Meditating on Hardcore Sales with Guru Ganesh Khalsa

I was at Woodstock, Adam. I know it sounds like a cliche, but I was actually. There was like a phenomenal experience and I still haven't fully recovered from.

Hello, I'm Adam Durrell and I'm the host of the Account Experience podcast. This is your weekly opportunity to meditate on the ancient mysticism of enterprise account sales combined with the new age philosophies of customer experience. Together, it's the beautiful sense, wonder and knowledge that we call Account experience. And in every episode, I like to commune with an industry leader to share best practices and tips to help you develop your Account Experience program. I'm also a father of four, founder and fanatically interested in humans. I love anything that furthers the quality of business relationships. Today I'm talking with truly the most amazing human being, Guru Ganesh Kalsa, who came into my life around 25 years ago when he led the most mind blowing sales course I'd ever attended. And I've been using his wisdom ever since. And I'm so excited to pass this on to a wider audience. So just a short introduction. He brings such a varied life experience with him. Well, including attending Woodstock. Yeah, really. And I hope we'll get into some of that later. Frankly, nobody tells a story better than him. But for now, in this life, his main commercial role is the company he founded, Conscious Selling, Inc. And he is probably the most sought after sales trainer in the global tech universe. Thousands of successful high tech sales professionals have been influenced by him. Yanesh's work is seminal and his extensive client list is a who's who of top tech companies in the world, including Salesforce, LinkedIn, Slack, Oracle, Cisco and Dell. And that was me in 1988. Welcome and namaste, Guru Ganesh. Counselor, hello.

Hello, Adam. What a pleasure and a privilege to be with you today. And you know, it's all common sense that's painfully uncommon in the selling profession, unfortunately, you know.

Well, I. That may be true, but you deal with it in a different way. One of the things I've always loved about your philosophy is the. It's gotta. There's got to be something in it for both of us, right? But before we dive into this, for those who've never heard of you before, let's get a little put pot of history. You know, tell us a little bit about your background and how did you get here?

Oh my God. Well, I was born in 1950 and in Boston, Massachusetts. You know, when I get in front of a group these days, people kind of look at me. They're not expecting this. So the way I generally open a sales training seminar is say, you know, generally when I get in front of a group, first thing people want to know is, Ganesh, what's with the turban and the beard? You sound like you're from Brooklyn, New York. And I'd say, well, you got to understand there's an explanation for this. You see, my father's Russian Jewish ancestry. My mother's Irish Catholic, and I took a little bit too much LSD in college in the late 60s. And this is what happens.

What are you going to do?

Right? I usually get a nice chuckle and then people relax. Always a regular guy. He's not going to lay some religious trip on us in the break. Maybe I'll do that during the breaks, but not during the actual trainings, you know.

Well, one of the reasons I want. I've always admired you, is the honesty with which you live your life. It's unbelievable that you've got, frankly, bravery to do this. So. So hail to you.

But.

But okay, so the back, that was working fine.

Adam was working fine right up until 9 11. And I was actually sleeping in a hotel that night, watching cnn, you know, preparing for a training program the next day in Texas. Not the most popular look in Texas since 911 for sure. And all of a sudden they show the Taliban and they're all wearing black turbans and beards. And I said, oh shit, I'm screwed now. And my mother called, says, hey, can't you just wear a baseball cap? And I said, ma, this is who I am. I got to be me. And by the way, people always ask me, said, you do sales training like this? I said, well, I'll tell you what, if I do a good job, they never forget me. Now, of course, if I do a lousy job, they never forget me either. So it's a good market differentiation. Even though this is the real me.

Yeah, I know it's a real you, but you're right, it's definitely unforgettable. And that's why I've never forgotten you in 25 years. But so. But it is kind of an interesting thing. So you see, you've got an interesting background. And you. I know you're a musician as well, and you did. But how. Why sales training?

And I never planned that. You know, I know everybody. A lot of folks talk about, you got to have goals, you got to put together, plan to reach those goals and just not be emotionally attached to it. I've really lived my life just, you know, I Believe there's a benevolent force that's got my back. I can't prove it, but I believe it, whether you want to call it God, whatever you want to call it. And I kind of every morning get up, I meditate, and I put my hands. I put myself in the hands of that benevolent force which my intellect can't fully grasp or explain in words. I just went bone marrow deep. And so my prayer every morning has just been, thy will be done. Thy will be done. Thy will be done. Make it clear unto me. And somehow I went from being a rock and roll musician taking too much LSD from about 68 to 71. Then I met this yogi from India and who happened to be of the Sikh faith. And I got inspired by the Sikh faith. And before you know it, I'm 22 years old, and I go home to see my mother wearing turban and a beard. And she freaked out. And of course, three years later, I come home for Thanksgiving, and she's all dressed in white with a white turban on, of course, like Gloria Swanson emerald, right up here on her turban. And I said, mom, what is going on here? She says, well, I wanted to pay tribute to your path. I said, really? You've been really negative about my path since I got on it. She said, well, it got you off drugs. I said, that's. Thanks. But I really. I joined a spiritual community, and we had a vegetarian restaurant, and I was the dishwasher. You know, the newbies go right to the dishwashing corner. And my whole theory of life is, whatever the universe puts in front of you, excel in it. Just do the absolute best, whatever it is. I became the best damn dishwasher they ever had there. And before you know it, they said, you know, we got a pottery shop. Maybe you can go over and help out at the pottery shop. Because while I was washing dishes, I was always singing, and that seemed to lift the spirits of the people in the kitchen. So we got very productive when I was back there holding the sprayer and doing the dishes and chanting affirmations and mantras and stuff. But, yeah, one door kind of opened up and led to the other. So I started as a dishwasher. Then I moved into. They tried to make me into a potter, but it was a struggle. So I ended up becoming the salesman for the pottery shop. And then we became the exclusive Eastern distributors of the Birkenstock sandal from I love Birkenstocks.

And one of my favorite shoes.

I helped keep food on his Carl Birkenstock's table. We had a quote of 100,000 pairs of Birkenstock east of the Mississippi. Now, most of east of the Mississippi doesn't have a lot of warm weather, so it was tough selling sandals, but I did a fairly good job of it. And then a company started in the US Called Shock T Shoes. They kind of took the Birkenstock concept, the footprint, kind of a footbed, like with arts or meditars. Footprint, they called it, put it in a closed shoe. And for several years, I did really well selling those all over the country. Then one of my clients had developed this computerized retail management system for goods with sizes, shoes, clothes, sporting goods. And he was running his shoe. He was one of my customers. He had a shoe store in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass. And he asked me, ganesh, you know, really like you. You have. People seem to like you. How about selling my computer systems? They start at 40,000 per store, and you make a flat 15% commission. Now, I'm not that good at math, but I could figure that out. 6,000 bucks per sale I would make. That's a lot of money. Back in the early 80s, yeah. So I signed on with them and I struggled the first year. I finished like 13th out of 16 reps and managed to keep my job because I sold one system and there were three guys who didn't sell any system. So I kept my job for another year. And the boss said, you know, I've heard some good things about this Sandler sales training. How about I pay for you to go to a seminar? I'm. Meanwhile, I was in California now because that was. I just ended up there because it works really well with who I am. And before, you know, I went to a Sandler seminar and I. It really kind of was seminal for me in that it taught you how to sell. I was selling complex big dollar technical solutions, but it taught you how to do it in a consultative way. Because in my early, you know, I could. You could tell I like the talk. So I was always presenting. And what I didn't realize was that I was putting a lot of people on the defense. Because when you start pitching before you even understand the other person, it can make people uncomfortable. Right. And defensive, or they start out defensive when they know you're selling something anyways. But in any event, things changed dramatically when I started implementing Sandler. And I went on to become, from that year, 83 to about 89, one of the top reps for this company called MicroStrategies, who later were bought out by CAM Data, later bought out by IBM. Because we were pioneers, Adam. We were moving people, cash registers at point of sale to computer terminals at point of sale so they can actually keep track of their inventory. And they could, with a few clicks, have a nice open to buy report about what they, you know, so. And that people would get a great return on investment if they did it right and transitioned and had better information to make better decisions. But what made me a top rep for microstrategies was the fact that I go in and I'd say to people, because the people that I was calling on maybe had raised their hand and said, well, I'd like to learn a little bit more about this, but we're nowhere near the switching out of cash registers. And I start. And I'd say, hey, you know, Adam, I don't know yet if we're right for you. We're not right for everybody. And I suggest that we only consider doing business together if we're both convinced it's the right thing for you to do. And frankly, I'm sure you're not convinced, and I certainly am not. Would you be comfortable if we started the meeting and you told me about what's working and what's not working in terms of managing your entire operation, and people were comfortable? I think it disarmed them when I said, I don't know.

Yeah.

And because most important thing in professional selling, Adam, I believe, is your intention going into the call. And by intention, I mean, okay, if I were to ask 100 salespeople who have an appointment this afternoon with a prospect, maybe a significant prospective client, and if I were to ask them, what's your intention for this call? You know what? Over 90 of them almost instantly say, to make a sale.

Yeah.

And I'm like, you know what? That's the problem. That's the wrong end of the situation here. The intention ought to be to only do business if it's the right thing to do. And you can't know that until you deeply understand what's going on with in the pressure. Yeah.

And that takes the pressure off, doesn't it? Because I think, you know, one of the things you told me was if you go in there and you under pressure, your heart rate's up and people really, they pick up on that.

Right.

And by, I guess, meditating, maybe you can tell us more about that. You know, it just takes the pressure off. And I guess that's just helps, right?

Or you're exactly right, Em. And I really need to meditate you know, there's an old expression that the people who claim they don't have time to meditate are the ones who need meditation the most. You know, because I tend to be kind. My father was bipolar, so I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm bipolar, but I got a little bit of the mania. You know, when I get in front of a group, I hit the switch. All of a sudden it happens. But I can't be like this in front of a prospective client. I always take maybe five minutes and do this breath meditation called the one minute breath, where I slow my breathing down for at least five, six minutes to where I'm taking one breath per minute, long, slow inhale. Then I hold the breath for a comfortable amount of time. Then a long slow exhale and hold it out. Takes maybe three or four minutes before you get your breath rate. From the normal 12 to 20 breaths per minute down to less than two breaths per minute. Get there for a while. All of a sudden you start to become very calm and confident. I call it calm confidence. Yeah, because the most important thing or one of the most important things in sales is your presence, right? It's the emotional impact. You, your physiology, your facial expression, your eyes, this, your tonality, the sound of your voice. And you realize that the words are the least important in terms of the emotional impact on your fellow human being. And most salespeople obsess about words. What words are they going to, they script everything out. Way more important is to get you in this calm place because then it helps people relax. And then when you follow up with this calmness by saying, you know, Adam, nice to meet you, but I got to tell you right up front, I don't know yet if we're right for you or not right for everybody. And all of a sudden that disarm. Because most buyers, when they realize they're in a position where they've got somebody trying to sell them something, they get with defensive, they're kind of like this. Now why are they like this? Because at some point in their career as a buyer, they've had a bad experience with sellers, right? Typical pushy, obnoxious, overly aggressive, eye centered, self serving salesperson. You know, most people aren't like that, but they act like that. So because resemble that even this much, immediately it triggers the stereotype that they're carrying around in their head. You're right.

And the defenses come up. I agree. I mean, I keep going to try to practice this. Let's fast forward a little bit because how I met you, you had a Sandler franchise back in the day. And I know now you've got your own business. We'll talk a little bit about that. But I still took away so much of the work that you did. But then 25 years ago, everybody was focused on shifting tin. I don't know, whatever you want to call it. Acquisition sales we used to call this.

Right.

And now the world has changed. Many of the people that we talk to are. Well, they've either got long term relationships with their clients. For example, in the CPG business, they just keep shipping stuff to them.

Or they've got my world, it's software as a service.

Exactly. It's retention. So. So let's get into that a little bit because there's plenty of stuff around that people can find about you talking about acquisition sales. So. But how do you see retention? Sales is different to acquisition, or maybe they're the same for all I know.

What are your thoughts on starts from the beginning? Like I said, common sense. That's painfully uncommon in the sales profession. People do business, Adam, with people they like and they trust. So even if they like you, they like your personality, that doesn't necessarily mean they trust you yet because there's a lot of charismatic, likable people out there that aren't trustworthy, you know? And how does one build trust right out of the gate with a human being? Well, and it's not just about being trustworthy, although you need to be trustworthy. You can't fake it, but it's about disarming the other person. It's about being honest. And the most honest thing you can say, especially if you have a technical solution, is that I don't know yet if we're right for you. I suspect we may be based on what you do and what we do, but we're not right for everyone. So with your permission, I'd like to start the meeting. And if you're comfortable doing this, I'd like to hear about what's working in your world in the areas of A, B and C, what's not working. And let's say 20, 30 minutes into this, I'll be in a better position to speak to whether or not I can help. And if I. And if I can, I'll give you a very brief, high level overview mapped into the stuff you care about. All right, I know this sounds like acquisition selling, but you got to start. You got a building. Trust starts right out of the gates gate. And then the way you maintain that trust is same thing your Intention, even on a quarterly business review with an existing customer, is to only suggest that they consider perhaps an, you know, what you would call an upsell, something else that you have in your bag if you both are convinced it's the right thing to do. Now, it's important once you. Some companies, the account manager, the initial seller becomes the account manager and goes from hunting and then to farming. But lot of tech companies have different people right next that make the sale and then it gets passed over to the customer success manager. Fair.

Yeah, that's right. Or the account manager, they call them these things.

Yeah. No, but that handoff isn't always the most graceful handoff or, you know, the account exec doesn't even show up, show up to do the handoff. And now people are feeling like, wait a second, I like to have him, but where is he? All of a sudden I got this new guy and I'm not feeling so comfortable with this new guy. Everything has got, you know, it's common sense once again. It's got to be seamless if you're going to have a customer success manager. And everything's got to be positioned like, hey, your customer success manager's job is on a. If on a scale from 0 to 10, as far as your satisfaction with what we sold you is to help you become an 11. And then also there are other things that we have that may be of service to you. But if he starts pitching that stuff before he's got you up to 10 or 11, call me.

But I'm guessing what you're doing is you're building on the relationship you had before. So you've had all these proof points that, hey, remember when we said that that's still working out for you, right? You know, it's that sort of thing, isn't it? You force the trust and then you go on and you keep checking in. I think that's the most most important thing. The other thing that.

Let me add this. At the beginning of these quarterly business meetings, I always suggest you take their temperature, their csat. Hey, before we get, you know, a little chit chat. Hey, I want to be sensitive to time. Just give me a sense as to where you are. We sold you this solution about six months ago. Zero. It's been a complete disaster. And the reason you're on the call here is you want to tell me to come and pick up my pickup truck and take it away. We've met or exceeded your success criteria. Where are we? And if the number is five or below, you're in trouble. But just the fact that you. And then if the guy says four, you say, I appreciate your honesty. You're always validating, right? I appreciate your honesty. Why four? And then listen closely. They're going to tell you how to keep them as a customer. But hardly any, even customer success managers don't do that. They don't want to hear the answer.

Okay, that's what I want to dig into. Because I mean, you know, our business, we're all about bringing in feedback into. Into companies. And yet I see it as almost the biggest block to sales success is not taking in customer feedback. It's almost that people are referring. Afraid of it. So, Ganesh, tell me, tell the people out there what sales people can do to get over their fear of feedback and just lean into it. What do people do to make sure.

To separate out your identity as a human being? Your mind, body, spirit, I'll call it your identity, your self image from all these different roles, relationships, and responsibilities you have. You know, most salespeople are like athletes. Say a basketball player scores 30 points, 15 rebounds, 8 assists. Feels great right up until the next game. Next game, he goose eggs, fouls out. He's horrific. His team loses by 30 points. He can barely get up in the morning. Why? Because the way he sees himself goes up and down based on what's happening in his role as a basketball player. Salespeople the same way. In fact, so many salespeople in technology that I've trained are ex jocks, let's face it. Yeah, they don't realize they're on a roller coaster. If you're on a monthly quota every month, you start with a big goose egg. And their self image seems to go up and down based on sales. Not the best strategy. You gotta connect with your own soul because your soul doesn't give a shit, Adam, how you're doing out in all your roles. Respond. Your soul is peaceful all the time because it sees life for what it is. You know, it's kind of God's play. And they don't take it as you've got some perspective on stuff. So when you make a sale, you don't get too high. You enjoy it. And when you don't make a sale, or even you judge that you did a lousy job on the sales call, you don't get too low because you realize you're always a 10, Adam. To your soul, you're always a 10. But we get so confused about who we are, and then it's up and down like a roller coaster. So by the way, I also, I'm a meditation coach for some elite athletes. In fact, my co founder of Conscious Selling, my partner, Frank Garza, was a great basketball player in college at University of Idaho. He happens to be 6, 7. I'm only like 5, 9. And his son was the national player of the year two years ago at Iowa in the US but he was struggling at one point in his sophomore year and had gone four games in a row having what he considered bad games. And he was kind of down. So his dad talked to me because his dad knew I did yoga and meditate and all this. I said, do you think meditation would help Luca? Luca Garza now plays in the NBA for the Minnesota Timberwolves. I said, absolutely, because he said he's feeling some performance anxiety, which a lot of guys do. It's become a big thing now that athletes and so forth are coming out and saying, you know, I'm struggling with my mental health. That's a good thing to do. So I said, well, let's try this. Let's set up a zoom call with Luca. Three hours before his. Three and a half hours before his next game, I'm going to. I'm going to do a guided meditation. I'm going to take him down to ground zero to bring him to his soul, to where he returns to his essence as a human being, which is basically 37 and a half trillion cells vibrating. And mind, body, you know, the mind, you're not your mind, you're not your body. Your body and mind are tools to serve your soul. So they agreed to do that. Meanwhile, also, he had a badly sprained ankle, wasn't even sure he was going to play. So we focused on that, too, in the meditation. Well, believe it or not, I didn't expect this to happen. He went out and scored 44 points, and they were playing in Michigan and Ann Arbor. Nobody ever scored 44 points in a college basketball game. They're shorter than an NBA game. And of course, since then, athletes are superstitious. So now Luke is like, I got. We've been doing this meditation now since his sophomore year in college. His junior and senior year, he was national player of the year.

Yeah.

And now he's in the pros, and we're still doing it. Last night I did it. You know, he's in his second year and he's really struggling to stick because he's not quite as athletic as a lot of the guys. But somehow he's developed this incredible skill set. And the fact that he's able to bring himself fully into the present instead of obsessing about the past and worrying about future has turned him into fantastic. Basketball helped. I'm not going to take all the credit. I made it.

But it's a really good connection because I think great salespeople are great athletes too. They need to really work at their game and they, they really struggle.

Yeah. And it's really important for salespeople to have a strong enough self image to where they can take input from their managers. They can take in at least listen to it. Yeah. Each salesperson the commander in chief of their own business. But be open, you know, be especially be open to hearing from the loss analysis. Most tech companies do win and loss analysis. Sometimes when they do loss analysis, they always share them. With me, the problem was the customer wanted to buy, but the salesperson was overly breath, never listened, never asked questions. And finally they said, the hell with this, we'll find somebody else to buy this from.

All right, we're going to take one moment to have a break and actually you can get a glass of water. We'll come straight back up to this message.

Sounds good, Al.

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Hey, we're back with Guru Ganesh, the most amazing human being and frankly sales. Sales guru, if I can say that. I hope you don't mind. I love to hear your stories about.

Let Me just say this, everybody. One of the taglines we use for our business is awaken the sales guru within. Somebody the other day said, me, are you a guru? I said, I'm Ganesh's guru. I'm my guru. Your guru, Adam, your guru, David. Everybody's got that. I believe all the wisdom of the ages stored inside their heart.

That's very kind of you to say that. I do consider myself a guru on account experience, but I'm proud of that because not many people are. And that's a role in lining. But let's really lean into. Let's keep going down this thing about what it takes to be successful in a long term sales relationship. Because often you're dealing with customers for years. Maybe you inherit it from somebody else. How do you deal with this? How do you keep refreshing that relationship and make it work as a salesperson? What have you done in the past because you've had long relationships with customers, how do you make it work?

The key is to have a methodology, methodology that's truly in the best interest of both parties. And also recognize that as a seller, you know, you have medicine for your clients. You have solutions to some of their biggest challenges. So in a way, you could be their doctor, but you'd never see. Can you imagine going to the doctors? Let's say you're having a stomach issue. You go to the doctors, he sits you down. How are you, Adam? And you say, well, I got some, I'm having some stomach problems. And he said, hey, let me show you how we handle stomachs. And he gives you a 20 minute PowerPoint presentation on how he deals with stomach. How would you respond, Adam, you'll be going, what? I'm in a quack city here. I'm getting the hell out of here. What do you want from. Of course, that's how most tech sales people.

It's funny because it's true.

Right?

Okay, so that's the wrong way to do it. So what are you doing then?

I train people in a methodology that's like 180 degree role reversal. Whereas the typical salesperson, if you literally, if you sit back and listen to people on a sales call, they always, whether it's a first meeting with a total stranger or somebody they've been working with for three years, they always sound like they're trying to convince you of something. So at conscious selling, what we do is we create the role reversal where instead of convincing, your job is to become a master facilitator first, you facilitate an agreement that you can take the first half of your first meeting to ask questions to better understand what's going on. Because you don't know yet.

You don't know yet.

Right. And then instead of you convincing them you're. They have to convince you, you're facilitating a role reversal where they are convincing you. And believe me, it's doable. And once you learn how to do it, it's like so makes selling so relaxing and so enjoyable. First they got to convince you they've got challenges in an area where you have solution. Okay, that's not enough. That just tells you from a qualification standpoint, do I have a solution for those challenges? Then you want to understand the history behind those challenges. There's so much juicy information. It's like a doctor say, hey, Adam, how long have you had this stomach problem? Well, and you might say, well, about three years. Three years, really? What have you done in those three years to address the issue? Now you're sitting, you're going to see if there's any sense of urgency. Yeah, Adam, what if the guy says, well, frankly, I haven't done a damn thing in three years. So now I'm going to start moving towards the door. Why? Because that gets me to the truth. I'm going to say, ah, so what you're telling me, Adam, is this hasn't been a priority for you. Fair. And I'm moving towards the door. Now he's got to stop me and say, well, it wasn't until a month ago. Oh, really? What happened a month ago? Says, well, my boss came in here, did that. Now who's convincing who? Now, see, the history is very, very young. Or I ask him, well, what have you done in these three years to address the issue? And you give me a litany of failed attempts to solve the problem. Because you still got the problem. I already knew that. Right. Or we wouldn't be talking about. And while you're describing to me a litany of failed attempts to solve the problem, guess what else you're revisiting all the emotional frustration behind all these failed attempts at solving the problem. Let's face it, most people buy emotionally and then they justify with their intellect. There are a few unique people who actually do it fully from their heads. But most people, they gotta feel something. They've gotta be inspired.

Yeah. There's so much rich, rich history here about how you, how you, how you get through the pain. One of the favorite things, I love the way that you point out that most people don't even know. Well, they don't want to Reveal their pain straight away. So you've got this tactic and you go, most of the people I speak to talk me through that because that's.

That's really good, man. I can't believe you remember this stuff from 25 years ago. Yeah, I wouldn't be a question like if you've got somebody that's kind of the Gary Cooper, that's an old movie star that partly uttered a silver. Yeah, yeah, ma'. Am. Yeah. If you got one of those, you give them a name, say, hey, this may not be the case for you, Adam, but typically when I talk to a human relations manager like yourself about us, they discover maybe one of three reasons they may want to take a closer look at what we've got. One is pain, pain, pain, pain, pain. To it. Fear, fear, fear. And now you gotta have your messaging together so you can put the right bullet points in there. And you lay out three or four issues that other customers have come to you, that you've addressed. And I don't know you've got these, but these are the four that most people look to us for. I don't suppose you're experiencing anything similar now, if you've got the right bullet points. And sometimes it takes mastermind group internally in the organization to create what I call this pain gain sales readiness toolkit. But if you got the guy in the other end is going to say, well, actually, I'm dealing with all of those issues now. You know your selling system's in high gear, then your job not start presenting and say, well, of those four, if you have to pick the one that's the biggest headache right now that's keeping you up at night, which is it? You go, baby, really be. Why be. So now we're moving, starting to move through what I call the commitment meter. What's the commitment meter? This is where you're able to determine whether you've got somebody that will walk side by side with you through the process. Because one of the key concepts of conscious selling is that every step of the way, there needs to be a mutual level of commitment.

Yeah.

Tell a failed person that can do that. Hardly any, unless I've trained them. Now, what do we mean by a mutual level? You know, you can't force somebody to be as committed as you are. But what you can do, Adam, is find out. So that's why. Yeah, identifying the challenges, understanding the history to see if there's been any urgency. Then we move into two more segments of the commitment meter. Emotional impact and personal priority. In the emotional impact Section, I got to facilitate them quantifying the business financial impact of these issues. Like when I'm selling my service and somebody tells me their sales team is having trouble. Too much discounting, forecastings aren't accurate. Close rate is too low, yada, yada, yada. Finally, I'll get to the economic impact and I'll say, hey, Adam, chances are it would be difficult to quantify how much money you're leaving on the table because of these issues. And they'll say, yeah. He says, well, what's your gut tell you, Adam? Everybody answers that question, Adam, what's your gut tell you? And they'll say, oh, my gut tells me we're leaving millions of dollars on the table. No, say it ain't so. Not millions. Oh, low millions, mid. Oh, no, we're leaving probably 10 to $15 million a quarter on the table. Really? Why so high now? Because now they've convinced me. Now I'm convinced. All right, I got a solution. Address these challenges. Now I'm starting to be convinced that they can cost justify this. Because at some point down the road, I quote a price and they push back, I'd say, wait a second, I'm confused. Adam, yesterday when we spoke, you told me these issues are costing you 10 to 15 million a quarter. Now, I'm not that good at math, but isn't that 4 to 16 million dollars a year? Is a half a million dollars the real issue here?

I agree. And all you did, you. What you did is you listened to them and you wrote something down and then you reminded them of it. That's the human interaction there.

Most importantly, Adam, and let me just finish this Personal priority. Just because somebody has challenges that your solution can address, they've been trying to solve these problems for three years, and they're costing them a fortune doesn't mean they're going to do anything about it. I have to find out if the human being that I'm talking to is committed to finding a better way. So I'll. Adam, hey, my sense is you're a busy guy. Everybody says very busy. Chances are, Adam, you have a hundred important things you're dealing with. Everybody says a thousand. I said, these three issues we're talking about today, finding a better way. How high of a personal priority to you, Adam? See, this is the most important question in what I call the exam and diagnose phase of the sales process. It's the most important question because if he says to me, anything but, oh, this is my number one priority, or if he said, well, you Know, Ganesh, it's not even on my top list of top 10. And I said, really? Well, I appreciate your honesty. Perhaps we should revisit this when it's higher up your list of priorities. Right. I'm moving towards the door again. Why am I moving towards the door? Is that some kind of manipulation? No. When you're willing to move towards the door, are you more or less likely to get to the truth?

I agree. That's it. You've got to find out what the real issue is.

If you start leaving and he doesn't try to stop you, you're probably better off just going. No, I'm not recommending that in your personal life, Adam, but I want to.

Make sure that we, that we're capturing some of this stuff. I believe you and I can talk for hours, but that's not fair on you and it's not fair on anybody else. But the key thing is that you have these great techniques, Ganesh, to really get to people. But I also know people that have bought from people you've put through your, your academy and they love it. They love the candle that you have been teaching. So even buyers appreciate this stuff as well. And I think that's a, that's a huge tribute to the work that you did, the work that you're teaching.

And well, you know, that's the way we started to see in these, Wynn and Allison was I loved how my seller approached this. You have to differentiate yourself, not just in the first meeting, every single interaction with a prospective client or their colleagues. You have to differentiate yourself from the typical pushy, obnoxious, self serving, unconscious seller every meeting.

I think what you're teaching is something that's really human and sales is an honorable art. It's been around for thousands of years. And I think you are really spreading human love by making it a. Making the world a better place. And I just wanted to sort of finish off this section because one of the things I heard about you and I find this truly incredible, you've never advertised in your life. All of your business comes from referrals and recommendation. This is something I love doing. You know, I'm a huge fan of Fred Reichelt with his book Winning on Purpose. This is all about getting customers to refer you because that's up to how. What has been your secret to success there?

Well, Adam, if you sell with love and consciousness, and after say 12 to 18 months, you're not living on referrals. Look in the mirror. You're doing something wrong. When I talk about conscious Selling. I'm not just saying, okay, learn this stuff. I'm saying you've got to really be sincere. When you say, I don't know yet, that's true. When you say, my. Let me suggest that we not do business unless we're both convinced it's the right thing to do. That means you gotta be convinced it's the right thing to do for your client, and they do too. And if you really operate from that, and you're not just faking it, and this is just another way to try to manipulate people to buy they get it, they can feel your heart. And that's why the meditation is so important, is to start from that calm, confident, relaxed place. You know, think about it. People who are halfway through their quota year and they're already 2x quota, do they do better the second half or worse? And there are studies to this effect, very valid studies to this effect, they do much better. So I tell them, why? Is it because they're relaxed, They've already hit quota? They remor. Dave Sandler taught me this way back when he said Ganesh. I called him up once to strategize a deal I was struggling with. And he said, ganesh, if you were financially independent right now and you didn't need the business, how would you approach this? Oh. And then I went and I said, well, I probably moved towards the door. And he said, exactly. He said, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm not doing that. Why not? Well, because I'm afraid of doing that.

I'm desperate.

You're afraid of getting to the truth. That's your job as a seller, is to get to the truth. You want to have yeses and you want to have no's. What you don't want to have is a file drawer full of hope. Of hope. And maybe, maybe someday, someday down the road where you're scratching your head and you have no clue how to get from where you are now to where they're saying, let's do it or let's not do it.

Listen, as I said, we could go and talk about this stuff all day. I would love to, frankly. But in the meantime, how would people get hold of you? How can they follow you around?

I have been trying to reduce. You know, I have some younger, smarter, more charismatic colleagues. And my challenge is I'll be 73 this year. I love training. If you want to train by Zoom, I'm happy to do it. But getting on airplanes and eating lousy hotel food, and so I've raised my prices to the point where people are receptive to meeting and talking to my wonderful colleagues. My co founder, Frank Garza, father of Luca Garza, become a wonderful trainer. I got a young man, 37, 38 years old up in Toronto named Ross Morgan. Way better trainer than me. We have a new fella, David Earhart, who I met in the mid-90s when he was one of the senior execs at BMC Software. I had a 10 year run there and he's come on board. These are brilliant guys who have. They have their finger on the pulse of things more than I do. I'm sitting around playing guitar most of time out of it. So I grew my prices to the extent where people go, well, Cadet, will you give me a discount? I said no. But what I can do is introduce you to my younger, smarter.

I think it's really lovely. And also, you know, who wants to do. Wants a discount on a fine perfume or a fabulous wine. Nobody wants that. It doesn't. It devalues the. Devalues it. Hey, listen, what I want to try and to. I am so inspired by your positive energy. I mean, I have no idea what kind of energy level you'd be didn't meditate, you'd be off the freaking charts. You know, and I just want to.

Say this morning too, Adam, I did two sets of 25 real push ups and I just go to the gym regularly. You know, age is just the number as far as I'm concerned. I know everybody's convinced, oh, I'm in my 70s, I'm dying. I'm not convinced. I don't die.

But what I was going to just. I wanted to finish off on a different high, which was about, you know, you're a former rock star or at least a musician. So what couple of things. What's your favorite guitar and what rock songs do you listen to to get inspiration?

This is my favorite guitar. I played this professionally for over 20 years. I also can't. I don't know, where am I? I have a German electric guitar that's brilliant. It's called Duesenberg. Maybe you've heard this is a tailor. I have several Taylors. I have a few Martins downstairs. My wife is like, hey, it's good that you have all these guitars. If the world economy goes down to tubes, we can sell the guitars. All right. And then the second part is Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead. Althea. I love that song. I love St. Stephen from live Dead. I love Layla, Eric Clapton, I love Jimi Hendrix. It's pretty clear that I, I was at Woodstock, Adam. I know it sounds like a cliche, but I was actually. There was like, a phenomenal experience, and I still haven't fully recovered from. What about you? What's your favorite guitar? Besides, how about favorite guitarist?

Oh, okay. My favorite guitarist. Well, I'm a child of the 80s, so I love people like Joe Stroma from the Clash. You know, that's popular in the 80s.

So I don't even know who he is, believe it or not.

Okay. But I love Hendrix.

Meditating the entire 80s and delivering sales training.

Joe Mayer. He's pretty good.

Oh, yeah, I love him. I've seen him with the dad, you know, since Jerry left.

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I just love. I even go to a gig tonight, you know, like some EDM things. I still love my music. My son inspires me. He loves the Johnny Ma from the Smiths and Pink Floyd. So, you know, he's like, we have so many influence. I love music. And as a company, we get inspired by music. And whenever we do a sales thing, we always put some stuff on. And rock and roll is. Is in our blood at Customer Gauge. And I'm so proud of music's in my life.

So my business partner and probably my best friend, Frank Garza, is always kind of visualizing that. We put them both together, you know, sales training and the music. We haven't quite done it, but maybe someday we will.

If there's room on that stage for me, I'm there, man. I'm doing it because I just want to sign up by saying, guinness, I love you, man. I am so proud you're part of my life, you know, even if it's only in a very small way. I get so much wisdom from listening to you, and I, you know, a huge, huge fan. So thank you for giving up your time to be with us today. And namaste.

Hey, Namaste. And what fun, man, doing a podcast with you.

It's really my pleasure. Thanks a lot.

God bless you.

Sam.