Adopting A More Authentic Sales Mindset With Chris Spurvey - REPLAY

Yeah, we're gonna dig into that a little bit more on this show, which I'm really excited about. And Chris, I want to ask you something. So I very briefly just let folks know about you. I would love in your own words to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, something that's not written in your bio but that you would love people to know about you.

God, that's a really good opening. I love it. I find for me, I love to share with people my personal life. My wife and I, we've been together since we were 13 years old, believe it or not. So we're definitely what you would consider child Childhood sweethearts. We're in our early 40s and we have the benefit of having now an 18-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl. So we are, we're living the luxury of being free and our kids have their licenses and they're— we're living a beautiful life and it's amazing. And I'm very grateful for the fact that my wife and I've been together since such a young age. We have a wonderful, beautiful marriage. So I'll share that as an opening, even though it has nothing to do with sales, but I find it is the foundation for And for me, it's the relationships that we've built, and that's what sales is really all about. So maybe I'll pause there and see how that segues into another question, perhaps. I love my life and I love my family.

Oh my goodness, Chris, there's so many synergies, it's scary actually. We'll touch on them one at a time, but wrote some articles recently on LinkedIn about this idea of what does it mean to close sales. People have a sort of a closing mentality. I think that might have been the movie Boiler Room, and there's been a lot of other portrayals of aggressive salespeople and had this closing mentality. And you hear a lot of folks talk about closing percentages and that kind of thing. And that has bothered me for some time. And I started to write this series of articles about— that's under the title, Stop Closing Sales, Start Opening Relationships.

I love it.

So, is there anything more important than the process of opening a relationship? Reframing that whole idea instead of closing something. You don't want to close anything. You want to open something.

Exactly.

So I'd love to get your sense if you've got a philosophy of sales, of selling. You podcast about this. You've written books about it. You teach and coach probably people in this area. I do. Yeah. What's your philosophy for—

My philosophy is almost exactly to what you said. For every door that does close, it first has to be opened and the open is where the importance needs to be placed. And if we focus on the open, We don't have to be, quote unquote, a salesperson to close the deal. We can just be ourselves, our genuine authentic selves. And for me, I like to, as a result of my own personal journey, what we want to do to become really good at opening doors is we want to tap into some unique part of our own personalities, our own identities, and just leverage those. So for me, as an example, when I decided I wanted to To pursue a career in sales way back in about 15 years ago, and I tried to do it the old way, the way of doing whatever it takes to close the deal, and I failed miserably. I then started to say, Kris, who are you? Who are you as a person? And for me, I'm a problem solver and I'm a curious individual. I love to learn about people. I love to learn about their stories. So when I meet somebody, the open is all about learning about them, asking questions about their family, asking questions about their occupation, about what they like to do in their spare time. So, I have an acronym, FORM: family, occupation, recreation, and motivation. And basically, I'll ask questions in and around that. And I find as I ask questions, they start asking me questions. So, it's my curiosity though that opens the door and I come across as being genuine and authentic. And then eventually, it comes in to them getting to learn about me and my value proposition. So, I'm with you. For every door that closes, it first has to be open. And we don't even need to focus on the close to do this right, in my opinion.

I couldn't agree with that more. It's just different languaging. We call that setting a context. So how is it that you said create a space, a sacred space? In fact, right before we hit the record button on this show, I was saying to you that part of my goal with us was that we would close the gap.

Yes.

That our connection and you and I feeling more connected, you're Newfoundland And I'm in San Diego, California. So we're quite a few miles apart. And yet we wanted to maintain or create this really wonderful connection. Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Because we knew that would translate into not only a deeper connection with everybody that's listening, but that it would also have the potential to model something for those folks that are watching and listening to this and thinking, geez, how is it that I Open up a conversation with a total stranger. And you and I hadn't talked before. We have a mutual friend and were introduced. And I know you've spoken to my wife and here we are getting on a call or getting on a podcast. We've not met before. So closing the gap. So again, language is really important. And there's a lot of language that people use in a way that we take for granted that it doesn't mean what it says. In internet marketing language, they have things called tripwires, right?

Yeah.

Things called lead magnets. And there's any number of other Terms that if you were thinking about, and funnels and all kinds of stuff where if you were thinking about establishing a meaningful, sustainable relationship with someone, would you use that language? Would you describe them as a lead and that you'd want to create a magnet to attract them? Would you want to funnel them? Would you want to trip them in some way or trick them or create a mousetrap for them? Is that how you would speak to your grandmother? Would that be acceptable language for somebody you really Loved and cared about, right? And it's not. And I think language in many ways is the context.

Yeah.

So how is it that you establish a great opening and a great context to be in relationship with someone? And you've given us a great acronym for that.

Yeah, FORM. And then from there, like I said, you eventually become a topic in the conversation as well. If I had to sit down and analyze my sales conversations, I would estimate I am talking 20% of the time, at the most, and it's the person who I am looking to engage and solve their problem who's doing all the talking. It's a diagnostic conversation, asking questions and then sharing bits and pieces of my value proposition, and doing it in such a way that I'm framing it up to be the solution to the problem that they have, and sometimes they don't even know they have it, and working the questions we ask Deep down to finding what the intrinsic motivation is for that individual. And that may be, like, for example, in a B2B setting, if I'm going in and I'm selling— in the past, I've sold software— finding out if that software is— of course, they'll originally give you business reasons for upgrading their software, but the more questions you ask, the more trust you build, you eventually bring it around into intrinsic motivations, which is around Their desire to grow within the company, to feel validated within the company. You're getting closer. You're creating that bond and trust the more they share of themselves and their real reasons for wanting or desiring to solve the problem that you can solve. So, that to me is the ticket to effective sales today.

Yeah. You know what? I want you to circle back to that because you said it articulately and clearly, and yet I'm thinking there's people listening going, I really want to get that. And they didn't stop to take the notes or what have you. So if you just reverse back and explain the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and how—

Yeah, it's a use case. So I'm working for a company and I am the director of IT and I report up to the vice president of finance or the CEO or whatever. And I'm in meetings throughout my day and I'm— the topic of upgrading the software for ERP, enterprise resource planning, or scheduling, whatever comes up. And I'm I'm stressed because I'm the director of IT, and I'm in charge of getting this done, this project done on time and on budget. And so, the extrinsic motivation is, I need to do this because the software is out of service and not being supported by the company that runs it anymore. If it goes down on a weekend, I'm going to be the one called, and the CEO is going to come down on me. And so, the extrinsic motivation is because it's out of service, and the software product is not being serviced anymore. But, the more you get into a deep relationship and you understand that individual, maybe their desire to make more money and serve their family better on the weekend and create a beautiful life with their family, or maybe they just want to have more free time in their lives, so they want to grow inside the firm to get that autonomy such that the CEO lets them run their own shop. These are the types of intrinsic motivations that, as sellers, we can tap into and speak to in such a way that the person feels we really know them and we know what makes them tick. So, selling is all about growing that trust, and we can only really grow trust if we truly get to know that individual at the internal level, what their internal motivation is. Does that frame it up maybe a little bit better?

It does. I think that'll be helpful for people, and trust is a big deal. It's the heart of Any relationship is the idea or the feeling. It's not a belief, it's a feeling. I believe—

yeah,

it's a feeling that you can trust someone.

Yeah, it's a feeling that we have the best interest of the individual in our hearts as the seller. I can get on calls all day long and sell something to somebody because I can talk. If I'm not doing it with my heart in the game, I don't feel good about it going to bed at night. And so I want to be there to solve a problem for the people I work Yeah,

we call it the heart of enrollment. That's the language that we believe everything is an enrollment conversation. So you're having enrollment conversation with people all day long, whether it's the conversation with your 15-year-old to make sure that they're driving according to the rules you've given them, they're home at certain times, or it's to ensure that they're doing their homework or they're brushing their teeth or whatever it is. Those are all enrollment conversations.

Absolutely. I like that word. I like that word enrolling. I've had a friend of mine, Dan Martell, who lives up here in Canada. He uses that word enrolling. And I like it. I like it a lot.

Yeah. It's a collaborative thing. It's engagement and it's relationship building for sure. Chris, do you have a recipe? I know I've been searching for what other word I might use for that, but for lack of a better word, is there a recipe to your style of selling, your style of engagement or enrollment?

A recipe. That's a great question. I would say I've never sat down and necessarily codified the recipe as such, but effectively, number one, I'm a real believer in personal branding. And when I say personal branding, what you're doing here and what I'm doing here is we are sharing ourselves with the world and people through listening to a podcast or reading my Sunday morning newsletter or reading certain emails I might send to my list. They get to know me and like me and trust me through what I share with them. And so what sales looks like for me today is I only enroll people who know, like, and trust me, and most of them haven't even spoken to me up to a point in time. I invite them to join me on a call where I basically get on the call with them and they've already pre-sold themselves because I've identified the problem I solve for people. And so, then I get on a call with them and we basically bridge the gap, like you said earlier. And so, sales to me today feels a whole lot easier than it did many years ago when social media and this idea of personal branding. So, the recipe for me is certainly the Personal branding is a big element to it. Now, whether we call it personal branding or professional branding, whatever, it's all just about putting ourselves out there in such a way that people feel us through our sharing of our knowledge and sharing and be willing to do that. So that's the recipe I've centered around and become used as my— you mentioned earlier pivoting. I've pivoted into creating a brand around myself. I call myself today Chris Berbee 7.0. I've pivoted into 7.0, and Chris Berbee today is Chris Berbee, the sales trainer/consultant/coach, and I don't necessarily have to go out and sell people anything. They come to me and say, Kris, I want to avail of your services. But it would not be possible if I never— today, if I never put myself out there with my book and my podcast and various other assets.

People that are saying to themselves right now, geez, that's good for Kris and we are happy for you, but we don't have a— I don't have a book and I don't have a reputation. I don't have a podcast, that kind of thing. But I just want to really— I want to tackle this fear that I have or this Feeling that somehow when I'm selling, I'm different. I'm not my authentic self, or I'm not confident when I'm selling because it feels odd to me. What would you say to somebody like that?

Yeah. So number one, to just respond to your thoughts.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different. Something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader The first step to take your assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

That people are listening and they're saying, that's good for Chris Spurvey. I started 4 years ago with no assets either, and I just decided to start. And if I never had decided to start 4 years ago, I'd be still sitting here trying to— I'd be still sitting here not knowing what to do. So we just start and we pivot around what works and what doesn't work we throw out. But I guess from my vantage point in terms of tapping into, we want to sit down and we want to do a little inventory of what makes us feel good around serving clients. And I mentioned earlier, I tapped into curiosity and problem-solving and I went out and just started talking to people through the lens of those 2. unique abilities or— and so the conversations became a whole lot easier when I did that than having scripts and methods and tactics to go out and quote unquote sell. So I encourage people to try to find some aspects of their personalities that they can leverage rather than being something that they're not. So that's typically what I'll work with people around, but I do believe as well, and I should note, That there's a big aspect of motivation that's at play here. And sometimes we just got to get— we got to do stuff that we're not comfortable doing. And I know reflecting on my early parts of my career, I was thrown up on a stage at a very young age, just out of university, and having to speak to groups of 400 and 500.

Did you say you were thrown up or you were throwing up?

Both, both. I was thrown up. I was hired by an insurance company to go around Canada And sell the philosophy of e-business. This was an insurance company that was going online, and they had me going up on stage to sell their clients on the idea that insurance can be transacted online. And so, I would get up in front of groups of these large groups of clients and trustees and associations. I had never spoken in public in my life up to that point in time. I read a quote, to get the energy to do the thing, Sometimes we just got to do the thing. And I would repeat that to myself as I was walking up on stage, and then I would find myself in the midst of my first sentence, and I would take off from there. So sometimes it's just a matter of going out there, falling down, picking ourselves back up in order to learn what works and what doesn't.

That's such a great example. One of the things that our company specializes in is training speakers, training people who want to be on larger stages and get paid to do keynotes or do TEDx talks, or even just to be able to do what you just described, which is to— at a company meeting or an association or something, to be able to have a talk and feel like they're not gonna get sick. In fact, actually be able to leverage that talk for a useful purpose in business or otherwise. Getting the— taking the bull by the horns or whatever. What was the mantra that you used to say to yourself?

To get the energy to do the thing, sometimes we just got to do the thing.

Just got to do the thing. So sometimes that's the case. We give folks a different— a little bit of a different mantra on that, which has to do with Recognizing that when we speak or at any time when we're gonna connect with other people, we can make it about them before it's about us. So it's not about me, it's about we. Again, it's this idea that we want to close the gap or bridge the gap, and that's the primary context that we want to set. Yeah. At the beginning, internally for ourselves, and then energetically with what we verbally say to other people. So we're setting this context and managing that That kind of the energy of it. And we find that, at least it's been in my experience too, I'm not an extrovert by nature. I'm an introvert. Yeah. But yet I spend so much time in front of people and speak so often. And part of that is because there's a higher purpose to the speaking. There's just a higher purpose to doing that thing. Like you said, to get the energy, you've got to do that thing that you may be really hesitant to do. And then to plus that, when there's a higher purpose, there's a bigger why. For doing it, you can get past your own little voice or the inner critic that says, you suck.

Absolutely.

You might suck. So are you willing to dare to suck because something is actually more important?

Yeah, just get up and suck.

Or whatever. You're gonna look good.

I love that.

Sales is so similar, don't you think?

Oh, it's like that. To me, it's identical. I see so many analogies between the two and we believe in our product and we believe in our offer, especially if we have had a personal story that's somewhat attached to the offer. Just get out there and share the story and see where it goes. And you're going to learn through interactions and conversations. And I take a lot of indirect routes to sales. For example, a tactic might be, hey, I'm not trying to sell you anything, but who do you know that has this problem? And by taking that indirect route, it takes off the pressure altogether. It takes off you as the pressure off you as the seller. It takes the pressure off the person you're talking to because they think they're being sold. Hey, I'm not selling you anything. But I'd be really interested if you know anybody who has the problem and take that approach. I love what you're saying. I'm feeling what you're saying there and I just love this idea that we have a purpose behind everything we do and if we just tap into that purpose and the idea of just sharing it with people, over time the passion will just ooze out and you'll become very effective and natural at doing it. And it's not to say it won't be scary. I still today get up and do speeches. talks and I'm nervous before I get up, but I think that's just the energy coming out of me. So I try to tap into that energy and say, you know what, Chris, you're actually just— you're excited about getting up. Yeah, you're a bit nervous, but you're excited.

Yes, it's meaningful to you.

Yeah, exactly.

If I was gonna create a context, a word for how it is that you create context with people at the start, it would be curiosity. Or at least that's one of the words, because what's natural for you is this curiosity about where they're at and how it is that there might be a good potentially between your product or service and where they're at. And that's an exploration. So whether it's curiosity being that context is really, I think, very authentic as a word for your part of what your intention is.

Absolutely. Yeah, I agree.

Great advice here for folks that are thinking, how is this actionable for me? What can I do with this? Is to really establish what is that thing That would be a word, for example, or a phrase that describes your intention for that conversation, for that engagement. And curiosity is a great one. Exploration, wanting to explore, wanting to see, is there a fit? Is there a win-win in this? Is there something that would feel good on both sides if we were to do business together? And would it be okay if we explored that? Yeah. So without attachment, without it having to come down to one uncomfortable moment where I've told you about all my I've shown you my wares and now I'm going to ask you to take out your— which credit card would you like to use? Some awkward and artificial moment like that. It's more like upfront, I would love to share something about what I do and learn a great deal more about what you're up to and how it is that I have or what I do might serve you. And if it seems like there is some synergy there or some connection that's meaningful and there would be a win-win, I'd love to be able to explore that further with you.

Yeah.

Would you be open to that?

Yeah, I love that win-win, and that's what I try with the people I work with, and I try to achieve through all my conversations is a win-win. And I think that's part of the problem is that people view sales as their initial instinct is to go to a competitive mindset and where someone has to win and someone has to lose. And so I try to flush that out of the system. And look at every opportunity as a win-win. You have the solution and they have the problem, so let's match those up and they get the win of the solution and you get the win of having done that and perhaps getting paid in the process. Absolutely, I agree with that 100%.

As an initial matter, just in terms of how you see that person, the word prospect doesn't offend me, so to speak, but there's just something about, again, would you call your grandmother a prospect? Thinking about the words and the language that you use to describe people and describe the process itself. That's why closing sales or having Having somebody be a part of your closing numbers, your month-end or your quarterly-end numbers, did you make your numbers and where does this person fit in the quota and things like that. You lose a lot on the side of what it takes to open genuinely open relationships and care for and nurture relationships when you see people as numbers.

I think we who are involved in the human services aspect of life where we are truly helping people. We can be different, and we don't have to take the old philosophies. I know, like, from my past life, I've worked with some of the larger organizations. Oracle comes to mind as one of the large software vendors. They just have these methods of sales, price, changing price based on the time of year in an effort to hit year-end quotas, that type of stuff. We don't have to be that, and in this world we're living in where it's truly a heart-based approach to selling.

That's a wonderful place to lead into the last question here, but I so agree with that point that it's those calculations, those manipulations. I suppose there's a place for them, and since more often than not the listeners to this podcast and probably to your own are not necessarily people running huge organizations that are focused on those kind of metrics, but for most people, and I think this is the driving force in the economy, in the world economy anyway, is decentralization. Really great books on this now, and clearly the cost of communication has come down, and lots of technological advance is already with us and more to come, which only makes it possible for people to have greater freedom and to work more from a virtual place anyhow. Absolutely. So this idea of decentralized leadership, I think, is more the name of the game, and many more people are becoming entrepreneurs in the future— now and in the future— than people are Going into the job market, finding your authentic— you and I are using this sort of the sense, this idea that we're coming from our hearts and creating this heart space, if you will, for those engagement conversations. I think that's much more important and will be much more effective than people adopting or trying to adopt some artificial method or methodology or system, let's say, of this is the script for how you close somebody.

Exactly.

You move them through a conversation that leads to a sale.

Yeah.

So in any event, I really appreciate your thoughts and your insight on that. And I would love to ask you as well, what are some of the things that you do on a ritualistic basis? We talk about rituals as being master habits. So habit being something we do unconsciously, and there's nothing wrong with habits. We're all creatures of habit. So we're really focused on the things we do with more of a conscious intent. So we call those rituals. What are some of the success rituals that you've established?

Yeah. In 2016, I walked 3,000 kilometers with my 2 golden retrievers. In 2017, we walked 3,500 kilometers. And I do all of that between the hours of 7:30 in the morning and roughly 8:45 every morning. And I walk a trail which is wooded along a river, and I use that opportunity as to get myself ready for the day and rehearse my upcoming meetings and to set an intention for each meeting that has win-win outcomes. And so I get the benefit of some exercise and I also get the benefit of thinking through and visualizing my meetings or my upcoming interactions in advance. And you would be amazed. I'm speaking to the converted. You would be amazed as to the outcomes of 90% of the meetings I have or interactions I have on my schedule. They go down the path. I attract into my life the outcomes that I'm looking to achieve, right? And it's win-win, right? So, the ritual for me is getting out in nature. And this may sound very stereotypical. It might sound like something you read in a book, and I'm sure you do, but I truly put it to practice. And during that hour and a half I spend walking the 2 dogs, I go through those ritual of gratitude. I display gratitude in my own body for what I have in my life. And I think gratitude is the foundation of everything. And if you're not grateful for what you have, do, or be in your life, you can't really build upon any foundation. So gratitude is the foundation. So that's— I spend that time. And outside of that, I am pretty ritually oriented. I run my day in similar patterns. I have meetings, most of them at lunchtime onward. In the mornings, I spend more of the cerebral types of activity whether it's writing or producing or— and that type of stuff. So I find my creativity is highest in the morning and in the afternoon, I can— it's more of a— I feed off the energy of interaction and so I try to drive my day through with that type of a pattern.

Beautiful. It's been a pleasure to have you share from the heart today which has been really powerful and I know valuable to a lot of the folks that are listening and watching as well. I never like to think of these as endings. There are always beginnings. But as we bring this show to its conclusion anyhow, for the moment, I want to remind everybody of something that really piggybacks and dovetails nicely with what Chris just shared, which is that gratitude is so powerful. It is certainly something that we get to cultivate. I am amazed and yet not amazed at all at how deep the well goes. In fact, there's Seemingly, and I believe no bottom to it, this well of gratitude. And so my prayer for all of you that are listening is that we get to wake up, that you get to wake up tomorrow as you did today, because that wasn't guaranteed. It wasn't. There are people that, that didn't wake up today that probably would have loved to but didn't. And so this waking moment is really a blessing, and it really is something to feel grateful for. So my prayer is that you wake up tomorrow, Chris, you and your family and Everyone in your world and everyone who's listening to this now, I wish the same thing for all of you and of course for everyone, that we get to wake up tomorrow. And as we are waking up and taking that deep first breath of the day, that first conscious breath, that we are in fact aware that there will be people taking their last breath in that moment. And there will also be people taking their first breath, babies of course being born into this world, taking their first breath. in that morning, in that moment. And that is a blessing and something that we can all feel tremendous gratitude for, regardless of whether we have challenges, as we almost always do anyhow. But there's still this opportunity to start the day, as Chris was saying, with gratitude, to explore that deep well of gratitude. So it's part 1 is to wake up, part 2 is to feel that gratitude, and part 3, if you're willing to do it, is from the bed, or when your feet hit the floor, if you like, to declare out loud these words, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. And Chris, you said that at the very outset of this show, and we remind our community all the time. I hope, and I really do hope, people aren't sick of hearing me say that, because I don't think there's anything more profound that I've learned in the years I've been around than to express that statement out loud, to live, to see the universe meet us in that place where we want to love our lives. Mm-hmm. And there's all the reason in the world to recognize that we do.

Love it. Very well said.

Thank you, Chris.

To get your own free resilience assessment, go to RankMyResilience.com. Thank you.