Special Guest Steve Keating on Ethics in Selling

0:03 Thank you for joining us on the Winning and Selling Podcast. I'm Professor Scott Plum of the Minnesota Sales Institute and with me is Bill Hellkamp of Reach Development Systems. Hollywood has made clear their opinion of sales professionals. From the hard driver on Glen Gary Glen Ross to the dishonest philanderers of Tin Men to the spastic incompetence of Tommy Boy, people can't help but be influenced by these depictions.

0:27 But we must also recognize the part actual sales people play in swaying opinion. Each time a salesperson acts dishonestly, he or she contributes to the negative persona of our profession. Here's a chance to check your integrity. As Scott and I welcome sales and leadership expert Steve Keating to discuss ethics in selling on episode 651 of the Winning and Selling Podcast. This should be a great episode and I think our listeners are waiting to hear what we share. But before we get into the interview with Steve Keating, there's no book club today. So we're reading the book, The One Thing by Gary Keller. And we're going to be covering part 1's, intro and chapter 4. So stay tuned for that on our next episode.

1:16 So for more expert selling advice, let's listen to the sales tip from Anthony. Enjoy and learn from the Sales Tip from Anthony by Anthony Enorino, a highly respected international speaker, best selling author, entrepreneur and sales leader.

1:32 Hey, it's Anthony Enorino. There's something that I noticed that most sales organizations don't do. They go out and they look for insights. They do research. They do some reading. Those sort of things. Very, very important. I love that work. I enjoy doing it. I love that work. I enjoy doing it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I hope you do too. But I need to tell you something. Inside your four walls. Now, I know you're probably working at home. You're probably not in an office. But let's pretend like this sales organization has four walls around it. And we have all of our people inside those four walls.

2:03 Okay, you have all kinds of insights and you haven't mined them because nobody tells you to mine the insights that you already have inside your company. So if you could get a group of people together, let's say eight people and you're going to sit down for an hour and start talking about who knows what, what do we know about this industry? What causes people to change right now? Which of our competitors are catching up to us and what should we do about it? If you would sit down and just have this conversation about who already figured out how to get this done? Who figured out this strategy and how to make it work for big companies?

2:45 And if you would ask those questions and just say, what do we know that if we would all think about this and practice it, we would get better, faster, and we would win at a much greater rate. See me at dsalesblog.com or come out and say hello at LinkedIn. See you soon. I think I can sum it up in two words, tribal knowledge. I think that's something that we've encountered with a few clients lately, Bill, is there's a certain amount of tribal knowledge within the culture of the organization.

3:18 And if you don't mind it before the people are gone, you're in trouble. I think the other thing people don't do is they don't analyze wins and losses. Everything just keeps going by. It happened. We did good. It happened. We did bad. Why? I don't know. It's always somebody else's fault. It's never the fact that we didn't know how to sell on something. So anyway, let's get together with Steve. Steve and I have known each other for over 30 years. We met many years ago with the Dale Carnegie organization. Steve spent eight and a half years there. I was about six. And he was what he was there. And in past lives, he's been selling, writing, presenting, training, customer service, public speaking.

3:58 Then he started to focus on leadership and became a thought leader in the area of leadership. He's highly acclaimed. He's an in-demand presenter. He speaks hundreds of times a year on topics related to leadership. He's certified by sales and marketing executives international as a certified professional sales person, a certified sales executive, and a certified marketing executive. So Steve is certifiable. And his claim to fame is his lead today blog. He has over a million subscribers. So Steve, welcome back to the Winning and Selling Podcast. That's a long intro. You've done a lot of stuff.

4:34 Great to be back, Steve. That means I'm old, I'm currently. Yeah. It's a long intro. Good to be back. It really is. I enjoy you guys and looking forward to have a good conversation today. Yeah, I don't think we've talked about ethics before. We haven't. Yeah. So you're pretty eager to address this topic. What's got you all fired up on this? What's got you all fired up about it? Well, you know, here's the thing. I loved your opening, by the way, because this is what irritates me about selling is we need to keep in mind as we sell, that just because we would never lie to a customer doesn't mean that customer hasn't been lied to by a sales person.

5:12 In fact, sadly, most customers have been lied to by a sales person. And that happens for all kinds of reasons and we can get into those, but it irritates me because we have a lot of just incredibly professional sales people throughout every kind of industry in the United States. And the salespeople who hedge, who embellish, who they would never lie, but they embellish a bit, they exaggerated a little bit, they leave out some information, all of those kinds of salespeople negatively impact the rest of us who really do try to do it right in the best interest of our customers.

5:59 They do those things, I think, especially the hedging and the forgetting dimension something, like this thing doesn't really work that well. And they justify it as, well, you know, we really need to keep sales up or I wasn't that dishonest. I was only slightly dishonest. Well, I love the slightly dishonest part, you know, with all due respect to several of my friends who have written books on ethics. All I have to do is look at the title to know I would never read the book, you know, situational ethics, you know, a business ethics.

6:34 This is a challenge what I'm going to say because it's hard for all of us, but here's the reality of we're not ethical all the time, we're not ethical. Yeah, I think John Maxwell says there is no such thing as business ethics or selling ethics. There's ethics, either you're an ethical person or you're not. And we don't need to subdivide it and assume that I can do different things because I'm in sales. Yeah, when I interview a sales candidate and they tell me, well, I'm always ethical, you know, in business and I would never lie to a customer.

7:09 Okay, great. I'm glad to hear that. So tell me which group of people would you lie to? Let me see the person. Let me be honest with you. As the other things I said have been lies, right? Yeah, exactly. This is my time. I'm going to be honest with you. There's a car replaced in town called Honest One Car Repair. It's like, that's the first place I will not go. Well, you have to tell me that in your name. Yeah, I don't remember. I did a little work with the people at Psychology Today and they said, you know, the first thing you got to be hilarious.

7:42 And somebody says, you know, let me tell you honestly, right? The people that told you they were lie are the ones you should distrust the most. Yeah, I know. The average person, by the way, lies seven times a day. Oh my, well, I'm glad I'm above average. Yes indeed. Let me ask you a question. My children don't live with me. So I lie a lot less now. I have to pretend to, you know, do the right thing as much as I do. So Steve, I worked with some companies and in a sales meeting, I said one time to everybody and the owner of the company and the sales manager in the room.

8:17 And I asked the question to the sales team. I said, is withholding information lying? And boy, did they squirm in their seats. And the owner and the sales manager got to see this. And they quickly said, oh, yeah, that's lying. Okay, good answer. So Steve, is that lying or what are sales people thinking of when when they withhold information like that is they lie seven times a day is withholding information lying. So I think it was Mark Twain that said half a truth is often the greatest lie.

8:49 Yeah. And, and, and withholding information is half a truth. And it is almost always lying. Now here's maybe an exception. Okay. So you're building a piece of equipment and you sell that piece of equipment and there are, and you want to let the customer knows of the plus and minus is to their situation. And they say, well, you know, do you have any service issues with this? And it's like not currently. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

9:23 Yeah. Not since the last one blew up. Yeah. And, and it's like, but so what is your ethical obligation here? Do you need to show them every service bulletin since that product was released seven years ago? Not knowing that that those problems have been dealt with and they're permanently gone. Would it negatively impact your ability to sell the product if you shared all of that information? It probably would. So, but you're not required to share that because it doesn't exist anymore.

9:56 But when they say, you know, are there any challenges this product? Well, you know, yes, there are. As there are with every product on the market, there can be potential issues and things that go wrong. Let me tell you about some of the things that, you know, you may see with this and understand that if you're selling a physical product and our marketing guys used to get very nervous when I would say this. Here's the only thing I can guarantee you about our products.

10:21 It's going to break. Or later, it's going to break. Everybody's product does. Why you want to buy it from us is because we're going to take care of it for you. Guaranteed. We have 100% of the time stand behind our product and that's the answer to the customer. But if you willfully leave out information that is pertinent to that customer's buying decision, there's the real test. And we'll fully leave out information that is pertinent to their buying decision.

10:49 Information that would affect their yes or no, you've lied. I think when you use that example of, yes, this has had a history of hiccups that have been fixed and repaired. I think the fact that we go through that process to improve and improve and improve a product is actually a value. Instead of leaving these things, yeah, we had a few things happen early on and we found out what happened to them when it was out in the field and we got those items fixed.

11:18 We were doing a lot of things. We were doing a lot of things and we were doing a lot of things. We were doing a lot of things and we were doing a lot of things. We were doing a lot of things. I think the same as with people too. We've got products and we've got people. I think most of the listeners are offering a service. They're selling a service. And when the company defaults on the service and they break down on the promise that was given to a prospect from a sales person and it doesn't go well, I think that person probably that broke down on the promise process.

11:47 And the promise probably needs to be terminated, fired, asked to resign, leave the company and then that problem is fixed because that person is gone. Steve, is that a good example of a problem being fixed, but the person similar to a product in a recall? Well, yeah, absolutely. Here's the thing that we forget about. When we consider ethics in an organization, that entire organization is only as strong in the area of ethics as their weakest link.

12:13 If they have one person out there that is representing that company, they're also representing everyone who works in that company. And if they're out there lying and stating mis-truths or fabricating facts, they make the entire organization look bad. And you can try maybe some remedial things with that salesperson, but in all likelihood, if they've lied once, they'll lie again and they'll lie again and they'll lie to cover up the lie.

12:42 And the solution is most likely to relocate that individual to another company. They give you a real life situation and a challenge that a lot of business owners have when they have, let's say, five salespeople, they sell a service. One salesperson brings in 40% of the revenue and they're breaking integrity rules every single day and the owner of the company says, I can't get rid of them. That's 40% of my revenue. The other people make up the other 60%, which is not enough for me to survive.

13:09 I need that person because I need the dough. What is a sales manager or owner doing that situation? So here's my answer to that sales manager because I've been asked that question too, by in real life situations. And it's like, first of all, when you replace that salesperson, my short answer is a person needs to go. Because they're setting an example for the people who sell the 60%, for one. Okay, so it is not sustainable to have a cancer within your organization. They need to go.

13:41 But let's look at the numbers for a minute. You're going to hire somebody to take their place. Is your assumption that they're going to sell zero? No, that's what you're going to lose the 40%. Okay. You might lose in the short term, part of that 40%. But in the long run, you will maintain a much stronger reputation in the marketplace. You know, today, it's so, one of the reasons it's so dangerous for an organization to have even one unethical person is because of this deal called social media.

14:13 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People, customers who have been lied to are not going to say, well, Bob Jones from ABC company is a liar. Don't do business with him. That's not what they're going to say on social media. They're going to say, don't do business with ABC company because they are a bunch of liars. That's what they're going to say. And that's how it becomes so detrimental to an organization to have any weak links regarding ethics in your organization.

14:39 I think the other thing to look at is when you have that person who's doing 40% of your sales, most B2B companies that we work with have a limited, or a captured group of people that they can do business with. They can't do business with everybody. There's certain people that use their product and service. And when you get a reputation, that 40% isn't going to stay around very long when the system, when everybody knows, I've been lied to by Bob of ABC company.

15:10 And therefore, I'm going to do business elsewhere. You're going to lose that business eventually. His 40% is a short term game. It's not a long term process. It is. And, you know, honestly, you have to look at that sales manager, the general manager, the president. Did you just say, honestly? Yes. Did you say, honestly, like, what else have you been saying to us before? No, it's all true. That's all. It's all the gospel truth. This is the gospel truth.

15:37 There you go. But is that the kind of company you want to run for your sales people are out there lying? Really? I hope not. And frankly, if I got anything but absolutely not, I wouldn't work with that company either. So the feedback works both ways. What happens if you got a salesperson that has a very personal connection with everybody on their milk route, and they decide that, you know, they're going to leave the company or they get fired, then that sales person has all these personal relationships with everybody on the milk route, ends up turning all of those clients against the company saying, I can't work for that company because they're unethical.

16:15 Now, how does that salesperson that gets dismissed, you know, have an impact on the customer? So the one that has 40% of the revenue, that salesperson gets terminated, the 40% of revenue is there. Hopefully the retention is there, but you might have a salesperson that's working against the owner of the company too. How does that happen? So, you know, this is a touchy subject because there are certainly legal implications here because you can't call that salesperson a liar publicly.

16:42 Right. But, you know, what I've seen companies do that has been highly effective is to send out a letter saying, Hey, I just want to let you know your sales representative Bob is no longer with the organization. At ABC Company, we value ethics above all else and you'll be seeing a new representative first that we are confident will give you clear information, accurate information with your best interest in mind. We love your loyalty, we're loyal back, and we look forward to doing business with you for many years in the future.

17:23 Now, I've said a lot there that's given that customer good and for idea of maybe why Bob is gone, they can draw their own conclusion. Right, exactly. But the other thing that keep in mind is some of those customers have been doing business with Bob, despite the fact they know he was lying because he was easy to do business with. He cut him some maybe unethical deals, but, you know, many of those are going to be glad Bob is gone because they would like a better alternative.

17:54 They want your product, they want the service to provide, but it would like a better alternative to Bob. Is he going to take some of the business? Yes, in the short term. You can take it back, but you just can't go wrong removing that poison from your organization. Yeah, I really like that. Yeah, that's why I had challenged your scenario a little bit, Scott, because I don't think someone who is unethical is going to have that long term relationship with clients because he's being unethical or she's being unethical with all of those clients.

18:28 And over time, they're probably doing more damage than they are good with all of their little side deals and side hustles and whatever else they're doing. So they just don't have that long term. Right. Right. It takes somebody special to develop that over three, four years. And we did an episode on who are they working for. I remember. I mean, where's the ethics? Where's the loyalty? Is it to the customer? Is it to the company?

18:52 Is it to themselves? Where is it? I always believe that a salesperson gets nothing directly. It always comes through the company. And that's even when you're volunteering for an association. You get nothing directly. Everything comes through the association. The joy of working with people is what you get directly, you know, rewarded with. Yep. Yep. So let's say somebody follows all the rules. I carefully obey all the rules and you know, is that make me ethically right if I follow all the rules?

19:16 Well, it keeps you out of jail. Yeah. That's true. But I may not keep you out of hell. Okay. So here's a deal that, you know, there's a people who who follow the letter of the law. Yeah. The lead there being ethical and and and you know, laws are set by, you know, governments and municipalities and and and and that's great. You know, if you're in a public health company, you've got all these SEC stuff. That's that's great.

19:46 That's not ethics. Okay. Ethics is doing the right things at the right time for the right reasons. And it's a it sounds like a cliche, but here's the deal. So you're doing everything legally right and you're really good about that. What did you do yesterday that you wouldn't want your mom to find out about? Right. Yeah. What are you hiding? Yeah. Because if you if there's if there's, you know, if you ever said that somebody, well, let's just keep this between you and me.

20:16 Okay. Thanks. Somewhere inside of you, you know that that's at least a potential ethical issue. And if you think that it's likely an ethical issue, it almost certainly is. So, you know, you can keep yourself out of jail, but can you can you literally honestly say, I've got nothing to hide. I don't worry about anybody knowing anything I'm doing. Anybody could follow me around and see the actions I take the commitments I make.

20:47 And I would be fine with them publishing that anywhere in the world. Right. That's that's the ethical part. And, you know, when we when we begin to shade the truth a little bit or, as you mentioned earlier, leave some information out. We have to hope that the customer doesn't find out or the other side of it. Our sales manager doesn't find out. You know, you have an ethical challenge. That's a that's a liability. Yeah.

21:17 Last session, Scott was talking about hiring looking for different personalities to hire. And one of the challenges I've had is that over aggressive money, you know, is the most important thing type of sales person. They seem to me that personality seems to cut that ethical edge a lot. What would you say we should look for if we're if we're hiring or be careful of when we're hiring to not find that person who might have that ethical problem.

21:46 One of my favorite questions, one of the things that I will do for companies is I will be part of the interview process. And particularly when they're looking for a sales leadership position. And one of the my favorite questions to ask is when you're when you're hiring for a sales position, what are the strongest characteristics you're looking for in a sales person. And, you know, they I you get to all the normal stuff.

22:07 You know, well, I want, I want, you know, aggressiveness and I want proactiveness and I want product knowledge and I want the ability to ask for the order. And then I'll follow up with, well, where does honesty and integrity fit into your picture. Oh, well, it's number one. And it's like, great, why didn't you say that? Right. Because I will tell you that it'd been your organization that honesty and integrity is an afterthought.

22:34 It needs to be a top of mind. It needs to be right up first thing out here that you're thinking about. And if it's somewhere buried in the mix, you may just turn to blind eye to some of the ethical challenges. It has to be right up front. And, you know, people will always say, well, yeah, of course it's number one. You should have said that. Why wasn't it top of mind? And that tells me a lot about, you know, what they're willing to sacrifice to make a sale.

23:07 And those are short term wins. If you've sacrificed your ethics to make a sale, that's a, you may feel really good. The mission check may look better. That is a short term victory because it's going to come back to bite you eventually. Yeah. Yeah. One of the challenges, I think, is the rest of the sales team knows when sales management is turning a blind eye, the bad behavior. Yep. And they're supporting that bad behavior in the rest of the organization by doing that.

23:41 Yeah, they are. They absolutely are. You know, when you, you know, a lot of companies talk about ethics. They have ethics training for their people and say, you know, you can't do this. And they have these anonymous lines, maybe anonymous, they call in a report, you know, violations. Right. And then nothing happens. And you know that they're not serious about it. It's easy to say we're ethical. Right. Behaving. 100% of the time in an ethical fashion is a huge challenge for all of us.

24:18 But the top salespeople who sustain their success year over year over year over year are the most ethical salespeople out there. You, you know, manipulative salespeople, salespeople that will regularly try to hide, you know, behind misinformation or whatever. They're unethical salespeople. They don't last. They burn out emotionally. They switch jobs frequently. They just don't make a great living in sales. They can make a living, but they're never going to be a champion salesperson.

24:56 Here's one of the things that I see when I'm interviewing a salesperson on behalf of a client is if they do not have a LinkedIn profile or they've got three connections on their LinkedIn profile, something be wrong in that situation because they're not making a public commitment to their profession their network, the companies that they represent, and they're not building a career. They're running low and they're sneaking and hiding and they're hoping nobody finds out about them.

25:20 Well, you know, people can make comments on your LinkedIn profile. They can say things about you. And so the best way if you're going to be unethical, you do need to hide. You know what I mean? I'm on my fourth LinkedIn profile. So, you know, I got to keep me certain. Yeah. Yeah. Been on LinkedIn for 13 minutes now. And I don't have a picture up yet. I love the ones without a picture. Right. Yeah. Well, that's becoming a bit of an issue with CEOs going to knock off in big cities.

25:47 So nobody wants to know what they look like anymore. I don't think it's an epidemic yet with one example. Right. Right. No, not yet. But I think very good at closing the barn door after we've after the challenges. Yeah. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Oh, by the way, shooting a CEO, that's unethical. I just want to make that clear. It's illegal. It's illegal too. Yes. It is both of those things, but it was rather shocking to see the number of people that wanted to justify it.

26:14 Yes. Just to buy it. And it's really to some people, the guy was hopefully to women, but he was hot. So I, I gave him a minute. It's like really? Oh, the murderer. Yeah. It's cute. Yeah. But, you know, that, but that, but that is a great example of how we can justify things that clearly are unethical or even illegal. If it, if it suits our own viewpoint or if we've been wronged by somebody, you know, a guy steals from their company.

26:46 Well, the company is a bunch of crooks anyways. Right. I deserve those paper clips. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. But by the way, I think what we're stealing now is time from our companies. Oh boy. I think this whole work at home thing and you talk to people and they're like, yeah, I took the dog for a walk and I took care of the kids and I did some errands and then I came back and I had the little bit of work and yeah. Oh yeah.

27:10 But I work later. I worked till, you know, 615. Yeah. So that, that accounts for the four hours I left. Well, you're six percent, six percent of government workers in Washington DC are actually showing up for their, their office. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently there's some people are going to try to fix that. But yeah. Well, we'll, we'll wait and see. Yeah. We'll wait and see. But companies are trying to fix it too because they realize that that's what's happening.

27:35 But I would tell you that, that people who largely work from home that used to work in the office are mostly fooling themselves into thinking they're just as productive. Even though they've lost the whole collaborative part of working in an office. But that's what, that's what we do. That's, that's where we get, go down the wrong track ethically is, and this is human nature. I think we're all really good at fooling ourselves.

28:03 If, if, if it suits some particular benefit to us, if we get to something, we'll tell ourselves, well, that's not so bad. I mean, and here's my favorite. Everybody's doing it. Right. Yeah. Well, I think the biggest mistake that a lot of the gen, whatever's are making with this idea that I can work remotely all the time is they forget they're working for baby boomers. Yeah. Who like to see people and have conversations and they make hiring and promotion decisions based on who they trust and who they trust is who they know.

28:37 And I've never, I've never seen you. You're just a functionary. You're not a leader if I've never seen you. You're just somebody that's out there. So we're, we're making a big mistake in, and maybe that they feel that's unethical. I work really hard. It's the reality of life that who I see is who I'm going to promote. It's interesting. I've done a lot of work in the area of demographics. And as we look at the boomer norms, if you will, when you look at Gen X and Gen Z and, and as they age, their behaviors become much more boomer like, you know, Carvana was invented for, for Gen Z that doesn't want to interact with salespeople.

29:21 I can buy a car out of an idiot machine. I don't have to talk to anybody. But as they get older, the research is showing us that they, they need a relationship to trust someone. They, they, you know, they, they behave much more like a boomer as they, as they age. And those personal relationships that they need, imagine figuring that out when you're 45. I need personal relationships. Yeah. And so, I think that's the way that we're working in the office and you walk in one day and they're like, who the hell are you?

29:55 You're, you're, you're behind the eight ball. It is the research is showing us now we've had work from home long enough. They're not being promoted as often as people who work in the office that have those relationships. They're not. This is key. They're not trusted as much as the people who are working in the office because the people are working in the office. And that's a separate ethical issue entirely. Yeah. And they know that because when they were at home, they were screwing around.

30:23 And now they're back in the office. They're getting more. I don't think you need to be there all the time. But I do think there's a lot to collaboration. I think there's a lot that we miss if we make the decision that I can just work in this, this vacuum of getting my job done. I think it's a mistake. And I think it's easier to be unethical. So to take this back to our when I only have myself to hold myself accountable to, it's easy to rationalize my behavior that missing that hour to walk my dog or take the kids to whatever is okay.

30:55 So here's the thing about ethics is we all do better with accountability. Even if you're the sole proprietor, a company, I tell sole proprietors all the time, you need to get yourself a board of directors, people who will tell you the truth, who will help hold you accountable to standards and business practices and ethics that will make you a stronger organization, hope you grow your business. Everyone does better with accountability.

31:27 And because we can look in the mirror and say, that wasn't so bad, we need to have somebody in our life or in our organization and say, yes, it was. I think Scott would agree with me that if we weren't working together on this podcast, we would not have 251 consecutive shows. We would have spotty. It happened. It didn't happen. I haven't done it for two months. I'll get back to it when I get back to it. But just to have a partner holds me accountable.

31:57 I know. And I think it's holds Scott accountable to a lot more done together because of that unset accountability. I'm going to get this piece done. I'll get it to you by Wednesday. But it's just me. It's the night before. So that accountability has a lot to do with our ethical behavior. There's no question about it. When we know we can't hide, our behavior is different. It's just it. Right. Yeah. As we wrap up, Steve, and I've asked this question before, so you may not be surprised.

32:26 You may be surprised to hear it again, but Steve's often surprised by things. I am. I always ask a guess. You know, what book or person has had the greatest impact on your professional or personal life? Anything that really kind of you remember frequently or think about often? You know, I had a salesperson. His name was Tom. And he worked. He worked as a graduate assistant in some of the Del Carnegie sales courses. And he was arguably the best sales person ever to walk on the face of the earth.

32:59 And he sold life insurance and he sold literally billions of dollars worth of life insurance. And you would ask him for advice and you would get some seemingly bizarre advice from him. And he was a person once he had a customer. He never lost a customer. Wow. And he constantly talked about honing your craft, always learning more. He talked about the vital, he called it a vital need for ethics and selling. And one of the greatest pieces of advice I think I heard from him was if you want to be more ethical, learn more about your product, the competitive product, and your customers.

33:51 Learn exactly what your product can and can't do. Learn exactly what the competitive product can and can't do. Learn exactly what your company will support the customers and exactly what the customer needs. The more information you have, the more ethical you can be. The less temptation that there is. That's great. Can this product do that? Absolutely. It'll do that. Because it's a lot of sale. It sounds like having a mock trial, Steve.

34:21 Everybody together, pros and cons, play it up defensive. Let's get into the conference room and who's the judge? Well, I think one of the things we don't know enough about is our competitors' product. We think we know, but we don't really have the information. So we get bits and pieces from our clients. Well, Steve, this has been great. Thank you so much for spending the time with us. If you want to learn more about Steve, Steve Keating.me.

34:46 It's a great place to go. We'll have that linked on our show page. And then also Anthony Anne-Arino at the salesblog.com. So our quote of the day is integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching by CS Lewis. And I really love that quote because that's what I always think about when I'm training in a server, when I was working at a coffee shop is I always wanted to do the right thing ethically like somebody was watching and we'll learn the shortcuts later.

35:13 You know one thing about that quote, Scott? What's that? Salespeople forget that they're always watching themselves. Yeah, exactly. You know the conscience. The conscience. Yeah, so true. So true. All right. Thanks again, Steve. It's been great having him. Great communication. Great feedback. All right. Listen, for all the information, go to winning at selling.com. The links to Steve's page are there and this is episode 651.

35:39 So next week we're going to be covering uncovering the prospects expectations. And our book club again, part one, chapter four of the one thing by Gary Keller. So please subscribe and share this podcast with your friends and your colleagues on social media. Go out and get better one skill at a time. Joyful selling.