Marketing Speaker

Q. Why does your work stand out from others who do what you do?

A. Voted one of the world's TOP 5 KEYNOTE SPEAKERS on Sales and Marketing by an international Internet poll in 2010 AND 2011. Co-author of the most successful marketing series of all time, the Guerrilla Marketing franchise has sold more than 22 million books in 62 languages. Orvel Ray holds the highest level of certification conferred by the professional speaking industry, the Certified Speaking Professional.

Q. What do you like most about your job?

A. Traveling all over the world teaching sales teams how to close more business at higher prices and better margins.

Q. What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A. How can I go up against lower priced competitors and still win the business?

I'll give you 30 reasons why customers will gladly PAY MORE to do business with you. Our unconventional weapons and tactics will help you close more sales and earn big profits.

Q. Do you have a favorite story from your work?

A. The ad in the comic book said, “Win a Bicycle.” Remember those?

I thought it was a sweepstakes; I didn’t know any better. I tore out the coupon and sent it away.
It was early spring of 1963. I was eldest of three children of a single mom. She worked nights in a rubber factory. We lived a little stick house in Commerce City, north of Denver, right between the oil refinery and the stock yard. We bought our groceries with Food Stamps. And I had long since given up on Santa Clause ever bringing me a bike.

A week later the mailman delivered this box, from The American Seed Company, full of little packets of garden seeds. And it came with all these instructions: I was supposed to go door-to-door-to-door and sell them for 25 cents a pack (which I thought was crazy because you could by the same thing at the Buddy and Lloyds for a dime). But I didn’t know any better. I was 9 years old.

So, on a sunny Saturday I dressed up in my best clothes and started ringing doorbells.
And there were all these rules. ALWAYS walk on the sidewalk; NEVER walk on the grass. ALWAYS step back from the door after you ring the bell. NEVER accept an invitation into their house. ALWAYS say, “Yes ma’am,” “No ma’am,” “Thank you, ma’am.” And I rang every single doorbell in our subdivision. Then I crossed that street that my mother told me not to cross, and rang every doorbell over there, and by about 2:00 in the afternoon it was obvious I had no future in sales. I hadn’t sold a single packet of seeds.

And you know how easy it is to give up when you’re hot, tired and hungry. So I was taking a shortcut across a vacant lot on my way home, and there was this lady out in her backyard, she’s got her shovel and she’s just tearing up the dirt, you know, flipping over the weeds, and putting in her garden.

So I yelled at her from across the field, “Hey lady! You don’t need no seed for that garden, do ya?” The pitch, of course, is out the window.

Well, she stops her work, leans on her shovel and shouts back, “I don’t know; whatdaya got?”

“I’ve got everything from azaleas to zucchini; what do you want?”

And her next question, of course, was, “How much?”

“Twenty-five cents.”

“Twenty-five cents? Why should I pay twenty-five cents? I can buy the same seeds at Buddy and Lloyds for a dime?”

That’s when I started to cry. “Because I’m trying to win a bicycle, that’s why!”

She bought nine dollars worth.

And what I learned from that one transaction was, crying works.

The more important lesson was that people who buy seeds, buy seeds. People who don’t buy seeds, don’t buy seeds. And if you want to sell enough seeds to win a bicycle, you don’t have time to ring every doorbell. You walk up and down the alley and look for that hump of dirt where they had LAST year’s garden.

You knock on the BACK door, and if they don’t answer, you go back again and again and again until you get to talk to somebody, because there are only so many of those opportunities in the neighborhood. And if all else fails, you wait until you see that blue glow in a window that tells you they are watching “Bonanza.” (For you younger readers, “Bonanza” this was a TV show that would have been very popular with your grandparents. Google it.)

Not only did I sell enough seeds to win the bicycle, (it was a red Huffy, with 20 inch wheels, a banana seat and the high-rise handle bars) but the end of Spring Break, I had a hundred dollars in the bank. My mother didn’t have a hundred dollars in the bank.

And that, for me, was the beginning of what has been a lifetime career in sales and marketing.

Many of those early lessons have served me well. One day I was standing there and showing this woman my box of seeds and she asks, “How many for a dollar?”
Well, I may have only been 9 years old, but I could do that math. “That would be FOUR for a dollar.”

She said, “Okay, I’ll buy a dollar’s worth.”

And so at the next door, when I got to the price, instead of 25 cents, I said, “four-fer-a-dollar.” And almost everyone I talked to bought at least a dollar’s worth. That simple change doubled my sales. And what I learned from that transaction was that sometimes just changing one tiny thing can have a tremendous impact on your productivity and your income.

The next big lesson came when an elderly neighbor asked, “Well, son, what’s this for?”

At first I didn’t understand her question. “They’re seeds for your garden?”

“No, no. I mean, are you raising money for boy scouts, or maybe summer camp, or. . .”

“I’m trying to win a bicycle.”

“Okay, I’ll take $5 worth.”

“But I didn’t get to tell you about the seeds.”

“Oh, that’s alright. I’m too old to keep up a garden. But I’m happy to help an enterprising young man like you.” (WOW! She called me a “young MAN!”)

So, at the next door I said, “Hi, my name is Orvel Ray Wilson and I need your help. I’m trying to win a bicycle.”

And sales doubled again. What that taught me was that it’s not always about the product, or the price. Sometimes it’s just about the relationship. As my mentor Cavett Robert used to say, “People LOVE to buy, but they HATE to be sold.

Q. What do you wish customers knew about you or your profession?

A. Famous for his deep customization, Orvel Ray has been asked, on occasion, "How long have you been working in the home office?" because he studies your products, your markets and your competitors until he sounds like an insider.

Q. How did you decide to get in your line of work?

A. I was a champion orator in high school, and went college on a debate scholarship. When the scholarship money dried up, I went into sales, where all that psychology served me well.

In 1980, I hung up my shingle as Boulder Sales Training Institute. For more than 30 years I have been traveling the world helping companies large and small gain the edge they need to win in today's competitive environment.

Q. Do you do any sort of continuing education to stay up on the latest developments in your field?

A. I've been through thousands of hours of advanced training, workshops and labs to hone my craft. The National Speakers Association requires ongoing professional development in order to maintain the Certified Speaking Professional credential.
In 2010-11, I served as the Vice President for Professional Development for the National Speakers Association Colorado Chapter.

Q. Describe your most recent project, what it involved, how much it cost, and how long it took.

A. I was recently called in by Purvis Industries, a bearing services company in Houston, Texas. They supply the manufacturing and materials handling sector, operating sixteen distribution centers and a direct sales team of about 200 people across seven states.

Their business had been hit hard by the collapse of the manufacturing sector, and one of their competitors was moving their hub to Memphis to cut costs, closing warehouses, and liquidating inventory.

The sales team had been discounting deeply to match these fire-sale prices, and had already given away more than $750,000 in what the CEO considered unnecessary discounts. Our mission was to teach them how to sell at higher prices, even in the face of the combined pressures of a tough economy and a failing competitor. We covered many of the concepts in this book in a three-hour seminar, videotaped it, and made the video required viewing for all employees.

A month later, the CEO called to say, “We’ve had our first ten-million-dollar month since 2007 when the bottom fell out of the market, AND we’ve increased our gross margin by three points.” That may not sound like much, but multiply 3% times $120 million a year, and you get the picture. Bob Purvis is very, very happy.

Q. If you have a complicated pricing system for your service, please give all the details here.

A. Keynote up to 90 minutes $15,000
Half-day break-out or seminar $20,000
Full-day custom training $25,000

Plus travel, lodging and incidental expenses. Individual fees for custom programs available on request. Call 800-247-9145 to discuss your group and their needs.