HOW THIS HOBBIE GAVE THIS REP THE RIGHT MINDSET

I think you're really going to like this episode, but before we get into the interview, I have 2 announcements. Please, uh, hear these out. One is if you're an iPhone iOS user and you haven't upgraded to iOS 14, hold off. Their new podcast app is very buggy. It has a lot of issues with keeping up with new releases of podcasts. Not just mine, but a lot of people's. If you have a friend who says, hey, I can't get Burns's podcast, that's why. But most podcast players are fine. Spotify, all the others are fine, including the old one. So hold off on that until they figure that out. Also, if you're interested in the courses, I did a 20-minute video with the details of what's in the course, who it fits best, which course fits best for which person, and what you get out of it. The link is in the show notes of the podcast. The video is on the YouTube channel. Uh, watch the overview of the course, and the link is in the description as well as on my LinkedIn profile. That's probably the easiest if you're on LinkedIn. You'll see it right there in the middle. Before we get in the interview, I want you to think through this. What is your why, your motive, your mission, the long-term reason? And, you know, Simon Sinek has made a career out of renaming your mission to your why, and that's fine. Whatever works for you, whatever resonates with you. And today we're going to be talking about that, and it's a real eye-opener because What is your why? And what does your customers want from a salesperson? If those aren't in line, then they don't— trust isn't built very easily. And I'll talk about this at the close of the interview in a summation. But think through it because our why may be the commission. It may be Becoming number one. And those are good parts of the why. There's nothing wrong with that. But customer doesn't care about that. Customer cares about themselves and their job and how well what you're selling will help them. Help them. See, that's a good why right there. But I think the distinction is subtle. Meaning, because when you first hear about being customer-focused, you think customer support versus selling. And that's kind of true. But you also have to see it through the customer's eyes. And the distinction between sales and service can kind of be synonymous, but there is a distinction there. I'll sum that up at the end as well. Also, think when you're listening to this interview what you're not hearing, and that's very critical because I'll sum that up at the end. That was pure gold. I really enjoyed this interview. I think you're going to get a lot out of it. Hey, Sarah, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Thank you, Brian. I am really excited to have this opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Sarah Anderson. I'm based in the great state of Texas, and I am passionate about helping those around me, including in my professional life, to empower them and enable them to be successful. And that, along with my competitive spirit, led me to the profession of sales, which I've been doing now, B2B, for over 20 years.

Yeah, yeah. What got you into it?

Well, as you may have heard from others, I think it wasn't my initial career path.

I see that.

When I was a little girl, it's not what I wanted to be when I grew up. But, um, I actually studied psychology and nutrition and was planning to go to a graduate-level program, be a sports psychologist. And as so happens, life interjected a different path for me. And, you know, put on my tennis shoes because somebody moved my cheese. And I realized I needed to get a job and pay bills and leveraged my network. I was pretty young at the time, just out of college, and found a fantastic opportunity with a nonprofit where I learned that I really loved to get to know people, get passionate about something bigger than myself. and influence decisions that ultimately got me, you know, paid, you know, to do it. So, um, that's what started, started my career in sales.

And was it that curiosity from the psychology degree that helped you?

Yeah, you know, I've thought about that a lot because I don't know if it's the chicken or the egg. It was my personality that drove me to psychology. Um, I think who I am and what I see every day in my professional career is the curiosity. There's a part of me that has always been, I think since I was little, of being Type A that I am, of being a problem solver.

Yeah.

So I think what came with that, you know, if there was something ahead of me, challenging, little, small, my mind went to, okay, How are we going to solve it? What tools do we need to solve it? What questions do we need to ask? So I would say my curiosity, um, from that psychology background, and a lot I think was the competitive environment that I was in, in sports. Um, I think I've heard you say this before, I, I do see sales as a performing art, you know. Um, it's, it's a performance profession. And I get, you know, paid to do it, but that's the result of my efforts and execution. Um, but I think a lot of my attraction to sales was around, uh, competitive sports and, um, that spirit I have. I like to win. Well, that's it.

And even psychology, at least therapy, the therapy side of it is a performance, right? Because you may know what's wrong with somebody, but if you just tell them Now they know, but they probably already knew. But it's more like, how do you solve it? How do you get them to want to solve this?

Well, and it's fascinating because I've been able to combine, you know, and now that I'm raising children and have young adult children and, you know, my youngest is another, will be an eventual woman in business. I try to relate, you know, human life and the human experience, which I think is so important in selling. It goes back to human behavior. So it's been really cool that I've been able to combine my background specifically, and I don't mean to nerd out too much, but behavioral economic theory and driving behavior change. It's fascinating to me. And to your point, you can't just tell somebody to do something. I mean, I've raised kids. It doesn't work. You have to engage them. You have to inspire them. You need to make sure that they know what you want. But I think the missing element and what makes a really good person in a sales profession is that middle part where you can engage their emotion and how they feel so that you can get them to do what you want them to do and drive that progression of engagement, if you will. Because if you don't humanize the experience, again, from my point of view, I don't think I have a secret sauce. But I do try to humanize the experience of selling. And that leads to feeding my curiosity and relating to them and being empathetic and, and really trying to figure out what they're there to solve for. And getting away from the, I have a widget, do you want to buy one? You know, so the psychology backgrounds prove me, prove me well.

That cognitive Empathy, being able to place yourself in someone else's position.

Yep.

And I bet parenting helped that.

You know, I think it has a lot of personal challenges or experiences. I think I've been able to leverage what I've learned professionally. I'm sure we've all, being in sales, have taken those, you know, 10 million different personality assessments, right? Depending on one, I'm blue, and the other one, I'm red. And, you know, you get— they put you in this box, right? But for me, it is. It's having a deliberate consciousness around how I'm going to manage the emotion because you can't wash it and you don't want to take it away, right? You just want to channel it. So I've had experience as a mom and I've been a young mom trying to succeed in business and how can I leave my kid and go to work every day? I've been a single mom. I've now a blended family mom, and I have definitely taken some of that structure that I learned in the business environment over to my personal life. But a lot of times I'm taking the experience from my personal life, you know, that resilience, that discernment and judgment that I think is critical when you're going to be successful Especially moving up into a global and enterprise sales environment that I'm in now, you know, but I think I learned a lot of that, obviously making mistakes too. But, you know, as a mom and in my personal life.

Because you've had like paychecks, that's a tough sell, right?

Oh, great company too. You know, I was so thankful that that was early in my career, right? Which is what it was designed to, I think, you know, you got a lot of the young pups that were eager and single and, you know, high transactional, high activity, um, and develop and grow. But what a great start to really, I think, quench my thirst for competition. But I think there is where I really fell in love with the art of selling. And because you're right, it was, it was like the competitive athlete environment. And, and I fell back on my dad, who was a college athlete and a military officer.

So Oh boy.

Speaking of therapy, right? No, I'm just kidding. But, you know, he would— in sports, I found at Paychex a very parallel because though it was high activity and transactional, I got this fascinating insight to the mind of a business owner and who is their most trusted business advisor. And I learned early on to be strategic And be inquisitive, but be very structured. It was like the athlete, you know, I had been a figure skater, was one of the sports I was in. When I went to competition, the only thing, if you've ever watched it, you see is that couple of minutes choreographed to music, and that's all you see. You don't see the 3:45 getting up on the ice at 4:30, the falls, the injuries, the you know, ballet classes, the ice time, the costumes, the training. So you kind of have that one moment, and Paychex was really great about laying that foundation to ensure that you were prepared and conditioned and, you know, at a competitive edge. And then that's where the personality took over to execute.

Yeah.

But learning about business owners' mindset, I think, is— was the best thing about working for a company like Paychex.

Well, I love that analogy because it is a lot like sales. We get that 3 minutes— is that what it was, 3 minutes?

Well, depending on your level, yes. You only had a certain time that you could be on the ice, and you'd actually get penalized if you went over. So you got to be on point, right?

And yeah, nobody sees it, but you knew how much energy went into the practice, the repetition, both the The boredom and the physical strain. And when you're a teenager, getting up early is like miserable.

Oh, yes. Yeah, it still is, honestly. But, but, you know, and it reminds me of— and I don't know if you've ever heard Simon Sinek's TED Talk on the golden, you know, circle and the why. I think that was another element I learned early on in my career. Because there are those days, you know, when you get the no, or, you know, you lose the RFP, or you've worked so hard, or you thought, you know, those challenges and setbacks. And then the days, it's like climbing a mountain, you feel you've scaled half the mountain.

Yeah.

But then there's some days you're like, I'm just gonna camp out for a while, this isn't going well. But there was something, and I think in the successful salespeople that I've tried to surround myself with, quit is not in their vocabulary, right? There's, there's a relentless pursuit of excellence, not perfection. I definitely think there's a difference. But, you know, I would find myself taking little steps some days, big steps other days. But it really reminded me when I heard, you know, Simon's TED Talk of, that's it, it's the why. Why do you get up and why does anybody care? I mean, I could tell you what I do every day and whose name's on my W-2, but, you know, if I'm really going to empower and enable other people around me or my customers or my people that I mentor or learn from my leadership, it's got to be about the why. And then I think the how you do it and what you do fall into place. But I think that's another really good analogy that he illustrated that I, I think is a great mindset. Well, let's get— what was your why? What was my why? I think it was that I want to help others. I want to win. I want to drive solutions and problem solve. And sales and all the industries I've been in, I've actually mainly been in, it's probably because of this, more service-related, solution-oriented sales. I've never, tactically speaking, sold a widget or a product, you know. And my why was, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to solve their problem and help their business. I mean, that's a good feel. Granted, I love people. Yes, I'm competitive. I want to make money. I mean, I'm not, you know, a nonprofit. But for me, that was my motivator. Paychecks, American Express. I'm now an organization part of Accenture. What I love about all those companies, and even when I was at BI Worldwide, it was what's important to you and how can we solve it? And if their business was successful, I succeeded as a community member and an individual contributor to society. I mean, I know that sounds really heavy, but I was like, I am making a difference. And you know, the guy that delivered my kids. He was a client. You know, my dentist was a client. We still eat every Friday night at one of my Paychex client's restaurants. And I just found this beauty in fulfilling kind of my purpose in the professional world by thinking about what's my why. And the how I did it and the hard work and the training and reading the sales books and calling the guy that's number 1 on the ranking report and, you know, listening to podcasts like yours. I was like, okay, that's how I'm gonna get better.

Yeah.

And then what I do is, you know, outsourcing payroll services. Um, but really what I was doing is I was, you know, letting them live their dream of being the next Mrs. Fields. And I took care of all the, you know, keeping them in compliance with the IRS or peace of mind. And, and I looked at what I did differently after I centered myself on why am I doing this again? And I was successful at it. I mean, metrics-wise, the outcome was being a top performer. And I made money and it made me want to keep doing it. So—

Well, what I like about it is that why was about them, not you.

Exactly. And I think that's that empathy. People pick up on that immediately.

Well, because when your why is solving their problem, It— people automatically immediately sense that, that you're here and all of a sudden you're showing interest in them, not what you do and how it works and why it's better.

Yeah, and that's what people want. That ego part of the human nature, they want it to be about them. But you know what? It's mutually beneficial. Anybody in sales will tell you that. It benefits you too.

So, right, because instead of the wrestling of, I'm going to convince you this is better, let's talk about you and what you want to achieve.

Exactly.

Gets them talking. Trust is built because your focus is on them.

Exactly.

Now back to the, the ice skating, because I find that great, because I find the analogy moves really well. Because sales, it's probably 80-90% preparation. Very— you get so little time face-to-face talking with the other person to execute.

Yep.

And then what usually, if something goes wrong, people want to then repair it. It's like, no, it has to— the time to repair it. If you fall on the ice, right?

I've already brought you the flowers and it's over. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's not your interpretation of how well you did.

It's the judges.

Yes.

So, and it did, it did, it all came down to, I got to give a little plug for my brother because what got us into figure skating, kind of a fascinating story. So my dad was a physician. My brother's school came to him and my parents and said, we think there's something going on here. And my parents were like, no, he's a bright kid. Like, It's gotta be something different. And my dad reached out to another person in the medical community and my brother was diagnosed with dyslexia. And this was in the early '70s and there wasn't a lot of research around it.

Right.

So the doctor says, we're finding a lot of success in occupational therapy approach of focusing on things that require cross-patterning and hand-eye coordination. So that got us into figure skating. We lived in Chicago at the time and it was like tennis or figure skating. My parents were like, there's a rink down the street. We'll go there, right? So, um, we, we got into figure skating. That became a family affair. My brother's actually the skating coach at the University of Delaware.

Wow.

He's won national championships. He's, he's skated internationally. But that was my foray into it. And it is a lot of analogy because as, as it wasn't just about the technical performance, because you've probably seen this, like, let's, let's that's related to sales, right? You'll get in an RFP or you're in a competition with somebody else. And at the end of the day, you know, you both make the widget. No one skates. You both, yeah. I mean, you both say that I got service and here's our great clients and, you know, so, you know, let's just say in figure skating, you land all the technical jumps, but if you've kind of watched the sport or even when you see the performance and you add in what makes them unique and how do they speak through movement and music and outfits. And it's storytelling, you know. And that is where I saw people that did better in skating, and those were the skaters I wanted to be like too. And so, you know, I had the hair and we got the right dress to match the music, and I was very particular. The music had to be authentic to me. it had to speak to me or I wouldn't be able to get out there on the ice and execute me.

Yeah.

And I found in sales, you know, I'm never going to be you. I'm never going to be the other guy that might be, you know, top of the ranking reports. But if I can be authentic and listen, um, and there were tough days and it taught a lot of discipline, like with the sales, you know, you've got to take the time to research and be organized. And, and those are things, you know, they should be table stakes for anybody in business. And I realize that's challenging, and if you're not good at that, maybe this isn't the right profession for you. But, um, yeah, it was, it was how can I tell the story through technical elements, right? I've got to be able to deliver on what my client wants, but how can I weave it in and engage them for what they want that's going to Speak to them and win the deal accordingly or win the competition because of all those things coming together.

Because it's completely subjective.

Yes.

Because when you, when you listen to like the Olympics, when they do it, the words they use, oh, the attitude, look at the energy. You know, how do you put that into an RFP?

Right.

That's a complete feeling that somebody's getting. They can't put, oh, it's not a triple axel, whatever you call it.

Right. That's a real jump. Good job.

Yeah. And, and even if they didn't land perfectly, you know, the smile and the energy, the things that the intangibles people connect with.

Yeah.

And I think the same is true with sales.

Yeah, and taking the tangibles and being able to differentiate them and translate them into what your client wants. I mean, I personally, especially in the global, more enterprise, because I've done everything, you know, Paychex was small new business, high transaction. I've done middle market enterprise and then the global, you know, it's like you hate it, you get an RFP, but that's their process, right? Procurement or sourcing or who's going to drive it. But their title, you know, on LinkedIn isn't, I'm buying things. You know, I mean, that's—

VP of stuff.

Yeah, VP of stuff. I mean, there is an Internet of Things thing, which I did laugh when that first came out. I was like, really? You can get away with that? But yeah, it's trying to navigate and find out. And I knew sometimes I'm like, do I have a champion there? Could I even tell you what they're gonna, what their buying style is? Do I have a way to get in there and guide them? Because they don't know. Procurement's going to look for, you know, lowest margin, longest pay term. You know, they're going to be looking at their thing. The CFO is looking at his thing. The CEO or the head of sales maybe that put out the RFP— crazy, sometimes they don't even consult them of what the solution is going to be. So, you know, it is, it's challenging to translate it. into the story. And something that I learned later on in my career when I was doing more of these, which I think you do more presentations and big RFPs and longer sales cycles in the global space, was the discipline part. You know, what are we going to say? What is our story going to be? What is it going to look like? Let's— like, even if we answered the first paper, if it's an airline, let's find out what is their mission, what's their vision, Let's style it. Let's have the visual, the language. Everything needs to speak to them.

Yeah.

It can't be our language as, you know, a seller, so to speak, or a vendor. And I think, you know, in skating, it's the same thing. It's like, I'm still being me, but how it lands on you is going to be— make you want to engage me, learn more, and influence you.

So, and there's not even the window of opportunity for the victim mentality, right?

Yeah, you got to be proactive and take charge, right?

You cannot say, oh, it's because I'm this, I'm that, they like jazz rather than rock. It's like, I've got to do what they want.

Yes.

And better than other people.

Yeah. Well, you know, I heard you talk one time and I loved it. I thought it was spot on. It goes back to like that locus of control.

There you go.

And people that have a sense of, um, true self-accountability. Um, because that is a pet peeve of mine, you know, in anything, you know, that making an excuse is, well, we could have been— it's like, you know what, then own that. Fix what you can, do what you can, take control of what you can control. And, you know, sometimes you walk away, sometimes you lose. But, um, that— I don't know if that's something you could even teach somebody, but when you have that right mindset, you're exactly right. It takes away any, at least subjectivity as a seller to be a victim or, or, um, Lose because of anything that you could control.

Yeah, and it's kind of natural. You lose, you get hurt, you get rejected. It's natural. Your subconscious is just protecting yourself.

Yeah.

And that's okay. But in sales, it has to be about what can I control? What did I miss? How did— were they wrong for me? Were they wrong for the company? Was it the wrong time?

Well, I think a best practice is to debriefing. Sometimes I've learned more when I lose a deal. And doing it when you win too. I think a lot of people don't, right? They're like, we won, but that's where the real selling begins, right? The delivery, the execution. Is this going to be a referral source down the road? But I love to debrief.

Yeah.

Win, lose, or draw. I want to have candid, genuine conversations, I'm like, let me know. I mean, it could be that, you know, the nephew's fiancée works for the other guy. Like, I couldn't have controlled that. Okay, move on, you know. But did I miss something? Did they flat out tell me something? Or was it a capability that we honestly didn't offer? Like, it's so important, I think, to your point, to, to debrief and understand, lick your wounds, have that resiliency. That I think is a key element of a good salesperson and move forward, you know.

Because you got that in skating with the judges giving you a number. If you use that same analogy after each deal or after each call, how well was— was that an 8.9 call or was it an 8.7 call?

Yep.

And I bet on the skating you knew what it was, you could feel it.

Yeah.

How often were you surprised when they pulled the numbers up?

Right, not often. You knew, especially with, you know, uh, technical elements. You knew, or you were off. And it's funny, and maybe you've had this experience where you were, you know, as an individual contributor in the trenches. I remember saying this once to one of my bosses, um, I think it was early on when I was at Paychex, but, you know, sometimes you'll leave a meeting and you're like I could not have been more on. Like, you were, you were, you just, it was there. The vibe was there. The energy was there. You're like, that was like a dance of perfection, you know? And in skating, I would call it, I'm in the ice or I'm on the ice. Like, when I would do performances where I felt like I was skating on the ice, I never really got into the edges and, you know, the technical aspect, but it impacted the whole skate. And I think it's like that. Either you get in the ice and you're in it and you get it, or you're on and you leave the performance and you're like, I was on the ice. I was not in the ice. Like, I— they didn't get the best of me. And you know what? I'm probably not going to win that.

Yeah. I mean, I had this magical CEO at one time, and at the end of the quarter, I'd have him come out and we'd go to the deals that I was hoping to close.

Yeah.

And he would get into state, you know, pounding his chest, like, you know, tying his tie, untying it, tying it. And but when he got up there, you know, he was calm, he smiled, and he just flowed for like 45 minutes.

Yeah, and because he knew how to tell the story. He was a performer. Yes.

And this is When I say performance, you know, the natural thing is to sing and dance, but no, every communication, every interaction is at some level of quality. Every comedian, every— everybody who does it with other people. We're not engineers building something in a lab.

Right, right.

And I think that grading yourself after each performance, then you find the distinctions.

Mm-hmm.

And they're small, they're never huge.

Rarely, yeah.

Right?

I mean, you know, there's been some I'm like, oh, this is what you want to do, you know? Yeah, but, but yeah, you're right, it is. And, and I also think it's key to point out when we say it's kind of a performance industry, but so is, you know, track and field and football and, you know, sports we watch, those baseball It's, it's, that's the genuine outcome of measurement at the end of the day, right? And, and I think another thing is really important is, you know, because some people, the negative connotation of like sales or you're performing, that doesn't mean, you know, we're making things up or—

It's not phony.

It's not phony. It's genuine. It's authentic. And I think a client can see that. I think they can sense that. And, and I know there's, you know, ideas of, well, we can just box things and KPI things. And, you know, to your point, you can't. You know, you'll have people lie on their weekly activity reports is probably what you're going to get if you say a top performer— You get actors.

The bad—

Yeah.

That is the faking.

Then you're going to get somebody that magically has 10 appointments every week because they said that. But, you know, their closing ratio is like they close 1 or 2 out of 10. It's like, Okay, I'd rather have somebody closing 4 out of 7 than 1 out of 10. You know, let's talk about that. But, you know, you gotta be authentic. I think people do buy from people. You gotta humanize the experience. They don't, you know, and when it does become a paper thing or a commodity thing, that's where I think as salespeople, we need to be bold and have a certain pursuit or relentless thing of, idea of excellence that we've got to change the conversation because I use this term a lot and, and, and I stole it from somebody else. So, um, but you can't give a haircut over the phone, you know. So, and, and when I would start getting some of that, I'd be like, hey, hold on. And when you're early on, you don't sometimes have the fortitude to do that, you know, because you're younger and you're not as experienced. But I'm like, hold on, you know, I would— I want to help you. But where you're driving this, I can't help you. I need to know more. I need to peel back. I can't give you a haircut over the phone. And you're asking me for a haircut, and I can't put that in a paper RFP. I can't. So, um— But you do—

you're doing the same thing. You're showing that your focus is on their best interests.

It is.

That's the key to trust.

I believe. Yep. I agree.

This has been a great conversation, Sarah. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

Yeah, so I am Sarah Anderson on LinkedIn. And like I said before, open to ever help anybody empower and be successful. And I hope I get some people reaching out to just stay inspired and engaged in the trenches that is sales. But yeah, it's been wonderful speaking with you, Brian. I appreciate it.

So let's talk about why I thought this was such a great guest to have on the show. The analogy towards figure skating is so appropriate compared to sales, because when I say performance, a lot of people get the singing and dancing interpretation, like where A dog and pony show. That's not so much what I mean. What I mean is that how well you do it, how well you have a sales call, how well you have a presentation, a demo, a conversation, is very judgmental. And the judge is the client. It's not so much You know, how well— well, it is how well— it's all these ingredients. And I think Sarah brought that out during the interview, that so many times it's the energy. Now, how do you quantify that? The audience does. You may have high energy, you may have congruent energy, but when you're watching somebody or listening to somebody talk, are they connecting with you? Are you connecting with them? And we all have calls. I have interviews. I have intros and outros of the podcast, and I grade myself. Why do I do that? Because I want to become better. The only way to become better is to distinguish between good and great. You know, is it— are you precise? Are you clear? Are you able to communicate it the way the recipient will get it? That's really what sales is. And it requires us to practice, to outline, to write it down, to polish it, to become Better at it. Now, a lot of reps don't get this. They think it's the what I know, which is part of it. You've got to know how to figure skate. You've got to know how to present, how to communicate, how to answer questions and present ideas and discuss topics and have somebody else see the world your way. And I'm sure you've seen other people do it. And early in my career, when I saw, you know, this great CEO that I have had give a presentation and how he was able to capture their imagination, you know, we call it charisma, but is it learnable? It's all learnable. We can't have the mindset of it's innate. Yes, some people may be naturally better at it, like some people are naturally better at music or math, but it doesn't mean that if we're okay at it or if we suck at it that we can't become better. And this part of sales is this part that a lot of people don't want to get. They just assume that, well, I know what the slides are, I know the I know how to handle an objection. I must be great. Or the reason why I'm not getting the deal is the territory or the product or the leads. Well, do you have control over that? You have 100% control over how well you do things. And how do you get better at it? You take a little feedback. You record it. You ask somebody else. You watch somebody else. You learn from people who are better at it or who are willing to give you feedback and take it. And the feedback is not that you are not good enough. The feedback is that the performance can become better. And guess what? Nobody ever had a perfect performance in sales. A perfect presentation. You know, the CEO would— we'd go out to dinner the night before, and he would never drink a beer or anything. And then he would go back to his room, and he'd walk the stairs of the hotel for both exercise and repetition of a presentation he had given 100 times, 1,000 times. And from that, I kind of learned, oh, well, it's not just the knowledge.

Right.

Because at first, at anything, we always think it's knowing. What book do I read? What podcasts do I listen to? What videos do I watch? And there you learn the what, and you might learn some of the how, but then you have to do it, and all of a sudden people melt. Because the doing it and the doing it better and better and better Becomes our life mission. And I did an interview probably a couple months ago with somebody who sold insurance, and he would repeat his opener. Now, he's been doing it for 30 years, over and over in the morning, out loud. His family would go nuts listening to it. Now, did he do it because he didn't know it? He knew it. He knew it by heart. He knew the words. He was trying to get the inflection, the energy, the pace, the tempo, the tonality all right. Now, that's a professional. That's sometimes the difference between A and B player. But it's not just that. And this is where the art of sales, the passion in your why of sales has to come out. When you want to become great at sales, You want to become great at it in the eyes of the customer. And to do that, you have to start thinking like them. When Sarah talked about her why of helping solve customers' problems, she still wanted to win the deal, but she knew that this, this was the smartest way of winning the deals. It doesn't mean she's in service. It means she's still in sales. And she's still hypercompetitive and highly motivated. But that mindset gets her thinking the way a customer thinks. Now, use that grading analogy, because when you see figure skating and the judges hold up a number, you notice that the numbers are rarely all the same. That means each person had their own interpretation of it. You know, once in a while you'll see some partisanship of it where there'll be one who's clearly in favor of somebody or clearly hating somebody, and that's life. Uh, trust me, for somebody who puts out content, you're gonna get haters. Uh, and you're like, and haters for no apparent reason, crazy, whatever. It doesn't matter why. It's just off the Off the hook stuff. Now think about your why. What why will both motivate you and connect you with the client? That is critical. And when your why is not focused on the client, what ends up happening is you're not connecting. And you probably notice this in your friendships, in your relationships, in your parenting, when you put the focus in your why on the other person, the other person starts to get you, starts to trust you because it's not about you, it's about them. And it's a magical thing. It's kind of counterintuitive. It's part of cognitive empathy. It's something that can be a game changer, but it has to have that union of something that motivates you and is effective with the client. That's the key. And these are some of the things I try and teach in the course: the grading of your performance, the distinctions between good and great, the elements of a conversation, the elements of winning a deal. Now, why do entrepreneurs grasp this fastest? They have to. Our base salary kind of blinds us and gives us a little cushion of just focusing on what our manager wants. But what does our manager really want? If you're in sales, they want revenue. All the other stuff is because revenue isn't there. When revenue is there, what you find out is almost anything is allowed. And I've seen it happen. You know, they have a saying that revenue solves all problems. It also covers up all uncooperativeness. And without revenue, that's when the micromanagement kicks in. That's when the over-admin catches up. And that's when the scrutiny happens. When there is revenue, everything gets out of the way. Focus on— because the revenue does solve all our problems. It solves your customers' problems because they bought your product. It solves your problem because there's lots of money coming into your bank account. It gets your manager off your back. Now you can focus on reading books and listening to podcasts, which is good. It's information, but it's not distinctions. It's not really polishing up your skills. You're probably listening to this while you're walking, running, exercising of some kind, driving around, doing something else, and you should. This is passive content, and it's meant to be that way. And that's what I do when I, I listen to podcasts. But you need dedicated time. Dedicated distinctions between good and great. Dedicated times to anticipate what is going to happen, not react to what is happening. Because the complex sale is just a sequence of traps. The default is for nothing to happen. We have to be proactive about it. And why should you care? Because you're working for free. If you don't get the deal. Yes, you get a comfortable base, and yes, you probably get a little bit of runway, but not as much as you think. And, you know, today bosses or managers are pretty much reined in by HR and what they can say, so they're probably not telling you the truth. They give the appearance of more runway and patience than there is. And the way to distinguish yourself is revenue. It really does solve all problems, you know. And I don't mean that in the pejorative sense. I mean that in the honest, realistic sense. Because when I see companies doing well, they don't need consulting or training or improvement. They're fine. But when companies are in pain, all the finger-pointing starts. Let's learn How to become great at sales. It really is fun when you become better at it. When you think of whatever, whether it's ice skating, cooking, video games, anything else that you do in your life that requires a quality element, meaning that how you show up and how well state of mind you have that day, your energy, Your personality, your charm. When it all comes together, that's when the magic— you get into that perfect state and you execute well. So go to b2brevenue.com, sign up for the courses, check out the videos, see which course is right for you. In that, I describe the distinctions and what you get out of the courses. Basically, a full calendar of meetings and conversations and learning how to connect with somebody else. And build it into a business conversation? And how do you win large complex sales? How do companies buy? No one teaches this stuff. Nobody. Believe me, I looked around and I wish somebody taught me this 25 years ago. Would have saved me a lot of time and made me a lot more money. Don't waste your time. Invest your time wisely to make more money. You are The means of production. You are the business athlete, whether you admit it or not. The person on the field can either get hit by the ball or hit the ball. Which one are you going to be? Check it out. Tell a friend about the show. If you see my content fly by on LinkedIn, please give it a like, comment, and a share. Tell a friend about the show. Check out the other podcasts, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers, the B2B Revenue Leadership Show, and the Sales Leadership Show. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening.