by Nancy Calabrese | Jan 3, 2024 | Podcast
About Barbara Spector: Barbara Spector is the Founder of Smart Moves where she is an expert in sales force retention and development. She has a degree from Boston University, has been a guest lecturer at Syracuse University and is certified in over a dozen assessment methodologies. She specializes in and speaks on helping the C-Suite make effective hiring decisions to accelerate their revenue. As a member of SHRM, ATD, AA-ISP, NAED, NAPW and the National Speakers Association, she has worked with companies such as Corning, Merrill Lynch, US Bank, Citizens Bank, Woodruff Sawyer Insurance, Samsung, NEC, Raytheon, HCA & Sun Microsystems. With over 20 years of sales success, she has been a multi-million-dollar producer in her own right and recently named the Woman of the Year by the National Association of Professional Women. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Barbara.
In this episode, Nancy and Barbara discuss the following:
- Challenges faced by sales leaders today.
- The impact of mindset on sales team performance.
- How to instill a growth mindset in sales leaders.
- Metrics used to measure the success of transformation initiatives.
- Barbara’s approach to sales training and coaching.
- Traits defining high-performing sales teams.
- Barbara’s perspective on the effectiveness of cold calling.
Key Takeaways:
- Rome was not built in the day, and people don’t change behavior quickly.
- It starts with the level of commitment that this is going to be something that everyone must get involved in.
- The reason that people say cold calling doesn’t work, is because they haven’t fixed what’s going on between their ears.
- Many individuals have a need to be liked and loved.
“You know that expression, there’s sort of an expression, the longer things go, the more things don’t change. So what I mean by not changing is that the majority of sales forces that are out there are really very mediocre and a large reason why they’re mediocre is because a lot of the sales managers and sales leaders were put in those roles out of being salespeople and they never quite made the psychological jump from being an individual contributor to being a somebody who has to produce results through people. So, they’re so they are still functioning with it with their own sales mindset and then expecting their salespeople to do something differently. So, one of the biggest issues that I see is if we’re going to help salespeople, we’ve got to first work with sales leaders and sales managers to kind of get their heads screwed on right in the first place.” – BARBARA.
“So, if the person at the top accepts the excuses of the next person down on the run, that gives permission, so to speak, of that individual to accept the excuses of the people below him or her. So, we’re seeing that a lot gets lost that could be taken care of because when we make excuses, we’re losing control because we’re pointing the finger sort of out there like they, it wasn’t for the competition, if it wasn’t for the economy, if it wasn’t for the fact that, you know, that they were comparison shopping, whatever it might be. We need to be able to point our thumb at ourselves and say “I forgot to do something. I didn’t, I wasn’t as effective as I could have been”. And for managers, they need to be able to hear that and then respectfully confront the salespeople that they’re managing so that the excuse making stops.” – BARBARA.
“Because we all know people buy, everything we do in sales has an emotional content to it. Whether we’re selling or buying, it’s all emotional, but we rationalize logically. So, if we can get people in sales to emotionally be connected to the amount of money that they’re asked to make or that they want to make, makes a huge difference.” – BARBARA.
Connect with Barbara Spector:
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 everyone, 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 Barbara Spector, founder of Smart Moves, where she is an expert in Salesforce retention and development. Her success lies in providing critical and insightful information that enables business owners and executives to make better decisions regarding all their people issues. With over 20 years of sales success, Barbara has been a multimillion-dollar producer in her own right and recently named the woman of the year by the National Association of Professional Women. Barbara believes that if you master your mindset, you will multiply your sales and you know, so do I. This is going to be a great conversation. Welcome to the show, Barbara.
Barbara Spector: Thanks, Nancy. I’m so appreciative of being here. [1:17]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, well first, congratulations on your award. So, what did you do to win it?
Barbara Spector: I just have a reputation out there in the universe, I guess, is probably the best way to say it. And I work with a lot of women entrepreneurs, and I just was blown away that I was voted and got that award. It’s nice.
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. Well, all the best. All right, so let’s start. In your experience, what are some of the biggest challenges facing sales leaders today? And how do you help them overcome these challenges to drive growth?
Barbara Spector: It’s a big question to answer, so I’m glad you asked it. The longer I do the kind of work that I’m doing, the more I see that nothing changes. You know that expression, there’s sort of an expression, the longer things go, the more things don’t change. So what I mean by not changing is that the majority of sales forces that are out there are really very mediocre and a large reason why they’re mediocre is because a lot of the sales managers and sales leaders were put in those roles out of being salespeople and they never quite made the psychological jump from being an individual contributor to being a somebody who has to produce results through people. So, they’re so they are still functioning with it with their own sales mindset and then expecting their salespeople to do something differently. So, one of the biggest issues that I see is if we’re going to help salespeople, we’ve got to first work with sales leaders and sales managers to kind of get their heads screwed on right in the first place. I can give you examples if you’d like. [3:06]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Yeah, sure.
Barbara Spector: Well, for instance, one of the biggest, I’m going to call it a weakness or a failing or a gap that sales leaders have is they make excuses when they need to report to a CEO or to, if they’re a manager, when they must report to a sales VP or a director. They don’t even know that they’re making the excuses, but the excuses get accepted, whatever they might be. It’s like, oh, the reason we didn’t reach our numbers this quarter was because of blah, whatever it might be, right? So, if the person at the top accepts the excuses of the next person down on the run, that gives permission, so to speak, of that individual to accept the excuses of the people below him or her. So, we’re seeing that a lot gets lost that could be taken care of because when we make excuses, we’re losing control because we’re pointing the finger sort of out there like they, it wasn’t for the competition, if it wasn’t for the economy, if it wasn’t for the fact that, you know, that they were comparison shopping, whatever it might be. We need to be able to point our thumb at ourselves and say, you know, I forgot to do something. I didn’t, I wasn’t as effective as I could have been. And for managers, they need to be able to hear that and then respectfully confront the salespeople that they’re managing so that the excuse making stops. It’s a big deal. [4:43]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Wow. I mean, how do you help sales leaders develop a growth mindset, and by the way, overcome the excuses, what are some of the key strategies you use?
Barbara Spector: Very good question. So, we do take a deep dive and do a diagnostic into a number of things, what the skill sets are of each member of a team, what their mindsets are like in terms of very specific things. I can give you some examples of that in a minute. And so, if we can understand almost scientifically, when certainly objectively, what’s really going on in that organization that’s causing things to be not as strong as they would like it to be, whether it’s the revenue, whether it’s the number of deals in the pipeline, could be any number of things. Most companies look at the superficial, what’s the word I’m looking for, symptoms. They don’t look at the root cause of the problem. So, what I do in our organization is we help folks get to the root problem rather than deal with just the symptoms. And invariably that shortens the amount of time it takes for them to solve the problem because they’re really dealing with the true issue. [6:01]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. So, talk about your approach to sales training and coaching. Share with us, you know, how it contributes to improve performance and growth.
Barbara Spector: Okay. Well, when we do this sort of work, it’s not a one and done. It’s not a weekend sales training, because, you know, as the old expression goes, Rome was not built in the day, and people don’t change behavior quickly. So, when we get involved in training an organization, it’s a six-month long process. And it’s, yeah, and it’s because it takes that long for people to literally make some and how they’re performing. So, if we can work with them on two fronts, mindset and then skillset, over a course of six months, we can see dramatic change. [6:55]
Nancy Calabrese: Huh, and what happens after the six months?
Barbara Spector: Well, sometimes some of those companies will go on and continue to work with us from the standpoint of coaching. We coach either individuals or a whole team of people. And really the bottom line, Nancy, is we’re seeing a minimum of a 17% increase in top line revenue growth. So yeah. [7:18]
Nancy Calabrese: Really? Well, I’m such a big believer in sales training. I mean, I’ve been involved in it for over a decade plus, and I can’t get enough of it. Even, you know, I walk away from every training meeting with a new nugget, right? Or it’s a reminder, oh, yeah, stop doing that. I’ve got to do that again. Yeah, it’s invaluable, I believe.
Barbara Spector: Exactly.
Nancy Calabrese: How do you measure the success of your transformation initiatives and what metrics do you typically use?
Barbara Spector: Well, we begin with the baseline. So, we look at where everyone on the team lives, so to speak, in terms of how much revenue they’ve brought in over the course of the last 12 months, whatever that 12-month period is. Then we project out, if they did the things that we would suggest from the standpoint of training and coaching, what the increase in that revenue would be. And it’s usually exponential. Not everybody on the team will come to post, so to speak. But that’s the biggest metric that we use. The other one is, what’s the pipeline looking like? Does it have real quality deals in there? Or is it still sort of just, you know, fluff? [8:39]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Yep. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, how have you been able to consistently help organizations achieve this double-digit sales growth? You know, what are some of the key elements of your proven system that helps them overcome these challenges to drive growth?
Barbara Spector: Well, that’s a great question. It all starts with at the top, and it starts with the level of commitment that this is going to be something that everyone must get involved in. That’s critical, that’s critical. And then we keep driving that commitment level and holding people accountable throughout the six months. We’re not task masters, but they must get certain things done that are very practical tasks or activities that come out of the sales training and the learning that they received on every two-week basis over the course of six months. And when they don’t get the work done, I’m very tactfully insistent, so to speak, because I’m going to ask them what they learned, what are they going to do differently if it didn’t work out, and how are you going to do it once they decide, and they say here’s what I’m going to do differently. [9:56]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Barbara Spector: So, we’re playing in a very adult world here and moving people from mediocrity, hopefully, to superior performers. Hope I’m answering your question.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, yeah. Is there a story you could share, you know, of a client that you worked with who was struggling with sales and how you were able to turn their situation around?
Barbara Spector: Yeah, I have a great one. One of my clients up in Canada, who was the executive VP of the largest privately held company in Canada, they’re a manufacturer of windows and doors. And the company hadn’t grown in terms of revenue or accounts for five years. They were still marketing to the same list of accounts for the past five years before we got involved with them. There were several things that they saw out of the diagnostics that we did that were the source of the problem. And I’m just going to talk about one of them right now because it was so dramatic from what was occurring initially to what ultimately happened. These guys didn’t know how to differentiate themselves from their competition. So that’s just one of many things. And what they ended up doing, what we did together is we brought everybody in from literally from the janitor all the way up to the CEO and sat them down in a room and had them write out a list of all the things that they had that were the same as everybody else, you know, the lack of differentiation. That was all well and good. But then what was important was for us to somehow create a list of what could they do differently. [11:37]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay.
Barbara Spector: And here’s what they came up with once we cleared their heads out of all the things, you know, all the typical things that people say, oh, we’re a family-owned business. Do you think your prospects care? No. And there was a laundry list of all the things that they thought made them different, but they actually didn’t make them any different at all. So, we had to sit down and go, what’s going to really make this, make a true difference? Well, as you well know, Canada is very, very cold in the wintertime. And this company worked with large developers of subdivisions, and they were a window and door manufacturer. And what was happening previously is, you know, piecemeal, they would deliver a set of doors and windows and then another two weeks later, another set and so on and so forth. And they said to themselves, well, why don’t we deliver all the windows and all the doors for the entire subdivision in one fell swoop which means that the manufacturing arm had to really ramp up and get going, but everyone got behind it. And they did, they delivered all the windows and doors to two different subdivisions. And it was such a differentiation that nobody else was doing. And so, what was happening for this company prior to that is they were always fighting on price with their potential buyers, with the general manager of a of a subdivision. As soon as they did that, the price issue went away, and they increased their revenue within 12 months just for that one division by $20 million. [13:13]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Wow, wow. Why would they have like sporadically have delivered versus just delivering them all in one fell swoop? Oh.
Barbara Spector: Oh, that’s a super question because that’s what people, because it was comfortable. It was what everybody did. You know, it was the standard approach. And, if this put a lot, by doing it all at once, it put a tremendous amount of pressure on the manufacturing arm, where they had to do all the building of the windows and the doors, but everybody got behind it because they had strong enough leadership. We backed the leadership, and it made it just a tremendous difference. [13:55]
Nancy Calabrese: Awesome, great story. What are some of the key traits and characteristics of high performing sales teams and how do you help develop them within the companies that you service?
Barbara Spector: Do we have a couple of days to talk about that? Just ask me the question again. What are the qualities of high performing teams and how do you do what, please?
Nancy Calabrese: No, unfortunately. How do you help to develop these within the organization?
Barbara Spector: Okay, good question. All right, so there’s a couple of things that are crucial. I’ve been doing sales training for a long, long time. And even though the industries might be different, and the type of sales might be different, one of the two things that stand out as essential is the salesperson must have a burning desire to be successful in sales. You could call it grit. But the big kahuna really is they’ve got to be committed to doing whatever it takes to be successful, as long as it’s legal and ethical, of course. So that means that they don’t quit. When they’re supposed to make 25 calls in a day, they don’t quit at 20 calls just because they’re tired or because it’s five o’clock. So, when people are super committed and really driven to succeed, guess what happens? They do. So, to get people committed and successful at sales, one of the things that we get them involved in is developing personal goals. To motivate people to succeed, just having a paycheck dangling out there like a carrot on a stick that was going to yield a certain amount, doesn’t always do the trick. What they need to do sometimes to reach their goals is they have to have what I’m calling personal goals. So, for example, let’s imagine somebody needs to earn for themselves, and I don’t know what the number might be for a particular company because every product is different, but they need to generate, or they have an opportunity to generate $200,000 in revenue to themselves. So, they’ve got corporate goals, but how do they create a personal goal? Well, maybe this family has just had another child. [16:20]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay.
Barbara Spector: They’ve been living in a two-bedroom house. They need to get a bigger home. So, the personal goal becomes that larger home, which then drives the motivation of the salesperson to make more money because they need a bigger home. Because we all know people buy, everything we do in sales has an emotional content to it. Whether we’re selling or buying, it’s all emotional, but we rationalize logically. So, if we can get people in sales to emotionally be connected to the amount of money that they’re asked to make or that they want to make, makes a huge difference. [17:00]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Well, tell me something that you believe in strongly that others may not agree with you on.
Barbara Spector: Who might the others be that wouldn’t agree with me? Just give me a clue.
Nancy Calabrese: Sure. Well, like, you know, for my business, I know cold calling works. Most people say it doesn’t work. Um, something that is true that other people may not agree with you on, you know, maybe the need for sales training, for instance, um, many senior level salespeople don’t believe they need training. I believe everyone needs training.
Barbara Spector: Yeah, I agree with you. And it’s interesting, because I was going to talk about this notion you brought up, which is cold calling. And I’m going to go off on it if it’s OK with you. OK. So, the thing that doesn’t get considered, and the reason that people say cold calling doesn’t work, is because they haven’t fixed what’s going on between their ears. A lot of individuals have a need to be liked and loved. [18:10]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, sure.
Barbara Spector: And when somebody says no to them, they take it personally. Rather than having the, I’m going to use the word bravery, the bravery to say that’s not, to themselves, that’s not it. I am going to, I am here to serve this person. I have something that I’m pretty sure they need that will get them out of their misery, will solve their pain point. And I can’t be worrying about whether I’m going to be liked or not. [18:40]
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. Right.
Barbara Spector: I must get my own mind situated so that picking up the phone is a service to people rather than me thinking of it on a personal level as a drudgery.
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. You know, for me, this is the ongoing mystery. I just don’t get it. Many people are just uncomfortable talking to strangers. That’s number one. They say it doesn’t work. It’s because it’s not done consistently enough, or maybe they don’t have the right script, you know, when they wing it. Yeah, yeah. And as you said, we call it head trash. It’s all trash in the head. [19:18]
Barbara Spector: Exactly. Exactly.
Nancy Calabrese: Finally, we’re almost up in time. What advice do you have for sales leaders who are looking to transform their teams and drive growth in the future?
Barbara Spector: Well, there’s two things. I think that they need to stop trying to figure it out on their own. I think that they must stop doing things like looking at what needs to be fixed only through observation and subjectivity. There are tools out there that can literally help them empirically and almost scientifically identify what needs to be changed and then great training programs to enable those changes to take place. [20:03]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, wow. Barbara, you’re great. I’m so glad that you joined us on the show. How can my people find you?
Barbara Spector: Okay, good question. Two things. If they’d like to explore further, you know, what’s going on in their organization, how we might be able to help, they can literally go to http://vipchatwithbarb.com/
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, well, folks, you heard it right from the expert. Pick up the phone or go to vipchatwithbarb.com. Do that. Reach out. Oh yeah, dot com. And all of you out there, I think we have an obligation to ourselves and our organizations to really look at training as a vital component for continued success. So, Barbara, I hope that you’ll come back on the show and continue to share some of your insights in the future. And everyone else, I want you to make it a sales day that you haven’t had in a long time, and we’ll see you next time.
Barbara Spector: Thanks, Nancy, so much. It was a pleasure to be with you.
Nancy Calabrese: Uh, ditto, ditto. [21:33]
by Nancy Calabrese | Dec 18, 2023 | Podcast
About Nico Verresen: Nico Verresen is a former elite-level athlete who has undergone world-class training. He is working with world-champion athletes, MDs, DEFI traders, CEOs, senior executives & top-level entrepreneurs. His top-level sporting career combined with extensive educational studies of the mind makes his approach highly effective and unique. Using the hypnosis practices and mindset strategies of world-class athletes, Nico trains high performers like you to turn your stress into a competitive advantage. With a career of over 12 years in professional fighting, Nico is a 5x Belgian, Benelux, European, and vice-world champion in Muay Thai. 4 world champions have prepared for their titles with Nico’s coaching and mentorship. Nico is an MA, former university scholar, and published researcher at The Free University Of Brussels, Belgium. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Nico.
In this episode, Nancy and Nico discuss the following:
- The truth is you don’t need less stress to achieve the life you desire.
- Ways to embrace stress to elevate your performance, health, and relationships.
- Nico’s explanation on why stress is a friend rather than an enemy.
- The impact of hypnosis on the mindset strategies of all these world-class athletes.
- Hypnotic techniques in sales.
Key Takeaways:
- Stress is there not to hurt you but to help you.
- Those people who believe that stress is good and helps them, and those who have the highest stress levels live the longest, healthiest, and most productive lives.
- The biggest challenge is not to start stressing about stress.
- if you just keep grinding forward as hard and fast as possible, you will not have space to get to effectiveness.
“So, if you do not stress about anything, the chance is very high that you have a bit of a lifeless life. What I’ve seen in research is that, well, and in my own life, the moments that I outperform myself were always the moments with the highest stress.” – NICO.
“The reason that fighting was so addictive to me and so wonderful, and I miss it still every day, is that it is make or break. You know each other right now. It’s a bit unhealthy for my body, and I learned through that process the second thing that puts the absolute top from the sub-top. You know, I was subbed up, and I had everything in me to get to the absolute top, but I forced it too much. I kept on grinding, I kept on going forward, and I lost a little bit of pleasure. That’s why my company is called Perform with Pleasure.” – NICO.
“Well, the people in sales, very often they’re a specific type of people. They love the push, they love the grind, they go hard, they need their deadlines, they need fast movements, you know. So, very often this is like a temperament that very often is much more hypnotizable. Now in sales, a lot of people use it also, hypnotic techniques to sell. The problem that I’ve often found is that in the current market, people are much more suspicious, and then when you go with traditional hypnotic language patterns, they often don’t work because it will sound weird, and people will feel something is off.” – NICO.
Connect with Nico Verresen:
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 everyone, 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 Nico Verresen, founder of Perform with Pleasure LLP, using the strategies of champion fighters. Nico teaches senior executives and entrepreneurs to turn stress into their competitive advantage to ignite their next level of success with the mindset and hypnosis strategies professional athletes use to become world champions. A former professional fighter, assistant professor of methods in psychology, and published researcher Nico has been helping ambitious sales professionals and teams enjoy rising to the top without hurting their health, relationships, or enjoyment of the process. Welcome to the show, Nico.
Nico Verresen: Hi Nancy, it’s a pleasure to be here. [1:20]
Nancy Calabrese: I am excited to jump right in. You know, you have on your website, that the truth is you don’t need less stress to achieve the life you desire. What do you mean by that?
Nico Verresen: Well, I mean that you must ask yourself the question, why am I stressing? Well, because you care. So, if you do not stress about anything, the chance is very high that you have a bit of a lifeless life. What I’ve seen in research is that, well, and in my own life, is the moments that I outperform myself were always the moments with the highest stress.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Okay, that’s interesting.
Nico Verresen: So yeah.
Nancy Calabrese: Huh, and you say embrace stress to elevate your performance, health, and relationships. So how do you embrace it?
Nico Verresen: Well first you need to acknowledge that stress is there not to hurt you but to help you. People don’t realize it, it was used to call it the general adaptation syndrome they called it, but the key word is adaptation. It’s a system that is there to help you to handle the challenges of the environment. It makes you think sharper, makes you move faster, it helps you to do all those things. Yeah, the problem is that we make secondary stress, we start to stress about stress, and then it’s very difficult to let go. So, research has shown, very interesting, of Alia Kram and Albus from Stanford and Harvard, that you believe that stress is good for you, there to help you, and you have the highest stress levels, those people live the longest, healthiest, and most productive life. [3:04]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, you know, that’s kind of contrary to what we’ve always been told, right? You want to remove the stress from your life. Why are we told that?
Nico Verresen: Well, I believe that because I think at a certain moment we went overboard, it’s like when you’re an elite athlete, you want to perform at your peak. You can’t perform at your peak all the time. I made that mistake. My career was short cut because I denied my body. I over-trained all the time. My testosterone level started dropping. I had seven retinal detachments. In other words, my eyes, yes. I had three breaks. And you know, at a certain moment, nature says stop. And the same you can see in a lot of successful people; they keep on grinding. Now, the stress that we have when we are suffering with the stress, that’s the problem. Body suffering is the connotation, the story we create, oh stress is bad for us. And what happens when you look at the body, indeed, like our veins constrict, the blood pressure goes up. And we have all the negative side effects. We have a constant and then I’ll let it go after the fact but people who believe it is good for them now use the higher energy levels the better focus the higher the pain threshold. So you can keep pushing further so you can excel. However, when you believe it says it is helpful is adaptive. Well, then it’s much easier to let go after the fact and then you can pick up that stress, that challenge again tomorrow. [4:47]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. You know, it’s funny when I get stressed, I get very focused. And usually, it’s because I want to fix the problem, or I need to achieve the goal. Is that your experience with stress?
Nico Verresen: Absolutely. Well, if you cannot start to stress about stress, that’s the biggest challenge. And so, when you see the big performers, I work with five world champions and many top, professional athletes, those are really at the absolute top. They learned two things. The first thing is they learned that stress is there to help them and that they love it. They love it because it’s exciting. Like if you go after something easy to reach where the chances of failure are very small then Getting it is pretty meaningless. The reason that fighting was so addictive to me and so wonderful and I miss it still every day is that. It is make or break. You know each other right now. It’s a bit unhealthy for my body and I learned, and I learned through that process I learned the second thing that puts the absolute top from the sub-top. You know, I was subbed up and I had everything in me to get to the absolute top, but I forced it too much. I kept on grinding, I kept on going forward, and I lost a little bit of pleasure. That’s why my company is called Perform with Pleasure, you know? [6:20]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay. Let’s talk about hypnosis. I’m fascinated by that. How do you use hypnosis? You know impact the mindset strategies of all these world-class athletes.
Nico Verresen: Well, the first thing is hypnosis works in different ways for different people. Some people I can just start and slow my voice and they get into a trance immediately. And in sales, you meet these people often. They are go-getters, they are doers. They can imagine something; they can envision something and then they can create it in their minds. So, most people that I work with in sales are good at what they call hypnotic subjects. It’s a communication where they just allow themselves to relax and allow me to guide them to their power. Now we have also the much more methodical, the much more strategic salespeople that come very often out of a more technical thing. Very often they are so logical that classical diagnosis in the beginning will not work for them because they are not open for them. How you must work with them is different. There it becomes a self-hypnosis. And then there are slight differences. Of course, when you give me somebody two, or three hours, which sometimes happens if I go into one deep session, you know, then I get almost everybody in because of the communication. If you look at the science of evidence-based hypnosis, like, it’s a normal distribution of people that people can be hypnotized. But of course, the problem is that when you do research, it is structured, and it leaves very little room for nuance in the communication. Like, hypnosis is that combination of scientific underpinnings, but it’s an art. It has to do with testing, seeing, feeling, and knowing where the other person is. [8:32]
Nancy Calabrese: All right, so you’re saying, and I just want to go back to something that you said, people in sales use hypnosis through communication. Did I get that right?
Nico Verresen: Yeah, well, the people in sales, very often they’re a specific type of people. They love the push, they love the grind, they go hard, they need their deadlines, they need fast movements, you know. So, very often this is like a temperament that very often is much more hypnotizable. Now in sales, a lot of people use it also, hypnotic techniques to sell. The problem that I’ve often found is that in the current market, people are much more suspicious and then when you go with traditional hypnotic language patterns they often don’t work because it will sound weird, and people will feel something is off. [9:31]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Yeah, wow. All right, so go ahead, finish, go ahead.
Nico Verresen: So, what I do believe is that when you… But for me, I use it for them to get ready, to get into a state where they are completely aligned with wanting to see if they have a fantastic solution for this person and to extract the depth. It’s like they become a psychologist that goes to the deep roots of emotions, the emotional motivators and drivers. And then if you put yourself in a hypnotic state, and hypnotic state is very receptive. It’s the perfect thing to put you into this state, into this trance-like state, before you go into a conversation, into a sales conversation. [10:21]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Huh. Are you hypnotizing me?
Nico Verresen: You never know.
Nancy Calabrese: You never know, right? All right, well, I think everybody listening in can relate to Rocky, Sylvester Stallone. So, what can Rocky teach top-of-the-leaderboard professionals?
Nico Verresen: Well, first, Rocky lied. Rocky had no idea, no. The thing is, there is something like, no matter how hard you get hit, you keep on going forward. To be honest, as advice, that’s just dumb. However, I still believe that most sales professionals and elite performers need to get punched in the face. Now, what is this paradox? Well, the paradox is that we want to create a kind of resilience whereby we don’t make mistakes, a lost prospect, or a negative after-effect personally. We can use it to get better and that is the key. But at the same time if you keep on doing the same thing and you keep on failing, well sorry that’s just dumb, it’s just not smart. And so, the rocky mindset, the just ground mindset is good to get you to the sub-top, it will get you success, much more success than if you don’t dare to go forward. However, if you just keep on grinding forward as hard and as fast as you can, you will not have space to get to effectiveness. Think about it, you have Rocky, or you have, for example, Tyson Fury. You see him, do you know Tyson Fury? He’s a heavyweight, he’s like a legend, he’s one of the best fighters ever. No, no, he’s called, his father named him after Tyson. [12:27]
Nancy Calabrese: Right? No. You mean Mike Tyson?
Nico Verresen: It’s Tyson Fury, he’s a pike, he’s an English gypsy and he’s crazy. But if you look at him, he’s fat, he’s fat. But the thing is he has that relaxation, that playfulness and he is super hard. However, what you can see is that he plays. When you look at the all-time grades for me, it’s like, for example, Ali. [12:57]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay.
Nico Verresen: It was flow. They enjoyed it. And he can’t flow like that. Even Tyson, trained hard, but he got trained by a hypnotist. His trainer was a hypnotist. Got him in the wrong state. Yes, absolutely. And you know, what happens is that the job of a coach, if you have a real champion in front of you, a guy or a woman that has the potential to be a great champion, it is not your job to push them forward. Mostly when you have this kind of temperament, it’s your job to slow them down. My trainer pushed me to go home and lie down because as a professional fighter, you don’t get paid just to rest. To train, of course, you get paid to train, but you get paid to rest. [13:46]
Nancy Calabrese: Huh, wow. So how could pleasure help people outperform themselves?
Nico Verresen: Well, I always say whether you face a corporate board, whether you face a world champion ring, or whether you face your sweet, sweet love that wants to make sweet, sweet pleasure with you, but it’s your first time and you’re excited, all of the times when you have a peak performance, a peak experience like Maslow’s and Calder back in the day, it goes by itself. You know, what happens is you feel the connection between you and the rest of the world is so heightened. It’s like the division has been gone. In the brain, it causes your parietal lobes, they have lower activation. So, the break between you and the outside world disappears. It’s like you become one with whatever or whoever you’re doing. And so, if you want to become better into the flow, to flow in high-intensity situations, you can do workouts, yes you can do muscle arts, really powerful. You can do breathe work, you can do all those, you can do sprints and try to calm down your breathing. But what you also can do is you can make sweet love in a tantric way where you try to keep yourself as calm in intensity or intense lovely conversation. So, it comes down to learning how to hold, to make room, make space for all everything that happens in between. [15:23]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, wow. And you know, how do you turn stress, conflict, and crisis into a superpower? How do you do that?
Nico Verresen: Well first, like I said, you have to acknowledge it and make room for it. The problem, when we are suffering, we are resisting. When we are resisting, that is the core root of psychological problems, of anxiety. It’s time to run away from something, thinking we cannot handle it. And I have a secret for you. And for the entire world, we can handle so much more than we think. But in the current society you know, we hear everywhere we must take care of our words, we must be very gentle, very careful, but the problem is it doesn’t acknowledge our inherent resilience, our inherent power. We are so powerful. Look at how weak of an animal we are when you compare it with a lion or a bear or perhaps even a little ape, but how we have thrived is because we have resilience, psychological resilience, and artistic potential for artistic solutions, creative solutions in ourselves, and we don’t acknowledge this enough. Yeah, and so the first is we make room for it, so we accept it, then make room for it. You can do it simply with a technique like, imagine breathing in and growing your skin, as if you become a giant. And you just make room for the same emotion, you don’t push it away, and now, when you make room for it, it can move more freely, and when it can move more freely, you can leverage it to put into practice. [17:04]
Nancy Calabrese: This is fascinating to me. What is something you believe is true that other people don’t believe is true?
Nico Verresen: Well, I believe for example that if you’re for example a business owner and your company goes under, it can be the best thing that happened to you.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Why is that?
Nico Verresen: Because first, if you learn to see this as an experience that gives you the best lessons in the world, it will help you to make your next company thrive. And you see this many times. Many of the billionaires have made several companies that went under. All of them of course, but quite often. And with sales, the same thing. If you… Because why very often do we fail? Because we function on the level that stretches our abilities. And so, if you learn to take that punch and to play with that punch perhaps even, go against an opponent by the way, like a challenge that is just beyond what you’re currently capable of, then you will trigger flow. So very often, you know what people do realize it say I just want to relax I just want to flow yeah but you can’t get to flow if you don’t trigger your nervous system enough with enough challenge so you have a flow cycle and the flow cycle always starts with struggle and after the struggle you take a bit of a pause or rest you allow your nervous system to readjust to create those new neural pathways and they go in again and then you flow and after flow again you break that but that’s something that people don’t want to hear Because people mostly don’t want to hear, oh, I have to struggle first. Oh, that is part of the deal. Like the harder I struggle, you know, and I look for help, and I get a coach to get me focused man, then I take on the world. [19:17]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Great. Well. Hey, you know, we must wrap up, but the last question. What is the one takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?
Nico Verresen: A life without stress is a life without meaning.
Nancy Calabrese: Ooh, love it, love it, love it. How can my people find you?
Nico Verresen: Well, I have a new website that’s coming up, which is toyourtop.com. So, I will get that in a few days. It will be, it will be published. And then, you can also go to my Instagram, which is Nico_Verresen. [20:00]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay. Listen, folks, first of all, Nico, thanks so much. I found this conversation fascinating. And I swear you hypnotize me. I know you did that. But we can take that on the sidebar. Everyone reached out to Nico. He’s fascinating. And especially if you’re in a sales function, I think what he is expert in is something that anyone in sales, maybe just in business. You know, just you need it. So, until we speak again, make it a great sales day. And Nico, I got to get you back on, okay, to officially hypnotize me next time, okay?
Nico Verresen: We can do that, no problem at all. [20:48]
by Nancy Calabrese | Dec 14, 2023 | Podcast
About Jenn Drummond: A car accident in 2018 left Jenn Drummond awestruck and emboldened. Rescue workers couldn’t imagine any scenario where she came out of it alive, but she did. That’s when she realized you don’t get to choose when you leave this life…but you sure can choose how you live it. Strengthened by this awareness, she set out to live more authentically and adventurously. Inspired to climb a mountain for her birthday, her son raised the stakes by suggesting Mount Everest. Not one to back down from a challenge, she accepted the pursuit. During her training, her coach upped the ante and proposed she go for a Guinness World Record and become the first woman to climb the 7-second summits. The pursuit matched her desire to live a life of significance, not just success. Today, Jenn is a world record holder who elevates others to master their summit in life. She’s a successful business owner and Mom of 7 remarkable kids who, as you have heard, boldly inspire and brazenly challenge her. She’s also an international speaker, author, and Host of the Seek Your Next Summit podcast, focused on inspiring others to go beyond success to a life of significance. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Jenn.
In this episode, Nancy and Jenn discuss the following:
- The concept of the seven-second summits.
- Jenn’s journey of reevaluating life and setting ambitious goals.
- Jenn’s training routine and creative training methods.
- The euphoria of setting a world record.
- Lessons from mountain experiences.
- The “What’s your Everest?” concept.
- Jenn’s Bold, Brave, and Beautiful Philosophy.
- The importance of checking in with oneself.
Key Takeaways:
- That woke me up to the concept that I don’t get to choose when I die, but I sure get to choose how I live.
- It hasn’t been done by a female, harder than the first seven continents, seven mountains, seven children: I think it sounds like a jackpot.
- I took the mountain experiences and extracted lessons that apply to the metaphorical mountains we climb every day.
- So do you because doing you gives others the courage to do themselves, and everybody benefits.
- I want the audience to own who they are and step into that as much as possible.
“ So, when I started everything, I had no social media whatsoever because I just thought it was all racket and that wasn’t necessary, and why would I share all this? This is my private life. And one of my friends convinced me, she’s like: “Listen, we rarely get to see the environments that you’re going to. We’re not going to take on these mountains like you are. The closest that I get to having this experience is through you. So, it would be amazing if you would be willing to share this because it gives me a chance to be involved”. I was like: “Okay, sure.” So, I started the site as Bold. Brave. Beautiful. And those words came together because you have to be bold enough to say YES to what sets your heart on fire. Then, you have to be brave enough to put action behind it and be willing to be a beginner in whatever you’re doing. And by doing those two things, being bold and being brave, whatever unfolds is beautiful because it’s your story.” – JENN.
“ I’m checking in. You know, I think we need to just check in with ourselves and say: “Hey, is this working? Is this what I want my life to look like? Does this feel good? Is this getting me closer to my goals, or what am I doing right now? And is that hurting my progress?”. So, I feel, you know, the book’s called Break-Proof, and I feel we either break or take a break. So, taking a break is the proactive piece of that. Breaking is the reactive piece to it. And so, if we can plug in breaks and take those and just reflect and say: “Yeah, this is where I want to go, or this is what I want it to look like, or all this stuff’s coming together.” Then you’re taking a proactive approach to your life and living with intention.” – JENN.
“No one agrees with me on this. You know, I have a grump dump. So, I think the whole world has a gratitude journal, right? And everybody’s like, listen to, list your gratitude, and do your gratitude journal and all these different things. I am grateful, 100%. But I also have grumpy things that go on, things that don’t go my way, or things that I get frustrated with. And I have a journal, and I call it the grump dump. And I dump all those. I put terrible thoughts or feelings or unheard pieces of me into that journal to get it out of me instead of just pretending I’m happy all the time. And that grump dump journal helps me be authentic and lean into gratitude, but I need to get that yuck out and not pretend it’s not there.” – JENN.
Connect with Jenn Drummond:
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 everyone, 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 a human conversation. Today we’re speaking with Jenn Drummond, a mom of seven, successful business owner, and a world record holder on each of the seven continents, she now spends her time inspiring others to create a thriving business and lasting legacy of their own. She shares her story and strategies for success through her book, Quit Proof, Seven Strategies to Build Resilience and Achieve Your Life Goals. She has a podcast entitled, Seek Your Summit, and does public speaking. Jen is the founder of Bold Brave Beautiful, a blog and community where she invites people to become more conscious of their life purpose and act toward achieving what seems impossible. Welcome to the show, Jenn. You achieved something that seems impossible to most of us.
Jenn Drummond: Hello, hello, thanks for having me. [1:31]
Nancy Calabrese: Oh, my goodness. I got to understand. Now I know that you were the first female world record holder to climb the second highest summits on each of the contents. So, what are the seven-second summits?
Jenn Drummond: Yes. So that’s the question I had when my coach gave me the idea. Um, so it’s the second highest point of each of the seven continents in North America, that mountain would be called Mount Logan, located in Canada. South America. We have Ojos del Salado. That’s located in Chile and the Atacama Desert and Arctica. We have Mount Tyree Africa. We have Mount Kenya Australia. We have Mount Townsend. In Asia, we have K2. And then in Europe, we have Dictal, which is in Russia. [2:22]
Nancy Calabrese: Well, why the second and not the first?
Jenn Drummond: Yeah, you know, the first have been done by maybe 500 or so people. The second has only been completed by one male. I’m the first female to take that attempt on and or to complete it. And so, I was interested in it because it hadn’t been done by a woman. It had only been done by one person before they were harder than the first seven. Um, so I thought it’d just be more challenging if I was going to take it on. And I really wanted to do it as a like mother empowerment, female empowerment, we got this ladies. [3:00]
Nancy Calabrese: Well, so why are they harder than the first?
Jenn Drummond: No, just the topography and the location and the less commercialization. So, for example, in Africa, a lot of people climb Kilimanjaro, which is referred to as the roof of Africa, because it’s the highest point, you can modify a wheelchair to get to the top of Kilimanjaro. Mount Kenya is a 20-pitch rock climb. And so, you have to have a harness on and rock-climbing shoes and You climb up to a point with your climbing partner and then you’ll do like another stretch of rope and we even needed crampons and an ice axe when we climbed it. So just a lot more complex of a climb than a traditional hike. [3:50]
Nancy Calabrese: So, when did you get involved in all of this?
Jenn Drummond: Yeah, so I started in 2020. 2018, I was in a horrific car crash. Sorry.
Nancy Calabrese: No, I heard. I mean, tell us your story.
Jenn Drummond: Yeah, yeah. So, 2018, I was in a horrific car crash that should have taken my life and didn’t. That woke me up to the concept, I don’t get to choose when I die, but I sure get to choose how I live. And I thought, you know what? I need to start living. I was putting my life on hold until my kids went to college. And that was kind of the story that I sold myself. And after that car accident, I’m like, nope, I’m doing life in parallel. We’re going to start doing this thing together. So, 2019 was a big year of reflection and I started to make a master bucket list of all the things I wanted to do, experience, explore, all that fun. And on that list was climbing a mountain. So 2020, I was turning 40. I thought, you know what? I’m going to climb a mountain to launch this next decade of life. And so, I asked some mountain-hearing friends, what would be a good mountain to climb? And they came back with a mountain named Amma de Blom. I’m like, okay. And they’re like, you know, it’s the Paramount Pictures logo. It means the mother’s necklace. It’s located in Nepal and the Himalayas on the way to Everest. I’m like, hey, that sounds perfect. I’ll do Alma De Blom. So here I am training for this mountain and COVID strikes. And so, I’m not going anywhere. And instead, I’m becoming a homeschool teacher to seven beautiful children. What am I? Yes, exactly. Wow. [5:35]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow.
Jenn Drummond: One of my kids was struggling with his math homework. I’m like, listen, buddy, we do hard things. You’ve got this. You know, I’m giving him the parent pep talk. And he looks at me and he goes, if we do hard things, why you climb in a mountain called I’m a dumb blonde instead of a real mountain like Mount Everest? I’m like, I’m a de Blom, honey, not I’m a dumb blonde. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You know what, you finish your homework, we’ll look at Everest. So, he did and we did and then he went to bed and I thought about it and I was like, you know what? If Everest is the biggest, hardest mountain he can think of in the world, I’m going to climb it. And I’m going to show him that whatever Everest is, we can sum it. And so, I called a coach, the coach sent me a book about becoming an uphill athlete. And then when I started reading this book, there was a lady in the front who got a Guinness World Record for doing something in the Alps. And all I remember is a phone call with my coach and I was saying, you know what? I could have done that. I can suffer. And my kids would think I’m the coolest mom in the whole world because they learned how to read and Guinness World Record books. And right now, homeschooling mom here is not cool. I am not winning any points with my children. And so, my coach is like, I’ll come back with something. I’m like, okay, fine, but I’m not growing pumpkins or speed-eating hot dogs or any of that crazy stuff that goes in that record book. He’s like, don’t worry. And then he came back with the seven-second summit idea and said, hey, let’s think about this. Hasn’t been done by a female, harder than the first seven, seven continents, seven mountains, seven children. I think it sounds like a jackpot. And I said, you know what? It kind of does. So., I said yes, I hadn’t slept in a tent before, but you know, those are details. [7:33]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. So, but I have a question. How do you train for something like this?
Jenn Drummond: You know, lucky for me, I live at altitude. So, living at altitude in Park City helps. I’m in Park City, Utah, so we have lots of mountains here that turn into ski resorts in the winter. So, I would do a lot of hiking outdoors. And then, you know, I have seven children. So, a lot of my training looked like my son would have a soccer game and I would show up to the soccer game with a 12-inch step and a backpack full of water bottles. While he was playing his game, I was going up and down that step to get, I’m on my feet and start training. [8:15]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. So, what is it like setting a world record? I mean, what was the feeling you had?
Jenn Drummond: Yeah, you know, it was very euphoric at the moment. I remember at the beginning of the quest, it just felt like it was forever. Like, would this even happen? It’s forever, I can’t believe I signed up for this. And then you’re halfway through, you’re like, oh wow, like this is coming together. And then I had one mountain left, that was this past spring, Mount Logan in Canada, which took me two tries. And so, when I was back this spring, I’m like, oh my goodness, this could be it. For the last two and a half years of my life have been dedicated to this quest and it could be done after this adventure. So, I remember getting to the top and I took in the deepest breath I could take in. When I brought that breath into my lungs, everything disappeared. There was no time, there was no distance, there was no cold, there was no warmth. It was like I was one with the world. [9:18]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Jenn Drummond: And yeah, and then I started exhaling and things started separating again. And I realized there’s not a lot of oxygen up there. So, we need to start coming down. When I came home it felt surreal. And almost there was a tinge of disappointment. Like it was done because it was so much fun to pursue and take on. And then I came home and landed at the airport and one of my sons met me there and he hugged me. And he’s like, congrats. I’m like, thanks so much, honey. He goes, Mom, you have bad breath. I’m like, and there you go, there’s life. Back in your face, just living the dream. [9:56]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Getting you down to reality, right? You’re home.
Jenn Drummond: Oh, instantly. Mom, you’re still a mom.
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. So how do you help people climb their own mountains?
Jenn Drummond: Um, you know, I wrote a book, Breakproof, Seven Strategies to Build Resilience and Achieve Your Life Goals. And what I did was I took the mountain experiences, and I extracted lessons that apply to the metaphorical mountains that we climb every day. And so I take you on those expeditions and I give you some tips and tricks that worked for me to summit my mountains to help you summit yours. And I think there’s just a lot of little things that add up to success. [10:44]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Well, what could be people’s mountains? Give me some examples.
Jenn Drummond: You know, we use the term in our house, what’s your Everest? And when I climbed Everest, I did a goal-setting campaign with my kids’ school and helped all the kids set what their Everest goal was. And just using that language allows me and each other and our family to know, okay, this is the big thing you’re working on, right? So, my son is trying out for the lacrosse team. That’s his Everest right now. So we’re looking at that, what do you need to do? What do you need to train? How do you need to sleep? How do you need to eat? What can we do to get you ready for those tryouts? A friend of mine is launching a new beauty line and that’s her Everest right now. So we’re looking at the end, what she hopes to achieve and we’re backing it into today and we’re helping her build a calendar out of, okay, should we be here by this timeframe? What should this look like at this point? And we’re starting to just put the pieces in motion and get the people on the team to bring all of it to fruition. [11:52]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Yeah. What would you like me to spotlight? I know that you have, I think, another book coming out, don’t you?
Jenn Drummond: Well, the book was originally called Quit Proof and we changed the name to Break Proof because I feel breaking has a more positive connotation than quitting. So yeah.
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, got it. Yeah, well, I would agree with you, Dad. And tell us more about Bold, Brave, and Beautiful.
Jenn Drummond: Yes. So, when I started everything, I had no social media whatsoever because I just, thought it was all racket and that wasn’t necessary and why would I share all this? This is my private life. And one of my friends convinced me, she’s like, listen, we rarely get to see the environments that you’re going to. We’re not going to take on these mountains like you are. The closest that I get to having this experience is through you. So, it would be amazing if you would be willing to share this because then it gives me a chance to kind of be involved. I was like, okay, sure. So, I started the site as Bold, Brave, and Beautiful. And those words came together in the standpoint of you have to be bold enough to say yes to what sets your heart on fire. Then you have to be brave enough to put action behind it and be willing to be a beginner in whatever you’re doing. And by doing those two things, being bold and being brave, whatever unfolds is beautiful because it’s your story. [13:23]
Nancy Calabrese: I love it. I love it. So, when you’re working with a client, how long is the transformation? How long does it take for people to find their own Everest or feel bold, brave, and beautiful?
Jenn Drummond: Yes. You know, it’s an individual journey. I wish there was this exact timeframe. I do run through a seven-week course with people that covers different topics, but then some people hire me on for a longer period to just get into more of the nitty-gritty detail. Some just want the framework and it just is a very individualized approach to the system that worked for me. [14:06]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Yeah, going back to the mountains, which one was your favorite?
Jenn Drummond: Da! It’s like asking what your favorite kid on each mountain had such a unique story and a unique experience. And I’m grateful for all of them. I will say that spending time in Antarctica was magical because I don’t think I’d go to Antarctica for any other reason. So having a reason to go there, brought me there. And just, I don’t know, being in the southernmost part of the world being in an area that’s sunny the entire time because we went during like the winter for us as the summer for Antarctica, being in an environment that didn’t have any plants or animals or bugs or color, right? There are no green leaves, there’s no red trees, there’s no purple. It’s just, it was a very interesting experience and I’m very grateful I had the opportunity to go there. [15:06]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Wow. So, seven kids, I can’t imagine. I have one and that’s enough for me. So, what advice do you give others when you’re balancing your life?
Jenn Drummond: I’m checking in. You know, I think we need to just check in with ourselves and say, hey, is this working? Is this what I want my life to look like? Does this feel good? Is this getting me closer to my goals or what am I doing right now? And is that hurting my progress? So, I really feel, you know, the book’s called break-proof and I feel we either break or we take a break. So, taking a break is the proactive piece of that. Breaking is the reactive piece to it. And so, if we can plug in breaks and take those and just reflect and say, yeah, this is where I want to go, or this is what I want it to look like, or all this stuff’s coming together. Then you’re taking a proactive approach to your life and living with intention. [16:00]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Wow. Tell me something true that almost nobody agrees with you on.
Jenn Drummond: No one agrees with me on this. You know, I have a grump dump. So, I think the whole world has a gratitude journal, right? And everybody’s like, listen to, list your gratitude, and do your gratitude journal and all these different things. I am grateful, 100%. But I also have grumpy things that go on things that don’t go my way or things that I get frustrated with. And I have a journal and I call it the grump dump. And I dump all those. terrible thoughts or feelings or unheard pieces of me into that journal so that I can get it out of me instead of just pretending I’m happy all the time. And that grump dump journal helps me be authentic and lean into gratitude, but I need to get that yuck out and not pretend it’s not there. [16:58]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. I love it. What a great idea. You know, I just left a meeting, and somebody threw out, how many times do people complain each day on average? Do you have any idea? Isn’t that interesting? 26 times. Yep. Yeah. And then somebody chimed in, and he said, yeah, I do that before 10 o’clock every morning.
Jenn Drummond: Really? Oh jeez!
Nancy Calabrese: Well, you don’t think about it, you know, it really kind of makes you sit back and say, what about the positive things, right? It’s harder to be positive than it is to be negative.
Jenn Drummond: It is. It’s, definitely. [17:40]
Nancy Calabrese: Harder. We are almost out of time. What is the one takeaway you want to leave the audience with?
Jenn Drummond: I want the audience to just own who they are and step into that as much as possible. I had put my life on hold because I thought it was the noble thing to do. I got into a horrific car crash that should have taken my life and didn’t. And I look back on the last five years of my life since that accident and think about how much I filled my cup. And by doing that, how much of a ripple effect it had on the people around me in such a positive way that I know each one of us, wherever we are in the world, is making a difference to those around us. So do you, because doing you gives others the courage to do themselves and everybody benefits. [18:41]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Wow. How can my audience find you?
Jenn Drummond: Yes, so please check out my website, www.jenndrummond.com. You can find my book, you can learn about some challenges, my speaking events, and I have all my social media accounts there, so reach out on whatever your favorite platform is and say hello.
Nancy Calabrese: Say hello, everyone. Thanks so much for being on the show, Jen. You’re inspiring. And I can’t wait to get this out to the audience. And everyone who’s listening, really take a moment, read about Jenn’s story, reach out to her. Certainly, you know what I’m thinking, Jenn? If they’re having a bad day, they need to talk to you for sure. You’re full of inspiration, right? [19:30]
Jenn Drummond: I’m in, I’m in. Please call me. Good days, and bad days in between. I’m here to support you.
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. You got it. And you’re allowed to have what’s that journal that you keep? The Grump Dump. Love it. Love it. Everyone, make it a great sales day and we’ll see you next time. [19:47]
by Nancy Calabrese | Dec 12, 2023 | Podcast
About Brian Jackson:Brian Jackson is the Owner of The Sandler Sales Coaching Program and a sales coach of the Sandler Methodology since 2006. His passion is helping seasoned, professional salespeople reach their greatest potential – both personally and professionally – by watching them win. Before owning Sandler Training, Brian invested over 20 years in healthcare equipment & SAAS sales, having served the most recent 12 years in various leadership roles. He enjoys coaching Owners, Executives, and all customer-facing, “selling” people within the Technology/SAAS vertical. Also, Brian has spoken on a wide variety of business and personal development topics and is available to speak at corporate events, trade shows, etc. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Brian.
In this episode, Nancy and Brian discuss the following:
- A nerd at heart: the sales nature of Brian Jackson.
- The art of persuasion is all about selling, and the selling is all about communication.
- Brian’s way of getting into Sandler’s world.
- What differentiates Sandler from other sales methodologies?
- Features and benefits versus consultative selling.
- DISC and Sandler go hand in hand.
- Useful tricks to learn from DISC.
Key Takeaways:
- Not many people grow up saying, “I want to be in sales,” but I’m one of those.
- I always knew that in the back of my mind, being a Sandler trainer was something I could do and enjoy, so here I am.
- Take advantage of the technology out there to prepare for your conversations.
- If you’re a salesperson, you do not need to feel so much pressure to be the one to convince, persuade, and manipulate others magically.
- Sandler takes your career to another level.
“ Be the contrarian salesperson. Get out of your way. Stop trying to sell, persuade, and manipulate people. Stop trying to script out what you’re going to say. Instead, guide people on a path of self-discovery instead of trying to convince them. Go for the no. Guide them to self-discovery. Let them argue with you why they have the problems you solve and why they should be committed to fixing them. My favorite saying in the rule is, “People do not argue with their own data.” To finish answering your question, I believe the art and the science of selling are to guide people on that path of self-discovery because they don’t argue with their own data. And if you can do that, then you don’t have the objections in the first place.” – BRIAN.
“Sandler is important in personal communication because you want other people to feel that they’re heard, understood, and prioritized. Like you said, selling is not about you. It’s about the other person. So, there’s no question that people like me who have bought into the standard franchise model or participants see improvements in our relationships just as much as we see improvements in our selling efforts because it’s a different way that we treat people in our communication because of understanding Sandler. ” – BRIAN.
“When I’m teaching DISC, I explain to people that once you know DISC, you can’t go through your life the same way ever again. I’ll be in the grocery store checkout aisle and overhear a conversation. I’ll know somebody’s DISC style. You know, when I meet somebody, I can subconsciously register their eye color, hair color, ethnicity, background, and distance. And you treat people how they would want to be treated. You’re going to ask why it is so important. You’re going to keep your conversation short and tight, to the point, focus on, you know, you’re going to dab naturally. And that’s just critical to selling.” – BRIAN.
Connect with Brian Jackson:
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 everyone, 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 Brian Jackson, owner of the Sandler sales coaching program. A sales coach of the Sandler Methodology since 2006, his passion is helping seasoned professional salespeople reach their greatest potential, both personally and professionally by watching them win. Brian has accrued over 25 years of sales, sales leadership, and consulting experience. He has personally closed over $100 million of new business throughout his career and he has proudly hired and mentored several leaders of enterprise sales organization. Brian’s sales coaching business has served over a thousand participants achieving results with any revenue-generating professionals. Welcome to the show, Brian. You know I love Sandler.
Brian Jackson: Thank you, Nancy. It’s good. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. [1:19]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, so in doing some homework on you, you call yourself a nerd at heart. Why is that?
Brian Jackson: Well, I mean, you know, when you’re short fat kid with braces and glasses and you have to learn how to talk away out of fighting that content that qualifies you as being a nerd but I’m a sales nerd. My dad was in sales, in sales leadership. I am kind of a weird case study in that I’ve kind of known that I was going to go into sales from a pretty young age just because I saw my dad’s lifestyle working from home and doing well financially so there are not a lot of people who grew up saying “I want to be in sales” but I’m one of those “So here I am now sales coach and I do love coaching salespeople”. [2:08]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Well, it’s funny, I think everybody is in sales whether they admit it or not. The art of persuasion is all about selling and the selling is all about communication, right?
Brian Jackson: Right. Yep, I agree with you 100%.
Nancy Calabrese: So, what made you get involved in Sandler?
Brian Jackson: Well so I was dragged kicking in screaming in the Sandler back into 2006 because I was uh… another twenty-year-old hot shot that never failed in any sales job but I was told that hey you have to go through Sandler if you’re going to be in our sales leadership bench and ultimately once I got into Sandler, I realized how different it is compared to other methodologies and different sorts of training programs. And because of its sort of purity and consultative nature, it’s the opposite of traditional selling, I took on to it and became very passionate about it. And eventually, you know, when I wanted to be my businessman, I always knew that in the back of my mind being a Sandler trainer was something that I could do and that I would enjoy, so here I am. [3:19]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. So why is Sandler’s different than other sales methodologies?
Brian Jackson: Boy, there’s so much to that question, right? But it goes back to the beginning I mean it’s kind of an interesting story if you read about you know what David Sandler went through before starting center key, he went to countless sales coaching training workshops and found that they were just teaching salespeople to go out and say the same scripty things, so he stumbled across this book begins people play which is what gave birth to transactional analysis sort of a paradigm of psychology that it gives us more or less a predictable model of human behavior and he said you know what I can apply this to selling and so what it comes to is this is that in Sandler we have a rule: “If other salespeople are doing it stop!”. [4:21]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Brian Jackson: Be the contrarian salesperson. Get out of your way. Stop trying to sell, persuade, and manipulate people. Stop trying to script out what you’re going to say. Instead, guide people on a path of self-discovery instead of trying to convince them. Go for the no. Guide them to self-discovery. Let them argue with you as to why they have the problems that you solve and why they should be committed to fixing them. And my favorite saying in the rule is that: “People do not argue with their own data”, to finish answering your question. I believe the art and the science of selling are to guide people on that path of self-discovery because they don’t argue with their own data. And if you can do that, then you don’t have the objections in the first place. [5:09]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Features and benefits versus consultative selling. What are your thoughts on that?
Brian Jackson: Well, one of the things I liked about your website and your LinkedIn page when I was sort of researching and doing some background on your NANCY is you talked about how you broker Conversational Selling, right? And you know, feature benefit selling is a monologue, right? It’s a, hey, you know, feature benefit selling is a monologue, right? Here’s my pitch and that’s a lot of that’s not a conversation is you’re giving information in their gathering information so I knew this is going to come up in our conversation Nancy there’s a Sandler Rule which is that you prove your value as a salesperson not by the information that you disperse but by the information that you gather that’s how you prove your values as a person so that only happens when you can have a conversation and when you can keep your prospect talking the majority of the time guiding them on that path of self-discovery that’s your question. [6:17]
Nancy Calabrese: You know, to me, selling is all about them, not about us. The way you learn and understand your prospect’s needs is through the quality of the questions that you ask, right? Wouldn’t you agree?
Brian Jackson: Yep. 100%. Yes, absolutely.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. And why is Sandler important in personal communication?
Brian Jackson: Oh man, personal communication. I mean, it’s important because you want other people to feel that they’re heard, that they’re understood, and that they’re prioritized. Like you said, selling is not about you. It’s about the other person. So, there’s no, no question that people like me who have bought into the standard franchise model or participants we see improvements in our personal relationships just as much as we see improvements in our selling efforts because it’s a different way that we treat people in our communication because of understanding Sandler. [7:30]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, you know, it kind of also ties into DISC, which I love. And I know you’re a big proponent of why DISC is so important in communication.
Brian Jackson: I don’t know. Yeah, you’re right. I mean, DISC and Sandler go hand in hand. You know, when I’m teaching DISC, I explain to people that once you know DISC, you can’t go through your life the same way ever again. I’ll be in the grocery store checkout aisle and I’ll, and I’ll overhear a conversation. I’ll know somebody’s DISC style. You know, like, so when I meet somebody, I can register subconsciously their eye color, their hair color, their ethnicity, their background, and their distance, you know? And you just treat people the way that you, that they would want to be treated. You’re going to, why is it so important. You’re going to keep your conversation short and tight, to the point, focus on, you know, you’re going to dab naturally. And that’s just, obviously, that’s critical to selling. [8:41]
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. I love DISC. You know, it’s interesting when you mentioned, especially from a personal point of view, that I know my daughter’s DISC style. And I know because I understand her way of communication, I get more out of her. She doesn’t know I know that. But it’s just amazing to me.
Brian Jackson: Yes. Nancy, have you noticed that you know how they say opposites attract? I think some people think that the wrong way. Like they think that like people with opposite political views or things like that. I think what they’re talking about is DISC because I’ve noticed that couples often have opposite DISC styles. In my case, I’m a high DC or CD, and my wife is the opposite. She’s like an IS, and that makes sense, right? It makes sense because we kind of fill each other’s gaps. We make a good team in that way. But then there’s also a lot of, there can be a lot of friction when, I can be very direct about things and she sometimes does not express herself and I see that in a lot of relationships, opposite disc style. So going back to what you said, obviously Sandler, DISC, is very, very relevant to not just selling but your own life. [10:10]
Nancy Calabrese: You know, you remind me, I was dating a fellow. I’m a high D and he’s a C. And that’s about the time when I was introduced to DISC. Anyway, that relationship didn’t go very far. He drove me crazy.
Brian Jackson: Maybe a little too much overlap, too much head-banging.
Nancy Calabrese: Uh, way too much. Yeah, way too much. So, is there anything in particular you would like me to spotlight? Anything going on with your organization that you want to share?
Brian Jackson: Well, I’ll tell you one thing I’m just really proud of being a part of Sandler’s we’re really on top of our game in terms of all the technology innovations and technology disruptions to modern selling. We’re having a virtual summit, which is a half-day event on October 11th. And it’s birthed from about two months ago, we did a webinar on how to use chat GPT to drive more sales revenue. That webinar registered over 5,000 participants, which is crazy. Yeah, and so they said: “Hey, to their credit, let’s expand on this”. So, they’re doing this virtual summit on October 11th, and I’ve already invited all my past clients and current clients. And I can’t even keep up with how many have registered. I think I’ve already registered over probably 50 myself. But I encourage anybody who’s listening to this, if it’s not too late, to register or to go. I know that they’re going to record the sessions. And so, if you’re listening to this podcast beyond October 11th, go on to the podcast a Sandler website, go on to mine and find that and you can watch the recordings of that summit. [11:55]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Well, I signed up for it. I’m going to be there. And you know, you kind of beat me to it. I also sat through that webinar with chat GPT. How is that? How does that play into sales? Your point of view.
Brian Jackson: Oh God, well, you know, so much of selling is, or at least so much of communication nowadays is over email. And, you know, as a sales coach, I’m constantly having to pull my clients to say, hey, stop trying to sell over email. You got to get ear to ear, you got to get face to face, but we can’t avoid it. You’re going to have to use email a lot. And so, what ChatGPT can help with, and this is kind of coming full circle. Nancy, but it can help you adapt your emails to different DISC styles. You can take an email and say, hey, help me write this email to somebody who has a high D DISC personality. That’s what AI can do for us. And it’s not just ChatGPT. There are other platforms out there. I believe one is Humantic, I think that the name Crystal Nose is another one. Others can help you with steering your messaging to specific personality styles or just sharpening your messaging altogether. I mean, that’s what ChatGPT can help you with. [13:16]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, you know, it’s funny, I’ve used Crystal Nose and I think it’s Humantic. And it’s a really valuable add-on to LinkedIn. So, before I meet first-time appointments, I go to their LinkedIn profile and then I have a synopsis of who I’m communicating with. Are they a D? And you know, in many cases, Brian, many of the people that I speak with, they’re business owners. They are Ds or Cs, I find.
Brian Jackson: Yeah. And if you think about how hard it in your prospecting efforts is to get somebody on the phone or somebody face to face, boy, you better put some effort into preparing for that conversation because nowadays with all this technology that we have, that technology makes people accessible. It also makes it easier for people to hide. So, you know, take advantage of the technology that’s out there to prepare for your conversations. And you know, you only get so many chances to email people as well before they ghost you, block you, unsubscribe, or whatever. So, I mean, that’s why it’s critical to use these platforms. Make sure your messaging is sharp. [14:37]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Recently in our Sandler class, we were encouraged to reach out to people that we hadn’t spoken with in a couple of months. I have HubSpot. I think you guys promote HubSpot too, right? Yeah. So, I did a reconnect email, very simple. And I emailed it to, I don’t know, a thousand contacts that I hadn’t spoken with for 90 days. And within two days, I got responses, and I booked in my first week, 30 appointments, 30. I always felt like it was too much. When I look at my calendar now, my calendar is blowing up, but I was shocked at the number of responses I got, number one, and a couple of them are leading to second and third appointments. Other ones are, you know: “Hi, how are you?”. But the value to that is, you know, you’re top of mind again. And I’ve been getting some referrals from these people. So, I encourage anybody out there to do something like that. It works. [15:59]
Brian Jackson: Well, send me a template, send me that template you used. I want to see what the template bullet looks like.
Nancy Calabrese: I will do that, I promise. What’s a fun fact about you?
Brian Jackson: Oh gosh. Well, a fun fact. Well, I see I have four kids, you know, 16, 14, 11, and five little five-year-old girls and three boys. So, I don’t know if that’s a fun fact, but that seems to be kind of the center of my life. My life is centered around my kids. That’s my passion. [16:32]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, well, I would say your life isn’t boring, that’s for sure.
Brian Jackson: No, it’s not. It’s not at all. They keep me very busy, yeah.
Nancy Calabrese: Hahaha. Yeah, so tell me something true in sales that almost nobody agrees with you on.
Brian Jackson: That’s such a wow, God. Something true in sales that almost nobody agrees with me on. You know, one of the things that I get a lot of pushbacks from for people that are brand new to Sandler is the component of the upfront contract where I coach people that upfront, one of the fastest ways to gain trust and instant credibility is to tell someone something that’s not in your own best interest. Before we start this conversation, let’s just take a very, very generic example going to give them sticker shock that it is a high price every single time people say wow well tell them upfront before we get into this I just want you to know people often have sticker shock when they find out how much this is here’s a range of how much it is and I still this from john ross so one of our most uh… sort of famous center coaches but he would say, should we stop the conversation now? And I love that. I love that we and Sandler do all that upfront. Get it all out front, the agenda, the expectations, what the outcomes are going to be, what we call our fears. So, should we stop the conversation? And you know what? Most of the time they’re going to say, no, why? Because they’re curious. Why would anybody want that, right? And we know that ultimately people are there to do that because they want information they’re going to stay in the conversation until they get that information which means that we keep that leverage that information take to our chest until they’re properly qualified and then by the time we get to the budget we tell us because hey there’s not that sticker shock anymore because we told them up front it takes courage to do that though and a lot of salespeople question Does it work because they’re afraid of losing the business and that’s where we have to teach them, hey, you got nothing to lose. You can’t lose something you don’t have. Do it. And so that’s the thing that I think a lot of people, they don’t believe it first, but then once they do it, they say, wow, that does work a lot better. [19:18]
Nancy Calabrese: I agree. Yep, I am totally in agreement with you. And I can’t believe we’re out of time. What is the one takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?
Brian Jackson: You know, one takeaway is that you know, as a sale, if you’re a salesperson, you do not need to feel so much pressure to be the one to magically convince, persuade, manipulate others. The Sandler way teaches you to let go and just simply sort through prospects as to whether they have the problems you solve and whether they’re committed to fixing them. It takes the pressure off you; it takes the pressure off of them. So, if you want to be more successful in a career of selling, come and check out Sandler and see what we do. It’ll take your career to another level. [20:05]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Love it. How can my audience reach you?
Brian Jackson: Let’s see, LinkedIn is probably the best. That’s Brian Jackson. I’m located in San Diego. You can also go to, my Sandler URL is salesrevenue.sandler.com, I believe.
Nancy Calabrese: Awesome. Everyone, if you haven’t taken advantage of what Sandler has to offer you, get in touch with Brian. It’s a life changer. I personally can’t get enough of it. And it’s impacted me both professionally and personally. And Brian, a huge thank you for being on the show, and maybe you’ll come back sometime.
Brian Jackson: I’ve enjoyed getting to know you today, Nancy, and anytime.
Nancy Calabrese: Love it. Make it a sales day that you’ll never forget everyone. Have a great one. [21:04]
by Nancy Calabrese | Dec 5, 2023 | Podcast
About Brenden Kumarasamy: Brenden Kumarasamy is the founder of MasterTalk; he coaches ambitious executives & entrepreneurs to become the top 1% of communicators in their industry. He also has a popular YouTube channel, MasterTalk, to provide free access to communication tools for everyone worldwide. From the ages of 5 to 16, not only was he scared of communication, like most of us, but he had to give presentations in a language He DIDN’T EVEN KNOW! How CRAZY is that? Only in university did he start refining his communication skills through case competitions. This experience helped Brenden start his YouTube & coaching business, MasterTalk. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Brenden.
In this episode, Nancy and Brenden discuss the following:
- Importance of communication in sales.
- Brenden’s unique way of practicing communication entertainingly.
- Overcoming challenges in public speaking.
- Entertaining communication practices: random word exercises, question drill exercises, and video message strategy.
- Dealing with imposter syndrome when posting his first video on YouTube.
- Essential elements of effective communication: smiling, pausing, vocal tone variety, pacing, and putting it all together.
- Body language mistakes.
Key Takeaways:
- Communication is like juggling 18 balls at the same time.
- If you can make sense out of nonsense, you can make sense out of anything.
- Smile when you’re listening; don’t have a poker face.
- The point is to practice one medium of communication at a time.
“Yeah, for sure, Nancy. And the reason is that when you switch communication mediums, you don’t default back to zero but start pretty low. I’ll give you an example. Giving presentations is a completely different skill set than presenting on social media. When you’re presenting in front of an audience, there are 50 people in front of you. You can engage with them, you can hug them, you can give them a high five. When I first opened the camera and started presenting, there was nobody in front of me. So, I’m talking to a piece of metal. So, it was hard for me to bring the same energy and enthusiasm. And it was awkward the first time I started presenting on camera. That’s why I was nervous about it and got better over time. Like podcast casting, the first time I was on the show, I wondered why somebody would want to interview me. I was like a 22, 23-year-old kid who barely had a business. So yeah, I had a lot of imposter syndrome..” – BRENDEN.
“Most people are bad at smiling when speaking, especially when listening. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you’re on a sales call, and we see this all the time with terrible sales reps; when they’re listening to the prospect’s answers to their questions, they’re nodding their head but have a poker face on. So they go, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So, what you’re telling indirectly is you’re telling the prospect, hey, I don’t care about your answer; I want to sell you on my product. Whereas if you do the same thing but you’re smiling, and you’re saying, mm, a lot less, the prospect feels seen, heard, and understood. So that’s one. ” – BRENDEN.
“So, pacing just means a lot of speech coaches will always say speak slower. That’s not always the right answer. And the reason is that if I’m slow, you get bored too. So, the key is to have the best speaker’s pace. So, if I’m talking and then I take a moment for you to pause and say, hey, what I’m about to say is key, notice that because I’m constantly changing my pace as I’m speaking, it’s just very subliminal. Most people aren’t noticing this because I’m not pointing it out until right now. Then you’re noticing that I’m paying attention to what Brenden says.” – BRENDEN.
Connect with Brenden Kumarasamy:
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 everyone, 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 Brenden Kumarasamy, the founder of MasterTalk, a YouTube series dedicated to the art of public speaking. Brenden believes anyone can become a confident public speaker and storyteller. Brenden speaks about many topics relating to communication, such as presentation skills, storytelling, and speech breakdowns, explaining what separates the best speakers in the world from everyone else. His workshops focus on interactive activities between participants to practice communication tangibly and entertainingly and his private coaching program is personalized to each individual that he coaches. It is a pleasure to have you on the show, Brenden. Welcome.
Brenden Kumarasamy: Nancy the pleasure is mine. Thanks for having me on the show. [1:21]
Nancy Calabrese: Oh, so, you know, selling is all about communication, and having the right skills, you know, are important. And why is mastering these skills so important, especially in sales?
Brenden Kumarasamy: Yeah, absolutely, Nancy. You know, for me, in the context of sales, the reason why communication is so vital is that at the end of the day, every sales transaction, whether it’s on the B2B side, business to business, or B2C side, directly to the consumer, it’s always involving people. And if you don’t know how to talk to people, you don’t know how to have conversations with them, you don’t know how to build rapport with them by asking the right questions, at the end of the day, you will not get the sales results that you want. That’s one side. The other side of the equation is the communication. Even if you’re seeing the right things, Nancy, if somebody’s asking you questions about your core product and you’re going, uh, you know, I’m not really, and your eyes are all over the place and you’re not looking at the person directly, doesn’t matter how smart you are, you’ll lose credibility on the spot. [2:23]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Yeah, wow. But how do you practice communication entertainingly?
Brenden Kumarasamy: Ah, I love the last word that you used, Nancy, right? Which is entertainingly. That’s what I found one of the big challenges with MySpace when I entered it a few years ago. This is a lot of communication training being frankly super boring, right? It’s always focused on, you know, the fear and how we’re all going to die if we don’t master speaking and all that stuff, which is not the energy I like to share. So, to make things fun, the way I think about it is to communicate, and simple, communication is like juggling 18 balls at the same time. So, one of those balls is body language, one of them is storytelling, one of them is facial expressions, et cetera. So, for me, the question has always been, what are the three easiest balls to juggle? Because if we can do that, we can master the art of communication. Let me give you the first one, I’ll throw it back to you. The random word exercises. Pick any word, like phone, like Jaguar, like a headset, like a light bulb, and create 60-second presentations out of thin air. And if you do that, you’ll get a lot more comfortable with uncertainty. [3:28]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, cool. Are you asking me to pick a word?
Brenden Kumarasamy: I mean, I’m happy to do it, but that’s the first exercise.
Nancy Calabrese: No, I’ll skip. You go the second exercise.
Brenden Kumarasamy: Sounds good, Nancy. So just the benefits of the random word access for people in sales is this serves two main purposes and we can go to exercise two. The first purpose is if you can make sense out of nonsense, you can make sense out of anything. So, if you can talk about hemp seeds and avocado toast and light bulbs, it has absolutely nothing to do with your industry. When you go back to your subject matter expertise often the best sales reps are selling the same product day in, day out. You just get so good at it that it’s easy for you to talk about it. The second purpose is you get good at small talk. What is small talk at the end of the day? It’s two people having a random conversation with questions that each person did not prepare for. So, if you can talk about random topics when you go back to small talk, you can make sense of the nonsense that’s happening. So that’s the question, that’s exercise one. Exercise two, I’m sure was talked about on this podcast in the previous, I just frame it a little differently. It’s called the question drill. So, we get asked questions all the time in our life, Nancy. At school, at work, on sales calls, but most of us suck at answering these questions. A few years ago, I remember when I first started guesting on podcasts, some guy asked me: “Hey, Brendan, where does the fear of communication come from?” I was like: “I don’t know, man. Brazil? Los Angeles? You tell me”. So how did I fix this, Nancy? Every single day for five minutes, I answered one question that I thought somebody would ask about my products, my services, or my expertise. So, day one was, what tips do you have for introverts? Day two is, what tips can we work on every day? Day three is, what’s your vision for a master talk? But if you do that once a day for five minutes for a year, Nancy, you’ll have answered 300 and 65 questions about your expertise, and you’ll be bulletproof. [5:39]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. Do you still do it?
Brenden Kumarasamy: I’m doing it right now actually. Right? So, this is what the question drill is. It’s just, it’s a lot easier for me to practice because you’re asking me questions that I didn’t look at and I’m answering them. So, I’m practicing the question drill. But for somebody who can’t get on podcasts, the advice is more listen to your top five customers, list out all the questions that they ask you about the product, and use them as resources to help you sell future versions of themselves. [6:07]
Nancy Calabrese: I love it. Good. Right. Now we have the third or is that the third?
Brenden Kumarasamy: Yep. Yeah, you got it, Nancy. So, let’s go to number three. So, number three is so simple, nobody does it. And I’m sure this was mentioned on previous podcasts, but I’ll give a little different spin to it, which is the video message, right? So, send video messages to either prospect, but more importantly, which I think is a big mistake. Most sales reps make is send video messages to your existing customers. You know, it’s a lot easier to get word of mouth than to sell a customer cold on who you are, your reputation, your brand, and the product that you’re selling. I use something unique that I think only one other person besides me does, so I’m happy to share it, which is called the birthday video message. So, what I do is my Google calendar tells me whose birthday it is today, whether it’s a business partner, a client, a close relationship of mine, or a JV partner, and on their birthday, I’ll put a stupid $15 head that I bought on Amazon that it’s like a birthday head. And then I just open my camera and I go; guess whose birthday it is today? It’s yours. I hope you have a wonderful day. And I say one thing I appreciate about them, but I do this like 200 times a year, 150 times a year. And that’s brought me more business than anything that I’ve done in my life. [7:27]
Nancy Calabrese: Ha ha ha. Wow. How do you collect everybody’s birthdays? Do you just ask them?
Brenden Kumarasamy: Yeah, you got it. I just asked them. But I want to make sure I’m clear with the strategy. I don’t do this with prospects. I do this with people who have already bought into me. So, I’ll give you an example. Let’s say we’re a part of JVMM, right? We’re a part of a mastermind group together. So, like I probably had 30, 40 coffees with people in that group. I was in it for like a year, a year and change and then I picked the top five people, the top three people that I was like, oh my God, like this person’s amazing. We talk all the time. We build a close relationship. So those people, I’ll ask them what their birthdays are, and then I’ll do that with existing clients. I’ll do that with different people. So that way I’m only sending video messages to people I already have a relationship with. So, it’s easy to collect the birthday. [8:14]
Nancy Calabrese: Got it. Yeah, I think that’s a great idea. So, you wrote on your website that despite all the presentations you’ve given over your life, you were scared to post your first YouTube video. How could that be?
Brenden Kumarasamy: Yeah, for sure, Nancy. And the reason is that when you switch mediums of communication, you don’t default back to zero, but you start pretty low. I’ll give you an example. Giving presentations is a completely different skill set than presenting on social media. And I’ll tell you why. Because when you’re presenting in an audience, there are 50 people in front of you. You can engage with them, you can hug them, you can give them a high five.
Nancy Calabrese: Okay. Yeah.
Brenden Kumarasamy: Whereas when I first opened the camera and I started presenting, there was nobody in front of me. So, I’m talking to a piece of metal. So, it was hard for me to bring the same level of energy and enthusiasm. And it was awkward the first time I started presenting on camera. That’s why I was nervous about it and I got better over time. Like podcast casting, the first time I was on the show, I was like, why would somebody want to interview me? I was like a 20 at the time anyways I was like a 22, 23-year-old kid who barely had a business. So yeah, I had a lot of imposter syndrome. [9:32]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, well, I mean, that happens to all of us. Don’t go back and listen to my first or second podcast. You don’t want to hear it. But now that I’m over 100, I mean, it just comes more naturally. So, the lesson learned is practice, right?
Brenden Kumarasamy: Absolutely. And the only add-on to that point is to practice one medium of communication at a time. So, for example, the reason why you’re a lot better at interviewing than you were in the past, Nancy, is because you practice the same medium a hundred times, which in your case was hosting a hundred podcast episodes. So, for somebody listening, it doesn’t even have to be a podcast. It could be today I’m going to commit to doing a hundred random word exercises five times a day for the next three weeks, or it’s a hundred question drills or it’s one video message every single day or every few days. So, if you just commit to one specific tip at high volume, that’s where you start to see the results. [10:28]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Cool. You have a video, Five Public Speaking Tips. Tell us what those five are.
Brenden Kumarasamy: Yeah, absolutely, Nancy. So, I’ve changed them over the years. So, I’ll give you what is now called the five levels of speech. So, the five levels of speech, which go back to your point about the five tips are what I refer to as balls four to nine. So, going back to that 18-ball analogy, right? So, the first three balls are, excuse me, the random word exercise, and the questions on the video message. But most people I’d say I still haven’t met anybody yet. Let’s see who has done those three exercises consistently, even for 30 days. So, my ask is unless they’re clients that I’m chirping at them like a personal trainer would. But if you don’t have that, I’ve found most people don’t do it, there are always exceptions. So, what I’ll encourage people to do, the reason I tell you that is my big ask for everyone listening to this podcast is to book 15 minutes in your calendar every single day just to do these exercises. If you just do this and you don’t listen to anything else I say today, you’ll get 80% of the value from this show. But in terms of your follow-up question around the next five things, assuming you do the first three consistently enough, the five balls are smiling, pausing, vocal tone variety, pacing, and putting it all together. So, let’s go through this. One is smiling. Most people are bad at smiling when they’re speaking especially when listening. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you’re on a sales call and we see this all the time with really bad sales reps, is when they’re listening to the prospect’s answers to their questions, they’re nodding their head, but they have a poker face on. So they go, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So, what you’re telling indirectly is you’re telling the prospect, hey, I don’t care about your answer, I just want to sell you on my product. Whereas if you do the same thing but you’re smiling and you’re saying, mm, a lot less, the prospect feels seen, heard, and understood. So that’s one. [12:29]
Nancy Calabrese: Well, that’s interesting. I just want to jump in because I have a tendency when I listen, I get very serious, and I must make a deliberate effort to smile because my natural listening mode is serious. So, it’s very interesting. You brought that up.
Brenden Kumarasamy: Please. Oh, absolutely, Nancy. And the reason, and I’m glad that resonated with you because most people struggle with that. Because let’s say we’re a sales rep, we have 10 sales calls in a row. So, we’re super, super serious on the call when we’re forgetting that we’re selling to a human being. So, it’s important for us to kind of shift out of that mode and focus on building a personal relationship rather than closing a deal. Because if you build a relationship, it doesn’t matter if you close the deal, because you’ll get introduced to someone who will close. So that’s the first piece. The second one’s pausing, right? So, pausing just means knowing how to take a beat. If you keep rambling, rambling about your products and services on sales calls, eventually people tune out. But if I’m on a call and I say, hey, there are three important things you have to keep in mind with this service, the first one is, that you’re paying attention to what I’m saying because I’m pausing effectively. Number three is your tones. So, the trick here, especially when selling is you always want to speak at a, not, but most of the time you always want to speak at a tone that’s slightly lower than the prospects. So, if the person’s loud, you could also match that just to show that you’re in the same realm as them. But if someone’s really, quiet when they’re speaking, especially a lot of the people I get on calls with, because I’m a communication guy, so most of my clients are introverts. If I’m talking like this on a sales call, they’re going to run away from that call. [14:21]
Nancy Calabrese: Right, right. Well, it’s a matching and mirroring, right? It’s about matching the tone of the other prospect.
Brenden Kumarasamy: Absolutely, Nancy. And then in the context of presentations, it’s a little different. It’s more about the best speakers in the world who know how to vary their tones. So, notice how when I’m speaking, I’m always changing the volume of when I share ideas on a podcast. So, it keeps my voice engaging and enticing enough to listen to. So that’s the third piece. Absolutely. I’m glad you’re enjoying it. The fourth one is pacing.
Nancy Calabrese: Huh, very interesting. What else?
Brenden Kumarasamy: So, pacing just means a lot of speech coaches will always say speak slower. That’s not always the right answer. And the reason is because if I’m slow all the time, you get bored too. So, the key is, is the best speaker’s very pace. So, if I’m talking and then I take a moment for you to pause and say, hey, what I’m about to say is key notice that because I’m changing my pace all the time as I’m speaking, it’s just very subliminal. Most people aren’t noticing this because I’m not pointing it out until right now. Then you’re noticing that, oh wow, I’m paying attention to what Brenden says. And then finally, number five is just putting it all together. That just means, can you do all of these different little techniques simultaneously? And the only way to do this at the same time is to practice your weaknesses. [15:48]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, I want to go back to something that you said, and you recommend that you speak in a lower tone than the prospect, or you lower your tonality. Did I get that right?
Brenden Kumarasamy: That’s correct, but I always want to point out advice like this is always contextual to the prospect, but I would say in general, especially when you’re speaking to somebody who’s quieter and relatively introverted, you want to speak at a ton lower than theirs, just by a slight margin. [16:18]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, cool. Body language mistakes. What are some of them?
Brenden Kumarasamy: for sure, Nancy. So, what I always like to say with body language is to your point, people should focus more on what not to do versus what to do because most people don’t make that big of a mistake when it comes to body language. I would say the ones, there’s a couple, but I would say the most common ones is one we already talked about, which is when we’re listening to someone we don’t smile. That’s the biggest body language mistake in my book. The second one is probably not moving your arms around a little bit so you can go to either extreme which is wrong, which is either the hand freeze where you stick your hands to your body the entire time or you put them in your pockets which I don’t like at all, or you do the other side which is the hand ninja where you’re always moving your hands. So, the key is just to find a balance, do it every few moments, and sprinkle it like one would a seasoning on a steak, it’s the same thing here, it’s just a little bit that you want to add. Those are probably the main two. If I had to give a third one, which most people don’t make as a mistake, honestly, it would probably be pointing. So, with your palms, Alan Peace talks a lot about this. So, what you do is a lot of people point with their fingers and it’s hard to do on audio, but you get what I mean. Like I’m pointing at you directly versus it’s very aggressive if you’re pointing at people. So instead, you want to either use your open palms or move your finger half-point so that you’re pointing only half of your finger towards them. [17:51]
Nancy Calabrese: Interesting. Another tip that resonated with me because when I’m in meetings, I usually keep my hands on my lap. Now that I’m aware, you guys can’t see us, but I’m using my hands right now in speaking with you. Great points.
Brenden Kumarasamy: Ha!
Nancy Calabrese: Let’s wrap it up. Three daily public speaking exercises. What would they be?
Brenden Kumarasamy: Absolutely, Nancy. So the three are, just to recap, number one, the random word exercise. Invest five minutes a day to do the exercise five times a day. Pick five words, avocado, toast, chaya seeds, headphones, and just create presentations out of thin air. The easiest way to do this, if you can’t afford a coach, is to do this with your children, do this in the shower, do this when you’re walking your dog in the evening. Those are the easiest ways I found to hold people accountable. Exercise number two, the question drill. Very simple. All you have to do is on all of your sales calls this week, record them and either write down all the questions you got asked or get a VA to listen through the calls or use an OctaOtter.ai thing and just transcribe it. Get all the questions and every single day for five minutes just answer one of those questions. And if you just do that, I guarantee your sales results will improve dramatically. Because you’ll just be so good at answering questions that people will perceive you as a subject matter expert, not a sales rep. So that’s number two. And number three is the video message. Just pick five to ten people that you love in your life. Add their birthdays on your calendar and when it’s their birthday, send them a video message. But I would encourage you not to wait either like pick two, or three people now and just send them video messages just to show them how much you care about them, and when it’s their birthday, send them something else. [19:54]
Nancy Calabrese: Love it. I love it. How can my people find you?
Brenden Kumarasamy: Absolutely, Nancy. Such a pleasure to be on the show. Thanks for having me. So, two ways to keep in touch. The first one is the YouTube channel. Just type master talk in one word and you’ll have access to hundreds of free videos on how to speak and communicate ideas for free. And the second way to keep in touch is to attend my free training on communication. I do a free live Zoom call every two weeks for the community. Everyone’s invited. You could be an eight-year-old kid. You could be an executive of a billion-dollar company. Everyone’s invited. So, if you want to come to that go to rockstarcommunicator.com.
Nancy Calabrese: Rock star, everybody hears that. A huge thank you for being on the show. I mean, I gained a couple of good nuggets and I’m sure everyone out there has done the same. I encourage you to take advantage of Brendan’s offer and watch him on YouTube. By the way, you have a great voice too, Brenden. I’m into voices. So, you know how to use it. And for all of you folks out there, make it a great sales day. [21:00]
