Sales has had a negative stigma for a very long time, and learning how to deal with and move past that can make a huge difference for your numbers. In this episode, we talk about how we push through this stigma in our industries, and how building trust and selling with intention helps us stand out with our prospects.
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It's common knowledge that a lot of people do not trust salespeople. There has been a negative stigma in sales for a very long time.
Most of it is because of TV and movies, but there are a lot of underhanded and manipulative sales tactics that people have been teaching and spreading for years. Not to mention the general pushiness of far too many salespeople.
All of these things have created a stigma that makes people infinitely more distrustful and skeptical of us.
Dealing with that isn't always easy.
With all the negativity in the world right now, we want to talk about how to break out of that stereotype and fight the negative stigma of sales. When we're all better and sell with the best intentions, the culture will change.
How do you deal with it? Let us know in the comments or text us. If you think knowing more about yourself is the key to improving—which it is!— let us know, and we'll send you the info about taking a DISC personality assessment.
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Let's get ready to Throwdown!
What is up everybody sales throwdown we are back again, we are talking about how do you handle the stigma in sales? Right? Because I think everybody knows that salespeople are not the most loved class of people on the planet. You know, I mean, even us, we talk about the bad sales things that we have to deal with whenever we're, you know, networking and talking and doing things. And so we wanted to kind of touch base on this, because right now, you know, a lot of people have their walls up. And I think that some of that stigma is showing through more as desperation starts to like, pile up with the end of the year and stuff like that. So we want to kind of want to touch base on this again, and go a little bit deeper about how how do you handle that? How do you wear it? How do you? How do you, how do you? How do you talk about it? Right, if at all? So and I think that Al and Nan have got some of the hardest, like reputations as far as like being being salespeople, like everybody knows about medical device and pharmaceutical sales, and everybody has opinions about them and stuff like that. So I'm curious for you guys, how, how often does that show up? And what kind of form does it take? How do you handle it?
Oh, for, for me, I find that initially, you know, the first impression is, is how people are influenced what they see of you, right? So you walk in, if you're walking in, and you're, you tell them you're a salesperson, then of course, they're just like, oh, man, you know, and they just kind of back off until you gain their respect, showed your value. They're not going to think great of you. I mean, I'm afraid that's just the way it is now with Dr. Daniel is probably a little bit different. Because he gets to say he but he never Does, does he? I mean that I guess I shouldn't say that. But you know, he has a little more validity than just being this little silly girl walking in as a salesperson. But I, I do think my first impression with someone is highly important. So I'm going to go in positive, I'm going to say something nice, as genuine as possible. You know what, you don't want to go in there just with a bunch of BS. But I think the first impression is huge. Positive. And I know I feel like I'm a broken record. Because I say it, I think probably every podcast but it's the just the truth. You are perceived with what people see initially and then what they hear. So I think it's really important to be cognitive of what comes out of your mouth and what they are seeing as you walk in.
And I remember working with Al and one of the hospitals that we were doing a lot of work in changed the scrubs for reps. And before that, we got to wear these blue ones that you see Al in in most of these episodes, and then all of a sudden we come in and they had given us these like shit brown ones that look like you're an inmate in a prison. And, and on the back across the shoulders it just says vendor in the biggest annoying letters ever. And
You were vendor 001246.
Pretty much.
Okay. Here's the deal, and they used to preach do not wear these outside of the hospital and you're like who the eff would ever bear. I mean, we're being forced in film. I made such a shit show out of this because I was just like, literally, I'm in brown. I should be cooking it Bonanza. Well, how do you want your meat? Right?
That's the proctologist scrubs.
Exactly, where the turd, yeah, it's the turd squad, right? Oh, by the way, that hospital is eventually they've either somebody threw them all out, they've gone back to where you pretty much wear blue scrubs like everybody else now so. But to Nan's point, one of the things that I think and to the point of the conversation about the stigma behind being a sales individual, I think the key quality here that separates you from the crowd is don't fall into the negative habits that we all know that exists in our industries as far as sales, right? And be your honest self whenever you go in front of anybody. Case in point in our business, the receptionist is not the decision maker, she's the gatekeeper. You gotta use your tact with the gatekeeper. And it's our I mean, we're not the only industry with gatekeepers, but the gatekeeper's there just to get you scheduled to see the decision maker keep it simple, right? Don't wear her out, become an asset to her as quickly as possible with understanding how busy her day is understanding how many yields small but varied tasks that they end up with. And, you know, putting you to the front of the line comes with a little bit of tact on your part, right? How can you be nice to this person, take a little stress off of her and show some value that would make her shine, right or him shine whoever happens to be standing there?
I mean, truly, I can't tell you Sorry to interrupt. Now, I can't tell you how many times I have heard that proverbial gatekeeper, say something disparaging about salespeople. And I've never met them, right. So I go in and they have this person, persona already let you know, they've labeled me already. And just the other day, I think I made mention, actually, last week, but the girl was just like, you know, here's my stack of people that have already been in here. And I was just like, change that. Don't be the whiny little salesperson that well, gosh, and well, ah, you know, at that point, they really don't have any interest in listening to you or hearing about, they definitely don't want to hear whine. So improve their improve their moment that they're going to be you're going to be standing in front of them. I know. Does that sound like a huge?
No, no, no. Because basically, I lean in and say, hey, look, I'm parked in the can handicap parking. So I'm gonna make this quick. And you got to break the pattern guys, cuz you're just standing there. You know, so find something to do what I just did, right? Yeah.
And that is, I love that that was good.
I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about that. That exact situation, you know that Ned's talking about where where you walk in there, because like, I've had that happen as well. There's a brand new doctor brand new office, I call them they're like, well, we have a marketer who's attached to this. And they're taking all the calls in. And then I call her and she goes, you're the like the 30th person I've talked to, and we're not even open yet. Right? And at the time, I didn't, I didn't know any of this stuff, right? Like I was just like dumbfounded. But now like, I'm thinking, how would I do something along those same lines? whenever they're like, yeah, you see this list? You know, of like, like, how do you how do you upset that pattern. So that way you break that moment open. So that way you're connected to be viewed as a human, and not just a salesperson with that big label around your neck. You know?
What a, Clint, what about you? I mean, I mean, I know, my dad grew up in industry working in plants down in Houston, where you're at now? How do you how do you get through to that to that decision maker?
You know, um, so so. So a couple things one in, it's got to be sometimes you fight your own people on this. I know, I always have in construction, oh, that's my sales guy. Oh, that's this guy. And they, they downplay you to your own customer, like trying to get in the door. And they they've established that rep to Oh, if you want something done, don't talk to that guy, he doesn't know shit, call me. And they've already taken you out of the success loop. Like, there's, that's hard to come back from, right. And so for me, especially in a bigger company, if you have a team behind you, those people that have to back up what you sell, they need to have confidence that you are the the first and for foremost person that needs to talk to the customer, they have to have that confidence in you, then you have to instill that confidence in them that you know what you're doing. Otherwise, you're always going to be that don't talk to the dumb sales guy that we have talked to me, I'm the engineer, right. And that's a that's a huge hurdle in my business to get to get around. And, and honestly, proofs in the pudding. Like you have to let you know, I had a guy to call me today. And we had done an install, and I just was calling just to check in and chat to see if they were doing any other, you know, new projects. And he's like, Oh, your your ears must have been burning. I said, so why's that. And he said, Well, I was just telling our building owner Oh, yeah, that guy that came in promised us the world. This isn't working right. And I said, Well, why didn't you call me so well. I did call I called three of your guys. And, you know, they they haven't responded and said, you know, Hey, man, you call me, I get stuff done. So, you know, I literally hung up, walked down the hallway, Hey, get somebody out there right, right now, this was at three o'clock. We had somebody out there by for taking care of a problem, you know, but but that, you know that that's how you change that perception. Right? And, and I could have just said, Oh, well, you know, I'm sure they'll take care of you and walk away because you're embarrassed. You don't want to take care of the problem. You could have walked away and you're forever known as a stupid salesman, that crappy salesman.
You just hit on something. And I want to come back to john here in a minute. Man, same thing happened to her today. Right? Whenever you and this goes once you kind of start doing business with an office or a particular entity in our world. If they have a need, we're filling it or we're finding the person who will fill For them, right? And so that's when you get the chance to start showing value. So there's kind of it's kind of a tiered approach, right? Get in there, build some rapport, but then solve a problem for them. And if the problem for the receptionist or the gatekeeper is she's too damn busy, keep it straight. And to the point, right, don't wear her out with a sales pitch right then and there. That's not her job to listen to you babble about your product line, right? She needs to know what you need to accomplish and how she can help you. And sometimes it's just as quick as saying, I was wondering if you could help me. I'm looking to set up an appointment to speak to the person who makes the decision about this, how would I go about doing that? And then shut the eff up later tell you something, or throw you out of the clinic or do something right, stop, stop yourself.
Good. You guys are talking about a lot of this on the front end, I'm talking more of it on the backend.
But I agree with the back end idea.
I they both apply. My thing on the back end is almost every salesperson I know is always said these words are some form of I'm the guy that you call if you want this done, or you want this problem. So you call me man I take care of you. The problem is they sell the one right they don't follow-up sale, they don't follow it down the road, they let the job happen. You never hear from the sales guy again. So you set yourself up for failure or, or your salespeople in your industry set you up for failure. It's hard to get around. And the only way you can change it is by doing I just truly believe that you got to get in and and sink your teeth in and make a change. You can't just I mean, you know, to a lot of Nan's points of being positive. One thing you can't do is go in with Oh, he thinks I'm stupid salesmen. Therefore am a stupid salesman. Like that's it. That's a no-win attitude as well.
You speak you know, you speak that that's gonna happen.
Well, that's when you just go back to my Corvettes in the handicap Park run. You know, Sorry, I'm late for a flight. I'm going out to Tahiti tonight. Because Yeah, we're just doing some stuff out there, by the way. And yeah, I mean, part of it is are you confident enough in yourself to actually be a salesman? Because if you're not somebody else's fired, get moving? Get moving? If you don't want to be a salesman? Give me I hate send, send your business my way. I love it. If you don't if you don't like it, don't do it. Right?
I, I could man, I have a lot to say on this topic. Um, so that's the very first thing is that is that are you? Are you confident enough in what you do to that you can kind of stand up in the face of adversity, right? Because someone's gonna bag on you someone's gonna make a comment, someone's gonna tell, you know, someone's gonna have like, a, you know, some sort of negative opinion about you. And I remember I was struggling with this a long time ago, and I was talking to Geof about it, my my business partner and the website, company, and, and I was like, Man, I'm just struggling, you know, and he was like, why? And I was just talking about how, like, it just seemed impossible to do it. And that I was, I was really too reliant on techniques, and not really just like trying to be a human in the moment. And, and he was like, man, even if you use every technique that you know, but you're using it with the right intention, right? You're asking them questions, you're allowing them to be in charge of it, you're making them part of the conversation. It's a collaborative conversation, as opposed to a lot of pressure and a lot of assumptions and a lot of things that bad people do, because you're setting them up to have one of the best sales conversations they're ever going to have. And that shifted it for me. I was like, Oh, right. And so then I stopped being as concerned about how people were going to feel when they got off the phone, because I knew that my intentions were were where I needed them to be. Right. And I think that that is super important. Like I don't think I don't think anybody, even even the most cliched salesperson on the planet is going to last very long if they're aware of the fact that they're just like shoving people into products and services without good fit and stuff like that. Like, I just I've never known anybody be that that underhanded.
So, so John was most of this just your head trash that you had to get around?
You know, um, it kind of came from a conversation with a friend of mine, because I was working with a coach and was working with Geof and you know, coming up working on, on everything and was drinking the Kool Aid a little too hard, and was talking with a friend of mine, who was also a business owner and was like, oh, man, this stuff's awesome, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, What if everybody sold the same way that you did? You know, and they and they bought in and they and they like, like, wouldn't you need to go do something else, things that you could once against, they'll be different from everybody else. And then I was like, I was kind of hung up on that for a little bit. And then it's still the best intention, right? Like my intention is to have a really rock solid conversation with you. You have the full ability to tell me no at any point in the conversation, and I might have to tell you, no, because if this doesn't work, I'm going to tell you because it's just not worth it otherwise, you know. And when you like really own that and do it well. I think it I think it just resonates But it's really hard to do it. Well, if you're if you don't mean it, right, like, I can remember very clearly how many times I told people like, Hey, we might not be a fit. And that's okay at the end of it, and how different it felt after I told someone like, Hey, we're not the right ones to help you on this, right? Like my next conversation when I said that, like, I felt the weight of it, they felt the weight of it, and then it started to shift, right. And it wasn't just the technique for the sake of doing a technique, it was a technique based upon actual interactions and history. And we learn this stuff, right from, you know, people that you follow, and coaches and you know, YouTube and Grant Cardone and all these people, but like, you actually have to go out and do it and go through some of this stuff. So that way, you understand why it's so bad, like, I can't coach anybody how to sell if they've never sold anything before, because they don't see the value in doing it this way, because they've never had the missteps, the pitfalls, the the mistakes, you know, because they're like, well, I'm just gonna do it this way. Okay, cool. And you get when you get tired of that, let's talk again, kind of deal.
Yeah, and I've even had situations where, you know, I always kind of say, it's to be that one phone call, be the be the guy that can, you know, get stuff done, always know where you draw, have to draw the line because of your capability. So you have to know that hard that that's for sure. But there's been times on construction sites where I sold the mechanical portion of it, and they say, Oh, yeah, we're struggling to find the electrician. Do you know, anybody? I'm like, Well, how much? How much? Is it worth for you to, for me to take that off your hands? And let me go hire an electrician for this job. And sorry, the light went off. And some people say, you know, like, Oh, well, you know, I really don't I don't know if I can afford it. So well, you know, you're struggling. I have contacts, I could hand them over. But if you're struggling to find them, they're not going to work for you. They know me, right? Let me find this. And what else you missing? Oh, I'm missing? You know, some gravel. Oh, well, I know a great gravel guy, you know, let me call them and put them under. And you next thing, you know, you go from having one portion of a, you know, 20 part job to having 15 pieces of a 20 part job and you just made your, you know, that sale from maybe 200,000 to 2 million really fast. And you because you're that guy, but you have to follow through on it. And you know, I've handed those same projects over to the project team, the doers, I'll say on my side, and then be like, Oh, man, look at all this stuff I got to do. It's like, Yeah, but would you rather have 200,000 of this job. Now we have 2 million like, it's the juice is worth the squeeze here. Right? Like, let's just go get it done. Whatever you need for me, let's and that's why I say that back of the house. You know, once you make a sale, how they support you what they do, what they say about you, is huge, and only you can create that image for them.
Well, and Clint, go ahead, Nan.
Well your first, your very first talk with a potential office, or for us is offices, and is the hardest part. You know, today. I had three different doctors call needing immediate something done. I did it. And you know, in my head, I'm going I love this because I know it's brownie points. I mean, I know it sounds pathetic. But you know, once you capture a client, your actions, and they better be good. They better be timely. It just like you're talking about Clint, that's huge. It's so huge.
I had a guy today actually, there's a lot of a lot of things happen today. But there was a guy that called me today. And he was like, Hey, I'm waiting on you guys bid at St. caucus. And I told you guys two weeks ago, I'm not bidding this. There's just, you know, too much competition. Too many people bidness on the street. There's like 19 GCS bidding, and there's just no way I'm not. I'm not involved in these kinds of jobs. He's like, oh, man, he's like, I was counting on you guys. And I said, Well, sorry about I mean, I can't put together a $4 million job in an hour. I mean, there's no way and he's like, and I don't know what I'm going to do. I said, That's easy, man. He's like I said, There's literally 20 mechanicals in Houston business. I'll give you the phone numbers to people that I you know, that I think are worthy to do work for you. This is my customer. This isn't one of my great customers. And he's like, really? And I said, Yeah, why not? I'm not bidding this for you. I'm not doing this job for you. But I can help you out on this job. And so I sent him an email with like, five sales guys from five of the top companies that are competitors and said, Hey, man, you know, call these guys, they got a number for you,
Clint, Clint just knocked it out of the park. guys know every facet of your process, what you're actually accomplishing for your client, and who your competitors are. And don't be afraid to do what Clint just did. Back out of the equation and then help this guy as a free consultant so that he doesn't get screwed by one of the lesser competitors that you have. Because when you walk into some of the guys that work around us, they're good people. There's nothing wrong with my competitors. They feed their kids, they're decent. We drink beer together, but we still work in try to work against each other. But we see each other in the hallways of these hospitals all the time.
Yeah, so you know, that's it. I always kind of use that as like, I'm sure in the, in the medical world, it's very similar in all worlds of sales. But like you, you talk shit about your competitor and then you get fired or you quit and you go work for that. Now, what do you say? Right? You can't say they're the best. You just told all your customers are pieces of shit. Now you're like, oh, welcome to the US come over. So you always got to be careful about that, you know, and these guys aren't piece of shit. They do what you do every day. And they do probably just as good if not better. So I'm always a big believer in know your competitors.
And the other thing is know your capabilities right. And, and, and Nan and I are kind of in crunch at the end of the year, I think we've spoken about this in the past deductibles are met, we're trying to, you know, beat COVID by getting these cases into the O r. So we've got a lot of whirlwind. I've got doctors actually calling me right, Hey, can you get this can you get that, um, and so we've got a lot of action going on. And some of it is, Hey, I don't do this. But I literally put a deal together this week that just hit this afternoon before I jumped on here with an old product. That side note manufactured in Puerto Rico, the hurricane blew it up, was back on the market. I didn't even know where I could get it from but a doc calls me I make two phone calls, connect the dots called the local guy that's now in control, put it together, get back to the doc anyway, you work your deals, and you know the people to go to to get the information in need to put these things together and put yourself back in the game. And if you're not sinking in to your industry, and becoming an expert, and a noted authority in your expert in your but now having said that doesn't happen in year one doesn't happen in year two. But in five years, you need to be working on that 10 year plan to being the senior vice president like Clint down here or out on your own as a freelance consultant like John is over here, okay, or master of your own ship. And that's not that's not necessarily your own business. But if your company, if you're not going to have the park for your company, they won't want to lose you, right? So they're gonna want to give you all the support. And then you can turn around and say, that shit at the back of the house, we got to change this, because I can't if I sell it and it falls on its ass because of this. You know, I'm out of here. I'm taking my ticket and my toys, and I'm moving to the company next door.
Yeah, I actually had that conversation yesterday, I said, you know, one of the things that I can never do is sell a bad product. It's just not me because I do pretty honest business. I don't try to I don't try to skirt ethics or anything like that. I just I just stay pretty honest and straight narrow in the business world. And the easiest way to do that is to have your back of the house, knock it out of the park, right. And you know, whether it's your product line, maybe you selling you know, certain types of cell phones or whatever, you know, your product line means everything to you. If you're selling a crappy product, it's pretty easy to be a crappy salesman because eventually those people you sold it to come back used car salesman, you know you sell a jalopy and it goes down the road. The wheel falls off. They're coming at you, man.
Okay, but okay, to your point Clint. I got a buddy that kills it in the used car business. Yeah, sure what he did was he set up his own mechanic because they won't pay for a car that isn't running. So if it has a problem, he's like, okay, didn't expect that to happen. Bring it in. Let's get it fixed. And pay your bill. Right. Sure. There is a solution to every problem out there. But if you're sitting there scratching the surface, calling yourself an expert, go F yourself and get another job. And I look at it
like time, and I looked at you know, going into the situation I had the day with like giving him my competitor's number. I don't do that. I get calls all day long. Are you been nessa said no. And they say okay, great. And they hang up. And, you know, I really wasn't going to do business with them anyway. It just I have a brick and mortar. So some people just call you right? And pretty big city. So you get a lot of phone calls. Hey, we expected a bid on you on this job. And I just say, I'm sorry, I didn't I didn't even know I don't even know who you are. I'd love to talk to you more about it. It's just a click right. Like, okay, but in that situation, look at the pro con. You know, if I was to write it out on paper, the pro cons. I don't give the guy anything, he doesn't get a bid and today, his company fails. His boss is pissed. Like why did you know? Why didn't he do all this now he's pissed and and the bad thing is even though I did nothing wrong, I'm the bad guy. And that's that that's what's gonna happen the situation he expected something for me even though I told him two weeks ago, he whether he didn't catch, you know, he caught it or he didn't. But the point of it is at the end of the day, I'm going to be the bad guy because I didn't give them a number. And so I can't give you a number now, I'd love to, but I can't and I don't want to. So next best solution right to make the customer happy customer happy and, and for me, it's about put that down on paper. See what the pros and cons are. What can you do to make it better for your customer? That's what you're here for. That's, this is a salesperson.
Well and you bring up a really good point there, right? Because he talks about all the other people who call you asking about a pid a bid. And the minute you say that you're not going to get it, they hang up. But this guy, you guys had some rapport, you guys had a bit of a relationship. And he was like, man, I was really hoping for this, right? And so you get to actually have the real conversation because it's past that transactional, like level, right? And, you know, you guys have both kind of made kind of the same point of like, sometimes the value you need to bring to get a relationship started is just knowing the right person that they need to be talking to, right. I mean, I have built my network just around being the guy who makes a lot of introductions, right? So I will sometimes get an introduction from somebody, and like, Hey, you should talk to John, he knows everybody, and he will, and he will, he will absolutely get you like hooked up and connected. So we, it's super easy for me to hop into like a zoom call and network and look for people to make introductions to and stuff like that. And that person's gonna take my call whenever I want to talk about, like a project or business or something like that.
Exactly.
Well, that speaks to the point, I got the call from the doc this week. And the I wasn't sure I was gonna be able to carry the product line, I carried it in the past. That's why he called me, but they've gone through some changes in that manufacturing group. And so I ended up getting the connection for a guy in Arizona that runs this area now, right, I knew the guys and since the plant went down, it's kind of water under the bridge. So I was prepared to connect some dots. And but I still wanted the sale. So I thought, okay, won't hurt to ask if I can do the, you know, do the bidding here. I'm familiar with the product. I've sold it in the past. And when I and again, I'm talking to good people in the same industry, I got far enough up the chain with the plan of Hey, is anybody you know, working with this doctor from your group? Come to find out, nobody was the guy says send me a list of the guys you work with what the hospitals you work in, and I just got positive, positive, you know, the dominoes started falling. I didn't know how far they would fall. But it was worth the effort. And it ended up in my lap it appears, right.
And the the thing that I love about that is like you decided to ask anyway, right? Like I mean, and so there, there's a big thing in the world that I like working is called White labeling, right, which is where you partner with somebody else. And it's called white label, because they don't put a label on it. So you can slap yours on the work, right. And so you might do digital marketing, but you there's a version of it, you don't do so you go find a partner. And in those situations, it makes sense to give the the person a bit of a discount, because you didn't have to go find that deal. You didn't have to qualify, you didn't have to sell it you don't have to close even if the market to it or anything else. So why wouldn't you give a discount? Give up a couple of points. So that way you can actually grow, grow your market share. I mean, it makes sense at the end of the day. There's there's actually in the consulting side of like the digital marketing and everything. There's just some greedy, greedy motherfuckers who are not going to make it Right, right. Like they're going to flame out whenever the focus moves away from like agencies, which is where it is now into the next new shiny thing that's going to get everybody rich, you know, day trading, or crypto or whatever this thing will be next.
Yeah, I would like to before I think we're probably pretty close on wrapping up sort of I would like to talk because we are always so personality focused on this podcast with this. I'd like to talk a little bit about every personality I know. I mean, all four of us are sitting right here D, I, S, and C to the extreme levels. I don't know any of us or anybody that I've met that doesn't like to have, "I know that, I know a guy," right? Everybody, every personality that I know especially us in the corners like that. So some of us that's why some of us are there. I know you know, Doc I know you love that. John, you're you're you love introducing people Hey, I know a guy that does this. Nan, even as the sweetheart s down there, I'm sure that you're like, Hey, I love you need to meet my friend. He pushes it. Yeah, if anybody pushes it more, it's probably the S but even me as a D like as much as I love to do things by me. So I'm a last resort to myself. I'm more of a you know, I would rather delegate everything on if I could, you know, and so for me, I don't know anybody that doesn't say that. They don't love having that guy. Hey, you know, I need my roofer Hey, man, I know a guy, you need to call this guy a little bit. Everybody loves having that connection. And so be that guy. Be that guy for somebody, like you're not gonna run into a personality that you can't be that person for you know what I mean?
I agree so much. And I think that I'm pretty lucky that I got to come on and kind of like a business development role. Whenever I was working with Geof because it was it wasn't just like pure hunting. It was also like looking for relationships and looking for like channel partners and stuff like that. And so it really brought a whole lot of networking, you know, front and center for me and as a C, It's not, it's not the thing that I thought would be generating most of my business, right? Like, you know, when you ask most CEOs, it's going to be, you know, data and marketing and funnels and all of these things, it's never going to be not networking for most like C type personalities, because it's just not something that we lean towards. And I think when you're new in sales, right, you're trying to figure it out, you're scrambling all over the place, right? You don't have any bandwidth to allocate towards. Let me go build some relationships with people who are centers of influence calling on the same people but not doing the same things and networking and making it like because you just don't have the bandwidth to do it. Because you're just so under the pressure of trying to get something done. And that's where your process has got to come into play. Right? Having Okay, cool, like this much cold prospecting, this much LinkedIn, this much Facebook, like however you're doing it, and then go build and nurture your relationships over here. Like, you can't put all your eggs in any one basket. And you know, Facebook right now, because of the election and everything that's going on, like ad spend is going through the roof, because the political parties are like pumping the system with all of these dollars trying to get, you know, whoever they want elected. And so all these accounts are seeing like super high ad spend, you know, higher than they've ever seen. And Facebook is cracking down on accounts and blocking lots of people. And all these people only have one way of getting business and they're all terrified. It's like, Oh, you guys don't actually know how to sell. You don't know how to prospect you know how to market really well. And that's a skill set that is important. But what are you going to do now?
Yeah, I mean, I go ahead.
No, go. Oh, I was gonna say, and we were all there and new at one time, right. So we make this look like okay, this happened overnight. No, we persevered. I mean, and we all remember the first thing we really sold for money that we could put in our own bank account. Yeah,
I wasn't we weren't any of this stuff whenever I was working for Al, right. Like I was, I was full on caught in that scramble of, oh, shit, I got to make something happen, Al's was gonna fire me. Oh, shit. Sounds good. You know, and I'm working a night job to pay for daycare. Like in, in, I just didn't know enough, right? I mean, I'm incredibly thankful that, you know, Al took a shot on me. But like, looking back on it now. Like, A) I would never go back to that world and be as on-call as you two are. But I think that I would probably do fairly, fairly well, now that I know all of this stuff. But no, no, like, like, you could give me $100,000 base salary. And I still wouldn't go back to that lately.
Wait a second, John, that's because you have options now. Right? And all we're talking about here is is you know, when you first get hired, you got one option get out there to get a door open, right? Yep, more and more doors open, you now have more options. So if this is really something that you sink your teeth into that it feels good to your heart and soul, stay the endeavor. But if it but if there's a point where you're really like, Hey, I gave this all my all, then it's time it doesn't mean I mean, you know, you can go whatever path you want. Don't be afraid to jump ship if it's not for you. Because you got to do something you love or you know, because it doesn't appear like it's work after that. So um, yeah, just keep that in the back of your mind that it's a struggle for everybody the first the first thing out of the chute.
It's a shift that that happens, right, like, you know, Al brings up a good point in the thing that I'm doing mostly now is like, I'm taking salespeople and kind of training them to be better salespeople, so that way they can sell marketing and advertising and these digital marketing agencies. And so I brought on a closer with a guy, the the agency owner is like a, probably a D/I and he's a very high I. And I've been talking about process and scheduling and time blocking and all these things that I do for the people that I work with. And he's in he's struggling because he's an I. He doesn't love some of this. But he but he gets it in trust me. And then there's some there's some differences in the things that he's hearing from me and the things that he's like hearing from you know, his boss, right? And I was like, Look, this is why I'm here, right? Like, come talk to me about this stuff. But you can't take any of that stuff into the conversations with the owner, you just got to like dial that back in, just understand that you guys are different, and you need different things. And I'm very different from either one of you. Right? So this is where the self awareness really comes into play. Because he, you know, he's in this spot of like, he needs this job. And he wants to do well and he's a super high I, so he wants his boss to like him and he wants to do a good job. And so so he's he's making himself too, too available. Right? He's he's he's answering like text messages and phone calls, like when it's family time and stuff. And he's already said agreements. And I'm like, Man, that's on you. But you're setting a precedent that's going to be hard to walk back later on. You know, and there's, I think, I think after a while, what happens is we all get used to the complexity of dealing with so many different kinds of people in such like a regular basis and like the role that we take into that kind of thing. In largely I take it for granted now. Like I'm like, What are you stressed out about? And he goes, Well, he's just he's just not not, not complying with the agreements that we made, I was like, dude, you got to reinforce that. That's not on him that's on you.
Well, John, you speak to, I mean, simply put his sales intelligence, right. You know, we talked about our emotional intelligence, well, it takes a minute to gain sales intelligence, right? By usually deciding that whatever your process is, or whatever your script is, that it's not working, and that, but but it could work, right, if you would do this or change that. So if you're looking, and this speaks to you, John, is the fact that if you have a process and you have analytics, they speak to all of us, you can go back then and evaluate what needs to be tweaked what needs to be changed, and build a better process, then next go round.
So, absolutely. I think that's, so let's go round real quick, right? Because, you know, we kind of covered a bunch of topics. But, you know, go around the horn real quick. Let's start with Clint. You know, when you're thinking about the stigma as as a D and in construction, how do you deal with it? You know, do you have any tips or advice for anybody who might be newer already?
Yeah, man, especially speaking to a D, hi, corner D personality, you the way to think about it, right, as if you if you have that negative notion in your head that you are, you know, inferior because you're a salesperson, it's going to destroy you because your personality needs to be the big guy right on the block. And in most industries, the sales guy is, you know, that that piece of crap sales guys just as a notion in a lot of industries. My thing is, is there's, there's some really find the badass winner if you're new, and you're trying to start find the badass kind of role model in sales, because they're out there in every industry that just kill it. And you know, they're really, and I bet you will be surprised at how much work they actually put in. But they'll also they live up to being a salesperson, they love being a salesperson, they'll tell you exactly the first words out of their mouth is I do sales, I'm in sales. I love it, love it. And that's the attitude that you have to walk away from, but you can't let if you're a D, you can't let that get to you that you're less than somebody else. Because you're in sales, make it the opposite flip the script only you can change that.
Man, that's awesome. Al for I's or or medical realm. Yeah, well,
Yeah, well, from an I standpoint, you always want to be like, so it kind of hurts your feelings. If you feel like, you know, somebody slamming a door in your face you, you tend to, you know, internalize that and sometimes take it personally. And it's not on you, right? You're most I's are very likeable people, you know, it's that the person just didn't have time for you, or your introduction failed to get you where you needed to get, right. So So own that, it's not, it's not the gatekeepers fault, and you're going to usually get your chance to shine, you're just going to have to, you know, suffer a few losses and have that not hurt your ego in your, in your persona. So, so always keep your chin up. And yeah, just bounce back, just keep going at it.
Awesome. Nanette for S's or for pharmaceutical sales, or, anything.
I, I love analogies and the whole time listening to this conversation, I'm thinking of, you know, you're planting a seed unique, and that's the your very first and the initial call, you're planning that you're going to plant a seed. And then you need to think of how you're going to water it, you need to put some sunshine on and I know that sounds probably, of course, an S typical, you know, kind of silliness. But it is a process. And you know, coddle it. Don't Don't act like, you know, don't get frustrated, Think positive. Another thing that I thought of as, as y'all were talking, I was thinking about that silly Saturday Night Live where the guy would look in the mirror and you know, say, I'm worth it, and I can and, yeah, it's goofy. I can't stand that. To be absolutely honest. I didn't even want to watch that. But in actuality, it really is very wise to feed yourself some positive, you know, think about, you know, I can do this. I mean, people just get so freaked out, and then they just, they destroy themselves, you know, don't do that. And one more thing that I really, as we as I listened to our talk today, I thought a really big thing is don't burn bridges. I think, you know, Clint spoke to it. I know I've spoke to it. I think it's really don't burn bridges. Fie, you know, you've planted a seed, don't go in there and mess it up and not take care of something. That's all I want to say about that. But, you know, I think it's really important stuff.
Awesome. Well, um, you know, for me as a C and as a consultant, you know, the thing that I come back to is you can learn all the techniques on the planet. But if your intention is not lined up correctly, if you're just treating these people who have concerns and have thoughts and have ideas, just as tasks, you're always going to come off a little bit cold, it's gonna be hard to build rapport, it's going to be very hard to build trust. And the thing that I feel like I've been successful at this year is really not letting that to happen, right? It's super easy to like, rely on these techniques. And so that way, if it doesn't work, you can see what the technique failed, I didn't fail. But who was who was weilding the technique in that moment. Right. So know the techniques have have easy access to them, drill them until you can do them in your sleep. So that way, when you're in front of a prospect, or you're in front of like a networking person, you can treat them as a human, in these techniques, just this happen, but you're not relying on them as a crutch so that we can get through the conversation. Thank you. Again, real quick. Last week, we talked about how much of your personal beliefs and ideologies do you bring into your sales conversations. And Mike, who runs a video marketing agency, and as a good friend of mine, he runs a company called 4Thirds, his wife run this agency together. And they're, they're a woman on business, right? So they've got some some unique things around that. And they were approached by a nudie bar to do some videos for them. And he, he just knew that it wasn't going to be a good fit for them and their brand and, you know, said no, just because he knew that it wasn't a good fit, and it went against their, their ideologies. And so he he, he sent me this the story and asked him if I could if we could share it on here. So people are doing this stuff guys like like, Don't think that just because maybe you haven't had to turn something down based upon a principle or something that nobody does, right? Everybody's got a level that they don't want to go past. So thanks to Mike for allowing us to share that. If you have a story that fits with one of these topics that you'd like to share or talk about or get some advice, please let us know. Send us a text 817-345-7449 comment on the video. leave us a review. Share this with somebody else who's struggling right now. There's a lot of people who don't know what's going to happen in you know, between now and end of the year and in January. Yes Al?
But John? So what was the nudie bar cuz I have this new iPhone 11 I could probably shoot, shoot something.
There's that, there's that I. There's that I.
I'm available. I got the phone.
We did not get a Bellman story today. So we had to get some sort of story about about the I in there.
And that's that's tongue in cheek guys. I support their ability to say no.
So yes. So follow us on social media. Everything is that Sales Throwdown if you have a question or if you want to take the assessment, once again, send us a text write this, you start improving the minute you own, who you are and own the differences between you and the people that you talk to you. So, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week, and we'll see you guys next week. Cheers.