Reaching Peak Performance in Sales

Serial Entrepreneur Club – EP49

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It’s all about sales, tips, and tricks. And today we have Mike joining us who, his rate is five to $10,000 an hour, but I, but he’s coming in for free. He has a soft spot for startups. He’s done a number of startups himself. He’s a serial entrepreneur. I also find it interesting that Michael is a one of the top salespeople in the United States selling photocopiers and.

If you go back in the day, if you could sell a photocopier, you could sell just about anything. Isn’t that, right? Michael? They say that. Yeah, I think that is pretty much correct. So it’s a good, if anyone’s sold car cars are copiers and we’re very successful, that they have the stuff that it takes to be successful, pretty much selling anything.

So can you just start giving us a little bit of your background as to, how you, how it came about and what you’re focused on now? [00:01:00] Yeah, sure. I’ll be happy to, first of all, thank you so much. And I know Glad’s not on the call right now, but I know I speak for everyone, my heart on side. I’m just my heart breaks for the people there I am of Kieve ancestry.

So it means something extra special to me. So I know our thoughts and prayers go out to all those folks there. And if we can support them in any way, I just want to say that’s something I plan on doing. I didn’t want to do it while I was on the call. I was afraid I would disconnect myself because I’m not good with it stuff.

So I figure I’m here. I wrote the website down. I’ll do it right after the call. But anyway my I’m from New Jersey and I was working, selling shoes and I was doing great. And that wasn’t my life. I was 19 years old and I said, I want to apply for a real career job. And I wanted, there was this company called shift Charney in Atlantic city, New Jersey that was selling Saturn copiers.

That was when [00:02:00] sat took on Xerox. And I said, I’m gonna apply for a job. And I kid you not. This really happened the night before I was ready to get a call to see whether I got the job or I didn’t my, the sales leader, the vice president of sales, his name was Earl nullius. And I had a dream that night that he called me and said, Mike, it was really close between you and one other person, but you don’t have any experience.

And we decided to go with the person who had sales expense. And as soon as that dream was up, I kid you not the phone rang and it was Earl and I’m thinking to myself what can I help you with? Like why you call him back? And he says, Mike, and he went over the same. This never happened to me before or after in my life.

He said, Mike, I had a conversation with the president of the company and the other guy was very experienced. And you’re, someone who has no experience, you sold shoes, that’s it? No B2B. We decided to go with you and we consider you. I’ll never forget his words, a diamond in the rough. And that was my start.

And I ended up getting fired from that job because I was always reading [00:03:00] and studying the industry, advancing my skills and my knowledge. And they put me in a branch office at 21 years old. And this service man in that office saw that I was calling other companies to find out what they were doing.

And he thought I was going to. And they sent me up and they fired me because they thought I was going to leave the company when that wasn’t the case at all. And that was the start of my career. That’s when I started the copier company out of my 650 square foot house or apartment, I should say rather.

And grew to a multi-million dollar business in my twenties and sold it to a multi-billion dollar company. After that Ikon office solutions and the move to Florida, which is what you do when you sell your company in February, in New Jersey. Wow. So you’re telling us, Michael, that you basically worked your way out of a job extensively fired and then really worked your way to where you are now in financial independence.

So I’m [00:04:00] curious for the everyone here in the audience oh, what do we need to do? What are the top three tips that you could give them? When we’re selling to just, quite candidly sell a lot and be really successful. Great question. And a tough question. Cause three, there’s probably more than three, three.

I’m going to tell you a kind of a life-changing game-changing event for me was a book that I read. And first of all, if you’re not reading books, listening to podcasts and engaging in things like this, I commend everyone. I value your time. And my goal, my commitment to you now, as you’re going to leave here better than you came in time, well-invested that will help you.

If you’re not. If you’re a sales leader or sales guy, like myself and a coach it’s going to leave you with some things, some ammunition to be more successful. So that being said, one of the books that really philosophically told me what I needed to know and reverse engineer, it was a [00:05:00] 60 year old book at the time.

It was probably an 85 90 year old book. Now. And it was called secrets of closing sales by Charles rot. And when he said, I’d never heard before read before in another sales book and it was people don’t buy for only one reason. Only one reason I’m thinking, come on now I’ve heard hundreds of objections.

I gotta think about it. I still have a few other companies to look at. This is too much money. We know all the objections in our industry, but he said in this book, there’s only one reason people don’t buy everything falls into this category. And that category is uncertainty. They don’t buy it because they’re unsure or uncertain of one or more things.

And I said, wow. So what that means is when someone reaches their threshold of certainty, they buy. So the answer, the solution to uncertainty is reassurance. [00:06:00] And how do we reassure someone in the areas that they’re uncertain about? Testimonials proof sources, you quantify it and you first identify it.

What are you uncertain about? I can promise you anyone. Who’s a legitimate prospect, meaning they have the money and the need. There’s only one reason they’re not buying from you. And that is they’re uncertain of one or more things. Maybe they don’t trust you. They’re uncertain, whether they should trust you or not.

Whether you’re being honest, they’re uncertain, whether they should buy now or buy later, whether they should wait, whether it should investigate other companies. But if they reached their threshold of certainty, which they will, if you know what they’re uncertain about and you continue to share facts, statistics quantify why they’re making the right decision, then they’ll buy it.

So if you go in with that mindset, understanding that will cover. The second thing, which just on that note. So you’re saying sell with facts and figures [00:07:00] versus moral suasion or sweet. I need both cause you know, there’s and that’s why three, you need boats. The art of persuasion is important.

There’s reciprocity is important. You give someone something, creating pain is important that you amplify pain. When you go and you don’t solve the problem, you amplify their pain, get them to feel more pain, and then you give them a solution. That’s going to solve that pain. So there’s things that, we can go deeper into this, but at the end of the day, it’s going to be a combination of things, but understand fundamentally people don’t buy because they’re uncertain and we don’t operate in a vacuum.

We operate in a competitive environment. We operate in a vacuum that would suck from a one vacuum joke. And the truth of matter is that if you find out what they’re uncertain about and you reassure them, the reassurance is. With facts. That’s why, when you see an infomercial, 50% of the infomercial are testimonials from people that got the results that you’re trying to get.

And it shows every cross-section of people that you can identify with [00:08:00] that got the exact results, solve the problem, or help you achieve something that you wouldn’t otherwise been able to solve or achieve without without using their product or service. So does that answer your question? W what if I understand you, it really is I think, like you said, it’s very multifaceted, but what is the solution?

What you’re saying makes me think, what I always believe is people don’t necessarily know that they want something or that they have an issue. So it’s creating that solution, whether it’s known or unknown. And I think you do that a lot by the confidence and through building that, report.

Yeah. That will take me to the second thing. So you’re right with that people or prospects are at different levels of some are clear and correct on what their challenges they’re trying to overcome. And they’re just trying to identify and be clear on which product or service out there in the marketplace will best solve their problem.

So I think you [00:09:00] need to replace everyone listening. I know I did replace presenting to position. Presenting means you’re just presenting your product, how it’s going to work and solve the problem. Positioning means how’s it going to work better, better than anyone else’s faster, bigger, better, more affordable.

So you have to that’s positioning your product versus just presenting it. And again, these are fine tune changes that you make to be more successful when you’re going out there. But you mentioned something I’m gonna tell you a Trump story. Trump, Donald Trump was my largest customer in Atlantic city, all the casinos, Trump, Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza, Trump Regency, and Trump marina, where all my clients, I did millions of dollars of business with him.

30 years ago. Got paid even when he went bankrupt because of the relationships I had. You mentioned relationships. That’s the second key thing. So having done all that business with him, one of the things I realized early on that there’s a misnomer out there. We all heard, and this is not a hundred percent correct that people buy from who they know and [00:10:00] trust.

And that’s not entirely true. And I’ll tell you why it’s not true, because if they know and trust you and on your competitor, and they know and trust me more, I win. So it’s not a function of just developing a good rapport and it’s not a function of just building trust. It’s you have to build a greater rapport and more trust than anyone you’re competing against.

And that’s a whole system and process. There’s a whole set of ways, steps to do that. How do you relate and connect with their passions, not their interests. And that’s, like I said, it’s a whole nother thing, but the story that I’m going to share with you on I’m selling Diane Dickson at Trump plastic casino, she buys, she makes a $350,000 purchase of all the copiers for the casino, except the big copiers, the big ones that are selling for the Xerox.

What was called a 10 90, they’re selling back then for 65, 70 $5,000 today, they’re probably a hundred. She says, [00:11:00] Mike, I’ll buy these small and mid-sized copies from you, but I’m never ever buying the big ones. Xerox owns that market. Xerox is the best I’ll never buy from you. And two years later, all those copiers were replaced.

Those 10 nineties with a product that nobody even ever heard of called an Osei, which was made, I think in the Netherlands that was around $60,000. Also. Now I got news for you, this, the data quest and all the stats and statistics, stats, statistics, fact sheets. I showed them to her and they didn’t make any difference.

She still said I’m staring at Xerox, but two years later, nothing changed except one thing. And that was my relationship. So the relationship, not only in the beginning of when you’re doing disagree with someone, but ongoingly that you keep continue to deepen and sprint in that relationship, that will cause, and this is a psychological fact that will cause a shift in how they see, hear and internalize your message.

Meaning. That’s why they [00:12:00] say love is blind. The mother never saw their baby and said, oh, my baby is ugly. No love is blind. The more they love you, the more it’s going to amplify the strengths of your product, the benefits of your product and the more they don’t like you, it’s going to amplify the, and have them come up with objections and challenges and see flaws in your product and service directly proportionate with how much they like you is the positive spin.

We’ll put her in everything and directly proportionate with how much they don’t like you or trust you that negative spin. So it definitely 100% influences the decision that they make. Oh my gosh. So how do we do it, Michael? Callaway become more likable. That’s, I’m going to say particularly challenging right now with COVID.

We’re not, face-to-face doing dinners, et cetera. So like, how do we do this? Okay these are the things that, again, first we’re human beings. We’re not business people first where people first, I remember I gave a big seminar and it [00:13:00] was open to different businesses. And I showed that I competed against Xerox and Xerox was a multi-billion dollar company.

I was a multi-million dollar company, their training centers, Xerox university was a hundred times bigger than my main office and warehouse. So I said, how could I compete against them and win consistently and not lower? My didn’t win on price. How did I win? How did I continue to win? And I said, there were about products first and people second.

And I was about people first and product second. It’s the whole thing. People don’t care how much, until they know how much you care. And so the relationships that I developed are what shaped, not how to be able to deliver. And I did a lot of what I call ACE, analyze, strategize and execute. I out prepared mice over-prepared myself, and they didn’t do that.

They thought that you on their own merits. So there’s things again that are more detailed than just the relationship. But the relationship was the key factor that [00:14:00] got me in the door and kept them buying from me. And Xerox was very weak on the relationship. They were big on business. No one ever has been shot for buying a Xerox.

So they had a definitive advantage. They had more resources. They had the reputation, et cetera, et cetera. So to answer your question, the specific way to develop a great relationship is to care about the person that you’re talking to and deliver value to them. First don’t answer something, give something, and it has to be authentic, right?

Michael, like it has to be an actual authentic. It can’t be the used car salesperson type of approach here. Yeah. A hundred percent authentic. You have to give from the heart. People are people first and connect and relate to things that are meaningful to them. If you talk about someone’s passions and don’t connect on an interest and be superficial, but talk was talking to someone today, they have a passion called the umbrella part project and helps disadvantaged families.

I deeply care about that. I’m going to connect about that in the beginning of the conversation. Could you tell me about the umbrella? Cause I forget the exact thing, but it was umbrella caught my [00:15:00] attention and this is a quote there. They’re going to talk about it and it’s genuine because that’s where our hearts are.

And to start a relationship with your heart, it changes everything. But again, to your point, it has to be genuine and real. And it’s about connecting on something that they’re passionate about and then relating to how you feel about it. If you don’t feel that way, you can use what I call third party related.

Like I had someone, I, someone’s a Heartland called a hog Harley Davidson owner and they loved Harleys. I can’t relate to that. I’m not a Harley guy, not good or bad. I just don’t drive. But my neighbor was, and in three in the morning he’d be watching and watching his Harley. So I said, you guys are like a brotherhood, so I could relate and understand and connect with him on that because I understood to the best of my ability, what that was like.

And that really is what accelerates a relationship, which accelerates the business, and I’m going to add something else. One of the things that we like to do is I agree with you, do your [00:16:00] research beforehand. There’s nothing in my personal experience. And I’m talking about how I feel.

If somebody doesn’t even know what you do or who you are, that’s insulting. Okay. And I would say, secondly, go in and listen. Don’t just go in and just start preaching for lack of a better term, but listen to what the person is saying. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. It’s well, it’s the old adage.

God gave you two ears and one mouth. So you’ll listen twice as much as the talk after you connect and relate to what they’re passionate about. Believe me, you’re going to have to jump in some time and tell them, okay let’s move to, I want to respect your time because they will talk about what they’re passionate about until the cows come home.

So I, I totally agree the way you show you’re interested in someone as you just don’t listen, but you listen with the intent to understand you lean in you lean forward. There’s little nuances to show that you really, you take notes. If it’s something [00:17:00] that’s noteworthy, those are the ways that you show someone that you’re really interested in what they’re saying, and that’s critical, just when we take it a step further when you’ve met many salespeople, don’t take notes and it’s more important or equally important to take notes about their personal life, because those are the things that they don’t expect you to take notes.

Harvey McKay wrote a book called swamp the sharks without being eaten alive. And he talks about the Mackay 66, no 66 things that are personal about your client or prospect. I think that’s a little overkill, but there’s no doubt that if you call up your prospect and say, Hey, listen, I just wanted to wish you luck on your taking your two 15 insurance exam on Wednesday.

They’re going to say, wow, I can’t believe he remembered that. Or she remembered that it’s all the little things we do that are thoughtful and kind that separate us from everyone else. Very few people do that and it’s a big separator. And to do that, the followup and follow through again, a big [00:18:00] part of being successful in sales, but you want to listen and you want to take notes.

Listening is a, an active process. And the way you show someone you’re listening is by taking notes by leaning forward, by asking good questions and by letting them. Oh, wow. Michael, let me just reset the room here for everyone in the room. We are talking with Michael Ashler, the professional expert in sales and coaching serial entrepreneur.

He talked about so far already talked about eliminating uncertainty in the sale. That’s the number one thing. If you focus on that through facts and through testimonials, those types of techniques building a relationship listening first, taking notes, understanding personal elements of your client that are thoughtful and kind, these are amazing tips, Michael, you’re really hitting it.

And if you’re in the audience and you have a sales tip or trick, please raise your hand. This is interactive. This is club. [00:19:00] As we want you on stage. If you are also have a startup and you’re struggling to make sales, please join us on stage to ask Michael a question or tell us about why you think your.

And Michael will give you some advice. That’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to help you come on stage, raise your hand and join in the conversation. Michael that’s five or six, really key points you’ve made so far. What else have you got in the bag? This is the biggest one of everything. This is going back to pres 80 20 rule.

And by the way, Michele, did you say, had mentioned three things. This would be the third predators 80 20 rule says on average, we get 80% of our business from 20% of our customers. And in sales, about 80% of the sales are made by 20% of the salespeople call it the difference between the world-class in the middle-class, whatever you want to put on.

What that means. The reality is the majority of sales are made by a minority of salespeople. Why [00:20:00] is that? And here’s a bigger question. Why, if they all have access to the same Salesforce. All that says to the same exact sale training, the same blueprint that will help everyone achieve great success in sales.

Why does some kill it? And the others flounder, and this is the third major point, the most major point in life and in business. And that is the people don’t do what they should do, which is an action to achieve what they want in life. Because of multiple things, belief system self-talk mindset, their comfort zone, the great ones are comfortable being uncomfortable.

So they pushed himself beyond where they need to push themselves to get out, accomplish what they need to get accomplished. In essence, we’re human. We’re not human doings, we’re human beings. So we have to be more before we do more before we have more. So the active [00:21:00] process of becoming the best version of yourself, Constantly improving reading, listening to audio books every day, your habits, rituals, and routines.

I coach people one-on-one and what’s amazing to me is the individuals that I typically coach. And I’m not saying this good, bad or different make over 300,000 a year. The ones that make a hundred thousand dollars a year think they don’t need coaching. But why the folks in sales that are so successful have a coach will because they know that they don’t know where their blind spots are.

They don’t know when their brake light is out. They need someone to hold them accountable, someone to push them beyond where they could push themselves. And these are all things that are drivers in performance. And that’s the third thing. It’s about peak performance. If you look at pro sports, the goal is to constantly operate at peak levels of performance and keep [00:22:00] raising the bar.

And consistency, peak performance, consistency, peak performance, consistency. Pre-performance how do you stay at that elevated level of performance? All the time with life and business are constantly throwing challenges at you. It’s the rejection Olympics out there. If you’re an entrepreneur, I’ve made millions, I’ve lost millions.

How do you continue to be persistent resilient? These are all behavioral things. And unless you master your emotions, your self-talk, your mindset, all these things are going to win over you. Two out, two forces in the world, the outside forces of the world, getting your attention, focusing you on things you shouldn’t be focused on.

And what’s between your own two ears, your belief systems, and what you’re saying to yourself. And unless you put things in your path, people and things cause where you stare you steer. So if you look in my office, you’ll see weights, water Peloton, you see all the things that I need to focus on. Not things in the outside world, they’re going to distract me and pull me away from my courtroom.

[00:23:00] So peak performance and behaviors, and then drilling down into that or what is going to be the key element between the top 20% and the bottom. And they just do the things. They invest the time to learn the skills they spend, the time to master that as Tom Hopkins said, they practice, drill and rehearse it until they don’t want to do anymore.

And then they do it some more beyond their comfort zone. They make more calls than anyone forgetting about them. A rejection Olympics out there. They’re just going all out all the time, hustle and grind, hustle, and grind. And it’s, that’s all behavior. You don’t teach that you do that. And the things that hold you back from that, you have to fix, that’s your gap.

What really resonates with me and I totally to my experience have found useful too, is that whole point you just made about persistence and it really is a mind game with yourself. It becomes very uncomfortable, but if you can really put yourself [00:24:00] in a positive state almost, and really just enjoy, it’s almost like you have to enjoy the journey.

If I can say that, it sounds so quaint, but it’s true. Then I think it’s easier for you to hang in there. And I’m curious how you do that. Is it discipline? Is it meditation? W what is it that makes a successful person like yourself or the client you speak about? Just really hang in there, even if they’re getting declined to beat up by everyone all along the way.

How do we do that? Good great question. And I, what do we have around two more hours to talk through that? Now the short answer is the first thing you have to do is be prepared the night before for the next day. And you need to have strong. Morning, a strong morning routine. When I coach my clients, I said what do you do first thing in the morning?

The first thing in the morning you should do is make your bed or pray. I pray first, then I make my bed. Okay. So when you do that, this is the morning [00:25:00] routine. This sets you up for success for the day’s challenges, everyone on this call right now has challenges and obstacles and roadblocks. We all do.

That’s welcome to life, right? And and so the key is if you’re not setting yourself up and preparing yourself in the morning and the night before to to win the battle or to put up a good fight, then you’re going to be at a deficit all day. To answer your question, it’s I wake up, this is my routine.

I coach my clients on this. This is based on the, I always want to hang out with people smarter than you and better than. That’s why I hung out with Colin. And you definitely want to do that. That’s where you learn, he said you don’t want a top entrepreneurs. I know. And that’s where you glean the ideas.

Then the next part is, are you putting them into practice? So I hang out with people that are brilliant. They give me ideas. I read I’m reading Ken Herbie now by Goggins and nominal. I can go through a wall when I’m done listening to this in the morning as I get ready for my day. So the first thing is, you get up early.

Okay. And then, [00:26:00] I pray. And then what I do is I make the bed. So first accomplishment done, then I do, I stretch. Okay. And then after I get done stretching, I go in and get ready to turn on my audible book and start listening to that and prepare myself for the day. Then I do some, what’s called diaphragmatic breathing through your nose.

As deep as you can go fill your diaphragm up and then breathe out. That’s the start. And then I have my gratitude prayers. What I’m grateful for. We’re so blessed in this. And perspective is everything. When you look at what we have compared to anyone else, so perspective is important. And then then I go in and I make a, I have a list of what are the things I want to attack for the day and get done.

Remember out of sight, out of mind, insight in mind. So remember we talked about what we focus on outside world inside world, put things in your path, little notes that trigger you and remind you, my wife says you’re going to trip over the dumbbells, the weights. And I said exactly. I want it to be a [00:27:00] constant reminder.

You need to have that, that, oh, I need to do that. And that, so what motivates me to move through this? I don’t feel like doing this. Forget it. Are you kidding me? You think I felt like getting on Peloton this morning. I was beat, I do it because I have a goal and Simon Sinek would say this, and this is the driver.

If you want to know what drives you, why the great ones are comfortable being. And uncomfortable being comfortable. If you want to be the best version of yourself, you’re going to have to be uncomfortable. You’re gonna have to move past the comfort zone into the discomfort zone. And the only way to do that is to have a big wide, the bigger your wide, the bigger your tribe.

What am I going to get from this? It’s going to give me great pleasure or avoid pain. The two drivers, emotional drivers of behavior. And that’s that, I’m on a 40 day fast now to get six pack abs at 65 years old. So I’m a little personal and I want to do this to prove to myself and others that anything can be done.

If you toughen up, you move through your comfort zone, you have a [00:28:00] plan and you discipline yourself and you just do it. Even when you don’t feel like doing it. My dad, you said, if you don’t feel like doing it, chances are it’s a right thing to do. And the successful person will do what they have a successful person.

Won’t do. There’s not always going to be pleasure, but of the two emotions, people will do more to avoid pain than the game. And let that drive you when you have your, why attach pain to it that will, that you will feel if you don’t do it and pleasure, if you will. And that’s going to be your driver in the moment of decision, I don’t feel like doing this and you won’t because it’s gonna be beyond your comfort zone.

We have a sympathetic system in our brain that says, no, we don’t want to push past pain. It’s going to have you stop it’s in our system. So the only thing that’s going to push you past that is if you, you win at that game and that’s where you have these little tricks or tips to do that by having a strong why and keeping in front of you with pictures or images or notes, Michael great stuff.

And you keep mentioning getting outside the comfort zone. [00:29:00] And I watched one of your morning huddle videos, and I thought that you gave a tip to the folks in the huddle. That I thought was really great. And it really tied into what you’re talking about in terms of getting outside your comfort zone.

And I’d love for you to elaborate that. And if I remember correctly, what you told people to do was to pick something that you really don’t want to do, like what’s on your plate today. What’s the one thing on your plate today that you really don’t want to do for whatever reason. And then just 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Do it. In other words, don’t think about it because we talk ourselves out of things. So if you just dive in to, can you elaborate a little bit more on that? I thought that was such a great tip. Yeah. Thank you for that. The no Robbins wrote a great book called the five second rule and really the whole essence, the key takeaway that I have from that book is, and I’ll give you a short story is the fact that in the moment of decision, our thoughts are everything.

We have 50 to [00:30:00] 70,000 thoughts that go through our head every day, 65% of which. The challenge is we’re not aware, we’re not intentionally aware of what we’re thinking of. So our thoughts actually control us. It’s been said, watch your thoughts. They become words, watch your words. They become actions, watch your actions.

They become habits. What your habits as they become your destiny, all from your thoughts, things from you to thoughts, come emotions from your thoughts, come decisions, actions, or lack of action. And the beauty is we have this dialogue going on in our head all the time. And most of the time, we’re not aware of it.

Now that I mentioned it, I hope everyone will be aware of thinking about what you’re thinking about. And then the moment you can say, I’m going to change that and have a trigger to change it. The truth of matter is Mel Robbins book was great because when you start thinking about it, she like, I don’t feel like getting up now.

Her philosophy is very simple, psychologically. Countdown 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and go. No thinking no deliberation in your [00:31:00] head. No, self-talk 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 go. And the psychology of that is when a spaceship takes off or a shuttle takes off or anything, or the countdown for new year’s notice, they don’t count up.

They count down. So we’re already conditioned that account denim is preparing us to do what to take action. So 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, takeoff, and just do it and it gets rid of, so your gut will always tell you the right thing to do. That’s why you have the conversation in your head when it travels from your gut up all the way to your head.

I call that the rationalization justification highway. It’s no good. So you need to be aware of that 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go, and then put things in your path that will help you get up and go and do that. So an example of that is I’m driving because what’s right or wrong, good or. Just, we just don’t always do it that you want to be in better shape.

Stop buying crap and putting it in a refrigerator, go online. There’s 3 million ways to lose weight, pick one and go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and go, [00:32:00] why don’t we do that? If we want to be healthier, we know that we’ll be healthier. If we lose weight, why don’t we do that? And I’m driving by it’s eight o’clock at night.

I worked a full day selling copiers and I’m driving down the black horse pike just outside of Atlantic city. And I pass by a one story building and it’s getting dark out and I see one light on and one car in the driveway. Now, the car, when I noticed it as I’m driving by it like 40 miles an hour, I noticed the car was not a van cause right away, I’m calculating.

But maybe that’s the cleaning people and it’s a car. It’s a nice car. So I’m figuring who’s working at eight o’clock at night besides me driving home after a long day, 12 hour day, but probably the owner and I am beat. I worked really hard that. I remember as I drive by, it went from my gut. My gut immediately told me if the owner’s there, you get to meet with the owner without having a secretary or a receptionist, a gatekeeper get in your way.

You get to meet right with the owner and have a conversation with him or her, [00:33:00] which is all you want and your business. And as soon as my gut told me that it started traveling up to the rationalization justification highway into my head. I’m thinking, nah, you know what? You know what I worked hard today.

I’ll stop here some other time. We’ll be there again. And I started doing that. And then the two things my dad taught me, popped into my head. It was like a trigger. He said, the successful person will do what the unsuccessful person won’t do. And I knew what the successful person would do. They would stop.

And if you don’t feel like doing it, chances are it’s the right thing to do. And in that moment I said, dad, oh, and I turn the wheel streets. And I pulled in the driveway, the parking lot, and I opened the door. L pops his head from one of the officers who is that. And I said, Mike chiller, and it was, his name was mark broski CRM.

I’ll never forget it was over 30 years ago, but it was one of the great sales lessons I’ve learned and life lessons about moving out of your comfort zone and doing what you know, you should do what your gut tells you, you should do. And I stopped there and th the reason stopping [00:34:00] test five o’clock or calling past five o’clock or on a Saturday is so important to success of the true leaders in winners is because when you do that, they see a little bit of themselves in you.

That’s how they got to the top. They work those hours. So immediately there’s a connection there. The second thing was there wasn’t a daily interruptions throughout the day that he would, he did mark would typically have to deal with. So it was uninterrupted time. His tie was slipped down a few notches, and it, we were told any soul, a little bit of me in him.

So it was a perfect conversation. Ended up being a hundred thousand dollars plus account. We became golf buddies. And but that’s all because, and that’s the habit you develop. Then if you don’t feel like doing it, you do it and you do it because that if you want to be successful, when you’re driven, that’s your, why, that’s what you’re going to have to do.

And Michael, one of the things I hate the most is rejection. And yet in life, as an entrepreneur, as a startup, we get it all the time and we’re always selling. If you think about it, even if we’re not the sales person, it [00:35:00] seems like we’re always selling how what’s the best way to psychologically handle that.

The rejection aspect of sales. I’ll give you a few techniques that I used and have coached on that I think are successful. We know. And it’s a great question, by the way. Thank you for asking it. We know that sales is a game of more losses than wins. Just like when you’re mining for gold, every shovel full of dirt is getting you one step closer to the goal.

And sometimes you’ll find the gold some days you won’t, but we know that at the end of the day, if you keep digging and you got the right roadmap, you’re going to hit gold. You’re going to strike gold. And we know that sales isn’t always be a numbers game and rejection doesn’t feel good to anybody. I’m a really sensitive person.

I don’t like to be rejected. I find it difficult sometimes to make calls. You know why I’m calling? Like he doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know me. I’m interrupting their day. We have all this negative self-talk going in. we know that we’re going to deliver value. And we know that they’re going to be better [00:36:00] off by speaking to us than not how you, how I dealt with it was I had a specific goal.

This is how many calls I want to make tonight. I still have it on my desk right now. And I check it off throughout the day. So have how many calls and emails you want to make? That’s number one, number two is the reason you feel insecure or it upsets you when you hear the rejection. It’s because sometimes you think I’m not prepared enough for them.

I’m not going to say the right thing or I don’t know what to say. So there’s nothing more important than preparation, bill Bella check-in is a locker room. Arguably the greatest coach of all time has one rule, one quote in his locker room of the millions of quotes that are out there that he lives by and his players live by.

And that’s why they become a dynasty. And that is from the art of war sends out. Every battle is won before it’s ever fought. So if you want to be more comfortable and not feel the rejection, as much as you do, then be better prepared and better prepared with your [00:37:00] performance. Meaning that habits, rituals, routines, your mindset redo all the things to get better knowing your product, your competition, knowing your script, what you’re going to say, not to be sound scripted, but know your value proposition, your elevator pitch.

What are you going to say when you call the person up on. The more prepared you are, the more you’re going to be comfortable making those calls. And as you get rejected throughout the day, know that you’re getting one step closer to the goal. No, that it, that every call has a value, an actual dollar value.

So if you take, for example, if you do a hundred, make a hundred calls and on the a hundred call, you make a sale and you make that sale for a thousand dollars. Every call was worth what, $10. You would have never got to the a hundred call. That was a sale. Had you not made all those calls? Every call has a value.

Just divide it by what you make at the end of the week, month or year. And you’ll know that you only got there because of the calls that you made. So every call has a value. And the last [00:38:00] thing I would say to this point, how do you deal with the rejection is no, they’re not rejecting you. They’re rejecting your offer and it may be no now, but maybe yes.

And and there, there is one more thing that I think is critical because we’re in a game of more nos than yeses. It’s critical that you celebrate the yeses. And what I mean by that, if you make an appointment, celebrate it in that moment, give yourself a fist pump. Yeah. I got that appointment I made.

When you make a call that you don’t feel like making, do a fist pump. So yeah, I did it. I did something I didn’t feel like doing. You see what happens is that charges your battery and an interesting analogy. If you watch an NFL football game, they don’t celebrate the victory at the end of the game, unless it’s a last minute score.

They celebrate every successful play during the game because they know if they have successful plays during the game, then they’ll be successful at the end of the game and notice they don’t [00:39:00] celebrate alone. The whole team celebrates. Cause what does that do? It elevates everyone’s level of performance.

It fills everyone’s battery. And that’s what you have to do. Remember this as a team sport, even if you’re working alone, surround yourself with people that encourage you, battery chargers, not battery drainers. And those are going to be the things that keep you moving through the rejection. That sales is so notorious for.

I love that. For me I have a little motto that I go through in my brain. If somebody says no, or they don’t want to listen, I just think no for now. And let’s talk in six months or whatever it is because I completely agree with you. It’s not about you. No, it’s not. It’s not, it’s easy to make it feel about you.

I’m inadequate. I’m not good enough at what I do, but understand that if it was, if they said yes to everyone, And it wouldn’t be sales. So [00:40:00] the reality is you’re right. It’s you just keep going, but it’s critical. I can’t tell you enough because life and business are draining. Yeah. I’m telling you, we all know that it’s draining and there’s more negatives sometimes in positives.

So you have to celebrate even for a moment, the smallest accomplishments, let that charge your battery a little bit, because you’ll need that reserve when you’re having a tough debt.

Oh, this is great. If we have any last questions from the audience, please raise your hand now. Or if you want to share a sales tip or if you have a challenge in your business with respect to sales, please raise your hand. Now we’ve only got about nine minutes left. Michael. One of the biggest things I’ve learned in sales when we ran our companies was the daily sales huddle.

I think Jeff, you referred to something that Michael was doing as well around that. It really changed our organization when, once we implement. We saw huge results. We fired a number of salespeople. We added salespeople, you knew right away who was performing. And there were [00:41:00] three questions that we asked on every sales huddle in the morning.

And there were very short meetings. We invited all the executives to them and the three questions were, what was your top victory yesterday? What is your number one? Focus for today. And are you stuck? And I have to say the number one question that made a difference was what was your top victory yesterday?

And it even made a difference with myself. When I showed up to the meeting, I had to have something in my hand, I had to say, oh, I called the CEO of something like it motivated me because I didn’t want to be embarrassed by my peers. Have you had success with sales? Daily sales huddles. And if so, can you talk a little bit about that?

Sure. Greg point, Colin, the the sales huddles are great. Like you said, with accountable. That’s critical. And you really want to have everyone talk about their wins, their losses and their challenges. And everyone has them, but making everyone speak up or having everyone speak up is going to be critical to hold everyone [00:42:00] accountable to achieving the level of success that, that hopefully they’re there to achieve.

But the huddles are, I conduct cuddles three times a week for my clients, 15 minutes each huddle. So not just an hour meeting on a a Monday, cause by Tuesday afternoon, after they’d been hit over the head a hundred times, that’s gone long gone. So it’s a little jolt in the morning focusing on a key performance tip or trick or technique that will get them elevated, get them ready for the day and prepared to fight a good battle and win a lot of that.

But the victory I’ll ask you a question. Anyone in the audience can jump in and answer this question. Here’s what was posted me. And I answered it wrong, by the way, if you there’s anyone in sales, if you had an easy sales call to make first thing in the morning, or a challenging one to make first thing in the morning, which one would you call first?

The most challenging sales call or the easiest sales call. Call up. Jeff, [00:43:00] you read my mind. You’re supposed to choose the harder one, but most of us will choose these you’re one. There’s, I’m afraid of rejection. So I’ll do the easy one first. But this is saying actually it’s funny, Michael.

Cause I actually, I have a chapter in my book about it and it, it’s about. Start your day by eating a frog, which is the saying that’s often attributed to mark Twain, right? He said that you should eat a frog first thing in the morning when you wake up, because after doing that, nothing else you face during the day is going to be as bad, as swallowing that frog. That’s correct. Yeah. And when I was in the film industry making independent action horror films, we used to try to do a stunt, a very complicated stunt on the first day of filming for that very reason. That was our equivalent of eating the frog. Because if you start out on day one first day of filming, let’s do a complicated stunt.

Let’s blow up a building, let’s flip a car. It causes everyone in the team to be very [00:44:00] focused. You have to pay attention. You’ll see right on day one, who your stars are and who are the people who are the weak links, because everyone’s got to be on their best performance when you’re doing this complicated stunt.

So I think what you’re recommending is that we should start each day by eating a frog or doing a stunt. I’m going to floor you and tell you the opposite is true, but I read and believed everything. You said, Jeff, I was just speaking, right? Yes. Yeah. I thought, yeah, of course. So I absolutely believe that I entered the same way you went.

And current and the most they’ve done studies on this, that it would have. You make your easiest sales call and you start with small successes and let them build to build your confidence to take on the more difficult tasks. And when you look at the psychology of this, we’ve all heard success begets success and failure, begets failure.

Look at your own. Dang. If you have a day that’s been tough and things aren’t [00:45:00] going right, you have no confidence, no mojo, no energy to call your toughest client. But if you have a day that everything’s going great. Give me that toughest client, come on. I can’t wait to call him or her. In the book by James clear, phenomenal book called atomic habits and also BJ Fogg, who’s a he, he has a room here on clubhouse as well.

He’s a professor and just an expert on habits and all the current things. Which is, like I said, proven out in studies is that we want to grow 1%. If we get 1% better every day, we’re 37 times better at the end of the year. So it’s about micro changes, little improvements, little successes that build to big successes, little movement forward.

They say inch by inch. Anything’s essential yard by yard. Anything’s hard. So th the bulk, and I forget which one I read that says, the first thing you do is you make your bed. Okay. And that’s the first accomplishment, and it seems meaningless, but it’s significant because then you go on to the next something.

And like [00:46:00] I say, you build confidence and competence begets competence and success begets success. And then you take on the tougher task or challenge, and you’re more equipped to deal with it with the energy and the competence from the smaller successes that you add. Wow. Michael, who was an hour. And I’m glad we after we had the technical problems earlier on that we tried.

To make this session happen because there were at least 10 good tips. And I can’t wait to read the blog, Michele, that the team’s going to put together and repost this and go back and listen to all of those tips or even just read about them. And if you’re listening to the podcast right now check out www.startup.club.

If you want to check out that blog we have Mike Alden in the audience. I’m just going to pull you up, Mike, if you just want to talk to you there for a second Mike is coming. Hey Mike. Hey there. Hey, Mike is coming to us next week. I believe to talk [00:47:00] about how entrepreneurs and how startups need to create a brand for themselves.

Jeff, you’re going to love that topic. I know you’re great at it as well. Mike, any thoughts on that topic before we close that? Mike, do I do want to say first? I love Mike. I love my golden. He’s the best guy I was going to say, I did just come here late. I apologized and I’m looking at, I’m looking at the stage and I see green, and I don’t see Michael, what the coveted moderator badge.

Did he do something wrong? Did he screw something up in the beginning? Was he the one that screwed up the room in the beginning? No, we don’t know what happened. It looked like it could have been a hack, could have been a technical problem who knows what it is, but you guys could probably tell.

So exactly. So just in 30 seconds, Mike, talk about next week. Yeah. I was talking to Mike and Mike Mike was telling me he was doing this room and I was like, wait a minute. I’m pretty sure that a, you introduced me to call it. Yeah. I’m excited for next week to talk a little bit about branding from a of, okay.

And I was just on with somebody. I was [00:48:00] speaking to him for over an hour about his brand, how to properly put it together. And then also use that book as a stepping stone for whatever business you want to build. So many businesses are built off of just that one book, that one story. But I think one of the critical mistakes and we’ll talk about it next week is we were so excited about telling our story because we think are really special and unique and really.

Think about it, because I didn’t think about this. We’ll talk about it next week. We don’t think about what do we need to do? What sort of plans do we need to put in place in order to properly monetize this book, all the blood, sweat, and tears, and all of our trials and tribulations and all the things that we’ve gone through throughout our lives.

And we want to share those experiences and then help others, but in, in but really truly, if you’re going to do all this stuff, you need to say to yourself, how can I continue to build upon these stories and the things that I’ve gone through and help other people while helping myself. So we’ll talk about that next week.

I’m excited for having me. Thank you so much. And I’m, and again, I’m sorry, I’m late a big fan of Michael Ashleigh. This guy, he we met years ago and he, I talked to him, at least once a week, if I [00:49:00] don’t talk to him, I feel like I’m getting behind because his experiences are so vast and his knowledge has been just really instrumental to me.

And because I’m friends with them, he doesn’t charge me. I really appreciate him. And thanks for allowing me. I know all of us here in the room and the replay or the podcast really appreciate your time. Michael Ashler and Mike Alden. Next week, we’re looking forward to hearing that you may see there’s a link on the above here.

Give, send, go.com/four Ukraine. The company that I work with and started with my business partners 20 years ago has is located in Nikolai Ukraine. And in the last hour I’ve seen four or five messages saying that we’re the city under attack right now. It is the next city after curse on that that may fall, but I tell you this, they’re putting up a really good fight.

I’ve got her to a lot of stories on the ground, how we’ve captured Russian soldiers and things like that. Now that being said, we can sit and watch it, or we can donate. And we had three donors in the last 45 minutes. That’s great. Really [00:50:00] appreciate that. If you just click on. $10, $20, $30. We have the infrastructure to get the money deployed instantly on the ground.

This company geeks for less has already donated $1 million to the local hospital. A lot of this money or the majority of this money will be used for the hospital in Michela for Ukraine. And we need your help. This is a desperate time. These are desperate people and we are looking at helping them the best way we can and with your help, it does make a difference.

Thank you very much for listening to the show. Any final thoughts, Michael Ostler just prayers go out to everyone in the Ukraine. I ask everyone more important than sales is our fellow human beings that we can support them in any way we can with prayers and with our FA our funds, our money. So thank you for bringing that to everyone’s attention, Colin, and for all that you do.

And thank you everyone for investing your time here in Colin for having me on the that’s great. And we just got another a hundred dollars just came in right now. That’s awesome. Really? Anything you can do check it out. Gibson, [00:51:00] go.com/four Ukraine. Thank you. Perfect bye. For today. Bye-bye.