#141 - Jeb Blount on Fanatical Prospecting, Emotional Discipline & Selling in the Age of AI

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You will fail in sales if you don't prospect.

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In fact, I'll just, you know, the, of the core statements is the number one reason for
failure in sales is an empty pipeline.

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And the number one reason why you have an empty pipeline is that you're not prospecting.

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Period.

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So, um, and everybody knows that everybody gets it.

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Like every business owner, every sales leader, they understand that the pipe is life.

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The pipe is everything.

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Hey, you all welcome back today.

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um I'm pumped about the conversation.

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We just off camera had a little engagement about loving to be able to take practical
applications about things we discuss instead of theory to help us all improve in our

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world.

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So today's guest is a name that comes up anytime you talk about sales mastery, leadership
or performance under pressure.

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Jeb Blount, he's the founder of Sales Gravy, a globally recognized training platform and
the bestselling author of Fanatical Prospecting.

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selling the price increase and people buy you and a shelf full of others that are must
read for any serious entrepreneur team leader.

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Jeb's trained leaders, sales teams at some of the biggest companies in the world,
including Microsoft, NFL, Salesforce, you name it.

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But what makes them stand out is a no nonsense boots on the ground approach to business
growth.

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He doesn't just talk about motivation.

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He gives tools, frameworks and language actually that move the needle.

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This is a conversation about consistency, confidence,

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and the emotional discipline required to crush anything that matters.

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Let's dive in.

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That's pretty good.

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Maybe we can get you to come on the road with me and introduce me into audiences.

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That was pretty good.

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That's like the best introduction ever.

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Um, boy, I tell you what, if the podcast is, if we level up from there, we're going to
really help people.

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No, think, man, really when we looked at everything you've done and what you accomplished
and you being on the road 300 days a year impacting sales teams, you've learned a lot and

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you've learned a lot.

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You've written a lot and you transfer a lot to our brains.

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So that's what I'm so excited about, about what are we doing wrong in sales, but also what
can we do better?

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And, um, just overall what's happening coming out of the pandemic in 2025, you just wrote
this book AI edge.

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That's a best seller in airports now.

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So.

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I think you have your arms traveling 300 days a year impacting sales teams.

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You have your arms around what's going on.

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So Jeb, what's going on in 2025?

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Well, you know, we were talking about this a little bit early in the pre-show.

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It's, know, I think we're making a move or a cycle back to human relationships where I
will say that for a lot of sales organizations over the past, 10 years, we've been data

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driven, analytical driven.

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We've been layering in technology.

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We've put so much technology into selling and you and I were talking about golf.

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It's no different than golf.

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Like there's so much technology in golf.

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that at this point, like we can analyze every part of your swing.

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can tell you everything that you're doing.

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And yet if we look at average golfers who have all this tech available, they're not any
better than they were 20 years ago.

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And the same thing happened in sales.

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We've, we've layered in all this technology and all this process and all these playbooks,
everything that we can.

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And we look at salespeople and we're still struggling with the same things we were 30
years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago.

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And that is the human to human relationships.

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It is.

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what sales is all about.

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And by the way, this transfers to entrepreneurs as well.

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So if you're an entrepreneur and you're building a business, your business is built around
people, whether you're leading those people or you're selling to those people or you're

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servicing those people, we're trying to retain those people.

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It's all about human to human skills.

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So it's been kind of nice to see us get back to the basics and fundamentals of what makes
selling work.

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And you mentioned the book, The AI Edge, which has been this huge blockbuster.

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This year, unexpected, I didn't expect this book to sell at the level that it has.

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In that book, we make the case that selling is all about human-to-human relationships and
AI is really there to take away all the things that keep us from engaging in those human

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relationships.

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I would make the case that in the age of AI, the pendulum is swinging rapidly back.

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to humanity, rapidly back to how are we treating each other, how are we working with each
other?

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We're seeing uh even in sites like Reddit, for example, where the internet is moving to
this platform that's been around 20 years.

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mean, totally old school.

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Like it is the old chat rooms of the past that it's having explosive growth because it's
one of the few places where people can engage in authentic human relationships or

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authentic conversations with other human beings without

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having feeling like they're dealing with an AI.

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by the way, even me, like I took a phone call yesterday and I asked the person, are you a
robot?

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Because I'm not sure anymore who I'm talking to.

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They said, no, I was not a robot.

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So, and I asked it several questions because I've got questions that it'll pull them out.

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And it turned out it wasn't a robot, but it was like, it was working off a really tight
script.

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So I've been hearing the word authentic and showing up authentically and we've been
hearing that for a while these new words coming.

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What do we mean by that?

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Do we really want the truth?

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Do we want the truth?

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Well, let's be clear.

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Let's be clear what authenticity is.

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Like authenticity without regard to your audience is arrogance and nobody wants to deal
with arrogant people.

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So this concept or this belief that like the authentic me shows up in a hoodie and you
know, and with stains all over it.

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And I'm having a conversation with a 60 year old business owner in, you know, in the
Midwest and I'm in San Francisco, but I'm being my authentic self and I'm growing.

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That ain't it.

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Right.

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And

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I've said to more than one sales rep who's talked to me, I'm a CEO of a company I deal
with sales reps, don't bro me till you know me.

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So that's not authenticity, but authenticity is showing up and being open and engaging and
getting off the scripts doesn't mean that in sales, we need to have scripts and we need to

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have talk tracks and we need to be able to, to, to message what we sell in the right way.

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But it means that I can just be a human being.

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I can be honest with you.

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can be transparent with you and I can be open and in my world, like if I'm dealing with
people who aren't willing to reciprocate that, I typically just don't want to work with

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them because I want to, and I've always believed this in sales.

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I can choose the people that I work with and I want to work with people that I like and
that I can get along with.

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So when we talk about authenticity, for example, I talked to a CEO, the Dega, who got an
email from a sales rep.

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And he said, it was awful.

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He said the, the, the grammar was bad.

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The writing was bad.

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He said, it was terrible.

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And he said, I responded because it was the first time that I could tell that a real human
being actually wrote it.

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So, so, know, that was, that was awesome to authenticity.

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And I think again, back in the, in the age of AI where everything can be fake and people
know you're faking it.

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Like they get it.

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Like when they see perfection, your, your human fallacy, your human imperfection, that
authenticity.

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actually sells like people like that they believe in it and then they want to work with
people who come off that way but authenticity isn't showing up and like being your

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authentic self.

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Nobody wants that you can't treat your customer like you treat your frat brothers.

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And none of us like the person with no filter.

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Right.

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Yeah.

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So when you touched on scripts,

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Do they matter way more in the beginning than later in a salesperson's career?

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Probably.

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mean, I think that if you think about scripting and the way that I look at scripting is go
watch a movie.

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If you go watch a movie, the actors are not making it up as they go along.

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There's a script.

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It's practiced.

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It looks authentic.

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It feels authentic.

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It's coming off like them.

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You need to have the same guidelines.

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And of course, when you're starting off in sales and you don't have those talk tracks, a
script can help you.

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I'm a much bigger fan of frameworks versus scripts, which is

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framework is like a set of tracks that help you guide a conversation or guide a
prospecting call or even guide written communication, but allow you to shift that

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communication within the context of the person that you're dealing with in this, the
actual situation.

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But even then, for example, if you get a prospecting objection, it's happening so fast
that if you don't have a memorized talk track for it, you have a tendency to stumble over

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your words.

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it's

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I think on one hand, important that you have scripts or you have frameworks or you have
talk tracks.

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But on the other hand, it's super important.

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This is important for leaders and for salespeople and for marketers that if you're going
to use those types of scripts that you come off sounding authentic, which means that

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you've practiced it.

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In some cases you've maybe even changed the word so that a word that maybe someone else
would say wouldn't be a word that you would say, like it doesn't fit your word pattern.

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So.

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Work with them and change them up until you have a talk tracker or a way of messaging
things that sounds like you.

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And message does matter.

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What you say, how you say it makes a massive difference when you're trying to communicate
something to someone else.

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Is that what sales is communication?

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Sales is, sales is listening.

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So, I mean, you think about selling, selling is not talking at people.

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Like we think sales is communication, sales is conversation and conversation is a two-way
street, sales is relationships, but sales is primarily your ability to listen to people

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and influence their decisions, influence what they're going to choose to do based on what
you heard, not what you say.

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And in fact, I would say that influence is derived from the

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things that other people say to you, not the things that you say to them, if that makes
sense.

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so when we, when we think about talk tracks or scripts, having done this for going on 40
years, really, almost any sales conversation, I know how to ask questions and listen, and

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then take the words that someone gave me, take their story, and then tell their story back
to them in the context of how I can help them, no matter what the product is.

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And that's really what great salespeople do.

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And

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Because they take the time to listen, they earn the right to push back a little bit or to
teach their clients something or to tell their client in a lot of cases, hey, I think this

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is the wrong decision or the wrong track for you.

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But because they've built the relationship and earned that, they have the ability to do
that.

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Young salespeople, new salespeople who walk in and they get sidetracked by things like
Challenger.

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They think that I'm gonna walk in and tell people they're doing it all wrong and suddenly
they're gonna buy from me.

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And those conversations typically don't end very well for young salespeople because they
forgot the fact that emotional intelligence matters, relationships matter, and people are

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not gonna listen to you until you listen to them.

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So good.

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I was talking about the scripts and stuff.

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Some of the best movie lines, because you touched on the movies, the script, but then some
of the best ones were ad lib.

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Some of the best.

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And that's what we're talking about.

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Yeah, I think that the like when you said the scripts matter to people who are new in
sales versus people who have been around for a long time It's a lot easier for me to ad

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lib things I mean even when I'm out with sales teams and I've never sold their product
before because I have So much experience so much business acumen when I'm spending time

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with people it's really easier for me to take information and then put that information
into a framework or to a message that sounds like it's being ad libbed but

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The truth is I've got all these frameworks built that allow me to think, okay, if a person
said this, here's how I'm going to put the information back to them.

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And I'm going to do it in a format that works for them.

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So for example, when I'm talking to a customer and I want, they're like, I'm, maybe I'm
hitting resistance with them.

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I just use a quick little micro story framework, which is I'll tell them a story about
someone else or some, some, another company that work with me, but I'll basically start

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off with their challenge.

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I'll go, you know, working with.

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ABC company and I was talking to Bob over there.

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You have the exact same problem you had.

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And one of the things that he was afraid of is that if he did this, it would cause this
problem to happen inside his company.

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And I, and this is what I hear you telling me.

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And the person would go, yeah.

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And he goes, here's what we did.

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So we did this, this, and this for Bob.

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Then he implemented it this way.

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And then he got this particular outcome.

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Now, not only did that create like a business outcome for him, but it also gave him the
peace of mind that he could go focus on these bigger projects, just like what you're

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trying to get to.

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But the first thing Bob had to do is get past the fear that it wouldn't work.

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And it worked.

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Now I'm just made all that up.

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Like I could, I could ad lib that in almost any situation as long as I knew that I had a
customer and a problem.

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But that framework is tell them, tell the challenge that someone had.

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Yeah.

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Explain how you.

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help them the solution for it and then walk through what actually happened.

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It like, yeah, go ahead.

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But it sounds like in that moment, you're grounded in your purpose, trying to find a
solution to help the customer.

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just trying to get help the customer get past that particular resistance.

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Like all along the way, like you're trying to move someone to change something.

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I don't know you noticed this, but human beings don't like change.

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So you're going to be facing resistance along the way.

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And most of our influence in a sales process is getting people past those little moments
of micro resistance so that they can step into a better future.

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if you don't have a path or a way to get people past those, those

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those areas where they stop or they slow down, then it's hard to sell anything.

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And most buyers don't like say, hello, I want to buy.

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And then they just move through the process themselves.

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You got to move them there.

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There's lots of ways we do that.

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One of the ways is getting people to commit to micro commitments, like move to the next
step, move to the next step, move to the next step, where we begin getting them to invest

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in that future.

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But in some situations, social proof, a micro story about someone else,

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helps someone get past a worry or a doubt or fear that's holding them back.

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But at the same time, I can use that exact same framework.

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If I was offering a solution to you, I, you know, I could say, Hey, Mark, you know, one of
the things you told me was that every day you come in and you're having to worry over all

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of these different invoices from these different vendors.

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00:14:50,550 --> 00:14:56,546
And it's taken a lot of your time and a lot of the time from your, from your people that
you could be spending on other things.

209
00:14:56,546 --> 00:15:08,384
My recommendation is that you consolidate all of this into one vendor who can give you
solid, consistent billing and give you a platform or a dashboard where you can see it all

210
00:15:08,384 --> 00:15:11,096
in one piece.

211
00:15:11,436 --> 00:15:17,881
Based on what you told me, that's probably going to save you at least 20 hours a week in
admin cost.

212
00:15:17,881 --> 00:15:24,775
And it'll give you the peace of mind that you're not going to be getting over billed
because you're only going to have one vendor that you have to worry about and all that's

213
00:15:24,775 --> 00:15:26,200
going to be set in the system.

214
00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:27,331
How's that sound to you?

215
00:15:27,331 --> 00:15:32,516
Now I'm, I made that up as we went, but you know, you think about the problems that
businesses have.

216
00:15:32,516 --> 00:15:34,628
That's one of the biggest problems you're dealing with a bunch of vendors.

217
00:15:34,628 --> 00:15:35,709
got a bunch of invoices.

218
00:15:35,709 --> 00:15:37,321
All the invoices are different.

219
00:15:37,321 --> 00:15:38,242
It's tough.

220
00:15:38,242 --> 00:15:45,489
So I could use the exact same framework challenge, you know, solution outcome.

221
00:15:45,489 --> 00:15:49,673
can use that in that particular situation to build that talk track on.

222
00:15:49,673 --> 00:15:51,414
Now over time.

223
00:15:51,532 --> 00:15:58,004
I would learn in an industry dealing with lots of clients, like here are the core issues
and here's how I say that.

224
00:15:58,004 --> 00:16:00,524
And here's the language that you use to describe it.

225
00:16:00,524 --> 00:16:05,396
And it would, it would allow me to, again, to shift in context, but I've always got a
framework.

226
00:16:05,396 --> 00:16:09,507
So I'm building my message in a way that other people can consume.

227
00:16:09,507 --> 00:16:12,428
But if you'll notice, I told your story back to you.

228
00:16:12,428 --> 00:16:14,708
You told me that this and this and this is happening.

229
00:16:14,708 --> 00:16:21,650
And the greatest story that you can tell another person is a story they just told you
about themselves in the context of how you can help them.

230
00:16:21,678 --> 00:16:22,938
Hmm.

231
00:16:23,398 --> 00:16:25,338
Have over 40 years.

232
00:16:25,338 --> 00:16:27,502
I'm assuming you started as a salesperson.

233
00:16:27,502 --> 00:16:27,983
I started.

234
00:16:27,983 --> 00:16:29,305
Yeah, I started in high school.

235
00:16:29,305 --> 00:16:32,510
I was selling advertising for my yearbook in high school.

236
00:16:33,238 --> 00:16:40,481
If you go back as you're reflecting on building your business and you guys are doing great
things now, is it pretty much the same?

237
00:16:41,484 --> 00:16:49,756
Yeah, I I would say that the difference in sales, if I look now versus go back to...

238
00:16:51,134 --> 00:16:53,274
Yeah, I was 24 years old.

239
00:16:53,274 --> 00:16:57,538
I was selling business services, a three call close.

240
00:16:57,538 --> 00:17:07,942
I would say that probably the thing that's changed more than anything is that cell cycles,
as crazy as it sounds, and this is almost the antithesis of what you hear in the

241
00:17:07,942 --> 00:17:08,866
marketplace,

242
00:17:08,866 --> 00:17:13,529
are what you see on LinkedIn is that sales cycles have really begun to compress.

243
00:17:13,529 --> 00:17:16,952
People are making decisions much faster than they have in the past.

244
00:17:16,952 --> 00:17:20,254
So they're either making fast decisions or making no decision.

245
00:17:20,254 --> 00:17:22,416
Almost no one's making slow decisions.

246
00:17:22,416 --> 00:17:29,000
So we're seeing that, for example, what a four call close in the past might be a two call
close now.

247
00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:37,486
The biggest thing that's changed since I was in my mid 20s was it's just the technology,
the access to data.

248
00:17:37,708 --> 00:17:48,697
You know, we use a tool called zoom info and, I mean, I, like, can literally go in, type
your name in and find out everything about you in about two seconds and whether or not

249
00:17:48,697 --> 00:17:53,261
you're on the internet looking for something like mine, you know, product like mine is
it's crazy.

250
00:17:53,261 --> 00:18:03,869
So that, and the, you know, modern CRMs and, um, the ability to communicate with people at
every level all the time.

251
00:18:03,869 --> 00:18:06,622
I when I was 24 years old, this dates me a little bit.

252
00:18:06,622 --> 00:18:06,926
mean,

253
00:18:06,926 --> 00:18:08,886
I had a bag phone.

254
00:18:08,886 --> 00:18:12,446
It was like $25 a minute or something crazy like that.

255
00:18:12,446 --> 00:18:15,026
So I only use it for like closing deals.

256
00:18:15,026 --> 00:18:18,526
knew I was going to close and I carried that around with me, but that was about it.

257
00:18:18,526 --> 00:18:19,826
And you didn't have a cell phone.

258
00:18:19,826 --> 00:18:20,946
You didn't have video.

259
00:18:20,946 --> 00:18:22,306
You didn't have any of that.

260
00:18:22,306 --> 00:18:28,606
So I think that today it's far easier for salespeople to sell than ever before.

261
00:18:28,606 --> 00:18:30,786
And everybody will tell you that it's far harder.

262
00:18:30,786 --> 00:18:33,987
Like everybody will say, sales is harder than it's ever been before.

263
00:18:33,987 --> 00:18:38,028
That's essentially us pandering to salespeople so we can sell salespeople more stuff.

264
00:18:38,028 --> 00:18:41,629
But it's easier because you have more access to people.

265
00:18:42,269 --> 00:18:51,252
If there's one thing that maybe have changed is that I think people have learned how to
put up walls to salespeople in ways that they didn't in the past.

266
00:18:51,252 --> 00:19:00,934
But I've got a client of mine, the big, huge, massive, well-known brand name company that
sells equipment out in

267
00:19:01,070 --> 00:19:07,070
Well, all over the country and I've been out with their reps knocking on doors like what
we're walking into businesses.

268
00:19:07,070 --> 00:19:09,050
These are entrepreneurial businesses.

269
00:19:09,050 --> 00:19:10,090
Some of them are really large.

270
00:19:10,090 --> 00:19:14,950
Some of them are small and we've been walking in doors and people have welcomed us in.

271
00:19:14,950 --> 00:19:16,150
I haven't gotten kicked out of one.

272
00:19:16,150 --> 00:19:25,650
Like, mean, literally making genuine knock on the door, cold call, interrupting people's
day, walking in the back door, walking in the front door, walking in the side door,

273
00:19:25,650 --> 00:19:30,350
hitting gatekeepers who, well, hey, they'll hold the phone up and here's the boss's phone
number.

274
00:19:30,350 --> 00:19:37,490
selling stuff to them, walked into one, sold a $300,000 deal two weeks later when we
walked into, it was crazy.

275
00:19:37,510 --> 00:19:38,710
They're welcoming you.

276
00:19:38,710 --> 00:19:40,730
They're like, they're so hungry for human beings.

277
00:19:40,730 --> 00:19:48,470
They're so hungry to get off email that in-person prospecting for field sales reps is back
in a really big way.

278
00:19:48,470 --> 00:19:58,744
And I would tell you that that has changed from 30 years ago, 40 years ago, go back to the
mid 90s, that back then, like you walk in someone's door,

279
00:19:58,744 --> 00:19:59,795
They were running from you.

280
00:19:59,795 --> 00:20:03,757
They would shut you down in a heartbeat because all the salespeople were doing that.

281
00:20:03,757 --> 00:20:05,828
Nobody knocks on doors anymore.

282
00:20:05,828 --> 00:20:08,059
So they're hungry to see you.

283
00:20:08,100 --> 00:20:10,621
That cycle will continue to change.

284
00:20:10,661 --> 00:20:12,853
If AI, this is my prediction.

285
00:20:12,853 --> 00:20:23,669
If AI begins to make prospecting calls at a mass scale level, the telephone as a
prospecting tool will die very quickly.

286
00:20:23,669 --> 00:20:25,250
And the only

287
00:20:25,272 --> 00:20:30,144
channel for salespeople essentially will be to go out in the field and go see people.

288
00:20:30,464 --> 00:20:31,255
don't see any other way.

289
00:20:31,255 --> 00:20:33,284
Email is essentially dead at this point.

290
00:20:33,284 --> 00:20:34,816
Executives aren't looking at email.

291
00:20:34,816 --> 00:20:41,468
You know, you get about a million of these stupid AI generated messages a day and you've
just gotten to the point where you delete them.

292
00:20:41,468 --> 00:20:45,561
And now if you know a robot wrote it, you delete it and block it so they can never email
you again.

293
00:20:45,561 --> 00:20:48,892
That's a big issue these days for salespeople.

294
00:20:48,892 --> 00:20:51,713
That doesn't mean that that is a channel has gone away.

295
00:20:51,713 --> 00:20:53,474
It's just highly ineffective.

296
00:20:53,474 --> 00:21:01,998
The telephone is still very, very effective, but robots can dial at a level that human
beings will never be able to.

297
00:21:02,139 --> 00:21:14,546
if these tech entrepreneurs go down that road, which they really haven't done it at scale
at this moment, but if they go down that road, they will, they will destroy the telephone

298
00:21:14,546 --> 00:21:16,287
as a communication channel.

299
00:21:16,287 --> 00:21:20,229
No one will answer the phone because, because, and this is the truth about humans.

300
00:21:20,229 --> 00:21:22,158
Nobody likes talking to a robot.

301
00:21:22,158 --> 00:21:26,238
We don't want to be duped.

302
00:21:26,238 --> 00:21:27,498
We don't want to be manipulated.

303
00:21:27,498 --> 00:21:34,406
We don't want to have a conversation with a robot unless that robot is the robot that
works for the hotel and you're looking for where the gym is.

304
00:21:34,680 --> 00:21:36,892
So what's been the unlock is your training folks.

305
00:21:36,892 --> 00:21:47,432
I'm assuming that the face-to-face cold call slash cold knock, there's probably a lot of
pushback to salespeople trying to wrap their head around, hey, this is the best in the

306
00:21:47,432 --> 00:21:48,163
right way.

307
00:21:48,163 --> 00:21:52,214
If not, tell me I'm wrong, but I'm assuming, am I correcting that assumption or not?

308
00:21:52,214 --> 00:22:06,238
Yeah, not long ago, say not long ago, this past fall, took a group of executives on a trip
to one of their locations because they were concerned that the pipelines were thin.

309
00:22:06,558 --> 00:22:17,051
And this is a business where going out in the field and doing knocks really is more
powerful than a telephone just because of the type of people they're selling to.

310
00:22:17,051 --> 00:22:19,781
So this is like blue collar world.

311
00:22:19,781 --> 00:22:22,156
They're selling to people that are on jobs that are

312
00:22:22,156 --> 00:22:25,648
building things that are hauling things, type of thing.

313
00:22:25,668 --> 00:22:28,149
So they were like, what do we do?

314
00:22:28,149 --> 00:22:30,778
And they were looking for all of this technological stuff.

315
00:22:30,778 --> 00:22:33,072
So I said, come with me, let's go.

316
00:22:33,072 --> 00:22:33,882
We took them out.

317
00:22:33,882 --> 00:22:36,184
We got the sales team together and we just did a blitz.

318
00:22:36,184 --> 00:22:38,415
Like we just got a list of businesses.

319
00:22:38,415 --> 00:22:39,766
Each group took a list.

320
00:22:39,766 --> 00:22:43,177
We took one of the executives out and they hopped in the cars and they all went out.

321
00:22:43,177 --> 00:22:47,380
And we got back, the CEO of the company looked at me and said, I'm absolutely stunned.

322
00:22:47,380 --> 00:22:49,861
I've never seen anything like that my life because it was incredible.

323
00:22:49,861 --> 00:22:51,746
We talked to so many people today.

324
00:22:51,746 --> 00:22:54,888
We've had these conversations, we walked in, we've got proposals.

325
00:22:54,888 --> 00:22:56,749
Why aren't we doing more of this?

326
00:22:57,190 --> 00:23:02,975
And I said, that's exactly what I've been trying to tell you is that the more people you
talk with, the more you're going to sell.

327
00:23:02,975 --> 00:23:05,537
The problem is your salespeople aren't talking with people.

328
00:23:05,537 --> 00:23:08,159
They're sitting around waiting for people to talk with them.

329
00:23:08,159 --> 00:23:12,021
So that's been a major game changer for that organization.

330
00:23:12,021 --> 00:23:18,350
And it led to us building out an entire training program specifically geared toward.

331
00:23:18,350 --> 00:23:22,810
this particular type of business, which I eventually is going to become a book probably in
the next year.

332
00:23:22,810 --> 00:23:32,670
So I'm going to write a book about this, that that in these type of businesses,
salespeople have got to be systematic about being in the field and having conversations

333
00:23:32,670 --> 00:23:33,690
with people.

334
00:23:33,690 --> 00:23:35,950
It's hard for the salespeople because they'd rather not do it.

335
00:23:35,950 --> 00:23:45,170
And it's hard for the executives because they can't wrap their arms around that a
salesperson could just go walk in and have a conversation with a decision maker in a

336
00:23:45,170 --> 00:23:47,074
business, which you can all day long.

337
00:23:47,074 --> 00:23:57,759
Now you're not going to walk into, I don't know, ADP, for example, or IBM or some big,
huge company and walk into the C-suite.

338
00:23:57,759 --> 00:23:58,689
That's not going to happen.

339
00:23:58,689 --> 00:24:00,060
That's not what we're talking about.

340
00:24:00,060 --> 00:24:10,064
Um, you know, we're talking about businesses that are 50 million, a hundred million, a
billion dollars that have locations all over the United States where you can walk in, you

341
00:24:10,064 --> 00:24:13,846
can knock on a door, you can talk to the gatekeeper, you can get information.

342
00:24:13,846 --> 00:24:15,378
They will see you.

343
00:24:15,378 --> 00:24:17,240
Uh, you just have to go out there and do it.

344
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:17,530
Now.

345
00:24:17,530 --> 00:24:25,938
I don't know that, that, you know, door knocking is going to be the only thing I, my
prediction is if AI takes over the telephone, it's going to be the only thing.

346
00:24:25,938 --> 00:24:28,659
Like it's going to be the only place where you can have an authentic conversation.

347
00:24:28,659 --> 00:24:31,692
It, and it will be a massive shift for business.

348
00:24:31,692 --> 00:24:33,393
If that goes down, I hope it doesn't.

349
00:24:33,393 --> 00:24:35,115
I don't want that to happen.

350
00:24:35,115 --> 00:24:44,032
But, um, but what I'm saying is that if we think about prospecting as we're just
interrupting someone.

351
00:24:44,142 --> 00:24:48,582
with the intention to engage in a meaningful conversation about how we can help them.

352
00:24:48,582 --> 00:24:50,942
that's just what the point is.

353
00:24:50,942 --> 00:24:59,382
Then why not go knock on a door and interrupt somebody and ask them a few questions to see
whether or not it's worth having a conversation.

354
00:24:59,382 --> 00:25:02,922
And if not, ask them when it's going to be worth having a conversation.

355
00:25:02,922 --> 00:25:04,998
And I just think that...

356
00:25:05,056 --> 00:25:10,982
Right now, if you're an entrepreneur and you're running a business and you're not getting
out in the field with your people and you've got salespeople or if you're salespeople and

357
00:25:10,982 --> 00:25:13,544
you're a field sales rep, I'm not talking about an inside sales rep.

358
00:25:13,544 --> 00:25:16,397
There are inside sales reps who do not have the ability to do this.

359
00:25:16,397 --> 00:25:17,958
That's a different animal.

360
00:25:18,038 --> 00:25:23,443
But if you do, just make a list and go out and just call on people.

361
00:25:23,443 --> 00:25:26,706
You will be stunned at the reception that you get.

362
00:25:27,008 --> 00:25:30,568
It sounds like you had success as that as a salesperson.

363
00:25:30,826 --> 00:25:46,430
I to a point, but I learned back in the 90s and the early 2000s when I was just
outselling, I learned early on that the phone, because the phone really worked well back

364
00:25:46,430 --> 00:25:52,752
then, was actually a better way for me to schedule appointments in my territory.

365
00:25:52,752 --> 00:25:56,413
For example, I worked a large territory.

366
00:25:56,413 --> 00:25:59,474
had 5,000 businesses in my territory that I could sell to.

367
00:26:01,326 --> 00:26:05,128
Prospecting by foot is necessarily inefficient, right?

368
00:26:05,128 --> 00:26:08,450
So you're getting in a car, you're going out and calling on people.

369
00:26:08,450 --> 00:26:11,926
There's drive time, there's getting out, there's getting back in.

370
00:26:11,926 --> 00:26:19,536
uh will make far fewer calls if you're in the field than if you're on the phone.

371
00:26:19,536 --> 00:26:24,809
So what I learned early on was that the telephone for me at the time was really powerful.

372
00:26:24,809 --> 00:26:26,860
Almost everybody was out knocking on doors.

373
00:26:26,860 --> 00:26:30,732
I could just pick up the phone, call people, set an appointment, and then go there.

374
00:26:30,732 --> 00:26:37,834
So the way that I worked my world back then was I came in in the morning, I would get on
the phone, I'd make anywhere from 30 to 50 outbound dials.

375
00:26:37,834 --> 00:26:40,345
I would always focus on setting two appointments.

376
00:26:40,345 --> 00:26:49,367
Once I got two appointments set, then I would map out myself in the field around those
appointments, who I was going to call on, which doors I was going to knock around that

377
00:26:49,367 --> 00:26:49,557
field.

378
00:26:49,557 --> 00:26:51,208
So I actually planned that in advance.

379
00:26:51,208 --> 00:26:58,529
So typically if I had two appointments during the day, I can make 10 call calls, knocks,
door knocks or door drops.

380
00:26:58,529 --> 00:27:00,642
I could do that around each of those calls.

381
00:27:00,642 --> 00:27:08,522
like 20 or so cold calls knocks during the day and I'd make say 50 outbound calls during
the, you know, during the morning.

382
00:27:08,522 --> 00:27:10,642
So I was getting a lot of prospecting done.

383
00:27:10,642 --> 00:27:20,308
I mean, I sold more than anybody else in my company's hundred year history, multiple times
in a row, and I got the trophies to prove it, but it was really just about being

384
00:27:20,308 --> 00:27:21,058
efficient, right?

385
00:27:21,058 --> 00:27:29,936
So the phone's more efficient than knocking on doors, but once you're in the field,
driving out to an appointment and driving back is super inefficient.

386
00:27:29,936 --> 00:27:30,592
So.

387
00:27:30,592 --> 00:27:37,104
If you're going out in the field, then you can grid out a territory and map out the calls
that you're going to make around that set appointment.

388
00:27:37,104 --> 00:27:41,265
Then you know someone's going to meet with you, which gives you the opportunity to advance
the deal.

389
00:27:41,265 --> 00:27:45,276
And then around that, you're going to go out and walk indoors and those are going to be
your future appointments.

390
00:27:45,276 --> 00:27:48,287
So it was just a matter of just working a system.

391
00:27:48,287 --> 00:27:50,764
Um, that system still works today.

392
00:27:50,764 --> 00:28:00,332
I, the one that I recommend to everybody, if for the most part, start with a phone block
in the morning, set your appointments, get out in the field, call around those.

393
00:28:00,332 --> 00:28:06,536
And if you're an inside salesperson, you know, primarily, then all you're going to have is
the phone and email and direct messaging.

394
00:28:06,536 --> 00:28:12,610
And I've got a brand new book coming out this fall called the LinkedIn edge, which is
super crazy powerful.

395
00:28:12,610 --> 00:28:14,812
I think this book's going to be a blockbuster.

396
00:28:14,812 --> 00:28:24,528
And so for the inside sales rep, that's going to make a big difference in terms of how you
can, you can, in a way you can simulate a door knock, but you're going to do it in a

397
00:28:24,528 --> 00:28:27,580
digital platform versus on the street.

398
00:28:27,641 --> 00:28:29,402
But that still works today.

399
00:28:29,402 --> 00:28:29,902
Again.

400
00:28:29,902 --> 00:28:38,062
You know, the, the, the roll on the dice right now does AI like the company started
adopting AI as their, as their phone call.

401
00:28:38,062 --> 00:28:44,622
Like AI is going to do the prospecting and I'm going to the AI call you up and then work
through a call with you.

402
00:28:45,182 --> 00:28:51,442
it, I, again, I, I'm not seeing evidence that that's happening, but I am a little
concerned.

403
00:28:51,562 --> 00:28:56,882
So, but if it happens in mass phone will be dead.

404
00:28:56,882 --> 00:28:58,958
It will be dead as a door now.

405
00:28:58,958 --> 00:29:02,979
Nobody's going to answer the phone because nobody wants to talk to a robot.

406
00:29:02,979 --> 00:29:04,510
It may cycle in cycle out.

407
00:29:04,510 --> 00:29:13,902
It's like if the marketplace says we're not willing to take AI phone calls for prospecting
and nobody takes them, those companies, the companies will die a death, a deep death.

408
00:29:13,902 --> 00:29:18,143
And maybe you'll see a cycle a year from now or two years from now where we'll come back.

409
00:29:18,143 --> 00:29:21,224
It's beginning to happen to some extent with email.

410
00:29:21,224 --> 00:29:27,046
these, these email AI bot farms are beginning to lay off just a little bit.

411
00:29:27,046 --> 00:29:28,630
So it's getting, you know, it's

412
00:29:28,630 --> 00:29:33,038
just a handful of guys that are picking this stuff up on Instagram and their stupid
emails.

413
00:29:33,038 --> 00:29:40,210
But I think it's going to be a two or three year cycle before people are willing to trust
email again.

414
00:29:40,414 --> 00:29:44,290
The AI edge, you know, we'll continue to hit that a little bit.

415
00:29:44,290 --> 00:29:46,423
Maybe people the next time they're in the airport, they pick it up.

416
00:29:46,423 --> 00:29:54,014
But do you think that significantly helps the company as a whole more for them to embrace
AI or the individual salesperson?

417
00:29:54,240 --> 00:30:00,393
Um, I think that everybody needs to, to understand AI.

418
00:30:00,393 --> 00:30:08,936
think for companies like mine, for example, we had a, a team meeting in Asheville, North
Carolina, just took everybody off for a four day weekend.

419
00:30:08,936 --> 00:30:16,779
We spent an afternoon, um, just brainstorming how we're using AI, how everybody's using AI
because everybody's doing it differently.

420
00:30:16,779 --> 00:30:23,224
I think organically inside of organizations, big organizations, the big push for people
is.

421
00:30:23,224 --> 00:30:26,305
to get people to start using it in some meaningful way.

422
00:30:26,305 --> 00:30:31,436
Like for example, we have uh Gemini, we've bought Gemini for all of our people here.

423
00:30:31,436 --> 00:30:32,757
So everybody has access to it.

424
00:30:32,757 --> 00:30:44,180
My studio team has access to a whole uh suite of AI tools because we build so much
training videos and we do podcasts and a lot of other multimedia, rich media.

425
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:49,832
So they're using a lot more and I'm giving them CartBlock, just go experiment, find out
what's gonna work for us.

426
00:30:49,832 --> 00:30:51,426
Some of it's super expensive.

427
00:30:51,426 --> 00:30:53,767
But let's figure out what we can use it for.

428
00:30:54,306 --> 00:30:56,318
I think everybody needs to do that.

429
00:30:56,318 --> 00:31:02,611
And I think salespeople in particular, you need to start learning how you can use AI in
specific ways to help you.

430
00:31:02,611 --> 00:31:12,725
Like for example, one really easy way is you use, you have a meeting like this, say a
video meeting, and you use AI to build your meeting summary that you can send to your

431
00:31:12,725 --> 00:31:13,736
client afterwards.

432
00:31:13,736 --> 00:31:20,118
The client knows it's coming from AI, but they really appreciate that because it gives
everybody a summary about what happened.

433
00:31:20,118 --> 00:31:26,732
Now the downside of that is if you don't learn how to use it, like if you do a set it and
forget it, then you'll end up with a whole lot of things in there that don't really

434
00:31:26,732 --> 00:31:27,090
matter.

435
00:31:27,090 --> 00:31:31,385
So you have to go back and read your notes and before you send them.

436
00:31:31,385 --> 00:31:33,766
And there's tools like Fathom, which we use.

437
00:31:33,766 --> 00:31:36,468
There's like Zoom has one, Google's got one.

438
00:31:36,468 --> 00:31:37,388
There's a million Otter.

439
00:31:37,388 --> 00:31:39,950
There's a bunch of them out there that you can use.

440
00:31:39,950 --> 00:31:41,551
But let's say field sales reps.

441
00:31:41,551 --> 00:31:45,113
Well, field sales reps, I use a little tool called Applaud.

442
00:31:45,113 --> 00:31:47,284
This is like, it looks like a business card.

443
00:31:47,638 --> 00:31:48,759
And you just push play.

444
00:31:48,759 --> 00:31:54,062
just tell my client, like, I'm going to record this meeting and then I'll send you a recap
of the meeting afterwards.

445
00:31:54,062 --> 00:31:56,793
I've never had anybody say, no, I don't want to, I don't want you to do that.

446
00:31:56,793 --> 00:31:59,885
Some might, but everybody's pretty cool with you recording it.

447
00:31:59,885 --> 00:32:01,766
I just put that back on my phone.

448
00:32:01,766 --> 00:32:06,719
By the time I get to my next stop, it's already created a summary for me, but I've got to
read it.

449
00:32:06,719 --> 00:32:10,851
So it sells people have to learn is that AI can do that work for you, which is really
amazing.

450
00:32:10,851 --> 00:32:16,846
And by the way, you can drop that summary right into your, into your CRM cool stuff, but

451
00:32:16,846 --> 00:32:17,946
You still have to be human.

452
00:32:17,946 --> 00:32:18,966
Like you still have to read it.

453
00:32:18,966 --> 00:32:22,186
Like you just can't like copy paste and send it to people.

454
00:32:22,186 --> 00:32:31,446
That's a big issue for organizations overall, especially organizations that are like
working with AGNIC AI and they're looking at AI agents.

455
00:32:31,446 --> 00:32:33,406
Salespeople are going to have no part in that.

456
00:32:33,406 --> 00:32:43,926
Like unless you're building your own AI agent and that's like, you know, 0.1 % of
salespeople who have the capacity to go in and say, build their own GPTs for things.

457
00:32:44,152 --> 00:32:50,466
For the most part, you're going to be at the mercy of your company building out those
agents that are going to work inside your CRM.

458
00:32:50,466 --> 00:33:00,711
Long-term for most salespeople, the CRM is going to become the center of the universe and
it is going to be an AI dominated platform where it's going to do a lot of work for you.

459
00:33:00,891 --> 00:33:02,752
You just have to learn how to embrace it.

460
00:33:02,752 --> 00:33:13,376
And probably the biggest issue for sales teams from the beginning of time is that when new
technology is released, a subset of the sales team embraces it, owns it, uses it.

461
00:33:13,376 --> 00:33:15,207
advances themselves with it.

462
00:33:15,207 --> 00:33:17,928
A subset of the sales team says, I can't do this.

463
00:33:17,928 --> 00:33:19,029
I'm not going to do this.

464
00:33:19,029 --> 00:33:20,870
Eventually they get left behind.

465
00:33:20,870 --> 00:33:24,771
And then the middle part sort of they use it and fits and starts.

466
00:33:24,771 --> 00:33:34,476
So I would say to salespeople everywhere, when, your company starts layering an AI, you
got to dive into it, use it, experiment it, put your common sense, your emotional

467
00:33:34,476 --> 00:33:39,714
intelligence to play, think about how you're dealing with people and learn how to put
those things in place.

468
00:33:39,714 --> 00:33:49,038
so that it can take away the burden of things that in the past would have taken you hours
and hours to do and allow you to do more work with other people.

469
00:33:49,038 --> 00:33:52,379
like meeting summaries, I never did meeting summaries.

470
00:33:52,379 --> 00:33:55,030
I didn't have the three hours to sit down and put the thing together.

471
00:33:55,030 --> 00:33:58,562
And most people didn't do meeting summaries and we would talk about it, but we didn't do
it.

472
00:33:58,562 --> 00:34:02,504
Now we do one every single time because AI makes it possible.

473
00:34:02,504 --> 00:34:04,745
So what can AI make possible?

474
00:34:04,745 --> 00:34:08,458
So I think you've got both of those things going on, but I would tell you that

475
00:34:08,458 --> 00:34:20,601
Every single person needs to go out and experiment with AI because there's a uh truth that
people don't want to say out loud, although they were talking about it.

476
00:34:20,601 --> 00:34:24,022
And that is that there's a lot of jobs are going to go away.

477
00:34:24,022 --> 00:34:29,984
I don't think a lot of sales jobs are going to go away in particular, but a lot of jobs
are going to go away.

478
00:34:30,264 --> 00:34:37,036
And the people who are going to keep their jobs are the people who become conductors.

479
00:34:37,110 --> 00:34:39,591
These are individuals that are smart.

480
00:34:39,591 --> 00:34:43,252
They understand how to leverage AI around them.

481
00:34:43,252 --> 00:34:44,952
they're like a conductor in a symphony.

482
00:34:44,952 --> 00:34:46,913
They've got all these AIs around them.

483
00:34:46,913 --> 00:34:51,804
They're doing work for them and they're not using AI to replace themselves.

484
00:34:51,804 --> 00:34:53,575
They're using their human intuition.

485
00:34:53,575 --> 00:34:55,295
They're using their ability.

486
00:34:55,295 --> 00:34:57,556
They're using their pattern recognition.

487
00:34:57,556 --> 00:35:02,477
They're using that to pull these together so that they can explode their productivity.

488
00:35:02,477 --> 00:35:06,028
And even with my company, Julie's over here, my producer.

489
00:35:06,298 --> 00:35:07,239
There he is right there.

490
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:08,600
thought you'd left me.

491
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:10,621
AI is running the podcast.

492
00:35:10,621 --> 00:35:13,102
But he's heard me say this before.

493
00:35:13,162 --> 00:35:17,444
As an organization, so we're an organization of 30 something people.

494
00:35:18,165 --> 00:35:24,829
As an organization, we can operate like a company that has a hundred people without adding
a single person.

495
00:35:24,829 --> 00:35:34,574
If everyone on the team starts embracing AI to make them move faster and Ulysses who is my
podcast producer, but also he runs our

496
00:35:34,574 --> 00:35:37,195
uh e-learning and digital learning group.

497
00:35:37,195 --> 00:35:39,596
He's our operations leader for that.

498
00:35:39,677 --> 00:35:42,848
He uses AI consistently to do things that we could never do before.

499
00:35:42,848 --> 00:35:49,402
The things that would take us two weeks to get done, he's able to do in two seconds with
AI.

500
00:35:49,402 --> 00:35:56,706
So his ability to take AI and make himself way more productive is massive.

501
00:35:56,706 --> 00:36:04,670
And I think every person who's in business needs to figure that out because if you don't,

502
00:36:04,874 --> 00:36:06,396
You will get replaced by AI.

503
00:36:06,396 --> 00:36:09,499
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you will not be working.

504
00:36:09,499 --> 00:36:13,504
You will be, I don't know what you're going be doing, but you're not going to be doing
what you were doing before.

505
00:36:13,504 --> 00:36:19,138
If you don't learn how to use AI to both enhance yourself and explode your productivity.

506
00:36:19,138 --> 00:36:20,599
Hey, thanks for tuning in.

507
00:36:20,660 --> 00:36:28,449
If you like these types of conversations, be sure to follow the necessary entrepreneur on
your favorite platform so you never miss out on future content.

508
00:36:28,449 --> 00:36:30,431
There's not going to be less business to be done.

509
00:36:30,431 --> 00:36:32,812
There's just going to be fewer people doing all the business, right?

510
00:36:32,812 --> 00:36:35,175
And the people that are going be doing are the smartest people out there.

511
00:36:35,175 --> 00:36:42,034
So the apex predators are going to be the ones that are, that are running things because
they're smart enough to use their intuition.

512
00:36:42,034 --> 00:36:45,318
And let me give you an example of this market is a, a,

513
00:36:45,870 --> 00:36:46,751
Yeah, because I'd like to go here.

514
00:36:46,751 --> 00:36:51,094
want to go here to talk about, let's say someone's listening to this and they don't have
the confidence that they're not apex yet.

515
00:36:51,094 --> 00:36:53,146
So how do we take them from there to be apex?

516
00:36:53,146 --> 00:36:55,458
And then also you touched on emotional intelligence.

517
00:36:55,458 --> 00:37:00,430
And so without being condescending, how do we have this conversation around emotional
intelligence and what it is?

518
00:37:00,430 --> 00:37:08,170
Let me, I want to give you just a transparent, like from my heart example of what I'm
talking about.

519
00:37:09,390 --> 00:37:12,150
Let's just flip back to last year.

520
00:37:12,150 --> 00:37:16,330
So last year, it was like April, May.

521
00:37:17,070 --> 00:37:21,110
And I'm not talking about like I needed to be putting a mental institution, but I got
depressed.

522
00:37:21,110 --> 00:37:25,602
Like I was just down and I was feeling down because of AI.

523
00:37:25,602 --> 00:37:28,343
I mean, I'm looking around me I'm like, these AI can do anything.

524
00:37:28,343 --> 00:37:32,184
I'm, I'm, you know, I, it's stunning the things that they can accomplish.

525
00:37:32,265 --> 00:37:41,579
And I'm an author and although I'm a keynote speaker and a trainer and I'm a sales guru
and I'm a consultant and I love doing all that, all those things in my heart, I'm an

526
00:37:41,579 --> 00:37:42,019
author.

527
00:37:42,019 --> 00:37:43,189
I love writing.

528
00:37:43,189 --> 00:37:51,853
Um, and I was writing this morning, I'm working on a book and you know, I had to like pull
myself out of that hole to come to do this podcast because I like it so much.

529
00:37:51,853 --> 00:37:52,597
can enjoy it.

530
00:37:52,597 --> 00:37:54,024
gives me joy in my life.

531
00:37:54,024 --> 00:37:54,624
could.

532
00:37:54,624 --> 00:37:56,225
Every day I woke up, was writing a book.

533
00:37:56,225 --> 00:37:57,416
I'd be happy.

534
00:37:57,457 --> 00:37:59,959
And I'm looking around and thinking, I'm just going to be replaced.

535
00:37:59,959 --> 00:38:02,660
mean, anybody can sit in their garage and just write a book.

536
00:38:02,660 --> 00:38:07,585
mean, you know, like all my stuff's AI scrapes everything that I've ever written, ever
done.

537
00:38:07,585 --> 00:38:08,646
It's all there.

538
00:38:08,646 --> 00:38:11,168
So I'm just going to be replaced.

539
00:38:11,168 --> 00:38:14,270
Why would I even write a book anymore if people can do this?

540
00:38:14,551 --> 00:38:19,575
Flip forward a year and more books coming out.

541
00:38:20,314 --> 00:38:23,278
I had this epiphany back in

542
00:38:23,444 --> 00:38:28,374
March of this year, so a year later that no one can do what I do.

543
00:38:28,374 --> 00:38:29,717
Like it's not possible.

544
00:38:29,717 --> 00:38:31,267
Like AI can do this.

545
00:38:31,267 --> 00:38:37,620
You can go and write a book with AI, but you can't write my book because I've got 40 years
of experience.

546
00:38:37,620 --> 00:38:41,491
Like you said earlier in the pre-show, I travel all over the place.

547
00:38:41,491 --> 00:38:43,062
I see things, I get patterns.

548
00:38:43,062 --> 00:38:45,023
I'm aware of what's happening in the world.

549
00:38:45,023 --> 00:38:50,565
I've got my finger on the pulse of what's happening today and what's happening in the
future.

550
00:38:50,765 --> 00:38:53,132
And I've got a unique perspective.

551
00:38:53,132 --> 00:38:54,943
And do I use AI to help me write?

552
00:38:54,943 --> 00:38:55,324
Yeah.

553
00:38:55,324 --> 00:38:59,317
I mean, I'm working with AI to help me get past writer's blocks, to do research.

554
00:38:59,317 --> 00:39:03,742
Like I use deep research to help me like dive into a subject matter.

555
00:39:03,742 --> 00:39:11,135
I would do the same thing before, but I would do it on Google and I would spend hours and
hours and hours, you know, getting research papers and pulling them together.

556
00:39:11,135 --> 00:39:13,009
And now I can do it on AI.

557
00:39:13,009 --> 00:39:19,061
have to check my sources, but it's allowed me to speed up, but it's not taking my place.

558
00:39:19,061 --> 00:39:20,642
I'm using

559
00:39:20,768 --> 00:39:26,830
my intelligence, I'm using my intuition, I'm using my experience to conduct.

560
00:39:26,830 --> 00:39:32,481
I'm telling the AIs what I want them to do from a perspective that other people can't.

561
00:39:32,481 --> 00:39:35,312
And that was the moment that I started walking on cloud nine.

562
00:39:35,312 --> 00:39:39,223
like, I'm in a unique position because I've got things that other people don't have.

563
00:39:39,223 --> 00:39:40,944
I've got all this experience.

564
00:39:40,944 --> 00:39:48,362
So if you are in, you in, in your, in your role in your job and you've got all the
experience like

565
00:39:48,362 --> 00:39:50,263
you can tell the AI what you want.

566
00:39:50,263 --> 00:39:54,547
You have the ability to think in a way that it can't think.

567
00:39:54,547 --> 00:39:55,888
It can just do.

568
00:39:55,888 --> 00:40:00,602
So that's what I mean by becoming the apex predator.

569
00:40:00,602 --> 00:40:05,036
The apex predator is the one that's saying, okay, I have all these tools.

570
00:40:05,036 --> 00:40:11,221
How am I going to use them and use my unique perspective to get them to produce what I
want it to produce?

571
00:40:11,221 --> 00:40:12,602
I have to tell them that.

572
00:40:12,602 --> 00:40:13,643
But what if you're brand new?

573
00:40:13,643 --> 00:40:15,224
Like what if you just got out of college?

574
00:40:15,224 --> 00:40:15,473
Right?

575
00:40:15,473 --> 00:40:17,998
What if you don't have those perspectives?

576
00:40:17,998 --> 00:40:25,905
Well, in that case, you've got to think about what is the job that I'm being asked to do
and how am I going to be able to use AI to get there?

577
00:40:25,905 --> 00:40:36,935
And I would say the most endangered species in our business world is the college graduate,
like the person who's getting out of school right now, because all of the stuff that they

578
00:40:36,935 --> 00:40:41,579
used, we used to do that was like grunt work, like we'd hire an intern and go do this
grunt work.

579
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:43,921
AI does it way better than they do.

580
00:40:44,058 --> 00:40:44,618
So.

581
00:40:44,618 --> 00:40:50,743
You're going to have to figure out how to get in some place and get that experience, but
you're going to have to learn how to be a conductor.

582
00:40:50,743 --> 00:40:57,810
You're going to have to learn how to bring your unique perspective and to think
differently and to learn business acumen.

583
00:40:57,810 --> 00:41:04,125
And the biggest worry there is if you spend all your time letting AI do all your thinking,
then you're never going to learn how to think.

584
00:41:04,125 --> 00:41:05,896
So you have to learn how to think.

585
00:41:05,896 --> 00:41:08,399
But, but that's what I mean.

586
00:41:08,399 --> 00:41:12,812
Like this is, I think that I'm probably not unique in thinking.

587
00:41:13,292 --> 00:41:16,154
my, you know, my goodness, what do people need me for anymore?

588
00:41:16,154 --> 00:41:17,805
If AI can do all this work.

589
00:41:17,805 --> 00:41:21,728
And it's a really horrible hollow feeling when you get there.

590
00:41:21,908 --> 00:41:30,954
But once you realize that I'm the conductor, I'm the person who is driving the entire
ecosystem around me.

591
00:41:30,995 --> 00:41:41,721
And as I continue to read about and embrace and learn about these different AI agents and
different AI tools, as long as I've got that unique perspective,

592
00:41:43,844 --> 00:41:45,782
I'm more powerful than I ever was before.

593
00:41:45,782 --> 00:41:51,292
I can produce more than I ever did before and I can do it and I can do it and I can be
better at

594
00:41:51,918 --> 00:41:59,820
Do you hear as you're out on the circuit and I'm sure you have accounts where you go back
to the same companies and sometimes that's not the keynote scenario, but that key, those

595
00:41:59,820 --> 00:42:06,522
keynotes lead to corporate programs and you build specific programs for them.

596
00:42:06,522 --> 00:42:11,033
But does it come up much as you're talking about sales?

597
00:42:11,033 --> 00:42:14,344
Does it carry over into this world of people trying to find balance?

598
00:42:14,344 --> 00:42:17,245
Cause everybody has an opinion about this, right?

599
00:42:17,245 --> 00:42:21,826
So, because I'm listening to AI and I'm like, man, if people want balance, all they're
saying is

600
00:42:21,826 --> 00:42:25,371
I want to work a certain amount of time every week and I don't want to work these other
times.

601
00:42:25,371 --> 00:42:27,293
That's how it processes with me.

602
00:42:27,293 --> 00:42:31,598
And so if you embrace AI, it can help you maybe get closer to that.

603
00:42:33,161 --> 00:42:35,043
what have you noticed about this balance thing?

604
00:42:35,043 --> 00:42:38,228
Is there any different post pandemic than before?

605
00:42:38,228 --> 00:42:40,169
Is there a different level of commitment?

606
00:42:40,174 --> 00:42:41,614
do you say to that?

607
00:42:41,614 --> 00:42:48,174
I'm like, I'm the absolute wrong human being to ask about balance because I have none.

608
00:42:48,174 --> 00:42:48,213
Yeah.

609
00:42:48,213 --> 00:42:58,594
People ask me, I'm like, I had a young guy, was down in Orlando at a big conference
speaking and he said to me like, I'm a brand new husband.

610
00:42:58,594 --> 00:43:02,894
I've got a kid on the way and I want to make a lot of money and sell it.

611
00:43:02,894 --> 00:43:04,594
And he's in a job where can make a lot of money.

612
00:43:04,594 --> 00:43:07,470
He's 25 years old, but he works for a really cool company.

613
00:43:07,470 --> 00:43:08,750
He's like, what, you know, what do you do?

614
00:43:08,750 --> 00:43:09,370
How'd you do this?

615
00:43:09,370 --> 00:43:18,070
And I just looked at him and go like, I'm completely and utterly the wrong person to ask
about work life balance because I've never had any in my entire life.

616
00:43:18,070 --> 00:43:23,590
Like I, you know, I do things that I really enjoy doing and I do them at the extreme.

617
00:43:24,590 --> 00:43:35,490
um, so what I said to him is, look, if you want to have time at home, like with your
family and that is uninterrupted by work, you're going to have to figure out how to get

618
00:43:35,490 --> 00:43:37,382
all your work done at work.

619
00:43:37,944 --> 00:43:43,939
So what I would say to you and everyone else, AI is not going to have that discipline for
you.

620
00:43:43,939 --> 00:43:45,160
It's just not.

621
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:47,022
Only you can have that discipline for you.

622
00:43:47,022 --> 00:43:57,750
And if we look at studies on salespeople in particular, we know that salespeople waste up
to three hours a day just through trivial distractions.

623
00:43:57,750 --> 00:44:06,418
They look at their phone for five seconds, but that five seconds look at their phone means
that it takes them on average about 25 minutes to get refocused on what they were doing

624
00:44:06,418 --> 00:44:07,266
before.

625
00:44:07,266 --> 00:44:09,288
They don't organize their day very well.

626
00:44:09,288 --> 00:44:11,650
They don't have their day time blocked.

627
00:44:11,650 --> 00:44:16,694
So if you want to not work at home, you have to get your work done at work.

628
00:44:16,694 --> 00:44:19,071
Now, if you're working at home, then same thing.

629
00:44:19,071 --> 00:44:23,500
you're going to, if you're working at home, then the time that you're working at home has
to be work.

630
00:44:23,500 --> 00:44:26,342
And then the time when you're at home has to be at home.

631
00:44:26,682 --> 00:44:29,605
If, that's what, what drives you.

632
00:44:29,605 --> 00:44:33,688
So, you have to, you have to think about it that way.

633
00:44:33,688 --> 00:44:35,770
I'm, you know, I'm a,

634
00:44:36,268 --> 00:44:39,400
I work and life is just blurred for me.

635
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:45,863
Now, some of this because writing a book is work because that's what I get paid to do, but
it also gives me deep joy.

636
00:44:45,863 --> 00:44:46,994
So it's fun for me.

637
00:44:46,994 --> 00:44:52,547
So last night, my wife had to come up to my golf room where I was writing.

638
00:44:52,547 --> 00:44:55,478
And so there's, is where I watched golf.

639
00:44:55,478 --> 00:44:58,460
There's all kinds of, mean, there's a putting green in there and everything.

640
00:44:58,460 --> 00:45:02,015
So, but she had to go where I was writing and, and she goes, you know what time it is?

641
00:45:02,015 --> 00:45:03,913
And I went, no, she was eight o'clock.

642
00:45:03,913 --> 00:45:05,074
It's time to eat.

643
00:45:05,074 --> 00:45:05,998
And, um,

644
00:45:05,998 --> 00:45:07,508
So I've been, I'd just been writing.

645
00:45:07,508 --> 00:45:09,019
hadn't paid attention to time.

646
00:45:09,019 --> 00:45:10,279
was still working.

647
00:45:10,279 --> 00:45:11,540
Would you call that work life balance?

648
00:45:11,540 --> 00:45:13,320
But I stopped what I was doing.

649
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:16,681
And then I went and I didn't work anymore the rest of the evening.

650
00:45:16,681 --> 00:45:21,043
Um, so I think that yeah, AI can help you with those things.

651
00:45:21,043 --> 00:45:32,798
AI can speed you up, but there is a lot of noise in the marketplace right now about how
companies who are deploying these AI's

652
00:45:32,798 --> 00:45:42,142
and they are not hiring more and they're reducing the size of their workforces are
expecting their people to be hyperproductive with AI.

653
00:45:42,142 --> 00:45:50,565
And all of these people who thought that AI was going to make it easier for them to have
this balance are finding out the hard way that nothing really has changed.

654
00:45:50,565 --> 00:45:54,387
Companies expect productivity and they always have.

655
00:45:54,387 --> 00:45:57,338
And so you got to get more done.

656
00:45:57,338 --> 00:46:02,466
And with less people, that means that the human beings that are still there, even though
there's AI agents,

657
00:46:02,466 --> 00:46:06,609
are probably going to be working longer hours in order to get everything done.

658
00:46:06,629 --> 00:46:18,788
So I would say that we're probably, unless we're going to go back to the 1950s when there
weren't devices and things beeping at us and communication 24 seven, we're probably going

659
00:46:18,788 --> 00:46:21,241
to be in exactly the same boat we've always been on.

660
00:46:21,241 --> 00:46:23,283
And I would just leave you with this advice.

661
00:46:23,283 --> 00:46:27,606
If you want to have balance in your life, a, you have to choose that balance.

662
00:46:27,666 --> 00:46:34,430
And that balance has to be balanced with the fact that you got to make a living and pay a
mortgage and take care of your family and put food on the table.

663
00:46:34,430 --> 00:46:40,274
So I would begin with, if you don't feel like you have balance, take a deep look in the
mirror.

664
00:46:40,274 --> 00:46:41,534
Look at your day.

665
00:46:41,534 --> 00:46:45,857
There's an entire section in the AI edge around being ruthless about prioritization.

666
00:46:45,857 --> 00:46:48,178
So I would, I would send people to the AI edge.

667
00:46:48,178 --> 00:46:54,860
I think it's probably the best part about the entire book, which is time management and
creating that balance, but look at your life.

668
00:46:54,860 --> 00:47:01,494
and look how much time you leak and waste doing things that are trivial, that have no
importance in your life.

669
00:47:01,995 --> 00:47:02,836
Get rid of that.

670
00:47:02,836 --> 00:47:05,638
Like, you know, literally just get rid of it.

671
00:47:05,638 --> 00:47:10,942
And then for me on balance, Mark, you know, I, I'm a different animal.

672
00:47:10,942 --> 00:47:12,793
I have to, take my balance all at one time.

673
00:47:12,793 --> 00:47:19,368
So for the last two weeks, I've been on vacation and when I was on vacation, I wasn't
communicating.

674
00:47:19,368 --> 00:47:20,919
Like I didn't look at my phone.

675
00:47:20,919 --> 00:47:21,709
I look at my computer.

676
00:47:21,709 --> 00:47:22,894
just realized that I've

677
00:47:22,894 --> 00:47:26,214
got in yesterday and for the first day I opened my computer up.

678
00:47:26,214 --> 00:47:28,614
It was exactly where I left it before I left.

679
00:47:28,614 --> 00:47:31,274
Even though I took my computer with me, I never even opened it.

680
00:47:31,274 --> 00:47:32,934
I didn't do any work.

681
00:47:32,934 --> 00:47:35,414
I had a couple of clients who sent me a text message that said, I'm on vacation.

682
00:47:35,414 --> 00:47:36,894
I'll call you when I get back.

683
00:47:36,894 --> 00:47:40,214
And I went completely down for two weeks.

684
00:47:40,214 --> 00:47:49,550
And I know that in my life, like I know this for me particular, and I think everybody
needs to figure this out for themselves, that I need about two weeks.

685
00:47:49,550 --> 00:47:56,590
a quarter or so and a week a quarter is fine, but I need about a week a quarter where I
can disconnect.

686
00:47:56,590 --> 00:48:02,570
So my cycle typically looks like July, I always take a couple of weeks off in July.

687
00:48:02,570 --> 00:48:04,030
I take a week off for the master's.

688
00:48:04,030 --> 00:48:05,130
So that's completely down.

689
00:48:05,130 --> 00:48:11,070
And these days because of the Augusta national women's amateur, I basically have two weeks
of downtime.

690
00:48:11,070 --> 00:48:19,340
And then I take a couple of weeks off over Christmas, the Christmas holidays, and then,
you know, a little bit at the beginning of September with Labor Day.

691
00:48:19,340 --> 00:48:21,201
And I have those times blocked out.

692
00:48:21,201 --> 00:48:29,047
And if I don't do that, then I start actually becoming less productive and, and not a very
nice person.

693
00:48:29,047 --> 00:48:37,373
So I have to, I've got to get that time off, but if I get that time off, then I can do
more work than almost any human being that's around me.

694
00:48:37,373 --> 00:48:40,285
Like I can accomplish more, I can work longer hours.

695
00:48:40,506 --> 00:48:42,837
And as long as I've got that particular balance.

696
00:48:42,837 --> 00:48:46,890
So I think everybody's got to find their way, but I would not expect.

697
00:48:47,252 --> 00:48:55,875
looking at the workplace right now and what we're seeing in terms of trends that AI is
going to suddenly relieve you of having to, to work longer hours.

698
00:48:55,875 --> 00:48:57,928
Cause it's just not, not right now.

699
00:48:58,306 --> 00:49:05,652
So as you reflect on, your life, um, I'm not going to ask the why question that you're
sitting here, but

700
00:49:07,214 --> 00:49:10,516
Do you think that you were born or you were built?

701
00:49:11,086 --> 00:49:14,488
Built absolutely built.

702
00:49:15,129 --> 00:49:23,071
now, you know, was the, you know, was the drive or the ambition, um, born with, I don't
know.

703
00:49:23,071 --> 00:49:33,274
You know, my, my father was a very successful attorney and, is, I guess he's retired now,
but, and he was like super successful.

704
00:49:33,274 --> 00:49:40,026
And I grew up in a small town where, know, you could pretty easily say that he was one of
the most successful people in that town.

705
00:49:40,026 --> 00:49:41,188
And.

706
00:49:41,870 --> 00:49:44,930
I always felt like, you know, he gave me a leg up.

707
00:49:44,930 --> 00:49:55,950
got, you know, my parents were able to cover most of my college and I had a great
education and I a great, great upbringing, great, know, just I lived in, you know, on a

708
00:49:55,950 --> 00:49:58,150
farm, you know, a middle-class family.

709
00:49:58,170 --> 00:50:01,230
But I just felt like I always needed to do better.

710
00:50:01,230 --> 00:50:04,590
Like I needed to take the step that he gave me and step up on it.

711
00:50:04,590 --> 00:50:06,490
And so that was always a driver for me.

712
00:50:06,490 --> 00:50:11,558
Now, whether that ambition is a gene that I have, it's in my DNA or not, I don't know.

713
00:50:11,570 --> 00:50:14,993
Um, and, but I had it and then I honed it.

714
00:50:14,993 --> 00:50:17,850
listened to Jim, Jim Rohn's ambition.

715
00:50:17,850 --> 00:50:19,536
I probably listened to that.

716
00:50:19,536 --> 00:50:22,378
I can't, I wore out, this is back in night and Gail Cone at days.

717
00:50:22,378 --> 00:50:23,899
I wore out the cassette tapes.

718
00:50:23,899 --> 00:50:28,012
Then I wore out the CDs, but I listened to that over and over and over again.

719
00:50:28,012 --> 00:50:29,803
That would be honing.

720
00:50:29,803 --> 00:50:34,086
But as I got into business, I got super lucky.

721
00:50:34,086 --> 00:50:39,414
got guys like, you know, a Bob Blackwell or Chris Dodds or Steve Donnelly or Shirley
Schumacher.

722
00:50:39,414 --> 00:50:42,136
Mary Gardner, who was my very first boss.

723
00:50:42,136 --> 00:50:49,892
had these, this series of just amazing leaders who built on what talent that I had.

724
00:50:49,892 --> 00:50:52,034
Like I was born with talent of some sort.

725
00:50:52,034 --> 00:50:55,777
Uh, for a long time, I was going to be an attorney and I think I probably would have been
a good one.

726
00:50:55,777 --> 00:51:01,792
Um, my dad taught me into going into business, which was a path that I chose to take.

727
00:51:01,792 --> 00:51:09,438
But I think that, I think that those people honed what was inside and I got

728
00:51:09,438 --> 00:51:16,758
lucky in sales because first Mary Gardner, who I met early in my career, she was one of
the first real leaders that I had.

729
00:51:16,758 --> 00:51:22,382
I met her and then I met Bob Blackwell, who was one of the greatest sales managers I ever
worked for.

730
00:51:22,382 --> 00:51:26,223
Had I not met those two people, I might have been in a completely different place.

731
00:51:26,223 --> 00:51:38,106
I don't know if I would have gone down this path, but because I met them and absorbed
everything that they taught me and then put it into practice, which that may be DNA, not,

732
00:51:38,106 --> 00:51:39,118
you know, not

733
00:51:39,118 --> 00:51:43,840
uh a talent that someone built, but because of that, I am who I am today.

734
00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:47,102
So, but I don't think it's any different than anyone else.

735
00:51:47,102 --> 00:51:49,964
you know, if let's just think, let's take Scotty Schaeffler.

736
00:51:49,964 --> 00:51:50,984
We talked about golf, right?

737
00:51:50,984 --> 00:51:52,645
He's talented.

738
00:51:52,645 --> 00:51:56,507
He's like, I mean, he's just crazy talented, but he wasn't always that way.

739
00:51:56,627 --> 00:52:00,429
If you think about his caddies, Ted Scott, right?

740
00:52:00,429 --> 00:52:02,744
So when he went to get Ted Scott to work with him,

741
00:52:02,744 --> 00:52:05,976
Ted Scott didn't initially want to work with him because Scotty was hotheaded.

742
00:52:05,976 --> 00:52:08,577
You know, you would get mad at things and that's not who Ted Scott was.

743
00:52:08,577 --> 00:52:12,579
Like Ted Scott's a deeply spiritual guy who is even killed.

744
00:52:12,579 --> 00:52:15,521
So is Scotty a better golfer today because of Ted Scott?

745
00:52:15,521 --> 00:52:17,772
I think that no one would argue no, he isn't.

746
00:52:17,772 --> 00:52:20,784
He's better because of Ted Scott.

747
00:52:20,864 --> 00:52:28,538
But Scotty honed his ability to be this ice cold, like he's the most calm human being in
the world.

748
00:52:28,538 --> 00:52:31,892
Like I work my, I try to think how can I channel

749
00:52:31,892 --> 00:52:37,930
more Scotty because I watch him and think I need to be more like that when I get in
emotional situations.

750
00:52:37,930 --> 00:52:41,535
I'm 58 years old and I'm trying to learn how to be less emotional.

751
00:52:41,535 --> 00:52:43,957
So how do you do that?

752
00:52:44,158 --> 00:52:47,080
This is great moment for us to touch on this emotional intelligence.

753
00:52:47,080 --> 00:52:48,802
Like take it there, keep going.

754
00:52:48,802 --> 00:52:49,382
Yeah.

755
00:52:49,382 --> 00:52:51,983
So, but so let's think about emotional intelligence.

756
00:52:51,983 --> 00:52:53,304
Like how do you build that?

757
00:52:53,304 --> 00:52:54,953
I mean, I struggle with it my entire life.

758
00:52:54,953 --> 00:53:03,848
I've written books about it, but almost always everybody does when you're younger, your
emotional intelligence as a lower level than when you're older.

759
00:53:04,068 --> 00:53:06,425
And we don't know who Scotty is in the rest of his life.

760
00:53:06,425 --> 00:53:07,180
Like we don't understand.

761
00:53:07,180 --> 00:53:14,517
don't know like what happens in his world, but at least on stage and golf, I would say
he's got high emotional intelligence.

762
00:53:14,517 --> 00:53:18,284
Like he's, he's able to manage his own emotions.

763
00:53:18,382 --> 00:53:24,044
and deal with all the people around him, the press, whatever, nobody, he just knows how to
deal with people that way.

764
00:53:25,025 --> 00:53:26,695
Yeah, I'm the same way in sales.

765
00:53:26,695 --> 00:53:31,697
I, you know, I meet a lot of salespeople who have, who are, they're the Scotty Scheffler's
of sales.

766
00:53:31,697 --> 00:53:32,485
they're that good.

767
00:53:32,485 --> 00:53:34,909
They're people that are making seven figure selling.

768
00:53:35,069 --> 00:53:42,092
They have insanely powerful emotional intelligence in the bubble of commercial sales.

769
00:53:42,092 --> 00:53:45,113
The rest of their life is an abject disaster.

770
00:53:45,113 --> 00:53:47,960
Like they're not that great with people anywhere else.

771
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:50,851
but they understand how to handle it in sales.

772
00:53:50,851 --> 00:54:05,115
And I had early leaders who helped me figure that out so that even though I would say that
I had probably low emotional intelligence in other parts of my life, I had very high

773
00:54:05,115 --> 00:54:07,665
emotional intelligence in the commercial bubble of selling.

774
00:54:07,665 --> 00:54:10,936
Like I was the calmest, coolest.

775
00:54:11,836 --> 00:54:13,877
I just knew how to work a sales process.

776
00:54:13,877 --> 00:54:17,098
When I was in the sales process, everything slowed down for me.

777
00:54:17,098 --> 00:54:17,790
It was

778
00:54:17,790 --> 00:54:19,231
It just worked.

779
00:54:19,971 --> 00:54:26,495
The struggle for all of us is how do we apply what we're good at in the area of our talent
to everywhere else in our life?

780
00:54:26,495 --> 00:54:27,936
How do we do that?

781
00:54:27,936 --> 00:54:30,728
That I think is where coaches come into play.

782
00:54:30,728 --> 00:54:32,799
could just go back to Scotty.

783
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:36,441
What would have happened if he hadn't moved to Texas from New Jersey?

784
00:54:36,521 --> 00:54:39,503
What would have happened if his dad didn't introduce him to golf?

785
00:54:39,763 --> 00:54:42,445
He might be an insurance agent right now, who knows?

786
00:54:42,445 --> 00:54:44,770
But a lot of things happen in his life.

787
00:54:44,770 --> 00:54:48,933
And then he got this lifelong coach who noticed the talent and worked on it.

788
00:54:48,933 --> 00:54:50,735
And then Scottie brought in work ethic.

789
00:54:50,735 --> 00:54:53,307
He brought in want to, like he brought in desire.

790
00:54:53,307 --> 00:54:55,929
Um, I would say the same thing in sales.

791
00:54:55,929 --> 00:55:09,100
Like I didn't know that I had like sales talent, but once I met Bob Blackwell, like I
brought in the work ethic, the want to the desire, the, wanted to make, you I wanted to

792
00:55:09,100 --> 00:55:09,830
win big.

793
00:55:09,830 --> 00:55:10,701
wanted to make money.

794
00:55:10,701 --> 00:55:13,933
All those things came into play and I had someone to help me do that.

795
00:55:15,466 --> 00:55:22,372
What you said earlier was you said if you would have been an attorney, your dad talked you
out of it.

796
00:55:22,953 --> 00:55:25,935
If you would have been an attorney, you think you would have been a good one.

797
00:55:26,016 --> 00:55:30,119
See, that's the unlock.

798
00:55:31,019 --> 00:55:32,121
It doesn't matter.

799
00:55:32,121 --> 00:55:34,884
See, the argument then would be with Scotty Scheffler.

800
00:55:34,884 --> 00:55:42,540
If he wouldn't have found golf, the same argument with him, if he has drive, if he has
commitment, if he has discipline, you apply that to anything.

801
00:55:42,540 --> 00:55:44,297
He might have been good in something else,

802
00:55:44,824 --> 00:55:46,468
Why you think would have been a good attorney?

803
00:55:46,468 --> 00:55:47,967
Because you just know you.

804
00:55:48,110 --> 00:55:52,570
I know that I think I could, I think this is sounds, I know it doesn't sound arrogant.

805
00:55:52,570 --> 00:55:56,650
I think I can be good at anything if I desire to be good at something.

806
00:55:56,650 --> 00:55:58,790
Like I wanted to be an author.

807
00:55:58,950 --> 00:56:02,370
I didn't write, I didn't like publish my first book until I was 40.

808
00:56:02,370 --> 00:56:05,110
I published 17, my 18th I'm writing right now.

809
00:56:05,110 --> 00:56:07,010
Like that's a lot of books for people.

810
00:56:07,010 --> 00:56:12,050
And we're talking, you know, knocking on 2 million copies sold worldwide.

811
00:56:12,238 --> 00:56:13,718
And I wanted to be an author.

812
00:56:13,718 --> 00:56:14,578
I mean, I thought about it.

813
00:56:14,578 --> 00:56:16,518
Like everybody else says, everybody thinks about writing a book.

814
00:56:16,518 --> 00:56:17,498
got a million people economy.

815
00:56:17,498 --> 00:56:18,518
I'm thinking about writing a book.

816
00:56:18,518 --> 00:56:19,238
Everybody does.

817
00:56:19,238 --> 00:56:20,277
Like everybody's got a book in them.

818
00:56:20,277 --> 00:56:21,298
I just did it.

819
00:56:21,298 --> 00:56:26,018
And then, but my first book, even though I sold a lot of copies, it sucked.

820
00:56:26,018 --> 00:56:28,797
Like it was, it's not a good book.

821
00:56:28,798 --> 00:56:34,018
Now people bought it and they liked it, but in my eyes, like now looking back, I'm not a
good book.

822
00:56:34,098 --> 00:56:39,948
You write 17, 18 books, you get better and better and better at the craft as you go along.

823
00:56:39,948 --> 00:56:42,488
and I learned along the way and you know, I

824
00:56:42,488 --> 00:56:44,818
you brought self-awareness into this conversation now.

825
00:56:44,818 --> 00:56:45,819
right.

826
00:56:45,819 --> 00:56:50,003
you think, um, you think, okay, can I, could I learn how to do anything?

827
00:56:50,003 --> 00:56:50,313
Yes.

828
00:56:50,313 --> 00:56:57,929
Now my dad, when my dad was coming to me and said, you don't want to be an attorney, go be
in a, you know, go into business, you'll be happier.

829
00:56:58,190 --> 00:57:00,852
His focus wasn't whether I'd be good at it or not.

830
00:57:00,852 --> 00:57:04,875
His focus was whether I'd be happy at with it or not.

831
00:57:04,875 --> 00:57:09,079
And I would say to you, looking back, I made a really good decision.

832
00:57:09,079 --> 00:57:13,472
Had I been an attorney, I might not have been happy being an attorney.

833
00:57:13,654 --> 00:57:20,794
I, it might not have been something that would have given me fulfillment or made me, given
me any joy might have, I don't know.

834
00:57:20,794 --> 00:57:28,584
I, I was like, you know, the Robert Frost poem, you know, two words are two roads can, you
know, converge or in a yellow wood or whatever.

835
00:57:28,584 --> 00:57:29,665
just picked a path.

836
00:57:29,665 --> 00:57:31,827
And when I picked that path, I never looked back.

837
00:57:31,827 --> 00:57:32,767
I never regretted it.

838
00:57:32,767 --> 00:57:35,869
didn't go say that I want to do this, but I think that,

839
00:57:37,274 --> 00:57:39,707
Where'd the commitment for doing the job well come from?

840
00:57:39,707 --> 00:57:41,178
Is that from your dad?

841
00:57:41,178 --> 00:57:43,481
Like is that that idea that teachable?

842
00:57:43,481 --> 00:57:44,750
uh

843
00:57:44,750 --> 00:57:45,910
Probably more for my mom.

844
00:57:45,910 --> 00:57:53,293
Like I think my mom, um I think the commitment to like, if you're going to do something,
do it the right way.

845
00:57:53,293 --> 00:57:56,524
That came from my mom, like, you know, and she's still that way, right?

846
00:57:56,524 --> 00:57:58,294
So you're going to do things all the way.

847
00:57:58,294 --> 00:58:01,795
um There's no doubt that it came from there.

848
00:58:01,795 --> 00:58:09,798
And then, and then some of it's just, you know, leader learning leadership, like
leadership lessons are if you're going to lead people, then you you, you've got to be

849
00:58:09,798 --> 00:58:10,850
willing to.

850
00:58:10,850 --> 00:58:12,911
to do things at a level that other people aren't.

851
00:58:12,911 --> 00:58:16,994
So you set the example for what things should look like, or you should do that.

852
00:58:18,475 --> 00:58:23,829
but I think that on everything that we're talking about, like goes into the emotional
intelligence bucket, right?

853
00:58:23,829 --> 00:58:28,382
It's that, um, it's self-control, it's emotional discipline.

854
00:58:28,402 --> 00:58:39,670
is the mental resilience, um, the ability to deal with other people, which is the hardest
part of emotional intelligence, but it is.

855
00:58:39,822 --> 00:58:41,913
uh It is what makes us uniquely human.

856
00:58:41,913 --> 00:58:44,185
All of that goes into that bucket.

857
00:58:44,185 --> 00:58:51,910
And in sales, resilience is probably the, you know, the biggest issue that we have, that
we deal with.

858
00:58:51,971 --> 00:58:59,006
Most people who fail at sales, resilience is probably the biggest issue, but also
sometimes people just get into sales jobs.

859
00:58:59,006 --> 00:59:00,417
It's the wrong job for them.

860
00:59:00,417 --> 00:59:06,401
I was explaining this to a group people yesterday that you've got, you've got this basic,
this spectrum on, of sales.

861
00:59:06,401 --> 00:59:07,438
On one side, you've got

862
00:59:07,438 --> 00:59:08,438
pure hunters.

863
00:59:08,438 --> 00:59:17,918
I mean, at the very far end, you got the guys that are like selling, you know, replacement
windows door to door, you know, super transactional, hardcore closing, that type of thing,

864
00:59:17,918 --> 00:59:19,738
all the way to people who are zoo keeping.

865
00:59:19,738 --> 00:59:24,898
mean, you know, my job is to handle a bunch of accounts and manage them and sell a little
bit more every once in a while.

866
00:59:25,078 --> 00:59:28,598
You get in the wrong job for who you are.

867
00:59:28,598 --> 00:59:30,898
You might be good at it, but you're not going be happy at it.

868
00:59:30,898 --> 00:59:34,478
Like, for example, at one point in my life, I was a national account manager.

869
00:59:34,478 --> 00:59:37,218
It was just a stepping, stepping stone in my career.

870
00:59:37,218 --> 00:59:43,720
where I managed a group of really big, you know, multinational, well-known brand name
companies.

871
00:59:43,720 --> 00:59:44,990
I was really good at it.

872
00:59:44,990 --> 00:59:51,342
Like I was the national account manager of the year three years in a row, but I didn't
like the job because I'm a hunter.

873
00:59:51,342 --> 00:59:59,685
I'm not a farmer and I didn't really like farming, but I did it because it was a stepping
stone to becoming the head of national accounts.

874
00:59:59,685 --> 01:00:04,066
So if I'd been in that job for a really long time, I would have been unhappy.

875
01:00:04,066 --> 01:00:04,876
Now,

876
01:00:05,004 --> 01:00:07,205
The self-awareness idea of awareness, right?

877
01:00:07,205 --> 01:00:11,757
So self-awareness matters and awareness for most people is sort of like the sun, right?

878
01:00:11,757 --> 01:00:14,878
So anything that the sun touches has a tendency to transform.

879
01:00:14,878 --> 01:00:18,060
Anything that awareness touches has a tendency to transform.

880
01:00:18,060 --> 01:00:25,363
So the lack of self-awareness is a trait that will kill your EQ, your emotional
intelligence.

881
01:00:25,363 --> 01:00:28,494
um Awareness is a thing that will open that up.

882
01:00:28,494 --> 01:00:33,186
And we all, you know, have a hard time seeing the things that we need to see.

883
01:00:33,186 --> 01:00:41,363
That's one of the reasons why great leaders and great coaches and great mentors in our
life are so powerful because they shine a mirror on the things that we're unable to see

884
01:00:41,363 --> 01:00:41,863
ourselves.

885
01:00:41,863 --> 01:00:49,528
Like that's why, for example, at the Gussa national during the masters, the greatest
golfers in the world have a coach sitting next to them with a phone that they're holding

886
01:00:49,528 --> 01:00:52,982
up filming them so they can show them the things that they can't see.

887
01:00:52,982 --> 01:00:58,402
So, so for me, the awareness of knowing what

888
01:00:58,402 --> 01:01:01,914
gives me joy and that doesn't give me joy, that really mattered to me.

889
01:01:01,914 --> 01:01:02,105
Right?

890
01:01:02,105 --> 01:01:09,900
So I was willing to take a job that I didn't like or didn't want as long as I knew that
that was for a reason.

891
01:01:09,900 --> 01:01:12,692
It was a stepping stone where a lot of people don't.

892
01:01:12,692 --> 01:01:18,655
Like a lot of people are in jobs that they shouldn't be in just because they don't have
the awareness that that doesn't give them any happiness or joy.

893
01:01:19,877 --> 01:01:21,088
For me, that was just the thing.

894
01:01:21,088 --> 01:01:24,060
I just knew what I was really good at.

895
01:01:24,060 --> 01:01:27,061
And even now in my own company,

896
01:01:27,874 --> 01:01:30,587
You know, there's a lot of things I'm doing right now that I don't really like to do.

897
01:01:30,587 --> 01:01:35,803
And I'm doing them for the sake of the company and the sake of the people that work here
and that I love and care about.

898
01:01:35,803 --> 01:01:39,547
So I continue to do things for the health of the organization.

899
01:01:39,547 --> 01:01:46,004
But ultimately my goal is to spend my time doing the things that I'm best at and that I
like.

900
01:01:46,282 --> 01:01:56,694
But if we're talking about the company as an organism and too often we just think it's a
brand and a name, but as an organism, what does that company or that organism, what does

901
01:01:56,694 --> 01:02:01,118
it really value in the people that choose to work there and build careers there?

902
01:02:02,086 --> 01:02:13,086
Every company is going to be different, but I think for our organization, mean, number
one, the organization values people that are nice.

903
01:02:13,086 --> 01:02:16,286
We value people that we like to work with.

904
01:02:16,686 --> 01:02:18,806
Eli is just sitting over here, so I'll talk about him.

905
01:02:18,806 --> 01:02:25,606
But he's like the nicest person in the entire world, except for when he steals the cake
out of the refrigerator while I'm in here talking to you.

906
01:02:25,606 --> 01:02:26,526
And he'll do that for everyone.

907
01:02:26,526 --> 01:02:27,586
He's over there laughing now.

908
01:02:27,586 --> 01:02:29,446
he knows what he's talking about.

909
01:02:29,446 --> 01:02:30,646
brought you coffee.

910
01:02:30,658 --> 01:02:33,090
But like everybody likes working with Ulysses.

911
01:02:33,090 --> 01:02:39,105
He's, um, he's, he's just a unique, different person.

912
01:02:39,105 --> 01:02:40,786
He's a great human being.

913
01:02:40,786 --> 01:02:42,268
He's authentic.

914
01:02:42,268 --> 01:02:49,073
He's, you know, he's just, he's just like, he's like part of our soul as an organization.

915
01:02:49,093 --> 01:02:53,467
And we've, and if you look around sales gravy, that's pretty much what we've put together.

916
01:02:53,467 --> 01:02:56,760
I've always called us a, a company of misfits, right?

917
01:02:56,760 --> 01:03:00,066
We're just all this, this amalgamation of these.

918
01:03:00,066 --> 01:03:03,167
human beings that came along that just kind of fit us.

919
01:03:03,587 --> 01:03:14,951
So I think that organizations like for, you for in our world, we value that, but we also
value people who show up like our red line in the sand is we always show up.

920
01:03:14,951 --> 01:03:19,732
we, we, if we have to get something done, we get it done.

921
01:03:19,732 --> 01:03:25,644
That's an important value system for a training and consulting company because not showing
up is a really bad thing.

922
01:03:25,644 --> 01:03:27,124
Like you got.

923
01:03:27,234 --> 01:03:33,418
you know, a hundred people who've flown into Las Vegas for a conference and you've got a
trainer who's supposed to be there training them.

924
01:03:33,418 --> 01:03:36,010
It's a bad for business that the trainer doesn't show up.

925
01:03:36,010 --> 01:03:36,890
Like I'm sick.

926
01:03:36,890 --> 01:03:37,881
I can't show up.

927
01:03:37,881 --> 01:03:39,442
There's no such thing as being sick.

928
01:03:39,442 --> 01:03:40,483
We don't show up.

929
01:03:40,483 --> 01:03:41,343
We show up.

930
01:03:41,343 --> 01:03:43,885
Um, and we find a way to show up.

931
01:03:43,885 --> 01:03:46,787
So we value, we value that in people.

932
01:03:46,787 --> 01:03:57,078
Um, but I think that if I looked at my, if I looked at our company, the thing that I think
the company values the most and is an organism, like we're just a person.

933
01:03:57,078 --> 01:04:01,096
It's just, we just value cool people who are fun to work with.

934
01:04:01,102 --> 01:04:02,282
Hmm.

935
01:04:03,002 --> 01:04:06,242
What, um, you write all the books.

936
01:04:06,262 --> 01:04:09,682
So you've now developed the skill to put out books that are really beneficial to people.

937
01:04:09,682 --> 01:04:11,022
I mean, you just put out AI edge.

938
01:04:11,022 --> 01:04:16,762
It's funny that you've sold two or 3 million books and one book you recently put out that
you didn't know how well it was going to do.

939
01:04:16,762 --> 01:04:18,422
It's sold half of those volumes.

940
01:04:18,462 --> 01:04:19,622
That's wild.

941
01:04:19,622 --> 01:04:20,882
A million and half.

942
01:04:20,882 --> 01:04:22,462
But am I correct in that?

943
01:04:22,462 --> 01:04:23,902
would be fanatical prospecting.

944
01:04:23,902 --> 01:04:29,222
So the AI Edge has been a blockbuster this year, but it hadn't done a million and a half
sales.

945
01:04:30,002 --> 01:04:32,782
Fanatical prospecting is like the global blockbuster.

946
01:04:32,782 --> 01:04:34,222
It's in every language.

947
01:04:34,342 --> 01:04:38,342
It's a lot of the people in this industry call it the Harry Potter of sales books.

948
01:04:38,606 --> 01:04:39,229
Why is that?

949
01:04:39,229 --> 01:04:41,240
Why do you think it sets a-

950
01:04:41,254 --> 01:04:45,497
Look, I hit the note at the right time.

951
01:04:45,497 --> 01:04:48,179
um I was pissed off when I wrote the book.

952
01:04:48,179 --> 01:04:48,880
was mad.

953
01:04:48,880 --> 01:04:58,986
was mad at um all the noise on social media that were telling salespeople that they didn't
have to prospect, you could just hang out on LinkedIn and it would be easy for you.

954
01:04:58,986 --> 01:05:08,173
um There was very little truth, lot of pandering and prospecting and really no one had
written like a real prospecting book.

955
01:05:08,173 --> 01:05:10,210
Like there just wasn't anything out there.

956
01:05:10,210 --> 01:05:14,633
Like real, like in the trenches, this is how you by God do this.

957
01:05:14,633 --> 01:05:15,683
And this is the mindset.

958
01:05:15,683 --> 01:05:21,857
So when I wrote the book, I used a tone that was an in your face.

959
01:05:21,857 --> 01:05:26,140
Like I got out of my passive trying to be nice, like in your face tone.

960
01:05:26,140 --> 01:05:37,486
So I just hit every single note and people love the book and it like any book it, you
know, they start, it starts building its own ecosystem.

961
01:05:37,486 --> 01:05:46,886
It starts, it becomes almost a self-fulfilling prophecy because once enough people read a
book, now you've got entire sales teams where every time a new hire comes on, the company

962
01:05:46,886 --> 01:05:49,226
hands them a copy of fanatical prospecting.

963
01:05:49,226 --> 01:05:51,526
Well, that person gets fanatical prospecting.

964
01:05:51,526 --> 01:05:53,546
That's the very first book they read.

965
01:05:53,646 --> 01:05:55,846
So now they're like, okay, that's the book.

966
01:05:55,846 --> 01:06:00,966
Cause I remember the very first book I read in sales and I still talk about that book.

967
01:06:00,966 --> 01:06:01,706
So that's the book.

968
01:06:01,706 --> 01:06:03,806
And then that person is successful.

969
01:06:03,806 --> 01:06:04,986
They get promoted.

970
01:06:04,986 --> 01:06:07,326
What book are they given to all their people?

971
01:06:08,031 --> 01:06:18,910
So some of it was the tone, some of it was just the book itself, all the pieces of the
book that came together right time.

972
01:06:18,910 --> 01:06:26,681
I I wrote most of that book in a Holiday Inn Express in Hayes, Kansas, believe it or not,
because I was doing some work out there and I would just go out for a month at a time and

973
01:06:26,681 --> 01:06:27,711
I didn't have any on the weekend.

974
01:06:27,711 --> 01:06:29,422
So I just wrote the book there.

975
01:06:31,424 --> 01:06:34,165
you know, just everything just came together for that book.

976
01:06:34,165 --> 01:06:36,246
And it was a book that

977
01:06:36,270 --> 01:06:39,710
built and built and built and grew and grew and grew and grew.

978
01:06:40,070 --> 01:06:43,910
And, um, and you can look at like the bestselling books.

979
01:06:44,150 --> 01:06:47,430
Just take the top 100 bestselling books over the last eight, 10 years.

980
01:06:47,430 --> 01:06:48,770
They're all the same book.

981
01:06:48,770 --> 01:06:54,950
The top bestsellers today are probably the bestsellers that were, you know, around, you
know, five years ago.

982
01:06:54,950 --> 01:07:01,610
you, and like take atomic habits from James clear, like it's one of my favorite books, but
that book came out.

983
01:07:01,610 --> 01:07:02,670
It's a solid book.

984
01:07:02,670 --> 01:07:03,788
It's great.

985
01:07:03,788 --> 01:07:05,028
It's so authentic.

986
01:07:05,028 --> 01:07:09,980
reads the book on audio and it hits all the pieces.

987
01:07:09,980 --> 01:07:12,221
That book will continue to be a bestseller.

988
01:07:12,221 --> 01:07:19,184
And there's even books from the, you know, from the nineties and the eighties that are
still on those lists because they hit those notes.

989
01:07:19,224 --> 01:07:21,585
So, The Natical Prospecting just did that.

990
01:07:21,585 --> 01:07:24,106
Like it just, it's just that one book.

991
01:07:24,876 --> 01:07:26,855
What's the core idea in it?

992
01:07:27,598 --> 01:07:28,979
pick up a damn phone.

993
01:07:28,979 --> 01:07:33,302
Like, I mean, the core idea is you prospecting sucks.

994
01:07:33,663 --> 01:07:35,104
Nobody likes it.

995
01:07:35,104 --> 01:07:35,835
That's okay.

996
01:07:35,835 --> 01:07:36,575
Do it anyway.

997
01:07:36,575 --> 01:07:39,588
Like, I mean, literally that's the core idea in the book.

998
01:07:39,588 --> 01:07:45,615
It's, it's just the way that I say it, um, that you will fail in sales if you don't
prospect.

999
01:07:45,615 --> 01:07:51,558
And in fact, well, I'll just, know, the, of the core statements is the number one reason
for failure in sales is an empty pipeline.

1000
01:07:51,558 --> 01:07:55,400
And the number one reason why you have an empty pipeline is that you're not prospecting.

1001
01:07:56,262 --> 01:07:57,090
Period.

1002
01:07:57,090 --> 01:08:00,725
So, um, and everybody knows that everybody gets it.

1003
01:08:00,725 --> 01:08:04,992
Like every business owner, every sales leader, they understand that the pipe is life.

1004
01:08:04,992 --> 01:08:06,524
The pipe is everything.

1005
01:08:06,524 --> 01:08:10,531
So fanatical prospecting just hit those notes and it was a pretty good title.

1006
01:08:10,531 --> 01:08:12,673
So the title didn't hurt.

1007
01:08:14,104 --> 01:08:17,117
So will you share the book that you first picked up?

1008
01:08:17,533 --> 01:08:25,597
Um, yeah, the very first book I ever picked up was called a noble selling was got by a
named Hank Trezler and, um, the book went out of print.

1009
01:08:25,597 --> 01:08:26,847
bought the rights to the book.

1010
01:08:26,847 --> 01:08:27,818
It's in print now.

1011
01:08:27,818 --> 01:08:33,800
Um, on, on Amazon, I republished that book in, I think 2010.

1012
01:08:33,800 --> 01:08:37,583
So I think it's noble selling 2010, but it's, didn't make any changes.

1013
01:08:37,583 --> 01:08:44,806
Uh, but that was the very first book that I read and then, um, start selling, stop
telling, start selling from,

1014
01:08:45,466 --> 01:08:48,290
from Linda Richardson was probably the second book that I read.

1015
01:08:48,290 --> 01:08:50,924
And those are two books that I talk about all the time.

1016
01:08:50,924 --> 01:08:56,802
mean, they're, you know, first leadership book was the one minute manager meets the
monkey.

1017
01:08:56,802 --> 01:08:59,125
I probably handed that book out a million times.

1018
01:08:59,125 --> 01:09:01,849
mean, I keep a stack of them and just give it to people.

1019
01:09:01,849 --> 01:09:02,750
So.

1020
01:09:03,083 --> 01:09:03,869
Um.

1021
01:09:04,695 --> 01:09:07,710
But those books make an impression on you.

1022
01:09:09,746 --> 01:09:15,026
Um, so you're coming out of this little two weeks off, your team's so excited to see you.

1023
01:09:15,026 --> 01:09:16,846
They're eating your cake in the fridge.

1024
01:09:17,726 --> 01:09:19,246
They're bringing you coffee.

1025
01:09:19,246 --> 01:09:20,646
Um, how do you break this down?

1026
01:09:20,646 --> 01:09:22,706
Do you, and does your mind operate?

1027
01:09:22,706 --> 01:09:23,146
Okay.

1028
01:09:23,146 --> 01:09:26,026
We're in August now the rest of the year.

1029
01:09:26,246 --> 01:09:27,046
Is it quarterly?

1030
01:09:27,046 --> 01:09:31,246
Is it, what are we going to do for the rest of 2025 is 2025 already built?

1031
01:09:31,246 --> 01:09:32,326
You're working on 26.

1032
01:09:32,326 --> 01:09:34,936
What does your brain do other than what you train?

1033
01:09:34,936 --> 01:09:44,534
Right now, two things, usually in July has traditionally been a dip for us because
business people are taking vacation.

1034
01:09:44,534 --> 01:09:46,195
Businesses don't do a lot of training.

1035
01:09:46,195 --> 01:09:47,877
This was the biggest July we've ever had.

1036
01:09:47,877 --> 01:09:49,672
uh Right now I'm worried about two things.

1037
01:09:49,672 --> 01:09:51,209
I'm worried about my trainers burnout.

1038
01:09:51,209 --> 01:09:55,343
So I'm worried about my trainers who are out there working, are they taking time off?

1039
01:09:55,343 --> 01:10:00,987
So I'm chasing them down by phone to ask them questions and to check their polls to make
sure they're okay.

1040
01:10:01,088 --> 01:10:04,002
We had a uh massive first half of the year.

1041
01:10:04,002 --> 01:10:05,102
biggest we've ever had.

1042
01:10:05,102 --> 01:10:09,487
ah But typically this time of year, I'm kicking into pipeline building.

1043
01:10:09,487 --> 01:10:12,019
So I'm thinking about the fall.

1044
01:10:12,019 --> 01:10:18,404
So September, October, the first part of November up to Thanksgiving are big for us.

1045
01:10:18,404 --> 01:10:21,797
We need to maximize our revenue then.

1046
01:10:21,797 --> 01:10:24,519
And we run our company kind of like a law firm.

1047
01:10:24,920 --> 01:10:28,443
We don't bill by the hour, but we track by the hour.

1048
01:10:28,443 --> 01:10:32,558
oh we take all of our billing and we

1049
01:10:32,558 --> 01:10:35,678
we converted into hours, training hours.

1050
01:10:35,678 --> 01:10:37,278
So that's what we track.

1051
01:10:37,278 --> 01:10:41,498
So right now my push is prospecting, get it into the pipeline.

1052
01:10:41,578 --> 01:10:46,878
We're building a September, October, November, and we're prospecting for January,
February.

1053
01:10:46,878 --> 01:11:00,298
So the things that for my business that makes us run is we need to have a massive January
and tr and traditionally January is, you know, that one month is 20 % of our entire year.

1054
01:11:00,718 --> 01:11:01,395
if.

1055
01:11:01,395 --> 01:11:01,696
book it.

1056
01:11:01,696 --> 01:11:02,830
You're booking the business.

1057
01:11:02,830 --> 01:11:03,970
Absolutely.

1058
01:11:03,970 --> 01:11:08,830
we're like, when we, when, January 1st starts, I don't expect to come home for three
months.

1059
01:11:08,830 --> 01:11:10,310
Like I know I'm going to be on the road.

1060
01:11:10,310 --> 01:11:17,290
I know my trainer is going be on the road, but we've got to, we've got to think we're
prospecting now to build those engagements for January.

1061
01:11:17,330 --> 01:11:19,610
We, we can't take our foot off the accelerator.

1062
01:11:19,610 --> 01:11:25,510
So it's probably the biggest issue for us as an organization is you have a really big
first half of the year.

1063
01:11:25,510 --> 01:11:27,110
You start getting worn out.

1064
01:11:27,110 --> 01:11:31,310
You take your foot off the accelerator and then you blow up next year.

1065
01:11:31,310 --> 01:11:33,210
So we've got the fall and the winter.

1066
01:11:33,210 --> 01:11:43,610
And at the same time, we can't push people to the point of breaking because they're not
good for themselves or families or for our clients if we push them that hard.

1067
01:11:43,610 --> 01:11:46,910
we've got two new trainers we just hired.

1068
01:11:46,910 --> 01:11:48,070
We're bringing them along.

1069
01:11:48,070 --> 01:11:50,010
That takes about a year to get them ramped up.

1070
01:11:50,010 --> 01:11:53,410
So it's a pretty expensive process to bring trainers along.

1071
01:11:53,410 --> 01:11:55,810
And we're different than most other training companies.

1072
01:11:55,810 --> 01:11:58,850
Most training companies, their trainers are all 1099.

1073
01:11:58,850 --> 01:12:00,686
So they're independent contractors.

1074
01:12:00,686 --> 01:12:06,386
Um, kind of like my golf instructors were independent contractors of the company that went
to a golf academy recently.

1075
01:12:06,526 --> 01:12:09,146
And we're different as an organization.

1076
01:12:09,146 --> 01:12:10,486
All of our trainers are W2s.

1077
01:12:10,486 --> 01:12:11,366
They work for us.

1078
01:12:11,366 --> 01:12:12,646
They're our employees.

1079
01:12:12,646 --> 01:12:18,486
We provide health benefits and profit sharing and 401ks and all of that for our folks.

1080
01:12:18,486 --> 01:12:23,626
So when we bring on a new trainer, it's just like, bring a trainer on and then like throw
training at them.

1081
01:12:23,626 --> 01:12:25,026
We bring them on.

1082
01:12:25,026 --> 01:12:30,124
We're investing in that person with a salary for a year before they're even productive.

1083
01:12:30,124 --> 01:12:32,806
So it's a pretty big risk to bring them on.

1084
01:12:32,806 --> 01:12:38,551
I've got to get focused on getting that going because trainers are how we expand our
revenue base.

1085
01:12:38,551 --> 01:12:41,443
The more trainers you have, the more your revenue base grows.

1086
01:12:41,464 --> 01:12:44,116
And, and those trainers, by the way, all have to sell too.

1087
01:12:44,116 --> 01:12:44,556
they have.

1088
01:12:44,556 --> 01:12:48,296
makes one of those trainers, the ones who really do it well?

1089
01:12:48,338 --> 01:12:52,830
What creates that person that does it well, that really good trainer?

1090
01:12:53,463 --> 01:12:57,446
they're, they're salespeople, like they're practitioners.

1091
01:12:57,446 --> 01:13:02,209
the, trainers that are my very best trainers, they all grew up in sales.

1092
01:13:02,209 --> 01:13:03,650
They were all successful.

1093
01:13:03,650 --> 01:13:05,722
They were all, they all made mistakes.

1094
01:13:05,722 --> 01:13:07,512
They all worked in the trenches.

1095
01:13:08,554 --> 01:13:11,119
two of my very best trainers were, were sales leaders.

1096
01:13:11,119 --> 01:13:14,822
So they worked in businesses where they were leading salespeople.

1097
01:13:14,822 --> 01:13:16,620
Um, but they're practitioners.

1098
01:13:16,620 --> 01:13:20,078
My best sell, my best trainers are also my best salespeople.

1099
01:13:20,078 --> 01:13:23,098
They produce more in sales than anybody else does.

1100
01:13:23,098 --> 01:13:31,338
And when they're standing in front of salespeople who can see through BS faster than just
about anybody, they're standing in front of them, they're authentically, the salesperson

1101
01:13:31,338 --> 01:13:33,438
look at them and go, and I know you were doing this yesterday.

1102
01:13:33,438 --> 01:13:42,338
my trainer is going, look, I was on a sales call yesterday and this is what happened
versus what you run into, especially in corporate training rooms where you've got a person

1103
01:13:42,338 --> 01:13:48,326
who is teaching and a lot of cases, those individuals that are teaching can't sell their
way out of a paper bag.

1104
01:13:48,430 --> 01:13:51,950
And, um, which is, know, if you can't do, teach.

1105
01:13:51,950 --> 01:14:05,130
We've always said that, but having been trained in the corporate space myself as a
salesperson, I really hated and resented having a trainer teach me that I knew had, did

1106
01:14:05,130 --> 01:14:07,190
not have the ability to do what I do.

1107
01:14:07,210 --> 01:14:12,590
So I made the commitment a long time ago that we're a sales organization.

1108
01:14:12,590 --> 01:14:14,890
We teach sales, our trainer cell.

1109
01:14:14,890 --> 01:14:17,734
You have to be a practitioner to be on my team.

1110
01:14:18,318 --> 01:14:21,681
So as we wrap it up, could sit here and listen and talk to you all day, man.

1111
01:14:21,681 --> 01:14:22,672
You got to go make money.

1112
01:14:22,672 --> 01:14:28,768
I'm thinking you're talking, you started talking about what you know, you bill per hour
and I'm like, okay, this guy's he's ripping off cash here.

1113
01:14:28,768 --> 01:14:29,808
We're using up his money.

1114
01:14:29,808 --> 01:14:33,012
Um, why'd you name it sales gravy?

1115
01:14:33,012 --> 01:14:35,354
And then so that, so, so why'd you name it sales gravy?

1116
01:14:35,354 --> 01:14:39,497
And then as we wrap it up, so I have to ask another question because conversations are the
best.

1117
01:14:39,497 --> 01:14:41,629
Um, where do they go engage with you?

1118
01:14:41,629 --> 01:14:44,654
Like the one place, but I'm really interested in sales gravy.

1119
01:14:44,654 --> 01:14:45,214
Yeah.

1120
01:14:45,214 --> 01:14:53,414
So in, started this company in 2006 and I, the original name of the company was sales
professionals online.

1121
01:14:53,414 --> 01:14:54,934
I've been working in the corporate world.

1122
01:14:54,934 --> 01:14:57,414
was the head of sales for a large organization.

1123
01:14:57,414 --> 01:15:02,114
were at the very beginning of the great recession in 2006.

1124
01:15:02,114 --> 01:15:04,074
lot of people don't think it wouldn't start in 2006.

1125
01:15:04,074 --> 01:15:07,834
It started in late 2007, 2008, but I worked for a company.

1126
01:15:07,834 --> 01:15:09,174
were Canary in the coal mine.

1127
01:15:09,174 --> 01:15:10,314
It was coming.

1128
01:15:10,394 --> 01:15:13,472
And I, I was in a situation where.

1129
01:15:13,472 --> 01:15:15,564
My company was being bought out.

1130
01:15:15,564 --> 01:15:18,386
was, there was a big private equity play.

1131
01:15:18,426 --> 01:15:20,528
it was just a lot of stuff going on.

1132
01:15:20,528 --> 01:15:23,370
And I was like, I'm 39 years old.

1133
01:15:23,390 --> 01:15:25,492
Am I going to be an entrepreneur or not?

1134
01:15:25,492 --> 01:15:27,513
Like I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

1135
01:15:27,734 --> 01:15:28,454
This is it.

1136
01:15:28,454 --> 01:15:29,996
Like, this is your shot.

1137
01:15:29,996 --> 01:15:30,476
Do it.

1138
01:15:30,476 --> 01:15:39,724
So I took the shot, started this company and I originally built it as an online portal
where I was going to have training material for salespeople and articles and sell

1139
01:15:39,724 --> 01:15:40,682
advertising.

1140
01:15:40,682 --> 01:15:42,478
That was the dumbest idea ever.

1141
01:15:42,478 --> 01:15:52,798
Um, but at the time, that's what I thought, but I was in Orlando, um, doing a lecture at
the university of central Florida and a buddy of mine was there who was a digital

1142
01:15:52,798 --> 01:15:54,898
marketing expert who also lectured there.

1143
01:15:54,898 --> 01:15:57,858
And we went to lunch and I told him about my, about my idea.

1144
01:15:57,858 --> 01:16:02,218
When I said sales professionals online, he just looked at me and went, that is a dumb
name.

1145
01:16:02,218 --> 01:16:06,358
And like, didn't, he didn't even like, like put a bandaid on them.

1146
01:16:06,358 --> 01:16:07,678
He just like, this is a dumb name.

1147
01:16:07,678 --> 01:16:09,038
I hurt my feelings.

1148
01:16:09,558 --> 01:16:09,868
Um,

1149
01:16:09,868 --> 01:16:14,620
You know, I talked a little bit about it, but he convinced me that it was stupid because
no one ever remember it.

1150
01:16:14,620 --> 01:16:16,709
So I tucked my tail, walked out of there.

1151
01:16:16,709 --> 01:16:21,983
I was already building my website and I left and it was.

1152
01:16:22,163 --> 01:16:26,965
Thank it was a couple of weeks for Thanksgiving, but I couldn't figure out anything like,
this was 2006.

1153
01:16:26,965 --> 01:16:28,056
So it's way harder today.

1154
01:16:28,056 --> 01:16:32,908
I'm trying to find sales blank.com anything that I can connect with.

1155
01:16:32,928 --> 01:16:38,072
So went back with his, you know, his admonition short in the name.

1156
01:16:38,072 --> 01:16:40,634
Thanksgiving, I'm on Captiva Island with my family.

1157
01:16:40,634 --> 01:16:52,023
We're having dinner, our Thanksgiving dinner, and the waiter comes by with a gravy boat,
and he's pouring gravy on my mashed potatoes, and it hit me, sells gravy, just right then

1158
01:16:52,023 --> 01:16:53,294
on the spot.

1159
01:16:53,294 --> 01:16:57,738
And at that moment, I thought the entire universe heard me, and there's somebody's gonna
steal my name.

1160
01:16:57,738 --> 01:17:03,182
So I got up from the table, ran across the parking lot, went to the front desk of the
hotel.

1161
01:17:03,182 --> 01:17:05,184
There was a young lady in there on the computer.

1162
01:17:05,184 --> 01:17:07,756
I pushed her off the computer and said, have an emergency.

1163
01:17:07,756 --> 01:17:12,986
And I got on and I registered sales gravy.com on Thanksgiving day, 2006.

1164
01:17:13,088 --> 01:17:17,170
And the gravy worked for me because I've always said, like, if you're doing all the right
things, you get gravy.

1165
01:17:17,170 --> 01:17:20,611
Like that's the whole point of prospecting is gravy.

1166
01:17:20,711 --> 01:17:26,714
And over the years we have toyed with killing the name and coming up with something else.

1167
01:17:26,714 --> 01:17:36,726
And, you know, we thought about Jeblin international a couple of years ago and separating
sales gravy out, um, because it's not a very corporate name and.

1168
01:17:36,726 --> 01:17:39,589
But in the day, nobody ever forgets it.

1169
01:17:39,649 --> 01:17:46,396
And back to my friend in 2006, it's a name that's easy to remember, easy to get to, nobody
forgets it.

1170
01:17:46,396 --> 01:17:48,478
And that's how we came up with Sales Gravy.

1171
01:17:49,090 --> 01:17:50,751
Don't think it's held you back.

1172
01:17:51,106 --> 01:17:52,465
hope not, but.

1173
01:17:53,144 --> 01:17:56,160
Where do we come find all things sales gravy and Jeb.

1174
01:17:56,160 --> 01:17:58,031
Yeah, it's salesgravy.com.

1175
01:17:58,031 --> 01:18:00,073
You can find me at Jebblunt.com.

1176
01:18:00,073 --> 01:18:02,064
B-L-O-U-N-T is my last name.

1177
01:18:02,064 --> 01:18:03,295
B-L-O-U-N-T.

1178
01:18:03,295 --> 01:18:04,916
Find me at LinkedIn.

1179
01:18:05,036 --> 01:18:07,468
I would say, go listen to the Sales Gravy podcast.

1180
01:18:07,468 --> 01:18:09,039
We've been podcasting for 18 years.

1181
01:18:09,039 --> 01:18:12,902
If you like sell stuff, we put out three episodes a week, most weeks.

1182
01:18:12,902 --> 01:18:16,124
um But that would be the find me.

1183
01:18:16,124 --> 01:18:17,325
Find me on LinkedIn, Instagram.

1184
01:18:17,325 --> 01:18:19,207
I'm at Sales Gravy almost everywhere.

1185
01:18:19,207 --> 01:18:23,989
X, Instagram, YouTube, um podcast, whatever.

1186
01:18:24,394 --> 01:18:26,696
LinkedIn, just type my name in and find me there.

1187
01:18:26,720 --> 01:18:28,366
and go do some fanatical

1188
01:18:28,366 --> 01:18:30,497
Good synthetic prospecting goodbye book.

1189
01:18:31,246 --> 01:18:32,152
Appreciate you joining us, man.

1190
01:18:32,152 --> 01:18:32,718
Thank you.

1191
01:18:32,718 --> 01:18:33,278
Thanks, Mark.

1192
01:18:33,278 --> 01:18:34,618
I appreciate it.