Three Ingredients You Need To Excel In Sales

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I'm really excited to talk to today's guest. But before we talk to our guests, I would be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host. He did 197 deals last year. He's still hanging over my head. Scott Todd from Scott todd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, if you're not automating your Craigslist postings, postingdomination.com thelandgeek Scott Todd, are you excited?

I am very excited, Mark, what are.

You most excited about?

Oh, man, this year has been off to a great start and looking forward to continuing that throughout the year.

Yeah, yeah. Are you excited for today's guest?

Yeah, that too.

I'm excited.

You know what?

We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna talk some. We're gonna talk about a topic that a lot of people need to talk about.

Yeah, exactly. And that topic is sales.

Right?

Sell something, baby.

You know what? Let's just get into it. Let's just get into it. All right. Matt Crane From I am mattcrane.com and also the podcast Power of Great, which I would hope everybody will start subscribing to right now, is a former NCAA athlete turned entrepreneur. In 2014, he walked away from the corporate world and launched Matt Crane Enterprises. He helped organizations, business people and entrepreneurs grow their sales and marketing through his 10 plus years of experience in the industry. In July, he launched the Power of Great. I am Matt Crane from immatcrane.com how are you, Matt?

I'm great, guys. I really appreciate you having me on. Mark, what an introduction, man. I love it. I actually started to feel pretty proud of myself over here, man.

You should be proud of yourself. You've had some big names on your podcast.

Go.

Grant Cardone, Sean Thomas, Ted Rubin, Jeff Gittamer. I mean, once you get Scott and I on, then you'll really have a full lineup and you can feel proud. But until that point, you probably just, you know, it's lacking. Anyways, enough about that. So, Matt, what were you doing, man, before you became I am Matt Crane.

You know, so let me explain why I am Matt Crane came down the pipe is that I shared the same name with a very popular actor that has done television stuff with Days and General Hospital and things like that. So when you think about personal branding and getting noticed and how Google is very responsive to certain types of searches, I had to tweak Matt Crane just a little bit. So I am. Matt Crane was a website that was available that wasn't going to cost me 15,000, mattcrane.com was going to cost me 15,000 to get and someone else bought it. So they're trying to gouge me on that. But anyway, you know, before that, I've been in sales my entire life. I grew up in the grocery store and retail industry with my father. He's a very successful sales rep. And so I always tell people that I grew up learning how to sell by stacking crackers. You know, my dad was very big about at 12 years old, about his section in the grocery stores looking like a brick wall. But he was always adamant about one thing, Mark, and that was no matter what you were doing, you represented a company when you were inside of a store working with him. So everybody that walked down that aisle I had to greet, is there anything I can do for you? Can I help you? And I say from that very first day is when I understood what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. So translate that to now. Graduated college, have a business degree and you know, I thought I was going to take on the world. I got into corporate sales, did a lot of great things, traveled a lot. But when my first son was born, I learned the valuable lesson of what I call the glass ceiling. And you know, I was a manager in an oil company traveling. We were in Texas. And when my first son was born, I got a phone call and had to go to New Mexico. No one on the list would take my place. And I wasn't able to bring my son home from the hospital, wasn't able to bring my wife home from the hospital. And I still to this day, okay, I have two sons now. But still to this day I hear about that from my wife, my mother in law, my father in law, everybody. And it was at that moment that I realized that if I could learn how to sell and be efficient at it, that I could control my own destiny no matter what I was doing. That there were companies, there were products, there were people that would be willing to offer you whatever you personally wanted at a time that you needed at a proper, what I call pay structure, if you will, if you could hit marks and exceed expectations. And that's when I decided to just walk away from the corporate world and launch an opportunity for me to do this thing on my own. And fortunately, it's led me to Rush Impact Marketing and media, where I'm at today. And I Control my own destiny in the digital marketing and advertising space. I'm really excited about what we're doing. Mark.

Scott, Todd, what do you think?

You know, I'm a firm believer, you know, kind of what you're saying, Matt, if you can sell, well, then if you can sell, you can sell anything. You'll always have work or you can always, you can always generate cash because it doesn't necessarily require you to be dependent on anybody. You, you control, you control the outcome. You know, you can, you can control when you're gonna get money when you're not. I always say, you know, like I was just saying this in a recent podcast, I don't think most people have an expense problem. I think they have a revenue problem. So figure out how to sell it, and then the expenses go away, the expense problem goes away.

Matt, I want to talk about your dad for a sec. What was the greatest lesson would you say he taught you?

Man, I can remember this like it was yesterday, Mark. I had just turned 30. I'm 34 now, but I just turned 30 and my entire family. So my mother and father divorced when we were 18. They actually have a get along better now than they ever did. But we're at my mother's house for Easter, and it was my two sisters, their kids, my wife and my kids. And it was a whole family deal. And I remember my dad walking in and he was with my grandmother. And before he left, he turned around and I could just see this look on his face like there was something that he was struggling with. So I walk out in the driveway before he leaves and said, hey, Dad, I noticed a look on your face and I wanted to make sure that you were okay. And he said, you know, son, I'm really not. I said, why? He said, because I look at you guys now and I realize that I spent my whole life trying to make money and I missed out on you guys up until this point. And the greatest lesson he taught me in that was is that money is great because you have to have it and success is great because you have to have it. But he said, I wish that I would have taken the chance that you took and did it more for myself and relied more on my skills and been more confident, my own ability than being kind of stuck to a corporate ladder because I missed out on a lot of opportunities. And you know, what he taught me there was is that. And here's the underlying thing. He didn't say this, but here's what he said to me, was that I don't need to understand what you're doing, Matt, right? Because in his word, it was a 40 hour work week job, 401k structure. He said, matt, I don't need to understand what you're doing. What I need to understand is that you're willing to do whatever it takes to be successful for your family. And that is the greatest lesson he taught me in that one conversation. And man, I'm telling you, man, it gives me goosebumps because that, that dude right there, if he could go back in time, I mean, there's no stopping him. He's one of the best salespeople I've ever met in my life. But that one lesson, Mark, meant more to me than anything.

I just, I got the chills with that speech and, or that lesson. And I have to say, you know, one of the best things I ever did, it wasn't intentional, obviously, but was being able to quit my job. My son was 6 months old, and be there for everything, raising my children. Now, you know, the jury's still out if that was gonna get a good or bad thing right. But you know, for me, selfishly, it's been amazing to always be there and have that. But, you know, I don't, I don't think I think about it as much as I probably should. And that really just reminded me like how, you know, lucky and grateful I am and how blessed I am to be able to do what I've been doing since 2001 full time and being able to be there and never miss anything with my, with my kids. And my dad certainly was a workaholic. He couldn't say the same thing at all. Funny thing, he's, he's in the wholesale grocery business. So it's, it's, it's a really interesting parallel. So you know, you said he's the best salesman you'd ever seen. What makes him such a great salesman? What, what, what makes a great salesman, Matt?

Man, my dad is one of the most consistent people on planet Earth. And here's what I mean by that. He's at a point in his life now where he's put 30 to 40 years in the business. He has nothing to prove. But yet every store manager, every sales rep, even from other companies, they know that he's going to be in their stores at 5am, he's going to be checking his back stock, he's going to be looking at his floor shelf, he's going to be following up with his, with his salespeople. And I think that that makes him one of the very best. Because here's the deal. You can have all the talent in the world, you can have all the degrees in the world, but if you don't create a consistent behavior, not only with your clientele, but with your buying market, right? I think about how the consumers come down his aisle, and he works for Nabisco, which is one of the priciest things in that whole grocery aisle. But because it's always full, it's always presented well, what happens naturally, we gravitate to that because it's comfort. So the fact that my dad is consistent, it creates comfortability with the people that he works with and the people that he works for, which is the consumers. But then, number two is that the guy is relentless, okay? He's 60 years old, okay? And I don't think that he complains one time about anything. And when I say he's relentless, it's because he understands rain, sleet or snow, there may be one consumer that's out braving that storm, and he wants them to be able to rely on him. And there's a relentless mentality that goes into that. And then I think third and finally, Mark, is that my dad has always been able to learn from his mistakes and bounce back. He doesn't dwell on making mistakes. And I think for true sales leaders, the first two, I believe, are habits that you can create. I think the third habit is one that is so difficult and so many sales leaders fail to understand, is that you can't dwell on a mistake, own it, learn from it, and move on. It's right. It's like. It's like Stephen Covey says, seek to understand, then be understood.

Scott, what do you think? I mean, it kind of. His dad kind of sounds, oh, Grant Cardona. Just obsessed with being great, right? And I think to do that for that long and that consistently, your. Your why has to be so powerful, right? Can't be about money. It's got to be something bigger than yourself. So what do you think, Scott? Todd?

Well, I mean, I think that, you know, Matt. Matt kind of said it. You know, his. His father was focused on providing for his family. You know, like, I would. I would say that I was the same way as I wanted to. I always wanted to excel. Not because I wanted to be, you know, a VP somewhere. I. I mean, it was kind of nice. But at the same time, I wanted to give my children a life that I never had, right? So I was motivated by creating a lifestyle for them so that they would have opportunities that I didn't have. I mean, I kind of grew up in a rough part of town. I didn't want my kids to grow up there. I grew up in a house, literally. I mean, you know, we laugh because, you know, I'm growing up in the 70s. I grew up in a house that did not have air conditioning. You know, so you look at that, and I swore, like, as a child, my kids will never, ever not have a house that had air conditioned. And so, you know, you look at that piece and these little things that make your childhood up, I think, kind of propel you to do what you want to do or be obsessed or not be obsessed. And, Matt, I'll tell you, my grandfather worked for Nabisco as well, and he worked there for 42 years. He was a truck driver. You know, he drove from store to store, unloading that truck. And, you know, I think that when you look at, you know, companies like a Nabisco, you know, a company that's a company that has changed ownerships and changed, you know, changed course many times, their products remain the same. But that is really a. You know, your father should really be proud of the fact that, you know, he's gone through all those iterations and survived it. And it really becomes a testament to him being obsessed with his goal, which I think is to take care of you guys.

Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, Matt, let's pretend we're on the show Chopped. Okay. You ever watched Chopped?

I have.

Okay, so it's great show, right?

Yeah.

These guys are so creative. So if you've never watched the show Chopped on the Food Network, they give these, like, these chefs a basket of items, right? And from those basket of items, they've got to create a really creative dish, and they only have 30 minutes to do it. So, Matt, we're going to play a different version of Chops. Okay? You have to create the greatest salesman on Earth. Okay. What attributes are in that basket that's gonna come out and then make that the best salesman on Earth? Like, I can think of, like, something that I would put my basket would be great listening. Okay. Lack of ego, Right? Can't be all about you. It's gonna be about the customer. But I'd love to hear from a professional that makes their living every day. What would make it right?

You're.

You are that chef.

Well, that's a loaded question, man. I'll tell you. You know, I think Mark and Scott, the first thing that I would want to put, the ingredient that would come out of that basket would be integrity. I think integrity is key. I think that in the sales game, there's so many reasons to break your integrity versus to keep it intact. But if you can find integrity, and I think you build everything on that. So I think if you're building a salesperson, it's almost like building a home. You want to have the foundation, that foundation has to be built on integrity. That integrity would incorporate that why factor. Okay? You know, what motivates them, what drives them, but also what's their core values? You know, Stephen Covey says if you're unbreakable in your core, then everything else is solvable, right? So if you can never break down somebody's core values, you can solve anything.

Matt, if you're hiring a sales guy, you, how are you gonna know their core values?

They could BS you, they could always BS you, But at the end of the day, action speaks louder than words. And I always tell people that, you know, we're taught as salespeople to have the great responses, the great rebuttals, the scripts, all those things, but we're not taught how, we're not taught how to create those follow ups when it's just you and your office by yourself. Right? We're told to do that, but do we create that? That's an integrity piece. That's an ethical thing. So, you know, are you sending thank you cards? Are you over delivering on promises? Are you willing to stay up and do extra work knowing that you could close it down early on a Friday just to make sure that you exceed a deadline for a customer? That's integrity. I think the second ingredient you would bring out, Mark, would, would be friendliness. And, and you've got to have that, you've got to have that personality. People have to like you. So let me rephrase that. Likeability, Okay? I think you hear a lot of salespeople, they talk a lot about, you got to go for the clothes, go for the clothes, go for the clothes. Always be closing. Always be closing. Well, if you're not, if you're not like, if you're not a likable person, okay, then people aren't gonna bring you close enough to close them. So in essence, when you become likable, what's happening is, is you're now allowing that customer or that prospect to close you. And once the prospect closes the salesperson, it's a wrap. Okay, I'm coming to dinner at your home. I know when your children's birthday is. I know what your favorite color is. There's all that trust level that can be built. So number Two is likability. And I think number three, Mark, and this is my big one is faith. You've got to know that your salesperson has faith in themselves at all times, that they're going to come through, that they're going to make it happen and that they're going to get it done. I see so many salespeople second guess themselves all the time and I wonder to myself, did the consumer see that? Did their own customers see that?

Why?

So, so let me, so let me take it a step further for you, Mark. If I know that Mark sees that Matt Crane has more faith in himself than anything, then in my opinion, Mark should never shop Matt Crane, he should never look for another Matt Crane. What he should do is call Matt Crane and say, hey, I saw this come across my desk the other day. What's your take on it? Now if you take those three ingredients and I could put a lot of stuff on a plate for a salesperson, but I think those three main ingredients and then you become a perfectionist at those three things, you're going to build a salesperson that's RoboCop and can really go out and truly dominate. And here's the great thing, dominate in any aspect or any field or any sales oriented type concept on planet Earth.

Scott, Todd, would those be the same ingredients you would, you would put in your basket or would you put anything differently in there?

I like them. I like what he said. I think that that's, I mean, how can you argue with Matt Crane, right? Like I think you can, you just.

Might not be right.

Yeah, you know, I mean, integrity, I like the integrity. You know, when you first started talking about integrity, I wasn't necessarily thinking where you were like integrity itself. I was thinking more of integrity to your customer. Do what you say you're gonna do. You know, it's really self control is really the biggest thing on a salesperson. And that's where I, you know, like Mark, you know, we deal with, you and I, we each deal with some great salespeople. I think that's the one thing is that I don't have to worry about them. Are they on the phone, are they following up, are they hustling? Because they do have that self control, that integrity to themselves. Then everything else. I mean, I'm glad Matt started with that one because then everything else doesn't really matter.

Yeah, yeah. And you know Scott, it's interesting about Matt Crane. We're going to talk to, we're going to talk about him. Like he's not here all Right. So, Matt, forgive us, but when Matt first got on the podcast and we're not even recording, what was your initial impression of him?

Well, you know what? He was early.

Right?

You know, he was early. He was early. And he's like, man, I'm always early.

He said being early was like being on time. Yep. He immediately came at us with a value of his.

That's right. You know, there was no doubt. He entered with a presence.

He entered with a presence, and not only that, he came up with a value, and he was immediately likable. Just by doing that one thing, he differentiated himself from every other guest. Not that the guests come in late or on time, but he's the only one that ever said, you know what? To me, being early is like being on time. Right. And that one sentence kind of draws you into the guy, and then he starts telling the story about his dad.

Yeah.

He's immediately likable.

Right.

And I don't think. I don't know how you teach somebody how to be likable, but maybe, Matt, can you shed a light on that? Like, how the hell do you teach someone to be likable?

You know, I think it goes back to what Scott said, and I love how he took the word integrity is that, you know, it's part of that integrity piece. Look, we're not perfect people. If we were then. And not to throw faith out there, but if we were, then God wouldn't send his only son to die on the cross for us so we could go to him and ask for forgiveness of our mistakes. But at the end of the day, for me, it's just, own who you are. Right. If you really want to be likable, just own who you are. If you screw up, own it. Right? And here's the thing. My dad always taught me that it's better to be. It's better to be scolded for telling the truth about a mistake than to be miss. Than to be misrepresented because of a lie you were willing to tell. And, man, it just. And that came down from my granddad. Right. And when I say that, is that to be likable is just to be yourself. We have our own DNA. Mark has his own DNA code. Scott has his own DNA code. Matt has his own DNA code. But what makes us unique and brings us together is that if we're committed to just being our own DNA code, there's likable qualities in everyone. So what I tell people from the very beginning, if you want to quickly create likability, Then just show people who you really are. Right? I'm a good old country boy from Tennessee. You can hear it in my voice. But if I tried to walk around with a three piece suit on every day and slick back hair and pretend to be Wolf of Wall Street, I'm not gonna be a likable guy. Because deep down, your core character always comes out. And if people perceive you once again, if people misrepresent you for a lie you're willing to tell, then that's what you're always gonna be known for. And that likeability, so much harder to get back.

I love it. All right, Matt, so you're having a dinner party, okay. And you can invite the three people that you think can teach you the most about sales and getting to the next level. Right. Who you invited that dinner party?

Grant Cardone, number one. Number two, I would bring in Brad Lee from Lightspeed BT if you guys have never heard of Bradley or haven't followed in his information, the guy is an absolute stud. What stud is the fact that. That he's gone the long road, I mean, and what he's been able to do. He said this the other day, said I stumbled into my success. And that's what I like about it, is that he's just one of those guys. It's always going to show you who he is at all times. You know, he's not, you know, he's got the big house and the fancy cars and the big office, but deep down, the guy's just a good old boy and he's not afraid to show it. And I think, I think that when you think about sales and you think about likability, think about those core values that I talked about. You know, Brad embodies that Grant, because, I mean, at the end of the day, the guy's the godfather of sales. And you don't grow a conglomerate of what he's been able to grow without knowing how to sell. And the way that he creates content that you can extract information and implement right away, in my opinion, is one of the very best. And I owe a lot to Grant. So that's why Grant would be at my table, because I owe him a tremendous, tremendous debt for what he's done for me. And then number three, and this is gonna seem so strange because we haven't even talked about him, but it was. It's gonna be my grandfather, Crane, Dalton Crane, who my son is named after because he came back from war. He came back from the Korean War. He had eight brothers and sisters that he had to provide for. And the guy literally grabbed a paintbrush and a paint bucket and went door to door selling services on how to fix people's homes. And when he passed away, there were lines wrapped around the building of people I had never seen who talked about stuff he did for him. The fact that they never had to worry about him showing up on a job site and that he was one of the very best in the business. And you know what? The guy is a legend, in my opinion. Because to me, selling is more than selling. To me, selling is a life. It's a lifestyle, it's a path. And my granddad created a business and put an entire name on his back by coming home and grabbing a paintbrush and a paint bucket and going door to door. And I'm going to tell you, man, I think that there's a lot of lessons we can learn from that guy.

I love it. I love it. Well, Matt, we're at that point, the podcast now. You've given us a lot of value, a lot of mentorship, and we appreciate it. But now it's time we want your tip of the week. A website resource, a book, something actionable where the art of passive income listeners can go right now, Improve their businesses, improve their lives. What have you got?

So I think everyone needs to go and they need to get the book called the One Thing by Gary Keller. And the reason why we're laughing, because.

This is like, you're like the 10th person to recommend this book. We have this book. Like, we give this book away at our boot camps. Like, I love this book. You gotta give something else. Cause we talk about too much.

If he pulls out 10, you know, 10x, I'm out.

Okay, no pressure.

Matt, you're like. I think you're like the third podcast guest. And we were like, okay.

So I was.

Let's give it to him. We'll give it to him.

I was gonna. I was gonna pull out the 10x rule, but Scott got me on that one. But. So be obsessed or be average. And here's the deal. Here's why. There's one chapter in all the book that people need to read, and there's one phrase and all the book that people need to learn. And this will help you in sales and life and business and everything. Starve the doubt, feed the beast. Grant Cardone says, starve the doubt, feed the beast. At the end of the day, people closest to you are gonna doubt you the most because they rely on you the most. Okay? But when you feed the beast, which is Your own inner personality, the confidence that you create, that you possess, and you feed that every single day. You're not only going to starve the doubt in yourself, but you're going to starve the doubt in those people closest to you. Because now they're going to know you're not going to quit on yourself, which now they feel comfortable knowing you're not going to quit on them. And then guess what happens now. You got that closed knit circle of influence, and then once you have that power, circle, right. The hardest person I had to convince that being an entrepreneur was the right thing was my wife. The hardest person. But last year, she got behind me because she saw that I was feeding the beast every single day and that I didn't care if she doubted me. I didn't care if her mother doubted me. I didn't care if people didn't like me or didn't invite us to parties because I wasn't being the cool guy. She finally said, you know what? I got your back. And let me tell you what, boys, that's the best feeling on planet earth to know that when your core group of people, which is your family, tells you they got your back, man, I'm telling you, you're invincible at that point. And so for me, that's why I tell people you got to starve the doubt and you got to feed the beast.

I love it. I did the same thing. I, you know, I told my wife I want to quit my job, and she said, absolutely not. So I starved the doubt. I kept doing it part time till the land investing exceeded my investment banking income. Then I quit. She's like, all right, you fed that beast for 18 months. Go for it. So I love it. Scott, Todd, what's your tip of the week?

All right, Mark, break out your phone for a cool tip. Oh, yeah, this one's kind of cool. This one's kind of geeky, too.

Check it out.

It's called fly. You know, like flying Fly cash. And basically it is C A C.

H E or C A sh I'm.

Sorry, C A S H. Fly cash. And it's cool because basically you can text your expenses along the way and it basically keeps track of them. So if there's expenses that you run into you don't want to deal with, like I didn't put on a credit.

Card or I'm not finding this Fly.

Fly space cash.

Oh, I did one. I did one. Okay. Fly space cash.

Yeah, so it's like texting your expenses and then you can get a report so, like, let's say that you're gonna eat or take a cab. You could actually text the cab Emojicon and say like $25 and it will record it. Or you could say, hey, hashtag dinner with Patsy and the amount. Or maybe you spent some money on beer and wine. You just want to use emojis for that. No problem. It's pretty cool.

I like it. I like it. I'm having Apple ID issues. It keeps giving me. It keeps popping up. The wrong Apple id, but okay, I'm gonna get that. You know, I'm really enjoying Hurdler, by the way. H U R D L R. We had. I forget his name now, but he was great. All right, well, my tip of the week, I think is the best tip of the week, even though that one was pretty cool. And Matt's two books are great. I am Matt Crane dot com. Learn more about Matt. Check out the podcast Power of Great. Your current situation is not your defining moment, Matt Crane.

Are we good? Yeah, man, we're good. One thing I want to note to everyone is that the podcast was just recently voted as one of the top 26 podcasts to listen to in 2017 as well. So I'm really, really excited about that. And there's a link if they go to imatcrane.com there's actually a link there in some of the, in one of the blog posts that they can go check out that article. It's pretty cool.

That's awesome. Congratulations. Fantastic. All right, well, I want to thank all the listeners. I want to remind everybody, the only way, the only way we're going to get the quality of guests like a Matt Crane@iamattrain.com is if you do a small favor. You got to subscribe, you got a rate, you got to review the podcast, Send us a screenshot of the review. Email it supporthelandgeek.com we're gonna send you for free the $97 Passive Income Launch Kit. Even if it's a one star review, we don't care. Tell us what we're doing right, tell us what we're doing wrong, but just leave a review. And then I also have a little download competition going on with Kerry Lutz. Download all the podcasts. It really helps. All right, well, Matt, I want to thank you. I do want to remind everybody today's podcast is sponsored by posting domination.com TheLandgeek can always make more money. Can't get more time. Start automating those Craigslist postings. And Scott, we good?

We're good.

Mark, Matt, we're good, guys.

Thank you all so very much. What a blast. And I'm excited to share this podcast out with my community. And really, thank you guys for having me.

Awesome. Thank you. And it's going to get geeky now.

Let freedom ring ring.

Thanks, everybody. Matt's like, oh, gosh, I thought these guys.

That's pretty good, Mark. That's pretty good.

It was pretty good. It was pretty good. Matt smiling. That's good. All right, thanks, everybody.