The Sales System That Delivers Results

Guest: Mohammad Ghaddar, Sales Account Manager at Intelligent Connectivity and Systems (Middle East), established 1995.

00:00:00 – 00:00:34
My name is Mohammad Ghaddar. I’m a sales account manager for Intelligent Connectivity and Systems, established in 1995. I joined two years back, and we do home automation and smart systems, plus a structured cabling division. My studies were in Management Information Systems.

00:00:34 – 00:01:24
How did you get to Dubai? I’d worked in Central Africa — Congo, Gabon — for a group of companies, in administration, managing sales but never as a sales representative on the ground.

00:01:24 – 00:02:13
It was a wholesale group with several verticals — electrical distribution, construction and development, commercial tower/office rentals through a known rental brand, and steel manufacturing. I was in administration with the owner.

00:02:13 – 00:02:47
My work was totally different — I dealt with sales representatives, got their reports, attended meetings, and guided them on strategy, but never worked as a sales representative myself. This is my first experience doing that here.

00:02:47 – 00:03:10
Had you done sales training before this course? No, this was my first time. I didn’t know sales had rules and structure — I didn’t realize we were doing things without paying attention to why.

00:03:44 – 00:04:20
If you were talking to yourself in August, before the course started in September — what’s the difference? It’s not just concepts we collected, but a full cycle of things, starting from beliefs all the way to closing a deal and getting a referral.

00:04:20 – 00:04:45
Week after week, we pay attention that things can go in a structured way. On a personal level, I have beliefs — these are the drivers of your mind, what motivates and drives you in life.

00:04:45 – 00:05:07
In business and work, you have to believe in the product you’re selling — you have to be convinced it has value regardless of price, and that it’s serving something your client needs.

00:05:33 – 00:05:59
The client has a pain, and is looking for someone to fix it. I remember from the course: people move one step forward, one step back — the pain pulls them back, the gain pushes them forward.

00:06:29 – 00:06:53
If you’re solving a problem for your client, and you believe in yourself, you can close any deal regardless of scale — whether serving a villa owner or a developer of a complex of villas.

00:07:16 – 00:07:42
You mentioned the laws of influence — liking and reciprocity. Reciprocity: you get what you give — and if we look deeply, we’ve been doing this since childhood, with our parents.

00:08:22 – 00:08:45
I had a concept in childhood: if you do better this time, you’ll get this. This reciprocity concept exists in life in general.

00:09:20 – 00:09:41
It’s not always about closing deals — it’s about building the relationship with your client. Sometimes you can’t match a budget, so you refer them to another supplier.

00:10:00 – 00:10:28
Story: a new system integrator approached us for a specific item and brand. We knew they had a long history but in another country — we followed up with them, made introductions and presentations about our brands and history.

00:11:13 – 00:11:38
Later on, they started giving me business. I told my manager, why can’t we do the reciprocity theory with this client? He said, as a company we prefer to introduce integrators as partners, rather than compete for individual jobs directly.

00:12:33 – 00:13:25
I ended up introducing that integrator to two other people who’d approached us as referrals from past projects — owners’ children now building their own villas, coming back to us.

00:13:44 – 00:14:11
This improves trust in the relationship — they feel we care about them, not just getting numbers from them. Your success is a win-win situation.

00:14:34 – 00:15:01
I also experienced reciprocity directly from the Academy: during one session we were socializing with other guests, one an interior designer, and I helped build that connection.

00:15:26 – 00:15:51
I appreciated that, and later, when I started sharing my testimonials on social media, one of my clients — also an interior designer — noticed and got curious. I told her about the course and invited her to attend.

00:16:15 – 00:16:36
She loved it. That’s about sharing, about caring — one of the elements of building trust: honesty, ability, reliability, intimacy, and care.

00:17:22 – 00:17:52
Can you think of a tangible result you achieved? There’s a big opportunity I’m working on that started by coincidence during this course. Honestly, before, I was doing things randomly — because I was overconfident.

00:18:18 – 00:18:44
In Dubai, the hub of quality and high standards, if you’re not following proper standards and clear process, you can’t do things randomly and expect to keep up.

00:19:09 – 00:19:34
I heard about a project in the market and realized this client was one of my “aged accounts” — I wasn’t doing business with them because they were dealing with another division of our group (cabling), and I didn’t know they were doing development.

00:19:54 – 00:20:15
This was happening during the course — I realized this was an aged account for me. I’d done a small job for them earlier in the year and never followed up.

00:20:15 – 00:20:33
I approached the procurement contact I knew, who gave me the name of who was working on the project — a referral, but without the contact number.

00:20:59 – 00:21:20
I found out the project was already specified with another brand, at a later stage, doing mockups. I told myself it’s never too late — don’t give up on an opportunity if you believe it can work.

00:21:42 – 00:22:09
I got the number of the decision-making person, an administrative representative of the owner. You highlighted in the course finding a common ground — same culture, same language.

00:22:09 – 00:22:32
I used humor — made a joke with him, it was efficient. He said, “Mohammed, don’t waste your time, we’re at a very late stage.” I said, let’s meet anyway — we’ll benefit from knowing each other, and I can introduce our other division too.

00:23:33 – 00:23:57
I started the conversation asking questions rather than proposing right away — I understood the project was at a late stage, so my chances were low, and I needed to understand what he really needed.

00:24:16 – 00:24:37
He told me about the project — a complex, a specific brand — and I knew the competition and had done my research on the person too.

00:25:02 – 00:25:25
I caught one important detail: they wanted a specific user interface with a specific aesthetic look, from a very luxurious brand they hadn’t gone with because of budget — but that brand is in our product line.

00:26:19 – 00:26:43
I told him I have something intermediate from a really high-end brand, cost-effective, without requiring them to leave the brand they were working with for the whole system — using our brand for the interface/font at least.

00:27:13 – 00:27:44
The letter of intention for the original brand was cancelled, and now they’re going with the brand we proposed for the whole system, and need our services.

00:27:44 – 00:28:04
A sequence of steps: research, getting to know the client, and the critical attitude — in the past you might have said “they already have the mockup, not worth it,” but the belief that made the difference was to just get in the door and look at bigger opportunities.

00:28:29 – 00:28:51
Plus, laws of reciprocity — using humor, listening to them — I could even use this reciprocity again by introducing an integrator for supply on this project.

00:29:20 – 00:29:45
The main concept: don’t give up on something you believe can work. In sales, you receive huge numbers of inquiries every day — prioritizing is very important.

00:30:12 – 00:30:44
The 80/20 concept: 80% of results come from 20% of your efforts or accounts. You have to pre-qualify and prioritize what you invest your time in — the most valuable thing you have is time.

00:31:07 – 00:31:32
Before this course, I was wasting time on opportunities that weren’t worth the effort because I didn’t understand exactly what the need was, or whether it matched our ideal customer profile.

00:31:55 – 00:32:16
It’s important to make a to-do list of tasks during your day — what’s more prior than something else.

00:32:16 – 00:33:02
What would you tell a decision-maker considering this program? Investing in learning and developing the skills of the team will get back a lot of good results later on.

00:33:25 – 00:33:55
I recommend this course for all sales representatives — it’s the right place to know how to organize your process and procedure.

00:34:48 – 00:35:14
What was the biggest value you got out of the course? Consistency. We’re able to do much more than we think we can. Consistency, discipline, focus.

00:35:14 – 00:35:52
Being humble to learn, and learning also from teaching — when I share my experience with colleagues, I’m learning too, by repeating the story.

00:36:16 – 00:36:35
This concept of doing things consistently, in a structured, organized way, can have a big impact on your life — it changes you.

00:36:35 – 00:37:01
If we summarize: believe in yourself. You have much power regardless of your knowledge or academic background. The most important thing is preparing yourself — if you don’t prepare well, you will fail.

00:37:30 – 00:37:48
The sales program has three parts: mindset, sales activity management, and sales engagement. On activities: every action has release activities, follow-up. We gave you tools like an activity tracker app.

00:38:16 – 00:38:41
The app helped from a day to another set my to-do list, my tasks, and at the end of the day I have a summary of what I did — number of calls, cold calls, aged account calls, meetings, what was productive that day.

00:39:32 – 00:40:07
Registering this result — not just for reporting to management, but to give you a clear idea of what you did wrong and right, helping you the next day, through the power of reflection and tracking.

00:40:51 – 00:41:14
Sometimes all it takes is ten minutes a day, reflecting on what you did, what you missed, and creating a to-do list for the next day — the end of the day is the best time to see what still needs to be done.

00:41:14 – 00:41:42
You also gave us tools like the Pomodoro technique — working in continuous 20-30 minute intervals to maintain concentration and avoid losing energy without a productive result.

00:42:39 – 00:43:02
The course name is Systematic Selling Strategies — being strategic is very important, in your life in general.

00:43:02 – 00:43:24
Companies don’t succeed — people make the company succeed. If we work on people’s mental well-being and planning, not just selling skills, they become more effective in front of a customer.

00:43:24 – 00:43:45
There was friendly competition on the app, seeing who’s at the top of the list — did that motivate you? It’s about inner self-competition — competing with yourself.

00:43:45 – 00:44:06
If you look at yourself in the mirror and ask, did you do the best job you could today? If the answer is no, fire yourself, and tomorrow hire the right person who’s going to take you to success.

00:44:26 – 00:44:46
It’s the downs that teach you how to reach the top. Once you achieve a goal, if you don’t quickly set another one, you’ll drift — you need to put the engine back in and fly again.

00:45:06 – 00:45:29
The happiest moment is when you’re closing a deal — after that, the happy moment is gone, so let’s make another happy moment. It becomes a passion.

00:45:29 – 00:45:50
It’s not just about numbers and income — it becomes a lifestyle. It reflects in your life — communication, listening, socializing, expanding, building relationships.

00:46:20 – 00:46:52
Thank you so much, Mohammad, for sharing — you’re already inspired, sharing your knowledge and ideas with others. This is how we continue to help others sell more, sell faster, and sell profitably.

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