by Nancy Calabrese | Sep 6, 2024 | Podcast
About Adi Klevit: Adi is the leader and visionary of Business Success Consulting Group. Her twenty-five years of knowledge and experience as a trained Industrial Engineer, management consultant, and business executive give her a unique understanding of the challenges businesses face. Adi utilizes her practical know-how and wisdom to help organizations and companies of any size dramatically improve their efficiency and performance. By leveraging her ability to understand business processes as well as people and drawing on her high-caliber skills in vital areas of personnel management, finance, and operations, Adi can help virtually any business owner achieve their goals and bring order to their lives. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Adi.
In this episode, Nancy and Adi discuss the following:
- The importance of well-documented processes
- The process of mapping and documenting client processes
- Identifying pain points that signal the need for process documentation.
- The impact of documented processes on business efficiency and growth
- The role of process documentation in employee training and retention
- Adi’s unique team approach and company scaling
Key Takeaways:
- You will be surprised how many growing companies do not have processes and procedures in place.
- The adaptability that you have to have doesn’t mean the processes are bad.
- Don’t be afraid to start process documentation. Just start doing it. Don’t make it complex.
“The first thing that we do is we make sure that they have the mindset that processes and procedures will be used throughout the company. That’s number one. Number two is that we have to make sure that the documented procedures and processes are accessible and written in such a format that everybody can follow them. So that’s very important because if they are stored somewhere, nobody knows where it’s very hard to follow and implement them. Then, we have a rollout process. It’s a five-step rollout process, very specific, that intends to train everybody on those procedures and also make sure that there is buy-in and that every person understands the importance of having those processes documented. The next step after that is ensuring those processes are being utilized and used in day-to-day management. In terms of what we also do, we ensure that there are regular reviews of those processes and that regular review is either driven by time.” – ADI
“I think what sets us apart is that we have a strong team. And my idea is that you know, I can’t be a solo practitioner. I have a team—a team of writers, a team of consultants, marketing, and sales. You know, I feel like I need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, right? And I managed to scale my company. I managed to increase it, to make it bigger. All of that allows us to take on more and more clients, and we continually improve our own processes. We want to deliver a great product for our clients, and we do. So that is pretty unique.” – ADI
“You know, I think it’s important to have well-documented processes and procedures that all follow. I think that is extremely important. It’s something that people should look at, and having somebody do it for you is going to make a huge difference. Because, as one of my clients just said—and again, you can also watch her video on our website—she said if she tried to do it herself, she would still be on procedure number four. And, you know, I hear it over and over again. So, in terms of expediting things and increasing the organization, I recommend that you document your processes and procedures. And if you need help, contact us.” – ADI.
“Processes and procedures are not boring; they can actually be pretty exciting because they give you freedom, you know? That’s another truism—it does give you freedom. And people sometimes think that it’s restrictive, especially creative people. They might think that having processes and procedures is a restrictive activity, but the truth is, it’s not. Because if you don’t have your processes and procedures well-documented, that’s restrictive because then you have to reinvent the wheel every single time.” – ADI
Connect with Adi Klevit:
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
Transcript
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi, it’s Nancy Calabrese, and it’s time again for Conversational selling – the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today and it always starts with the human conversation. Today we’re speaking with Adi Klevit, CEO and founder of Business Success Consulting Group where they identify, create and document processes and procedures so the business can grow and scale. Adi’s 25 years of knowledge and experience as a trained industrial engineer, management consultant, and business executive give her a unique understanding of the challenges businesses face. Adi utilizes her practical know -how and wisdom to successfully help organizations and companies of any size dramatically improve their efficiency and performance. And finally, Adi can help virtually any business owner achieve their goals and bring order to their lives. Welcome to the show Adi, let’s get started.
Adi Klevit: Yes! Thank you, Nancy, I’m so happy to be here! [1:23]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, I mean, I love being on your podcast, so I couldn’t wait for us to do this. And, you know, I want to talk about your specialty and the importance of having systems in place and a process. I guess for starters, do you find many companies don’t have that in place?
Adi Klevit: You know, it, yeah, that is, that is the case. You know, we work with fast growing companies at the lacking consistency, and you will be surprised how many do not have those processes and procedures in place. [2:00]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, you know, I’m really shocked and I know it’s important, right? Documentation, implementation. And so, describe how it’s important for all of us to have that.
Adi Klevit: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, if you think about it, look at a company, if they are growing, they’re adding more personnel, they are selling more, et cetera, and they don’t have the systems to support it, I mean, that can create problems. [2:30]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. I mean, do you find that the systems are the same from company to company or do they vary?
Adi Klevit: You know, there are basic systems that are very similar in terms of they all have to have HR systems. They all have to have cell systems, right? I mean, you are the expert at that. They all have to have marketing operations, quality control. There are definitely systems that are very similar, but the content can be different. [3:02]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, and like how do you create the content then? When you engage a client, for instance, how do you take them through the process?
Adi Klevit: That’s a great question. So, what we do is the first thing that we do is we need to process map, basically create a map of all the processes that they have. So, we map their processes and then we decide where we’re going to start. Now we always like to start with the area that will give us the biggest return on investment. And that area, return investment, I judge it in terms of, or we qualify it in terms of. Of course, it’s money but it’s also maybe time that you are getting back. Maybe it’s…You know, like you have an employee that is coming on and you don’t have a way to train them. And if you had return on investment, you’ll be able to train them faster. And then they are not, they’re going to be able to stay longer. So, employee retention, it can be return on investment in terms of risk mitigation, whatever it is. Right. So, we decide where we’re going to start. And then what we do, we schedule a weekly meeting where we are going through the processes that we mapped and we extract information from each and every client, sorry, from each and every department or basically the processes that we want to document. We extract the information and then we write it. And then we provide it to the subject matter experts so they can review it, they can see, they can give us their opinion and anything that needs to be edited and then we repeat it until we have all the processes documented. Now we also help with process improvement and then we basically help the company to make sure that the processes are followed by all. [5:04]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, how do you do that? How do you know it’s going to be consistently done?
Adi Klevit: Right, so we guide the company through it, right? So, the first thing that we do is we make sure that they have the mindset that processes and procedures are going to be used throughout the company. That’s number one. Number two is we have to make sure that the procedures, processes that were documented are accessible and are written in such a format that everybody can follow them. So that’s very important because if they are stored somewhere that nobody knows where, it’s very hard to follow them and it’s very hard to get them implemented. Then we have a rollout process. It’s actually a five -step rollout process, very specific, that intends to train everybody on those procedures and also make sure that there is buying, and every person really understands the importance of having those processes documented. The next step after that is we make sure those processes are actually being utilized and used in day -to -day management. And then we also ensure that those.
Nancy Calabrese: And how do you have to ensure that heavy? Sorry about that.
Adi Klevit: Good question but let me just say that like in terms of what we also do, we ensure that there is regular reviews of those processes and that regular review is either driven by time. So, every so often, like every six months, every year, every quarter, those processes are being reviewed or it’s driven by event if there are any changes, and those processes need to be changed. So, to answer your question on how we ensure that there is utilization of those processes. So whenever there are issues that happen in a company, we handle it by, you know, it’s always a people problem, a process problem or both, right? So, we guide the company and the stakeholders or the main stakeholders on how to identify whether it’s a issue, it’s a people problem, a process problem or both, and what steps to take in order to remedy what is happening. That’s one example. [7:15]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, wow. I guess, you know, what I’m thinking as you’re speaking is what are some of the pain points companies are experiencing that let you know that they need your services?
Adi Klevit: Yeah. So, it’s a very good question. So, let’s say they are expanding. Okay. And they’re hiring people and let’s say, you know, you work with salespeople. So, let’s say it’s a construction company and then now hiring an estimator. Like the owner has been wearing that estimator hat and they go, okay, now I’m going to hire somebody new, but I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t know how to train them. I don’t know how, you know, how we’re going to explain to them everything that they need to be doing. Like, for example, I have a client right now that is hiring a project manager for the first time. He’s been being the project manager, but how do we actually teach the project manager what they need to do? So, we had to document everything and then train the project manager on how to do that work. So that, that is an example. [8:25]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, wow. How long does it typically take for a company, for the light bulb to go off when you create all of these systems, then it’s running smoothly?
Adi Klevit: I think it’s pretty fast because the more order you put in, the more aha moments they will have in terms of the light bulb. Like, wow, yeah, that works. We need to put more and more order. So I think it can be pretty immediate. [8:55]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. How did you get involved in this? What piqued your interest in doing this kind of work?
Adi Klevit: When I was deciding on my major in college, I look at different options. And the thing that really interested me when I chose industrial engineering, it was the fact that it was a combination of science, which I was really good at, but also understanding human nature and helping people be more productive, more efficient, and increase basic productivity and efficiency. And that really interested me because I wanted to know how I can help people. I wanted to increase their success, and I wanted to combine also science and do something that has a good methodology to it. [9:47]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. And you say that you can virtually help any kind of business in any industry. Do you do more work in one industry over another?
Adi Klevit: We’re pretty industry agnostic, so we have clients all over. We have clients that are in the trades. We have clients that are in manufacturing, professional services, even retail. So constructions, private practices, so definitely a variety. [10:20]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. And do you do this nationwide or throughout the world?
Adi Klevit: I do it throughout the world as a matter of fact, I mean, definitely nationwide and also throughout the world. We have clients in the UK, clients in Australia. [10:35]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, far reach, that is you. So, what is your unique idea that is different and sets you apart in your industry?
Adi Klevit: It’s a tough question in terms of, because I don’t know what other people, I mean, I know what I know about my us. And I think what sets us apart is that we have a strong team. And my idea is that, you know, I can’t be a solo practitioner. I have a team, I have a team of writers, I have a team of consultants, I have marketing sales. You know, I feel like I need to walk the walk, you know, not just talk the talk, right? And I managed to scale my company. I managed to increase it. I make it to make it bigger. I, we all that allows us to take more and more clients and we always improve, improve our own processes. We want to deliver a great product for our clients, and we do. So that is pretty unique. [11:41]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, yeah, I would think so. And is there a story that you think the audience would find interesting?
Adi Klevit: Of course, you know, we have many case studies, like for instance, a client, if you want to look at the actual videos, you can go to our, on my LinkedIn, Adik Levit, if you look me up, there are plenty of testimonial videos in the clients onwards and it’s testimonials from the clients. Yeah, so one of the stories there is of a client that was able to sell his company for two times of what it was worth because he had well -documented processes and procedures. Another story is of a client that was able to reduce the onboarding time of new customer service representatives by 75 % because he had training materials. [12:33]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow.
Adi Klevit: Yeah, I know. There is another one of a client that was able to grow his company and was actually able to take a vacation for, he wasn’t able to take a vacation for so long and he was able to. Even today, I was talking to a client, and he was freaking out because he’s going to be two weeks with no phone in a retreat and no computer and no ability to communicate to his team. And, you know, they have great documented processes. His team. We really train them that it’s followed by all and ask them the questions. Okay. I understand you’re freaking out but tell me one specific thing that will happen that you anticipate that can happen while you’re gone. And he looked and he looked, and he looked, and he goes, nothing. It’s all going to be just fine. Nothing bad will happen. I can just leave. And that was amazing. That was an amazing win because three years ago it would have happened. [13:33]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, you know, it’s funny. I remember the first year I was able to take a vacation. It is freeing, right? You feel like, yes, I finally got there. But for years, you know, many years ago, I never took a vacation and didn’t work. So, I know that feeling. I mean, is there anything in particular you would like me to spotlight?
Adi Klevit: You know, I think it’s the importance of actually having well -documented processes and procedures that are followed by all. I think that is extremely important. It’s something that people should definitely look at and that doing it, having somebody do it for you is definitely going to make a huge difference. Because as one of my clients just said, and again, you can also watch her video on words. She said if she was actually trying to do it herself, she would still be on procedure number four. And, you know, and I hear it over and over again is so in terms of expediting things, in terms of increasing the organization, definitely recommend that you document your processes and procedures. And if you need help, contact us. [14:53]
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. Wow, yeah, you know, it’s always a good idea to engage with an expert in whatever you need to have done. I’m a big believer in outsourcing, as you know. So, what’s a fun fact about you that the audience should know?
Adi Klevit: You know, I am, I love the outdoors. I live in the Pacific Northwest, love the outdoors. I think it’s, it’s so important to balance, you know, activity, being active and going out and have your space, have your time. And I just love doing that. And I get my brightest and best ideas when I’m actually on a hike, when I’m outside. So, I love that. [15:44]
Nancy Calabrese: Do you bring a recorder with you, so you record it when it comes to you?
Adi Klevit: You know, it’s actually a great idea, I should. Well, I have my phone, so yes, but I think it’s a different thing. Yeah.
Nancy Calabrese: You know, it’s so funny, you know, now I’m hating myself because I used to have a recorder next to my, on my nightstand. If I couldn’t sleep and I thought of something, I would like talk to it. And it always at least reminded me of the idea because then I go to sleep and forget it. So now we have fun.
Adi Klevit: You know, that’s a great, yeah, I heard it from different people, and I think it’s definitely a great, great idea.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, yeah. So, tell me something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.
Adi Klevit: that processes and procedures are not a boring activity, that it actually can be pretty exciting. [16:43]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay. How so?
Adi Klevit: Because it gives you freedom, you know? That’s another truism, it does give you freedom. And people think that sometimes it’s restrictive, especially people that are creative, they might think that having processes and procedures is a restrictive activity. But the truth is, it’s not. Because if you don’t have your processes and procedures well documented, that’s restrictive because then you have to reinvent the wheel every single time. [17:13]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, true. What about our personal lives? Do you recommend having that for our personal lives?
Adi Klevit: I’m a firm believer in it. What about you? What do you think?
Nancy Calabrese: Well, you know, I think we’re all creatures of habit and I think it’s more in my head than documented.
Adi Klevit: Yeah, I mean, that’s why I tell people it’s like you, yeah, it is in your head, but you do it. Like I tell people, you know, you all have a process. You know, when you wake up in the morning and you make tea or drink water or make coffee, you know, there are not a lot of people that will vary it every single day. They probably have their process, right? I mean, when you go grocery shopping, you have your process. You know, even if you go online, you know, you go, I’ll start with this and this and that, or even the processes go to you. You know, shopping cart online. I mean, we select everything that you want and then add additional things, whatever it is. It’s a process. Now, you know, you must have, I mean, like everything in life, you shouldn’t do anything to excess. Right. I mean, you know, I’m not talking here about being like obsessive with order. And if something, see, that’s the thing. If something, let’s say it goes wrong, then, then you just freak out and you can move on. No, you must flow with it. Okay. So, you have a process of doing so. Let’s say you have a process of making coffee, but your coffee machine is broken. So don’t freak out about it. Go to your coffee shop down the street and buy coffee and then go fix it or buy a new one. So, it’s that adaptability that you have to have, but it doesn’t mean the processes are bad, right? I mean, for me, I know that I say, I want time to do the things that I like, right? I want time to read books. I want time to volunteer in the community. I want time to go outdoors but I want also time to complete all my tasks. And what I find is that I can cut down time by having processes. [19:07]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, wow, I totally agree with you. You know, we’re up in time and let me ask you one final question. What is one takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?
Adi Klevit: that don’t be afraid from starting process documentation. Just start doing it. Don’t make it complex. Don’t make it like something that you have to wait one day. You will get to it just right now. Sit down in front of your computer. Find something that you are going, okay, I want to now document my sales process and write a few steps on how you sell. That is your sales process and call Nancy, of course, so she can help you with the sales process. But you know, you can definitely.
Nancy Calabrese: And if I can’t answer that, I’m going to refer you to Adi.
Adi Klevit: That’s right. So, we’re all going to collaborate here, but it’s true. You know, just start, do something, you know, don’t go into this analysis paralysis thing because it just doesn’t work. [20:07]
Nancy Calabrese: I agree. Listen, folks, listen to this lady. So, for any of you out there that are frustrated because you don’t know how to train or as Adi mentioned, you know, you have a new employee, you’re switching roles and you don’t have a system in place, really take advantage of Adi’s expertise. She’ll get your business straight. And if you have any issues on a personal level, she can help you with that. So, Adi, thanks so much for spending time with us today. In the future, perhaps you can come back, and we can expand on this. And for everyone out there, make it an awesome systems day. And by the way, a sales day too. We’ll see you next time. [20:58]
by Nancy Calabrese | Aug 27, 2024 | Podcast
About Roger Martin: Roger Martin is a Co-Founder and Managing Member of the industry-leading health and wellness franchises, RockBox Fitness and beem Light Sauna. Prior to RockBox Fitness and beem Light Sauna, operated as the Chief Operating Officer of a solid oral dosage pharmaceutical development and manufacturing organization. Previously served as President of a large topical semi-solid and liquid CDMO, as a National Sales Director and Sr. Vice President leading sales and marketing teams of up to 500 sales representatives in the specialty and big pharma market. Extensive expertise in pharmaceutical sales management, leadership, sales force deployment, business development, strategic selling, contract negotiation, business-to-business service contracting, licensing, and pharmaceutical and contracted service marketing. Knowledge of myriad dosage forms and therapeutic classes, as well as regulatory environments and payer systems. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Roger.
In this episode, Nancy and Roger discuss the following:
- The definition of high-impact communication
- The difference between persuasion, influence, and manipulation in sales
- The importance of storytelling in sales, positioning the customer as the hero
- The value of continual learning and personal investment versus traditional financial investments
- Keypoints from Roger’s book, An Insider’s Guide to Business
Key Takeaways:
- The best way for a salesperson to make an impact in their industry, in the world, and on others is to start with genuinely understanding what their prospect needs.
- Buying behavior is this: you’re telling a story, and the customer is the hero.
- People will buy from people they like, but more people will buy from people whom they trust to solve their issue.
“High-impact communication, by my definition, is when two individuals have a complete, thorough, and empathetic understanding of each other’s wants and needs. And what do I mean by that? Whether it’s a personal relationship, a family relationship, a business relationship, or even a vendor-customer relationship, it’s about both sides understanding what each other needs to thrive in that relationship. Too often, especially in today’s digital world, communication becomes overly transactional. I love how you started by saying that every business and everything else starts with a human interaction.” – ROGER
“I appreciate the question because it will allow me to delineate the difference between persuasion, influence, and manipulation. And they are too often conflated. The consumer conflates them; even salespeople conflate the two when really persuasion and influence are about empathetically trying to understand what your pain point, your issue, your area of opportunity is—something that, you know, you’re at point A and you’re trying to get to point C, let’s say. And then I help through persuasion, and I’m going to persuade you to understand that this problem needs to be acted upon. If you think about it for a long time, if you just keep wondering about it, if you stress about it, you’re not going to solve your issue. So I’m going to persuade you that you need to take action. And I’m going to do that through very ethical means and just skillful means, but to help build that bridge—just think of, you know, in your mind, literally building a bridge over a small river from A to C, and my product or solution and support and services will help get you from A to C. Now, manipulation is, “Hey, I want to get you to C because I make a big commission off of it, but you really don’t need C, and your A is just fine for you, or another vendor would get you to C a lot easier and cheaper than me. But I’m going to use, you know, tricks and slick lines and all that, you know, to get you there.” […] People will always exchange money for a solution to a problem that is causing them pain or a solution to a problem that will help them grow to be even more successful. And too many times—and you know this—too many times a salesperson will boast about their company, they’ll boast about their track record, about their service record, about their customer satisfaction record. You know what? Those are great. The customer couldn’t care less. The customer wants to know, “Can you solve my problem?” You know, “Can you solve my problem?” – ROGER
“I would challenge them to continue learning, listen to Nancy’s podcast, you know, buy those $997 courses from genuine, great people that you can trust and who will deliver value. Go to that weekend seminar, invest the two grand to do that because you should be investing in yourself as much as you’re investing in your business and investing in the stock market. I mean, the stock market is going to make 8 to 10% over the long run. You put that same two grand into yourself, you can quintuple that money in a year. You know, to me, it’s a no-brainer about continual learning.” – ROGER
Connect with Roger Martin:
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi, it’s Nancy Calabrese, and it’s time again for Conversational selling – the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today and it always starts with the human conversation. Today we’re speaking with Roger Martin, who has built a 30 year sales, marketing and C level leadership career. He is the co -founder and CEO of two national franchise brands, Rockbox Fitness and Beam Light Sauna, as well as various other businesses. Roger has led teams as large as 500 people and knows the importance of clear, high impact communication. And throughout his career, he’s extensively studied human behavior, persuasion and influence and train thousands to communicate more effectively and inspirationally. Finally, he is the host of the Thrive More podcast and recently launched his book, An Insider’s Guide to Business, Secrets from an Entrepreneur’s Playbook. Boy, you’re a busy guy, Roger. Welcome to the show.
Roger Martin: Thank you. Yeah. I’m, after that I’m exhausted. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for having me. [1:31]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, what a promo. Yeah, I’m so excited to have you. So why don’t we start with this? What is high impact communication?
Roger Martin: Yeah. High impact communication. My definition is going to be when two individuals have a complete, thorough and empathetic understanding of each other’s wants and needs. And what do I mean by that? Whether you’re in a relationship, if it’s a personal relationship, a family relationship, a business relationship, which could even mean a vendor customer relationship, it’s about both sides understanding what each other needs to thrive in that relationship. And too many times, especially in today’s digital world, it’s so transactional. I love how you started off and said that every, you know, business, everything, everything starts with a human interaction. And I could not agree with you more. And we’re, you know, as much as the world is trying to digitize everything at the end of the day, we’re social creatures and we want to be heard, understood and seen. And, you know, this podcast being about sales and effective sales, the best way. The best way for a salesperson to make an impact in their industry, in the world and on others is to start with genuinely understanding what their prospect needs. Even if that means Nancy, I can’t help you. You know what? I actually don’t have a product or service that fits perfectly with what you’re looking to do. And you know, that that’s taking the high ground and being a very ethical salesperson, but that high impact communication is all about truly understanding the needs and the why, you know, we always talk about the why behind the why, but to me, think of it, think of it like an iceberg. You know, if you, if a lot of times the salesperson will find out what they think is the why, which is what the prospect is volunteered, which is the iceberg above the water. But until we get, you know, this 10 stories deep into the ocean down near the bottom, that’s the real reason they’re, they’re seeking to alleviate their pain points, whatever, you know, or see growth in the business. So I would just say, you know, that mutual understanding. [3:39]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, see, I also, when you’re describing this, it’s the ability to ask important questions of the prospect or the customer. And I think we earn trust by asking those questions and repeating back what we believe we heard. Now, you’re big into persuasion and influence. So how do you use those two things to drive more sales?
Roger Martin: Yeah. And I, and I appreciate the question because it will allow me to also, for your listeners, really delineate the difference between persuasion, influence and manipulation. And they are too often conflated. the consumer conflates them, even salespeople conflate the two when really persuasion influence is I’m empathetically trying to understand what your pain point, your issue, your area of opportunity is something that, you know, you’re at point A and you’re trying to get to point C, let’s say. And then I help through persuasion and I’m going to persuade you to understand that this problem needs to be acted upon. If you think about it for a long time, if you just keep wondering about it, if you stress about it, you’re not going to solve your issue. So I’m going to persuade you that you need to take action. And I’m going to do that through very, ethical means and just skillful means, but to help build that bridge, just think of, you know, in your mind, building a literally a bridge. You know, like over a small river from a to C and my product or solution and support and services will help get you from a to C. Now manipulation is, Hey, I want to get you to see, cause I make a big commission off of it, but you really don’t need C and your A’s just fine for you or another vendor would get you to see a lot easier and cheaper than me. But I’m going to use, you know, tricks and slick lines and all that, you know, to, to get you there. That’s manipulation and too often a salesperson is thinking about, my God, how do I close? How do I get them down this path? If they would slow down and listen, as you said, ask important questions, meaningful questions, and then ask, well, what did you mean by that? Tell me more about, I need to understand like what, so what happens if you don’t eliminate 15 % from your budget this year on manufacturing costs? I’m just making this up, you know, whatever, but If what is the impact? What is the impact to your career? What is the impact to your department? How about your company? What does that mean for job? Like getting much, much deeper there so that you can understand so that you can persuade and then influence somebody and influence is a positive term. So you, you use that to, you know, how do you drive sales? It goes back to you solve somebody’s problem. People will always exchange money for a solution to a problem that is causing them pain or solution to a problem that will help them grow to be even more successful. And too many times, and you know this too many times a salesperson will boast about their company. They’ll boast about their track record, about their service record, about their customer satisfaction record. You know what? Those are great. The customer couldn’t care less. The customer wants, can you solve my problem? You know, can you solve my problem? [7:00]
Nancy Calabrese: That’s right. Right.
Roger Martin: And so, persuasion and influence, and I’ve just, I’ve studied this extensively and buying behavior is it’s you’re telling a story, and the customer is the hero. You are simply the guide to get that customer down the path and safely over that bridge at a fair cost that allows you to make a fair profit as you should. It allows them to achieve their goal, but it is truly storytelling using them as the hero. And too many times, you know, I And I learned in the, you know, back in the nineties, you know, feature advantage benefit and, and, you know, that’s the cost. The consumer is so much more educated now, like the, the internet has democratized information. And so, the, the old way of selling may still work at times, but it’s not going to be nearly as effective. And it’s, you’re not going to be able to help as many people using those old tactics of, you know, feature advantage benefit and my company and our reputation. That’s you’re very limited that way. [8:00]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Do you think that there are still a lot of old school salespeople out there?
Roger Martin: I think there are some still very successful salespeople, men and women who sell on relationship, and you know, they believe that people will buy from people they like. And I can’t disagree with that statement, but I would challenge the statement that yes, people will buy from people they like, but more people will buy from people whom they trust to solve their issue. And you know, you, you want to be liked by your customers. Everybody wants to be liked. But I would rather be trusted and be the person that they lean into. Whether we have, you know, whether we both enjoy baseball or, or, or cooking or whatever, you know, you always try to find these commonalities. And I get that. And there’s a lot of, there is neuroscience behind talking about nostalgic events that tie you together and, and take that person back to a happier place in life. And like, you know, I’ve studied NLP and there’s definitely, there’s definitely science and it works, but Boy, it’s a lot of work too. When you can just focus on the customer and then try to, instead of trying to stay five steps ahead of the customer, just stay right with them and understand them so that you can move them to a better place. Yeah. [9:17]
Nancy Calabrese: So, I’m just curious, you’ve got great business building experience, and you helped grow two national franchises. How has your background in building businesses helped you do that?
Roger Martin: Yep. So, Nancy, the, the real abridged version of this is I spent 25 years in corporate America. I’m very grateful for the time I spent in the pharmaceutical industry, which is where I spent all 25 years. I worked for fortune 50 companies down to, you know, I worked for private equity. Then I worked for like a family office that owned a company and you know, corporate America gets a bad rap and they should in a lot of ways, but in the same token, I was very fortunate that they invested a lot in me in my, in my, you know, leadership and, and, and mentoring skills and, again, finance and operations, all those skills that you need to run a business. I was able to learn that on someone else’s dime, but also give them, you know, a 10 X return on their investment in me. And so I’ve made a lot of people, a lot of money because they’ve invested in me. But in 2016, end of 16, I just had this epiphanal moment, you know, the whole story behind it, but it’s an epiphanal moment where I said to myself, I’m not happy doing this anymore. I was a chief operating officer at that time. And, you know, I’d started in the business as a sales rep and I just, I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing anymore. And it didn’t matter how much money I made. It didn’t matter the title. It just, it wasn’t, it wasn’t scratching the itch. And then, so in two, that early 2017, I, I transitioned out. I had a succession plan and all that made sure I finished impeccably to your listeners, always finished impeccably, whether it a job with a customer relationship, always finished impeccably. But, you know, I worked to do that. And then I, I left a multi multi six figure job and stock options and healthcare and all that stuff on a Friday and woke up on a Monday morning for the first time in my life, unemployed, you know, no salary, no health insurance, all that. And yes, it was scary as could be. It was scary as hell but on, on Tuesday, you know, and I had a plan. I was, it was to start this company called rock box fitness, which is a group fitness concept boxing, kickboxing and functional strength training. Nobody gets punched in the face. It’s, it’s, it’s bags and it’s all, all for a fitness set to music and color changing lighting. It feels almost like you’re in a nightclub or rock concert. And, you know, we, I wanted to grow this as a national franchise with a business partner I had recently met. And I, I honestly, it, it wasn’t, I wouldn’t say it was incredibly challenging to transfer my skills that I had learned building divisions building sales teams, building marketing groups, building, you know, manufacturing companies, because that all directly applied into my entrepreneurial journey. What I wasn’t ready for was the nothing ever goes the way you expect it. And it’s your checkbook. It’s your checking account that is coming out of right when, you know, when you work for big companies, something goes wrong. You’re like, okay, we screwed up. We need to fix this. Let’s, but you still get paid when you’re an entrepreneur, something goes sideways you don’t get, you don’t make any money. So, that, that will mature somebody at a, at a, at an exponential rate. And, you know, I, so I had to of course go through all of that learning and entrepreneur does, and I still do, seven, eight years into this, but I’m fortunate that I was able to learn a lot of those skills and I, and then I continued my learning. So if there’s any, you know, any, any message I can give to your listeners, Nancy, it’s, you know, when you’re done with school and I have my, I went back and got my MBA when I was, 30. That’s great. But my learning has, has really ramped up almost like a hockey stick when it comes to not just on the job, you know, learning as an entrepreneur, but listening to podcasts like yours, reading every book I can, you know, I read 60, 70 books a year and that’s not, that’s not a sound bite for you. I literally read 60 to 70 books a year. I just devour them because I, and I’ll go back and read some of them twice. So some of those 60, 70s, me going back to read a book that I read like three years ago, but want to revisit it. Cause now I, you know, the, the, the teacher appears when the student is ready. Right. And so, some of these books hit me a different way three years later after I’ve read them. And I still go back probably every four years and read how to win friends and influence people because it’s, you know, it’s just, it’s, it’s timeless. And, and, and so, you know, to your listeners, I would, I would challenge that it challenged them to continue learning, listen to Nancy’s podcast, you know, buy those 997 courses from, you know, genuine great people that, that, you know, that you can trust and will deliver value go to that weekend seminar, invest the two grand to do that because you should be investing in yourself as much as you’re investing in your business and investing in the stock market. I mean, stock market, you’re going to make eight to 10 % over the long run. You put that same two grand into yourself. You can quintuple that money in a year. You know, it’s it to me, it’s a no brainer about continual learning and, and Invest in the somebody, it’s not my line, but I love this, you know, invest, invest in the S and me 500, not the S and P 500. [14:27]
Nancy Calabrese: I love it. I love it. You know, and I’m a big believer in investing in yourself. Keep yourself in the mix of ongoing training, learn new techniques, be around new people. I mean, I would be bored if I didn’t approach life that way myself. Okay, so let’s talk about your book, An Insider’s Guide to Business, Secrets from an Entrepreneur’s Playbook. What’s it about and what motivated you to write it?
Roger Martin: Thank you for the question. And I just want to start off with saying that all proceeds from this book from the first day it was published until, you know, it ever goes out of print are going 100 % of it. I don’t make a red sun off this book. They’re all being donated to charity called To Write Love on Her Arms, which is a charity that helps support people with mental health struggles, including suicide prevention. Rockbox Fitness is it’s our national charity partner and we really believe that. You know, strong body is wonderful, but you need a strong body and a strong mind. And in today’s world, you know, a lot of people are struggling with their mental health. So it’s, you know, available on Amazon, Kindle or the paperback. And again, whomever buys it, just know they’re supporting a charity and it goes a long way. So this book I wrote because again, I’ve read some, I’ve read, we’ve all read good to great, you know, we’ve all read some of these, you know, CEO excellence and execution and these, you know, these, these standard books. And I’ve read every Jack Welsh book. But what didn’t seem to be on the market was a book from somebody that was running a small to midsize business, you know, from, from 10 to $50 million and has scaled the business and has done it several times. you know, I could certainly buy books and I have, and I love them reading these founders books of, you know, Hey, I started this company and built it to, you know, a billion dollars. Well, that’s great, but most of us are not going to get there, you know, and I, I hope I do, but I don’t know if, you know, I haven’t. And so I can’t write that book who I can write a book for are the people that were me seven or eight years ago and were, you know, in a job that wasn’t fulfilling and now they’re ready to go out on their own or they have a company, but they’re stuck. You know, they’ve got it to a certain level of revenue and they can’t get it above that. And that’s what this book is for. It’s, it’s, it’s written, in, you know, this modular format and very simple. I, I wrote the book pretty quickly, but then I took four months of doing edits and literally did seven full cover to cover edits, meaning I had, I had four or five different people that were helping me. And it’s a real book by the way, no AI, no ghostwriter. This is me pecking out 46 ,000 words on my, on my laptop. But, but I definitely wanted to simplify this down to, you know, could, could a kid in high school read this book and know how to build a business. And then could a 45 or 50 year old executive read this book? and get just as much out of it and know how to start scale staff and build their business. And, and I believe I’ve gotten there because I’ve made it, I, you know, instead of long flowery, you know, flowery language and long, you know, compound sentences, I tried to make it just really straightforward, you know, 10, 12 page chapters that you could really digest and go back and use as a reference. But in addition, I included story format. So I, you know, I don’t just say, Hey, you should do this because I say you should do this because let me tell you about a story. I didn’t do it that way and got my nose punched in, you know, by business and you know, and, or let me tell you a story how, you know, something was wrong and here’s what I did to correct it. And here’s what I’ve learned from experts that have already been there and done that. And so there’s always usually a good story to start the chapter or to finish the chapter that makes it concrete and more of a fun read. You know, if something’s dry and boring, even, you know, I don’t enjoy it. So I wanted to write it in a way that was compelling and people enjoyed what they were reading, but also could glean a lot of information from. [18:28]
Nancy Calabrese: Well, people love stories. They just do, you know, and I think even in sales, third party stories really get the attention of your prospects. So it sounds like a great book. And, you know, we’re wrapping up a little bit, but I just want to talk about your Thrive More podcast. What kind of topics do you discuss?
Roger Martin: Yeah. So we focus on like yours is, is, is focused on selling. And I love that. I can talk about that all day. I’ve really, opened my podcast up to business health and wealth. And so we’ll have discussions around persuasion influence, but a lot of times around business building business, I’ll have a lot of people that have built a business. but I’ve also had, you know, I’ve had like Chris Voss, who’s a, a master FBI negotiator. And we talked about persuasion influence, which is really selling. I’ve had a hypnotist that’s, that has a show on the sunset on the, on the Las Vegas strip. but, but that was really around mental health because he, he, he had some real struggles with that and he talks very openly about it and great episode for the listeners to hear. So it’s business health and wealth. I’ll have a nutritionist on one day and the next day I’ll have somebody talking about how to, you know, leverage your financing. so I want to be able to help people where they, Want to have help and they may go through the list of topics, you know, i’ve got i don’t know 70 80 shows now They may you know see hey that one really doesn’t apply to me, but this one does and i want you know, we’ll listen to that so It’s a show. I love to do again It’s i do it because I love it just like you I love having these conversations and if I can give back to somebody that is again Five ten fifteen twenty years behind where i’m at just in this journey of life as we call it you know, that’s hopefully that’s that’s my my gift back. [20:21]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. I think that’s great. So how can my people find you?
Roger Martin: Yeah, thank you. So, a couple ways. One, they can follow me on socials on any of the socials, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube at Real Roger Martin. That’s just real and R O G E R Martin. so, at real Roger Martin, or they can go to thrive more brands .com. So, rock box fitness, beam light sauna, which is another brand we have, they’re under really this, this platform that we call thrive more brands. And if they go to thrive more brands .com, you know, they’ll, if they, you know, there’s no obligation where they can learn about franchising. They can learn about, if they have a business, they’re thinking about franchising. They can learn more there. the book link is on there. I think the podcast link is on there. Sometimes I do speak like this past week, and I was doing a speaking event. they can, you know, see where I’m going to be there. So, thrive more brands .com or just follow me at real Roger Martin. [21:17]
Nancy Calabrese: Wonderful. Listen, folks, he’s the go -to guy and I’m gonna grab myself a copy of your book. I think, especially since you said you made it very simple and easy to read and not too flowery. That’s right up my alley. Yeah, yeah. So, thanks so much for being on the show. People go and get his book, reach out to Roger and until we see you again.
Roger Martin: Wonderful. There you go. Give me the facts, yeah.
Nancy Calabrese: Make it an awesome sales day. And you know what, as Roger said, invest in yourself. So we’ll talk to you sooner than you think. Have a good one. [21:59]
by Nancy Calabrese | Aug 16, 2024 | Podcast
About Jake Stahl: Jake Stahl is a Fractional Chief Learning Officer who mixes innovation and mind science to redefine training and skill-building. The Chief Learning Officer (CLO) is the linchpin for organizational learning and development initiatives. Collaborating closely with key executives such as the Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Marketing Officer, the CLO crafts and executes comprehensive training programs. With over 10,000 professionals trained in six countries, he has created more than 100 proprietary courses, facilitated thousands of workshops, and navigated the complexities of leadership development. His approach transcends traditional training, integrating value-based selling with the latest psychological techniques and neurolinguistic programming to offer personalized, high-impact solutions like his Adaptive Conversational Blueprint. Throughout his extensive career, he has doubled and tripled sales, sculpted award-winning sales representatives, and ignited leadership potential across ten distinct industries. His seven patents in the field force technology arena, the prestigious International Gold Award for Instructional Design, and invitations to speak nationally and globally on training and development highlight his dedication to excellence. With him, one isn’t just investing in a program; they’re embracing a custom-made experience that caters to specific needs, fueling growth and reimagining success. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Jake.
In this episode, Nancy and Jake discuss the following:
- How does a fractional Chief Learning Officer differ from other traditional roles in sales
- Difference between adaptive conversational blueprint and standard sales scripts
- Jake’s 2-10 rule
- How neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) can be used to adapt to a customer’s communication style quickly
- The power of establishing trust and matching a prospect’s communication style
- Not selling is the best way to sell
Key Takeaways:
- I teach representatives how to adapt to that quickly in a conversation so they don’t need a sales script.
- If I could eliminate any phrase from the English language, it would probably be, “Hi, how are you?”
- Two five-year-olds are the best conversationalists on the planet.
- Remember, everybody wants to be heard.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years across six countries. I’ve trained over 10,000 people. And to me, the baseline of a good conversation will be trust. I think our flaw is that we don’t take time to build that trust in the beginning by listening, understanding the situation a person is in, and then being able to adapt our conversation accordingly. These factors are things like emotional intelligence and the company’s perception of your company, and you are taking a lot into play. But conditioning and perception, to me, are huge. If we can understand the other person’s position when it comes to conditioning and perception, and we can build trust, the sale typically follows.” – JAKE
“Yeah, when most people have a conversation or start with somebody for the first time, they’re anxious to tell them about themselves because that’s always our favorite topic, right? We talk about ourselves. So, when you get into that conversation, my theory—and it’s really shown itself to be true over the past 30 years—is that the more time I can give you at the beginning of a conversation to talk about you, the more receptive you’re going to be to me. And the more I check in with you during a conversation, the more receptive you’ll be to me. So, I established something called the 2-10 rule, which says every two minutes, check in with the person you’re talking to in some way, shape, or form. Make a statement, ask a question. So, every two minutes, you do this. And I have some of my clients set a stopwatch because this is really tough for some people to get a hold of. At the end of 10 minutes, regroup. So, Nancy, I’ve been talking for the past 10 minutes. I’ve really been let loose. Do you have any questions about what we’ve talked about so far? Is there anything you don’t understand? So, every 10 minutes, you do that. And when you do that, it takes care of one basic thing: the Q&A people typically have at the end. This whole premise, Nancy, is based on the fact that for every 10 minutes you talk, you generate two minutes’ worth of questions in the other person’s head. So, the 2-10 rule flips it on its head and says every two minutes check-in, every 10 minutes summarize and ask for questions, and your call and your trust level will go through the roof.” – JAKE
“How it works is by being interested versus interesting. So, when I get on the phone with a potential client, let me give you a great example. When I reach out on LinkedIn and try to connect, my first four connections with that person have nothing to do with me. So, I’ll reach out the first time and say, ‘Hey, I see you’re another fractional executive. Just curious if you’d want to connect and catch up.’ Then they write back, and I write—no matter their response—I write back and say, ‘So, what’s your ideal customer profile? Who are you looking for in the way of a customer?’ And then the third reach-out is, ‘So, what verticals are you in? What’s the place that you live in the most?’ And a miracle happens, Nancy. By the end of that third conversation, 80% of the time, somebody either says to me, ‘Can I get on a call with you?’ or, ‘I’ve been talking all about myself. Tell me what you do.’ Either way, Nancy, I’m a winner. And I hadn’t even talked about what I did yet.” – JAKE
Connect with Jake Stahl:
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi, it’s Nancy Calabrese, and it’s time again for Conversational selling – the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it always starts with the human conversation. Today we’re speaking with Jake Stahl, CEO and founder of Jake Stahl Consulting, which transforms sales teams’ performance with tailored solutions rooted in psychology, potentially doubling or tripling sales without needing extensive resume vetting or paying for recruiters. Jake is a pioneer in conversational dynamics and is a highly regarded fractional chief learning officer. He’s revolutionizing sales through his adaptive conversational blueprint turning sales professionals into relational architects capable of forging profound connections with prospects. Integral to his approach is the 210 rule, which challenges traditional perspectives on conversation and emphasizes the importance of rhythm and cadence. Welcome to the show, Jake. This is gonna be fun.
Jake Stahl: Thank you, Nancy. I’m thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me. [1:29]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, well, this is long overdue. And I guess my first question is, what is a fractional chief learning officer?
Jake Stahl: Yeah, great question. It’s kind of a unicorn in the fractional world, Nancy. What I do is I go in, and I act as the chief learning officer or head of training and development for a company. So, I can do anything from creating a sales department to creating onboarding programs for salespeople coming on, all the way to coursework design, curriculum mapping. Anything a training and development department can do is what I do for a company. I just do it fractionally. [2:11]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay. And when you say fractionally, you do it for multiple companies.
Jake Stahl: Yeah, so the fractional movement is something I guess you would say started about a year and a half ago. It’s when you go into a company, you take a position where you have just about a C -suite level or director or VP level, and you go in and you work with multiple companies. So you give them a fraction of your time per month. Usually you give companies 32, 40 hours a month, and you can do in that time what they often have their full -time people doing. [2:47]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. And then how does your title differ from a chief revenue officer or VP of sales?
Jake Stahl: That’s a great question. I get asked this a lot. The chief revenue officer, VP of sales, they are typically determining the process. So how many calls should I make a week? How many calls should I make a month? What’s the demographic we’re supposed to call? What does my call cadence look like? So, they set all the standards, and they set all the budgets and all the goals. And what winds up happening is I kind of take it from there. So, they control everything up to the point where the representative enters the company and picks up the phone. And then I kind of take it from that point on. So, I work hand in hand with the chief revenue or chief sales officer at every company I do fractional work for. [3:41]
Nancy Calabrese: Sure. I mean, do they consult with you to make sure that the goals are achievable?
Jake Stahl: Yeah, yeah, they do. And a lot of times we will find that it’s not always achievable what they’re looking for, at least not right away. And what we do a lot is we look at new hires coming on board, and we talk about how quickly we expect them to get up to speed. So, we do a lot of work together towards the end goal of increasing revenue. [4:08]
Nancy Calabrese: Got it. So, what exactly is an adaptive conversational blueprint and how is it different from other conversational formats?
Jake Stahl: So, a lot of times you’ll get a company that will hire a training company from outside. It could be Sandler, it could be value -based selling, and they’re all excellent companies and excellent methodologies. And depending on the industry you’re in, they could be exactly what your company needs. However, my approach takes away sales scripts. It takes away pre -thought out openings and closing and objections. My adaptive conversational blueprint is based in neuro -linguistic programming. So, it adapts quickly and easily to what the customer is saying. And the responses are based on our basic psychological makeup. Underneath, we’re all kind of built the same way in our brain, the way we react to things. So, what I teach representatives is how to adapt to that quickly in a conversational, so they don’t need a sales script. So, they don’t need to memorize certain things in order to make the customer happy. They’re having a legitimate, authentic conversation that leads to a sale. [5:28]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, but doesn’t it always start with a script? You know, I’m going to have to politely disagree with you. I mean, I believe in scripts, but you want to own it, right? It becomes internalized. Do you use that approach in training your people?
Jake Stahl: Well, first of all, thank you for disagreeing. I appreciate that. I love a hearty conversation. I think that scripts are good in the beginning while somebody gets their land legs. But if you have somebody who has this constant canned approach treating every person on the other end of the phone like they’re exactly the same, they listen the same, they process the same, they make decisions the same, we’re heading down a dangerous road. And this is where sales become a numbers game. So, a salesperson will say, well, I close one out of every 50 people. Well, that’s because the script you’re using applies to probably one out of every 50 people. [6:24]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Well, not so much the script, but the communication style. Wouldn’t you agree that, I don’t know if you’ve studied DISC, but there are four different communication styles. And I think as a salesperson, we need to adapt the way we speak to their style in the DISC profile. What do you think?
Jake Stahl: I don’t disagree. I think profiles like disc and a neogram and all of those things definitely have their place. But there’s a section Nancy that I would consider more reptilian. It’s kind of our base makeup that is appealed to by neuro -linguistic programming and it gets even simpler. We process through modalities. And I think that disk and anagram are phenomenal if you’re researching somebody and you have the time to do that before you call them, or you have a way to determine that. But neuro -linguistic programming allows you to adapt to that and figure it out within a minute of speaking to somebody and then adapt to that conversation quickly. So it’s almost like the step before disk is what I teach. [7:34]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, okay, so let’s talk about NLP or neuro -linguistic programming. Tell the audience what that is and how do you use it pre -disc?
Jake Stahl: Yeah, it’s a foundation. It’s a foundational study that’s been around for a long time. And it’s based on the fact that we all process in one of five different ways in in our five different senses. But we primarily process in one of three ways visual, auditory or kinesthetic. And we not only speak that way, but we make decisions based on that. And if everybody looks at the decisions they make, typically the good decisions involve all of the primary modalities and we make a bad decision or a tough decision, sometimes some of those modalities are missing. So, it says that if we can appeal to all of someone’s modalities but deal with their primary ones when we’re communicating with them, we can help them come to a decision that’s beneficial for them, because they’re using all of their senses to make the decision. And then it goes deeper than that. It talks about how are you conditioned? What is the perception that person has of you? And then it goes deeper into how is this framed. Does this person have it framed in their head as a necessary call? Like is it something they need to buy or something they may not need to buy? And how associated are they with this? So, it digs deep into the decision -making process, it doesn’t just rely on how they process information. [9:15]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. And you say you can do this in a minute.
Jake Stahl: Yeah. I teach a course on how to establish trust in less than five minutes and how to establish someone’s modality in less than a minute. Yep. [9:29]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. So what are the secrets to having a better conversation that converts to a sale?
Jake Stahl: Well, this is all a personal belief, of course. I’ve been doing this for 30 years across six countries. I’ve trained over 10 ,000 people. And the thing to me that’s the baseline of a good conversation is going to be trust. And I think the flaw we kind of have is that we don’t take time to build that trust in the beginning by listening, understanding the situation a person’s in, and then being able to adapt our conversation accordingly. So, this factors things in like emotional intelligence. It factors in what that company’s perception of your company, and you are, it takes a lot into play, but conditioning and perception to me are huge. And if we can understand the other person’s position when it comes to conditioning and perception, and we can build trust, the sale just typically follows. [10:34]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Well, my experience is a way to build trust is to match their communication style and make it all about them. What are your thoughts on that?
Jake Stahl: Nancy, you’re dead on. So if you can match their communication style and match it all about them, that goes to understanding their modality and being able to match it, understanding their physical appearance and being able to match their body position, as well as going a little bit deeper, Nancy, being able to match their cadence, being able to match their speed and being able to chunk information in ways that they’ll understand it the most. So, you’re dead on with what you’re saying. [11:20]
Nancy Calabrese: Well, you know, and I understand that you value cadence over content in a conversation. Can you go into that a little more?
Jake Stahl: Yeah, when most people have a conversation or start with somebody the first time, they’re anxious to tell them about themselves because that’s always our favorite topic right we talk about ourselves. So, when you get into that conversation. My theory, and it’s really showed itself to be true over the past 30 years is that the more time I can give you in the beginning of a conversation to talk about you, the more receptive you’re gonna be to me. And the more I check in with you during a conversation, the more receptive you’re gonna be to me. So, I established something called the 2-10 rule, which basically says every two minutes, check in with the person that you’re talking to in some way, shape or form. Make a statement, ask a question. So, every two minutes you do this. And I have some of my clients set a stopwatch because this is really tough for some people to get a hold of. At the end of 10 minutes, regroup. So Nancy, I’ve been talking for the past 10 minutes. I’ve really been let loose. Do you have any questions on what we’ve talked about so far? Is there anything you don’t understand? So, every 10 minutes you do that. And when you do that, it takes care of one basic thing. And that’s the Q and A people typically have at the end. This whole premise, Nancy is based on the fact that for every 10 minutes you talk, you generate two minutes’ worth of questions in the other person’s head. So, the two 10 rule flips it on its head and says every two minutes check in every 10 minutes, summarize and ask for questions and your call and your trust level will go through the roof. [13:16]
Nancy Calabrese: Huh, what are the questions that you find to be most powerful when you’re qualifying a prospect?
Jake Stahl: I’m gonna be a little controversial here too. And so, I definitely welcome if there’s pushback on this. I’m not as big into questions as I am into statements. And I’ll give you an example. So, if I’m talking with, let’s say I’m selling health benefits. So, I’m talking with a customer on the end of the phone. I know they hate this process because they go through it every year. They have to renew their health benefits. So, I may be talking to them and they’d say, Jake, I hate this process. This sucks, I’m only talking to you because I have to. I may just repeat back to them, it sounds like it’s tough and you’re not really into this call. Yeah, Jake, that’s right. And it’s because of, and then they start to list out reasons. Nancy, I make it a habit then to repeat back at least one or two of the reasons. And I find it’s better than questions. Cause they just keep opening up more and more and verifying what you said. I only start to ask questions when I really need to. [14:26]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. You know, it’s funny. You said you mentioned Sandler earlier in the conversation. We happen to be Sandler trained and they’re really big on asking questions and asking the right questions. So this is a very interesting point of view. You know, and one of the questions I really wanted to ask you, because I get asked this question all the time. When calling a customer for a cold call, which is what we do for a living here how do you get away from Hi, how are you? Because I think nobody cares.
Jake Stahl: Yeah, and Nancy, I couldn’t agree more. If I could eliminate any phrase from the English language, it would probably be that. Because unless it’s family or somebody we love, we don’t care. I’ll give you a great example. My wife and I were out shopping a couple of weeks ago, and I walked by a gentleman, and our eyes met, and I nodded my head, and I said, hey. And he looked at me and he goes, fine, thanks, how are you? The conversation never took place verbally, but it did in his head. We’re so preconditioned to it. So, Nancy, if that were that condition to it, we’re also conditioned to do other responses after that. So how are you telling me you’re a sales rep. So now I’m going to line up my objections. Price is too high. I don’t need it right now. I got to talk to my boss. So, the idea is get around that condition question. The way I start every conversation is, God, I was really looking forward to this phone call. Thank you for taking the time. Completely throws people out of their conditioning and it opens them up to listen to what my next words are. And if I was a good rep and I did my research on that person, I can then lead in with something valuable. So, with Nancy, you and I, it might be Nancy, I am so glad you took the time for this call. Thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day. I listened to your podcast, and I was just curious, man, how long have you been doing this? Immediately, it’s all about you. Tensions ease, everybody’s happy, you’re now gonna be more receptive, but there’s no hi, how are you involved? [16:48]
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. You know, in order to stand out, you must be different. And that’s a quote from Coco Chanel. And I really believe that. We call it a pattern interrupt. Don’t go into a call sounding like everybody else. You want to sound a little different, which is what you did. That’s really great, Jake. I might steal it from you. Yeah.
Jake Stahl: Feel free. [17:14]
Nancy Calabrese: Tell me something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on?
Jake Stahl: The fact that not selling is the best possible way to sell. I get more pushback on that than I can even shake a stick at and yet I’ve been proving it true for 30 years. [17:40]
Nancy Calabrese: So how does that work?
Jake Stahl: How it works is by being interested versus interesting. So, when I get on the phone with a potential client, well, let me give you a great example. When I do reach outs on LinkedIn, when I’m trying to make a connection, my first four connections with that person have nothing to do with me at all. So, I’ll reach out the first time and I’ll say, hey, I see you’re another fractional executive. Just curious if you’d want to connect and just kind of catch up. Then they write back and I write no matter what their response is, I write back and say, so what’s your ideal customer profile? Who are you looking for in the way of a customer? And then the third reach out is, so what verticals are you in? What’s the place that you live in the most? And a miracle happens, Nancy. By the end of that third conversation, 80% of the time somebody either says to me, can I get on a call with you or, I’ve been talking all about myself. Tell me what you do. Either way, Nancy, I’m a winner. And I hadn’t even talked about what I did yet. [18:50]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. Well, I mean, they’re checking you out on LinkedIn, I’m sure, but that’s pretty amazing. 80% of the time.
Jake Stahl: They are, but it doesn’t take me telling them anything. [19:01]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, pretty darn amazing. So, can anyone learn your methodology?
Jake Stahl: Yeah, it just takes a little bit of patience. And the reason I say that is it’s really a diversion from the way we normally do things. Think back to watching two five -year -olds. They’re the best conversationalists on the planet. I like trucks. What do you like? That’s my mom. Which one is yours? I like black. Do you like black? You know, it’s a back and forth. It’s a relentless conversation. But somewhere along the line, we kind of lose that and we lose the ability to do it because we think about it too much. So, the way I teach it, my adaptive conversational blueprint, the neuro -linguistic programming, I take people back to the basics again. Just start by listening. And I’m going to give you exercises on how to do that and techniques on how to make it work better. And we build it from there. So, anybody can learn it, but it takes dedication. It takes time and the understanding that it’s a long game. It’s not a short one. [20:10]
Nancy Calabrese: It is a long day because I was going to ask you when does the light bulb go off?
Jake Stahl: I’ve had clients that have picked it up after a month. And then I’ve had some where eight months later, they’re still pushing back on me. And a lot of times it’s, it’s how old you are and how long you’ve been in the industry. So, I enjoy working with people. I just got a new client today and the light bulb went off for him first meeting. And now I have him practicing and getting ready for our next meeting. So, depends on the person largely. [20:44]
Nancy Calabrese: Love it. Love it. You know, I can’t believe Jake, we’re up in time. This is a fascinating conversation. What is the one takeaway you want to leave the audience with?
Jake Stahl: The takeaway, I guess I would say is remember everybody wants to be heard. You look all the way back in our history and cavemen were drawing on walls so they could be heard, and they could remember their adventures and show other people their adventures. That has not gone away. Show somebody else you’re listening, really listen to what they’re saying and sell to their needs. Your selling will take off dramatically. [21:23]
Nancy Calabrese: I love it. How can my people find you?
Jake Stahl: You can go to jakesdahlconsulting .com. My last name is S T A H L jakesdahlconsulting .com. Or you can find me on LinkedIn. There’s a couple of hundred Jake stalls on LinkedIn, but I’m the only one identifying as a fractional chief learning officer. [21:44]
Nancy Calabrese: I love it. Folks, this is a great guy. I encourage that you reach out to Jake and Jake, thank you so much for spending your time with us today. You’re a fascinating guy and I think we have a lot in common in the way we think about selling and having conversations. So I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed showcasing you and for everyone out there make it an awesome sales day and really take advantage of Jason. He’s a go -to guy. So, we’ll see you next time. [22:20]
by Nancy Calabrese | Aug 5, 2024 | Podcast
About Stan Gibson: Stan Gibson is passionate about guiding organizations to build thriving, human-centered cultures. Through his engaging keynotes and leadership coaching, Stan equips companies with frameworks and tools to put people first. He advises executives on adopting transparent, collaborative leadership styles that tap into teams’ collective wisdom. Stan’s actionable insights help leaders role model vulnerability, foster psychological safety, and unlock the full innovative potential of their people. Organizations that work with Stan soon benefit from improved trust, communication, and knowledge sharing. By focusing on developing a shared sense of purpose and community, Stan enables companies to boost engagement, agility, and performance.
Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Stan.
In this episode, Nancy and Stan discuss the following:
- The critical role of emotional intelligence in leadership
- How emotional intelligence, well-being, and productivity are interconnected
- Strategies for preventing burnout and maintaining balance
- Key habits to optimize your mornings for a productive day
- The importance of balancing mind, body, and soul
- Techniques to manage energy levels for peak productivity
Key Takeaways:
- I think that when leaders learn to coach, employees learn to lead.
- Emotional intelligence is one of the critical things that I believe.
- You’ve got to know your system; when you are green, yellow, or red, you work around that.
- Do things right up front and create a legacy.
“And so, I really work with many clients on how to start the day so that they have the energy, power, and passion to take care of everyone and everything they do. Despite being only 2.5% of our body weight, our brain consumes over 20 to 30% of our energy. When we spend a lot of time on Zoom, staring at our own reflection, it’s like a 1.5 to 2X tax on our brain. Understanding these dynamics helps explain why an eight-to-nine-hour workday can feel like a 14-hour day. So, understanding the three-legged stool—emotional intelligence, well-being, and productivity—is crucial. Effective habits and systems that support asynchronous work, rather than endless meetings, are where I’m focusing my efforts with organizations, Nancy.” – STAN
“The first thing when you get up, is to thank God you are getting up. I think, “I’m alive, I’m well.” The first thing I do is head out to get some water. Your body hasn’t had any fluids for the last 10 hours, so it’s important to hydrate. […] The lemon juice comes in a glass bottle, which is better than plastic. This helps me get my electrolytes; even Olympic athletes hydrate first thing in the morning. The second thing I focus on is what I call “mind, body, and soul.” You can tackle these in any order you prefer, but I believe you need to work on all three. If you want to work out next or go for a walk, that’s great. I’m adapting my approach because, although I used to be a “no pain, no gain” type of person—an ex-athlete who pushed the limits—I understand the tremendous benefits of simple movement. Walking three miles or whatever you can manage in a day is incredibly valuable.” – STAN
“One tool I use is the Enneagram. I like the Enneagram—and for those who don’t know, it’s spelled E-N-N-E-A-G-R-A-M—because it identifies nine different personalities. This system is probably over 2,000 years old. The reason I like it is because it’s part of your DNA. When you’re born, you possess one of these nine types. Strength Finders is more about how you are in your current season of life, because it can change a little bit. But the Enneagram is so unbelievably accurate. It even delves into your fears, your stresses, how you act under stress, and how you react to fears. It explores a whole new element of things that I believe leaders really need to understand. For me, it’s fantastic. It’s just a real holy grail for self-awareness.” – STAN
Connect with Stan Gibson:
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi, it’s Nancy Calabrese, and it’s time again for Conversational selling – the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it always starts with the human conversation. Today we’re speaking with Stan Gibson, the owner of Stan Gibson Speaks. Stan is not just a business consultant and executive coach, but also an accomplished author and top rank speaker across various organizations. With a wealth of experience working with executives, leaders, and teams spanning diverse industries, Stan brings a unique approach to consulting and coaching. He is a certified trainer in DISC and the genius portrait leveraging tools like StrengthsFinder to facilitate transformative change within organizations and team. As I mentioned earlier, Stan, we’re pretty well versed in the DISC assessment. I’m a huge fan, so I’m really excited about today’s discussion. Welcome to the show.
Stan Gibson: Thanks for having me, Nancy. I’m excited and heard a lot about your show and listened to a few episodes. So, I’m stoked. I’m ready to go. Let’s have some fun with this. [1:27]
Nancy Calabrese: Let’s have some fun. And okay, so I read somewhere that you truly believe leaders should embrace two paradigms. What are they?
Stan Gibson: Well, I think one of the paradigms, and I’ll tell you what, I really kind of got a three -legged stool here that I believe. See, I believe that what’s worked in the past isn’t going to work in the future. And I think that organizations are having to make a real shift. And one of the things I believe is I believe that one of those legs of the stool is emotional intelligence. You see, I think with IQ, I think we all have a certain amount of IQ or we wouldn’t be in the positions that we’re in today. But I do believe that even though the IQ is becoming kind of level set. I believe it’s the emotional intelligence. It’s the ability to lead. It’s the ability to have, you know, fruitful conversations. I have a saying that I believe that when leaders learn to coach, employees learn to lead. And I’ll just restate that. I think that when leaders learn to coach, employees learn to lead. And I really believe that there’s a lot of emerging leaders out there today that want a lot of the experience of those that are getting ready to retire or to time out or whatever it is that they’re looking to do. I believe there’s a lot of emerging leaders that are saying, I need that. I need that emotional intelligence to understand how to work in corporate environments, how to work in private environments, how to get the most out of clients. So emotional intelligence is one of the key things that I believe. I believe the second leg of that stool is well -being we’re just all facing a very different environment than we’ve ever faced before. Burnout is so prevalent, Nancy, and in almost everybody I talk to, all my clients. We work in a safe place, but you can just see the emotions start to pour out. And so probably 15 years ago, I really started diving into the research, the neuroscience and all the physiological sciences of sleep and nutrition and fitness and relationships and hydration and routines and all these things because I believe that I have another saying and that is that, you know, you must be a little selfish to be very selfless. You must take care of you first, Nancy, and those first one to two hours in the morning, when the morning, when the day. [3:56]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Love that.
Stan Gibson: And so, I really work with a lot of clients about how to start the day off to where you then have the energy and the power and the passion to take care of everybody and everything you do. And then the third leg of the stool to me is really around productivity. The more systems we have, the more routines, the more habits. You know, as individuals, Nancy, we take in over 30, we make over 30 ,000 decisions a day. And we typically sometimes, you know, sometimes we make that by about six o ‘clock in the evening. And that’s why we’re ready to veg, watch Netflix watch anything, eat the Cheetos, whatever is in our way. So, to keep your energy up to get to, even the realization that our brain is only two and a half percent of our body weight, and yet it consumes over 20 to 30 % of our energy. So, when we’re on a Zoom and we’re looking at a reflection of ourself all day, we’re actually, it’s almost like a 1 .5 to a 2X tax on our brain. And just knowing those little things, it’s no wonder when we get through with an eight-to-nine-hour day, we’ve worked 14 hours. So having this understanding of this three -legged stool, emotional intelligence, well -being and productivity and systems, and what are those habits that are effective and what are those systems that help us to work asynchronously versus being in meeting by death, that’s where I’m working with organizations, Nancy. [5:26]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. So, what do you recommend we do during the first two hours of each day?
Stan Gibson: Oh boy, I’ll tell you what, it’s so important. It’s so important. And you know, I really do think, you know, everybody’s got their own time clock as to when they like to wake up. I do think you’ve got to press the limits on that. But I will tell you for me, I have a certain set of routines. And you know, the first thing, obviously, when you get up, number one, thank God that you are getting up. But you know, I’m alive, I’m well. And you know, the first thing I do is I head out and you know, your body has not had any fluids for the last 10 hours. Go out, get some water. I put lemon juice in it and I go to Costco and I get the glass. They’ve got great products at Costco. It sounds like I’m working for Costco, but they’ve got a lot of organic products and the lemon juice, it’s in a glass bottle, which is better than plastic. So, I’m getting my electrolytes, all Olympic athletes even, they hydrate the first thing in the morning. The second thing, and I always call it mind, body and soul, and you can take it in any order you want, but I believe you’ve got to work your mind, your body, and your soul. So, if you want to work out next or get a walk in or whatever, I’m actually adopting because I’ve always been a no pain, no gain type of type of person. I’m an ex-athlete. And so, I really push the limits. And now I’m starting to understand, even as I get older, there’s tremendous benefits in just movement, walking, you know, three, three miles, you know, whatever you can get in in the day. [6:57]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Stan Gibson: But there’s tremendous. And one of the things I do is I get outside because I do live in warm weather climates because even getting sunshine on the retina without the sunglasses, it starts to have this retinal type of effect on your body to where it wakes you up and it regulates you for the day. And it lasts with you. I try to get a little bit of sunshine at kind of sunset level later in the day because it helps start to increase the melatonin who start to help you get to bed. So, I do a lot of things in the morning. And so, some of it is around my body and what kind of workout I plan on doing that day, whether it’s a walk, whether it’s a boot camp, whether it’s yoga, whatever it is, I have, there’s six days out of the week that I like to be active and I like to recover the seventh. So, I’ve got something different. From a mind standpoint, I’m a very faithful person. So, to me, I’m going to be in the word. I’m going to be enriching my mind and my soul with something that’s very, you know, that just sets me up for the day. And then the third thing I would say is because I’ve said mind, body, and soul. So, I’ve talked about the body. I’ve talked about the soul, but the mind, even when I work out, when I’m walking, no matter what I’m doing, I’m always listening to a podcast. I’m listening to a book. I’m doing something that enriches my mind. So, I feel that within that first hour and a half you know, by the time I’m ready to take a shower and I do believe in cold plunges, I do believe in cold showers. There’s all the science around that. I know I lose most of my clients when I get to that point. Yeah, we’re off, you know, isn’t going to do it, but I will tell you what the feeling is amazing. So anyway, when the, when the morning, you know, when the day in, I will tell you, I have this belief. And I’ve always talked to my clients about it, but back in 2018, so six years ago, my wife had developed non -Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. And so, it was one of those really, we had never felt that kind of adversity. And while my heart poured out, I realized, I got to take care of me so that I can take care of her. [9:08]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Stan Gibson: And while I was also in the corporate world, I was helped leading a team. We were overseeing over $2 billion worth of corporate real estate globally. I had community responsibilities. I had a lot of things, but I had to prioritize. And of course, my wife is first and foremost. And to do that, I started getting up earlier. Then I was getting up at five. And I was, from five to 6 .30, it was meditation. It was working out. It was mind, body, and soul. So that come 6 .30 or 7, I was ready. I was ready to take care of her. I was ready to take care of the people that rely on me. So, I really believe that that’s a big, a big step a lot of entrepreneurs should take. [9:47]
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. Well, let me ask you this, but there are plenty of people out there that aren’t morning people. So, what do you say to them?
Stan Gibson: That’s fine. That’s fine. You know what? There aren’t. And some people like to go to bed later. In fact, I have I have rituals, not just for the morning. I have evening rituals and it’s called 10-3-2-1. And it’s just a handful of the rituals I have. But 10 means no caffeine. Ten hours before I go to sleep, caffeine will stick in your body and into your mindset. I really cut all caffeine out 10 hours before. Three hours before is I don’t eat or drink, especially any alcohol or anything because it will mess up the five basic stages of sleep that we need to get in. Two hours before you start to cut off the technology. One hour before is really when you start to read journal or do something that’s a little more mind numbing that’s going to set the melatonin in. But for some people, like you said, they don’t like to go to bed at nine or 10, like I do. Some people like to go to bed at midnight or one. And if that’s the case, you know what? That’s fine. Start your next morning. But but schedule in for you. It might be it might be midafternoon. It might be after lunch. One of the things I talked about with productivity, Nancy, when I work with clients is you’ve got to know when you’re green, yellow, or red in the day. We’ve all got different ways that we operate. Me, I’m green in the morning. I have the most energy. That’s when I’m going to work on mind, body, and soul. It’s when I’m going to work on the three to four biggest things I’ve got to do in the day, or I won’t get them done. I start to go into yellow about right after lunch, maybe till two or three, and I hit red about 430 to six. And when I’m hitting red, this is when I’m going to do emails, when I’m going to do very mindless things that I know aren’t going to take a lot of cerebral powers. So, you’ve got to know your system and when you are green, yellow, red, and then you work around that. [11:46]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Now you mentioned that college athletics gave you a very different perspective about leadership. What happened?
Stan Gibson: Well, I tell you what, it’s one of those things. So, when I was in high school, I was recruited for football. And I went to a school, now I went as a preferred walk -on. And what that means is you’re doing everything that all the scholarships or scholarship players are doing. You’re just not getting paid for it. But I wanted to go at this level of football. I wanted to go at the very top and I wanted to see if I could make it. And so, I went and I looked and I saw the recruiter. And the guy that even hosted me, when we say hosted, they show you around the campus and they kind of adopt you for a day or two. He went in the third round to the Pittsburgh Steelers. And so, they had this kind of talent on the team. And so, I was really excited and I was going against these guys every day in my freshman year. They lost their first game, their second game, their third game. They lost 10 games before they won the final game of the year. They went one and 10. And I was devastated. I was like, you got to be kidding me. I’m looking at this talent here. And what is wrong? Well, you don’t keep your job in college football if you go one in 10. And so, they let him go and they brought in a new coach by the name of Darrell Mudra, also known as Dr. Victory. And wouldn’t we all love to have the name Dr. Victory attached to our resume. But I remember he showed up and for younger people, they won’t know what I’m talking about, but there was an old show called Columbo. [13:25]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Stan Gibson: And the character, he kind of came in and he stumbled around his words, and he stuttered. And you thought he was the dumbest guy in the room, and he was the smartest. And he looked at us and he said, gentlemen, I’m just going to tell you right now, I know very little about football. And of course, coming off a one in 10 season, everybody’s kind of, well, this isn’t very enlightening. And he said, in fact, I’m going to watch the game from the press box because I can see better. And he said, but I’ll tell you what I am going to do. I want to make sure you get good coaches. I want to make sure that you’re trained up and developed better than you’ve ever been before. And so, you know, he hired a bunch of people that, in fact, one of the guys that he hired had just played at the school and the school is Eastern Illinois University. He had just played at Eastern Illinois just three years prior. And he became our offensive coordinator. Well, this gentleman’s name is Mike Shanahan. And for those of you that know football, he’s got four Super Bowl rings, I mean, as a coach. And his son is the current head coach for the San Francisco 49ers. And he hired all these people like that. So, he not only hired good coaches to surround us, but he looked at all of us and he said, but you, every one of you, you’re just as much a coach as they are. Because when you’re on the field, you know, if you’re getting beat, or if you’re beating the guy across from you, we can’t adjust until we know what’s going on in the field. And I thought, well, how many organizations would excel if they had the same approach to their employees? And so that got me thinking. And then the final thing that really got me thinking was this team, this team went from one and 10, the very next year, the very first year of him coming into coach won the national championship. They won the national championship, won 12 and two, went all the way into the playoffs, won it, huge rings, all this. It was just a fantastic story. And I kind of, again, I was at a level where I was probably sitting and watching all these guys and they were all my best friends but watching. And the thing is this, the cool thing is it was basically the same players. [15:43]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow.
Stan Gibson: Now he brought in about four or five players from junior colleges. And that was great. He put one in, you know, he one became our quarterback. And our previous quarterback from the year before became a real standout wide receiver. And so it wasn’t that he was a bad player. He was just in the wrong swimming. He was in the wrong position. And we took a guy that, you know, was a linebacker and had to think all the time. And we put him on the line where he didn’t have to think. He just had had to rush the quarterback and he became all American and later played in the NFL. And so, you know, we had all this success. And to me, this is what I call a people -centric approach. And that’s what I have adopted in working with organizations is how do we take a people -centric approach to leadership, to coaching, to embracing, you know, a lot of the input from the bottom up, not the top down. So, I do things very unconventional, but that’s the way that I know organizations win just like Eastern Illinois won. And just to let you know, if you haven’t heard of Eastern Illinois, and some of you are football fans out there, the legacy that was created, I mean, some of you have heard of Tony Romo. You know, he was there a few years later. Sean Payton, you know, he was a quarterback there. I can go down the list. Garopolis, you know, quarterback for the Raiders. This school never had a history and a legacy until that very first year. And that’s what you want your organization to do. Do things right up front and create a legacy. [17:21]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, wow, wow. What do you mean by leaders doubling down?
Stan Gibson: Well, number one, I don’t think we really have enough self -awareness. I think when I say doubling down, I think you’ve got to double down on you. And when I say double down on you, all the things I talk about from a well -being perspective, I think, again, you’ve got to know the sciences around sleep. You’ve got to know the sciences around nutrition, you’ve got to take care of you, but there’s other elements as well. I think self -awareness is a huge, huge component of individuals excelling to the next level, but also teams, because when you have self -awareness and team awareness, you now start to have authenticity, you start to have trust. I was just on a coaching call this morning and I was talking to a client who is you know, having to manage up, you know, people above and I happen to know what these managers and these leaders, I happen to know what their, what their psycho, its strength binders, but I happen to know what their strengths are. And when I started to communicate to this person, what their strengths and their kryptonite is, is like a light bulb went on so, you mean they’re missing these little components that I have in my strengths. And if I bring these to the table, you know, the thing about self -awareness, and again, I use two different psychometric. Yeah, I’ve used disc in the past and I’ve used various assessments. But I do have my clients always take strength finders from Clifton. And if you’re not familiar, people aren’t, there’s 34 strengths. And out of those 34, you just possess five and they are you. They are what make you the superpower that you are. [19:23] But we take it…
Nancy Calabrese: Right. And isn’t it true that the third one pulls one and two and four and five together?
Stan Gibson: I don’t know that I’d ever heard that Nancy.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, yeah, that’s your core core.
Stan Gibson: The third one holds four and five together. I love that. I love that. So, what we do with this, though, is we take it even a step further. And I’ve worked with a gentleman out of Rex Miller, out of Texas. And we have created, there’s a large consortium of us that have created what’s called the Genius Portrait. And what we do is we take the strength finders, but you know, I don’t know what your strengths are, Nancy, but for me, let’s just say one of mine is being strategic and all that means is just that I filter very quickly. I don’t like to listen to 10 or 12 alternatives. I filter very quickly to two and try to come up with the answer very quickly. Well, if I’ve got strategic and you’ve got strategic, they still might look different. So, we really get into a very myopic way of understanding what does your strategic look like? And there will be a sentence that will be created from how your strategic looks, there’ll be a sentence on mine. And when we do that with all five strengths, we now have a paragraph. And we have a paragraph of when dopamine is just popping out of your head because this is you, this is you as a superpower. But we also do it no different than any muscle that we don’t work. It becomes atrophy and it becomes a weakness, and we call it kryptonite. [21:00]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Stan Gibson: And so, we go through the same process for those very five strengths that make you the superpower you are. If you are overwhelmed, you’re in distress. Then we create a paragraph of your kryptonite because we have to know when you’re when you’re at your best and when you’re not. And when you start to put a team together around the table and they start to look at everybody’s superpower, they say, Nancy, that’s why you’re so, now I get why you’re so good at what you do. And then when you start to talk about the kryptonite, they realize, well, nobody’s being malicious here. You know, that’s, it’s a wiring. And so, when they start to see people’s wirings, it’s like my wife and I, we’ve taken it and it will tell you what. One of hers is developer, which means she loves to help people. [21:52]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow.
Stan Gibson: Well, I’ve been married for 42 years. I wish we would have taken this our first year because I will tell you. Now I can look at her developer of helping and saying, she’s helping me. She’s not complaining at me. And I’m an activator, so I get things going. You can tell by my voice; I get things going. And she likes to slow me down. So having that education helps us avoid, we can have conflict in a healthy manner. And then the second one that I do is the Enneagram. I think the Enneagram is, the reason I like the Enneagram, and for those of you that don’t know, there’s nine, Enneagram, E -N -E -A -G -R -A Enneagram. And there’s nine personalities in the world. And this is probably over 2 ,000 years old. I mean, it’s very, it’s so…It’s the reason I like it is because it’s part of your DNA. When you’re born, you possess one of these nine. Strength Finders is more of how you are in the season of life that you’re in, because it can change a little bit. But the Enneagram is so unbelievably accurate. It even goes into your fears, your stresses, how you act under stress, how you act with fears. It goes into a whole new element of things that I believe that leaders really need to understand. And for me, it’s fantastic. It’s just a real holy grail for self -awareness. [23:26]
Nancy Calabrese: Well, I can’t believe Stan, we could be speaking for an hour. We’re up in time. We’re over time. What happened? no, no, no, no, no apologies. You were fascinating. And I like to bring you back on sometime down the road so we can continue, you know, promoting what you do so well. A huge thank you for spending time with us today and sharing your expertise for folks. Well, let me ask you this. How can my folks find you?
Stan Gibson: I’ll tell you what, just go to stangipsonspeaks .com. And if you want to see a little clip on me speaking, that’s right there. I love to speak. I’m getting ready to start a mastermind here this fall and also a podcast myself. So just stangipsonspeaks.com and no sales pitch for me. I just love to talk to people and see kind of what they’re all about. [24:21]
Nancy Calabrese: You’re going to be an excellent podcaster. Hope you have me on your show. My goodness. So, folks reach out to Stan, listen to his enthusiasm and his passion. It’s contagious, Stan. I need more people like you on the show. So, I don’t know what you all are going to do, but I’m revved up for the rest of the day and I’m going to make it a good one. So, until we see you or speak to you again, make it an awesome sales day and definitely reach out to Stan. [24:53]
Stan Gibson: Thank you very much everybody. Please live a rich and intentional life. [24:58]
Nancy Calabrese: I love it
by Nancy Calabrese | Jul 29, 2024 | Podcast
About Danielle Cobo: Danielle Cobo is a speaker, author, and podcast host who works with organizations to develop the grit, resilience, and courage to thrive in a rapidly changing market. She is the author of the book and hosts the podcast “Unstoppable Grit” Breakthrough the 7 Roadblocks Standing Between You and Achieving Your Goals.” This “monster truck driver in heels” gets Lou to jump in the truck while she’s racing toward greatness in an unstoppable episode of Thrive LouD. As a former Fortune 500 Senior Sales Manager, she propelled her team to the top national ranking despite the upheaval of downsizing, restructuring, and acquisitions. Her commendable leadership earned her the prestigious title of Region Manager of the Year. Her resiliency motivated her to earn four consecutive national Sales Excellence Awards in a male-dominated industry. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Danielle.
In this episode, Nancy and Danielle discuss the following:
- Danielle’s upbringing and how she was raised resilient by her single mom
- The fear of the unknown and imposter syndrome
- The importance of confidence in achieving sales success
- Danielle’s career journey in medical sales and her transition to entrepreneurship
- The inspiration behind Danielle’s book, “Unstoppable Grit”
- Danielle’s perspective on failure and the importance of learning and growth
- Believing in oneself is the key to success
Key Takeaways:
- And imposter syndrome is a big roadblock that can paralyze our career.
- When we have confidence, we’re willing to take more risks.
- I’ve always loved sales training and leadership development, and that’s always been my favorite part: mentorship and leadership.
- I think my upbringing is why empathy is one of my core values.
“In my book, I talk about the seven roadblocks that stand between us and achieving our goals, and one of the most common roadblocks that we often run into is this fear of the unknown. Our mind likes to know what will happen in the future, but we don’t always know what will happen in the future. And so sometimes when we’re stepping in, when we’re presented with an opportunity per se, say, it’s a new job opportunity or a new sales opportunity, a new opportunity to work with a client, sometimes that fear of the unknown can be paralyzing because we don’t want to fail. But at the same time, if we don’t put ourselves out there and try and explore new avenues of growing our business, career, and life, we’ll never know what’s out there unless we try. So, fear of the unknown is a big roadblock that a lot of us run into.” – DANIELLE
“What inspired me to write the book is when working with clients, I saw some commonality amongst many of the clients I was working with. It was those common roadblocks: the fear of the unknown, perfectionism, imposter syndrome—all of these common roadblocks. I saw some consistency in what I saw and the advice I gave. I also found that many people continuously said, when in my initial conversations with them, “I want clarity. I want clarity on what the future is going to bring.” So, in the book, I give people each chapter as a story, learning lessons learned through different experiences and practical advice that they can take away and apply to their life on how to build a career and life that they truly love, feel fulfilled and purposeful in. That’s what inspired the book: I wanted more people to see what is possible truly, to think outside the box of what’s possible in their career and their life, and have clarity on what they want.” – DANIELLE
“I would say that failure, we don’t fail. I believe that when we say, “Well, we failed,” it means it’s definite. We did something, failed at it, and that’s it. And if we look at failure as something that didn’t work out, we miss the opportunity to learn and grow for something. So, I believe that we don’t fail. We either choose to learn and grow. We learn and grow from every experience that we want. Maybe it didn’t go in our desired direction, but we still took something out of it. So, to say that we failed gives ourselves a disservice of going through that experience.” – DANIELLE
Connect with Danielle Cobo:
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi, it’s Nancy Calabrese, and it’s time again for Conversational selling – the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today and it always starts with the human conversation. Today we’re speaking with Danielle Cobo, a renowned figure in the world of personal development. Danielle is the esteemed author of the bestselling book, Unstoppable Grit. Breakthrough the Seven Roadblocks Standing Between You and Achieving Your Goals, and is also the host of the globally acclaimed Unstoppable Grit podcast. As an award -winning career leadership and sales performance coach, she has empowered countless professionals to accelerate their careers, enhance sales performance, and foster a connected company culture through her impactful keynote speeches, corporate workshops, and personalized coaching sessions. It is a pleasure to have you on the show, Danielle. Welcome.
Danielle Cobo: Thank you, I am excited to be here. [1:19]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, I am excited to have you, you know, and doing some research. I know you stayed on your website, raised resilient, fueled by grit. What do you mean by that?
Danielle Cobo: So, I was, when I say I was raised resilient, I was raised by a single mom who modeled for me what drive and motivation and grit and determination are. When I was five years old, she was a single mom. She was going to school full time. She was serving at a restaurant, and we lived in this one-bedroom apartment and my bed was in the living room of this apartment. And I saw my mom go from really having nothing. I mean, we were barely making ends meet. My school clothes, I remember being on layaway. I shopped at thrift stores. I lived on mac and cheese and SpaghettiOs. And I saw her graduate college and get into medical sales and climb the corporate ladder in medical sales, becoming a Fortune 500 sales manager in the 1990s as a female, which was unheard of at the time. So that’s why I say and a lot of my upbringing there was some beautiful moments and some broken moments. So that’s why I say I was really raised resilient, and it was modeled for me. [2:46]
Nancy Calabrese: What a great role model your mom was or is, my goodness. That was a gift that she gave to you.
Danielle Cobo: It really was, yes, absolutely. And I pursued in her footsteps as well. So, my career was in medical sales just like hers was. [3:03]
Nancy Calabrese: That’s funny. Okay. So, you know, you state that there are common roadblocks standing between us and achieving sales goals. How do you break through them? What do you need to do to overcome that?
Danielle Cobo: Well, in my book, I talk about the seven roadblocks that stand between us and achieving our goals. And some of the most common roadblocks that we often run into is this fear of the unknown. Our mind likes to know what’s going to happen in the future, but we don’t always know what is going to happen in the future. And so sometimes when we’re stepping in our, when we’re presented with an opportunity per se, say, it’s a new job opportunity or a new sales opportunity, a new opportunity to work with a client. Sometimes that fear of the unknown can be paralyzing because we don’t want to fail. But at the same time, if we don’t put ourselves out there and try and explore and try new avenues of growing our business, our career, our life, we’ll never know what’s out there unless we try. So, fear of the unknown is definitely a big roadblock that a lot of us run into. [4:17]
Nancy Calabrese: Well, what are some of the other ones?
Danielle Cobo: Some of the other ones is imposter syndrome. And imposter syndrome is a big one that can be very paralyzing in our career. And one of them being, you know, you go for, you see a job opportunity, perhaps it’s with a new organization or perhaps it’s with a promotion within your organization. And the minute we start to read the job description, we start to disqualify ourselves before we even qualify ourselves for a particular position. And oftentimes that imposter syndrome is thinking, well, other people are more qualified than I am. Or we start to think, I don’t have those particular industry experience, but we forget to think about what are the transferable skills that we have and what are the experiences professionally and personally that have shaped us into the person that we are today that have prepared us for that particular role. [5:15]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. I have a question. Why do we naturally disqualify ourselves before we qualify?
Danielle Cobo: Well, our brain naturally goes in protective mode. So, a lot of times when we are presented with something new, our protective mechanism within our brain says, don’t, don’t try this because we want to protect ourselves from being hurt because of experiences that we’ve had in the past. [5:47]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. So, I know that you earned four consecutive awards for top sales performance and region manager of the year. Congratulations. Yeah. So, what distinguishes the best performing sales reps over the average ones?
Danielle Cobo: What I have noticed within my own career as well as working with sales professionals, specifically in medical sales, is confidence. I don’t want to say that mindset is a woo -woo -hoo thing. I don’t want to sound woo -woo, but I’ve also believed that when we have confidence in ourselves, we’re willing to take more risks and put ourselves out there and try more. So, if we have confidence in ourselves, we’re willing to do more cold calls. When we have confidence within ourselves, we’re willing to take more risks. When we’re confident within ourselves, we’re willing to ask for the business. And so, one of the biggest aspects that I see in those that are successful is confidence. And I once had a client that I was working with. She had been in medicals. She had been in her current company for five years, she was a consistent performer, but had never earned president’s club for top performance. And we started working with each other. And what I often have seen is these barriers. It’s my quote is too high. I don’t have the right accounts in my business. I’ve already proposed that before. It’s not going to work. This isn’t the way we’ve always done it. So, we, it’s almost like we’re presented with a challenge, and we talk ourselves out of it. And when we start to rebuild on the confidence, that’s where I see the most growth happen. And my client ended up earning President’s Club that year. [7:33]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. You know, I’m curious. I mean, what motivated you to start your own business?
Danielle Cobo: I had no intention of starting my own business. Truth be told, I had been with the company I’d been with for seven years. I was leading a team in the medical aesthetic industry and through a series of six-month events. So, in 2020, life for many of us, it shifted, it changed. And for me, it was a series of three events. First, my husband had just returned home from serving a year deployment in Iraq. And while he was in Iraq, my twin boys at the time were between the ages of one and a half and two and a half years old. I was traveling 60 % of the year. And there was a time, right a couple of weeks before he got home, that his base was hit with 13 missiles. So, we didn’t know whether he was gonna make it home or not. And so,
Nancy Calabrese: That’s pretty scary.
Danielle Cobo: That really kind of put perspective as to what’s important in life. And it was my family. So much of my life had been focused on my career and my family is very important to me, but sometimes I feel like looking back, I put my career a little bit before my family, which is hard to say. And the second event that happened was March 8th. I lost my mom, so my mom had passed away and she had passed away from suicide. So it was very unexpected. It was devastating a lot of guilt associated with that. And so, a week later, the pandemic hit. And so, I wasn’t even able to, to really cope and heal with the passing of my mom because she lived in California. I lived in Florida and all the flights had been canceled. And then the fourth event was there’s four events. the company that I had been with had been acquired by another organization and it became, there was an employee on our team that became very, very toxic and it became an uncomfortable working environment for many people on my team. And the culture had shifted. So, people that had been with the organization for 14, 25, 30 years ended up leaving the organization. And so those series of events, led me to leave the organization and I said, okay, well, if I’m going to start looking for a job, I want to start developing my brand on LinkedIn. And this is where the, this is where really my life shifted. And I started to develop my brand on LinkedIn, and I was talking about, I was really talking about motivational stuff. So how to excel in the interview process, how to build confidence in sales, just sharing different. tips and motivations and inspiring, try to be inspirational others because it was during a time where a lot of people were losing their jobs, and they were feeling frustrated and defeated. And so, as I started to build my brand presence on LinkedIn, people started to reach out to me and asking me for career coaching. And this is when I experienced imposter syndrome. I was like, who am I to call myself a career coach? First off, what is a career coach? Second, who gives me the right to call myself a career coach? And it took some self -reflecting to really think, wait, people are coming to me because they see value. They see the value in the seven years of experience that I have in building high -performing teams and my experience in earning four consecutive President’s Clubs Awards. So, As I started to look for a job, people started to reach out to me and they started to hire me for coaching and eventually got to the point where my business was growing to the point where I said, well, what would it look like if I tried this? You know, I’ve always loved sales training and leadership development and that’s always when I look back at my career, that’s always been my favorite part is the mentorship portion and leadership. [11:52]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Danielle Cobo: And I believe nowadays, a lot of people want to get into leadership because they’re like, I want to mentor others. But I believe nowadays in corporate, that’s becoming less, and less time is given towards mentorship, which is unfortunate. It’s a lot more politics and admin and reports. [12:14] And so, mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. And.
Nancy Calabrese: Right. and that’s so important too, to have a mentor. Yeah. Everybody needs one. Even a business owner needs a mentor.
Danielle Cobo: Absolutely, I have hired several coaches since starting my business and it’s beneficial too when you talk about a mentor. Having a mentor that somebody outside your organization where you can be vulnerable and have very candid conversations and not fear that your job is at risk because you’re able to talk openly and honestly about how you feel about colleagues, the work environment, the culture, what are some of your concerns, where are some of your vulnerabilities. And that’s where I believe that I’ve always had a mentor, but to have somebody outside the organization that can be there for you for support and accountability and conversations is extremely valuable. [13:04]
Nancy Calabrese: Well, I totally, I totally agree with you. I adore my business coach. She’ll put a bullet in between in my forehead. She’s very honest and you need that kind of clarity, especially when you’re running a business. I want to talk about your book. I mean, what inspired you to write Unstoppable Grit?
Danielle Cobo: What inspired me to write the book is when working with clients, I saw some commonality amongst a lot of the clients that I was working with. And it was that those common roadblocks. It was the fear of the unknown. It was the perfectionism, imposter syndrome, all of these kinds of common roadblocks. And I saw some consistency of what I was seeing and some advice that I was giving. And then also I found that a lot of people, continuously said when in my initial conversations with them, I want clarity. I want clarity on what the future is going to bring. And so, in the book, I give people each chapter is a story, it’s learning lessons that were learned through different experiences and practical advice that they can take away and apply to their life on how to build a career and life that they truly love. They feel fulfilled and purposeful in. And that’s what inspired the book is I wanted more people to truly see what is possible, to think outside the box of what’s possible in their career and their life and have clarity on what they want. [14:38]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, you know, I also read on your website that a school counselor told you you’ll never amount to anything, which is a horrible thing to say. And you were a teenager. How did that statement impact you?
Danielle Cobo: That was a hard statement to hear, but it really was kind of one of those defining moments in my life where I learned that there is not everybody knows what’s going on behind the scenes. And my mom and I had a very beautiful and a very broken relationship. My mom was somebody that was a role model for me, but she also did suffer from depression and bipolar disorder. And she kicked me out when I was 17 years old. And so, when I got kicked out, I remember going to the school counselor after an incident, and that’s when the school counselor said, if you don’t go back home, you’re not going to amount to anything in life. And I think that my upbringing is really why empathy is one of my core values is because so often we’re quick to judge on what people are going through and quick to say what they can or cannot do when we don’t truly understand what’s going on in their life and how they’re feeling and what are the circumstances that they’re dealing with, but they may not be vocalizing. And I was dealing with a lot at that time. [16:01]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Wow, you are sure. And look what you’ve achieved. You got to be proud. Pat yourself on your back. Tell me something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.
Danielle Cobo: I would say that failure, we don’t fail. I believe that when we say, well, we failed, it means that it’s definite. It’s we did something, we failed at it, and that’s it. And if we look at failure as it just didn’t work out, then we miss out on the opportunity of learning and growing for something. So, I believe that we don’t fail. We either choose to learn and grow. We learn and grow from every experience that we want. Maybe it didn’t go the direction that we wanted, but we still took something out of it. So, to say that we failed gives ourselves a disservice of going through that experience. [17:02]
Nancy Calabrese: I like that. I like that attitude. I think you’re absolutely right. And you know, we’re coming up in time. It goes by so fast. But what is one takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?
Danielle Cobo: When you believe in yourself, others will believe in you too. It’s got to start with you. [17:23]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. You’re an amazing lady, Danielle. How can my audience find you?
Danielle Cobo: I am on all social media platforms. However, the platform that I spend the most time on is LinkedIn. That is my favorite platform. And then of course, they can get my book, Unstoppable Grit on Amazon. [17:44]
Nancy Calabrese: Got it. And Danielle’s last name is Сobo, C -O -B -O. So go find her, connect with her, and really benefit from her expertise. I want to thank you for spending time with us today, Danielle. I know the audience doesn’t know this, but you were on what, 30 podcasts in the last month and a half?
Danielle Cobo: Yes, I’ve been on a lot. [18:09]
Nancy Calabrese: I would shoot myself for that many. But thanks for giving us 20 minutes or 18 minutes of your valuable time. And for everyone out there, make it a great sales day. Again, Danielle, thanks for being on the show.
Danielle Cobo: Thank you. [18:25]
