for salespeople to overcome. These are mainly to do with change and the speed of change.
There are things that would have happened anyway but are on us now or likely to happen sooner. It became clear salespeople needed help in understanding these. So, I wrote my second book, "Hybrid Selling", so quickly. I wanted to help salespeople understand what was going on and provide a resource to form their responses. That is quickly became a best seller on Amazon was a real thrill.
Do you have a mentor, or have you ever mentored anyone?
I will take input from anyone and everyone if it helps me move forward. Unfortunately, there are few people at the moment that I talk to about different things. So, I seek help, take advice and use them as sounding boards. It's something that I wish I'd realized, and I should do more a bit earlier. I went through a period where I became a bit know-it-all, which didn't help me. Now though, know some great people around are very generous with what they share.
What advice would you have for someone looking to get into the same area of work or interests?
Be like a sponge. Soak absolutely everything up. Think about trying to grow and develop all the time. Use new knowledge to develop a point of view. Have an opinion and use that opinion for good, healthy discussions. But don't be stuck in the mud with that opinion. Be willing to share your thinking and consider that of others.
If you're looking to help people develop, think about the problem or the 'pain' that they have. Think about what is the better alternative or 'prize' that they could have. Try to package that and explain it as simply as possible. Then pitch that relentlessly. Keep talking about it because if you can't get the word out there, how can people know the good that you can do?
What do you feel is the most common reason for people failing or giving up?
Patience. Or lack of it. So many people seem to be after a 'hack' or easy win. To achieve something generally requires hard work, but we are sold the story that good things just happen or that we deserve them for minimal effort.
Is there a phrase, quote or a saying that you really like?
I've got various that I've made up myself. I'm not going to use those, as that may come across as a little bit arrogant. There are various versions of 'implementation over information' around, and I like that thinking. It's certainly something that we live by at Brindis, where we will happily give information for people to use. We'll happily share.
I'll try and give as much stuff as I can. But really, I know that the magic comes when people start to implement it. That's why we build the accelerators and do the training the way we do. So, I'll always encourage people trying to get better to consider how they start to apply things. It does not just know stuff. It's about doing stuff.
What companies, brands, or institutions do you like or do you think are getting it right?
Anywhere you can find a leader, a founder, or some key person who is putting themselves at the front of the business. They're the ones that I like the way they operate. I think when you've got an individual who is championing the cause and making things easier for people to understand what the organization is doing, it is far more compelling. So, they're the sort of things that I'm drawn to, as I'm sure many other people are.
How do you define success, and what lessons have you learned so far that you could share with our audience/readership?
I'd say that success is about achieving your goals, but you've got to know what your goals are and how you will achieve them. So, it's all about setting the goal.
When setting the goal, be clear about what is for you and work out what you need to do to achieve it. It's then putting that plan into effect, keeping track, and knowing when you've achieved it. So, having clarity of goal and direction, knowing when you have achieved the results and celebrating that would be the secret to success.