We're re-releasing this episode from September when we celebrated our one-year anniversary! It's the end of the year, and a really hard year at that, and we wanted to share one more time what we've learned and what we're thankful for.
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Believe it or not, Sales Throwdown is one year old!
We wanted to spend our anniversary episode talking about what we've learned over the past year, how  we've grown, and how thankful we are to YOU to be doing this. Without our fans and followers, this wouldn't work.
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Welcome to the show everybody. We have been doing this crazy ridiculous thing for a year. And the show, the team. Exactly. Al's drinking, if you can hear the ice cubes, Clint has also dropped. He can't hear anything because he's tactical. And Nan, show your glass. Oh, yeah, Nan is also drinking. I,
John, what are you having?
I got some water over here guys. I'm trying to take it easy. You know, I'm old. I put in a lot of hours. The alcohol doesn't help. So, but we want to kind of talk about what we've done over this past year and like what we've learned about being because we were close before but obviously because we're around each other with such regular basis. Now, like, you know, we're way closer than I would say that we were before this, and, you know, I I had to give Al props on Facebook and be like, Man, I've learned a ton from this guy. You know?
Yeah, and don't know that I've earned 'em.
No. I mean, no man, I mean, this version of me would not be here if he had taken a shot on me. So that's, that's the honest truth. And, you know, being here on the show with you and the other three of you guys, like it's really, it's A) it's it really solidifies that I have to do it differently than you guys are do right just to feel comfortable and to feel in control. And that's like a really big thing for me. And so it's, it's nice to get that reinforcement, right? Just like Okay, cool. I can do this differently. Because sometimes, right, even though I'm pretty, pretty confident in my process and my abilities, you know, sometimes it's like, Man, what if we just tried to do it this way and stuff like that. So I hear how you guys do it and not, not don't take this as a knock, but it's like, Man, I'm glad I don't have to do some of the stuff that you guys do, because it just wouldn't work for me, right? It's so far out of my comfort zone that I just wouldn't be successful in those kinds of roles.
So I will I will tell you that you know, my biggest, um, gosh, my my info gather that I've had over the last 18 months has been not only just from the show, but being around you guys personally, professionally, being able to look at somebody that mirrors a personality of one of you three, and knowing that we've had 100 conversations, and I've had that conversation with you guys and being able to slide those people with your, you know, you literally, I put your face on their face. Yeah. And and I'm able to have intelligent conversations without having the knowledge base that you guys have shown me with the especially, you know, psychologically is it's huge, right? Not having that knowledge base now, would be detrimental to everything that I do. So, you know, I think we all challenge everybody and at least we have since the beginning a year ago. first podcast is like, if you guys don't have a team, or a friend circle or professional circle built up of multiple personalities and different spectrums, you guys aren't growing man, you're just not.
Well, I, you know, and I can speak to this and you know, it's cathartic in a certain sense to be able to get things off your chest that either are, you know, and we do this behind the scenes a lot of times. So, you know, we come to the show to talk about a particular topic, but between the four of us, there's a lot of discussion about how we each individually handle something, but you're exactly right, that you know, and Nando probably chime in here after me. You know, being able to understand that I'm okay in my skin. And, you know, we can disagree about things and we all are successful at, you know, paying our bills, getting the job done supporting our family. The reason you do go to work and we're very passionate and like the jobs that we have, for the most part, right? So anyway, yeah, that's my two cents on spending a year hanging out with a lot a ton of conversations. And I'm telling you this is this is, you know, sometimes it's a grind to get here, you know, because we work full jobs. This is not our job job. This is our passion to, you know, talk about our travels and how we've, you know, handle being sales professionals. So, so sometimes it's like, you know, Thursday, I'm like, you know, wow, yeah, I got to get home or got to get to a computer so I can get on this thing. But yeah, guys, hats off. I appreciate everything you guys have brought to my world. And yeah, let's see, let's Yeah, many more years of this kind of stuff.
Nan, what about you, other than just how to put up with like three jackasses like what, uh, what have you learned in the past year?
Well, first, since she said that I wasn't going to start with this. But people listening to this, you know this is might, might be a little nauseating to him but I love you three so much like It is amazing to me out I think and I hate it I was really not gonna say love because you expect that right?
Well, used love and amazing all in the same, yeah.
Hashtag consistency.
But you know the thing that you know you gain such perspective on failure success in our conversation and I hope that's a takeaway for everyone that that you You see that? If we it's it's so pertinent for today that our society because what the four of us are so different, right? But we have just testified to how much we really bond and we get along because we wait the grasp the differences instead of and you know yes, we talk about it in an in sales. But what the best biggest takeaway should be, I believe is that we're all different and getting out there and communicating, knowing how to communicate, and communicating with other people that are different than you is so very important. Because when you do that, when you have to spend that time communicating, I think that that leads you to more understanding and caring and developing relationships with other people. I think the something that I am seeing in our society not to get on a soapbox is, um, but here I go anyway, right. But is we become so polar. We just want to have our opinion. And we want everyone to jump into our opinion. And that's all that we fight for. Well, how silly is that? If I said, Oh, you know what? I really just want to be comfortable in sales. And basically, in life, I just need to be around people that are calm and sweet and want to want the best for others. Well, and I, you know, that's that's a little, that's a little honey, a little too sweet probably, but because I believe me, I can be a complete jerk. But hey, if if that were true, then how boring would life be I would not be successful because I would not have built these other relationships and that's perfect for the four of us. Because, man, if we can do this and have this kind of relationship with each other, that, you know, Clint's far away, but he the the passion that he puts into his job he also puts into this podcast. And he The reason we started the podcast, I think a lot of it is is passion for the four of us getting together and talking. You know, we Get up, we all get together and talk. And, and John's passion for just making this happen. And he keeps us on task and we love Melissa, y'all don't ever get to see Melissa, but she is the fifth wheel of, you know, the fifth spoke in the wheel. And she is so important. And, you know, I it's just I mean, of course Al is the one that just makes it so exciting. I think it'd be in just the passion that He has for everything, you know how that's just the way the I is. And, you know, then my part of just that I do I love these three guys so much. And I'm I think that in this year of doing this, again, to be, not to be redundant, but the perspective that I have for my failures and successes by talking about it, you know, so what's the takeaway, communicating with each other, communicating with your clients, with friends with other people, don't just try to find people that are like you. Get out there and you know. And I'm gonna end with you know look what Jesus did I think he's the perfect example of because he was the perfect man he is the perfect everything yes right but he did not just go hang out with other kings Gods but you know that many titles he went to the one as well he went to I mean you could go on and on he went he he hung out with fishermen that you know that at that time that wasn't like a prestigious thing you know it it really is important to know the different hang out with understand ask questions of people that are not like you.
No, that's huge Nan and we all I'm sure all speak for everybody here but we all appreciate that because and we kind of knew that you would you know you would go down that road of passion for this and in the thing is, is you spoke for all of us because that's your personality, right? And so Some of us up here, we don't have that personality to speak to that level, we feel it. But we're not willing to put that out there because that's our personality, right? And that's what makes us us. Right? And when you talk to people that speak in Nan's language, you've got to be able to slide together to the language that you speak. You know, I always look at the perspective of if I went to China tomorrow when I spoke, zero Chinese language, I wouldn't get along very well, right, unless they spoke my language. And that's not fair. And so I always look at that relationship as a buyer or seller, right? Why is it fair for me to expect you to speak my language? Right? And, and personality wise, business wise, politically, religiously? Like it's not fair for you to just pull your reins back and say, This is the only language I speak and you guys are. I'm right, and you're wrong. And what I've absolutely gained over this entire experience with you guys is that we've had in depth discussions till two in the morning over religion, we've had in depth discussions over business, politics, we're all from different walks of life. But what always finds it interesting is that the next day we're we're back into the texting circle trying to find out more about why you think that way and why why I think that way. And that's the whole point. And that's why it works so well in sales to stay in this psychological battle, so to speak, between everybody is that the more you find out about John and Nan and Al, or D, I, S, and C and the DISC personality spectrum, the more you're able to communicate and have intelligent conversations about how can I think this way and somebody else thinks so far opposite to me? And we're both right. How is that possible in the world? And it happens every day in sales that happens every day and religious talks and It takes we see it in politics right now on the news like crazy, right? You got to be this way or that way. Well, that's so that that is could be the worst statement ever. It's so not, right. I can tell you all four of us get along and we all believe something completely different because on multiple fronts.
On just about everything actually.
Truly, we don't even sell the same, right, which is,
That's right. But we're all successful, we all live and breathe, we all raise families we're raising families, we all have certain things, we all make money. We all live in the same space, we all live and breathe air. And and that's and that's tough for me to say and if you go back a year from now, you would never guess that I'd be saying this on the on the year anniversary episode. But I mean, truly humanity is what it is like it we're all here we're all trying to survive and you survive in sales. you survive in professional and personal life and you can't do without other people.
So it takes a village and the village is made up of, you know, every one of our personalities multiple times. And if you're, if you're gonna get up in the morning and go out for an endeavor, expect to find all of us out there in your community, everyone in the four faces here, you know, over and over again and you're going to see us, right, we're the people that you're going to talk to that you're going to sell to, that you're going to be married to, that you're going to raise as children, you know, the deeper seated, you know, conversation is not everybody's you. Actually nobody's you. But there are certain people will fall into your category. And they may annoy you more than we do. Right. If you take the right perspective, you're gonna like everybody across the aisle versus the people sitting on your corner.
What's what's funny is you brought up to magnificent points there. One, nobody's you, right? You're completely different than everybody else around you whether you believe it or not, but you'll believe in fingerprints, right? Every fingerprint, every snowflakes different, but you don't believe that you're different than everybody else is kind of a contradictory statement. Right? Yeah. On the other side of that to Doc you spoke to be in a village and it's funny, because if you had a bunch of farmers, that's, that's freaking great, you're great. You'll have a great farm but nobody will cook the dinner. Nobody will teach the kids, nobody will, you know, nobody will fight for it. Right. So how do you how do you know all of that knowledge and then believe that everybody should be like you? It's a crazy mentality to think right?
So true.
For sure. And here's what you find are what I find myself. You'll want the best for everybody when you know a lot of different people, right? And you then want everybody to be successful. So in my opinion, or, you know, in my approach is If every one of my sales endeavors and the process I go through, enriches the person on the other side, and I do a really, really good job that has value beyond the money, right, because it solves a problem and makes their life better. There's so much that sales brings to the arena that's overlooked in the aspect of humanity through bonding and rapport, right? The ability to interact with your fellow human in a really positive way that's going to solve a problem, provide a solution, and you get to do it, you get to be the forefront, you get to work through the pushback, you get to work through the avoidance of them solving a problem, because people aren't really reticent in many cases, or they're confused. That can be a couple of different reasons to handle an issue that's sitting on their plate, you know, no, no, no, sometimes it's part of the everyday workload. But so many times you just get to dig in a little bit deeper and understand and people a little bit more, and it makes you better it makes them but yeah.
The the thing that I'm waiting for, because because Clint did it and I was gonna say the same thing. And this has been my secret sauce for as long as we've been working on the show is that if I'm stuck and I can't figure out based upon like the questions and where we are in the conversation where they are, is I'm like, okay, are they who are they most like, right? Who are they most like, right? Are they, are they, are they cutting up and telling stories? Are they are they directing to the point where they just want to, like, hang out with me and make sure that I'm like, good and everything else. And I use, I do the same thing. I'm like, Okay, cool. This is Clint, how do we need to adjust to make sure that if I was talking to Clint right now, I was I was being impactful. If I'm talking to our right now, how can it be the most impactful? And I I use that in just about every conversation that I do because I'm constantly like checking like, okay, I made an assumption earlier. Am I still good? Okay, yes, they're, they're still checking all the Clint boxes or the Al boxes or whatever. And the thing that I'm waiting for everybody else to figure out is like, this is this is a clinic like every week like you can you can hear how I talk differently than the than the other three of you and the things I talk about are different, right? And sometimes that leads to mystification. Right? Because, you know, we had, we had an episode just that we record before this, and we were all kind of heated. And it was just heated because I didn't explain myself well about like, why I don't have to follow follow up a certain kind of follow up process and things like this. And there's like, every week of this thing, right, and I get to hear it more than you guys do, because we're here and we're working on it and doing all of this stuff here as part of the process, but every every each one of these episodes is a clinic and how these different corners communicate and what's important to them and stuff like that. And I'm waiting. I mean, it might take another year before people start to just be like, cool, like, let me just check turn in for my DISC tune up this week, you know, to make sure that I'm listening for these different kinds of people. Stuff like that.
And it's always funny to me because I, you know, I don't have a lot of social media I'm not a big I'm not on the Facebook. I haven't you know, I have an Instagram, I have a LinkedIn, I follow other people but I'm not a big poster. I don't I don't put that stuff out there. And unfortunately, you know, to be honest with you, that's kind of the way the world turns right now, especially with the younger crowd, you know, 40 to 16 years old. That's, that's, that's where your information share is right. And it's funny to me because I watch people post all the things that we talk about and live through daily on a because somebody else quoted it, right? So they post quotes, hey, check this quote out. What do you think about it? It's like, no, don't check it out. What do you think about it, live it, right. You need to live the quote, like stop trying to take credit for posting something and live the quote because No, I just just to test the theory as a matter of fact, today I, I, I never have done that before. So So I posted a quote from Albert Einstein. And it said, a question that always makes me hazy is, is it me or is everybody else crazy? Right? And it was always kind of funny because like, I always wonder that. Is it me? Do you call yourself crazy? Or is it everybody else? It's crazy. And it's such a conundrum. But it's funny because as soon as I post that, within 30 seconds, boom, like heart, you know, great quote, blah, blah. But I can post some real information, I can post this podcast and get nothing, right? Because nobody wants to take the time to truly dig into themselves and learn why, you know, this touches me in a certain way. It's just easier to put an emoji face on something and get rid of it. But But my challenge to why I'm saying that is that here's, here's a quote and we're going to disect that between the four personalities. My challenge is if you're listening to this or know somebody that could benefit benefit from this is don't don't like it, don't thumbs up it, listen to it, breathe it, soak all the information in because information is power man, it is such powerful stuff. And the more you can do it, picture yourself a sponge soaking up water. If you can soak it all in, and and then collect the information that fits for you. And then go puke it out in the world that that's what makes you you.
Like Clint just hit on something. Because if you're sitting on your couch or you know and there's no value in your life, because you don't do anything else. That's usually not America, right? It just is right. We all have jobs and we have families and we have other people we talk to. So if you do any of those three things, the value in what we're talking about is immense. Yeah, you know, it transcends just sales. It is you know, if you communicate with anybody in your world, and goodness knows for as much as I yak, I'm not the best communicator because I fall short many, many times. But to come back and sit here and then figure out wow, you know, I need to listen more, talk less I need to be you know, empathy I have, but then I need to validate because sometimes, you know, so you can find all your mistakes right here in this podcast.
Sure, and, and you know better than anybody, talking is not communication. No, they are two totally different things. Yeah,
This you are absolutely correct. And I'm guilty of talking and not communicating it probably more so than the three the other three of you guys, and I own it. And in there's the value know what you do. Don't Don't fool yourself just because it's coming out of your mouth. That doesn't mean shit. We don't
I had a golf lesson once and a guy told me you know, he He taught me three things, right? And he said, Maybe that's too much for you. I said, Nope. Don't say another word. I just need repetitions, right? Like, leave me alone for about 30 more balls. And he's like, okay, so he stepped back and I watched him out of the corner of my eye cross his arms. And I hit one, I hit two. And on the third one, I said, Don't say a word. I know what I did wrong. Let me fix it. Right. Like, you can you can tell me all the things but I have to get my reps in, I have to figure out, I have to know and, and, you know, to, to credit this, this instructor, young guy, he said, Well, if you know what you're doing wrong, you can fix it. And it was like, yep, I need I need bullet points. I need lessons. Right. And I know that I suck at this. I'm trying to get better. You gave me three things. But don't give me three things. And then on the next swing, give me five more things because, overload, now it's not now it is overload and it's not instruction anymore. It's what you think I need to be doing based on what you do, not what I do. So It so buyer seller relationship and in sales and leadership, right these things all apply you've got to you got to do it in small morsels, you got to give wins, right you've got to... I'm a big fan of, of giving people wins because because my personality accepts win so much that I just think that that goes leaps and bounds for people when when I tell somebody to do something, and they don't do it to my exact design in my head, but they got it done. You need to reward that person of getting it you know, getting it done and winning, right and then and then if you want it done different way you need to explain Hey, thank you for getting that done. Next time I want to see this a little bit different. But if you say I need this done differently, well then now they're a failure and now they have to do something. So understanding that personal personality concept and little things like that as a as a as a leader in life, as a father, as a coach of a soccer team. As a sales leader, as a salesperson to your customer, man, these things are so huge. And to be honest with you, I challenge you to find this on any other podcast because I just don't think you're gonna find it. Well, well,
Whoa. Well put. So I love that story. And so I, I talked a little bit about teaching kung fu and being a kung fu coach and everything. And I used to be that guy, right? I would, oh, here's all the things that are wrong with everything that you just did right there. And was was was an over coach, right? I would I would just burden people with all of this stuff. And then I read this book called The the Inner Game of Tennis, which is like, kind of where the whole peak performance idea kind of like comes from originally super solid book. But he talks about like, like when it whenever somebody does something once it's going to be terrible, right? They don't need any feedback between rep one and rep two, because like they're just glad that they didn't like destroy the world on the first drop, right? So they don't need any coaching on the second wrap, right? What do you think you did bad? Well, I did this and this this bad. Okay, what do you do next time I'm gonna do this and this and this. Okay, do it now. Right? The, you know, we can only hold so much in our heads and you know, whenever we get to intellectual right about things that require, like some balance and some art to it, we we put ourselves in positions where it's really hard to win. So I love that whole thing, man. That's I've never heard that story before. That's huge.
But John...
It's funny John, go ahead, because on us, you and you and Melissa actually had reached out recently like, Hey, you know, you're pretty good golfer, why don't you teach us how to golf and, and the funny thing is, it's like, I've accepted that challenge in my head so hard that I've come up with a million different ways to try to start that conversation with you, knowing how you are and how Melissa is to a little bit of a degree, but knowing how you are to a very high degree. And knowing that I can't, I can't do certain things for you that I would do with my buddies from back home or my wife or my kids. Teaching you as an adult, as a high corner C in the DISC spectrum is one of the most challenging things I would guess, to teach unless you know how that person thinks. And so, tasks goals, information overload, like, I have all this plan, you know, and we just recently talked about this, but in my head, I am getting this. You know, so that if we ever go do this for real, which I know we do, because we're both task-oriented, we're not going to let this slide. No, I'm going to take you to the range and on day one, I'm going to introduce you to something that is geared to you. I'm going to sell you on the game of golf, because I know how you think, but that's only only because I'm aware of who I am and and who you are that I can do that. But you know and you guys are probably hearing way more compassion out of me than you've ever heard in years. Which is funny because it's not because I never had it, it's because I don't like to show it, right. It's not me, it's not
But Clint, man, dude, we we know different right? I speak for the crowd, man. Yeah, sure. Love, love, love your approach to life love. And you just gave our viewers a little insight of what we see on a regular basis, right sometimes, you know, does it get translated? Because we get on a topic and we just talk because we like to teach. We like to talk but man, the four people sitting here I got that right. There's four of us there. This stuff. Man, we are so passionate about the lives we live, the families we have, the friendships that are just right here in this box, and then many many others. So when you live an endeavor to understand And be an active part of your family, your community, your company, and the world that we live in. Guys it This opens up so many doors to people that will love you, trust you, call you, ask your advice, you will become this nice little magnet to a lot of people seeking the same. Now this is better than religion to me, right? In the sense that this is how humanity advances itself through these kinds of endeavors and discussions to make everybody better. End of story.
About a month. Hold on, real quick. So about a month ago, we were doing one of these sessions and we're knocking out some recordings and as usual, we kind of like chat and pregame and get a little riled up with each other, you know, just kind of talking smack. And like I was having a rough day, a rough week. And Clint the next day, he like texted me and he was like, Hey man, dream, the dream. It And it's like 8am I'm like, I'm like no man, I read your I read your, your email. It was like he's like, we'll go fucking read it and call me and I'm just like, God dammit, I'm in trouble. What do I do? And so then I go, and I read this email and and and this just speaks to how really really, really good Clint is at this thing. And the whole top of the thing was all about the show like hey, I've got this idea about these shades, we got to do these things and everything else like this. And then and then he's like, cool now that that's out of the way and he in a separate line, he goes, I had to say all that shit, just that way you would be invested in this email and now you'll read the things that that you need to hear that you might not be ready to hear. And then after that was like this, like amazingly nice thoughtful, like email, and I am I'm so blown away, hook line and sinker. Oh, blown away because because not only is this like, unheard of from Clint, but dude got me so hard because I'm just like, I like I'm reading the second I'm reading this line. I'm like, damn it son of a bitch. I'm in. You know, and then I and then I plow through the rest of the email and and I was austrac I was like, Man, that level of command of like knowing all that information, because here's the deal, Clint doesn't, Clint doesn't write long, anything to my knowledge, you know. So for him to put himself so squarely in my shoes to do this thing and have all of this fluff at the top that he knows that I'm going to geek out on. And then like the compliments and like the nice things and like, Hey, man, like you got to be a little bit easier on yourself at the bottom. And I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm invested. You know, I, I was blown away, right? Because it there's, there's more levels to this. There's always another level, right? And so if you're listening to this, and you're in sales, and you think you've got it all figured out, and you have that mentality, somebody else doesn't have that mentality and they are working daily and weekly, and they're listening to stuff like this, they're reading books, and they are going to outperform you. So the minute you think you got it figured out, you need to sit down and like figure out where you don't. And like that's how you get really good.
And I'll tell you to be honest with you. The challenge for me was always I okay, so I read I'll throw a couple names out there. Ian Altman was a guy I met quite a few years ago. He writes a lot of sales books, he he's got a lot of sales conferences that he speaks at and stuff. And look, I would never say a bad word about the guy because I honestly, I just don't know him. But what I do know is that he's instructed people to follow a certain path, right? If you do this, you get this, if you do this, you get this. And even sitting, I mean, I've literally been in a conference room with eight people and him at the head of the table given giving a speech about how you sell, and he's not wrong. And I don't want to give that impression that he's wrong. But there's so many other variables to the equation that he's talking about, that I wanted to dive into to make it better. Right. So you're giving me the 30,000 foot view from an airplane. I want to talk about the furniture Inside the house that we're looking at, and those are two very different conversations, and when you start breaking down personalities, and I mean, it's a simple way to sum it up is the psychological side of selling. Right? Yeah, you're not it. That's the way I describe it. Right? I, I focus on the psychological side of selling. And if you are me, as a personality out there listening to this, which you probably aren't, because you're a high corner D and this is all bullshit to you. But if you are listening, I will tell you this. You can only get better by knowing the knowledge of what everybody else is thinking. Think of it not as education, think of think of it as manipulation, because that's what gets me through it. Right? I am. And I think we've talked about this maybe maybe 9, 10 months ago, we talked about this a bit because I said that word manipulation, everybody just kind of like who wait a second. What are you talking about? That's negative, don't don't talk about it. No. I manipulate people every day. I need my kids to do something. I give them hey, if you eat your dinner, I'll give you a Tootsie Roll. That's manipulation. I hate to, I hate to point it out, but that's exactly what that is. Right? And there's a manipulation for good and there's manipulation for bad.
I say you just hit on that. If you're helping somebody be better. That's a positive form of manipulation.
Right. So to to John's story, right? I wrote Jonah an entire email that was 900 sentences longer than I've ever written anybody in my life. But I knew, five paragraphs. Yeah. But if I if I put the fifth paragraph in the first paragraph, it wouldn't have got it received. It wouldn't have got written, it was manipulation. Read this. get warm and fuzzy. And that's not weakness on john. And that's not strength on me. It's just personality talking to a different personality and that's the way it goes. Right? Now. Now the other way around. If john would have sent me the money stuff up top and got me I wouldn't have read the last part of it because I would have got bored and said, fuck this thing, I'm out. Right? That's just what would have happened. So you got to know who you're talking to and how to respond to them to get them engaged, to get them the information they need. And it's not weakness and it's not strength. The one thing I love about this personalities and I'll and I'll shut the hell up. What I'm sorry, one of the things I love about all of this stuff is that nobody's right. And nobody's wrong. Yeah, that was that was a hard conundrum for me to get over in my life that What do you mean, I'm a high corner D So I must win all the time. Like that. I'm the champion. I'm the king Give me the crown. And it was so far from the truth and it took me a long time to figure that out.
Okay, but but Clint to that point, I want you to be the winner because you're gonna drag me up the sales ladder with all those wins in your corner when I'm selling to you, right. And if you You take somebody's personality. And I, you know, I see it as your same thing. Manipulation is not a bad word. But if I ask you a bunch of questions in the right format, that allows you to self manipulate up the ladder for people who need that. And I'm aware that some people need a little more guidance, and I'll go ahead and step into the forefront of that. This ties together in a win win scenario? Not only do we win, but the people that hopefully that we associate and sell to and are part of they win as well. Yeah, yeah. So so...
And you know, the absolute is coaching, right? You're talking to me, coaching is a form of manipulation to every person's, football coach.
Absolutely. I was gonna say seventh grade football man, I, yeah.
Mother F-ing Roll Tide. He is the old ultimate, ultimate manipulator. He's got a degree in psychology and he's got a winning team every single year. Do you think that's because he has the best recruits? Yeah, that's some of it. You think?
Because he won and now to go there, he's got the he's he's siphon the hose. It's flowing, right.
But at one point, I was an Alabama fan before Nick Saban was a coach. And they weren't so good. It was not fun to watch every Saturday, it sucked. We lost every every single game in the sec. And Nick Saban took over and there was a rebuilding year and we had to hear all that bullshit. And and all I can remember is I can remember hearing my family members, I can remember seeing all this stuff on social media about how Oh, Nick Saban is going to bring the psychological side of coaching to the table and everybody was against it until he won, and he won again, and he won again and again and again and Now everybody's like, Oh, well, there's no other way to coach. But besides learning personality traits, and learning how to coach kids differently. You yell at one kid, he accepts it. You yell at a second he quits. One's right. One's wrong, and you can't coach everybody the same way and you can't sell everybody the same way. Nick Saban proved that over and over,
Great analogy. Yeah, well put, I
had a poker coach there for a while when I was playing a lot of poker and trying to do it, or was doing it full time. And we were looking at this hand, and, you know, we're talking about the details of it. And, and I was like, Well, you know, what do you think about this? And he was like, Well, do you have any history with the player? And I was, like, history? And he was like, Yeah, like, like, how many hands like what's your read of them? Like, what do you think about him? And I was like, Well, I don't know. And he goes, he goes, then this hand isn't good enough to play in this spot if you don't have history with this person. Wow. Like, oh, you know, because like there's this line in poker that you don't play the cards, you play the, you play the player, you know, and like, I've heard that line over and over and over again. But it wasn't until like in that moment where this guy was like, You know what, this hand is fine for this kind of player, it's not fine for this kind of player. But if you don't know what kind of player this person is, you don't need to be here with these kinds of cards. And I think about that, because like a lot of how I talk about sales and coach sales and help people with sales is very focused on being consistent, right, like, like, how much how much equity do we have in this situation? Is it enough that it warrants more time? Or should we, you know, test that assumption, should we kind of like, you know, check the pulse and figure out where we are, is this worth more conversation or not? So it's I love Clint's idea that there's no wrong way to do it because there's not right. There were deals that I missed out on because my process doesn't match up with theirs and that's totally okay. I have to be really okay with that fact, because I'm not trying to close everybody, right. The people that I work with fit within a very tight, narrow range and that makes it easy for easier for me to do as much as I do being As small as I am, right, I changes at different parts of the game and there's no wrong way, which is so important because for so many years, I thought there was one way and I thought that I needed to like, check those boxes and do these things. And you know, it didn't really seem like I had it in me, you know, for like a very long time to to be that Don Draper type of smooth, silver tongued bastard, you know, and stuff like this, and not all of these things. It just wasn't ever in there. So for for a long time, I felt like an imposter. Right? Because I you know, and then we started working with coaches and trying and trying to figure this stuff out. And I knew all of it but it didn't have the reps, right? Like I didn't have the repetitions. I hadn't figured this out in a way for me to do it like as me and feel totally fine with it all the way through. And that's, that's my biggest takeaway is you have to it's not enough to know about the other things, you have to be self aware about yourself, right? Because you might know Okay, well, I think I'm an I but until you understand like, like, really up Like how do I's view conflict and people and tasks and all of these things be and know that you fit in that quadrant, some of this is still going to be out of your reach, it's not going to be easy for you to like wrap your hands around and use in conversations.
So you bring up a good point, whenever you I, you know, the hope and, stammered here for a second, is to embrace the weaknesses and discover where you could do better, right? Because too many times we just walk in, we want to hang our hat on what you did well, and then that's good. I mean, you know, we we need, we need the comfort of that. But the real challenge and where people excel is when they overcome the things that they don't do very well. Right. You know, we talked about coaching and stuff like that coaching becomes, first of all, a self fulfilling endeavor, but you're taking people who don't have a certain level of proficiency at whatever event it is. And you're interjecting this this process to make them better. Well, that's all this is for all of us, right? That's all life really is is a process of hopefully, endeavors that make us better on all the fronts that we just talked about. And you know, and you got to go to work to eat, and if sales is your game, well guess what, you know, there's a process and we seem to be losing our staff here. I don't know where they are.
One year and out, one year and out.
I was gonna say is that hold on, did you get a resignation notice?
You know what, we talked about keeping this one short, and then as normal? We're, we're running a little bit long and we should be wrapping up. I want to kind of...
Then why don't you and I just wrap this thing up, man, we're the only two still online.
I think Nan might be around there...
There she is.
Had to catch a call. Sorry.
Oh, okay, man always on the clock.
Wow, wow, love it, man. It's 9:20 and you're, you're you're burning the midnight oil. Nan, you want to chime in here a little bit?
I think I stated how I feel about our one year. I think that, um, just consistency. John just said it. It's really important relationship, you know, knowing who you're talking to. What do you say, Al? You always say, know your audience, you know, and I'm just thankful that I know the four y'all. I mean, the three of y'all.
Because we lost our fourth Musketeers. Like, yeah, gone.
So, you know, as we're kind of wrapping up here, I really want to thank the people who were not on the show who helped us do all the things that we do.
Oh, absolutely. Thanks for bringing that up.
Yeah, go get Melissa who does the transcripts and does a lot of the social stuff and does a lot of the I mean, so much stuff. Daphne who does a lot of the marketing, who is who's been killing it for us and really, really appreciate that. Carlos who works on the website for us. Paul, who was who was doing all the audio stuff for us on the front end and is still like a very very good resource. If you need audio help please reach out to Paul. He's a super solid person to know
Or reach out to us and we'll connect you with Paul.
Absolutely. But um, you know, there there's there's other people here but you know, this is something we're we're incredibly passionate about. And I love it that you know if you've been listening since the beginning, thank you so very much. If you've been listening for only a couple of episodes still like Thank you.
Oh, that one thump. Yeah, for everybody. One for the newbies. You'll get to next year baby you'll get to next year keep working.
If you guys don't listen and there's no value in this or whatever, then then nobody's here and there's no one for us to talk to each week but you know the comments and the emails and the questions and the people who want to take the assessments. Thank you so much. Like, like, that's why we're here.
But John, I'm gonna I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna also jump in here is gonna sound a little hokey, but it's really in my heart to say this. And if we're not somebody that resonates with you, find somebody who does, guys. Sales can be amazing. It can be one of the best professions on the face of the earth, with so many freedoms and the ability to call your own shots. If if we're not sinking in with you. Don't give up. Don't Don't walk away from this and you probably don't maybe I'm being a little egotistical to think that you'd quit on sales if we couldn't help you. Go find somebody that can coach you. Because we've all been coached. We've all coached each other, get get into something similar to this that makes you better than you were yesterday and more successful. You'll feed your family better, you'll feed yourself better. You'll help your community and yes, it'll be a better project. Don't Don't go it alone. Don't ever go it alone. You don't have to.
You know, Clint, Clint's phone died. So he's not gonna be joining us. But um, Al brings up a really good point. One, my very first coach, one time, I was talking to him about how competitive it was, you know, for like sales coaching and everything and he goes, you know, not everybody's going to get it from me, and that's totally okay. And I have to be okay with that, or else every other person who's trying to help people out is is a competitor, and I don't want to live in that world. And I was like, my mind was just like, broken right in it. And it's actually done a lot to reframe, like how I think about competition. And Geof, who was my business partner, you know, he was in the kung fu school with us right and how Al can vouch for how much we talked about structure and foundational components in your fit in your in your footwork and everything. And Geof had been in the school for, I don't know, two or three years and we started working together. So we started working out more on the weekends, and the very first session he was like, okay, don't treat me like everybody. Like treat me like you're gonna get me to where you are. And so man, I'm pounding him. I'm like your structure sucks, your structure sucks, your structure sucks for like an hour and a half and then he goes, me. I said what he goes, I really wish somebody had told me how important structure was. And my jaw just dropped for a moment because that's all we talk about. Right?
Agreed. Agreed. Yeah, I'm laughing cuz I'm laughing with you. Yeah.
It wasn't until that moment that that, you know, there, there's that line when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Right? And that's what happened right there. It took me beating him and beating him and beating him and like, I mean, I was pummeling him like over the head structure structure, footwork, footwork, footwork, and for him to finally be like, Oh, that's important.
And I'm like, but but he bought into what you had to say because some of the some of the groundwork that got laid. And there's the message out to our audience here. If for some reason you're struggling, compare and contrast go look at other people and what they have to say. Right and if you have any questions about that, hey, if you've been our audience, drop us an email drop us a text that says, hey, I was listening to somebody else. And they're not exactly saying what you're saying. Let's talk about that dichotomy, right? Because wherever you get your information, as long as there's a value, and you can see some tangible results from it, then my thought would be, don't give that up. You don't have to give us up you can have both at the same time, but it at a certain level, the more information that you'll act on, because if it just goes in the ear gets in the cortex. But if you're not walking those feet, moving that mouth, engaging in the reps, it's necessary to perfect whoever said whatever they said to you as far as a sales technique, or sales endeavor, then then you're not getting anywhere. You're just processing information, with no outcome. And that's not what this shows about man. Take Take the action steps to use some stuff that we're bringing to the table here and make yourself better.
And in on that note, and then we'll wrap because we did talk about something that I've been working on for myself to make some of this stuff easier. And Al asked me to, like share this here so so here's your, here's your big sales nugget for over today. There are things you there are techniques in sales that are going to make you better, but until you feel like you can do them right in your in you and you can do them right like this is largely a mindset issue. But until you know that you can do them, you won't, right. And if you only do them in front of your prospects, it's going to feel like a gimmick that you're doing just in front of your prospects to get business. And for a lot of people you're gonna feel this kind of weird dichotomy of you as a person and you as a salesperson, and that is making your life a lot harder. So there are there are parts of this right framing and you know, pushing back and overcoming objections and you know, setting expectations and buy-in and permission and all these things we talked about on here. The easiest way that I have found to take the hardest stuff that I do not feel comfortable doing is by doing it with people that I know and I love and I respect, right, because I know that I can I can challenge Al on an agreement that we have and it's not going to blow up in my face. Right. So that gives me momentum and motivation that makes it easier to do it in front of a prospect. So, reps are that important. There they are the fundamental thing about what is holding you back because it's all mental. It's all mental. We make it as complex as we do. It's not it doesn't have to be that hard. So, yeah, Nan, Al, do you guys have anything else before we wrap this thing?
That was a really good ending statement.
Thank you so much.
I got nothing else to add guys. I mean, that that you, John, you just said it all. And Yep. Well done.
Awesome. So thank you so much for for putting up with us for a year. Thank you to Carlos, Daphne, and Melissa, for all the help we would not be still here doing this and Paul, and all these people that have helped us out and given us advice, and worked with us on this thing. A couple of quick things if you have a sales question or if you have a thing you would like us to talk about on the show, send me a text, my number is 817-345-7449. We'll talk about on the show, you can get, you can sign up for updates, other things I have going on. The practice thing is super important. So I'm going to put out a little bit of maybe kind of like inside baseball. But if you're not getting enough reps, if you're not getting enough practice, I have a place for you to come practice, right. If you want to find out more about it, please just text me. It's very low stakes. It's not super expensive. But there's no reason for you to be saying something for the first time in front of a prospect. Come do it four or five times make sure you're really comfortable and you can own it. You know what's going to happen after that so you're prepared.
And I'll add to that if anybody wants to talk to any one of the four of us on the team. Go through John do because it gets confusing if we all throw all our stuff out there. Go and just say hey, I'm reaching out I mean, this could be the difference between feeding your family and not feeding your family. And I don't say that lightly, because we've all had months where we didn't earn dick, right? And then we've had months where we knocked it out of the park. And we we go through those scenarios. So we will talk to you, we are here for you. And you don't just listen, utilize us and let us know how we can help you even more. I mean, this has been a year of learning for us. I mean, we just kind of came together through this thing. This thing just materialized over a little bit of wine and a sales convention and hanging out and having other people come talk to us. We want we want that kind of attitude. We want you to understand, you know, there's a certain amount of money that we got to keep the lights on. But beyond that, I mean, I mean, there's there's the real budget conversation, but beyond the budget conversation, we're just super passionate about being as helpful and as successful because when we coach you or help you, you'll help us because you You'll present a problem that we've either faced and we want to reanalyze it, make sure we got it right. I mean, we go as far as we can see, and we see how to go further. Help us see how to go further. It takes it takes a village.
That That was awesome. We're gonna leave it right there on that. Thank you so much for everybody. Thank you to Nannette and Al and Clint, who's not here with us right now. But it's been an awesome year, we're going to keep this thing going. Once again, if you're stuck on something, if you want more information about place to practice assessments, how to follow us up, stay in contact with it's how to ask us questions. Â Â 817-345-7449. Shoot us a text and we'll get it figured out what we've talked about in the show or we might answer you offline. If you need assessment, please reach out to us it's not enough to understand how the other people think you need to know where you sit in these bubbles because that is how you actually start to push the envelope, crush your comfort zone and that's where you start to improve. Thank you so much for everybody. Have a great night. We'll see everybody next week. Cheers. Bye