Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Patrick Renvoise, Co-Founder of SalesBrain, located in Reno, NV, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

SalesBrain is the only marketing agency that uses NeuroMap(R), a scientific, published, and proven model of persuasion based on brain science. NeuroMap was discovered thanks to the seminal research work of Daniel Kahneman (2002 Economy Nobel Prize). Kahneman demonstrated that human behavior is driven by 2 different brain systems: system 1 (the unconscious primal brain) and system 2 (the rational brain). He further proved that despite our attempts at rationalizing Homo Sapiens' decisions, "System 1 still rules today".

For over 2 decades, SalesBrain has been decoding the working principles of the primal System 1 with the goal of optimizing all sales and marketing efforts. Using a scientific yet ethical model of persuasion, SalesBrain has trained over 200,000 business executives, including 20,000 CEO resulting in over $4B of additional revenues. Clients include start-ups all the way to many Fortune 500 companies and span over all vertical markets from automakers to one of the top 3 US banks, to telecommunication companies, to pharmaceutical and more.

Tell us about yourself

After attending pretty much all sales trainings available, including Solution Selling, Strategic Selling, Value Selling, Target Account Selling, Professional Selling Skills, and more, I realized that there was no scientific model that explains how customers use their brains to make purchasing decisions. All these trainings simply provide a long list of tips but no unified model of persuasion. So I spent about 2 years researching the field and published NeuroMap in "The Persuasion Code: How NeuroMarketing can help you persuade Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime."
In the process of completing our first book, I enrolled Dr. Christophe Morin (Co-Founder of SalesBrain and Co-Author of our books). Together we quickly recognized that we had more than a book in our hands: we also had a business!

What still gets me going today is when I meet a seasoned CEO or CMO, and after talking about NeuroMap and the primal brain, they have a big ah ah moment, and they say: "I wish I had learned about NeuroMap 30 years ago!"

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Helping companies grow their business with unequal speed and effectiveness. This includes returning companies losing money into profitability, accelerating the growth rate of profitable companies, and helping companies win complex and expensive deals valued at over $300MM.

Receiving many awards from my marketing peers, including:

  • 2008: "Above and Beyond" Vistage Speaker Award Vistage is the World's Largest CEO Organization.
  • 2009: "Next BIG Thing in Marketing" Award from the San Francisco AMA (American Marketing Association) - The 2007 recipient of this award was YouTube.
  • 2011, 2014 & 2015: "Innovation in Research Award" from the ARF --Advertising Research Foundation.
  • 2019: Axiom Business Book Award Silver Medalist in Marketing Category.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

The hardest thing is to relativize work's importance and nurture life outside of work. Most business owners work many, many hours, and balancing personal life (family, friends, sport, time off, spiritual development, etc.) with business life is a constant struggle.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Make sure your idea eliminates a real negative emotion in the brain of your prospects. In the tech world, engineers often develop solutions that seek a problem to solve. Do your marketing before your product development!
  2. Your sales and marketing life will be a lot easier if there is something really unique about your product or service. Me too; vendors often need to reduce their prices to be unique: you need to differentiate at all costs!
  3. It's not the one with the best product that wins; it's the one with the best message that wins! Invest more in your messaging, even if that means investing less in your product development and refinement!

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Persuasion is a science that should be taught in all Universities. If you're not in sales and marketing learning, it would protect you and prevent you from buying things you don't even need!

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.salesbrain.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/salesbrain/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickrenvoise/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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