Presentation Skills for Sales Success: Patricia Fripp on Communication, Follow-Up, and Influence

Patricia Fripp (00:00)
Well, I hope you will remember me, FRIPP. However, much more important than remembering me, remember what FRIPP stands for. Frequently, reinforce ideas that are productive and profitable.

Quentin (01:50)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I am excited to be here today. I have a fantastic guest. This, I’m gonna go on record and say this is gonna be an interview for the ages. This is gonna be one of the ones that I put on my wall to say yes. This is definitely one of the ones I remember.

And you’re going to see, she’s going to give you just some great history, some great coaching and speaking history. think once you leave here today, you’re probably going to be a better speaker, probably going to be a better salesperson. There’s going to be so many tools that you take away that you can put into your tool bag to do what you do effectively. And so I am so excited to introduce to some and present to others, Ms. Fripp. Ms. Patricia, how you doing today, ma’am?

Patricia Fripp (02:48)
I am so good you would find it difficult to believe.

Quentin (02:52)
I can believe that. It’s difficult to believe, but I can believe it just based on what you told me, how you live your life, the way you operate. I just know your life is fantastic. And I am going to sit here and anticipate you help and make our life even more fantastic. so ⁓ what I want to do, Ms. Patricia, I want to dive right in, make full good use of our time. I would love for you to tell the people what your main focus is these days.

If you can give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got to where you are now. We love the heroin journey. You say hero journey, but the heroin journey. And also, if you don’t mind, tell us what part of the world you’re in. People seem to really love knowing what people are, geographically. So what you up to? Origin story and where you are. Miss Patricia, you have the floor, ma’am.

Patricia Fripp (03:45)
Well, my mission in life is to wipe out as many boring presentations as possible. Now, I turn shy, modest, brilliant engineers into corporate superstars. I help sales teams make more sales.

Quentin (04:00)
Hmm.

Patricia Fripp (04:06)
by focusing the conversations not on this is who we are, this is what we do, this is how we do it, this is who we’ve been doing it for and we’d love to do it from you, which is the old way of selling. Now helping them, it’s all about the customer. So I help people with their sales presentations, their sales conversations, I help other experts and speakers who are good get to be great.

Quentin (04:24)
Hmm.

Patricia Fripp (04:35)
because the difference between good and great is very often dozens of tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny changes or improvements. And often my clients and my audience say, well, does that really make a difference? I’ll say, perhaps in isolation, perhaps not.

However, when you take multiple small changes and add them together consistently, that’s when people say, you know, I always thought you were the best presenter I heard, but that was amazing. They don’t know what the difference is because it’s subtle and they’re met.

So of course I still speak for audiences myself, which are fun. And years ago…

A speech coach friend of mine said, Patricia, when I see people I coached on stage and they do well, it’s as exhilarating for me as it is when I get up and speak and the audience loves me. And I didn’t think it was possible until it happened. And I get very emotionally involved with my clients. And yes, their success reflects on me and it’s just as exciting.

Quentin (06:40)
I love it. Miss Patricia, you said so many things that are fundamental to actually… Okay, go say I swear I love you.

Patricia Fripp (06:45)
Okay, now I’m going to sass you a little.

You use a word that I tell all my clients don’t use, and that is thing. I don’t give people things, I give them suggestions, ideas, techniques, formulas, habits. So they’re never things. Now you asked me my origin story. let’s, I grew up in England, small town.

Quentin (06:54)
Uh-huh.

He said, think.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Patricia Fripp (07:13)
and

At that time, no one expected much of girls, especially in this small time. And I thought, I’m probably more artistic than academic. And I became a hairstylist. However,

As you know, you can’t be the same as everybody else if you want to stand out. And as a hairstylist working in an apprenticeship, the apprentices would help the stylists. Shampoo, help them with the setting, whatever. And on a Tuesday evening, models would come in and pay two shillings and the stylist would do the hair.

Quentin (07:35)
Absolutely.

Patricia Fripp (07:54)
and all the other girls would do ⁓ one or two. I would do five. And I said to my boss, can I bring models in on Monday? And because I was so interested, he gave me a hairdryer to take home and I’d do all the neighbors hair weekend. So naturally I progressed faster. You don’t have to be better. You have to be more consistent and you have to do a bit more.

So I would say the key to my success is get up early and work through lunch. And I’ll tell you where that comes in. When I finished my apprenticeship, I went to work on an island off France and I worked with gentlemen, Quentin from the West End of London. They could do hairstyles I’d never seen before. They were superstars. And how we got paid was a base pay, commission and tips. Now their base pay,

I expected to be three times as much as mine because they were a lot more seasoned. However, one day the boss said to me, Patricia, you know, you bring in 30 % more income than Otmar and Leon. And that simply was because my fellow stylist thought lunch hours were for eating lunch.

Quentin (09:12)
Mmm. ⁓

Patricia Fripp (09:13)
I knew

lunch hours were for squeezing in four different clients who could only come in at lunchtimes because our clientele, it was a tax haven island, the island of Jersey, we had rich clients and holidaymakers.

But there are the people in the neighborhood who work in the newspaper shop, who work in the bank, who work in the chemist shop. They can only come when their boss tells them to go to lunch. And if you do four extra clients a day, five days a week, every week you bring in 30 % more income than the superstars. So that’s why you don’t have to be the best. Do more.

work through lunch and then I came to America at 20 because it seemed like a good idea at the time. I had no job, only ever met two people who’d ever been here. I checked in the YWCA but I didn’t know anyone. I had $500 but I knew everyone in America was rich and the streets were paid for movie stars.

Quentin (10:12)
Mm.

Patricia Fripp (10:21)
I worked at the Mark Hopkins Hotel because it was great. I didn’t know anywhere. were holidaymakers staying in the hotel, people who came to conventions, then went to work in what was the first men’s hairstyling salon.

Quentin (10:35)
Mmm.

Patricia Fripp (10:35)
When it was a new industry, worked with J.C. Bring, the Hollywood hairstylist, and started traveling nationwide for a hair product company. My executive client said, you’re speaking, come speak to my Roach & Kupka Ones clubs, come speak at my team meeting. And eventually, by attending the National Speakers Association Convention and getting discovered, I realized this could well be my next career.

which it turned out to be. I was the first woman president of the National Speakers Association. That’s when I gave my salon to my staff and have been full-time speaking to many industries and that evolved into speech coaching, sales presentation skills training and everything else.

That might be more than you want, but that’s my origin story.

Quentin (12:11)
Definitely not more than I wanted. I have a very stories. I love stories. I put a premium on stories. And so you said a thought that really resonates with this podcast. Something I say this, make this transition at this point, probably every podcast. So the thought you said was multiple small changes. You add them up and you put them together.

One of the books that I love is Atomic Habits. Not sure if you heard of the book, but I love Atomic Habits. It talks about being 1 % better every single day. And so when I hear you talk, I was writing things down. Went from hairstylist to speaker, first woman president of the National Speaker Convention, speech coaching, sales coaching.

Patricia Fripp (12:42)
Yes.

Quentin (12:59)
And so I reiterate these things that you said, because this is the thought that I say every podcast, Ms. destiny has no wasted moments. Meaning no matter what you go through in life, like you said, these moments, they compound and they build. And then sometimes you got to just reflect back just a little bit, just to see the added moments that got you to where you are now, because it will re refine your mindset.

Patricia Fripp (13:11)
it.

Quentin (13:27)
It will re-reinforce your purpose, reinforce your why. So my question to you, what has these moments on the journey for you, what has it taught you about yourself? Has it taught you discipline, resilience? Has it changed your mindset in different ways? Like what has it taught you about you, Ms. Patricia?

Patricia Fripp (13:45)
Well, we have to step backwards because I’ve lived a very long and fun life. My dad was in the real estate business, I told you, in England. And you’re self-made man, you know, build a very good business. And the first day I went to work,

My father said, in your career, don’t concentrate on making lot of money. Rather concentrate on becoming the type of person people want to do business with. And you most likely will make a lot of money. So that was a great foundation. And I am a great believer.

in asking questions. Well of course you’ve got Pong, ask questions. But I said to my hairstyling staff once, you’re interesting women, why do you talk such a loaded drivel when the most interesting people in the city are sitting in your chair? So I used working with my clients who were executives. For example, one of my clients, Ernie Beale, was very big in PR and I said well,

Quentin (14:29)
Yeah.

Patricia Fripp (14:55)
How would you promote a small business like mine? I learned every customer, every client, every conversation, I asked about their business. In fact, think about this, Quentin. I have asked audiences if you had the opportunity to talk to a multimillionaire, a trial lawyer,

who won unprecedented awards and a top salesperson for IBM who made $200,000 a year in 1977, all before 10 o’clock in the morning. What would you ask them? That was.

an average day for me when I worked in the financial district. So you can understand, I would consider myself more than anything else, a lifelong learner. So every experience is a learning experience. You know, we all have ups and downs and goods and bad days, but it’s just a matter of every day is an adventure.

Some of my fripporcisms that are quoted a lot in real estate presentations and conversations and posts don’t celebrate closing a sale, celebrate opening a relationship.

because whether you’re in real estate or a speaker or a speech coach or any business, we are really not in a transactional business as much as a relationship business. And certainly in the real estate business, people, even if they are loyal to you, probably aren’t gonna move every year.

And here’s another frivolousism. It’s not your client or prospect’s job to remember you. It’s your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t forget you.

So you keep in. There is nothing more irritating than having people call you when they want to sell you something. It is like two weeks from now, your lease is up, are you going to lease another car or buy this one? The time to follow up is not two weeks before the lease is up.

It’s how are you enjoying your car? Whatever. Remember, it’s time for a service. We want to keep this. You keep in touch with people all the time. So it’s a logical you get your next purchase. It’s logical you think of people. You’re a dinner party. Well, you my mother’s considering coming living in the neighborhood. Oh, I got a great realtor. She was just calling me yesterday to wish me happy birthday. You know, it’s…

Because it’s good clients that you earn the relationship. When I first started speaking, my subject was how to get, and deserve customers. Because that’s what I did in my hair styling salon. You get, keep and you deserve customers. And I used to ask my clients,

Why did you choose to come here? And I heard my friends in my office all come here, they love it. I just moved to my office to this building. And, you know, often people said to me, you know, I had another hairstylist and for the first three hairstyles, they were really nice and great service and friendly. And then they considered me their customer and they stopped trying as hard.

So my point is, know, life is a series of sales situations. We’re selling ourself, our ideas, you know, our company, our services. We’re keeping in touch with people, but really the real sale, Quentin, is after the sale. Earning and deserving the next sale, the recommendation.

And if it came to a sales conversation or presentation, what is the most frequently asked question that we ask at industry events or networking events or in our community? It’s what do you do? Well, how do you answer that question? Do you do it creatively? Because…

Ideally, when somebody asks you, what do you do? And I think we have different answers depending on where we are. You know, I work a lot with clients in Silicon Valley. So I go to a lot of the conferences, my clients I’ve coached are speaking at, you know, their meetings for their companies and their course. I do not look like, and I don’t try to look like all the people who go to these tech conferences.

I stand out, I’m wearing brighter colours. You everyone else is grey and beige and brown and, you know, they’re not wearing raspberry or bright royal blue or, you know, so I stand out like a sore thumb and that’s intentional because here’s another frippecism. There’s no point going anywhere that people can’t remember you were there.

Quentin (21:02)
Mmm.

Patricia Fripp (21:03)
How do you stand out? How are you distinctive? So then when I’m standing in line to register and get something and you start conversation with people, initiate conversations. ⁓ you do business with MoveWorks. ⁓ you know, then, do you work for MoveWorks? Well, yes, but not full time. Well, what do you do? I help brilliant engineers like you become corporate rock stars. And then you know what they say?

How do you do that? We always want people to say, how do you do that? I say, well, that depends. Do you have a customer facing job? Do you do demos? Do you speak to your senior leadership? Do you speak at user conferences? So whatever they say, I’ll say, well, you’re going to talk to you, you’re going to do an update to your boss next week. Right.

How are you going to start the presentation? And I say, well, would you like to know a better way? So you’re given the mini coaching in line. Because you want people to walk away and think, wow, that was an interesting conversation. Wow, I just met her and she told me, gave me a framework to speak to my boss.

Quentin (22:10)
Mm.

Patricia Fripp (22:27)
Here’s another suggestion. I think I learned this from one of my multi-millionaire hairstyling clients. And that was really, you don’t take all the money on the table.

Quentin (22:44)
Mmm.

Patricia Fripp (22:44)
Because he always used to say to

me, look, I’m going to use all the tax write-offs that I can, but I always pay a little more than I have to with his income tax. He was very successful. Because whenever I’m auditing, you know, the few times I’ve been audited, they always owe me money.

the IRS is not going to keep coming after you if they always end up paying you. So it’s also the same is, you know, I have a lot of friends that…

well, I’ll speak at your conference, well I’ll do a breakout session, this, this, you want me to have lunch with the executives, that’s this. I always say, you’re gonna hire me, work me to death when I’m there. I don’t care how many sessions I do. I want one, I happen to enjoy doing it, and I love being at conferences learning about the industries, because that’s how you become an industry expert with other people’s conferences.

But you know, they think well not only did she do a great job

She wasn’t trying to keep milking us for more money, which they might have been willing to. But you know, have, be fair, but let them know you did more for them than they expected.

Quentin (24:05)
Yeah.

Whew, Ms. Patricia, you have given us really a lot of nuggets to think about, a lot of things that has resonated. I really appreciate your story, your journey. Listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, Ms. Patricia?

Patricia Fripp (24:30)
Well if you could remember my name F R I P P go to FRIPP.com and if you look at the top right of my website it’s free resources

special reports that will help you that the 11 mistakes salespeople make in their presentations will be something that most of our audience would love. And then I have, you know, I send out speaking advice every week. You can sign up from the website. I have an online learning program if you want to learn super style sales presentations, all on frip.com. And you can email me, how about patricia at FRIPP.

Quentin (24:51)
Yeah.

Patricia Fripp (25:14)
How easy is that to remember? Patricia at FRIPP. I have, ⁓ about 800 videos on YouTube if you want to go look at Patricia FRIPP in YouTube. hopefully they can’t not find me if they’re looking.

Quentin (25:32)
Absolutely. Well, listen, let me say three things to you, ma’am. First, thank you for your time. Could have been doing anything else. Be anywhere else in the world, but you’re here with us. So thank you for your time. Secondly, thank you for your story. I believe stories have a way of planting seeds in people. We may never see the growth, but still, you planted the seed. It can literally course correct their life. So thank you for your story. Lastly, thank you for your mindset, the way you think, your perspective.

I thank you for bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate you being here,

Patricia Fripp (26:07)
And what about my concluding remark?

Quentin (26:10)
You see,

you gotta let me lead because I already had it in the chamber. I was gonna set it up so beautifully. So here, let’s do this. Y’all definitely make sure you check out Miss Patricia. Look in the show notes. Our contact information are in the show notes. Definitely make sure you are subscribed here. And Miss Patricia, I am gonna go ahead and give you the last word.

Patricia Fripp (26:18)
yeah.

Well, I hope you will remember me, FRIPP. However, much more important than remembering me, remember what FRIPP stands for. Frequently, reinforce ideas that are productive and profitable.

well all ideas frequently we have to frequently reinforce ideas that are productive and profitable so if you hear an idea on a podcast anywhere you get it you don’t just think it write it down think how does this apply how can I do it

Reinforce ideas. Any idea you hear, share it with somebody else. When you are sharing ideas you’re learning, teaching them to other people, you’re more likely have them stick with you.