Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction
00:02:05: Telemarketing vs telesales
00:03:46: Bedside manner
00:04:25: Gary’s background
00:06:27: Ericksonian hypnosis
00:10:15: Leaving a cliffhanger
00:12:06: Don’t let sales results affect your demeanour
00:16:04: Defining and aiming above the targets
00:17:34: Hypnosis for mental health issues
00:22:05: Body language and muscle memory
00:25:45: FUD
00:27:27: Gary’s pivotal conversation
00:34:01: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Wendy Harris: You’re listening to Making Conversations Count with me, Wendy Harris, your host and telemarketing trainer.  In this episode, I want to introduce you to Gary Foster, also known as Gary Outrageous.  But the only thing outrageous about Gary are usually the shirts he wears, as he’s the gentlest sales trainer I know, and he’s got a particular style of sales. 

Now, Gary and I are not strangers.  In fact, we regularly posted on YouTube at the beginning of lockdown a little series of musings called Ways of the Working Mind.  It was an opportunity to share our own experiences of navigating the initial challenges the pandemic threw up for small business owners like ourselves.  It’s not dissimilar in this conversation today, as Gary recalls stories from his life in sales and the additional tools he’s implemented for himself and his customers.

So, it gives me great pleasure to have Gary on the show.  We’re going to be Making Conversations about The Ways of Sales Count.

What’s new, Wendy Woo?  Well, we’ve got a couple of shoutouts this week, one from Jo who said she thinks that she has 64 menopausal symptoms, not 32, following listening to Bev Thorogood’s episode.  And Dawn commented that she found it really helpful to listen to the menopausal episode, because she asked her husband to listen and he’s since added it to the HR roster as a point of reference for them.  It’s all about bringing you different perspectives and stories from different experts that we hope will help you to carry on those conversations with the guests and with your own community after listening to the show.

Talking about expertise, with Gary today, he talks about sales.  And I introduced myself as a telemarketing trainer, so I thought it was an opportunity for me to be able to mention the different between telemarketing and telesales.  Telemarketing is as in the title really.  It’s marketing by telephone.  It’s where you’re looking to introduce and qualify with a new client.

Telesales, on the other hand, is sales by telephone, and generally that’s account management and repeat orders, and that’s where you start to get into cross-selling, up-selling and down-selling.  So, I hope that that’s cleared up what telemarketing is and what telesales is.  We’ll be bringing you more tips in future episodes.  But now, let’s get back to the ways of sales with Gary.

You’re not my first hypnotherapist, or somebody with hypnosis in their title; you’re not the first that has done sales; you’re not the first that has done marketing.  Everybody brings a fresh perspective, and it’s like putting the diamond together and seeing all the different facets.  It’s the one that you can’t see that’s going to be the one that unlocks the ideas and thinking for you.

Gary Outrageous: True, yeah.  Well even now, I know that whilst you and I have chatted, my unconscious mind is working away, so there might even be examples that I hadn’t even thought of pop up, number one; and number two, it will encourage me maybe to look at things when we finish our conversations, because it’s Making Conversations Count, isn’t it?  And, that’s what I’ve always looked at.

Interestingly, and I’ll add this in because it’s popped up, during my exam, you had to send a tape in pretending you were hypnotising a client for weight loss; and basically, it was to root out all the people that weren’t suitable to see people. 

Wendy Harris: That bedside manner test?

Gary Outrageous: Yeah, and the ability to use your voice, use your commands, use your suggestions in a very logical, very professional way and not to sound weird and whacky, because there’s many out there that do sound weird and whacky in this game, unless their clients are weird and whacky and then that’s all right.

Wendy Harris: Yes, it’s that personality matching, isn’t it?

Gary Outrageous: Yeah.  So, I found out that I could actually show salespeople how to use hypnosis to increase their sales by accident again, because I was speaking at Ragdale Hall, and I was one of their guest speakers.  The story for that is too elongated, but I just managed to get on the speaking circuit there and I was so pleased, Wendy, because they paid you £25 every time you spoke, and I thought that was a lot of money then, and I was so happy.  This is it, you see, when you don’t know what other speakers are getting, you’re really happy, but that’s like a placebo.

Wendy Harris: And money is just an exchange of energy, I’m learning that.

Gary Outrageous: It is.  And the more energy you exchange, the more money you receive, is that right?  So, a woman came up to me, she said, “My partner’s company is having a sales conference.  Would you be free to speak at it?”  I said, “Well, why not?”  It just happened to be one of Simon Heseltine’s companies.  I said, “Yeah, come on then”.  We’re going along, meeting this chap, I said, “Well, what would you like me to do?”  He said, “Well, just do what you did at Ragdale”, “Well, fair enough then”.

So, I pulled out four bits of paper and that was my presentation.  And I went through some of the mysteries of hypnosis, then I cleared the room of any misconceptions, I said, “Look, this is how it really works”, and I just demonstrated live with two or three people in the room, not scripted.  However, as a hypnotherapist, you get used to spotting the highly neurotic person you don’t want in front of you, you leave them to one side.

They came up to me and said, “That’s brilliant.  Do you think we can actually apply it to our sales?”  I said, “Yeah, course you can, it will be ever so easy.  In fact, you’ll notice that every time you do it, it just gets easier and easier.  In fact, I’ll tell you what, how about next Thursday, maybe about 10.00am or 10.15am, whichever’s good for you, I call you, you call me, we’ve got cards and you tell me how your sales have improved just by thinking every day and every way, ‘My sales are increasing’; is that a deal?”  We shook hands and he said, “Yeah, it’s a deal”.  “All right, see you”.

So, that was just a classic hypnotic phrase used, totally without any classic induction or “close your eyes” or any slow, smooth —

Wendy Harris: No showboating?

Gary Outrageous: No, no showboating, none whatsoever.  I think Erickson was the guy that picked up Ericksonian hypnosis, where he would put in conversation.  But even he didn’t showboat, but he would alter his speech patterns.  But maybe that’s because he was recovering from polio, and all sorts of things, I don’t know.  But what I do know is that I think we’re taught just to practise it and practise it, and I would listen, I would watch.  I would watch people that were really good and selling, and I’d sit with them.

I think told you that at one point, I went into car sales for a while so I could actually apply the knowledge.  Strangely enough, I was at the top of the board within a short period of time.  And they always said, “It was just a lucky start”.  I said, “You’re right, fair enough, don’t worry about it, it’s very lucky”.  I wasn’t going to tell them what I was doing, was I? 

Later on, I moved to another dealer, because there were a couple of things I wanted to achieve and do, because now it’s just straightforward Gary Foster sales hypnosis, doing the stuff I loved.  I wanted to teach other salespeople what I did, without them knowing I was teaching them, and I would measure their result and then I would get testimonials from them.

There were two characters in particular that were so different in their approach, when I left the other dealership.  The fellow I was working with was a classic shark.  So, for those people in the business, they know that what a shark does and says is two separate things often.  So, this was his bottom line when I first met him, “I never pinch deals off other salespeople”.  It was as overt as that, and you can see what I was doing, I was shaking my head from side to side.  So, I nodded my head and said, “You know what, I totally disagree with what you’re saying”.  There was a strange smile on his face.  And he was, he was trying to shark me for the first few times.

I pulled him to one side and I said, “Look, I can show you a great way to earn a whole lot of money, but you might not want to learn at the moment”, and just walked off.  Then he kept coming up to my desk and I said, “No, I don’t think you’re ready yet”.  Then, eventually I’d spoke with the directors and it’s the first time that I’d seen a director with tears in their eyes.  I thought, I’m going to have to move on now, I’ve done what I set out to do.  He said, “Anytime, if you want to…” and I said, “Yeah, I know, I really appreciate it”.

This salesman came up to me and says, “What am I going to do?”  I said, “What do you mean?”  “Well, you’re going”.  I said, “Well, let’s think about what you’ve picked up from me”, and I went through a few of the things.  So for example, the classic one, and I’ll use it in a retail sense of hypnosis, when someone walks onto a forecourt, the worst thing to do is to do the classic, “Hi, hello”, and all that, because they’ll get that everywhere else.  The best thing to do is to always identify, “Oh, I can see you’re standing on the forecourt.  I imagine you’ve come to look maybe at one or two cars or get some information.  Just out of interest, which one was it for you?”

Wendy Harris: There’s nothing like stating the bloody obvious either, is there, as well?  Nicky Pattinson talks about this, and she calls it “trans-phraseology”.

Gary Outrageous: Oh, really?

Wendy Harris: Yeah, there’s actually a scientific term.  In fact, you and Nicky would get on absolutely fantastically.  And it is that when you go into somewhere, that you’re already prepared to shun that greeting, because you know it’s coming.  It’s like the, “Have a nice day”, at McDonald’s; people have stopped listen.  So, you’ve got to almost disrupt that conversation to get their attention.

Gary Outrageous: Yeah, disrupt it and where possible, be yourself in a very professional, kind and gentle way to people.  It’s not difficult.  The amount of people that would say to me, “It’s been such a pleasure dealing with you”, “Oh, why’s that?”  Then they tell me their war stories, “Oh, okay, thanks”.  Anyone listening, find out how your customer bought from someone else, this is a classic one, and do the same to them.  That’s it!

I remember asking one guy ages ago, I said to him, because he was very, very methodical, I said, “I’ve got a feeling”, and really that was not the bed word to use with him, but I wanted to use with it, because he wasn’t into feelings, “I’ve got a feeling you’ve got a system you buy, is that right?”  He said, “Yes, Gary.  I have five steps I go through”, and he did that with his hand.  I said, “Really?”  I said, “With those five steps, where are we on the five steps at the moment?”  He said, “I’m at number three with you at the moment, Gary”.  “Oh, okay.  So that I know I’m in tune with you, can we go through the steps in your time, not mine, what has to happen to go to step four and step five?” and he told me.

About two weeks later, he was ready for step five, and he called into the office and someone else answered and tried to take over the deal, and I was hearing it out of the corner of my — I knew who it was!  And he said to this particular guy, “No, Gary knows, I’m at step number five.  If you tell him, I’ll be down tomorrow at 9.30am”.  The guy was called Mike and he put the phone down and he looked at me and said, “Tell me, what’s step number five?”  I said, “You’ll find out tomorrow”, and walked away.

Wendy Harris: At 9.30am.

Gary Outrageous: It’s like a movie, isn’t it?  To be continued!  Do you know, that’s a cliffhanger.  That’s why they call them cliffhangers.  I think that that, used in a sales process, is magic.  You know, you go so far in a presentation and go, “You know, we’ll come to that later on”.  A lot of the NLP classical trained people will know it’s all about embedded loops, and I just know it’s a cliffhanger, and I love them, absolutely.  Of course, sales hypnosis for me is also helping the salesperson feel good about themselves, and this is vital I think, whether they get a sale or not.

Wendy Harris: Yes, this confidence, isn’t it; this permission to not sell something to every single person that you speak to?

Gary Outrageous: Yeah, and whether they buy or not is not going to dictate how I feel about myself.  The amount of times I’ve said that to customers, I’ve said, “Whether you decide to buy or not, I’ll tell you this right now, will have no bearing on how happy I feel.  So, I’m going to put it back to you now, is that okay?”

Wendy Harris: There’s so many factors, aren’t there, when it comes to somebody buying?  As a buyer, rather than somebody selling, I know that there are so many conditions that have got to be met, timing has got to be right, and sometimes — I’ll give you an example of this this week.

I had to go shopping for a major purchase, I needed a laptop for my daughter, because she’s doing her GCSEs and the one she’s got is really not fit for purpose anymore.  So, we went and I knew that the price was higher in the one shop, the branded shop, and then there was a department store where they’d got an offer on.

So, we went into the department store and there was nobody around to talk to.  It was tumbleweed in there.  And I was trying to get somebody’s attention, there was nobody there.  So, I was reading all the gumpf, because I thought, “Well, we’ve just booked to go into the brand store now in 15 minutes.  At least have a bit of a fresh idea about what it is that they’re going to try and tell me, how they’re going to steer me in terms of cost, and what I need and whether it’s going to be the right need”, and this is how we prepared ourselves.

So, we went into that shop and we just said, “Can you price match it?” and they said, “Yes”.  And even though it had a year less warranty, we still made that purchase in that store when we could have got a better deal, only a year’s warranty, in the other shop.  And that was just because there was no human intervention to change that decision.

Gary Outrageous: That’s right.  So, the human intervention might have encouraged or influenced you to buy them as well as the product, the way they interacted with you, yeah.

Wendy Harris: Absolutely.

Gary Outrageous: There’s a lot of classical stuff that whenever I get asked to talk about sales hypnosis or talk about selling things, I often think, “There’s not a great deal more you can add to it”.  There’s different angles, which is what you’ve covered, and I think that’s brilliant; but a lot of the old stuff where people are saying, the “why you” first.  The amount of times I’ve had people say, “I really want to buy from you, Gary”, and the price isn’t right.

I mean, I had one guy, he was £2,500 over his budget.  He couldn’t justify buying from me and he was gutted.  Seriously, there were tears in his eyes and he said, “Because you’ve looked after me so well”.  In the end I said to him, “Look, I really appreciate that and whether you buy it from me or not, remember, that won’t dictate my happiness”.  He said, “Yeah, I know, that makes it even worse for me”.  I said, “Why?”  He said, “Because you just looked after me so much”.

If I could encourage any salesperson, you’ve got to be over and above, more helpful, more encouraging, more for the customer, more for the client than anyone else they get to meet in their life.  And of course, bringing in the sales closes the — you’ve got to ask someone for the order.  There are many ways you can ask, “So, do you want it?”

Wendy Harris: “How many do you want then?  Oh, sorry, you only came in for one car, didn’t you?”

Gary Outrageous: Not unusual, “You can tell me whilst we’re chatting, is there anyone else that’s looking to buy a car today, in your family and friends?”  They say, “Why’s that?”  “Well, you know, the more the merrier.  Let’s see if we can get some even extra special deals for you”.  “Really?”.  I said, “Look, my grandma told me one thing”, the said, “What?”  “If you don’t ask, the answer’s always no”, and a little smile at the end of it.  But that’s the question.  A lot of salespeople are afraid to ask, they stumble over the price. 

So, the hypnosis part for me, if we just go back a bit, yeah, it is about the confidence, but it’s also about dealing with what I call “the self-harm of not hitting your target” syndrome.  Everyone’s got this illusion, “If I hit the target…”  Well, why hit a target?  Why not just aim way past the target every single time one is set and think, “Well, that’s where I’m aiming at.  And on the way is the one that they would like me to achieve.  So, whether I achieve it or not, I know where I’d like to be”.

Wendy Harris: Yeah, who’s the target for?

Gary Outrageous: Monetary-wise, in business, that’s not unusual.  Okay, so get this, Wendy.

Wendy Harris: It’s a Tom Jones moment coming, I can tell!

Gary Outrageous: Nearly!  I’ll get my ukulele out if you’re not careful.  So, in the last hour on the last day, I closed a deal.  But not only that, I closed a deal that achieved the monthly gross profit bonus for everyone.  A classic car trade, they didn’t want to identify that, did they, because I was leaving!  So I thought, “Well, a bit of hypnosis, you could have come on in here”, so I sent a lovely little email out to all the directors saying, “What a wonderful, amazing experience it’s been, what a blast.  In the last hour on the last day, here I go, closed the last deal and to hit this and hit that!  I can’t wait to see it flow into my bank account, guys, looking forward to it very much”.

Within two minutes gone by, from one of the directors, “We look forward to sending it to you too!”  But that’s only through hypnosis.  So, no matter where I’m at, it’s about checking in the mental state, because mental health is really, really a hot topic at the moment; but it’s not been for me.  Since I’ve been involved in hypnotherapy and hypnosis and all the work I’ve done for over 32 years, that’s always been part of my mind.  Definitely, no matter who I’m working with, whether it’s a salesperson, sportsperson.

Wendy Harris: Do you think it’s just because it’s got a label now?

Gary Outrageous: Yes, spot on.

Wendy Harris: Because, I actually would agree with you, that for the 30-odd years that I’ve also been doing what I’ve been doing, it has always been about, if somebody’s seriously unhappy doing the role, you’ve got to find a way to make that happy, or leave.  There are only two choices really, aren’t there; there’s no “in the middle”.  So that, to me, is looking after the person, not necessarily the business at all, although it will affect the business.

Gary Outrageous: Absolutely.  For most employees, the person that hands their notice in today had given up three months ago.

Wendy Harris: I had it recently where I had somebody book a member of staff on and said, “Can you have a little chat?”  I had the little chat and I went back and said, “I wouldn’t bother booking it”.  I turned the work down.  And they said, “No, they’re definitely doing it”, and I went, “In my mind, I think they’ve already left”.  And it was like, “No, I’m going to book it and we’re going to do it”, and we did the first session.  And some of the questions confirmed to me my initial thoughts.  I fed back, and the second session on accountability nearly didn’t happen, because they’d handed their notice in that day.  We had a ten-minute conversation for me to establish that very quickly.

Gary Outrageous: And I’ve seen so many salespeople leave organisations, normally because of one person, and it’s the sales manager.  And I’ve saved people’s careers on purpose by intervening, not with the manager, but with themselves, to remind them that they change, they move on, and what’s important for them; and just to go through a few very simple mind exercises to begin to let that person not affect them, because it is, definitely.  And it’s a shame.

Wendy Harris: It’s the one thing that’s always going to happen, isn’t it, that there’s going to often, you know, I hear myself saying to my daughter, “There are going to be things that you have to do that you don’t like.  There are going to be people in your life that you’re not going to really want to have in your life.  But unfortunately, it’s not a perfect world, there’s no such thing”.

Gary Outrageous: There’s not.

Wendy Harris: So, you’ve got to remember that whilst that might feel like a difficult situation today and for a short time, it’s not forever.

Gary Outrageous: Yeah, and the faster the better.  Make your decisions as fast as you can, because you’re right, because you said there were two choices.

Wendy Harris: Make the change or leave.

Gary Outrageous: The third one that I might fit in with that, that I’ve come across, is that they stay, they don’t make the change and they become absolutely bitter people, and it’s the company’s responsibility, where possible, to try and encourage those people to move on, move them out the way, because they just because dead wood, they become like a toxic virus.

Wendy Harris: It does affect the whole culture, doesn’t it?

Gary Outrageous: Yeah, and I don’t want to sound harsh in any shape or form, but then sometimes life is harsh and there’s a reason why we say, “Come back, dead wood”, because it allows growth to happen.

Wendy Harris: I read something earlier today, and I hadn’t realised that I’d cottoned on to it, because it was something that actually was just about to go off screen and I just saw these two lines, and it was, “Let it go before it kills you, even though it’s killing you to let it go”, or it was something along those lines.

Gary Outrageous: Yeah, good point.

Wendy Harris: Yeah, I was like, “Why did I have to see that today?”  Obviously, that was why.

Gary Outrageous: Your unconscious mind is working, definitely.

Wendy Harris: Always, always. 

Gary Outrageous: Good job you haven’t got to say to me, “Ply me with light suggestions”, counting down from that lovely ten!  But some people count up from one to ten when they want them to go under.  That just doesn’t feel right to me.  That’s weird, that, “I want to count up from one to ten and you’ll go deeper and deeper”, I go, “Really?”  And I’ve had the intellects tell me, “It’s about confusion, Gary”.  I go, “Yeah, I’m that confused, I don’t want to enter into the hypnosis.  Make it simple, make it easy”.

I can remember seeing someone trying to demonstrate rapid hypnosis in front of room full of hypnotherapists, and he was a hypnotherapist.  As soon as he started, I thought, “Do you know, she’s going to fight against every single word he says”, because everything that he was saying was in total opposite to her body language and everything.  I thought, “Can he not see what I’m seeing?”  Interesting that, isn’t it?  We can often see from the outside.  He tried to force it, and he told her it was her fault as well.

So, she went off stage thinking, you can imagine, “I can’t be hypnotised”, at a hypnotherapy conference.  I thought, “No, I can’t have that”.  So, I made sure I did have a chat and said, “It’s all about horses for courses, isn’t it, really?”  She said, “Yeah, I thought so”.  I said, “I shall demonstrate how I would have done it, if you were sitting in front of me, but I’m guessing that you didn’t feel comfortable with the suggestions, his tone of voice and the way he was looking at you, the way he was sitting”.  She goes, “Yeah, how do you know?” and I said, “I don’t know, I was just guessing”.

Wendy Harris: I have this tell, apparently.  My family have started to take the mickey out of me.  I’m watching the television and there’s something going on, and I’m sitting there watching it, and apparently, I nod.  I sit there and I’m agreeing with the television and they go, “Look, she’s done it again, she’s doing it again!”  I’m like, “What, what?”  I’m getting quite conscious of the fact that I’m sitting there just nodding my head at the telly.

Gary Outrageous: Again, that is hypnosis in action, the matching and mirroring of the body language, just gently nodding your head for a “yes”.  “So, what you’re telling me, it’s something you’d like to go ahead with today then, is that right?”  Just a gentle nod and a little smile.  Smiles really do closes more deals than grimaces.  I can’t understand why people don’t smile more; it’s difficult!  You know if you yawn, someone else will pick that yawn up, won’t they?  So, there’s something about smiling.

Babies do it when we walk by them, don’t they?  If you put a big smile on your face, they just light up.  I want someone smiling when they say yes when I’ve offered them a deal.

Wendy Harris: There’s less energy used when you smile, even though I have to say, at the end of days like today, when I’ve been having really lovely chats with people, and I’m just smiling and I’m happy, my face is exhausted at the end of the day.

Gary Outrageous: It will be.

Wendy Harris: I sit there like that, “Urgh!”  But to frown all day long, gosh, yeah.

Gary Outrageous: It takes effort, it really does.  Some people are really good at it, I have complemented them a few times.

Wendy Harris: It’s a good job that we’re smilers, Gary, it’s a good job we’re smilers.

Gary Outrageous: Yeah!  Well, I use the F-word with a lot of clients, and that’s “fascinated”.  I say, “I’m fascinated how you don’t look so pleased about something which I thought you would be”, and then smile again and they go, “Well, what do you mean?”  I say, “Well, we’ve just done a session and it’s going to change your life and you still look a bit like you’ve sucked on a wasp, what’s going on?”  Because, I think that’s really important. 

When I’m doing a lot of hypnotherapy to help clients change their state, I have to see some sort of physical change in front of me, because there was an old law of hypnosis that, when a suggestion takes root in the subconscious part of your mind, it will be re-enacted in the motor action of the body.

Wendy Harris: Muscle memory.

Gary Outrageous: Well, more than that.

Wendy Harris: More than that, but yeah.

Gary Outrageous: To be re-enacted.  So for example, you can say to some people, “Have you ever sucked on a lemon?” and they go, “Yeah”.  I say, “Could you imagine doing that right now, you’ve just sliced one open, a big chunk in your mouth.  Bite onto it, what’s it like?”  Some people will say, “I can actually feel it at the back of my neck, Gary” and I’ll go, “Yeah, but there’s no lemon in your mouth, apart from the one in your mind that you’ve created”. 

That’s a demonstration of a suggestion that takes root in the subconscious.  It’s the taking root in the subconscious part of your mind, so it’s re-enacted in the motor action of your body.  I love the phrase FUD, and that’s where you bring in a bit of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the conversation.

Wendy Harris: Yeah, I think sometimes it’s worth poking the bear, isn’t it?  I think you can sometimes gauge a commitment as well from a reaction, because if it is something that they’re going to be doing, they’ll quickly defend that you’re wrong, they like to prove you wrong, and it’s like you’ve just crashed their poker face, isn’t it, then?

Gary Outrageous: Yeah, and I let them do that, because I want them to be right every single time.  I’m happy to be wrong.  As long as they’re right and they spend the money, no problem at all!

26:35 – 27:27

Wendy Harris: Everybody that comes on the show, I ask them to think about a moment, a conversation that they had.

Gary Outrageous: There’s so many at this point in the conversation when you’re asking me to share a conversation.  Yeah, okay, it will be my friend, Peter.  I call him my friend, because I did work with him over 12 years.  I consulted with his business, he hired me to train their salespeople, and I just got to like him.  A couple of years ago, he passed away, but the conversation that I do remember was two days before he did depart.

I’d arrived at his house and his wife opened the door and she said, “Gary, I’ve been ringing you all morning to say Peter’s not very well”.  So I said, “Okay, I’ll drive back home if you want”.  They live down near Watford and I’d driven all the way down from Leicester.  She said, “No, come in for a cup of tea, okay”.  I said, “It sounds like he’s not feeling too good then?”  She said, “No, he’s really down, but there’s your tea, I’ll just pop up and say hello to Peter to let him know that you’ve called to say hello to him”.  “Okay, all right”.

Five minutes passed and I’m just sitting there enjoying my tea.  This particular guy had helped me in my business in so many different ways just with his little side comments, that’s all.  She comes down the stairs with a smile on her face and I said, “Are you all right?”  She said, “Yeah.  Pop up, he wants a chat with you”.  I said, “Okay”.  So, I walked up, not knowing what I was going to see”.

So, I walked in, big smile, he says, “Hello, Gary.  Come and sit down” and the conversation that got to me was this, “I’ve had an idea”.  “I thought you had.  That’s why you asked me to come up, is that right?”  “Yes”, and he’d become very animated.  He had his notepad and he’d scrawl on it and he said, “I want to speak with –” and he named the person at his business, “because he’s not doing this, this and this.  Could you just have a word with him for me please, Gary, because then it will make me feel better knowing that you’ll be speaking with him?”  I said, “Absolutely”.

When I walked away from there, how did that change my life?  First of all, Peter was consistent right to the very end.  He had a phrase and it would be, “When others talk about it, I do it”.  That would be repeated at every conference he would sit at.  Think of Steven Spielberg, this short guy with a beard, that was Peter, very short-ish guy, but with a fierce, fierce manner about him, especially with that business and how things had to be done right.

So, I was left with reminding myself, “If you’re going to say you’re going to do it, do it, and make sure that you do it the right way”.  So, that notepad, literally on his death bed, taught me that.

Wendy Harris: Sounds like he was as much a mentor as a friend as well.  I can sort of hear the respect you have.

Gary Outrageous: Yeah, in his way, massive, absolute massive.  I mean, the amount of times I would visit the business and we’d go down to the greasy spoon café for lunch.  He went to this particular one, very loyal to this one, a very loyal person to others that he felt loyal to.  So, he could have gone anywhere to have lunch, literally anywhere, but no, we had to go to Jeff’s.  And Jeff was an amazing chef as well.  He was great at finding diamonds, Peter was, he’d find people all over the place.

I remember walking in and having lunch with him and he said, “Right, I’m going to give you some advice now”, and that’s how he mentored, and I said, “Okay then, Peter”.  “I’ve been thinking about you and your business”, and that means he has been thinking.  “I reckon you should get the cash upfront when you do your programmes”.  I said, “Great idea”, because I’d always run it where the business was a month in arrears.  I said, “What, including you?”  He went, “Not me!”

Wendy Harris: “It was my idea!”

Gary Outrageous: That’s it, exactly.  I said, “No, it was your idea, Peter”.  In fact, we had a gentlemen’s agreement that we shook on for 12 years.  I’d done all sorts of different work within his organisation.  For the last three years of our relationship, I wasn’t working for him, but I’d go down regularly and see him, and if he ever needed any help or advice, of course I would happily help, because there was a massive relationship there.  He never took advantage of that, and he would always be very clear on it.  Anything that would have a cost to me, he would make sure that I was remunerated immediately.

So, yes, as a mentor, he set his business up at a similar time to Alan Sugar, and they used to trade with each other.  He said, “Oh, yeah, I remember dealing with him”, and that was it.  He didn’t lament about it, it was just a memory that would pop into his mind.  Everything was a deal in Peter’s mind, he wanted a deal, and he said to me, “That doesn’t mean the price, Gary, it’s a deal”, and I’d say, “What do you mean by that?” and he’d go through what he meant by a deal.  So, yeah, I picked up an immense amount, definitely. 

The first time I met him, he took me to a trade show in a beautiful Mercedes soft-top, and when we were driving back he said, “This was my first house!”  I said, “What, Peter?”  He said, “When I sold my first house, I bought this car!”  And he reminded me of Rod Stewart, because I remember him listening to Rod Stewart’s autobiography, and that’s what Rod used to do.  If we wanted to buy a house, he’d have a concert.  If he wanted to buy a swimming pool, he’d have another concert.  That’s how this guy’s mind worked.

Wendy Harris: That’s interesting, because that’s a little bit like goalsetting now, isn’t it?  We set these goals and sometimes we stop ourselves from reaching the goal, because we think there are no more goals after that.  It’s a big enough goal that we like the climb, need the climb; but in actual fact, if you just got there, you’d find yourself another adventure waiting?

Gary Outrageous: Yeah, we had a chat about goalsetting.  He says, “I don’t believe in that rubbish”.  I said, “Really, Peter, why’s that?”  “No, I don’t do anything like that at all”, “Oh, okay.  So, remember when you told me about the Mercedes?”  He said, “Yeah”, I said, “What popped in your mind when you decided that’s what you were going to spend your money on, when you sold your first house?”  He went, “Oh, yeah, good point”.  Then during our conversation he just went, “Yeah, I do goalset.  Right, all my team are going to start setting goals tomorrow!”

Wendy Harris: But it’s because we can often speak in tongues and a different language, different words meaning the same things, and that translation can be lost, yeah.  Gosh, no, it’s really good to catch up with you, it’s been too long.  You know we could chew the fat for a lot longer, but it’s been absolutely amazing for us to share.

I know that you’ve given us some bits and pieces to stick on the website for people to find out more about you.  Carry on the conversation with Gary on any of the points that you want that you’ve heard us talking about today.

Gary Outrageous: Absolutely.  If any of your listeners either totally disagree with what I’ve said and want to have a good old debate, I’m happy to do that.  If any of the listeners want to pop onto Zoom so we can have a good old natter, happy to do that.  I’m here to support what you’re doing, because I truly believe in that spreading the word.  And if what I’ve said today, what I’ve shared today has stimulated some of the listeners to maybe explore, to experiment, to have a play with it, it would be great to hear from them.

Hey, listen, if they choose to buy some of my products or not, remember, that won’t make me happy in any shape or form, I’m happy already.

Wendy Harris: That’s not going to change your state?

Gary Outrageous: No, it’s not going to change me.

Wendy Harris: That’s fabulous, yeah.

Gary Outrageous: I’ve put together what I feel is just a few small, little nuggets that I think that they’ll appreciate.

Wendy Harris: Fantastic, thank you.  I do hope that you took away a few ideas, tips, tricks, advice to think about in your own situation from the conversation that I had with Gary.  He’s a great guest and of course, because I’ve gotten to know Gary over time and we’ve had quite a few conversations, I really thought that there was going to be value for you to be able to hear from his perspective, and when two heads get together, often something magical can happen.

I’d like to know what the main thing is that you took away from the conversation, and drop me a line in the studio, following the links on your social platforms.  Now, next time, we’re going to be getting all those digital tools out of the toolbox, and we’re going to be joined by the fabulous Lorraine Ball.