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Questions asked: Should I join a company as an inbound SDR? They say I can make it to AE within 6 months if I hit my quota of 5 meetings booked a week. How do I get over being nervous on cold calls? I come across as anxious and I think that is being passed onto the person who I'm calling. I'm using the same script as everyone else but not getting good results. I need to decide between a series of prospecting tools I've been trialing. I know you've promoted Lusha and Uplead but I also trialed Seamless and Apollo. In your experience which one is more worth it? Looking to get 100+ leads a day. I've an interview coming up and I've been told there will be questions about time management. How do I answer these questions? I want to join Selling Made Simple Academy. Why do I have to book a call? Can I not just sign up? Have you/your team tried using video calls in cold emails? Do they help improve response rate like they claim? What was the biggest sales commission deal that you got? Thanks for all the content! I'm starting a new sales job tomorrow. Any tips?    

Kim Arnold is a communication consultant, author and helps organisations avoid the wasted time and effort associated with poor communication. Her bestselling book, ‘Email Attraction’ has been featured in Forbes, the Financial Times and on BBC Radio.  In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Kim shares insights into how the top salespeople get their emails opened, read, and answered. You'll learn: Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Kim Arnold Communications Expert Resources: Kim’s LinkedIn Kimarnold.co.uk Book: Email Attraction: Get What You Want Every Time You Hit Send Book: On Writing Well Transcript Will Barron: Hi. My name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the Salesman Podcast.   Will Barron: On today's episode, we'll look at how you can get your sales emails opened, read, and answered. And today's guest is Kim Arnold. Kim is a communications consultant, author, and helps organisations avoid the wasted time and associated effort with poor communication.   Will Barron: Her bestselling book, Email Attraction, has been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, on BBC Radio, a bunch of other places as well. And with that, Kim, welcome to the show.   Kim Arnold: Thanks so much, Will. Great to be here.   Will Barron: I'm glad to have you on. Okay. This is clearly an important topic for the modern B2B sale professional. Maybe 20 years, they could have got away with just having a gift of the gab, silver tongue, just calling people and breaking through, but clearly, email is incredibly important right now. It's typically the first step into getting a conversation going with a potential customer.   Whose Fault is it When a Salesperson Doesn’t Get an Email Response? · [01:50]     Will Barron: So, with that said, let's set up the rest of the conversation here, whose fault is it, Kim, whose fault is it, right, when a salesperson, Sam, the salesperson, sends an email and gets no response? Is it the buyer's fault for just being too busy for ignoring Sam for being rude, or is it maybe Sam's fault for sending an email that just sucked and didn't elicit a response in the first place?   Kim Arnold: Well, sorry, Sam, I'm afraid, it's your fault. It really is. Yeah, we are busy. We are overwhelmed at the moment. Our inboxes are groaning, and what we do is filter. We look through our inboxes and we look and we see what is going to give me the quickest value in my inbox. And we start there. Or what's the most urgent, what's going to get me promoted, what's going to win me more business, what's going to make my day brighter. And if he doesn't tick any of those boxes, then, I'm afraid it's gone.   Kim Arnold: And actually, I was talking to a sales guy at a conference recently I was speaking at, and he said exactly what you've just outlined. He said, we're so good in person, we're charming. We're great at networking, we're brilliant in meetings, but these days, we can't even get clients on the phone, let alone, try and get them face to face. So you're having to do everything through email.   Kim Arnold: And he was just saying, I can't communicate any of my personality, my charisma, my charm, all of stuff that works for me in person. I can't get it down on an email, and that is a big problem.   Will Barron: So, I'm doing a bunch of work. A lot of our content goes on YouTube, and I'm working with a consultant in the YouTube space, a big YouTuber, to help us with our content. And he keeps telling me that I'm not riding this line of click bait close enough in titles, in thumbnails, in begin of introductions. And so… And I'll come back to email in a second, but it seems like the people, when people get into the content, they really enjoy it.   Email Subject Lines and Why They’re the Key to Getting Your Emails Read · [03:02]    Will Barron: But getting that initial click through rate is something that we struggle with, and we need to work on. How do sales people beat the scanning of a prospect's email when they get up in the morning or at lunchtime, how do they beat that filter where the prospect's probably just, at this point in 2022, we call this deleting emails without even reading them? How do they break through that filter without leaning into a clickbaity subject line? Or is that what we need to do at this point?   Kim Arnold: That's a really good question. Actually, a friend of mine showed me her phone the other day, I was looking at something, and she had 35,000 unread emails. And her strategy, she said, was just filtering at the subject line and they send it in the subject line. I mean, it filled with me with horror because I like to read all my emails, even if I don't reply to them. But that is what more and more people are doing at the moment, is filtering by the subject line.   Kim Arnold: But as you say, there's a really delicate balance. We get turned off by click bait. So, one strategy to think about is where are those points of connection? And all too often with sales emails, we might write something like introduction to blah, blah, blah, whatever our company name is, or introduction to a service or a meeting request or something that just is very me, me, me.   “An email should be a conversation with a pause. It isn't a monologue. It's about starting a conversation. So, we need to find points of connection that we can use in our email subject line that are about them and not us, and that can make all the difference.” – Kim Arnold · [04:21]    Kim Arnold: So, what we are trying to do in an email should be a conversation with a pause. That's what we're trying to do. This isn't a monologue. This isn't about, you know, warfare going out there and firing out these emails. It's about starting a conversation. So, trying to find points of connection that we can use in our email subject line that are about them and not us can make all the difference.   The HEC Hamburger Technique: The Basic Structure of a Good Sales Email · [04:43]    Will Barron: What does that look like practically? Because in our training programme, we teach a certain way of doing emails. I don't want to dwell on that too much because I want to pull from you in this conversation in this podcast, Kim, but we teach basically what you described of if there's a connection that we can refer to, if we've been referred directly or indirectly, we're going to mention that, we're going to keep it conversational.   Will Barron: We're going to elicit some kind of reaction, and then, almost open a loop, and then, ask, we're going to call to action to close loop on a call. Is there any structure to doing that other than what I outlined, or is there a basic structure of what a good sales email looks like? Or is it completely dependent on the prospect, the industry, and who we're trying to get in front of?   Kim Arnold: So, there's a framework that I use in my book, it's called the HEC Hamburger Technique, and it's a really simple one. It's a three steps technique, and you can use it for writing any email, whether it's a sales email or just something to your colleagues. And HEC is H-E-C, and it stands for hook, explanation, and call to action.   Kim Arnold: And the reason why I call it hamburger is it's like the three parts of a burger, right? The bun at the top's got to look appealing. That's the start of your email. You got to entice someone to want to open it. The explanation, the E of HEC, that's your burger, that's your meet the main point. And then, the C is your call to action. And that's the bottom bun and without that, you can't really pick up the whole thing and take a bite.   Kim Arnold: So you need all three things to really make a difference. And it's very similar to what you described, but what I would encourage people is to make sure that you make the most of that first line of your email. Because what do we do? Most of the time, we write something like I hope you're well, or maybe this sort of posh version, I trust this email find you well, if we're trying to be very formal and proper, and it's a big deal that we're trying to get.   “We have three seconds to get someone's attention with an email, three seconds. And yet, we waste it with a sort of generic platitude.” – Kim Arnold · [06:51]    Kim Arnold: And this is like the most valuable real estate in our email, we have three seconds to get someone's attention with an email, three seconds, three, two, one, it's not long at all. And yet, we waste it with a sort of generic platitude. And it doesn't mean that it's always disingenuous, but it can often sound disingenuous. It sounds like a cut and paste job.   Kim Arnold: And that's the thing that we want to avoid with our sales emails. So, the hook has got to be personal. So, reference something that you know about them. Do your digging, look on LinkedIn. Do you have a connection in common? Have you been introduced? What have they been up to recently? Have they written something interesting? Have they said something interesting? Has the business done something interesting? Do a bit of homework, no cut and paste jobs.   “The explanation part of your email needs to be short and sweet. In fact, between 50 and a hundred words has been proven to be best for sales email, and that is so much less than you think. It's like three short paragraphs, that's it. So get to the point. Why are you writing? We don't need to know when your business was founded. We don't need to know how many offices you have. We don't need to know that you're the leading provider of software solutions. We don't need to know any of that. We just need to figure out what it is that's in it for the reader to keep reading and take action.” Kim Arnold · [07:32]    Kim Arnold: So then, the explanation needs to be short and sweet. So, the overall size of your email between 50 and a hundred words has been proven to be best for sales email, and that is so much less than you think. It's like three short paragraphs, that's it. So get to the point. What is it, why are you writing? We don't need to know when your business was founded. We don't need to know how many offices you have. We don't need to know that you're the leading provider of software solutions. We don't need to know any of that. We just need to figure it out what it is that's in it for them, for the reader, to keep reading and to meet with you, if that's what you want.   Kim Arnold: And then, your call to action at the end is got to be direct. So, not let me know if this is of interest, let me know if you'd like to discuss. It's too vague and it's too wishy washy. So, I would always advise a very strong call to action. I'm sure this is what you teach as well, Will. It's about making the next step clear and easy for the other person. So, do you have 15 minutes in your diary on Tuesday next week for a quick phone call? So, making it quick, easy. They only have to look at their diary once. They're not reaching around for dates, or you might give them two or three options. So, it's as simple and as easy as possible for them to take that next step.   Kim Arnold: So H-E-C, hook, explanation and call to action.   Will Barron: Love it. Extremely similar to what we teach, slightly different in, I guess, some of the terminology, but very similar, right? Our kind of call to action is typically, does it make sense to jump on a call to, and then, do whatever, closes the loop that we touched on earlier on. Amazing.   Will Barron: Okay. So how much of this, Kim, because it's one thing for us to say this right? Me and you sat here on this podcast, tens of thousands of salespeople listening, but it's another when you go, okay, I'm listening to this show on the way to work, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to write an email using Kim's methodology here. And then, you sit in front of the computer, and you go, I could still go a million different ways. And 999,000 of those are terrible ways to write the email, even with that amazing framework.   Critical Factors That Determine the Success of a Sales Email · [09:10]    Will Barron: So, with that said, how much of the success of these emails comes from, I guess, the scientific method of making a hypothesis, testing it in the marketplace, and then, refining it after the fact? Are we likely to write like these killer email straight off the bat, or is this a process of refining our skill as a, I guess, a copywriter over time?   Kim Arnold: It definitely takes time, and we need to measure the right things. So we need to measure quality over quantity with email. And I work with a lot of sales teams all over the world, and one of the biggest problems tends to be that they judge themselves on their outbounds and not necessarily what comes back. So it's like, great. I've sent 30 emails this morning to this big list, and boom, boom, boom, boom, and I've just got them out. Woo, great. Let go for lunch. And then, they don't really measure what happens next.   Kim Arnold: So, my advice is always to focus on quality over quantity. Write five really great emails that might have taken you twice as long, but they're thoughtful. They're engaging, they're conversational, you've done your homework. You've edited them. You've cut them down, so they're not waffly. You've gone back in there with a big pair of scissors, and you've chopped out the definitelys and the just, and the like, and the really, all these words that you don't need. You've tightened it up. You've made it really punchy.   “I think we need to share best practises in teams. Unfortunately, that often doesn't happen. Someone's writing really killer emails that work while the rest of the team are struggling. I encourage sales teams and all sorts of teams to share their best practise. Share what works, brainstorm why you think something did work or what's fallen flat. Give each other advice to really share those best practises.” – Kim Arnold · [11:26]    Kim Arnold: So, that really is the key is to just keep iterating. This does take time. And it's also really helpful, I think, to share best practise in teams. Often, that doesn't happen. Someone's writing really killer emails that work while the rest of the team are struggling. So, I encourage sales teams, and I work with market teams, all sorts of teams, but share your best practise. Share what works, brainstorm why you think something did work or what's fallen flat. Give each other advice to really share those best practises.   Why Proofreading and Editing Your Emails is Your Ticket to Sending Better Sales Emails · [12:06]    Will Barron: So, this is something that we've never really touched on on the show before, I think it's incredibly important. And I think I got my angle on this from, I think, the book's called On Writing Well, which I'll link, share through this episode for anyone who wants to check it out. And I'll butcher the quote, but essentially, I'm sure it was this book. It talks about this idea of if the sentence doesn't need to be there, just delete it. Just get rid of, it's gone.   Will Barron: Can you tell us any other kind of angles or reiterate at that point even on the importance of editing emails? Not just spelling… So I'm a terrible speller, so I have to lean on other people to check my emails if it's an important one, or quote a proposals and stuff like that. But beyond spelling and grammar, how important is it to edit our emails before they go out? And do you have any other steps in the editing process other than just deleting things that maybe don't need to be there?   “Easy reading is hard writing. The longer it takes you to write an email, generally, the easier it is going to be for someone else to read. So, you need to take time to edit before you hit send.” – Kim Arnold · [12:47]   Kim Arnold: Absolutely. Well, easy reading is hard writing. So, the longer it takes you, generally, the easier it is going to be for someone else to read. So, we need to take time before we hit send. Ideally, let it marinade, let it simmer. It's like a good stew. Okay? With writing, it's always best to come back to it.   Kim Arnold: So, if you can write emails today before you send them, go back to them, have a look at them, does this really resonate? Am I hitting the point? So that's the first tip. Ditching the filler words is really important. We tend to use a lot of qualifying words, particularly women, I would say, in business, oh, if you wouldn't mind, perhaps, if you could, that would be great. Very sort of quite hesitant language. Would you mind if, so ditching all of that, becoming a bit more assertive, direct.   “Every bit of filler, every additional word is almost like a barrier to getting a prospect to read your emails. Unfortunately, we often underestimate visual overwhelm. If our email is too long, someone can’t just open and read through it all.” – Kim Arnold · [13:58]    Kim Arnold: And absolutely just asking yourself, is this vital to my point? Is this going to make the difference between them saying, yes, I'd love to book in that call with you and not. Because every bit of filler, every additional word is almost like a barrier to getting them to read it. You know, often, we underestimate visual overwhelm. If our email is too long, someone can just open it. We've all had this experience. I'm sure you have, Will, you open up an email and you just go, ooh, I can't even face reading this because it looks like a wall of words.   Kim Arnold: So, we need to think about how does this look, have I got lots of nice white space? Are my paragraph short? Does it look enticing? It's like those Michelin-starred chefs who make our meals look so beautiful and they twees on the micro herbs to make it look beautiful. They know that we eat with our eyes as well as with our mouths. And it's same with email. We judge on looks before we've even read a word.   Kim Arnold: So, all of these things contribute to people reading our emails. There's one caveat here, is that we don't want to strip out all personality and brevity. So, we want clarity and we still want warmth, and we want charm, we personality. We want to show that we're a real human being. So, don't strip out so much that you become robotic, and it's very dry.   Will Barron: I'm going to ask you in a second about humour, using images, GIFs, that kind of thing, because that was a real trend, I guess, a couple of years ago, and I think it's dying off a little bit now. Thank the Lord for that, Kim. And a good example here, if everyone's listening, of the difference between somebody who uses filler words and use qualifying words, as well as the other term you used there, Kim, was the difference between me and you.   Will Barron: I use all kinds of filler words when I'm talking on these episodes, all kind of qualifying words, I speak too fast. I need to add more pauses. If you just listen, sales nation, as I speak directly to the audience and bypass you, Kim, which is a weird thing for me to do, and I've never done this on the podcast before, right?   The Dos and Don'ts of Using Informal Language in Your Sales Emails · [15:56]    Will Barron: But sales nation, as you listen to this, if you listen to how Kim speaks, Kim sounds intelligent, conversational, yet, there's gaps, there's wide space. Versus if you listen to how I speak, I'm just throwing it down on the page, right? Is that a fair example, Kim, of how our email should look? The difference between perhaps how I speak on this show as… To be fair, I'm managing it, asking questions and monitoring things as well. Right? Is that a fair way to look at it of how you speak very professional… Not necessarily professionally, but eloquently, versus how I'm just like, just throwing things out on the page.   Kim Arnold: Well, thanks for the compliment. First of all, Will, that's a nice analogy, but I think it does go to my other point. You know, we don't want to strip out all of our charm. Sometimes, a little bit of informality… We'll talk about humour in a minute, getting that personality across, sometimes, that's more important than perfect grammar and being incredibly precise.   Kim Arnold: And actually, with email, we tend to err on the side of formality. I was speaking to a lot of sales people, and in fact, every everyone who writes email tends to sort of put on their jacket a little bit more like I did for this podcast, and we sort of turn into a slightly posher, more formal version of ourselves. So, in person, we might say, hi, how are you? But on email is I trust this email finds you well, or here's the report, here with, please find attached the information report. And we get quite stuffy and stiff. So, I think personality trumps being precise. So, it's a delicate balance. More than anything, we want a connection.   “Personality trumps being precise. But it's a delicate balance. More than anything, we want a connection. So, let's not be too stiff or too formal. Writing like we speak, in general, is a really good piece of advice.” – Kim Arnold · [17:40]    Kim Arnold: So, let's not be too stiff, too formal, writing like we speak in general is a really good piece of advice. It stops us using words like utilise and leverage that just a really clunky and businessy and ugh, we'd never say them. So, it's a balance, I would say. We don't want to be too prim and proper, but we also need to be careful that we don't ramble.   The Psychology of Using GIFs and Memes in Your Sales Emails · [18:25]    Will Barron: Sure. Okay. Is the line here, then, for being more personable in emails, not sending GIFs of cats, having a party or something stupid that kind of emphasises the point that we are selling whatever, party product or whatever it is, is it safe to say that if we're selling in the B2B environment, not that's not appropriate, but it's probably not going to enhance your chances of getting an executive, a CFO on the phone?   Kim Arnold: I would agree. Yes. Then, more than anything, it feels generic, unless if it was something that was really targeted to the specific person that you were writing to, really, really relevant to them, you know they had a really great sense of humour, you could directly relate it to something that you'd heard them say at a conference, for example, maybe, then, it might be acceptable, but GIFs tend to be quite polarising. And most people don't like them, most people see them as a gimmick.   Kim Arnold: It's the same with very clickbaity subject lines, as we started talking about in the beginning. Points of connection are one thing, but if we get an email from a stranger with a very clickbaity headline, then, a subject line like, Kim, you won't believe this, and then, you open it and it's that crushing disappointment. It's just a sales people… You know, sales email from someone you never met. No, we actually want to keep the energy levels up. We want to intrigue people, but not disappoint them. You know, there's no point with this sort of bait and switch.   Kim Arnold: A subject line has got to hold attention, has got to get your attention, and the email's got to hold the attention. So, we can't be too gimmicky. Humour, on the other hand, in general, I think can be used to really good effect, particularly in follow up emails.   Will Barron: I've got a… Hopefully… You might enjoy this as well, kim, a good example of humour and a GIF is the only GIF that's ever been said to me that warranted a call. It was on a podcast I did years and years and years ago, different studio, different set. Someone had clipped this point in the podcast where I pretended I was just joking with the guest, but I pretended to walk out. I just stood up, walked off, my headphones were attached to the table and all the cable, so that got all dragged off. And it was just a funny moment… Like a funny throwaway moment in a podcast episode.   Will Barron: It was, obviously, a listener of the show who remembered that, they clipped that clip as a GIF, put it at the end of an email that they sent me, and I can't remember the call to action, but it was something along the lines of, when we get on the call, this is the response that you're going to have. You're just going to walk to my office and buy the product. It was something along those lines. It actually made me laugh. It was super appropriate in that…   Will Barron: I don't want to name the brand because I think I actually went with a different brand. It was a transcription company. I think they were trying to get me to pay for transcripts for all the podcast episodes, and they didn't win the business, but they got on a few calls with me on the back of it. So, it was a super appropriate and linked with the podcast as well. So, I really enjoyed that, and I thought that was funny as well.   Ways to Integrate Humour in Your Sales Emails · [21:40]    Will Barron: But how do we know when… scenes as humour is subjective in general, you are going to have a different sense of humour, Kim, to what I have. I'm going to say something that you're going to go that's just stupid, that's not even funny. And perhaps vice versa. How do we implement this over email? And there's even less social cues and more chances of it to blow up in our faces. Is that just a risk that comes with this, and is that risk worth it?   Kim Arnold: I would recommend using humour when you have some kind of established relationship with someone already. So, humour works really well in follow up emails. For example, if you sent a proposal over, and you get nothing, and you send a chaser email, you get nothing. So, what do you do now? And sometimes, using humour in those instances works brilliantly, because it removes all of the guilt. Because generally, that person, they either got the… A few things might happen. They've got your proposal and they haven't read it. They've got the proposal, they've read it, but they still need to get opinion from other people. They got your proposal. They think it's a little rubbish, and they're feeling awkward about getting back to you.   Kim Arnold: You know, so it's probably one of those things, or they might have an answer for you, but they've been too busy and you're not a priority. And so, what we tend to do is send emails, a follow-up email saying, “Have you had a chance to look at the proposal yet? If we haven't been a good salesperson already, got that follow up meeting in the diary, of course. But we send these sort of chases and we are just making that person go, oh gosh, yeah, I haven't done it. I haven't done it. I need to do that. Or add it to my list, add it to my list.   Kim Arnold: But humour can be really great. I know someone who sent some great emails entitled, “Did you slip and fall in the shower?” You know, are you… She referenced a… Because this chat was older, a episode from, I think it was Dallas, these sort of '80s American soap opera where one of the characters emerged from the shower having had amnesia. So she said, “You like Bobby Ewing from Dallas? Have you had an amnesia episode and forgotten all about me?” And that worked a treat for her because it was her personality as well.   Kim Arnold: So, I think we need to think about who it is that we're speaking to. You know, if they got a sense of humour, if they're super buttoned up and formal, then, it's probably not the best approach. But if you can have a laugh with them, you've had that relationship, and if it's your personality as well, if you like the joke, if they associate you with being a fun person, then, let them feel that, you know, “Did you get buried under a pile of invoices?” You know, so many different things that you can just have a joke with, because it removes the guilt.   Kim Arnold: And generally, you'll get quite a funny response. Even if it's not the one that you want, or you're hoping for, sometimes, it will, at least, get a “I'm so sorry. I haven't got back to you.”   Will Barron: We don't need to dive into this in too much detail, because this could be a topic, a show in its own right. But I found there's a element of cultural difference here of I find that people in the UK are way more accepting of a bit of dry humour, especially if I'm doing outbound sales, selling our train product to the enterprise, a lot of people I reach out to even know who I am because the team listens to the show, or they will Google me or click a link in the email signature. And so, they'll have a rough idea who I am, how we do things, before they reply to emails.   Will Barron: And I find these follow up emails I get to send to these individuals… I hope this word translates across the Atlantic and elsewhere in Europe and that, but I can use a little bit more banter than what I would perhaps do with an American audience or European audience. So, I guess some of this is knowing the person the best you can, having a good hypothesis on the person you're out reaching to, because if I was selling to the CFO of a bank, I probably would not be trying to have banter with them in that engagement.   Metrics to Look Out For When Gauging the Success of Your Sales Emails · [25:50]    Will Barron: And that leads me to… I've got two things I want to kind of wrap up the show with, Kim first off, let's say the audience, they go and experiment with this, Sam, the salesperson sends a bunch of emails. He's tracking open rates. He's tracking click through rates. He's tracking calls, booked on his emails and all this, obviously, gets a little bit more complicated when it's not just one email, but perhaps, it's a cadence of else, because maybe nobody replies to the first one. But by email three, you've given them some insights, or you've shared content, or you've now ground them down, warmed them down with your personality and humour that they're willing to give you a go.   Will Barron: So, with that all said, and I understand, down to this question is it depends and it's complicated. But how do we know if the emails that we're writing are successful? Because we want to test this, right? We want to progress. We want to implement what we talked about in today's show. How do we know if the emails that we send yesterday are better or worse than the ones that we're going to send today?   Kim Arnold: So, yes, as you say, there's not as simple answer as that, but I think it's where you start to have a conversation with the recipient. So, this isn't about necessarily just getting that meeting. It's the one where you might trade emails. They might come back to you. They might say, “Oh, that's really interesting. I want more,” it's the engagement that we need to track, as well as the meetings. Because quite often, we can be quite binary, you know, did that email get a meeting? Yes or no?   Kim Arnold: Well, sometimes, sales cycles can take weeks, months, years even. Some of the best clients that I've had, that my clients have had, they can sit on your email list, of marketing email list for two or three years before they're ready to buy. And sometimes, it's the same, you know, you have a relationship with the salesperson. You're not ready to buy now, but they're giving you that time of day to stay in touch.   Kim Arnold: It's obviously about, you need to look at what it is that you want whether it's booking in demos or meetings or what that sort of end goal is. But it is also about how many conversations are you having, where is that taking you to, where are the introductions, who do those people have in their networks as well. It is about treating email very much as a conversation, not as a monologue. This isn't about warfare. We're not firing out these emails. I'm really opposed to the sort of aggressive language of sales, because I think it sets us up really wrongly, targeting, attacking, firing out. All of these things get us off on the wrong foot.   Kim Arnold: This is about engagement. This is about conversations. This is about a sense of connection with people. And if we get all of those things right, we don't even have to sell, do we? We lay all the great groundwork, and then, it all becomes easier after that.   Will Barron: Yep. And I think to emphasise that point, Kim, the opposite of what you just described of leaning into engagement and leaning into conversations is what a lot of sales people are doing over the past five years where, essentially marketing tools have become sales tools where you can customise a name, a paragraph, a company, and send an email to a list of 10,000 people, and you burn a lot of the prospects in your industry, depending on what you're selling, who you're selling it to.   Will Barron: I might not be too bad in this instance selling sales training to directors and VPs of sales, because there's, obviously, hundreds, or at least, tens of thousands, if not, hundreds of thousands of them in kind of the English be world. But if I'm back in medical devices and I'm selling camera systems to urologists, gynaecologist, general surgeons, clinical surgeons in Yorkshire, there's like 15, and they all speak, and if they all get the same crappy email from me demanding a call because we've got a new product that I need to shove down their throats, they're just going to all ignore me, and immediately going to be, via NHS hospital email filters, three or four of them mark me a spam.   Will Barron: And I'm not even getting into their inbox in the first instance. That affects then the company's domain, and we can go on and on down that kind of root to that, was kind of marketing, but now, has become more and more sales, as again, these tools trickle down to us trigger happy sales people on the back end of it.   Should Salespeople Always Be Sending Out Personalized Emails? · [30:20]    Will Barron: So, if you've got engagement at one end, measuring that, you've got just spam in the marketplace at the other. And I guess spraying and praying. Is there a middle around, Kim, or should we always, always be leaning to that idea of personalised emails to the right people at the right time with a product that we think can help them solve a… I'm answering my own question as I say this, I know I am. But is that the… for a B2B salesperson who's doing, say, deal sizes of 10, 50, a hundred thousand dollars plus, is that the only emails that they should be sending at this point?   “In sales, you’re trying to establish a relationship and you can't do that with generic emails.” – Kim Arnold · [31:23]    Kim Arnold: I think there is a… Marketing needs to be that one to many function. I think you need both, ideally. Sales should be super personalised… You know, with these big deal sizes, it's worth it. It's worth putting that bit of extra effort into personalised things. And then, marketing can provide the sort of, you know, the newsletter or the updates, all of those things, but you're to establish a relationship and you can't do that with generic emails.   Kim Arnold: I remember when I used to work in house, I was a global head of comms for a fintech business. And there was one vendor who used to write to me once a month, and his hook was that he would… It was a bit insulting to me actually, but that he would take me out for a certain type of food. And this has clearly worked for him. So, in the winter… In December it would be, “Hey Kim, are you free for a coffee and some mince pies?” And then, around pancake day, it would be, “Hey Kim, are you free for a coffee and a pancake?” And literally, every month… And it became a running joke in my department, what is this guy going to serve up next? It's donuts, it's this, it's Easter hot cross buns, all this kind of stuff.   Kim Arnold: And as you say, you can burn through lists. You can burn through goodwill so easily. Most of our prospect lists are really not that large, and we think that we are saving time and saving effort by doing the spray and pray, and we're just chucking it all at the wall and seeing what sticks. But we're not, we're wasting huge amounts of time.   Kim Arnold: One brilliantly thought out, personalised, clever email can make all the difference, and can be worth every single minutes of that two hours that you spent crafting it. So yes, less is more.   Will Barron: Did that person win any business from you?   Kim Arnold: No. But I took the donuts.   Will Barron: Well, because the reason I asked that is, this is where metrics can be deceiving, right? Of you probably opened every one of those emails, that person's getting a ping on the dashboard.   Kim Arnold: Yes.   “Just because a prospect is opening an email doesn't necessarily mean that they care about what you're saying.” – Will Barron · [33:45]    Will Barron: Every time it gets opened, it's like Kim's loving these emails. These are super effective. Send more of these out. He's getting this whole team to double down on these food-based emails, as we record it, it's pancake day to day, so I'm sure that would've been the… It's probably top of mind for you. I'm having pancakes after this, Kim. So, I'll be appreciating any pancake emails that come my way. That's what I wanted to wrap the show on, Kim. I think that's really valuable of just because one's opening an email doesn't necessarily mean that they care about what you're saying.   Will Barron: And then, very quickly, that email ends up in spam and you go from hero to zero in two seconds. Which is why I love the piece on engagement, conversations. And obviously, we've got to qualify our prospects as well, right? Because it might be the right product, it might be the right company, it might not be the right time. In which case, you can send an email follow up six months from now when everything falls into place, and you're more likely to win the deal than if you hammer that individual over the next six months with weekly, daily, hourly spammy emails, texts and calls, and then, you've lost the deal before the opportunity for it has even arrived.   Parting Thoughts · [34:23]    Will Barron: So with that, Kim, tell us about the book, tell us more where we can find out about you, and then, anything else you want to share with the audience as well.   Kim Arnold: Thank you so much. So, my book is Email Attraction. You can find it on Amazon. So, it's got all of my tips around subject lines, how to structure your emails, how to write really great follow up emails. And it's not just for sales, it's for all people who write business emails. So, you can apply it to all sorts of different emails that you write.   Kim Arnold: I also run email engagement, which is a in-company programme that will allow you to train all of your staff whether sales people, marketing, HR, all across the board, how to write emails that engage and inspire and get people to jump into action. So, that's an in-company programme as well that I roll out with organisations too.   Kim Arnold: You can find me at kimarnold.co.uk with all the information, and you can email me at kim@kimarnold.co.uk if you need any of my help on writing engaging emails.   Will Barron: Amazing stuff. I'll link to all that in the show in the episode over at salesman.org. And with that, Kim, I want to thank you for your time, your expertise on this. I'll just plug this, right? It's actually difficult to have questions just now because we're so aligned of everything that we're saying, right? And everything that we teach aligns with what you teach. I don't want to rehash things that we've covered in the past.   Will Barron: So, you did a great job with some the, I guess, curve ball questions I've thrown at you. So with that, Kim, it shows that you're an expert. It truly does. I appreciate you. I appreciate your time and energy, and appreciate you coming on the Salesman Podcast.   Kim Arnold: Thank you so much. It's been great. I really enjoyed it. (music)

So many sales reps today underutilize the power of the well-run discovery call. With the right discovery call framework, you can qualify your leads, gather invaluable intel, and position yourself as a trustworthy authority—all in a single phone call. Today I’m showing you how to structure your discovery calls so you can reap all these benefits and more. Trust me, you won’t want to miss this proven 8-step framework. Because it’s going to save you tons of time and make your sales job infinitely easier. The Perfect Discovery Call How many times have you spent hours, days, or even weeks of hard work with a potential buyer, only to find out they were never a fit for your product in the first place? Don’t worry, you aren’t alone. As much as 67% of lost sales are the result of sales reps not properly qualifying their leads. And more than a third of reps just like you say qualifying and prospecting were the biggest challenges of their roles. In fact, I brought up this problem in particular in a recent interview. “If you are sick of being rejected, if you're sick of people ghosting you, if you're sick of people not replying to your messages, improve your qualification at the top of the sales process, and you'll eliminate a lot of that at the far end of it.” Will Barron, SS #019 Qualification matters. When you do it right, you’re saving yourself tons of headaches, hassles, and lost time down the road. And the discovery call is without a doubt the best opportunity to qualify leads. Over the years, I’ve developed an 8-point framework for running strategic discovery calls with my potential clients. And that’s exactly what I’m sharing with you today. Plus, I’m covering very specific questions along the way that you should ask prospects that cover each issue without scaring them off. Ready to go? Let’s get into it. To get the most value out of your discovery call as possible, you’re going to qualify potential leads according to eight issues throughout the meeting. The first issue is… 1) Are They In Pain?  Are they in pain? Is their issue actually a problem? And most importantly, is the buyer in “pain” because of that problem? The buyers you want to work with are feeling the hurt from their problem. And as a result, they’re going to be highly motivated to find the right solution, which is exactly what you want. Questions you can ask that get to the heart of this issue include… “You booked this call with me today, what led to getting this call booked in?” And… “What’s stopping you from solving this issue yourself?” 2) What Is Their Timeline?  Not all problem and solution timelines are going to line up. One of your primary concerns when qualifying prospects is what their timeline is for when they need their problem solved. Are they thinking today? This quarter? Or in the next few years? The right answer for your industry will depend entirely on your unique business and solution. But in general, you should only be working with buyers that are interested in solving the problem sooner rather than later. To determine their timeline, ask a question like… “When do you want to solve this pain?” Straightforward, right? This question doesn’t mince words. And as a result, the answer gives you a clear, no-bullshit timeline that the buyer is hoping to solve their problem. 3) Can I Fix This Problem? Time for an honesty check ladies and gentlemen. There’s no perfect product or service for everyone. And saying otherwise is just playing into the public’s idea of sales reps being con men. Instead, it’s your job to think of yourself as someone who offers value. So don’t waste time with buyers that’ll be dissatisfied with what your product can offer. Two questions in particular to ask yourself, not the buyer, are… “Do I have the solution for this buyer’s problem?” Be honest here. Does your solution actually solve the buyer’s problem? Or is it more of a bandaid? Also… “Do they really need this solution?” Is there a better solution they can implement on their own? Is yours really necessary? If not and the sale goes through, the buyer will likely resent you once they find out they could have easily solved the problem themselves. And that means negative reviews, zero loyalty, and no earned referrals. 4) Is The Solution Worth The Trouble? There are downsides to any new solution. Buyers need to change vendors, hire new staff, train on novel systems, or fight for a change to the budget. The question is, is the value your solution provides worth that discomfort? How much will they have to change to accommodate it? And when all is said and done, will they look back on the investment as a good purchase or one that ate up too many resources? Going through this calculation upfront is a must during the qualification of sales leads. Questions to ask here include… “How would things be different if we solved this for you?” “What is your motivation to make this happen?” “If we took your business from $X to $Y, how would that change things?” 5) Do They Accept Your Process? Be sure your buyer is willing to adapt to your process before working with you. Check to see if they’re willing to stop working with current vendors, put in the necessary time for training, and whatever other “musts” need to be done to get maximum value from your solution. Buyers who won’t adapt to your processes (or who require too much work on your end) should be turned away. A clear question to ask here is… “When your organization has done similar projects in the past, what paperwork process needed to happen?” This question gives you a clearer idea of what lies ahead should the buyer be a reasonable fit. How much work will they have to put in to overhaul their system? How much work will you have to put into training and getting their team up to speed? 6) Can They Afford It?  Can they even afford your solution? Now, you want to be careful with this one because people get a bit weird about money. So don’t jump right into finances. Instead, lead up to budgetary questions. Handle the subject professionally and use direct communication. Think of it as just another aspect of the qualification process. Questions to ask here include… “How are projects like this funded?” “Is a project like this in this year’s budget?” “What financial scope do you have to solve this issue?” 7) Who Is The Champion Here? Who is the champion here? The final decision maker? More often than not, your buyer’s decision is going to be influenced by other individuals in the business. It could be heads of other departments, higher-ups in the C-suite, or even influential team members below them. That’s why it’s important to figure out who these other individuals (or “champions”) are before you decide the buyer’s a fit. Doing so clues you into whether your prospect is the final decision maker and if there’s someone else you should be talking to instead. An important question to ask here is… “Who is the person that people look up to within your department on projects like this?” This subtler approach is bound to help you uncover any hidden decision-makers that may influence the passing of the deal. 8) Will They Commit? The last thing you want is for a high-quality lead to run off after you’ve put in all the work to qualify them. That’s why it’s up to you to get your buyer’s verbal commitment on the call. Otherwise, they’re liable to walk away after days or even weeks of your hard work. So when you’ve determined that a buyer is a solid lead, don’t hang up the phone before asking this discovery call question. “You’re a good fit to work with us. If we can solve X, will you commit to Y?” This time-tested formula has it all—validation, a hint of flattery, results anchoring. By asking this question, you’re tying your solution to a specific result. And equally importantly, you’re influencing the buyer to commit to that solution, provided you can achieve the results you promise. If the buyer looks like a good fit based on all these issues, the only thing left to do now is nail down the specifics and sign the papers. Summary That about wraps this framework up! Discovery calls are an invaluable tool for qualifying prospects, gathering more intel, and positioning yourself as an indisputable authority. All it takes is assessing prospects on these eight issues… Are They In Pain? What Is Their Timeline? Can I Fix This Problem? Is The Solution Worth The Trouble? Do They Accept Your Process? Can They Afford It? Who Is The Champion Here? Will They Commit? If you’ve evaluated potential buyers on each of these issues during your discovery call, you’ll waste less time with prospects, have more time to spend closing good deals, and be well on your way to earning more with less stress. And who in their right mind wouldn’t love that?

Len Herstein is a Keynote Speaker, Author, Marketing Strategist and a Reserve Sheriff's Deputy. In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Len taps into his brand marketing and law enforcement experience to reveal the most dangerous threat to your sales success. He also shares strategies to help you achieve, cherish, and protect success in both life and business You'll learn: Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Business Strategy Expert Resources: Len’s LinkedIn  Lenherstein.com Book: Be Vigilant!: Strategies to Stop Complacency, Improve Performance, and Safeguard Success. Your Business and Relationships Depend on It. Transcript  Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we're looking at the most dangerous threat to your sales success, and today's guest is Len Herstein. Len's 30 plus years in business, brand marketing and law enforcement led to his book, Be Vigilant!, where he provides a roadmap for individuals to stop complacency, improve performance, and safeguard the success that they've worked so hard to achieve. We want to touch on all this in today's episode. And with that, Len, welcome to the show.   Len Herstein: Thanks, Will. Good to be here. Thanks for having me.   The Most Dangerous Threat to Highly Successful Salespeople · [00:50]    Will Barron: You are more than welcome, sir. We were just talking football before we clicked record. Don't say who you support, mate, because you might get a load of hate after this episode, and maybe a few polite emails on the back of that as well, but I appreciate you, mate. So with that said, I know the answer to this question because we've done a bit of prep for the interview, but the audience probably don't, and I'm in so much agreement with you here. I think this is a really exciting topic. With that said, Len, what is the most dangerous threat, not just to salespeople, but to perhaps highly successful salespeople?   “Success is not the end goal, keeping it is.” – Len Herstein · [01:38]    Len Herstein: Yeah. The thing that I think is one of the most dangerous threats is complacency, is the idea that as we get more successful, we develop an overconfidence, a self-satisfaction, even potentially a smugness that makes us unaware of potential threats. And when we become unaware of potential threats, when we fail to see the warning signs, when we fail to see the things that we're doing that make us vulnerable, that is when our success becomes at risk. What I always tell people is success is not the end goal, keeping it is.   Understanding the Risk of Complacency in Sales · [01:43]   Will Barron: And is this something that all successful fo people fall into, or is this a trap that can be averted? Do we have to learn this lesson via the school of hard knocks or is keynote speaking, the events that you do, reading the book, and the coaching that you do, is that capable of getting us through this?   Len Herstein: Yeah, so that's exactly… The book is set up to give a us strategies that we can employ today that will help us identify complacency and fight it. And so one of the things, when we talk about complacency, that people get confused about is kind of what complacency is, first of all. And I think a lot of people would equate it with laziness. And really complacency is not laziness, it's what I talked about, is that unawareness of threats because of our overconfidence.   Len Herstein: And then the next step is people start worrying well, what's the opposite of complacency, isn't it like paranoia? Because that doesn't sound fun. I don't want to be paranoid. But the actual answer is that the opposite and the antidote to complacency is vigilance. And the difference is that paranoia is based in fear and vigilance is based in awareness. And so this is what the book is. And when I go talk to people and when I consult with people, it's all about helping them develop the strategies that enable them to become more aware, to become more intentional, to become more in a moment so that they don't get caught by surprise due to their complacency.   Complacency and Why It’s a Threat to All Types of Salespeople · [03:14]   Will Barron: Is this just for, obviously our audience are mainly salespeople, there's entrepreneurs, marketers [inaudible 00:03:14] of people listen to the show, but we'll focus on the B2B salesperson. Is this only for successful salespeople or can salespeople who are, if you're consuming this podcast and this content you're probably, even if you, even just be blunt, even if you suck, you're probably on the path to success at some point, right? Because the average salesperson who's just never going to do anything in their career is not going to tune into content like this, so we can make that assumption. But is this just, is complacency just something that successful people fall into, or is it like an inverse of this where you can suck at sales and be complacent in how much you suck and you're just managing to hold on, does the same process that we're going to talk about still apply to those individuals?   Len Herstein: Yeah. So complacency applies to everybody. What I do say though, is that you're less likely to find complacency in a bootstrapping startup that's maxing out their credit cards and working out of their parents' garage than you are with someone who's experienced success. But success is a sliding scale. I mean, success is not just this one pinnacle. We have successes along the way. And as we build those successes, whatever we enjoy that success in, we become vulnerable to complacency. This is applicable to everybody, no matter where they are in their game, no matter where they are in their business, no matter where they are in their life, because it also applies to your personal life, as much as your professional life. Complacency kills businesses, it kills brands, it kills teams, it kills relationships, both professional and personal.   Tell-tale Signs You Might be Complacent · [04:50]    Will Barron: So how do we know if we're in a position of being complacent and we need to up our levels of vigilance? We'll get practical about this as well of how we implement some of this. But how do we know if this is… Because some of this is self-reflection right of, I guess it's almost a paradox, because if you knew that you were being complacent, you would probably not be complacent. Right?   Len Herstein: Right.   Will Barron: So how do we, other than someone stumbling into a show like this, how do we kind of implement this as perhaps a practise that we've got to check in with ourselves over time?   “The first question is, do you feel successful in any way, shape or form with your relationships, business, sales teams, with whatever you’re doing? And if the answer is yes, then more than likely you should get a little bit more introspective and understand that there's probably complacency somewhere.” – Len Herstein · [06:05]    Len Herstein: Yeah. So there there's lots of warning signs, and in the book we go through, each strategy is kind of built around something that you're not doing or potentially not doing. The reality is you need to take a step back and kind of first question is, have I experienced some success? Do I feel successful in some element of my life, whether it be at home or at work? And the reality is based on our human nature. If you have experience of some success, if you can say that you are successful in some way, shape or form, it is most likely a good assumption that you have complacency somewhere because it is a natural state of being for us. We want to feel comfortable. We don't want to be questioning things all the time. So the first question is, do I feel successful in any way, shape or form with my relationships, with my business, with my sales teams, with whatever I'm doing? And if the answer is yes, then more than likely you should get a little bit more introspective and understand that there's probably complacency somewhere.   Len Herstein: But some red flags that you can definitely look for right away. Number one is who do you think your competition is? So if you have settled in on, here's my one or two major competitors, everything I do all my plan, I'm going to talk about this from a sales perspective, all my planning, all my scenarios, all my pricing and my offerings and my features and my benefits are all built around my competition with these one or two major competitors that I know really well. That is a sign that perhaps you're losing sight of what else is out there. I call that the road runner effect. People of a certain age are familiar with the Road Runner cartoon with the road runner and Wiley Coyote. And Wiley coyote is always trying to get the road runner and is a 100 percent focused on that road runner.   “If you're so focused on one or two or three competitors and you feel really confident there, that's a good sign that you might be complacent.” – Len Herstein · [07:48]    Len Herstein: The reality is that all the dangers in all of the, and all of the downsides that come across Wiley Coyote are never due to the road runner. They're always due to something else that Wiley Coyote didn't see. And that's the problem that we fall into. We get into this thing where we get so comfortable. If we're Coke, our competition is Pepsi. If we're Microsoft, our competition is Apple. If we're a solar company, our competition is the other solar company down the street, and we lose sight of Tesla coming in and changing the game for solar, or Red Bull coming in and changing the game for soft drinks, or whatever it is. If you're so focused on one or two or three competitors and you feel really confident there, that's a good sign that you might be complacent. So that's number one.   Len Herstein: A second one that's really easy to do is your to articulate your why. So this is something that gets back to kind of our purpose. This comes from my law enforcement background. All of this comes from my law enforcement background. These are things that I learned when I got into law enforcement that I was able to apply back to business and life. But this thing about being able to articulate your why gets to power and power dynamics. And a lot of times when we gain power, when we're successful, that allows us to be complacent because we're not getting pushback from people because we hold the power in relationship. And so if our why, if we're really being honest for ourselves as to what we're doing, is because we can or because we said so, those are really good signs that we're being complacent, because those whys should be rooted in our customers and our vendors and our partners and our employees. They shouldn't be because we can.   Will Barron: Is there any value… Because as you were saying that, Len, I'm getting this, and maybe I've probably been there myself in the past, right, I'm getting this vision of, I'm just going to paint a picture, and so whether this is sexist or whatever, I don't know. But it's me as a masculine fellow, well, so a masculine fella riding around in my red BMW, seeing customers, knowing that I'm the one with the right product for them, they sell medical devices, they've got to buy it from me because they want to work with that brand and there's only always another competitor. No one else can really get in that space, obviously because medical devices costs so much to develop and there's so much lead time from product to it being implemented in the marketplace.   Will Barron: So I'm this dude 23 year old dude, hair slicked back, driving around in his red BMW, seeing these surgeons, they have to buy from me. Overconfident to a point of I'm not faking it till I make it anymore, I'm now just coming across like a bit of a dick sometimes. And my why is because I want to buy a bigger, faster, more red stupid car. Right?   Len Herstein: Right.   The Difference Between Complacency and Being Comfortable · [10:10]    Will Barron: I feel like there'll be a bunch of the audience who, whether they acknowledge that or not, will be fitting into that kind of broad demographic of young salesperson making lots of money. How, other than some of them are driving around in a red BMW right now, listening to the show and they're going, oh crap, that's me, how else can they be introspective on this? And really, how can we hit them over the head in this episode, Len, and let them know that is you. Is there any other characteristics that we need to look out for?   Len Herstein: Yeah. What you want to understand is why… So getting to this articulating the why, it gets to your purpose, and your purpose has to be something beyond just making money. You have to have a purpose in this world, whether it's… and you can define your world as big or as small as you want, but you have to really understand your purpose. And you have to understand the fact that when you hold power, the way that you wield that power has implications short term and long term. You might be in a position, like you're saying, you're selling this medical device. There's no other medical device out there, they have to buy from you. That is a position where you hold a lot of power. The way you treat people in that short term will affect what happens in the long term.   Len Herstein: So you have to get this more macro view as to what's going on because the reality is that can work for a while, but eventually there's another solution that's going to come around. There's another… They're going to figure out a way, whether someone comes in to compete with you or your customers figure out a way to do without you, they're going to figure it out before long. And then all of a sudden you're going to turn and all of a sudden your customers are gone and you're going to be like, wow, they were unloyal. I can't believe they jumped. Well, the reality is that you sowed those seeds a long time ago.   “Ask yourself, are people working with me because they want to, are people buying from me because they want to, because I add value to their lives that they can't do without, or are they working with me because they have to? And if it's because they have to, and you’re taking advantage of that, that's going to come back and haunt you.” Len Herstein · [11:52]    Len Herstein: So it really requires taking this kind of macro view in terms of what's going on. And really, really being honest with yourself as to, are people working with me because they want to, are people buying for me because they want to, because I add value to their lives that they can't do without, or are they working with me because they have to? And if it's because they have to, and I'm taking advantage of that, that's going to come back and haunt you.   Will Barron: Sure. Okay. So I think that's super clear. I really appreciate that, Len. So that being said, it's not going to be all the audience who are going to be… who are, I was going to say feeling, but you're not really feeling this, you're being it, you're proactively being complacent. Right? There's going to be a good chunk of the audience who are in that state though.   Len Herstein: Mm-hmm (affirmative).   How to Stop Being Complacent and Start Being Vigilant · [12:27]    Will Barron: What's the next step for them? Is this something where they've got to sit down and is this an strategy? Is this an exercise in their mindsets? Is this finding the why? Is this strategic or is this kind of mindset based, the idea of being complacent?   Len Herstein: Yes, it is. It is all the above. First and foremost is strategic. Right? And it's mindset based. It's really understanding this is, it's kind of like being having a substance abuse problem, right? I mean, the first thing you have to do is admit that you have a problem. And that's part of the problem with complacency. Like you said upfront, is that we don't understand that we have that problem because we're not thinking that way. If we were, we wouldn't be complacent. So number one is just building that awareness that this exists, complacency is always in the background and we have to constantly figure out ways to fight it. But what we can do is we can institutionalise it within our lives, within our business, within our home life so that this doesn't become a chore. All these strategies are based in building awareness so that we understand what's going on.   Len Herstein: There's 10 things in the book, you can start with any which one of them, it doesn't matter. You can choose which ones make sense to you. One of the things that I think is the easiest thing that people can do right off the bat, and it's actually a really good signal that you're being complacent, is think about what you do after projects or missions or events are over. And one of the things that I talk about is the importance of debriefing. And you had talked about before this, that we're going to debrief afterwards. I love it. Because the thing that happens is most people, if you ask them if they do debriefs today, they would say yes, but the reality is they do the them when things go wrong and they do it mostly to find out who's to blame and how to figure out how do we not let this happen again.   Len Herstein: And if you're being truly honest with yourself, when you're experiencing success with your customers, how often are you actually debriefing things, as opposed to like patting each other on the back and going out for drinks and celebrating successes, which is important, it's important to celebrate success. But when we don't question things because we've had success, that's when we become complacent. And so it's really important to start debriefing things, whether they go right or wrong. There's eight ways that I talk about in the book, in that chapter, as to how to do successful debriefs. One of them is do them regardless of the outcome of the event. So whether it's positive, negative, debrief. Talk about what went right. Talk about what went right by accident. Talk about where you might have had success only because your competition did worse than you or because you got lucky.   “Once you start resting on your laurels, once you start feeling comfortable in your success and stop questioning things, that's where you miss all those micro failures that turn into macro failures.” – Len Herstein · [15:36]    Len Herstein: There are always ways… We were talking sports, there are people in sports, here in American football, we would talk about Peyton Manning or Tom Brady in terms of these are people who, regardless of the level of success they have, they're the first one in a room watching films the next day, trying to figure out where could we have done better. Right? Where do we… Because once you start resting on your laurels, once you start feeling comfortable in your success and stop questioning things, that's where you miss all those micro failures that turn into macro failures. So your question was where can we start? You can start with mindset, you can start with strategies, you can start with whatever you want to start with. The real step is becoming aware that this is an issue and making a decision that we're going to do things in our life, both professionally and personally, to help address it.   What’s Your Definition of Success and Do You Really Need to Pursue More of It? · [16:29]    Will Barron: What if we are, we're a salesperson, so we're not an entrepreneur. We don't have the whole… we inadvertently have the company on our back, right? We're we are bringing in the [crosstalk 00:16:12] right. But we are not… our quota is based on sales activity as opposed to customer service or anything like that. And so let's say we've hit our quota the past three or four years in a row. We're having a decent year this year. Is pushing for a feeling of being comfortable or even just being a little bit complacent in the role because we know we've had success in the past, is that always unhealthy or do we always need to be striving for more and more revenue and bigger bonuses and more targets? Because I know this kind of, hopefully this is an interesting question of, is it unhealthy to always be pushing for more, and is a little bit of complacency okay in certain situations or is complacency like, is it binary, is it always a bad idea?   “Everybody's definition of success is different, and you don't always have to be striving for more, but it's important to understand what success is to you so that you can protect it once you gain it.” – Len Herstein · [17:44]    Len Herstein: Yeah. So what I don't want to do is I don't want to convey the idea that it's not okay to feel comfortable. That's not what this is about. So it's not about… Complacency, fighting complacency doesn't mean that we always have to be uncomfortable. And the other key point is that success is how we define it. Some people's success is like, I need to be CEO of the company or I need to be a billionaire or I need to be whatever. Other people's success is, I want to have a good paycheck and I want to enjoy my family and I want to see my kids grow up and go to school functions and all that stuff. So everybody's definition of success is different, and you don't always have to be striving for more, but it's important to understand what success is to you so that you can protect it once you gain it. Right?   Len Herstein: And so that's a problem. Maybe success for you is earning enough money so that you can go to the pub with your mates and take care of your family. And that's totally cool, there's nothing wrong with that. But the reality is that once you get too comfortable in that, you might take… maybe success for you is your relationships, but if you start taking those relationships for granted, if you stop paying attention to the health of those relationships, if you stop asking questions of your spouse or your partner or whatever, to stay in the moment to understand what's going on, both good and bad, you run the risk of jeopardising that success that you've set up for yourself. So it's all about different levels. It's all about self-awareness. It's all about intentionality and understanding where you are. And it could be any level, whatever level you're at, understanding what success is to you and how do I protect it.   Will Barron: Len, that is so smart, mate. I really appreciate that answer because I don't think sales people, and I never did this, stop to think about what they actually want. Now, obviously we're in a role, we've got to hit a quota or at least give, in a decent company, at least give a real good account of yourself and a good effort to get close to it. You're not going to get sacked if you hit quota for three years and then you miss it, but you're close to the next, right? Because obviously the market changes, the product changes, the customer changes. We go through a global pandemic. Who knows what else is going on in the world, right?   Len Herstein: Yeah.   Will Barron: So I think that's fair enough to say, but there's so… the people I speak with and coach with our training programme, there's so few salespeople who come into the programme who know what they actually want other than this robotic must hit quota. I think what you just said is really valuable to them.   How to Protect Your Success in This Highly Competitive Sales Environment · [19:40]    Will Barron: And then it leads onto this idea, which I really want to double down on, this idea of protecting your success. Because sales is a zero sum game, right? There's someone else that out there trying to poach your customers, there's only… If there's a deal going to happen, that it's likely most industries, they're only going to buy one product or service at that moment in time, and maybe you've got a chance later on, but again, someone else is out trying to eat your lunch, aren't they? So how do we, say that we're having success, how do we go about complacency and avoiding it from the perspective of there's someone out there? It's not like other spaces where you might be your own downfall. There's someone proactively trying to take your customers from you. How do we mitigate those kind of risks?   Len Herstein: Yeah. So, it's a great point. And it all comes together, and this is also in everything that I wrote about in this book. Real briefly, I spent 25 years in business before I ever got involved in law enforcement. I decided I wanted to become a volunteer. I went through a full academy and field training. I became a reserve peace officer, Sheriff's deputy, where I do everything a Sheriff's deputy does, but I do it for free. And I did it because I wanted to give back. But I started learning things that surprised me, that I was able to bring back to business and to life. And that's where this book came from. Be Vigilant. It's all based in things that I learned and this idea that complacency kills.   Len Herstein: One of the things that is directly translatable from that is this idea that as we become complacent, and we become more vulnerable, we send signals out to our competition. People are watching. Right? You were talking about it. People are always looking to eat our lunch, right, and take our lunch from us. And the reality is, one of the things that we learn in the academy is looking buttoned up, right, keeping your shoes shined, keeping your uniform looking good, all those things. And that's not because of pomp and circumstance or anything like that. The reality is that there's data out there that says that criminals are out there looking and they will react to you based on the image that you present to them. And if you look vulnerable, they will try to exploit that vulnerability. But if you look buttoned up, they are likely to fight, they're less likely to run, they're less likely to do all the things that get people hurt or get me hurt or whatever it is.   “When you have people out there that are looking to take business from you, when they look at you, do they see easy pickings or do they see someone who's buttoned up and is prepared to protect what they have? If they see that you are prepared to protect what you have, they're more likely to go try and take someone else's lunch.” – Len Herstein · [21:55]    Len Herstein: It's the same thing in business. When you have people out there that are looking to take, when they look at you, do they see easy pickings or do they see someone who's buttoned up and is prepared to protect what they have? And if they see that you are prepared to protect what you have, they're more likely to go try and take someone else's lunch. So the first thing is making sure that as you build that awareness, as you start fighting that complacency, as you build defences against those vulnerabilities, you will automatically invite less competition because you are unattractive as a competitor.   Len Herstein: There are many more people, I don't know what it's like in the UK, but here we have a lot of what we call vehicle trespassers, people breaking into people's cars. It used to be that this was a real complicated thing or they would try and jimmy locks or break windows. Now they just walk down the street and try door handles until they find one that's open because there's enough people that leave their doors open that the thieves don't have to work that hard. And you know what? If you're a salesperson, be the one who locks your door and let them move on to the next one who is letting themselves become more vulnerable.   Will Barron: So I guess that practically two things come to mind. One, being known as an expert in your industry. Even if, for me, medical devices, you get attack… I'm not becoming an expert in all keyhole or endoscopic surgery, but perhaps I'm becoming an expert in my specific product, in a specific place, whether that is, hopefully, speaking events, industry conferences, being a go-to person to answer questions on your product, but other people's products in the space itself. That seems like the medium to long term goal with some of this. Because if I was competing… If I was competing for a sales training contract against me now, I'd be slightly panicked because our programme is established, but it's so different from everyone else out there that if someone was to Google me and what we were up to, I would probably go for and go and attack one of these kind of traditionally held sales training accounts instead of what we do. So maybe that's an example.   Len Herstein: Absolutely.   Will Barron: Just because we are differentiated and we're so entrenched. So that's, I'm an expert and public in the space, I guess was the point. So becoming known as an expert in your space is a medium to long term goal. But it seems like a short term goal then is just if you can physically be in the accounts regularly. Like when I was in medical device sales, I'd always pop into, Bradford is a local hospital to us here, every Friday I'd be in there from like two o'clock till five o'clock, I would just be sat in the… there's a bunch of… some of the world's top colorectal surgeons work at one particular theatre, I'd just be sat in the staff room with the surgeons, just chilling, hanging, doing emails, just physically be there. And I've saw competitors come to the door, and a lot of times it was just so awkward that I was there, that the surgeons would tell them to go away, come back another time. Right?   Len Herstein: Yeah.   The Benefits of Having Regular, Insightful Debriefs with Your Buyers · [24:48]    Will Barron: So being physically in an account is value, but then even less so, or even easier than that, what you mentioned earlier on doing debriefs, maybe we check in with our customers every quarter. We see if there's any issues ahead of time and we try and deal with them and stay in touch so that when a competitor rings up one of our accounts and they go, hey, well, when's the last time you spoke to will with sales trading over at whatever company, the buyer goes, well, last week he was doing some more training and he was doing this or doing that. Again, that's got to put competitors off, right?   Len Herstein: Yeah, no. That's so smart. That's exactly what happens. And that's one of the biggest vulnerabilities for salespeople, is because we're always trying to get new business. Right? And so as we get more successful and we start putting more attention towards new business, who suffers? Potentially our existing business. And just like you said, what's the first thing, if you're trying to steal someone's business from them, especially in your industry or medical sales, whatever sales you're doing, if you're trying to steal someone's business and you get a meeting with that customer, the first thing you're going to ask them is, hey, how much attention are you getting from your current sales person? How much are they really investing themselves in your success? How much of a partner are they?   “The more that you make your buyers feel like a true partner, the more that you make them understand that it's not just about a sale to you, it's about their success and making sure that they are successful, that's how you fight complacency.” – Len Herstein · [26:18]    Len Herstein: And that's the question that you're going to ask, right? Because when people get successful, they start taking what they have for granted. They spend less time with their existing customers. The customers may not even understand it until someone in comes in and starts raising that thing, and then they're like, you know what? It has been a while since Will's come to visit me, he's starting to take me for granted. The more that you're there, the more that you make them feel like a true partner, the more that you make them understand that it's not just about a sale to you, it's about their success and making sure that they are successful, they're successful, you're successful and the sales will come, that's how you fight that complacency.   Fighting Complacency in Life and Personal Relationships · [26:44]   Will Barron: For sure. Okay. We'll wrap up with this line. And I say that this might be a four hour conversation in it's own right. But how does this translate outside of business? Because it seems like, anecdotally, a lot of my friends, well, the few of my friends who have been in long term relationships and it's fell apart, it's because they were both complacent, didn't work on the relationship, didn't work on themselves, both got fat and disgusting and then hated each other, and then it fell apart violently, right?   Len Herstein: Yeah.   Will Barron: So it seems like relationships with spouses, partners, whatever it is, whoever it is, this applies to that as well. But how else does this idea of complacency relate to out of work activities, relationships, and even hobbies or whatever it is?   Len Herstein: Yeah, it applies 100 percent outside or especially to our relationships, whether they're our friends or our spouses or our partners or our kids, we have a tendency to start taking that for granted. They're always there, they're there at the house. And so we we stop asking questions. We start focusing only on problems, right? We don't debrief things that go well, our conversations become always about pain points as opposed to successes. And so our relationship takes a hit because everything that we start associating with that other person is negative. The only time that we actually talk and have meaningful conversations is when stuff's going bad. Right?   Len Herstein: We might lose sight of the threats. One of the things I talk about in the book is this idea of threat awareness, of understanding where those threats can come from. How in tune are you with your children's lives in terms of where those threats are coming from? Social media, bullying, substance abuse, whatever it is, are you just focused on the fact that they have good grades and they say hi to you in the morning, is that enough? Or are you really questioning what's going on in their lives so that you're remaining in touch with them? Because the more success they have, the more that they seem to be successful on the surface, the more you're likely to kind of pull back and say, hey, what's working is working. And that's where you start missing those kind of micro failures.   Len Herstein: One of the things that happens in romantic relationships a lot of times is you have an erosion of trust. And this is something that happens in business, it happens in government, law enforcement, you have this erosion of trust. And so if you step back and you start seeing that in your relationship, you have lost the benefit of the doubt. This is something I'm talking about is when you lose that benefit of the doubt. When you are really… When you have a lot of trust in someone and something happens, the first place you might go to, if whatever happened was negative, is that person didn't mean it that way, that wasn't what they meant to do, they are good people at heart, they trust me, they value me.   Len Herstein: When you lose that benefit of the doubt, everything, it could be like, hey, good morning. What'd you mean by that? What are you trying to say? Good morning, huh? When you start reacting that way, or when your people in your life start reacting, you've had that erosion of trust. That erosion of trust comes from neglect of that relationship, which is a sign of complacency.   Will Barron: For sure. So now I'm really focused on with my misses at the moment is celebrating more wins. Because she's a doctor, she's having tremendous success in her career. Our business is growing. And it seems like it's, I don't do it instinctively. I will get on to the next milestone and the next milestone and keep on the way. And then you look back, we've been running sales into org in the [inaudible 00:30:09] academy now for like seven years. And I look back at all the milestones and I've not celebrated maybe like three out of the hundreds that we've been through of customer milestones and revenue milestones and product development milestones, all these kind of things, podcast download numbers and milestones. So this is when I'm consciously being aware of.   Practical Structure of an Effective Debrief · [30:34]    Will Barron: But I've got one final question for you, Len, and that is, is there a structure? It seems like debriefing is incredibly important here, whether it's with your customer, whether it's with your partner, whether it's with your kids, scheduling that into, hey, we did something, debrief afterwards or even just quarterly debrief, whatever it is. It seems like we almost want to do like a SWOT analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. Is there any, or do you recommend any structure to a debrief or any questions that we should ask within a debrief that can drive kind of tremendous value?   Len Herstein: Yeah, absolutely. And so, in a professional setting, there's very specific things that I recommend people do as it relates to debrief. And like I said, there's eight in the book. There's there's do it regardless of outcome, positive or negative, make sure you leave titles and stature at the door so that everybody has a say, make sure that they're regularly scheduled so everybody knows they're going to happen so that they pay more attention. Like I said, there's eight things that you can do that will help structure those debriefs. The thing to be careful of at home is it's not fun to say we're going to schedule a debrief. It doesn't need… That's the terminology you don't have to use.   Len Herstein: A debrief at home could be as simple as a family dinner that we always have. And when we sit down to a family dinner or family breakfast or a walk that we go along on the weekends, just to talk, just to catch up to just say, hey, I saw… Hey daughter. I have two daughters. I saw you got an A on that test, tell me about that. How'd that happen? What went right? Did you change your studying? Did you do something? What went right? Do you think maybe like there was things that went wrong that you could have done better?   Len Herstein: These conversations, they can be scheduled without making them like… it's not like you have to create a conference room in the house and sit down and have a PowerPoint presentation. It could be whatever it is, just making sure that you have something built into your life. Hey, every morning I'm going to have breakfast with the family, or two times a week we're going to have whatever you can do. I mean, it's not always possible, but figuring in those touch points that are specifically built around talking about things that went right and not just the things that went wrong.   Parting thoughts · [33:23]   Will Barron: For sure. The reason I asked you about the outside of work thing as well is just to emphasise the points that we tend to think of our business and sales relationships as one entity and then our friends and family as another, but if you doing a good job and you're adding a lot of value and you're supporting people and you're debriefing and you're improving consist consistently, a lot of it's very similar. If you're just a terrible person, you're probably a terrible person at home as well as a terrible person to your customers. Right? So I think a lot of this translates. And so I think that was important to bring it up. And we'll wrap up with that, Len. With that, mate, tell us a bit more about the book, where we can find it. And then tell us about the keynotes and the speeches and that that you're doing as well.   Len Herstein: Yeah, absolutely. So the book is called Be Vigilant!: Strategies to Stop Complacency, Improve Performance and Safeguard Success. I've got green screen so you won't be able to see it, but it's available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Apple Books, wherever you buy your books or eBooks. You can get more information at Len Herstein, L-E-N H-E-R-S-T-E-I-N.com or bevigilantbook.com. Or you can just look me up on LinkedIn and I'm always happy to connect.   Len Herstein: And one of the… You mentioned the speaking and the consulting. I mean, the whole reason I wrote this book is to help spread this message, looking to get in front of as many organisations or teams or associations as possible. We spend a lot of time in meetings and conferences and stuff, talking about the nitty gritty, the tactics to achieve success. We don't spend a lot of time talking about how to keep that success. And so that's kind of the role I'm looking to play these days, is to come in and work with teams and organisations or companies or associations to help them understand how do we protect that success we've worked so hard to achieved.   Will Barron: Amazing stuff. I'll link to all that in the show notes to this episode over at salesman.org. And with that, Len, I appreciate your insights, mate. I appreciate you bringing this to us on the podcast. I say this straight up, I appreciate your ability to translate this from business to home as well. I think that's incredibly valuable for the audience. And with that one, thank you for joining us again on the Salesman Podcast.   Len Herstein: Thanks, Will, I really appreciate it. I had a great time. Thanks.

Do you want to be rich someday? Of course you do. Who doesn’t? But if you’re in sales, you’re in a particularly great position to grow your wealth—if you play your cards right, that is. More on that in a few minutes. In this post, I’m revealing the 3 best habits of rich people. Habits that you can learn for yourself. And habits that will put you well on your way to true financial freedom. Rich habits One of the hardest pills to swallow about success is that it isn’t quick. Striking it rich betting on the newest cryptocurrency? Winning the lotto? These cases are rare. And the majority of the wealthy built their fortunes over time. Lots of time. The difference between those who become rich and those who don’t is how they spend that time. Because in reality, that’s the only thing anyone has real control over. Now, we’d like to think we’re in control of what we do each day. And think about it—don’t you feel that way? Like you’re in the driver’s seat? But in fact, we’re actually slaves to one thing that rules us all… our habits. Our habits control how we spend our days. They dictate our feelings. Our motivations. Our productivity. Do we work towards building a brighter future? Or do we put off tasks and give in to that warm call of the couch instead? Over time, these daily accomplishments (controlled by our habits) build on each other to determine our future. Indy 500 and Formula 1 Legend Derek Daly said it best when he told me, “You will not decide your future. You'll decide your habits. And your habits will then in turn, decide your future. Are your habits aligned with your own personal goals or stretch goals?” But there’s a problem here. We tend to forget what we’ve done in the past. So we end up not tying that past effort to the present, to what we’re achieving today. Think of it like this: The solution to this problem is identifying the right habits and implementing them NOW so you can reap the rewards LATER. And that’s exactly what we’re doing today. Alright, alright. Enough background. Let’s get into the real meat and talk about the 3 best habits of rich people you need to copy. Habit #1: Track Your Progress People don’t stumble into becoming a success. They aim for it. So in order for you to achieve that same kind of success, you need to… A) Set Goals Set goals. What exactly do you want to achieve? Is it to climb the corporate ladder? Accumulate enough wealth to retire early? Or just get some extra dough to send your kids to college? Try to make each goal SMART: Specific Measurable Actionable Relevant Time-Based The more exact you can make your goals, the easier it’ll be for you to work your way towards them. B) Determine Milestones What are the steps you need to take to achieve each goal? And what do you need to accomplish in order to take each step? If for example your goal is to make $1 million in commissions this year, you can break that goal down into quarterly, monthly, weekly, and even daily targets. How many deals do you have to close each quarter to stay on track?? How many cold emails and calls do you have to make each week to hit those monthly goals? When you break your larger goals down into smaller, daily tasks, you can tell in an instant if you are running behind or ahead of the game. So set those larger goals, break them down into milestones and smaller tasks, and then track your progress towards completing each. Habit #2: Pay Your Future Self First For this one, it helps to think of yourself as two distinct people. There’s present you—that’s the you watching this video here right now. And then there’s future you—that’s the you in a day, a month, a year, a decade. What you want to do is take a fixed percentage of your monthly income and invest it towards your future self. I don’t care if it was a great month. And I don’t care if it was a terrible month. What matters here is you’re paying forward your hard-earned dough so that future you’s life will be just a little bit easier. Now, I’m not talking about buying that car. Or taking that vacation. Because really, that’s investing in present you. And once you spend that cash, it instantly becomes dead money. But when you invest in your future you, it’s living money. Money that pays out dividends. And money that earns a return, getting you closer to real financial freedom. Some examples of what you can do to pay your future self include: Investing in the Stock Market Maxing Out Your 401(k) Contribution Saving for a New House Taking a Sales Skills Workshop Habit #3: Continuous Self-Improvement Continuous and relentless self-improvement. Nobody, and I mean nobody, starts off from square one with all the skills they need to make millions. It just doesn’t happen. Instead, you’ve got to consistently expand your skillset. You’ve got to improve the skills you already have today. And you have to become better than you ever thought you could be. Now, I teased this a bit before but in sales, we’re particularly lucky because the improvements we need to make the big bucks are easier than with other industries. Want to climb the corporate ladder? Buckle up for decades of daily learning before you make your millions. Starting a business? Settle in for year after year of pain, financial insecurity, and, oh yeah, a very real risk of complete failure. But to win in sales, all you have to be able to do is: Understand Your Market Get in Front of Buyers Explain the Value Cultivate the Right Mindset That’s it! Now, if you’d like to learn more about these four steps, we’ve actually cover that in another video coming up in the next few days. Be sure to subscribe so you won’t miss it! Sales is easily the smallest segment of commerce, but it holds the greatest rewards. So if you can tap into the low-input and high-output nature of the industry by improving your sales skills every day, you’ll tap into the quickest way to get rich without taking huge risks. Summary Getting rich isn’t a fantasy. It certainly isn’t easy. But by cultivating the right habits… Tracking Your Progress Paying Your Future Self Continuously Improving Your Skills And best of all, once these habits take hold, your success is no longer a matter of “if”. Instead, it’s a matter of “when”.  

Fred Copestake is the Founder of Brindis and author of ‘Selling Through Partnering Skills' & ‘Hybrid Selling'. In today’s episode of The Salesman Podcast, Fred shares strategies around how you can smash your sales quota and unleash your full potential by becoming a hybrid seller. You'll learn: Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Fred Copestake Hybrid Selling Expert Resources: Fred’s LinkedIn The Sales Today Podcast Book: Hybrid Selling: How salespeople can use a complete approach to drive opportunities in the new world of sales Rocky – AI Mindset & Self-Improvement digital coach in your pocket. Transcript Will Barron: Hi. My name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the salesman podcast. On today's show we're going to look into how to become a hybrid salesperson. And today's guest is the man Fred Copestake. Fred is the founder of Brindis Sales Training and author of the Hybrid Selling book and Selling Through Partnering Skills. And we're going to talk about both these on today's episode. With that, Fred, welcome to the show.   Fred Copestake: Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me. Real pleasure.   What is Hybrid Selling? · [00:35]    Will Barron: You're more than welcome. I'm glad to have you on, mate. Okay. I can feel you've got a strong energy. I can feel you're excited mate, to be on the show, so hopefully we can continue this with some questions from my side. But with that, I'm going to give you a terrible question. It's a lazy question, but I think it's a good starting point to set up the rest of the show. You probably answered this question a million times before. And so I feel bad for throwing it at you, but what the heck is hybrid selling? Someone who's unfamiliar with that term, there's tens of thousands people listen to this. What is hybrid selling Fred?   Fred Copestake: Well, my usual lazy answer is what do you think it is? But actually, no, let's go with that if you don't mind. If you could give me what you think it is without going into too much thought, then we can take it from there.   Will Barron: Well, I'm not assuming because I know what it is because I've read the book. But coming from an assumptive standpoint I would say it's selling both old ways of phones and emails, and the new ways of leveraging Zoom, leveraging the newer buyer journey where the buyer is focused on consumer content, engaging with salespeople like [inaudible 00:01:32] on the process. It's focusing on a new exchange of value where the buyer has access to information where they didn't have it in the past, and they perhaps want salespeople to help them out with different things. How does that fit?   Fred Copestake: Yeah. No, very good. Very good sir, yes. You clearly have read it. No. No. A lot of people will tend to say is, “Oh. It's when we've got to do stuff using different techniques,” or, “We've got to do stuff like using video and sending video and this kind of stuff,” so working virtually. And my answer will tend to be well you, “Well, that's virtual selling then isn't it? That's already got a name. That is a thing.” So for me, it's something slightly different where hybrid's about a mix. And so it's a mix of approaches, it's a mixture of things that we need to do to make sure that we are bang up to date and we're going to do things that make a difference for the customer. And come seeing a lot of good stuff that's gone on before, and some of those newer things to deal with the way that people are thinking, because people are thinking differently as well now. So it's a blend. It's a mixed approach.   Hybrid Selling 101: The Things Today’s Buyer Expects From the Modern-Day Salesperson · [02:28]    Will Barron: How are people thinking differently from the perspective of we're hopefully on the far end of this global pandemic, there's other things going on in the world which we won't talk about this second because, well, by the time the show goes out who knows what's happened in that area of the world. So we'll miss that but it's post pandemic. What the buyers want different from salespeople, how do salespeople need to engage differently with buyers? And how do we get more deals done use this hybrid approach?   Fred Copestake: Okay. So I mean first thing, I wrote book one because there's a bunch of challenges that salespeople have got that we need to deal with. And we were chatting about this before we came on live, weren't we, where we've got to deal with busy, busy, busy, oldie-worldy, and muddled mindset. And that's what salespeople have got to cope with now. So busy, busy, busy, they're running around, they're doing lots of different stuff. They've been very, very active, well blah, blah, blah. But not actually getting anything done because it's ineffective.   Fred Copestake: Oldie-worldy is using old fashioned stuff that doesn't work anymore. It's winding people up because it is that kind of archaic. And then the model mindset is that, actually, are we supposed to be consultative here or are we supposed to be transactional? Because the company says that we're consultative: we deal with problems, we deal with solutions. But then they push us to sell a load of stuff at the end of the week, the end of the month.   Fred Copestake: So I mean, that's actually how I wrote book one to deal with those issues. That's by being more collaborative. But yeah, as soon as I launched that the pandemic came along. And you could see that what happened is that the speed of change also caused us a whole load of other issues, so that's what Hybrid Selling and the book is all about. That's why I wrote it so fast, was to help people with these new challenges which, again, broadly break down into customer challenges, climate challenges and change yourself challenges.   Changes in Sales Techniques and How to Cope in the Hybrid Selling Environment · [04:12]    Will Barron: Sure. Sure. So I think it'd be valuable to touch on these in a little bit more detail, because I think we could do a whole episode on being busy, doing things an old way that perhaps doesn't get the response that we expect from customers. And then just frankly, lying about being consultants and just trying to shove pictures down people's throat at the end of the day, because salespeople have targets. They have quotas. They get sacked if they don't hit them over months, quarters, years. And so it's one thing for management and marketing to say one thing, it's another thing to be put in a position where your livelihood's on the line. So is it cool with you if we run through these in I guess-   “If we think about customer changes, stuff that's happened very recently, I talk about ABC, so customers are more Advanced, they're more Biased, but they're also more Confused.” Fred Copestake · [04:55]    Fred Copestake: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I am a fan of the podcasts. I listen to them and I know that you do a really good job in trying to help people address that stuff and get this as modern and as up to date as possible. So yeah, if we go through each of these, if we think about customer changes, stuff that's happened very, very recently. I talk about ABC, so customers are more advanced, they're more biassed, but they're also more confused. So by advanced, again, we know that customers are now further down the buying cycle. They're trying to self-diagnose. They're doing a lot of their own thing. They don't want to speak to sellers. They're trying to do everything on their own. And we've got to deal with that. That is going on. That's real. That's what the research is showing. When I say customers are more biassed, by this I'd probably mean that they're more biassed to what they like and what they know, or even that they're more demanding if you like. They are B2C consumers as well, aren't they?   Fred Copestake: So people expect far more. And I'm not sure that we always can deliver on that. So again, we've got to really understand then their problem and be able to deal with that. So it's all about them, really. They're in the driving seat. They're in this really strong position. But equally, they are also more confused at the same time because, I mean, I talk about we're in this VUCA world, aren't we? Where volatility and certainty, complexity, ambiguity, this is all going on. So yes, they know what they like. They like what they know. They're doing their own thing. But actually, oh God, [inaudible 00:06:01] what's going on anyway.   Fred Copestake: So that's the first set of challenges, these customer challenges that we need to be dealing with in which a hybrid setting approach can help us with. It's teed up to do that.   Value Selling: The Anatomy of the Modern Salesperson · [06:16]    Will Barron: Can we turn this to our own advantage? If customers are confused, it seems that they're in a position where if we can help them become less confused they're going to listen to us. Then if they're going to have a bias towards buying for vendors that they know and like, if we can solve their confusion, then clearly they're going to know and like us. And perhaps they're in a position where we can subtly influence them, nudge them towards an appropriate buying decision. Is this an opportunity as opposed to a threat of the old way of selling things? Should we frame this up as this is an exciting time? If you can be clear with your value proposition, help buyers, and then guide them through the steps of the process that they're stuck with, that the deals are more likely to come with you, and that this is actually an opportunity, again, as opposed to the threat of just being able to spam emails all day and make quota kind of five years ago.   Fred Copestake: Big time. It's a huge opportunity because if people aren't doing that, that's why we're not going meetings. That's why customers don't want to speak to people and they're trying to do it themselves. But as soon as you can come in and say, “Look, I can be your guide. I can lead you. I can help you.” You are setting yourself apart. This is what the hybrid salesperson can do. They're adding value in that way.   Fred Copestake: I mean even to VUCA, I came across this model of VUCA prime where you kind of fight VUCA with VUCA. It's brilliant. So if customers are suffering volatility, we help them by establishing the vision that they need, understanding what it is that they're trying to deal with. If they've got a problem with uncertainty, we can help with understanding. We can share information. We can ask them good questions. We can provoke them. We can prompt them. We can get them thinking better.   Fred Copestake: If they're suffering with complexity, well then we can help with clarity. We can set out the stages. We can talk to them about, “This is how typically things are bought in your world,” if you are not doing it that often. Or even if you are, let's make sure you're doing it as best we possibly can. And if they're suffering with ambiguity then we'll talk about being more agile. We'll give them options to be able to respond to stuff faster and get in front of their own get.   “Forget your products, forget your services, stop talking about that bloody stuff because people will always say they’re not interested. They're not interested at that time, but become interested later once you've helped them get their head around stuff.” – Fred Copestake · [08:22]    Fred Copestake: So for me, that's where a modern salesperson can add huge value. That's the opportunity for them. It's how you are helping people to think, what you are doing as part of the process yourself. Forget your products, forget your services, stop talking about that bloody stuff because people say we're not interested. They're not interested at that time, but become interested later once you've helped them get their head around stuff. It's a huge opportunity for salespeople acting professionally and bringing their full game to bring that value. Yeah?   Will Barron: I want to ask you some examples of questions and things in a second that we can make this real practical for the audience. But Fred, I feel like if I was listening to the show right now I'd be like, “That makes total sense. That's the place I want to be,” because we do this with our own selling to the enterprise of our training programme. I jump on calls, and by the end of the call if the prospect and potential customer isn't super narrow minded in what they want, whether it's our training programme, a different training programme, I've pointed them on one way or the other. They know where they are, where they want to be. What's stopping them. The status is quo. How are we going to get them from one side to the other? If they've not done that, it's been just a terrible call from my perspective. As well as pulling the discovery, and the qualification, and everything that I need to make sure that the deal can go ahead.   Will Barron: I try to make sure that they get a tonne of value. And often I get email responses back of, “Hey, you're not a good fit for us right now. The budget isn't right,” whatever it is, “but we will use you in two years,” because you've really helped clarify and added a tonne of value in that one call which is great for our longer sales cycles. It's not going to be great for some salespeople listening to this who have short sales cycles.   The Collaborative Selling Approach: How to Set Yourself Up as an Authority Figure Even If You’re Just Starting Out · [09:50]    Will Barron: So with all that said, and I want to get into that in a second because that has true value in its own. How to do this on a call, questions we should ask. Before that though, Fred, how do we set ourselves up so that we're in a position to be able to have these kind of conversations? Because when a sales leader jumps on a call with me they know that I am a little bit of a knuckle dragging salesperson, but I have done quite a lot of podcast interviews, have spoken to thousands of sales reps over the years and done consulting a one-on-one train with them. We have built a half decent, at this point, training programme so they know I'm not a complete numpty.   Will Barron: And I'm sure it's the same with you. Customers get on the phone with you and they're like, “Fred I've consumed your content, podcast, books. I'm basically on board. I'm ready to rock and roll. I just need you to solve a few questions or solve a few answers. Give a few answers to a few questions, solve a few problems.” But for the average salesperson listening to this who's selling some random piece of software that hopefully is really valuable and really great for their audience and their prospects. They're starting from a deficit, I feel, versus what me and you are. How do they get in a position where they have, essentially, the authority and the respect from the buyer to be able to ask these questions and have this adult conversation, because it's very difficult to go from cold call to the consultative conversation that you just outlined then.   Fred Copestake: Sure. I mean I think for me, this starts with a mindset.   Will Barron: Sure.   Fred Copestake: This starts with what are you actually trying to do here and who are you trying to do it for? “Oh, I'm trying to do it for me to hit my sales targets. Happy days.” That'll come through. That'll seep through the American guys. I'm sure you've interviewed some of the guys who talk about having commission breath, and just people don't want to speak to you if you're like that. So for me that's a definition.   Fred Copestake: But one, I do talk about a collaborative selling approach. We've got to think like that. So that does bring in the old consultative sales techniques, it brings in added value sales techniques, it thinks about how you can be bang up to date by sharing lots of information using a bunch of different media. But you are trying to collaborate with people, so you've got to make that really clear that it is them who is the most important thing. This is why we're doing this stuff. And so we need to start thinking about them almost like as a partner. And then that is a word that's thrown around willy nilly. It's usually for the person who's going to try and dominate the partnership, I often find. But if you're genuinely thinking, “What do partners do? How do partners operate? How do they think? What does that relationship look like?” That changes the way you go about doing your stuff. It changes the questions you ask. It changes why you're asking them. It changes why people are going to want to answer. It changes what you do as a result of it.   Fred Copestake: So generally think about trying to co-create, trying to collaborate, trying to do stuff like that. That is what will just turbocharge the calls rather than, “Oh, I've got a little checklist here that I've got to get through to see if it's worthwhile working with you. Are you the person I really want to talk to or somebody else? And now can I talk about all my things?” Because nobody's interested in that, and now that's why they're pushing us away. That's why people don't want to speak to us. You're going into that collaborative mindset, that is going to start to set you apart.   Practical Ways to Practice Collaborative Selling · [12:53]    Will Barron: Are there any practical ways that we can demonstrate this on, this is an obvious one, maybe we don't call it a qualifying call that we're trying to book with a prospect. We call it a free consulting session. I don't know, whatever it is. The mindset is spot on, love it. We can come back to that in a second, perhaps. But is there any way to verbally communicate what we're trying to achieve with the buyer whether it's via emails, cold calls, cadences, [crosstalk 00:13:18] outreach, whatever it is. How do we very literally tell the buyer that we are different to all of the other people who are spamming their inboxes.   Fred Copestake: [inaudible 00:13:27] we could call it what you want.   Will Barron: Sure. Yeah.   Fred Copestake: Finish what you do as a result of it. But yeah, I know how important it is to title something to give that indication. But this stuff will come out from the very first moment. And you're talking there about the outreach and about why should I have a meeting with you? Why should I have a meeting with you? Because I want to talk to you about my wonderful training programme that's got lots and lots of things. It's got a little robot you can talk to. It's got excellent videos. It's got me talking. It's like, “Okay whatever.”   Fred Copestake: But if you are talking about, “Look, this is what I understand about you. This is what I understand about your world. These are the challenges that are happening, and that there is a way to deal with this that we can probably help you with.” So have some thoughts around these areas, and then let's start to talk about it having already consumed some stuff. You are already way further down the line of what it is that you're trying to do. So you've got to be demonstrating the understanding of people, of their world, of what they're trying to achieve to earn the right for that call, if you like.   Will Barron: Yep. Sure.   Fred Copestake: To just walk in and, “But I'll do that in the call.” No, not good enough. You won't, or certainly with me you won't as a customer because I'm too busy for that. I'm not going to take a chance on have a call because something good might come out of it. No. I don't want to take that risk. Show me this is going to be good because we're going to get stuff out of it, because I've seen what you were doing already and even where you approached it. That's what I want to be doing.   How to Remove Friction in Your Sales Processes by Practicing Consultative Selling · [14:42]    Will Barron: So is it fair to say then, and tell me if this is completely off base, your cold outreach email could be an hypothesis about the buyer. You've looked into the company, you've compared it with your best customers, you've compared it with people who have failed in the marketplace, whatever reason. We have a problem that you can solve.   Will Barron: And you perhaps lead with, Hey, you are similar to this. We've worked with them in the past on these three things. This is what they had issue with. Here's a piece of content, here's a case study or whatever on how we solved it. Would it make sense to jump on a quick call, to see if you had these issues and if we can solve it for you. Is that the kind of outreach that then leads to these kind of consultative call? I keep trying to pull back on calling it a sales call because it's more a conversation, right?   Fred Copestake: It's still a sales call. Yeah. That's what modern fashion salespeople do. So yeah, its like that but shorter.   Will Barron: Sure.   “I probably wouldn't be down with, “Have a little look at this,” because now you're making the customer have to do something. If you've called out the challenges, if you called out the things that will prove that you do know what you're talking about, that should be enough just to get the ball rolling.” – Fred Copestake · [15:45]    Fred Copestake: I know. And we know we've got to try to make something short as possible. So yeah, it is sort of saying in your world this is probably the stuff that's going on. Bang, bang, bang. Yeah. We have dealt with people like this. I probably wouldn't even be down with, “Have a little look at this,” because now again, you're making the customer have to do something. If you've called out the challenges, if you called out the things that they will recognise as that you do know what you're talking about, that should be enough just to get the ball rolling, if you like.   Will Barron: Sure. [crosstalk 00:16:04]-   Fred Copestake: But as soon as it's coming, me, me, me, we, we, we, I, I, I… It's like, “Good for you. [crosstalk 00:16:08]-   Will Barron: I had a good pitch from my way the other week, Fred. It was a copywriter. So we are launching, I won't talk about it too much because it's going to go off in every podcast I do. So I don't want to plug it too much, but we're launching a free version of our sales code assessment. Relaunching it, because two people tried to take it originally, it crashed, And so we've had to re-engineer it so it can handle the kind of traffic they're thrown at it. So with that said, someone tried to take it, couldn't get through it, page crashed.   Will Barron: And so they emailed me going, “Hey, it seems like you're having tonnes of success here with this specific thing.” So obviously they've got my attention because they obviously care about what we're doing. And he was like, “Hey, I'm a copywriter. I would love to help you write some follow up emails for the sales code assessment. And I'll take the ideas out of your brain. I'll put them in copy that people will click on, and I'll save you hundreds of hours worth of faffing about to do so.” And he won a bunch of business, like two or three grand worth of copyright business out of me just from that one cold email.   Will Barron: And I think he was actually surprised how, because I just said, “send me an invoice,” and immediately just I was like, “If you could send me that email, you can write emails from me that will work as well.” And I think he was slightly shocked at how quick I just paid him. But that was an email that got my attention, obviously wasn't spam because it was so specific to me. It made me go, “Ah. That's what I need. I've not got time for all this copywriting and stuff. But I do want my thoughts and ideas to be the lead of all this.” And he's going to suck it out with me, do the legwork, and provide me with a great copy.   Will Barron: And I said that was a cold email from some dude I never heard of. Got paid a few hours later. And the work was done a few hours after that. And I was like, “That was a great cold email.”   Personalized Versus Relevant Sales Emails · [17:44]   Fred Copestake: But that's a brilliant example because, again, done the homework. Has looked at what you are doing, your world. Has made that so relevant to you. And I think people get confused only between personalised and relevant. It's, “Hey Will, I looked at your link to your profile and you went to the same university as me and you like dogs.” And, “Yeah. But I talk to my mates in the pub about that. So I don't need to pay someone to talk to about that.” Yeah. But they're saying, “This is what's happened. This is what you are doing. It's bang up to date.” And you're thinking, “You must be watching me carefully because I literally only just announced that.” So you've taken the opportunity, responded to it, it is all about me. So yeah, come on, let's carry on the conversation because I don't feel as though I'm going to be wasting my time here. [crosstalk 00:18:27] example.   When You Earn the Right to Sell to a Prospect, You Put Yourself In a Better Position to Get the Business · [18:27]     Will Barron: I feel like what we're saying is not common sense, but it is somewhat obvious. If you pitch yourself as the buyer, all this makes top sense. As a salesperson we're so indoctrinated. And media and society has their own thoughts and opinions about salespeople as the stereotype, which probably floods into our industry as well. Is it fair to say that if we put ourselves in the buyer's position, a lot of what we're describing right now would be more obvious and clear to us?   Fred Copestake: Yeah I mean, in some ways it is obvious when you get it, I suppose. So it's a bit harsh to call it that. But yeah, again, salespeople perceive it as, “Oh you've got to go and you've got to have the gift for the gab. And you've got to sell ice to Eskimos and talk the hind legs off a donkey,” and all this kind of thing. As opposed to it's no you've got to be really good at understanding other people to be able to put yourself in their shoes, to talk about the thing that they find most interesting, which is themselves, to then work out, “Well, actually we can work together on this to make you a better version of yourself. To do what you are trying to do better, quicker, more effectively, whatever.”   Fred Copestake: And by demonstrating that that's how you are and that's what your approach to sales is early on. Then again, yeah, like I say, that's why people want to speak to you because you are a more collaborative person because you're going to be using, like I said, risk of repeating consultative sales skills. You'll work out what's going on there. Where are they now? Where do they want to be? You'll think then, “Okay, I can solve that pain.” And you never use that word with the customer. Please never ever use that word with the customer. But you can solve those issues, those challenges, those concerns, and add more into it. At the same time, let's build some value into what we're doing because we're spending time together, there's other things that I can do. I can lead the discussion. We can start to go down this route. I can introduce other people. We can do all of these things, but yeah, we've got to earn the right early on and demonstrate that` that's how we go about stuff, otherwise hidden gems because we'll never have those conversations.   Will Barron: So obviously I agree with you, which is a problem. Right? Because these episodes are more-   Fred Copestake: I know. Boring isn't it?   Will Barron: … exciting when I'm debating people or I'm going back and forth. Obviously clearly-   Fred Copestake: [crosstalk 00:20:33] in a minute.   Stop Doing These Things If You Want More Time For Productive Sales Activities · [20:33]    Will Barron: So I'll try and play the devil's advocate a little bit here, Fred. And I feel like if someone's listening, they're driving along in the car now. They're just off to the office. They're off to see a customer wherever it is. They're going. This sounds fantastic. I've not got time to do any of this crap. I'm so busy. All I can do each morning is click send on this email cadence that's going to spam 500 people with a kind of customised, personalised email. And I know that I can scrape up 1% or 2% of those suckers and they'll jump on a call. And then everything can fall into place, right? A lot of people will be thinking, “Once I get the right person at the right time with the right product and the right need on the phone, then I can have the consultative conversation.”   Will Barron: So if we're going to go for this approach which is high touch and hopefully higher conversion rate. So we end up doing more revenue on the back of it via less outreach, via less annoyance to the market. We want to reach out to people who are the right people, at the right place, at the right time. Perhaps we can trigger events, and things can be engineered somewhat with pricing or whatever it is. But with that in mind, how do we start to free up time on the other side of things? You mentioned this at the top of the show. How do we become less busy and less productive? Is there anything in the hybrid selling world that we should stop doing to free up time to do the activities that we know generate results?   Fred Copestake: Right. If somebody picks up a copy of the book, if I had known a copy of the book, we'll put a link to the scorecard in that I've developed, which people can answer questions to see how close they are to what I believe is the modern selling model and way of operating moving forward. And if they don't do that, well, the good news is they'll have plenty of time to do whatever they want because they will be at a risk of becoming irrelevant. And the issue that I've got and why I love coming on things like this so I can talk about it, is that we can be little bit like that metaphorical frog in the water that's warming up. It's getting warmer and warm and warmer. The frog doesn't know and so it doesn't know to jump out, but it'll end up boiling itself. And that's what's going on.   Fred Copestake: So you can sort of carry on doing what you've always done. You're getting this limited and less and less success. And that is what's going to create the busyness. And so hopefully what I can do, and also fellow trainers who do think like this, is saying, “Just stop and give yourselves a moment. And think about how are you doing it because it isn't going to be something that's going to future proof you.” You'll get away with it for a bit, but ultimately it will not be effective. It just won't work full-stop. But you'll not really notice it, and potentially until it's too late. And that sounds quite, I don't know, doom and gloom. But equally it is massive opportunity because if you get ahead of the game and you start doing this stuff, make yourself time to do all of the things that, I believe, are involved in hybrid selling, you will be a better operator for longer, basically.   This is The Modern Selling Model. Are You Practicing It? · [23:37]    Will Barron: How do we know, and this maybe the most ridiculous question I've ever asked, how do we know if we're the frog, Fred? How do we know if we're that frog?   Fred Copestake: That's the point. You don't. I mean, apart from somebody comes along and they say, “Here. Have my assessment for free. Just look at that, pick up the recommendations off the back of it and go and do something about it,” because a lot of the things, a lot of the hybrid selling model I talk about, it's not brand new. “God. Here's a lesson in how not to sell stuff on our sales podcast.” But what I'm saying is that here are some of the things that are recognised as being good selling that you might well be doing. We'll make sure you carry on doing it and you make it part and parcel of daily activity.   Fred Copestake: There might be things that you don't recognise but which actually have been around for a bit. And there are some things that you'd say, “Ah, they are a little bit newer and I need to get my head around from those new techniques.” And what I'm trying to do is I've tried to set it out as cleanly as possible, as simply as possible. To say, “Look. Consider these things and get these into the way that you operate because otherwise your performance isn't going to be good enough.”   Will Barron: Okay. So therefore, I will link to the scorecard below this episode on YouTube. And then in the [inaudible 00:24:44] over at salesman.org. I will also do the scorecard myself and I'll put my score on the show notes to see how I perform. And if I'm just a massive hypocrite doing these shows with yourself, Fred, then I'm just a nonsense salesperson myself, which could be the case. It could be. I could be the frog.   Fred Copestake: It could well be. No, it'd be really interesting. Thank you. Thank you for offering to me the frog in this live dissection. Oh, this is getting a bit weird. No, but what might well come across, without being a mind reader or anything, is that I do know that stuff. I was aware of it. I've used it in the past. “Hey, we're out of medical wrap.” We used to do that stuff and I've kind of forgot it in this role. But I should be bringing it in because I mean, if people want the simple takeaway for this it's that the analogy that I use, it's like playing a drum. And that if your performances, you've got a little drum and you're tapping it away with a single drum stick, that performance might just about have been good enough. As we go forward because of the speed of change, and it's to do with the speed of change, it will not be enough.   Fred Copestake: And what we need to do as salespeople is assemble ourselves this full drum kit. We've got all these different bits that we can play and that we hit as and when it's the right time to do that. So we become a more accomplished and a kind of a fuller operator in what we do. And most people will probably, if they're truly honest with themselves, step back and go, “You know what? Yeah. My drum kit isn't big enough.” I need to start building up, now, literally for the here and now. But also certainly moving forward if I want to have a career in this I need to be bringing that thing up.   Will Barron: Sure. Something that I'm doing this year which I've never done before, and it seems absolutely ludicrous, is quarterly reviews. So I've got one coming up in a few weeks from now. And I think salespeople should be doing this as well. I'm taking three days off: no content production, no customer calls, no one-on-one mentoring, or anything. And I'm just going to look through the numbers I'm going to see what's working, what isn't, what content is, what isn't. And we get tonnes and tonnes of customer feedback because so many people go through the training programme of what people want, what people don't want. And how ludicrous is that. I've never. I've just been so busy that I've never done that before routinely.   Why You as an Individual Sales Rep Need to Start Reviewing Your Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly Sales Activities · [26:50]    Will Barron: At the end of every year we do a big poll, like 5,000, 6,000 people giving those responses. And that kind of goes into a big database, and numbers get spat out of that, and thoughts and opinions that we can improve upon. But yeah, quarterly report is something I never did when I was in a sales role, other than maybe we had a quarterly sales meeting so I needed to do some kind of presentation for that. But really deep diving into the CRM, into the email marketing that we're doing and everything like that, is my mission this year so I can avoid becoming the frog.   Fred Copestake: Yeah. And that hopefully, and by the sounds of it, will involve a lot of review of yourself. And that's again another drum that I said I beat, which is that salespeople have got to take time for themselves. They've got to give themselves time to stop and think. And then as we get under pressure and as the world speeds up and we're trying to do all this stuff, that busy, busy, busy goes into a bit of a vicious circle because we don't just stop and go, “Hang on a minute. What am I doing? Is it making a difference here? Am I doing the right stuff? How can I get better at the things that I need to do? Am I concentrating on the wrong area?” And we just feel kind of guilty giving ourselves that time. So I strongly advise salespeople to just give themselves some thinking space, some reflection time, because that is an investment. Think of it as an investment. That's how I'd make a recommendation on that. I mean, I do that every day.   Will Barron: Yep. How [crosstalk 00:28:17]-   Fred Copestake: I do that every day. And people go…   How to Review Your Individual Selling Activities · [28:16]    Will Barron: Was it a process?   Fred Copestake: I talk to a robot. Yes Fred, we'll cut this bit out. No seriously, I talk to a robot. I use this app called Rocky AI, Rocky.ai. It's an artificial intelligent chat bot. But rather than you ask the artificial intelligence something and it gives you an answer like, “Hey Siri, what's the capital of,” Rocky asks you questions so you've got to answer these things. So first thing in the morning, grab the phone. And I know people say, “Oh, that's the worst thing you can do.” Yeah. But first thing I do is put Rocky on. So in the morning he's asking me about, I have it turned on at the moment onto clarity and purpose. It's asking what's driving you today. Why are you doing this thing? How are you going to do this? It's five minutes, but it's the questions that it asks like any good coach would, that makes me think.   Fred Copestake: And again, you type these things in and it's using the AI. It's using machine learning to then ask a question based on the response you give. And then suggesting little nuggets to read. It's an amazing little programme. It's so cool.   Will Barron: I love that.   Fred Copestake: And yeah, no, it is good. And then in the evening, again while Mrs. Is watching EastEnders, whatever. It's like, “Okay bang. Rocky on. 7:00. Blah, blah, blah,” another five minutes answering questions. What have you done in the day? Reflecting, and of course the question triggering questions. Salespeople shouldn't need explaining why questions are such a good thing. That's what Rocky does. He's brilliant. And again, I personalise him a bit too much, I think. But no, it's a nice big kit.   Will Barron: Well, about 85% of the audience are going, “What in the hell is EastEnders?” So that's an inside joke for, it was Brit, right? Well, I do something similar but less tech focused and a little bit more old school of I just read a book every morning. And I'll read books that are provocative books that are on coaching, or whatever I'm trying to learn at the moment. And I just take great pleasure in making a… I want the dog. The dog is just laying next to me. I'll stroke him. I'll have a coffee, a strong coffee. And I'll just sit and read. Me misses gets up, say, an hour later than what I do each morning. And that process of just having someone else's thought in my brain, it's almost like a meditative thing. And I get loads of ideas. And I'll be thinking that, “Oh, I've come out of ideas.” It's similar to being in the shower, right?   Fred Copestake: Yeah.   Will Barron: Where you focus on one thing, or you're not focusing on anything, you're subconscious is spitting up all these things that has been focusing on during the night, and it's been working on while you've been asleep. And I'll have the notepad next to me and I'll write down all kinds of stuff, 80% of it nonsense. But then it's the 10% of, “Hey, you were a bit rude in the car the other day when that person drove in front of you.” What does that mean? Or this book is talking about… I'm reading two books on minimalism at the moment and I'm trying to implement that into our business as we touched on before we clicked record, Fred, of how to simplify things. A whole training process, and methodologies, selling made simple. So how can I put that even further into the world whilst also driving expensive cars and having a nice big house and stuff, so there's obviously a bit of balance there with some of this.   The Minimalism Mindset in Sales · [31:14]    Will Barron: And it's something that, in fact, just this morning, I got this quote I was like, “That is genius. That is really powerful.” I'll share it with you now. You tell me what you think, Fred. I don't know how this relates to sales, but I'm going to butcher the quote slightly but it was on the lines of, “Minimalism is removing everything that doesn't help you become the person you want to become.” So I guess if we put that into the sales perspective, we can probably get rid of a lot of crappy cold outreach that doesn't help us. We can probably start doing a lot more referrals and things like that proactively help people you've already helped. You can stop, which I think you might be on board of as well of, because you've been mentioned a few times go back to things that have worked in the past and leverage them as opposed to try and reinvent things, or use this new sales tool, or use this, this AI robot that's going to spit out all these things.   Will Barron: And in my experience, none of it is ever that valuable, the sales tech stack, other than the obvious tools that we need. And it's if we think about sales like that of who you want to become that quota crushing salesperson, well you've got to become the person who can do the work and then you've got to choose the right work to do and just scrap everything else. Right?   Fred Copestake: Yeah. No. I think all of those. And I take it another angle as well is think about it from a customer perspective. I mean again, that's how we should be thinking as salespeople. So it's minimalism. Less really is more, often, because when you say, “Well, I'm not really sure what to sell this person. So if I just keep telling them stuff, I just keep talking, I just keep giving them more things, more features, more benefits, more stuff, more whatever, more stories, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. They'll be able to pick out something that's good for them.”   Fred Copestake: Well, that's lazy. And that's why the customers are saying, “I don't want to talk to this person anymore. They're not making my life any easier.” But by having that real focus as to I want to speak to you because I reckon that these are some of the things that will be challenges for you because they are challenges to other people in your world. And I've even done a bit of research to see that, actually, I can know that's what you're going through. Let's have a chat about it. This then is the response for you. This is what you need to do. Less is more. I mean, what a brilliant sales approach rather than just chuck everything at it and hope that something sticks.   How to Guide Buyers Towards Purchasing Decisions · [33:20]   Will Barron: You can almost reframe it as, within reason, do what the customer wants and then just scrap all the other crap that you're doing. And as long as you don't take it too literally, but that's your mindset, you're going to be on the right track there, right?   Fred Copestake: Yeah. Yeah. And then this isn't about being subservient to customers by the way. Yeah. So as I talk a lot about leading customers, and again, I use that word because well it forms an acronym evolve which is in the book. But it deliberately gets people's back up a little bit. It's like, “What? You are saying salespeople should lead customers?” So yeah, absolutely I am. Not up the garden path. Not in an '80s kind of manipulative way where we're trying to get them to do stuff they don't really want to do. And we're using all these and trickery things. It's leading them in something that they are struggling with, they don't know how to do. So maybe the word guide would be better. But yeah, we're doing that sort of stuff. But it's doing this stuff that is absolutely relevant to that.   Fred Copestake: A word I keep going back to, whenever I'm thinking about hybrid selling and I'm thinking about helping people be moderate, helping people balanced out. I keep going back to relevance. Is what you're doing relevant to the customer, to you, whatever? And so, yeah, that's why I try to do. And I mean, that's why I did write the book so quickly because I thought, “These change have happened, they weren't foreseen, they probably changes which were going to happen anyway it's just they happened so fast. Let's get people ahead the game and get them doing stuff that's just going to help them.”   Will Barron: Yep. I remember I've talked about this on this show before, we can wrap up with this, these tales about the books of when I was in medical device sales I had actual arguments with sales management, a regional sales director, what was his titled?The national sales director of I was not allowed to give our customers catalogues. I was not allowed to leave product catalogues with surgeons so they could look through. And there was no pricing or anything in these catalogues. Heaven forbid email over pricing of multiple products rather than sending them a quote. And even to log in online, this last company I worked for had incredible content. They worked with some of the world's top leading colorectal surgeons, urologists, gynaecologists in, I wouldn't name the company. I know they did that. But in their own operating theatres, using all their equipment. And the surgeons were more than happy to promote and talk about the procedures and how they were innovating in their space.   Will Barron: You had to get a log in to jump into this crappy '90s portal where nothing worked. It definitely didn't work on your phone. It was so backwards when if you, and they've done it now, if you dump those videos on YouTube they'd have tens of thousands of views which doesn't seem like much. But these are tens of thousands of high level surgeons, maybe there's only 50,000 of these individual surgeons in the world. You have a massive percentage of them learning how to do these procedures from your content so of course they're going to go with your product or service.   The Hybrid Selling Environment is Here. You Either Get Onboard Now or Get Left Behind · [36:15]    Will Barron: Now I had so many battles trying to communicate this. So I feel like what we're describing here, regardless of the pandemic, regardless of whatever else, just with the way that the internet has evolved, the way that business consumer sales has evolved, I think this was always going to happen and perhaps we've just been slapped in the face of it a bit quicker.   Fred Copestake: It's a bit quicker. And just the use of the technology, the using video, the virtual, all this kind of stuff, sending video. Again, some people are saying, “Oh. I'm not going to do that.” Okay. Well don't do that now, then. You're missing a treat because there are people that are. And I was talking on a sales training last week. I said, “Look, in two years time this will just be the absolute norm. It's what we will be training for. Just the way to do stuff.” Now you can be slightly ahead of the game. So yeah, probably going slightly off track. But no, you're right, it's again, I'll go back to the value the salesperson brings is in the conversation, or it's in the way that they can structure the whole sale so that they're guiding the right people through the right things that they're trying to do. They're stimulate in the right thinking. They're getting the right conversations going. They're showing the right things at the right time or confirming to people who've already done their own diagnosis stuff that, yes, what you saw there is correct.   Fred Copestake: That's where the salesperson has value. It's not with, “I've got this information. And if you're nice I might show you some.” But we've got all that information from you, your competitors, everyone else. And the fact that I've been in medical sales. I've been at university for seven years to learn about it and practised it for another 20. So yeah, I can live without you, thanks mate.   Parting Thoughts · [37:58]    Will Barron: My experience is the buyer comes to you just asking for your pricing and your withholding anyway. They're probably just justifying the fact that they've worked with someone else, or they're putting out a tender or something anyway. So at that point, if you're only engaging you've probably lost the deal already. With that, Fred, we'll wrap on that, mate. Tell us about the books. Tells us a little bit more about the scorecard that will be linked below this video or in the show notes as well. And anything else you want to share, mate?   Fred Copestake: Yeah. Well, I'd say the book I wrote pretty quickly because book one came out and then everything changed. But actually it's not. But one's still very relevant. But Hybrid Selling, there's three parts to it. Part one, there's a story. So we've got two little sales guys, Harry and Larry. They're probably good mates for your Sam actually, to be fair. So yeah, Harry and Larry, and what they do is they've got to go through some changes. Clearly they've got to work out how to get through some quite difficult times. I wrote it like that because I wanted people to identify with where they might be. I mean, I know that storytelling is really effective. Basically they invent the evolve model. And so in part two, I had to go through the evolve model which are the six main elements that I believe make up that big drum set thing I was talking about.   Fred Copestake: So we talk about the essentials of selling, so the big foundations, the basics, the stuff that we've got to do to make sure we are good at sales. I talk about virtual selling. So yeah, we talked about it, working on video, sending video, social selling, I had that put in to that mix for I needed to put it somewhere. And think about some of the AI tools. To our opportunity management, so again it's thinking about what information do we have? How do we use that? How do we map out what the actions are going to be as a result? How do we take that stuff forward?   Fred Copestake: And talk about leading, as we've just been saying. How can you guide people? How can you align to their process if they know what it is? How can you help the design process if they don't? Talk about value selling, again, this stuff's been around a long time but I sometimes wonder do people do it well? We seem to have this thing at the moment where people turn up and go, “I'm going to tell you where your value is.” It's, well really, value selling is helping somebody to understand what the value could be and how we can work on that together. Talk about how you expand the sales, so it's account management stuff, customer success management stuff, because we should be selling results and outcomes.   Fred Copestake: So that packs the bottle up in that nice section as well. Okay, so what are you going to do about it? You'll appreciate it as involved in training that information is good, but it's all about implementation. So it's how can I help people to take this stuff and start to do stuff with it? So some extra analysis tools in there so they can start to understand themselves, broadly like the scorecard that we'll put the link to. But it's all about getting, my mantra is, good people doing good things in a good way. That's how I want to try and help the world of sales, if you like.   Will Barron: Amazing stuff. Well, I appreciate you Fred. I appreciate you're the first person to come on the show and mention EastEnders. You're the first person over, I say this all time, to say Willy nilly. I don't think that translates elsewhere in the world so I appreciate that, mate. I appreciate you.We'll like to the box, the scorecard, and that AI tool that you mentioned it earlier on in this episode over at salesman.org. And with that Fred, I want to thank you again for joining us on the salesman podcast.   Fred Copestake: My pleasure. Thank you.    

Bob Wheeler is a Financial Expert, Motivator, Author of The Money Nerve: Navigating the Emotions of Money. In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Bob offers a simple and effective framework for creating a healthy relationship with money and explains how emotions trigger our financial decisions. You'll learn: Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Bob Wheeler Financial Expert and Best-Selling Author Resources: Bob’s LinkedIn Themoneynerve.com Book: The Money Nerve: Navigating the Emotions of Money Book: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less Book: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Values, and Spiritual Growth Money You Should Ask Podcast Transcript Will Barron: Hi, I'm Will. Welcome to the Salesman podcast. On today's episode, we're looking at how you can improve your relationships with money. Our guest is Bob Wheeler. Bob is the author of The Money Nerve. He helps people conquer their money shame and avoid making poor financial decisions by teaching them how emotions can dictate our choices. And with that Bob, welcome to the show.   Bob Wheeler: Thanks a lot, Will, great to be here.   What’s Your Relationship with Money? · [01:00]   Will Barron: Great job. This is one of those topics that we've had over experts on to talk about in the past, but it's so important for salespeople to have a healthy relationship with money so that they can have success. Then also, hopefully we can transition to this towards the end of the show, it's important for salespeople to be able to communicate effectively without emotional baggage when they're talking about their prospect's money, whether it's the actual ownership of cash from the prospect itself or the money that they are, I guess, the company they're representing called that they're trying to exchange value or services or products for. People get weird about money pretty quick. Let me ask you this Bob, to get us started, is it likely, in your experience, right, that a majority of the listeners listening to the podcast right now, tens of thousands of salespeople, small business owners and everyone else in between, is it likely that they all have a pretty good relationship with money or is it more likely that we're all a little bit messed up on this subject?   Bob Wheeler: Well, unfortunately, I would have to say we're probably all a little messed up on this subject. It just, but that's not a bad thing as long as we get conscious about it, but most of us are working from some unconscious beliefs and money blocks.   Money, Emotions, and Why Our Relationship with Money is So Messed Up · [01:40]    Will Barron: Why is that? If we could start from, if we can pull it all back and start from the beginning, right, are we born, as humans, just with money being a relatively new concept? I don't know how many tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years old cash in an exchange of value via a, like a stones, gold, paper notes, whatever it is now, our brain's just not wired who understand it and we add weird emotions to it? Is it our childhood upbringing? Is it the media? What causes us to be all maybe slightly messed up with our emotions of money?   Bob Wheeler: I mean, it might be all of that, but unfortunately, and I'm not blaming parents here. I'm not blaming the parents, but we are part of our upbringing. A lot of our decisions, a lot of our beliefs, a lot of our rules got formed when we were four or five and six years old. If we were shamed about money, if we watched our parents fight about money, if we were told we were greedy or if we were generous, we started to take all that on at four, five and six, and then we never update the information. We just keep working with it as we go into adulthood. We're still operating with that information we got at four or five and six, which may or may not be helpful or true.   Understanding Our Subconscious Beliefs About Money · [03:00]   Will Barron: Is this because it's all based in our subconscious? Because it seems like if someone has an issue of money, and I'm thinking of a specific friend of mine, right, who is just a, excuse, my French, just a cheap bastard, right? He doesn't want to spend money. He doesn't really want to earn money. If there's money and he is bank account, he wants to get rid of it as quick as possible. Now, I know his mom. I know his family. They're all very like, and this is painting a broad brush strokes here, but they're all hippies, right? They're all from a place of, which might be healthy, of, “Hey, I value experiences and friendships as opposed to nice cars, big houses.” But in the modern world, some of that doesn't quite work because you need a place to live, you need a way to fund your lifestyle kind of thing. So he's a little bit messed up, but he doesn't see it, right?   Bob Wheeler: Right.   Will Barron: I see it from afar. He doesn't see it, understand it. I try to have these conversations with him. I need to hire you Bob to come in and sort some of this out for, but do we have these beliefs and are they stored in our subconscious? Is it difficult for us to see them internally? Or if we're that messed up on it at some point, are we just choosing to live this way?   Bob Wheeler: Yeah, well, we are choosing to live that way until we decide we want to take a look at it. It is certainly not fun. I don't have people running with joy and glee to explore their money past with me or to look at their debt or to look at their spending habits. It's not something we get excited about, but we do carry this. We're going around with our comfort level. So maybe if I'm a hippie-type and I'm comfortable with having no bank over draught, then as soon as I get a $1,000 or 10,000 bucks, I got to spend that money and get back to my comfort level. For some people that might be $50,000 or $100,000 or $2,000. It's different for all of us, but we tend to go back to what comfortable. It's not comfortable looking at the money choices that we've done that haven't served us.   The Healthy Money Mindset and How You Can Adopt It · [05:10]    Will Barron: Is it possible, and I've heard this band around, you better to tell me if, if there's any evidence to support this, but I've heard this banded round that most people will earn plus or minus 20% of what their parents did via the conditioning of their parents or the upbringing or the people that they, I guess, if you are minted, you'd go like to go to a private school. You're spending more time, so those things become normal. And so that's where if you use, I don't know, what would be a metaphor, like a thermostat. Your thermostat would be set at a certain point. If you are beyond that, you want to cool it down. If you're below that you want to heat things back up. Is becoming wealthy as simple as just repositioning that, somehow that thermostat, and then making that your new normal and you're so uncomfortable until you're there that you're going to hustle, you're going to change things, you're going to change your mindsets to make that happen?   Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. I think what it is it's not just changing the thermostat so that all of a sudden more money comes in. It's changing the thermostat so that your mindset gets slightly adjusted. If you're in a mindset of spend, spend, spend, spend, and you adjust it to, “Oh, maybe I should save 20%. Oh, maybe I should start investing a little bit more money. I should save for retirement.” It's those types of adjustments where we're shifting our mindset, not necessarily, “Oh yes. I want 10 million more dollars to flow into my bank account.” Certainly that would be nice. It's also, “am I willing to let that happen? Do I deserve it? Am I going to actually let my money start to work for me?” Instead of, “How can I spend my money so I can live in the moment.”   Will Barron: I'm going to give you a super practical example now of something that I've bought that I feel I don't deserve. It's absolutely ludicrous, right? The audience will hopefully enjoy this as well. I've been watching a bunch of documentaries and reading books on this principle of minimalism, right? I'm not entirely sold that I need to live in a shack with one toothbrush and one pair of clothes. But I interviewed Greg McKeown, he's the author of Essentialism as well. I interviewed him with a while back. He drilled this idea into my head of, less but better. That's what I'm trying to lean into, right?   Bob Wheeler: Yeah.   Will Barron: As I say, this example is so, so stupid. I've got a cordless here in the office. I've got a cordless vacuum cleaner and I've got a corded one. I never use the corded one, because it's a pain in the ass, because there's cables everywhere and there's camera equipment everywhere. So I just never use it. The cordless one is just a cheap, crappy thing that doesn't pick up anything, so that's pointless as well. Today I spent 500 quid on the best cordless Dyson that there is right or it's coming tomorrow morning. Immediately, I was like, “Is that too much to spend on a vacuum cleaner?” It doesn't matter, right? I making enough money that that is just so insignificant. It's irrelevant. I wouldn't even notice it coming out my bank account, right?   Bob Wheeler: Right.   How to Overcome Your Money Guilt · [08:24]    Will Barron: I still pondered on, “Have I been a sucker buying this cordless vacuum thing from Dyson?” The idea being I'll have that'll do the best of both worlds of the other two and I'll just bin the other two, less stuff in the office, less stuff for me to think about, maintain, all that good stuff. What is the weird feeling that I'm feeling there about this ridiculous purchase? Then perhaps we can scale this up then to actual meaningful purchases that people either are making or holding back in their lives.   Bob Wheeler: Well, there's probably a bit of guilt there, right? Even though you're making a lot of money, it still doesn't feel, if we're cheap or we're tight with our money or there's a scarcity mindset, who am I to go out and do this thing? There's people out in the world that are hungry. There are people that are trying to get it together and I'm not going to go out and spend all this money on a vacuum cleaner just so I don't have to plug it in.   Will Barron: Do you know what, Bob? As you say that at me, the thing that comes to my mind, right, and this might be useful for the audience, is so I call my dad every day, right? Mom passed away four or five years ago, so I call every day we have quick chat about stuff. He he ran a small business, so we have intelligent conversations about marketing and all that kind stuff. I'm going to tell him tomorrow that I spent 500 quid on Hoover. He's going to go, “What? Are you crazy?” And so maybe some of the guilt is being somehow tied to this flippant conversation that doesn't mean anything. My dad's not bothered about it really, but I know he is going to take the piss out on me tomorrow when I mention it because he wouldn't spend that much, so maybe is that unravelling some of this further perhaps?   Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. Because we also either do things to support our parents. Mom and dad, you're always right. Or we do things in defiance of them. So if you have a great relationship with your dad and now you've done something he wouldn't have done, like maybe you're not a good boy, maybe you're not the good son that you thought you were. And so that may come into play, like I'm still a good guy, even though I didn't follow what you would've done.   Will Barron: And so this is weird though, right? Because it's meaningless.   Bob Wheeler: Right.   The Emotions That Dictate Our Relationship with Money · [10:29]    Will Barron: I don't know if that is true for me, what you just said, unless it's so deep in my subconscious that as an adult or maybe I'm just refusing to believe and agree with that. Maybe that is the case. But why do we have this, why do we form a relationship with money, with objects, with spending things, with death? Why is there emotions tied to what is essentially a very logical thing, right, which is numbers on a screen or pieces of paper in our pocket? Why do we tie emotion to all this? Why am I now feeling embarrassed and guilty about sharing this story on the podcast that thousands of thousands of people are going to see, hear and probably email having a laugh about?   “When it comes to money, we're all judging and we're all getting judged. And so the question is, can we tolerate the judgement?” Bob Wheeler · [11:45]   Bob Wheeler: Well, here's the thing. We start off early, “Hey, I want that present. I want a bicycle.” “You're greedy. You're a selfish little kid. You don't think of other people. If you get good grades, I'll give you some money. If you misbehave, I'll disinherit you. If you do this, you can buy my love.” And so we, early on, start attaching values to good, bad, evil, greedy, and so now, “Am I going to be greedy if I ask for this, if I ask for too much? Do I ask for just enough? How do I self advocate?” It becomes this whole mind game of, “Am I good enough? Do I deserve to ask for these things or go for it or do I need to apologise so that other people don't judge me?” We're all judging and we're all getting judged. And so can we tolerate the judgement ?   Will Barron: Do you know what's even funny as I think about this? I'll leave the analogy at this, Bob, cause I'm not sure it's the best analogy that I've ever come up with or analogy, metaphor, wherever this is. I'm going to go back to the house after this from the office. Me Mrs. bought the last Hoover for the house and that's a Dyson, like V8. Well, I've just bought this Dyson V15. I can't wait to show Emily tomorrow that I've bought a way better Hoover for the office than what we've got there. As you said then there's this idea of like comparison, this idea of competition, there's like a different relationship with me Mrs. misses than what I have with me dad. And so this is incredibly com-, this is more, I didn't, I didn't mean to go into the show with this analogy right? But this is, even for someone like myself, who I thought I had some of this nailed, this can go pretty deep, right?   “Here's the funny thing, many people in relationships are in competition. They're actually like, I beat you. I got you. I did better. It's not conscious, but it's amazing how many times I ask couples, are you on the same team or are you trying to beat each other? I just get this blank look.” – Bob Wheeler · [12:41]   Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. Here's the funny thing, so many people in relationships are in competition, right? They're actually, I beat you. I got you. I did better. It's not conscious, but it's amazing how many times I ask couples, are you on the same team or are you trying to beat each other? I just get this blank look.   Will Barron: Me and my Mrs., we have, I'd say we have a healthy element of competitiveness to our relationship, right?   Bob Wheeler: Yeah.   Will Barron: The best way I describe it, I think it was the road less travelled, it's Scott Peck. I don't know if you're familiar with that book.   Bob Wheeler: Yeah, that's a great book.   Will Barron: Something's stood out to me in that, and this totally sidetracked, but I'll come back to sales in a second. Something that really struck me from that book was this idea of you should choose to be in a relationship as opposed to be in a relationship because the other person fills a whole that you think you have. The reason I bring this up is that I think this translates well to sales. It translates well to your friends, your family. You want to work with customers who value you, being there, as opposed to you solving a problem that's they're so desperate to solve, that they desperately need you because then things get a little bit weird and you get people asking for refunds or being overburdened on your time, especially if you're in a consulting type role.   How to Overcome Your Money Shame · [14:00]    Will Barron: With that all said, we've used me as an example here. I've looked silly. I'm happy to do that for the audience. Let's imagine that 99% of the audience all have been people who've worked with you directly, Bob, also have these issues, right?   Bob Wheeler: Yeah.   Will Barron: How do we solve them? Let's get practical about this. Do we need to sit there on a bed, lay back and have someone go into our, Freudian style, go into our subconscious and unravel all these issues that we had with our parents inadvertently saying money grows on trees or all these other notions about cash? Do we need to go through 25 years of therapy to get back to baseline or is there another way to go about doing this?   Bob Wheeler: Well, you don't have to spend 25 years exploring this stuff for sure. It does matter that you get a little bit curious about what you've done in the past. For me, when I work with people, whether I work with them directly or I'm just working with somebody and giving them some guidance is to just do some journaling, get out a journal, get out a book and start writing down memories that you remember, what did mom and dad say about money, did I grow up with my grandparents, did I grow up in a culture that honoured money or made it bad and just really start to become aware of what's my money history. You don't need somebody and you have to lay on a couch and spend hours and hate your parents and all that stuff. But it is important to go, “Oh, that's where that comes from.”   Bob Wheeler: Then start to actually listen to the words you use. I'm amazed at how many people to me and say, “Bob, I'm so broke. I can't afford this. I can't pay these taxes.” Really? You've got three properties that are all making great rental income. You just flew to Europe, for those in America. That's an expense, right? And so there's this story that, “Oh my gosh, I'm such a victim. I'm so poor.” The reality is it's not true. And so the more we can listen to what we're saying and start to realise, “Oh, I'm making different choices other than saving my money. I'm choosing to spend instead of invest.” And so it takes us out of this story.   Bob Wheeler: The biggest thing for me is, and I'm an accountant, so cost-benefit. What's it costing me to stay in my story? What's the benefit? I don't have to be big. I don't have to succeed. I get to stay small, but maybe at the cost of my soul, maybe.   Positive Behaviors and Attitudes About Money You Absolutely Must Have · [16:23]    Will Barron: Is there always a benefit? Even if that benefit doesn't serve your long term purpose, is there always a seemingly positive reason behaviour that people have about money?   Bob Wheeler: Absolutely, and I would say the main one is comfort. I don't have to feel uncomfortable. I don't have to step out of my comfort zone. People can't judge me for doing something different. I don't have to worry about failure. I get to just stay right here and nobody's expecting anything different.   Will Barron: When going to journal. We're going to investigate our thoughts and beliefs. We're going to eventually, which things like my dad always says, still says it now, “Money doesn't grow on trees,” which I don't take seriously, but maybe there's some deep, dark Freudian elements to that that's sabotaging my success moving forward, right? Perhaps we become aware of some of this. We change the narrative. When that crops up in our mind, we immediately try and focus on the fact that we look for evidence that it to be true. If it's not true, we can discount some of it. We need to understand what the positive reasons are for us having these behaviours, whether that be comfort or we've been rejected in the past, and we don't want to get rejected in the future, whatever it is. Perhaps that gets us back to baseline or perhaps slightly net positive of our beliefs of money.   The Cornerstone of a Positive Money Mindset · [17:45]   Will Barron: Are there any money, beliefs that we should proactively try and instil in our brains as if we can go through, if we can be our own weird father archetype and programme our own brains or hire a hypnotist or whatever it is, is there anything that we should be programming to ourselves that will enable us to be more successful, invest more and perhaps if people have debts get out of debts and that side of things as well?   Bob Wheeler: Absolutely, so I would say to be able to spend less than you make, right? Make more than you spend. That is so many of us live beyond our means, and so dialling it back just a little bit and also, which that ties to delayed gratification, learning to experience delayed gratification. If I don't go out and take this little trip for the weekend or go out to the pub and drink a bunch of drinks, I might have that money for the down payment on a rental property, I might be able to make different choices. And so I think those are two things that are really important.   “Look at your spending, do a budget. Budgets are amazing, even though people cringe at them. Budgets give us a lot of information. If we can do that, we can start to actually set life long goals. For example, I want to have this much in savings. I want to have a retirement plan. I want to have a house. I want to have a house in the country, whatever those things are, so that as we are currently spending today, we can ask ourselves, “Is this spending in line with what I say I want for my future?” – Bob Wheeler · [18:50]    Bob Wheeler: I would also look at your spending, do a budget. Budgets are amazing, even though people cringe at that. Budgets give us a lot of information. If we can do that, we can start to actually set life long goals. I want to have this much in savings. I want to have a retirement. I want to have a house. I want to have a house in the country, whatever those things are, so that as currently spending today, we can ask ourselves, “Is this spending in line with what I say I want for my future?”   Will Barron: I'm going to be selfish here for a second, because I think this might be useful for myself, right? We got a training academy. To get the training academy, you got to either speak to myself or one of my colleagues. We see if the users, the students are good fit and if they fit our principles and if we can actually help them or not, we won't take cash people that we don't think we can five-six times their take home and the commissions, right? It's somewhat of a formal process.   Will Barron: One of the questions we ask is how much do you earn right now? How much do you want to earn? Maybe 50%-60% of the time, the potential student will say, “Well, I earn say $5,000 a month from a base of my commissions. I want to earn $7,000.” Some of this is experience for myself, right? Having done well in B2B sales roles and we've had about 2000 people go through our training programme and not every had massive success, but there's a large majority of them have at least some success, if not tremendous success.   Will Barron: Every time I go, I'm in my brain going $7,000 a month in a complex B2B sales role that they're in the right vehicle. They are just about to get the training and mentoring that they need to have everything that a, from a process standpoint to implement. It's almost like the final step is for them to accept that in that role, they should be earning $300,000 if they put the work in, if they follow the process, and if they can find the one or two points of differentiation in the market and the vibe proposition and things like that, which takes a little bit work and does take efforts. There's no magic pill that we're offering or anything like that.   Will Barron: But then they still come back and say, “Well.” I'll go, “$7,000, is that your goal? Is that your dream? Is it worth all the stress and the rejection of your sales role to earn that amount?” They'll go, “I understand. $8,000.” I'm like, “No, it needs to be like double that otherwise don't work in sales, go and do an office job, go do something else.” Right?   Bob Wheeler: Yeah.   Will Barron: I then not struggle because this is part of the sales process, right? I understand what, I'll tell you what I do. I get them to think where they are, where they want to be, what's stopping it in from one side to the other. Then I frame it as they're the hero and I'm going to guide them from one place to the other. They're Frodo. They're going to get rid of the ring, but I'm, Gandalf who's leading them along and helping them through their journey.   Money Shame and How it’s Preventing You From Making a lot of Money · [21:40]    Will Barron: Is there anything else I can do to help these individuals just open their mind that if they're in the right role and there's other people, I guess what I'm saying is I try and give them logical evidence. I'm not sure this is the best approach. There's other people in your company earning [inaudible 00:21:54] quid a year. Can you do the same? “I guess so.” There's other people in similar roles, in different companies doing that. There are people working less hours than you earning way more. I can introduce you to this student, this student, this student, there's this testimonial, there's this video. I keep giving them logical reasons to change an emotional feeling about what they believe they can achieve in their career. What else should I doing? The logical side of things seems to work, but is there a better approach to this, Bob?   Bob Wheeler: I would probably, if I was talking to somebody and they said, “Yeah, I want to do $7,000,” and I really wanted to see them say %25,000. I'd probably say to them, “What's the worst thing about earning five times what you're currently making? What's going to happen. What's going to be so negative about having extra time and being able to pay for things without even thinking about it? What's going to happen when you start to have all this excess money to do things that you've always dreamed about and you have the ability to travel? What are the negatives?”   “If you can actually focus on all the negative things that are going to happen, you'd be surprised at how many negative things people can list out about when something good happens to them.” – Bob Wheeler · [23:18]    Bob Wheeler: You'll be surprised. A lot of people will start listing out a negative. My parents are going to judge me. My girlfriend's going to judge me. I'm going to have to say no to people that ask me for money, because now everybody's going to say, “Well, Bob's got more money. Will's got more money. Let me hit him up.” I might have to draw boundaries. And so if you can actually focus on what are all the negative things going to happen, you'd be surprised at how many negative things people can list out about when something good happens to them.   How to Overcome the Stigma and the Fear of Making a lot of Money · [23:31]    Will Barron: Then is it a case of squashing each one of those negatives and then that allows them the bandwidth in their brain to see if it's possible to get to that kind of amount?   Bob Wheeler: Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't really say like I squash it. What I would do is I would say, “Is that true? In your experience, if you make more money, do your parents hate you? Do people judge you?” Starting to separate. A lot of times I'll have people say to me, “I've got to get to a certain amount of money or my parents will be really disappointed.” I'll say to them, “Would you be willing to ask your parents what's the dollar amount at which point they stop loving you.” They're like, “What?” Well, you're pretty sure that there's a number, so why don't you ask them and see if that in fact is true because my hunch is your parents are going to love you even if you fail in your eyes. But we're working off these premises and these assumptions that aren't necessarily true. And so the more we can get grounded in reality, we can start to let those stories go.   Will Barron: I love it. Asking that question, “Do you know this to be true? Is there any evidence to support that?” Is there any other, I'm just thinking of very practical for the audience, how they can do this, because we're going to moving onto how the audience can speak to and communicate with someone who's struggling with their own beliefs on money in a second. But is there any evidence that's true? What else did you say? There was a couple of others, Bob, in the like kind of phrases that were mentioned.   Bob Wheeler: Is it true? Is it yeah, is it true? Is this assumption, like, have I seen this happen to me before? Have I seen it to other people? Really just honing in on what story and what's actually happening.   Money Story: What it is and How it Affects Your Spending Habits · [25:18]   Will Barron: Got it, got it. Is that the basic premise of all this, that we can whittle it down? What is a story that you're telling yourself and other people have told you versus what is the reality and what evidence do you have to support one or the other?   Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. Then am I willing to let it go?   Will Barron: Sure. What happens if the …   Bob Wheeler: Or am I going to stay so attached to my story.   Will Barron: What happens if they're not willing to let it go? What happens if they go, “I quite like being skinned. I quite like being poor. I quite like not taking on all this pressure.” I guess that's almost a positive interaction still, because they can walk away and go, “Oh, I'm choosing to do this.” So maybe they can embrace it and stop moaning about it, right?   “I don't want people walking around being victims of their circumstance. I want them to know that they chose it.” – Bob Wheeler · [26:20]    Bob Wheeler: Absolutely. I think for me the biggest thing is at least I'm stop being a victim. If I'm coming from a place of, “Oh, this always happens, this always happens. No, I'm choosing it. Yeah, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do the work. I don't want to do these things to get what I want. I'm actually content.” Great, blessings. Go in peace. I'm not here to force everybody to want to have more money or to have a more fulfilling life if they're comfortable. I don't want people walking around being victims of their circumstance. I want them to know that they chose it.   How to Handle Buyers Who’ve Got a Negative Perception About Spending Money · [26:20]    Will Barron: Amazing stuff. This is really valuable, this episode, Bob. Okay, so let's flip the table slightly. What do, and we've touched on some of this, I'm sure, in the episode so far, but it'd be useful to get more clarity on this specific scenario. What if we are B2B salesperson, we know our product is going to solve a pain point for a potential customer, we know that they've got the budget because it's not their money. Theirs some middle management or a VP level, director level individual within a medium size organisation say.   Will Barron: Let's well, let's make it real. Sam the salesperson is selling accounting software right into a medium size as organisation. We know that we're really going to help the CFO, the accountants that are going to be using this tool day in, day out. But the CFO that we're chatting with just can't be to give up $30 grand a month of revenue for this tool. They feel weird about it. They feel that they're all old school. They feel like their accountant should be using ledgers. I'm sure that disappeared 20 years ago, right? But they should be doing this in paper. There should be a paper trail. They're not ready to move, even though logically, they know that they should do this. What can we do or how do we approach that kind of conversation from a seller's perspective when we know everything is right, it's just the prospect, the pinch buyer has some weird beliefs about money that perhaps we can help them deal with?   “If you really believe in the product, there's nothing to lose by being willing to give it away for 30 days so they can actually get proof personally and actually feel the difference. So, if we really have something that can change somebody's life, I'm of the belief that you should be willing to lose a little in the short run to make a lot in the long run.” – Bob Wheeler · [28:22]    Bob Wheeler: Yeah. Well, the first thing I would do is ask them personal questions as to why this feels so uncomfortable spending this kind of money. The numbers support it. Depending on the company, I'm the type of person that would say, “Look, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. I'll give you 30 days to try this out and you could tell me you hate it or you love it, because I think at the end of 30 days, you're going to discover it's amazing, it's going to be a game changer.” If I really believe in the product, there's nothing to lose by willing to give it away for 30 days, so they can actually get proof personally and be able to go, “Oh my God, I actually feel the difference.” I think a lot of times, if we're just trying to sell snake oil, yeah, maybe we don't want to do that. But if we really have something that can change somebody's life, I'm of the belief, I'm willing to lose a little in the short run to make a lot in the long run.   Free Trial Sales Conversations and How to Make Sure the Buyer Gets the Most Out of Your Product or Service · [28:50]   Will Barron: Got it, so we are going to give them the evidence, right? We're going to, and then how do we, so let's say that happens. Let's say it's accounting software. Let's say the issue is that this CFO thinks software is free. It's instantly replicatable. We shouldn't be paying $30 grand a month for this. We should be paying $3 grand a month for this. They're not understanding the value. Again, it's this, it's a weird belief that they have about money, as opposed to them not understanding the product that's holding them back. We give them the demo for 30 days. The individual loves it. How do we reengage that conversation? Is it again going, “Well, there's the money here, but there's also the evidence that you've told me that you get a lot of value from this.” How do we approach the conversation knowing that now we've got evidence to show that the individual's going to, the business is going to make money from this, there's going to be a return and investment?   Bob Wheeler: Well, I mean the first thing I would do before I even give it away for 30 days free is I want to make sure with them, “Are you going to give it a fair shake? Are you just going to do this for 30 days, so you can see if you can get something free or are you actually open to, if I can show you where I can save you a lot of money, are you open to moving forward?” Because if they're not, if their mindset is still such that it doesn't matter what you tell me, I'm not going to waste my time. At a certain point, I don't have to save the whole world. I only need to target people that are open to it and actually, they don't have to necessarily see it, but they're open to seeing it through experience.   Bob Wheeler: I've had people, I have a client who she hired a salesperson to bring business into her practise. It doubled the money. It doubled the money, but she was really upset because the person didn't want to drive to the office and clock in and then drive to the different seminars and the places they were going. And so I said to the client, “This is crazy to me. You're making subst-, you're doubling income.” We're talking, it's a small business, so they went for making $250 to $500,000, but not bad for a three person for sure office.   Will Barron: Yeah, for sure.   Bob Wheeler: I said, “So you're telling me, you'd rather give up $250,000 to be right about having them clock in.” The client said, “Yeah.” I went, “Okay, well, there's your answer.” So they let them go. The income dropped. But they're incredibly happy because they're following the rules that they set forth instead of being open to the fact that this person was making money for them, but they weren't doing it in a way that was congruent with the owner. There's nothing I can do to change that mindset, even though I'm just looking at all the lost revenue, going, “This is mind blowing,” but I couldn't change their mind. At a certain point, I'm just going to spend my energy where I can actually do some good.   Will Barron: Sure, so I work with a bunch of small, I'm really passionate about small business owners, right? I love sales. Sales can be systematised a lot easier then it can be to create a startup or a small business. But I love encouraging small business owners, and so I do loads of both free and pay consulting with them. Something that I see time and time again, because a lot of people will get in touch with me when they've hired one or two sales people and they want to ramp up the sales people's performance. What I see so often is the sales person will start killing it, right?   Bob Wheeler: Yeah.   This is How Business Owners Intentionally Sabotage High-Performing Salespeople · [32:20]    Will Barron: They'll be getting close to the take home of the owner of the business. Then the owner of the business starts feeling weird about it, and they try and sabotage the salesperson rather than just give them unlimited, uncapped commissions. As long as it's hugely profitable, what are you doing? But they get jealous. They get weird. It gets all icky. Sales people typically can feel that, and they're going, “Why am I sacrificing?” Because obviously the business owners getting equity, the business and the business growth and all that side of things as well. The sales person's going, “I'm not getting any of that stuff and I'm doing all the job of, doing half the job of a founder, doing all the selling. I'm the one looking silly. They just swoop in at perhaps at the end of the deal and put in a phone call or two.” It's just such a common phenomenon that I found with small business owners. I'm not crazy, am I? That is bizarre, isn't it?   Bob Wheeler: Yeah. It happens a lot. I've actually had a few salespeople on my podcast and we've talked about this where all of a sudden they start killing it and the owner will come back and say, “Well, we're going to have to change the commission structure. You're just doing too well.” What do you mean? You worked it out logically. You're going to make X amount of money if they do this and they're doing it. They're doing it exponentially. Why now do you have to say, “Well, you have to make less because even though you followed all the rules, I don't feel good about it.” It's so counterintuitive. It's so counterintuitive.   Will Barron: That leads me on to me …   Bob Wheeler: It happens.   How to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone and Start Making More Money · [34:00]   Will Barron: … me final question, Bob. We might have already answered this, so I'll ask you again for the is value in recovering this if we need to. What does a sales person need to do if they, and I know loads of salespeople have been there, they're successful, they're doing a $100 grand take home, $200 grand take home, half a million take home, but they've been stuck there for four or five years. Colleagues have come and gone, done better or worse. The marketplace, there's data, there's evidence that shows that the marketplace is there for them to make more cash, but and maybe they are comfortable, but they don't want to be comfortable, right?   Bob Wheeler: Right.   Will Barron: Do they need to start asking questions, like what are the negatives, if I earn $600 grand and start to …   Bob Wheeler: Yeah.   Will Barron: … reverse engineer this? Is there any other questions that they should be asking themselves to not make them hustle hard or a change process, but to open their mindset that other people are earning more, and so they've got the same opportunity as anyone else?   Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. I would start off with the question of what are my limiting beliefs about making more money. I would really start to look at, “Am I comfortable? What would it take to go to the next level? Why do I believe I can't get there? Is it because I don't have the skillset, I don't have the communication skills?” There might be something there I've watched people move away from jobs because the next level required something that they didn't think they had.   Bob Wheeler: And so I would really, again, get curious. I think, whether you're looking at your own beliefs or you're looking at your potential customer's beliefs getting curious and creating a relationship, instead of just looking at it transactionally is the key. Whether we're talking to ourselves and going “Well, that's stupid. Putting 10% away is just makes sense.” Well, if I don't understand relationally why I'm so opposed to that, I'm not going to do it. The same thing when I'm trying to sell something, if the person thinks I'm just trying to make a sale, there's no reason to trust me because I'm just trying to make a sale. But if I actually get to know them, know that they actually like soccer or that they like to go fishing, or I actually get to know them as a person, there might be some room for, “Oh, this is actually a relationship.” And then we can let it grow.   Bob Wheeler: But until we get aware of what's that limiting belief, why am I afraid to take it to the next level, you're not going to go anywhere. I know for me, I had to struggle with, “Well, it's too easy for me.” I felt guilty charging what I charge because I'm like, “I would do it for free.” I literally would. I like doing accounting. I'm a weirdo. I like doing tax stuff. It seemed too easy, so how can I actually pay lots of money for this when other people struggle really hard to be able to do what I do? It's this, yeah, it's, “How can I be paid that kind of money?” I don't feel so guilty now, but it was very hard raising my rates and saying, “No, this is what I want.” And feeling comfortable being able to say, “This is what it is and if it doesn't work for you, I'm totally cool with it, but I'm not going to change my parameters to make you feel better about yourself when I know this is a solid working model.”   Will Barron: I had a mentor help me with this maybe six months ago, from previous to when we were recording the show now, Bob. They just sat me down with our profit and loss and with all the content that we were producing and the expenses that come along with it. They're like, “What content drives profit?” Not what content do you enjoy doing? Not what content does the team enjoy? What content makes money? It's the Salesman podcast. It's selling made simple, the solo version of this podcast, right? It's the audio podcast. That just slowly, gradually goes up in time, and it's the YouTube videos. We're also doing Instagram, blog posts, in the midst of writing a book, all this, just tonnes mess around with TikTok, all this kind of crap, right? He was just like, “Why are you doing it?”   Why The Success Mindset is Not All About Hustle, Hustle, Hustle · [38:00]    Will Barron: It turns out after going back and forth in a few conversations, I had a similar realisation that what you did. I was like, “Well, it'd be too simple if all I had to do was a couple of podcasts and a couple of videos a week and jump out and do some mentoring calls with our students over at Selling Made Simple Academy.” It's like, “It'd be too easy.” I didn't feel like I was putting in enough effort to …   Bob Wheeler: Right.   Will Barron: … for, I guess the business growth, but also my take home pay as well. I was like, “Well, this is like a really nice little business to run,” if that's all I did, I didn't do all the other crap on top of it that I didn't like. I broached it with the team. The team were like, “Yeah, are you stupid? Of course, it's a waste of time and energy. We don't want to do all this extra crap as well. We want to just do the core content that we can produce high quality content that leads to phone calls getting booked and deals getting made on the back of it.” I was just like, “Why did no one tell me this?” They were happy just to do the work. We had some internal conversations. We had to set some vision and a mission and some principles for the company and get more defined. But it all stemmed from my weird belief pattern of I've got to hustle. I've got to work hard. I've got to stay ahead of everyone in this space.   Bob Wheeler: Right.   Will Barron: I feel like we've got, with our content, we've got a bit of a lead versus some of the competitors, whether it's production quality or the openness of these conversations versus other sales podcast that out there. The reality was that we don't need a lead. We're so different to everyone else out there. People buy the training product because they want to buy from me. As long as I'm still at the company, it's going to sell and do well. Again, it all stemmed from this weird belief that I need to work really hard, really long hours and make loads of sacrifices to make progress, which to be fair, may have been true five years ago, six years when I started the business, you don't know what's going on. But right now, this, this one business coach is like, “You're just crazy. You're just burying yourself with work and stress and pressure for no reason.” How common is that kind of experience [inaudible 00:40:09], Bob?   “Success doesn't have to be complicated. We culturally have decided we've got to have some suffering. It's ridiculous because it's all self-imposed. We've bought into the system that believes success has got to be painful. It can't be too easy, otherwise it's just not right.” – Bob Wheeler · [40:33]   Bob Wheeler: Well, that's super common. We all have a belief of, we've got to put in 40 hours a week at least. It's got to be a little painful. It can't just be fun and easy. What are you talking about? Everybody has slaved. There's a history of you've got to really work hard. Yeah, it may be that sometimes you have to work hard. It doesn't mean you can't also relax and have a little fun. It doesn't all have to be complicated. We culturally have decided we've got to have some suffering. It's ridiculous because it's all self-imposed. We've bought into the system that said, “It's got to be painful. It can't be too easy because it's just not right.”   Will Barron: Yeah, and I think we need to do what you've just suggested as well. If you can sit there in front of an Excel spreadsheet or some accounting software for hours on end and the time flies by, you are clearly perfectly wired for that, learning the latest ups and downs and this and thats with accounting and finance. I hate it. I have an external accountant, because I just don't care. All I want to see is the number in the bank account and then I've not got a big tax bill. I want to minimise that tax bill the best I can at the end of the year. I pay handsomely for not to look at taxes and accountants and PNLs or anything else throughout the year, right?   Achieving Success Can Be Easy. Hardships Are All In Your Head · [41:34]    Will Barron: But I'm perfectly suited to doing these podcast interviews, for doing mentoring at the training programme and for building selling frameworks. I think if you can find the place that you're wired to be, and you can adjust some of this, I'm sure, and you can hustle and you get through certain elements of this and you create, if you've got to breakthrough into management, if you've got to go from one type of sales to another type of sales, if you're in the right place, things can be simple, can't they? Things can be easy.   Bob Wheeler: Absolutely. I mean, love what you do, I think is so important and not everybody always has that option. But yeah, if I hated accounting, it'd be painful. It would definitely be painful. But I love it. I'm glad that other people hate it.   Will Barron: Yep.   Bob Wheeler: Because it gives me lots of work.   Parting Thoughts · [42:19]   Will Barron: Yep. Well, that's the albatross, that's the market. That's what I'm all here and hopefully that's valuable for the audience as well. With that, Bob, tell us about The Money Nerve the book and tell us about the podcast as well, where we can find out more about you.   Bob Wheeler: Absolutely, so The Money Nerve, it's a book I wrote, The Money Nerve, because emotions around money are in our body. People have heart attacks, people jump off of buildings, people get really excited when they get a bonus check, they didn't expect, so The Money Nerve, not nerd, I'm a nerd. Then we have a podcast called Money You Should Ask where we talk with people from all walks of life, a lot of highly successful people that talk about their failures and about their own money journeys so that people can actually hear other stories and realise it's possible for me too, instead of staying small and saying, “I'm afraid to take the next step because I'm the only exception of the role where I can't have what I want.” And so check us out. We're happy to work with people. We've got great resources. We just want people to have the fullest life that they want to have if they so choose.   Will Barron: Amazing stuff. Well, to the book, the podcast, your website, everything else over in the show notes of this episode over salesman.org. With that Bob, genuinely mate, really, I'm going to use this question in the next lot of sales calls that we do, so anyone who's listening to this show will be laughing the head off if they try and join our training programme and I quiz them on some of this. But I appreciate your insights, mate. I thank you for joining us again on the Salesman podcast.   Bob Wheeler: Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.  

Sales success goes beyond just crunching numbers; it’s all about tapping into emotions. Discover how emotional engagement can sway decisions more effectively than mere logic. Explore a five-step framework that highlights understanding buyer pain points and guiding them toward resolution. Learn the power of storytelling in sales interactions and gain insights into using CRM tools to strengthen client relationships. Get ready to boost your closing rates by addressing the psychological aspects of selling.

In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Dr. Robert Glover explains what a covert contract is and why “nice guy syndrome” is killing your ability to get deals done. Robert, an entrepreneur, writer, coach, public speaker and the author of three bestselling books. He is also recognized as the leading authority on tackling the “Nice Guy Syndrome”. You'll learn: Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Dr. Robert Glover Best-Selling Author and Psychology Guru Resources: Dr.Glover.com Dr. Glover on LinkedIn Book: No More Mr. Nice Guy Book: Dating Essentials for Men: The Only Dating Guide You Will Ever Need Book: The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck Book: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we're going to be talking how covert contracts kill your sales effectiveness and today's guest is Dr. Robert Glover. Robert is a entrepreneur, writer, coach, and public speaker, and is the author of three bestselling books. Robert is recognised as the leading authority on nice guy syndrome, which I'm sure we're going to cover in this episode and with that, Robert, welcome to the show.   Dr. Robert Glover: Well, thank you for the invitation.   The Recovering Nice Guy · [00:36]    Will Barron: You more than welcome, sir. Just before we click record, I've read all your books. I'm a huge fan. Is there a way to describe someone who was a nice guy, who had nice guy syndrome and now no longer, well, hopefully no longer suffers for it. You can diagnose me in this episode mate and give me some feedback. Is there a way to refer to someone who is through some of these pain points?   Dr. Robert Glover: Well, I refer to myself as a recovering nice guy because I started working on this stuff in myself before I knew it was nice guy syndrome, about 25 years ago. And what's interesting to me is that layers keep peeling off of this whole nice guy thing and mine show up mostly in relationship, but I see it in work and everywhere else as well. So what I found about any, I believe nice guy syndrome, a lot of it is due to maybe partly natural temperament and partly due who internalised conditioning in childhood.   Dr. Robert Glover: So that means is pretty deep into our emotional operating system. So I've noticed that the anxiety or shame I tend to associate with nice guy syndrome still arises from time to time, but I notice it quicker, I can soothe myself, I can take action, I can move forward. So as I refer to myself as a recovering nice guy, if you like that term, you can use it, it just means that you notice this stuff a lot quicker, and it doesn't seem to take control of your life, especially in those unconscious hidden ways that you're not aware of what's driving the bus of your life.   What is The Nice Guy Syndrome and Are You Suffering From It? · [02:01]    Will Barron: Sure. Okay. So I want to get into covert contracts. I mean, this is really valuable for the salespeople listening to this. I used to do this and put my prospects on a pedestal. I would have covert contracts with these individuals that they didn't know about. We'll touch on that in a second, but we've mentioned nice guy syndrome here. Can you give us a definition of what it is and I guess how we would know. Is there a test? Is there a way to know whether we are afflicted with it myself and the listeners right now?   Dr. Robert Glover: Yeah. Nice guy syndrome, and I'm going to reference this primarily towards men, because that's what my book was written towards, but it also affects women as well. There's lots of nice girls out there. And my view of the nice guy is that at a very early age, as a person that internalised an inaccurate belief about themselves in the world and that inaccurate belief is that if I want to be loved and liked to get my needs met, I have to become what I think other people want me to be, because I'm not okay just as I am. And I have to hide anything about me that might trigger or get a negative response from other people.   Dr. Robert Glover: So nice guys then are out there trying to be good, trying to please people, trying to avoid conflict, trying to look like a decent human being, they're generous, they're giving, they're caring and all thinking that will get them loved, it'll make them be liked, it'll help them get their needs met. And that's what will tee up into the covert contracts that you mentioned.   Covert Contracts: The Relationship Killer · [03:40]    Will Barron: Sure. And the audience will be going, “Okay.” I get tonnes of negative responses from potential customers all day every day. Now hopefully it shouldn't be as dire as that, if you're selling the right product to the right person, but salespeople are getting rejected and conflict is part of sales. We need to negotiate, we need to balance value, we need to adjust our offerings based on price, we need to go by and forth. So conflict in a positive sense as in there'll be conflict with a positive outcome is part of sales as well. So hopefully there's a couple of 10,000 sales people listening right now who are nodding, along as we go through this Robert. Can you give us a definition then of what a covert contract is? Because I think this is like a part of nice guy syndrome, right? But I think this specific slither of it is incredibly important for the audience.   Dr. Robert Glover: Well, let's tee that up of what the covert contract is, let's see up where, where it came from. And I used to think for many years of my life that, oh, I could never be a salesman, mainly because I hate being rejected. I want everybody to like me. I want everybody to have a positive response to me. I don't know how people get up every day and get rejected time, after time, after time. Now, ironically, these days when people ask me what I do, my doctorate is in marriage and family therapy, but I'm not in private practise anymore. I don't necessarily do marriage and family therapy anymore. I've written some books. I'm an online university, I do consultation, I lead seminars and workshops, but if I have to tell them, if I'm to boil it all down, I'm an online marketer.   “Most of the nice guy syndrome is emotional beliefs we internalised at a very young age, maybe three weeks old, three months old, three years old.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [05:40]   Dr. Robert Glover: And here I am being a salesman and so backing up to the covert contract and I know a lot of people have told me that's one of the most powerful dynamics they got out of the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy is this concept of covert contracts. And I know it resonated for me. It gives me clarity of certain unconscious patterns in my life that don't serve me and don't help me get what I want, but to back it up, a lot of the people I work with as children and again, most of the nice guy syndrome is emotional beliefs we internalised at a very young age, maybe three weeks old, three months old, three years old. Before our rational thinking mind was online, our survival brain was working, our amygdala, the fight flight freeze, part of our really old ancient brain. And this part of the brain controls just life functioning, heart rate, breathing.   Dr. Robert Glover: And it keeps us alive. And that was the most evolved part of our brain online when we were born. And it stores up emotional memory of early experiences. Now, not in words, not in pictures, but just in emotion. So it's really very primal inside of us. So at a very early age, a lot of children for one reason or another, before they were thinking about it rationally internalised the belief I'm bad for having needs or is wrong for me to have needs or my needs put burden on other people or everybody else's needs are more important than mine or other people's needs come before mine. And these are all emotional belief systems that we then later put words to or create stories for and then start manifesting in our life. Now he here is the hitch, the problem. We all have needs and we have to get our needs met.   Dr. Robert Glover: And when we were little children, we were completely and entirely dependent on the big people in our lives, our parents, our caregivers, to recognise our needs and to meet those in a timely judicious and hopefully consistent way. Now there's a great book out there, been around for a long time called The Road Less Travelled by Dr. M. Scott Peck. I've been told it's the best selling self-help book of all time. And he talks in there about when parents are meeting their own needs, are then attentive to their children's needs and respond to those needs in timely and judicious ways. And I add consistent to that, a child emotionally internalises the following beliefs about themselves. I'm valuable and lovable, my needs are important and the world is like my family, meaning, hey, everybody out there's going to value me and want to help me get my needs met just like it happened in my family.   Dr. Robert Glover: Now, if our parents were not attentive and did not respond to our needs in timely judicious and consistent ways, we internalise emotionally opposite beliefs. I'm not that important, I'm not valuable, I'm not lovable, my needs aren't important and the world's going to be just like my family. Nobody else is going to care about my needs either. Now again, we all have needs. We got to eat, we got to sleep, we need love, we need physical contact, we need sex, we need adventure, we need stimulation. Maslow came up with the whole hierarchy of needs that we have. So we have needs. So how do we get the needs met when we believe we're bad for having needs or that other people are going to get angry at us for having needs or that other people's needs are more important than ours? And so we have to do it in a secretive covert kind of way.   Dr. Robert Glover: And that's the covert contracts and there are three of them. And I've really even honed these down further than what I wrote about in the book. But the three basic covert contracts of the nice guy or nice girl syndrome are number one. If I'm good, I will be liked and loved. So if I'm a good person if I'm generous, I'm caring, if I help people, I'll be liked and loved second. And this is really a really powerful one, and probably a lot of the salespeople listening will recognise it, if I meet other people's needs without them having to ask, then they will meet my needs without me having to ask. Now, of course it shows up in relationship, it shows up to strangers, it shows up in the workplace.   Dr. Robert Glover: We mind read for other people, we anticipate their needs, we try to do nice things, we build rapport, we do whatever it is we think we need to do so that they will inclined to read our minds and give us what we need without us ever having to ask, because we feel like that would make us a bad person. Now, again, I assume most salespeople have gotten over that to some degree and learned to make a close because if there is no close, there is no sale. And we can't wait for the other person to close the deal. And then the third covert contract is that if I do everything right, I will have a smooth problem free life. And of course this world is not smooth and problem free. We're living in a time of pandemic. You know. There's always chaos and business and sales is not and problem free.   “In a nutshell, these are the three covert contracts. If I'm good, I'll be liked and loved. Number two, if I meet other people's needs without them having to ask, they will meet my needs without me having to ask. And number three, if I do everything right, nothing will ever go wrong. I'll have a smooth problem free life” – Dr. Robert Glover · [11:17]    Dr. Robert Glover: Like you said, there's negotiation, there's conflict, there's dealing with customers, there's dealing with your sales manager, your company gives you, okay, here's the formula in which we'll compensate you for your sales. And then you go out and kick ass and you do so damn well at it, the company goes, “We're going to revise that compensation schedule.” And all of a sudden, you're not making as much money. You go, “What the fuck? That's not fair. It shouldn't happen that way.” But that is life. We think I was doing it right. Everything should keep going the way I expected it to. So those in a nutshell are the three core over contracts. If I'm good, I'll be liked and loved. If I meet other people's needs without them having to ask, they will meet my needs without me having to ask. And number three, if I do everything right, nothing will ever go wrong. I'll have a smooth problem free life   Will Barron: As someone who's fell into this, Robert, right? And then now interviewed 800 odd people, trained thousands of salespeople, done thousands of consulting calls with salespeople and sales leadership, it's now intently obvious to me that we live in a world of evidence that none of that is true. Almost the opposite of this is true, almost verbatim, right? Of bad people have success, which not all the time, but there was evidence of that out that you could see that in many places, this idea, and I love the way that you say this one of, if I meet the needs of other people without asking, they'll meet my needs without asking, and then you add the layer on top of well, if they can read your mind. So that makes that obvious. There's no logic behind that whatsoever.   Will Barron: Even like my partner, Emily right? She knows me much better than probably anyone other than maybe my dad. Neither then to know what I'm thinking about most of the time, it's more obvious is that Emily doesn't know what I'm thinking about the random strangers that I'm prospecting or trying to do business with. So there seems to be a tonne of evidence there as well. And then if you do everything right, you have a smooth life, as soon as you get a layer deep in into that, and you look at some of the evidence, the logic things, we all understand inherently, it's common sense that the world is in flux. There's many things we can't control. Driving on the road, you use that as an example or a metaphor for this of all you could do is stay in your lane and perhaps maybe react to the people around you.   How to Overcome Your Nice Guy Belief System · [13:25]    Will Barron: Someone could easily just crash into the side of you just because they're having a bad day, they're on their phone or not paying attention. So the evidence of that, it's remarkable to that obviously in hindsight, isn't true, but how can we grow up? And I grew up as a young lad with nice guy syndrome, right? I fell into each of these buckets of covert contracts for decades until I was in my mid twenties when I started to read your book and then uncovered, started doing a bit of work on myself and uncovered some of this, how can we get so far through life? I know thy about 40, 50, 60 year old people listening to this right now are going, “Crap. I wished we would've heard this 20 years ago.”   Dr. Robert Glover: Yes, I hear that a lot.   Will Barron: How can we go so far through life with all the evidence that poses the opposite of this is still having these belief systems?   “Everybody has distorted emotional beliefs about themselves and the world because we internalised them when we were immature, dependent, needy, and undeveloped little children, and that's stored in such a deep part of our brain that it influences everything.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [14:49]    Dr. Robert Glover: That is such a good question. And it makes you wonder. And as I said, these belief systems are recorded in an emotional part of our brain that is wired into our rational brain, our prefrontal cortex, that makes decisions. And you would think that our rational prefrontal cortex would see right through these obviously distorted belief systems, but because they are emotional operating system trumps rational break every time. The unconscious is so powerful and is stored up in our body. I mean, it's deep. And we go through life with these emotional belief systems and everybody has them, not exactly these, but everybody has distorted emotional beliefs about themselves in the world because we internalised them when we were immature, dependent, needy, undeveloped little children, and that's stored in such a deep part of our brain, it influences everything.   Dr. Robert Glover: Now how these stay embedded is that probably as much do anything through confirmation bias, is that you hear people talk about, “Well, those jerks over there, those bad people, don't be like your dad.” Or don't be like that person that did that thing and you keep thinking, well, I see if I'm good, if I'm just good, that's what people want. The value a because your confirmation bias ties into that. And so we find stories and experiences to confirm what we already emotionally hold to be true even when the majority of what we experience doesn't. I had a PhD in marriage and family therapy at 29 years old. I'm 66 now. I'm in my third marriage. And I often say, I bumbled my way through every relationship I've had.   Dr. Robert Glover: And I think many of us do mainly because trying to do intimate parabonded long term, lifelong relationships is not in our DNA and there's not a particularly good instruction book for it, but we're all bringing those deep emotional belief systems about ourself and the world into any relationship, intimate, family, work, it doesn't matter, and trying to make it work. And therefore, we do tend to bumble our way through a lot of things.   Dr. Robert Glover: And probably every salesman out there can look back a few years ago when you were operating from some kind of naive and untested, but deeply held emotional beliefs about yourself in the world. And you look back and you go, “Oh man, how did I ever survive? How did I ever make it in sales?” Because hopefully we all bump into something. We have a wake up call, a come to Jesus meeting, a crisis, a major failure, major loss.   Dr. Robert Glover: It could come from a lot of different things. And it's like, something helps us start reevaluating our emotional belief systems and our view of ourself in the world. For me, it was my second wife said, “I can't take you being a nice guy anymore. Everybody thinks you're such a great guy, but you don't always treat me well. You're passive aggressive, you could be mean, you can say hurtful things, you blow up at me.” And she said, “You've got to get to therapy, because I'm not going to live with this. I'm going to leave.” And I'm thinking, “Wait a minute, you're the one who needs to go to therapy. You're the one who's moody all the time, angry all the time, never available, never wants to have sex anymore, so up and down.” I'm going, “Okay, I'll go to…” I was a nice guy.   Dr. Robert Glover: “I'll go to therapy. I'll go find out why me being such a nice guy doesn't make you appreciate me more, it doesn't make you want to have sex with me more often.” And luckily I landed into some good places, a good men's programme, good men's group, a couple of good therapists along the way. And quickly started learning that my paradigm, my roadmap of the world that was operating at a deeply emotional level was faulty in so many ways.   “I think it's the fortunate person that has some sort of crisis, some major loss, some illness, some financial crisis, something that wakes us up and we go looking and hopefully find a more accurate paradigm for living in this world in ways that allow us to live up to our potential, get our needs met, have the things that we want.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [18:39]    Dr. Robert Glover: All the ways I hid myself, hid my needs, hid my wants, never asked for what I wanted, gained to get, avoided conflict, tried to please tried to external approval and validation. All those things just had a bright spotlight put on them and I started seeing where they came from and why they didn't work so well. And I think it's the fortunate person that has some sort of crisis, some big stick up side the head, some major loss, some illness, some financial crisis, something that wakes us up and we go looking and hopefully find a more accurate roadmap, a more accurate paradigm for living in this world in ways that allow us to live up to our potential, get our needs met, have the things that we want.   Will Barron: Well, hopefully this episode of the show is a big stick whacking people on the head and will do a little bit of that motivation and paradigm changing for them. And with that Robert, I'd like to, if possible, go through each of these three covert contracts and see how it relates specifically to salespeople. I think it's relatively straightforward, but then I've read your book and I've worked on this. So maybe it's not as straightforward. Maybe for someone who's new to this, you can add a layer of common sense to this and speed up the process rather than me just whacking them over the head of a stick. Maybe you can [crosstalk 00:19:46].   Dr. Robert Glover: We'll tag team them, right? You come out of from that side of the stick, I'll come from that side of the stick.   You Are Worthy of Being Liked Regardless of Whether or Not You’re a Good Person · [19:52]    Will Barron: Okay, mate. So this first one, If I'm good, I'll be liked and loved. Now you are not saying here that the inverse of this is true, that if you are bad, people are going to like you and love you more. Tell me if I'm wrong, what you're saying is you can be liked and loved regardless. You are worth you of being liked and loved regardless if you be yourself. Explain that one for me.   Dr. Robert Glover: Yeah. Let's take it. Cause they all the covert contracts have many layers to them. And so for example, my profession is mainly working with people and their relationship. So that's usually where I'm talking about covert contracts and for many of the nice guys I worked with that they were told, “Don't be like somebody.” Dad, the other bad men out there whatever. And so we're trying to be different then. So we create this model of what does it mean for me to be good, right? And we're the scorekeepers of that. We have a big scoreboard here in our home or in our office where we go, “Look, I helped that person out. Look, I did that for them. Look, I sacrificed myself to make that easier for them. Yeah. I was willing to give that up. I was willing to work that extra hours. I was willing to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”   Dr. Robert Glover: And we think that makes us good. Now, all the covert contracts are an if then proposition. And one thing I didn't say is that usually we're unaware of the covert contract is covert and the everybody else out there is completely unaware of the covert contract. So where I see it a lot, for example, like with single men, they go, “I'm a good guy. I'm not like the jerks I hear women complain about. I do this, I do that. And then I go out and they don't even notice me. I don't even exist. They ignore me. Or they just put me in the friend zone and don't want to be my girlfriend, don't want to have sex with me.”   “Nice guys are typically terrible receivers. We don't give to ourselves very well, we give to everybody else first, and we don't accept other people giving to us very well.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [22:26]    Dr. Robert Glover: Or married men will say, “I do this for my wife. I do that for my wife. I treat her better than her ex, I'm raising her kids, I do this.” And go, “But she's still upset all the time and never in a good mood and never wants to have sex.” And so there's this, I've done this, this should come back to me, and it ties into yes, a sense of deserving or worthy, but paradoxically, we don't believe we're worthy or deserving because here is one of the core flaws in the thinking. It's not really thinking. It's more of an emotional of covert contracts, is that nice guys are tip typically terrible receivers. And we don't give to ourself very well, we give to everybody else first, we don't accept other people giving to us very well.   Dr. Robert Glover: All the while, we're trying to get them to give to us because down to that core emotional belief is I'm bad for having needs, my needs aren't important, people will be angry at me if I have needs, their needs are more important. Excuse me. So I think she's right. Every woman I've had in my life has told me, “Robert, you're difficult to give to.” Okay. When you start hearing messages like that, “Robert, you're…” Your name isn't Robert. They say your name. You're difficult to give to, or I can never do anything for you, that's because it goes against our core belief of ourself and the world. People aren't supposed to be giving to me.   Dr. Robert Glover: So here's the thing, all the while we're doing this cover contract, if I'm good, you'll like me and love me and you'll sign the contract and you'll appreciate me, and you'll value me and all that stuff, to actually have the good things happen runs contrary to our belief about ourself and the world. So this is a core piece that we do have to go work on that it is okay, not only okay, it's essential that we get our needs met. And for me, that began with me doing good things for me. And an example was really early in my nice guy recovery, my wife and I were both in therapy. And I came to the realisation I was doing a lot of giving to get. And so I went on a one year, 12 month giving moratorium where I quit giving anything to anybody other than when my kids needed things. But I didn't give my wife gifts, I didn't give her mother's date cards, I didn't give her surprises.   Dr. Robert Glover: And she knew that. So she was in because she didn't like all my covert contracts either. And so for a year, every time I had the impulse, oh my wife would like that or I could get that or that'd be a nice surprise, I had to stop, resist the urge and then I had to do something good for me. Right? That was the hitch. I then had to turn around and do something good for me. Now from that practise of doing that, and I've been doing have for 25 years, I've also learned to start practising asking people for what I want and saying, “Can you do this for me? Can you do this for me?” And then add to that when people offer to do things for me, I've learned to say yes and to let them. And just almost a trivial little example.   Dr. Robert Glover: My wife is Mexican and she grew up Mexican culture where she likes to do nice things for her man. And she likes to do things with me and she likes to just make my life better, which those are all good things. Right? And so I'll be taking a bag of garbage out from the kitchen, just going out the front door and got to open the front gate, put it out on the street. It's not difficult to take a bag of garbage out and put it on the street. But frequently my wife will say, “Do you need help?” And if I answer that rationally and go, “No, I don't need any help. This is a really simple task.” I'm just taking garbage from the kitchen, opening the front gate, put it on the front sidewalk.   “Practise making your needs a priority and doing good things for yourself. Now, you can't meet all of your own needs by yourself, so you have to surround yourself with people who want to help you get your needs met and you have to be clear with what you would like them to do to help them meet your needs. Don't make them guess.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [26:32]   Dr. Robert Glover: And so I used to say, “No, no, no, I got it. Don't worry.” Because I didn't want to burden her. Right? There's no reason why she would have to help me carry garbage out. I can. And then I realised, she wanted to help me and I wasn't letting her. And so those were the little cues I had to start picking up on. Let her help me. Say, “Sure, come help me take the garbage out.” And then we got to go take the garbage out together and have a little together time walking the garbage out to the street. But that's an important process, as small and trivial as that might seem is that it is part of how we recondition that emotional operating system. So practise making your needs a priority and doing good things for yourself. Now you can't meet all of your own needs by yourself. So you have to surround yourself with people who want to help you get your needs met and you have to be clear with them, what you would like them to do to help them meet your needs.   “When people are available to help you meet your needs, say yes, give them the opportunity. People find fulfilment in giving to other people. Don't rob other people of that fulfilment of giving to you. Practise saying yes.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [26:51]    Dr. Robert Glover: Don't make them guess. And number three, when people are available to help you meet your needs, let them say yes. Give them the opportunity. People find fulfilment in giving to other people. Don't rob other people of that fulfilment of giving to you. Practise saying yes. And those three practises have been really powerful in my life to rewire that belief system that I'm bad for having needs or other people don't want to help me meet my needs or other people's needs are more important than me or people have a negative reaction if I have a need or ask for what I want. So that's where I would start with that first covert contract, is us actually working on our own belief system that it is not okay to have needs or to get them met.   Healthy Relationships Are Built When Two People Choose to Be Together · [27:40]    Will Barron: You mentioned The Road Less Travelled earlier on. One thing that I took away from that book when I maybe I read it like 10 years ago now, was that healthy relationships are when two people choose to be together and are happy to make that choice as opposed to unhealthy relationships. So when someone has a whole missing and the other person fills that a bit of the hole and perhaps vice versa. And it seems like what you're saying there Robert, fits practise of you don't need your wife to come and help you take out the trash. She doesn't need you to accept it, but you choose to do it and she wants to help, so you going to have a nice natter and a chat as you take the bins out. Am I in the right tracks with that?   Dr. Robert Glover: Yeah. And yeah, of course, well, when I worked as a marriage therapist and I did for 20 something years, couples would come to me and say, “We have this problem and this problem. We want you to help us save our marriage.” And I'd always tell them, “I have no goal of helping you save your marriage. What I will help you do is both grow up and become more mature adults and deal with whatever's getting in the way of you guys having what you want in the rela…” And I said, “Then if you guys decide you like hanging out with each other, you'll keep hanging out with each other. But as you grow into maturity and deal with some of your childhood defence mechanisms, survival mechanisms that are showing up in your relationship, you may decide you don't really like being with each other.”   Dr. Robert Glover: “That's okay too. Then it'd probably be better that you don't hang out with each other. So trying to save your marriage is not a goal. Let's just help you guys just grow and become more mature. And in the process, if you like hanging out with each other, great, if you don't, great.” And that's a good mantra in anywhere in life and especially in the workplace, because here's the crazy thing. I don't know if it's crazy, but here's, reality is, as I said, I'm mainly trained as a relational therapist and focusing on people's intimate relationships, but just like everybody, co-creates a relationship with a partner that lets them live out their earliest, emotional beliefs, their earliest training and paradigm, we all co-create that, we find a person that lets us use the tools that are in our relationship toolbox that we created when we were three months old, three years old.   Dr. Robert Glover: Because if we get with people that we can't use those tools, we don't know what to do. And so we invite people into our life to help us co-create really old relationship patterns and our partners doing the same. Now, the thing is we do that in the workplace as well. We find bosses, we find managers, we find companies, we find customers that all help us recreate our earliest life experiences. And here we are using these tools we developed as a kid and covert contracts are a really powerful set of tools in that childhood toolbox. So we get with our boss and our boss is triggering us in this way. So we start trying to manage that by avoiding the conflict or never doing anything that we would upset him or saying what we think he wants to hear or not telling him there's no way we can deliver on that product in the time they said they needed done by.   Dr. Robert Glover: And so we, “Oh, no.” And then we just keep doing what we've done since childhood. So I believe that, for example, intimate relationships, because of the way they trigger all this really old emotion beliefs, they're really powerful, personal growth machines. I also believe that every relationship we have and work is often just as in a sense, intimate as the person we might live with because we're also recreating really old stuff with them, which means even how we relate to a coworker, our manager, the CEO, a customer, if we do it consciously and use it as an opportunity to grow and deal with our old paradigms, that's a powerful, personal growth machine. And so, for example, I teach guys about dating. I say, “Hey, when you approach dating don't approach dating, you're trying to get a woman to like you, or trying to get a girlfriend, or trying to get a woman to sleep with you, how about you just go out and you're using that experience to just challenge yourself and grow and work on skills and practise saying yes, and practise things you want to practise?”   “I believe, instead of approaching my customer like I’ve got to get them to buy, I’ve got to get them to sign the contract, how about we approach our customers from the point of view of what can I learn from this experience? How can I grow? How can I challenge myself? And the really ironic thing is when I teach men to approach dating in that way, they often quickly become highly successful at attracting women and having good experiences where in the past they weren't.” – Dr. Robert Glover  · [32:01]    Dr. Robert Glover: Hey, we could approach sales in the exact same way. Instead of approaching my customer like I got to get them to buy, I got to get them to sign the contract, how about we approach our customers from the point of view, what can I learn from this experience? How can I grow? How can I challenge myself? How can I look at my covert contracts and stay aware when they tend to come up? And the really ironic thing is when I teach men to approach dating in that way, they often quickly become highly successful at attracting women and having good experiences where in the past they weren't.   Dr. Robert Glover: I think the same thing could happen in sales and business as well is when we let go of any attachment outcome, just say, “Hey, I'm just going to lean into something here. I'm going to practise something here. I'm going to get out of my comfort zone here. I'm going to watch how my anxiety comes up here, how my fears come up here and I'm just going to soothe myself and do it anyway and see what happens.” And what a beautiful template to take into how we interact with coworkers managers, customers.   Will Barron: I'm glad you mentioned this earlier on, and you brought it back perfectly because I wrote it down a big letter there. I wanted to bring this back up, Robert, this paradox of when you don't soak up to your customers, when you treat them like a peer as opposed to someone who's got the wallets that's going to buy you that new car or whatever it is that you're aiming towards of your commissions and that side of things, when you don't stink of what we call commission breath, where you desperate to get a deal done.   Dr. Robert Glover: Commission breath. I love that.   Will Barron: Is that a new one for you?   “People can smell desperation. And the other thing I've been saying for years is our anxiety is contagious. If you're approaching a sale with a strong attachment to the outcome, like Buddha said, “Attachments are the cause of all suffering.” I add, it’s also the cause of all anxiety. So if you go into a sale like, “I’ve got to get this sale. I got to get them to sign. I’ve got to make it happen.” Not only are you going to suffer, your anxiety level will go up. And when your anxiety level goes up, you actually become less effective and your customer will sense your state of anxiety. They will then feel anxiety, not knowing why, and when people feel anxious, they don't want to sign on the dotted line.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [33:44]   Dr. Robert Glover: Well, there's the same kind of terms in the dating world that you stink of desperation and women customers doesn't matter. Doesn't matter the context, people can smell desperation. And the other thing is, I've been saying for years, our anxiety is contagious. If you're approaching a sale with a strong attachment outcome, the Buddha said, “Attachments are cause of all suffering.” I add is also the cause of all anxiety. So if you go, “I got to get this sale. I got to get them to sign. I got to make it happen.” Not only are you going to suffer, your anxiety level will go up. And when your anxiety level goes up, you actually become less effective and your customer will sense your state of anxiety. They will then feel anxiety, not know why, and when people feel anxious, they don't want to sign on the dotted line.   Will Barron: Yeah. We had a Harvard professor come on the show to talk about, it's not quite as simple as this, as Pop Science puts it out there, but this idea of mirror neurons of people have empathy against the emotions that you're feeling and subconsciously they all mirror that back to you. We debugged or debunked some of it, but some of it makes total sense. And especially when a lot of salespeople now doing this over a Zoom call rather than a telephone. A lot of these emotional triggers, a lot of these, the emotional intelligence to the person that you're engaging with, it comes across more over video than a call so it's even more impactful. And you can use it as a tool to push the buyer one way or the other way and not manipulate, but perhaps nudge their emotions.   Will Barron: If they're having a crappy day, you come up all charming, happy, smiling, and full of good energy. You can nudge their emotions one way or another as well. But I love this idea of this paradox. And it's something that I try really hard for our training, Robert, to drill into the brains of our students, that you're there to provide a service, you're there to help people, if you start your call by going, “Oh, I'm so glad that you managed to speak with me. You found some time in your diary.” Or if you try and book a 30 second call to see if you're a good fit, as opposed to just saying, “Hey, it takes 10, 15 minutes for us to have an adult conversation about this.” You're immediately framing yourself up as bit of a loser in the space, right? If you are truly an expert on your product, your industry, if you truly have insights that are valuable for the customer, then you're going to approach the whole sales process differently.   Will Barron: And this is what we teach. The analogy that I like to use is if… I don't know, one of the listeners calls me up and goes, “Hey, I've got a stock pick for you. You've got to buy this stock.” I'm going to go, “Okay, I hope you enjoy the show. I'm glad you're a fan.” I'm definitely not going to buy this thing. Warren Buffet calls up, he doesn't even need to have to introduce himself, I'd recognise his voice. And he just goes, “Hey, [inaudible 00:36:22] halfway buying a load of Coca-Cola. You should probably buy it as well.” I've got so much trust at distance in the way he framed the conversation as an expert, without begging me to jump in on the deal with him, I'm immediately going to do it. So that's how I try and set things up. And I love this idea of this paradox.   Will Barron: And I'm glad you enjoyed the notion of commission breath, but I've got it with salespeople who ring me that they're so desperate to get people on the phone that it puts you off and it's counterintuitive. You've done the hardest bit. You've got the person on the phone, hopefully you've got the right product for the right person at the right time. And then you just [inaudible 00:36:56] the whole thing. Just the words you use, the framing of the conversation and even the language that's pre or post conversation as well to follow up. So with that said, I think that's relatively easy for the audience to understand. It's something that they know they've got to do. And maybe there's a confidence element to this, maybe there's a mindset shift they need to implement, but this final covert contract of if I do everything right, I'm going to… I'm paraphrasing it slightly what you said earlier.   Be Comfortable with Life Getting Uncomfortable · [37:24]    Will Barron: If I do everything right, I'm going to have a smooth and simple life. This is something that I think I still struggle with a little bit, because I know logically that's not true. I've got a degree in chemistry. I understand entropy. I understand chaos, right? I've read books on chaos theory, game theory, all these kind of things were like, it's demonstratable even just how irrational humans are. You know what I mean?   Will Barron: And you're surrounded by billions of people on the planet, nevermind the environment and everything else that's shifted and constantly influx. But how do we… I feel like I've yet to accept this. I feel like I can just earn a little bit more money, I can buy a house a little bit further away from people and I can do this and I can do that. And I can try and mitigate some of the risks and the potential pains of life. How do I, or am I on the right tracker of how do I get to a point where I can flip a switch and be like, “Okay, I'm comfortable that life is uncomfortable.”   Dr. Robert Glover: That's such a good question. I'm smiling through all of it, because me too. I'm still thinking how come she got mad at me? I did everything right. I didn't do anything wrong. She's mad at me. Or how come this… I bought this house here in Mexico, five and a half years ago. And I love my home. I'm in my home office right now. And I love it, got a swimming pool. It's just great. And Mexico's noisy. There's a bar across the street that three nights a week plays really bad live music till two in the morning. And it's like, “That shouldn't happen. I don't want that happening.” Dogs bark, places I've lived before make go, your rooster's crowing at two in the morning, neighbours playing their music loud.   Dr. Robert Glover: And it's just like, there's this part of me, “That shouldn't be happening.” But I live in Mexico and it does happen. And I've looked at that and I'll get into my… I call it my wishful thinker. The corrupt government here instead of stealing all the money they take should actually come and repair the roads every now and then. And then I go, “Oh, well, that's not going to happen.” Government in Mexico's is corrupt at every level. The government is used to benefit the people in government, not the people being governed, but it's that part of me that says, “It shouldn't be that way. It shouldn't be that way.” And I think for me, it is almost childlike, almost Peter Panish.   Dr. Robert Glover: It's like hey, everything should be good in this world, everything should work well, everything should always work out, people should always treat each other nicely, people shouldn't be unconscious. And it is funny. My wife and I, we've learned to laugh at this. Early on it was actually a little bit of a conflict between us. My wife grew up eight out of 10 kids in poverty in Guadalajara, Mexico, an alcoholic father, being picked on, abused by family members, neighbours, family steals from family, neighbours steal from neighbours. That's just her worldview. And I grew up more of a white bread, suburban, lived on the suburb of Seattle, Washington. And everybody I grew up with, their dads were Boeing engineers and it is like my world experience is people sometimes go unconscious and do things not thinking about the consequences of it, but I don't think they're evil or bad.   Dr. Robert Glover: They're just unconscious. My wife thinks no, they're all evil. They're all [foreign language 00:41:16], as she would say, assholes. And so we'd have these arguments while driving, why did that person just cut us off? And she said, “Because they're [foreign language 00:41:24], they're an asshole. And I go, “Well, I think they were just unconscious. They just weren't paying attention.” And we both have kind of learned to laugh at our different worldviews. And I've adopted a little bit more of her worldview that there are bad people out there. There are people out there that consciously and willingly hurt other people and do bad things. And she's actually coming to understand, yeah, sometimes people just aren't paying attention. They're just unconscious. They're not thinking ahead about something or the consequences of their actions.   Dr. Robert Glover: And so I think growing up is partly accepting, we do live in a world where there's evil, there's chaos, there's hurtful people doing hurtful things to other people. And we live in a world, as you said, just from a physical material point of view, that is ever changing. We have pandemics, we have viruses and the nature of a virus, I mean, viruses are the basis of all life, but yet here we are trying to kill a virus. And because we don't want life to be chaotic. We don't want grandma to die 30 days sooner than she was going to, and I'm not trying to be dismissive. I had a sister-in-law, passed away of COVID a year ago. And so, I mean, this stuff is real and it touches close to home. But the reality is, yeah, we have a worldwide pandemic.   Dr. Robert Glover: There's been many others in the history of this planet. There'll be many more. And as you watch the panic of peoples, people going, “This shouldn't be happening. This should be fixed right now. We shouldn't have to do this. We shouldn't have to wear masks. We shouldn't have to get vaccinated. We shouldn't have…” And I'm not trying to make a political point of anything about it other than it is still wired into our emotional operating system, life shouldn't be difficult, life shouldn't be hard. And even going back to Scott Peck, first paragraph of the book, The Road Less Travelled, goes something like this, life is difficult. And he says this is a truth. This is an important truth. One of the greatest truths, because once we accept that life is difficult, life ceases to be difficult because we're not fighting against it.   “We need to accept that life is going to be difficult, that life is going to be challenging. And I love the serenity prayer of the 12 Step Programme. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” There are things we can influence, there are things we have no power or control over, those are the things we learned to accept, surrender into and quit fighting.” – Dr. Robert Glover  · [43:49]    Dr. Robert Glover: I mean, he ripped off the Buddha for that, life is suffering and once we accept that life is suffering, we transmute it into joy. So it doesn't matter how you say it. Once we accept that life is going to be difficult, life is going to be challenging. And I love of the serenity prayer of the 12 Step Programme. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. There are things we can influence, there are things we have no power or control over. Those are the things we learned to accept, surrender into and quit fighting.   “If we can use life's difficulties and challenges, the losses, the setbacks, the disappointments, and embrace them as just part of our powerful, personal growth machine to grow us up and help us live in reality, that's how we begin to learn to surrender and embrace the things we can't change, that we can't control, that we wish weren't happening.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [44:39]   Dr. Robert Glover: I can now sleep through the loud music from the bar till two in the morning. I mean, earplugs help, but I quit getting worked up about it now. It is what it is, and if I'm not worked up about it, I go to sleep. If I get I'll resentful and worked up about it keeps me awake all night long. And if we can use life's difficulties and challenges, the losses, the setbacks, the disappointments, and embrace them as just part of our powerful, personal growth machine to grow us up and help us live in reality, that's how we begin to learn to surrender and embrace the things we can't change, that we can't control, that we wish weren't happening.   Will Barron: Robert, have you read the book… And I apologise for the audience about the language now, but The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck.   Dr. Robert Glover: Yeah. I was really sick four years ago. I had a tumour blocking my small intestine come to find out, but nobody could find it. And so I was sick for three plus months, lost over 30 pounds, went to doctors in Mexico, America, nobody could figure out what was wrong with me. That was one of the talk about things like this should not be happening to of me, that was one of the most challenging things in my life, to not be able to eat, to not be able to use the restroom, to be fatigued all the time, to lose over 30 pounds, to not know what was wrong, to know is this killing me? Am I just going to live with this forever? Is somebody going to find an answer to it? Man, I did a lot of surrendering, a lot of it accepting.   Dr. Robert Glover: But during that time, not only I take a lot of naps, I did a lot of reading. And people that asked me, “Robert, do you know Mark Manson? He mentions you in his book Models.” Which was the first book that he wrote. And I said, “Yeah, we've actually had an email exchange or two, but I don't know him personally.” But I'd never actually read at the book Models. And then of course Mark wrote The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck. So during that time when I was dying, I read both of the books and I love his approach and finally found out in Models where he mentions me is in the epilogue, the very end of the book. He says that No More Mr. Nice Guy is probably the best book for men's emotional development out there. And I go, “Thank you, Mark.”   Dr. Robert Glover: And then when he got famous with The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck, and then people probably went back and read Models, that probably sold a lot of books for me. So I'm very grateful for Mark Manson. So yeah, his approach that yeah, we often give too many fucks about too many things that either aren't that important or that we don't have control over, it's another way of saying the serenity prayer. If I can do something about it, let me do it. If I can't, giving too many fucks about it doesn't serve me.   Will Barron: Yeah. I love it. So I didn't know that, your story there, but it's amazing to see the feedback loop of content and insights that goes back around. Right? Because I was with Mark on the show maybe like two years ago I had him on the Salesman Podcast and I'd read the book, but I don't think it sunk in, right? I had a chat with him, really nice guy. I had a good chat. We ended up talking nothing to do with the book. We were just chatting all kinds of stuff. Right? Well, I revisited the book maybe about a month ago. Really enjoyed it even more so second time round. And just as you were saying then, this idea of, with this third covert contract of, if I do everything right, I'm going to have a smooth and simple life, Mark's idea of, well, you're going to give a fuck about something.   The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck · [47:54]   Will Barron: And there's only so many fucks that you can give. So if you choose to give a fuck about things that are more useful and empowering to you, not having a simple, smooth, pleasant, Disney life is less of an issue because you just not focused on that and you can focus on something that's more valuable and fulfilling is a bit of a woo woo word, right? But there's an element of that we want to cultivate in our lives. And heck, if you've got dogs barking one day, but you get to live in Mexico and you got a pool the next day, give a fuck about that rather than the dogs and net you're going to win. Right?   Dr. Robert Glover: Yeah. We'll talk about woo woo for a minute. I've been practising gratitude for 20 plus years, where I just started just daily, just thinking of things for which I felt grateful. And I wake up every morning and just say thank you and feel grateful for a good night's sleep, for a comfortable bed, for the woman I wake up next to every morning, for air conditioning, for my pit bull Nala, for my health, just that I get to do stuff like this. I mean, I love my life, and having that as they say, and again, 12 Step Programme, the attitude of gratitude, yeah. Life is difficult. Life is suffering. Life is challenging. Life has like Mike Tyson says, everybody has a plan till you get hit in the face.   Dr. Robert Glover: We get hit in the face and it shatters our plan and we panic. But what if we could even be grateful for those punches in the mouth, for the being pummelling upside the side of our head? What if we begin to see loss, getting fired, losing a customer, losing a contract, getting sick? What if we started developing gratitude for those things and seeing the blessing and the gift and the lessons and the growth? And I mean, how many people listening to this, years back, struggled with something really difficult, really painful. And they were thinking the whole time, “I wish this wasn't happening to me. Why is this happening to me?” It might have been the loss of a relationship, breakup, it might have been a loss of a job.   Dr. Robert Glover: It might have been a personal illness, a loss of a loved one, a financial crisis. And they're going, “Why do I have to deal with this right now? This is difficult. I don't want to be here. This wasn't my plan.” When I was divorced in my late forties and went through some real big struggles. And as I approached 50, I thought about writing a book called Not Where I Thought I'd Be At 50. And I am glad for every one of those struggles I went through at that time in my life, because they've all helped give me a direction and a foundation and a mindset that's created the life I live right now, which I absolutely love. I love. And even like that near death experience four years ago, what a blessing it was, it rearranged.   Dr. Robert Glover: I mean, when I came out of surgery and woke up and first thing I woke up, I thought I'm alive, that was a plus. And then, but I also, it just hit me and I'm back. My mind was clear. I mean, I'm still under anaesthesia but I thought, “I'm back.” I don't have this fog, this thing I've been having for several months. I laid in my hospital bed that night and reorganised my business, how it's going to approach it, how I was going to just reorganise how I was going.   Dr. Robert Glover: Most people are retiring at my age. It's like, I'm on fire because I almost died. Right? And it is those experiences, instead of saying, “Why is this happening to me?” We can say, “What can I learn from this? How is this going to take me down?” And your listeners probably have all had an experience that they did not enjoy going through and now they're grateful that they did because of the way it pointed them in a new direction, gave them clarity, gave them skills, gave them empathy from being able to relate to other people better and therefore be more effective sales person.   Will Barron: For sure. So-   “If we can accept life being difficult, life ceases to be so difficult.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [52:10]    Dr. Robert Glover: Yeah. If we can accept life being difficult, life ceases to be so difficult.   Will Barron: I've never had a near death experience, but I've had plenty of crappy experiences right, on a few steps down from that. And what I find interesting is some of those tough times as crappy experiences, I now look back at them and it's hilarious. It's like it's a source of humans look back and go, “How stupid was I to do that?” Or remember this when this happened. And it was a pain in the ass. The boiler broken or I had a leak in the office and we had this and this, you look back and laugh about at all. And if you hadn't have gone through some tough times, you also don't the dynamics of the good times as well. There's no counter balance to them. And so they don't perhaps impact as much.   Parting Thoughts · [53:17]   Will Barron: Well with that Robert, I'm conscious of timing, because you said before we click record, that we're probably going to speak for longer than what we plan to. We've already done it. And I'll rub the things in me because if we start on another train of thought, we're going to be speaking for another 45 minutes, which I'd be more than happy to, but I'm conscious of your time there mate. Tell us with that then where we can find out more about you, the training that you do online and the workshops and that and the online university. And then tell us a little bit about the books as well, in particular, No More Mr. Nice Guy is we've touched on that a bunch in this episode.   Dr. Robert Glover: Sure. Yeah. Just I'm at drglover.com, D-R-G-L-O-V-E-R.com. If they Google Robert Glover, if they Google No More Mr. Nice Guy, I've got the top 10 spaces on both those pages, even beat out Alice Cooper's No More Mr. Nice Guy. So just go to drglover.com and it talks about my workshops, my seminars, my online university. I teach one online class. It's actually coming up. I don't know how if people are going to be listening to this in real time, but coming up soon called Nice Guys Don't Finish Last, They Rot In Middle Management, and this is the first online class I developed almost 20 years ago, and it's been popular ever since. And it applies the nice guy principles too, having the success we want in working career.   Dr. Robert Glover: So yeah, drglover.com and the books on Amazon and No More Mr. Nice Guy is my first book for anybody out there who are single. Second book is Dating Essentials For Men. Most recent book is Dating Essentials For Men, frequently asked questions. And what's interesting is my books on dating are actually really great for people in relationship and people in business because the skills I teach men in terms of dating, how to interact and get what they want, are actually great sales and marketing skills.   Dr. Robert Glover: I teach testing for interest, something that I call testing for interest. And I tell dating guys, this is the basis of all sales. And I teach the assumptive close, the man talking to a woman. Take out your phones. It's like, oh yeah, of course you're going to give me your number. You already start putting it in your phone before, you don't just go, “Can I have your number? Would you want to go out with me sometime?” And so the assumptive close is a powerful for sales tool. So yeah, that's me. So then you go to drglover.com and you'll find a link to everything,   Will Barron: Amazing stuff. Well, I'll link to all of that in the show note this episode over at salesman.org as well. And with that, Robert, I appreciate your time. I appreciate the insights. I appreciate you going through some trials and tribulations ups and downs and pains in your life so you can help support us young guns, right? With your knowledge and insights. I appreciate that mate. And I want to thank you again for joining us on the Salesman Podcast.   Dr. Robert Glover: Well, thanks for invitation.  

The absolute best way to excel in sales is by following a proven system that delivers consistently great results. And today, I’m breaking down the ONLY sales system you need to know to be a roaring success in this industry. In fact, it’s the same system we’ve used to help well over 2,000 sales professionals maximize their on-the-job effectiveness, blow past their previous income goals, and achieve real, lasting sales success. The System Let’s start with a question… When’s the last time you were sitting at your desk, wondering “What do I do now?” Now don’t misunderstand me here—sales is busy. Busy as all hell in fact. You’ve got product demos, client questions, cold outreach, quotas—and on top of it all, a sales manager breathing down your neck. But all this stress and business, it doesn’t really mean you’re productive. You feel busy, sure. But when people don’t have a proven sales system to follow, they tend to… flail. Less gets done around the office. Opportunities go overlooked. And unmet quotas fly by month after month with little improvement. You’re still stressed, of course. But even still, you aren’t able to make any real, lasting progress. And those feelings of stagnation, of plateauing, are the first signs of burnout. Mental health advocate and Founder of UNCrushed Time Clarke once told me in an interview, “I do research around a survey with B2B sales professionals, and of those, 67% of the respondents strongly agreed that they are currently close to burnout or experiencing burnout.” 67% of sales reps feel this way! And the problem in most cases is not having a cohesive system for driving consistent results and becoming a better, more effective salesperson. It’s this problem in particular that we’ve solved for over 2,000 reps with our Selling Made Simple system. And it’s this proven system I’m covering in this video. Now, let’s get into the ONLY sales system you’ll ever need to know. Like I said, this is the exact system we cover in the Selling Made Simply training. And it’s made up of four equally important steps… 1: Understand Your Market First up is understanding your market. Before you can even hope to close a sale, you have to know who you’re selling to. And that means understanding three things in particular.  A) Honing Your Value Proposition First is getting intimately familiar with your value proposition and tailoring it to your ideal buyer. What are the unique problems your prospects are facing? What solutions have they already tried to solve those problems? The more you understand about your customer, the better position you’ll be in to cater your value proposition to their distinct needs.  B) Understanding Your Buyer’s Journey Next up is understanding your buyer’s journey. Prospects move through very specific steps on their way to buying your product. From awareness and consideration to purchase and re-purchase. Guiding prospects through each of these steps effectively means knowing what information to deliver and when to deliver it.  C) Nailing Down the Numbers Finally, there’s playing the numbers game. How many prospects do you have to reach out to in order to book a single discovery call? How many of those turn into a qualified lead? And how many of those are going to actually become a buyer? Sales is, in fact, a numbers game. And the better you get at tracking and playing to those numbers, the better you’ll become at meeting goals and closing deals consistently. The next step in this sales system is getting in front of your buyers. 2: Get In Front of Buyers Getting in front of buyers. Sales don’t happen in a vacuum. Buyers are busy. And to close deals, you need to do the hard work to connect with prospects regularly and strategically. For most reps, that means reaching out in three different ways: A) Cold Email First is cold email. Email has a potential ROI of 44:1—that’s 4,400%! The trick is understanding how to wield this outreach method effectively. Subject lines, send times, body copy, value-adds—they’re all vital for cold emails that get responses from hot prospects. So do your homework before hitting “Send”! B) Cold Calling Then there’s cold calling. I know—the bane of every sales rep’s existence, right? But you don’t have to be fearful of cold calling. With the right game plan and the right intentions, you can turn awkward calls into value-adding conversations.  C) Social Selling LinkedIn in particular is one of the best social platforms to demonstrate your knowledge, build a following, and connect with potential leads. Effective social selling isn’t just a powerful supplement to cold emailing and cold calling either. Instead, it actually lets you generate leads while you sleep. Now, for each of these outreach methods, you also need to develop strategic sales cadences. D) Sales Cadences Cadences are sequences of touchpoints you make with prospects. When to make them. How to make them. And what to say at each touchpoint. Think of it like an outreach roadmap—all you have to do is follow it. A strategically sound cadence doesn’t just boost your chances of success. It also takes all the time-consuming guesswork out of your processes, saving you time and skyrocketing your earning potential. 3: Communicate the Value The most flawless outreach won’t do squat if you can’t communicate the value of your product. And to do so, you need to: A) Diagnose & Discovery Master diagnosis and discovery. This is the stage of the sales process where you identify the underlying problem your prospect is struggling with and determine if your product can actually help. Proper lead qualification on discovery calls does more than just save you time. It also lets you demonstrate your authority, build rapport, and drives enthusiasm from the buyer.  B) Demo, Upsell, & Takeover Mastering the demo, upsell, and takeover. These are each three essential steps for becoming a more successful sales rep. A demo is your chance to showcase how your product really works. And with the right technique, you can create a demo that not only educates and entices prospects, but also drives them to a purchase decision faster. Mastering the upsell lets you win more business from your current buyers. And with proper upselling, you can earn more commissions for less work. Then there’s the takeover. With the right strategy and technique, you can convert even the most loyal competitor accounts into enthusiastic buyers. Admittedly, it can take some work. But the rewards are well worth it. Finally, there’s closing. C) Closing  Closing. Funny enough, if you’ve implemented all the previous steps correctly up till this point, closing isn’t actually that difficult. Your prospects should be primed and pumped to work with you. They should fully understand your product and its benefits. And the only question left should be, “Where do I sign?” That being said, there are a few techniques you can use to clinch the deal even more. Like the Selling Made Simple 2-question closing framework that takes sales rejection out of the equation entirely. Now, the fourth and final step in the sales system is… 4: Cultivate the Right Mindset Now, this is a HUGE topic by itself. And there have been countless books, lectures, and seminars on sales mindset alone. But suffice to say that mindset is the foundation for each of the three previous steps. Do you have the discipline to study and understand your market? The strategy to get in front of buyers? And the assertiveness to communicate the value and close the deal? A lot goes into cultivating that mindset. Summary Well that about wraps it up for the ONLY sales system you’ll ever need. Remember, crushing it as a sales professional takes: Understanding Your Market Getting in Front of Buyers Communicating the Value Cultivating the Right Mindset If you can do that, you’ll be well on your way to selling more, earning more, and, most importantly, achieving professional success you never thought possible.