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In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill sits his phone in ABC gum, I share my frustration about the discontinuation of a popular restaurant utensil, and we take a listener question about what s next.
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Hey, listeners, welcome back to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast on the planet.
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My name is Bill Kasky.
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My name is Brian Meal.
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We want to welcome you and thank you.
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We get a lot of awesome emails and voice memos on the LinkedIn site.
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And we have great listeners with great intelligence.
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And we just thank you.
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And I know that part of the reason for our success of getting this and as many
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hands or ears as we can is thanks to you.
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You tell people about it, and they listen, and they re hooked, and we appreciate it.
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We are very, very thankful for that.
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And we ve got a LinkedIn group.
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If you re not there, go there.
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We re just south of 9,000 people in the LinkedIn group, I think, and lots of good, fun things there.
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You can register your email with us, ultimatepregame.com, right?
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And we ll send you a little gift for that.
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And then we ll communicate with you off and on via email with some new fun things coming out here soon.
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That s how we d like to do it.
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And by all measures, we are doing a lot of retreats and sales meetings over the next few months.
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I know you ve got some on your calendar, as do I. So if you are interested in having Brian or I, or both, out to do a, whether it s a launch party or a retreat or a sales conference or something, we re happy to help.
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So give us a call.
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You can get the ball rolling.
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Start it rolling at listener at advancedsellingpodcast.com.
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Just put in the headline, subject line,
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Come see us and we will be on it.
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Something I d be intrigued for someone to do that s totally off topic.
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You know our little bumper music that comes in?
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I m sure one of our listeners or two is in like a cover band or something like that.
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They re in a band.
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I d love for someone to play that and send it in to us.
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Like play it at a gig, like they re at a gig.
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You know what I mean?
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To the podcast.
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That s how my brain works.
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Wow.
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A little bit.
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Okie dokie.
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I have an issue.
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It s a dual issue.
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Well, one, we re at the world headquarters, fifth floor of the advanced selling podcast building in
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Indianapolis, Indiana.
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And I was going to go get a glass of water just a minute ago.
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And so I went down, have you used the drinking fountain in between the bathrooms here recently?
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No.
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No, you haven t because it, it trickles out like, like it s a little, it s a little gurgly.
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So this is as much water.
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See that I m holding up my glass showing Bill.
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Five minutes.
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It took five minutes to fill my glass up about a 19th of the way.
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Yeah.
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So that s that.
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Wow.
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But the drinking water reminds me of my,
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one of my favorite restaurants that I go to here in Indianapolis.
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I m going to leave the name out because I might get banned from it.
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Go there all the time, almost every day.
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Have you been there lately?
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You know what restaurant I m talking about, right?
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Where we ate the other day?
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Nope.
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Starts with a P.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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You with me?
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Oh, yeah.
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They have banned a commonly used item that almost every restaurant in the world has for environmental reasons.
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Do you know what it is?
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A glass?
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No.
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Straws.
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Oh, you re kidding.
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They don t give out straws anymore.
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Do you know why they don t give out straws anymore?
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Hard to tell.
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Try not to laugh.
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Well, it s because it s killing the sea turtles.
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Did they say that?
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Yeah, that s what it is.
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I mean, and it s legitimate.
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These things get lodged, sea turtles eat them, or they get stuck in their nose and stuff and kill sea turtles.
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So now if you get a to-go cup there, vice tea, you have to sip it.
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You can t drink it out of a straw.
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Aren t there biodegradable straws?
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Surely there are.
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Well, there are.
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Ted s Montana Grill.
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Because you know, Ted Turner s a big environmentalist guy.
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Right.
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And he has paper straws there that biodegrade a piece of cake.
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Yeah.
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So I m just kind of processing all that right now, what I want to do with all that.
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It s affecting you, I can tell.
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Well, what I want, what no one wants to have anyone do, what nobody wants done to them, is you don t want me to audit your contribution to things like that.
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Because then I m going to go, what about all those bread bags in there?
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Don t those bread bags go around and don t the raccoons smother themselves in the bread bags when they re eating the bread out of the garbage?
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What about the possums?
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And is it because sea turtles are nice creatures?
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If it was killing raccoons, would we care?
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You know what I mean?
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Or possums, things that we don t like.
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It s very conditional.
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And I think there s a whole lot of virtue, virtue signaling, it s called, where I m trying to be good to the environment.
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So I m doing this, but on the same hand, I m doing 10 other things that are critical.
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It s just interesting to me.
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I ve got my own.
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That s political.
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We ll leave that there.
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But what we will get into is we had an awesome letter from a listener.
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He s on the sly.
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Yeah, I like it.
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He s anonymous.
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Well, it s good.
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It s good for this.
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It s good.
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Here it is.
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Good.
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Bill and Brian.
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First up.
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Sorry, this is not recorded audio.
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I wanted to, but I can t risk my voice or this question going public for my employment sake.
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He must have a very popular voice.
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You are more than welcome to use the question, but change my name to Cedric, Frank or Barnaby.
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I ve just turned 40 and have been working in medical research as a project manager and researcher for 15 years.
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It s served me well.
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I started listening to your podcast 18 months ago because deep down there is a part of me that would like to make a career change into sales.
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Listen to that because we re going to be coming back to that.
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Not just for the challenge, but because my whole life, all I ve ever wanted to do is help other people solve problems.
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I also read Same Game New Rules, which was mind-blowing as expected.
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I feel I have the mindset, communication, and problem-solving skills to make the change work, but without any formal sales experience, I m looking for some advice on what you feel one needs to have to make such a switch, as I know there will be a drop in salary to do so, probably my biggest fear with a young family to feed.
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Is there a best way to go about a sales transition for a rookie?
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Is it a crazy idea?
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Finally, would looking at medical, pharmaceutical, general practice sales roles be a good starting point based on my background?
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Keep up the good work.
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Signed, Cedric, Frank, or Barnaby.
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Blank.
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Blank.
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Yes.
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Yeah.
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SFB, CFB.
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Very good writer.
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Yeah, it was good.
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Well thought out.
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Well thought out.
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You know what I took from his tone is that he s coming from the heart.
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What s stuck on your finger?
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I know how you love when I put things that are in my mouth.
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Several episodes ago, Bill was chewing on a lozenge or sucking on it.
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Right before we started, he went and spit it out, kind of like Pink did at the Super Bowl before she sang that.
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That is gross.
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But now Bill just put his phone down, and it looks like a piece of popcorn stuck in it.
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What is that?
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I m all guy.
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It s his gum.
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It s his gum.
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It s ABC gum, as the junior high kids say.
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Already been chewed.
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OK.
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Great note here from Cedric, or whatever his name is.
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Yeah, we ll call him Cedric.
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Fake name.
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Cedric the Entertainer.
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So the question that he had that we want to take a look at today is, is it right for him to move into sales?
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And Brian and I started talking about this.
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And we said, you know, really this is a bigger question than just, should I move into sales?
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Should I move out of sales?
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Because we have listeners, I m sure, who are thinking, is this really what I m cut out for?
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And the whole question of, what s next for me?
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So we re going to take it from that standpoint of, if you are thinking right now, if you re driving in your car, on the treadmill, listening to the podcast, and you ve had this thought come across your brain occasionally, which is, where am I going in my career?
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we re going to talk about that.
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And I don t know if we re going to give you a detailed roadmap, but I think some of the things that Brian and I have seen, have witnessed, and have even thought might be helpful.
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Before we do that, and related to the topic, if you are a sales rock star, and you re looking to start a new career with a new company that s digitally transforming the world, look no further than CenturyLink.
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CenturyLink and Level 3 have joined forces.
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Take the first step.
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Go to centurylink.com slash advanced selling.
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That s centurylink.com slash advanced selling and join their talent community.
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A member of their team will be in touch with you really soon to discuss your future.
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Kind of timely there, Bill.
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Very timely.
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Tie into the topic here.
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So yeah, the question here is if you re
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If you re driving around, which a lot of our listeners do, or you re on the treadmill running before your day, and you re thinking, what s next for me?
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You re a salesperson.
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Your question is, am I going to carry the bag for 30 years?
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That s an old school term we used to use, because we used to carry sales bags back in the 80s, didn t we, Bill?
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And you re like, is this all there is for me?
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Remember those hard shell, those hard shell briefcases with the little codes?
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Yep, the codes, secret codes.
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I had my chin.
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I could never open it up, right?
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Exactly.
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I take all my papers out.
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Oh, my gosh.
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Those are the best.
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I carry all sorts of three ring binders in there.
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that I never used.
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It s awful.
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I can see you opening it up.
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It s just awful.
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Having to sit on it to get it shut.
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Totally.
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But you re driving around.
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You re thinking, OK, is this it for me?
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Or you re thinking, a lot of you I know younger in your career, you think, maybe I want to be a sales manager.
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Maybe I want to be a sales coach like Bill and Brian.
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Maybe I want to start my own podcast.
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Maybe I want to start a business.
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When you re thinking about what s next, you re not thinking about what s now.
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So we want to talk about, and it s healthy, and you have to do it.
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So what are you thinking about what s next?
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Maybe you re thinking about getting out of sales.
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We re going to give you some just observations, advice about that, about when you re processing these sorts of things.
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I think this is a really healthy conversation to have, not just what we re having here with each other and with our listeners, but for you to have on your own.
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I think you ve got to always be thinking what s next for me and I think this is really healthy and I think if I think sometimes we I don t know maybe we don t but I sometimes Beat myself up if I get too far out of what I m doing now and say well, you know bill You can do that later.
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But for now, you got something you got to pay attention to.
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Yeah, and I don t think that s healthy I think if your mind takes you to a new place like let s say you re driving and
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Right now and you have had some thoughts about starting your own business.
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Yeah, I think that s an awesome thought Yep, start working on it.
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Think about it flesh it out.
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Talk to some people You don t have to actually start the website But start thinking about it and and have it become real by documenting some of these ideas, but that s one example I just think it s a healthy
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It s a healthy place to be, because what you don t want to do is burn out, and then you have to start figuring out what s next, and then you re not in the frame of mind to do it.
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No, not at all.
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A great little framework to help you with this, no matter what the subject is, if you take a piece of paper and you draw a line on it, and on the right side of the line, at the end of the line, you put two,
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And on the far left side, you put away.
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And then there s the middle.
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And think of the middle s 50, and the far right s 100, and down on the far left is 0.
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The theory here is, am I running to something or toward something, or am I running away from something?
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And it s really hard to do, but you have to be objective here.
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If you don t score above 70, meaning running to something, then in my opinion, you should really take inventory of what s wrong with your current situation, because your problems will follow you.
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And so you ve got to make sure that what you re running to is better than you re running away from.
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And I find a lot of people when they re doing this, they re running away from something more than running towards something.
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So for Ced, our listener here, make sure you re running.
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And it sounds good.
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His tone sounds good to me.
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Healthy, like I want to help people.
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He s buying books.
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He s starting to like, I really think I want to do this.
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And I think that s a good thing.
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It feels like he s not saying my job sucks.
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I hate.
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I feel stale.
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I m stagnant.
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They re screwing me over.
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Yeah, totally.
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Those are running away things.
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This company s all screwed up.
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They re changing territories.
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If that s what s going on, you really need to take inventory of yourself, not of the opportunity.
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Yeah, and another piece of advice I might have for him that has little to do with what we re talking about here, but while you brought it up, is maybe you could talk to somebody inside the company and say, is there a way that I can get my feet wet in this?
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Instead of just going from PM, project management, to sales, maybe there s a technical sales or an engineer.
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Or maybe the salespeople would love to have the project manager in the calls or in the process.
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I think if you talk to somebody inside your company and tell them what you re thinking, that you think you might have a place there, and you ve been listening and consuming content, there s always places they can put you.
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And you may find after a year of being in that place, you say, you know what, thought I wanted it, not for me.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And almost always, you can go back.
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Could always go back.
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I had a client that was in the Air Force, virtually a career Air Force guy.
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He was a meteorologist in the Air Force.
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Just kind of got stale with that burnout, wanted to come, tried sales, did sales for two years, did not do well, went back into the Air Force as a meteorologist.
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You can do that.
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It s OK.
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It s OK to do.
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One thing that I ve learned, this is a trademark term from a coaching program we mentioned, a guy named Dan Sullivan.
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I m in his program right now called Strategic Coach.
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And one of the exercises we do there is called Unique Ability.
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You can Google Unique Ability from Dan Sullivan and get lots of good information from him.
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He s very giving with his information.
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But that s really a great exercise to do when you re thinking about the next thing, because it really hones in on what am I really good at and what I love to do.
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And you ve got to make sure that the next thing fits in that realm for you to make sure that you re not, again, jumping to something that you re not cut out for or you don t love to do.
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Because that s usually bad.
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He s got a book.
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Did you just say that?
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He s got a book.
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That term is trademarked.
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Is it a book called Unique Ability?
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Yeah, there is a book called How to Find Your Unique Ability.
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It s like $20.
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It s really good.
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But yeah, I would recommend anybody buy that.
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There s also this idea that sometimes we just get stale.
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And we humans, we like adventure.
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We like newness.
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We like innovation.
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And you might just need to say, well, how can I reinvent myself within this same role so that I can have some more interest?
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I can pick up some energy somehow.
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And I think it s the same way for salespeople, too, is sometimes it can get old.
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It s rote.
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You re on the road a lot.
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Now, the question is, how do you reinvent yourself?
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Should you be doing a podcast?
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We ve got several listeners and a couple clients who have started podcasts, and they love it.
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And it s really given them the joy of meeting people in a very different way, in an interviewing sort of routine.
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And so think about
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Changing you can go somewhere else or you can change companies.
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You can change careers But maybe the first step is how can I reinvent myself and what I m doing right?
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That s great.
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That s great My last piece of advice here.
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I ve mentioned this on the podcast before I call it the first domino effect So if you ve ever watched those things on YouTube where they set up a billion dominoes and they push push them down They all fall down which I think is just really fun to watch.
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It s really really intriguing and
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And it all starts with the first one.
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You have to tap the first one to get the rest of them rolling.
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And this is where most people fail.
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Someone like Cedric buys all the books, listens to the tapes, listens to the podcast, and he never takes that first step to have the conversation that Bill mentioned earlier, which is, hey, is there an opportunity?
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Apply for a sales job.
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So if you re thinking about, if you re a salesperson, want to be a sales manager, first step, schedule a conversation with your manager to talk about what the path looks like.
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If you want to go somewhere outside your industry, first step,
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you know, call someone outside the industry, set up a meeting.
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So you got to take the first step and move through that resistance before anything else happens.
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First domino.
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And the last thing I would have would be just start to list the possibilities.
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And again, this is not just for Cedric, but for anybody who s thinking about another career, or they feel like their story has not yet come to fruition and not yet been told, or they haven t told it.
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Just think about the possibility.
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Just take a pencil and paper and start to write down, what could I be doing?
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I could reinvent myself.
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I could start a business.
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I could have a side gig, a side hustle of some kind.
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I could start some kind of a podcast or become more of a thought leader in my business.
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I can change jobs.
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There s just all sorts of things.
1
SPEAKER_01
But once you define the possibilities, then you can start to flesh out which ones feel right and which ones don t.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_01
Hey, good question, Cedric.
1
SPEAKER_01
If you would like to, oh, we got to give him, we got to get him the treat, the sticker.
1
SPEAKER_01
The new gift.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so if you have a, if you have a question, by all means, put it in the voice memo, send it to listener at advancedsellingpodcast.com and include your physical address too.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we will make sure we get our little sticker gift out to you and you can put it on your laptop.
1
SPEAKER_01
Brian will search you out and give you a hundred bucks.
1
SPEAKER_01
I will do that for sure.
1
SPEAKER_01
See you next time.
1
SPEAKER_01
Bye.