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Welcome everybody to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast, podcast history.
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My name is Brian Neal.
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I m Bill Kasky.
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We re here every week for your listening enjoyment.
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Glad you are here.
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If you re not already on a LinkedIn group, go visit our LinkedIn group, advancedsellingpodcast.com slash LinkedIn, or just go to LinkedIn and search for the Advanced Selling Podcast.
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You ll see all your fellow listeners there.
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And also be sure to check out our ASP Insider.
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Get live coaching with Bill first Friday of every month.
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Except for September.
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Because it s Labor Day.
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Good switch.
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Doing next Friday.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Check that out.
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That s good.
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Got some good stuff going on there.
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I had a listener, who s also a client, say that the last couple episodes, Bill, you ve not seemed yourself.
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You ve seemed a little dead.
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Your voice is a little dead.
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Serious?
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Yeah.
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Really?
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I haven t noticed that.
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And I think I understand what it is.
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Last couple episodes, I was sitting down in a chair.
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at a different location versus being on a stool where I m kind of up.
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And I tried standing up today, but my camera, it s not good for it.
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It doesn t go tall enough.
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So I appreciate my client saying that.
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So I apologize to you, Mr. Neil, if I have sounded dead.
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It s not because I m deaf.
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not sounded dead to me whatsoever.
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But it s funny that people notice things like that, isn t it?
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Yeah.
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Well, I think that when we are in the room together, I do think there s a tad more energy than when we re virtual.
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And virtual just makes a lot of sense.
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And the quality, I think, is every bit as good.
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But I think there s a slight difference.
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Yeah.
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Well, I didn t notice it all.
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So yeah, that s good.
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Maybe it s one of those things, you know, you re around people that you re around all the time and they re like losing weight, but you don t notice necessarily.
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Right.
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And they don t see someone for a month.
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Like, wow.
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Then you say, if you lost one, you d say, yeah, 73 pounds.
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Exactly.
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I m like.
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Uh, no, I didn t notice that you were dead.
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Have you noticed that I lost my larynx?
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Did you notice I had surgery?
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I had some noise.
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Nodules.
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That s always fun when a singer gets nodules on their vocal cords.
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No, no.
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But I mean, you hear that and just the visual of that.
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I just picture these little rubber bands with little dots all over and like little bumps.
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Probably what they are.
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I don t know.
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Yeah.
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It s only scary.
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I had a I had an interesting experience.
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I my grandkids are in T-ball.
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You re you remember?
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Oh, yeah, of course.
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The deal is for those of you don t have kids that the coach pitches four or five pitches and then if the kid doesn t hit it, they put it on a little T and then the kid can hit it and
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Yeah, it works fine.
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It s good.
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And I ve got a boy and a girl and so the boys in a different league They re they re both the same age obviously twins, but they re in a different t-ball league And so the little girl Sawyer was sitting next to me yesterday watching her brother s game.
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Yeah, and um
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This kid comes up to bat for the other team and he s short, a little, a little, a little overweight.
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I mean, you know, he s probably baby fat still and five and a half years old and flails at the ball.
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I mean, the pitch, the coach was pitching, he was flailing.
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I mean, that s the best word I can describe.
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It was not even close.
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And it was like, Sawyer looks up at me, she goes, Papa, I like the way he swings the bat.
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Almost like a fondness, like I m growing fonder of him the more I see him swing.
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I m taking some mental pictures here.
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Sawyer, he s flailing.
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He s not swinging, he s flailing.
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And then the next time, she goes, mommy, I like his swing.
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What?
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So first off, it was uncomfortable on the first level, which is the way she said it.
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And then secondly, it was like, no, don t emulate that.
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That s not good.
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I love that.
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And then just one more thing.
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When this kid finally hit the ball off the tee, it was always off the tee.
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He would take the bat and just slam it on the ground as if to say to the crowd, I so much wanted a home run.
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And all I got was a single.
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It was like he was.
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I don t think it was, he just slammed, that was his, that was his shtick, you know?
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I think we need, uh, some video of this kid.
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Number one, number two, I can t wait for Sawyer to get a full ride scholarship to Oklahoma to play softball.
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And she s in her first ESPN interview.
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And she s like, well, you know, when I was five, I was at my brother s game and I was watching this kid swing.
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That s where I came up with this.
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That s fantastic.
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Well, our topic today is actually also inspired by children, kind of big children in sports.
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We re going to talk about expectations, and just where they fit for you as a sales professional.
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And I think this fits for sales leaders, because the more we didn t prep per normal, Bill and I don t over prep for these, so it s more raw.
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is the idea that our recent history, and I ll say recent history, like 10 year history, we have had a rising tide for business.
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And our expectations, I think, are mucked up.
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I think, you know, that s a thing.
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And what came from
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how this conversation started.
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So my kids play football at a really good high school for football here in Indianapolis called Cathedral High School.
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We won back-to-back state championships in 2020 and 2021, and I had a son that played on that team also.
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So now his younger brothers are playing, and his younger brothers are starting center on the team, and we got our Wazudis kicked in, as my mom would say.
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Friday night, we lost.
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And previous to that, we had lost two times in two years, which in football, that s like not very much.
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And the team we lost to was like one of the top 10 teams in the country and best team in the state of Indiana.
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So, the world is now falling at this high school.
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Like the football program has gone to hell in a matter of 48 minutes.
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Fired, the coaches are terrible, the players aren t a team, we re awful.
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By the way, we only lost by a touchdown.
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Okay, now, so what s happening over reaction, completely.
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And we have we re just so used to this expectation that we literally win every game and half of them are running clock because the score so high.
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And that s not reality.
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And I think our sales leaders have gotten a case of this and some of the CEOs, they re expecting because the sales have gone up 30% every year for 10 years, that when they only go up 22%, the world s ending.
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And you personally, you were listening and your income and your commissions have been super high.
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And all of a sudden, they revert back a little bit.
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Now you re thinking, oh, my gosh, I got to go find a new job.
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I can t make the money I used to be able to make here.
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That kind of stuff.
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So we re going to kick that around.
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Where do expectations fit, Bill?
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Yeah, there s a lot there in your front there.
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That last thing you said was interesting that I hear a lot as well.
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You know, if I m making 250k a year, let s just say, and I don t like the company, but when I m going out to interview, I can t take any less than that.
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I can t take
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a step back and always feel like, well, your value to the company you re with now is probably congruent with your performance.
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The next company may not be.
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They may not be that.
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And I think you re right.
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That s part of that expectation.
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Well, I can t.
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I m not going to take a pay cut.
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I may have moved to bum, smack Idaho, but I m certainly not going to.
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Well, you got to look at the whole thing and say, wait a minute, what s the expectation here?
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And I think our expectations sometimes outrun us.
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And we ve talked before about when you go into a sales process.
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Have no expectation.
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Don t expect them to buy, or don t expect them not to buy.
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Just be there, be present, be in the moment, and allow the future to unfold.
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But yet, when we talk about income, we don t do it that way.
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No, it s funny, isn t it?
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We don t.
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We don t plan that way.
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We don t goal set that way.
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We goal set like aggressive chase.
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And it s interesting that I struggle with this, too, because I m very goal oriented.
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achievement oriented.
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And then at the same time, I think I got to just like, I was doing on a walk this morning, kind of doing a walking meditation.
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It was like, just be where you are.
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Cause I ve been traveling a bunch and I was like breathing yoga, breathing on my walk.
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I m like, just be where you are.
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Cause that s the, that s all, that s the only place you can be.
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Right.
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That s the only place you can be.
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And that s probably the best place to be to accomplish those goals, which is the dichotomy.
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It s the, it s like the conundrum that we re in.
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It s like, we ve got these goals, be where I am.
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Well, how can I do both?
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And you can.
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You can do both.
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You can be where you are and be grateful for where you are and still have massive, unbelievable goals, but not kill yourself every day that you don t do the right behavior.
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I mean, that s part of having that compassion for yourself, too.
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Yes.
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See, that s really interesting, too, because that s the, I think people think of expectations
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And goals and then being in the present moment and being detached as mutually exclusive.
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Exactly.
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I think we have to be one or the other and we don t.
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Yeah, we don t just what you re saying.
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But I love that idea of it.
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And then you said something else I want to riff on a bit is.
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the light, the best thing you can do to reach those goals is to be where you are.
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And that s where we re not like, Oh, what, what do I want to have yet?
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Well, I got to do that.
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We, and then our energy changes, right?
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And then we show up different.
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We show up desperate, needy, and overly aggressive when we don t need to be really interesting.
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It is.
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I had a call last week with a client and he was experiencing what I think there s, and this is not for this
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this podcast is for another one.
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I think generally there s a malaise in the market right now.
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And part of that malaise is hangover from COVID.
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Part of it is heading into whatever we re going to head into in terms of slowdown and recession or whatever.
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I just think there s an uncertainty that is creating malaise and fear, a little angst.
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And I don t know if you re seeing it or not.
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Well, I heard it in your voice the last two episodes, but I didn t want to say it.
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Yeah, OK.
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Well, you re seeing it with me.
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I totally am seeing that.
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And I wonder if how this expectation rolls into that.
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I ve also noticed, so I m going to add something to your list of the causes of the expectation, back to the topic, has been almost too high because it could be.
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And that wears people out.
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It wears people out.
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If I m expecting 30% to 50% growth year after year after year, and then you said earlier about income, like you re looking for a new job, you re making $250,000 a year.
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I m not going backwards.
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You have to go backwards.
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You have to.
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There s nothing on the earth
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statistically that goes up in a linear line.
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You know what I mean?
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Like, like it all oscillates.
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It goes up and down and up and down a little bitty bits over time.
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The trend is high, but you got to give yourself some space.
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Maybe you should go backwards.
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The only way you re going to get to 700 or 500K is to go backwards to 200 and then forward.
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To get to a million, right.
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To put you on a new path with new thinking, gives you some space.
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It s an interesting idea.
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Yeah, that s a deeper one.
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And this client was talking about how he was just, he was doing really well.
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He s doing well in the business, not ready to get fired.
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He s a channel manager and he s doing
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Oh, well, financially.
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But there s this constant pressure from his managers, like, what s quarter look like?
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How are we doing this quarter?
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What s our goal?
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60%?
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Is that going to close?
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You think that ll close?
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Is it 62%?
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Oh, it s 69%.
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It s even 9%.
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That s not a very good number.
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And all this stuff.
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And he s just sick of it.
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He s exhausted by it.
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Yeah.
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And I don t blame him.
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And there s rarely any conversation about, hey, how are you doing?
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You ve got some big goals, Jonathan.
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Who do you need to become?
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Where can we help you get better so that you can accomplish those?
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Never any conversation about that.
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And that s what a great leader does, is they see the goal, and then they work backwards and say, OK, who does this person need to be?
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Where can we help him or her?
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What kind of content do we need to help them create?
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And in poorly run organizations, there s none of that.
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It s only about the frickin  numbers.
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Yes.
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Yeah.
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It s not, what can I do to support you to get it?
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It s about, what is it, where is it, when is it going to get here?
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period, right?
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Exactly.
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It s all it is.
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So interesting.
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And again, I, what this doesn t, I want to make sure people hear this loud and clear.
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This doesn t absolve you from the goal or performance because we can t have salespeople goose egg in quarters, you know, like how much sales zero, zero.
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Well, it s going to come in on present moment.
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There s a balance to this that you have to find.
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Um,
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without question, that s really up to you to find.
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I think it s a good takeaway from today s episode is like, where is that spot for me?
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Where I feel like a comfortable pressure, you know what I mean?
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Like a comfortable drive forward.
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Like, okay, I m going really fast.
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I don t ride bikes or do a Peloton.
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It doesn t really count, does it?
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Peloton doesn t count as a bike.
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But you get into a gear, right?
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Where you re like, okay, this is my heart rate is at a certain level.
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that s relatively high.
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I m not, I could, I can, I can maintain that for a long time.
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That to me is where people need to be.
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I wonder if they, do they call that something and.
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and fitness, you know what I mean?
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Like where your heart rate gets to like one in 30.
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Something where everything is kind of working together.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Like you re going, it s like an efficiency thing.
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Like I m in my most efficient place where I can maintain a long time, go fast, not sprinting, not killing myself, not loafing, not coasting.
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It s finding that maximum calories and yeah.
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Yeah.
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Relative to our output and all that jazz.
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It s got to be called something, doesn t it?
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It needs to be, maybe we should name it.
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Yeah, I don t know.
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I don t know.
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Surely we ve got a fitness guru that listens to the podcast that can email us at listening.
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That s where everything is working together to the end that you want it to work.
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And your, I guess your point here is that in, in sales and in achievement, and we ll just call this the sales profession to me as an achievement oriented profession.
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Yeah.
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So
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How do you achieve?
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Well, one way to achieve is to go out and grind it out every day and work till 11 o clock at night and Burn yourself out after two and a half years.
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That s one way to achieve the goals That s not our preferred method, but it is a way and I think often we get into the mindset of
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What do we need to do to achieve more work harder?
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We just need to work harder.
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So your son s examples is, you know, probably the worst thing the coach should do is would say, would double up on practices this way.
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Lost one game.
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Run their asses.
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Run their asses.
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No, let s dissect the films and let s see what happened there.
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Could we have, and maybe they dissect the film, say, we were two plays from winning by 14 points.
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Totally.
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So rather than just going to behavior, I think we have to sometimes step back and say, what s the strategy here and what happened?
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Yes.
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Yeah.
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And look for small, moderate tweaks, not this big.
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OK, we re going to run you until you puke.
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We re going to punish them.
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Exactly.
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Yeah, that s good stuff.
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Now, he may.
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I mean, I don t know.
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I would.
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That s what I would do.
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Okay, that s good stuff.
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So good takeaways for you listeners to think about where s that little, that sweet spot where you can ride for a long time, your heart rate s up, you re good, your drive is forward, and you get good results without, you know, killing yourself or burning yourself out.
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And also I, as I was coaching this, Jonathan through this, where he was in this malaise and kind of,
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kind of a darker place.
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They said, look, you re, because he started talking about, you know, if we do this and this doesn t work, and then, you know, I m going to be on probation.
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I m like, whoa, you re way far out there.
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Let s, let s sneak back to today and into the breath into our conversation here.
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And
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We do that sometimes.
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We get so far out, you know, it s like I end up in a trailer down by the river.
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And it s just not the way it works.
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And so bringing, like you said today in your walk, bringing yourself back to the present and being happy and grateful and being in the present is going to help us accomplish those big goals.
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Absolutely.
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It just will.
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Very, very good.
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All right, good episode.
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By the way, if you haven t gone to the LinkedIn group, go live there.
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We do a lot of communicating with our listeners there.
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Shoot us a note, too.
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We ve even gotten a little listener.
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Listener at advancedsellingpodcast.com.
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SPEAKER_01
That s our email address.
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SPEAKER_01
Listener at advancedsellingpodcast.com.
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SPEAKER_01
Shoot emails to us there if you ve got some topic ideas or a question or a scenario-based thing, or you want to give us some feedback.
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SPEAKER_01
If you re feeling malaise from me and from Bill, let us know.
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SPEAKER_01
We re happy to adjust that, and we ll stand up and
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SPEAKER_01
you know, we ll stand up, shoot some caffeine beforehand or something like that.
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SPEAKER_01
So, okay.
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SPEAKER_01
That s it.
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SPEAKER_01
See you next time.
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SPEAKER_01
Bye.