How to MASTER SALES with DAN SULLIVAN: The ONE STRATEGY That CHANGES EVERYTHING!

I'm Dan Sullivan. And I'm Joe Polish. And welcome to 10 Times Talk.

And this is Paul Calligan. While you are waiting for season two of 10 Times Talk, we've got a special episode for you from the archive. This is recording that Dan and Joe made before we actually made 10x talk, the property that it is today. They were thinking it was going to be another name, so you might hear past references to that. But the topic is great.

It's.

It's ageless, It's Joe and Dan, and it's selling yourself before you try to sell anyone else. Take it away, guys.

Hello, this is Joe Polish, and I'm here with Mr. Dan Sullivan. Dan, how are you?

I'm really great, Joe, and really looking forward to talking about selling yourself today. You know, the whole skill that really successful high achievers have of, first of all, being able to sell themselves before they try to sell somebody else something.

Yes. And, you know, right before we were getting started to record, I told you I had a slight cold today, and I think you said it made me sound distinguished.

Yeah, I thought you had a really great studio voice today, Joe. I think colds in the long run are actually better than smoking for having a really good studio voice. And so just stay with it. This is a gifted day.

Yes, exactly. Okay, awesome. All right, well, you talked about selling yourself. That's what you said. And what I want to do mention to everyone listening and the Genius Network world out there is that I think this is such an important topic. And I want to talk about something that I heard Dan say, and I believe we talked about it on a previous episode of Genius Network. But basically, I asked you, Dan, several years ago, in the middle of a strategic coach workshop, what's your definition of selling? And without even blinking, you said, getting people intellectually engaged in a future result that's good for them and getting them to emotionally commit to take action. Action to achieve that result. And I'm not reading off the notes or anything right now. I mean, I just remembered that. And then you wrote it down because I asked you to say it again. And so you wrote it down for everyone. And that led into a discussion about what selling actually is and how, you know, for one, getting people intellectually engaged in a bigger future result that's good for them. And you highlight the words good for them and then getting them to emotionally commit to take action to achieve that result. And the reason that was such a profound definition for me is because, for one, everything about it rings true. And secondly, the part about good for them. Because I've asked hundreds of people, I do this at my big events. I always use this definition. It's become part of what I now talk about and have conversations about in my mastermind groups, in my live events, everything, because I think it's so important. People love to be sold. They hate to be pressured. And selling is actually a fun, enjoyable, contributing part of human life and human activity. As a matter of fact, I think it's one of the most important parts of human life. And most people, I think, have a completely skewed perspective of it. And when I give people that definition and ask them what is the most important words in that definition, they'll say intellectually engaged, emotionally commit. They'll say things like that. But I'll say, well, from an ethics standpoint, good for them. Because you can take the words good for them out and saying, getting people intellectually engaging a future result and then getting them to emotionally commit to take action to achieve that result. And that could apply for things such as eat bad food, drink booze, watch pornography, you know, waste time, you know, watching useless television, or, you know, a myriad of things that really aren't going to enhance your life all that much. But the bottom line is when you put in the words good for them, it totally changes the context. And so having said that, I just wanted to point that out before I asked you to really go deep in that definition, because another thing that you said, money earned ethically is a byproduct of value creation. I think for all of the entrepreneurs out there, if you really have value, if you really want to help people and you really want to make a lot of money, understanding selling is critical because without it, none of that will happen. So let's get into the discussion, and I'd like to get more of your perspective on that definition first, and then we'll move it into selling yourself.

Yeah, well, the. I'm just going to stay, Joe, with your discussion of the good for you, because that implies something else that you've taken the time beforehand to actually investigate and actually go deep into what might be really, really good for somebody else. So, you know, it's very, very interesting. There's this image oftentimes of entrepreneurs. We're talking about Genius Network here. But largely, Joe, virtually everybody we will talk about in Genius Network is really involved in an entrepreneurial activity. And an entrepreneurial activity always involves the creation of some sort of new value in the world, which from the very beginning has to be sold because it doesn't exist. People aren't used to it, people aren't familiar with the new thing that you're offering to them, so it has to be sold. But what it requires is that you kind of get into their minds and kind of look at the world through their point of view in such a way that you can, with a great deal of confidence, actually offer them something that you truly believe is really, really good for them. And so the image of business people and entrepreneurs being really, really selfish, what I've discovered is that probably the least selfish people in the world are actually entrepreneurs. And the reason is because they can't be coming from their own point of view. When they're out in the marketplace, they always have to be coming from other people's point of view.

Right, right. That's critical, too. I mean, yeah, and to really drive that point home, people can hear that. But I really want people to think about what you are saying there. I mean, we don't get paid as entrepreneurs if we don't go out and create results. And it's not going to happen any other way until you actually make a sale. And you cannot bore people into buying. People are not going to buy from you if you make it all about you and not about them. And it really causes a person to have to get into the mindset of the person that they're trying to solve a problem for or trying to offer a solution to. It requires you to have to perform. And if you're not able to perform, you know, you're not going to make sales or you're not going to do, you know extremely well. And most of the entrepreneurs that I know are hardworking, good people that really want to make a big difference in the world. And I think there's this skewed perspective of who these individuals actually are. And the ones that are really focused on value creations, they're the biggest contributors that I've ever met. I mean, the great human beings that I know are entrepreneurs.

We all went through the really quite extraordinary response to Steve Jobs death. You know, there were pros and cons, people who had a negative image of Steve Jobs and those who were very, very positive. But what is clearly evident is that this man had a unique ability just to get into people's minds and know what they would respond to, that they would see as being totally for their own good. You know, that he just expanded their accessibility through technology to all sorts of experiences and kinds of information and knowledge and music and movies and the ability to communicate with each other, the ability to think better. Everything else I see People, you know, well, you know, he was worth $8 billion. You know, he didn't give that money away. And I said, he created so many hundreds of billions of dollars for other people out in the world just through his creativity. And he did it essentially by selling. He was the greatest salesperson in the world. When Steve Jobs had something to sell, I'll tell you, the whole world stopped to get sold to. And his presentations are on YouTube. So you can go to Steve Jobs presenting and I have to tell you, talk about a guy who could intellectually engage you with a future desirable result and then enable you to be emotionally committed to buy it. I mean, I doubt if I've seen anyone in my lifetime the ability who could stop the entire world for about two hours, you know, California time in the middle of the afternoon. And all around the world, I mean, in India, they would get out of bed at 2 o' clock in the morning to have the experience of Steve Jobs selling him something new. You know, so what a remarkable example of a genius, you know, who had created a vast worldwide network. And he could convince you to inconvenience yourself so that he could sell you on something. And you were so thankful for it that you were very, very sad when he died.

Yeah. You know, the thing that is so interesting about that too, is that you never perceived him as like trying to sell you in the sort of the stereotype that someone would have about a high pressure salesperson. Like, you walk into a car lot and they're just you, the shark is coming up to you, trying to manipulate you into buying something and positioning you with all kinds of techniques and whatnot. I mean, people were completely engaged. And when someone is really got something that you want and they're presenting it in a way as our friend Dean Jackson calls cheese and whiskers, that's a whole nother episode we can talk about. But basically it's all about the client and about something that is fascinating and interesting. And he was just a master at it. And everything from the setup before, during and after was all delivered really well through the way that Steve Jobs did it. And to really expand that definition, I consider Martin Luther King an effective salesperson. I consider Mother Teresa an effective salesperson. John F. Kennedy. I mean, there's a lot of historical figures that are the messengers of the world that were salespeople. Where you get someone intellectually engaged in a future result that's good for them and then getting them to emotionally commit to take action to achieve that result. The bottom line is that is where Persuasion comes in. And so the key is, how is it used? And so when people say selling is bad or marketing is bad, that's kind of like saying oxygen is bad. I mean, oxygen is bad if it's filled with poison. But try living without it. Well, try having your business live without sales. Try having anything move in the world without a messenger. That's why I really take this whole subject and even your definition so seriously. Because when I heard that, I was like, this is a way to. To get people to understand this is way more than just making profits. This is how to persuade people into wherever you would persuade them to go. And what is your intention behind it. And if your whole point is to help and benefit people and you got something that's really great, it is in your best interest to really learn how to be more effective at doing that. So all of the people, I think listening to genius network here have a great advantage because they get to hear about this and we want them to really think about it. And by the way, the definition of a genius network, Dan, which you actually, you know, as much as I would love to say this is a joint effort, it's a joint effort from us doing these episodes and these recordings and building genius networks. This particular definition, because you're so good at defining things. Dan's definition of a genius network is an ever expanding system of increasing cooperation and creativity among unique ability achievers. Let's do a little side note here before we get more into the subject of selling and define that as it relates to even this discussion here. So what does that mean?

Well, you know, it's really interesting because I'm like you did with the definition of selling. I'm going to go to a couple of words in here, and the two words are cooperation and creativity. And if you step behind the scenes with cooperation, a sale is going on. If you step behind the scenes with creativity, a sale is going on. So I'd really. What I'd like to make a proposition here, Joe, and see how you respond to it. I would say that selling is how your brain actually works. We're not talking about what you're doing to other human beings. We're actually going much deeper, and we're actually going to go right to the level of how the individual brain works. My feeling is that the problem with selling in the world, you know, where it has a negative connotation, it's that people don't realize that nobody is a good salesperson to other people until they're, first of all, a good salesperson. To themselves. And so often I find the people who are most down on selling are really, really not very good at selling themselves. And they feel very, very frustrated because they feel that they have something to express. They feel that they could be more effective in the world. But they see other people who just seem to be so much better than they are, people who are so much more persuasive and can get other people's agreement and cooperation and creativity, and they feel an enormous sense of envy, on the one hand, towards these individuals, and another sense, they feel sort of guilt about themselves that they may be smarter inside their own minds. But how can this person who can just open their mouth and have other people listen to them, and I have so much better ideas, how can that be fair? You know, why should they be rewarded? And I think it goes right down to how the brain actually works. One of the things, Joe, you know, and I've always said this, and I think it's form of ethics from another angle, but I never try to sell anybody anything unless I'm totally sold on it myself. In other words, the first person who receives the full brunt of any sales pitch about what I would like to sell other people is that I sell myself first on the same thing.

And I've seen you do that numerous times. I mean, I've been with you where you have an idea and you'll think it through, you go through a mental process, and in many cases, you sit down and you write it out, you answer questions and you really look at it because you know that going into something, you know, one foot in the well, should I do it and one foot. Do you not? You know what I mean? If you start telling everyone about it, but you've not even sold yourself on it, well, guess what? It's most likely. It's probably not going to go anywhere.

Yeah, I'm sort of digital in that way. In the digital world, it's 1 or 0. So instead of 1, I'll use the word 100% that I'm either 100% in or I'm not in at all. I don't involve myself unless I'm 100% in, which requires that I be 100% sold on it before I then say I'd like somebody else to be 100% sold, too. But I got to be the first one in the water. You know, we're crossing a river here. We're going from one place to another, and we're crossing a river. If I want them to get into the river, I have to Be the first person in the river.

Yeah. Okay, so let's walk our listeners through. How do you actually think about that? So you have an idea, be it to make money, be it to offer something to your clients. I mean, you just have some idea and process. How do you sell yourself?

Yeah, well, first of all, the thing that I've got to decide is, do I want to get involved in this at all? And I've just learned that I am the sort of person that once I'm in, I'm totally in. So I got to be very, very careful about what kind of situations, what kind of relationships, what kind of projects that I get involved in. So the first thing I say, well, what's the purpose of this? Why would I want to do this anyway? And if I got a good answer to that, and they say, well, what's the importance of it? What difference is it going to make in my life? And then number three, and this is just the first part of my sale to myself is what's the ideal outcome? So when it's finished, how am I so much better off if I do that? You know, I've gotten good at it, so it doesn't take hours. But, you know, I would say it's probably spent about 10 minutes going through. And I do it written for him. I like writing things. I have it on computer, too, and I'm sitting there. And if by the end of the third consideration, I've done purpose, I've done importance, and then I've done ideal outcome, and I'm getting more excited about it, I know I'm sold. I kind of know that I'm totally sold. So intellectually, I'm totally engaged. So the first part of the selling definition, I've now accomplished that I'm totally intellectually engaged in this, and at this point, I'm 100%.

So what I want to really think through. There are times where you'll be going through the process and in the process of wanting to sell yourself, and you'll realize the best sales job you could do is to not go into something. And I want to. Want to kind of point that out, that I think a lot of things people end up doing, one of the sales jobs is in reverse, really not getting involved in something. I mean, can you speak to that? When you come to the obstacles and say, well, you know, this is not that. I think many, many ideas, you realize through going through that process that this is not something I should get myself involved in. And I would venture to say the vast majority of things that are not working and failures that are happening is because people, they're kind of in the middle.

Yeah, they've obligated themselves, but they're not actually committed to it. And we had a whole episode on that whole question between obligation and commitment, you know, in the series here. But the interesting thing, Joe, I get people to write out sometimes a sheet of paper, and they put down three columns. And I say situations. So we're going to have three columns. At the top is situations. The next one is relationships, and the third one is projects, because that's kind of how people account for their time in life. They're involved in a situation, a relationship with a person, or they're involved in some sort of project. And I said, now what I want you to do very quickly, and we'll take about a minute with each of these, I just want you to write down all the situations. Thinking back, it would have been better if you hadn't gotten involved in them in the first place. They say, can I have two minutes? They want more time. And then I say, what about the relationships that you shouldn't have gotten involved? And they do the same thing. And number three is the projects they got involved in. So at the end of three minutes, oftentimes they'll have 20 or 25 things written down. And I said, just roughly calculating, if you hadn't gotten involved in those situations, how much time would you get back of your life? And for some people, it's like years. They just wasted years in situations and relationships and projects that they should never have gotten involved in. And I said, now I've got another question for you. If you can think back to when you first got into them, did you have any feeling before you got into the situation, relationship, or project that maybe, you know, this might be risky, I shouldn't do that. And virtually everybody with every one of them said, yeah, I had sort of feelings that might not work. I said, you should have listened to yourself, but you weren't persuasive enough to actually sell yourself out of it. So I've certainly had situations like that, Joe. I've been. I had a marriage that I call my practice marriage, because I learned all the wrong ways of doing a marriage. But, you know, in hindsight, you know, if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't do it over again because it just wasted about five years of my time and put me through all sorts of unnecessary emotional suffering and psychological confusion that, in retrospect, I don't really need. And I learned a lot from it, because I did a very good job of learning from it afterwards. But what it really, really did, you know, when you first met her, you knew there was something wrong, but I still went ahead. Has nothing to do with the other person. It was just a wrong relationship. Not the right relationship for me. And Joe, I'm sure you've had situations like that.

I've had plenty. And when I do not listen to my gut or I don't think things through or I kind of go into something reckless or not an energized state. You know, I think one of the primary reasons that I think Strategic Coach is so effective for so many entrepreneurs is that getting people into a rejuvenated state so that they can actually think, because, you know, if your batteries are completely drained, you know, you don't know how to read signals. You know, it's kind of like trying to drive when you haven't slept for two days. I mean, you're probably not going to be very aware. And I think that's one of the benefits of Strategic Coach and your total focus on having a life and taking free days and always approaching business and work in a rejuvenated state and not getting overwhelmed and all that other stuff. Because, you know, yeah, I spent a good portion of my life getting signals that life was giving me, but I, for whatever reason, didn't pay attention or didn't really take the time to think it through. And it's painful.

You know, I'm not naturally the sort of person, you know, I'm very intuitive as you are, Joe. And, you know, I make a lot of snap decisions and I respond very quickly to things. But there's a fascinating book that was introduced to me by our mutual friend Ned Hallowell. You know, Ned is the great expert in add, and you've interviewed him many times and you've had him speak in your 25k groups. Joe. But he introduced me to a book by Daniel Kahneman. And Daniel Kahneman is very, very interesting because he's a Nobel Prize winner in economics. And he and his partner were the only two people in the history of the Nobel Prize for Economics who weren't economists. But they talked about the types of thinking that underlie successful economic activity. And so when we're talking about sales and we're talking about Genius Network, we're talking about successful economic activity in the world. Things that produce a surplus, things that always produce a profit, things that always make things more productive. And what Daniel Kahneman has is a very simple concept which he calls the thinking Fast and slow. So that's the title of his book, Thinking Fast and Slow. And he said that the way that most people are born, you're born either a fast thinker, which means that you're a very intuitive, very responsive thinker. You make very split decisions, and you respond almost without having to think about it, or you're a slow thinker. You take a long time and you think things through in a very systematic, deliberative fashion before you commit yourself. And he says that generally people will break out in one category or another as they go through life. But he says the actual success of the economy actually depends upon the teamwork and combination of fast thinkers and slow thinkers, that fast thinkers can create certain kinds of opportunities, and they can take advantage of certain kinds of capabilities and just really, really interesting, unique things. And slow thinkers can actually put together the intellectual structure and the game plan and the systematic step by step, way and method and process for actually taking advantage of something and have it last for a long time. But he said the really truly gifted people who are geniuses are really individuals who in the same brain can combine both types of thinking. They can actually do really, really fast thinking, but then they also have a facility after they've done their fast thinking, of also doing slow thinking. So he says, very unusual individuals who can do that. But generally speaking, they show up as geniuses because at the same time, they combine both of these very, very necessary abilities. So, you know, when we talk about this process that I go through, you know, with how I sell myself, and it's actually a tool in Strategic Coach, which we call the impact filter. I'm a fast thinker by nature. You know, nobody had to train me how to be a fast thinker. But what I have systematically trained myself to do through the tools of the strategic Coach is to become a really, really good slow thinker. So I'm an excellent slow thinker. But this has been a learned skill. This wasn't a natural skill, but I've learned it. And by combining my natural skill with my learned skill, I produce results which are way above normal, you know, and you do, too, Joe, you know, and what we've tried to do in Strategic Coach is to actually create a format and a structure that does two things. That if you're a fast thinker, you'll develop the ability of being a slow thinker, and if you're a slow thinker, you'll develop the ability to be a much more fast thinker. So that entrepreneurs begin to exhibit what I would call genius, like thinking and performance.

You're exactly right. I mean, that's exactly what happens. I've seen that happen to myself. It's happened to, you know, the vast majority of clients that have been there for a while. And it happens relatively quickly. You know, one of the things that I heard you say a while back that what a lot of people think of as genius is simply repetition. And people have done something so many times that they get to the point where they're just so far superior than other people, but it's simply because they stayed with it. And if there's any sort of skill in activity that I think is worth staying with it, it's the one thing that is responsible for virtually bringing in not only all the money, but moving messages in the world. And that's selling. And that's why, I mean, that is it. So people, you know, constantly ask me, oh, you know, I want to be a successful business owner, you know, what should I really learn? What are the most important things? And I said, well, you know, first most important things, you got to sell. Sell something, because it doesn't matter how good of a manager you are. Pick all the different traits and skills that someone has. If you can't sell, you got no money because you need fuel in order to drive the car. You need oxygen in order for the organism to live. And so I consider selling as important to the success of a business or enterprise or movement or nonprofit or whatever the cause is, as is important as oxygen is to an organism. And that's why the first sales job you need to do is the one to yourself. Because if you can't sell yourself, I.

Just absolutely believe that the most successful people in the world in any field of activity, Joe, are the people who are just phenomenally good at selling themselves.

Yeah, totally. So, Dan, we've got about, you know, to keep it to the 30 minute mark, which is what we, you know, said in the beginning we would attempt to do, which is always hard for me because, you know, I love to just ask questions and talk about stuff with the whole topic of selling yourself, what would you recommend for our listeners to do before the next episode so that they can really wrap their head around this and go forth with it? I mean, one thing I'd recommend is that they read the DOS conversation book, which is the Dan Sullivan question, which they can get@strategiccoach.com or get on Amazon, but that'll go deeper into another topic.

That's another aspect of selling. But I think that just based on the three stages that I described before Joe, just get a sheet of paper out and you know you need four words, actually, you need purpose. So you create a little box purpose. And under the box is importance. And the third box is ideal outcome. And whatever you're doing, before you make a decision to go or no go, actually just spend about three or four minutes on each box and say the thing that you're going to. So what's the purpose of it? Why are you doing it? What's the purpose of the thing that you're doing? Why is it so important that you do it? And the third box is what's the ideal outcome for you if you do it, if it comes out the way you want to do it, and at the end of it you'll be 100% or you'll be zero. Because I have had situations where I was intuitively kind of really interested in something. And 10 minutes later, after doing my slow thinking, I said, no, no, this is a diversion, this is a waste of my time. And I just saved myself, probably based on life experience, I might have saved myself a half a year, a year's involvement in something that I should never have been in. When we come back next time, there's actually two other components to selling yourself, which is really interesting because we get onto the emotional part of it. What I'm talking about here with the first three categories, or the first three exercises is just the intellectual engagement. But the next part's really, really interesting. I consider the emotional. How do you emotionally commit yourself to something and just to tease them, I can be totally not feeling high energy about a particular project and not feeling particularly good about getting up and doing something. And by going through this exercise, I can be 100% engaged and 100% committed after a half hour just by going through this self selling technique. And in our world, as you know, today, Joe, you're having a cold, but you still have to show up. And so you got to be able to sell yourself even when you're not feeling well.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

One of my favorite quotes is amateurs wait for inspiration. Professionals do it with a headache. And you know, you don't always have a headache, but when you do, sometimes you still got to sell yourself on it and you got to do what you need to do. So and these are important because there are people out there, all of you, listening, that if you think about, you know, we'll end this episode here. But if you think about, you know, what's one thing, that if you sold yourself on it, it would have a huge impact in your life, be it from money, from joy, to creating enormous value for other people. Pick a thing. Pick something that's just you haven't really made the commitment to and go through the thinking process that Dan just described and also find something that you know you're not really committed to and get yourself out of it. You know, hang it up, get rid of it, hand it off to someone else, or just kill it, because it's just dragging you down. And as we talked about in the previous episode, Dan's definition of a mess is an obligation minus a commitment. So this gives you an opportunity now to move forward on something that could really produce some tremendous growth for yourself emotionally, financially, physically. Maybe, you know, you can sell yourself on exercise, you can sell yourself on relationships, you can sell yourself on business projects. Like you said, situations, relationships and projects. So go ahead and do that. That'll be. If there is any recommendation, do that and join us on the next episode, and we will go further. So thank you, Dan.

Thank you, Joe. Always a great, great pleasure.