0
SPEAKER_03
Where do we start this?
0
SPEAKER_03
An answer doesn t matter.
0
SPEAKER_03
We re having a good time.
0
SPEAKER_00
He couldn t wait to get in here.
0
SPEAKER_03
You need sales balls to make sales calls.
0
SPEAKER_03
I m tweeting that puppy.
0
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
0
SPEAKER_03
Welcome to the Sell or Die podcast.
0
SPEAKER_03
We re your hosts, Jeffrey.
0
SPEAKER_03
And Jen Gittimer.
0
SPEAKER_03
I m the author of The Little Red Book of Selling and 15 other best-selling books and the creator of the seven-figure sales formula program.
0
SPEAKER_03
I grew up in Philadelphia, sold in New York City, but was smart enough to move to Charlotte, North Carolina.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I m the author of Sales in the New York Minute and creator of Breakthrough Business Babe Community.
0
SPEAKER_01
Fun fact, I m obsessed with our dogs and consider them humans.
0
SPEAKER_01
If you have a dog, you know exactly what I m talking about.
0
SPEAKER_03
SellerDai is for sales professionals, sales people, sales managers, entrepreneurs, and business owners who want to sell more at full price
0
SPEAKER_03
earn loyalty, and have an unlimited stream of referrals.
0
SPEAKER_01
Every single episode is going to give you real-world, easy-to-implement solutions so that you can get your calls returned, your proposals read and acted on, all while creating relationships that you can take all the way to the bank.
0
SPEAKER_03
It s time to sell or die.
0
SPEAKER_03
Many of you know that our friend Mark Eaton passed away suddenly from a bicycle accident, and we wanted to share our love for him by rebroadcasting our podcast episode that we did about a year and a half ago.
0
SPEAKER_01
Before we get into the episode, I just want to say a few words about Mark because he was truly a remarkable person who achieved unbelievableness, for lack of a better word, at anything and everything he did, from playing basketball to speaking to writing.
0
SPEAKER_01
And to just being a friend and a person of value and of heart, he had just the biggest heart I ve ever seen.
0
SPEAKER_03
Standing seven feet, four inches tall, it s hard to miss Mark Eden when he walks down the street.
0
SPEAKER_03
But what you see on the outside has very little to do with
0
SPEAKER_03
what he s like on the inside.
0
SPEAKER_03
He was our friend, but he was a giving soul.
0
SPEAKER_03
He was a gentle giant, giving every chance he could give, being kind to everyone that he possibly could be kind to, and making certain that everyone left him feeling better than when they first met him.
0
SPEAKER_03
Please listen carefully to the words and the wisdom of the late, great Mark Eaton.
0
SPEAKER_02
I was in the airport the other day in Houston and this lady, I was changing planes and this lady walks up next to me and she just takes a few steps and she just looks at me and she says, how tall are you?
0
SPEAKER_02
And I keep walking, I say, I m 7 4 .
0
SPEAKER_02
She ponders that for a moment, she says, I hope you did something with that height.
0
SPEAKER_02
And I said, I did.
0
SPEAKER_02
And we kept walking.
0
SPEAKER_03
That s cool though.
0
SPEAKER_03
That s a beautiful piece of Americana.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
Where do we start this?
0
SPEAKER_03
An answer doesn t matter.
0
SPEAKER_03
We re having a good time.
0
SPEAKER_00
He couldn t wait to get in here.
0
SPEAKER_03
You need sales balls to make sales calls.
0
SPEAKER_03
I m tweeting that puppy.
0
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
0
SPEAKER_03
Hi everybody.
0
SPEAKER_03
Welcome to Sell or Die.
0
SPEAKER_03
My name is Jeffrey Gittimer.
0
SPEAKER_03
You may know me as the author of The Little Red Book of Selling, and I m joined today by the lovely, the talented, the amazing... Jen Glockhouse, founder and CEO of Sales in a New York Minute.
0
SPEAKER_03
And we re about to talk to you today about some amazing happenings in the world of sales.
0
SPEAKER_03
But we have a guest today that is, I don t know, not only off the chart, but bumps his head on the door jam when he walks into any door.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, he is.
0
SPEAKER_01
Pretty amazing.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
Nice guy, professional athlete, the great Mark Eaton, who at 7 feet 4 inches tall, played for the Utah Jazz for a little bit more than a decade, made the All-Star team, set some records, and has been a friend for a long time.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
Before we get into it, Jeffrey, I want to talk today about sales teams because sales managers often- I don t want to talk about sales teams.
0
SPEAKER_03
You talk on your own.
0
SPEAKER_01
All right, fine.
0
SPEAKER_01
See ya.
0
SPEAKER_03
Sales teams- See, that s how sales teams are.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but sales managers often refer to their sales force as my sales team.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right.
0
SPEAKER_01
They use the word team as if they re a team.
0
SPEAKER_03
Well, they re trying to be nice and inclusive.
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh, well, they actually want to think, or they re trying to think that they re a team.
0
SPEAKER_03
Right.
0
SPEAKER_01
But salespeople don t think they re on a team most of the time.
0
SPEAKER_03
Well, not only not think it, Jennifer, they don t want to be on the team.
0
SPEAKER_03
They want the guy next to them to die so they can have his leads or his book of business.
0
SPEAKER_03
And they go up to his boss and go, if Bob dies, can I have his book of business?
0
SPEAKER_01
But here s the thing, if I m selling something in New York City and you re selling something in Utah and we work for the same company and we don t have the same territories, why shouldn t we be on a team?
0
SPEAKER_03
Well, we can be on a sort of a team.
0
SPEAKER_03
We can come to a meeting and we can both give ideas about how we close the deal.
0
SPEAKER_01
Because I can learn from you, and you can learn from me.
0
SPEAKER_03
Maybe, but if I m the best sales guy on the team, I don t think I can learn from anybody.
0
SPEAKER_03
And New York people don t want to learn from other people.
0
SPEAKER_03
They just want to go out and make a sale.
0
SPEAKER_01
Smart New York people want to learn.
0
SPEAKER_03
Okay, name a hundred of those.
0
SPEAKER_03
But here s the deal.
0
SPEAKER_03
The salesperson doesn t want to win one for the team.
0
SPEAKER_03
They want to win one for themselves.
0
SPEAKER_01
And their customer and then the team.
0
SPEAKER_03
So if you go watch a movie, you know, win one for the Gipper, the new Rockne story.
0
SPEAKER_03
That s a movie.
0
SPEAKER_03
They re not going to win one for the gipper.
0
SPEAKER_03
They re going to win one for themselves and their kids  tuition and their car payment and their mortgage payment.
0
SPEAKER_03
So if the manager understands that the salesperson wants to win for themselves, then maybe they can say, hey, if you want to win more, listen to what your fellow salespeople are saying.
0
SPEAKER_03
Maybe you can learn something from them and make more sales.
0
SPEAKER_01
So this episode is all about the four commitments to winning team from Mark.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I just want to set the stage because a lot of salespeople, as we said, don t feel that they are on a team.
0
SPEAKER_01
I ran a sales team for a couple of years, and I believe one of the reasons we were so successful at exceeding our quota was that we did act like a team.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so let s talk about the benefits there are out there when you re a salesperson and you are part of a team and you contribute to the team.
0
SPEAKER_03
Bob wants to win the sales contest so he can make the president s club.
0
SPEAKER_03
But Bob has to realize that he is on a team and the sales manager has to say, Hey, you re on a team.
0
SPEAKER_03
Everyone on the team has a different position.
0
SPEAKER_03
They re not all salespeople on the team, or it s not a real team, because there are people that ship the product.
0
SPEAKER_03
There are people that bill for the product.
0
SPEAKER_03
There are people that answer the phone.
0
SPEAKER_03
There are people that provide inside service.
0
SPEAKER_01
So the company is a team.
0
SPEAKER_03
The company s people on his or her team.
0
SPEAKER_03
There are specific people.
0
SPEAKER_03
There may be five people in accounting, but only Mary is assigned to Bob.
0
SPEAKER_03
So Bob has an internal team, and maybe even an external team, somebody who delivers the stuff.
0
SPEAKER_03
And that s how they have to coordinate so that they make the best impression to the customer, make everything perfect.
0
SPEAKER_03
Somebody may have to be there when the product is delivered.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yes, that s correct.
0
SPEAKER_01
But oftentimes in a company, salespeople are not competing against each other for the same sale.
0
SPEAKER_01
Maybe if you re like selling at Saks Fifth Avenue and a customer walks in and you don t have some sort of code between your employees, you re going to jump to get that customer.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
0
SPEAKER_01
That you, that s bait.
0
SPEAKER_01
You want, you want to work with them.
0
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
0
SPEAKER_01
Especially if they look like they re prejudge them and you think that you can sell them a lot of clothing.
0
SPEAKER_01
But if you work at a corporation where it s B2B, your team, if your manager is smart, has been divided up into specific territories.
1
SPEAKER_02
So let me go back to this.
1
SPEAKER_02
If I m selling in New York and you re selling in Utah, I own the New York City territory.
1
SPEAKER_02
You own the Utah territory.
1
SPEAKER_02
We are not competing.
1
SPEAKER_02
Our competitors are those other guys down the block.
1
SPEAKER_00
I totally agree.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so what I wanted to talk about were the benefits of us working together on a team before we get into how to be a team.
1
SPEAKER_00
No argument on that, Jennifer, but understand that they make up about a third of the sales teams.
1
SPEAKER_00
The car sales guy, as an example, wants the other guy not to come to work today so he can have more leads.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s no kumbaya on that team, but there s a service manager, there s a finance guy.
1
SPEAKER_02
100% agree.
1
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so there are vertical teams and there are horizontal teams.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you have to know, the sales manager has to be smart enough to know when he or she can build a horizontal team.
1
SPEAKER_02
Correct.
1
SPEAKER_00
If there s no competition, perfecto mundo, the horizontal team can be built.
1
SPEAKER_02
Correct.
1
SPEAKER_00
If there is in-house competition,
1
SPEAKER_00
then it s very, very difficult to create any kind of kumbaya.
1
SPEAKER_02
I would argue that most of the time, the B2B sales are horizontal, where you can have a team that you re working with that are not just the internal people supporting you,
1
SPEAKER_02
Getting, helping with leads, helping with follow-up proposals, that kind of thing.
1
SPEAKER_02
But also your teammates are the salespeople.
1
SPEAKER_00
If there are specific territories.
1
SPEAKER_02
B2C, right.
1
SPEAKER_02
B2C is more vertical where you need the inside person and the other people within the company internally to be on your team.
1
SPEAKER_00
OK, so we re in agreement that there can be conflict.
1
SPEAKER_00
But what I wanted to ask you, Jen, is if you would share with our listeners how you made your team work.
1
SPEAKER_00
How did you create that team that worked in harmony?
1
SPEAKER_02
It s not easy, because even when they are not competing, because they have different territories, they re still competing for number one.
1
SPEAKER_02
Salespeople are naturally competitive.
1
SPEAKER_02
And like you mentioned, going to President s Club, they want to be in whatever form of President s Club you have at your company.
1
SPEAKER_02
They want to not just be in it, but be number one in it.
1
SPEAKER_02
But I think that people are naturally, they re born with the desire, most people, to help others.
1
SPEAKER_02
And there is this desire that if, or what I have seen, you can bring it out of people.
1
SPEAKER_02
If someone is really good at something, let s say you are the closing expert and we re on it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Let s say that.
1
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_00
Let s say Jeffrey.
1
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_02
And we re on a team call.
1
SPEAKER_02
I m going to talk you up and talk about why are the closing expert give specific examples of amazing deals that you ve been able to close that, you know, were really hard closes and then have you talk about how you did it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Or why you re the king or the queen.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so I m going to give you the spotlight and then have you educate the rest of the team on how you did it so that now they feel like, here s how he did it.
1
SPEAKER_02
This is real world.
1
SPEAKER_02
This is not just our manager telling us how to do it.
1
SPEAKER_00
So what you re saying is that a sales person can actually come on with an objection to a sale.
1
SPEAKER_00
or a time lapse in a sale, and then talk about how they overcame that or stuck with it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the sale actually got made over an extended period of time, which can really reinforce the belief of all the other salespeople when they do it.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and the key is for the manager to know exactly what s going on, the details of how their salespeople have been successful, so that when they re on a team call and someone says, well, here s where I m stuck,
1
SPEAKER_02
The sales managers can say, hey Joe, you had that same situation three weeks ago.
1
SPEAKER_02
Why don t you talk about what you did?
1
SPEAKER_00
What I found in sales teams and what I found in sales forces is that they all have the same objections.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s only 10 of them.
1
SPEAKER_00
And they all have the same ones.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know, the guy said the price was too high.
1
SPEAKER_00
The guy wouldn t return my call.
1
SPEAKER_00
The guy didn t take our proposal because he took the lowest price.
1
SPEAKER_00
I couldn t get in to see the decision maker.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s nothing new other than I lost it to a cheaper price to Amazon.com on the internet.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s going to be a new one that s going to be universal and people are going to have to deal with that.
1
SPEAKER_00
But when the salesperson feels that there s camaraderie through adversary.
1
SPEAKER_00
then they re more likely to join one another.
1
SPEAKER_02
And here s the thing, they want to feel like they re part of a team.
1
SPEAKER_02
Even if they hate the next guy, even if they re competing against the next guy, they want to feel like someone else is going through the same thing that they re going through because they re all alone in their territory.
1
SPEAKER_02
You know, they re not going to an office every day, seeing companions.
1
SPEAKER_02
I agree with that.
1
SPEAKER_00
But the manager has to come in, the leader has to come in and go, guys, or women, when you talk about this, no bitching.
1
SPEAKER_02
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, let s take the negativity out of it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like the company doesn t understand me, the boss is a jerk.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, the boss may be a jerk, but you know what I m saying?
1
SPEAKER_00
There has to be a sort of an understanding of language back and forth so that there can be a potential solution rather than two people talking at the water cooler about how bad things are.
1
SPEAKER_02
100% water cooler conversations are not usually good.
1
SPEAKER_02
You know, so what Mark Eden s going to talk about is the good advice that s going to help if you want to be on your team and advice that s going to help if you think your team sucks and you don t want to be on your team because it s going to help you be a better team player no matter what.
1
SPEAKER_00
The one thing you have to understand about Mark Eaton and this whole thing is, at his core, he s a nice guy.
1
SPEAKER_00
And he is a helpful guy.
1
SPEAKER_00
He is a friendly guy.
1
SPEAKER_00
He is a giving guy.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that helped him win for his team.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
And he stuck with it.
1
SPEAKER_00
He was a loyal guy.
1
SPEAKER_00
And he made friends with it.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know, he s still friends with all of his teammates.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you look at it from that perspective and think about your own qualities.
1
SPEAKER_00
So while you re thinking of when you listen to this interview, don t simply listen to it with, oh, what s this guy going to tell me?
1
SPEAKER_00
Listen to it and compare it to what kind of a person you are.
1
SPEAKER_00
And could you execute this in the same way that he did?
1
SPEAKER_00
Because keep in mind, he was on a winning team, and he became an all-star by following his own creed and his own credo.
1
SPEAKER_00
And more importantly, you re gonna find out, here s a seven-foot, four-inch guy that didn t really start to play basketball in earnest till he was 21.
1
SPEAKER_00
Hated the game.
1
SPEAKER_00
All right, let s take a listen.
1
SPEAKER_00
There we go, the great Mark Eaton.
1
SPEAKER_00
So Mark, welcome to Charlotte, North Carolina, where you will be giving a major presentation to a major Fortune 10 company tomorrow.
1
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
1
SPEAKER_00
You ll be speaking to the people at Caterpillar.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you re going to be talking about, what are you going to be talking about, Mark?
1
SPEAKER_01
A little bit about teamwork and staying safe out there, because it s obviously, they re a company that has a lot of safety concerns as well.
1
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
1
SPEAKER_01
But we re going to talk primarily about the four commitments of a winning team and kind of getting rid of that internal competition at work and how to make each other look good and how to trust each other a little bit more and hopefully improve the camaraderie and the culture of the organization.
1
SPEAKER_02
What are the four commitments of a winning team?
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, well, that s a secret, isn t it?
1
SPEAKER_02
I want to know.
1
SPEAKER_01
No, it s not.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s not a secret.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it s on the inside flap of the book, I think.
1
SPEAKER_01
Got it.
1
SPEAKER_01
For those who just want to read that part.
1
SPEAKER_00
Wait a minute, you mean this book here?
1
SPEAKER_00
The one that s coming out in April?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_00
The Four Commitments?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yep, Four Commitments of a Winning Team.
1
SPEAKER_00
That you can buy right now on Amazon if you pre-order it?
1
SPEAKER_01
Correct.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay, cool.
1
SPEAKER_01
Or Barnes & Noble.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay, cool.
1
SPEAKER_01
So, the commitments are really couched in my story of coming from a 21-year-old auto mechanic who couldn t play basketball to an NBA all-star.
1
SPEAKER_01
And along the way, I met people and coaches who pulled me aside and shared things with me that I share in the book that helped me kind of get my career launched and then get to the next level.
1
SPEAKER_01
The first one of the stories is an encounter I had with Wilt Chamberlain at the men s gym at UCLA one afternoon.
1
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t playing much at UCLA.
1
SPEAKER_01
In fact, I didn t play a whole lot there during my couple of years there.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I was in the men s gym one day and kind of struggling trying to catch a lot of the faster, smaller players.
1
SPEAKER_01
And Wilt Chamberlain grabbed me and said, quit doing that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Don t chase these little guys up and down the court.
1
SPEAKER_01
You re 7 foot 4.
1
SPEAKER_01
Come with me.
1
SPEAKER_01
And he parked my butt underneath the basket.
1
SPEAKER_01
And he said, look, your job is to stop players from getting to this basket.
1
SPEAKER_01
Your job is to make them miss their shot and collect their rebound and throw it up to the guard, let them go down there and score it, you know, and then your job is to kind of cruise up to half court and see what s going on.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that was a life changing moment for me where I started to understand how to focus more in on my role and the thing that I did well.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I call that point knowing your job.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, what s that one thing you re excellent at that you could leverage more?
1
SPEAKER_01
And I walk people through the exercise of how to kind of focus in on it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because we live in such a busy world.
1
SPEAKER_01
We have so much stuff coming at us.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like, what s that one thing that you do well?
1
SPEAKER_01
What s that one reason that people buy from you or do business with you?
1
SPEAKER_01
However, let s talk about it.
1
SPEAKER_00
You were able to take the coaching.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you were able to discern from that what the message was that was being given to you by arguably the greatest basketball player of all time.
1
SPEAKER_00
People will argue, it s Mike
2
SPEAKER_01
Jordan, but Michael Jordan didn t average 50 points a game for a season.
2
SPEAKER_01
Michael Jordan never pulled down 55 rebounds in a game.
2
SPEAKER_01
Nor did they change the rules because of Michael Jordan s impact.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s what Wilt would always say that, you know, when they talk about Kareem being the greatest player or Michael Jordan.
2
SPEAKER_02
He d always say, unless they change the rules of the game because of your impact, I don t know if I would say, I would say I m the, you know, the greatest of all time.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, you can argue the point, you know, back and forth, but the bottom line is that you took the coaching and did something with it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Most people will go, yeah, yeah, yeah, and give it two thoughts, but not a third thought.
2
SPEAKER_00
And still think they know everything.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
You actually molded your career around it.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, there are probably sometimes I probably listen to too many people, but I was always interested on how to do it better and how could I do it more efficiently.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I wanted to succeed.
2
SPEAKER_02
I wanted to get better.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it was only through the experiences of others and learning what they had learned in their life or in their careers that got me to that next level.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I was always grateful that somebody was willing to come alongside of me and say, hey, Mark, have you ever thought about doing it this way?
2
SPEAKER_02
And so what s number two?
2
SPEAKER_02
So number two is about execution.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s about doing what you ve been asked to do.
2
SPEAKER_02
So are you really clear about what other people want from you?
2
SPEAKER_02
And when I was at UCLA, I wasn t playing very much.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I called my junior college coach who had convinced me to leave my toolbox behind and try basketball again.
2
SPEAKER_02
He was always there for me and still is today.
2
SPEAKER_02
And he said, you know, I was all frustrated.
2
SPEAKER_02
I wasn t playing.
2
SPEAKER_02
He said, well, well, that s great.
2
SPEAKER_02
If you re not going to play in the games and then you need to start making your practices, your games, because the problem is not the coach.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s not the team.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s you, you know, you need to get better.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so, he said, if you re going to play, you re not going to play in the games, you got to make the, you know, you got to be the first guy practice and the last to leave and do your running into your shooting.
2
SPEAKER_02
Because he said, we re playing for the long term here.
2
SPEAKER_02
This isn t about whether you re playing or not this year in college.
2
SPEAKER_02
This is about what you re going to potentially do when you leave college.
2
SPEAKER_02
You know, whether you re playing overseas, you re playing in the NBA, whatever it is.
2
SPEAKER_02
So, you have to keep getting ready now for that.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so I make the point that in business, so many times we think we just did our best.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I was willing to go and talk to my coach and ask him, what do I need to do differently?
2
SPEAKER_02
And so that s what I ask people when I speak to them.
2
SPEAKER_02
What do you need to do differently?
2
SPEAKER_02
Do you really know what other people want from you?
2
SPEAKER_02
Do you even take the time to ask them?
2
SPEAKER_02
Or are you just assuming that you re running along, providing the right product or the right service, or doing the right job without that knowledge?
2
SPEAKER_00
And you have the right coach who will say the harsh reality like yours did.
2
SPEAKER_02
I don t even know if it s harsh reality.
2
SPEAKER_02
I think sometimes we just assume we re doing these things.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like, you know, it s that same thing.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like they talk about, like, uh, uh, Kim Blanchard talked about in that book, raving fans about you go from hiring people to, to judging them without the coaching piece in between.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so then people get hardened in that way as like, well, geez, I don t really know how to do my job.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I really don t want to go ask them because I fear I ll get yelled at.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but that coach did not give you advice.
2
SPEAKER_01
He gave you vision.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he was willing to challenge you to take the long-term look.
2
SPEAKER_01
Instead of you whining about you re not playing right now, he said, don t worry about right now.
2
SPEAKER_01
Worry about the next 10 years.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_02
And let s get ready for that opportunity that s going to come down the road.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I think we ve lost a lot of that in our society today.
2
SPEAKER_02
I think it s always about what s here, what s happening right now, and who s tweeting about that or talking about that.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I m sure you see it in the world of sales.
2
SPEAKER_02
Every day.
2
SPEAKER_02
No one knows how to really develop relationships or think about why do you do business with people?
2
SPEAKER_02
It s not because I ve got the wildest whiz-bang thing.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s really because there s a relationship established there.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s also about the pressure of having to make your number, your quota every month.
2
SPEAKER_01
And there s an intensity about that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
That doesn t really have time often to look at the big picture.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to see about next week.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just want to see about Friday.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, you were given the blessing of somebody telling you to look down the road for 10 years and just go out and play every day, no matter what it is, and pretend like the practice is the real game.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s huge advice.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, it is.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I think that regardless of what career you re in, there are those fundamentals that you need to execute every day that make the biggest difference, that transcend the pressure of Friday, or this month, or this quarter, or whatever it is.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I think to your point, that s right.
2
SPEAKER_02
That was important for me.
2
SPEAKER_02
So that was number two.
2
SPEAKER_00
So what s number three?
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, so number three is about making other people look good.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I tell the story of coming to the Utah Jazz in the early 80s when they re a bad team in a bad market, losing money, losing games.
2
SPEAKER_02
And our coach, Frank Layden, at that time, who was also the GM, is saying, look, if you guys will just stop competing with each other and start cooperating with each other a little bit, the individual accolades will show up.
2
SPEAKER_02
And back then, if you signed a contract with a team and it was all based on, well, what s your scoring average, how much money you made based on comparing it to other players in the league.
2
SPEAKER_02
And he said, look, no one cares if you re scoring a lot of points on a losing team.
2
SPEAKER_02
Everybody wants the players from a winning team.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so he got us to start trusting each other a little bit more, cooperating with each other a little bit more.
2
SPEAKER_02
And the more we made each other look good, the better the team looked.
2
SPEAKER_02
And in time, the individual accolades showed up.
2
SPEAKER_02
Perfect example is the second year I was in the league, we went from a losing team in the cellar to making the playoffs for the first time, winning the division for the first time, and we had four individual statistical leaders in the NBA, which has never been done since.
2
SPEAKER_02
We had one player that led the league in scoring, Adrian Dantley, a player that led the NBA in three-point shooting, Daryl Griffith, a player that led the NBA in steals, Ricky Green, and a player that led the NBA in block shots, Mark Eaton.
2
SPEAKER_02
Cool.
2
SPEAKER_02
So the team won, we won.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s amazing.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that s making each other make people look good.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m sure that you having a vision over the top of everybody else s head in the game played a role as well because someone could give you the ball and you could see what other people could not see.
2
SPEAKER_02
Well, one of the things we did was, you know, we predicated our offense on playing great defense first and running an opportunity.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so my job was to collect the rebound off the glass and then fire it out at half court to Ricky Green or to John Stockton and let them run down the court with it.
2
SPEAKER_02
That was the easiest way to score.
2
SPEAKER_02
So it s, I think I correlate it to like, what s the shortest distance between you and a check, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
It s like the easy score was a fast break.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like he wants to take the ball out of the basket, walk it up the floor and try and grind out an offense.
2
SPEAKER_01
If I can get it out quick.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, if I can get it out quick and get it to my guard and he can throw it to a streaking Karl Malone at the other end of the floor, slam dunk, boom, that s two points, next.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_02
So now we re at the big number four.
2
SPEAKER_02
So point number four is what I did well in the basketball court was I protected my teammates.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so point number four is called protect others.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I asked the question, you know, who are you protecting at work and who s protecting you?
2
SPEAKER_02
And, and do you really feel safe at work?
2
SPEAKER_02
And some people say, well, you know, my boss doesn t make me feel safe.
2
SPEAKER_02
Well, it starts with you.
2
SPEAKER_02
Do you make the people around you feel safe?
2
SPEAKER_02
And the key to trust and the key to loyalty from your teammates and from your customers is that knowledge that you really have their back, that you re really there protecting them.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so I actually ask in my presentation, I say, take five seconds, write down the names of three people you need to let know that you have their back this week.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s something that really, I think, gets missed.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s like we get the sale, we move on, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
We re done.
2
SPEAKER_02
We re out of there.
2
SPEAKER_02
You know, that s the end of that relationship.
2
SPEAKER_02
And who we do business with over the long time are those people that we do trust.
2
SPEAKER_02
And that s where that loyalty comes from.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I see that even in businesses that are highly commoditized, where there s a thousand vendors out there and you can just price shop all day long.
2
SPEAKER_02
Who do you choose to do business with?
2
SPEAKER_02
It s probably somebody you ve developed a relationship with and somebody who feels like they ve got your back.
2
SPEAKER_02
So how can I make that person look good in their organization?
2
SPEAKER_02
How can I let them know that I m there for them?
2
SPEAKER_02
What do you need?
2
SPEAKER_02
How can I help you?
2
SPEAKER_01
I m not going to buy price if I can t know that the product is going to be delivered.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s more important for me to keep a crew working than it is for me to save a dime.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right, right.
2
SPEAKER_02
So how do you count on that delivery?
2
SPEAKER_02
It s because you trust that person.
2
SPEAKER_02
They re actually going to deliver if you give them the business.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I want to be that person.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you ve taken an improbable basketball career, literally.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, most guys who are 21 years old have already been playing basketball for 15 years or more.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
They have 15 years of dribbling under their belt.
2
SPEAKER_01
Correct.
2
SPEAKER_01
Correct?
2
SPEAKER_00
What was it like to start later?
2
SPEAKER_02
It was a challenge.
2
SPEAKER_02
Number one, I didn t like basketball.
2
SPEAKER_02
And being 7 4 , what s the one question everybody asks you?
2
SPEAKER_02
How s the weather up there?
2
SPEAKER_02
Or do you play basketball?
2
SPEAKER_02
Do you play basketball?
2
SPEAKER_02
I didn t have a good experience in high school.
2
SPEAKER_02
I sat on the bench.
2
SPEAKER_02
I didn t like it.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was not fun.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I grew up in kind of a blue-collar household.
2
SPEAKER_02
My father was an educator at a junior college and also a diesel mechanic, primarily working on boats, marine diesel.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so I grew up in that kind of environment, helping him fix boats on the weekends and things like that.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so I went to trade school because I was like, I don t know what I want to do.
2
SPEAKER_02
Basketball is definitely not in the picture.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I became this auto mechanic and I was working at a tire and auto store in Southern California when this
3
SPEAKER_01
college coach pulled in and convinced me to give it another shot.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it was challenging because I had been, you know, eating junk food and hadn t done really anything athletic for a long time.
3
SPEAKER_01
So the first few weeks were pretty darn rough.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I liked what he had to say because he had worked with a couple other big guys, a guy named Swen Nader who played behind Bill Walton.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it helps him.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so he understood the game from a big man s perspective, which was different than your standard high school coach would know.
3
SPEAKER_02
A lot of young big guys have the walking, chewing gum problem.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
Where you can walk, but not at the same time you re chewing gum.
3
SPEAKER_02
Because there s a coordination problem.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because they develop later.
3
SPEAKER_01
They re growing so fast that the muscles and the coordination just doesn t catch up until they re 19, or 20, or 21.
3
SPEAKER_01
In my case, never.
3
SPEAKER_02
I went to Haddonfield High School.
3
SPEAKER_02
We had a kid named Ed Sweeney who was 6 10 as a sophomore.
3
SPEAKER_02
And it was going to be like our golden year with one exception, and that is he couldn t dribble and he couldn t shoot.
3
SPEAKER_02
And the coaches, I would go to basketball practice after school just to watch this guy.
3
SPEAKER_02
And the coaches were so frustrated with him that they didn t know how to coach him.
3
SPEAKER_02
They didn t know what to do with him because he didn t have fundamental skills.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so those players get cast off aside because they re
3
SPEAKER_01
They re not about the here and now.
3
SPEAKER_01
They re not willing to take the time to develop them, understanding that it s going to take some time.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so this junior college coach, that s what he did with me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And even when I came to the Jazz, Frank Layden looked at me and he said, you know, and he was an old Staten Island high school coach and coached at Niagara.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he d been around a while.
3
SPEAKER_01
He says, look, I want you to be comfortable with the basketball.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m going to force you to do dribbling drills, force you to do ball handling drills.
3
SPEAKER_01
Not that I need you to bring the ball up the court, but he says it s going to increase your confidence with the ball on the basketball court.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he was right.
3
SPEAKER_01
I did the dribbling drills.
3
SPEAKER_01
I did the running drills, everything else he wanted.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I got more comfortable with the basketball, and it improved my confidence and improved my game.
3
SPEAKER_02
Isn t it interesting that one of the most watched things in professional basketball right now is Steph Curry s pregame dribbling drills?
3
SPEAKER_02
Correct.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
People will—thousands of people will show up early to watch this guy go through his dribbling drills.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right.
3
SPEAKER_02
Unlike any other player ever.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
And geez, it s so amazing that he can dribble so well on the court.
3
SPEAKER_02
I wonder how that happens.
3
SPEAKER_02
And— Practice?
3
SPEAKER_02
What s that?
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
And his daddy, I mean, he s got the lineage.
3
SPEAKER_02
You know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_02
He s already got, he can already shoot.
3
SPEAKER_02
He was born a shooter.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now all he has to do is become a ball handler to a point where you ve seen him make some of the most unbelievable plays in the history of pro basketball.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s extraordinary.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
Anyway, so you re a dribbler now.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, you can bring the...
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t know about that, but I was always comfortable that if I had to take two or three dribbles to get out of traffic and create the outlet pass, that I was comfortable doing that.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it did increase my confidence with the ball when I got a rebound and had to clear some space or whatever it was to get rid of it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I felt more comfortable and more complete as a basketball player because of that.
3
SPEAKER_02
The most interesting thing is you had some pretty good players that you played with.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, you weren t, there were no slackers on the Utah Jazz for a long time.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_02
You won a lot of, your nemesis, obviously, was the Chicago Bulls.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but, yeah, and no, they didn t ever win a championship, but we had 20 consecutive playoff appearances.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we went from a team that was losing money in a bad market and made it a perennial contender.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think that s,
3
SPEAKER_01
what I m most proud of and I think many of my teammates are most proud of.
3
SPEAKER_01
So whether it was starting out with, you know, Adrian Dantley and Daryl Griffith and Ricky Green, and then moving on to John Stockton, Carl Malone, Thurl Bailey, Bobby Hanson, guys like that that became a part of the team going forward.
3
SPEAKER_02
Twenty consecutive playoff appearances?
3
SPEAKER_01
Twenty consecutive playoff appearances, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s amazing.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s pretty amazing.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
So you certainly were always in the hunt
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we were always in the mix and we were respected.
3
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, and our coach would tell us, Hey, look, if, you know, if we re going to not going to make the playoffs, we re going to affect the playoffs.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re going to beat the Pistons and the Lakers and the Celtics and some of these things.
3
SPEAKER_01
And Frank would tell us that kind of stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
We d look at him like crazy.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he d say, I d rather lose the game by two points instead of three.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, that first year we had a losing season.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re like, why?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because two points is closer to winning.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, he would do things like that.
3
SPEAKER_02
And what was the difference when you went from Frank to Jerry Sloan?
3
SPEAKER_01
Jerry Sloan?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, Frank had an interesting challenge because he became sort of the face of the team.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because we were in a, you know, my rookie year, there were only 17 televised games.
3
SPEAKER_01
Most of our games, and those games were shown on tape delay at 11 o clock at night.
3
SPEAKER_01
And in Salt Lake City, Utah.
3
SPEAKER_01
In Salt Lake City, Utah.
3
SPEAKER_01
So nine people were watching.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because they all drink milk and cookies and they re in bed by 7.
3
SPEAKER_01
They go to bed, right, exactly.
3
SPEAKER_01
So no one really knew who we were.
3
SPEAKER_01
And Frank took on this personality of being this fun-loving, funny guy, because he was a great joke teller, a great stand-up lunchtime speaker.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so once he got the team to a certain level where we were competitive, then Coach Sloan came in, Jerry did, and really took that intensity to another level.
3
SPEAKER_01
He said, OK, you guys do this well, you do that well.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re going to focus more on execution now.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re going to focus more on proper defense and getting through screens and really
3
SPEAKER_01
Not cutting any corners and turned up the heat, but he was also very consistent about it.
3
SPEAKER_01
He knew you knew exactly what he expected every day where Frank was a little more emotional up and down and kind of all over the map.
3
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes Jerry was just the same way every day.
3
SPEAKER_01
He expected it expected to expected that that performance that intensity and you know, there s certain things a basketball court that you can do every day regardless of whether the shots going in or not, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
You can play defense.
3
SPEAKER_01
You can get yourself prepared.
3
SPEAKER_01
You can get rebounds, you can get a steal, you can get your hand on the ball, whatever it is.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s what Jerry Sloan expected.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think that s what took the team to the point where they were able to go to the finals a couple years in a row.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think that if you re a salesperson right now and you re listening to this and you go, okay, it s a basketball talk.
3
SPEAKER_02
No, no, Mark is talking about preparing.
3
SPEAKER_02
He s talking about consistency and he s talking about intensity.
3
SPEAKER_02
And if you don t have those three pieces as a firm part of your repertoire, when you re out on a sales call, you re going to die.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s why this show is called Sell or Die, because you either make the sale by selling yourself and then your product or service, or you die because your preparation sucked, your consistency sucked, and your commitment sucked.
3
SPEAKER_02
And either one of those, if you lose either one of those three things, you re going to die.
3
SPEAKER_00
So let s say you did lose a game, which is like losing a sale.
3
SPEAKER_00
What did you do to pump yourself up for the next game?
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think we always looked at it as the long-term play, that you never got too high after a win, you never got too low after a loss, because there s another game tomorrow.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s three more this week.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if you started dragging around that kind of negative energy from the game we lost last Wednesday,
3
SPEAKER_01
You re not going to be 100 percent available for the possibility today of winning this game or winning that next sale.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so much like golfers, you know, when they talk about they have a bad hole and the golf psychologist, the sports psychologist will say, OK, leave that hole behind and you get on the next tee box.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s a brand new game.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so I think that s what that s what carried us is, you know, just not is letting go of whatever happened, good or bad, and being completely present and focused on what the opportunity is right now.
3
SPEAKER_02
So let s go out into the street.
3
SPEAKER_02
We have been friends for a pretty decent amount of time.
3
SPEAKER_02
At least I ve been friends with you.
3
SPEAKER_02
We have.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
And we belong to this group called the National Speakers Association, which is a highly evolved, egotistical group of 4,000 people, of which 200 make all the money.
3
SPEAKER_02
But when you go to their annual convention, they have two separate rooms, one for the speakers and one for their egos.
3
SPEAKER_02
But the bottom line is that when you find the people that you can relate to, you become friends with them, really good friends with them.
3
SPEAKER_02
And you re a person who is, no one s ever seen, no one has ever said, hey, have you seen Mark Eaton?
3
SPEAKER_02
I can t find him.
3
SPEAKER_02
You re easily found.
3
SPEAKER_02
If I m there, you know it.
3
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s right.
3
SPEAKER_02
So how do you handle your height
3
SPEAKER_02
in a social situation when people are sort of gawkers?
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, I will tell you, it is a challenge at times.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I think what I ve done in terms of looking at my speaking career, it s like, all right, I m tall.
3
SPEAKER_01
You got to accept that.
3
SPEAKER_01
What else can we do with it?
3
SPEAKER_01
And so whether it s knowing that at the end of the speech, people are going to want to take pictures and saying, well, why don t you pick up a book while you re here?
3
SPEAKER_01
to saying, well, why are you going to hire me versus somebody else that they re looking at?
3
SPEAKER_01
That s a unique advantage that I have.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so I ve tried to, and it s taken me a long time in my life to be able to get OK with that, to use that as an advantage, because it s always been something that s been, like you said, it s been very challenging at times.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and still, you know, I, you know, you get a standing ovation, you walk off stage and everybody s like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then you go to the airport, you know, and first person s like, Hey, how tall are you, dude?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
So you have that reality to deal with.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I think for the most part, I ve done a good job of trying to make it an asset.
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, first things first, we ve both heard your talk.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, we did.
4
SPEAKER_02
You re a 10.
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, thank you.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re welcome.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was phenomenal.
4
SPEAKER_02
Thank you very much.
4
SPEAKER_02
Your talk is informative.
4
SPEAKER_02
and inspirational.
4
SPEAKER_00
And engaging.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, totally.
4
SPEAKER_02
Can you write that down?
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, you ll have this podcast.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m putting that on the back of the book right here.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it already is.
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I think that when you have that as your base, your foundation, then you don t have to worry about any of that kind of crap.
4
SPEAKER_02
And somebody says, hey, how tall are you?
4
SPEAKER_02
You go five nine, but I m on stilts.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, you should wear a pin that says September 4th.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s why we hang out, because you ll tell them that, and they ll say, oh, that guy was really annoying.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I m still a good guy, so it s OK.
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, you re from Salt Lake.
4
SPEAKER_02
You re not allowed to be annoying.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s like part of the, you know.
4
SPEAKER_02
You re actually polite to everybody, which I, one of your, believe me, it s one of your weaknesses.
4
SPEAKER_02
You got to work on that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Maybe they don t approve sales.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, Jeffrey.
4
SPEAKER_02
But I think the challenge for you is daily.
4
SPEAKER_02
And it s not something where you can all of a sudden wake up and walk around on your knees to be as tall as everybody else.
4
SPEAKER_00
But do you have fun with it?
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, do you give out fun answers?
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, to a degree.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I make fun of it to a certain extent when I speak, but I also give people the reality of it, of like, hey, you know, this is a challenge, but this is what I did with this challenge.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think that that s relatable to people because I think everybody in their life can look back and say, you know, geez, I made fun of when I was in junior high or whatever it is.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so, you know, I try and level the playing field by bringing that up.
4
SPEAKER_01
Uh, yeah, I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes I have fun with it, but most of the time I don t, you know, I mean, the people come up and they think they ve got the newest, greatest, most creative one-liner that you ve ever heard.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Out of the weather up there.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
And, uh, so I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, I have this friend of mine who, you know, Mark Mayfield, who s a, he s a comedian speaker and,
4
SPEAKER_01
And he and I got together one day, and he was like, you know, you should write a book about just the things that people say to you.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we were sitting in this bar in Corn Lane, Idaho, and we d both spoken at this conference.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we get up to go to the elevator, and I m thinking, yeah, that s OK.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s a pretty good idea.
4
SPEAKER_01
And as I duck into the elevator, another guy in the elevator gets there, and he goes, dude, I feel your pain.
4
SPEAKER_01
And Mayfield looks at me, and he s like,
4
SPEAKER_01
See?
4
SPEAKER_01
You know?
4
SPEAKER_02
This is what I think.
4
SPEAKER_02
Somebody says, how tall are you?
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
And you can say, I m so tall that when I sleep in a king-sized bed, I have to sleep catty-corner.
4
SPEAKER_02
Catty-corner.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
See, I think you and I could get together on a book about that.
4
SPEAKER_02
A couple of times.
4
SPEAKER_02
This is how I sleep in a king-sized bed.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right, you get a little 50-page book of questions and answers like that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like I was in the airport the other day in Houston, and this lady, I was changing planes, and this lady walks up next to me, and she just takes a few steps, and she looks at me, and she says, how tall are you?
4
SPEAKER_01
And I keep walking.
4
SPEAKER_01
I say, I m 7 4 .
4
SPEAKER_01
She ponders that for a moment.
4
SPEAKER_01
She says, I hope you did something with that height.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I said, I did.
4
SPEAKER_02
And we kept walking.
4
Oh, man.
4
SPEAKER_02
That s cool, though.
4
SPEAKER_02
Beautiful piece of Americana.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
But the challenge that you have, the challenge that you have is in your everyday life, you have to maintain an attitude and a sense of reality.
4
SPEAKER_02
Right.
4
SPEAKER_02
And you have to carry your attitude into your speech every time, because you have to be the best you can be in front of that audience, regardless of who said, you know, well, you know for training before I do.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right, right.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, and that s the reality when you re a speaker, is every audience is a brand new group of people, just like a sail, who don t know who you are, don t know what you do.
4
SPEAKER_01
Maybe they heard of you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Of course, I bring some NBA highlights, so that helps a little bit.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they re good highlights, by the way.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, thank you.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then they re going to be like, well, who are you?
4
SPEAKER_01
What are you going to say?
4
SPEAKER_01
And what could you possibly know about my life?
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think that s the attitude going in.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I take that seriously.
4
SPEAKER_01
I know that when I walk in a room, it s like, OK, it s my job to prove myself, but it s also to gain your trust during the conversation.
4
SPEAKER_02
Calm the audience and be able to transfer your message.
4
SPEAKER_02
Correct.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m going to tell you that he has
4
SPEAKER_02
as transferable a message as I have ever heard on a platform.
4
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_02
And you have to look at it from the perspective of, if you get a chance, yeah, write that down.
4
SPEAKER_02
If you get a chance to see Mark Eaton speak, you should take it.
4
SPEAKER_02
Go to his YouTube channel, take a look at some of the highlights, go to his website, 7foot4.com.
4
SPEAKER_02
Buy his book, pre-order his book.
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, yeah, you can pre-order his book.
4
SPEAKER_02
Pre-order the book.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I don t wanna make this like it s a commercial and I m fawning all over Mark Eaton.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m a speaker.
4
SPEAKER_00
It sure sounds like it, Jeffrey.
4
SPEAKER_02
I ve seen everybody.
4
SPEAKER_02
And when we walked out of the speech that you gave for the BNI group, it was...
4
SPEAKER_02
Phenomenal.
4
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
4
SPEAKER_02
I mean, you ve honed your skill.
4
SPEAKER_02
You ve been doing it for a decade.
4
SPEAKER_02
Right.
4
SPEAKER_02
And you ve honed your skill to a point where your talk is compelling.
4
SPEAKER_02
Thank you.
4
SPEAKER_02
And when you have that kind of a talk that can transfer that kind of a message, you re going to sell a hell of a lot of books.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, thanks.
4
SPEAKER_01
I appreciate that very much, Jeffrey.
4
SPEAKER_02
We are now going to thank Mark Eaton for showing up.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s going to take him a long time to get out of the building.
4
SPEAKER_02
He has to duck everywhere.
4
SPEAKER_02
And we re going to wish him well for his talk tomorrow.
4
SPEAKER_02
We may show up for a little bit of it in the back of the room.
4
SPEAKER_02
Please do.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m assuming there s going to be food.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yes, there is.
4
SPEAKER_02
Okay, cool.
4
SPEAKER_02
So we ll show up for the food and for the speech.
4
SPEAKER_02
I ll notify the media.
4
SPEAKER_02
Please.
4
SPEAKER_02
Tell both your friends.
4
SPEAKER_02
Is anybody else going to be there?
4
SPEAKER_02
Are you bringing any troops with you?
4
SPEAKER_01
Nope, just me.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s their annual sales awards and safety awards, I think, kind of meeting for the company.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I m very excited to be a part of that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we re going to have some fun.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_02
And we will look forward to seeing you again on Sell or Die.
4
SPEAKER_02
Get a book or three.
4
SPEAKER_02
Go to Amazon.com.
4
SPEAKER_02
Get a book or three.
4
SPEAKER_02
Get them for your friends and your family.
4
SPEAKER_02
I can promise you that it will deliver a memorable and transferable message.
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, thank you both very much.
4
SPEAKER_01
I appreciate that so much.
4
SPEAKER_00
Mark Eden rocks.
4
SPEAKER_02
And he s a nice guy and he can dunk.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, we should count the number of times you ve said he s a nice guy on the show.
4
SPEAKER_00
But the truth is, he is a really nice guy.
4
SPEAKER_00
I 100% agree with you.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we keep saying that, and people who don t know him don t really understand how nice he is.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he s a smart guy.
4
SPEAKER_02
There s a lot of athletes that are buttheads.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, buttheads.
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, better than asshole.
4
SPEAKER_02
He exudes approachability.
4
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, we, well, we ve been friends for a long time.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m very proud of that.
4
SPEAKER_02
And we have been communicators for a long time.
4
SPEAKER_02
Like we ll text each other about one thing or another at odd times.
4
SPEAKER_02
And it always, you know, it s, we help each other.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s cool.
4
SPEAKER_02
But I think the most important part is he s dynamic.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
And when he makes a presentation, I would pay to watch him speak.
4
SPEAKER_02
That s how good he is.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s pretty cool.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he was really good when I saw him.
4
SPEAKER_00
I agree.
4
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, a lot of people are thinking like at the beginning we were talking about teams that, you know, don t get along and compete and people who don t want to be on a team with anyone else except the people that are really helping them at the back office.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so if that s you,
4
SPEAKER_00
Take the link for this episode and send your, the people on your team this episode and tell them, here s how we can work together.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Mark gives great advice for each player on the team, no matter what your role is.
4
SPEAKER_02
If you re a sales guy or a sales woman out there and you don t forward this to every single person that you know, who s in a leadership position, even the CEO of your company,
4
SPEAKER_02
You re making a big mistake.
4
SPEAKER_02
Because Mark has a way of bringing people together and making them play together in harmony to be winners.
4
SPEAKER_02
And that s the objective in your company.
4
SPEAKER_02
And if you re listening to this and you have one ounce of inspiration from it, give it to somebody else.
4
SPEAKER_02
Let them be inspired as well.
4
SPEAKER_02
Even if you know other people on other sales teams, just do it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Mark s a record breaker and he s gonna help you be a record breaker.
4
SPEAKER_02
He s a record holder.
4
SPEAKER_02
But I think that more important than that, he understands the game and how to play the game and how to win the game.
4
SPEAKER_02
You can win every game.
4
SPEAKER_02
but he s consistent enough to win more than his share.
4
SPEAKER_00
So his book is coming out in April, April 3rd on Amazon.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s The Four Commitments of a Winning Team.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re going to see it all over our stuff.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you can actually pre-order it right now.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can add it to your cart.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s discounted on Amazon.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, they play around with the price.
4
SPEAKER_00
We know that well.
4
SPEAKER_00
actually one of the cool things I learned about Amazon is if you buy something today and then like tomorrow you see it at a different price, all you need to do is email them and they refund you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh really?
4
SPEAKER_00
That s crazy.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because I bought a book that was like $18 and then three
5
SPEAKER_01
days later, it dropped to 14.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was like, dear Amazon, no problem.
5
SPEAKER_01
We refunded your account.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
I know.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s pretty cool.
5
SPEAKER_01
So his book is coming out April 3rd.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s called the four commitments of a winning team and go, go pre-order it now.
5
SPEAKER_00
I would, uh, we pre-ordered several copies, but for Mark, cause we want ours autographed.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I ll bet you that if you look deep enough and find his address, which we re not gonna give on this show, but I m sure it s out there somewhere and maybe mail it to his office, he would sign it and send it back to you.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
In a heartbeat.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, he s a nice guy.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
5
SPEAKER_01
So of course he would.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly.
5
SPEAKER_00
We do the same thing here, by the way.
5
SPEAKER_00
People ask me all the time.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, people send books here all the time and then we send them back.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
5
SPEAKER_00
Postage free.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s pretty cool.
5
SPEAKER_00
So there s a long pause.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, I didn t know if you wanted to talk about anything else that Mark said.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s what I was really thinking, you know, about any of the commitments that may have stood out.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
To me, the biggest one is to know your job.
5
SPEAKER_00
Know how you, how do you fit on the team and what is the, what are the expectations of you as a performer?
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s so interesting that Mark Eaton was taught by Wilt Chamberlain.
5
SPEAKER_00
I know.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not, it s not something where he just like, well, I picked this up on it.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no.
5
SPEAKER_00
He picked it up from Wilt fricking Chamberlain.
5
SPEAKER_01
But what a cool strategy from, from Wilt to say, look, your job is not to go running back and forth across the court.
5
SPEAKER_01
Your role is to stand right here.
5
SPEAKER_00
And get balls.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right.
5
SPEAKER_01
And by Mark knowing his role and those other guys knowing their role on the team, and I m not really a sports fanatic, so I don t know everyone s name that he mentioned.
5
SPEAKER_01
But, you know, by each of those guys, they were able to hold records.
5
SPEAKER_01
all while being on the team.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s pretty freaking cool.
5
SPEAKER_00
So before you criticize other people about how they re doing their job, why don t you think about how you re doing your job?
5
SPEAKER_00
And are you a 10 at your job or a 10.5 at your job?
5
SPEAKER_00
So that no matter what you criticize, somebody is going to say, yeah, but well, yeah, he is our best guy.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I guess maybe he s accurate in that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
And Mark talked about what can you do better?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you have to look at this from the perspective of it s about you being a member of the team and then playing as a team mate.
5
SPEAKER_01
Even if you hate your freaking team.
5
SPEAKER_00
So look at it, look at it that way, have a wonderful time on your team.
5
SPEAKER_00
Maybe you ll take a little bit of a different perspective back with you, but I want to make certain that you do it with Death Wish Coffee.
5
SPEAKER_01
Before we get to Deathbush Coffee, and I didn t mean to interrupt you, Jeffrey, but I m going to.
5
SPEAKER_01
We have the most phenomenal mugs on the planet, and they just arrived.
5
SPEAKER_01
Everyone on the planet can go get their new Sell or Die mug.
5
SPEAKER_01
They say there s no prize in second place in sales.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s no prize for second place in sales.
5
SPEAKER_01
Sell or Die podcast, and on the other side, they say I m a diehard.
5
SPEAKER_01
Pretty freaking cool.
5
SPEAKER_01
They re black with a red rim.
5
SPEAKER_01
I really like them.
5
SPEAKER_00
They ll hold coffees or pencils.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Or paperclips or tea.
5
SPEAKER_01
Or money.
5
SPEAKER_00
If you want to stand on the corner and beg.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s plenty of room for dollars in there.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, hopefully you re making enough sales that you don t need to beg.
5
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, you can go to buygettimer.com and under all products, scroll to the very bottom and you will see the mugs.
5
SPEAKER_01
We ll also put the link in the show notes directly to the product.
5
SPEAKER_01
But right now the first 50 mug buyers are getting a second mug free.
5
SPEAKER_01
So if you buy one mug, you get one mug free.
5
SPEAKER_01
If you buy 10 mugs, you get 10 mugs free.
5
SPEAKER_00
But the mugs are cool.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re drinking Death Wish coffee out of them right now.
5
SPEAKER_00
Death Wish coffee, the strongest coffee on the planet.
5
SPEAKER_00
It will keep you awake for days.
5
SPEAKER_00
and we drink it because they re our sponsor.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that they re really good.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, no, they are our sponsor, but if the coffee wasn t good, we wouldn t drink it.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, we drank it way before they became a sponsor.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right, we wanted them.
5
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
5
SPEAKER_01
And we have their stickers plastered everywhere.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s like a daily reminder to have more coffee.
5
SPEAKER_00
We are a Death Wish home, not simply a Death Wish drinker.
5
SPEAKER_00
So get out there and get your Death Wish, but more important, I think you should look at what the lesson, look at the lesson you ve learned today.
5
SPEAKER_00
Subscribe to us.
5
SPEAKER_00
Share us.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re on every form of podcast broadcast on the planet.
5
SPEAKER_00
Go to Gittimer.com.
5
SPEAKER_00
Go to the Gittimer Learning Academy.com.
5
SPEAKER_00
Take a look at what we offer for a long term.
5
SPEAKER_00
Maybe get a mug or two, but be the best you can be for yourself.
5
SPEAKER_00
Be the best player you can be for yourself.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then you can be the best you can be for others.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s the real leadership tip of the day.
5
SPEAKER_00
My name is Jeffrey Gittimer.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I m Jen Gluckow.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m reminding you to get out there and sell something, even if your ass falls off.
5
SPEAKER_00
Thank you so much for listening to Sell or Die.
5
SPEAKER_00
We hope that this episode has helped you transform the way you think, giving you new ideas, and provided you a new perspective on the sales and business challenges that you face every day, so you can get out there and win the customer all the way to the bank.
5
SPEAKER_01
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a second to rate and review.
5
SPEAKER_01
Each review helps us help more people just like you make a difference in this world.
5
SPEAKER_01
Don t forget to take a screenshot, share it in your Instagram stories and tag us at Jeffrey Gittimer and at Jen Gittimer.
5
SPEAKER_01
See you next week.