Don't Be a Sales Jerk

0:04 Thank you for joining us on the Winning and Selling Podcasts. I'm Professor Scott Plum of the Minnesota Sales Institute. And with me is Bill Hellkamp of Restive Element Systems. We've all met a creepy sales person. Someone who, after our conversation, makes us feel like taking a shower. They're slimy and dishonest. Self-interest oozes from every poor and every statement is taken with caution. They don't need to check or sport code at gold chains. They advertise their insincerity with their opening handshake.

0:33 We hope this isn't you. But even the littlest move in this direction is to be avoided. Be ready for a time of self-reflection that Scott and I discussed. Don't be a sales jerk. And other pesky propositions on episode 658 of the Winning and Selling Podcasts. You paint quite a picture on that intro, Bill. I almost want to take a break in a shower. Because I can imagine what that's like for some people that meet those salespeople.

1:03 And I've met them before and I get the same reaction. We're already kind of on edge. Is this person going to try to push me? Are they going to? They're already a little defensive and then they come across that way. Boy, do the walls go up. They do. They really, really do. And it starts to become a battle, a conflict. And it's no value is exchanged when you're in that kind of mindset. But before we get into that topic, we're going to talk about the book.

1:31 We're doing the one thing with Gary Keller. We're in chapter 10, which is in part two. So we're about halfway through the book right now. We're clipping along, but a pretty good pace. And the part two opens up with the truth. The simple path, the productivity. And the line out of the chapter or this, the opening is, I began my career assuming everything mattered equally. And we've talked about clients that kind of don't do any ranking.

1:55 They think every customer is important as long as they're writing a check. They're the most important customer in the company. And that's true to a certain extent, but we need to be able to prioritize when necessary. And know in our lives that not all values are equal at the same time. And one thing that I really got out of this opening part before we got into chapter 10 is that prioritization, we decide what values carry the most weight at the time.

2:23 And if we don't have prioritization, then all values are the same. And that's not true. There are certain values carry more weight than others at a certain time. Well, I remember I worked with when I was early in my career, I worked in advertising. And I worked for a boss and there were three junior people, me and two others, a lady and a guy. I don't remember her name. But I remember a meeting that we were in and Bob was the boss and Bob gave her more another assignment.

2:50 She said, Bob, I just can't do anymore. He said, OK, I was just waiting for you to tell me. Oh, yeah. And so probably two or three assignments before that she should have told him I'm maxed out. I can't do it more. But I think this is this feeling that we have to do everything. Everything has to be done. And you and I are solopreneurs. And so we really fall into that trap easily because we're hesitant to pay someone to do something they could do faster.

3:19 And better. Right. Right. And that's one of the challenges that I totally relate to that, Bill. And I remember reading the book, Think and Grow Rich, and we have not done the book on the podcast because it's such a popular book. And there's so many mastermind groups that do the book, which is why we haven't done it. But there's a chapter in that book called Specialized Knowledge. And when you concentrate on being really, really good at something, you are hired because of your specialized knowledge.

3:46 And because of that specialized knowledge, you have enough income to be able to pay people to take care of the things that you don't want to do or that you're not good at. Right. I get into, you know, I used to do technical support before Windows came out for a software company. And I just get me to a C prompt and I'll solve the problem. Right now, I can't figure out how to do some things just in simple software that has a user interface that makes it easy for me to do things.

4:11 I don't know how to do it. And then they have to get creative because we have to change our software all the time. Oh, God. Even though I've used it for years and this worked and now that prompt isn't there anymore. Right. Right. Now, somebody had to get creative. Change all the videos that are on YouTube as to how to use the program with the user interface. And it's only six weeks old. We've already changed the video on how to use it.

4:33 All right. So we're getting off topic. All right. All right. So it talks about really. There's a nice rant for everybody. Yeah. Okay. I'm trying to change the image of people's mind of that sleazy salesperson. But he talks about it in this section that really kind of caught my attention is my drive, my commitment put me in the hospital. I returned from being in the hospital back to work with a chilled out matter wearing t shirts and jeans at work and I started doing less and really dealing with that burnout.

5:01 And I think we really need to build prioritize what's most important in our lives. And he says that we overthink we over plan. We overanalyze our careers, our businesses and our lives. And we need to focus on that doing a handful of things really, really well. And then he gets into chapter 10, which is the focusing question. So the whole book is built on this question is what's the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary.

5:29 And there was a little bit of a talk in the domino effect to chapter 10. The one thing I can do that can cause other things to start doing that. Yeah. Yeah. And create kind of a ripple effect or kind of a cascading effect or building effect so that other things become easier or unnecessary. I like what John Maxwell says about this. And that is what are the two or three things that I do that no one else in the company can do?

5:56 Mm hmm. What are my unique contributions? And for him, it's writing, thinking and speaking. Yeah. Yeah. And he doesn't, he says, I don't do coaching. Not good at it. It's not my thing. I don't enjoy it. So he doesn't do it, even though he's very knowledgeable. Right. So you have to sometimes take things out. You've got to eliminate. And his question here, what's the one thing I can do or the one or two things? It's not the, you know, it's not always the one thing.

6:22 That's what his book title is. Right. There's a handful of things, you know, for us prospecting. Yeah. Yeah. Right. If we don't do prospecting, even if we like it, don't like it, whatever camp we have to find time for it. Cause no one is going to come running to our door going, Oh, Scott and Bill, we love you so much. We must do business with you. That is nice. Even though all of the sales 2.0 people said that the web will just have people running to your door if you're on enough social media platform.

6:51 Yeah. I don't remember sales trainers talking about just go out and blog, just go out and blog. And you know, people will come running to your door. No, it just doesn't happen that way. That's a mark. There's a million six blogs out there. How many how many podcasts are there out there, Scott? There's over 3 million 3.3 million podcasts. And gratefully, we're in the top 1%. So it puts us into the top 300,000. We're coming up on our five year anniversary too.

7:17 In a couple of weeks. So we're looking forward to that conversation with Mike Weinberg. And because of that, it overlaps with a story about your creating pots and throwing clay or dust clay and just doing as many as you can, you start to become really, really good. And I think that's what cold calling is. You can become great at cold calling in about a week. If you just make 50 up on calls a week a day. Well, you're better.

7:43 Yeah, exactly. You just start to learn how to adapt accordingly. And you refine it as best you can. But in the chapter, he broke down this, what's the one thing I can do? So there's three parts to this statement. What's the one thing I can do? And I think that there's a difference between can and will. What's the one thing I will do? That's commitment. What's the one thing I can do? That's ability. So sometimes we have the ability, but we don't have the commitment.

8:13 And I really think that this is a leading question because the last part of the question is more of a lagging question. So if we concentrate on the leading, it makes it a lot easier for the lagging to come together. So what's the one thing that I can do and concentrate on doing that and everything else is going to fall into place afterwards? Right. The rest of the question is such that by doing it, now we're talking about intention and we're talking about action.

8:41 And we have to ask ourselves, what is the specific purpose of doing this such that by doing it, what is it? What is it for? And when we start to align our intentions with our actions and our motivations and our desired outcome, now we become emotionally committed into it. So our intentions start representing the purpose. And then the last part of the question, such that everything else is easier or unnecessary. So this is the lagging question.

9:14 And I think this is where we really leverage the action. And I think in leveraging, and they talked about this in the book, leveraging is very similar to, we had Mike Weinberg on a year and a half ago, and his philosophy is create advance and close. And we just keep hearing that create advance and close. And I kind of evolved into the line, create opportunities, new opportunities and leverage the opportunities that you create.

9:43 And if you just concentrate on those two areas, you've got the leading and the lagging questions being answered and your focus is on those activities and those goals. I want to close this section with a story that I had the honor of working with a guy named Brent Baskfield. He was the vice president of Northwest Orient Airlines back in the day. And when that airline was sold to Delta, he got a very nice package and he raised two boys.

10:09 And when he was at Northwest Orient Airlines, he had a couple other roles in flight services and ground support. And he had to travel every single year to every station that Delta had or Northwest Orient had in the world. And he was gone a lot. And he raised two boys to become very, very successful. And one of the sons was at a point in his career where he was getting a promotion. And he was going to get a very sizable salary increase and a bonus and it was going to require a lot more work.

10:40 And he talked to his dad and he said, Dad, I've got this great opportunity and I don't know what to do. And it's going to require me to be away from home. And I got three kids and my wife Lisa. And I'm just really kind of worried about how this is going to have an impact on the family. This is a very emotional story for me because it has so much meaning. And Brent turned to his son and he said, Son, I had the opportunity to make the same choice that you did.

11:07 And I took it. And I got an advancement in the promotion when I worked at the airlines. And I was gone a lot. I was not here during all of the basketball games and the baseball games and everything that you were involved in that was really important in your life. And I wasn't able to see that. And I got to ask you, son, did I make the right choice? Was I a good father because I was not here? And the son turned to him and said, Of course, Dad, you're a great father.

11:34 He said, Oh son, I'm so happy to hear you say that because it was a challenge that I had to make. And what I wanted to overcompensate on that is the trips that we went on and that we could make the memories flying around the world and being on those trips. So before you answer that question, you need to talk to one person and that's your wife, your wife Lisa. And you need to talk to her about this obligation and the expectations and how you're not going to be around as much, but it's going to provide a great life for you.

12:02 If you look at the outcome and you leverage that and you cause that to be part of the motivation. And the father, when he shared that with me, Brent shared that with me, he was emotional because he knew that he made the right decision on focusing his time on what was most valuable. And he raised two great kids. And we need to be able to have the conversation with the person that's most important in our life about some of the goals that we want to make.

12:27 And when we have that and we do that, we have that person in our corner supporting us when times are tough and there's challenges that arise. And that's the one thing that I got out of this chapter 10 is you have to concentrate on what's the most important. It's called the focusing question and you need to involve the people in your life that are going to give you the greatest support and encouragement when you have the greatest challenges.

12:48 So I really enjoyed this chapter and it reminded me of that story and thanks everybody for listening for it. Yeah, good. All right. Well, that is an important chapter and so often we spend all of our lives all racing around what they call it, chasing shiny objects. Yeah, yeah, right. Instead of making good solid decisions. So anyway, that's great. Well, some of these some of these people that make bad decisions are sales jerks.

13:13 Yes. We want to talk a little bit about because a bad decision is to make a sale no matter what the cost. Right. Right. Be that kind of a person. So, so I don't think it's any surprise that sales the sales profession rates pretty low in popularity polls. Mostly, I think it's an issue of trust Scott. Mm hmm. I think the only professions lower our politicians and community organizers. It's true. And you know, there's some pretty obvious reasons for this lack of trust.

13:45 Mm hmm. As we mentioned sales at any cost or as we talked about, you know, this feeling that they're going to try and push me into some of this something but. Perhaps the biggest one of all is that all of us, even those of us in sales have run into a real jerk, a real sales jerk in our life. Sometimes you've ever run into a bad sales versus Scott? I have. And I just I look at them and I call them report busters because they try to work so hard to sell something.

14:12 They know that report is important, but they really do a poor job at building trust and report in the beginning and causes everybody to be suspicious of everything they say. Well, I remember one. I was, Kath and I were looking to redo our kitchen and we went to one of these nice home stores and we said, we're looking to get a refrigerator. He said, you're redoing the whole kitchen? Yeah, we want a whole package all. He said, well, let me show you this, this refrigerator.

14:37 It's got a computer in it and it's really fancy. And my wife said, I don't want a computer in my refrigerator. He says, but you really don't understand what it's good for. And he started getting, she said, I don't want something in my refrigerator that I don't want use. I got to change my computer every two years. I changed my refrigerator every 10. Well, you got to really, you don't really understand what this computer will.

14:58 And we turned around and walked away. Yeah. Yeah. Because he didn't listen to her three times. Mm. Say, I don't want a computer in my refrigerator. I don't care how fancy it is. I don't care if it'll keep track of all the food I bring in and out. I don't want it. That's part of sales jerky. So we wanted to go into a few, give you some pieces of advice. I think we have seven on how to avoid being a sales jerk. So here we go.

15:25 Yeah. Yeah. Stop talking so much. I think too many salespeople are hired because they're good talkers. You heard that before. I have. I think I'm done. This guy really, boy, he can really talk. Mm. He's a smoozer. He's a smoozer. Yeah. Well, I think I blame the company sometimes. And that is you're forced to spend the first three months of your tenure learning about product knowledge. Yeah. So I will spend all this time learning and I get in front of a customer.

15:55 What do I want to do? Just out all over them. Yeah. Just whether it matters or not. That's right. So I live by the motto selling isn't telling. It's about asking good questions. And by the way, if you have a company pitch, throw it away. Yes. Yes. It's forcing you to talk. Right. And what is it? What do you talk about your company pitch, Scott? Oh, anything. How long they've been around? What they specialize in that maybe has no value to the prospect that mean he could go on.

16:30 My favorite one is we're in we're an international company. We have offices in Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Hong Kong. And I'm a little Charlie Schmoo's ball over here who has an office in Minneapolis. Right. And what do I think when you tell me that? Do I think they're so big? This is going to be great. Right. I think they're so big, I will get lost in this multinational company. And how much is it costing me to support their Buenos Aires office?

16:57 Exactly. That I don't do so. So the company pitch just forces you to Yammer on. What do you do instead? Prepare and ask challenging questions. You've heard that from us before. Yes. Exactly. The questions are so stop talking so much. That's number one. And asking the questions and this is something that was in the book and I didn't bring it up. But when you start asking questions, people start learning more. And as much as 150% more, they start to engage when you start asking the challenging questions.

17:30 I think Leholz said I never learned anything talking. Exactly. And you said a lot of great things and simple but very profound. So number two is respect the prospects time and concerns. And I think that it's really important to create a reason and an agenda to be able to start the conversation, confirm how much time you have. So when we scheduled the call, we decided that we're going to commit an hour. That's still the case.

17:56 Yes. Great. So you can manage your time, create the agenda so that you can manage the expectations on both sides. And you need to be able to have a reason not to pitch somebody because you don't know what they're talking about or what's most important to them until you start having a conversation with them. I hate the word pitch. Tell me a pitch. What's your pitch? Picking me. Yeah. We did an episode on the 12 questions.

18:22 I can't remember what what episode it is. And I'll put a link in the show notes on that. I think we had 10 questions at the time. We've kind of evolved the 12. But one of them is, what are the expectations you have of me between now and when we end up having the commencement or the closing or the execution or the completion and really having that goal of expectations. Just like my friend Brent, when he took that job and he talked to his son about taking that job, what are the expectations on the family when it comes to the time and the concerns and the goals of the family.

18:53 So that's number two. I don't expect the prospects time and concerns. And I think asking good questions shows that you respect their time. I'm not here to tell you anything. I mean, what am I going to tell you? I don't know anything yet. And that takes us to number three to have a sales process that provides value. The sales process isn't there to close them no matter what. It's not there to push them into something. It's there to help the prospect make a quality decision.

19:24 That decision you'll find out isn't you. Right. Right. And you're happy that it's not you too. Yeah. Well, work with the misfit. Well, that's right. Sometimes if we push ourselves into a situation, you say we work with a misfit, we work with somebody that we're not going to really provide value for. We're going to be in trouble this whole process. So, but I don't think a lot of sales people know where they're going. Right.

19:50 I think they come in and their sales process is, let me show them my pitch. And then when they say, well, they'll stop me and say, I must have that. And then I close the contract on them. But I don't think I don't think that's how it goes. And whatever your process is, it should align with the customer's buying process. Align or lead. Because I think sometimes too often sales people start following a buying process and not leading on the sales process.

20:20 Well, we're always leading because we're moving them, but it has to, it can't be out of alignment with where they need to go. I can't say, oh no, we're going to skip talking to your boss. Because that's not part of my sales process. So it has to align in that way. Right. But still we're always leading because we know where we're going. Their sales process is more intrinsic. I kind of know what I have to do, but they don't necessarily have it mapped out.

20:45 You should have your sales process mapped out. And I think you then know when to close. Right. If you know where you are, right? Everything has aligned. The customer is almost begging you to sign the contract and you're ready to go. Yeah. I think a great exercise and I've used this many times. I call it the map of the mall. You go up to the directory. You are here. You want to go, I want to go to that store over there.

21:09 So I got to walk in this direction. I need to go up or down a floor or two and I will get there. Right. And I read a book in the 90s, many, many years ago called Fire in the Belly. It's written by Sam Keene. And the whole book is written about two questions. Number one is where am I going? Number two is who will go with me? And he says in the opening chapter, if you ever get those questions in the wrong order, you're doomed.

21:33 And I see salespeople doing that. And I see that they will go with me. But I have no idea where I'm going. And we take them out of journey that they don't want to go and we don't know where we're going. I'm lost, but I'm making good time. Yeah. Okay. Good gas violence. Well, I've lost. Right. All right. So number three is have a sales process that provides value. Right. Right. Number four is don't start closing before you determine the solution.

21:59 Remember we did the book, the challenger sale. One of the lines on the challenger sale was lead to the solution, not with it. And you do this really well, Bill, when you're talking with somebody and you know the answer. I mean, if you ever had sat in a therapist chair in the office of a therapist, the therapist knows your problem within the first five minutes of you talking. They take the next 45 minutes, convincing you that they understand your problem or your challenge or what you want, that you haven't realized.

22:30 Right. And they convince you to adopt a solution that you come up with. Well, fabulous. So as a salesperson, don't lead to the solution, lead them with, don't lead with the solution, lead them to it. Right. And also, I think it's important to consider more than one outcome. Too often we get focused on one outcome and there's more possibilities. There could be referral. There could be a sale in the future. There could be a better answer.

22:59 You know, having that conversation. So finding out what's most valuable in the solution is really in that conversation. Mm hmm. Yeah. I think that, you know, we've learned we've seen the Glen Gary Glen Ross, all of you closing in. Yeah. What are you closing? What are you closing on? You don't know anything yet. Right. What do you always be closed? Hey, you want to buy? I want to buy what? I don't even know what you're doing.

23:21 Right. How much is it? We haven't even determined what we're talking about yet. That's right. Yeah. Well, how much is this going to cost? I have no idea. I'm not sure. We don't know what the process is. Somewhere between 2000 and 150. You know, is that bearing down for you? We can say a quarter. It's going to cost you a quarter to a million dollars. That's atrocious. No, here's the price is going to be less. But the cost is 250,000.

23:47 If you don't make a change today, it's going to increase. So I, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with having a few closes. But you're not, that's when the prospect is a little confused, hesitating. You may use a trick or two that you have up your sleeve. But that's not the, that's not where you start. You don't start with the clothes until you have a solution that's worth talking about. Right. Right. That they want to buy too.

24:16 That's right. Yeah. So number four is don't start closing before you determine the solution. All right. Number five. Don't be a know it all. Again, you've been spending all your time on product knowledge and you're, you shoved down your throat and here's, you got to talk about, I got to tell you, show you this computer in this, in this refrigerator. Cause I know about it. Right. You know, you want to be an expert, but you don't want to be the smartest person in the room.

24:43 I want the customer, the prospect to feel as if they're the smartest person in the room. And, and I want to nudge them gently as you talked about in defining that solution for themselves. Right. One of the, one of the tools that I use is, is getting them to talk about the pro, the proposal as their project. Right. Not as my project that I'm presenting them to. And that leads me to one more thing I, I talk about Scott and that is saving your solution.

25:11 Yeah. Yeah. Um, we've had a lot of traction on this in our, in our conversations in our, in our training. And that is don't barf out your solution. The first time you meet with somebody. Mm hmm. Oh yeah. I've heard about this before. Let me tell you what we're going to do. All you do is devalue that solution and make that person feel stupid. Right. So it's so obvious. He or she sat down with me for five minutes and, and they know how to solve it already.

25:39 I must be a complete idiot. Right. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. So don't be a know it all. Yeah. Yeah. Number six is don't drop the ball. So we need to be able to follow up. I always said, and this was back in the day, if you're going to mail it out and you don't follow up, throw it in the trash. Uh, it's, it's going to have the same impact. If, if we don't follow up on when we mail a proposal or brochure or, you know, information out back in the nineties, I'm talking about.

26:06 We never mail a proposal. We don't do that anymore. We, we, we, well, we email it, but we schedule a meeting and go through it together. Right. And, and like you said, it's our proposal. It's our way of working together and we're creating a scenario that they've shared with us in, in, in the light of accenting the areas that we're able to solve. So we create the situation in the proposal, then we create the solution in the proposal.

26:35 And then when they find the solution that sticks to the challenge or goal that they want to accomplish, that's value, but we need to be able to guide them through the conversation and, know what expectations are of us so that we can follow through on those commitments. And, and I will say that this is where salespeople determine their reputation. And I think every salesperson hopefully wants to build a positive reputation.

26:59 And I believe that salespeople can create their own supply and demand. And the demand is their reputation with their customers, with their prospect, with their network. And, and the supply is their time. Right. The demand is their reputation, the supply is their time. There is just so much time that a salesperson has to solve a problem. If you have a reputation of being in high demand, then you're going to have qualified prospects that are willing to pay your rate because the supply time is low or equal to everybody.

27:29 Well, that goes back to ranking your customers. Right. I don't have time to deal with somebody who doesn't make me any profit and is the biggest pain in the rear end of all my customers. And that usually, quite often those two things go together. Why am I wasting my time with this person when we're not making any money off of them anyway? We're making up in volume. And we're making time and gas mileage going to the right.

27:51 Right. So number six is don't drop the ball. And seven, build the relationship on trust and honesty. You want to figure out how to be trustful and honest? Look at all numbers one through six. All those things are going to build your reputation as honesty. Those are all necessary. Everything you do like embellishing, non-disclosure, talking on the edge of truth. You know what those are, Scott? What? They're lies. Yes, that's right.

28:19 You can call them anything you want. But they're dishonest. They're going to hurt this sale. I don't think I heard any future sales because you're going to get the reputation. You talked about reputation management. Well, Bill didn't really treat me right. Bill didn't give me an honest answer. Bill kind of hid this from me. That's the one we see the most. Right. Non-disclosure of facts. You do those things and you're going to hurt your reputation and eventually you're going to have to find a whole new line of work because most of the interesting things, Scott, most of these companies that we deal with, they say, wow, we deal with the same people over

29:00 and over. They just keep changing companies. Yes. It's a small world that we deal with. So be careful because you hurt your reputation in that world and you may be done for. Right. I think sometimes salespeople can round up or round down and the real number is not a bad number. They can exaggerate some things and when we over exaggerate, then we start to lose some traction with the customer and the prospect. Then I always like to honor somebody when they're sharing a story that I was involved with and they're repeating it accurately.

29:33 And they don't exaggerate and they don't lie and I say, you are a faithful historian because remembering it accurately and you're sharing it with me today accurately so you're a faithful historian to the truth. And that's a great rule to follow. All right. Let me just summarize these real quick. Stop talking so much. Number one, number two, respect the prospect's time and concerns. Number three, have a sales process that provides value.

29:58 Number four, don't start closing before you determine the solution. Number five, don't be a know it all. Six, don't drop the ball. And seven, build the relationship on trust and honesty. So those are our seven suggestions to not be a sales jerk. And we're interested with some of you are experiencing when you're working as a customer or a consumer with a salesperson that is not practicing these things. So what is your eight, nine and 10?

30:26 So go to the show notes, go to the website winningitsselling.com and tell us what you think are some of the sales jerk activities and behaviors that you've seen or some of the ones that you've corrected but are not on the list. That's right. Our goal in Naga today is train people well enough so that they can leave. Treat them well enough so that they don't want to. Nice. And it's by sure Richard Branson. Sure, sure. Sir Richard Branson.

30:59 And it really talks about how sales training should empower and not just instruct. And I think good leadership trains people for them to be able to be free and to be able to do other things but keeps the people that are able to advance within an organization. And I always say if as a sales leader, sales manager, if I'm not bringing value to my sales team that anybody in my sales team can have my job and they can be the leader.

31:25 So I have to be one step ahead of them at all times. I like a similar quote the sales manager is talking to the the training manager is talking to the president. He says we need to train these people. He said what if we train them and they leave? He says what if we don't train them and they stay? Yes, exactly. So you know when you don't train your people and they stay how many how many people hide under their desk basically to avoid a riff.

31:47 Oh, a reduction in forage. Can I get away with this one more year, right? Wow. Crazy. That was a six fifty eight and next week's got we're going to be talking about the top

32:02 five negotiating skills for sales people. This is going to be one of those third real third rail topics between don't I because we have different opinions on negotiating and I hope that you'll tune in and listen to that one as well. Our book club we're going to be doing the one thing with Gary Keller. We're going to be doing chapters 11 and 12. So please subscribe and share this podcast with your colleagues on your social media network.

32:25 Go out and get better one skill at a time. Joyful selling.