Why other people keep winning good high-ticket sales jobs over you

You guys would think that after 4 years, almost 4 years of posting weekly, 2 times a week on YouTube, I've gotten pretty good at it by now. I filmed this video 2 times and both times I messed up. One time I had a little rule of thirds grid over my entire face. And then the second time it went on longer, the mic wasn't on, it was dead silent. So this is my third time filming this video, but it's a very important concept for you guys. It's something that I was prompted by a community member today to kind of just come on here, spit. I don't have a crazy framework of how I wanna structure this video, but I wanna talk about one thing. I want to push a message to you guys, and I'm gonna tell you guys about some real-life examples why this is important, why you should care. If you're in the high-ticket space and you're looking for your first or next job, this is incredibly important to you. It doesn't matter if you've never sold a thing before, you've sold 10 million things before, this is important to you, and you're probably not gonna like to hear it, so I'll just get right into it. I had somebody ask me today in my community, these people are asking for a 2 to 3 minute Loom video over this, this, and this. That's long, that's hard. Can I give them a shorter one? The short answer is no. I mean, you can if you wanna be known as the guy that doesn't follow instructions because the guy who doesn't follow instructions would do something like that. That's also a guy that you probably don't want in your sales team, even if they're really simple, really simple request. Which leads me to the point that following instructions and doing the basic effort-based stuff is limiting a lot of people that are really good at what they do. They're actually doing themselves a disservice because they're discrediting how important these things are. They think that because I have $10 million sold in this industry, I'll come over here and it'll sell itself. That's not true, man, because if you're not doing the basic shit well that are traits of a good employee, they don't even care how much you've sold. They don't care who you sold it to or what your close rate was. You are doing yourself an incredible disservice by not doing the effort-based things good and not following instructions. I was recruiting for a pretty legit role, closing role, AI company last year for a friend, and I took in a lot of applications. It was a pretty simple Google Form tied to a Google Sheet so I could see all the responses that came in. One thing I'll say right now is if there's an optional response, It's not optional. It is going to be what gets you disqualified from the application if you don't do it. If you say something like, I'll do it later, I'll attach it later, this, this, or that. Nope. Sorry, dude, you're out. If I have 3 people who applied, 2 who followed instructions and 1 who half-assed it, and the guy who half-assed it has twice as much experience, I literally don't care. He's out because I can find someone who can close a deal. What's harder to find is someone— again, I've been saying this a lot lately— strong character, someone who's going to show up on time. Stay late, do the dirty work, follow up, clean the CRM, end-of-day reports. Someone who's going to do the basics, someone who's not going to get cute, not going to try to cut corners, make it easier. They're just going to show up and do what needs to be done. So anyways, I was recruiting for a role. I asked for a Loom video. In the Loom video, it's a very common thing. If you're in the space, you know, it's a very common thing. And I say, do it like this: 60 seconds, 4 steps. That's our Loom video framework that I recommend to everyone. In this case, I was the recruiter, so I requested that. 60 seconds, 4 things. Who I am, why I'm reaching out, why I should be considered, schedule availability, next steps. Tell me when you can meet, pretty much. I write down there below, I say, do not follow instructions equals auto DQ. And I hyperlink Loom so that people, in the event that they've never heard of this thing before, never used it, don't know how to, it's right there in front of their face. Just click it, it takes you there. Way easier than almost anything else. You guys know how many Loom videos I got? That were not 60 seconds? Do you know how many videos I got that were not hosted on Loom? And do you know how many of those people I actually seriously considered? You could infer all of these answers, right? If you can't follow super simple instructions that have such detrimental downside and you still take the time to go and complete the application after that, I'm having some red flags. I'm having some concerns. Did you read it and not care? Did you not take the time to read it? Or are you so technologically illiterate that you don't know how to use Loom? Because if you can't use Loom, you can't use my CRM. I know that for a fact. So anyways, I don't really know. I don't really care. I don't have any reason to like you out of the hundreds of applications. Later, you're gone. And you may have closed $3 million and the guy I'm about to go to next followed instructions but didn't close that. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. You always follow instructions. It is the biggest and most simple test for you to pass. It is also one of the most detrimental things to your overall consideration. Doesn't matter if you have a ton of sales experience. All these salespeople think, Oh, my experience is going to sell itself. I don't need a good resume. I don't need this. I closed this much. I closed at this rate. Dude, that's what opens the door to get your experience looked at and considered. I always say there's like levels to this. There's like checkpoints, right? There's certain things where the playing field levels. This is one of them. You know, I say especially for experienced sales reps, you just need to get on interviews. The hard part for you if you've been in solar is getting on interviews. But once you're on them, they're going to see like, wow, this guy's sharp. I want this guy on my team. I could teach him all the other shit, what he needs to know. But the character I can't teach. I need this guy on my team. It's the same thing here. If I have 3 people who apply to jobs, 2 of them barely any sales experience, one of them has a lot, but one of them half-assed the application, I'm already foreseeing that this dude is a freaking diva. I don't want him on my team. I don't care how much he's closed. So follow instructions. Don't get cute. Don't reinvent the wheel. I had this guy one time ask me, hey man, should I wear a collared shirt to the interview? That was the whole question. There wasn't a— I got this situation. My shirt's dirty. He just said, should I wear a collar shirt to the interview? And I just told him yes. But what I wanted to tell him is like, dude, in what world does that make any negative impact towards your likelihood to get the job? Like, there is only upside. Following instructions is one of the things where there is also only upside. And it's so simple, but you guys would be so surprised how many people don't follow simple instructions, don't do the basics, don't do the effort-based stuff, and they're doing themselves a severe disservice because they think the sales experience sells itself. They think the warm introduction sells itself. In some cases it does. But if you're a cold applicant, 1 out of 100, the easiest way for these people to find the right fit for their team is not going one by one and picking people and then ranking them on a board on where they like them. It is the process of elimination. You find the needle in the haystack not by going and looking for the needle, but by removing the hay. It's the same thing here. If you don't do the basics, if you don't do the fundamentals, Correct. If you skip the optional question, it doesn't matter. Nothing else matters. That's why we focus on— in my community, we focus on highest order of importance things as they are within your control or not, because we can't go back in time and change your sales experience. But what we can do is turn you into a competitor, and that means sourcing jobs, applying to them fast, applying to ones where we're actually competitive, having the best presentation on Loom videos, resumes, the best responses. You get all that and you get a warm vouch and you stack a couple other things in your favor. Like, that's how people get jobs. That they're not supposed to get. That's how people in my community get jobs over you who doesn't have access to any of this stuff. It's not because they have more sales experience. Maybe they do in the off case. It's because they know what's actually moving the needle and they're shifting the priority over there. So anyways, the collared shirt question, like piggybacking off that, why would we not wear the collared shirt? Why would we not film a Loom video that's the exact length? Why would we not answer the questions that they pose in front of us because they're optional? If they ask you in the Loom video to talk about the size and color of your underwear and why you decided to wear that pair today, that's what you're talking about in the Loom video. If they ask it to be 10 minutes, that's what we're doing. We're doing a 10-minute Loom video. And resumes too. When I was recruiting for this guy, I had asked for resumes and I said, give me a link to Google Drive, Google Docs, something like that. You guys would not believe how many, aside from some of these resumes just being hideous, atrocious, so unprofessional, outdated by years, you guys would be so surprised to know how many people Didn't give me what I asked for. They gave me weird obscure resume hosting sites. They gave me Google Drive, but I don't have access. I literally said like approve access. I showed them how to do it. They give me like weirdly formatted links and shit that I don't even want to click on, dude. I don't know if this is going to give me a virus. I asked for this. This is not this. And for that reason, I don't— I'm not like— I've moved on from you, unfortunately. And you'll have people in full confidence submit some variation of a Loom video that's not a Loom video, some variation of a resume, and then proceed to like put effort into other components of the resume beyond that, it's like, dude, you're wasting your time. I promise you, you're wasting your time. The best hiring managers on the biggest teams have picked up on the little small things that all the best people on their team consistently do. And it's the unspoken stuff. Example, if you're filling out a Loom video or an application or whatever, and they tell you to say pineapple in that, they're like, hey man, somewhere at the end of the video, say pineapple. So I know that this is custom and you just ignore it. You don't say pineapple. You might think like, that's fucking stupid. Why would I say pineapple? Dude, if you don't say pineapple, you're not getting the job. I hate to break it to you. It's because you don't know how to follow instructions. And I don't want someone— I can find someone else to close deals, but I need someone to follow instructions. I'm building an organization here. At the end of the day, man, sales management is all about you, like them getting someone in place that can own the role so that they can then go and build out other functions to increase revenue, whether that's the same role, hiring more people, Or if it's a business owner who's managing the sales team, they want peace of mind, man. If you can't follow simple instructions, they don't have peace of mind. And for that reason, they're not even going to consider you if you don't do those things. So you guys would be so, so, so, so incredibly surprised with how low the bar is. And if you can prioritize the right things that are all effort-based and leave your actual sales experience and the consideration there compared to other people downstream, If you don't lead with your sales experience being the only thing you have to offer, but you lead with you being a guy who follows instructions, presents himself well, has great attention to detail, is timely, good expectations, interviews well, cares, wants it, has the why, has the reasons— that's a winner. That's the winner. That's the guy who wins. Anyways, that's my YouTube video for today. Thank you guys for watching. Hopefully on the third take it went through. If you want help doing all the things that are within your control So that way we can make your actual sales experience very downstream in consideration so you can land jobs that you wouldn't otherwise land. I help people do that. First link in the description, that is the Cereal Sales Community. I personally work with you one-on-one and small group to get everything prepped, everything right. I go and source the jobs. I tell you which ones you should apply to based on the unique situation that you're in. We don't set crazy expectations. I give you the best hiring assets. I work with you. I'll personally redo your resume. Don't tell anyone I told you that. And then we go and make it happen. I'm sitting on 2 more $10K per month interviews that we're about to record and push out to you guys. That's going to get us closer to our goal of 100 $10K per month interviews. We are somewhere in the ballpark of like 65-ish, I think. Yeah, somewhere in there. So we're getting close. Been doing this since 2022. Really good. The reason why we're still here is because we set those good expectations and we work with people to hit those and we actually care. Crazy enough, we do. Okay, so you guys, please follow instructions. Your instruction is now to go down below, first link in the description. That's the Cereal Sales Community. Thank you for watching. 2 YouTube videos a week. We're pushing them out. I'm thinking Tuesdays and Fridays. That's what we're on. Thank you guys. We'll talk soon.