Six Strengths of a Superior Salesperson

0:03 Thank you for joining us on the Winning at Selling Podcast. I'm Professor Scott Plumb of the Minnesota Sales Institute and with me is Bill Hellkamp of Reach Development Systems. Scott and I are often asked what an employer should look for when hiring a new salesperson. So often they want to find someone with industry experience. But if there's anything they can teach them internally, it's about the industry. And everyone is used to gaining product knowledge when they get the new job anyway.

0:29 From our point of view, the hardest thing to modify is someone's character traits. What are the traits that make up the best salespeople? It's time for some serious introspection as Scott and I add up the six strengths of a superior salesperson and other memorable musings on episode 629 of the Winning at Selling Podcast. Bill, this is a great topic. I'm really looking forward to digging into it.

1:02 I remember one of the favorite lines from one of my mentors, Brent Baskfield, said, he said, we hire people based on one thing, one attribute and that's good judgment. And if they've got good judgments, we can develop them into a great salesperson or a great employee. And I think that's the same thing with salespeople. If we hire great judgment, we can teach them the rest, teaching the skills. So I'm really looking forward to that conversation.

1:24 Before we do that, let's continue with the book by Joe Conradth. More sales last time, we're going to cover parts 5B25, chapter 25 through 28. So the title of this section is Add the Secret Sauce and chapter 25 says, find some help. She starts the chapter off with saying that she went to a conference in 2015 and she writes a piece of advice that sellers need to make the decision process as simple as possible. I think sometimes salespeople, we complicate things. We really want to show everything we have.

1:57 We want to tell them everything that we know. And that's not really the goal of a good sales conversation. But we do need to continue to make it simple for people to say yes. Well, we were just talking with a client today, Scott, that was telling us about one of our competitors that they started to ask him questions. He said, you got to hold those questions. I still got a proposal to go through. Yeah, exactly. I bet there was my presentation here.

2:19 Yeah, I've got my presentation to do and I'm going to get through it whether you have questions or not. Wow, wow. Talk about focus on a solution and that sort of problem. That's incredible. So she talks about the present strategic partnerships with people within a company, within a department that you can ask for help. So she's really seeking help and finding help. And some of the key points that she made is asking for help when people have the advice, but you as a salesperson cannot be defensive if you're asking for help. So often, I mean, you and I have sat in meetings with some of our clients and they kind of role play out a situation that they had. And our advice to them is, let's pause. Let's let's time out.

3:00 Why do you feel like you need to be defensive in your response? You're being defensive in a response when this is an opportunity to get more information. So really listen for the information that somebody is telling you, don't get defensive. Ask a lot of questions and pause before you respond can make it easier for you not to become defensive. So hesitate on that. I find that's really important in a sales meeting too with a prospect. Don't get defensive when they start attacking, you know, your company or the competition or other things. Just listen for more information.

3:32 When I was young and doing presentations, I was being coached on my presentations and it was a time for question and answer. And my posture was as if I was a boxer with my hands, my fists clenched. And the person who was videoing me zoomed in on my clenched fists. And the comment later was, you know, I think you might have been taking an aggressive pose on taking questions. It wasn't real welcoming. Right. So we do that. We get so defensive when somebody's just asking a buying question instead of thinking, Oh, they're showing interest. And this is good. I was thinking, Oh, they're going to challenge me and I'm going to knock on them flat here.

4:18 So we need to be careful on that defensive. We don't even expect it. We can get triggered in some of those areas. And you know, this next point, you know, again, the chapter is about finding some help. She says that the environments change even for the top sellers and a new competitor emerges, maybe a recession hits. I mean, we're getting a lot of interest from companies that want to improve their salespeople because they feel like a recession is hitting. They have to be more competitive on defending their price. And they need to train their salespeople to defend the price and continue with the revenue in order to meet different expectations. So it's amazing how many companies are really looking at that right now. Or, you know,

4:55 the interest rate stuff skyrocket. But I think one thing that's in the marketplace right now is the political season. And as the market changes, the superstar salespeople struggle. They trip a little bit. They don't have that momentum that they have. And we need to also ask for help if we feel that because there's other people that have a different perspective and different answers that can help us with our current approach on dealing with a situation. Yeah, I think you're right that a lot of people are relying on this election, big election coming up to change their situation. Right. Yes. And it's going to the markets going to go up. The market's going to go down,

5:37 depending upon who gets elected. And my situation is going to change. And what I found is that we don't know what's going to happen based on who gets elected. No, I thought I used to think if, you know, column A got elected, the markets would go down. If column B got elected, the markets would go up. And that's been proven to be wrong. Right. And so I think that we need to, our best efforts is to be put into what we're actively doing and not relying on outside forces to make things happen for us. This side is reminiscent of getting into COVID. And I remember a PowerPoint slide or some meme on Facebook or something like that. And it was of it was two circles that

6:21 overlapped. And one was focus on the things that you can control. And number two focus on the things that are most important. And that's the reach that you have is where those two circles overlap. Right. And to be able to find out what's important and what you can control. Within this chapter, she also talks about brainstorming with different approaches and different resources and how other people are using technology. She brought up LinkedIn and HubSpot. One thing that she did not bring up is chat GPT. So amazing. I mean, that is so new.

6:51 About five years old. So yeah, I mean, and this, I mean, if you look at every time you do a chat GPT, it's like, this is good up until November 2022. I mean, anything before that, you know, we don't have it. It's like, whoa, that's a little scary. That's a little new. But there's different approaches and different technologies and different apps that people use that be more effective and efficient too. So brainstorm with your network and talk about that. And if you want to learn a little bit about chat GPT, go back to episode 627, where we spoke with Sam Richter. Yes. Yeah, that's right. That's a great, great call, great conversation with him. And then she finalized

7:28 this chapter with, you know, make sure that everything ties into your CRM. And I know sales people don't like to hear that. Oh, it's so much work. You don't pay me to document stuff in the Salesforce or HubSpot or the CRM. Well, actually they do. And you want to be able to keep track of more than two conversations. That's about as much as I can handle. Maybe three conversations in my head. Otherwise, I need a CRM because I cannot keep track of everything. That's most important. Well, just for us, as we've worked on projects, where is the project? Where's it needed to be? What's the next step? Yeah. So documenting things just helps you. It's like knowing where

8:03 things are on your desk. If I don't know where something is, I'm searching my desk, I'm searching my letter file, I'm searching the files in my drawer, and it's 20 minutes later. And if I document, if I knew where it was, it would take me two minutes and I'd find it and it'd be done. So how much time is wasted through poor organization? Right. And that's chapter 28 of today's segment. All right. We'll talk about it. Chapter 26 is do absolutely nothing. And the theme of this chapter is mindfulness. And I really love the mindfulness focus. She talks about using meditation to be able to concentrate for a period of time and manage the distractions. I don't meditate. And when

8:43 she talked about using meditation as an opportunity for your mind to slow down, for you to be able to focus on what's the most important at the time and to manage the distractions that you constantly get bombarded with every single day, I'm like, wow, now you're onto something here. I think you're in an area that could cause a little bit more introspection and really fight that sales culture that we need results now. So often we get caught on the companies, we need results now. We need to turn around right now. We're like, well, wait a minute here. Let's figure out what we need to change. Let's figure out how we're going to measure our progress and our angle of attack. How fast, how soon, how quick are

9:22 we able to do it? And if we don't manage that accurately, we're going to stall out and we're going to create a bigger problem than what we have right now. I think it's important to think my problem is if I meditate, I'm going to go to sleep. Me too. So I call meditation nap time. And clearing my mind that doesn't seem to work because I've always got something to slip in there. But I do think it's important to sit down and take some time to jot some notes down, have a pad of paper in your lap, and just try to free your mind up a little bit and think about your problems in a new way. And I think you and I are going to go back to the asking for help a little bit. Probably the most powerful

10:05 thing that's happened in my career in the last three, four years is that you and I are starting to collaborate, share ideas. And as you said this morning, it's not your way or my way. It's a better way that we're finding somewhere in between those. So yeah, wow, exactly right. Exactly right. The last point within this chapter is she talks about the book Tiny Habits. I think some of our listeners have read that by BJ Fogg, F-O-G-G. And they talk about a kind of anchor action type of formula. So it's like after I do this, after I insert anchor, I will insert a new behavior. So after I sit down at my desk, I will form a habit of meditation, focus, I will form a habit of doing

10:51 this. I've heard this other people use this when they go to start up a workout routine. They go, I got a first, I got to get up early, I got to get dressed, I got to drive to the health club, I got to go work out and a bus. It's just like too much work. They just go back to bed. But the tiny habit is get up, get dressed, go to the parking lot of the health club, just drive into the parking lot. And then if you want to drive home, go ahead and drive home and you can take on the rest of your day. Or you can say, well, I'm in the parking lot. So I'm triggered by when I'm in the parking lot, my new behavior is now I go into the health club and I work out.

11:23 And all we need to do is just get to the next step, just get to the next step, just get to the next step. And now we create tiny habits that create incredible behavior modifications within our life. But it just starts with the small incremental growth reinforced over time by creating those tiny habits. All right. Next chapter, chapter 27, I love this chapter. This talks about walking is work. Yeah, I love this line. She talks about re-igniting your cubicle brain.

11:51 Oh man, do I get that cubicle brain? When I was working at a big company, I sat in a cube and sometimes we just get a little complacent. We don't get very creative. And she encourages just to get up and do a 30 minute walk to an hour long walk. And within 15 minutes in her experience, something unlocks her brain and these creative ideas come to mind. And then she thinks about, who am I going to share this with? Who do I want to talk about with? And sometimes our subconscious mind, when put into a state of activity and we're getting the blood flowing, we're getting more blood and more nutrients to our brain, it's amazing how more creative we can be and how we can solve

12:28 some challenges and some subconscious problems that are kind of eating away at us. I think we have to be very careful whether it's your cubicle, your office behind your laptop. It's that lack of movement is not good for you. It's not good for you physically. It's not good for you mentally. You need to break out from that. Go outside, see what the day looks like for a little bit. That's the joy of working at home. It's a quick walk to get outside. I'll go pet my dog, go take him for a little walk, whatever it is that you need to do. But it gets you moving and you do get slack, just kind of sitting and slumping further and further down in your seat.

13:04 Yeah, and put it on your calendar and block time out for that. And if people have a link to your calendar and can schedule time on your calendar, that time is not available. It's non-negotiable. That's the time where I'm going to go out and get my morning walk in and come upon some creative ideas and maybe even listen to a podcast. And that's what I do. I listen to a podcast. I hear another idea. I'm like, wow, this is really great. I get back to my desk. I fire off an email to somebody that I've been working with. And I go, hey, I just thought about this. Do you think that's something like that would work with you? And now we're creating and exchanging these ideas and

13:36 it creates this friction where it gets better as we start talking more about it. Chapter 28, spoken down into three areas. So she says, minimize the human interruptions.

13:50 Put a busy sign on your door and or put a sign of a time that you're available. I never like the sign. The bus does not stop here. I've seen that sign more than once. I'm like, I don't need to know where it doesn't stop. I need to know where it does stop. So please, tell me where it does stop. So if you put a do not disturb sign on your door or your cube, I mean, talk about when will you be available? When can we talk about this? And I will work with you to be focused on your activities. And I will be patient in my request and my demands.

14:22 And I will be able to postpone that. But it's something that's urgent. We need to talk about it. So promote when you are going to be available. The next thing she talked about in this chapter is reorganize your workplace. So this is the desk. This is kind of cleaning up stuff that you're working on feeling like it's good enough to be able to close the file and file it so that you've got more focused on the projects that you're working on and the information that you need is more available to you and you can find it quicker, faster, sooner and you're not hunting for it.

14:51 I felt glad to hear that her desk was a mess too. Yeah. And we home office, it's like we can always get to it, you know, and we get constant interruptions on our personal lives when we're working at home. And we need to be able to manage that too. And then the last place that she talks about is rethinking the digital workplace. Man, I get that. I mean, I spent, I don't know how long today just looking for a copy of my introduction. Where is that? How come I can never find it?

15:19 I need to organize my files better. I mean, sometimes I get a data set from somebody that I'm working with. I'm like, wow, your files, your electronic files are really organized. I wish I was that think I could think that way. Well, they organize them so they can send them to you. So it's not really not really that organized everywhere. Right. Right. And then the last thing she talks about having two screens, I have two screens, it's kind of nice. I have one is kind of an active screen and then I have stuff on another screen that I kind of keep track of. And like my email would be on a second screen. So I can see stuff coming in, but I can still focus on the project

15:50 that I've got in front of me. So that's the last part of those four chapters. Yeah, super. Well, I think that it's important to find ways to find those little bits of time to be more productive to to be healthier, right? Get up and walk and and don't get yourself stuck in that office or that cubicle for too long. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So next week, there's no book club. We'll have a guess. I will tell you about who that is a little bit later. Now, for another perspective on selling, let's listen to the sales tip from Anthony and Arino. Enjoy and learn from the sales tip from Anthony by Anthony and Arino, a highly respected international speaker, best-selling author,

16:31 entrepreneur and sales leader. Hey, it's Anthony and Arino. If you read the sales blog, if you see the work that I do on LinkedIn, what I want you to understand is that I'm not interested in anything other than your effectiveness. So effectiveness means what is your win rate? So if you have a win rate that's say 25%, that is an ineffective sales effectiveness number. So that win rate is not going to be able to help you reach your goal. So the most important thing for you to do is to start studying this thing that we call selling. And it would help you to read books. It would help you to go out and watch YouTube videos. And then most importantly, if you want to be

17:16 effective, you have to start making behavioral changes. Those behavioral changes are what will take you from 25 to 35 to 55. And I've got a team of my own that has an 85% win rate on average. And that makes it really easy. So don't worry about anything else except for figuring out how to get better at the sales conversation. That effectiveness will take you further than anywhere else. See me at the sales blog.com or come out and say hello at LinkedIn. See you soon.

17:55 Well, let's get into our main topic today, Scott. That is six strengths of a superior sales person. And for our listening audience, Scott, and I thought it would be fun that after four years, we should develop a list of attributes of what a superior sales person is. And I want to create them independently. Scott wanted to cheat off my work. That's right. No, do your own work. And probably the other way is probably more true. But we want to compare him on the show. We haven't looked at him. I haven't really thought him thought through his. And he hasn't looked at mine, I hope.

18:27 Right. That's right. So we'll see where we agree, where we disagree. And more fun, where we disagree. But we try to disagree without being disagreeable. I heard that from somebody. I'll just do one at a time on my list. If you think you have one that's kind of the same, maybe go to that. And then we'll compare. So my first one is persistent. And you'll see, by the way, we wrote these, Scott's a left brain thinker and I'm a right brain thinker, one word. True. And then in the description, that's me and Scott's like this much more flowery than I am. And that's why I want to see a movie. I want to see a movie in my mind. That's right. So persistent. They don't,

19:03 they don't quickly or easily. And they are determined to succeed. And they understand that you need to be in for the long game to succeed where I know we've talked to people before their sales cycle is two years or more. That would drive me nuts. But you know, those guys say, well, they're long willing to pay me, you know, for the two years until something happens. So persistent. That's my first one. Yeah. Similar. I have some very similar. I have one that is goal focused with a passionate commitment. Okay. And that persistence, I think, is that that's emotional.

19:42 I think being goal focused is a bit intellectual. So you're creating a list of goals and you're passionate, you're emotionally committed to achieving those goals. And the first chapter in my book, Taking Off Into the Wind is commitment. And when I do a group, I think about three questions. Where did you learn commitments? How do you demonstrate your commitment to other people? And what do you look for in others to be able to measure their level of commitment to you or to your project or your company, etc. And commitment is the attribute of any successful sales person.

20:14 So I'm grateful that that's first on your list. Yeah, I see, I see it as people who just are dog on a bone and they're just gonna, they're just gonna get going. I'm speaking of dog on a bone. I heard a story. I really liked it. So this dog sees a rabbit and starts chasing it and a bunch of other dogs start chasing the chasing after the first dog and the rabbit goes down a hole. And all the dogs start digging it first dog starts digging all the others dogs start digging. And one by one, the dogs all leave until one only one is left, you know, which dog is left. The last one, the one who saw the rabbit. Yeah, exactly. He's the only one that knows what he's looking for.

20:52 The other ones were just caught up in the enthusiasm of the situation. Right. Right. Right. And if we're gonna persist with things, having that goal, knowing what we want, having dreams and desires,

21:05 those are the things that help us to be persistent. If we're trying to be persistent without goals or without the desire, without the ideals, we're going to be like the other dogs. And eventually, we just, you know, two years was too long. So my next one is personable. I think these, the superior sales person is genuinely a nice person who gets along with a wide variety of people. They make friends easily. They like to be liked back. That can be a problem for them sometimes. It's they want to be people pleasers too much. And so then they're not as willing to be honest as they want to. And we're gonna talk about that later that they're more challenging. But they're

21:48 personable. They like people. They like to be involved with people. They like to be in the dance a little bit with people. And for those of those who are not that way, it's a little bit harder for them to do it. They can do it, but it's a little bit harder. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that can be an area where sometimes salespeople can be a little bit submissive on wanting to be liked versus wanting to earn somebody's respect. Right. And that can be brought through, you know, old traditional sales training. People like to do business with people that they like that are like them. And I will add or they want to be like. So sometimes when a confidence salespeople show up, then the prospect is kind of attractive

22:29 to that confidence because they want to be able to have the confidence that salesperson has too. That's still being personable. Yeah, you know, we again, we can disagree without being disagreeable. But but I can't be so desirous of your friendship that I will not challenge what's going on. So that's where you have to be careful. Once you pick one of yours, I've got one and kind of comparing the lists, you know, from mine to yours, there's one that we don't really overlap on. And and it's healthy relationships with money and budgets. That's because you're wrong. But that's okay. That's okay.

23:04 Get some votes. Tell us what you mean by that. Right. Yeah. I don't agree with you. One of the biggest objections, you know, the biggest challenge I think salespeople struggle with is that they have a high need for approval. And we just talked about right. Yeah. And then the second one is is that they've got an unhealthy relationship with money. And there's there's really two or there's three relationships with money. Number one is, you know, money grows on trees. There's not a lot of people that. But there's a group that goes money grows on trees. You know, there's more of that where that came from. Number two is that it's scarce that, you know, what do you think I am made of money? You know, and now money is scarce. So we

23:40 kind of can have a survival mentality when it comes to our intellectual and emotional relationship with money. And the third, I think is the most popular, is that it is not polite to talk about money. I'm guessing that there's probably about 60 to 70% of salespeople do not have a healthy relationship with money. And money and budgets have got to be talked about before a quote or proposal is ever written. And if you don't have a healthy relationship with money and you're not able to uncover budgets, you're going to get an objection. And most of the objections that sales people get is that it costs too much or the price is too high. And it's like people just don't know

24:15 how to respond to that through a sales technique. But sometimes the belief that they have because they don't have a healthy relationship with money or budgets comes through in their behavior and their approach and how they have a conversation with the prospect. Well, I will agree with you that most of our objections are going to be price oriented and usually too high, although we did talk to somebody recently who said they've got an objection, their price was too low and how might it be that much lower than your competition. But your price is too high as one. I am a firm believer that that price objection is just an easy

24:45 objection. So we all make it because if I tell you your prices too high and you drop it, it will be. Yeah. Even if I was going to buy it. So being prepared for that, I think when you say they have a healthy relationship or understanding, I think that they're just often just fearful to challenge the people. And money is just an example of that because it comes up so often.

25:12 But I do think that people don't understand they value money in and of itself and money is really valuable for what it can do. And money is a multiplier. I was talking about this with some friends the other day that if you're a bad person, you end up with a lot of money. You're going to be a really bad person using that money. If you're a good person that ends up with a lot of money, you're probably going to be a good person exactly and how they steward that money. So, but how we're told about it when we're young, I can see it coming out in my kids. They're very

25:44 frugal in general. My children are very frugal. And they grew up with me. And I am a frugal son of a gun. My son told me it's one of his first dates. He took a girl to McDonald's and she she tried to order like a number five and he goes, Hey, look over here at the dollar menu. That's what you can order off of. That's all they'd ever ordered off of his whole life. He'd never ordered off of it. It's not cheap. It's frugal. It's frugal. There's credibility with and cheap is when you go cheap is when you go to white castle. That's cheap.

26:13 Cheap is when you order for your date. That's right. That's right. All right. You have another one? No, let's go to your math. Your number three kind of sets up my next number three. Okay. Well, let me do number three is thought provoking. And what we mean by that may be challenging right because we've ever had the challenger sale. The job of sales is to help the client think in new ways or consider new things they hadn't previously considered. So, and the challenger sale was written all about that, right? So, you don't need to be a jerk to challenge people. You don't need disagreeable, as we said, but you do need to be courageous to say, tell me more about that. I'm

26:52 not sure that I understand how you're coming up with that answer. Here's what we found in our survey and our studies in our 60 years of combined experience. Yeah. Yeah. And I love the challenger sale. Again, I want to just want to throw out a few things that I took away from it is to lead to the solution, not lead with the solution. And that is a sales technique. Another one that I remember from the challenger sales, if you don't challenge them, you don't change them. And again, those are sales techniques. So, one of my attributes is knowledge of a sales process with effective techniques. So, you really know where you are. It's kind of the map of the mall. You're here. You want to go over

27:33 there. How are you going to get there? And you follow in most cases, the shortest path possible. If you want to make stops along the way, then you're going to have a longer route. And there's nothing wrong with that. But at least you know where you are and where you want to go. Yeah. Well, where I'd push back from you on that is that's not really what I would consider a trait. Okay. That's a that's a decision to learn and use a process, right? Right. Right.

27:58 But I think you're right in that if I'm just guessing on how I work my sale and whatever happens happens, I'm going to have a lot less success. And if I if I have a process in you and I teach a process level of selling. So good. Do you want to go to a different one? No, I've got my other ones kind of line up well with yours. Okay. All right. My fourth one is independent. Someone who's independent in both thought and action willing to strike out on their own. I think a good sales position is like owning your own business. Absolutely. Full commission, right? So the superior sales person will do whatever it takes to get the job done. They're not bounded by hours. They're not

28:43 bounded by resources. If they see something, they're going to go for it because it's the right thing to do. It's because something they want they want to get and they're going to do whatever it takes to get the job done. They see that value of the whole territory. They don't just say, Oh, okay, well, I'm going to work with the clients I have. They see this territory, whether it's a geographical territory or, you know, the types of business territory or whatever it is, they're going to see, I got to maximize the value I get out of that. And so many of people you and I have met that are not superior sales persons are satisfied with what they're getting out of the territory. So,

29:23 now the other thing is about independent doesn't mean they don't know how to take instructions. Matter of fact, the more independent people seem to be the ones looking for new ideas, new challenges, and willing to work within the bounds of the organization. So they're okay with the rules if the rules make sense. I find them to be extremely self-sufficient. And they want to be able to get the information to improve being self-sufficient. And I love what you talked about when it comes to territory. I learned this when I was a server at a coffee shop and it's cocos and I don't even think it's around anymore. But I'm sure some of our listeners would remember

29:59 that coffee shop. And I would come in and I would be assigned five tables. This is my territory. My goal was to turn my tables over as fast as possible with superior service to be able to expedite their meals so that they would leave and I would get somebody else down at my station and I would turn that table over. The more I turned that table over, the more money I made from tips, commissions, in reality. And that was managing my territory. And salespeople can adopt that same methodology, that same philosophy in doing that. And that's a belief. So, one of the most supportive beliefs believing that you are self-sufficient, believing that you can control the amount of commission

30:39 by managing your territory. The beliefs are going to impact our behavior, what we do and we don't do and that's why our beliefs are so important. Right. Yeah, I think about, you know, and it's a balancing act, isn't it? Because like with your tables, you didn't want to be throwing people out. No, prematurely, because there goes your tip. You know, hey, you've had enough. Let's hit the road, Jack. I need to clear this table out. But you're still giving them, you're trying to give them such good service that they stay yet knowing that they need to leave so you can get to that next person. So, and if they stay, I'm like, wow, it sounds like you guys are sticking around for dessert. Can I offer

31:14 some dessert? I'll bring a dessert menu by. Because I get a spiff on a dessert. They go, hey, we should probably get out of here because we don't want this guy selling us dessert. They charge twice as much for dessert as they did for the entree increases my commission. There you go. There you go. All right, my fifth one is growth oriented. And this kind of ties into your sales process, right? Yeah. You and I, we both taught a lot of salespeople over the past 30 years. And the always, almost always, the most eager one for more training is the best one. Exactly always. The most seasoned person who's, they've been through 100 different sales courses and they're like,

31:52 give me an idea I can use. Give me something I can use. And we just had that today, somebody said, man, it's just so good to get a breath of fresh air. And this person was one of the top sales persons. And everybody admired her. And she's saying, boy, just this is great information because I'm getting an idea I can use stuff I forgot to use. I used to use I forgot. Bad sales person says, I heard this all before. Right. And the good sales person says, I used to do this. I better start doing that again. Yeah. And when I did it before, it never worked. So that's why I'm not doing it again. Right. Right. You know, you got to make those choices. But, but you're

32:30 looking for that, that little edge, right? The slight edge, as they call it. Yeah. So your growth opportunity or growth oriented reflects mine with the unwavering attitude with an outlook of possibilities about going in to a conversation with an outlook of possibilities and not limitations. Right. And and sometimes we switch jobs or the company changes, the product changes, how we engage with our prospects change. And some of those effective sales techniques that we used to do are no longer applicable. We don't apply them. And then we get introduced to something that we heard and did in the past that was successful. I used to do that.

33:05 Why did I ever stop doing that? I don't know. But now I can see this as being very applicable because they have an outlook of possibilities. If I did this, I could get that. Yeah, I think that's great. That optimism. And that's my last one actually, is optimistic. I don't think you can last very long in sales as a pessimist. Right. Eor would not sit down and make 100 phone calls with the hope of connecting with five people to get one appointment. Right. Eor is going to say that one appointment isn't worth all that work. And I'm probably not going to even get one out of it. So the heck with it. Right. They quit before they start pessimists quit before they start.

33:40 They talked themselves out of doing the things that are that an optimistic person will do to get that little edge. Yeah. And I think a pessimist their ego could be damaged too easy by getting a no. So they quit before they get the no. And they believe they're right before they start. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I can't remember. Maybe it was in Carnegie or something and how to win friends. But they were talking about a guy who just was super knowledgeable, super smart.

34:12 And he was just kind of in it like a, you know, fry cook job. He was too smart to take those other stupid jobs. Yeah. Right. He talked himself out of success because he was so smart. Right. And I think that's kind of sometimes the what colleges seem. Let's get off on a college rant here. I haven't done that for a while. But what colleges are good at is teaching you all everything that could go wrong so that you are afraid to try. That's right. Go get that job. Go get the master's degree. Because then when you get the master's degree, then we'll teach you what's right. Yeah.

34:44 When what's right is to get your doctorate degree. Exactly. There we go. That's right. So if you don't get those advanced degrees, you're not very smart. That's right. All right. Well, so here's, I'll go over my five six, you go over your six and then we'll put up so persistent, personable thought provoking, independent, growth oriented and optimistic. And mine are supportive beliefs with controlled emotions, healthy relationship with money and budgets,

35:14 unwavering attitude with an outlook of possibilities, clear roles with consistent behaviors, knowledge of the sales process with effective techniques and goal focused with a passionate commitment. You can see how Scott and I think differently about. Yeah. But hopefully our listeners are taking something away from this that they can use based on the contrast of how we present and what we're focusing on to apply. And I'd be grateful if somebody said, I took your 12 and I came up with my six. So here are my six love to hear from them. All right.

35:48 Super. Okay. To share them on the air. We'll do that too. We'll do that. So the golden nugget for today is your commitments can develop you or destroy you. But either way, they will define you by pastor Rick Warren. I thought that was really good. And I think again, commitment is number one in my book. Yeah. I think that's so true that what we make a decision to do or not do, it's going to be our future. Right. Right. That's your every day. What's your day going to be like? What's your commitment to today? Are you going to get stuff done? Oh, and no decision is a decision. That's right.

36:21 And it's amazing the anxiety that happens during that indecision and the stress that we create when we don't make a decision. Just make a decision. So for all this information, go to winningitselling.com or show notes are there. This is episode six 29. Next week, we're going to have a guest, Kristi Jones. And her topic is the work to get to the top doesn't happen at work. Okay. She wins the award for longest title. And she does. So no book club two weeks, we're going to continue with more sales less time with Jill Conrad, we're going to cover part six, a chapters 29 30 and 31.

36:58 And our next book is new sales simplified by Mike Weinberg. And by the way, he wrote the forward for Kristi's book that she's going to be talking about next week. Well, that'd be cool. Please subscribe and share this podcast with your colleagues and on your social media networks. Go out and get better one skill at a time. Joyful selling.