The Winning Mindset: Unlocking Sales Potential with Troy Barter

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What up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the live Better Sell Better podcast. This is your host Kevin Dorsey, AKA kd, and we are going to go tactical on one of the fluffier topics that gets thrown out on LinkedIn and sales leadership all the time. You can ask people, you can interview people and they will say mindset is everything. Your mindset drives your behaviors, your mindset drives your results, your mindset drives your success and it'll get everybody fired up. But then no one really talks about how to develop the mindset necessary to succeed in sales, in leadership and in life. And in fact, some people go so far as to say you can't train mindset, which I disagree with. And the guest for today, Troy Barter, also disagrees with. He is the head of revenue over at Rocket Shipping and he's going to dive into how to coach mindset. How do you develop a mindset of perseverance, of resilience, of discipline within your people? Because that is what will lead to results. Troy, my man. Welcome to the show.

Kd. Thanks for having Me, man. Happy to be here.

Hell yeah, dude. Hell yeah. This is. Isn't this part two? Didn't we do this one time, or is this our first one?

I think we've. We've. We've chatted before. I don't think we did a podcast before. Okay.

I was like. I was like, I know we've chatted on stuff before. I was. I just didn't remember if it was a podcast episode or not, so. Okay, well, then this is the first one. Let's do this. Right. So I asked you what topic and you say mindset because you recently ran a poll, but also how you felt like this is something we could go deep on. So let's start with just in general. Why was this so top of mind? Right? You get a shit. This is your first shot. You're on the podcast. I say the topic, and you say mindset. Why?

Yep. So it's top of mind because I was going to start doing, like, a real small course on mindset because I was like, no one's really doing one. And I love LinkedIn polls because it's free leads. Like, if you get any engagement on your stuff, LinkedIn polls, if you know how to position them the right way, are going to give you free leads. If you ask the right questions based on the answers you get, people are more likely to respond to that, then leave a comment. And that was so. And also, you're going to get the best market research, in my opinion, if you have the right amount of connections and the right people that you would want to respond to that. So I was going to do a course on mindset, and I was like, all right, well, it was getting my oil change. I was like, oh, I'm curious. Let's see how people value mindset and whether or not I think that I'm right in terms of everybody values it more than everything else. Um, so I asked, what is the most important attribute for a new prospecting salesperson, be it an SDR or maybe a full cycle ae? Is it product knowledge? Like, if they were a master of the product, would that be most important? Is it sales experience, like they just crushed it over the past five years, or is it mindset? And over a thousand people responded, 93% said mindset, but the comments were, like, overwhelming. The people that would say would say, it's mindset, but you can't train that. You can't train mindset. And I'd ask and, like, I'd reply and be like, so how did you get it? And like, a Few people said, you're just born with it. And I think that that's, like, kind of an unspoken thing that I think a lot of salespeople and a lot of sales managers look at, which is kind of heartbreaking, because if you don't have it, you don't think that you can acquire it, because people say that you can't. And then if you're a manager and you don't think that you can teach it, you're never taking any steps to provide someone with what everyone agreed on. The poll is the most important thing for an SDR to have. I think even you would probably hate the way I interview SDRs. When I interview them, I talk for probably 80% of the time, because I'm not really looking for their experience. What I'm looking for is, can I get them ready to run through a brick wall based on giving them an honest idea of the opportunity that we have here? And if I can see it in their face, that's like, half of the battle. If I'm like, all right, cool. At the very least, I can get them inspired, and I can get them motivated. And based on their answers, I feel like they've got the right mindset to tackle a very difficult job at first. Should get easier every day after. Like, that's what I look for more than anything. Yeah. And I agree, man. I think that you absolutely can teach mindset. But what started as doing, like, a little course was like this. This is more of a book and a course, probably because you look around and, like, no one's really got it. There's plenty of mindset stuff out there, but it's not catered towards sales development representatives. Like, there's nothing out there. And it's. To me, that's where it's most important. Even more important than an ae. You can be a really skilled AE and not have the strongest mindset and still kind of make it happen. Like, I view an AE like a wide receiver, like a skill position, and I view an SDR like a linebacker. Still skill, but, like, you have to line up every play. Randy Moss got to take some plays off, and he still made it into the hall of Fame. But you cannot take a playoff if you're. If you're lining up and you're putting your hand in the dirt. And that, to me, that's an sdr. Yeah, the skill is there, but you have to have unshakable will day in and day out. And they need training on that. Like, they need to be provided with those things. I Think part of it is that mindset's such a vague term too. They don't even know where to begin on training it.

That set up my next question. It's like, what does this even mean? Because let's be clear. Everyone has a mindset. Everyone has a mindset. What is the mindset you believe is required to be successful in sales development? Because even that, I don't think most. This is why I call it rah, rah and fluff, because people say mindset. Okay, but what type of mindset? So when you are coaching to and screening for mindset, what are. What do you mean? What is the mindset you're looking for that you think will lead to sales dev success?

So I break it down into three things. So the book is the sales development mindset. PhD and PhD stands for something. So the P is perspective. To me, that's like the largest one. Like, if you get. I mean, I'm sure you've had some. You get a SDR that worked like door to door, 100% commission sales for a couple of years. And they're not beat up. They're still excited for the opportunity, the perspective that they got from that difficult job. Then they get in and they can sit down and make phone calls. Generally, those are some of the strongest reps that I've had. So what perspective are you bringing and what perspective are they being provided with, which a lot of the time they're not being provided with, that they're hoping that they have the right perspective and that they're viewing the role the right way. So how much do you appreciate the opportunity? Do you view yourself as just a salesperson, like, this is just a telemarketing job? Or do you view yourself as a sales professional that's on the same level as a doctor or a lawyer, because you can make as much or more and it doesn't cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for you to go through the schooling, not to mention the amount of work that it takes. So it's visualizing that and saying, all right, well, if a doctor does all of this to make the same amount of money as what I could make within a few years of starting as an sdr. Why, why am I not approaching it the same way? And it's having that perspective of how you value the opportunity, how you see the bigger picture. And from there it's habits. Hs habits, which is mindset. Really, if you can develop habits, and you know why it's important to develop certain habits, that absolutely changes Your mindset, and it builds confidence. And the last one is drive. It's taking that perspective. It's taking those habits that you know would help you, and then, all right, how do we put that into motion? You know, how do we get you to be relentlessly motivated and inspired every single day to continue to do that? Because that's the toughest part of the SDR job, is that it doesn't end. What you did today kind of doesn't matter the next day, really, you know, and that sales in general. But I think it's even more so for an sdr, like, you booked the meeting. The. A good SDR is like a NASCAR driver. They do not have a rearview mirror. You know, they book that up, it's good to go. They've done everything they can to make the handoff, and they're running onto the next opportunity. So I think when you break it down into that, you can realize where it's like, all right, well, you. Maybe you can't teach an overall mindset all the time, but you can provide someone with perspective. You can go over the habits that the best people in the field do, why they're important to do and how to do them, and how to create those habits, and then you can unlock what drives that person and find out what that is and what will not just get them to start, but. Well, but to continue to do that and not just kind of flame out after a bit. And that's the. That's the goal of the book, man. Which, you know, I'll be. I'll do a course on it as well, but the goal is to provide them with the past 20 years of what I've learned in all of those, you know, categories. The perspective that I had, you know, the habits that I created, and then the. The drive and how I've unlocked the. The drive and motivation and the reps that I've had with the past 20 years.

Perfect. Well, let's keep going down this path. Right? So how are you changing someone's perspective? Right? Because, again, it's one thing to, you know, try to find this in people. It's another thing to develop this in people. And I think that's the stance that you are trying to take, is that you can develop this. So, like, how are you developing or changing that perspective? Let's start with the P first.

It's tough when it comes to perspective. The best perspective comes from experience. So when you're providing it to somebody, it's never going to resonate quite the same as, like, no I developed this perspective over the past couple of years because of the things that I was doing, but you can still provide it. So, like, an example would be, let's say someone's just becoming a full cycle ae. They've never closed the deal before, and who knows, maybe they only fielded inbound leads, and now they also have to cold call. So they look at everything where it's like, man, I have to get on the phone and I have to take somebody all the way to a closed deal, and there's like, a thousand things in between, and it seems, like, physically impossible, particularly if it's a long sales cycle for you to accomplish that consistently, because it's. And it's all perspective. It's like you're viewing, like, a giant brick wall that would be impossible for you to scale, and you're looking at it from one side, but when you look on the other side, it's just a staircase instead of a flat brick wall. And if you just worry about each step that's in front of you, and you know that if you see the staircase as opposed to that blank wall, it's like, yeah, of course I can get up that, because I'm not worried about the hundredth step. I'm worried about the one that's in front of me. And that's what I'm concentrated on. And I know what's necessary for me to go past that. I know the habits that are necessary, et cetera. That's just one example. But another one is if you've worked, like, really tough sales jobs, you generally, once you get to, like, tech sales or once you get to being an sdr, your perspective is, like, you know how valuable the opportunity is. And I've hired people that have sometimes been flamed out in that. And then you have to, like, kind of rekindle their perspective. And I've hired some that, like, are just, like, kind of perfect for it. It's why Katie, like, you know, like, the. The best hire. The best hire is somebody that was a referral from somebody that's already starting to do well, because now, like, there's no, like, reservation. Like, they're all in right off the bat. They're hopping right in because they kind of glommed off of the perspective and the success of the person that referred them in. So if that works, then if you provide them with examples and how they should be looking at the opportunity, how they should be looking at their job every day, then you can provide them with enough perspective where they're going to be in A way better position to have a mindset that's going to result in them having success than if you didn't provide it with them. And that's the largest thing, is that I don't think, like, much of this is being provided, like, really at all. It's more like, here's the product, here's how we sell it, here's how to update the CRM. Let's go.

Got it. So then let's keep kind of then going down this path then. Right. Because there's the perspective, which we may circle back to. We'll come back. Because perspective is something, you know, when it's attached to experience, it makes sense. But if we're talking about developing it, right, like coaching it to someone, well, that would imply they don't have that perspective yet. So I think where I'm trying to get to is like, you know, the whole premise here is like, this is something we think that can be taught, that can be coached. If I already come in with that perspective, yeah, obviously I'll come back to this question maybe a different way, like, how do you develop it in people that don't? Right. Because I think what your stance is, and I agree, is that you can build this mindset in people, not just try to find the people that have it. So one of my most recent favorite reads is Do Hard Things. And what he talks about in that book is actually the difference between building toughness and filtering for toughness and how most things that people believe build toughness are actually filtering tools. So boot camps don't build toughness. They filter out people that don't have it. And that's a very different premise. And so I'm trying to feel like, well, can we develop this perspective? So I'll come back to it. What are your thoughts?

So I would say with perspective, if you either have it when you get there, which is, I think is kind of how it is now, is like, oh, we've got somebody that's got a great mindset, and if you were to really peel the onion a bit, you'd see, like, it's because of their perspective. It's because of how they view the opportunity based on their experience. But the people that don't have that, or they maybe not have it all the way. They have perspective on some things, but not the best perspective on everything. Not their fault. They just don't know they haven't been provided with the view of why some things are important or how the top sales development representatives and top salespeople view that. So it's instead of filtering based on experience and based on what they already have, it's providing them with the perspective. It's here's, here's how people look at that. And sure is that, does that mean that that's going to work with absolutely everyone when you provide them with that perspective? Absolutely not. But right now no one even gets provided with. So if you, if you at least provide it, you drill at home, you go over the why, you go over the how to view things that way, why it's important steps that you can take, exercises that you can do. You're putting them the best position for them to acquire as much of that perspective, that's a winning perspective as possible. It's not 100% guarantee for sure, but it's definitely building more than it is filtering. And I have a feeling like a lot of times, even when you hire someone, you're like, man, they've got a great mindset, they're still lacking some of the tools, but they're someone that like, they would benefit the most from if you provided them with the perspective. Because they're probably a little bit more all in than someone that might have like one foot in the new job they just took and one foot in the old one. You know, where they're like, ah, we didn't do it this way at the old job. Like, they're not all in yet. They need, they need perspective, they need to be provided with it. And a lot of times they're not, especially at high paying places, because they'll be like, well, the money is the perspective. You're making enough where you shouldn't have to worry about that is the way a lot of people view it. And it's like, yeah, that, that doesn't work. That's not how everybody is wired. You know, some of my own reps, they, I mean, they like money obviously, but like, that's not the big thing for them. You know, they want to be recognized for being a killer. Like, that's, that's. They want validation. And I don't think there's a bad way to be motivated. So it's like, all right, cool, then, then we'll, we'll figure out a way to do it. That way. Whatever motivates you and continues to motivate you is, is the right path. I think even there's plenty of negative examples, right? I view sales as a professional sport. And if you look at the goats in pro sports, you know, you look at Brady, look at Jordan, they would like invent ways to get angry at the competition because that's what was the fire that motivated them. Now at work, you could be like, man, that's like, it's toxic. It's negative and everything. And it's like, yeah, it could be depending on the way that you. Way that you leverage it. But if you're a competitive person and it's like, not the end of the day. We're all peers, right? But you're like, man, I want to take them down. I got a hit list and I need to take them down. And then you invent ways of like, man, they don't even believe that I can do this. Like, to me, I think that that is. You could argue whether or not that's healthy, but to me, if that's what gets you going more than anything else, it clearly can get some of the goats going for decades. So it's sustainable and it works.

Yeah, one of. So there's a really cool tool called Potari I.O. that creates profiles for salespeople, right? So you answer a whole bunch of questions, and it gives, like, a profile, right, of, like, how this person's motivated, how they like to communicate things, to look out for, like, all this. This cool stuff, right? And it's way more specific than, like, a disc or anything. And I was an early advisor to the company, and when they were going through it, this was hilarious. I took the profile test, right? Take the profile. And one of the first lines it says is, KD is hyper competitive, potentially to the point where he creates competition where it doesn't even exist. Which could not describe me more accurately. Like, I create villains. I create, like, you know, competitors that don't even know they're competing with me.

Yeah.

But, like, I'm out there to try to go get them, to. To beat them. It's just how my brain works. You know, I've actually gotten a lot better at pulling back on this a little bit because it's not always the healthiest fuel to be putting into your. To your brain there. So. Okay, well, let's keep going then. So let's get into the developing of the mindset, right? Because, you know, you have the perspective, then you got habits and you have drive, right? And I feel like, you know, habits will come from mindset. Drive will come from mindset. And right before we started recording, you mentioned, like, really you spend most of your time coaching people on mindset. So start getting into that now. Like, how specifically are you coaching people to improve their mindset to succeed?

So much of it, man, really, is perspective. I Think perspective, like once they have that, that unlocks the willingness to maybe have the right habits when it comes to habits. I think a lot of companies cover obviously a good amount of that of like, here's like the best practices that people are doing. But I don't think they exactly explain like the why behind it. So I'll go over like a meeting that I do that provides perspective and it's a chapter in the book. So I used to do this back in the day with Chad Marley back when he was a SDR at PandaDoc and some other folks. So it was imagine your sales manager comes into the office and they've got a briefcase and put the briefcase on the table, they open it up and there's $100,000 cash in there. And you say the sales development reps, anybody that has that beats their record for qualified bookings for the day. So no bs, this has to be actually qualified, something that you would hand off. But if you can beat your record for the day, you go home with this briefcase and I've got more of them if more than one person does it, and then it's all right. Now think for a second. Imagine that that situation is real, right? What would you do differently for the rest of the day compared to what you've been doing to ensure that you leave with that briefcase? What are the different things that you would do to make sure that you would break your record from the day before? And you can't take shortcuts because these have to be qualified, these have to be legit. You're not just tossing things up. What would you change? And everyone, when they start to think about that, they all realize there are things that they would definitely change for them to get that briefcase at the end of the day. But for me, when I started in tech sales at Fleetmatics with the experience that I had and I saw like they said, 25% of this room makes six figures, I viewed the opportunity like it was that close because I had never made six figures before. I was dead broke with a one year old son. And I was like, if you're saying 25%, I've never been outside of the top 5%. I felt like I could reach out and touch six figures and all I had to do was everything that it took every single day. So the thought is, is that you have to be able to take that big picture of where you're looking to go and shrink that down into just one day and visualize that every day and act accordingly. And I think that the top salespeople are very good at seeing what their long term goal is in terms of what they're looking to earn for the year. But it's within their arm's reach at all times. And without that perspective, I think it can be kind of tough because it's very easy to view something like it's so far out, like, why would I be running towards it? And I think that if you do that and you create those things and you turn them into a habit of what you would do differently, it's like going to the gym. It's tough at first, but then after a while, once you kind of turn it into a habit, like you're mad when you don't get to go. So do you get burnt out if you go to the gym five times a week? I guess you could if you train the wrong way. But if you're doing things the right way, no. If anything, it should provide you with more energy. When I was running as fast as I could as an sdr, it actually was easier my day, I felt like I was working an hour a day because it was, you know, eight hours had popped by in two seconds. So that's just an example of like the perspective that the top salespeople have that isn't necessarily provided. It's more like, I hope that I got somebody that sees that. And you know, every time that I've ever ran that meeting multiple people break records on the sales floor, done it at numerous companies, I've never not ran it where someone didn't break their record the next day or that day because it's just a different line of thinking. So, you know, and then it's just doing a whole bunch of that in terms of how you view the job, how you view the opportunity, how you can take the big picture and make it smaller. To me, that's, that's what unlocks those other things. And then it's like, all right, so like, what would you do differently? Well, maybe they know what to do. A lot of times they do, but what if they don't? What if there's certain habits that they need to kind of acclimate or they need to, they need to add into their, their toolbox. That's, that's why the, the habits are there. Like, here's the things that SDRs do that are the most successful that you would want to incorporate that, that work anywhere.

And so. Have you read Atomic Habits by Jess?

No, I actually, it's on the, it's on the list. That's like the Next one. I already ordered it, actually.

Yeah, perfect. Yeah, Scoop. Scoop that, that one up. Because, like, it's funny, when you read it, hit me back up. And I want to have a further conversation around it because I went through that book and, you know, I mean, you know, sold like hundreds of thousands of copies and all this. I went through it, I was like, how do I create better habits for my team? And one of the things that was interesting and actually frustrating as I went through it is like, a lot of the things that have to be done in sales are very hard to make a habit because the return is delayed for the predictability is low. There's a few other things that lead to a good habit. It was like, I was like, Jesus, like, how do I make this a habit? You know? And going through it and it was really interesting stuff of, like, chunking down was definitely one repeatability. But what it goes in to talk about, and this is what I harp on with my team, even more than habits, it's just routine, right? It's like, these are the things you do to set up the habit, right? Like, you use the gym example. The gym is actually the outcome. What are the little things you have to do to set yourself up for the gym? Right. Clothes ready the night before, alarm in the other room, accountability partner text that goes out at 5 o'.

Clock.

It's like setting up the systems for the habits. That's where I focus a lot with, with my teams as well.

Yep. Yeah. I mean, that kind of shows that, like, even the Atomic Habits, which. That's a, That's a popular book. You know, when I, when I ordered, I was like, good Lord, there's a lot of reviews on this, on this thing that with habits, it is, it's tied. It's tied to mindset and it's tied to how you view it, where it's like, man, it's hard to create a habit if you don't start to see some results from it pretty quickly. You know, if you get in the gym and you do it right and you see a vein pop here and there and you're like, oh, snap, all right, cool, I'm going to stay in here then, you know. But if you don't, it's hard to keep that habit going. So you have to, you have to break things down to the smallest rocks and really celebrate really small wins as you go while you're creating that habit. And if you don't and you're, you're. You're taking habits to get towards this end Goal. And the end goal is the only thing that you're looking at. It's very easy to be like, man, this ain't even working. Like, you have to really break it down and see, like, oh, no, no, no. This is where I need to be right now. And I'm actually succeeding at it. And you should be excited that that means that you're going to, you're. You're already leading towards the end goal. And yeah, man, I think that that's, that's most important. Like, one of the habits I had as an sdr, if I didn't get a booking, I would manually dial the phone probably two or three hundred times in the day. And the way that I did it is I took more breaks than everybody else. Which sounds funny when you kind of think about it, but it's like, no, this is like old school. This is, you know, 10 years ago. So we. I'd go into Salesforce and I would tab out like, let's say 30, like 30 leads and say, all right, cool. I have my coffee, I've got everything. I'm not doing a damn thing until I dial all 30 of these. And then I'm taking a 10 minute break. I'm doing whatever I want. I didn't smoke. Everyone else taking smoke breaks and they weren't doing this, they were just taking breaks. People aren't separating work from your phone or work from break. So they're like, oh, I was working all day and I got 45 dials. It's like, well, you thought you were working all day, you made a dial, you hung up, you saw an alert on your phone, you picked it up, before you know it, you're on your phone for five minutes and then you make another dial. No, you take your phone, you just toss it aside. You know, you dial for 30 and then you take a break. You're not going to get burnt out doing this. I promise you. You get up in 10 minutes, you're walking around and everything. And by the, by the time the day is over, you're like, I dialed the phone 300 times. I had a really hard time today. In fact, I didn't book any. But I have like 10 appointments tomorrow to book. Like, and if you do things like that, and that's, that's a habit. And it's a habit that's not even hard to do. Once you start to do it, it's like, my day's easier. You know how many breaks I took? Like, you can do the math. It's hours. But no one cares because the activity is incredibly high because you're separating the time to work versus the time to do those things. And I think that's like the largest issue right now in terms of SDR's activity is they don't realize that they're not dedicating time to activity. And if they took more breaks but got a little bit more dialed in on when they're actually doing the activity that's going to lead to the success. It actually makes the job easier. It makes it more likely that you're not going to get burnt out because now you're not frustrated. And to the habit side of things. You look at that at the end of the day. I tell people this all the time. You're not going to get noticed on bookings, probably your first week as an sdr. But you can whip everybody's ass and dials day one. And I don't know a single manager that doesn't care about activity. So you can get noticed and you can beat everybody in the first thing the first day. There's nothing stopping you from doing that. And that is a great way to start to get excited about that. And then if you keep doing that and turn it into a habit, then it's very easy to start to get more connections, have more conversations. You'll get better the more conversations that you have. And then you book more and so on and so on and so on. But it does, it starts with a perspective of why it's important to do that. And then, all right, well, here's the habit and here's why. This habit actually is kind of easy if you, if you're, if you embrace it and you really follow through with it.

Yeah, no, it's the, it's the routine. It's the follow through. It's funny, I had like my sheet, same idea was mapped out. I had 50 to 60 names every single day that I was going to call at least twice, and especially when I was repping. You couldn't talk to me before 11:00am like, you could not talk to me on my team. I was in either the cube or the Cubby, or I was. It was like I worked in bursts of 15, 15, 15, 14, 13, all the way down, do a loop, quick game of ping pong, come back 15 and just like countdown loop, come back like you, you couldn't. I would be at my 100, 150 dials by 11am Pretty much every single day. And that was it. And then I could do all the other things, run the demos, do the practice do the coaching, whatever, but like, exactly.

So much more of your day, you know, when you, when you, when you really get dedicated. That's. I like power hours. I think it's an old school thing. But like, I still, I love them, dude. I did one at the start of the day, one at the end of the day for an hour and I did not get up. That was it. And then the rest of the day was. We didn't send emails back then, so I don't have to worry about any of that. So I would just block out and I would take those breaks. Just because the product that we were selling, it's GPS to like, you know, plumbing companies and AC companies, they're picking the phone up. They're probably not looking at an email. And I mean, it worked. But yeah, it's just dedicating yourself to it. But how many people share that? You know what I mean? Like, obviously, if they, if they have the good fortune of being in your org or if they follow you or if they, if they follow me, they'll probably hear it. But if not, are they going to get that best practice and why it's important, you know, and if they hear it at the surface level, are they going to adopt it? Oh, no, I would do 15 and then I would do this. I would do 15 and then I would do this. It's like, all right, cool. Well, like, that's not how I do it. Well, here's why. It's actually easier you'll take. You're actually going to get more breaks. It's actually going to be easier for you. Your day's going to go by faster and then you're going to be able to do what you actually care about. You know, if you dial in, you know, for this amount of time and you get focused on it. Yeah. Success leaves clues. And I think a lot of times, like, not everyone is necessarily sharing them and if they are, they're not sharing all of them. And even when they are, it's like they might give them the what and they might give them the how, but it's pretty rare that they're going to get the why. So the chances of them adopting it isn't as high as it could be.

No, for sure. I tell my team all the time, I'm like, look, you'd be shocked how much work you could get done at work if all you did at work was work. I don't want you working after hours. I don't want you work. Like, you'd be shocked how much work you could get done at work if all you did at work was work and then be gone, be gone, be done, log out and feel good about what you did for the day. Work in bursts, but you have to plan in order to do it. So as we start to wrap up here, one last question before we get into the closing question, right, which is, you know, what else? If you think about the teams that you've run, the people you've worked, what other tactics have led to helping develop the mindset? Because I do want to keep coming back to that theme of just not talking about how important mindset is. Here's how. You take someone who maybe doesn't have it yet and get them there. Is there anything else besides. Okay, we have the perspective and the why. Starting to map out habits and best practices. What's that parting piece of like, if you are truly trying to develop, develop the mindset in your people or in yourself, how should I do that?

So it's making it personal for them. So you have perspective, you have the habits. You want to explain the why to the habits, but that's not their why. You know, that's not what drives them. And then there's like, there's your surface level, why. And then there's what we were talking about earlier of like, now what really, like, think about the time that you did something at the highest level for you, it doesn't have to be at a high level, the highest level for you, whether it be sports, whether it be a hobby that you had, whether it be in school and everything like that. And what was it that got you inspired to put in the work that was necessary for you to be able to do that? And a lot of times it's that they probably were decent at it or had a passion for it early and it built confidence and then they start. And once you have confidence, it's very easy for you to put a lot of other things into play because you realize that you could probably have some success at it. And you like, intrinsically view that you're going to get a return on your investment if you work at it. So again, I think it's celebrating very small victories along the way to build up that confidence. But also, what is it that really has gotten you going where you were working harder than you ever had before? Think about what factors led to that. For me, I go off of proving it gets harder and harder the more that, you know, people think that I'm doing a good job at stuff, but, like, I love to prove people wrong. Like, I was A terrible public speaker. When I. When I first started. And then I, like, I. I just. It motivated me of, like, all right, someday I'm gonna be better than everybody in this room. The people that are kind of like laughing at me when I'm awkwardly in front of the sales floor going over what worked for me the day before. And for other people, it's different. You have that surface level. Like, obviously, I got five kids. I pay for that. Like, I got to. I got. I got to make sure they're taken care of. But it's odd to say that doesn't motivate me the most, though. Like, if you, if you hit me up and you said, dude, I don't think that you're going to do a damn thing. I think that you're going to sell any of this stuff. Like, I think, like, you know, I think that your methods are trash. That would motivate me more. I'd be like, dude, I'm a rub it in his face. I can't wait to brag about this. I can't wait to be a sore winner about this. I'm gonna make some big posts about it too. I'm gonna remind them I got the screenshots and everything. Like, that motivates me more. And it's finding in other people, like, all right, what really is it? Like, not the surface level. Cute answer. What really gets you motivated? And then it's finding a way to be able to incorporate that where they can do it long term. And it's not something that's temporary. And it is different for everyone. And that's where it's tricky. There's a good book by Tamara Lowe called Get Motivated where it talks. It's kind of similar to what you were saying. It's like an assessment where it unlocks what is your exact motivational DNA. It's solid. It's an older book, but you get a good idea of all right, what are the things that drive you to act? And it takes a little bit of time to unlock that in people, but it's worth it because once you have it and once you know it, I just did it with one of my reps. It's like, all right, I already see the difference. You know, once I start to put things into place that cater to what actually drives them, it makes it so much easier for them to go beyond what's expected.

Yeah, no. One of my dream scenarios I'll get there eventually, is I wish I could have very customizable comp plans, like hyper customized based off of goals, motivations, whatever else. Right. That would be so fun to be able to do of like, all right, you are money motivated.

Okay.

Then you have a higher variable type plan, lower base, higher variable and whatever else. Okay. You're more security based. Right. You want to, you know, just want to invest. You want to go take care of your family. Okay. Slightly different comp plan there. And we're going to automatically send those commissions to an investment fund that allows you to XYZ like to have those different things. Oh, you want freedom and flexibility. Okay, we're going to make you a contractor. You can do this. Like to be able to give people their setup of what drives them, where they're trying to go. This is why I do goal setting with my team two times a year. Year. Every year. Every year, two times we sit down, we go through a full 90 minute exercise on how to set goals. What's the drivers behind them? Who do you need to be in order to accomplish them? What would you need to believe? How would you need to act? What will change in your life once you have accomplished this goal? What are you tired of dealing with now that if you don't accomplish this goal, like we go through it the whole every year two times to reset those foundations so people have a better hold of what that drive can be.

That's fire because I was. You kind of took the words out of my mouth to say like people are. They've gotten good salespeople and sales managers at like digging deeper and like kind of the spin selling of when you're like running a discovery to get to the real root of everything and to get them to visualize what difference it makes for them if these things can be solved and what would happen if it didn't. But I don't think that that gets done hardly ever when it comes to the actual drive and the why of their salespeople. Like it's, I think that generally it's, it's surface level. You get an idea and that's it. And it's like, no, you need to dig deeper. You need to get them to take mental ownership of things. You need to get them to really view it and what it would do for them and how it would change things for them and that increases the likelihood that they're going to act. And yeah, I can tell, you know, you're, you're clearly fire at it. But I think that a lot of people, they, it's, it's not that they're ignoring it or they're being lazy. I don't think that they even fought to do it. That's kind of the premise behind this whole idea, man, is like, you know, it's just like sales. Great salespeople sometimes aren't great managers because they don't know why they're doing great. Like, they don't know that they're actually doing a whole bunch of things that are repeatable. They're just like, they. They just happen to be good at it right off the bat. It's the same thing when it comes to mindset, except on the sales side. There's been a lot of work to unlock those repeatable things and the label, what they are and everything, and have a glossary of terms of, like, no, you're actually doing this, this, and this. On the mindset side of things, there's not as much and there's really none when it comes to, like, a new sdr, which is the foundation of everything we do, in my opinion.

Yeah, no, I'm with you there, man. We put a lot into it. So as we wrap here, my friend. Right, name of the podcast Live Better Sell Better. We've been dabbling on it a little bit, but I'm gonna get a very specific question here to wrap, right, Because I have this weird idea. If we lived better, had more energy, had more joy, had more happiness, had more fulfillment in life, that our sales results also would improve. What would your live better advice be for people listening?

I think for parents, for sure. Above all else, make sure that you're blocking, like, you're literally blocking time where you're spending dedicated time, either one on one or with me, when you can't do one on one because you got too many kids, sometimes where you're doing activities that are dedicated just with them and really spending time, if you can, daily, if not as much as you possibly can, because it goes by real quick. And there's nothing that's more important, in my opinion, than the time that you invest in your family. We're real big on that. It's being proactive, particularly with family, because sometimes you're not going to get back the same return that you give anyways. Be the person that they can lean on. And with your kids, it doesn't take much. All it takes is you spending time with them and investing in them, even at the smallest amount. Consistently, to me is like the definition of living better.

I love that. One of my daily, what I call, like, my daily habits is to make my daughters laugh every day, no matter what. No matter what. Even if it is only 3/30 every day I'm gonna make my daughters laugh. Because that to me is. It's the intention, right? Not even just the time spent. It's like they, they are going to laugh because of their dad at some point today, doesn't matter when it's going to happen. And there have been days where it's 9 o' clock at night and I'm like, have I made them laugh yet today? I don't even know.

I'm tired.

I'm ready for bed. Go, go get a squirt gun. Just come out, squirt guns blazing for like 10 seconds, right? And like, there's that laugh for the day. And we wrap. So love it, my man. Well, this, this is phenomenal because I think mindset, it is everything, but more people need to be proactive with it. Where can people find more of you? Where are you putting out content? How can they get more Troy Barter in their lives?

I accept all connections on LinkedIn. I'm still, I'm still under 30k. So let's, let's keep that, keep that rocking for now, until that changes. You have a question or anything like that? I do my best to respond really fast, you know, respond in voice notes whenever I possibly can. That's the big one. TikTok is Troy Barter sales and then everything else. Sales course, et cetera. Salesorg IO awesome, man.

Well, go get more Troy in your lives, everybody. Troy, this is long overdue. Long overdue. Thank you for hopping on here, man. And hey, I'm sure we'll be chatting again soon. I appreciate it.

Appreciate it, man.