The Sales Secret to a Better Work-Life Balance in 2021
Matt Ryder, James, and Wolfie discuss how sales professionals can balance work and personal life without burning out. They cover setting boundaries, managing motivation, and staying productive without letting work consume everything.
Hey, what's up, Matt and James here. Welcome to another episode of Coffee is Foreclosures. If you're watching this today, probably a business owner or a commissioner, sales rep or whatever, and you might be thinking, how do I have a better work life balance? So today's episode is all about having a better work life balance for you, the sales professional, entrepreneur, business owner, or you, chief goer.
For you guys. This is my right.
If you listen to this podcast, you will make your first million within three years. I'm going to repeat that. You will make a million dollars within three years of the first episode. You listen to. We don't want pikers. We're not here to save the manatees. We're here to make podcasts. You really want this, you listen and review.
Put that coffee down. All right. So it's a big problem amongst business owners, entrepreneurs, and just motivated people in general is being too motivated.
Yeah.
Being too motivated or just like feeling guilty for not working. Right. Especially in the commissioning sales game. Like, you're renumerated only for your work and you're enumerated only for how good you are at your job. And so a lot of people feel guilty when they're not working. So they fill their time with busy that is actually completely unproductive and does nothing for them. And then they feel like they're working 70, 80 hours a week, when in reality they're not. They're just doing a whole lot of stupid, which feels like work.
Yeah.
It's like almost the insatiable need to feel like you're working even when you're not. Because if you're not, you feel guilty that you're not hitting your targets, working for others.
Yeah.
Or you might be a partner in a business and you think, oh, as much as the other guy, I'm just going to work more. When in reality, you must feel it, though, it's relevant. Yeah, I used to. I used to. Then I'm like, do you do that?
I don't. Different personalities. Right.
Like you.
You really need to switch off around 7 o'.
Clock.
No, not really, Marco. Just kind of keep going.
No, no, I. I disagree. I think I got to a point.
Where you realized how unproductive it was.
Yeah. And then went this. There's no point in me working unless something major pops up. Right. Then I'll be like, okay, this is important.
But.
But I got to the point where I'm like, I'm just doing for the sake of doing stuff past this hour. That doesn't make any sense. And because of that, I'm not spending time with my partner. I'm not having any job.
She must have been stuck.
Oh, yeah.
She's like, hey, can you go back to work?
I figured, can you go work more?
Yeah.
But she's not be around me.
Yeah.
So, like, this is unproductive. You know what? And then I. Because I was feeling super guilty that I wasn't working at that time.
Yeah, it's a real problem.
But I work better with space. Like, this morning, I went and went for a walk when I was on the beach.
I don't get it.
I missed the shock.
Say it again.
I was not better with space.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I've got more space.
You always have more space around you. That's why you're so productive.
Well, I mean, that's why I take the. The front seat in the car and put the seat back. I need room to grow. You got to water plants. Otherwise nothing happens.
Right.
But yeah, I was feeling guilty all the time, and so I just kept working. Then realized that I earned my space. I'm gonna take it.
Yeah.
I'm gonna do things I enjoy because I work better when I have more room.
Yeah.
You know, I think one of the most, like, I'm. I'm super bad for it. I think that one of the most apt examples was running the gyms.
Yeah.
And, like, I would spend, like, hours at night in front of the tv, on the computer, not speaking to my partner, building programs and shit. Like, not only building programs, but, like, rejigging on like a PowerPoint where the equipment was.
How can I rearrange the dumbbells so it's more better for everyone?
It's like, what a waste of time. And then re. And then physically rearranging them to really, like, what a waste of time that is.
Yeah, Like.
And I did that. I must have rearranged that gym 10 times. Like, all of them. I rearranged them all.
Yeah.
And now you've gone to the. The further extreme and just like, don't put rubbish in the bin.
No, I get it.
I'm just like, I see.
I see how it is.
It's like the other day, we're sitting there and I'm drawing on the whiteboard. So we paying you for. To do whatever I want.
That's what to bet you are on a whiteboard.
Exactly. I'm testing markers right now.
So that we were testing markers too.
Well, it was a brand new whiteboard and it was actually a giant glass.
Wall with a white backing.
Better.
But, yeah, so like, I think that a lot of sales in particular, I remember there was a young sales guy came to us and he works for us. He's a, he's a great sales dude. He was like, oh man. Like, this is when he wasn't making much money because he was brand new. He's like, he's like, I'm only making X amount per month. I can't remember what it was. He's like, I'm working 80 hours a week and I want to stop.
Yeah.
I was like, there's no way on this physical earth that you are working 80 hours a week.
Yeah.
I was like, but you feel like you do, which is a problem.
Yeah.
But I was like, let's break this down for you. Like, how many triages did you do? He's like, I did 70 last week. I was like, okay, well there are 15 minutes of triage, so that's only like, you know, 15 hours. I was like, how many sales scores did you do? He's like 12. I was like, sweet. So you worked 27 hours. Congratulations. What did you do for the other 30 or 50? No, 50 hours. I was like, what did you feel at 50? I was like, what? Tell me, tell me what you did. 50 hours. Because it wasn't sales calls and it was. I said, you do 50 hours of follow up and referrals. Because if you did, how many did you produce? You would have. How many dolls did you do? Oh, I did like $300. Okay, so dollars took you what, three hours with not a dollar.
Yeah, yeah.
Not even.
Sweet. Okay, so now up to 30 hours. Where's the rest? Where's the other 50 hours that you're missing?
Yeah. It's such an easy like perception to have in your head that you're working more than what you are. I'll give you another example.
Around on his computer.
Oh yeah.
Going in and out of work.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, right. So he's doing like an email here. YouTube video. So it takes, here YouTube video takes.
Five hours to do three hours worth of work. Because you're not actually working for that whole time. It just like productivity just gets cut when you switch between activities.
Absolutely.
Another example is one of the guys.
That we have here.
He wasn't working 80 hours. He was aware he wasn't working hours, but it felt like he was because he'd come in, he'd do his eight hours of work a day, smash it, like absolutely kill those hours of work. And then when he finished, he wouldn't, you know, he's a Single guy, lives by himself.
No.
No friends or family in the city that he's in. And from there he would study, you know, go on the nepq, watch like three hours, then plan out his day of how he can do things better. And then by like midnight, he's still working on things so we can work better the next day. And it's like, well, no wonder you burnt out sleep. There's that. But like everything that you do in your life outside of work is you're perceiving it as work. So you feel like you're working non stop and then you burn out from it because you just get sick of it.
Yeah, there's, there's that like I think a lot of sales people can overdevelop themselves.
100.
Right. They just do too much. When sometimes you got to realize, guys, time takes time.
Yeah.
You know, and I think like we, we know that people can do this.
Yeah. Yeah.
What are some things that we can do? What are things that you can do at home watching this as salespeople, as entrepreneurs.
Right.
In order to get there? Because I can tell you right now you're not getting to an eight figure business.
No.
Doing that. Like we're now at eight figures. We're actually like many. Multiple eight figures. I think we're on a run rate of over 20 million now.
Or.
Well, I mean if we put our whole portfolio, it'd be doing 35 mil.
Oh yeah. Almost.
Yeah.
Maybe even.
Yeah.
Actually we should work that out. The whole portfolio of businesses that we run, I think it'd be close to 50 million a year. But like insane. Like you're not going to get to the eight figure level or even like the high six figure as a sales closer. Grinding, just grinding. It's just because you're gonna, you hit a point where like you're working so stupid that like you're just, you're just an inefficient person.
Right. Yeah.
And you miss opportunities.
And so from, from a commission sales point of view, I was like one of the first things that I had to learn how to do was how do I separate myself from my work? Especially if you work at home Right now we're lucky. Now we work in an environment where we're in an office right now we're in an actual. This is a proper studio. This is completely sound treated. This is, it's not done yet. But this is a studio. Right. This is a content studio. This is the only thing. We have our own offices. So we, we can have a separation of work. Us and home us because we don't work at home. And we also have like ways to. There's a physical and, and mental and emotional separation because we have specific workspaces. Like I'm a different person, not different person, but I act differently in front of a camera that when I do on like a business meeting, you know.
Sure.
So like I have that physical barrier. But so we know how to have a physical separation. But if you don't have that, then you need to have a mental and emotional separation. Right. And the way that one of the ways that you can do that is through one like having a lot of your sales stuff on a software like a CRM, right. Where you don't use your own personal stuff to do your sales. So don't have a phone that like don't use your home phone like your normal everyday phone for sales. Go and buy a burner phone or use one that's with your computer and then have all of your sales on your computer. You're using close IO. You can text, you can call, you can email, you can track everything. So even if you're someone, even if it's like your, your business doesn't use that, just do it yourself. It's like 25 bucks a month. And you can call, text and email. Like it might cost you 100 bucks a month by the time you're all in. You now have a way to actually track pipeline. Email, text, call, integrate everything. And you can separate yourself from your job because now your phone is not tied to you. Because I tell you what, this thing is a source of constant anxiety that will just constantly remind you that you have deals falling through. I remember when I was just commissioned on these sales repping. Like I have like seven phones right. At one stage, like seven different phone numbers. Right. I think I had, I think I had four actual phones and I had three phone numbers on computer. But like I just didn't.
They didn't work. James called this guy off all of your numbers. Okay.
One, two, three.
No answer.
Savage, follow up right there. But. But it's like I remember seeing there with my family and it was like at a family dinner and I was like doing these ones trying to like trying to save a deal.
Yeah, yeah.
And it was like this deal is never getting saved, especially over text and especially at 5 o' clock on a Friday night. Oh yeah. And I would be better off just not knowing that that happened.
Yeah.
I, I personally restrained from messaging you and Marco after a certain time because I know that you will respond and I know that you're with your family. I'm like, I shouldn't. Like, this can wait.
Yeah.
Unless it's off to like 9 o' clock and I know the kids are in bed. Like, I'll send it now.
Yeah.
If it's important enough.
Yeah.
Like, I try to be as not available as possible from like five to eight. But yeah. So separating yourself, so getting different phones and like, being able to have like your sales and all within a system, I think is super important because you'll then be able to separate. You can close your computer, you can log out of those things and then like, every time because, like, what do you do? You log, you get a notification, bing, ping, ping. All of a sudden you're emailing clients, you're going back and forth. Prospects are like, can you call me? No. Like, no, it doesn't matter.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so having that level of separation, I think is super important when you're commissioned sales rep. Now, moving forward to that, it's like compartmentalizing your work as much as humanly possible away from your thing. Like, I love not taking my phone on the weekend. If I go out my kids, I do not take my phone and I come home to like 47 notifications. And like. Like, I went to the beach this weekend and no phone. I just had like a credit card in my pocket.
That's it.
Which I think is the way to do it. And it just allows me to be in the moment, to switch off and just to enjoy the time. My family, which I then come back to work and I'm way more productive because I feel recharged and refreshed.
I didn't know what time it is.
I have a watch on it.
Does it. Does it tell the time?
Of course it does. It also tells people how rich I am. It's Rolex.
That's what I thought it was. I was setting you up for that one.
That's my favorite thing. Doesn't you watch till the time. Oh, mine tells people how much money.
You know that TV show I told.
You to watch, Succession?
Yeah.
He bought him a brand new pk.
Oh, really?
And he goes.
He's made that joke.
I was like, it's everywhere now. Anyway, back to back to and ap.
Yeah, great. Watch out of my pk. It's definitely the bucket list. Well, there's Patak Philippe.
That's what I meant.
Yeah.
The three. The three. In case you guys are horologists out there. Aps, pks, and no, no. Rolex is not part of the Holy Trinity. No, no, that's your own Constantine.
That's your own.
Those are the three oldest. The three oldest Swiss watch brands.
There you go.
Okay. You learned something new every day, right?
That's from Constantine. Their top watches, like in the millions. It's a grand tourbillon, grand octobion. I want to get on one day. I think they're about 450,000€.
Yeah.
That's okay. So watches. Right. I guess the point is that is know the time, you know, and how much time you're spending on your work as opposed to everything else.
I think I've heard Segue have hard stuff. You know, the guy who made the Segway died on a Segway. You know, that's so ironic. He drove off a cliff because they're inherently very unsafe. That's true. So I think having a hard stop is super important. Like I'm out of here every day at 5. Like I'm out of here at 5 and then there's a park where my kids, like right next to my kids go to daycare and we have a picnic at like 5:15 every day.
Yeah.
Cool. I try and leave at either like between 4 and 4:30 or 6. So I miss traffic.
Yeah.
It's like, hey, if I'm staying past this point, I might as well stay for long.
Yeah.
And I think that having those hard stops in place when you're working at home is even more important. So I would have like obviously had a separation. I try and isolate myself when I'm working as much as possible when I'm working from home. Door shut.
Office.
Yeah. Like you have to have a space that's like away from family. And as well, I actually just have a YouTube video coming out soon about the best setup for when you're at home. When you have kids. In the background, it's having like a microphone. So check that out. Go to the YouTube channel or make sure you watch for the next video. It's called Gear review.
Yeah.
Probably be there by the time this comes out.
Yeah.
Lincoln description.
Yeah.
And so having that really, really like clear and defined hard stop is super important. And then making sure that like, if you are going to bend that rule, it's something that is really, really. Well, first of all, you don't make a habit of it. But second of all, it's actually really going to work the time.
Yeah.
Because like I see a lot of people giving their time away for free and just doing all the time when like it's just not going to Provide you with an roi. So, like, don't do it.
Yeah, I mean, like, as you do, like, we'll break those rules if, like it's a big deal on the line that we need to take this conversation seriously. It's like, okay, well that makes sense. Like I'll take 5Ameetings if it's a relevant meeting.
Otherwise I won't.
Right.
Yeah.
Like when I speak to Sirhan, we only have very small windows to speak to that guy.
Exactly.
So we have to do it. It's stupid talk. But if we need to speak to him for a very particular reason, like I have to kind of work around their schedule because I'm calling the meeting. Yeah, exactly. If somebody calls a meeting with me, you do it on my time. I don't care who you are. If I call a meeting with you, I will do it on your time.
Yeah, yeah.
It is also in the same way that if you call a meeting with us that you need something done urgently. Like, you're paying for my time. But if I call it done, if I call it for you, because I have ideas, like, I'm not charging you for that time. This is me coming to you.
There's a big difference.
Oh, yeah. Hey, I need you to take this meeting. It's $10,000, by the way.
Yeah.
Just the congruency.
These are a MasterCard merch stores to get that tech. Yes. I think having those hard stops in place is super important and just, just being able to have like some sort of line in the sand where you're not going to work past that. Unless like it's. Unless like there's something massive on the tearing.
Yeah.
Like you got to take like care of yourself outside of work and, you know, give that space for getting out, doing physical stuff, spending time with family to develop relationships and connections as well as giving yourself a creativity outlet. Particularly if you're just on the phone calling people all day. Everyone wants to be creative, get a hobby, go do some wrestling or whatever that is, play some football. As long as you got something that's creativity that takes your mind off work, then you don't feel like you're working 15 hour days and it makes it a lot easier.
I found, anyway, a lot of people struggle with the concept of a hobby.
Yeah.
Like people are so boring.
Yeah.
It's like my guy something fun. Even if it's like making creative Instagram reels.
Yeah.
Like, I love doing content. Content is content. And cameras is like a hobby of mine.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, I enjoy doing this. I like talking to camera. I like the camera aspect. I like figuring out the lighting, I like figuring out the cameras settings, the audio, every. I really enjoy it. Right. So like I have drones that I fly on the weekend at home, all that kind of stuff, you know, I managed to bring into the content and stuff like that to try and make it more interesting. But like this is an enjoyable pastime for me and then the rest of my time is taking up the kids.
Yeah, yeah.
Like if you don't have kids, get a pet. Yeah, it's a good outlet for some fun and social and like that.
Yeah.
So. So I think like the ticket to.
Pick up chicks too.
Yeah. They are what's amazing. Yeah.
You know, respect. I think that the takeaways when this doesn't have to be a long episode. I think I feel like 20 minutes is a good length episode. But it is like make sure you have a hard stop. Make sure that you can separate yourself from work and you have those times where it's like, no, I don't work past this time. And don't make exceptions for crazy prospects. Like the thing is when is like, let's say you're selling a coaching program or something or, or when you're selling anything, to be honest. Because the fallback person when you have issues is always the salesperson. Because like, like they feel like the prospect is always going to have the best emotional connection with the salesperson. They have done surveys, actual proper studies and I think it's something silly. Like it's in the 90s. 90% of a person's customer satisfaction rating links directly with the sale.
Yeah, yeah.
Right. So how it was, how, how well the sale was done, the relationship with the salesperson, that is a lot to do with how happy your clients are.
Right.
And so if you're a sales guy or if you're an entrepreneur, like and you're the one doing the sales and then every single problem will fall back on you.
Right.
And so you have to set expectations very early. And it's something I was really bad at was like I would take prospects calls at all times. They text me at 10pm I'd reply straight away thinking that I'm providing a good service. But what I was doing is I was, I was setting myself up for failure. Because once I created an unattainable or like non replicatable standard.
Yeah.
Then like anytime I didn't get back to them in 20 minutes, they were pissed off.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because I'd set that as the standard. And it's like that can't be the standard because, because as you get make more sales, more people are going to fall back on you and it just be. It's a self licking ice cream from hell. Oh yeah, you just create dramas for yourself.
So you teach people how to treat you.
Exactly. People will be happy with whatever they're given as long as that's what they're told they're given.
Yeah.
And so you need to be very clear with your time. Also if you are a commissionally sales rep, like do not allow the account holder to treat you like an employee. And this is something I've always been very good at is not accepting like hey, you want me to do? That's fine.
Can you do this for me? Can you get to our event early and set up and.
Yeah. Oh can you, can you do sales training for our clients?
Yeah.
What are you going to pay me? And you have to say yeah, I'm happy to do that. What's the, what's it going? Right, like what's the offer? And they'll go oh, I just thought it's like no, no, I'm a commission only sales guy, dude. I am commission only. Like that means that every hour that you pull me out of selling, not only are you not paying me money, but you're actually costing me money because I make X amount on a sales call. So if you want me, If I make $1,000 a sale and you want me to do an hour a week, I need at least half that, at least half that. Otherwise I'm physically losing $1,000. That's a loss of $1,000 potential income, income that I could be making or I could be setting leads, I could be setting follow ups, I could be getting referrals, I could be making money. I do not do for you for free. Because the moment you say yes to the first thing, mate, like that's. Unless it's like it's in your contract from day one and you go as a commissionary salesperson, we pay you X rate.
Right.
And that's a very high rate. And the reason why we do that is because we have this and this expectation and then it's your choice whether or not you say yes test but don't let it creep in because if you give them an inch, you'll give them a mile.
Yeah, yeah. Right.
And it's not, it's not malicious and it's just a thing that will become a massive headache if you don't nip it in the butter. Really?
Yeah.
And every time you give someone power they never give it up. So I guess, like, my. My key thing is, like, for the, you know, you guys that are watching, you guys that are watching, that's for.
You have one individual, the individual watching.
This right now that are super motivated and do heaps of work.
Right. The.
The biggest thing to do outside of actual work is, is pick something that makes you feel like you're having progression.
Right.
Whether that's why jiu jitsu is so good.
Yeah.
Like a. Some sort of hobby, a collection relationship, anything that you feel you can move towards, you get that elsewhere that isn't in work. So that part of your life is fulfilled. So you don't need to spend six hours after your work hours actually working because you are getting that level of. I'm progressing ticking goals, I'm ticking the boxes and everything like that. And we've put a lot of strategies in that in place for our guys that are heavily driven and almost have addictive personalities when it comes to progress. And that strategy works like tenfold every time to get them into states they can perform every day. So try that.
Absolutely. If you want to learn more about this kind of stuff, guys, you can go to SalesSniper.net check out our stuff. You can subscribe to this channel that you're watching this or if you listen to this on audio only, make sure you subscribe to more. Listen to more podcasts. All right. If you want to check out our Facebook group. It's a free Facebook group called the closing code. It's all about banter, free training, fun stuff, memes. Lots and lots of memes go in there. We do a whole bunch of free training. We go live a couple of times a week. We have sales, coaching and all that kind of stuff. You can also join our closing code, sort of VIP paid sort of section, which is a full portal, six role plays a week with a coach, the whole books and dice. And it's like 25 bucks for the first week, 50 a week after that, which is going to be changing soon because I've got a whole new portal. It's going to be revamped. It's great, but I'm going to make it more expensive.
Cool.
That's a great hobby.
Meme. Memeing.
Memeing. Just great memes.
I studied the art of memology.
Yeah. Yeah.
But for myself. James and Wolfie, thanks for coming and we'll see you in the next one.
Bye. Yeah.
I got a bachelor degree in management and.
Bachelor degree. I got a PhD. Put that coffee down. Coffee's for closers only.
