Who Defines the Marketplace?

0:04 Thank you for joining us on the Winning It Selling podcast. I'm Bill Hellkamp with Reach Development Systems, and with me is Professor Scott Plum of the Minnesota Sales Institute. Remember your first day on the job, full of enthusiasm, optimism, and ambition. But over time, you start to become defeated and start to lose that initial drive. You start to make excuses and sell them up to leadership. Maintaining success requires a daily commitment to optimism, proactive beliefs, cleared objectives, and intentional behaviors.

0:35 Management must challenge excuses and encourage accountability. Your success happens by consistently filling your sales pipeline by opening more conversations every day. It's never too late to adopt effective sales habits, shifting your mindset to date, can reignite your passion and dramatically transform your sales results. Turn that frown upside down as Bill and I discuss who defines the marketplace and other creative concepts on Episode 662 of the Winning It Selling podcast.

1:03 I can remember starting a new job and mostly trying to find the bathroom. That was kind of my... Can I not look like an absolute idiot on day one? So talking about concerns and all those feelings, man, it's crazy how much our emotions drive what we're doing and controlling those emotions is so important. I'm looking forward to this conversation on who defines the marketplace. Before we get into that, the one thing by Gary Keller, we're going to talk about chapters 14 and 15.

1:36 These are part of Part 3 and Part 3 was defined as purpose, priority, then productivity. So we talked on chapter 13 about purpose and now we're going to talk about priority and productivity. Love it. Yeah, I like this chapter. I like the way he starts it out. I used to use this slide with the Cheshire Cat, where Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, tell me, please, which way are you going from here? He says, where are you going? And she says, I don't know.

2:07 He says, it doesn't matter which way you go then, does it? And I think that defines many people's lives, don't you Scott? I brought up that Sam King quote a few episodes ago, is where am I going and who will go with me? And if you ever get them confused, you're in trouble. And of course I'm lost, but I'm making good time. Exactly. It is a refrain. It was funny on every sale, but we make it up in quant. That's why I make it up in volume.

2:32 So I have a joke about that. I won't tell. Yeah. But anyway, okay. So, so it's all about goal setting for here for priority. So we live by priority. We need to set the goals and we need to set our goals from where we want to accomplish. Maybe it's five years. What's 10 years? It's that ultimate, that big, big goal. Right. And then we start to back it off because if we, if we don't, a couple of things don't happen. We never create urgency.

3:00 Right. But a goal that's five and 10 years away has absolutely no urgency built into it. And the reason that I tell my customers, okay, well, we'll get this. We'll get this report back to you by Friday or we'll get this proposal back to you. In a week, let's meet on Tuesday is the only way I get things done is to create a sense of urgency. And you do a great job of it too, Bill. Well, and you've started to adopt that because I have got tired of watching me do it.

3:31 So, right. Now here's a couple of things he says is we got to move that down to a right now goal. And what I like saying I like is do what lies immediately at hand. Okay. What can I see today that needs to get done? But, but his talk is make sure that thing that gets done today applies to what? The long term goal. The big long term goal, which he calls the one thing. Yeah. The one thing. Okay. Now he's going to emphasize this again because there's big ideas for priority.

4:04 I think are pretty close to the same ideas that he came up with for a purpose. And that is there can only be one. Right. Unless there's seven because there's you know, my health and my livelihood and my business in America. And you know, so, so be careful that you don't make too many goals because even though health is important and family's important, you talked about this, your, your faith. There's some things that have to be on autopilot.

4:32 Right. I can't because remember one of his things is energy isn't all in will call. What was it? He called it. Will power is not on will call. Right. You can't inject it when you don't have. Sometimes you can manufacture it. Deadlines help me manufacture that. Mm hmm. But if I have 17 things I'm trying to achieve while trying to diet. I'm trying to exercise more. Those take some conscious effort for me and those will take away will power from my one thing, which might be getting our podcast and selling more, doing more training.

5:12 Right. That might be my one thing. So, so even just thinking, okay, I'm not going to eat a lot of candy. That takes a move. But does. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a commitment to a decision. And I think sometimes we make a decision and we end up waffling on it. Well, let's say, let's say I want candy. Right. Now I'm thinking about it all the time. Right. Or I want, I want, you know, I'm hungry. Well, when you're hungry because you're dieting, now you're thinking about being hungry all the time.

5:43 Now that all that can go in your mind is all that food you want that you're not going to eat. So it's crazy. And we're recording this during Lent. So I think that has a little bit of an impact on our, the weather, the current weather right now going on. And right in the way of decisions that we make. That's right. And then the, you know, may will come and it'll be nice outside. And who wants to sit in their office writing?

6:05 You know, maybe I'm thinking April 20th is what I'm waiting for me. April 20th is when Lent's over with. That's right. If I could share the challenge that I had with this chapter is, and it's something that I've learned from you and been reinforced. Is, you know, there's the difference between urgent and important. And you and I have talked to companies about creating a sense of urgency. We've identified that making a commitment to developing a sales team is important.

6:34 And they end up saying, yes. However, they're all of a sudden becomes a new priority that supersedes that importance of developing a sales team. So now that priority gets all the attention. And it doesn't mean that the other stuff is not important. It's just that it's not important right now. We've got something that's more important called a priority. Well, now we have something that I see in this chapter. That's right.

6:59 And what we've seen, again, to play on that example a little bit. So we'll start working with the company. Their sales are down and they realize that they need to sell more and they want to engage us to help them do that. Kind of break out of the lethargy that they're doing, give them some new ideas. And then the senior manager will say, oh, big emergency. We got to go sell more. Yes. And so now instead of going ahead with the engagement, they put it off because they need to sell more.

7:31 But the very thing that would help them sell more is what they're putting off, but it doesn't look like it's going to help them right away. So they they say, well, let's put this off for three months. We had this happen for a client that they went into an uproar and we've got put off for three months. And fortunately, we got reengaged and everything went great. But what they needed was to get going and we were the get going.

7:54 But they thought the get going was going on doing more of what was failing already but would look justifiable to upper management. Right. And interesting that, you know, Dr. Steven Covey wrote about this in the seven habits of highly effective people. This is called sharpening the saw step, which was the last one, which sharpening the saw, you end up getting more effective sales people out in the market. You end up generating more revenue.

8:20 You create more enthusiasm and then that builds momentum because people feel like they're more productive. I mean, we've got one client right now that we've finished the reinforcement and now they're busier than they've ever been before. And I go, that's evidence of training, effective sales training is because you're busy after the reinforcement and love to hear about the success from that company. All right. Let's rock on this a little because we're getting behind it.

8:43 So, so there can only be one. So get yourself focused on the one big thing goal set to the now. We talked about that. And then one important thing and we know this is true. We've heard the solid lights write it down. Yeah, exactly. Write down your goals, write down your process, write down where you're trying to get those milestones. What's where you're going to be in a month? Where you're going to be in six months? Where you're going to be in a year?

9:04 Where you want to be in five years? Don't lay it down really clearly on paper. This is back. It says cast it in stone on tablets and put that goal out in front of you. What is it that you want? And I think that's really key. So, yeah, good advice. Chapter 15 live for productivity. Productive action transforms lives. I love that quote Scott. You talk about what making good. Making good time trades. You know, you're trading your time.

9:33 That's the only limited asset that you have that everybody has the same amount of. You got to make good time trades. Now, his this whole chapter, I thought it'd be about a lot more things, but it's about one thing. Time blocking. Yeah. Time blocking is all about time blocking, which you and I teach time blocking along with writing down the things you need to your task oriented list, but also putting that list in order of importance.

9:58 But he is a monster on time blocking. And he says you need to carve it out. And usually he says half your day should go to your one big thing. Absolutely. Make it an afterthought of 20% of your day or 10% of your day. That's the difference between being proactive and reactive. If you're time blocking, you're being proactive. You're saying that this is sacred time to me. I've got to commit to this because number one, it's important.

10:24 And number two, if I don't do it, it's going to create a greater sense of urgency. Because now I'm going to start to become desperate. I'm going to start to panic. Yeah. So if we just commit to what's important every single day, we're going to stay on track. We're not going to be able to have that increased stress level when we start getting behind and we start becoming desperate and everything becomes urgent. That's right.

10:42 That's right. And the challenge is, is that people are going to try to invade our time blocks. Especially if that time block is half a day. I like to block off an hour, hour and a half, and then take a break from that urgency and then take care of some things that have an urgency less important, not important. I like that he uses a kind of a military metaphor. He calls your your time block as a bunker. And he says, build your bunker.

11:10 So the first thing you do is you put those time blocks into your calendar as the first things. Well, actually, he says the family is the first thing, right? Okay. But then you build that bunker. Here's my time blocks. And I love that the story he tells, and I've heard the story before with Jerry Seinfeld about the pearls. You're trying to put a string of pearls together. However long you're going to work, you work it every day.

11:39 And you try to put those strings together that says, okay, I work for an hour on my big thing, my one thing. And I'm going to do that tomorrow and I'm going to do that the next day. And the longer you can string those dots together, the better. So build that bunker, store provisions. So, so when you're going to work for that hour, don't get yourself dissuaded or moved. Oh, I need some ice cream. Oh, I need a cup of coffee.

12:06 Oh, I need to stop doing this. All those are are are distractions. We cause ourselves because getting ourselves focused on that one thing is difficult to do. You've got to sit down and focus because because what we heard about it and and and you know sweep for minds. Don't dingers on your phone. No phone ringing. No distractions. Whatever your distractions are. Turn them off. Move them away. Get yourself focused. And then the fourth thing was to enlist support.

12:39 And that is you tell the people around you. Protect this time for me. So if you have assistance, you have other people you work with, protect that time. So I thought that was really a nice metaphor that he created. It is. I love it. I think a lot of people can envision how it would work in their mind. But yeah, and you said Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian came up with this string of pearls. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's news to me.

13:04 I'm sure some of our listeners like the Seinfeld show, he came up with something as wise as not on the show. Not on the show. All right. So he has his personal way. Somebody was asking him about how can I be a good comedian? He said, you got to write jokes every day. Yes. Right. Every day. And so that's what you have. It's not wasn't the TV shows. Him is a professional. Yeah. No, I can see where it would work. Yeah. Well, you have to write every day, even if they're bad jokes.

13:29 Yes. Even if they stink. Every day you sit down for whatever. I just read something about Stephen King. So I don't know if it was in this book or or something else, but Stephen King. Four hours in the morning. All new material writing afternoon. He says it's for naps and for answering correspondence, maybe fixing a thing or two here or there. And then evenings are for Red Sox games and time with the family. So he's got it well cut out into his four areas, but that four areas in the morning.

14:02 He doesn't let other things invade that, that four hours that he spent. So anyway, so connect the dots, time block your one thing and protect your time blocks at all costs are the big ideas on chapter 15. I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good advice. Easy to follow. It's, it's easy to follow, but we don't do it. No, that's fair. I think we want things to get in our way because doing the one big thing, that's difficult. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

14:33 It takes a lot of brain amps and energy. And I think sometimes we wanted to fluck that right and do something a little bit more enjoyable. So, um, great chapter. No next week, no book club. We're going to be having a guest so you can take a couple weeks to prepare for the next chapter. Our topic today is called who defines the marketplace. And that may kind of paint a picture in your mind going, what does that mean? So hopefully at the.

14:58 Yeah, I was thinking you were talking about advertising. Oh, yeah. Well, advertising can be, can be part of it if that works, but it's really our own perception of how we, how we as salespeople define the marketplace. So when we enter the marketplace, it's filled with challenges, adversity and opportunities. You know, does the momentum fade after we get a spell of defeat? And some cases it does is this a new reality that we're stepping into when we have a new opportunity or a new job.

15:28 So let's go over some of the things that prevent us from really maintaining that momentum and end up crushing our spirit so that we do not continue to sell. So this is from my book, taking off into the wind and I published it 10 years ago and the content is still relevantly true today. So this is seven ways. So the first one is think about remember your first day. You reflect on the enthusiasm and the unstoppable ambition that you have when you're starting a new role in a new company.

15:57 You know, do you still have that passion? If not, you know, what's changed? I remember when, when I got into business and I got my first day and everything was set up, I got my email, my website, my phone number and man, I was excited to go and take the world out. And, and all of a sudden you start running into this adversity and then you just, it's like a tractor pull where it just starts to weigh you down and you just kind of stop and you give up and you have to, where's this renewed spirit going to come from?

16:25 I mean, that's a conscious decision of how we're going to keep up when we deal with adversity. So Bill, do you have any secrets that you've had that you've used that, you know, when the spirit of adversity comes up, how do you defeat it? Well, you know, I'm a mean person and I'm not very good at, at New Age stuff. I was reading a post on LinkedIn by a mutual friend of ours and she was talking about the things that, that satisfy her or fill her up, you know, with, you know, a glass of bubbly or, you know, the long walk in the park or whatever that crap is and I, that get something done.

17:02 Yes. You know, usually our spirits get down because we're failing and a new appointment. And I know you're getting, we're doing some traction in the, in the franchising market and you've been doing some things and boy, you were you excited yesterday when I talked to you about some of the, the, the little traction you were getting. So get some traction out there. That'll overcome adversity. Very well. Get a new customer, get an appointment.

17:30 Uh, you know, make a few phone calls, all those things that are hard, those are the things that get you over adversity, getting you out of a slump, get, you know, if a batter's in a slump, sitting on his ass and having a beer is not going to get him out of that slump. Go on to the, to the batting cage and working on a couple of things, learning what might be wrong with your swing and getting a hit. All those things help you get out of a slump.

18:00 Going up and thinking about your slump isn't going to get you out of the slump. Thinking about the adversity and, and asking someone to tell you how wonderful you are today isn't going to get you out of a slump. Get some work done. Right. That'll get you out. And the reason you're in the slump is because you're not getting the, the, doing the right things at the right time. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I, I heard a great line from Les Brown many, many years ago and he said, if you do what's easy, life will be hard.

18:29 Mm hmm. Do what's hard. Life will be easy. And I've passed that on to my nieces and nephews. And it's really interesting to see when they apply it when they don't apply it. And I've, I learned that about 10 plus years ago. And I think about that every day, if you do, what's easy, life will be hard. Yeah. That's a good quote. That's true. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's really got something there. Yep. So number two is optimism is key.

18:56 Success requires a daily commitment to optimism, both before decision is made and after a decision is made. And I love the, the lion from Dennis Pregar when he defines optimism is optimism before decision is made is dwelling on a positive outcome. Optimism after a decision is made is concentrating on the benefits of that outcome. And to be able to look at the other things that you can do that may be better than the opportunity that you just lost.

19:24 Mm hmm. There's plenty of opportunities ahead that may give you a greater reward. So now you've got that time back. You didn't win that proposal. So now you've got time to go out and win other proposals. Is it possible you could win a bigger proposal? And now you've got more time to commit to that? Absolutely. So we have to be optimistic and be conscious of the negative thinking, especially blaming external factors like the economy can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.

19:49 Mm hmm. We keep blaming the economy, blaming the economy, blaming the economy. How many salespeople wanted to blame their results based on the pending election? And then all of a sudden the election is over with, the person gets installed as the president and now everybody's making a decision. Because now okay, we got some momentum going and you know. But then there'll be something else. Oh no. Well that was the wrong person who won the election and all this ghosting, oh there's hurt.

20:17 You know, there's people out there like my old man used to be, I love my dad, but he could find a cloud in any silver lining. Right? I mean he was an EOR and I have to fight against that. And the analogy I use is finding a parking spot, right? So you would think people who say, oh positive thinking will win it. Positive thinking means you'll always find that parking spot up right by the door. Right. That's not true. Yeah.

20:45 Positive thinking says no matter where you find this parking spot, you make a decision to like it. Mm hmm. Oh yeah, this is a great parking spot. I get to walk farther and exercise my legs, right? How do you envision whatever happened? Not how do you, it's not going to change the things that happen. It's going to help you to see the goodness in anything that happens. And that's what I think true optimism is about. And that's number three is really defining the marketplace.

21:14 So when you pick, oh I read ahead. Yeah, when you pick that parking spot, you're redefining how you feel about that parking spot. So I got three, three parts of this, this section is, is number one is the beliefs. Do you see opportunities or limitations? How many people do we know see limitations in everything versus opportunities and a challenge? Your attitude directly impacts your interaction and your sales outcomes.

21:41 There's no, and there's no carry over from appointment to appointment or call to call unless you are bringing it with you and sharing it with the next person that you talk to. How many people go, I'm really having a bad day. Well, you know, do you think your prospects are feeling the same way that you have a bad day because you're carrying that negative attitude to the next call and the next appointment and the next conversation that you have.

22:03 When I work with customer service people, the one thing I talk to them about is how do you talk about your customers at the water cooler? If you talk about them as if they're idiots and they're stupid and I had to help this stupid idiot with something, then that's going to carry over to the way you treat the next customer who's going to get angry because you're treating them like they're stupid. So it's what we say about people between the appointments, how we feel about that appointment and that's a carry over you you're talking about and that can kill your business.

22:37 Well, you can really internalize it in yourself and you can really define what your subconscious mind is going to remember and retain. And unfortunately, that subconscious mind has a tremendous power that you have and you know, you got to be careful what you tell it and how you think and how you act in order to really define it. So the first part of that is really defining your beliefs. Do you see opportunities or limitations?

23:01 Number two is what are your objectives? So sales people often sell excuses internally like within the company up the chain of command instead of making sales externally to prospects and customers. Avoiding, just work on really avoiding siding with your prospects excuses and offering unchallenged sympathy. I just came up with these two words together. Unchallenged sympathy is when a prospect starts making a lot of excuses, you start buying them, you start having the sympathy for them, but you're not challenging their excuses.

23:34 And you're saying, are you happy with this? Are you not happy with this? If it's going to change, who's going to change it? What are you going to do different tomorrow that you didn't do yesterday? That's going to give you the better result that you want that you don't currently have. Let me mention a linguistic challenge to you a little bit. Instead of talking about sympathy, talk about empathy. Empathy says, I can understand what you're coming from.

23:58 I don't agree with you necessarily. But when we're using sympathy, we're agreeing with them all poor you. That's so terrible. So focus on empathy, understanding, but not necessarily agreement. So that's how I like to think about it. Totally agree with you, Bill. I agree with you on that point. And let's call it unchallenged empathy then is we as salespeople are buying the excuses of the prospects. Then when we go back to the office, we sell those excuses up to management.

24:26 Okay. Well, who's selling who what? And what are we going to do to change it? Let's work on challenging our prospects for them to think differently and then always be conscious about how do we want them to feel about us when the experience is over with. And if we're challenging them, are we earning their respect? I would say if you do it right, you are earning their respect and prospects love buying from salespeople that they hold in high regard and they respect.

24:53 And that's the benefit of challenging the prospect with empathy. The third one is behavior. Are you proactive or reactive? This is boils right down to the time blocking. Are you proactive in time blocking? Are you reacting and letting everybody else control your time? You have resources. You have a phone. You have the internet. You have leads and use them intentionally to fill your sales pipeline. And really you have more than you think.

25:20 If you really did an accountability or an inventory of all of the assets that you have available at your disposal, you'd be surprised how many assets you have right now versus what you had a year ago or six months ago or when you first started the job. You have a lot more experience. You have a lot more resources. And I hope that you have a better network when it comes to that. Number four is shift your perspective. So change your beliefs, objectives and behaviors.

25:45 If you want better sales results, if you don't want better sales results, then keep doing the same thing over and over again. I think that's called vanity. That's right. They quote there somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's really important to reinforce the beliefs that you have that there's always a demand for your products and services. Someone truly wants to buy what you offer. It's your goal to go out and find them.

26:07 Well that's the problem with people who should are waiting for leads. Then the customer is directing what they get. Oh, well, this is, we're out of all this because people are buying it. Well, why don't you go look at the warehouse and see what we have. Go find some people that want that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So true. Number five is stop buying excuses. Leadership and management needs to stop accepting salespeople's excuses for poor performance.

26:32 The sales department is solely responsible for driving revenue. It's the engine that pulls the train. Absolutely. The sales department is nothing happens until somebody sells something. So salespeople must be reminded that their paycheck comes from the company revenues generated through their efforts on a daily basis. It's every single day we have opportunities to generate revenue. And sometimes when we write a day off too soon, it's costing us money in the future.

27:00 Yeah. And I think it's really up to management too to make sure that what the salespeople need you talked about resources, what are the resources they need to be able to do their job. But also what are the products that need to be produced? If we get behind on production and we've dealt with this with a number of clients, it is really demotivating to a sales team to not have everything. As somebody said, I'm looking down the list of what's not in stock and it's all read.

27:26 Yeah. And I cannot sell from an empty cart when my competition has the product. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So true. So sales happens through conversations, prioritizing consistently that you're opening conversations to reveal your pipeline. That's at your job. Every single day. Create. Create. And start with one and then increase it to do. If you can get up to three conversations that you start and sometimes it's mailing a letter or an email or a phone call and leaving a message, start a conversation.

28:00 Do at least three to five every single day. And ask yourself, do you love to win or do you hate to lose? You know, what are you motivated by? Do you love to win or do you hate to lose? And great performers hate losing more than they love winning. Well, that's talking about how do you get out of that slump? Right. How do you get yourself excited? Get a few conversations that you created that you created. Man, there's nothing that should fire a salesperson up more than knowing that they generated this out of nothingness.

28:30 Go out and create more opportunities and leverage the opportunities you create every single day. If you're in a rut, commit to your behavior, you'll be surprised how it changes your attitude. That's right. And number seven and a great way to close the start today. You know, there is no bad time to adopt good sales habits and habits are going to give you better results than motivation. So invest your time wisely and see the positive returns when you invest your time wisely.

28:56 So go out and start today. You don't have to wait for New Year's Day or the day after Labor Day to start a new habit. What a powerful marketing message. Do it now. Yeah. Nike, grab that and man, that is just so inspirational. Do it now. Do what you can do and you will feel more professional and focused. Sit around waiting for the phone to ring. Nobody won that way. And reinforcing the book, I think people will feel more productive.

29:22 Yeah. Well, that's what it's all about. You know, I used to deal with kids a lot in the theater and they said about me, well, if you did it right, if Mr. Health Camp tells you you did it right, man, you really did it right. You did it. And blowing smoke up kids skirts is not helpful. They know that you're full of crap and they got another, you know, participation award meant they lost. So go out there and win with these habits.

29:51 Scott has talked about. Get that traction and get something done. So that is excellent. Scott, what a great, what a great list of seven, seven behaviors. Thank you. Thank you. Your feedback is welcome folks from our listeners. All right. Our golden nugget today comes from Peter Drucker. Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing. Let's do the right thing the right way and get both effectiveness and efficiency.

30:19 Great definition of both words. Everything that we shared with you today has been a B at www.winningofselling.com. Look for the show notes there. And Scott is emphasizing the www because for some reason just putting winning at selling.com isn't working. We're working on it. It doesn't always load all the time. It's there. Next week, no book club because we have Pete Stee coming on and he's going to talk about how marketing can support sales and there's some, you know, some violent clashes that can happen there between marketing and sales.

30:48 To pick a safe word for the bait. I'm not complaining. Please subscribe and share the podcast with your colleagues and on your social media. This is episode 662. Go out and get better one skill at a time. Joyful selling.