Introduction

Only old-school, outdated sales theories and philosophies frame sales as a “fight.” Winning modern sales philosophy frames the sales engagement as cooperative, collaborative, and supportive. Current high-performing sales teams frame sales as a service, and this shift has been responsible for explosive growth within the organizations that adopt it. So why are we writing a book that’s using fighting as a way to teach sales? Because there is an art that uses connection over aggression. In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu there is no hitting—instead you look to connect with the opponent, to get close enough to them that you can predict, guide, and even control their movements. Taking out striking each other allows participants to give 100 percent without hurting each other. It allows for an engagement that’s competitive, playful, cooperative, contested, supportive, and fun in the spirit of mutual benefit.

“The best athlete wants their opponent at their best.”

—Tao Te Ching

Jiu-Jitsu shows you that if you really want to serve your sparring partner, you bring your best self—your greatest strategies, efforts, and techniques. The best thing they can do for you is to hold you to a high standard by giving you the best possible challenge. But none of this is antagonistic. After even the most competitive matches, challengers hug in mutual respect and appreciation.

If you have something worthy of high-caliber clients, you have a duty to use every ethical, effective best practice and strategy available to help you show them how much you can help them. You want high-caliber clients to challenge you with their toughest questions, requirements, and standards. Iron sharpens iron. Every “fight,” every sales engagement, is a collaborative, galvanizing mutual leveling up.

There has been a revolution in martial arts over the last hundred years, created by the birth and rise of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), which has consistently dominated when tested against any single martial art. BJJ has been the backbone of today’s most intense and realistic combat sport, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), most notably through the Ultimate Fighting Championship and ONE Championship organizations.

There is a reason Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is so effective. It follows fundamental principles—which apply everywhere in life but are easy to see and tap into through such a physical practice. There are distinct phases of engagement, parallel dynamics, and strategies that we can take from physical engagements and apply to sales engagements.

Rather than try to glean actionable principles by analyzing the physical art of Jiu-Jitsu, however, Sales Jiu-Jitsu uses The Jiu-Jitsu Success Formula—a four-part system Elliott developed that outlines the process of preparing for and winning Jiu-Jitsu competitions. This formula for training for, engaging in, seizing, and learning from challenges can teach us about the processes for achieving success anywhere. The Jiu-Jitsu Success Formula uses a match or a fight as an analogy for any challenge we face in life. Sales Jiu-Jitsu applies that system to the sales engagement.

Through the study of success on the mats, this book teaches a system of proven success practices designed to help seasoned Black Belt salespeople become sales champions.

Using the language of Jiu-Jitsu and lessons from competition, we take an original approach to outline proven tactics, strategies, and standard operating procedures for developing world-class sales teams.

The Jiu-Jitsu Success Formula

The Jiu-Jitsu Success Formula is built around four primary phases necessary for winning in competition:

• Pre-fight—what we do to prepare for a competition
• Fighting—the match itself
• Winning—the seizing of victory within the match
• Post-fight—what we do after the match, win or lose

As competition is the aspect of Jiu-Jitsu that most closely resembles a sales engagement, we can apply the same system:

The Sales Jiu-Jitsu System

• Pre-fight—what we do in advance of the engagement
• Fighting—the engagement itself
• Winning—the obtainment of victory (for both you and the client)
• Post-fight—what we do after the engagement, win or lose

Each of these phases has its own frameworks, philosophies, and strategies. To win consistently over time, it’s important to study, understand, and master the components of each phase.

Apply any of the ideas in here to make an impact. Use them all together and the impact will be beyond belief. Make them a habit, a routine, and a system and the impact will be game-changing.

When implemented correctly, the Sales Jiu-Jitsu System will allow your sales team to take the leads you are already getting and convert them at a higher rate.

If you know you can help your clients, then every sales engagement is a battle where victory means you are able to help them solve a real problem they are facing, and defeat means you are not going to help them solve it. It’s not about defeating them; it’s about defeating the forces that might get in the way of you helping them. This means defeating the excuses that get in the way of you helping them solve their problem.

In every battle, you want to use your best weapon. That is now Sales Jiu-Jitsu.

Sales Jiu-Jitsu for Teams

It’s easy to master sales strategies and processes when it’s an individual who is selling. With teams, you need a system that makes maximizing revenues repeatable and predictable. This book gives you that system.

At the end of each chapter, we share visuals, action steps, worksheets, and checklists to help you implement the Sales Jiu-Jitsu System in your business. This is not a book to be read once and thrown on a shelf. It’s a systems manual for developing a Black Belt sales organization.

Whether you are new to sales, a seasoned professional, or part of the elite echelon of world-class salespeople who are leading successful sales teams, this book will give you the competitive advantage in your industry and reward you for reading and taking action.

The system works together like a puzzle. Any one section on its own is powerful. All of it together will make you unstoppable.

Who the Hell Are These Guys?

Elliott is a second-degree Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and has been studying, training, and competing in the art for more than twenty years, teaching for the last fifteen. He has competed at the highest levels, repeatedly representing Canada on the world stage, and has won dozens of medals and titles.

He spent a number of years in corporate sales before leaving the office life behind to focus on entrepreneurship and impact. Elliott has founded a number of business and impact projects over the last twenty years, in addition to running one of Toronto’s most storied and successful martial arts academies, OpenMat Mixed Martial Arts. Elliott also runs Mastermind BJJ—a private Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training program for elite entrepreneurs—and recently launched a Jiu-Jitsu education platform, BJJ101.tv, with courses for everyone from beginners to instructors (you can get a free copy of his beginner course, The BJJ Primer, by visiting www.BJJ101.tv/free-primer-download).

Off of the mats, his focus is impact. After honing the concept in private for a long time, Elliott recently launched Global Unity, a movement and a platform designed to help create a better world.

Daniel has been in sales for twenty-five years. In his long, successful career, he has worked in multiple B2B businesses and professional services industries, personally generating well over $30 million in B2B sales and heading up teams generating tens of millions of dollars per year.

Currently, Daniel is director of sales at Advance Your Reach, a company that helps individuals, entrepreneurs, and organizations leverage speaking on stages as a major client lead source. Daniel has helped to grow the organization from a...