Love Your Sales

Revolutionizing Sales in Commercial Real Estate with AI-Driven Tools

Join Leighann Lovely and Bryan Hayes in this engaging episode of the "Love Your Sales" podcast, as they dive into the intricacies and challenges of the commercial real estate market. Bryan shares his journey from an entry-level sales rep to founding ElevateX Sales, where he leverages his expertise to revolutionize sales consulting through AI-driven insights. Bryan discusses the often-secretive nature of the commercial real estate industry and his mission to bring innovation, transparency, and engaging storytelling to property marketing. Highlighting the importance of authenticity, Bryan advises young sales professionals to stay true to themselves. Tune in for valuable insights, humorous anecdotes, and inspirational advice on succeeding in sales and beyond.
 
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Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am excited. I am joined today by Bryan Hayes. He is the founder and the sales guy of ElevateX Sales, Incorporated with 15 years of dedicated sales experience. He has journeyed through several diverse industries, each contributing to his growth as an entrepreneur and sales leader. His role started in 2008 when as an entry level sales rep at a small remodeling company in [00:02:00] Salt Lake City. He transitioned to operations manager to weather the storm in 2008 and really honed in on his customer service experience and skills.
Breakthrough came when he discovered his sales superpower in Texas and became a daily practitioner of empathy in sales. He learned the true power of empathy by transforming body and mind through health and fitness, cultivating lasting client relationships by understanding their unique needs, desires and goals.
 however, he quickly moved into commercial real estate, leaped out of the fitness industry and became a CRE real estate broker at a top five firm.
He is now the founder of ElevateX sales. An innovated sales consulting firm that started in 2023 with a mission to [00:03:00] revolutionize sales consulting through AI driven insight, Bryan, welcome. I'm excited to have this conversation with you.
Bryan Hayes: Thank you. for having me.
Leighann Lovely: So why don't we jump in? You started, um, elevate X sales in 2023. I did. What drove you to do that?
Bryan Hayes: Well, I left commercial real estate because interest rates were rising and I was like, well, I don't think deals are going to get done for a little while. And in commercial real estate, you don't get paid until you do a deal.
And so I was like, let's try to find, you know, some sort of salary position. I've never in my life, I've always been a sales guy. That's why I call myself the sales guy. Uh, and so I've always been, you know, either 1099 or a hundred percent commission. And so I was like, let me get my first salary job. I did, but it was, [00:04:00] unfortunately it was at a debt collection agency.
And it just wasn't the good fit, you know, when you have to explain yourself, you know, it's like, Oh, they ask you, what do you do for a living? You're like, Oh, I'm in debt collection, real estate debt collection. And they're like, Oh, so You know, I have to always say, don't worry, I'm not here for you. It's the worst.
And I'm like, I don't want to set up for the rest of my life. So I left that agency, went to another one. Cause you know, I doubled down and so silly. I was there three months. They wanted me to do marketing and then they started getting me to do sales. So I was like, okay, I didn't sign up for this. Like I took the position because you wanted me to do social media, marketing management.
You wanted me to do ad spend management. You wanted me to kind of manage the actual exterior. Presence of the company. And then it turned into, Hey, can you make cold calls? [00:05:00] It's like, like I, yeah, I can do cold calls really well, but I don't want to do them for you. And so I left the company and really was just unsure what the future was going to hold.
And so I was like, okay, what do I have? Like, what do I have of value? And then I realized that was my experience. So I founded ElevateX sales to be an e learning company. Where I was going to teach my empathy based approach to sales, which I learned in health and fitness, took to commercial real estate and made sure it wasn't ruined by debt collection.
Uh, and then when I started the company, I actually had a couple of missteps. I had a terrible media company that took some money from me, didn't do a very good job. They edited one of the videos. We spent three days in the studio, recorded over three hours of content. They edited the first [00:06:00] video, the first module that you would have, that I would actually give away as a teaser.
And it was done, I could have done it better. It was so terrible. And so I was like, okay, so maybe we shouldn't do e learning. So then I was third party outreach. We'll all reach out for you. And I picked five different industries. Real estate was one of them, but I actually focused on the others because I thought that was an easier barrier of entry, took a couple of clients, found out that it wasn't an easier barrier to entry.
And then I was, you know, not even a week, two weeks ago. So we're almost in a year, you know, we're seven months in and I am revamping to do commercial exclusively, commercial real estate exclusively. And that's really what I'm passionate about. Elevate X sales. We're passionate about revolutionizing the way commercial real estate properties approach marketing and sales.
You know, we believe in the [00:07:00] power of innovation and the importance of building genuine connections. So we've crafted a dynamic suite of services designed to really help the online presence. Of a commercial property, be it office building, retail, shopping center, or multifamily is there as well, or industrial, industrial property.
And if you look at anything real estate related and you look residential, it's all nice, flashy. They have great videos. It's all fun, entertaining. Well, let me ask you this. What have you heard about commercial real estate?
Not much,
Leighann Lovely: not much, not
Bryan Hayes: much. It's kind of like kept quiet and it's like silent. It's like they're moving silently. These deals are done, but the people that sign the leases are the business owners and they buy everything else just like they buy. [00:08:00] Everything else now they're buying this one thing differently.
So it's controlled by the brokerage community and in commercial real estate, you know, insider trading is a thing, you know, it's like, I have information about a deal, you know, I don't have to share it with you. Now, if you want to be a part of the deal, I will. And so they'll. Pick and choose who gets the information and it's, it's unfortunate, but none of that information gets out into the, so not, not the general public, but you have to have a broker in order to get that information,
Leighann Lovely: right?
Bryan Hayes: And I, this has got to change. And so I'm not destined. That's a terrible word. I was going to say destined, but I'm determined to bring a new light to commercial real estate. Take away from the boring dreary, Ooh, it's just a building. It's this, it's that to something exciting, something [00:09:00] fun, something entertaining, guided tours.
You know, some, uh, not only the guided tours where I'm actually taking you through the office and painting the picture of what the space could be for your business, but also interviewing tenants, finding out the local community. Cause let's say if it's an office building and you're moving from one office building to another, what are the amenities within the building?
And then what are the amenities around it?
Leighann Lovely: And that's important.
Bryan Hayes: Yes, because that is what retains. Your talent.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. I, I worked for a company that went from, um, you know, and people aren't going to reference this depending on where you live, but from a, a quieter community to downtown and, and it was like,
Bryan Hayes: That's a big change.
Leighann Lovely: Well, it is. It's kind of a shock. You're like, Whoa, okay, I, you know, in that quieter community, I could go out to lunch. I didn't have to worry about finding [00:10:00] parking if I was going to go to a downtown where it's like you might as well not try to drive because you're going to spend 15 minutes of your lunch hour just trying to find a parking garage.
Just
Bryan Hayes: getting out of the parking garage.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. Correct. Correct. And so some people like that environment. They like getting out, you know, walking to a local restaurant. Other people, especially if you're used to for the last three years working in a, in a building where you could just drive down the street, go to a nice cozy little restaurant, have your lunch.
Some people like that environment. Other people love working in a city where they're like, yep, I'm going to go for a 10 minute walk down to wherever a coffee shop, whatever. But that's a completely different.
Bryan Hayes: It is a
Leighann Lovely: total different atmosphere, often a different mindset. Like some companies purposely get downtown versus in a more rural area because of the people that they want to draw in.
Bryan Hayes: Yup. And nobody's telling that story. There's no, [00:11:00] there's no story. There's no, there's no, I'm not going to say that there's a TV show that needs to happen with me, but a TV show will be sparked hopefully from my idea. But it's. Touring and taking a business owner through multiple office buildings or restaurant spaces, touring them and finding out what's the best place for their business.
You know, kind of like a profit. And
Leighann Lovely: it's, so before we get in the weeds here, there was a couple of things that you had said.
Bryan Hayes: We're already in the weeds. Oh,
Leighann Lovely: I know we already, and I'm, and I'm actually already forgetting what I was going to, um, what I was going to say. Well, so I guess I'll just forget that.
Here's what I'm kind of envisioning here. It's it's, it's, you know, you know, you can do these virtual tours now and you have the. What are the things that fly in the sky
Bryan Hayes: drone
Leighann Lovely: drone, [00:12:00] there we go. Dread word. Um, the drone, I mean, so easily now you can, you can have all of that done and basically present like, Oh, here's one option with your bird's eye view from a drone from virtual tours to, I mean, that's, that's absolutely.
Bryan Hayes: And they're doing that, but they're not telling the story. There's no one there to tell the story. Like there is in residential where there's someone like, Oh, here's the bathroom, here's the master bedroom. There's no one there directing traffic and they're not putting as much, I like to call it razzle dazzle.
They're not putting that into it.
Leighann Lovely: Right. You don't stage a commercial building.
Bryan Hayes: No, they're not. And they should. At least stage it with renderings and that's very simple. That can be done in post production. And you know this, they can make it look like it's a, uh, Occupied office. [00:13:00] And so that's what I'm trying to bring to light is painting the picture to make the decision process easier, but also getting the word out because the brokers, they don't have enough time to talk to everyone.
So they're going to go to the, okay, I know a guy that has a client that had told me he was looking in this area, so let's go give it to him or they'll go to the trade show or they'll go to a networking event and hopefully someone knows someone. Okay. I want to take a step further, not only marketing the online presence of it, social media and SEO management, but it's also the sales outreach where we are stepping in and saying, Hey, we're going to do mass emails to every single restaurant tenant in a specific geographic area or of a specific type or whatever the qualifications are for that space.
Present some of the opportunity [00:14:00]
Leighann Lovely: that I find that extremely, um, that's, it's really cool now. So how do you leveraging your experience and, and your, your background and what you've done in the past, how do you even begin to, and again, you come from this industry. Yeah.
Bryan Hayes: Yeah. Yes. I was a broker myself. Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. So how do you, and I'm forced them
Bryan Hayes: to change,
Leighann Lovely: well, yeah, force them to change, but so you must have, I haven't got who to reach out to, who to, where do you begin that process? Because for me, I'd be like, well, I don't know. I mean, I know somebody who may need a space. I know somebody who might be, you know, and I, I know how to start, Beginning to create channel partners and that kind of thing.
But where do you begin [00:15:00] commercial real
Bryan Hayes: estate? You go to the direct hop, you go to the decision maker, you go to the owner of the property, the ownership group, or the owner himself, depending on what type of property it is and how large the property is. And the property's value and location and you present them the opportunity to come alongside the broker's relationship saying, Hey, I don't want to do the deal.
I don't want to mess with any commission. You're going to pay me a small fee on a monthly basis for a specific period of time. To provide content for you, shoot the content, release the content. Uh, manage SEO for a certain point, kind of get you up and running and then present the opportunity to these tenants where the brokers can't do those calls.
They're the brokerage companies are trying to do it. You know, I worked for, for one for many years, four years. And my fiance [00:16:00] actually still works at the same company and they don't have enough time to do that and software is changing so rapidly. So since the year and almost a year and a half that I've been out of the industry, I've learned so much about software and because I wasn't so just inundated with being a broker, because it takes its time in your day.
That you have to make those calls and you have to talk to people and you have to do the tours and it takes so much out of your day that you can do everything. So we're coming alongside that relationship kind of like a support staff. So we're not competing. So we have to tell the story to the landlord, to the person that's going to pay the bill.
And where I'm starting is the lowest hanging fruit people I know. So there's a, there's a ownership group based in Canada. Actually, they own one high rise building in downtown Dallas and one mid rise building. A little farther north of Dallas, [00:17:00] kind of almost in the suburbs, um, I call mid cities, but, uh, they have elected to get us to kind of, because they know that if we can prove it, it's going to be very successful because there is a company that has a monopoly on the data for commercial real estate.
And you have to pay, they're paying 10, 000 a month to host four of their 300 properties on essentially a landing page. That is ranked in Google that has none of their logos, nothing. It just is like a data sheet. Has nothing.
Leighann Lovely: So why is, here's, there are certain industries out there, and I know that some of these industries are heavily regulated, which is why it's like, uh, to break into it, you know, when it's, when it comes to buying a business, for instance, buying a business, there's hush, [00:18:00] hush license
Bryan Hayes: and stuff like
Leighann Lovely: that.
Right. And there are people who obviously, if you're in the middle of selling a large business, a longstanding, you know, 20. 40 plus year business. You're the owner of it. You're like, I'm going to sell. You don't want your employees to boycott because they find out what the business is.
Bryan Hayes: Right.
Leighann Lovely: So, you know, I understand why that's such a hush, hush, you know, mergers acquisitions, all of that is, is so, but why do you think that the commercial real estate, when you're talking about an empty building, for instance, or, or a building that has tenants, but it's just looking to change hands and really that's not, if they're renting the space, it shouldn't necessarily.
Affect the renters, unless they're looking at completely.
Bryan Hayes: It doesn't affect the rent. Actually, if they, if a new owner comes in, it's typically improves the property because they need to put money away because it's a tax shelter. So they need to make capital expenses.
Leighann Lovely: So then why is it, why is it so hard for, let's say I want to buy a property.
Why does it [00:19:00] seem so hard for me? Say I have a, you know, a million dollars. I'm looking to go, it's probably a hell of a lot more than a million dollars, but
Bryan Hayes: No. Well, that's a good place to start. You can buy a property. Absolutely. You leverage it.
Leighann Lovely: But so I'm looking to invest in commercial real estate. Why does it seem like it's so hard for like a person to just go out and say, okay, let's see all of the listings.
Bryan Hayes: Simple answer. Control. Because it is. A sexy industry. It's cool. Everyone's intimidated by it. I say I'm in commercial real estate and they're like, Oh, you must be a multimillionaire.
Leighann Lovely: It
Bryan Hayes: hasn't been punched yet. They, they just assume certain things, you know, I was a urban retail specialist. And so I dealt with uptown, downtown, the urban areas, the high dense [00:20:00] areas.
I represented several high rise buildings in downtown Dallas. And, and those typically those, those owners are billionaires. So they're intimidating to talk to. And they're the decision maker on whether they're going to sell the building or not. They typically do the negotiations. And so a lot of people are scared to have those conversations
Leighann Lovely: and
Bryan Hayes: they also like the power.
Leighann Lovely: Let me ask you, let me ask you a question as a salesperson, and this is me personally as a salesperson. Early on, I was intimidated early on, but I have to say that as a seasoned salesperson, I've gotten over that, like completely gotten over that.
Like either they like me, they don't like me. They buy from me. They don't buy from me. Ultimately, at the end of the day, I don't care. [00:21:00] Like, if you don't like me, that's fine. Don't buy from me. I am going to be who I am. I stopped trying to put on fancy suits and show up as a person that I'm trying to say, you look great.
Bryan Hayes: Thank you.
Leighann Lovely: Sorry.
It comes down to like, Yeah, we're going to negotiate everybody, either you're going to come to everybody being happy a win win and you shake hands and the deal's done. Oh, nowadays you 58 billion signatures and the deal is done. But the point being is that, I mean, are, do you still have any uncomfortable?
Are you still intimidated at this point in your career by anybody?
Bryan Hayes: Um, I, yeah. I get excited because I'm like, Ooh, it's someone else that [00:22:00] I can, it's like another notch on my belt. You know, I was like, I just talked to another billionaire and he, I referred to him by his first name. He called me, he answered my call and he spoke with me like that.
To me, I liked that part. That part was the very sexy part about the industry, but I really think that it's so hard to break into it because. It's on purpose. So much money to be made. These guys are, these brokers are making millions and millions of dollars a year. And they're transacting with millions, depending on what industry, of course, industrials doing the best retails, not as much office.
If you're in leasing, that's great. If you're in office sales, high rise sales, which I took a swing at, I'll tell you those big fees. They're elusive. Um, they, I [00:23:00] feel like all of money is
Leighann Lovely: elusive right now.
Bryan Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. I got a check. I need a check. I need my, my podcast check. But, uh, they, I think they like that feeling of not superiority.
I don't want it to be a negative thing, but I think it's like, uh, I can do something you can't. And so I like that feeling. And so it's almost like gatekeeping in a way. And I'm just a bull in a china shop. Like, no, I came from small town Salt Lake city, Utah. I had a team mom, like, uh, like you can't scare me,
but I just get excited.
It's really, you just have to flip the script. You know, it's, I get the nerves. Like I, even before I was going to meet with you, I got the little nerves, but it wasn't. No,
Leighann Lovely: and I love the, my, my father [00:24:00] always tells me that I'm a bull in a China shop and that I need to, I need to bring it down. I'm like, I am not apps.
He goes, every room you walk into, you destroy in some way or another, whether it be a positive way or a negative way. He goes more positive, which is a good thing. Now that you've gotten a little older, he goes, it used to be the other way around. And I'm like, well, great. But he goes, you're, you're absolutely, uh, but I think that most, uh, I think that most Great salespeople, the way they are.
Bryan Hayes: Yeah. It's like, sorry, like I'm coming through. Sorry.
Leighann Lovely: Watch out. I was at a networking meeting the other day and I'm sorry. I I'm going to bring, I was at a networking meeting and I, I'm sure my listeners know that I talk with my hands. I was talking to somebody with my hands and of course this place is packed.
I poked somebody in the eye. Oh no. He had glasses on. He had glasses, but I still,
Bryan Hayes: oh, so he, so his nose, he's like my nose.
Leighann Lovely: It was more his glasses that I poked him in. I was like, oh my God. [00:25:00]
Bryan Hayes: Jesus.
Leighann Lovely: So when you said that, I'm sorry, I had to jump on. Absolutely. Bull in a China shop. So
Bryan Hayes: Bull China shop.
Leighann Lovely: So do you use a different approach when it comes to, okay, here's a billionaire versus here's a guy who's, yeah, he's well off.
Obviously. He owns a, he owns a building.
Bryan Hayes: Oh, yes. Very different. You actually treat the ones, the billionaires worse, not worse, but you treat them. You don't have to treat them as nice as the guys that just own a couple, let's say a couple shopping centers really. And they're just barely over multimillion.
They have a, there was one in particular, he owned a, uh, an old outlet mall that was It's never going to come back. And it's in a small town, not small town, but outside of Dallas, Fort Worth. He went to Harvard. He's, [00:26:00] he's the smartest guy in the room. I won't say his name, but he knows I'm talking about, but, um, I had to treat him with white gloves and I had, um, just.
Three, four days ago, I had called one of the high rise owners in Dallas. And I wanted to ask him a question about marketing. It was like, Hey, I want your opinion on my stuff. We calls my cell phone. It's like, so Bryan, and it's like a, just a conversation, you know? So it depends on the person's personality, really.
Because there are some billionaires where you're like, I need to, I need to look good. I need to present myself well. I need to act proper. Uh, you really just have to kind of roll with the punches. Some of them are going to be casual. Some of them are going to be official. Some of them are going to want certain things a certain way.
So you just have to, you have to be able to spot that [00:27:00] real quick.
Leighann Lovely: So it sounds like it's not much different than working at a company. You know, any level you have to match their personality. Understand, know your audience. It comes down to that. It doesn't matter if they're a millionaire and you're right.
There are some people who, you know,
Bryan Hayes: 30 K millionaires and the a hundred K. Yeah,
Leighann Lovely: they, and I've known some very, very wealthy people who will walk in the room and you would think that they are dirt poor from, because Because the guy that called me said, what's up, right? Because either they've, they've come from nothing and built it and they still understand what it's like to grind or
Bryan Hayes: they've,
Leighann Lovely: and maybe they've always had it and just still.
Maybe not. I don't know. I guess I, I don't know that I've ever known. They're trying to
Bryan Hayes: fit a mold. They're trying to fit like their royalty. I'm the [00:28:00] landlord, you know, so it could be that.
Leighann Lovely: And I've met both people who have come from money, who are more, more down to earth than anybody that I've ever met.
And people who have, um, you know, had nothing and then rose up and then become complete Like, who are you, I know you, what happened to you and then people who have, you know, in the flip side of that, like it's, so I guess it ultimately when it comes to sales, I still hold true that you just got to walk in and to be a great salesperson, you got to quickly understand, be, you know, know your audience.
Adjust accordingly. And I always go back to the mimicking of if you, if you're not understanding what's happening right now, mimic them, you know, right. Until you can shift to figure out like, okay, what's, what's the mood in the room?
Bryan Hayes: Yep. If they lean to one side, if they fold their [00:29:00] arms, absolutely. They hold the fork a certain way.
I always, the one, okay. So I always get nervous. And I truly get nervous when I eat with a client. I don't know why it is. It could be my grandmother. She's like, you need to sit up, keep your elbows in, make sure your pinkies are up. She was so like, she taught me the proper way of eating and dining. And so I'm always very self conscious about that.
And so I think when I'm eating with somebody, you know, mirroring is perfect, you know, cause you don't want to be scarfing down your food and they're like going slow. Cause you're like, well, I guess you're just going to sit there as I finish eating.
Leighann Lovely: And I've, I've, I've had, I've had meals with people that You know, they're taking the bread that was on the table and double dipping into it.
It's all over the place, and you're like, I thought you were [00:30:00] supposed to be the proper person. I thought I was supposed to be the one that
Bryan Hayes: Raisin Barn. Golly, that is number one pet peeve right there. Oh my gosh. And this,
Leighann Lovely: this was with the CEO, the owner of the company I worked at with the, at that time we were going and tag teaming this meeting and I watched him like push the plate all the way over to the other side.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, there's, it's.
Bryan Hayes: I was like, that's yours now
Leighann Lovely: that, that it's, I don't like it. It's yours. You, you can have that.
Bryan Hayes: I had a last time.
Oh,
Leighann Lovely: so Bryan, if you could give advice to the younger sales generation coming up, what, what advice would you offer to, to help them level up?
Bryan Hayes: Ooh, level up. You need to decide who [00:31:00] you are and be that person. Like 100%. It's, it's very black and white. It's, I am this, I am not this. It's I do these things, I don't do these things and you need to decide which, like who you are.
And when you figure that out, you'll be able to go into rooms with billionaires and wear your Louboutins and Gucci belts and you know, and that doesn't matter. You're just wearing that because it's costing, you know, it's not, that's not what gives you the confidence because that only, that's very surface level.
They used to get teased, you know, cause I would wear, I was actually going to wear a three piece suit to this because that's what I was known for. Like I love vests. I don't know what it is. You take off your suit coat and you're still wearing a suit. And, uh, it's like half suit. And everyone at the broker's firm would always be like, Oh, what's up, [00:32:00] Mr.
Three Piece? You know, like, oh, going to see the king. You know, silly stuff like that. And I just enjoy wearing it. But it's not what gave me the confidence, ultimately.
Leighann Lovely: And I have a great, I have a very good friend of mine who every time he shows up, no matter where he's going, same thing. He's in a complete, like, dressed to the nines suit, his shoes match, he is like, he's, he's just He all matches
Bryan Hayes: his shoes?
Leighann Lovely: Yes. I mean, he's drop dead gorgeous, like all the time. And I'm like, you, you put the women to shame. Like you in a room, nobody is looking at the women who like everybody, the guys, the girls, they're all looking at you, like
Bryan Hayes: you put us to shame. That's why you wear a suit. Okay. There's another form of advice for the young.
I'm not wearing a tie because. I just, I don't know, I'm figuring it out, but when you [00:33:00] wear a suit and I, and I promise you people treat you differently and you act differently to, uh, give you a great trial and error on this one, where a suit and go to Walmart, you know, figure out that people treat you different.
They'll be like, Oh, King's coming. All right. All right. Watch out.
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. That's awesome. So we are coming to time. I want to give you your 30 second shameless pitch.
Bryan Hayes: My shameless pitch. Oh, 30 seconds. You're going to time me.
Leighann Lovely: Timer starts now.
Bryan Hayes: The distracting, uh, um, Elevate X sales. We believe in the power of innovation and the importance of building and genuine connection. That's why we've crafted a dynamic suite of services designed to skyrocket your online presence and attract a flood [00:34:00] of high quality leads to sign deals. In today's competitive market, the good old time tested standards don't cut it anymore.
What you've done in the past isn't always going to work. So don't think, hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. This is where we go above and beyond, tailoring our cutting edge strategies to your specific needs and goals. That you have for the property in those vacant spaces. It's time to ElevateX Sales your property today.
That was 30 seconds?
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. You did great. I wasn't timing you.
Bryan Hayes: Oh, I thought you were. You made me all
Leighann Lovely: nervous. Um, and how can somebody reach out to you if they wanted to do that?
Bryan Hayes: I will provide my email address and my mobile number because I am that cool. Uh, Bryan, B R Y A N, at ElevateXSales.[00:35:00]
Com and good number to reach me is area code 9 7 2 3 9 9 6 4 4 8. Like to help any property owners, be it retail, office, industrial, anything that you wanna bring. Some relevance, you wanna bring some attention. You want to get some exposure for your commercial real estate property here to help.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome.
This has been an amazing conversation. I really appreciate you coming on. It's actually been a really fun conversation. So even
Bryan Hayes: before we got bothered by the, we were having such a great conversation before the podcast and we had to do this thing.
Oh, too funny.
Robb Conlon: Thanks for joining us for Love Your Sales. For More, connect with Leighann on LinkedIn and be sure to subscribe to the show and leave us a rating in review. We'd love to hear what you think, looking for a way [00:36:00] to take your sales process to the next level. Visit us@loveyoursales.com to find out more about how Leighann can take your organization to new Revenue Heights.
And be sure to join us next time for more great ways to love your customers so they love your [00:37:00] sales.

Blueprint for Sales Success and Entrepreneurship

In this engaging episode of the "Love Your Sales" podcast, host Leighann Lovely interviews Ryan Atkinson, a young and dynamic entrepreneur who owns and runs two companies—Spacebar Visuals and Magic Media. Ryan shares his journey from working at HubSpot to starting his own businesses, delving into his strategic approach to business development, hiring, and leadership. He discusses the importance of identifying an ideal customer profile (ICP) and leveraging outbound marketing techniques to drive growth. Ryan also highlights the significance of working within one's area of genius and outsourcing tasks that aren't core strengths. The conversation offers valuable insights for small and mid-sized businesses looking to enhance their marketing efforts through multimedia content. Listen to learn actionable strategies and be inspired by Ryan's entrepreneurial spirit.
Contact Ryan -
Website – https://www.spacebarvisuals.com/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-atkinson17/
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today  - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann
 Channel Subscribe link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-O7W9DzaRv4waodQKCprIg?sub_confirmation=1
 
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Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of love your sales. I'm really excited. I am joined by Ryan Atkinson. He is 25 years of age and entrepreneur who owns and leads two companies, Space Bar Visuals, and Magic Media. Ryan grew up in Iowa and attended the University of Iowa. After graduating, he moved to Boston to work as a BDR at HubSpot.
After a year, he pivoted to a new role in marketing [00:02:00] for a health tech company and also moved to Austin, Texas. At that, at this time, he started his first company. Magic Media, which is a podcast agency providing production needs and interview needs. A year ago, he started Space Bar Visuals with his co-founder Brandon in which they create.
Animated videos for SaaS companies in early November, Ryan left his full-time job to run these companies full time. Ryan has managed 70 plus people in his career already hosted up. 185 interviews created 125 K in revenue in the past year and partnered with some of the biggest brands in the world in his free time.
He enjoys working out, reading, traveling, and being with friends, Ryan. I am so thrilled to have you join me on the, , on the podcast today.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Super excited to be here. The, the intro is nice. You read that off like very nicely. So yeah, super, super pumped to be here and yeah, chop it up with you and your audience, I guess.
[00:03:00] Super excited.
Leighann Lovely: So you are, um, a very young entrepreneur, um, you know, right out of the gate, it looks like you've, you've, you know, explain, have you always had that entrepreneurial experience or, or, um, you know, I guess what would be the right word, um, bug.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, I gotcha. Um, yeah, so I was actually very lucky and very grateful to have, uh, my stepdad, my mom, they actually both run their own companies.
So my stepdad owns a flooring business up in Minnesota. My mom owns her own hair salon. And even my dad like dabbles in like short term like Airbnb rental. So I was always raised by entrepreneurs and I knew I wanted. Once I got out of school to do my three W's and that's work whenever I want work with whoever I want and work like what on what I want to do.
Um, so I knew coming out of school that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I was part of the university of Iowa was like founders clubs. Um, I had my own podcast interviewing entrepreneurs when I was a senior in college. So yeah, from a young age, like I knew I wanted to start my own [00:04:00] company. And it wasn't a matter of like.
If it was more a matter of when. And so when I was like 23, 24, however old I was, um, that came to fruition. And yeah, now 25, um, have done some fun stuff. Very grateful for what I do have been built an awesome team. So yeah, very grateful for what I do. And yeah, I started basically from my parents though, that entrepreneurial bug.
Leighann Lovely: That's, that's amazing. Um, and you know, I think that you're, you're doing it right. You're doing it at an age where you, and I don't want to say lower risk, but it's, you don't, you don't have the. And again, I, I don't know you extremely well, but I'm going to say you don't have that house. You don't have the kids.
You don't have the, all of those extra. And again, some people can,
Ryan Atkinson: but
Leighann Lovely: you don't have all of those, those weighing responsibilities where you're like, oh, okay, do I, I have to have this paycheck coming in all of the time. Yep. Um, it's great to get that started when you have that opportunity and, and to really, Just dive in full and I'm [00:05:00] not saying that everybody out there should do it because you have to have a certain, you know, mindset to be able to, to do that.
So let's start with, I guess, how, what steps did you take? Who did you lean on in order to really figure out and navigate the world of business ownership?
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. I mean, it's a learning process. Um, it always is a learning process, but any business owner will be able to relate. Like you learn something new, like every day, just like the skills you acquire and everything, but the process really got started.
Um, going to space, our visuals, um, basically November, 2022. Um, I was just mindlessly scrolling on Twitter and I came across a tweet that was like, Hey, I just sold my last company looking to start another company. Um, Looking for like a co founder to help me do it. And that was Brandon. And so kind of just shot my shot through email, sent him an email, uh, attached like a little loom video on it, like going over my resume and being like, Hey, like I always want to start a company.
We'd love to do this with you type of thing. Um, and [00:06:00] the stars aligned, we hit it off very well. And that's kind of how space bar visuals is born. So Brandon. Brandon's 30 right now. He's about five years older than me. And I've leaned heavily on him for like mentorship. And how do I run a business? How do I actually act as a CEO act as like someone that needs to actually run a company?
That's not just like for fun, but like actually generates revenues, like hits revenue targets and has certain profitability margins. Um, so leaning a lot on him just for mentorship has been awesome. Uh, but a lot of it is navigating business ownership always just comes down to making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, kind of building the ship as you go.
Um, so yeah, it's, I like to think that I'm starting to get a little bit of the strap, the handles on it, but I still have like a very long ways to go, which is very exciting because it just at the very, very beginning of like business ownership and like actually running a company, company successfully.
Leighann Lovely: And I love that.
I, you know, every entrepreneur, salespeople, people are out there who are [00:07:00] literally laying their, you know, their cards on the table saying, Hey, like work with me. Come in. I love, there's a common thread among, among all of them, which is, Hey, I'm willing to make mistakes. I'm willing to. And I love that about, um, Um, I love that about those individuals that they're not only are they willing to make the mistakes, they're willing to own those mistakes and then learn from them and move on.
So let's talk about that. You had, you mentioned a three step process that you used to, you know, to bring space bar visuals, um, you know, to really grow that revenue to what a hundred and K a hundred one K in year one. So let's, let's talk about how you, let's talk about that process. Let's talk about how you did that.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. So the three step process. So basically what happened is we got to about a hundred K over a hundred K in revenue in our first year. And like, I was working on this on the side for the first like eight months of it. Um, and so we hit on a trend K and once you hit a hundred K, you're kind of like. Like we actually got to have [00:08:00] something here.
It's, it's like crazy to say like your agency, is it like a six figure agency? Like, I think that is still like crazy to think about. So a three step process that we used here, um, at space heart visuals, um, kind of giving the secret formula out on how someone else could do this is basically. It's kind of like a four step step.
One was it's kind of like a five step step. One is identify your ICP here. Uh, like we really nailed our ICP to start out with our ideal customer profile. We knew we were going to go after marketing directors. We knew we were going to go after SAS companies and we knew we were going to go after like smaller to midsize companies, employee size, like 11 to a hundred.
We really nailed our ICP. So if you are wanting to start a company, if you are wanting to grow sales, definitely nail your ICP. That's how you're messaging, who you're messaging to and make sure you know it.
Leighann Lovely: Say what, explain what an ICP is.
Ryan Atkinson: Yep. Ideal customer profile synonymous with like target audience.
Who are you actually selling to? So we really wanted to hit that and nail that to start. And that's [00:09:00] the foundation of like everything that we do. So kind of going to that next process. Then what we did is we do a lot of outbound here. We're trying to ramp up our inbound, but I can't give advice on that. I can give advice on outbound and how to do that effectively.
Um, so what we did is once we had that ICP, we just got a list from Upwork. We hired someone for like 15 to get us like. 150 contacts, like whatever that comes out to be. Um, from there, then we got their emails. We got their phone numbers and you hit them in three ways here. So you'll upload this list into whatever platform you use HubSpot instantly, Salesforce, et cetera, et cetera.
You have one list. We cold email them. We send them a message on LinkedIn, and then we also will cold call them. So we're hitting them three different ways, three different touch points. You're sending five emails, three LinkedIn messages, and then cold calling them as well. And that was one of the most effective ways that we grew from basically zero to 50 K was pretty scrappy, but 50 K to a hundred K is truly how we got that, uh, to [00:10:00] that next level is through that three, four or five step process.
Leighann Lovely: And that's amazing. So, and a lot of people are sitting there, even myself who runs my own business, you know, sitting there going, okay, that's great. You bring in the clients, but then there's the execution.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Yeah. The good.
Leighann Lovely: No. And I was just going to say, so you bring these, these clients in. So now you have to execute on that work.
So I'm going to, I'm going to guess that you have a process, a solid process, because you can't survive if you're bringing in business and not. Probably.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, definitely. Um, and we actually, so up until about May last month, late April, I was actually handling all the account management of like video projects, doing this, doing that, doing this, doing that, just moving the projects along.
But we actually brought someone on to do that for me because my unique skills. And I think it's very important if you. [00:11:00] Our leader, if you're wanting to start a business, like what's your unique skillset and how can you free up your time as much as possible to really dive into that? And my unique skillset, like truly is like selling, like actually closing deals.
It's not dealing with video projects and all that stuff. So we brought, uh, Matthew Chin on who's awesome. Matt, if you're listening to this, I love the work that you do. And I'm very grateful for you. Uh, but essentially he handles now all of our account management. We have our SOP standard operating process in place.
We have our video editors. And so, yeah, him doing that is freed up. 50 percent of my time, which has been humongous for our sales process and actually refining that sales process to make it better and more efficient.
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. And so something else that we talk about that I've talked about a lot on this podcast is working in, you know, making sure that you are in your working genius.
Like, because when you, when you fall outside of that, what takes somebody, you know, what, when I'm in my area of genius, I can execute on that work. It takes me.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. [00:12:00]
Leighann Lovely: Five minutes to do a function when I'm outside of my area of working genius, what would take somebody five minutes to do that? Takes me a half an hour because I'm like, Oh my God, how do I wait?
I know, I know how to do this, but it just, it drains you, right? And all of us, especially when you start as a solopreneur or a two person team, you're like, okay, well we can, I'm great. I can bring in the sales like all day long. I can sell, sell, sell, sell, but then I have to execute. And that, especially for a true salesperson, they're like, wait, what?
I have to, I have to execute on this. Um, okay. And that's a lot how businesses start. Like either you're really great at the thing you're selling, but you're a horrible salesperson, which means, and again, I say that lately, you're not the greatest salesperson because you're, you want to do, let's say you're a coach.
As an [00:13:00] example, I'm a great coach, but selling it. Now you have a problem because how do you scale? If you can't sell, you bring in a coaching client, then you, so that's, that's awesome. Um, and that's, but it always comes down to what comes first, the chicken or the egg.
Ryan Atkinson: Exactly. So that's, um, a funny enough today.
I was actually. On a sales call or someone was like pitching me their like, copywriting services and like their copy to get me on that call for their email was incredible. I was like, I was like, oh my gosh. Like, like I'll book a meeting with you right away. I think I booked a meeting in like 10 minutes.
'cause I was like, this is like incredible copy. Like I will do this. Got on the call with them and it was like the most awkward, like disgustingly awkward sales call I've ever had in my like entire life. I'm not even kidding. Like I was like asked, I was having to like probe him. Like, so what do you do?
Like, what's your process like? It was just so hard and it just left such a bad taste in my mouth or like the sales was so bad that like, I can't, I just can't move forward with it. It is like so hard, but I'm sure it's good, but I just can't move [00:14:00] forward
Leighann Lovely: because the person's a copywriter. Not
Ryan Atkinson: exactly
Leighann Lovely: right.
And that as a salesperson, when somebody reaches out to me and like. They have a really, really good pitch. I'm like, okay, I'm intrigued. Like you did a really good job to intrigue me. And I'll, I'll, I'll actually like meet with that person, but you're right. Often all of a sudden they're like, uh, and if you're, and if you have to get them to sell you, it's like, okay, I'm moving on.
I'm moving on. Like, but cause it's not their area of genius.
Ryan Atkinson: So I think, um, if you are like wanting to start a company or scale, like definitely find your area of genius and then hire someone to cover up your weaknesses for you. And that's been like, that is easily been one of the best things here at, um, space, our visuals for us is getting someone to do account management where like I could do it and like, maybe like, I think I like to think I do a good job managing [00:15:00] clients, but like, at the same time, my time could be freed up somewhere.
Somewhere else to actually like grow this company instead of doing the account management. So yeah, I a thousand percent agree. Find your area of expertise and double down in that area of expertise.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And that's the same way that you should, you know, that I've talked to other people's the same way you should manage people.
Now you've managed what 70 plus people. So let's talk a little bit about that. What are these? Are these salespeople? Are these all different types of people?
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. So it's all different types of people. It's, I mean, it's truly has ranged from age ages, like 15 to like 65 plus. Um, I was grateful enough. Like when I was 18, I got my first management gig at a pool, which was great.
I like managed the concession stand. So then that next year I got promoted to manage the concession stands and lifeguards. And that was like 36 people in one summer that I'm like directly managing, um, at age like 19, which. It was probably the best job I've ever had, honestly, being a pool manager. Uh, then I've had like a few other leadership [00:16:00] positions within some athletic clubs.
And then space, our visuals were at like 15, 16 people I'm managing right now. So yeah, it's been, it's been a great experience to be able to gain like leadership, leadership, um, skills like at a pretty young age, but yeah, my leadership principles is like always treat people right. And like, always be there for them.
I don't view it as like, if someone works for me, like I tell everyone that I hire this, everyone that I work with, like, if you work for me, like I will look out for your best interests in any way that's possible. Like, what are your personal goals? What are your professional goals? And like, how can I help you get there?
Cause how I view it is if your people succeed, you succeed. It's not you succeed first and then your people succeed. You need to have your people, the people that you hire succeed for you to succeed. So giving them the resources, giving them the time, giving them the energy that they deserve is one of my biggest, like leadership principles.
And I am very grateful for the team at space star visuals. Like they, we've got some amazing people on the scene. I'm so happy. I get to work with, I have great working relationships with, but yeah, you got to make your people successful for you to be successful. [00:17:00]
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. That's, and you know, a lot of people that I talk with, they always, we talk about the, what we were.
Just talking, you know, the area of genius and then their weaknesses and. Um, helping them leverage that working, that working. And I keep talking about working. It's a book, that anyways, but, um, now I'm in, I have to remember the,
um, and I'm trying to remember, but, um, I can't remember off the top of my head anyways. Um, I talk about this a lot because as I, as a manager, you want to, you want to basically ignore their, their strengths, right? Yeah. Yeah. You. Let them let them fly.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: And then, and then help them with the weaknesses, remove any roadblocks that they may have so that they can continue to fly and succeed.
And we, and I've talked a lot about that, especially, especially [00:18:00] salespeople. Do you manage salespeople?
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, so we, we have a BDR on our team that I like directly manage. Um, so yeah, I manage him, I guess. Uh, but yeah, Cody, his name's Cody Tran. He's also incredible. Um, I love Cody death. He's good stuff. But yeah, I manage him.
Leighann Lovely: So let's, let's shift a little bit. What do you think that the greatest challenge that you have, have had? Thus far in your career.
Ryan Atkinson: Oh man. The biggest challenge. Um, I think, I don't know the biggest one is, I think we've had some unexpected challenges being like a CEO. Um, honestly, like one of them is just like, quite frankly, like owning up to the role.
Um, like I'm 25 and it's like crazy to think like when I actually talk to people, it's like. And they're like, Oh, what do you do for work? Or like, what's your job title? It's like, I'm a CEO. And so it's acting like a CEO and like actually putting those systems in place. So understanding the duties of like what a effective CEO does.
I'm still learning it every day. Like I am [00:19:00] far from perfect on how I operate here. Um, but I'm learning it every day. Another unexpected challenge, honestly, is hiring. Hiring was one of the, one of the hardest things I have done. Like you just get so many applicants, a lot of them, like, there's some that like really stand out the ones that really stand out, you interview them and like, they're all like kind of the same, so it's like, Oh, who's going to be good?
Like, what do we do? So I would say like owning up to the role and like, Taking ownership of the role is super important, of course, but like, it's just a learning process of like how to be an effective CEO and then also hiring. Hiring has been a very unexpected challenge, but it's something that you absolutely need to get right.
Leighann Lovely: So, and I think hiring is probably the, one of the biggest challenges for any organization. Cause you're right. You have to get it right. Um, because it's, it's, it's. It's extremely expensive to hire somebody and then have to fire somebody if they're not living up to that, to the expectations. And we [00:20:00] all hope that the people that we hire are going to hold themselves accountable the same way that we hold ourselves accountable.
And most entrepreneurs set their own bar, you know, If it's a normal average bar, you know, we're usually like a little bit higher,
Ryan Atkinson: definitely
Leighann Lovely: higher somewhere in the clouds. And everybody's going, why do you put this pressure on yourself? And you're like, I don't, am I?
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: What do you think? Um, what do you think?
What characteristics do you think that you have that Help those people really, what, what do they see in you that makes them, you know, want to truly succeed for your organization?
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, that's a great question. I think like they true, like people that truly like work for me, like can feel that, like, I am extremely grateful that anyone that takes a chance on like space bar visuals to like actually work here, like I am incredibly grateful for that.
And I feel like they didn't really feel that they get the. I like to think anyways, obviously I'm saying my own thing. So it's all bias here, but I [00:21:00] like to think I give them like very good support on like what they do. Like, how can I be a resource for you? What do you need from me? Like, how can I help you succeed?
I feel like that's like something I, like I said, like I am very invested in like your own personal development and professional development. And if you're at space art visuals, like I'm going to find a way to make you succeed. I cannot promise I'm going to get you there. Like, I can, I just can't promise that, but I can promise you, like, I'm going to actually Try to get you there.
I'm going to work very hard for you to fulfill all your goals. We, um, I read traction recently. I don't know who the author is. I keep referencing this book, but, uh, traction. Uh, yeah, yeah. And a lot of business owners have read it. It's a very executive book. Um, but they, uh, we got our core values actually from that.
We did like a core values exercise. So next time we do go to hire, like we really do want to. Hire based on our core values and make sure that they're aligning with it.
Leighann Lovely: And what are your core values?
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. So it's, um, we actually have an acronym, it's, uh, Reflect, Reflect. So it's, uh, resilience, entrepreneurial mindset, have fun, fun, [00:22:00] whatever, um, reflect, uh, make sure I'm saying this right.
L is a leadership, I is integrity, and C is like collaboration. So we want people that have those core values and it's just some of the core values and common characteristics that we have here at Spaceport Visuals.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And that's important. It's important for your team to, to know what is a value to you and to your co founder.
Um, that it's, it sounds like you have created a company that people want to work at
Ryan Atkinson: and
Leighann Lovely: therefore will work harder, right?
Ryan Atkinson: Mm
Leighann Lovely: hmm. And, and I shouldn't say harder work. Um, I, I don't like saying work harder, but right, work smarter and, and do a good job for your organization. So tell me a little bit about, [00:23:00] a little bit more about what your, your company does space bar visuals. Thanks.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. So what we do is we are a video production agency.
So we do animated videos. We do like product demos, customer testimonials. We'll do event videos. We'll repurpose like a blog or white paper into like a 60 second video. Um, and yeah, we handle the script writing, the storyboarding, the animation, the voiceover. So, like I said earlier, we work with best with like marketing people, uh, with smaller companies.
And our value proposition like truly is like. You're a marketing director. You wear 30 different hats. You don't have time to do video. You want to do video. We help with all that to make it a really streamlined process for you. So that's truly like. What we do and kind of our value add
Leighann Lovely: all the things that, you know, pretty much every company needs when they're a growing organization and they don't have time to, and that, that goes really well with your previous venture or your, I'm sorry, not previous, [00:24:00] but you're also running the, the other organization, but magic media.
So. It sounds like that marries extremely well with.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. I've always been super interested in like media and just like content, I guess you can say that that's always just been something that I've been personally interested in. And yeah, I remember when I spoke with Brandon actually, uh, back in November, 2022, um, we were like, uh, what do we want to do together?
And we were like, well, what are we interested in? And it was like media. We're interested in selling to B2B. We're interested in selling to marketing people. And so we originally came up with three different ideas of either like a ghost writing agency for executives, a newsletter growth agency. A ghost writing, then newsletter growth, and then like a video production agency.
So we wanted to blend our interests. So like media selling to B2B selling to marketers into a company. And so, yeah, that's something I've always just been super interested in. That's more advice I'd give to someone. If you are starting a company, find what you're interested in, know what you're interested in and [00:25:00] create something based on that,
Leighann Lovely: right.
And that's, that's awesome. I mean, um, Marrying those, you know, what you had previously. Been running and then kind of shifting that to almost be able to support clients that you had brought in in the past.
Ryan Atkinson: Exactly. Yeah. And magic media. Um, a lot of that is just like podcasting stuff. Um, so it's been, that started basically from freelancing as well.
Um, just doing like simple, like guest outreach. And I was like, Oh, maybe I should actually create a company that like does all this for. Create a company that does all this for companies. So like guest outreach, podcast production, I'll even host like interviews for companies. So yeah, it's been, it's been a lot.
It's been a lot of media, a lot of content, a lot of video. Um, and I think that's been an intersection of like both of those. So yeah, I'm very. Very media driven, I would say.
Leighann Lovely: Well, and the rise of the rise of social media and the [00:26:00] cons every company that I go to every company that I speak to. And of course, obviously love your sales being a, you know, A sales company where we become salespeople for, you know, we don't do marketing.
And so often those organizations are like, Oh, okay, well, what do we, what should we do on the marketing side? And I'm like, I don't, I I'm a salesperson. Like I know marketing at a high level, but they all want content and they, they want it easily to be able to post on. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, all of the, and to create, and I don't know, you know, but I'm not sure the audience knows, but all of those different platforms sometimes require different format.
I mean, you can't post the same thing on LinkedIn that you do on, on Twitter. Tick tock.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: Because you have to have a different format and you have to have a different length and you have to have, and so sitting down and [00:27:00] creating all of that is for an entrepreneur, for a small business. It's a nightmare.
Ryan Atkinson: It's a lot. It's too much.
Leighann Lovely: It is. You, you need an entire, another human being just to create. And so you're either hiring an entire marketing team and then when you flex, you need even more and then your marketing team is not only creating all of that stuff, but then on top of that, you're like, Oh, by the way, you have to put this in all of these other formats.
Ryan Atkinson: It's too much. Um, Yeah. So that's what like, we really like hit home on is like, it's for those marketing teams that one video, but just like, don't have that time. Don't have the resources don't have, they just don't have it. So that's why we prefer to work with like those smaller brands. Cause I love talking with like small business owners, um, not small.
Yeah. Like small business owners, mid market, mid, mid market size companies. Uh, just because like, we can relate to them in such a better way. And that's who I, that's why I sold this to at HubSpot. Um, that's just like those conversate people in marketing and sales are like the absolute best. Like [00:28:00] there's so much fun to talk to.
So yeah, that's a definitely hammering home. Like who we're trying to sell to within like the intersection of media and the value points that we're trying to hit on.
Leighann Lovely: Well, and they're the greatest people to talk to because they understand, they understand you go to an owner of an organization and they're like, well, What's my immediate ROI.
And you're like, well, I mean, I can explain the ROI you're getting in front of it, but the immediate ROI it's like,
Ryan Atkinson: it
Leighann Lovely: is because my first podcast that I ever had was for a, for a company I worked at and after it, you know, after like maybe 15 episodes, the owner came to me and goes, okay, can you explain what the ROI is now and how is it going?
And I'm like, uh, well, no, I can't give you what your ROI is yet. Like, we're literally just getting this up and running and we're starting to get views. I'm like, there's not a number to give you yet.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, that's um, [00:29:00] podcasting is for any company too. That's smaller. I think I actually think podcasting is like a gem just because one, you get a long form content in a 30 minute video.
You can get short form content, you can get a blog out of it. You get to connect with potentially how you do it. You can connect with your ICP. I think podcasting for small businesses is like a great lead gen magnet to actually get content out in like kind of one way. Um, so that, that's a great investment.
So after 15 episodes, though, it's kind of tough to do it, but still you could get 45 pieces of content out of 15, 15 episodes,
Leighann Lovely: right? And, and you're building a company is building themselves as. An expert in their fields.
Ryan Atkinson: Exactly.
Leighann Lovely: And that company is now becoming, wow. Okay. I, I want to go and talk to that company cause they know exactly what's happening in the market of XYZ.
Ryan Atkinson: Exactly. So
Leighann Lovely: anyways, I digress. Um, I'm, I'm a salesperson too.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: Um, so, you know, we're, we're coming to time. I want to give you, I know we've talked [00:30:00] obviously already a little bit about your background and your company, but I want to give you your 32nd shameless pitch to Get it out there and hopefully get some, some customers out at this, or at least some appointments.
So
Ryan Atkinson: yeah,
Leighann Lovely: go ahead, Ryan.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. If you guys are like a sales leader, a business owner, entrepreneur or whatnot, um, we do work with companies similar. We've worked with like ISO, the international standards organization, us army, we've worked with startups like GPR, butter, CMS, Vanta. They're not a startup, but we've worked all these companies to develop some awesome content that they've used on like their website, social media, sales, collateral, email collateral.
Also. If you're looking to build out your sales funnel with like great modern content, then video is a great way to do that. And yeah, we can help you guys do that in a very easy way for you. Um, and I think you'll find that our pricing is much more friendly to you guys compared to some of the bigger names out there.
So yeah, if anyone is interested, yeah, definitely please reach us out at, uh, www dot spacebar visuals. com. Let us know that you listened to this episode and we'll probably cut you a deal. So, uh, yeah, definitely. That's [00:31:00] kind of the little pitch right there of who I am, I guess, and what we do.
Leighann Lovely: Amazing. And, and again, Ryan, how can they contact you?
I know that you just gave your website. Is there any other place that they should reach out to you on?
Ryan Atkinson: Yep. So you guys can reach out as our website, uh, spacebar visuals. com. You can also reach out to me on LinkedIn, Ryan Atkinson, CEO of spacebar visuals. There should only be one. So, uh, it should be pretty easy to find on LinkedIn.
Leighann Lovely: Perfect. And those, um, those, that contact information will be in the show notes. So if anybody does want to reach out to Ryan, you will be able to go right to the show notes and find the website as well as, um, his LinkedIn profile. So, um, Ryan, I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me today.
It's been an amazing conversation.
Ryan Atkinson: Leighann. Thank you so much. This is awesome. A great interview. You did a phenomenal job. So yeah, thank you so much.

Brand Identity and The Force Multiple Every Salesperson Needs

In this episode of "Love Your Sales," host Leighann Lovely chats with Randy Chafee, owner and CEO of Source One Marketing LLC and host of the Building Wins Live podcast. They dive into the importance of building a personal brand in the sales industry, with Randy sharing his journey and innovative strategies such as his memorable "Robo Randy" promotional items. The conversation highlights the value of leveraging social media and blogging to enhance one's professional persona while balancing it with company branding. Randy also emphasizes the crucial role of time-blocking and prioritizing revenue-generating tasks in achieving sales success. Tune in to gain insights on creating a lasting impression and effectively managing your sales efforts.
Contact Randy –
Website – www.ibuyfromrandy.com
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/randychaffee/
 
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today  - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann
 Channel Subscribe link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-O7W9DzaRv4waodQKCprIg?sub_confirmation=1
 
#sales #businessdevelopment #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #selling #relashionships #customerexperience #podcast #loveyoursales #lastingrelashionships #salescareers #salesmanager #salesdevelopment #traininganddevelopment #leadershipdevelopment #salespodcast #salestraining
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am joined by Randy Chafee. He is the owner and CEO of Source One Marketing LLC,
a respected manufacturer's rep agency with a rich history spanning over four decades. Randy has built a reputation for excellence and reliability. In addition to his success in his, in addition to his successful business venture, Randy is also known for his involvement in various industries, [00:02:00] related activities and organization.
He serves on the board of directors for. For the national frame builders association and the Buckeye frames builders association, where he actively contributes to the growth and development of the industry. Randy's passion for communication and sharing knowledge led him to launch the building wins live podcast, which is awesome, by the way.
And establish himself as a prominent blogger and writer through these platforms. Randy explores topics related to metal roofing, building components and business strategies for providing . Valuable insight in and advice to his audience. Recognizing the importance of building a personal brand.
Randy has been cultivating the Randy Inc brand long before it became a popular trend. His commitment to developing genuine relationships with clients and partners is deeply ingrained a value he learned from [00:03:00] his father at a young age. As a salesman and entrepreneur, Randy has always prioritized offering value 1st and foremost, Randy.
I am so excited to have you come on and talk with me because, um, really what we're going to be talking about is. Building that personal brand. So welcome.
Randy Chaffee: Well, thank you, Leighann. Appreciate that. And, and thanks for having me on. And, you know, we talked off air about what we wanted to talk about and man, this is right up the, right in the wheelhouse of what I, I enjoy.
I mean, I love the, my industry, right. And I love my products and my manufacturers and obviously my customer friends, but I just, you hit us, you just nailed it. You know, the building that personal brand is, is so important and it's so missed by so many really, really good salespeople. And, and what they could do, however good they are, what they could accomplish, if they would work on building that personal brand.
And if they're not anywhere near where they want to be. All my, they haven't even scratched the surface, but so [00:04:00] thank you for having me on and thank you for sort of talking about something that I'm passionate about.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, it's, it, for those who have really started or those who have like locked in how to do that, it, it feels like, well, God, it's so obvious why aren't you doing this?
But there is a large, well, majority of people out there who are not leveraging The world that we live in now, social media, the networking, the, and, and you had said a phrase here that I was like, Oh my God, that's so the, the social, um, force multipliers. Is that the phrase you use?
Randy Chaffee: Yeah. Yeah. I, and I just use force multiplier in general and, and, but, but you can add social to it, but it, everything that we're doing.
And everything you and I've talked about, and when you was on building was live not long ago, we talked about the same thing. If you, if you [00:05:00] take all the virtual, all the digital, all the social, all those things, and use those is such a compounding effect. That, uh, and it becomes a force multiplier, a 10 X, 100 X, 1000 X.
I don't know how many, how many zeros you want to put on that as a lot. And it's not that hard and it's fun. And it takes a very little time comparatively to what a lot of people think. One thing that I explained to people a lot of times is, man, you must spend it. I, we see all the time. You must spend so much time.
I spend some time. Of course, if it's worth doing, you spend some time with it, but the amount of time that it would appear that I spend versus the time that I actually spend, uh, is, is, is, is small really for, and the benefit is huge. I spend a few minutes putting together a. A blog or a post or write an article or articles take longer, but you know what I'm saying?
A lot of the [00:06:00] digital stuff we do It's it's two and a half minutes of a thought pops in my head and I grab my phone literally Writing down the road and do a quick video boom boom post it out to all platforms And I just talked to thousands of people While I'm still driving down the road to my next in person contact, right?
Leighann Lovely: And there are a lot of people who, who, I mean, they, they do their podcasts while they're and I don't necessarily recommend this, but they do their podcasts while they're in their car and all of a sudden they're. Like, oh, I have this brilliant idea. I got to get this. I got to get it recorded. Um, and, but you're right.
There's people out there and they're like, oh, my God, how much time do you spend creating all this content? Because you're all over the place. And I, I see you on tick tock. I see you here. And I'm like, yeah, but you can create one really solid piece of contact content and then slice that up. And put it everywhere and people are like, Oh my gosh, I mean, how much it [00:07:00] really, once you figure out how to do it, and that was the struggle that I had was, how do I even begin?
Like, where do I, what do I use to create? If it's, if writing is your thing, if creating a video is your thing, where do you, how do you begin? And then get it down to a science where you're like, oh, this is going to take me five minutes. Um, I can bang this out. I can get this thought out and then I can, I'll have three pieces of, of great content that I can use in different platforms, different ways that have, and here's the important thing and have value to an audience, you know, And, and for the most part, if you are intelligent, if you are, you know, giving value, you're going to find an audience that is going to be interested.[00:08:00]
Randy Chaffee: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Leighann Lovely: You know, obviously there's caveats to that, but how did you start? I mean, you said you started long before you even realized that you were,
Randy Chaffee: you know, I'll tell you the very first bit of brand ambassadorship. That we did was, uh, was way back and I don't say way back, uh, 20 years ago, which is way back in the world of what we're talking about.
Right? Um, We, uh, we developed this, um, it's a really funny quick story. So my, my, uh, business manager, my agency's also happens to be my wife. And, um, she came up with this really brilliant idea. We was going to give away these little apothecary jars with candy in them, with a, with a source one marketing logo and my, one of my taglines, which is if we ain't got it, you don't need it.
Cause I just thought that was funny and kind of to the point, [00:09:00] right. Um, because I used that with the customer once when. I, they, I said, well, you don't need that. And I said, what do you mean? I don't need that. I said, cause you don't need that. And they go, I still don't understand because I don't have it. I ain't got it.
So you don't need it. It was a joke type thing, right? And so we took that and put it on there. We was branding it. And this was idea was to just put it out for Christmas, right? A little gift to get all the sales guys at a location and all that. Well, quickly we came upon, why don't I just refill these every time I call on customers?
And so we started buying the great big. Bags of hard candies, right? That I could pack in a suitcase or, or if I'm traveling from car, from home office, for example, started going in and filling up their jar every time I'm in and became a thing. I mean, sometimes I'd walk in and they'd literally set it out on their desk.
Right. Uh, they'd call up and you know, it was working Leighann. When they, I'd had a customer one time. I remember they called up and they said, [00:10:00] we've got a real problem. I said, well, you know, as a customer, I knew pretty well. I said, well, I'm sure you do. You are a problem. What do you got? They go. My candy jars, my candy jars empty.
I said, I said, so I'll fix that. And then one other time, I didn't get to a customer by the end of the day. I told him I may stop by. I may not just depends. There was nothing we really needed to do. I didn't make it. So I call, I sent him a text. I'm not going to make it. He goes. Well, that's too bad. I mean, really didn't need anything other than my candy jars empty.
So I went to a dollar general or someplace now. Wasn't, I think I went to a Walmart and I elevated my game slightly from dollar general. So I went to Walmart and I got a little bag of candy and I went and I set it by the front step and put a card on it. And I had a little stapler in my car. I stapled my card to it.
And I, I sent him a text. I says, Make sure you go by your front door the first thing in the morning before anybody else does and so [00:11:00] I still left on the candy. So that's my first start with this idea of building the identity of Randy and, uh, and, and really probably actually, as I think about it, Leighann, it might go back a little before that.
Now that we're talking, because my website, I have several for the rep agency. But the one that I use for everything is I buy from randy. com or. net or whatever else dots we got. Um, and because what's the most important thing, and I use this as a joke, right? What's the most important thing for you to remember?
Do I buy from you? Yes. I buy from randy. com. That's all you got to remember. So that was probably actually, as I think about it, even slightly before the apothecary jars. And then from there, just, it just made sense to just, you know, and, and, and this is an area of that. If your personality is such that you're, uh, hesitant to think this way, you got to get over it.[00:12:00]
It's okay to be A shameless self promoter, if you do it the right way and you do it the right intention.
Leighann Lovely: I absolutely agree. Um, if you're doing it the right way, people are, people like you, if you're doing it the wrong way, people are usually running from you. Right. Um. But if you're doing it and that's what you're explaining is a shameless self promoter, but you're doing it in a way that people are like, Oh, I like Randy.
Like I buy from Randy and there's that, that a little bit of humor in that. There's a little bit of, you know, and they know what, every time somebody grabs a piece of candy out of there, they know where it came from. You're top of mind at that point.
Randy Chaffee: Absolutely.
Leighann Lovely: You're, you're always top of mind. And that, that, those little gimmicky things.
Become part of, part of their routine, part of their day they become. [00:13:00] And that, I mean, that's, it's a, it's brilliant. There's no way around it. It's absolutely brilliant. It's I once, um, you know, back in the day when you were still not road warriors were still knocking on doors, which there are still, but after COVID things changed a great deal.
I mean, I'll be honest. After COVID. I never really got back to being that true road warrior while I was knocking on doors. I think that kind of ended and, um, And it's, it's slowly gotten back out there, especially in a lot of industries. It's finally in full force, but for a long time, even after that, there, you know, companies were locking their doors so that you couldn't even walk in
Randy Chaffee: exactly
Leighann Lovely: like, okay.
You know, the tchotchkes that my company at that time would give me were like these pens that had like, you know, a little person with the hair, you know, like, Um, and then I had one that was a backscratcher, right? And I, [00:14:00] I had a client that became a client called me like six months after I had dropped off this stupid backscratcher and he goes, I'm calling you.
And he goes, you want to know why my, my three sons were in the back all arguing and driving me crazy. I was ready to just kick them all out of the car on the way home. And he goes, then I saw this stupid backscratcher that you had. And he goes, and I threw it back into the back car and I'm like, just play with this.
And he goes, and they all shut up and they all were now playing with this backscratcher and he goes, man, I really should call her. And I was like, seriously, that's how I got this appointment.
Randy Chaffee: That's amazing.
Leighann Lovely: But it's, it's those things that keep you top of mind.
Randy Chaffee: They do.
Leighann Lovely: And, and I'm not, you know, again, I'm Yes, that those stupid little tchotchkes, those, it is that [00:15:00] consistency of like, here's something, here's, you know, and every company tries to find that perfect little stupid tchotchke thing or whatever it might be, but it truly is when you, you're consistent.
Um, and you, and again, I'm also talking about like the company branding, but you need to find what your personal brand is, what sets you and, and I'm, everybody who knows me knows that I love the color purple, right? My logo is purple. I had my hair dyed at one point, not my whole head, but I had a streak of purple in my hair, you know, the heart, which came out of my last name, lovely, you All of that, like it's, it's me, that is totally my, you know, when I do postings on LinkedIn, I have a heart, I have, you know, purple.
It's, those are the things that [00:16:00] help people stand out in some way.
Randy Chaffee: Exactly. And it's, you know, and, and, and another really good example is you just talk and thinking about the Chotsky stuff. One time we got this little robo Randy, I call him. It was one of those little, remember Gumbo or Gumby or whatever.
There's this little robot like guy with, you could flex his arms and it had a little, uh, you, you pulled the little tab out of it and it's got a little, uh, um, hock in it, right? And so you could fold it. So what I would do is I take, you know, a pen and stick it in the one hand and in a, I'd set it with a business card in the other hand, and I'd walk in and set it on the guy's desk, right?
And give it to him. And people love that because it was goofy and had I buy from Randy on, on his belly, right? And it was, it was different, it was goofy. Everybody else gave him some pads and a pen and I do that too. But yeah, okay. That's I'll put that in a pile of a thousand other pens and pads I've got.
Right. And, and plus what I [00:17:00] found with pads and pens is most companies nowadays have their own anyways, they'd rather be handing out their own as opposed to mine. But the funny thing is that was years ago, Leighann and the other day, a great customer friend of mine, we go back 25 years, sends me a picture out of the he says.
Look what I found and it's a picture of this and it was like, I, so I posted it because it was like, this works.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. And people keep for, they'll keep sending. You know, I, there was times where I had like so many mugs from so many different companies and I'm, and don't get me wrong, like most of them are like these cheap mugs and there's a time and a place where you go out and you invest in for your clients or your customers, the nice ones, right?
Because they will [00:18:00] keep the nice ones and your branding will exist. For a long time running, or it's the goofy stuff that they're like, Oh my God, I can't get rid of this. It's exactly. It's too awesome. Like, and there were stuff that I had from years ago that I was like, I just can't. I mean,
Randy Chaffee: yeah, you never get rid of that.
Leighann Lovely: It's, you know, there's just goofy things where you're like, oh, I can't, I don't know, why would I throw it away? It's funny. It's it's, it's my daughter always tries to steal it, but those are like, anyways. Okay. We're, we're getting on a tangent. So let's, let's talk more now. Like, because. Blogging and social media and how do you, when you're out there speaking, when you're out there giving talks, how do you recommend, how do you teach, train people to utilize social to [00:19:00] really push themselves forward, especially if they are an employee?
How do you, you know, explain that you don't have to just brand yourself as. an employee, but you can level up as an individual selling a product for a company?
Randy Chaffee: Well, a great question. And it's so key to remember it's like basic one on one in sales. People buy from people, even if it's B2B, which is the world I live in.
It's still P2P. There's still a, a Buyer, whatever title they have, and there's still a seller, whatever title we have, but it's still you and me at the end of the day, unless it's these trillion dollars sealed bid deals. And that that's a whole different game, but that's not what any of us would do. It's still people buying for people.
So I think. You know, a statement that I wish I could remember to give him [00:20:00] credit for, but, uh, uh, if all things being equal, people buy from who they like, know, and trust, right? And I think that's very true. All things being equal, they're not going to buy from you, even though you're 700 percent higher, regardless, right?
There's, there's, there's factors. The more relationship building we do, the less. It becomes transactional because the problem we all have in the sales world, right? That's one of the scariest words. There is that T word transactional. If all we become as a transaction, we always lose on that because either we won today.
And I'm getting off the subject, but we won today because we just happened to be too cheap, apparently, or, or whatever the case may be. But we're only going to have that business probably until the next salesperson comes in that's a little bit cheaper. Uh, it's because there's no draw to buying from Randy or for buying from Leighann, right?
So we have to very quickly [00:21:00] develop a persona. And continue to foster that persona that, and you develop it by doing, not just telling, but you got to do it, but you also got to tell that you're doing it in a way that's not in their face. And that's where social media, I think becomes, uh, so powerful. I think it's where blogging and writing and, and doing talks shows.
If you get a chance, wherever that expertise takes you, the more you're in front of people and in, in, in a non intrusive way, in a non sales way. In other words, stop selling. And just be there as that expert, that, that trusted advisor. We use that term a lot. I think it's very true. The more we do those things in front of people with no sales efforts right now, I'm not trying to sell you anything.
I'm just here to talk to you all the day about X, whatever X is. I think the more we do those things, the more we naturally build trust. Our [00:22:00] personal brand and I, and, and, and when I'm talking about building a personal brand, I never, whether you're a work for a company or you're an independent agent, as I am, you always have to respect a, the wishes of who you work for, whether it's contractually as I do, or, or I guess contractually too, but, uh, you know, as a salesperson, uh, for a particular company, as an employee, you still got to honor those wishes.
Uh, and, and maybe fight those a little bit if you need to, if they don't understand what you're trying to do, but as far as you can go with that, maybe a little farther, you really need to push their brand, right? But also my brand, because the example, my, my rep agency is Source One Marketing. I never call them and say, Hey, this is Randy of Source One Marketing.
Ever. Say ever, probably ever. It's always just Randy.
Leighann Lovely: Right.
Randy Chaffee: Because the brand is just Randy. Hey, this is Randy, right? It's, it's, and this is getting way, [00:23:00] so I don't think I'm Michael Jordan in the sports world, in the entertainment world. That's the ultimate, right? Is if you say Michael, you know what you mean.
If you say magic, you know who they mean. You want to try to get to a point in your little niche, right? That, that I, that thus my, my website, iBuyFromRandy. I can't remember what the name of his, uh, I know the manufacturers, cause if I'm doing my job, I'm also going to be promoting my manufacturers full. Why would you not?
They're, they're, they're big names. You want to use all the marketing they do as well, right? To co exist, to cross pollinate with each other. But, um, most people would say, I think I know a guy I'm going to call Randy. And I think if you do it long enough and you do it well enough and you never are putting It's like the, the chase for perfection.
We're going to always chase it and we'll never reach it because [00:24:00] it's a line in the sand that continues to move and it should, that makes us get better. But if you're doing it and chasing perfection as much as you can, one of my favorite calls I get, uh, Leighann is when they'll come say, Hey, Randy, but we'll do a little chit chat.
Say, I assuming you probably don't have this. But I know you're the guy to call to find out either a, do you, or can you help me figure out where to get it? I will jump on that. I'll call competitors. I'll call anybody I can call to try to get that information for them, because that to me is probably one of the best calls you're going to get.
Okay, I'm a sales guy. I'll say, Hey, I'd like to order three truckloads of your product. That's kind of the best, right? That's right. Honest, right? But well, beyond that. Because that tells me that they believe in me, they trust me, and they believe the two things that I want them to get out of any social media, any [00:25:00] virtual, any digital, any in person stuff that I do is I am fun, friendly, a bit quirky and goofy at times, but I'm a pro and I know what I'm doing and I'll take care of you.
And if I can get that across. And so everything that I do. In any social media, digital writing, anything that, anything that I do is always geared to that end game. And, and as long as you keep doing that, um, you, you'll just continue to grow your reputation, I guess, within your industry and be the go to person.
And that's really what you want to be, right?
Leighann Lovely: Right. And, and, and you said reputation and that's what it comes down to is if you're creating a reputation for everything that you just explained, the, the go to person, the, the trusted advisor, the, the person that knows the guy or knows where to go to get the, [00:26:00] that's, the spot where you want to, to be, always want to be, right? Absolutely. Even if somebody's calling you knowing that you, you don't have what they need. But they know that, you know, where to go, who to call, what to do, how to get it.
Um, that is, that's, that's spot on.
Randy Chaffee: Yeah. You can't get, you can't get any better now, really?
Leighann Lovely: No. And those are the calls that, you know, I, I still, you know, I come from an HR world, right? I'm still getting people calling me going, Hey, can you help me solve this HR problem?
Randy Chaffee: Oh, sure.
Leighann Lovely: No. Like, but sure. Why not?
Randy Chaffee: I'll give you a little advice.
I may not have said this, but here's what you might want to do.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Because you know, in my previous life, that's how I branded myself. And then I did that shift and I'm like, and it was scary because when you're known so well in your community one way and you shift and go, okay, well, I'm going [00:27:00] to. I'm going to go from HR lady to sales lady, people go, wait, wait, I'm confused.
Um, and for me, the pivot was easy because I was a salesperson in the HR world. And then it was just like, Hey guys, you know that I was actually selling the HR services. I wasn't the HR. I know I have an HR background, but, and they went, Oh yeah, right. Okay. We get it. But again, that's powerful when, when people know you so well, one way, and.
You know, they just, they're like, I'll just call her because she knows somebody you want. You want to be the person that knows the person or has the solution.
Randy Chaffee: That's
Leighann Lovely: when you know, you've gotten to the next level.
Randy Chaffee: Right. And so, and, and, and you can't, uh, you can't even begin for people that want to quantify everything.
And I, I get reasons for doing that and I'm not as much of [00:28:00] a quantifier as, as maybe I should be. And maybe as some people are, but. I happen to believe some things just fall into that, that, that black hole I realized, but they just are what they are.
Leighann Lovely: And,
Randy Chaffee: and I believe when you come to giving back, doing the right stuff, whatever that is, that you can't always quantify that.
And you shouldn't even try to quantify that. I think if you just have to live with the idea that, that, um, if I continue to do this all the time and that's how I do it every day, at the end of the day, I'm just going to be way better off than if I didn't. And you just got to roll with that.
Leighann Lovely: Yes. And, and that is also what you just said, really hard for salespeople.
Um, because, well, I mean, let's just be honest. Salespeople are kind of, ah, spazzy. Oh,
Randy Chaffee: they [00:29:00] know that we are, we're a weird breed, I will say that.
Leighann Lovely: So in the beginning for me to be like, okay, I got to do this. I got to do, and here's my advice for, you know, some of the younger salespeople listening, um, if you're not already doing this, you need to start immediately.
Um, especially in the beginning of being a salesperson, time blocking on your calendar is going to be what. Um, really it's, it's going to put you at next level if you're not already doing that. Um, because until you become a seasoned salesperson that is capable of just do, and even seasoned salespeople do time blocking, um, I still have to do it otherwise I'm not, I'm not functioning.
I'm, I'm going, what am, where am I supposed to be right now? And I've got 3 million things going through my head and the fun stuff always goes to the top and the stuff that is not as much fun. And, you know, Never seems to [00:30:00] get done because that's the way that salespeople think is that we'll do the stuff that we enjoy doing and we'll push off all the other stuff.
And usually for salespeople, that's cold calling. That's their prospecting. That's there. We're always chasing. Oh, this one I know is going to close. So I'm just going to follow up. Well, what happens with that is your pipeline then dries up and you're wondering why in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, you have no prospects, right?
Time blocking is one of the most important aspects to being successful. And that means, Hey, if you need to put an hour to the side to create your material. And if you work at a company, here's what's great. Your company probably already has intellectual, intellectual material that you can use for posting on social medias and platforms.
You just need to put your own spin on it, put your own verbiage to it, put your own fun flair to it. Right. And then you're [00:31:00] time blocking for your cold calling, you're time blocking for your contract writing, following up and all of that other fun stuff. And so I don't know how I got down that tangent, but.
Randy Chaffee: No, it's a great point though. I, because I, I have, I, I time block every day. That doesn't mean because one of the things that's in my phone every morning at seven 30 automatic doesn't mean I do anything with it at seven 30, but it's a reminder to myself that whatever I did the night before, which is at seven 30 needed being as prepare.
Cause I always believe in prepping, you know, today started yesterday, if not before, but at minimum yesterday, if you get up at whatever time and get a few coffees and that's about seven, seven 30, I suppose, what should I do today? Oh, you've already lost
Leighann Lovely: or
Randy Chaffee: you're not going to be near as effective as you could have been.
Leighann Lovely: So I'm still in bed.
You're an early bird.
Randy Chaffee: I'm a little bit, a little bit. But my, the point is [00:32:00] I like to prepare or make sure I'm prepared the night before. Now, if I'm doing it right, and I don't always do it right, but if I'm as prepared as I should be, I may have to do nothing, but look at that and go, are you prepared for the morning?
I look at my calendar tomorrow. Yup. Yup. Good for that. I've got that ready. That's on my desk. I know I've got to be up at seven o'clock or five 45, whatever the case is. Right. You're going no way. But, um, but when the morning comes, I have adapt. And that's to remind myself that I may block off things, for example, because I'm a believer that he who adapts wins.
And as, as focused as we need to be, as important as we need to be with focusing on the items that are important. For example, if I put in follow up with Leighann on. The quote I sent you now, if I had an exact time to do that, of course I need to do that, but if it was like, this is the time I'm, I sat, went [00:33:00] after I talked to you last week, you know, have given you time to review it, got the samples I sent you, whatever, that's a.
I plugged in to do. That's what I'm going to do unless 15 minutes before that this customer sends me a text says, Hey, I'm ready to get this order. Go and give me a call or you got to call me right now because I don't know what you guys did, but you just screwed me up every which way, but loose. I am not that all sudden took precedent, right?
That doesn't mean I don't call Leighann. It just means now I slide it over to a different time. That's all. So I think it's important to, I love the time blocking cause I do it, but I always try to do it based on the fact that there's, there's the negotiables and non negotiables, right? Right. Teams meeting with a manufacturer, it's pretty much a non negotiable, even though with that said, they would always understand if I sent them a quick text and say, Hey, I just got this guy just called out of the blue and he's losing his mind over something I got to take care of.
Oh God. Right. Customers come first. Right. Right. But, [00:34:00] but you know, I wouldn't. Right. Just say, well, I got this team's call that came in with a manufacturer. They want to talk about a new price increase, but I'm still going to call Leanna fall upon a quote. No, I'm going to take the team's call because that's non negotiable at that point.
So I think you're right though. The time blocking, uh, is because if you don't, you're right. We, by nature, Oh, believe me, you give me, I try to live a very fit, healthy lifestyle. I like living that way, but if you give me a choice, Between a Hershey's chocolate bar and a yogurt, I'm going to probably take the Hershey's chocolate bar.
Leighann Lovely: And you're, you're, you're absolutely right when you say the non negotiables and the negotiables. There's what I like to say is the revenue generating tasks need to take precedence, customers, customer satisfaction, customer, um, that is a revenue generating task. Like that is absolutely first and [00:35:00] foremost, keeping your clients and your customers accountable.
Happy or they won't stay. So that is, that goes in the bucket of revenue generating tasks, right? And that is how I organize my brain. What are the, what are the tasks that are revenue generating, but what is also as an entrepreneur, what are the tasks that keeps my business running? So there's also a level of priority, like, right.
I have to do a certain thing as an entrepreneur. Now, if you're an employee, you're, you don't have to worry about those things. You just need, you need to worry about customer satisfaction, keeping them happy, but then you need to be doing revenue generate and I'm. Using my hand here, you need to be doing revenue generating tasks at as much as you possibly can and staying away from getting in the weeds of, oh, I need to go and research this client before I call them so that I understand them.
And you haven't even made your 1st call and an hour later, you're still on their website or [00:36:00] wait, you got lost looking at a cat video. Now, your boss is wondering why you haven't made a single call. And trust me, we've all done it.
Randy Chaffee: Yes, we have.
Leighann Lovely: Maybe it's not a cat video. Maybe it's a dog or somebody making, you know, hacks, household hacks, whatever it might be.
Yes. We've all gone, Oh crap. I just wasted an hour when my intent was just to simply see what this company
Randy Chaffee: You know, you're what my worst one is right now is, is, you know, I have some customers that I follow on, on, on Tik TOK, right. And I do some stuff on Tik
Leighann Lovely: TOK
Randy Chaffee: and I'm okay until I see Caitlin Clark video come up playing basketball.
I, I, I, I'm going to lose an hour if I don't watch what I'm doing, because I'm going to watch every single one because I'm so amazed at the, at the talent of this, of this, of Of this young lady. Right? Right. And I can't, I watch one and it becomes, well, there's [00:37:00] another one. Oh, well, there's another one. Well, there's another one.
And it's all of a sudden, what did I get on here for now? So I'm as guilty of that as ever. I mean, and, and, and I don't know about you, but an hour can fly by awful fast when you get to doing that stuff.
Leighann Lovely: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I look at the clock and I'm like, Oh my, I'm going to be late. I, I, I've got something that I've got
Randy Chaffee: exactly, and
Leighann Lovely: I was supposed to block this for cold calling.
Randy Chaffee: Yeah, exactly. You know what? It's, it's amazing. So, but, but that's part of, that's part of, that's part of learning who's the most important person to manage. My opinion is yourself. Right. Oh yeah. And that's part of managing yourself. Cause I, I know that if I get too far into stuff like that, I will literally set a reminder in my phone to go off and in 15 minutes.
And I look and I go, why is that going? Oh, I had something else I met to do you dummy, you know, but you almost got to break that reverie right of, of, uh, cause boy, it's, it's easy to get into that. Um, [00:38:00] and, and, and being a. A believer in and a lover of the force multiplying effects that we've talked to social, it's easy for me to get into that and then not get myself back out of it because I, I'm in there all the time.
Leighann Lovely: I've lost days because, and you're right, because I also am posting on Tik TOK and posting on Facebook. I've lost, I've lost a half a day where I'm like, I'm like, All I meant to do was go and update this post and somehow I'm watching household kitchen hacks or household hacks and I don't even care about them, but they're wildly interesting.
Randy, we are coming to time. I want to give you your 32nd shameless pitch, um, before we wrap up.
Randy Chaffee: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you for the time. This is a fun, fun conversation. If you're not, my shameless pitch is this, I'm Randy. Uh, building wins live, uh, podcast about once a week on Fridays. We drop them.
Leighann was just on, I think we drop you shortly. I don't know when this show [00:39:00] is going to drop, but, um, may have already been out by the time this drops, but we had a great sales conversation. Um, coming up with a new YouTube channel right now. Let's chat with Randy, which is going to be very industry based for the metal roofing and post frame industry.
Uh, like we talked source, one marking is my rep agency and we're in the metal roofing and, uh, post train building world. And I, uh, I also, as you said, do a lot of writing, a lot of talking, working on a book. Um, just a big believer in social media and a big believer in the force multiplying effect. And if I can ever help anybody, I love to talk about all these subjects.
And there's, I, I network, I love networking. So if you have an interest in chatting about anything, I'm always open. iBuyFromRandy.com is the easiest way to get ahold of me. You find my name anywhere on social media, it's probably going to be me. So, uh, that's it. I just. Love to love what I do and do what I love.
It's good stuff.
Leighann Lovely: Randy, thank you so much for joining me today. Um, your contact information will be in the show notes. So [00:40:00] if you're looking to reach out to Randy, you can find his contact information on the show notes. So thank you so very much. Thank you. It's been amazing.
Randy Chaffee: Awesome stuff. Thank you much.
 

Mastering the Dance: Juggling W2 Roles and Entrepreneurship

This episode of we are joined by Scott Jacobson, founder of Onward Equity and a seasoned CPA with over 20 years of experience. Scott shares his unique journey of balancing his W2 role as a controller for a medical supply sales company while simultaneously growing his entrepreneurial ventures in real estate investing. He discusses the challenges and rewards of managing these dual roles and offers insights into the mindset needed to thrive in both. Scott also delves into his passion for real estate, the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone, and how he is helping others achieve financial freedom through passive real estate investments. Tune in for an inspiring conversation about resilience, growth, and the power of leveraging both your skills and your network to achieve success.
 
Contact Scott –
Website – www.onward-equity.com
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/scott-jacobson-cpa-47a605270
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of love your sales today. I am joined by Scott Jacobson. He is the founder of Onward Equity. Scott is a CPA and has been the controller for a medical supply sales company for the past 20 years. He also has 22 years of experience in active real estate investing, ranging from.
Single family homes and duplexes to large multifamily apartment buildings [00:02:00] and a medical professional office building. In 2013, Scott and his wife Denise founded a 501c3 nonprofit charity called the Sons Foundation or SON Foundation, which serves as a home away from home for cancer patients and their caregivers while they are in Indianapolis for treatments. Scott, I am so thrilled to have you join me today and, uh, and, and talk with me.
Scott Jacobson: Thank you, Leanne.
It's, it's an honor and it's a privilege. I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me today.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. Looking forward
Scott Jacobson: to it.
Leighann Lovely: So you are not only a entrepreneur, but you are also a W 2 employee. Is that right?
Scott Jacobson: That's correct. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, an interesting dance sometimes trying to balance the two, but, uh, you know, I've, I've done both of them concurrently for, like you said, about [00:03:00] 20 years and, uh, I enjoy them both.
So, so far I've been able to, uh, uh, kind of manage them both at the same time and they give different, uh, different excitements to me, I guess, different parts of my life.
Leighann Lovely: That's amazing. And I have to say that that can be an extreme challenge for a lot of people because you really have to have it. Well, and some people have to have, you know, two different mindsets.
However, I will say that often in conversations that I have with people, sales individuals often have that entrepreneurial mindset to begin with. Right. So coming from that, you know, kind of sales background, if you come from a sales background, you already have that entrepreneurial spirit built into you, but you really, you come from, [00:04:00] You're the controller.
You are? Yes. . You know the, the CPA, the numbers guy? Yeah. The, the guy that
Scott Jacobson: sits in the back office and , uh, the stereotype is you, you, you sit and you don't talk to anybody and you don't, uh, no one bothers you and you don't bother anyone. Right? ? I try to be the anti CPA, to be honest. Uh, I'm not a big fan of the.
The connotation there.
Leighann Lovely: Well, so let's talk about that because that's definitely, you know, the, the stereotype is the numbers person, the numbers guy, the numbers gal, who's more of the introvert. So you're definitely swimming against the current here. When we, when we're talking about that true entrepreneurial spirit, the person who's out there selling themselves, let's, let's talk about, you know, how you've managed these two very different in some people's minds and in mind, because, and again, it's, I'm not saying it's not possible, [00:05:00] obviously it's possible, but the Terry, the stereotypical type is.
Those don't play well
Scott Jacobson: together,
Leighann Lovely: correct? So yeah, let's, let's dive into this. Let me tell, you know, tell me a little bit about what you've, you know, how you've reconciled these two different disciplines.
Scott Jacobson: Sure. Yeah. And so you're, obviously you're exactly right. They, on, on the service, they don't really mesh well together.
Right. And, um, I've always kind of considered, well, I've recently, Became, I guess, maybe more self evident to consider myself. I think there was a specific term for it, but it's either, uh, an extroverted introvert or introverted extrovert. Like I kind of, I definitely have, uh, parts of both I think in me. Um, but the, the entrepreneurial, uh, kind of bug for me started my first job when I got, when I was old enough or when I got my license.
I had a lawn mowing business to where, uh, I, I would, [00:06:00] I think at the height, I had 30, over 30 lawns that I was mowing. And I had, uh, I remember my, my mom helped me and we made some flyers and I put them up at the local restaurant or. Movie store back when there were movie stores. And, um, you know, I had to, I had to figure out how to, at that point, really get out of my shell.
I haven't, hadn't figured out that I enjoyed that kind of thing yet, but, uh, that was my first kind of foray into the entrepreneurship. Uh, and I loved it because at the time I realized that my friends at that point, you know, in high school were, were going to their, their jobs and they were being told when, when they had to be there.
And, uh, honestly, I was making a little bit more dollars than they were at that point because I was working for myself. So it was, you know, I, I saw it as a, as a win win, uh, and, and that was kind of really what planted the seed for me to. The entrepreneurial spirit, I guess you could say, but I've always, you know, as we've talked about it, I've got [00:07:00] that, that other side of me that, um, doesn't, that enjoys numbers and doesn't mind sitting at a desk for a while and kind of working through those as well.
So it's, it's been an interesting journey, I guess, to say, to sum it up.
Leighann Lovely: Right. I find it. I find it really interesting when you. When people start at such a young age with, I love it. I love when you hear about these young kids, you know, figuring my daughter always talks about, I want to have a lemonade stand.
And I'm like, okay, you know, let's have a lemonade. Go
Scott Jacobson: for it.
Leighann Lovely: Go for it. Go be an entrepreneur. Last night, actually, she said to me, she, she did this hand motion that, you know, the, the money hand motion and she goes, if you want to kiss and I'm like, what? And like, we're, we're charging for kisses, like, what's the, what is going on?
I'm like, this kid is like, she's six, but I, I find it wildly, you know, clever and interesting when kids [00:08:00] start realizing the value of money and then try to put that into the real world. Right. Try to figure out how do I, how do I monetize? Uh, at such a young age to like high school age, like, Oh, okay. I can go mow people's lawns on my own schedule.
And I can actually make more money than my friends who right now are working at the gas station or the fast food restaurant for six 50 or whatever it was at that time. I'm going to guess that you're in my, you know, my age group, which was like minimum wage back then was like 6 and 50 cents or actually I think my first job was like 4 Something, you know, it was like four bucks an hour.
Who would work for 4 an hour? That's what it was. And you're right. I mowed a couple lawns and every lawn I mowed, I got 25 bucks like, and it took me an hour.
Scott Jacobson: Yeah. Or less,
Leighann Lovely: less depending on the size of it. [00:09:00] I mean, I was like, totally rolling in the king of the
Scott Jacobson: hill, queen of the hill,
Leighann Lovely: right? Right. And you go, wow, okay, I can do that for 25 or 20, you know, 20 bucks a lawn, which to most people, Hey, here's 20 bucks.
You mowed my lawn. You just, you know, So I think that's the one thing that has, you know, I think that's the one thing that has eliminated the irritation of me having to do that. And for me,
Scott Jacobson: it was, uh, I had a great situation to where I, I locked into, you know, having a mower that I could use and transfer transportation, which was huge.
Of course, but for me, I guess it, once I realized that, yes, it was taking the burden off of somebody else. But I also had to grow that, that it was a business, right. I thought about it as business. So I knew if I just had one or two, then, you know, that, that would take care of me for a morning. But if I really wanted it to be a job that I had to really go out and kind of hit the streets a little bit and figure out how to, to grow [00:10:00] the network, ask for referrals, that type of thing.
So, uh, I, I stayed, I stayed busy, but I was within my, uh, I'm pretty sure I And, and total less hours than, than my friends at that point. And, uh, again, got to make my own schedule and got to, uh, you know, enjoy the benefits of a higher hourly wage as well.
Leighann Lovely: So you, and how old were you at this point?
Scott Jacobson: Uh, so I just got my license, so I guess 16.
Leighann Lovely: 16.
Scott Jacobson: Yeah. Right. And I think I did it for three summers, two and a half summers, maybe as I, I can't remember how the, whenever I left for college, obviously I couldn't do it again, but, uh, yeah, I
Leighann Lovely: That's, that's amazing. So you got the entrepreneurial bug and then you went to school and you became a CPA.
Scott Jacobson: Yes.
And. And. And that's, there's definitely a connotation there. And, and I, in a lot of ways I fit it, you know, mentally, but I've always kind of, I've resisted that, resisted the connotation because I, uh, I've always [00:11:00] had that, that entrepreneurial mindset as well, even like I said, I've been in the current role for almost 20 years.
Uh, at the medical sales company and, um, working with the, the owners, talk with them. I do my best to kind of think like, like they think and, and to, to figure out how to not just, you know, crunch numbers, uh, but to, to help run the business, uh, to the extent that I can from, from the seat that I'm sitting in.
Leighann Lovely: And that is, um, that's a powerful thing to, to be able to use numbers to scale a business. Is extremely, it's extremely powerful because numbers speak, I mean, they speak in black and white. And if you review them and understand them properly, and you will hear that, you know, from my audience, um, you know, previous guests that I had on, um, you know, really talked about how to use your numbers in order to scale your business because [00:12:00] that, you know, they speak black and white.
I mean, you're either succeeding or you're not succeeding when it comes to, and those numbers will tell you in areas that you're succeeding and not succeeding. And if you lean into that information, you can.
Don't ask me how to translate any of that, but
Scott Jacobson: that's right. They tell the story, right. Or they start to paint the picture that you can then interpret, um, with knowing more about what the influence are, influences are on, on the numbers, you know, and then you can start to pick them apart and figure out where you need to focus your time and energy.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And if you're able to look that, look at that from more of that entrepreneurial mindset and be able to talk to the owners in a way that they understand that's not just mumble jumble. And again, I'm clicking on the CPA here for a second because [00:13:00] often, and I, and I know this personally because my girlfriend is, you know, she's a CPA.
Uh, you know, an accounting firm, you know, often she's like, Oh, this blah, blah, blah. And she's going through my numbers and I'm like, okay, that's great. I have no idea what that means or what you're talking about, but if you're able to actually talk to them and you know, they understand what you're going through.
That that's powerful that there's so much power in understanding that. And then being able to go a step further now and. Get involved in real estate investment and being able to, you know, and again, I have to commend you for, you know, the 501 three C, uh, the, the nonprofit organization before I, that that's amazing what you do for, you know, for, you know, the, the caregivers, the cancer patients, I just have to commend you on that, but it's a
Scott Jacobson: blessing to us and them.
I think. [00:14:00]
Leighann Lovely: So, but then being able to transition this into the real estate investment and understanding that's, again, that's the true entrepreneurial mindset coming out again.
Scott Jacobson: And it's, I found that it's my passion, you know, I, I was introduced to, to that world, the world of real estate through the mentor who was randomly assigned to me as, uh, in my first accounting job when I was, uh, working at the, a big four accounting firm, uh, first job out of college.
And he was the first one that kind of opened that door to me or opened my eyes to the idea that you could kind of own something that you didn't live in, uh, in terms of a house or a building that you don't work in, you can still own it. Um, but yeah, that I, I found that I, I love it and, and it's a different part of the brain, you know, to, to go and try to, As compared to the comfort of a W2 job.
But it's also for me, it's, it's, it's an exciting, [00:15:00] exciting opportunity to go out and kind of create the, create the future that I want to have. Right. Sounds cliche, but you know, for me, it's true because I've always. Uh, well, once I was introduced to that, that world, I realized it's, it's, it's my new passion.
And that's kind of where my, when I'm outside of the, the, the walls of the W2 job, that's, that's where my brain is, is, is figuring out how to grow that business. And you know, what's the right, right way to do that so that I maintain, uh, proper stress levels and time with the family. Of course, it's all a managing, a balancing act.
Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely something that I've enjoyed now for, I'm going on my 23rd year of the real estate. Um, that's all you could say.
Leighann Lovely: So let me ask you, when you say it's a different part of the brain, elaborate a little bit on that for, for us.
Scott Jacobson: Sure. Well, I, I can speak from a non technical standpoint, you know, I, I don't know, you know, technically what, what parts of the brains are, are, are firing, uh, [00:16:00] this or that time.
But, uh, you know, from the CPA, it's a very, or, you know, any kind of numbers job desk job, it's very, you know, just kind of getting the, that get in the groove and, and focus on kind of what's right in front of you. But it's numbers based and it's, you know, looking for trends and formulas, formulas work or not work.
You know, I, I see it as very. I know empirical, you know, it's about the numbers. Um, when I put on kind of my, my real estate hat or try to think from an entrepreneurial mindset, then, then it's more of a globally or think, think big picture, like, how will this step get me to, you know, however big this step is?
How is it going to move me forward? Is it, is it a step in the right direction first of all, and then, you know, planning on a more macro scale, what's, what's my goal, um, for this week, for next month, for next year? For five years from now and, and just kind of figuring out how to, how to keep moving that ne needle forward, I guess.
So it's, um, I guess in summary, maybe it's [00:17:00] one's more the, the, the CPA or the W2 job for me is more of a, a micro level focus, and then the, the entrepreneurial is more of a, a global mindset, um, thinking more macro and, and how to see the big picture and then, and then drill down to what are the, the smaller action items that need to happen and in what order to, to reach the, the end goal.
Leighann Lovely: You know, I, I love how you, you, you break this down. Um, but what I, and I may be wrong when I say this, because there are a lot of pieces, but I like to say in, from the sales world is that, um, revenue generating tasks, so what I'm hearing. Kind of from you on, on the real estate side is that, you know, the accounting aspect is really, it's, it's very detailed.
It's very, and there are a lot of steps in there that you can't, that you cannot miss. But when it comes to, when it comes to the real estate is that you're really more [00:18:00] focused on those revenue generating tasks. What's going to, what's going to make the next step to making, and I'm dumbing this down to sound very.
Um, you know, but what's going to make the next step to make the next, the, the most money. Right. And those are very sales like, you know, thoughts like, what do I do right now to get me to the next sale, the next, the more money. Right. And again, I'm, I'm breaking that down and it sounds very almost sleazy, but that's in a sales mindset.
That that's what you're doing is. Let's wipe away all of the stuff and figure out from point, you know, point A to point B, what is the revenue generating tasks that gets me the next investment or gets me the next sale? Versus accounting tasks, which you [00:19:00] can't just eliminate all of the other stuff. You have to follow point A, point B, point C.
And sometimes you have
Scott Jacobson: to take those in order, in a certain order. Whereas what you were mentioning that the sales minded or the revenue generated tasks, they don't necessarily have to happen in a certain order, but I definitely agree with you. It's the, it's kind of how you mentioned is, is absolutely true, I think, in the basic form, but there's, and then there's many ways to get there, right?
And it's, um, Yeah, and then focusing, I think it's important to focus on what you find that maybe what you excel at or what I excel at and then do more of that. Right. And then so much of the other stuff, especially in today's world, it's easy to to delegate or to hire out, you know, find, find someone.
There's plenty of opportunities out there to find people that. Are very, really good at what you're not good at. And maybe, maybe leverage their time, uh, leverage, leverage a few of your dollars so that you can spend your time elsewhere because in [00:20:00] the end, you don't see it, I think it's our time. That's the most valuable and we can never get that back.
Right.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Well, and you're saying something that a lot of people struggle with and giving up
Scott Jacobson: control.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. And that's the number one thing. Um, one understanding what you're good at and understanding what you're not so good at is one of the hardest struggles that a true, like an entrepreneur Struggles with, and then to being able to identify that and give it up.
Um, the fact that you're well, and you've been in the game now for quite a while, you know, 23 years as an investor, 22 years as an investor. So the fact that, you know, you've, you've been around the block a couple of times, but brand new entrepreneurs struggle with that. Accepting that they're not good at something and then giving up control on it.[00:21:00]
Scott Jacobson: It's tough and it's scary, right? To, eh, to admit that you're not good at something. Most, most people are, are hesitant or are scared to admit that and I get it. It's a, definitely a A stumbling block that it took me a while to get over that. And, you know, in, in some ways I'm, I'm still trying to get over that, you know, in some ways, but, um, I think it's so important because it, once you realize a lot of times that we are, are, we are our own worst enemy or our own stumbling block, if we get up, get out of our own way, then, then the potentially opens up a whole new, whole new level of opportunity for us, I think.
Leighann Lovely: Mm hmm. Absolutely. Most, um, a lot of people who fail, fail because they couldn't get out of their own way and couldn't ask for help. And when I say couldn't, I mean couldn't ask for help because they just [00:22:00] weren't either self aware enough to realize that they were in their own way, um, or weren't self aware enough to realize that they weren't good at one or two disciplines.
That were vital to their success.
Scott Jacobson: Absolutely. And, and, you know, we're kind of talking about it in the business context, but I think just in life that applies to life in general, right? So many aspects of, of, of all that we do, you know, no one's good at everything, but everyone's good at something. Right. So finding, figuring out what we're good at and, and leveraging that and figuring, you know, in a perfect world, figuring out how to monetize that and to, to take advantage of, of that and create a, create the life we want.
I think that's, Maybe that's the secret to life, but it's not, it's not easy.
Leighann Lovely: That's that. Well stated. And so you help other individuals to my understanding with real estate investment, is that correct?
Scott Jacobson: [00:23:00] That's true. That's the focus I've taken the last two or three years now is really figuring out, you know, and that was a mindset shift for me as well, because I, the first 18, 20 years of my real estate.
Journey, I guess was, was all me. Uh, I had actually by choice, not really wanted to bring other people into the mix. I wanted to work by myself and I wanted to, you know, make my decisions and, and take my own risks. Um, but at some point I was introduced to, uh, another potential mindset and I, I decided, figured out that I, I really enjoyed it and at that point I was able to say, to kind of look inside myself and say, you know, this has been a great world for me for the last.
Couple decades, however long it's been. And at that point I realized, you know, there's power and teamwork as well in, in, in building a team and having others to come alongside and, um, [00:24:00] push that needle forward as well. So that's really what I've been bracing the last two or three years is, uh, reaching out, bringing others, trying to bring others along for the ride as well, um, teaching them, trying to educate about first of all, why, why real estate, why I believe personally that it's a fantastic investment.
One of the best investments. Out there, uh, cause most people don't even know that you can invest. And when I say invest in real estate, what I've kind of focused on is, uh, the passive investing side for people, for the kind of the, the working professionals that are too busy to go out and maybe, or, or too, uh, I don't want to say scared, but, uh, just not ready to kind of do something actively by their own home and manage it and work with tenants.
Uh, so bringing others along for a passive investment opportunity is what I've been focusing on.
Leighann Lovely: Interesting. And so how do you. I mean, go about kind of selling that idea to people.
Scott Jacobson: For me, [00:25:00] it's what I realized when I look back at my, you know, first 20 years or so of this is I realized that it's, it's.
Honestly, it's given my family and me some opportunities. I never would have imagined coming out of college. Like I, my brain just hadn't gone there. I didn't kind of dare dream that big, I guess, and to see how it's just kind of snowballed for me and kind of one thing leads to another and seeing the opportunities and, and what this really could look like, ultimately what I've boiled it down to is, uh, you know, we're all selling something, uh, in whatever we do, and I think I'm selling freedom, maybe life freedom, you know, and I think that The root of that is financial freedom, uh, but it leads to so many other, you know, when you're financially free or when you're financially comfortable.
Uh, then you, you have the freedom, the mind freedom to maybe take risks that you wouldn't take otherwise, or take, you know, maybe, maybe you decide to change jobs into one that you're, um, that, that feels a deeper passion for you, that kind of thing, [00:26:00] or, uh, that you can focus on what's more important to you.
So, uh, yeah, in short, I guess selling freedom and I kind of say life freedom. I think that's the ultimate. Goal for all of us. Uh, and again, it's, it's, it's rooted in where it starts with financial freedom, or that's a big component anyways, but there's so much more to it as well.
Leighann Lovely: Interesting. And that's, um, you're right.
It is definitely, um, that fear that I'm sure holds people back of, well, what, you know, what, but very, um,
very interesting on, um, very interesting on kind of that sale idea of. I would love the idea of financial freedom, but what does it look like? How does it, and, um, it's very interesting. I find it very interesting. So
if you had to give advice [00:27:00] to your younger self. What advice do you think that you would give your younger self?
Scott Jacobson: It's a good question. And I thought about it at different times. And I think the advice changes, of course, as you gain knowledge and you gain experience. But number one, I think, don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone, because I've definitely had awareness of where my comfort zone is in the past.
And most growth, I think, comes from that. Just on the outside of that zone of that comfort zone. So it's something that, you know, I think I'm still learning to how to do that. Well, Um, you know, the, the first podcast I was on was, was definitely a, a step out of your comfort zone, uh, situation, but I, I found that, that, that I enjoy that.
So, um, you know, buying, buying the first house, absolutely out of the comfort zone. But when I had one house, I said, [00:28:00] all of a sudden it wasn't a foreign concept anymore. I had proof of concept and I, I had somebody that I could trust. Uh, talk to you and I could say those questions off of and learn from and at that point, then it was it wasn't scary anymore.
And it was just something that I need to learn how to do better. And we've all got those things that we need to learn how to do better. So I would say, yeah, number 1, don't be afraid to to get uncomfortable because I think growth and I think learning comes just on the on the other side of comfort, but then kind of always be, you know, Learning and that includes learning on your own, but it definitely involves or includes learning from other people as well.
Because, you know, when they say, why, why reinvent the wheel? Well, why take 5 years to learn what someone else has already learned in their previous 5 years of experience? Why not? Why not talk to them and kind of leverage their, their knowledge and say, hey, can I. Um, I don't know, some [00:29:00] people enjoy being taken out to lunch, take him out to lunch and really lean on them and learn as much as you can, or can I shadow you, uh, for this, or can I apprentice with you, you know, it sounds like it's a waste of time or waste of money, but I think it ultimately could be the best investment that I, that, that we make is learning how to, or who to, to reach out to, and, you know, don't be afraid to ask for help as well.
Most people I found, uh, are, are more than happy to, to share what they've learned. Uh, for people when someone wants to be taught and wants to learn.
Leighann Lovely: So what I loved about that is, um, and I say this all the time, especially in with, you know, when I'm coaching people on new entrepreneurs on how to get comfortable with the, you know, sales and that type of thing is get comfortable with the uncomfortable because in life, you Um, we are, especially if you are, you know, growing and this is really advice for, you know, the listeners right now is if [00:30:00] you, if you're, if you're looking to be an entrepreneur, if you're looking to put yourself out there, it's going to be uncomfortable.
But the only way that we as humans grow is to put ourselves out there and putting yourself out there, it's uncomfortable. There has been plenty of times where I have like you been on a podcast that's, that wasn't my own or. Um, even early on when I started podcasting that I was like, Oh my God, do I really want to.
Publish this like, uh, like how, how do I feel about what I said? Or, Oh my gosh, I just said that on that podcast. It's going to go live. Or, you know, I I'm uncomfortable with whatever it might be. Even early in my sales career, it was like, Oh, I don't want to make this call or I don't want to do that's part of life.
And the more we push through that, The better we get at it. I, I remember early on, somebody said, fake it till you make it. And I'm like, Oh, I can do that. I [00:31:00] can, I can do that. I can fake it that I, you know, I can fake that. I know what I'm talking about. And here's the thing is that the person that you're doing that in front of doesn't know any different, you know, as long as you're not lying to them, as long as you're not being dis, you know, dis genuine, what is, you know, as long as you're, you know, just, just trying to.
Get there, trying to learn, trying to, that's the whole, that's the whole point is that, you know, you're putting yourself out there on a regular basis. Yeah. It's going to be uncomfortable sometimes because you're like, am I doing this the right way? Well, nobody knows if you're not like, so go for it. So I love, I absolutely love that answer.
It was awesome. Um, and we are coming to time already. I feel like every time I talk with somebody like you, it just goes by so quick. So you are going to get your 32nd shameless pitch.
Scott Jacobson: Okay. Start the clock [00:32:00] down. Um, so onward equity is, is the name of my company. As we talked about, that's what I've been focused on in the last couple of years.
And it's, it's really trying to educate people to, uh, to the idea of, Passive investing in, in larger multifamily, um, apartment real estate projects, that's what we focus on. So, um, I think a lot of people just don't even know that that opportunity exists, that you can invest in an apartment building. Um, prior to, you know, seven, eight years ago, I had no idea that you could do that.
Uh, but I found that as it's, it's a super great way in my mind to diversify an investment portfolio and, uh, take some risk off and can create better returns, uh, but also ultimately just kind of leverage your time. It's not something you have to manage. I think a lot of people know that real estate is, uh, can be a great investment, but they don't want to deal with it.
So we deal with it so that you don't have to. And just quickly, my, my website is onward equity. com, onward equity. [00:33:00] com. And on there, there's a, an ebook, a book that I wrote called the, the top 10 reasons to be a passive investor in real estate syndications, which is what this is, where we do all the work and, uh, we bring investors along for the ride.
So if you visit the website that, uh, there'll be a link, a page that pops up and you can download that ebook. And I'd love to talk to anyone who, um, if this resonates and you'd like to learn more.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. So you can reach him, um, at his website. Um, you can reach Scott at his website. Um, do you have a LinkedIn profile or any other place that you would like people to be able to reach out to you?
Scott Jacobson: I am on LinkedIn. Uh, I couldn't tell you exactly what that is. Uh, Scott Jacobson.
Leighann Lovely: And that's fine. I will put all of the places that you are able to reach out to Scott on the show notes. Um, Scott, I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me today. This has been an awesome, um, conversation.
Scott Jacobson: It's been a pleasure and time goes fast.
Thank you for having me.
Leighann Lovely: Yes. Time does go fast.

Optimizing Sales Performance and Team Management

In this in-depth conversation, Dr. Jeff D. Standridge, a seasoned expert on sales, leadership, and organizational growth, shares invaluable insights on the art of selling, the psychological aspects of sales leadership, and strategies for sales team management. Leighann hosts this enlightening discussion, exploring topics from overcoming call reluctance to optimizing sales performance through internal processes. They delve into how effective sales teams are led, the critical balance of results and relationships, and the impact of organizational support on sales success. Dr. Standridge also discusses the significance of educational background versus actionable behavior in distinguishing top performers. This episode offers a comprehensive guide for sales professionals and leaders aiming to enhance their strategies and drive growth.
 
Contact Jeff –
LinkedIN – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffstandridge/
 
 
Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann
 Channel Subscribe link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-O7W9DzaRv4waodQKCprIg?sub_confirmation=1
 
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am so thrilled today. I have Dr. Jeff D. Standridge, who helps organizations and their leaders generate sustained results in the areas of innovation, strategy, profit growth, organizational transformation, and leadership.
Jeff is an instrument rated pilot in both single engine and multi engine aircrafts, formerly a vice president of Axiom Corporation. He has led, [00:02:00] established, and operated And start up business units in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Jeff serve is serves as the managing director for conductor as well as innovation junkies.
That also has a podcast where you are the co host. That's right. That's awesome. He is the co founder and managing partner of Kedron capital partners and teaches in the college of business at the university of central Arkansas. He is also. Retired from the U S army, Arkansas army, national guard, where he was recognized in 2000 as the soldier of the year. This is quite a resume.
I am so thrilled. You're also a speaker, trainer, consultant for numerous companies, organizations. You're an author of three books. So why don't you jump in Jeff fill in any of the blanks that I missed. I'm so thrilled to have you.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Well, [00:03:00] I am so honored and pleased to be here. And I will tell you that really the only person who calls me Dr.
Standridge is my wife. And she only does it when I do something really, really stupid. And she'll say way to go, Dr. Standridge. And so, um, so I get to hear Dr. Standridge quite often because I'm, I'm pretty prone to doing goofy things. So, you know, it is really a pleasure to be here. I'm, I'm excited to visit with you about, about sales and, and, and all things, sales and sales leadership.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, you, I mean, and, and you've written three, right? Three books? No, five. Oh, no. Three. Okay. Three. Three
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: books. Yep.
Leighann Lovely: So first tell me a little bit about, you know, the first book that you wrote and what inspired you to do that?
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Yeah. Technically there are four. Uh, three in recent times. The, the, the first one I wrote back in 2005 with a, with actually a pastor friend of mine.
Uh, it's called the abundance principle, five keys to extraordinary living. And we wanted to look at, uh, the, the, the Christian scriptures, but also the, um, the, uh, [00:04:00] uh, just religious texts. And we wanted to look at what were some guidelines there in terms of how we should be living our lives in order to experience the greater degree of fulfillment in the here and now.
And, uh, and then in 2018, uh, wrote a book called the innovators field guide. Follow that up in 19 with the top performers field guide. Much of my doctoral research back in the day was in studying the differences in top performers and average performers in, in the healthcare field, ironically, at that time.
Uh, and then over time started expanding that research into software developers and database administrators and salespeople and, and, uh, marketing professionals and others. And then, um, The work that I do with the conductor Is really more of a social enterprise focus on helping entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs in Arkansas, the state where I live, uh, with my coauthor, Jeff Amoran, who runs an organization up in Northwest [00:05:00] Arkansas called Startup Junkies and our Startup Junkie is the name of the organization.
And, and he has a podcast called Startup Junkies podcast. Um, and, and we're really focused on helping start and grow companies in Arkansas. And, and, and, and, And we feel like that Arkansas is kind of an unexpected place because most of the venture capital is really on the coast. And, uh, we feel like that the, that pretty much all over the heartland inclusion, inclusive of Milwaukee and others are unex.
Expected places. And we just wanted to share in that book, creating startup junkies, building sustainable venture ecosystems in unexpected places is the subtitle. We wanted to share some of the things we've learned about the cultivation of what we call the four pillars of entrepreneurial ecosystem, building talent, culture, community engagement, and access to capital.
Leighann Lovely: Wow. And you hit on, you hit on so many different things when you were talking there, obviously, you know, mentoring, coaching, and, and, you know, and, and you also talked about studying, you know, what [00:06:00] makes, you know, okay. I don't know.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Top performers versus average performers. Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: Okay. Average versus top performers.
And throughout your study, was there an underlying like, thing in every industry or was it different as you were looking at different industries?
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Well, there's certain, there's certain nuances within each industry or within each job role within industries, but the thing that kind of crosses all industries, all job roles really boils down to the degree to which one is able to balance results and relationships.
So I think about the kind of the legal scales, right? Where you have one and so with the, with an R on each side of results for one and relationships for the other. If I focus on results at the expense of relationships, I will be wildly successful very, very quickly. That is until I alienate everyone around me.
Who's responsible for helping me maintain those results. If on the other hand, I am really heavily result, uh, relationship [00:07:00] focused at the expense of results. People will love me. Until they lose respect for me because I can't deliver the results that I, I am accountable for. And then, and then I lose them both.
And so, uh, you know, it really, uh, success in every endeavor really boils down because we all have a bias. We're, we're all kind of tendency toward one or the other. Uh, but the one who can really balance the two begin to recognize when they're, they're favoring one over the other and bring themselves back to that balance.
Tight rope, so to speak, are the ones who really differentiate themselves. So another reason that I don't put a lot of stock in, in, you know, just being doctor standards is because academic credentials don't matter. Professional certifications don't matter. Uh, college degrees don't matter. Grade point averages don't matter.
It's about behavior. That's what differentiates top performers. Now, do all of those things Give us a foundation upon which to behave better, uh, education and [00:08:00] credentials and what have you, of course, but they're threshold competencies. They're not what I call differentiating competencies.
Leighann Lovely: Interesting. Very, very,
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: take a sales example.
I'll give you a sales example, right? I have not been able. So, so the, the, the top performing salespeople and the average performing salespeople. All experience what we call call reluctance to the same degree. We can all find reasons why we, we can't go out and cold call or prospect or what have you. Oh, I got to get these invoices out.
Oh, I've got to get these proposals out. Oh, I've got to do more research. Top performers and average performers experience call reluctance to the same degree. The differentiating behavior is those top performers put it on their calendar and they do, they prospect religiously because they know the. The activity or inactivity in this 30 days will come home to roost in the next 60 to 90 days.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Wow. Yeah. I feel like you're in my brain. I'm like, Oh my gosh. [00:09:00] And, and I preached that because what you do and I, and I work with my clients on that, what you do today is going to be, you know, seen in that 30, 60, 90 day time period. And I, and I work with my clients on the, you have to do time blocking.
If you're not doing time blocking, you will find every excuse in the world to not do the work, to not make
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: the
Leighann Lovely: calls. Thanks.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: You're doing good work. Then that's because I could not agree with you more.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. And so throughout those studies, you found that education, all of that is not necessarily the determining factor.
It, it ultimately comes down to the balance between relationship and results.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Yeah. And, and, you know, uh, Stephen Covey talked about that in the seven habits of highly effective people. If you know that book that was written in the nineties was, was predicated on about 200 years of success literature.
Right. And, and he talked about the personal [00:10:00] victory and the public victory, right? Uh, his son, Stephen M. R. Covey, uh, wrote the speed of trust. And he talked about character incompetence, character. Relationships, competence, results, personal victory results, public victory relationships. So, you know, what my research found was not drastically different.
I just kind of call it something different, but it's something that's that has manifest itself year after year after year, decade after decade that. You know, I, I certainly, uh, my life, my family tree was transformed by the education that I received. So I don't want to denigrate a formal education, but, but it, it, it, it gave me the, the, the, the MIPS between my ears to be able to understand and recognize that standing on a degree or standing on a credential or standing on, you know, uh, it's not going to really differentiate my success.
It's going to be what I do with that information.
Leighann Lovely: Right. [00:11:00] Correct. And people can be highly, highly educated, but not have the ability. And here's a defining differentiator between you can be so unbelievably book smart, but have zero, um, street smarts.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Absolutely. Completely agree.
Leighann Lovely: And with, and when I say street smart, it's more like that.
I used to joke all the time with, you know, people who are highly intelligent, like, great, you have all, and I'm, I'm not picking on them. At all. But if you were to drop them in the desert, they would sit down and go, Oh my God, I don't know what to do. Like, I don't know how to. The odds are against
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: me. The odds are against me.
So therefore I can't really counteract the odds.
Leighann Lovely: But you would drop somebody that has high, high, you know, intuition, high street smarts, high, and you drop them in the same place and they'd be like, okay, let's figure out what I'm surrounded by. How do I get to water? How? And they would be. [00:12:00] Very scrappy, very like figure it out, you know, and that's, it's again, those both of those are great.
Having both of those is a wildly powerful thing.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Completely agree. You know,
Leighann Lovely: there are people out there that just, they, they have one or the other and you can, you can gain both.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Absolutely. But yeah, my, my whole interest in this topic became, so my, so before I got into the business world, I was a paramedic and a respiratory therapist.
That was my formal training at the undergraduate. It's why I tell people I crammed a four year degree into six years is because, um, I, I worked full time through college as a paramedic and, and, uh, was I, what was a professor at the University of Arkansas for medical sciences teaching in a cardiopulmonary.
Respiratory therapy program, and I began to observe that some of my students who made straight A's from day one all the way to graduation couldn't hold a job. And then I had some people who were [00:13:00] struggling to graduate with a C average who were wildly successful. And I began to say, well, what am I doing here?
Right. We favor those who, who jumped through all the hoops and make all of the academic credentials. We jumped through hoops to, to, to, to really favor those, but they're not the ones who are making a difference necessarily. Right. Um, and, and so then we have these others who are struggling and, and, and they can be just as successful.
So what is the differentiator? And that's kind of where my research interest came in that regard.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And that's, and sometimes it comes down to this person has a wild ability to memorize and regurgitate information that doesn't necessarily mean high, you know, intellectual, that's right. Um, you know, high, you know, some of those disc assessments, all those, you know, it's, it's doesn't necessarily mean success, like high education.
And again, we can, Digress down to this, you know, I have [00:14:00] wild opinions on, you know, higher education. I believe education is important, but I also believe that testing needs to be less important.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: And that, so, so I have to comment on that. Right. So completely agree. So I teach an entrepreneurial finance class to upper level undergraduates and, uh, MBA students.
And we have no tests. I make them negotiate a contract with me at the very first two weeks of class for the grade of A, B, or C, which however much effort they want to put in, because those are all passing grades. I create a draft contract for the grade of A, B, and C, give it to them. And I say, you or your parents spent 1, 200 for you to be in this class in the next three to five years.
You need to get, uh, you know, five to seven to 10 times your value out of this class for it to, to be a good return on investment. So take this con, this draft contract. Mark it up in track changes. Send it back to me. I will accept [00:15:00] some of your elements. I will counter propose other elements and we'll go back and forth and we will sign a contract by the second week of class and that will you'll get a copy.
I'll get a copy and that'll be your grade for the semester as long as you do everything that's in the contract. That that you've contracted for, if you fail to deliver the terms of your contract, you don't get the next lower grade, you fail the course. And so if you can negotiate, you can renegotiate with me anytime up until the week before finals.
So anyway, kind of off topic for here, but it's, but I agree with you. We are so aligned.
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. And that is not off topic because in sales, that's, we negotiate constantly. And, and I am of the, the, I am of the mind that everybody is in sales. We are constantly negotiating, whether it be with ourselves, our spouse, our parents, our, our.
Whomever, whether it be for a piece of candy or for 20 bucks, so I can go to see a movie. [00:16:00] We are constantly negotiating. What we don't see is colleges, high schools saying that, hey, sales can be a job. For you. It can be a career for you. We're only teaching. We're only, you know, really selling our, our students are young on the accountant doctor, you know, those, those hard skills.
We need to start teaching better on what you just said. That is a, that's a, not only is it a hard skill, it's a soft skill as well, because now we're actually using a different part of our brain that allows us to be creative. Yes. Mm hmm. That's right. And, and that is, that, that's creativity. It allows people to go, Oh, okay, wait, I, I have the ability to, but now you're holding them accountable, you know, and they have to hold themselves accountable.
That's right. To do what they said they're going to do in a contract that they've negotiated themselves. [00:17:00]
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: That's
Leighann Lovely: right. That's so wildly valuable. I mean, and, and from, if, if that was me, I'd be like, okay, I get to negotiate. Like, I don't want to put in a lot of effort. Hey, B is a. Passing.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Yeah. And, and, and it kind of freaks them out the first, the first day of class when I lay that out to them.
But, but by the end of the semester, I yeah, I've been doing that kind of teaching for 25 plus years and, and they all come back to me or they don't all come back. I have people who come back to me periodically over the years to say, I learned more about life in that class than, than in any other scenario.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And that's, that's the most important thing because. We need to set our college students up for life.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: That's right.
Leighann Lovely: Not just for, memorize this book, give me, pass this class, you know, or pass this test. Because when you go into a real world working situation, [00:18:00] you're not taking a test.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Well, it's like I said, when I was a paramedic that, you know, I had to take certain proficiency exams, both written knowledge exams and practical skill proficiency exams in order to become a paramedic.
But class started the first time you're in the back of an ambulance with a patient by yourself. That's when school really starts. And so, you know, They're the same thing with flying, right? So I have to take a written exam and a practical exam for every rating that I have. And I have to demonstrate proficiency every couple of years in those areas.
But that makes that's, that's just to make sure I have the base level of safety and knowledge and skill, not You know, to be basically safe, not necessarily ultimately proficient.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Well, and if you think you're, you're a military, you're a veteran, [00:19:00] when you went into basic training, there was no class, well, yes, there's a little bit of classroom training in here, but everything was, you know, You're going to do it.
You're going to live it. You're going to go through physically you're doing. There was no classroom of you're just thrown in, right? You're there training you every second of every day to do exactly what you need to do to survive. If you're in a combat situation,
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: that's right. And it starts the moment you step off of the bus.
If you've ever watched officer and a gentleman or any of the combat movies with a moment, you step up, step off the bus. And there are 10 to 30 of you standing there at attention with, uh, you know, uh, a dozen drill sergeants circulating in and around and through yelling, screaming at you, screaming at you.
Leighann Lovely: And it's, it's complete chaos. And you're like, what did I do? And then six, eight weeks, depending on, you know, what you're in, what you [00:20:00] signed up for 12 weeks, 16 weeks. All of a sudden you're, you're a soldier. That's right. Right. So let's talk a little bit more pointed, you know, with a pointed direction here, you know, you, you've taught a little bit about, um, or you've done some coaching with, you know, leadership and development.
And so what I really would love to dive into is we kind of talked a little bit before we hit the record button on, you know, helping organizations understand, you know, or not understand, but. Helping them with leadership and development training. And one of the things that intrigues me is that organizations struggle sometimes to lead sales teams, especially large sales teams.
And so I'd love to get your, your take on the difference between leading You know, just a team and leading a sales
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: team. Yeah, that's a great [00:21:00] question. You know, you said something a few moments ago that I think is pivotal, pivotal in this discussion. And that is that everyone is in sales. And you know, um, I always say that nothing happens until someone sells something and if you are in a delivery function or a customer service function, or you are in accounting or you are in facilities.
You have a role in impacting the sales organization. And so I think for organizations to lead sales teams, they have to start by leading non sales teams. They have to start by helping everyone understand that everything that they do has an impact on the selling process. And they need to be constantly sensitive and aware to whether they are adding to the selling process or they're taking away from the selling process.
And so I think that's kind of. Numero uno, right? Uh, number two is the easiest thing to measure is [00:22:00] the sales activity and the sales output. Uh, it's, it's easier than any other function in the business other than maybe the finance function. Um, but, uh, because it's the easiest thing to measure, it can sometimes be a little more difficult to lead it differently than the other functions.
Leighann Lovely: But
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: because it's easier to measure, it does in fact have to be led differently than the other functions. You know, in, in, In some of those more abstract functions where it's difficult for them to see the direct correlation between their daily activity and the business results, we have to point them toward a vision, point them toward a direction, inspire them to move forward toward where the company's going, and build it.
Functional goals, functional, you know, we have, we have to, we have to bridge that gap of that abstract gap. We have to bridge it with guidance and [00:23:00] direction and what have you.
The sales organization, it's a little different because if, if you've hired salespeople correctly, if you've onboarded them correctly, if you've trained them correctly, et cetera, you have been relentless in helping them understand the correlation between their activity and their accomplishment and their, the, the, the outputs that they, that they generate.
And so in, in, if, if, if they are the right people in the sales function, which we will assume that they all are, then really all you need is a framework. You need a direction, you know, we, we give them sales targets. We give them sales quotas or we, and, or we give them a commission plan. That may be more of an absolute plan where it's, you know, tied directly to the amount of revenue they generate versus a quota.
So it's either we put them on an absolute plan or a relative plan and we give them kind of a target, so to speak. And then we say, go forth and prosper. Here are the [00:24:00] boundaries. Where you need to seek additional guidance or get approvals or what have you. And we're going to make those boundaries as few and far between as possible because we don't want to create sales friction.
Um, and I'm here to help you, whatever that means I'm here to help you. So you call on me at any point and I will touch base with you on a regular basis. I will see if there's coaching that I can give you. Uh, I will observe your activity and the correlation between that activity and the accomplishment.
And, and I will engage myself to help you where I see, and you engage me to help you where you see the need.
Leighann Lovely: And I love that. I love the, the concept of just building out the framework because so often when I talk to sales individuals. Of decided to leave organizations, it's, you know, that when they've been there for, you know, even whether they've been there for, you know, six months and they're like, yeah, I was out of there.
And I'm like, why did you, you know, why, what, what happened? And they're like, I just, I don't see myself [00:25:00] being successful because, and it always comes down to, you know, my boss just, you know, pushing me. micromanager. And I just, they want me to do it this way and only this way. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, you know, you don't think you can be successful that way.
And they're like, well, no, I, that's not the way I sell. Like, well, have you been successful doing it your way? And yeah, I mean, I've always had wild success and I'm like, okay. And, and. Then I've had other people who are like, Oh yeah, management changed. And now, you know, they're calling me every single day saying, what were your numbers today?
How many phone calls did you make? How many? And, and salespeople get overwhelmed by managers who have the best of intentions. But all of a sudden, these salespeople feel like they can't breathe, like the life is being squeezed out of them [00:26:00] by a manager who has the best intentions, but doesn't understand that most salespeople put the bar much higher for themselves than anybody else.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Yeah. Yeah. And I should say most great salespeople. They're the best salespeople. That's right. There are a couple of things I want to talk about there that you just, you, you spurred a thought in me. One is, um, we have this thing called Salesforce automation tools and Salesforce automation systems. And one of my pet peeves is that all of the workflows and all of the outputs and all, everything in that Salesforce, it's, it's, we tell the salespeople that it's built to help them be successful, but it's really built to help the managers understand whether or not they're doing the activity.
Right. And, and so, you know, let's get that straight. And, and I do a lot of coaching with, with sales people all over the country. And that is probably one of the greatest impediments that I see. Is they sell a Salesforce automation system. Um, and they sell it to their, to their [00:27:00] teams as this is to help you be successful when in reality, all the workflows and all the functionalities about help about monitoring, it's literally about monitoring for the sales managers.
So getting that right is important. The other thing I think is, is important. You know, I always start with the end result and I tell my sales folks, look. If, if you demonstrate to me that you are progressing against your, the expected outcomes, right? Because even if I put you on an, on an absolute target where you're paid a percentage of revenue, I have to plan on about how much you're going to deliver because I have to have delivery resources and manage the expenses to deliver that revenue.
So if, if you're hitting your, you know, monthly, quarterly. Revenue goals, revenue targets that we've mutually agreed then, and you're not stepping outside the framework. Great. If you're not hitting your goals, then I'm going to step back one more like, and I'm going to look at your pipeline. Well, okay. Tell me what your pipeline looks like.[00:28:00]
If you're not hitting your goals and your pipeline is weak, then and only then am I going to really look at your activity and if you're. Not hitting your goals and your pipelines week, and you're not hitting your activity. Well, that's when I'm probably going to invite you to pursue, to, to pursue opportunities in someone else's company.
Um, because you, you have to understand
Leighann Lovely: that.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Yeah. So, so you have to understand the connection between the two, but good salespeople. And good sales leaders, good sales managers, in my opinion, go to the end and manage against the end and only then kind of back into the remediation of a salesperson if, if the other building blocks are non existent.
Leighann Lovely: And a great sales manager is, you know, if you have a solid team in place, the majority of the conversations that you should be having with your team are, how are you doing today? What can I do to help you? That's right. And, ends. Pretty much just lifting them up and reminding them that they're [00:29:00] doing a great job.
Like, are there any and working on the weaknesses and leaving, leaving the. The strengths alone, they're already
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: moving in, removing the organizational, uh, obstacles, right? I was leading a fairly large sales organization in a publicly traded company, and I started hearing, as I was asking that question, what can I do to help?
What can I do? What do you need from me? What's getting in your way? What keeps you awake, you know, et cetera. I was hearing about just the administrivia, just the, the, the paperwork burden, the, the delivery function burden. And so. Uh, so I, I actually had my team do what I call the sales velocity study and just said, look, I want you to track your time for two weeks and I want to put an additional burden on you, but I want to understand where you're spending your time.
So they came back and collectively across, I don't know, 30 or 40 salespeople. They, they gave me kind of two weeks worth of time. And, and I quantified how much time they were [00:30:00] spending on, uh, on non selling related activity. And it led me to do two things. Number one, I created a new role calling it called an associate account executive, and it was a junior level person who came into the organization.
I paired them up with three or four salespeople and basically gave them a small bonus that was tied to the. Like the success of those four salespeople, and they were responsible for taking anything off of their plate. That wasn't direct sales related activities. So chasing paper, chasing a contract, chasing the scope of work, you know, getting signatures from clients, all of those kinds of things.
That was number one. The other thing that I did is I sat with, with my, with my peer across the organization who ran the delivery function, and we prioritize the list of delivery tasks that they were having to get involved in, and we And figured out how to streamline his organization in order to help the salespeople.
It paid huge dividends. I mean, into the tunes of millions of dollars of, of better sales performance. [00:31:00]
Leighann Lovely: And nine times out of 10 being a sales professional throughout my entire career, nine times out of 10, whenever a manager would come to me and be like, what is your frustration? It would be the. The process to onboard or chasing down a client to get X, Y, Z, getting them to sign a contract.
It's all, every time I talk to a sales, what is your least favorite function of your job paperwork? Why? Because great salespeople. They don't want, they don't want to be sitting at their desk, filling out paperwork. They want to be out there making connections, making phone calls, having meetings that that's where they're most of them.
I don't want to say all of them, but that's where most of them, that's their working genius. That's their area of, you know, true mind blowing like expertise is having those conversations and really Bringing in new business for sure, [00:32:00] they get bogged down and when we, when we're not working in our area of genius, it takes us longer to do what we have to do because we just, we're not great at it.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: That's right.
Leighann Lovely: And so what normally would take probably somebody who enjoys that, 15 minutes, takes the other person an hour.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: And everyone suffers when that happens.
Leighann Lovely: Correct.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Because nothing happens until somebody sells something. And if the people who are selling, who are bringing the revenue into the company are facing obstacles at every turn, guess what?
That affects everyone downstream.
Leighann Lovely: So what is your advice? To sales leaders and how do you help sales leaders become better?
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: First and foremost is I, I try to drive that philosophy that if, if they've, if they've moved into being a sales [00:33:00] leader from leading other functions, that it's different and, and help them understand the philosophy behind everyone is a salesperson.
Uh, number two is to, to, to have them talk to their salespeople, to ask some open ended questions versus are you doing okay? Many salespeople say, yeah, sure. Um, but to ask what can I do to help? What's getting in your way? Where are you spending your time? If you had a magic wand and you could wave it, what one thing would you change about the way this organization supports you?
Because you ask that across enough salespeople, you're going to start hearing some themes. And then your job as the sales leader, your number one job as the sales leader, is to remove obstacles from the salesperson's path so that they can do what they do best. They can stay in their zone of genius. So helping them understand that, and then the other thing that I do is helping them understand the framework, kind of the boundaries and [00:34:00] the frameworks that they need to put in place to help manage those salespeople, uh, lead those salespeople better than manage them.
You know, I, number one, I tell them, which is like, I tell my own salespeople, I'm not going to micromanage you. If I have to micromanage you, you are in the wrong role or in the wrong organization. So, um, you know, I'm going to look at the outputs that I'm going to look at the pipeline, that I'm going to look at the activity.
And when you're a new salesperson and you're building your pipeline and your sales, your sales outputs for the first time, then we're going to focus on activity. There's going to be activity you need to do every single week. And you're going to need to report on that activity. But my hope is once you start getting the taste of sales, we will then move to focusing more on your pipeline.
Then when you get that, we'll focus on more on the output.
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. Now I had so many, I had another topic that I wanted to discuss with you, but. We are coming to time. This has been such an amazing, like engaging conversation. [00:35:00] So before we, you know, get, I give everybody their, their 30 second shameless pitch to, you know, promote themselves.
So Jeff, why don't you take the opportunity to do that?
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Sure. Where I spend the most of my time today is with, uh, Innovation Junkie. Innovation Junkie is an organization that's focused on, uh, helping, helping companies create sustained strategic growth. Um, and, uh, we do that through a variety of mechanisms.
We have what we call our growth diagnostic, uh, which, uh, gives them and their leadership teams, the opportunity to 70 some odd best practices in the areas of revenue velocity. Uh, leadership effectiveness, organizational operational effectiveness, digital readiness, innovation, readiness, and financial disciplines.
And then from that, we help them put together a plan to remediate those deficiencies in order to help their organization grow. So, uh, that's where I spend the majority of my time today. And I'm very active on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with any of your listeners that want to just connect and talk.[00:36:00]
Leighann Lovely: That's amazing. And all of your websites, all of your information is going to be in the show notes. So if somebody wants to reach out to Jeff, you can find that in the show notes. Um, Jeff, I am so excited and grateful to have the privilege to talk with you today. I really appreciate it. It's been an awesome conversation.
Dr. Jeff D. Standridge: Well, it has been an honor and a privilege for me and, and, uh, you're doing the Lord's work. So keep it up.

Redefining the Art of the Sale: Personal Identity and Cold Calling Mastery

Join this awesome episode with Paul M Neuberger, an expert in transformative sales strategies and cold-calling mastery. Explore the innate qualities that make a successful salesperson, the power of personal identity over professional scripts, and the revolutionary approach to cold calling that promises higher success rates. Learn why sales is more about giving than taking, and how genuine human connections can redefine your sales results. Discover the personal anecdotes and professional insights that can make the difference between a missed opportunity and a closed deal. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that challenges conventional sales wisdom and guides you toward more meaningful and effective sales practices.
 
Contact Paul M Neuberger –
 
Websites - www.paulmneuberger.com and www.CsuiteforChrist.com 
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Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today  - Book Appointment
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Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am so thrilled that today I am joined by Paul M Neuberger. He is an international keynote speaker, a world class sales trainer. He is an author and. Just an amazing guy all around. Uh, he's also the founder of C Suite for Christ and his mission is to make the impossible possible.
Paul, welcome to the show. Well, hi [00:02:00] Leighann. Thanks for having me. It's a real pleasure. Yeah. I am so excited, um, that you were willing to join me today and, you know, just, uh, Talk about sales and talk about honestly, as I sit here with your awesome book, yes. Um, you know, talk about how you, you know, became the cold call coach and how you have, you know, grown that to really become kind of a serial entrepreneur here in your own, right.
And become such a, a world class sales, you know, trainer and coach. Yeah, yeah, no, I really appreciate that. It's, uh, it wasn't anything I necessarily set out to do, like it wasn't like I was sitting in my room as a teenager ruminating about my future and saying, Oh, I want to teach salespeople, uh, how to be better at what they do.
Paul Neuberger: It just, I get asked the question a lot. Our sales. Are good salespeople born or are good salespeople made? And my answer is always the same. It's a [00:03:00] little bit of both. I think when I grew up, I had the certain characteristics to be good at sales. I did not know that at the time. I like being the center of attention.
I like taking risks. I like being loud. I'm a people person. Turns out that can serve you fairly well in the world of sales. And as I was kind of going through my professional career, one of the other things that I learned about me is well, too, and I don't know how else to describe this. I don't know if you've ever had experience with this.
The best example I can give is I used to be smart in a previous life. So I took a lot of like AP classes and that kind of stuff. And I was in a, I was in an AP politics class, and this was, I went to a Catholic high school. So we were talking about abortion and which is a heavy topic when you're a When you're a teenager, and I forget what the exact question was, but I'll never forget there was a, there was about 20 of us in this AP class, all 20 of us agreed with whatever the teacher said.
It's hard to have a debate with each other when all 20 agree, but because I didn't want to be a part of the crowd, I said, well, I'll take the opposite side. So it was me [00:04:00] debating 19 other people. So the one thing about me is if. A hundred people are going in one direction, even if that's the right direction, even if that makes sense, I'm going to go in the other direction.
One, because I'm going to get the whole lane to myself. And two, I'm going to suck up all the oxygen in the room. So as I realized why I've got this skill set for sales, the, the, the places that I work, the individuals that I was associated with, they would, well, here's your cold call scripts, or here's how we prospect, or here's how we sell.
And I'm looking at it and I'm going, this is, this is not the, this sucks. This sucks. What the heck. So I just started to think there's got to be a better way. And long story short, after a lot of trial and error, after a lot of risk, after a lot of beating to the, you know, going to the beat of my own drum, I stumbled across a couple of things that worked.
Hence my, uh, my career now as a sales trainer. Wow. And, you know, one, you said so many different things that I was like, wow, that, that makes a lot of, a lot of sense. Um, you know, I, [00:05:00] obviously as, as, you know, a sales professional myself, I do a lot of self reflection on what works, what doesn't work, all that kind of stuff.
Leighann Lovely: Right. But if I were to go back to, you know, You know, again, myself, when I, my younger self, I was always the loudest person in the room, always the, you know, slightly entertainer, the person who always tried to, if a situation was uncomfortable, try to figure out how to bring the room down, control that, you know, that type of thing.
I used to get in a lot of trouble because I loved to debate to the point to the extreme sometimes where even when I. I was debating the opposite of somebody. It wasn't necessarily something that I was passionately, you know, passionately believed, but it was, why do you have to believe that point of view?
Like so passionately, why can't you step outside of yourself and look at it from another point of view?
Paul Neuberger: Well, and [00:06:00] it's kind of with that, that I think, and that's part of the reason why you are where you are today. I think salespeople are just naturally curious. They're naturally inquisitive. Really good salespeople are a passion.
Pain in the rear to be around because they're always, they're always challenging things. But, but at the end of the day, you, you kind of sort of want that. And it just, just two real quick examples. One, one of the things that I think really led me to falling madly in love with cold calling. First of all, to be a good cold caller, you have to be charismatic.
You have to be energetic. You have to be all these different things. And, and quite frankly, I thought those were the things that I was. So. Cold calling naturally played to my strength. But the thing is, there's this cottage industry out there that tells you cold calling is dead. If cold calling is dead, I'm dead and I don't want to be dead.
I think I still have a lot to offer. So what I started to find is again, just pushing back. People started to accept the cold calling was dead. Why would you accept that? Maybe you're just not using the tool correctly. Maybe you've never been taught correctly. Maybe you're listening to the wrong voices. [00:07:00] So, so for me, just always been pushing coke on his dad.
I don't think so. Let, let, let, let me, let me see if there's a better way to do this. And then most recently you had talked about me with, with my association with my ministry C suite for Christ, you got this again, this notion that, well, you're supposed to separate your faith life from your work life, because if you talk about Christ and the professional setting, you're going to offend people.
They're not going to become your clients. Well, again, conventional wisdom and I'd never. Get along too well. Well, who says you can't talk about faith in the workplace? Who says you can't share the scriptures on social media? Sure. Were there a couple of clients that I lost or a couple of prospects? Of course, but I'm not for any everybody anyway, for the people that are the right clients or the right fits or the right people, they're going to respond to that.
So, so to your point, yeah, you, you should challenge everything. You should question everything. And I think the best salespeople do exactly that.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. Well, and to your point, we're living in a world where. People, [00:08:00] if, if they don't, if they don't like me or they don't like my point of view, they don't like what I believe on a religious basis, they can go buy some from somebody else.
And that's absolutely fine with me. They don't have to buy from me. They don't have to. And, and again, I'm going to go back here before I get down a rabbit hole on that one, because we could talk about that one for, for three hours, but cold calling is dead. See now, first of all, I hate when people say, Oh, cold calling is dead.
Because one, yeah, I can go anywhere online, grab information, blah, blah, blah, blah, however, the most powerful thing in the world is actual communication. What you and I are doing right now, having a conversation. People buy from people they like. We all know this. Well, how can you like somebody if you're simply just finding information online and then making a decision?
Quite often we go, Oh crap, I made the wrong decision because you didn't even [00:09:00] get to know somebody prior to. And so one of the best ways for companies to start to understand who they want to buy from would be simply having a conversation. And the only way that a company is going to get into that organization is by making that first phone call.
And when I was taught to cold call, well, When I, when I wasn't taught to cold call because nobody ever sat me down and said, oh, this is the part of the business that you're going to, or the part of being a salesperson that you're not going to enjoy. I just assumed it was fun that like, oh, okay, this is going to be.
And I made it a game. I made it like how many. Phone calls can I make in order to get to my yes, right? How many and then now, how quickly can I get past the gatekeeper? Like, making different. Kind of gamifying that in my first year was probably the most fun thing for me because I guess [00:10:00] I'm, I'm apparently I'm not of the norm.
Paul Neuberger: Well, you are a little odd. I'll be the first to say that Leighann, but you know, but, but to your point, and this is a little bit, uh, and I say that with all love and affection, of course, but, but to, to take this a bit deeper, and I think what you're getting to, you know, Is what I would challenge every salesperson out there.
And I do this in my, my coaching and my consulting, but what I would challenge every salesperson to, to do is to come up, what is your personal mission statement? And, and the reason that's important is because this world is just going to, it's going to put its values on you. It's going to tell you what you should do.
It's going to tell you what you can't do. It's going to tell you these are the acceptable things in society. And if you don't have a clear mission statement and you're not rooted in your sense of identity. You're going to be blowing all over the place, which is going to lead to a high, a low quality life.
It's going to lead to burnout. It's going to lead to fatigue. It might even lead with disenfranchisement and sales, which is terrible because I think sales is one of the greatest [00:11:00] vocations or callings anybody can have. Where else can you touch so many lives? Where else can you bring so much value? Where else can you have so much fun to use your words?
So real quick, as you kind of alluded to, and I appreciate you doing that. My mission statement, very brief, is to make the impossible. Possible where coal coin, it's impossible to be good. Oh yeah. Watch this. It's impossible to, to talk about faith at the office. Oh yeah. Watch this. It's impossible to instantaneously differentiate yourself and separate yourself from all the competition.
Oh yeah. Watch this. So because I have that mission statement, I'm really rooted in my identity too. Often salespeople let their standing Determine their identity. So someday in sales, as you know, Leighann, incredibly volatile. Some days you're up and when you're up, if you're standing, if you're ID, if you're standing determines your identity, the week you're up, you think you're great.
I was born to be a salesperson. I'm Gordon Gekko on steroids. This is fantastic. Three months go by, you can't get a single appointment to save your life. Your standing is [00:12:00] low. Well, now your identity is low. I suck. I'm in the wrong field. I don't offer anything to anybody. The best salespeople don't let their standing determine their identity.
They let their identity determine their standing. I know who I am as a Christian. I know whose I am and nothing in this world, no failed cold calling, no losing of clients, no bankruptcy of businesses. Because I'm rooted in my identity, my standing is never going to change that. So I think the more salespeople really understand what their mission statement is and why they do what they do, the more success they're likely to have sooner rather than later.
Leighann Lovely: Too many salespeople think that their identity is tied to their company. And, and yes, while you're selling a product for a company, you still have to brand yourself. And when I say brand yourself, that is creating [00:13:00] your identity of who you are, who you want to be and who you, you know, are going to become.
And that does it. Evolve, but you need to, you need to create that. You need to think about it. You need to understand that at your core. And, you know, you talk about, you know, you know, God, Christ in, in the office. I very much have talked about mental health and mental health awareness in the office and being, uh, being able to have these conversations, being open about it and not, not being so uncomfortable and being, you know, shut up.
And if you are uncomfortable with it, get comfortable. It's time. It's, this is the time and we've shifted. We're no longer And I've said this in, in a previous, in a previous lifetime on an HR podcast, we're no longer robots who walk into an office and become these people that, you know, are numbers. We have to create our identities and then stay in that not just at home, but at [00:14:00] work, because it is unhealthy as human beings to pretend that we are anything other than who we are all the time.
And so for not only mental health. But for, you know, your, your whole life, your whole person, that is going to make you a wildly more successful person, especially in sales.
Paul Neuberger: Yeah. And again, I know we're reaching to our respective choirs here, but, but, but I think one of the things that you kind of, that you kind of hit on and it's a, it's a, it's a very true maxim.
It's at the core of all that I do. It's at the core of all that I teach people by people first, people don't buy companies first. They don't buy organizations first. And with cold calling specifically far too many people will go, hi, I'm Leighann. Lovely. I'm with lovely insurance. This is what we do. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I've already hung up because I don't know, I, I want to buy from somebody that I know, like, and trust, and if you're leading with the company, that's fine. But I don't buy the company first. I buy the person first. And to give you a concrete example, yeah, to talk about [00:15:00] getting real. If we want to, you know, focus on this authenticity, I don't, I don't want to pick on this guy because he's obviously crazy successful, but a guy like Grant Cardone.
I would never buy from Grant Cardone. And then the reason that is, is when you see the way that he presents himself, I mean, he's this uber rich, muscular guy. His wife is a model. Uh, he, he posts pictures on LinkedIn of her on the piano, like, like in a model pose. I'm like, who does that? He's always doing like, he's coming off of his private jet.
I can't relate to this guy. The way the guy presents himself is he's never had a problem. He's never had an issue. Uh, I can't relate to him. So I'm not going to work with him. Guy like me. I'm very similar to you. Uh, I've struggled mightily with mental health for a brief period of my time. I was suicidal. A lot of people have been down that road.
Wouldn't you rather work with somebody that has experienced that? Uh, I've fought addictions over the course of my life. The worst addiction was pornography. I just found myself being drawn into viewing that way more than I, I should have. [00:16:00] Thankfully, I've kicked that habit, but I know that there's a lot of other people that struggle with those things.
All I know is that I want to work with somebody that's a real human. I want to work with somebody who doesn't act like they're better than anybody. And if I put myself out there as somebody who has had mental health issues, who struggled with addictions and who unapologetically believes in his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that's going to resonate with the people that it should.
Those are the people I want to work with the people that don't. Why would I want to pretend to be somebody that I'm not? To work with them if we're not compatible.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. And here's the thing you are the norm, which means that you're speaking to the masses versus the very finite amount of people who resonate with somebody who is rich, who's, you know, out there, you know, doing everything that you just said, you know, with the wife on the P all of that, right.
You are the norm. I want to work with somebody who can identify with me, who still has to [00:17:00] mow my own lawn, take out my own garbage, fix my own damn. Plumbing all of that kind of stuff. I want I want somebody who understands my pains. And yes, are we at little, you know, we have different levels of of that in society, but we've.
Still experienced those different things. I can still speak to you as a human. I don't want somebody and I've trust me, Paul, I have, I've had people stand up and give these speeches of, do you want to make, you know, the kind of money where you could have a car like mine and they've got this, you know, Ferrari and I'm like, okay, you just lost me.
I don't want to hear about how you have all of these things. And if I work just a little bit harder, I can have what you have. That's not motivating me. That's just pissing me off.
Paul Neuberger: Yeah, I would agree. And I think to your point, yeah, to your point, I think more often than not, it would upset the [00:18:00] majority of the people that are out there, at least not resonate with them because the part of the reason that people hate sales is because sales is tough because you get rejection because there's so much pressure on it.
Well, there's this huge disconnect between how people live their life. And then how people sell. I mean, like when you live your life, you, you, you take time, you get to know somebody, you go slow, you find commonalities, you build rapport, you look out for each other, you, you, you support each other. And then, oh, if there's a way that we can help each other, great.
In sales. It's the exact opposite. Hi, Leighann. We've never met. I don't know what your needs are, but I'm just the guy to help it. I'm going to ram this down your throat. That's why so many people say no. That's why so many people yell at telemarketers. That's why so many people get such, I mean, even before you call it, it's like, this is icky.
This is gross. Yeah. Because in your intuition, in your gut of gut, you're a good person. And you know that this, this doesn't feel right. So. If you do it in a way that feels [00:19:00] right, that's more relational. That's more people by people first. That's more let's establish an emotional connection and then sell.
Not only does it feel better, that's what people buy. That's how people buy in your odds of success go through the roof. So let
Leighann Lovely: me ask you a question. Cause you brought up telemarketers here for a second. Why do you, why do you think that telemarketing hasn't gone away? Because I mean, I'm a sales professional, but people connect me to a telemarketer.
They, they, they like connect those dots and I'm like, no, no, no, no, I'm not a telemarketer.
I guess in my head, like, as soon as I get a. Telemarketing call. I answer it and I immediately hang up. I mean, I used to try to go, hi, hi, can you stop talking first? Hi, can you stop? Okay. Click. I used to try to be non mean because I'm in a sales type role, [00:20:00] but it's gotten so bad. Well, now they're robocalls.
I mean, now they just like, and you, and you ask, are you a real person? And then they go click and they hang up on you. Why do you think that hasn't gone away? Because. Clearly it must be working on somebody. Maybe I've answered my own question.
Paul Neuberger: Yeah, I don't know. I think, I think part of it is if you look at any organization that is doing tele, the two, two thoughts I have on this one is if you look at any organization that's doing telemarketing, that that is not the aspect of their business.
That has the most muscle behind it. So it's not like they're saying, well, how are we generating new clients? Well, we've got this really awesome telemarketing team. It's like, well, first we do TV commercials. We do social media, we do internet, we do major things. We do this, this number 17 is telemarketing.
It is something that they do just to do because the numbers are so high. Well, if I got somebody here making 300 calls a day, We're not putting a lot of training behind it. We're not putting a lot of money into it and we're not really [00:21:00] investing a lot. And this person touches 300 people, but those are, those are extra touch points.
It's like the cherry on the top. If I have a thousand people doing it, that adds up over time. So I think a lot of people still do it because. It, it, it's, it's just one additional touch point that they're not putting a lot of resources into anyway. But the other thing, the name should really speak volumes.
There's a huge difference between marketing in sales, sale sales is more of that one on one relationship building where marketing is just, you think of Superbowl commercials, you think of, you know, let's send out this massive email to a hundred thousand people. They're called telemarketers. I will, I will tell you, I don't think their goal is to sell anything.
Their goal is just to. Market, I don't care if you hang up, I said my name, I don't care if you get mad. I'm putting us cellular on the front of your mind for 10 seconds before you hang up on me. They don't need to sell to be effective. That's why it's called telemarketing as opposed to tell us selling.
None of these people are selling. They're just marketing and [00:22:00] trying to enhance that overall name recognition. And because of that, I don't think it's ever going to go away.
Leighann Lovely: So true. So unbelievably true. Telemarketing, not, not tell us selling totally and completely true. So Paul, if you could give one or two pieces of advice to a brand new salesperson coming in, what would that be?
Paul Neuberger: That's the billion dollar question. You're, you're, you're lucky. We're friends. Otherwise, I'd say people don't pay me enough to know that secret, but I'll tell it to you. It's a good question. So I would say twofold. This is, this is a hot, this obviously high level. So if anybody wanted some additional information, I'm sure we'll provide them with that.
But the first thing, this is cold calling specifically, but I think it's also sales. Generally the way that I teach Selling and cold calling is just incredibly drastically different from what else is out there. Just about everybody [00:23:00] cold calls to sell something. My clients cold call to give. Something you'll always be able to tell who was trained by Paul M Newberger and who wasn't because the people that aren't are the ones that go, I want to talk to you about your insurance needs.
That's not one of my clients. My clients will say something like I wanted to offer you a free service. I wanted to give you a couple of referrals. I wanted to offer you some educational literature to make you better at what you do because at the end of the day, For the most part, people's favorite radio station is W.
F. M. What's in it for me. And before they want to work with you, before they want to hire you, they want to see, well, I want to know you first, but what kind of value is in it for me? So, so tip number one is when you cold call, when you sell, when you do your door pulls, when you do your email campaigns, whatever, offer to give them something and ask nothing in return.
One, your response rate is going to be better too. It's going to give you more to bats because these people are at least going to want to [00:24:00] talk to you about whatever it is that you're giving. But when it comes to what you give, and I think Leighann, you, you said this really well earlier, a lot of people, salespeople wrap up their identity in what they do.
Obviously you're cold calling because it's part of what you do professionally. The issue is a lot of salespeople think the only value they can give. Has to do with their job and their workplace and the services that they provide. That's not true. You're a wonderful child of God. You're a once for all time human being.
You can offer people valued, not based on what you do, but instead who you are. So the ultimate, so, so tip number one is offer something, but if you really want to offer something amazing, that's going to get you a ton of appointments, do this. What can you offer somebody where they benefit first, that has nothing to do With what you're paid to offer.
So for instance, if you, if you're an insurance sales, you know, one of the things that you could [00:25:00] do to offer something for free is I'll give you a free insurance review. I'll do a free analysis of your handbook. That is better than selling. But it's still not as good as it could be, because that still kind of sounds salesy.
What can you offer this person? If you were retired, you could offer it to them. If you were a stay at home mom, you could offer it to them. Those are what we call personal value add propositions. One such example is referrals. Again, you don't want, you can't lie, but if I called somebody like Leighann Lovely, and I knew, like, Deep down in my head.
I wanted to sell to her. Okay. I'm not going to lead with that because I want to get to know her first and build a relationship. But one of my VAPs might be, Hey, Leighann, you know, I've got a lot of clients that are in sales. Some of them could use some sales training. I'd love to get to know you better and see if I could send you some referrals moving forward.
Most people are going to at least hear you out. It's a chance for us to build a relationship. And Oh, by the way, regardless of what I do, that is what I call a personal [00:26:00] VAP. That has nothing to do with where I work, but it's still a way to bring value to somebody.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. And for those of you who are, you know, very new or very green to this industry, you may be wrapped, you know, trying to figure out, well, what value do I bring?
And before you can answer that question, first, you must know yourself, get comfortable in your own identity. As Paul was talking about earlier in this, you know, earlier in our conversation, you have to, you have to do a little bit of self discovery in that, but get comfortable with it. With networking, get comfortable with being around people in a crowd, because that's where you're going to start to get some of that self discovery.
And you're going to really start getting comfortable with your own identity and figuring out what your personal value proposition basically statement is, um, it doesn't necessarily have to be tied to your company because like, again, I'm going to say it again. You don't have to [00:27:00] position yourself and I've been in positions where companies Oh, no, no.
You walk in and you introduce our company. And I'm like, no, no, no. That's not how you sell. I walk in and I introduce myself. And when it comes up, I'll talk about my products. You need to first find who you are in order to get people to like you because people buy from you. Not from your company. So I, I love, I love how you, you brought that up and I, I just want to make sure that the, the younger people don't get discouraged in trying to figure that out because it does sometimes take time.
Um, it took me a while and, and I will. Go ahead.
Paul Neuberger: Sorry. Uh, you, you, you see that you, you have this impact on me. You get my juices flowing, but, but, but the other thing that the other two real quick things, I'll let you finish your thought. But one, I hate to say this, but a lot of these organizations do the churn and burn method when it comes to their salespeople that to you, to [00:28:00] them, you're replaceable.
Yeah, I don't, I don't care how much money you make. I don't care how high your title is. If, if, if, if something happens to you though, they're going to find another one of you in a lot of times, these organizations just put an emphasis on quantity over quality. I think professional sports teams are the most egregious, uh, Organizations in this regard, they'll, they'll, they'll just work these young people to death because, Hey, I'm an NBA team.
Of course you'd want to work here. And then when you get burned out, they get somebody new. You have to resist the quantity over quality. It is quality over quantity. And the last point that I want to make, and I'm sure Leighann, you'd agree with this. Is it any kind of sale? There's two parts. There's the emotional part and the logical part.
Both have to be there. If you want to win somebody over first, if you want to sell to them first, you got to realize people are emotional buyers, not logical buyers. It's not so much what you say. It's all about how you make them feel. Feel when you've said it, I'm not saying lie or cheat. I've absolutely not, but don't focus [00:29:00] on, you're going to get 0.
12 percent APR extra over the, no, we're not, we're not talking logic. It's how do you look like Leighann just laughed right there. If I was trying to sell Leighann on something. That's a step in the right direction because I just hit her at an emotional level. The one who wins is the one who elicits an emotional reaction.
The one who wins is the one who's getting a lot of head nods. And if that means we're just talking about each other's kids playing little league for 60 minutes and business never comes up, eventually I'm going to win because I'm hitting that person at a deep emotive level, right?
Leighann Lovely: People
Paul Neuberger: buy,
Leighann Lovely: buy an emotion and justify on logic.
Um, a hundred. A hundred percent of the time. Well, I shouldn't say a hundred, but there are definitely times, you know, when logic does come into that. However, it comes down to if they don't like you, if you don't make them feel good, and there have been meetings where I've gone in and never talked about business the entire [00:30:00] time, and then I get an email and go, oh yeah.
Yeah, I forgot. Are you going to send me over the contract? And I go, oh, yeah, yeah, of course. I'm gonna send that over to you. Um, we didn't even talk about rates. We didn't even talk about this. And it's like, right. And you just, you just got to know them because all you do is listen to them, talk to them, get to know them.
And they feel the greatest they've ever felt. Especially during, you know, especially during the pandemic and during that time when everybody just wanted somebody to talk to their, you know, it's okay. Anyways, I digress. Um, this is the time, um, Paul, when you get your 32nd shameless pitch. Um, so, and every, every guest that comes on gets the opportunity to do that.
So please, as we are coming to time, 30 seconds, there you go.
Paul Neuberger: Awesome. So twofold one, uh, the normal cold call success rate in this country is about 5%. That's considered good. I just want you to ask yourself in what other profession is 5 percent success [00:31:00] considered good. Could you imagine if your doctor only diagnosed your illness 5 percent of the time?
Could you imagine if your auto mechanic only fixed your car 5 percent of the time, those people would be in jail for fraud or abuse or neglect. My clients have a, over the course of 11 years, have a 36. 4 percent cold call success rate and a 27. 1 percent voicemail response rate. If you want to make that quote unquote dream a reality, just go to my website, which is paulmnewberger.
com. And the only other thing that I would say is if you are, if you're a Christian, if you feel smothered in secular society, if you're frustrated with this imaginary wall that divides your faith life between your prayers. Your faith life and your business life. We'd love to have you join C suite for Christ, a collection of business executives that is determined to cover every square inch of this world in Christ.
And that website is c suite for christ. com.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. Thank you so much for that. And, you will, uh, or I will include how to reach out to Paul in the show notes. So if you [00:32:00] are looking to reach out to him, please go to the show notes and you will be able to find, , Paul M Neuberger. Through, , whatever avenues, , I list there.
So, thank you, Paul. I so appreciate this amazing conversation. You are absolutely brilliant. , and thank you again for coming on.
Paul Neuberger: It was a pleasure, Leighann. Thanks for having me.

From Coffee Beans to Dream Homes: If You Understand Sales, You Can Apply It Anywhere.

In this captivating episode of Love Your Sales, I’m joined by the incredibly versatile entrepreneur Leah Beaulieu. Leah shares her rollercoaster journey of starting various businesses, from a coffee house sparked by a love for coffee to a unique venture into the world of commercial kitchens and cupcake trucks. She dives into the lessons learned, the importance of adaptability, and her eventual pivot into real estate, all while emphasizing the entrepreneurial spirit. Her story is not just about the success and challenges of her ventures; it's a testament to the power of cross-selling, understanding your market, and leveraging sales and marketing skills to thrive. Tune in to this episode for an inspiring conversation that explores the true essence of entrepreneurship and the drive that keeps innovators like Leah pushing forward.
Contact Leah –
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/leahmbeaulieu
Website - https://www.coast2coastprop.com/
E-mail - Leah@coast2coastprop.com
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@coast2coastproperties
 
Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today - Book Appointment
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. Today, I am joined by Leah Bollier, Realtor with Coast to Coast Properties at EXP Realty. With a background in sales and marketing, she has owned and operated several businesses over the past 15 years.
Starting new ventures is her, is a passion of Leah's and she understands the necessity to be able to pivot while running a business. Leah believes everyone should seek their passion while [00:02:00] understanding running a business can be challenging.
Welcome Leah. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you today.
Leah Beaulieu: I'm excited. Also, for having me on the podcast.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, no, I'm, I'm very excited to talk with you because you are, well, kind of a serial entrepreneur, a passion of yours, as you know, I just mentioned in your bio. Um, so why don't we, you know, jump in, when did you first get the itch to start, you know, your first business?
Leah Beaulieu: It's really just kind of crazy. I mean, I remember whenever, you know, Starbucks and I'm from Columbia area. So like Atlanta bread was big back in the day and I spent tons of money, just like we all do still drinking coffee and having my lattes and breakfast every day. And my husband and I had been out of town and it was like, we were coming back.
We had a long drive and I thought, you know, [00:03:00] I think I'm going to open a coffee house. And he said, I don't think so. And I said, no, I really think this is what I'm supposed to do. I was like, I spend so much money on coffee. Like I may as well own my own place. I mean, at least I understand what everybody enjoys.
And so the craziest thing is back then, because this was in early 2006. There wasn't as much information as there is on the internet, you know, like we still had Barnes Noble, we still had Books A Million, and they were all kind of books to read. And so, I literally went to Barnes Noble and picked up a book that said how to open a coffeehouse, and I read it in an entire weekend.
And, I thought, I think I can do this. I don't know how I'm going to do it. I didn't have any experience. I
Leighann Lovely: It's so funny [00:04:00] that just, you know, what, with 2006, so what, less than 20 years ago, 18, 18 years ago, that is where we learned. That's how we got it. And I have a book. What is it? Um, you remember the books for dummies?
Yeah, right. So I, I think I have like three or four of those. I think my, one of my girlfriends bought me a how to cook potatoes, like a book for dummies, all the different, that's, that's the reality of. You know, 18 years, 20 years ago, that's how you figured out how to do something, right? No, and just think how far we've come now You can literally ask and I don't want to say her name too loud or she'll start talking to me But you know Alexa like waiting for her to go.
Yes Come here, right? You can literally say that and she'll spit out You know, an answer, and that can be a starting point of, oh, that's [00:05:00] what I need to Google. Next is how do I set up an LLC? How do I but if you didn't know the right person, you didn't even know where to begin to
Leah Beaulieu: know. And, you know, and I'm.
I'm older. So obviously I remember a lot. And back then, do you remember online forums? Like, they would have, you didn't have, Facebook wasn't that big back then. So you didn't have Facebook groups that you could go and get opinions on, like, how to run a coffeehouse, how to run a boutique, or how to run really any business.
And there were several, um, popular online coffee forums and that was what I did. I joined a forum and I would just read thread by thread by thread, like what these people were having success in, like what were the best products to use. Today, I could type it into chat GPT and probably have 10 pages of information in like a [00:06:00] matter of minutes.
Leighann Lovely: I live in chat GPT. I'll even ask, like, I'll even, and I, I, I refer to her as a her. I don't know why I'll ask her. Can you help me with this? And, you know, she spits back like, Oh, well, yes, of course I can help you with this. Give me more detail about X, Y, Z. And I'm like, Oh, Oh, okay. I feel like I'm having a conversation with a real person.
Leah Beaulieu: I know. I know it's
Leighann Lovely: crazy. Right. I know. So, so you opened up and let me just go back really quick. The fact that your husband, while you're his answer. No, you're not. Nah.
Leah Beaulieu: He, he was shocked and that's like, this is, this is easy. You know, back then I had a 401k. I had been in sales and marketing for 16 years with a company.
So, I mean, I pretty, you know, I had enough. Um, and then I also, I've had, I will say I've had [00:07:00] fabulous mentors in my life. Um, and I used to visit a little restaurant not too far from where my office was located and I went in there and I talked to the chef and I was like, Hey, so like, I have this great idea.
And he's like, what? And I said, well, I want to open a coffee house, but I don't know anything about the restaurant business. Like, I've never waited tables. I've never been in food and Bev whatsoever. And he said, you know, um, I don't know what to tell you. He's like, it's hard. Like, I don't know that you want to get into it.
I mean, he listened and it was a great conversation. And then it was probably four or five days later, he called and he said, I tell you what, why don't you come into my cafe and you can open for breakfast and coffee. I will teach you everything because he was only open for lunch.
[00:08:00] So it was fabulous.
He brought me in. I bought all my equipment. I set everything up. He helped me. He taught me everything there was to learn about running a kitchen, how to operate the equipment. And that was, that was the beginning.
Leighann Lovely: And how did you know him? Did you? I ate
Leah Beaulieu: lunch at his restaurant like every other day. I'd been a customer of his for years. Um, and you know, he was, He was an incredible chef. He still is an incredible chef today. Um, and was just very willing to show me the ropes.
Leighann Lovely: And that's awesome. And sometimes that's all it takes is somebody willing to say, well, let me show you.
Yes. So you had the sales and marketing piece, which is what a lot of entrepreneurs are lacking. They have the vision [00:09:00] of I'm going to make X and Y. Widgets or I'm going to make this product. How do you think that helped you when it came to opening your first business?
Leah Beaulieu: Well, I think I understood like people have to know who you are.
I mean, it's fine to make a widget, but if you don't get out and put that widget where people can see it and understand how it operates, then. It's just a widget in your house that you love and that you enjoy. So, you know, we would hold free events like on Saturdays, people could come in and taste everything.
Now, you have such an advantage because there's like so many farmers markets, so many platforms, you know, um, dip and shop events that you can go to. You could put your product everywhere. And not only that you have Facebook, you have Instagram, you have TikTok. I mean, we only had Facebook. I don't [00:10:00] even know how we survived.
Leighann Lovely: Right. People had to actually like walk around and get out of their house and research where they were going to go and where they liked to go. Right. Like you couldn't just look it up on your phone and see who had the five star review and then show up there. So. A lot of, you know, and there are a lot of entrepreneurs out there or people who are, you know, have this great idea and they are of the mindset.
If I build it, people will come. Well, right.
Leah Beaulieu: Yeah. And we can thank Field of Dreams for that. No, I mean, that was, that was like the ultimate, but in reality, it's not really the case if you don't put yourself out there. So, I mean, like I said, today we have so many platforms that we can You know, cross market on TikTok is tremendous that we don't even understand the value of that.
But just being able to [00:11:00] have several different, whether it's groups, you know, you've set up a business page for your widget or your restaurant or whatever it is that you want to go into. And then you. Market that on your personal page and then you put it in group pages, you know, you have to be able to put your information out there everywhere.
 So that's amazing. So let's fast forward. Now you've owned this for a while. What comes next?
Leah Beaulieu: So, at that point in time, um, we went straight into the recession. And I remember the headlines on the newspapers couldn't have been any worse. Don't spend 4. 50 on a Starbucks drink because gas was astronomical.
That was when the hurricane had hit.
So, the headline was killing us, right? And I had been in it for three years and was exhausted. So I, I did have a business partner at that time [00:12:00] who, who was fortunately wanting to stay in the business. So she bought my half out. Um, and most entrepreneurs know you don't ever get back the majority of the money that you put into some ventures.
It just depends on what it is. So that was a tough lesson. And, you know, fast forward a couple of years, several years, we moved to the Charleston area and, um, I jumped back into food and Bev again, I, you know, I was laughing and I said something about it when it gets in your blood, like you can't get it out.
Leighann Lovely: There's a lot of people, you know, they, once you get the, the into something, the itch for something, the passion, the love, it's just. You can't, you can't get away from it. You just keep for some reason, either getting pulled back into it or, you know, there's that like, wow, I liked it, [00:13:00] but then there's always that.
I don't know. How long do I like it?
Leah Beaulieu: Right. Right. Right. It's like it has a lifespan. Right. Just like with anything. I mean, it's really no different than you being in a position with a company. You know, you may be just in sales and marketing, but you may decide you've had enough of that life being in sales and marketing.
Maybe you want to lead the team of sales and marketing. Maybe you want to move into a higher position. So when you feel like you're capable of being in that position, then it propels you to move forward to something different.
Leighann Lovely: So you, so did you start another?
Leah Beaulieu: I did. And this one, I actually went a little bit further.
So, um, this one started with cakes and cupcakes and I taught myself how to decorate cakes with fondant. Thanks to my daughter, she wanted [00:14:00] me to make a birthday cake for a friend of hers, but she was like, I want it to be covered in fondant. So that's the only thing you can do. And I thought, I don't even know how to do this.
Then we have YouTube, right? Because like you can find anything on YouTube. Right. Like you just jump into YouTube and you just. And so I did, and I think it's probably a good thing I've deleted those pictures because they were the most god awful games that I first started with. But, you know, as with anything, over time you get better, right?
So then I had the brainchild of, I wanted a cupcake trailer, thought it would be fun, and I wanted it to be an old Shasta camper. So My husband and I talked about it, and it was like, well, how do we start this? Like, what's the best way? And again, I love to do research, and I love to figure anything out. So, I go to [00:15:00] just looking, um, at commercial kitchens, because I knew by state regulations, you couldn't have a food truck unless you had a commercial kitchen.
And at that time, this was 2014, There weren't that many here in the Charleston area. Again, another brain job. Well, this has got to be easy. Let's just go ahead and open a commercial kitchen. And back then, um, Craigslist was huge, right? Like, you could actually trust stuff that was on Craigslist. I'm not saying that you can't, but, you know, there was a way to navigate that site.
And we posted an ad. Hey, we're looking to open a commercial kitchen. Like, who would be, who's interested in, you know, who needs a space for a kitchen? We can serve food trucks, caterers, bakers, you know, any type of food business. And we [00:16:00] got a lot of response. And so then whenever we had the response, it was like, okay, now we have to find the place.
Because we knew it was something that was feasible, right? There was a demand for it. So we started looking around the area, and we were fortunate enough to find a restaurant that already existed, had all the furniture in the front, had like a thousand square foot kitchen in the back, which is highly uncommon in any food business, and had all of the equipment.
So I contacted, luckily, it was, um. owned by a local guy. So I didn't really have to deal with the national firm. We tried and it was crazy. The lease was like 60 pages long and we were like, it's like I'm signing over my children.
It was very intimidating. But anyway. So I talked [00:17:00] to this gentleman and he's like, I don't understand what you want to do. It doesn't make any sense to me. And he made me come up with a business plan. Now, for me, I am not a business plan person and I know everybody says you have to have a business plan. It wasn't how I operated.
I figured I'm going to jump into it and then I'm going to figure it out. But he did require me to sit down and put it all on paper exactly how it was going to work. So we, um, we're actually. We had fabulous friends in the area and they jumped in and helped us clean the entire space because it had been shut down for a while and we opened in 2 weeks and we had the Department of health and environmental control come in and we went through the regulations and everything that was required.
And we were up just the
Leighann Lovely: commercial kitchen. Wow. That is, that is amazing to get that up. Now you and I talked before. So [00:18:00] not only did you get the commercial kitchen up, but now fast forward and this commercial kitchen that you're selling cupcakes or I'm sorry, you had the commercial kitchen so that you could have the truck.
Yes. What now you, you also now this became another coffee house. Yes, it
Leah Beaulieu: did.
Leighann Lovely: So,
Leah Beaulieu: you know, at that time, um, food trucks were really just starting, and in the Charleston area, there were only like 20 of us. So, I mean, it was fabulous because we were busy, and now there's probably over 100 or 150 food trucks here.
So, we get into the cupcake trailer, and we're doing, at that time, what they called food truck rodeos or food truck festivals. So we would, all the food trucks would line up on a Saturday and, you know, you're open for business and you're selling food and the people here love it everywhere. They love them because you just [00:19:00] get to hang out and try everything.
So, our first event, we sold out in like 600 cupcakes in a 4 hour period, which was crazy. Right. Um, but it led to more business. So then I started, I was still learning how to do cakes and, you know, my friends were great. They were like, Oh, hey, I want this cake. Can you make this cake? So I was like, okay, sure.
Um, so then I got super busy. So then it was like, okay, well, the front of the restaurant is available and it's just sitting there. So, I mean, I've already had a coffee house at one time. Why not open another one? And then I would be there to work on cakes and cupcakes and I could get ready because, you know, I was spending, you You know, I've been till nine or 10 o'clock at night trying to get all these things baked.
And I have two kids, you know, I mean, I had two kids in high school at this point in time. So it was like, I need to be home sometime. So [00:20:00] you,
Leighann Lovely: so you took your space. Which started making money your cupcake truck, which was already sounds like making money. And so you were making your, you were, you had 2 businesses basically.
That were generating revenue. In a very short period of time because you're obviously very business savvy woman who was able to flip those both into profitable spaces and when you have. And so if I'm understanding, the only reason that you had the commercial space, that kitchen was because it was a regulation in order to have that truck.
Leah Beaulieu: That's correct.
Leighann Lovely: I mean, that that is. It's brilliant, it's a brilliant sales, like sales entrepreneur
marriage in, in utilizing basically all [00:21:00] of the space available to you, you know, and, and, and I'm just, I'm reiterating that and pointing that out because I want the audience to understand, you know, what you basically built here. I mean, that's, that's, it's, it's amazing. And it's, and it's very brilliant. And then now you're, you're obviously not, you know, when I introduced you, you're a realtor, so you're not doing the cupcakes anymore.
Leah Beaulieu: No, I still occasionally I'll make a cake. Um, from friends, obviously from my family, because we have grandchildren now, so they always get a cake. Um, so, I stayed in that business for about three years. Physically, it was very taxing on me because I was up at 4. 30 in the morning. I don't even like getting up early in the mornings.
I am not a morning person. So, um, after a while, I was exhausted, you know, and it was six days a week. Um, I learned from a friend of mine [00:22:00] who had opened a restaurant a couple of spaces down from me. She actually sold her business. And I said, I need to understand how you did that because we don't own this space and I don't know how you sell a business that you don't own.
And so she told me, she's like, I'm going to, I'm going to tell you and she did. And so I was like, this is brilliant. So, I ended up selling to 1 of the food trucks that was operating in our kitchen. Which worked out perfect. So, you know, in that time, it was easy for me to promote the cupcake business, the coffeehouse, the kitchen, because they all three had websites.
So I was constantly cross posting, you know, what was going on, where we would be with the cupcake trailer. Running the coffee house, doing food events in the afternoon. So I was able to keep those three up and running by being everywhere.
Leighann Lovely: And you just, a very important thing that you just said [00:23:00] by cross selling, by posting, by being relevant, by making sure that, you know, that each one of those were separate entities, yet.
By cross selling and, and, you know, being able to, I suppose if somebody is sitting in your coffee house and, you know, they mentioned they need a cake, you can say, Hey, I know somebody who makes cakes or cupcakes. Right, right.
Leah Beaulieu: And that was the thing is the funny thing is like. Everyone would say, Oh, you need to have cupcakes.
You need to have cupcakes in here. But it was my least selling item in the coffee house, but I could take, I could go out to the cupcake event, you know, or take it out for lunch or to the food truck rodeo. And the food truck rodeos were amazing. I mean, we ended selling over like 1200 cupcakes at our last event that we did.
It was just absolutely insane. Um, [00:24:00] so it does take a lot of bandwidth to. Manage multiple businesses like that to cross post and be sure that everyone knows what you have. Um, so, yes, and it was very hard to leave my clients and my customers. Um, I, I sold all of it. I got rid of the cupcake trailer, sold the coffee house and I was done.
Um, did a little stint where we had a wholesale business with Amazon for about a year. Uh, things kind of started getting crazy with Amazon, so then I pivoted to something else, back in the food business again. And I created a, um, keto granola, because that was the big thing. You know, that was whenever keto first started.
And then I did, like I said earlier, farmers markets are the best way [00:25:00] for you to get started for people to understand what you have, see what you have, see how it operates, or what the benefits are. And, you know, we always like to say, if the math doesn't make sense, there's no need in being in it. And the math didn't make sense after a period of time.
Um, so, yeah, I had to pivot one more time. And, you know, my thoughts were, gosh, I can hear, like, Yes, I could go back into the business world. I mean, I've been an entrepreneur for so long now. That's kind of, um, difficult for me. So it was kind of, you know, like, where do I go to next and my husband, you know, we've always flipped houses over the period of our marriage and that we've always had some kind of dealings with real estate.
And, you know, he was like, Hey, like, what about real estate? And I thought, I mean, sure. I, you know, I love houses. I mean, I [00:26:00] love how everybody decorates and I love to see new houses. So why not? Um, so yeah, I pivoted into real estate and that's where I've been.
Leighann Lovely: And it shows that, you know, that everything has a season and, and I think that you and I had talked about that, that, you know, and it's okay that when we have, you know, seasons in our lives and, and it's okay to move on and to enjoy what you're doing right now.
And then to be able to look forward to the future. But I think one of the most important things is that you have some of the core, core skillset, um, coming from a sales and marketing background. And obviously it's not just that. You have to have that entrepreneurial mindset. Um, because there are salespeople out there, there are marketing people out there that don't have that true entrepreneurial mindset.
They can go and sell something. You have those core, that [00:27:00] skillset along with that entrepreneurial mindset that has been able to drive you and push you. To being able to handle. You know, each venture you've taken out and be successful at it. You know, you, that's absolutely amazing. If not only to, you know, have one coffee house be able to be bought out, but have another one that actually was three businesses in one and, and sell that,
Leah Beaulieu: you
Leighann Lovely: know, to somebody, there are way too many entrepreneurs who, and I have a, um, you know, somebody who's in, um, you know, uh, A private equity investment, and she goes to look for, um, businesses to invest in.
And so often she comes up against business owners who've owned a business for 5, 10, 20 years even. And they're like, yeah, who would want to buy my business? And she's like, what do you mean? Like, [00:28:00] you just need to look at your numbers. You need to figure, like you were saying, if the numbers don't add up, it might be time to, but if your business is profitable, if the numbers are adding up, why wouldn't somebody want to buy a successful business?
And I'm saying a successful, and there, and there are businesses out there that somebody's baby, they're the face of the business. And if they don't exist. The business doesn't exist if you do it right, if you're creating it right for the right reasons, you're driving it forward the proper way. Why wouldn't somebody want to buy a successful business that isn't obviously tied just to the owner, but, and you, you clearly have done it, right.
But with those core skills of understanding the sales, understanding the cross selling, understanding the marketing, understanding that just because you make it doesn't mean [00:29:00] somebody buys it. Right. Because if they don't know it exists. How are they going to buy it?
Leah Beaulieu: Right, I mean, how are they going to find you?
How are they going to know? And it does take a lot of time. I mean, as with anything, it takes probably, I think, you know, social media these days is a full time job. I mean, I think you spend, you can spend hours upon doing that. Um, but obviously there's different ways to manage it so that you don't feel like you're so overwhelmed.
And you can actually work and what your passion is or instead of spending the entire day on the computer or doing your books, you know, those things are not. I don't think those are anything that an entrepreneur truly enjoys. I mean, like, our thing is to do what we do.
Leighann Lovely: Make the cake or run the business or correct.
Most entrepreneurs, I would say almost all, [00:30:00] if you were to ask them, did you become an entrepreneur to become an accountant or to do social, they're going to go no. And then when you say, you know, you have to do it though. And they're going to go. Yeah. I know, I know I gotta do it, but I really don't want it.
They're like, well, and then when you explain like, well, you also gotta do this and you gotta do sales and you gotta do this, and they're like, maybe I really should have thought about this .
Leah Beaulieu: Right. Maybe I'll just keep this as a hobby. . Right. I'll just do it on the side.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. So I'm gonna put you on the spot here for a second.
If you were to give advice one piece of advice. To a new entrepreneur who is like, yep, I'm raring, ready to go. What advice would you give to them?
Leah Beaulieu: I mean, I think that if it's in you to do it, then [00:31:00] you absolutely owe it to yourself to search that out, research it, get your numbers together. Just be sure you have everything in front of you to get started.
I'm not saying that you have to have all the answers that how it's going to look a year from now. But all of the information in front of you to get started and take at least just one step. Um, it's, I think we owe it to ourselves that whatever we feel like we are called to do. In that season, we need to search it out and you had a point earlier, there are seasons that things only last a season.
Some of it is not meant to last a lifetime. For me, that's me. I mean, some of those things aren't meant to last a lifetime. My husband has been a chemical engineer for 20 years. That's not who I am, you know, and I tell my children all the time, because they're in their 20s. And I'm like, listen, like, I don't even [00:32:00] have it all figured out.
Like, you just need to figure out the next step, like what's going to take you to the next season, and then go to the next point. You know, if you're going to finish school, then finish school, and then see what comes next. Maybe it's not what you're called to do, but you owe it to yourself to at least seek it out.
Leighann Lovely: You know, and that reminds me in this, your children might be too, um, too old, but you said that, did you say you have grandchildren?
Leah Beaulieu: I do.
Leighann Lovely: Okay. So, um, and I have a young child who's obsessed with the movie Frozen.
Leah Beaulieu: Yes.
Leighann Lovely: Okay. So in, in, in the number, in number two, there is the, uh, a quote from that, um, when, when the future is unknown, what do we do?
And, and the, the troll in that says the only thing that we can do is the next right thing. Yes. And that and you hit that on the head, which is it's absolutely true. You know, sometimes we don't know what the future holds for us. And in most cases, we don't [00:33:00] know what the future holds for us. All we can do is the next right thing.
The next best thing, take that first step into the unknown. And usually we start to see a clear path, right? And if we need to take a step back, that's okay. As long as we at some point do begin that journey forward. Um, and, you know, I, I talked to my, you know, my clients that I coach, um, all the time about like, hey, it's okay to take a couple steps forward.
Um, even knowing that we may have to scoot back a little bit if. What we've created isn't working exactly the way we wanted it to work. Sometimes that's what about the marketing, the sales arena. That's sometimes about what entrepreneurship is all about. Stirring out what messaging, what is going to work?
What, so I'm, I'm digressing here. So I want to give you your shameless 30 second pitch. Um, because we are coming to time, um, [00:34:00] you know, before we, before we wrap up.
Leah Beaulieu: Okay, great. So I, you know, again, I'm Leah Bollier. I'm a real estate agent here in the Charleston, South Carolina area. We service the whole tri county area, beautiful coast.
Charleston is like your dream city to live in. I moved here 12 years ago, but I am a southern girl. So this is my home state. Um, and I don't want to go anywhere else. You know, my husband's like, Oh, we're going to move. I'm like, no, we're not. So let's just stay here. So if you haven't visited, or if you're looking for a place, please reach out and let us know how we can help you.
Leighann Lovely: And how can we reach out to you?
Leah Beaulieu: So you can find me on Facebook, obviously, and Instagram, coast to coast properties. Um, I do have a YouTube channel, Coast to Coast Properties and our website as well. So all of our contact information is on there.
Leighann Lovely: Perfect. That'll be in the show notes. So if you do want to reach out to Leah, you can check there.
Um, but Leah, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been an [00:35:00] awesome, um, enlightening conversation.
Leah Beaulieu: Thank you. It's been a blast. I really do appreciate your time.

Discover How Great Salespeople Embrace An Entrepreneurial Mindset

Join Patrick Riley President and CEO of Genhead and myself as we dive into an engaging discussion on the intersection of entrepreneurship and salesmanship. Discover how great salespeople embrace an entrepreneurial mindset to excel and why every entrepreneur must harness their inner salesperson to thrive. We explore real-world insights on personal branding, the art of storytelling in sales, and practical strategies for overcoming challenges. This episode is a treasure trove for anyone eager to elevate their sales game or grow their business in the fast-paced world of AI and technology.
 
Contact Pat
Website – www.genhead.com
Phone Number – 920-205-3589
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
Leighann Lovely: I am thrilled to record another episode of Love Your Sales with Patrick Riley, the CEO of Genhead, also our official sponsor of the Love Your Sales podcast. Patrick. Riley is a 30 year veteran in the sales industry. He has experience in senior management roles in manufacturing and logistics and technology sector .
Most recently, Mr. Riley was the CEO of new horizons of [00:02:00] Wisconsin. Um, but now the CEO of Genhead
 I am wildly thrilled to invite him to come on for the second time , to talk with me again about, you know, sales. And I am going to allow Pat to tell you a little bit about GenHead and their mission. So Pat, welcome again to the show. And why don't you tell us a little bit about.
Leighann Lovely: Your business now, Genhead.
Patrick Riley: Sure. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me again. Uh, Genhead is, uh, breaking new ground, uh, in AI, uh, lead generation and RevOps. And, uh, we are using artificial intelligence in every part of a company's front end. So everything from lead generation, To marketing automation, uh, to sales automation and [00:03:00] CRM activities.
Uh, we are a, a single, uh, location that can manage all of that under one. Uh, app and, uh, all your rev ops can be now managed in one place. And we can leverage AI to make it as effective, uh, and cost effective as possible for small to medium sized businesses. So small businesses can actually now, uh, join the AI revolution, uh, and, and benefit from it, uh, using GenHead.
And it's very exciting.
Leighann Lovely: It's, and it's, it is because I'm, I'm obviously a client customer of GenHead, I use GenSuite and it is an amazing tool. It really takes you from zero to a hundred.
Patrick Riley: Yeah. It's so
Leighann Lovely: cool.
Patrick Riley: I mean, it really, it, it's so cool. Every [00:04:00] day we're doing new things. I mean, we, we literally added a feature on Sunday that is going live on third or went live well today, Thursday went live today.
That's how fast AI is making our business change for our clients. It's, it's so exciting, you know, to be a part of it. Uh, and to, to watch these kids and I, I call them kids 'cause I've been around for a while. Uh, be able to, to take ideas that people that are more seasoned like ourselves have, you know, is it possible to do this?
And they go, mm sure. Gimme a day. And the next thing you know, you, you have the ability now to do, you know, XYZ and it's just incredible to be a part of it.
Leighann Lovely: So wait a second. Was I notified of the new feature that's happening?
Patrick Riley: You will be. You will be. Okay. It's [00:05:00] really cool. Awesome. You'll
Leighann Lovely: like it. Awesome.
You'll like it. Yes. And I always, I always look forward to the new features that pop up as you know, as a ground level, you know, user of the, of the, um, the suite and being able to, um, obviously then convey that to, you know, people that I work with on how they need to be using the, the product. Right.
Patrick Riley: Yeah. So it's neat.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. And I've, I've only scratched the surface as I've continued to use the product and, you know, continue to learn new things on my own, um, as I navigate through it. So it's, it's definitely fun. So, so, you know, obviously it didn't bring you in here or bring you on to sit here and talk all day long about.
Selling your product. However, I'm sure that we, you and I could do that all day, but
Patrick Riley: I could, I could do that, but I think we're here to talk about, uh, a topic that we, uh, that we worked on together. So we should probably get into that.
Leighann Lovely: [00:06:00] Right. Before everybody goes, okay, what are they doing? I'm having a sales podcast where they're just going to sell us stuff.
So we, we talked, um, you know, prior to this about the idea that, um, Entrepreneurs are salespeople, but salespeople as entrepreneurs, the whole promise that, and so let's, let's dive into that. The whole concept that, one, a salesperson taking more of that entrepreneurial type mindset, would it be, or yeah.
So let's, let's dive into that. Yeah.
Patrick Riley: So what we were talking about the other day, and it just sort of came to me as we were just sort of bouncing ideas off of each other is that salespeople need to be entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, small business owners [00:07:00] need to be salespeople. And so if we take sort of the first part of that, uh, and talk about that first.
Sales people, good, good, and great. And that's really what you talk about on your podcast, which is one of the things that I like about it is you don't talk about how to be a mediocre sales people, you talk to a person, you talk about how to be a great salesperson. And so I really believe to be a great salesperson, you have to take an entrepreneurial, uh, mindset, a concept.
However you want to phrase it or, or, or, or get, get your head around it. Um, you have to feel like you are in business for yourself. And if, if you, if you have an employer, let's say you're a salesperson for a company to feel like that company is your [00:08:00] biggest supplier, but you are in business for yourself, because if you don't have that kind of mindset.
You will, you will have limits to how well you can ever do. You will put limits on yourself. Either, either you, you will do them purposefully, uh, or they, they will just, they will just float in your mind. Well, I can only make this many calls today because that's what the company says. You know, you're supposed to, you're supposed to make 50 calls.
So I made my 50 calls and I'm done. Right. That's what, that's what an employee does. What great salespeople do is they throw that out and they say, I need to hit my personal goals. For my family and for me as a high achiever. And I don't care [00:09:00] what the company says. I don't care if the company says make 50 calls, I'm going to make 80 calls because I know that I need to hit that ultimate.
Uh, outcome and here
Leighann Lovely: and so go ahead. And what you're saying is it's completely resignating with me right now, because I, anytime anybody set a bar for me, whether it be in high school sports, whether it be in, you know, the. And when somebody said to me personally, so now I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, it's resignating with me here for just a moment, but it was, oh, you can't do this or, you know, here's what, you know, we, your expectations.
It was always, oh, well, you think that's all I can do. Great. I'm going to do this. And that was always the thing that, well, I'm going to blow that record out of the water.
Patrick Riley: And that, [00:10:00] yeah, in my entire career and, and I've, I've, I've sold. Um, about a billion dollars of product in my career. I never had a quota and I, but I was always a high achiever and, and my bosses never felt that they needed to give me a quota because I was being, I was difficult for them because I was bringing in so much business that they had to figure out how to supply it.
Right. Because I had a mindset that I was my own little bit. I was my own little unit. And it doesn't make you not attached to the company that you work for. In fact, it makes you more attached to them because they become reliant on you more than anything else [00:11:00] because you're their engine. Okay, when you become when you become the top sales person, you become the top sales earner for one.
Okay. But you also become their growth engine and they will come to you and say, okay, you are doing something that is different than everybody else. How are you doing this? Right, right. You a lot of times those high achievers don't have time, uh, to, to, to deal with the people that are not willing to make the sacrifices and that gap between I'm going to make my 50 calls because that's what the company says.
And I'm going to do whatever it takes to hit my personal goals. That gap is the gap between good and great. And I think it's an entrepreneurial [00:12:00] mindset that I'm in business for myself.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. And this goes back. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do a callback here really quick to the first conversation that I had with, with Sarah Bauer, um, on episode one, where we talked about sales being the only profession in the world where you can write your own ticket, where you are absolutely unlimited.
You are paid for it. You are paid exactly what you are worth, meaning that if you go in and you want to just meet the quota that your, that your company sets for you, you are being paid exactly what they told you that you would be paid basically. But if you decide that, wait a second, I don't want to make the 120, 000 that they said that I could make in my first or second year, I want to make.
150, 000. I want to make the 180, 000. I want [00:13:00] to make the hundred, which is why great salespeople always look to make sure that there is no cap. Am I going to be capped? If I hit 200, 000 and then I can't get any higher. Well, that's not the job for me. Like I want to be able to know that the sky is, you know, that the moon, that the universe is flailing my hands, then is the absolute limit because I don't.
I don't want anybody to have to put me in a box and say, here's what you're going to make. And there are people out there. We need everybody else. We need everybody else to know that this year I'm going to make 80, 000 and that I'm perfectly comfortable with that. And then next year, hopefully they'll give me a, my 3 percent raise, and I will continue to make my way up that ladder.
And I'm going to be comfortable and I'm going to be happy and I'm secure. But then there's the other side of the [00:14:00] You know, of the world where like, Hey, I will work for my whatever base, 60, 000 base. And I will go out and I'll make 200, 000 at the end of the year because I worked my butt off to be the best at what I was selling.
But that takes somebody. I
Patrick Riley: never put caps on every, every job, every sales job that I hired for. Um, and, and I, and I, and I put that in the job description that your earnings are unlimited because I didn't want somebody that was comfortable with having their, uh, earnings cap.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And there shouldn't be, if the company is making money.
Why are we capping what the, the salesperson is capable of making? And again, going back to your point, if the person looks at this, if I, as the salesperson go, [00:15:00] my company is also my client and you treat them as, okay. They're also my client and my, like you said, the engine. To be able to support my other clients.
So I'm in the middle, I'm the entrepreneur. I treat them like a client here. I treat them together. I marry them together to make the happy match. You truly are acting as an entrepreneur.
Patrick Riley: Absolutely. You are sell, you are, you are selling the products or services, uh, that your company that, that pays you.
Provides to the marketplace at large, that makes sense and and you are, you are putting those, you're marrying those things together, but you're doing it. The other part of this, uh, that I wrote down that I wanted to make sure that we hit is is high achievers that [00:16:00] have the entrepreneurial mindset not only do not, uh, limit themselves from an activity standpoint, but Uh, which is important.
It is hard work. I mean, the activity is hard work. Sometimes it can be a grind. Sometimes it can be tough. There's a lot of doors to knock on and things like that, even if we're doing it virtually. But the other side of it is creativity. High achievers are creative. They don't follow the basic script of how to find new business.
And so they will, uh, find a new way to knock on a new door. They will go to networking events or they will go to, uh, chamber of commerce. So they'll go, I mean, and, and those are real basic ones, but they, they will [00:17:00] find where their market goes and they will get there and they will become a part of their marketplace.
And that allows them to be a trusted advisor. And when they become a trusted advisor, they're no longer selling anything. They're providing value to their marketplace and the product or service that they're providing is just, just flows in because that's what the, that's what their, their, their market needs.
And, and so that creativity. Combined with the hard work and the feeling that I'm in business for myself, those three areas, I think, define a high performing salesperson, regardless of what they do. Market or market conditions. [00:18:00]
Leighann Lovely: And here's why, because they are top of mind. They're the trusted advisor.
They're the person who's constantly in front of everybody. So that when their network, their community, their people go, Oh, I know somebody who has that problem. I'll talk to you. They're the person. Even in, and, and. Everybody, when I think of my, when I have a plumbing problem, I have my person when I have a guy, right?
I got it. I got
Patrick Riley: it. You got a guy,
Leighann Lovely: right? And so, you know, when I, and in my network, the first thing that I do when I have something that I need, when I have a need, when I think, oh, I need a landscaper, I need this, I need that. The first thing I do is go to my community. Because my community has [00:19:00] a guy and we say a guy, a gal, a person, we got, we got a person.
Patrick Riley: It's no longer a guy, but, but we joke and we got, I got a guy, right? Exactly. It's like a thing, right? Right. And the great, the great salespeople become that person and, uh, and, uh, they do it by, by those kind of those three tenets. Of creativity, you know, work ethic, uh, and, and sort of stick to it. And this is, is, is another, another big part of it is, is, is if it doesn't work once they don't give up and, uh, and that's, that's really a big part.
Leighann Lovely: And in my coaching, I talk about the three buckets to success. And there's, you have to hit all of them. You can't deny your cold calling. You can't deny your social. [00:20:00] And when I, you know, I talk about social being not just your being out and networking, but also your social posting and that type of thing and,
Patrick Riley: you know, digital is key now.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. You know, there are, there are, are multiple different avenues that you have to make sure that you're continuously, you know, and you're in person, you're, you're, you know, all the different things that you have to make sure that you're now, as we transition into an entrepreneur as a salesperson, I'm going to just make this last statement because The other thing that a salesperson, even representing a company, they have, what they're doing here is branding themselves.
And people forget, they're like, no, I'm with a company. I don't need to be on LinkedIn positioning, but here's the thing. You're branding yourself as the expert in [00:21:00] fill in the blank for that company. And even if you leave that company, you still want to serve that same industry. If you've really positioned yourself properly, sometimes your clients follow you because they love you.
You bring up,
Patrick Riley: you bring up an excellent point. And it's a point, it's a good transition point because it's, it's one of the anchors of, uh, both great salespeople and great entrepreneurs and that both of them and that's personal branding. Because an entrepreneur needs personal branding and great salespeople need personal branding.
Correct. Uh, you know, and, and yes, it's tied in with their corporate roles. But [00:22:00] they also need to have branding that is separate from that. And, uh, and, and it's very important today. You know, I post on LinkedIn. I try to post every day. I'm not, I'm not getting to every day yet, but I'm doing probably every other day right now.
You're doing what? Where, where I'm trying to post on, I've got like five topics that I think I know something about. And I'm trying to post on one of those five topics every day. That's my, that's my goal. And I'm getting there. I'm working on it. And, um, and that is part of my personal brand is to add, try to add value to my, to my network on LinkedIn, which is pretty good.
And, and share some things that I think that I know, um, and, uh, and that is upping my personal brand. Yes, it [00:23:00] helps Genhead, but it's not coming from Genhead. It's coming from me and, uh, and good and great salespeople and good and great entrepreneurs understand that, that they need to be out there in the digital marketplace, especially also person to person working on their personal brand.
Because that helps them to become a trusted advisor, a
Leighann Lovely: trusted
Patrick Riley: expert
Leighann Lovely: and a subject matter expert in their area of expertise. And here's an example, you know, people who knew me from my previous career, HR. So I had an HR podcast, right? When I pivoted to love your sales, people were still going, wait. Can I still come to you with my HR questions?
And I'm like, well, yeah, sure. No, well, no, I'm really more of a sales, trying to do the [00:24:00] sales, but I had branded myself for so many years in that space. I, I did what I was planning on doing. And it, if you can do that to the point where, where it's actually hard to separate yourself at that point where people are like, wait, that is, that is what that is.
And it follows you. You've just branded yourself. The right way
Patrick Riley: you've just, and that's, and that, that branding is important. And so as, as we start to talk about the, the entrepreneur as a sales person, this is where we start to talk about a pain point because, um, I know a lot of solopreneurs, um, through, uh, various organizations that I belong to and [00:25:00] the prototypical solopreneur.
Is someone who is really good at doing something, whatever it is, maybe it's coaching, maybe they're a plumber, maybe they're a welder, maybe they're, uh, an accountant, uh, you know, they could be, uh, an attorney, whatever it is there, but they're good at a skill and they want to go out and get into business for themselves.
Great. The problem then lies that they're good at what they do. But they're not necessarily great at running a business, right? And you and I, you and I have seen, you and I have seen our share of these people. And they're really good people and lovely people and really good at what they do. But what happens a lot of times is they start [00:26:00] this and maybe they even have a customer when they start.
A lot of times that's what happens is, is, is they have a relationship with someone or a couple of people and they say, you know what, that's enough for me to get started. And they get started. Well, they'll start coming in and they start figuring it out that they can't make a living on two customers. And, and they start panicking cause they don't really know what to do.
Well, what you have to do is add gas to the fire and the gas are new customers. And the way to get new customers is through selling folks. And they become
Leighann Lovely: wildly disappointed when they wake up one morning going, Oh, I have to be a
Patrick Riley: salesperson. And they hate it, right? They hate the concept of it, the very idea of an attorney, let's say, or an accountant, having to [00:27:00] go and, and in their mind, lower themselves to be a sales person to make their business work is just, Awful, right?
But the reality is, is that every entrepreneur has to be a salesperson. And, and the best way that I've, I've coached friends of mine that have been in that situation is, is to, to not feel like you're a salesperson, but feel like you're a storyteller. Because what entrepreneurs need to do. That's a little different than what salespeople need to do because entrepreneurs get some grace in the marketplace because the marketplace is not expecting an attorney necessarily, let's [00:28:00] say, well, attorneys might be a little bit different because attorneys have their own little Their own little place in the world.
But let's, let's just say an accountant, um, the marketplace is not expecting an accountant to be a great salesperson, but if an accountant can tell a compelling story, About why they are where they are and what makes them different than other accountants. That's kind of good enough, but they have to do it to people.
They have to get out of their chairs. Get out in the world and they have to do it to people that they don't know. And, and that people is sales. Now you're telling the story, which makes it softer and easier and better for them to handle. [00:29:00] Uh, because it's not so much, you know, Hey, do you want to buy something?
It's just leading them down the path of, Hey, you know what? I could use that. And we had a lot of that with Jen had in the early days. I wasn't selling anything. I was just, you know, people were asking me after I sold my last company, Hey, what are you doing? And I would tell them what we were doing with gen head and people would go, I want that.
Leighann Lovely: And I
Patrick Riley: go, Oh, okay. Um, let's get together and talk about that. I mean, I really wasn't. Even though I was, I was historically in the sales and marketing parts of businesses, I really wasn't selling it. I was just talking to people about what I was doing.
Leighann Lovely: And now let's, and I'm going to throw this in here for a second, Pat, because not only as an entrepreneur, you know, who starts off has a couple of customers and clients, they have to execute on [00:30:00] this.
And for the most part, you know, you're, you're everything. You're executing on it. You're doing the work. You're getting your website up and running. You're paying the bills. You're making
Patrick Riley: your own coffee. You're doing everything.
Leighann Lovely: You're vacuuming your office and cleaning it and making sure that all of the things are being done.
And then, now what we're saying is, yeah, lawyers, accountants, whatever you might be, by the way, by the way, you now have to get out there, get out of your comfort zone of being behind a desk and talking people through their accounting. You also have to sell. If you want to, you want to. Grow if you want to be there in a year from now, or 2 years from now, you also have to be able to continue to sell [00:31:00] the product to bring in new clients.
And no, this is not, I'm not trying to do shock factor. I'm not trying to do like, oh, my God, I shouldn't do this. It's the reality. Of entrepreneurship and unless you are a, like an immediate, like, I want this, I have to, unless you are an actual physical location where people are drawn into buy your product, like a McDonald's, people aren't going to just walk in your door now.
And I have, and Pat, you have seen plenty of attorneys stand up and do amazing pitches where you're like, wow. Okay. Um, that was. That was awesome. Like I've seen an accountants as well where they stand up and they do their, their 32nd pitch. And you're like, I didn't know that, you know, accountants got out there.
Yeah. Right. And those are the people who [00:32:00] That I didn't at the time that I first met them, I was still, I was still incorporated and I went, Oh, I'll never use them. But now I'm their client. And I'm like, Oh, okay. I had no idea that, you know, the four years ago when I first saw her do her 32nd pitch that one day I would become her clients.
Patrick Riley: Exactly. Well, and, and again, as, as an entrepreneur, you get to tell your story because it's your story. You own it. Right. Right. And, and, um, you know, with, without doing that, you will die. Right. And the number one reason that small businesses fail, and they, they fail at a very high rate. And the, and the number one reason, and it's the overwhelming reason, is that they run out of cash.
Right. If you don't have cash, you're out of business. And the number one reason that they run out of cash is that they don't [00:33:00] have enough sales. So it's, it's a very simple equation. You need gas to make the car. Okay. . You need to bring in new business. You must do this. It's also the same thing for a salesperson.
A salesperson must bring in new business because you have a leaky bucket. You just don't know how leaky it is because you're losing clients. Either to new technologies or competitors or changes in market or whatever it is, you're losing, business that you have right now. And you have to keep filling that bucket.
And, uh, the same is true for entrepreneurs. And I think that's why it's important that we talk about great salespeople are entrepreneurs and great entrepreneurs. Also recognize that they [00:34:00] have to, they have to do sales, uh, in some way or another now they get again. They get a little grace. Uh, I worked for a very small manufacturing company, which we turned into a nice size manufacturing company together.
Um, and and my 1st boss there, um, who was the founder of the company. Uh, and I would go on sales calls and, you know, you know, there's, there's some kind of rules to sales where you, you, you want to speak less than, than the client does, you want to ask some leading questions and get them talking and all of those kinds of things.
And you don't want to promote too much and all that kind of stuff. And this guy followed none of the rules. He would go in there, he would go in there and he would say, Listen, I founded this company and here's what we're about. And he would just, he would just, [00:35:00] just completely not follow any of the rules and people would buy they would buy because he was sincere and he was, he was the owner of the place and, , and he was very likable first of all, and I still like him.
, he was the entrepreneur. And people gave him a lot of grace. If I tried to do that as just the account executive, which was my title at the time, I would get hammered, but he could come in as the president CEO and, and founder and say, listen, this is why we founded this company. This is what we're about.
And if you want that, we're your guy and people would go, I want that and that's what entrepreneurs can do. They don't need to necessarily, you know, learn every nuance that sales people need to learn, but what they [00:36:00] do have to do is get their butt out of their chair and get out there.
And get telling their story because if they don't do that, they're going to go out of business.
Leighann Lovely: They have to get comfortable with the uncomfortable because for the most, for the most part, unless you, you know, and one of the main questions that I ask everybody that I work with, everybody that comes in either as a consulting client or as a new business that I'm, that I'm assisting in another way.
Have you ever been a sales person? And nine times out of 10, by the time they're coming to me, they're like, I haven't. And it's like, okay, so now I know where to start because most likely they don't even know how to conduct a discovery call. Most likely they don't even know. And. So often you hear all the advice out there [00:37:00] that, you know, you go to tick tock, you go to, it's always about how to close.
We're going to teach you how to close. Well, wait a second. What about teaching how to just have a conversation, a sales conversation? What about the first steps? What about getting somebody to, you know, open up to you about what their true need is, not what their want is. It's because quite often what their want is and what their need is don't totally match.
Patrick Riley: I generally, to be honest with you, in this stage of my career, I generally don't close. I don't, I don't, we get to a point where it's like, I go, I closed a big deal last for us last Friday. And we, we got done talking through all the details of what they wanted and what we could [00:38:00] do and how we would do it and the timelines and just, we just went through the project and back and forth and, and show them what GenSuite look like and how it would work.
And just, just, we just talked. Right. And we, we got done and I said, well, do you want to buy it?
And that's the beauty. And they went, yeah. And they went, yeah. We do. And I said, okay, so we'll get you a contract and we'll start next week. And they get, and the guy went, yeah, good. And that was it.
Leighann Lovely: And that's the beauty of when you become, when you become so seasoned is that your conversation, you've gotten to the point where your conversation leads them into closing themselves.
Is that you're, you're never in a state of, okay, now let's get to the objections. Let's overcome the objections. Let's do, let's do the soft close. Let's do the hard close. Let's do, you've gotten so good at figuring out how to overcome all of the objections in a simple [00:39:00] conversation that you, you don't even have to, and, and then you've gotten so comfortable that you go, okay, are you ready to, you know, is there any final questions that you have that, that I haven't covered?
Great. Okay. So is this the right product for you? Do you want to buy? Yep. Okay. Excellent. So here's, here's the next steps. This is, this is our process. And that is, that is the, the, the beauty of when you get to a point in your career where you go, wow, I've, I've, I've figured this out. Like, And I remember my early days where I would have my proposal and I'd go in and I'd go through all the steps and then I'd be like, is there any questions?
And then they would come back with an objection and I'd go back to the office and I'm like, how do I overcome this objection? And blah, blah, blah. And I'd work through all the steps and I'd figure it all out. And nowadays there's, there's no, you know, there's, I, [00:40:00] I don't even think about what those objections Would look like because I'm already having conversations to put them to bed before they even come up in the conversation
Patrick Riley: Yeah, you work really hard on the front end, correct?
We when we were when we were younger we would we were too afraid to work hard on the front end Mm hmm. We were so thrilled that we had a prospect
Leighann Lovely: Coming in with our binders. Binders with our binders and our,
Patrick Riley: and our, yeah. And our, our little briefcases and all that kind of stuff. Right. And we were so thrilled that we had a prospect that we wouldn't challenge them ever.
Right. Correct. Because we didn't wanna lose them. And so what would happen is, is that we wouldn't deal with any kind of. Uh, you know, questions or is this a fit or does this work or, you know, what, what are your [00:41:00] needs or any of those kinds of things on the front end? Because we didn't want to lose them. We just, we were so excited that it was like, it was like, we had a new puppy and we were like, we don't care if it pees on the floor.
Just just give me the thing, you know, and, uh, and so then we get to the end and we hadn't done the front end work. And so that's when we got all the objections, right? And so it got to be hard at the back end. Now, when you're more seasoned, you realize. That all the work is on the front end. That's where you find out if it's a fit.
And if you do that, right, then you just go through and you're just exploring together, whether or not this product service, whatever it might be, is the right thing for both of you. Because they might, you may have a great product that works for them, but they might not have the budget. So you [00:42:00] may say, you know what, this doesn't work for us.
I'm sorry. Correct. Yes. And
Leighann Lovely: that is the beauty of, of becoming that final. That is the beauty of, of getting to, well, first being an entrepreneur and being able to. Not have to go back to your boss and be like, I decided not to work with them and have your boss go, what do you mean? Being able to make those decisions.
I think the first time that I said this isn't the right fit was the most liberating most. And I went, wow, that, that felt great. Like, I don't want to work with that person and they don't, I don't, they're not going to be a good fit for me. It just felt great to be able to say, I don't have to, like, I, But Pat, we are coming to time.
I could, I would love to continue this conversation, but you know, we are coming to time. So 30 seconds, [00:43:00] shameless pitch. If you would like to, um, you know, continue on with a little bit more information about gen head or anything else, actually. Um, so the floor is yours.
Patrick Riley: Sure, I appreciate that. Well, as I said earlier, Jen Head is leading the way with AI lead generation and marketing automation for small to medium sized businesses.
We work with everybody from solopreneurs to, uh, companies, uh, up to a hundred employees, and we help them leverage AI, uh, to grow their businesses fast. And we've been very successful doing so. Uh, we are, uh, a growing, uh, concern and, uh, have experts in. Uh, A. I. Marketing, website design, S. E. O. Uh, everything a small businesses needs to be able to take advantage of the new area [00:44:00] of rev ops.
And that's where revenue generation meets sales operations. Uh, and and bringing those two areas together helps small to medium sized businesses. Manage everything that happens on the front end of your business. So everything on the sales side and on the pre sales side gets managed and automated so that your customers are constantly getting communicated with, for example, where their orders are or, uh, customer service type things, sales issues, all of those kinds of things are automated using AI.
It's a very, very cool system. You can go to ww www dot gen head, gen head.com, um, or you can dial 8 4 4. Uh, Jim [00:45:00] had and, uh, speak to us and we'd be happy to start.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. And in the show notes, you will be able to find the links. You will be able to find the information on how to contact, um, Jen had and, um, Pat and his team.
So again, Pat, thank you so much for this awesome conversation.
Patrick Riley: Absolutely. It was great talking to you again, Leighann. Have a great day.
Leighann Lovely: You too.
 

Importance Of Selling on Value, Not on Cost!

In this episode of Love Your Sales Podcast, we dive deep into the essence of selling on value, not just price, with expert guest Brent Halfwassen, founder of MKE Small Business Coach. In this enlightening conversation, Leighann and Brent dissect the crucial aspects of understanding client needs, positioning services for maximum impact, and the strategies for transforming hard work into hard cash. The dialogue centers around the pivotal role of empathy in coaching, leveraging individuality in business strategies, and the transformative power of choosing the right actions over busyness. Brent shares invaluable insights on the importance of focusing on value to drive sales and ensure client satisfaction, emphasizing the art of pricing based on perceived customer value rather than just the cost. Join us for this insightful discussion on making the leap from merely transacting to creating lasting value and relationships in business.
 
Contact Brent –
Website – www.MKEbusinesscoach.com
LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/brenthalfwassen/
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
Leighann Lovely: To another episode of Love Your Sales. I'm so excited today. I am joined by Brent Halfwassen. He is the founder of MKE Small Business Coach, a business coaching and consulting firm focused on small business owners and entrepreneurs up to 5 million in revenue.
Brent is a reality focused small business coach empowering small business owners and entrepreneurs so they can stop spinning their wheels [00:02:00] and instead take the next right action to transform their hard work into hard cash. We all need that, He has spent over 20 years building businesses and opportunities, coaching hundreds of entrepreneurs and small business owners around him and evolving his own entrepreneurial focus. Brent, I am thrilled to have you come on and talk with me today. So welcome.
Brent Halfwassen: Thanks for having me on Leighann. I'm looking forward to talking to your audience and seeing how I can help them grow as well.
Leighann Lovely: So tell me a little bit about, you know, some of your core, you know, principles and how you begin with coaching some of your clients.
Brent Halfwassen: That's a great question. So the first thing I like to lead with Leighann is that everyone is individual. And while there may be great systems and tools and processes that everyone ought to be using, [00:03:00] that's not the reality for most of us. Most of us have a problem that we are really trying to overcome.
It's a pain point that we feel. And I just think is a great coach. I've got to come in and understand that I've got to come with deep empathy and insights because being a small business owner is hard. It's lonely. All your W2 friends have no idea what you're talking about, even though you try and relate to them.
And so when I, and then I bring a lot of humor in order to help that out. So with an initial evaluation, we try and get at like, Hey, is this probably what's going on, how you're feeling, where you're at. And then we start to build on what are those next right actions. Because most of the folks that, uh, finally reached that breaking point, they're like, I'm doing all the things I know how to do.
Usually it's their greatness, right? They're amazing at their skill, craft or trade. But when they want to do the next thing in order to keep growing the business, they're like, it's stuck. I keep doing more and not, and more is not happening. And that's where we come around. And we try and build, what are the other pieces [00:04:00] you need?
But of the myriad of like 5, 000 things you can do and all the newsletters you're getting, let's pick the next one, two or three things that are actually right for your business and take those actions so that we can transform that hard work into hard cash.
Leighann Lovely: You know, and hearing you say that, You know, I, I just recently reread, um, good to great.
And I, I right now, the, the thing that's ringing in my head, um, is that so many people forget to make the list of things that you don't, that you shouldn't do, right? We try to do everything as small business owners, and we forget that there are habits. That we need to stop doing right because they're non revenue generating tasks or they're just so less important than we think they are because they've become [00:05:00] habits of what worked maybe when we were a one person shop, but now we're a 10 person shop and it's, you know, evolving as a business, you have to learn to shift your thinking and shift the way that you do things and kind of move.
Uh, cause. Parts, they all have, you know, different functions, right? So, And the other thing that, again, I went from being a W 2 employee, not that long ago, to being that business owner, and it's such a hard,
it's, you can't explain it to your friends. They're like, well, well, you go to work every day. Well, yeah, but I go to work every day, and I'm the only one. Everything falls on me and, and that pressure.
Brent Halfwassen: You're, well, you're totally right, Leanna. I think the best part is that they tell you, Oh, you can set your own schedule now.
You can do what you want. It must [00:06:00] be nice to have all that freedom, right? I'm sure you didn't hear that from anyone when you launched your business. Right.
Leighann Lovely: All that freedom. That's what I think. That's the dream that we chase when we think we're going to, when we go, Oh, I'm going to run my own, I'm going to start my own business.
I'm going to have all this freedom. Um, I have zero, I haven't even thought about the idea of a vacation because I'm like, well, who's going to answer my emails? Who's going to take care of my clients? Who's going to answer the phone? Who, If I'm gone, my business shuts down. So. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the reality of small business ownership.
So, I'm gonna guess that somebody talking with you, somebody meeting with you, is like, Okay, Brent, how do I [00:07:00] do this? How do I scale? How do I get my life together?
Brent Halfwassen: That's it. That's it. I think there's, you, you touched on something that is so critical. What are the things we need to stop? So one of the reasons that we can focus on just what are the next few, not more than three actions you need to take is because we are creatures of habit.
And so we don't need to monitor the other pieces that are already habitual to us. I only need to monitor the ones that I'm actually changing because it's the change that's hard. The habits come naturally. And there may be 50 things we need, quote, need, need to fix, but I don't want you to shut on yourself because we're not capable.
There's like one in a bajillion who can like do all this amazing change. And I'm always a little bit dubious with their story, quite honestly, but that's fine. They're out there. The bell curve has been people way out on the tails. Most of us are not there. And so I recommend you do not emulate those people.
So we just stick with a few that you can change. So to your point, some of the change is stop doing it. [00:08:00] And the question is what happens if you stop doing that thing? Will the world end where your business actually sink? Is it actually true? Cause the voice in your head's probably saying, Oh, people are going to hate you and no one's going to buy from you again and blah, blah, blah.
All right, stop. Like when you put the imposter down and then you say, what will really happen? And then what happens if we actually. Respond to that proposal. Follow up on that hot lead. Um, you know, make sure that you send the third follow up when you haven't gotten an answer on the first two on something you knew was good for you, right?
I'm sure you talk a lot about how to, you know, don't let a simple no or a ignore or I'm busy or how about next week or I'm going out of town. Can we meet in next month? Whatever. Say, okay. Absolutely. Let me put it on the calendar versus like, Oh, they didn't want to talk to me. They must not want to buy my stuff, but those, those voices go on all the time.
The other piece I love that you talked about was working in your business. So you're the one doing all the things and Hey, let's face it. When we're a solo entrepreneur, we're just getting [00:09:00] started. That is our reality. However, one of my clients I worked with, that was her main goal. I want to take a vacation.
In fact, she was going to go on an extended mission trip. In a different continent. So she was not going, not only not going to be available. She was truly no phone, no internet. You can't reach me at all for a month. Well, we figured out how to organize her business to be able to make that happen. She made more money that year than she had made in previous years by a good stretch and took her first vacation in 20 years.
So That is, it is doable, but it takes some specific actions and specific steps to get it done.
Leighann Lovely: And that's the amazing thing about working with somebody like you is that entrepreneurs, and I'm guilty of this, is that nobody else can do it as good as me. Nobody else can do what I do. That is, it's so untrue, right?
Because it, and if I think [00:10:00] that truly stay thinking that. I will never grow. I will never scale. I will never be able to become bigger than just one person.
Brent Halfwassen: Yeah, and
Leighann Lovely: we can go down this rabbit hole forever. But let me put what I want to talk to you about. Yeah,
Brent Halfwassen: go. Well, let me spin it because I think it gets to where we want to go in our conversation.
Um, Uh, but let me just say that it's possible that people can't do it as well as you, but I want you to value your time appropriately because there are probably things that like is 80 percent good enough is 60 percent good enough because when you're amazing at what you do, you can probably do what you give yourself.
You're like, ah, that was a C performance and everyone else was like, Leon, that was the best thing I've ever seen in my entire life. And we're judging ourselves hard. So just remember when we value our time appropriately, I want you as the amazing skill doer to go out and do your amazingness because that's your best value that you can [00:11:00] deliver that people are going to perceive.
Let's let some of those other pieces go elsewhere.
Leighann Lovely: And, and I'm going to stop again, this conversation could go on forever because I mean, entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs of the thing that They love to do because they're good at it because they're great at it. But like, to your point, can I hire somebody else to do some of those other pieces?
And those are the smart people. Hire others who can do what you aren't great at. And allow you the time to be great at something else. Now, let's get into, you and I had a conversation on something that you talk a lot about, and this is, I'm very passionate about this. Um, I was brought up to know this, to understand it.
And I also want to caution [00:12:00] the listeners to make sure that you're understanding what we're talking about. So we're going to make sure that we stay. You know, focused on this, we talked about selling on value versus on price, and people talk about this all the time, but they're young salespeople can sometimes get confused by this if it's not explained properly.
So Brent, I want you to talk through this, explain what you explained to, and you talk about this a lot. Let's talk about the difference between selling on value versus selling on price.
Brent Halfwassen: Great. I appreciate that because this is also something that drives me nutty when people bring up, I want to figure out how, like, I'm working my butt off.
I don't have any money showing up on the bottom line. One of the first places we look is ultimately how much are you charging for your product or service? Here's the way that, um, I would say mainstream media [00:13:00] generally talks about price, supply and demand, whatever you want. It's how much does it cost? And where can I go and get it cheaper?
And that is sort of like the default mindset. So by default, when we start our businesses, we're like, Oh, you know, I don't know, is someone actually going to pay 200 for that thing? Maybe it should be one 30. Maybe it should be 100. And we start talking ourselves out of it. And we think of it always in terms of a cost.
Now, almost everything that we're selling, there are probably a few exceptions, so I won't say everything, but I'm pretty sure it's close to everything actually depends on its circumstance. So when I talk about. Don't talk about price when the first opening discussion you have is someone's like, Hey, would you like this cookie?
Well, how much does it cost that that totally the value that you're going to get from under the person's going to get for? It depends because, for example, if I happen to be in the Feister forum watching a box game, that cookie is probably going to be like 8. And I may think it's a steal if it's 6. Why?
[00:14:00] Cause I can't carry in food. I'm hungry. I'm cheering on the team. And I'm looking for a little bit of hit after some tasty rib niblets I had from iron grate or whatever you got going on. Right. You know that it's going to be more. And generally there's a line of people at the cash register pan. So someone determined the value of that cookie was dependent on its location was dependent on how it was served, depend on the conditions.
Your businesses are just the same. How are you positioning it? If you immediately go in and start talking about price, here's what happens. You become a commodity. A commodity is an item you can buy wherever and whenever from the lowest bidder, that's like going on to an auction site maybe. And like, where's the lowest spot I can go.
And if you compete on cost, here's the problem. Someone else will always be cheaper than you. So I want you to think about how can I position this, whatever it is you offer your product or service, and what is the value from the consumer standpoint? It's not always about what [00:15:00] am I worth? You know, like I would, you know, this isn't about an intrinsic value of who you are.
This is about your customer. How are they going to use whatever it is you have? What is the circumstance they need to use it in? And when we start digging into some of those questions, Which by the way, should be part of your sales process. I'm sure you dig into that with people to understand what, what is their core need?
Boy, if I just had a solution to this particular problem, that would be amazing. And that is your cue to say, let's figure out what that is literally worth. And I'm talking about dollars and cents. If you had it, I'd be able to free up a salesperson. What does it mean if you're up a salesperson? Wow. If I had a freed up salesperson, I'd be able to get an extra X number of dollars per year.
Okay, cool. What's your margin on that? 20%. All right. So you said you get an extra 100, 000, 20 percent of that's 20, 000. So what you're telling me is if I can help you free up an extra salesperson, you would put 20, 000 more dollars in your pocket. Yes. Now I know what my offering is worth. If I can deliver on that, on that guarantee.
Do I get to keep all that money? Nope. They're going to want to keep some of [00:16:00] that money, but you now know what it's worth when you position it. And it is not about. A price per hour. It is not about, oh, if I look at my job on salary. com and divided by 2000, this is what it's worth. We're not doing that.
We're talking about the value to the end customer.
Leighann Lovely: And that I love the way that you just explained that and position that. I also want to throw in there that. It's, it's not completely fluid when we're talking and yes, you and I kind of talked about it. It can be, it can be based on how you're positioning the offering.
However, you need to make sure that you have a standard of, you know, a baseline that you're building that off of so that you're consistent amongst what you're proposing to other people. Correct. [00:17:00] Or what you're proposing to the masses, you can't go and offer your same service to 2 different people at completely different prices.
Brent Halfwassen: Yeah, I think you
Leighann Lovely: could potentially get, yeah, I think
Brent Halfwassen: if you are, um. Particularly if your prices are far and wide, so we're not, I'm not talking about demand dynamic pricing. That's a thing right now. And there are, there are probably scenarios where that works. I think some companies are going to experience some significant pushback.
And demand pricing is just like, Oh, let's do supply and demand. And it's essentially an auction. And if there's a long lineup for fries, those fries are about to get more expensive until the line gets shorter. Um, I think you can have some reputational challenges if that's what you're perceived as doing.
Um, you know, we're, again, we're not bringing generators into a hurricane torn zone, like that's, you know, we started talking about price gouging. You, you gotta be, you do have to be careful. [00:18:00] I want to put a nuance on that, that depending on what you're doing, particularly if you're offering a service.
Generally, your service delivery isn't unique in every circumstance, so you can you can position it a little bit differently. However, as you start to become really good at understanding what your value is, um, you're and provide value is when I work with these clients, these are the results they tend to get once I've worked with 10, 15, 20, 100 of those type of clients.
Now, all of a sudden, I kind of understand. Hey, Hey, When I come to the table, here's the stuff I'm probably going to find. I'm going to understand you. And now I kind of know where my range needs to be. Now, if I, in that scenario, maybe what I'm talking about is not the same service at a different price, but I'm offering a range of different services.
Hey, I can do one thing at this level, but I can do another thing at this level. And wow. And if you're really ready to capture that whole 20, 000, we were talking about, this is the level you really need to consider purchasing. So there's some different ways. To make it work. Um, I [00:19:00] just want everyone to understand the concept because most people go right to cost.
What does it cost? Not, it doesn't cost you anything. Right. What problem is it solving? Cause I'm about to give you a value because I'm gonna solve a problem for you, not drain money out of your wallet.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. And, and it goes back to what I was, you know, what was ingrained in me and as an early sales person.
If, if you have a client who is buying on price. They're they will leave on price if you're not setting up the value first, they're there and they all they want to know is, well, how much does it cost? How much does it cost? How much does it cost? They're going to leave you on price because there will always be somebody in the market who's willing to say, well, I'll do it for 2 points cheaper.
And so they're going to go. Okay, great. But if you're setting up that value up front of this is why you're going to, you want to work with me, because this is what we're going to provide to you at the end of the day. And this is what your ROI. Ultimately, what we're doing is [00:20:00] providing the ROI of the product.
Why the value, the return on your investment is X, Y, Z. This is why we do it best. This is how we are going to be a, and I I'm emphasizing we, I shouldn't, this is how, you know, our company is going to be able to bring value and your return on your investment, and we're different because X, Y, Z, and if you can convey that, I've And they can buy into that before they go, okay, so what is this?
You know, ultimately what is the fees? What is the cost to that? But they're already sold before you ever have that fees or cost, or they're not going to leave you when somebody comes and says, well, I can do it for two points cheaper, because they're going to go, yeah, but I really like the service that I'm working with because.
They're providing what they [00:21:00] told me they would provide. They will become a client for life versus the client that comes and says, yeah, you're too expensive before they've ever heard why they should work with you. Right. It's
Brent Halfwassen: a beautiful example that, that you gave. We, uh, was involved with a real estate transaction and there was a broker who just straight out said I, I cost a point more than anyone else.
And the reason is because I'm going to get you about 25 percent more value for your property than anyone else will. And I'm like, well, I am all in on that. If you're going to get me a big pile of extra money, and I have to pay you an extra couple of grand or whatever the number is, that's, that's the trade off.
They went above and beyond. They were answering the questions. They were consulting along the way. They were providing that additional service that the others literally their pitch was. I am the lowest price commodity in the market. And I'm like, yeah, but if you don't do the best for me, [00:22:00] the value is not there, right?
Leighann Lovely: Correct. You know, and coming from I, you know, I came from a wildly saturated. And competitive industry being in the staffing, you can go on every corner and find a staffing company. Right? And 1 of the 1st questions that any company asked is, well, what is your markup? Before we even get into the markup conversation, do you want to hear, you know, how we screen our candidates, how we go through the process to make sure that we're not wasting your time by sending you 10 resumes and you're then spending, you know, 10 hours interviewing people who aren't qualified because how, how valuable is your time?
Would you rather get three resumes? Of really highly qualified people that we've already screened a ton to make sure that they're a match that if you have background [00:23:00] requirements, if you have drug screen, whatever, would you rather spend 3 hours and have the candidate and have an offer within a week? Or would you rather spend 10 hours to come back to me and say, this person doesn't match and they go, oh.
Okay, wait, well, so how, how do you do it differently?
Brent Halfwassen: Here's
Leighann Lovely: how we do it differently, but we're, but we're two points higher than the other agency. So again, I ask you, how valuable is your time?
Brent Halfwassen: So I, and I position, um, so I, along with this point, Leighann, I don't like it when people talk about how they're cost effective or, You know, frankly, lower costs than someone else.
Like I, anytime I see that language in any of their verbiage, I'm like, that all needs to go away. One, I had a similar situation, I believe, to what you're sharing. I had a client just, um, I was coming through with, we were, we were raising our prices and I said, here's our new price. Um, you know, obviously they had the right to say, no, we're in on, it's just going [00:24:00] somewhere.
So they said, well, look, I can hire X, Y, Z and do all this stuff. And then they, you know, start annualizing your rate. And, you know, even though you're only working with them for 20 hours, they figure out, well, if you were a full time employee, I'd be paying you a bazillion blah, blah, blah. Like you hear all the noise.
And I was like, look, it is your choice, obviously how you want to go. However, if you would like to hire someone who will take twice as long to get an answer and the results won't be as good. That is absolutely your prerogative if you want the value of me being able to understand the answer immediately and being able to provide you a solution that you can implement effectively and actually get the results you want to achieve.
That's why I positioned where I'm at, but the result is yours. There are plenty of people who will provide you less value than I will instead of talking about charge less instead of saying you pay less. I just straight say they will provide you less value. And if that's what you would like. I respect your choice.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. And we can go around that in a million different ways. Same thing with So, you know, financial advisor, [00:25:00] I can throw, you know, every time I go to a networking meeting, or I go to, I can throw a bunch of business cards out and have 4 financial advisors say, hey, I'd love to do a portfolio analysis.
Okay. Great. Let me list off the things that are important to me. And let's see if you have those things, you know, and then if you have those things, maybe we can have a, now, first of all, I have a financial advisor that I love. So nobody, please call me about financial. The point is, is that, you know, if my financial advisor comes to me and says, you know, Leighann, you'll have complete transparency.
You can log into your account at any time. You can do transfers directly from here. You, you know, you, but on the backend, here's what we're going to do for you. And then we're going to do this. Provide the value. First, that's what I care about. Don't start selling me on your, and here's what drives me crazy.
Don't start telling me what your [00:26:00] company has done in the past. I don't care that your company is 80 years old or 200 years old. It's about what it is today. What value does your company have today for the people of 2024? That's what's important to most people. Now, most people. There are people out there who like who are I want to know the history.
I want to know where, you know, how it evolved. It's different for everybody. There's everybody has those different, but you before and I stress this, I've had people come to me and say, I just can't close. I just can't. Okay. Well, then you're not, you don't know what that person wants from you. That's
Brent Halfwassen: right.
They,
Leighann Lovely: you, you've missed the mark. If they're, if they've come to you, you've gone through the entire process. [00:27:00] You've presented them a proposal and they're not closing. You have not created or you have not found their pain point and created the value of your service.
Brent Halfwassen: Yeah. Or your services. The majority
Leighann Lovely: of the people.
Or correct, you're either your product is not right for them and you wasted a whole bunch of time because you didn't figure that out in the initial conversation and we're not in a world of, you know, sleazy salespeople where we shove product on people's throats that they don't need and then walk away and go, yes, I got one.
I hope nobody's in, you know, trying to do that anymore. We're, we're in the world of find the proper prospects, talk to them about. What they need, and if you're a match, continue the conversation, go through the complete discovery, figure out what solution you [00:28:00] have, present that solution, make sure you understand what their pain points are, how that solution is going to solve that problem for them, and make sure the value exists.
And I guarantee that if you do that, all those steps properly. They're going to go, Oh, I don't care how much it is. If you're going to do all of that for me, here's my checkbook. And obviously if money does, it does come down to if they have the money in the bank. And there are true situations where somebody goes, Brent, I want to buy from you, but I just can't afford it right now.
And I will tell you that in those situations, often they will come back to you and go, I can now afford you.
Brent Halfwassen: No, I think I love the process you said out there. I think it's so critical. If [00:29:00] you know who your customer is, you know what problems they solve. Your question asking during that sales process needs to be unearthing more of the magnitude of the problem. And you're looking for, you know, what your services are, you know, roughly where your price points are going to be.
You're working to match those pieces up and saying, okay, hold on. You're saying that this is your experience. This is your challenge, whatever. I think we can help you there. Here's where we're going to go to. And by doing that, by, by focusing on the issue that your client or customer is having versus focusing on the thing that you have to sell, you are shifting automatically into a value focused selling model.
Uh, when we just buy like, Hey, I got a thing. I need to sign up first come first served. I got three spots left. I mean, great. There's a lot of additional things to create some FOMO and closing techniques, et cetera. But if the value is absent. Even if you're shopping at the dollar store, if the value is absent, [00:30:00] people won't buy the plenty of items there that are cheap, but if I don't find the value, I won't buy, right?
Leighann Lovely: Correct. We're not the majority of the, we're not a consumer. You know, we're not sitting on a shelf as the candy bar that people go, Ooh, I'm gonna throw that in my cart. Right. We're not the entrepreneurs, small business owners are typically not the, , what word am I looking for?
Brent Halfwassen: Impulse buy.
You're not the impulse buy at the cash register.
Leighann Lovely: There we go.
Brent Halfwassen: And the reason someone else can do that at scale much better than you can. So I want you to focus on experiences because experience has a value proposition that we can talk about and move. Even if you're selling a product. You can provide an experience around it.
Maybe it's in your customer delivery. Maybe it's in the store experience. Maybe it's in the online portal. However you do it, you can make it unique and you and then drive value with how you do it. And you can you can provide the value through the website even when people don't [00:31:00] talk to you. But if you're thinking about those customer problems and you're addressing those customer problems, you're embracing this value mindset that we're talking about where price is not what we're having a discussion about.
And I don't like anchoring price early because people will it. Evaluate it based on someone else's, their understanding of the value that they can get. And when you can explain and crack the nut on where they're going to go, I think you're going to see some success in making sure there's value behind how you're pricing.
And you'll feel more confident, both in terms of closing and in terms of, Hey, I think we've clearly established this is what it's worth. If there's a gap there, you can try and close that, but you can walk away knowing that, like, Hey, They know it's there because sometimes the sale isn't today. That thing's going to linger for a while.
They'll come back and be like, you know what? That problem didn't get any better. And maybe the dollar gap got even bigger. I'm ready now.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. So we are coming to time. Brent, I want to give you the opportunity to do your. Shameless 32nd pitch. So go ahead and [00:32:00] the floor is yours.
Brent Halfwassen: I love it. Hey, if you're a small business owner and you're amazing at your skill, career or trade, you've started growing your business, you've hit a spot that you think you're ready to keep going, but all of a sudden you're working your butt off, you don't have much money to show for it.
That's the spot where Milwaukee small business coach comes in and helps you. We're gonna help you identify those areas. It could be in sales, it could be in operations. It could be in how to translate your actions into actually seeing dollars show up on the on your bank. We want to come in. We want to help you do check us out.
MKEbusinesscoach. com. We've got a lot of information for you. We've got insights. We'd love to talk with anyone, listen to this show. Just give us an opportunity to help you move along and see if there's an opportunity we can get you to succeed and transform your hard work and hard cash.
Leighann Lovely: That was awesome.
Thank you. So much if, um, and you gave us your website, correct?
Brent Halfwassen: That's the website. And, and, and you can, you can reach out to us, give us comments, schedule a meeting directly on our website, right? With one of our coaches.
Leighann Lovely: [00:33:00] Perfect. And your contact information will be in the show notes. So if you're interested in reading, reaching out to Brent, please do so.
Um, but this has been an awesome conversation to remember that, um, you know, to sell on value, not on price. And thank you so much, Brent.
Brent Halfwassen: Thanks Leighann for having me on.

Success and Empowerment in Both Sales and Life

On this episode of Love Your Sales Joe Rockey Jr., an expert in sales, shares valuable insights on the psychology of sales and the importance of addressing past relationships. Leighann Lovely facilitates the discussion, emphasizing the significance of confidence and communication in sales interactions. Together, they explore how redefining sales approaches can lead to success and empowerment in both sales and life. Join the Love Your Sales podcast for profound conversations on mastering the sales industry.
 
Contact Joe –
 
Book – Casino Sales Master - https://casinosalesmaster.com/
Website - https://elitebusinessconversations.com/our-services/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joerockey/
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsor Genhead – www.genhead.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am very excited because I am joined by Joseph Rockey Jr. He is a serial business creator, world class consultant, international best-selling author, and host of a TV show that airs in 55 million households, Elite Business Conversation. Elite Business Conversations, Joe's consulting firm specializes in honoring the sacrifices of business owners.
His international best-selling book, Casino Sales Master, proven systems to beat the odds in sales and life, and accompanying coach courses are teaching businesses worldwide to sell in the [00:02:00] correct way. By bringing relationships. As an integral portion of the sales system, Joe's clients cut through the omnipresent residue of the 1960s sales method.
Joe, I am so excited to have you join me today.
Joe Rockey: thank you for being here. I love it. And I appreciate the chance to have talks about making sales better. And I always like to let people know like what you're going to get out of here. A little preview Tarantino it, if you will. You know, by the end of this, we're going to give you a drill that I do with my clients that will radically change your life.
I mean, that's just fundamentally what's going to happen. So stay tuned for it. See how it builds up, why it works, because it does make a difference. But yeah, always like to give people a little preview, right?
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. Awesome. Well, let's, why don't we jump, jump right in? I mean, tell me first a little bit about your, about your book, like And obviously not giving it away because we want [00:03:00] everybody to go buy it.
Right. But, you know, tell me a little bit about how you created that, how you, you know, came to start writing that and, and a little bit of, you know, a preview of it. Yeah.
Joe Rockey: Yeah. So the starting point is in the essence of all of it, sales are being done wrong. Now we all know it, and I'm going to give you something that you know, in your truth, that you never thought of why, but it's been baked inside of you your whole life.
When you were three years old, you weren't supposed to lie to anyone. You were supposed to always tell the truth and be honest, except to a salesperson. I'm not here on this car lot to buy a car. I just like walking around in asphalt next to shiny things and blistering sunset days. Like, no, you don't.
You're here to buy a car. Um, I don't really have like three appointments on my day. I just don't want to talk to you as a telemarketer. We're all trained to lie to salespeople. [00:04:00] And why? Because salespeople just use you for the sake of getting their own commission out of you. That is the 1960 sales method.
There's no desire to build a connection, build a relationship. It's just, what can I get out of you? What can I make happen for our own company's profit? This is why you saw the advent of multi level marketing systems and all of that kind of problems, all issues. So when you look at the quick element of that reality, it's, we need to do something about this.
This trying to just. Lie people force them through side doors that aren't really real is a horrible way of living and make no doubt about it. Revenue is the lifeblood of the economy. Your business does not work if you don't sell correctly. And that's where the essence of the sales system came from. And then just, instead of having testimonials about how great it is, which certainly we have, I was like, I'm going to take this to the [00:05:00] hardest sales environment on the planet.
The place where every person knows if you go, you're going to lose. And that's a Las Vegas casino floor. The house always wins. Everyone knows it. In fact, going to Vegas and not losing all your money is considered a win for most people. Let alone going there, having them turn all of your profits. Into paying for your whole trip, paying for you to be there, paying for all the other sun stuff you can do in Vegas.
And when I did this, the first time I was in my twenties and the book is specifically about that first time I tested this and have done it every time since and system, but it's really about how do you bring relationships into your sales life? How do you get better at making relationships? Most people have no idea how they form their own, let alone how to talk about enhancing them.
And that's really the essence. of what I do in all elements of my [00:06:00] life, but specifically in the book, Casino Salesmaster proven system to beat the odds in sales and life.
Leighann Lovely: Very interesting. And, you know, as you were talking about, Um, we've been taught from, and I'm going through, I have a six year old, my, my listeners, I'm sure hear me drop this all the time.
Um, right now I'm going through the whole, you don't lie, don't lie, but you're right. The minute, you know, you get onto a car lot, the minute you get in somewhere or the minute somebody calls you and trying to sell you something, it's the first, the default thing that you do is I'm really busy right now. I can't have this conversation.
Even if I'm sitting on the couch.
Joe Rockey: Hey, don't get me wrong. The candy crush matters, man. It's,
Leighann Lovely: it is the default setting that we have because we don't as human beings, we don't want to be sold to, we just, we don't, it's, it's [00:07:00] this icky feeling of like, stop trying to shove something down my throat that I, because as soon as you try to shove it down my throat, I think I don't need that.
Um, even if, even if you were having a conversation with your spouse, your significant other three days prior about how I, we, I think we need a new cell phone plan. But as soon as a cell phone company, or as soon as somebody starts talking to me about like, you know, you're walking in a store and they're like, Hey, have you considered changing your cell phone?
You're like, nah, get away from me. It's, it's like, because you're, somebody is trying to sell to you. Mm hmm. Which is where the relationship comes in. Yeah. Because if, if I'm having a conversation with somebody I know, like, trust, and they're telling me about the benefits of their product, [00:08:00] I'm not, I don't feel like I'm being sold to, I feel like I'm being educated.
Joe Rockey: You're exactly right. And to give a bombshell for people out there who feel that their relationships with their parents broken during puberty. This is the answer. Why does the shatter your whole life? Probably didn't think we're going in this direction. Um, what you just said is the starting point is that someone's trying to just bring information at you.
Could be advice about why you shouldn't date this guy. It should be why you should buy a Chevy. It doesn't really matter. Someone's trying to bring information to you to force you to do something when you as an individual do not feel that that connection is warranted. And for parents, it's incredibly hard because I've seen you your whole life.
I've literally seen you grow. Like that's what you did as my kid. But it's now that I'm in a different state of mind, I don't feel that that connection is there the same way or the way that it [00:09:00] needs to be to have this conversation. So when you first jump on that lot and it's this car can go from 0 to 60 this fast, it's got this towing capacity, this power and all that.
All right, cool. Maybe that's exactly what I need. But because you're not trying to relate to me, I don't want to know. I, it's not there. You know, you did like, I'm coming here to get a seven capacity vehicle and it's just me here. You didn't ask why that would be interesting. Like, why is that something you want?
Is it really just because you want a truck, but because you live in an area, you think people are going to break into the back of it. You have it enclosed. So you're buying a big oversized SUV. That's basically just a closed in truck. Or is it because you're hauling 13 people around and you're forcing them in the slots on various different days, because you don't know which version of your grandkids you're going to have this kid's back kids are the other ones, these are all different conversations.
And I can tell you as a sales professional, the more you're able to get into those types of conversations. [00:10:00] Where you're talking about taking your kid, taking the grandkids to go get ice cream or to the zoo, or you know what, I go to a lot of golf courses. I just don't want my clubs ever get rained on. So I'd rather just have it enclosed.
Those are different conversations every day, which makes your life more interesting because you're talking about different fun things every day. But also now your clients like, Oh, this guy gets me. I will talk about his dreamy blue eyes and why I want to go on a date with him. Mom, it's post is slamming the door, screaming and running down the hall.
I mean, we've all had these thoughts and experiences. It's just which version of you is coming out and all the differences is how are you being approached? How do I want to have a conversation with you? And again, I totally seen your face. Like, why did he just bring up this random? Like when puberty happened, cause no one talks about it, but this is the psychology behind it, and this is part of what I teach people.
Leighann Lovely: And no, I mean, I, I, if I was making face, I apologize, but it completely translates because I've [00:11:00] had conversations with other people. Again, this goes back to the very first episode of Love Your Sales, which was everybody's selling every day and it it's, it's ingrained in us from the time that we are born and it, the inner actions and the things that are happening throughout our entire life all the time are, are either negotiation, conversation.
ingrained in, you know, and it's, it's really funny because I have a conversation, my husband, who's completely opposite, you know, you know, if you look at the disc assessment or completely opposite is me and he'll make comments like, God, I hate salespeople. And I'm like, Hey, Hey, honey, you're married one. You don't hate salespeople because you married one.
Um, because he gets annoyed with like, you know, somebody knocks on the door and they're like, Hey, do you want to have your driveway? Repaved or whatever. And he's just like, God, it's so annoying. And I'm like, well, they're just doing their job. Like that is part of what they do, but you [00:12:00] also are selling, you do, you negotiate with your daughter 30 times a day.
She comes up to you and you negotiate with her about a piece of candy. We're sitting at the dinner table and she's like, if I eat this piece of broccoli, can I have some more candy? And I'm, I'm like, you're doing it every single, it's just, the difference is, is that you're not doing it as a profession.
You're, you're not out there trying to sell. I'm like, but you, you have to understand that it, it's just, it's just tweaking it a little bit. It's just a, a simple mind shift change. Mm-Hmm. like, and, and that's all that it is. And when it comes to the professional sale, if you were actually implement what you understand in the real world as your friends, as your, the people who trust you, if you were to walk up to your best friend and say, Hey, this is like one of the greatest new.
pens ever. [00:13:00] And they'd be like, Oh, okay. Well, I love, you know, I love having great pens and you can identify like, or maybe a pen is a bad, maybe you have a friend who's an artist and you were to walk up to him and be like, Hey, I just, these are the greatest new crayons ever. And you're identifying with them.
They're probably going to go out and buy those crayons. Simple as simple as I mean, and that's extremely easy to do because you're identifying with something that they're interested in, something that they like,
they trust you. Yes.
Joe Rockey: And you hit on the most important part there at the end there, the, the, the trust part. So we all have, because we're all people, presumably the AIs aren't listening to this yet. Um, but because we're all people out there, we all have this innate thing that at some point in our lives. We were vulnerable and it didn't work out [00:14:00] and our brains put up these defenses to try to eliminate and hate that we actually started basically from moment one of birth.
Um, it's just something that's in your subconscious that's constantly there. You can't do anything about it. So where the issue comes into play and going off of your last example there, why this is all about trust. Comes down to really, how do we make trust and make it quickly without having to do a 15 year relationship with my best friend, because ultimately that's people who are successful in sales do that.
And here's the secret. This, this is something that most people will never get, never do implement. It's because you break trust. When you make assumptions, when you are not allowed to make them now for a lot of people, that requires a ton of self awareness that they don't have. Um, so that's a drill by itself about working on self awareness, but what you really need to do is recognize.[00:15:00]
Why does your husband hate when people come up and tell him he needs a new driveway, even if he does is because somewhere embedded in there is an assumption that you don't know how to take care of yourself. And that is an instant non starter no matter who you are. Okay. There's many different ways to approach this.
Yes. Salespeople do need to reach out. There is no way that cast the go away. That fact exists, but you have to do it in the right way. And it starts with knowing. Am I making an assumption? How am I going about that? Because you make assumptions at the wrong time or the wrong way. You've just destroyed, destroyed trust as quickly as you can light money on fire.
Just like the Joker did. Right.
Leighann Lovely: Right. I completely agree. And for, for sales people who are typically high eyes, typically influencers, typically people who are, they, [00:16:00] I have seen the outgoing talkers, the eyes. Correct. I have seen many of them who could be the greats sit at the mediocre to good because they go from discovery meeting to trying to create a solution way too fast.
And they're working on the assumption that they think they know what the problem is. Not asking the right questions, not asking enough questions, not asking what do you really need. What do you really want and how are you going to make this decision? And they just skip over that part. And go right to, well, here's the perfect solution for you.
And that goes back to, you know, the, the old salesperson who's like, I'm just going to shove this [00:17:00] solution down your throat and you're going to buy no matter what.
Joe Rockey: Yes. And that's true. And as salespeople, it's really easy to get caught in this trap, right? Because I've seen my product work on this person I sold to earlier in my life.
I know it works. I know it's awesome. I know people love it, but we want to skip past the part of why. And I have to tell you, this is a remarkably weird phenomenon, but if you, once you learn it, it will change your life is reversing that mindset of what you just said. Exactly. The more you can discover someone, the less you actually need to present your solution.
It doesn't make sense to most people intellectually when they first hear that. But if you're on the situation where it's, I'm going to keep using the car lock because it's the easiest one for me to do because I'm in that zone. If you are in a spot where it's, I now know what your routine is that you care really more [00:18:00] about driving your grandkids around and that this is the terrain you go in and then you take them to the park and you love doing that and it's all about what they do with their kids and what they're going to do with this vehicle why it's important.
Actually talking about the vehicle doesn't really happen. And this is so contrary to the way people still teach sales at some of the elite, pretty schools that we all wish we kids went to. And until they do, um, that's the way that it is. It's all about living in features of benefits. That's what we're constantly taught features, benefits.
Features of benefits. Well, everyone's sitting up here in the surface of the water. You really want to get in the reality of what I'm trying to describe right here. You got to dive into the ocean of the emotions of your buyer. And guess what? Up here is four wheels and an engine down here is ice cream, my kids going to the park, doing all this, being on a golf course and knowing that my clubs won't get rained on all of that stuff and having talks about how, like, I [00:19:00] can love chipping, but I hate driving, whatever that case may be in the golfer's world.
The point is going into that space that has nothing to do with the truck is where you actually make the sale. And it is so contrary to the features, benefits, features, benefits on the surface of the water. If you're a scuba diver, which in this analogy is what you are, do you have more fun being on the surface of the water or go checking out the ocean?
That's as a salesperson, what you're going to be doing. And if you do it right, you will be there. And another very important element is you have to be able to do that with yourself because no one's going to trust the guide that is insecure. Do another analogy. Imagine you're doing skydiving and the person behind you is like on this 20 million times, it's gonna be fine and easy.
We're gonna have a little extra downward because that's what everyone else wants. They just don't know how to ask for it. So we're gonna get a lot of speed. You're [00:20:00] gonna feel all this awesomeness and then boom, you're gonna feel a tug. That's what's gonna happen. Versus option two. I second time I did it.
I think I grabbed this one and it's a really hard gang and it's gonna hurt. Which one are you more excited for doing? You're going to experience the exact same thing, but which one are you more excited about doing? Right. And are you even getting on the plane with the second option? Right. That's what every sales experience is.
Just are you able to do it?
Leighann Lovely: Well, and that's, and that goes to, you know, I've, when I've worked with people who have, are very green, you know, and I'll say to them, you need to just fake it until you make it. And, and not, not to say that like, Oh, go out there and, and, you know, lie or pretend, but You, you've been trained in your product, you know, your product, you need to fake that confidence that right now you're struggling with walk in there as if you [00:21:00] know it backwards, forwards, and just.
Um, have that confidence, not arrogance. Let's not, let's not mistake arrogance and confidence, confidence. When you say your price, you say it with confidence. Yeah. My price is 3000 to get started. Whatever that number is, 10, 000 to get it's 10, 000 to get started. And then you stop. You're confident in everything you say.
If you are not confident. Your prospect is not going to be confident in your ability to provide that service. They're not going to, if you, if you go, my, my price is 10, 000, they're going to go, oh, wow, I can get her to come down. Yeah,
Joe Rockey: or
Leighann Lovely: I don't want her. Or I don't want her. Or I don't want her. And, and, and that is the number one, like, if going, you know, the skydiver, if somebody like, this is my second time, I, it, you know, it should work out well, I'm going to go [00:22:00] hell no.
I am. If this guy says, well, this is my fifth time, it's going to be great. You know, I, this is exactly okay. He's very confident. He's very cool. He's very, that's fine. I don't care if it's his fifth time, but if he's like a hundred percent, like this is exactly how it's going to happen and exactly how we're going to do it.
That's fine. Even if it's only his fifth time, if it's his a hundredth time and he's still like, yeah, so if this is what it's, I'm going to be like, Oh, this guy doesn't seem like he's very comfortable with this. It doesn't, it doesn't matter how many times you've sold it. It only matters that you are confident.
And providing that solution and being able to deliver the confidence that you know, it's going to work for them.
Joe Rockey: That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly right. And again, it's, it's unique in the sense that every business is dependent upon the sales industry. So [00:23:00] while the, the, the actual product itself, if you're not happy with that one that you're at, at your company.
You can go to another one because if you have the relationship skill sets behind you, which again, is what I teach in casino sales master, you can have the ability to have the freedom to say, you know what? I can work wherever I want. And more importantly with whomever I want. So I don't want to be in this environment anymore.
I can go to another one that will treat me better and be a better fit for my vibe. And yes, you're all right. At the beginning, I'm not going to have all of the firsthand experience. Of what it's like having my consumers buying this product for me, having my clients buy this product, but I am going to know how to get to what's truly important to them.
And this doesn't matter if it's a business consumer or a business to business sale. So there's some companies out there that are dependent upon very few buyers for their space. To give an example, in the iron and steelmaking industry, there's all kinds of mines. But [00:24:00] there's very few actual people that buy the or just the way it is.
So if you want your mind to be successful, you need to get one of those companies to buy you, which really has a procurement officer. One person dictates the success of the sales of your entity, essentially. So if you come in just features and benefits, it's, it can, we can give you this much. It's this quality.
It's rated here, blah, blah, blah. Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. But if you dive deeper and find on goes, you know what? This guy only selects from this company, even though my stuff's better than them. I can give them more of it. I give them faster. Why does he always select from that company? Well, if you actually dive into it, well, it's because if he doesn't select from that company, his boss will make his life a living hell.
Well, then let's see if we can get a conversation about why the boss thinks that about this. And now we're not talking about, or at all, we're talking about some reason back in the day that the boss has an affinity towards your competitor. And now how do we overturn that? What's really [00:25:00] going on in that boss's head?
What's that relationship? We're not talking about iron ore. You do that successfully. Your mind is perfect. It's working forever. You fail at that. All of your employees are fired because you can't sell any more product. And yeah, that's an extreme example. But there are industries out there that are basically the same, that there's very few people we actually can sell to because we are this specialized.
There's nothing wrong in that, but it does mean you have to be very good at how to sell. And by the way, if you figure how to do this and you can sell to anyone, you have complete and utter control of your life. Because now you can control your clients, select who you want to serve, who you want to take care of, and your life becomes infinitely better.
So, so Leanne, I, I don't want to make us go long. I know you told me before about, about not going long. I do want to make sure I leave time to give people their prompts. So,
Leighann Lovely: yes,
Joe Rockey: go ahead. Okay. Um, so, so obviously we talked a lot about relationships, right? Yeah. Um, and one of the [00:26:00] things that hold people back, whether they realize it or not, are relationships in their past.
That are not where they wish it was to be today. And this could be something as big as the relationship you have with your parents or your adult kids, or it can be something as someone you drifted away from, from like for college or whatever. And this simple exercise, again, it's not hard. It's very simple, but if you don't do it, it will not help you.
I mean, it's just the way it is. It will change your life. Figure out one of those relationships where something, it's not the way you want it right now. And simply call that person. Don't social them. Don't text them, call them with an aim of actually sitting down and meeting, you know, lunch, whatever, but you're actually going to meet them.
And the point for this is this, is that every one of your relationships that aren't where you want right now are essentially an anchor that are pulling you back [00:27:00] subconsciously. And your brain is working harder and harder every day to overcome this drag that is pulling you back. If you actually address these scenarios, you will find a couple of things very quickly.
It's the equivalent in the physical space of losing a ton of weight and how much more energy you get. That's your brain getting better. Second, you'll find that the reason you guys separated, especially if it was a negative event, neither one of you two see the same way, especially the further back in time it is.
Because all of our brains Are built to make us the hero, not the villain. So we changed facts and figures in our heads versus if we watch an actual recording of it, it would be wildly different than either of the two of us. Think addressing this on reality's terms makes your life better. Yes. You're learning relationship skills and practicing how to do conflict resolution and all that important stuff.
But more importantly, [00:28:00] as you talk to people with relationships that you wish were better, they become better. And as that happens, your mind gets freed up and accelerates. And like I said, the analogy to the physical world is the equivalent of losing a hundred pounds. And there's some people out there who look like they're in great shape and all that, but they have all this baggage mentally and it holds you back.
And that is something that if you just do it's 10 numbers and push a green button, it takes courage to do it. There's a lot of people that don't want to do it. And your mind and subconscious have given you 5, 000 reasons. Why not to those reasons are holding you back. You need to address them head on. And you do that by calling.
So again, not something that's overtly complicated. It isn't, but it is something that will change your life. And in some cases it might be very hard. In some cases, it's gonna be super easy. You're just never going to know until you call it because the relationship is both sides of the fence. You don't know how you're going to be [00:29:00] received, but if you come in a way that is neutral and calm, it will be better.
Leighann Lovely: That's amazing. And great advice. Thank you for sharing that. So we are coming to time. This is the opportunity to give you the opportunity that I give you, um, for your 32nd shameless pitch. Go ahead, Joe. I, um, like to give you that, that you got
Joe Rockey: casino salesmaster. com. Go check it out. Not only can you get the book there, you also can get our coaching courses, which go a little bit deeper, their video.
So you have them forever for those people who don't want to read and just want to watch me talk. Um, it's that, and it's an absolutely amazing story about how, no matter where you're at in life, regardless of where you're at watching this, whether you just had the worst divorce, you have no money, you're in Or you're, you're smothered by some other situation, regardless of your position right now, if you can [00:30:00] become successful at sales, you will get complete control of your time and income that no other profession can do.
And that is the real goal of casino sales master proven system to beat the odds and sales and life. Yes. Sales is the vehicle, but life is really what you went at. And I tell you this no matter where you're at, there is reason for hope. Sales is the economic pathway to do it. It's hard, especially if you do it wrong, like the 1960s way.
But if you do it correctly, as we teach, you will love the way you look in the mirror and you will control your time and economic wellbeing forever.
Leighann Lovely: Very well said. Um, so Joe, if somebody wanted to reach out to you, where is, you know, how can they reach out to you? How can they find your book? All of that fun stuff.
Joe Rockey: Well, the easiest way is like I said, casino salesmaster. com. Obviously we're on Amazon as well to reach out to me directly. You can go to my website for the consulting firm, [00:31:00] which is elite business conversations. You will see a bunch of different tools there, which end up with either us helping you directly through that toll in the moment, or talking to either myself or one of my partners.
About how we can help on you at a very specific and customized level. And that is that elite business conversations. com.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. And that will be in the show notes. Um, again, Joe, thank you so much for coming on today and talking with me. This has been an amazing conversation.
Joe Rockey: Perfect. I hope that everyone benefited from it and share it.
If you guys got something from it, share it with everyone else.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. Thank you.