The other day a scandal erupted in the market for business sales trainers.

Sergey Filippov recorded a video addressing his fellow business sales trainers. It's a challenge. Well-known gurus who do a lot of PR and are promoted here in Russia.

The video is provocative and has 2 main points:
1. Call to famous “sales gurus”. Who is being challenged: Rysev, Azimov, Kolotilov, Mink, Baksht, Kotov, Kikot.
2. Sergey’s real-time demonstration of his sales skills (cold calls).

Video No. 2 – Dmitry Tkachenko’s answer

Video No. 3 – Sergey Filippov – response to Dmitry Tkachenko

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Comment from December 3

“There’s potential for a whole series here. I wonder in which episode their children will fall in love with each other? :)”

This is exactly the comment I made in a Facebook discussion yesterday. I’m talking about Sergei Filippov’s video about cold calling and his challenge to famous sales trainers.

The answer (in video format) was given by coach Dmitry Tkachenko (# 2), and after that a response video from Sergei (No. 3) appeared

Brief content of 2 new videos:
Dmitry - conducted an analysis with criticism of Sergei’s 1st call within 1 hour. And showed his 1st call. (Dmitry has good points, but his call was also not at all ideal and there were critical errors in it)

Sergey in the 3rd video showed Dmitry’s mistakes and said that in his opinion, Dmitry gives out “free paid trainings of 50 thousand each, which is not a sale, but a charity”

View the discussion on Facebook here.

There are many people in the world who have amassed a fabulous fortune or have reached dizzying heights and gained global fame. But, as a rule, their experience for the majority is more of an interesting and informative story than a guide to action, since exceptional success is mainly achieved under exceptional circumstances. Therefore, it is very important to learn from those who, being in the same coordinate system as most people, have created effective businesses, built a career, and become a true leader. Their success stories are much closer to real life and have not yet acquired a fair amount of myths. The famous business coach Sergei Filippov collected stories from 16 such leaders, telling how they got to where they are now and how they achieved all this.

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The given introductory fragment of the book Be a business leader. 16 success stories (Sergey Filippov, 2014) provided by our book partner - the company liters.

To be a man with a capital letter

Sergey Filippov – business coach, director of the Vertex group of companies

The Vertex group of companies began its history in 2007. The main areas of activity are conducting business training for managers and executives, management and strategic consulting, coaching, personnel selection, corporate video shooting. Company partners: Gazprom Neft, Beeline, Rostelecom, IC Alliance, Sberbank, Baltic Leasing, NG-Energo, Coca-Cola, AVIS, FIT, Melon Fashion Group, John Deere, Colliers International and others.

I come from the small town of Apatity, Murmansk region. This is a city beyond the Arctic Circle, where half the year is night and half the year is day.

I was an obedient and impressionable child, to whom many things came quite easily. At first I didn’t value my abilities because it seemed to me that everyone could do it, but I soon noticed that not everyone can do it the way I do. I remember an incident: in elementary school we wrote in copybooks, and I did my homework very well. The teacher didn’t believe me, saying that my mother did the work for me. I was extremely upset. Later, I came to the conclusion that I need to stop being ashamed of my good results.

My mother is a cashier at Sberbank. She worked for about 40 years in one place. I don’t remember my father because he died before I was born. But I remember my stepfather, who was a good and strong man, took an active part in my upbringing. He worked in the production of mineral fertilizers, and in the evenings he did weightlifting.

Since my mother and stepfather worked a lot, I was almost always left to my own devices. I was independent: I decided how to study, what to do, what not to do. They didn’t check my diary, they didn’t bother me to do my homework, so I only did what was interesting to me. Often, instead of studying, I wanted to play football, run around with friends in the yard. I was not an excellent student, but I was particularly good at physics and mathematics. But I never liked physical education. I was also interested in chemistry, geography, history. We had a wonderful class teacher, a history teacher. She developed an interest not only in her own, but also in other subjects. I came up with a lot of tasks for independent work.

I remember the first time I “made” money. I was 12 years old. Then my mother’s salary was about 120 rubles. Among my peers, the game of chewing gum wrappers was popular. They collected the candy wrappers in a pile, hit them with their palms and tried to turn them over: if you turned them over, the candy wrappers are yours, no, someone else hits them. Each imported candy wrapper had its own price in candy wrappers from Russian chewing gum. For every foreign one there were several dozen Russians. I remember once at school they offered me to buy a foreign candy wrapper for three rubles. This was a large sum for a schoolboy. Then the idea struck me that the candy wrappers, of which I had accumulated a lot, could be sold. I calculated: if I sell my rare candy wrappers for three rubles (which would be difficult to do due to the high price), I can earn 36 rubles. Then I exchanged my entire collection for a huge amount of cheap candy wrappers: I had a full shoe box. For six months I sold them for 10 kopecks. And in the end I earned a total of 300 rubles. This is mom's quarterly salary! I spent the money slowly, for about two years: I bought a battery, a voltmeter, and some other equipment. Then, at a thrift store for crazy money, I bought a tape recorder that could play cassettes and pick up radio waves. By the way, he is still “alive”. Mom also used this money to buy me something for school.

As a child, I did not attend any clubs, because it was not clear to me why I should do this. I was enrolled in the cross-country skiing section, the model airplane building section, and others. They all seemed absolutely meaningless to me, so I always found things to do for myself.

I was a closed child. I am still a closed person. I had a lot of complexes. When I had to fight, it seemed to me that I was weaker, although in reality I was not. At the same time, I have always strived for power. I wanted to be a leader, a leader in any group.

When I was 18 years old, an interesting event happened. I was hit by a bus and went into a coma for a week. I don't remember what happened on the other side. Silence. It's like I fell somewhere. It seemed to me that an eternity had passed, and I fell back and opened my eyes. They discharged me quickly.

I returned from there a completely different person. Some kind of enlightenment occurred in my head: as if I woke up and understood the rules of the game of this world. The attitude towards everything has changed, including myself. Everyone noticed that I had become different. It became clear to me that my friends were not my friends at all and in order to get something, I had to act in a certain way. I understood how to get what you want from a person. Values ​​have changed. All my complexes disappeared. Someone pulled off the cover. If earlier it seemed to me that my hands were shackled and that something was preventing me from taking a deep breath, then after this incident everything like that disappeared. I realized that I could do almost anything, that there were no restrictions except those that I set for myself. My imagination painted beautiful pictures of my future, and I began to bring them to life.

Following the personalities

I entered the Polytechnic University. One of the schools in our city has agreed with five universities that entrance exams can be taken directly at school. I entered all universities. It wasn't as difficult as it seemed. I chose Polytechnic University because I was powerfully impressed by the speech of the Dean of the Faculty of Nuclear Physics, Valery Fedoseevich Kosmach, a bright and strong personality. And I went to this faculty, which was not particularly popular at that time. I still believe that in life you should follow personalities, not ideas. Then everything will be fine.

Almost from my first year I was involved in business. He traded, worked in small-scale production, worked as a sales manager, providing intermediary services. At this time I made many conclusions for myself. One of the most important: it’s okay if something doesn’t work out. It's just experience. We must move on. Any experience makes you stronger. Success is a bad teacher because it doesn't force you to develop. The best teacher is defeat. Therefore, you must constantly keep yourself in discomfort. We need to set higher goals for ourselves. If you begin to experience comfort, then you need to run from it as if from death.

It was not difficult to combine study and business. I did most of the learning assignments, about two-thirds, myself, but some were so uninteresting that I didn’t want to waste time on them, so I found alternative solutions. I have always liked subjects taught by strong personalities. Moreover, I have always been interested not so much in the subject itself as in the philosophy of life of the teacher, his sincere belief in what he does, the depth of understanding of the material and the ability to explain the essence of complex things at a glance. For example, quantum physics teacher Enver Abdurakhmanovich Choban: it seems to me that this is the only person who fully understood what quantum physics is. Undoubtedly, it is the physicist Karpov, who taught us to think, saying that the only thing they teach in a higher educational institution is to think intently for six to eight hours a day on solving a problem, while an ordinary person cannot concentrate for more than 25 minutes.

Smarter than others

Many people are mistaken in thinking that being successful in business means learning business. In fact, to succeed in business you need to be a deep person, have good personal qualities, be able to think, achieve goals, not give up, be persistent, and be able to say “no” to fear. This has nothing to do with having an economic education. It is needed when you understand that financial flows are growing, but you do not know how to manage them without knowledge of management, finance, management. You can learn this through books or get additional education. It’s more important to be smarter than others, smarter than competitors, then the market will flow towards you like rivers into the ocean.

Among the attempts to do business, there were also unsuccessful ones. At one time I was engaged in landscaping country houses, but abandoned this business, although it brought in good money. The thing is that when you do this, you become like a foreman, and I didn’t really want to look like that. I realized that money can be made in another way. If you only make “easy” money and at the same time change in an undesirable direction for yourself, then you are stupid because you cannot find a more complex solution to make money and remain yourself.

All my attempts at entrepreneurship brought some income, but I abandoned them because either they did not provide moral satisfaction or the income was too small.

Ultimately, I graduated from university and went to work for a company that developed systems for radiation analysis and detection of explosives in carry-on luggage. This direction was consonant with the topic of my diploma: “Use of X-ray diffraction analysis for the detection of explosives.” I became interested in this topic by chance after reading a fascinating article in English. At that time, while still working at the Central Research Institute of Robotics and Technical Cybernetics, I proposed to the institute’s management to open a research project. So, as a fifth-year student, I received an institute grant for 250 thousand rubles. This was a huge support for the Department of Nuclear Physics. After that I became like family there. I got a good diploma.

The employing company did similar things. There I became the head of the research and development department. It seems like it wasn't sales related, but it really wasn't. I was basically selling the idea of ​​what I was doing. As a result, my colleagues and I managed to sell the idea to Pulkovo Airport: they installed a testing facility. It still stands on the second floor. Later I went to the USA, to California, to sell the patent (I am one of its authors) for this installation. Then, for this purpose, we exported its sample in 15 boxes of 100–150 kilograms each. After September 11, 2001, there was a rush around explosive detection equipment. As a result, the patent was sold.

After working in this company for about three years, I left because I wanted to try to do something of my own. Then I opened my own business renovating and decorating apartments. This was completely wrong, because repairs are not my competence. I opened the business together with two classmates. One of them “dumped” us two months later, promising contracts with the military and not keeping his promise. The second one deceived me, stealing money from the cash register. He said that he paid the workers one amount, but he himself gave them another, initially inflating the cost of contract work, for the payment of which the money of the clients I brought was flowing away. I trusted people, so until recently I did not imagine that I was faced with elementary theft. When this was revealed, I realized that I no longer wanted to do repairs. The company existed for a year and a half. All the money we earned went to waste. Nothing left. They say that the first business must go bankrupt. The main thing is to leave with minimal debt. This is what happened. But I made a lot of conclusions for myself, gained skills in sales, hiring staff, and negotiations.

The Science of Sales

Then I went to work for a company that sold metalworking machines. He started as a sales manager and ended three years later as a commercial director. Essentially, we were selling mini-factories. I worked on lines for sawing and drilling metal structures. Sold about 15 lines with a total value of about a million euros. The largest contract worth 50 million euros, in the conclusion of which I took an active part, was for an entire plant for the production of wheel sets and axles for carriages.

That's when I first started teaching people. The company had many regional branches, about 17 offices. Three or four times a year, the company gathered sales managers, and I conducted training, and we discussed not only technical issues related to the product, but also sales techniques. Then I thought that sales is a real science.

I found it easy to train people, with good feedback from the group. I myself sold constantly, so I understood how the mechanism of a successful transaction works. I offered practical advice rather than pouring abstract waters, which is what many trainers without experience prefer to do. My trainings gave a good increase in sales.

About nine years ago, I decided to try to train not only managers of my company. At that time, I had a good salary for those times - 80 thousand rubles. I created a website on which I posted information about myself as a business coach. I started getting calls. I had to decide: continue to work in the company as the head of the sales department or start my own business, doing training. It seemed that this could be combined. But every business takes time, and if it was still possible to find it at the university, then here it is no longer possible.

Million from the toilet

I made my first million rubles from the toilet. It turned out like this. I couldn’t talk about training on the phone while I was in the office where all the managers and I, as a leader, were sitting. It was necessary to negotiate with clients. I had to call them. Then, during my lunch break, I would eat lunch in 20 minutes, then go into the men's room and make a call from there. We had a decent business center, so I had a quite comfortable “meeting room”. I received my first contracts there. I sold 12 trainings in two months.

The final decision to engage in training came after my first client paid me 80 thousand rubles for two days. Then I realized that the trainings would bring me both more money and the opportunity for development, since I had already realized myself as a salesman and manager in the company. I wanted to try to do something of my own. This desire for autonomy and independence apparently comes from childhood. Then I started creating the company Vertex.

The pinnacle of success

I registered Vertex eight years ago. For the first year, the company existed in parallel with my employment. Hanged on zero reporting.

The key moments of the company's development are related to staff and customers. For a business from scratch, the most difficult stage is the transition from one employee to two or three. The first difficulty is hiring the first employee. He needs to believe in you as a person, because it’s lonely for him to sit in the office when you’re at meetings and trainings. He begins to ask himself questions: “What am I doing here? Where is everyone? People believed in me, but they couldn't cope with loneliness. This led to layoffs. There was not a single case when an employee left Vertex on his own. I always fired. Only the third manager began to work stably in the company. Then another one got caught. Then I hired three more.

The second important point in the history of Vertex is related to the owners. Initially the company had two owners. Now I'm alone. At one point my partner said, “Enough money. There is no need to grow further. It is enough for the business to remain at the level of private practice. One coach, one direction, one assistant.” I replied: “No! The business needs to grow." A lack of understanding of where to direct the money earned - into the development of the company or for personal purposes - is one of the crises that a business experiences when it develops under the leadership of two or more owners. The first controversial issue - who does more, how to divide the money - can be resolved. And the second one - where to put the money, leave it in the business or take it out - is insurmountable. I was in favor of the director having a salary. It can increase, but it should be just a salary. You can't withdraw all the money. They need to be invested in the business, only then will it grow. As a result, I bought the second share and became the sole owner.

There was a third key point - the emergence of iconic clients such as Sberbank, Gazprom Neft, Coca-Cola, Alliance. Any new client is always a celebration, but a significant client is a doubly celebration.

Huge plowing

The key to Vertex's success is intensive work, as in other types of business. If you want to get a lot, you have to give up a lot. Do today what others do not want, and tomorrow you will live as others cannot. The Vertex company is, first of all, a huge plowing company. When new employees start working for us, after the first three months it seems to them that several years have passed. This is a normal feeling. This is what allows you to lead the market and pay a lot. I think you have to pay a lot. You can't limit your income.

The next important point: each employee should have a “personal property zone” that you never interfere with. This is also one of the secrets of success. Let's take, for example, a rented apartment: the tenant will never make repairs there or buy expensive furniture there. But as soon as he acquires his apartment, he immediately wants to furnish it, put his soul into it. You can demand results, but you do not have the right to individually determine the methods of implementation. You cannot interfere with how the workplace looks or what a person is doing at a particular moment. And you must always keep your word, no matter what happens. Then a feeling of personal ownership arises, despite the fact that the person is not the owner of the business. And this is not important. The concept of property in Russia is blurred. Any business can be taken away; having a share in it does not guarantee that you are the owner. Ownership is a state of mind. This is an internal emotional feeling that is not related to the legal side of the issue. If you can achieve this feeling in your employees, then they put their soul into their work. You can learn how to do this at our management training (information on the website www.vertexglobal.ru).

Personalities in the office

All Vertex employees are difficult people, even if it is not always obvious from the outside. They are all people with history. Everyone is individual. The main rule of the company is that an employee must be a bright personality. There should be no "machines". Because only a real person with a deep soul and a strong spirit can set the direction and breathe life into the mechanical body of a business. A person is not a cog, he puts his spirit into the business. We need individuals, not members of a collective.

Many employees came on their own. I didn't look for them. But some still had to. When an interesting person comes into my field of vision, I can always come up with a vacancy for him and create a front of work in which he can generate income for himself and the company.

Large organizations find that they cannot afford to have a personality in every workplace. But I think they can, they just don’t want to. If they did do this, they would truly become market leaders like Apple and General Electric. In large companies, many positions have been mechanized to replace team members. This, in fact, was the reason for my leaving the company that sold machine tools. At some point it became crowded there. I wanted more, but they told me enough was enough.

Our employee motivation is individual for each one. The technology of its development is my inner feeling. I believe that a person will put his soul into his work in two cases. Firstly, if he understands what he is doing. This will never be taken away from him. Secondly, it is necessary that a person receives the maximum possible pleasure from work. If you are lazy or bored, you are doing the wrong thing. If you do not devote enough time to an employee, you may miss the moment when he stops enjoying his work: it means that you are doing something wrong as a leader. And then you lose an employee. The reasons for all problems with personnel are always in the manager. No problem employees. There are narrow-minded leaders.

When a person enjoys what he does, he strives to get even more. This opportunity must be given, and it will lead to the professional growth of the employee. It happens that he begins to look for pleasure on the side, which means that the business loses efficiency. The main thing is not to lead the situation to a dead end when, not enjoying it, the employee gives up work and starts working only for money and salary. He won't give his best anymore. I consider it a real crime on the part of a manager when he cannot give an employee the opportunity to realize himself, but views him as a biological additive to a soulless business machine. Personnel are the soul of any business. It's people who make money. Money doesn't make money. And business does not make itself. People do business. Business is, first and foremost, people.

Complex of uniqueness

Vertex has no direct competitors. There is indirect competition for the client's budget, since it is limited. Vertex's strategy is to provide comprehensive, result-oriented services. We work in such areas as business training, personnel selection, coaching, video creation, as well as additional strategic, legal and financial consulting. In fact, there are no other companies on the market that provide such a range of services, having their own specialists on staff. Technically this is very difficult to organize. These are such different businesses that it is incredibly difficult to keep them within the profitability zone within one company. But since we always rely on personality, each direction grows from within each employee who heads it. When a direction is headed by a successful person, it flourishes. Therefore, we can provide a range of services. Many people use a different philosophical approach to business: they tailor their business to one area, such as training. As a result, coaches grow up, steal the base and leave. We've never had anything like this. No one ever stole the database, no one went to competitors or freelance. Because our person is an independent person who is fully realized, having all the possibilities for this. We are now market leaders in terms of performance. I think that in terms of financial turnover, Vertex is No. 1 among consulting companies in the North-West region.

Thanks to our set of competencies, it is easy for us to get new clients. We can knock on a client's door for any of our areas and then offer the rest. Many people can't do this.

It’s easy to compete for a client’s training budget because we always deliver results. In fact, training sales managers is the investment that pays off the fastest. We can easily prove this by showing a master class or providing feedback from our clients. We even have our own records: one of the managers who attended our training increased sales in a month from 1 million to 9.5 million rubles. Of course, this was not a newbie, but a middle-level manager. A record in corporate sales was set by a company that supplies online technical products. She increased sales from 1 billion to 3.2 billion rubles in six months. This is tremendous growth! Naturally, we conducted about five trainings for them, plus strategic consulting: for managers, and for employees, and for distribution, and for sub-dealers.

Points of contact

For Vertex’s image promotion, points of contact are important, any interaction with the client: telephone communication, website, manager’s visit. There should be many such points, and each of them should be of high quality. This is the goal of our marketing policy: increasing the number of points of contact, increasing cooperation after each interaction.

I think I'm a fairly authoritarian leader. At the same time, I communicate with each employee respectfully and on equal terms. Especially if it shows results. Then internal trust arises, which develops into good personal relationships. I have the following management principles:

The employee must have full authority within the scope of his position;

I should never interfere with an employee's responsibilities;

I must always keep my word;

I have to help an employee if he is stalling;

An employee should have the opportunity to earn maximum income.

An employee should never have enough. I myself strive for the maximum. Others see that I do not stop and do not stop working, taking care of personal affairs or going somewhere. Everyone repeats my behavior. As they say, the whole world is not enough.

Success Factors

The most important factor in my success is personality. These are the people who helped me grow. At every stage of my life, fate gave me a mentor who gave me knowledge for the next step. These are people whom I respect and for whom I am ready to do a lot in return. I try to project the same thing onto my colleagues. I don’t think that anyone works for me, that this is my business. It is important that we work together, we go as far as we can along the way. Each employee has his own full-fledged business, his own area of ​​responsibility, no matter how it is legally formalized. Only personal will and faith that you will get what you want can force you to move forward.

The second factor of my success is constant self-development. I will probably be kicked out of my house soon, because everything is littered with books and video courses. I mastered a speed reading technique to master 600 pages per hour. I sometimes wondered what the heaven I would like to go to would look like. It is a library where I can have access to all existing knowledge.

To understand what book to read, you need to understand the principle of the mountain. Imagine there is a mountain with one peak. Many people reach this peak from different directions and describe their path in their own books. But they always say the same thing, just in different words, because they climbed to the same peak. Books always have a source. It is necessary to read it. See who the authors are referring to. Start reading the book with the list of references used. If the original source is not clear, you need to take other books about the same thing. It's like in sports. There are basic exercises such as deadlifts, overhead presses, and “free weights” with kettlebells. They must be done if you want to gain weight and shape. Everything else is for polishing. Many people start with exercise equipment, just like they start with second-rate books.

Now is an amazing time: many people who wrote primary books are alive, for example Philip Kotler, Jeep Camp, Isaac Adizes, Bert Helinger. You should make every effort to get to know them. For example, I regularly correspond with Adizes on Facebook. Seek contact with primary sources, both books and their authors. It's worth any money. Then you can get the philosophy of life of outstanding people first hand. There are also many Russian authors whom you can meet in person. Don't ignore interesting businessmen.

Naturally, self-development is not only reading, but also introspection, a labor-intensive process of changing and improving oneself. Every day at the end of the day I devote 15 minutes to analyzing the mistakes I have made in order to avoid their repetition - and this has been the case for many years.

Health is of great importance for success. You can’t cope with heavy loads without feeling well. I think I can give even an experienced doctor a head start in terms of the peculiarities of brain function and maintaining a healthy physical and mental shape. For good tone I need:

Yoga classes (I have been practicing for about 20 years);

Balanced diet;

Pure water;

Good vitamins;

Correct breathing.

As you may have noticed, I don’t even remember about rest. I have nothing to rest from because I am doing a job I love. This is a philosophy that many do not understand. When you do something that you really enjoy, can you get tired of it? Do you want to take a break from pleasure? No! Many people want to relax because they are minding their own business, because they don’t know themselves well. Even the ancients said that the greatest victory is victory over oneself. I conquered myself at 18 when I died and came back. Therefore, I have no need for rest. Of course, I sleep, eat, watch TV. But all my actions have some meaning.

For business success, what is important is, firstly, personal contribution, secondly, the contribution of your team, and thirdly, the will of God. I am a deeply religious person. God is serious. Faith is a very important moment in life, so you should not be proud, but be grateful for what you have. Pride means that your ego has become too full and will soon begin to fall. We must thank God and strive for more, but in no case should we be proud. Pride equals stupidity. I have several principles of life:

Earn money yourself and let others earn money;

Do more than others, and success will follow;

Be sincere with people, and they will begin to be drawn to you;

Be honest and then people will trust you;

Keep your word and then you will be successful;

You have to be a Man with a capital P;

There is no need to be cowardly. Any fear is cowardice. Lack of self-confidence is cowardice. You must be a person who believes in yourself and others. He believes in his team, in what he does, he believes in God.

End of introductory fragment.

Be a business leader. 16 success stories Filippov Sergey

Chapter 1 Being a man with a capital “H” Sergey Filippov – business coach, director of the Vertex group of companies

To be a man with a capital letter

Sergey Filippov – business coach, director of the Vertex group of companies

How can this book benefit supplier companies? After reading it, they will look at networks with slightly different eyes, from a different point of view. They will not perceive working with buyers as fiddling with Pandora’s box, which causes a lot of problems for suppliers and takes away