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In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill uses a word for the first time in a long time, I share a post office slash Starbucks story, and we dip into the Covideo mailbag to save a burning listener.
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Welcome back to the longest-running sales training podcast in the universe, the Advanced Selling Podcast, here every week, created exclusively for your own sales success.
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How was that?
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You were searching for it, weren t you?
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I was all over it.
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I m Brian Neal.
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I m Bill Kaskin.
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We re here every week.
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Like we say, those of you who listen all the time know that I just jacked up that intro, kind of trying to do it off the top of my head.
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And if you re new, welcome.
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I m glad you found us.
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We have a big LinkedIn group.
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Go to LinkedIn and search for the Advanced Selling Podcast group and talk to all your friends there.
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And if you drive around, which most of you do, and you need something to listen to around, you listen to the podcast, that s good.
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You should also go by the product All In.
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It will really, really help you.
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And actually, our guy s going to talk about it.
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I ll leave it there, shall we?
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I like the term stumbled across.
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Did I say that?
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No, no.
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But one of our other voicemails did.
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I stumbled across your podcast.
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Oh, that s right.
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I always like that.
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I always like that metaphor of stumbling across something.
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You re like walking along and all of a sudden you re like, whoops.
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Because usually it s a negative thing, right?
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I stumbled across.
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Whoops.
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Well, I had a couple of things that I thought you might like.
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Yeah, please.
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You know, I really like to observe marketers and how they position their products, because you re in the consulting and coaching business, as am I, and it s important how someone thinks about their product.
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And you hear taglines a lot in the media, you know, these taglines that mean nothing.
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Right.
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We re, you know, we re better than everybody else, or, you know, living for you, or, you know.
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I love the, I love the banks taglines, a lot of banks, like, we want to help you grow your business, and I know you don t.
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Save time, save money.
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But I like two, I heard two the other day that I really liked.
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Under Armour, Stephen Curry.
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Do you know what his tagline is?
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Always in range.
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Isn t that awesome?
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True, too, isn t it?
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Now, Steph is a NBA basketball player, and that is not too far from the truth.
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He shoots from 30, 35 feet, but always in range.
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I love that.
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Wow, that s good.
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And then I heard one for the US military.
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Your best friend, your worst enemy.
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Oh, isn t that great?
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Don t you love in the process of these people sitting around, are they smoking pot?
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What are they doing?
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I don t know, but I came up with that.
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That s fantastic.
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I love this.
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You know, we have a friend in stamps.com, right?
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I had a real interesting LinkedIn post that I saw that was kind of clever and funny.
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I thought there from a friend of mine in Florida who put this up.
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He was on his normal caffeine run for the day.
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And he said, a little bit ironic, made me laugh.
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As I waited for my beverage at a Starbucks, which often takes a little while, potentially, there was a US Postal Service employee in full uniform getting very, very impatient about how long it was taking to get his order.
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He said, while I was empathetic to his extended wait, I found it pretty darn funny.
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The USPS is not really known for its expediency or customer service.
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Do we do that, get upset with other service, but don t look in the mirror at our own customer service?
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That s good.
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Do we look at stamps.com?
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Stamps.com saves you time, saves you money.
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Stamps.com brings all the services of the U.S.
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Postal Service right to your fingertips.
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Buy and print official U.S.
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postage for any letter, any package, any class of mail, any time.
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Stamps.com makes it easy.
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They ll send you a digital scale, automatically calculates exact postage.
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Stamps.com even helps you decide the best class of mail for your needs.
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We use stamps.com at the Advanced Selling Podcast, and you should too.
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Right now, you can enjoy stamps.com service with a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus postage and a digital skull with no long-term commitments.
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No long-term commitments.
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Go to stamps.com.
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Click on the microphone at the top of the home page.
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Type in advanced selling.
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That s stamps.com.
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Enter advanced selling.
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Stamps.com.
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Never go to the post office again.
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OK, it s mailbag time again.
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And we know our mailbag is now the Co-Video Mailbag.
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If you re a regular listener, you heard us last time talk about our friends at Co-Video.
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Great way to stand out, a way to send little videos of you to personalize your emails.
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And they, our good friends over there, have decided to be the sponsor of our mailbag, the Co-Video Mailbag now.
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If you d like to check it out, if you want to stand out, you use email.
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Go to advancedsellingpodcast.com slash covideo.
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It s C-O-V-I-D-E-O.
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Check it out.
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They ve got a special offer just for podcast listeners.
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And this is one of the products that we talk about on the podcast that every salesperson should check out.
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It s really, really cool and can really help you differentiate yourself.
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Mailbag time.
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All right, let s go.
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Hey, Bill and Brian.
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Brady from RTP North Carolina here.
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Thanks so much for taking my question, my burning question.
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And thanks for what you guys have done with the podcast.
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I ve been listening for years.
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Love this stuff.
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Can t wait for Monday to get some more material to consume.
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And then I m ticked off for another seven days until it comes around again.
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Anyhow, seriously, thanks for that.
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And thanks for the all-in program as well.
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I will make a shameless plug.
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If anyone on this podcast listening right now has not bought it,
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buy it.
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It s less than a hundred bucks.
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It s like go without coffee for 20 days if you need to and you can buy the program.
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It will set you up for success.
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It ll set you up for better discussions.
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You ll be a better consultant to your customers in general.
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My question is this.
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I m 30 years old.
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I m selling in the cancer research space.
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I have pretty much crushed it quarter over quarter for years and now this quarter I m getting crickets from my customers.
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and we re about a month into the quarter now.
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I have coins essentially in my revenue bucket, my funnel that s been packed with 60 to 75% opportunities that all had a lot of momentum, have kind of screeched to a halt for some reason or another.
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My question is this, do I just need to reset my confidence, my attitude of abundance that was overflowing before this has passed away and now I m shriveled up and selling scared?
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Please help.
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I think his $100 budget for 20 days is about right.
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It really is.
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For me, it s about $4 to $5 each.
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20 days, that s a lot of tanks.
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About 20 days.
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I ve got a special arrangement though with my home Starbucks.
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What is that?
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I get these drinks.
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They re usually $6 drinks, but it s the same ingredients used in another drink for about half the price.
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So anyway, I have a special deal.
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They charge me $3.
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Don t tell anyone.
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No, they re very good about it.
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Unfortunately, when there s a new person at the desk, I ve got to retrain them.
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You do.
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You have to tell them, don t you?
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So I ve got a little handout.
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I ve got a little laminated card that says, OK, here s how this works.
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The whole Starbucks order.
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Yeah, Brady, you were very articulate in how you described the problem, and I can tell that you re in pain a little bit, but I can also tell you re a good dude and everything s gonna work out.
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That s all I got.
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Interesting, we don t really know exactly what Brady does.
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He says he sells... You think he was holding something back?
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Oh, just a little bit.
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Maybe it was just the time he was trying to get a good, efficient plug in there.
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I m not really sure, but... Thanks for the plug, by the way.
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Yeah, it was very nice of him, the all-in plug.
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We didn t pay him for that either, did we?
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That was very nice.
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Yeah.
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Now that I said that, he s gonna go, hey, fellas, by the way, I need a little commission, a little kickback.
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Speaking of coins... Kickback, yeah, because he s got nothing in the funnel.
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Whoopsie-daisy.
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Okay, you got a couple things?
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I have three, two and a half things.
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You re probably going to steal one of them from me, though, because that s usually the way it happens.
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So let s go.
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You go first.
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Yeah, let s start.
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You go first.
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Yeah, the first thing is, one quarter probably is not long enough for me to start to get nervous.
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It could have been.
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I don t know how long the sales cycle is.
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If the sales cycle is a one-year cycle, then you have to look at, well, what was I doing a year ago to prospect and put people in?
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But I can tell he s a very ambitious young man.
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probably gets a little flustered when things don t go according to plan.
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I don t get too hung up on one quarter unless those quarters start to pile up on each other.
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And now you have a theme.
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But I still don t know that you have a problem.
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You just have a theme.
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And this is just information from the marketplace.
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And so you have to keep asking yourself, what was I doing?
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Again, if it s a six-month cycle, what was I doing six months ago that s causing me to have this problem?
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That s interesting.
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That s a great thing to look back.
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That is kind of like two right there to look back.
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Because too often we forget.
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One of the dangers of success in sales is you stop prospecting, right?
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You just don t.
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Even if it s internal prospecting at existing customers, you re riding the wave, implementing all that jazz.
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You re busy.
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Kind of our last email from a couple weeks ago.
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How did this happen?
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I don t know.
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That s really good.
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This is one thing, this is more of a philosophical thing, First Brady, is just embrace the natural breathing of what goes on.
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The economy breathes, we breathe, the seasons breathe, everything breathes in the world, and you just have to let this move in and out.
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We get so caught up sometimes in the constant climb, the business you have to demand, go, demand, go, nothing goes up linearly.
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Nothing ever in the world goes up linearly.
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Even if it has for him, it may have for him, but at some point it relaxes and comes back and that gives you a chance.
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a chance to catch your breath and maybe try something else.
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Yes.
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Our friend Dave Catalano, who s really, really smart with math things, used to say, it s a natural thing that we always go, he called it reversion to the mean.
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That s what it s called, reversion to the mean.
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So you ve got a mean line.
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You re going up and down around it.
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So this is natural.
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This is going to happen.
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It s breathing for you, breathing for your customers, breathing for your territory, too.
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Speaking of breathing.
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Easier way to say it.
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Yeah.
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It s not speaking for your territory.
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Well, that s good.
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I had one here that was, let s assume that this piles up a couple quarters and let s assume that you re calling us back here and saying, yeah, great information, but it didn t do me any good.
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Now it s in August and I m still struggling.
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I think when the market changes, you have to change.
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And how many times have we heard, Brian, people who say, I used to generate all my leads cold calling, and that doesn t work anymore.
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I m not getting to the right people.
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I can t even get people on the phone.
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Nobody answers the phone.
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Nobody calls me back.
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So you ve got to change.
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If the market no longer loves cold calling, which I don t know if it ever did, but at some point you could get through, you ve got to change your approach and strategy.
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So that might be something, Brady, that you start to think about is, OK, let s assume that what I did in the last four or five years stopped working or has stopped working as well.
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You ve got to figure out a new way to peel the onion and to carve it out.
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And maybe there s something right in front of you that this
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breathing space here allows you a chance to think about, there could be even better.
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Sometimes these little setbacks are just, it requires you to think differently, and when you do, better things happen.
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Yeah, they re typically gifts.
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Things like that, this to me, are gifts.
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Like, okay, I ve got no choice but to do something different now.
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So tell your manager, look, I look at this as a gift.
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Absolutely.
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And he ll say, get out.
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He ll say, yeah, hit the eject button, here s your gift.
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Yeah, go ahead and hand me your car keys and your computer, and we ll walk you on out.
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There s your gift.
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Happy Friday.
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No, they won t do that to you, Brady.
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Don t worry.
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Okay, there s a book that I really like called Necessary Endings by Henry Cloud, Dr. Henry Cloud, and it s kind of half personal, half business.
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Really, really good applicable book, Necessary Endings.
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He talks about a concept in there called pruning.
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pruning, and that is kind of cutting back clutter and cutting back things in your life, looking at relationships and kind of moving things out.
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I think you should think about this concept.
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It s kind of happening to you, and I think you need to look at the concept of pruning.
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And what that might look like is you ve done a certain thing a certain way, and you ve got to cut back on that sort of thing.
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Also, the book itself, in its title, you hear what it s about, Necessary Endings, some things have to come to an end.
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Some of your clients that paid you for years and years and years, they ve changed, and it s time to be done with them.
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And then once that s happened, you will go find new ones.
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All right?
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So take a look at that book, Necessary Endings by Henry Cloud.
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It gets you OK with this.
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It gets you OK with things will come to an end.
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The great rise will come to an end, as it has in your case, and it will pick back up.
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It s natural.
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And I just thought of one more, so it brings me up to four.
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And we haven t stolen anyone.
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No, we haven t.
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It could be, and Brady, you don t sound like the kind of guy who would be afflicted by this, but here s what I find.
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Sometimes when we are in growth mode, we re very careful about how we re doing things.
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As we get more successful, we become a little arrogant.
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And we become arrogant on the process we start to feel like well We know we know better because we ve done it for seven years and these people are all idiots And I m the guy that s I m the guy that s got the awesome solution I know you don t say that nor probably do you think it but sometimes that can sneak up on you, too And maybe you re not
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Positioning yourself just the same as you were a year ago.
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Maybe your questions are not as heartfelt Maybe you re not as curious as you once was as you once was as you once were Because you know, I mean it s it s what what did Dan and Chip Heath called it the curse of knowledge We called it that a curse of knowledge.
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We get it from them.
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I think we got it from I think they got it from us
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The curse of knowledge is, I know better, and so why would I ask all these questions of my prospects?
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I know exactly what they need before they do.
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And so you got to just be careful and just check out to see if that s happened unknown to you, unbeknownst to you.
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I haven t used the word unbeknownst in a couple weeks.
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Is it a real, it s proper usage?
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It s probably some kind of British thing.
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So anyway, that would be my final, final answer on that.
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And now I m going to switch my final answer and I m going to say go rent Rocky IV.
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Okay.
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Do you rent movies that I m showing my age?
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You probably just get it on Netflix, right?
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Is it Rocky IV when he went and fought in Russia?
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I don t know.
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Anyway, there s the Rocky where he goes out in Siberia and trains.
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He goes and he got famous and big, and he had all these nice gyms, all this money, and Apollo Creed had all this money.
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He s changing, and he went back to the street.
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He got hungry again in the street, because that s where Rocky does his best, right?
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He got a little soft.
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So maybe it s Rocky III.
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I m screwing this all up.
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I think it s Rocky III.
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No, but the idea, regardless.
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Brady, you get back to hungry.
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Get back to the street, get back to hungry.
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When you started this gig, Brady, you were hungry.
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And then you got fed, and now you re not hungry anymore.
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Now you ve gone from hungry to desperate.
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Get hungry is different than desperate, right?
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Get hungry, not desperate.
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Brady, what he s saying is you re fat, dumb, and happy, and desperate all at the same time.
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Hey, Betterment is a goal-based investment service which aims to give customers higher returns at a lower cost through the use of long-term, data-driven investing strategies and a tech-focused user experience.
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Investing involves risk.
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Advanced selling podcast listeners can get one month managed free.
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For more information, visit betterment.com slash advanced betterment.
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Investing made better.
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Check that tool out too.
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That s at betterment.com slash retirement.
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So that brings us to another conclusion of the Advanced Selling Podcast.
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That was a good question.
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Really good question.
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We love the mailbags.
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If you have not sent us a, or even if you have, record your voice memo, send it to listener at advancedsellingpodcast.com and we ll let you know too when it s on.
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So when you gather the family around.
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to listen to the Advanced Selling Podcast, you won t be shocked to hear your voice all of a sudden.
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Because I know that can happen to families.
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It s a really good thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
Wait a minute, is this why you had me around?
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SPEAKER_01
Because you re going to be on?
1
SPEAKER_01
You think you re some kind of star or something?
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SPEAKER_01
Wait, Dad, is this the Covideo mailbag you re looking at?
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SPEAKER_01
Why listen to this?
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SPEAKER_01
So thanks for listening.
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Once again, you can go to advancedsellingpodcast.com to catch up on all back episodes.
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Also, there s the Ultimate Pre-Game, which is a complimentary audio program to help you get ready for a call.
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And as Brian said earlier, the product is called All In.
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It covers from scoop to nuts.
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Is it scoop?
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Scoop to nuts.
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It s soup to nuts.
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Is it soup to nuts?
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It is.
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And I don t know the root of that thing.
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Soup to nuts.
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We ll Google it.
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All right.
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See you next time.
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Bye.