Ep 69 The Trust Before the Transaction A Conversation with Rick McPartlin

Welcome to Remembering the Forgotten, a space where leaders think out loud without polish or performance. No scripts, no performance, just 2 people thinking out loud. These conversations aren't about delivering insight. They are about thinking together in real time. Because there are moments where you can feel that the answer is already there. But you can't quite reach it. And then something shifts and suddenly it's simple. Not new, just clear. And that's this space. Because what if nothing important about you was ever lost? There's a point where working harder no longer creates better results. More activity, more initiatives, more sales efforts, and yet revenue remains unpredictable. Today I'm joined by Rick McPartland. For more than 3 decades, Rick has helped leaders answer a deceptively simple question: Why do talented teams with good intentions still struggle to create consistent, profitable growth? Because eventually, many companies discover the same pattern: sales pushes, marketing pushes, leadership pushes harder, and everyone wonders why the results remain inconsistent. Rick's work challenges the assumption, assumption that growth is primarily a matter of effort. Instead, he invites leaders to examine the systems structures, and decisions that either support or undermine sustainable revenue generation. Because eventually, an important question emerges: What if the obstacle isn't a lack of talent, commitment, or opportunity, but the absence of a shared science behind how growth actually happens? And what becomes possible when organizations stop hoping for revenue and begin designing for it. That is where today's conversation begins. Because remember, what if nothing important about you was ever lost? With that, welcome Rick to the show.

Well, thank you. That, that's as, uh, I guess gorgeous introduction as I've ever had.

I'm happy to hear that. It's really great to have you here, Rick.

It's great to be here.

So before we begin, where can you just be yourself, untouched by expectation or performance?

That's funny you asked that. I am right now sitting In the, uh, in our cabin in the middle of 160 acres, in the middle of probably 5,000 state acres of nothing but me. And this is the place.

Amazing. That's amazing.

This is the place.

So this makes me wonder, so you moved quite far away from a city, right?

Well,

yeah, there's not much around here, right?

Closest neighbor is 2 miles.

So why do you think we human beings have to move away from the noise in order to be just ourselves?

Oh, distracted. The noise is, and the confusion is distracting. You don't know which thing to focus on. When I'm here, I don't have that issue. I mean, I might want to watch the squirrel for a minute, or, you know, occasionally a bear, but, uh, you're not distracted. It's just beautiful today. A little wind, a few wispy clouds, and just gorgeous day.

So do you think that will be possible in the day-to-day life?

Ask that again.

Do you think it would be possible to live like that in the day-to-day life?

Oh no.

Why not?

Although I have to admit, now that we have internet up here, it's so much more tranquil working because I can focus on the work and when I want to quit focusing on work. I can watch the squirrels or the rabbits or whatever it is and just watch the trees and the leaves are just starting to come out. It's always fun to watch that. And the ferns are just starting to come up. So I can change the focus. So yeah, I guess I can to a degree. And it's easier when I don't— it's easier when I don't bring my wife.

Interesting. Oh, you did it by yourself. I get it. Interesting. Because this is something I wonder, right? If someone is in a career, especially here in the United States, they're somewhere between 9 and 12, 13 hours a day in that rat race, right? In that hamster wheel. But why is it, Rick? That we have forgotten or unlearned to simply be ourselves wherever we are.

Yeah, I think for a lot of people it's never learned.

That is an interesting one.

Yeah,

that is an interesting one.

I think for a lot of people, I'm always surprised when— I'm not surprised by people who are relaxed and confident and comfortable and controlled. I think I feel that's natural. But when I feel people that— see people that can never relax and they're always afraid or nervous or worried or concerned, Mm-hmm. I I guess I hope it's they never learned another way to do it, that they still could learn another way to do it.

Because it has become quite an epidemic in our society, let's be honest.

Yeah.

It's always on, right?

And I don't think cell phones help a bit.

Nope. Nor does social media. No. No. And, you know, it's so funny, social media was I don't think it's understood as the thing that connects us more, right? I think it separated each other and it separated the individual from the individual, from ourselves.

It is so seldom that I get a phone call today, but I can get 50 texts and 200 emails And, you know, that's instead of where it used to be 10 phone calls a day, you know. And I, I don't feel any more connected when I, I have my 200 emails and my, you know, a few dozen texts. I feel, um, distant.

It makes sense. And people think they are involved and they are engaged with each other. We're not. We're not. So you have lived a few more years than I have on this earth.

I'm sure that's true.

Do you remember the times when it was different?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I remember dial phones.

I remember the black phone at my grandparents' wall. The one which most kids would not even know what to do, you know, the one with the thingy.

The dial. Yep, the dial. Yeah.

Those were times.

Yeah,

goodness me.

You only had, you know, like one or maybe 2 phones in your house, and when you got a call, it was like, wow, a phone call! Who Who is that from?

Yeah,

yeah. Needless to say, it doesn't work that way anymore.

And now no one ever calls anymore, right?

No, I my kids if I call them, it's like what a phone call.

That's so interesting. Yeah, right. So that personal connection is almost not desired anymore somehow. So why didn't you text me, right?

There's a lot of research that says it's not desired.

It's

interesting.

Particularly, and especially you in sales, how do you experience that? Because, you know, we had a conversation before and we both agreed that conversation is one of the most important aspects of relationship in general.

One of the challenges today is to earn the conversation. You know, for if you're running a company and you're trying to figure out how do I get to my customer today, you have to earn the conversation with something digital. And, you know, then after people, I guess, have decided that you're not scary or You may actually have something of value that they'd like to acquire, then they'll have a conversation. But there's a whole effort, plan, approach to earning that conversation.

So you bring a light on something which I've never really looked at. So we're basically speaking about those, what are they called? Like you can download a PDF or you can download something, right? Which people have on their websites. Just leave me your email address and you can download it. Or some even say you don't have to give me your email address. So that is so interesting. So today we got to the point, Rick, Where people believe you have to earn trust through something electronic.

To a large extent, the alternative is you could earn the trust because Markus told me to talk to you and I believe Markus, so I'll talk to you. You know, that works as well, but that— there's no scale in that. You know, I mean, You know, where if I create a webinar or I create a blog or something, a podcast like we are, then a dozen or 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 people can see it. And one or two of them will decide, oh, I think maybe they know how to do what I want to do. And they will earn that phone call. And typically today, that's still at a bit of a distance because they're still checking you out to see if there's enough trust.

Klaus, what you say, do you allow to play me, to play a little bit?

Sure.

Okay. So you said, let's say there is a webinar, right? And let's say on a, on a quality webinar, there's somewhere like 1,000 or something people.

That'd be a good one.

Okay. Okay. That would be a good one, right? And how likely is it that 1 or 2 people are actually really interested and go a step further even in an inquiry call? That'd be good, right? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Um, out of 1,000, you would probably expect One or two.

Okay. So let's go back to what you just said before, and you know where I'm going. Let's assume you have built a system of trusted relationships. You see where I'm going, right? I don't need 1,000 introductions for 2 people.

No.

I need this one trusted relationship. Yep. And this is something which I realize, Rick, is an absolute oddity today, that people have relationships where there is mutual trust.

Yep.

Mutual.

One of the challenges en masse of getting there is We have been in, in our work, we help people know the difference between a myth and something that's true. And we use the term, define the term of myth as partially true evidence. And so the world has seen things they think worked. They think high-pressure sales or

Mm-hmm.

big promises that nobody believes really, but that's how you're supposed to communicate if you want to attract somebody, you know, just bigger than life, bolder than anything, in the face, uh, and we've been trained that that's true.

Mhm.

And so getting to that one person where you can Let down your, your defenses and look them in the eye and have a, a real conversation where you feel safe is hard today because so much of what we've learned or watched on TV is the opposite of that, and we get confused.

Which, that's faces. Just continue.

I'm guessing people, when they talk to you, because you are so transparent and so calm, you probably confuse a whole bunch of people.

I do. Yeah, I agree. But, you know, the interesting aspect is, guess how people usually introduce me to somebody else?

I guess they use a term like my friend or, you know, my peer or my buddy or my, you know, some connecting word.

And some literally say, look, to describe Markus in words is quite challenging. He is an experience, and I highly recommend you experience him.

I love that.

It doesn't take more. It doesn't take more because, Rick, when I was in sales, you know, sometimes I was bored and I deconstructed entire processes and I wanted to understand how is it possible that at the age of 24, never actively been in sales before, I worked for Zurich Financial at that time. I did my maybe half an hour, an hour acquisition calls with current and prospective clients. And one night the sales director came into the office and he said, Markus, one can think of you what we want. And you know, you and I, we are not always looking eye to eye, right? Because, you know, I was pretty wild, wild card. But then he said, one thing I have to give you. I listen sometimes when you do your 10 calls, and out of those 10 calls, I hear you say 8 times, I look forward to getting to know you. He said, how is that possible? We have seasoned insurance personnel here. If they get 2 or 3 out of 10, that's amazing.

Yep.

And I said, honestly, I just love people.

Yep.

I just put them at ease immediately when I reach out to them.

Yep.

And I said, look, I'm maybe born in Asia originally because when I go on such a meeting, I don't speak about insurance.

Right.

I speak about life. I speak about their desires and about their wants.

Yep.

And he asked me, can someone learn that? I said, yes and no. Because I believe the biggest issue today is what you said before, Rick. There is an entire industry that claims that they know the truth and they sell snake oil to people to which they know it does not work. Yep. And if I don't get higher than a 6 on a 10 scale, And you tell me 7 or 8 would be possible, I'm willing to pay quite a bit of money, but you never give me a guarantee that it works. I just have an additional methodology or an additional concept. But think about if people learned, and it's learnable, if people learned that, and that's actually where I wanted to go, so I went on a detour. But stay with me for a sec. When I came to the US, I had 5 people in my Rolodex, as you know. And those people, Rick, had established trust with their networks. And that's what people don't understand. Not I need to have established the trust with those people's networks. Yeah. But they have. So would you agree that if a salesperson basically has 1 or 2 or 3 people with an active ecosystem built on trust, mutual trust, that they actually can save quite a bit of time in terms of acquisition?

Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely, that's the fastest and it's, it's not just the fastest to get the conversation. But it's the fastest to build the relationship.

Bravo. You know, the know, like, and trust, I think it's the biggest BS ever taught. It can't work. It can't work because if you think about know aspect, right, it depends on how much do you show me. That I can get to know you. So let's say you're that much, you show me that much because you're afraid of people like most people are, right? And then how much of that do I like? Maybe this much.

Yep.

And this will never ever be enough for trust.

Nope.

So that whole thing has to be turned upside down. And it has to start with trust. And you use beautiful words when you describe me, transparency, because I believe this is something that people sense with you as well. You don't have a hidden agenda.

Right. Yeah.

And I believe that's the biggest difference.

One of the things I like about your, the model you just used, If you start out by giving trust, it's amazing how much easier it is for others to give it back to you.

Yeah. And with trust for me comes safety.

Oh.

Because, you know, when I, when I came to the US, I was really curious, Rick, because I had clients, they stayed with me for 5, 6, 7 years, right? And as a business consultant and executive coach, I had solved their issues. But they still stayed with me, and I wondered why. So I reached out, you know, ask and you'll be given. I was given. So one of them said, you know, Markus, the reason why I stay with you on a month-to-month basis on a retainer is because I can reach out to you and you provide me with a safe, space to land.

You— what people don't— I don't know if they don't think about it or they don't believe it. If you're not willing to be transparent and deal with other people who are transparent, you're always going to get a bunch of surprises most of which aren't good. But if you're willing to be candid, you know, when you ask when we started, you know, is there any subject we can't talk about? You know, the avoidance of things that are real and are part of you, all that does is just lay landmines that are going to explode at some time or another. And, you know, and it's so, um, rewarding to talk about things that people don't normally ask you about because they're important, but nobody ever asks you.

Mhm.

And you don't get a chance to explore them or, um, you know, share, uh, with what that important thing is, because nobody— they think it's off limits. They wouldn't share it, so they won't ask you to share it. And I think we, we miss a lot that way.

I love what you just said. And I might add something to that. When we connect that we trust, if we actually show up as who we are, and you might be familiar with the poem Our Deepest Fear by Marianne Williamson, which Nelson Mandela used back then. If we actually dare to show up, we give the other person permission and an invitation to do so alike. Because I could tell you, when you ask me, some people might be puzzled when they meet me for the first time. It doesn't take long and people relax. Some even say, no.

Once they know it's true.

Yes, exactly. That's the point. That's the point. For people, it might be almost like, gosh, if Rick had not made that intro, I would say it's too good to be true what he just told me.

Yeah.

It literally doesn't exist. And that's why I'm saying this small network of people whom you trust, I believe that makes all the difference. I think about, I went to 4 of these people, 5 people calls, right? And I could tell none of these 4 actually leads me anywhere. So I went to the number 5 because the number 4 told me, Markus, what if the other person doesn't trust me? That's when I understood this is a huge problem. Many people trust other people, but there's no reciprocity of trust. And I think that's something you should write a book about.

Okay.

Because trust.

I hadn't thought of that, but that is very true.

Yeah, that's something you and I, we have to continue anyway in our one-to-one next because it is the trust factor that goes there. So in terms of that, Rick, what is something in your life or in your business right now that doesn't fully make sense even though it should?

Boy, that's a hard one.

Give it some thought.

Doesn't make sense, but it should. I don't normally hang around things that don't make sense.

Okay.

Um, people ask me If I'm ever gonna retire. And what I realized was when I started doing what I'm doing now, I do exactly what I want because it's important with people I like and trust, and I don't do anything else. So I love that. I really, I can't think of anything I'd rather do or people I would rather be with. that I trust. And if I don't trust them, I'm not there very long. And if something doesn't make sense, that to me is normally driven by the fact that I can't— I can't either trust the environment, I can't trust the organization, I can't trust the individual, uh, and I either have to figure out how to be able to trust them because it's those— the shortage is on my side and I'm not getting it, or I'm not giving it, whatever it is, uh, or I won't be there very long because life's too short to spend time where I'm in that situation.

So you work very instinctively and intuitively, huh?

Yeah, I think that's true. You know, I always debate, I always have this debate, is something instinctive or is it something that I've been exposed to all of the elements before?

Mm-hmm.

And I, I maybe I can't intellectually put them together, but something back there is interpreting these things as they've seen it before. So you act intuitively, but that may not be what drove the decision or drove the action. You may have actually known more than you gave yourself credit for.

Yeah, if you think about that, know thyself, right? It's probably the most missing thing today.

I often think— I, I remember being in elementary school and trying to figure out why one of my friends was mad at me today. And I would think back, what did I do yesterday when I was with them?

Mm-hmm.

And did I monopolize the conversation by telling them how cool I was? Or was I focusing on them? And almost never when they were mad at me today was I focusing on them the day before.

Interesting.

And, you know, so that started to become a— and it's a mantra in our marketing, our revenue work is learn how to come from the other person's Mind. You know, learn how to know what's important to them so that you can honor that, so that you can provide them with the most value possible. And today it's very hard for me to think about myself first. I've just spent so many years in the other person's— trying to be in the other person's shoes, that, uh, it's just different.

Where's the downside for that?

Well, I think, I think the downside is when we let ourselves be, um, when we let ourselves be selfish, we realize by Doing something for somebody else, maybe we gave up something that we could have had for ourselves. And so when you're in that, that position where you're feeling blue or, you know, mellowing, and, or something got you down today, that's, that can be the downside. You know, I, I could have, I could have been the first one in the, on the plane, or I could have been You know, I could have gotten that other job that I thought I wanted, or, you know, I could have gotten, you know, that new outfit I wanted, but I got there late and it was gone. There are those times where you wish you were accomplishing something or getting something, and you realize Yeah, I could have, but the cost would have been really on me in the long run.

It's an interesting thing because basically that means putting other people's needs first ultimately makes you lose out somehow.

Yeah, and you know, the other part of that, the part that I didn't mention before is the difference between short-term and long-term. You know, the loss is short-term, the gain is long-term. And so when you—

That's interesting.

One of— that's one of the hardest things for us to get our clients to address is, are, you know, one of the things we ask day one today is basically, are you here? I don't know if you've read Simon Sinek's Infinite Game book. But it's a great book and it's really that question. Are you living for this moment? Does the fact that you, you know, you're first in line or you got the best seat or whatever it is, is that the most, you made the most money possible, you took advantage of that poor other person, but you made a killing.

Right.

Is that the most important thing or is the long term the most important thing? And once you decide, then decisions get interpreted more appropriately. But if you're long term and most businesses should be long term, if they don't want to go out of business, you have to look at this decision today and say, you know, maybe I could have charged them an extra $200 and they wouldn't have known the difference. But maybe they'd have found out the difference later and realized you were kind of a scumbag and, you know, you took unfair advantage. So you always have to ask that short-term, long-term question.

So does that mean, Rick, that when you forfeit, let's say, your benefit in the short term, you're still focusing on the benefit for yourself In the long term.

Absolutely. I mean, if you have to make decisions, at least recognize the short-term decision may be in conflict with a long-term decision, and you need to reconcile which is most important.

That's an interesting one because it becomes dangerous when the short term becomes the short term becomes the short term becomes the short term, right? That's why I wanted to hear whether you basically always put somebody first, which I don't think is healthy. Sooner or later, there has to be a balance of what you need as well, because otherwise you become this selfless monk.

Yeah, which maybe works for the monk. It doesn't sound good to me, but— I'm

glad to hear that.

You know, in business you call it brand and maybe it's brand personally too. But, you know, there are just things you, I can't get comfortable with. And somebody has the quote, you know, honesty is when you do something when you know nobody's watching. You know, and that to me is kind of that question when you have that short-term, long-term thing. It's the somebody gives you change and they give you $10 too much, you know, do you give it back to them even though they don't even know they did it? Or do you go buy another cup of coffee? I'm the one who's gonna give it back to them. Yeah, so

do I. What do you think is behind that, that somebody does give it back and other people don't pay attention to it and say it's mine?

Yeah, I don't know. To me, it's my personal brand. It's what's important to me. And I also think it starts you, anything you've you've been able to not do in the future, whether it's, well, I haven't started drinking, or I haven't started drugs, or I haven't— you know, it's, it's easier to maintain than deviate and try and go back. I'm not sure you ever can go back.

So there's just— I hear you.

If you believe this is true, Then you believe it. And if you, you know, if you don't know, you don't know. But there are certain things—

Basically, when you breach a certain barrier, it's almost impossible to go back.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know that that's true for me. I don't know who else it's true for.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, I think many people who listen to that will resonate with that. And you know what's so interesting? If you look back at our beginnings, you know, mine was a little bit later in sales. For me, sales was always an art form. And an art form requires an artist. And an artist requires a personality. And a personality requires values.

Yeah.

You see where I'm going, right? Yeah. I mean, if whoever listens and is in sales and is struggling should actually just contemplate on what we just talked about right now. Why should sales have changed? It hasn't.

Yeah, I think your values piece is Whether it's misunderstood or not introduced, uh, for a lot of people is why they struggle. Uh, and that's a good example. They typically are very short-term in their orientation, and there's nothing wrong with short-term. Makes sense. We use the, the first thing when we ask people their purpose, we give 2 choices. You can be a mercenary and that's not, you don't have to have a Humvee with a machine gun to be mercenary. You can be a mercenary salesperson where the term let the buyer beware came from. You know, certain salespeople will do whatever they can do to make their quota and— not worry about the buyer. And so there's nothing wrong with that. And there's some wonderful mercenaries. We use the example of if you live in Florida and you have a hurricane and you and your 10,000 best friends don't have roofs anymore, there aren't enough roofers in Florida to put the roofs back on. So you get these mercenary traveling roofers who show up from Minnesota or You know, Iowa or wherever they come from, and you are thrilled they're there. And they know how to work with your insurance company, and they know how to put on a roof. They're not there to be your best friend. They're not there to be your forever roofer. They're there to just get you dry, and you're glad. Mm-hmm. Now, next year they may not be doing roofing at all. They may, you know, have a new job. But that's an appropriate way to be a mercenary. And the other version is where you really are here because you think you can make the work you do— you think you can make the world a better place because you're helping people handle the world in a better way and be more true to themselves. Well, that's anything but mercenary. That's focused on others, the community, long term. And those are the choices. You're either a big purpose player or you're a mercenary. And the worst thing you can do is be neither. Because now people want to know, back to your term of trust, I can trust a mercenary. I know how to negotiate with a mercenary. They don't bother me in the least. As long as I know they're mercenary. Don't tell me you're here to be my friend and you're here to, you know, to really help me and get me back on my feet again and then just overcharge me and don't even do a good job. Don't do that to me. So trust comes with typically people making a decision.

So interesting. So people always wait for trust to be given, and they don't understand that it actually has to be given first to receive.

Yeah, well, that's why mercenaries often get a bad name, because if you're the buyer and you give them trust and then they abuse it, Then you're feeling pretty angry normally at that point. Where in the other situation is the buyer, if you give trust first and they're really there to make the buyer better, then it's trust going back and forth and you end up with partners.

That's the short term versus the long term, right? You know, sometimes I just, I just have to kind of smirk when I hear those people. If you have someone on a call, you keep 'em on the call until they made the decision, either yes or no. And I just say to that, goodness me, like being in offline sales for so long, where did you land a deal in the first conversation? Nowhere. Nowhere. It took several conversations and they had objections and objections belonged to it. But today everything is done short-term in one conversation. Better I know they are not interested. And I said, stop, stop, stop. That's a false assumption. You just haven't done your job. And that's where that trust building thing comes into.

One of the changes today is so many of the potential customers have done massive amounts of research online and what they really want is they want a salesperson who knows more than they do. And so many salespeople don't prepare themselves. They hardly know their own product. And somebody online who's really interested can know as much or more than the salesperson. And that's when there's no trust because the buyer's going, you don't know as much as I know. How can I trust you to You know, help me make a good decision. And so that's the, that's one challenge that's out there today is as the salesperson, you better really know your stuff because even if— Even if your customer got bad information, they at least have a lot of information that they think is real. So you even gotta be more informed yet. To come back and let them know why what they thought they knew was a myth.

Yeah. And I think what totally is true today to what you just said, Rick, is I think in your business as well, unless you can deliver transformation, you're not better than anyone else out there because people can gather information. They just go to 6 different AIs, put all the information together, and it's probably pretty accurate, to be honest, after 6 AIs.

I'd never heard anybody say that, but I love that, that you need to deliver transformation.

I really believe so. And I think it's the same in sales. Even if you work with tangibles, there must be something more than selling just a product.

Yeah, I hope so.

Which is hugely, hugely interesting. Gosh, time flies, my friend. So which brings me to my last question. We are in dire times, as we know. If someone feels overwhelmed right now, what would you want them to return to?

Wow. Well, you know, one of your opening questions, uh, was— evoked my answer of, you know, where I'm sitting right this minute in, in that my cabin in the middle of nowhere, uh, watching, you know, the wind move the leaves. I hope everybody has a place in their life, whether it's still physical or it's mental, where they are at peace, where they can just return there and be confident, comfortable, safe. Um, and I, I hope they return to it on purpose. With regularity, because to me, that's the— it's kind of like when you're a little kid and your game you were playing wasn't working well, you'd say timeout, timeout, and you recenter yourself. I hope everybody has a place like that.

It's beautiful. And last but not least, what are you taking away from this conversation for yourself?

Um, the, uh, how energizing it is to have a conversation that's just no, no, no ring around it or no white lines that you have to stay between, and you can just explore whatever needs to be explored.

I love that. And with that, thank you so much for this conversation, Rick.

Thank you for having me.

This was Remembering the Forgotten. As you move on, notice what may have been quietly remembered. Ask yourself for a moment, what if the thing holding us back is not lack of capability, but a system that has been carrying too much for too long. And if that's true, what if nothing important about you was ever lost? There are moments where you can feel the answer is already there, but you can't quite reach it. And then, as I said, something shifts and suddenly it's simple. No force, no second-guessing, no internal negotiation. Just a clear sense of what's next and the capacity to move. If something shifted, let it stay. A few quiet pointers are waiting below.