S2E77 - Humility, Vulnerability, and Curiosity in Sales - Casey Jacox

Hey, everybody, it's Richard Harris and Scott Leese with another episode of the Circuit Sales podcast. And literally we are, I don't know, 20 days, 15 days away from actually going in November. Yeah, 21. So we are super excited. Want to give a shout out to our sponsors for the podcast, which are Salesforce, Vidyard, Reggie, AI and our good friends at Outreach. And they've asked me to tell you they've got some new announcements. Outreach is the first and only engagement and intelligence platform. So engagement and intelligence, which I need a lot of help with. Built by revenue innovators for revenue innovators, and it allows you to commit and accelerate sales forecasting. Very cool. Replace the manual processes with real time guidance and unlock actionable customer intelligence that guides you and your team to win more often. Right. So traditional tools don't work in hybrid sales world. Find out why at qlik. Outreach IO surfacesales. Click. Outreach, IO Surf and Sales. They've got some cool things. We love all of our sponsors. We appreciate you checking them out. And now out of breath. So I'm going to let Scott take over.

Good. I'm glad. I'm glad you got through that. You're very good at all of the sponsors. Richard, we are super excited today to talk to Casey Jacox.

Jacox.

Jacox. Okay. I pronounced it mostly right. I got his first name right. Richard, which it was. You know, it was tough. It was tough. We're. We're going to have a little bit of a challenge with this episode because Casey's currently wearing a Seattle Seahawks jersey, and this is problematic in the surf and sales household. But welcome to the show, Casey.

No, thanks. Thanks for bringing me to the Buffalo Bills fan club corporate headquarters.

Global headquarters is right. This is Bill's mafia HQ on my side. Richard is a bit on an island. As a Denver Broncos fan, we just.

Ignore anything fun about it. I even let my neighbors come over and watch the Raider game at our house yesterday because the power went out and we have Tesla wall batteries. So that's. It was hard, but I stomached it.

I had a Bronco Busters T shirt as a kid.

I love that we got to send one of those to Richard for Christmas.

That's what we do.

Casey, tell everybody, you know, kind of what you do, what you're up to right now. Give everybody some context for. For the conversation.

Yeah, no, I think. Thanks for having me on. I know you. You join me on my. On my podcast. Really? So it's nice to return the favor. I am doing sales and Leadership coaching now specifically for sales team. Sales leaders really around three core areas. Humility, vulnerability and curiosity. Um, I'm really present on those three words. Sometimes those are buzzwords for people. But I, I truly try to get as present as I can in those areas. Coaching found me. I did not anticipate I'd be doing this at this stage of my life. I was a 20 year corporate guy. Left to write a book, started a podcast and then coaching found me about a year and a half ago and having an absolute ton of fun, learning more about different industries. I'm supporting, um, driving more curiosity into sales processes because I think when we focus on them versus us, them being our clients and focus more on the problems we solve versus just keep telling people what we do and meet clients where they are, it's, it's a lot more fun seeing those interactions happen.

Say the three things one more time for everybody.

Yep. Humility, vulnerability and curiosity.

Okay, so how do you coach to those things differently if it's a team setting versus a one on one setting?

I think this is Uncle Rico moment coming out here. My quarterback coach in college used to always tell me casey, if you have to tell people how good you are, you're not that good. When they're great, they're going to tell you.

And so for me it's attacking. If I'm working in a team and I'm seeing there's a lot of ego in the room, uh, I'll try to ask questions to, to, to help, help that he or she understand that that might be a challenge and a lot of times I can use it through my personal, personal experience. So I was, I was our top rep at a company called Kforce for 10 years straight nationally. Yet I can still find stories where I was getting coached, uh, where I was getting my, my gaps attacked, which is kind of like an Uncle Rico moment will be watch film in college after each game, no matter how good or great we play, we still could get, find ways to get better. Um, I still will apply that same mindset around an individual. Um, I think when we can as it relates to vulnerability, whether I'm working with the sales leader or a leader of a team or even a top rep, getting, getting them to understand that the power of going first, the power of them talking about what they struggle with is so impactful for others that don't have the confidence yet that they do. And then we, we, I think the more that we, I can help do that just based on my own experience. I find that we remove fear the unsaid fear that people are scared to talk about. They don't speak up, they don't want to look like they don't know what they're talking about. And when we can drive those types of characteristics into teams, I think not only does it impact the organization from an internal perspective, but also can impact the client experience people will have.

So what do you, when you coach someone, right? And I was. And I, I believe all of this. I've done some research on this too. And vulnerability is, Is, according to some data, is the single greatest piece that reps appreciate in their leaders. But let's say you're not a vulnerable guy, right?

How do you, you can't. How do you coach someone? Like, because they're gonna be like, well, what do you want me to tell them? Like, you know, what do you. That. That person who ask the question, the listener who is not sure how to even take that first step about being vulnerable in front of their team. What's a good first step?

I think so if I was trying to get you to be more vulnerable, I might say, you know, try. Try to find maybe one thing that's working, one thing that's not. Just try to get you to talk about something, right? And then if I, if you say, hey, why things are great, I'm like, man, I would use maybe sarcasm. I'd say, man, Richard, I've yet to meet someone who had all their shit figured out. You're. This is awesome. Like, you teach me now. Let's turn this thing around. Maybe just to kind of lighten the mood a little bit. But if they still won't talk, I'd say, look, man, well, let me tell you what. When I was at your stage in your career, here, here's here was something I went through. I was a part of the. Our company's biggest success ever. I was also part of our company's biggest failure ever. It was so embarrassing. It sucked. But I found that when I less I held that in and the more I talked about it, I went to my leader and asked for help. They appreciate it. I felt better because I wasn't harboring those emotions. I wasn't holding that, holding that in.

I think when we as humans realize that we all got gaps.

One of my mentors in my life said, it's okay not to know every answer. It's just not okay not to do anything about it. So the quicker the one I can get people to just to talk about, no one has all the answers figured out, right? And Scott and I Talked about this when I had him on my show is this mindset which I call like the 1440 mindset. We're only as good or great or bad as this 1440 minutes we all get each day and then that resets. So if I can work with people to attack areas that they wish they would get better and then keep applying open ended questions to really to the root, find out why.

I've found so far in the year and a half I've been doing this, I can get people to open up.

So I want to ask you a question on the flip side of that, right? So a lot of people changing jobs, right? It's November 2021. They're calling it the Great Resignation. I try to change it to the Great Retention.

Even if I'm a VP of sales looking for a new CEO or CRO or a director or a sales rep or an sdr, how do I determine if someone has vulnerability through the interview process? How do I. Because I don't want to offend somebody. But as I've been coaching people the last few months, it's always been about, well, what kind of manager do you want? Because now's the time, now's the time to figure that out. I'm curious what you give to people who are in that job search phase to try to find that right manager for them.

That's a good question. I was thinking more about it from actually the opposite side. But as I'm thinking this out loud, it, maybe it can ask is I don't want to, I want to understand someone's biggest moment of adversity in life and how did they get through it and how do, how do they use that to propel them to be successful in their current job? Um, if I can get someone to talk about, you know, an injury, how they got fired, they lost an account, um, if I can hear about something that didn't go right, but they, they, they, they owned it, they found what. Cause it's easy to sit back and blame why something happened to you. Or we can say, man, I had, I had a, I had them, I had a part in this as well. And if it's, if I can, it's.

Kind of the same question because you know, having worked with and for Scott, you know, we've always both asked sort of the, hey, what's the biggest obstacle you've ever overcome? And we purposely leave it open ended to let them choose if it's a life thing or a business thing. And so we would do that when we were hiring Salespeople. But it's the same question pretty much for a rep to ask their manager or potential manager. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah, I think so. I mean as I'm talking this out loud, it's again, that gets to the root or the raw rawness of someone's what they're going to share or what not they're going to share. And then even if they don't share, I think we can still use, I use a framework called TED based questions. But like I could still ask more open ended questions to get them to hopefully learn why. Why was that, why was that so impactful for you? How often are you thinking about that? I mean I think about as I'm telling you the story right now, like my mind that impacted me was when I was 17 years old and I think about it often.

Cool, Scott, turn it over to you. Even though I didn't chat you to take over.

So.

Yeah, that's fine. I got it. I got you, I got you.

You talked about being in corporate for 20 years and now being in coaching. Do you feel like you waited too long to go into coaching? Could you have gone sooner? I'm curious about that journey.

Um, no, I don't think I, I waited too long. Um, I'm, I'm of the be. I'm a big believer that life happens, everything happens for a reason. I try to look for reason. Um, could I have done it earlier? Sure I would. I've been as impactful. No, I don't think, because.

I gain more experience, which is wisdom to share with someone who's in their, you know, whether I'm working with somebody in their 20s or 30s, that that's what inspires me. Scott, is giving someone something that I wish I had at my earlier in my career, like someone who's willing to share some crazy stuff, you know, to get them to. If I can help someone else realize. And I'm going through that too. And oh, that's what it feels like. And then these aren't things I'm speaking from like a book of, you know, I'm speaking from real life street fights, of stuff that happened, of pain, of stuff that was like, God, do I really want to keep doing this job, like real emotion and coaching people through that. Listen, I know what that feels like to go through that. I know what it feels like to have your leader at business planning say 30% is not enough, you got to grow by 40.

All those journeys you go through. So I'm glad I did it. When I did It. Because it happened organically.

I feel like the timing of going out on your own is so critical to get right. And I hear you say you could have gone sooner, but timing wouldn't have been right. You wouldn't have been able to be as impactful. I think some people go so soon now and too soon before, they have not just the ability to be as impactful, but also the ability to earn as much. And they put themselves in this really kind of bind where they're just like, scratching and clawing for business and trying to justify their value and the worth and all that kind of thing. What part of being a freelancer, if you will, now are you loving the most? And what part drives you bonkers?

I think what I love the most is that, like, the flexibility. Like, last week, my son had his high school golf tournament that I booked around, and it was. That was the most important thing.

That's a lot of booking around, Richard, because that's like five hours around, you know, in golf. Right.

Were you caddying or were you watching?

Watching?

Because I wasn't going to take your advice.

Right. What's funny, I'm actually catting for him next weekend in an event, so. And I asked us, are you sure you want dad in the bag? And so he said yes. So I play the role of caddy, not dad. When I go through those.

I love the inspiration I get when I see someone learning.

I love when people are coachable.

And I can get them to a spot and they try and we can tie it back to revenue. Like, man, I didn't even know how to ask that question. Now I did, and that is so helpful. Like, that just fills my tank. Inspires me to be more on my game, ready when I'm. Whoever I'm working with. I think what frustrates me is, you know, I was just talking about my wife. You know, I do miss sometimes that team component. Like, I'm a team of one.

Yeah.

You know, I. Yeah, you close the.

Deal and you do what to celebrate over there?

I usually chest bump the wall or high five myself. Yeah.

Yeah.

Hey, you got that one, Kate. Like, you know, turn the music on, smoke machine. Run out by myself. Um.

I think. You know what frustrates hardest sometimes when you work with someone who isn't as experienced yet, um, yet he or she feels like they're, you know, 26 and they've solved all the world's problems and that the time it takes to kind of get. To get to go through sometimes that can be frustrating. A little Bit, but it's. Then that's why they were coaching them, is to help them.

What about the, like, logistics of certain things? What actual parts of running your business do you do right now that you hate?

Well, timing of that question, too. You made me think of something last week. So my, my unnamed bank, I'm not going to name it, went through a little bit of a transition, increased, I mean, opened up a new mobile platform.

Name them, who cares?

Oh, I can't, I can't throw them out. But they, they. I can't connect to my back office still. Damn it. So frustrating. So, like, is it like a big.

Bank or is it like the local credit union?

It's like a local.

Then I can respect that.

Do you want to keep.

You want to help the helping guys?

You know, and they didn't, again, benefit of doubt. They didn't wake up saying, how can they ruin Casey's day? Right? Shit happens. And so I'm going to, I'm going to work with them. But that annoys. I wish, like, I wish some. I wish I had someone thinking, hey, Case, let's, let's, let's get strategic about marketing for the next three months and let's send these people some things, like things that, you know, corporate. You had all that support. Now I'm one man that's grinning because.

He'S like, yeah, we need that. Too early. Laughing and shaking.

The universal problems. I'm starting to think so.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's interesting. So what about on the other side of it? What frustrates you with clients? Have you ever had clients pay you and then they don't take your advice?

Knock on wood. Not yet. Because I think I'm still too new doing this.

I quickly have realized, though, that these are not my problems, they're their problems.

Correct.

And I don't have emotion tied to it.

If they don't move, what I've seen, maybe someone not move as fast I thought they should move. I'll ask, I'll go back through a framework, say, tell me what's changed. You told me this was really important to you. Back from our first month. We're still talking about this. Tell me what's changed.

How do you. Maybe a different. Same question a different way. Or is how do you encourage people to go through that, change management for themselves, right? Or their team? Like, hey, you're changing this. You're going to start being more vulnerable. By the way, how does that make you feel? Like, how do you encourage them to recognize in their own space and get them to take that step.

I think anytime people are going through change, they're either resistant, we're going to get defensive or make excuses, or if they start to feel change, then they get overwhelmed because there's too many things they want to change. Uh, they want to get better at everything at once. And I just try to encourage people get, get better at something small each day and, and focus on that and, and. And then realize, you know, at the end of the day, what, what are a couple things I didn't get to today that I wish I did or what's one. One framework of question that I wish I would have asked differently, that I. That didn't. That I. I can get better at it. Um, and just, I think, encouraging them, then that, that, you know, someone taught. And I like sharing things that people taught me. So, like, this other guy taught me that learning's always in the struggle. You know, be sure we've heard the phrase, you know, comfortable being uncomfortable, that that one gets talked about a lot. You're never going to get better when it's easy, it's going to feel a little bit wonky, it's going to feel difficult. But if we can find something positive to come out of each day, each interaction that I'm slowly getting better at and just encourage them to focus on that. But. But still having some. Somewhere they're reaching and then. But tie clarity around why they are so they can see it.

I found that to be helpful, too.

Scott, you're up.

Oh, I was, I was waiting for you to keep going. I want to rewind the tape a little bit and give Casey a chance to talk about his line of questioning. This, his TED Framework, I think, is what he calls it. If I've got that right, break that down for Richard and the audience.

And I. Yeah, I wish I learned this in my early 40s, and I wish I would have learned this earlier. And this person who taught me this called me, one of the more unconsciously competent people he's met, and I said, that doesn't sound good. He said, no, it's good. I'm just. You're doing a lot of these things. You just don't realize you're doing them. And I'm going to give you tools to teach it. I was like, okay. And when we walked through this, it was a very simple thing, which is, tell me, explain, describe simple framework, simple ways to ask questions. Um, I'm very specific on nitpicking about that with my clients, and if any of my clients Listens to this, they'll probably be giggling right now. Because like I always say, you can't spell. If someone starts asking me a what or is question, I said it. No, you could spell Ted with an I or a W. And you know, I. Who I practice the most on is my kids. Because I think like anything, when we ask good questions, we're going to. Either someone's going to say, man, that's a great question, or they're going to be. You're going to make them think. And too often, sellers, we want to keep talking. We want to keep, we want to ask two or three questions inside of one question. And now as the listener or the person, the rep or the client, like, which one should I answer versus getting comfortable saying? Describe how that negatively is impacting you. Explain how this, if we made this go away, how would it positively impact you? Describe, you know, getting people to sit in some discomfort. And so what I love about Ted is it's not, I mean, the first level is talks about what's not working and then it's the next level, like really dive in deep to make them think about where they're at. And so back to the example of my kids. If I said, hey, Ryder, how was school? Good. What'd you do, bud? Not much.

Did that conversation sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Every day, all day.

But those are, I mean, shitty questions, so why should we expect. Shitty question.

Yeah.

How should we expect. But if I said, ryder, tell me, tell me the, tell me, tell me the time you laughed at school. Describe. You keep talking about math. Describe why you like math more than science. You know, if you could add a seventh period in your day, explain what would it be? And why would you, why would you go to that class? Just something that show creativity to get them to talk. And you know, one, one story I like sharing about, about this framework is I was with my friend on the east coast, this is like two summers ago, and his daughter was going through some stuff and wasn't, wasn't. He was, she was closed down. And I, this is right when I was like teaching Ted at my previous company then doing what I do now. And I, I said, hey, can I try something that works on my kids? He's like, he was kind of closed a little because I don't know if it's going to work. Well, I knew that she was into guitar and I was. And we're taking her to guitar lessons and so I, he goes, sure, I'll let you try it. And so on the guitar and on the way, I said, hey. And I say, hey, tell me what you, what chord do you like playing more, GC or D?

And she's like, I don't know. I said, describe the challenge of learning that transition from, from D to C, you know, and just showing her that I had a little bit of interest in her and curiosity. And then if I kept pushing on that, next thing we knew, like, she's on this like rant of like six minutes and we drop her off a guitar. And he looked at me, he's like, oh my God, dude, it worked. It was crazy, you know, So I think, I know. For me, I love asking questions. I think curiosity drives where relationships go. And Ted is such a simple way to go about doing it.

Have your kids gotten annoyed with you doing this? Like, dad, stop it.

They don't know I'm doing it yet.

They don't.

They haven't picked up on it yet. My wife sometimes does. She says, why are you doing your business stuff on our kids that like, I'm not. It's not business stuff. It's called interacting with people and talking to them.

Right.

Life. Life skill. The most important part of that to me is just that it's not us.

Saying the things for the kid or the prospect. They have to be the ones to tell the story. They have to tell, explain or describe. There's a lot of salespeople who will tell you the problem that your business had or explain to you why this has to get solved and never makes the prospect like get behind the steering wheel and, and kind of look at it first person. And I think that that's a big missed area of opportunity.

Yeah.

I talk about this as. People don't buy words, they buy pictures. And so this TED framework gets people to describe a picture. Right. Like that's the key is that there's some, there's people come and say, oh, Casey, I need coaching. Well, there's some picture in their head behind that word. Right. It's a buzzword. Okay, what kind of coaching, what scenarios do you need coaching in?

Right.

That's as I interpret what Casey's explaining.

So, yeah, even piggyback on what you guys both said, if I try to sell somebody something, they're always going to resist me. But if I ask questions to make them realize the problem that they have or don't have, they're going to sell themselves. And that's what I think the elite level sellers do. They just ask really good questions. They're legit on not missing steps on follow up they're tying problems back to bigger problems that run a business, and they're helping people get. Get to the solution they want and making sure they have clarity on why.

So what was the moment? I can't remember if you told us, what was the moment that encouraged you to become the consultant? Was it you got laid off? You got. This happened? Like, what was that defining moment for you?

I. So when I. When I. When I parted ways, it was a great divorce with my previous employer. I'm still in great terms with a lot of them there. I don't, you know, and I left on awesome stuff. So it wasn't like. When I left, I was like, I'm going to go out and do this. I knew I wanted to write a book, so I spent time doing that, started a podcast for dads. And then I started having people ask me questions about do I coach? And in my mind I was like, yeah, my kids, like, I coach kids. But I didn't think about. And so the moment was a very specific moment. 2020, I was talking to another coach in Toronto. His name's Andrew. And I remember this phone call, like it was yesterday. And I was stuck on me not being, quote, unquote, certified. Like, I didn't go to, like, coaching school. I didn't have, like these plaques on my wall to say, hey, I'm a, you know, whatever that may be.

He wants to be certified as a coach.

No, I was stuck on that for some reason. And, well, a lot of people.

That's really interesting because a lot of people get so fixated on, like, prepping to become whatever the next. Whatever the thing is, and they have to line up all of these ducks in a row and do all these different. I was just talking to somebody who's about to start a podcast about, about this kind of thing, and I'm like, good Lord, you don't have to do all that stuff. Just do the fucking work.

Yep. Yeah, yeah. What? You're 100% point. So I literally asked the guy and I said, hey, Andrew, I'm stuck in this. And he goes, casey, can I be honest with you? I said, yeah. He said, no, I'm going to be really honest with you. I said, andrew, I played college football. I've been on boardrooms before with corporate stuff. I can take it, bro. Give it to me. He's like, so what I heard about you is you accomplished all these things. You did this, you did that, you wrote a book about it. I want you to get out of my mother fucking face and go Help people.

And I was just like, you know, sorry, we're gonna have to put the E here on the explicit for this episode. But, like, it was the best punch in the face I needed. It was like, you're right. And I literally remember, like, I was within. Within like, probably an hour. I called back my first client. I said, hey, this is why I'm your guy. I did this for 20 years. I know exactly how your models work. I've. I've been. Been in this pain. I've been this, you know, I, I just said, she just walked through what I did. She's like, all right, you're hired. Let's go. And I haven't looked back since. And so like, my, my. My certification is six chapters of my book. Basic common sense stuff that has been around since the 1800s that will not go out of style. I don't care how much. Remote selling is a big buzz that we're all going to get behind worried about. But I still believe in the old school things of how we interact with people. And that was probably my aha moment.

Richard, does this mean that you still believe in the old school thing called the phone?

I do love the phone, believe it or not.

So how does Casey prospect right now?

Uh, I have people prospect for me. A lot of it's. If it's referral based or if it's. I'd like to build champions, people selling on my behalf when I'm not there. Um, I like to make sure that if people I'm asking simple questions on, you know, before we interacted and now we've post since we've won, talk about the changes. And if someone said, hey, why'd you hire Casey? What would you say?

So is it more of. Let me try to distinguish between the two. So tell me if it's more of like Casey has SDRs Prospecting Forum, or Casey has built a affiliate network, a referral kind of channel. Which one of those kind of 0sdr.

It's me doing the work or people on my clients are doing the work on my behalf.

Define that. So you just say, hey, is that like, hey, do you know someone who could use this? Or what does that mean you have your clients do it on your behalf?

Well, I'm always making sure I have references at any point. So if they, if, you know, if I got a new client, whatever it might be, but just making sure I'm bringing them along this journey of coaching together so that if any. If anybody asks, I'm prepping them to be able to sell on my behalf. So if someone says coaching gets brought up, I'm like, oh, I'm working with a coach. Like what are they going to say and why? And so helping them prepare them with word tracks versus well, I'm, I just, I'm, you know, Casey's a great guy. I'm help. He's helped me with whatever it may be. But if I'm not reminding them that of why they hired me in the first place and the outcomes of what we're trying to help solve, then I don't think I'm helping myself articulate enough of how I've help them to work. I want other people to go, if that makes sense.

He's giving them the pitch. Richard, do you do that? Do you do that?

I, I do. I was just wondering if he created a pyramid schema out of it.

So not yet.

So I don't, I don't do that. So, so this is an area of opportunity for me.

I, I don't really just sitting here.

Don'T tell people what, I don't tell people what to say at all.

I, I, not in this scenario, but I know you and I'm like, Scott is sitting here internalizing this. This is Scott's new game this week. Like he's going to try this with five people. I know it. And he's going to come back.

Why wouldn't I? I'm listening to two people tell me that they're doing and then it works really well for them. Why would I not implement?

Absolutely. So Casey just says not a bill, so.

No, it's called karma.

That's right. Is any of these strategies going to be something that you change in 2022 or lean more heavily into? Like, how are you looking at kind of staying ahead of the curve and staying relevant as we move towards next year?

I think for me what I, what I will focus on doing is trying to go more one to many versus one to one. So whether I'm creating.

Just a ways, ways to impact more people in a setting than just than, you know, one. Because I know that you gotta get.

You gotta get to a place where you're doing mentorship at scale.

Yeah. Yeah. And I want, and you know, I, cause I've sometimes I've struggled with that, Scott, where I'm like, God, am I missing out? Should I be doing this? Should be doing that. Well, in the end.

I know who I'm helping. It's working. I know the clients. I've had good engagements. Maybe let me get some more experience under my under my belt as an entrepreneur. And then the timing is going to be right. Like, I read this book. I don't know if you guys have heard about it. It's called the Surrender Experiment.

Never heard of it.

A little out there. Written by a guy named Michael Singer, but talks about just like. Instead of being so focused on, like, outcome, outcome, outcome, goal.

Go, go, go, go.

Which is what I was in my corporate life. This guy who referred to. But his name, Andy Parks.

He's.

He just. He's a professor at former Harvard of the West Central Washington. Go, go, Wildcats. He. He talks about just surrendering to the fact of if you. If you know what you do matters, if you believe in what you believe, if you're. If you're helping influence and impact people, sometimes worrying about the things we don't have control over, which completely was opposite of where I came from. It's a little. Might be naive to people listening to this, but I found that I have more peace. I'm less like, focused on. I got to do this, I got to that. I'm just like, surrendering to just impact the shit out of some person who I speak with today and hopefully create that Maya Angelou moment where they're like, man, that guy was different. And then.

What was the name of that book again?

The Surrender Experiment.

Got it. Got it. And did you say the Harvard of the West?

Yeah, that's. I'm the only person that says that, by the way. Went to Central Washington.

No, when I went to the University of Arizona, our.

Chancellor wanted to call it Arizona, the Harvard of the West.

So, you know, it sounds like Usams Arizona are fighting for that title then.

Yeah.

What it also tells everybody who's listening is that if you go to a school with Wildcats as the mascot, then it's just a whole bunch of blowhards. That's right.

We're thinking about the wrong shit, right?

Yeah, exactly.

So.

So what?

What is it? I want to go back. Way, way back. Did you know you wanted to be in sales? Like, you know, you come from that athlete place where you're the competitive guy. You played college sports, which in my mind, if you're going to sports, you're a professional. Like you, you know, you may not be. You may not have the skill set or get to go to the paid professional league, but it's a professional gig. Once you hit college, whatever athlete you are, you know, how did you know sales was going to be your thing?

I mean, I think my family, my dad's uncles, we come from a line of people in selling. I didn't, you know, in college I didn't know I was going to do it. But sometimes I've thought back to like, this is like, well, I can't wait. I'm sharing this story. Like eighth grade at lunch, junior high, I had like a dollar 46 in my pocket and I wanted to get some candy and I didn't have enough money. So I would go ask people for money back then and built some rapport, built some commonality and they actually shared it with me that they'd give me few, you know, 20 cents here, 40 cents. Next thing I know I'm buying two candy bars and I'm winning. You know, I was selling back then.

What were you saying? Like, do you remember a story? Like this is fascinating. I'm all over it.

I mean literally just like, hey, I got a dollar 45. Scott, can I borrow 30 cents to go get a candy bar? Or can we put our money together and we'll get something, we'll both buy something together. When I had 20 cents, you have $2.40. But if we do it together, we got more money now together and we're a team.

$2.60. I just made a 500% profit.

Um, but I remember coaches were like, I just always like creating moments of.

People just being themselves. Whether it's, you know, I think us quarterbacks have a little bit of a screw loose, but keeping it fun, keeping it light.

You know, creating those same environments when I was working with prospects and clients of just like, you know, we all have jobs, they're all stressful, all the negativity. But if we can create a moment for someone that just is different, authentic, unique, like man, that was fun. I really enjoyed meeting him or her today. And I turned into a game like, you know, cause it's so easy as sellers. Listen, right now we got, oh, I gotta make a hundred calls a day and you get the monotony of it. Well, it's not fun. But if we can make it a game and use my personality to come out, whether it's leaving a crazy voicemail, sending em a package. I mean I even have old school stories of using a fax machine which probably your listeners don't even know what it is. Um, like literally writing a handwritten note on a fax machine, having them check a box like I did in fifth grade to get my girlfriend, like random stories of that, that again, it was fun. And you'd get people to like holy shit, I can't believe I'm responding back to this guy. But it worked. So I think I've always known that I can connect people fairly quickly. I don't know why I don't have fear of saying random things to people, because I'm coming at. Coming at it from a genuine place of interest and curiosity.

So I don't know. Those are things top my mind when you ask me a question.

Scott used to like to make it fun when I work for him by threatening us with text messages. Get off your cpo. Get off your cpu.

So, yeah, that's how I made it. I made it. That's how I made it fun for me.

Right, exactly is what it was. Or he would tell everybody if everybody on the sales floor for, you know, 50 people, if everybody closed a deal, he'd give everybody like $200. And of course, he knew that it would never happen with 50 salespeople. But you'd never see so many people close deals that day. You don't even remember that, do you, Scott?

I don't remember the winning amount being so low.

I might have been a thousand.

I probably promised, like an absurd amount, knowing that the odds were slim and I'd be happy to pay it if.

It worked, you know?

Casey, what can we. What can we do for you, man? How can we. How can we be helpful? You got any questions for before we wrap up here?

Hopefully your audience gained something from our conversation. I think if. If, however, I mean, I was. Yeah, I mean, I think if anybody's looking for a quick, simple read, I did. My book is not scratch and sniff or pop up, but it is a simple read of just common sense things that in researching this book, which I wrote over a year, year and a half ago, like I said, it's a simple read that helps people just focus on the fundamental things of how we build relationships with people in life. As the author, I've read it probably seven or eight times. I narrated it.

The audible version, and I learned something from myself, which is sometimes I say it's kind of embarrassing to say out loud, but it's reminders for me that we all got gaps as sellers, we get complacent. And so if I can help someone, you know, the book's called Win the Relationship, not the Deal. So if people want to check that out is on Amazon. So I think I would just doing that. And if there's people that are interested in exploring coaching conversations, they can reach out to me as well.

LinkedIn, the best way to get ahold of you.

LinkedIn is the best way to get.

Ahold of me, I promise you. Casey also learned that he might not ever, never want to write a book again because it was just. It's just painful rereading eight times over.

I take that bet. 20 bucks. Casey, you've already started your next book.

You gotta write another book, Casey.

I already have the title of my next book.

Yes. Scott lease owes me $20 in Costa Rica.

Let's see. We'll see, we'll see. I can't wait to ask you about how that process is. By the way, book number two.

Good luck with everything, Casey. We enjoy talking to you. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Richard, tell everybody we're sponsored by one more time.

Yeah, and by the way, Scott, he's a quarterback. He's disciplined enough to get this shit done.

Well, that might be true. I never played football. If I did, I would have been a kicker.

You play football?

Yes. The quick shout out to Outreach AI, to Vidyard, to Salesforce for sales, and to Reggie AI for joining us and sponsoring all of our podcasts this month. And we appreciate them. And as you grow into 2022, these are the people we think you should recommend. You should come and see. And yes, we've seen demos. We've been through it. So we don't just take people for sponsorship. We would only do it like it made sense for people. So we vetted out that much. So thank you so much, Casey. We appreciate it. Good to meet you and get to know you a little bit.

Go Bills.

Look at that, Scott. I'm waiting for Scott to return the favor and say, go see haw. He just won't.

I can't believe I said it out loud. They play tonight. Good luck, Casey. Thank you.