Over the course of our Sales Throwdown podcast, we've talked many times on the importance of planning and having goals to help you achieve success. But what do you use to make sure you're hitting those goals and wins? This is where accountability comes in. And it looks different for each of us. Where one person has a very specific idea of what accountability is and how it impacts their sales, the other doesn't really factor it into their sales process at all. But it doesn't mean it's not there. Owning your process, communicating with your team, journaling your activities, or finding an accountability partner; these are just some of the ways accountability can make you more successful. And of course, DISC personality profiles play a huge part in which ways will work best, for you and your team. So if you don't know where you are on the DISC spectrum, it might be time to find out. Email us at assessment@salesthrowdown.com to find out more. Sign up for our emails: https://www.salesthrowdown.com/ Connect with us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Salesthrowdown Check us out on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/salesthrowdown/ And keep up with us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SalesThrowdown
Let's ready to Throwdown.
So awesome. Welcome to the show everybody. We are talking about accountability today. Because it is super important because if you don't have some accountability, you don't have goals in my opinion you have dreams. Clint is making these huge like...
Slow blinks.
Slow blinks.
Like Bambi.
So whose idea was this topic? Was, was this my topic? No, this is Paul's idea, so Paul's in the booth so he can't chime in. But you know I think accountability takes some different forms right you can have accountability partner, you can just be like Clint and just be accountable to yourself and not need any outside reinforcement.
Okay, so you hit on a topic or the topic accountability in in rightfully so, is going to be different for everybody and everybody's industry but there's some some, some key components to accountability that I think affect everybody, regardless of the industry, and what you sell or what you do. Because it's like your accountant and my accountant when they get our books, they follow certain standards to produce results, to give you information back so you can make some decisions. And that's what accountability does in your life. Right? If you're writing some of this stuff down, you're holding yourself to a plan. You're putting a timetable together usually. And you're you're categorizing the different aspects of whatever you're trying to accomplish.
So can, can you be accountable without a plan?
Yeah, I, yes, absolutely.
How?
I disagree.
No, how?
Oh, how? Yeah. I mean, you have a plan. It's just maybe not on paper. Right.
Okay. But that's different than not having a plan. You're just saying the form of a plan is written...
I want to sell $35 million this year. But I don't have a plan. I don't have any way of getting there. How does anybody hold that accountable.
All you have is a goal, you don't have a plan and there's no accountability.
But to some people, that's all the plan you need.
No, absolutely not.
I think Clint is very mentally, he has his plan. He has, no, I think he has his plan in his head.
I just think some people, Clint's an example of this, but he has the plan in his head. He's and I kind of like that too. But I have found being more accountable on paper does keep you more stringent to a more exact plan where you're not just kind of what we were talking about earlier just haphazardly go on about your day, as you know.
But here's what also occurs to write your, your plan for the day, you know, what am I going to get done today? And so you jot some notes down or you have it in your head or wherever you have it, but if plan, but but it's there, but you get that phone call this distracting or something that takes you off a task? Where do you get where were you in the process of accomplishing what you needed to accomplish? And if you have to go back and mentally run through the Rolodex, maybe that's doable. It's just not in my world. And I say I've got to have it down. Yeah, so that I can say wait a second noon. I eat my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then I take my nap and then cartoons. Come on. Oh wow it's five o'clock, time to go home.
You know big pharma is I'm sure there's other companies that do it but big pharma is really big on not to be redundant using big but they really require their sales team to keep such a regimental just this plan that they spend so much time and have conference meeting, you know, conference calls and it took away I'm so glad when I was in pharma that I when I started, I, he basically my boss basically said, Go out and make some calls and make some money. And he would call me I think I've said this before he would call it you're not even gonna believe what your check is. And I'm like, I don't want to know what my check is. I want to know how much success I had by the amount of so that account of the end out of calls I made that were successful. So that made me be a, that was my accountability because I saw the success. But I don't think someone lets and I like out, I think he really does need to have a written down plan because he does have peanut butter jelly and cartoons in his day that's screw up his whole plan. And I think,
Everybody does though, right?
I don't know, I don't know if Clint and I are like that as much. I have, I want to accomplish what I have in my head I want to do each day. I think it's important to you, because that's you, you just need all your ducks in a row, you know?
Well, for me, I you know, we hit the nail on the head right there. There are parts of selling that I like and there are parts of something that I don't, right. And so if I have a day and there's a section of my day, and it's like coming up on the period of time where I have to like follow up and you know, do the things that I don't really like to do. I like having conversations, I don't like following up or creating scopes of work. So when I have to do that, and then the phone rings and then I allow myself to take that call and stuff like that, then everything kind of gets scattered. And everybody has got parts of the role that they like, and the parts of the role that they don't like, right? And the things that you don't like, are super easy to be like, I'm going to do that later. I'm going to do that later. Right? So without a plan for me, I, even even me being a C, right? If I don't have like my plan, and my priorities in place and stuff like this, then other stuff gets in the way, right? I'll hop into my email when I'm supposed to be doing follow ups or, you know, creating content or doing something else. And so, for me, it is like, keeps me on track, right with goals and priorities. And then I can communicate that with like other people in my life, right? Like, Melissa, who works on my team, and we're, you know, together, she comes up and she's like, Hey, can you do this? And I'm like, Well, I gotta do this and this and this. This feels like it's more important than this right now. And she's like, cool, I get it. But she knows my goals and knows what knows where I'm trying to go to. So that makes my life easier. Whereas before we started working together, right, and I was just working from home, everybody. Everybody who doesn't work for themselves or work from home just assumes that when you work for yourself, you're just always available. Hey, can you go run this errand for me? Or can you go do this? Or can you pick me up from the airport? And it's like, No, I can't do those things. I'm working. I'm at work.
Yeah. One of the things that that I've started doing that I think helps with accountability is I've got a, a day timer that's got a four categories, because I have different divisions and different things that require, you know, a different skill set.
Humblebrag. Go ahead.
But one of them so I list and I list and I list and on the fourth column, it just says Al, right? And on that column, you know, starting at seven o'clock and going through the entire day, there are days that I write down exactly what I did. And I'm completely disappointed by the end of the day, cuz I've spent too much if you really look at where you're spending the time, most of us are gonna say I goof off too much. If you're really honest about, now not everybody.
Yeah, I don't think that at all. I know I don't.
And I'm not saying you do. I say that I do. I get distracted, and why I spend too much time.
What do you, Clint, do you think you waste a lot of time?
None of my time's wasted.
Keep telling yourself that.
Me breathing's fortunate for you guys.
I do think,
We're just gonna call you the gift.
Man I love it so much.
As if it's the first time I've heard that.
Oh, I'm not even original with it. I'm trying to be witty and failing miserably.
So, so can, do you think that you can have real accountability without having someone else included? Do you think that you
I can do a lot of things without somebody else included. So I'm assuming accountability would fall into that category as well.
That's my biggest failure with accountability is because I expect everybody to be accountable like I'm accountable for myself, right? So if you're, if you do this X job, and I do Y job, and it takes us to, you know, to work together to get a task done. I expect you to have your end covered not for me to go check on you, or you to come check on me, you know, in between periodically before we get to that meeting, like that's crazy to me.
But that's interesting because you and I have talked about in the past that whenever there's an there's an outside component who you don't know and don't trust. I mean, even when we were launching this thing, you were like, Look, I'm gonna crush. I don't know about the rest of you guys, you know, before we started.
And how's it worked out for you?
Pretty awesome.
So doesn't that kind of counteract with this idea that like no one gets any credit until you show that you can do it? So why would you give anyone the benefit of the doubt of being accountable to the things that they say they're going to be?
I just think, because you have to.
Because you can't do it all yourself. Professional world, right. You're hired to do a job. Yeah, we hopefully when you got hired on you got vetted out and your resume said you could do this. We agreed. You got hired. Okay, now you need to go do your shit, right. And so when we come back together, I shouldn't have. Oh, well, I didn't get it done on time. Like what do you mean you get it? You had a goal. You said you could do it, go do it.
Right. Do you have any patience for that? Whenever someone comes in?
Not really.
Then you're telling me everything works as it should, on the timeframe that it should.
There's reasoning, doesn't work that well. No, no, there's reasoning of, you know, maybe legitimate reasoning why you didn't get to the to the endgame. And I'm okay. Let's assess that. And how do we make it better? I'm always game with that. But don't just tell me I didn't get it done.
But you you can't tell me you haven't heard, Well, I'm waiting on the client to get these specs, so that I can...
But that's a legitimate reason, right?
What I'm saying, those do come up.
No doubt. Okay. I'm just saying that don't come to me and tell me I didn't get it done. Because now you're trying to make me hold your own accountability in my accountability. Now I have to make you part of my accountability. And that's fucked up. Because you're a professional in this game, or you're an adult, let's just say that.
But okay, so let me ask you this question as a leader of a team, don't you like want to step in and kind of build accountability steps with everybody on your team.
I mean, I give them goals, right? I mean that that is my account, that that's what I'm talking about is that I trust everybody on my team to get their shit handled.
Because you told them?
Because I had, yeah, because I have my shit to handle, right. And when we put it all together, we're a successful team. But when there's a, you know, a weak link in the chain, because somebody screwed off that day or
Now I will, I will point this out to sometimes it people. They're not getting things done, because they're just not getting it done. Yeah, you can make all the excuses. Like they didn't give it to me. Well, did you call them back a second time? Did you stay ever diligent on getting that information? Because that's half the battle sometimes in these games that we have to play called business. You know, so, to that point, some of this stuff you're like, How hard did you push your level of accountability or desire to do your job to be part of this equation that you knew had a hard stop right here
Be better than them. You know, you can't expect someone to be as accountable as you.
And what I'm saying is, after you've, you've trained, you've given everybody the proper tools, that's a huge part of it is giving everybody one the proper, make sure they have the education that they need to do the job that they're going to do. The training, just the physical tools, the computers, the technology to do what I'm asking you to do. If all that's covered and goals are set, I mean, the excuses on yourself at that point in my book, unless there's legitimate reasons of why, right. There's things that happen, I get that. I'm just saying the excuse of I didn't get it done today. Why? Right, now, I'm in your business.
But do you care about the why, though, right? Because I mean, I mean, isn't it pretty black and white for you?
I mean, I mean, you tell me tell me that a couple of times, and it's just over.
Okay, right. So very specifically, and then we can move on. But I have one last question about this idea. You inherited this team that you're managing now, right for the most part, and so I get it If you're part of the vetting and the hiring process and everything else, or you know, you're going to have a, probably a deeper level of trust. But with you inheriting this team, right? And how do you like, like, do you walk in the door, saying, okay, cool, I'm with this company, and I'm going to trust that they did the right thing. And I gotta trust these guys or in the back of your head, are you like, man, I don't know if you guys are going to make it.
Yeah, a little bit of all, right. I mean, so probably the first couple weeks that I was there, I remember having conversations with my boss saying, look, I it's a little unusual for me because I've been tiptoeing on people's feelings, right? Cuz there's a lot of tenure here. And I don't want to just come in storm and and being that, you know, that guy, the asshole, for probably the one of the first times in my life, I actually took a step back and assessed and, and it took me about a whole two weeks to realize where everybody's skill sets were at. And I'm still learning those, you know, advanced skill sets of what people can and can't do. But yeah, I mean, inheriting a team. There's still a checklist In my head of where they need to be and what they, in my head, I have a timeline, you know of, okay, if you know, June hits, and they're not here, you know, time to make a decision. Right. And they know that, right.
So, so then that brings up their indicators, short term and long term indicators, that you need to be looking for that will help you with that accountability. Right for sure. Have you met the benchmarks? Where are you in the process? And sometimes if you're it, sometimes it's just about an adjustment, right? Where I've set my timeframes too short, I need to extend these because it takes a little bit longer than I imagined.
Ramp up of like a, like a new salesperson for sure.
Yeah. And, and so, again, it's not a perfect science, I mean, but you can say, we do understand how many hours there are in a day, what my work day looks like, what my week looks like and then begin to figure out how to be successful within certain time frames.
I'm a true believer in that, that you start with revision 1 have a plan. And by the time the task gets finished, you're probably on revision 100. Absolutely. Right? Sure. I mean, that goes particularly in your business. In construction, it happens by the minute, right? And then even going back to my old life of like combat, right, you draw up all this stuff with sticks and rocks in the sand you want but what actually happens? Sure, is many, there's too many people on the other side that are going to change up all that stuff.
There's weather and there's you know, things change.
But that relates to a customer and sales, right. He's going to screw your plan up. He's not planning on your playbook. You can have you can have it, it's a good idea to prep, but chances are, it's not going to go exactly...
But starting with a template, then it's like a roadmap. Right? Well, so if I'm going down the freeway, and I run into traffic, and I've got it, you're laughing.
I am laughing. But go ahead finish and finish your thought. I'll tell you.
I'm simply saying that I've got five outs for traffic on the freeway. Yeah, because I have to get to where I'm going and I probably need to be there as close on time as possible. Right? That's all I'm saying.
So, I think you and I are saying the same thing. We're just talking about it differently, right? Because like a minute ago, you said that there are like short term indicators and long term indicators, right? And if you go back and listen to our KPI episode, then that's exactly the same thing because
I wasn't sure we could even say that, so that's why I didn't, anyway.
Oh, no. Yeah, okay, we can talk about our own shows, because we're, we're, we're awesome according to Clint. Well, he is anyway. But so let's say that you hire,
No, I meant the term KPI, I forgot we actually used that in an episode.
Leading indicator, KPI, key predictive indicator, whatever you wanna call it. But let's say that you go hire a salesperson, right? Are you really just going to be like, Okay, cool. Here's your goal. See, ya, go make it happen.
Absolutely not.
That's why you hired him.
What do you mean?
I mean, if a guy's been in that business for twelve years
If they're dragging, if they're bringing their own clients, then yeah,
I mean, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna grab a 30 year sales guy that's been doing this and killing it for another company and you get them to come over,
Now sit down with me. Let me look at what you're doing because I've got some suggestions.
I work in, I work in reverse a little bit probably for you. It's more like, well, let's go see what you got. Right? And we'll sit down. You know, I'm assessing you all the time. And then three, four months, I have a goal in my head at Mark three, I need him to be here. And if he's not, now I need to get into his accountability. And that bothers me. Right? That's where, that's why I say that's where I have my biggest failures in accountability is because, dude, you've been doing this for 30 years. I mean, you killed it over there. Well, you know, why not? Why aren't you killing it here? Right.
Okay. So then what happens when that guy says, hey, it's coming, boss. Just, I just need a little bit more time, I...
But see now I'm in your accountability.
You use faith though, right?
But I'm in your accountability now. So it's like show me.
When you step into that accountability role, are you already kind of like over that person? You,specifically as a D, right. You hired this guy, you gave him a goal, you give him kind of like a ramp up time which you might not communicate with them, which I don't know if that's, you know, super fair, but you're just kind of like, you have these expectations and they're not clearly communicated.
So in my mind, they are crystal clear.
Well, of course they are. I know, I know, this is part of the, part of the, absolutely part of the struggle of a D.
When we sit down on day one, I'm like, all right, man, you know, we got, you know, 30 million to sell this year. I need you to be it. You know, 8 million on month three. I'm good. No problem, boss. Got it. I'll go kill it. To me, that's a crystal clear path that you that we agreed upon. It's not for that person probably.
It's not for that person.
And that's why I say this is a work in progress, right?
I'm like you said 3 million or you said 30 million. Sorry, missed a zero. Sorry, boss.
And so and so I think that what happens is that that kind of conversation happens a lot, right? You get hired as a sales role, right? And you get because I can remember applying and getting this job with a bank and they wanted me to go like, go out to like businesses like, say like, like a supermarket and set up a table, get get permission to say up a table and sign up people for bank accounts there. And nice. I like the guy was asking me, Hey,
I love the banking industry, so scummy, and when I have all these fees we want?
Well, the thing was is, is when when we dug into those kinds of accounts, they never funded, right? Because people were super happy to like sign up for them, but they never came to the bank to make the deposit. So then they would get some fees. And they would write off and go to collections. And I'm like, I don't want to do my business this way. Like, this doesn't make any sense. And then the guy, the guy who hired me was like, Hey, man, we talked about this, and I'm like, well...
You didn't tell me how shitty it was gonna be on the back end.
And then I'm like, hey, look like like, look at the data. These accounts never fund. They never actually opened it. It was like, well, still, we get we have to do it. And then I'm like, why? Right. And then I get the, 'well John's not a team player' kind of thing, you know. And what that is, is that there's too many like silos and some of these sales roles about like
What that is is that some douchebag middle managers. Oh, Absolutely! And he's like, never been on the front line in some cases, or was there for a very short period of time and somebody died, right? Or they, you know,
Oh, here's an edge, and he's just meeting it.
but no, he doesn't.
He's trying to carve out an edge.
Trying to be creative at your expense of your time and effort.
And I like I like the phrase, well, corporate directed us to do this. So you got to go do it. absolutely. No, you're directing me to do this.
Own it. And this, this sucks, right?
And that's a pretty good topic to talk about in accountability is own the stuff that you tell your team to do. Or even yourself, right. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. I'm doing this because it matters. And I told myself we could do this.
Or I've done this before. You can't, there are certain nuances. Oh, you brought something new but remember, the task has been done by the leadership.
Yeah. And Jocko talks about this all the time and in this podcast and on his book, he's like, he's like, if you don't know then go be honest with your team and be like, Hey, guys, I'm not sure how this is gonna work. I'm not sure how this is gonna work either. But like, help me out. Like let's just like try to move the ball.
Nothing wrong with that statement.
Then we can go back and say, Hey, it didn't work. Exactly.
We gave it a, you know.
You know how many times we've been on patrol in Ramadi and just been like, I I don't know what we're, I don't really truly know what we're going to do. Walking around and here's the the 30,000 foot view can cause some Colonel back whatever said to do this and it's like yeah but you know you start asking why, what are we doing?
And that's crazy because like, you know, I don't know how much we talked about this on the show but like you weren't like normal rank and file, right. I mean, you were pretty yeah, I mean, a pretty high value asset.
I mean there's there's a point where it's like you're sending me for a reason and you probably have a reason way up there in your ivory tower is what I would say.
But if you don't communicate it, then you lose...
But you're talking to me and I'm on the ground and it's like, like, I can remember one time it was like, you know, you guys need to go walk in front of the Humvees because we're tired of getting the Humvees blown up. They cost too much. It's like, what? Time out! You want me to go prod with a stick in the ground? You're crazy! You know, but it was Like, wow, but in their, in their map, in their mind, it was like well have, you know, we need to change things up, I need them to do that. They're just going to do whatever I say because they're accountable for their own actions. And
So okay, that's like a really solid point because like, what do you do when you're, let's say that you're a salesperson, right frontline person, you get promoted up, right? And then you might get promoted again, you know, in a larger structure. How do you maintain some kind of, I guess, knowledge about like, what's actually happening on the front line?
Yeah, I mean, there's definitely, I mean, literally, people call them accountability meetings, right?
Performance meetings are what they're normally called, right.
You pull them in every, let's talk about your pipeline, guys, every Monday, you pull them in, and it's like, Alright, what do we got on the schedule this week? Who's meet with who? So I have a huge problem with those meetings, right? Because it's like, I hired you to do a job which is sell stuff, right? If you need my help, I'm always here and I'm always open door policy. You know, you want to talk about it. You want to role play, you want to do all these things, I'm here, but if I've got to get in your shit and say, okay, you need to have seven meetings instead of six, I have a problem with that.
Yeah, if you have to be babysat all the time. I mean, you know, I mean, I think it's important now. One of the biggest conflicts Al and I ever had was I have an account and I'm on it. I know exactly what's going on, even when it doesn't look like sometimes, things you know,
Even when I'm at the mall shopping. Where are you at? Well, Target again.
That never happened.
I didn't know that they were one of our major accounts.
Why? What are you saying this?
I'm joking. Just tongue and cheek. Cuz you like to go to Target. We can say that, right? Isn't that your favorite store? I do. Are you in target a lot when I call you?
I like Target.
Welcome to Front Street, Nan.
Okay, so anyway, so my point is that, what to what Clint was saying, I if Al called me every day and said what are you doing today? I want to know, what were you going to be at? And I think I would go crazy. Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I mean, that's just...
Well, but Nan is strictly commission, right? Yeah. If she doesn't want to work, she doesn't obviously have bills to pay.
Well, sure. But I think there's like a sweet spot there in the middle, right? Because I'm not just going to show up and be like, cool. Here's your goal, go get it. Because to me, that would drive me nuts. Right? Like I would, I would feel very uncomfortable, right? And honestly, whenever Al and I worked together, his favorite saying to me was like, cool, go make something happen. And I'm like, uhhhh.
See that works really well for me. Got you boss, I'm on it.
No, I need, I need, as a C, I need more information than that. And that, because there's so much ambiguity in that statement.
But in a leadership role, you got to know who those people are in a team because I, I will set goals with every one of my team members very, very differently based on personality alone.
That's super important to talk about because you know, if you if you as the D are super comfortable of like, hey, I want as little information as possible so that way I can go do it and feel like it's mine. And then you're doing that with someone like me, I'm going to feel very uncomfortable, right.
I mean, when I'm communicating with my two super I's on my team, it's like hey, 30 million, we got to kill it this year, go get that shit done, boom, they're gone. And they're, they're going to go kill it. Because that's their personality, right? That that works well for them. Now along the way, you know, month three, when you don't sell anything in month four, and you got people asking you Okay, what's going on here? That that's where I have the the breakdown of, I should have been more a little more accountable of everything that was going on. And now I'm in your shit.
But okay, so when that happens, and then Al had something to say, you know, so don't forget it. But when that happens, and then you have to get up in their shit, as you're saying, do you? Because it's so easy as a sales guy to just hope. Right? I mean, in I think that we all have had hoped on deals in the past and stuff like this. And now we don't kind of thrive and hope but it's so easy when you hire a sales guy, right? Especially If you don't have a CRM or process or KPIs or like a goal or a plan, right, other than go sell this much money. And they're like, hey, it's coming. It's coming. I'm waiting on these prospects. I got this one guy in the hopper, man, once he closes Boss, I hear it every day. I know you do. So how do you how do you separate that?
It really does happen.
It does happen, right? It happens to salespeople all the time. And if you don't have like KPIs and like weekly behavior accounts and activities and stuff like that, that when they hit that threshold of when they're supposed to be producing, they're going to be looking for the other job if they're not producing, right, so you miss out on all the coachable moments, in my opinion.
Well, okay, so you just spoke to what were my thought took me, in my experience, it is that you get somebody on your team or you're bringing somebody in or you're that somebody. And in the beginning you ask a lot of questions, man, you got to get that information so you know how to skin the cat or get this job done. When that salesperson starts to falter is when they've lost deals or they've not accomplished the sale. And then what that progresses into is discouragement and lack of avoidance lack of communication. So now my guy out in the field, I'm not getting any phone calls, I'm hearing crickets. And if I let that go on too long, I'm doing them a disservice. They're maybe not fit for or cut out for this type of sales. So when you start hearing those crickets, because early on, it's the eager beaver, boss I'm on this, but hey, I gotta ask the question, right? If you're not having success, but if that goes on too long, and as a manager or even accountability for myself, I'm asking questions about accounts I want to capture and if I'm not constantly going, Well, that didn't work or I got shut down here. That's an internal process as well as an external process within a corporation.
And we talked about teamwork and that and that's what that's about. You know, you have to have someone that you're accountable to by your boss. Other salespeople.
There's also a communication of expectation there. right because I don't think Clint as a D is going to go back and be in ever admit, hey, I need some help. Right? I'm struggling here, right? I mean, like, I don't think that that's like normally in the D's warehouse if you're if you're unaware.
Yeah, it's down, it's very far down the list for me to get to that point where I'm like, shit, right. Okay, I need I need some help.
But he okay, but does that go back to, I'm gonna modify my plan. Yeah, and if I get shut down I'm gonna own the shut down. I'm not gonna hide from the fact that I just got the door slammed in my face. So I didn't make as much progress as I felt I should have. I gotta go find somebody borrow somebody to get through that door and fall and move me inch me. And that's you're not against using people to help you get to where you need to be?
Very different scenario what you just said versus what John said. Because I think that if I'm asking you for help, I have burned every idea in everything that I could ever possibly think that might work. I've done that before I come to you versus the other way. Exactly. So very different personality of, of a C where it's like, I'm gonna do this all up front, I'm gonna ask you for help and I want guidelines and I want all this stuff first. That doesn't work in my world at all.
Well you can't predict everything that's going to happen. So that's not necessarily true. I mean, things happen.
Well it's not, doesn't make it right, it's just it's just his personality approach.
Absolutely right. And so then what happens and I think we talked to I think about this on our culture episode is you know, you get that D with you know, some I and they get promoted up and then they're the sales manager and they're very much like Clint right? I'm going to figure it out and I'm only going to come ask for help if it's like a last ditch effort. And then you hire someone like me who wants to know a lots of details lots of information and stuff like this. And there's lack of patience there for for the unaware D to deal with someone like me.
Sometimes that wears me out. Oh, yeah, I'm like, I granted I want to train. I want to give you some information. But if I'm constantly having to hold your hand because sometimes I don't know, I'm not in that account. I didn't go through the door. I didn't see the gatekeeper. Do you have a white knight? All these different things that I would be looking for, maybe you're not looking for those, it's really hard to pat my pattern to be your pattern. Except on when it is.
For sure. right. And that's why this stuff is so important, right? From like sales to like regular communication to like everything else. If you don't know who you are, you don't have any idea of understanding, right? Because I mean, for a long time, before figuring out that I was a C, and I'm not like a gut driven just going to jump in and figure it out. Like, I would be like, man, how do I get that level of confidence? Sure. Right. And it's just not there. Right? I get there a different way. And that's okay. But when you're in a sales role, and you're dealing with a sales manager who's like, man, just go figure it out, just like I did. You'll get there.
Yeah, you know, so. So my boss comes to me probably once a week, very regularly and says, You know, hey Clint, is there anything I can do for today or is there anything you need for me? Very good. All right. Yeah, so my answer is, why do you ask? Like, I'm serious? Why do you ask? Are we failing? Do you think we're failing? You know, like that goes in my head and
It's weird to me that you, you go to there because I would go to there.
Otherwise I would ask you, you know, I would ask you for help if I needed it right. But now you're asking me if I need. I feel like you're tiptoeing around this question that you really want to ask.
There's another elephant in the room we're not addressing.
And the answer is always like, oh no, we're killing it. I just, I just want to make sure I'm, you know, I'm getting, I'm locked up in a meeting for the next four hours. Just wanna make sure you don't need me for anything. Love that approach. And it's funny, because just as we were talking earlier, like, I'm gonna burn every bridge, and I sit down with him on Wednesday and was like, Hey, man, I've got a I've got a sale going on. We made it all the way to the finish line, and then radio silence. Like I've never dealt with this, first time that's ever happened to me where I've gotten that far. And then just silence. And I was like, you know, it's funny. I expect it to go silent first, and I know how to get out of the silence. But when I've had all these agreements, and then Silence. That's a new one on me. Right? So, and I told him that story exactly what I just said. And I said, you know, so I think there's a couple of other things. And you asked me if I needed any of your help yesterday. So I'm coming to you. I need you as a president to call their president, president a president and try to work a little bit past relationships that I have built, you know, and it was just a it was a very working thing. It was like, Well, how do you want me to do that, and I just said, Call the front desk.
How did you take it? Your boss?
He was like, I'm on it, man. What do you need me to do?
And is he a D, your boss?
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, he's a he's a D/I. Okay.
I have a lot of those conversations with other people in the industry that don't work for me, right. But they're the manufacturer or they know a little bit about the client. And Nan and I have these discussions. And we go outside of our little box to get some more information from people because we've run into dead ends. We're, we're we're at a, you know, a sticking point. You do whatever it takes to officially shut that file or say, sometimes we can't do business, right. So if you run around trying to shut things down, which is probably good on the front end, but if you've got some traction, man, you want to keep that going at all costs. And anytime you get a stall, you start looking for somebody to help you with the fact that you stalled out. And that's not defeat, that's just recognizing and that's the accountability to this particular sales process.
I think that that's territory planning, right? I mean, I mean, if you have a list of like, of like, your top, your top people, right, you know, the top things that you think you're gonna be like your best clients and repeat work and all that stuff. I think it's super important to have that, right. Because that gives you things to be constantly working towards, right as opposed to just like crossing off behaviors and saying, well, I made the call and I left the voicemail. So that counts, right? Well, not really, right. You're just going through the motions. Exactly right. You're on autopilot, right. And there's a big difference between auto piloting and actually being like, present and mindful. You know, when you're doing these kinds of things, yeah.
And I can give you an accountability failure on my part in the last seven days that I did to my own team, and I've thought about it every day of like I, shit, I need to redo that meeting because of exactly what we're talking about. So I literally pulled wheeled in one of the big spinnable whiteboards right in a conference room and brought in the team. I said, okay. I want to get really down to basics here for just a second, just indulge me for like, 10 minutes I have. I have a plan, right? I just need the answers from you so I can get there. And so so I want to write down our, our customers.
That's such a D statement. I have a plan, I just need your answers.
But I wasn't lying.
No, I know you weren't. right.
But I'm being...
Think about, think about how Nannette would would phrase that same sentence in that same situation to be completely different.
I get that and and that's one of the parts of the failure, right, is because I instantly alienated my entire team,
Because it's your plan.
It's my plan. So and now I've got to get all them to buy in.
Excellent, Clint.
So I realize that now, all right, and so I want to redo this meeting. And I'll have to, you know, literally tuck my tail and just say, hey, look, I screwed up. Yeah, let's talk about this as a team. But what I wanted to do is write down our top 15 customers and rate them just on a scale of one to five just opinions. You know, opinions and based on what we've done in the past with them, how many jobs we've been, because we just don't have that data. Nobody's ever tracked it. So I did that. And the funny thing is, is like, we're trying to do our double our goal from last year, you know, in one year, so that's a pretty huge task, right? And I look at the board and I think, okay, so 3 out of 15 are fours, no fives. Well, that that's tough, right? And the rest of them are twos and ones and zeros.
But that should mean that it's pretty low hanging fruit, right? I mean, I mean, if they're ones and twos, then a little bit more nurturing, a little bit more engagement, you know, which one should move them to threes or fours.
Which is what, my plan right? So communicating that statement to them. I did not do. It was just like...
I was about to ask, so where did this fail?
Right? So everybody just kept saying like, so why do you want to know this? Why you want to know this? This is my, these are my customers.
So you didn't notice describe the impact or where you're trying to go with that.
So finally, I kind of just said, hey, look, what I'm trying to do is figure out who our twos are, and get them to fours. And it was, but it was too late. You know, I already kind of screwed that whole thing up. So I just kind of ended the meeting, like, I have my information, right.
Thanks guys. Lunch is being served in the conference room.
Guys, thanks a lot. I'll figure it out from here. See you later. And they're all just like, oh my god, we're gonna get canned at the end of the day. .
It's funny you say that? Because literally, that was the look on everybody's face.
Of course it is, man. When you show up and you're like, you're like, hey,
Well one guys. He's been doing this for you know, he's been doing this for 34 years, I think and he was literally like, you could tell he was like, I'm not giving you any of this information so you can send me to pasture and hire a new guy doing this. So but I'm so much of a team mentality type player. I know that that doesn't you wouldn't think That is a high D right? But oh, I think it cuz Yeah, I love the team, right? Sure I just love to be in charge of the team. You know, there's there's so
But ultimately, that's a contradiction because you I think you just got...
Agreed, right so that, that's some development but like I love that team mentality of like we're gonna go kill this and I'm the first one to give props to people that go kill it. I never talked about me in a meeting like, hey, how'd we do this week I'm like, hey, so and so sold 2 million bucks that guy killed it on this job Hey man, he was in a meeting, I was in a meeting with him super impressed with that guy. I'm always that way. And so I do love the team. But when I get out of those meetings like that, and I feel like we have a plan, and everybody's going to go take care of their end, that's that accountability side that I just trust that everybody I just sit on their merry way. They're going to figure out their own plan. They're going to stick to their own plan to get to this goal. Right. And that just doesn't happen with different personalities. Yeah. So that's why I say, the failure of that is, I walk out of there and I'm like shit. I've got to go set goals for that guy. I've got to check in with him once a day on that, and...
You gotta unwind the damage he did or the fear you put into people's heart. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. It's a it's a fine line when you're like running a team.
That's a mistake I made and I'll eat that shit. Because now I know how to do it different. Yeah. And we'll fix it.
That's how, you know there's there's the lesson learned right there. Yeah, go do it. If it sucks, then redo it right, you'll get a second chance and
Don't get defeated. Okay,
So when I have a question, you were talking about the fact that you're okay, like passing on accolades to the team. You don't need to like own the success of the team and stuff like that. Is that part of being a D? Or is that part of you being like an aware D and your experience in the military and stuff like that?
Yes. A little bit of all that, but what it is, is because people have never done that for me, so a high D needs a lot of accolades and, imagine that, trophies.
I think of the I as needing needing a lot of accolades, a lot of trophies and stuff.
But if you tell, if a D goes and kills it for you and you just like cool man and you walk away. It's like I don't even get a fucking thanks, I just just made a billion dollars.
Isn't winning enough? For you?
If it's me winning, but if I won for you, I need a little bit of boost Okay, that's interesting. As a matter of fact when I hired on with this company I actually told our president, I said you know just you know a thanks, just a nugget about me. A thanks goes forever, a million miles for me. I don't need I don't need big you know, checks and all this stuff, like money's great, but a thanks for me goes a long fucking way. He was like, that's good to know.
How do I get one of those big cardboard checks? Yeah, we only give those to the winners.
Walk away with a $2,000 cardboard check.
Okay, wow, it barely fits in the backseat. Wait til the bank sees this.
Because you know when when, when we think about teams and stuff like this. I kind of start thinking about you know, there's like the team lead who wants to take all the credit, right? And so I normally think of the D and the I as being that person, right? You know, the D because they don't think about anybody else on the team, right? I built this team, I'm running the team. So therefore you're thanking me and you should because I did this thing. And the I, in my and I'm totally open to being wrong on this right. You know, I'm kind of shooting from the hip here. But you know, the art is just like, Yeah, absolutely. Thanks a lot, you know, and they don't kind of think further down the road. Is that?
I can tell you, I think it D does not like it when you do when a D does all the work and then you say, well, we did that together. No, we didn't mother f-. We didn't do shit!
That's where that thank you you just spoke of. Because when your team come to you and say thanks, Clint, I really appreciate you, you know, getting me where I needed to be on this project.
I'm working for you for the next 20 years if you do that. I'm
Absolutely.
Interesting.
But with an I, I think if you, if you say we, they're so kind of people oriented a little bit, you know, just kind of natural people orient, it's like, Yeah, we did do that. And there's not a lot of thought whereas I get offended, right? Oh, he didn't do shit. I did that.
I get offended as well, right. I mean, I don't want, I don't want a lot of accolades. I don't want to like a lot of attention. You know, I'm okay with a thank you, I think, you know, because I'm trying to think about how I would react in these kinds of roles. But, uh,
I would think you're more of the the win is enough, more than anybody at the table.
Oh, for sure. Right. I talked about this all the time, right? I have this idea when it comes to like, you know, training with martial arts and stuff. If I do everything right, and I still lose, I gotta be happy with the fact that I that I did my process. Whereas if I do, like a, like a bad punch, or you know, like, if I'm in if I'm in jujitsu and like, and like, I don't secure the position, but I somehow get like a submission or whatever. I should be unhappy with that, because I'm so focused on the process, that the results almost don't even matter. Right. And it's taken me a while to get there and there's some areas of my life where that doesn't hold true, right. Like if I'm playing poker, and I bluff because like the math and the numbers say so and I get called, I had this moment of like, I was wrong, that was stupid. Don't do that again. You know, but what's weird is like, I can get absolutely crushed in jujitsu and be like, you know what, I did everything right? I was mobile, I didn't anchor, I didn't do these things that I know to be bad. Cool. That just means I need to up my game. So it's weird. I've got elements of my life where that is like super flourishing and it's okay and then in other areas where it's just not applicable at all.
Yeah, I'm, I'm with you there.
Right like I when I was playing poker and was it was doing a full time I had this coach and he was always on me that I was too results focused. Well man, I lost with Jacks. So I shouldn't play Jacks. No, Jacks is a high quality hand like, like, you should be playing Jacks, you just need to like maybe not get married to them, you know, and stuff like this. And that like planted the seed that like enabled all of my C-ness. Right. And so now I'm like, look, if you run your program, hands off, you're good. Go, go get it.
Nan and I go through this mental exercise a lot of times. Well did, what did you do? And if you did it right, then we're done. Yeah, yeah, just didn't get the win. We didn't close the deal. We can't go any further. Let it go, go find something else to do.
That's a, that's a very, if you're out there and you're a sales leader, that's a mentality that you need to adapt.
Well and enable, right, this idea that you're not going to close everybody.
Be logical, it's not...
I mean, because that's where that's where you that's where you absolutely ruined some good salespeople. Absolutely. It's like, hey, look, man, I got all the information I could get. I've done everything I can. I think we talked about multiple times. We tried that plan. We tried this one, it didn't work, hey, look, let's just go move on. And they get crushed for that. Because they got bad leaders, right?
Well, or they have weak leaders. Leaders that they can't accept that, or maybe the leaders under the gun for more. You know, maybe his pressures, you know, feeling it now he's, you know, he's counting all the losses and maybe spent a week of just not much success.
And he doesn't want to go say that state Yeah.
To his boss. That's that shit rolls downhill.
Somebody else can see, I'm always and that's, I'm okay with that, like, give me all the stuff let me go report it up and I'll sit there and take all the shit and you will feel nothing.
Well, I think we just part of being a good leader.
Agreed and to build on that personality to build on that it would be okay, this is not going anywhere. What's in your pipeline? We've got to really be because we are on a time crunch. Yeah, and we've wasted some time not wasted, that this didn't come to fruition and bills gotta be paid. What's next? And how can we expedite the sale that we need this week? Because everything is on a timeframe. We have to sell something this week, or at least this month, or at least this quarter, or at least this year. And when do you stop that and then put the gun down, that your process sucks. It's not getting you where you want to be?
Well, and you guys are either going to love or hate this but you know, you can you can you can just focus on the results as a salesperson. It's super easy, right? Because if you're just looking at, you know, the, the the bank account, right, and the bank account goes up, you're like, Man, I'm winning now, right? Without without actually following a process or without actually doing good behaviors or good activities are holding people accountable. They're doing the things that we we all know to be super important.
Well, and I guess it goes back to is there reoccurring business and revenue in the accounts that you have? Or is it one cell phone than another cell phone than another cell phone? Yeah, one in one in one in one and done right? And there's a big difference between a transactional sell versus a relationship. Exactly. And when in my business, that relational sale will come back to reward us and we have reoccurring revenue, we just want more of it. Absolutely. And then they go through peaks and valleys depending on their patient flow and how much work they're doing. So you know, you got to see it from You know, the the big picture, but then you also have to break it into the smaller pieces. And make sure that puzzle's fitting together exactly the way you need it to.
Do you think you can be a good sales leader? And if you have this idea of like limitation versus abundance or that that everyone's got to be a Yes. Do you think that you can run a good successful team?
When you said limitation versus abundance?
Exactly. So seven, that'll do it. So in my experience, you're in one of two camps, right? When it comes to business and life and everything else, right. There's like, because I firmly believe there's enough business out there, right, even with there's not a lot of competition in my world. But even if there was, there's enough money for me, or there's enough business and opportunity for me to make as much money as I want to make, right. And that's different because coming from like a very corporate, it's like, you got to get everybody, everybody who walks in the store because you can't leave the store. You got to be on him. You got to get something you got to turn it into a money making opportunity. So it took a long time for me to be okay with the fact of like, hey, look, there's no There's no buying motivation here. Right? They don't have a budget. And that's okay. I can't make them have a budget, right? So anytime for the first year and a half right of working, working with Geof and the website agency and kind of being on this path of working with coaches and everything, every time I got it, no, I took it. Personally, I did something wrong, right, which is a lot of weight to carry around, right? It's not super healthy. But, you know, thankfully, I was working with Geof who's got, like, our absolute abundance, mindset, you know, like, Hey, no big deal. Move on to the next one. Do you think that you can not have that mindset of like, Man, you should've closed this. Right? So something didn't go right. What are we going to do now and be a good sales leader?
As an S, I, I want to be successful with every single account. Al has definitely helped me whenever I have that angst of, oh my gosh, I can't believe I didn't get that. And he's like well, you know.
When you go through the exercise of, you know, you know, what was your process? I know it because we work in the same arena, and You know, what could you have done differently? What went wrong that you could have corrected? If it's no, no, no, yeah, we did it the way we've done it before. And they're very successful and built some really good relationships. And we look at our that our key revenue producers, we followed that model.
But what if you're not of that mindset? What if you, what if you're like, the D, right, who like who has done it themselves? Right? They and they don't really understand this idea of like, because this happens, right? Like, like, this happens in sales cultures, right? And they say, Why didn't you get that account? Right. And,
I think we identified that a few minutes ago, it's just there. They have someone above them, putting pressure on them, causing them to have
But do you, do you think that you can be a successful sales leader? With that kind of pressure that's forcing you into that fixed mindset versus
Not long term. I think it will make people just feel overwhelmed and
The answer simply put is, yes. Because it happens every day. Right? Yeah, we'll pay their bills. They get stuff done. They Half of probably the majority of that mentality runs the world. They really do.
I guess, I guess we'd have to frame like, like what successful actually means right is successful, just meeting the number is successful, like, like actually keeping like the same people and seeing them grow and flourish and all that stuff.
If you're a salesman and you've sold, you're technically a success.
I was about to say or I'm glad that you put technically in there because I was going to push back on that if you know,
Of course, you know I don't believe that model. But I'm just saying that, you know, you know, I've got a buddy of mine in Houston that we've, you know, recently become, he does what I do on it for another company will text back and forth, hey, how's the market? What's going on? And he texted me the day and he said, like, Hey, man, just closed these two deals. And in his world, those are huge for him. They're huge wins. I don't know what he did to get those and I don't know how many phone calls he made to get those two little deals. And I say little because in my world, like shit, I can't imagine that I would have to scale off that
He's not he's not an actual competitor. He's working at a lower level than you.
Yeah. But he just, I think they have a whole different team setup where they have a ton of sales people and they do volume sales, right? They they have so many people out there and I'm a little more reversed on that approach. I'm think we'll narrow our focus. And when we commit to something, we win that thing, right? And if we don't get it as fast as you can, so we can go fill the void. Absolutely. Right. But that's my mentality versus their company. So when his successes, if my guys came back at the end of the month and said, hey, these were my wins for the month, and they were those numbers, I'd be screwed. Right. But that's the different approach the shotgun approach versus the the sniper bullet, right. Yeah. So, you know, is he still successful? Absolutely. Absolutely successful and he's successful because his element is created for him. That that is success. Yeah. So how do you measure it? It's all relative, I think but absolutely. Because if like I said, if my sales guy came back with those numbers. He'd be a failure.
Yeah. So yeah, I think it's, and that brings up a pretty key point about like, like, how are you framing success, right? And how, how clearly is that communicated? Right? Because if your guys go out and think like that, oh, man, that's winning, right, and then they come back.
There's capacity, right? Different people have different capacities for successes, right? I used to see it a lot in the project management side of construction. You could have a project manager, pay that guy and another project the same amount of money. One of those could run a $60, $70 million job, no problem. The other guy couldn't run over a $2 million job. But you need both. You pay them both, right? Yeah, they're both on your team. They're both successful. They're very different, but it's all what they can do. You know, and you got to put those people in your team to be able to support what you, diversity.
Awesome. Let's get in a Throwdown. Team D, Mr. Clint, accountability nuggets. What you got?
Yeah, you know, this is probably one of your harder subjects to talk about as a D, because in your world, you probably think that you're completely right and you own everything anyway. And every little bit of failures are because something, somebody else did something, right, you got to get over that. And realize that, especially if you're a part of a team, or you're running a team, you've got to know that you know, how you communicate those goals and those, I need you to be here in a month. I need you to be here in two months and how you portray that and can they handle it? All those things don't apply in your world, but they apply in there's. So communicating all that stuff is is hugely important.
Hm, alright, Al, team I?
I think with an I it's easy to fool yourself into thinking that you're productive and thinking that you're actually working when you're just treading water or wasting time. And to correct that in my own schedule is like I said that category that really, I bore down on what did I do at eight o'clock? What did I do at 8:15 8:30? How long did all this take? And holding yourself accountable to moving through your day as productively as you can? And owning that, owning when you waste time owning when you were really focused and getting something done, which is so much smaller in the hours and minutes than you think it is. Okay, in most cases for me.
Awesome. Nannette, for S's, as far as accountability.
I love the way you always say awesome. For me as an S, I think it's really important to be very, think my process through, be, make sure it's logical, it makes sense. Be really secure. I know whenever we work together, being secure and knowing your stuff is hugely important. Because when you have confrontation, then it won't backfire. You're gonna you're going to be on task, you're going to know what you're talking about? So, for me, that's, that's everything in my plan. It's just being secure with it.
Hm
You normally say awesome.
I was just gonna say, that wasn't an awesome.
I'm thinking about it. I need to marinate on that a little bit, right? Because I because I think that that ties into to my, you know, speaking to like TeamC people, right? This this episode has been somewhat enlightening for me because I get so much joy out of the idea that here are the behaviors I have to do. And I have these lined down and this is building towards my plan and then I can shut it off and just go do my my merry way as opposed to feeling like I've got to be on all the time, I got to be selling to everybody and trying to close everybody and stuff like this. And that's how I operated and felt and ran forever. Right? Like, at the kung fu school, everyone was always talking about how john was like a sales guy, right? And that was really just meaning that I was the annoying guy who's trying to push like banking products and cell phone products on everybody I knew because it was just I had this outlook of limitations. I gotta close, everybody. When I learned about KPIs and planning and all of these things in, you know, managing my behaviors and not managing the outcomes. I didn't even realize how much of a C idea that is until like, we're having this conversation right here, right? I thrive in that environment and C's do. The thing to remember is that if you're a senior leading a team, think about how much that didn't resonate with everybody else around the table, right of like building a plane and building weekly behaviors and then adjusting and then holding people accountable to that kind of stuff. Not micromanaging. But, you know, building some agreements and holding people accountable. I live in that world, right? I'm an accountability partner for like four or five people, right? Because it because they're like, Man, I'm struggling with this, call me.
You're a babysitter.
I don't I don't know necessarily that hold on. We'll talk about that a second. So just be aware that as a C, you're going to love this stuff and the numbers and the process but like not everybody is so you got to figure out a way so that way they can build their own right, to Clint's point, right? That they're going to buy into the plane that they help you build, right where if you just show up and say this is the plan, this is what we're doing. When you don't give them any input, super easy for them to like autopilot the crap out of that thing and then throw their hands up whenever it doesn't work. So to your point, right outside to throw down real quick because I think that this is important. I think accountability takes a bunch of different forms, right? You can hold yourself accountable, right to your calendar, or to like your to do list or anything else like that. I don't think there's anything wrong with having an accountability partner that you're sharing, hey, look, these are the things I did this week. What did you do? Right, but I think I think it's got to go both ways.
As long as it makes you more efficient. Absolutely. There's a, there's a line. Yeah. When I'm doing more paperwork and writing more stuff down and creating more goals, instead of doing the actual task, right. So they're, in my world, there's a very strict line of all of this isn't worth me just going and doing it. Right. So you can talk about shit all day long, but until you actually go do it.
Absolutely right. I mean, when I when I have accountability conversations with the people that are holding me accountable, or vice versa, there's already a bunch of like, legwork already done, right? Hey, what am I goals? What am I doing to get there and everything else like this. And then for me personally, it's I don't want to get on until this person who like knows me and obviously cares enough about me to like will try to hold me accountable that I didn't do these things, right. And then there's things like stick, right, which is like an online community and you can build traps around yourself. We didn't really talk about this today but there's like a thing called accountability traps, right? So if you're, if you're on the KPI train and you're thinking about KPIs and weekly behaviors and activities and stuff like that, you can frame that stuff inside a, inside a stick, right? You get an accountability partner and what one of my accountability partners and I did this for a while, he had his weekly counts as far as cold calling and networking and reaching out to people and stuff like this. If he didn't meet those numbers, he had to donate money to a cause he saw no value in. Actually really, really didn't like. And so that made him really kind of stick to his plan and follow his process. And then you have to adjust as necessary, of course, but you know, it's not in my world when I'm having these accountability calls, it's not like Well, let's take an hour and talk about how how your week was, did you do it or not? Yeah, and if not, why, and what what does that mean for next week?
Yeah, and the reason I said what I said is because you tell an I, especially a super I, that you have to do all of these things. You have to go I need you to sit at the desk and I need you to write all this stuff out every day. When he fails, you just made an excuse for him. Absolutely. I didn't have time to go do all the stuff that I normally do and you know, I used to kill it before he made me do all this stuff. So...
You're speaking my language man.
You got to know.
Yeah, I was like as a CRM guy was working with like mostly sales teams with like a lot of I's
I mean, that's the first thing I'd want to say to you.
is that it's just like I had to spend time with management to figure out. Hey, what can we give these guys for like a motivator to like,
What will they actually
Steak knives.
Steak knives?
Well, what will they actually do versus what will they use as an excuse to fail?
Absolutely. Right.
So because if you tell them that they got to do this, and they fail, because You know, because they were spending their time doing it, that's that's your sword to fall on.
There's this guy that I follow and I love and he talks about that if you don't track your behaviors even if you crush the month right you lose half your commission. Because there's an agreement in place right you can do certain things are going to follow your activities everything else and not be just results focused. And I love that right, I know you do. I love that so much.
I'd be like, give me half my money.
I just want to win.
Exactly. You keep the rest of it because it makes you feel better that I didn't turn in the paperwork, winning the prize, Yeah, there we go. All right, Mr. Professor. Yeah, they're so much smarter than me because they put their shit down, right on, go with that. That's why you're in academics. Keep it up.
That's why this, that's why this podcast is so much fun to me though is because we're not saying that this is the one avenue to do that.
Oh, for sure. There's 1000 ways of getting it done.
Like that is the fun cuz like we have half decent lives here. Right? Exactly. You're, I would fail miserably at  trying to be John? I would, I'd be just a horrible C. Right. It's not on paper? Well, it's right up here in the ol' noggin.
You couldn't work for me. Right?
I don't want to.
I know you don't.
I wouldn't hire you.
Yeah, well, there there is that right? I mean, we we would we would get to this accountability part of the conversation and I'd be like, hey, Al, like like, okay, let's build out your, your weekly plan and you'd be like, Man, I'm just gonna kill it and be like, nah, nah, I know. I'd go Hm. So let's, let's wrap up before we get down to like another tangent. Another 30. Yeah. Right. So already, they're awesome. Thanks, guys. Thanks for tuning in everybody.
Posts, post podcast banter there, for sure.
If you know anybody else in sales, who's struggling, please share this with them. It's hard enough. You don't have to be out there by yourself. If you need an accountability partner, find one. It doesn't necessarily have to be in the same company. Yeah, call me right. Send me an email john@salesthrowdown. If you need some accountability help, I will, I will help you or I'll find someone to help you out.
Don't call me.
Exactly. Yeah. Well, hey, do you want to meet Al? He's a great accountability.
You're blowing it up. Great job. Keep it up.
Awesome. So, share this with everyone. If you're following us on social media. That's great. Share it, please. Everything is at Sales Throwdown. If you don't know where you are, what team you're on, team I team C, team D, team S, send us an email assessment@salesthrowdown.com and we'll get you hooked up. Thanks a lot, everybody. Bye