Selling the Maher way

When it comes to motivating and training salespeople, Barry Maher is considered simply the best in the business. Rekha Baala caught up with him in Muscat to find that Maher had lots of substance in all his talk

Barry Maher’s first sales pitch was also his first perfect one. As a young kid following the great American dream, Barry went door-to-door selling greeting cards and making money. His sales tricks were unique and his techniques charmed people into buying.

Years later, Barry Maher used these sales tricks and found his calling: to help people change the way they looked at business and at life. Today, he is a successful speaker and consultant, sharing his philosophy, experience and advice through hundreds of presentations to people all over the world. Barry was in Muscat recently to conduct a workshop based on his best-selling book, ‘Filling the Glass: The Skeptic’s Guide to Positive Thinking in Business’.

“It is good to look at the glass half-full and be optimistic, but I am interested in people who look at the glass and try to figure out how to fill it up,” he said in one of his presentations, ‘Filling the Glass’.

Philosophy is just a small part of how the speaker seeks to convey his ideas. “I am not a guru or a man on a mission. I am not here to show people happy thoughts. I am only a catalyst who is hopeful of bringing about a change,” he points out.

Barry uses an assortment of tried and tested real-world techniques, a compelling narrative and story-selling skills to put his points across. “What I can offer is something I have been able to pick up from extraordinary people and their experiences. I am not a motivator and I am not Barry Maher with the great ideas! Ultimately, you have to be your own guru and your own motivator.”

Audience pullers
There are compelling strategies that Barry uses to make his audience tune into a thought process, which has ‘long-run’ uses. Take, for example, the concept of ‘making skeletons dance’ which summarises Barry’s objective. “Great leaders do not hide potential negatives or stumble over them. They use them as selling points.”

Barry agrees that leadership means hard work and it is really lonely at the top. But does he offer a single formula that enables the leader to carry his flock together and achieve his goals?

“I would be a very much rich man if I knew that,” he says with a chuckle, adding a little more seriously, “a bit of positivism and leveraging the negativity does help make a difference.”

He also touched upon both money and non-money factors as major power incentives.

“Microsoft has made so many millionaires. But I don’t think the company motivates its people only with money. There are other things like building people, their capabilities and showing them the vision of what they can be in the future. People then feel that they are on a mission and this becomes much more important than money.”

Despite his new age theories and an entertaining twist to his presentations, Barry admits that his ideas do not hit home all the time. “I know and believe that nothing works all the time. I don’t claim to have all the answers. Some strategies may work for some and not for others.”

But despite the honest confession, work is excellent and growing every year. “My work is so much fun. But what I have to do now is practise what I preach in terms of a work-life balance.” This is also why Barry has not ventured into fiction again after his first attempt, ‘Legend’, a sci-fi novel won rave reviews. But he does a lot of reading, specially of biographies, to get more material and experiences for his presentations, adding that extra zing each time.

Surely, like the theory he advocates, Barry’s cup of life is indeed full!

Fill Your Glass with Barry Maher – an NPA Events Presentation.

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