Disruptively Beneficial: Adam San Juan’s Blueprint for Sales Success That Sticks

I’m a big fan of what gets measured gets improved. Mm-hmm. What gets improved gets results. Conflict in dealing with uncomfortable situations and overcoming them makes us better. John 15 two says, look, if you don’t put off the deck stuff, this stuff will never grow. And sales is a people first industry.

Do humans stay stagnant? No. There’s trends. They come and go. Communication styles, they come and go. We are evolving. Everything I’m talking about require is work. And my fear is that this is not work. You need to go out in the world. You need to scuff off your knee. Listen people, we know that you work your tail off, you work your whole life to make money, support your family to create value and benefit for your customers and your clients.

And then that back part of your life is where you’re supposed to celebrate, but you can’t celebrate if you didn’t do all the right things while you were working so hard to make all that money. There’s one thing that all champions have in common. They get shit done. So welcome to the Get Shit Done Experience.

Well, well, well, we are back at it again. Yes. This is the Get Shit Done Experience, also known as the GS DX podcast. You can find [email protected] dx po podcast.com. Easy for me to say, you know, uh, I have a chance to interact with so many fantastic people, and it’s like a license to learn. It’s kind of like a license to steal, but it’s more like a license to learn.

And, uh, folks come from all different walks of life. There’s so many different ways to get shit done, as we say. Uh, but there’s so much commonality between the most successful people in the world, and we’re so happy to be able to bring that to you on behalf of T-T-S-G-G-S-D technologies and 2020 design.

Uh, and that is where we’re coming from, by the way. So you’ll hear ad reads throughout the podcast. Please pay attention to a few of them if you’re looking for some of the services that we provide, you know where to go without further ado, first before I get into our special guest, I want to welcome a sales professional extraordinaire.

She’s a leader, she’s a networker. She is, uh, cutting edge. She’s out there with the people. She’s doing the do, and she’s just a fantastic human being. And that would be the one and only Lauren Klaus. Yeah. You’ll have to add, uh, one of those like clapping. There will be clapping. Yes. We will definitely add that.

I haven’t put that onto the board here yet. Uh, because I, I did put it on the board, but then I had to take it off of the board because I was overusing it. Oh, I totally would. And I was like, I don’t think every time the guest says something, I need to like, have like a, a clap or Oh my God, I So you sort of a horn.

I, they would have, I would be a menace. I would have like a, yeah. Like it would be, yeah. So that type of thing was happening, you know, that I’m a child at heart, so I have to do things to keep myself from being super childish. But again, Lauren, it’s so fantastic to have you here and joining the show and we look forward to your perspective and the value that you can add to this.

But, uh, as we know, the introduction that you made, uh, is with the one and only Adam San Juan. And I feel this inclination when I hear Adam’s name to say it like, like a soccer announcer. Yeah, it’s a pretty, uh, Adam San Juan. You know what I mean? I really, it’s just that name. It’s just a brand in itself.

It’s such a great name. Uh, so. Adam, if you’re wondering if you wanna play along, you can check him out on LinkedIn. He’s all over the place. And you’re gonna find out that this gentleman is very, very well known as it relates to networking and uh, doing fantastic things. And he’s an author. So before we talk about that though, I want to talk about the fact that he’s the managing director of RS, which is retirement and wealth Strategies.

Listen, people, we know that you work your tail off, you work your whole life to make money, support your family, and to create value and benefit for your customers and your clients. And then that back part of your life is where you’re supposed to celebrate, but you can’t celebrate if you didn’t do all the right things while you were working so hard to make all that money.

So if you are looking for a way to get started or to amp that up to the next level, Adam San Juan is the person that you have to call. Uh, and again, his information will be in the links. Again, retirement and wealth strategies. What could be more important? Protect your assets, protect your livelihood, protect your retirement.

Adam San Juan. Do the do. Let’s go. That’s what we’re talking about, but that’s not what we’re gonna talk about today. What we’re gonna talk about today is Adam is also, uh, owner, author, and publisher of Argo Publishing, LLC. That’s a RGO publishing, LLC. Check that out as well. He’s the author of five, yes, five books.

And you will see them throughout this podcast as we hold them up. If you’re watching on YouTube. Uh, so here’s the title of the books. What are you looking at? What are you looking at? I wonder how you say that. There’s ways that you can say different things. Like what are you looking at? What are you looking at?

What are you looking at? It was on purpose. That’s Ambivalently. Okay. So it could be a multi, it could be what are you looking at? What are you looking at? So there’s always savings, but it’s about way more than savings alone. Total Technology Solutions Group, redefines managed print services. Excellence is the minimum standard.

TTSG is a true managed print service provider. Deeply understanding your technology and business goals. Your business is unique. Our solutions are tailored to your current and future business goals. Our customer first approach empowers and delights. TTSG can ensure your technology environment will scale as your business does.

So as you navigate business and constant change. Partner with TTSG for premium advisement and seamless implementation of your technology goals. We set the bar high. Your people deserve it. Peace of mind. Powerful innovation. tsg.com. The impact of answering and how it changes everything. The second book, the Most honest book on Prospecting, selling and Serving 401k plans.

And the third book is, what am I doing here? Your Guide to The Unseen Influences of Your Surroundings. The fourth book, jackpot, Lola Lynn’s, journey to Vegas. A biography about my mother that captures her remarkable story. And by the way, uh, Adam’s mom is looking for her movie, uh, her movie, so, so Hallmark or whomever that wants Lifetime Network.

Lifetime Network. If you wanna pick up this book and turn it into a movie, you’re gonna make a lovely lady’s dream come true. Those four books focus on human behavior and unseen influences. Adam, welcome to the show. Thank you. And what is the fifth book? Well, the f fifth book’s a lot of fun. It’s called Gen WTF at and its subtitle is a lot of fun too.

Its subtitle is, uh, four Generations, one Workforce, zero Happy Employees. Let me hand this over. Let’s hold that up here. So there you go. The future of work isn’t coming. It’s already here. And by the way, gen Z is. The biggest generation, right? It’s going to be the biggest generation. Gonna be the biggest generation.

It’s gonna come with its own challenges. And I, I take a shot pretty much no generation is, um, uh, not offended in my book. And I talk about the pros and cons of why they exist. And, and then I think, you know, this can be applied to many things, but I generally focused on workforces. So fair. Like you’re workforce, look in your office, I see some kids that are super young, and then, uh, the gentleman who answered the door is the opposite.

So wait a minute, I didn’t answer the door. No, I know. Uh, but the question is how do we all get along? Mm-hmm. And I’ll share with you an interesting story about that. Uh, in my office, we have these biometrics, right? And so you put a thumb in and then you get access. And I have a planning team that I have access to.

Uh, they moved them all to the second floor and I went to use my biometrics and uh, it didn’t work. Like, huh? Must be some kind of mistake. So I went to the guy who runs the office. I said, is it on purpose that my thumb doesn’t work? I say, oh, yeah, it’s on purpose. I’m like, oh, okay. And I said, well, explain it to me.

Why is it then? And they said, well, um, uh, we left it up to them and they said, well, they kind of wanted to be in their own space. And they said, you are a bit of a bull in a China shop. I’m like, that’s fine. Fair. I appreciate that. We like that. Yeah, exactly. Look, you know, I believe if I’ve got some, if you’re right there in the office, let me come in and just, Hey, instead of sending this manifesto, let me just talk to you about that.

No, they, they just wanted to do that. And I said, all right, now let’s subscribe this group out. There’re, and they’re, everyone’s lower than 28 years old. They’re, and so I sent my colleague and I said, Hey John, what’s the best preferred method of communication between you and I? He goes, well, send me a message on teams and if it’s an emergency, call me.

I’m like, God are Yeah. Hey, now that’s how it is as an exert. I’m like, Hey man. Yeah, you dude. I mean, look, if I’ve got something to say, I’m gonna do that. But that’s what, you walk into a restaurant and you say, I would like a steak. What is the first question they ask you? How do you like your steak? Mm-hmm.

Guess what I asked? This is his preferred method of communication. So in this book I talk a little bit about, Hey, how can, how can, what adjustments do I need to make? Yeah. Um, as a Gen Xer to speak to, um, a millennial or a, a gen Zer. So you pointed the thumb instead of the figure, which is really interesting.

So you, you’re, you’re thought process here as everyone’s going to be offended, but you also are taking some accountability and, and I love Yeah. I love that question. Not only from an internal culture standpoint because you have to collaborate with your teammates and Yeah. You know, making people feel, um.

Most comfortable in their setting is typically going to get the best result. Mm-hmm. But it’s also such a great question in sales. Oh my god. Yeah. Well, you, you talked about the internal part of it. The other parts of it like, hey, externally, uh, you have to understand where you walk into a room. We’re cookie cutting it instantly we have to say, okay, so how do these people like their steak?

And sometimes they’ll be very blessed to tell you. Other times you’re gonna have to, yeah. What is the phrase? Listen with your eyes, they’ll tell you. Uh uh. But that takes some practice. And that’s what the first really, the first two books speak to. You mentioned a book about, uh, 4 0 1 Ks. That book was for the industry.

When I changed, uh, um, my role in the, in the industry, I said, lemme get everything outta my head. I said, look, if, if my mom said, look, leave it better than it was when you first got here. Mm-hmm. And this was my way of sharing, you know, what I knew to the rest of the people in my industry. Uh, and um, so if you want a book that will put you to sleep, go for it.

That’ll deal. I mean that ’cause that is, that’s the one. But the other ones are all human based. And I think I’ve always been fascinated with people because sales are sales or sales, uh, and they say, you need two things to be successful. You need competency, you need charisma. Mm-hmm. And you can have all the competency.

You have no charisma. You just stuff. But you can have, you can have all the charisma but no competency. And we know people like that. Well, so how do you balance it too? The competency is getable the charisma. You, you have to kind of figure that out. That takes practice. I. So enter the human series, as I call it.

The first one is titled, what Are You Looking At? And that’s the impact of answering and how that changes everything. The second one is called, what am I Doing Here? Which, and the Unseen, uh, uh, the Guide to the Unseen Influences of Your, uh, surroundings. The third one, which I haven’t written yet, and that’s coming out either later this year or it’s coming out, um, the first of next year.

I’m trying to collaborate with my niece to put that one together. Oh, that’s beautiful. It’s, it’s an interesting story, but I find that as I, as my publishing career continues on and my authoring continues, I’m finding myself giving more power to other people. This is a 19-year-old girl that is in a business program at her college.

What did that look like on her resume to say she authored a book over the summer? Hmm. Oh, I mean, amazing. And then she takes, so it isn’t about me anymore. It’s like, you know, how can I raise other people up? That one’s called, what Was I thinking? And that is, you know, I haven’t found the subtitle of that, but basically says, do you have a process for making good decisions?

And I outlined the three different kinds of decisions that are made, are made. How are they made? And then I weave in some real life stuff into that. Um, that I would say would end my Adam as the author career. I would remember going to Panera and I saw this guy and he had all these books laid out, and I didn’t know you could do this at Panera.

I guess you can lay out a bunch of books and sit there and wait for people to go, oh, you look like you’re selling books and you can buy, I dunno why they kicked this guy out. Okay. Yeah. I, I, I didn’t know that. What was crazy was, um. I went and talked to him. I looked at all his books, and they were all Christian based.

I’m, I’m fine with that. Uh, and they all led to, Jesus Is your Savior fine. That’s good. Uh, and I said, I didn’t want my books all say the same thing. Mm-hmm. Right. It’s like, oh, I could keep writing and writing. I can take three chapters of this and turn it to its own books. Like, eh, that’s, that’s lazy. And then, you know, sometimes, uh, too much is too much.

Just say what you need to say and then be done with it. That’s my struggle. That would be my biggest struggle. Yeah. I, I’m the wordy. Too much. Too much. I’m the overthinker. My book would go, if you saw, if I wrote a book. Yeah, you would. You would be like, all right, so you could probably cut 250 pages. Yeah. Oh my right of unnecessary, redundant information.

I don’t know about that. I think you don’t give yourself enough credit. I do think that writing a book is a lot like content though. And I like your approach because you wanna keep your audience on their toes. And if the same message is in every single book mm-hmm. Then at some point, what’s the draw to buy the next book?

They’ve already heard the story. I think that’s the same with content creation. It’s like if the message is the same message over and over and over again, more over, if your message is so similar to the message of everyone else’s, like it’s static graphics and it’s the same thing eventually, it’s like. I don’t know.

I, I believe in disruption. I kind of like the idea that you’re thinking disruption. I know that’s a sexy business term these days. Maybe overused, but I think it’s very powerful. Yeah. Um, and, um, the, the different perspectives is what makes you think. And I think people read a book or absorb content because number one, they wanna be entertained.

Number two, they wanna think, well, that’s always been my thing, is like, I hope you read it and I hope you do something with it. And if it leads to dialogue, then guess what? I’ll win. You win. This is good. It shouldn’t be, this is a good book and putting yourself and you do nothing with it. You know, I will tell you that if you read all my books cover to cover there, there are Easter, Easter eggs that tie all together.

Yeah. And only I know all of them. Yeah. You know that you got the cheat codes. I got the cheat codes. And it’s interesting when somebody said, oh, I, I, I tied your cover into page three, and I’m like, Yazi, good job. And then they read the second book and say, oh, that’s what that meant. Oh, you kind of alluded that in the first book.

And I said Exactly. So, uh, I, I, I agree with this whole thing about internal and external. I mean, our internal customers, we know them. I met those two young men out there, you know how they like their steak is very different. Mm-hmm. That whole thumb episode. And I found out how he liked his steak and it was up to me to just kind of meet ’em halfway a little bit.

Hmm. Um, I think we old people need to do that. I think we can, we can learn a lot from younger people, but then again. Here’s a fun question. Uh, do you know what the number one paying job will be? Um, when the, um, gen Zers are, um, are the largest workforce influencer close, it’s not gonna be ai ’cause they, they’re, they’re gonna be in a world where that’s just table stakes.

Mm-hmm. I mean, AI is a baby. Now. Wait till it’s a teenager. It’s a, a whole ery. Yeah. Super scary for sure. The number one job will be Can you talk to people? Can you have a conversation? Yeah. Because I’ve seen people who are all this, you put ’em in front of a human, phew and nothing done. And so look, hey, you just, I’m looking at you right now.

You Gen Zers and millennials. Knock yourself out, but you better find a way to get people skills. ’cause this is only gonna take you so far. I’ve seen it firsthand. And they melt now, and I say that in a very general sense. They’re very gauging millennials and Gen Xers out, gen Zs out there. But at the same time, you ha you can’t just assume that you gotta practice being in front of people, which means.

Unlock the door and let me in, man. Yeah. You know, it is, it’s such a great point. I used to work with, uh, a very talented sales professional, now a VP of sales. And, uh, he used to tell our sales team at the time, a very young up and coming sales team that they cannot be keyboard warriors. They cannot hide behind the keyboard.

They’re gonna have to get out there and transfer energy. And what’s so interesting is you talked about the two competencies, right? Uh, and one of them being charisma. I was told that like 17, 18 years old, like, you gotta get in sales because you have such a personality. I then got in sales and everyone that was successful in sales said, dude, you need to chill out the personality and actually get some substance.

You need to learn how to ask questions. So there is a balance there, um, that is so important. And I think a lot of folks struggle with finding that happy medium. That balance takes practice. Yeah. And, and you know, if I’m, uh, if I’m standing in front of a, a, a young group of, let’s say high school juniors or seniors, or even sophomores, and they’re looking for something to do over the summer, I, I think all young people should have two jobs.

Uh, number one, uh, getting the food industry service industry is critical. So you wanna see how ugly people can get Yeah. Because anybody can handle unicorns and rainbows, but if you’re But not fires. Oh yeah. Do that. So I think, uh, I was a busboy at Denny’s. Making, what was I making back then? $2 and 14 cents an hour bragger.

And I had the vinyl apron, the whole nine yards. But, you know, food industry, the other thing I think young people should do is ha sell Cutco knives. Mm. I applied for that. I applied for that when I was 18. Yeah, absolutely. What a gig. Yeah, you gotta did it for like two weeks. And I was like, nah, I’m gonna go work at the golf course.

Then I painted houses. Okay. So the good thing about Cutco is that they give you a script. You have pipeline management there. You, you, you’re literally going door to door. You’re calling on your pals, uh, and then you’re calling on, on strangers. But the most important thing in both industries, you’re gonna get no.

So many times you just say that your skin is just naturally gonna get thicker. And then ultimately you’re gonna get to a point where there’s nothing. And you can, you’re gonna tell me that I haven’t heard already, which means you put me in a finals presence here. I’m not sweating. What could you conceivably say to me that I haven’t been told before?

And I think that comfortability leads to, oh, it’s awesome. Uh, your, see, what is sales? Sales is the ability to facilitate a decision, right? If you come in anxious or you’re get nervous and quirky, guess what? You make everybody else nervous and quirky. Mm-hmm. But if you’re comfortable, like. I’m good. I mean, whether you say no or Yes.

Yeah, exactly. I’ll get the next one. Strong energy. Our clients can smell desperation. Mm-hmm. They can smell the lack of competency. They can, they can smell a lack of character. Uh, and so, uh, what the whole idea behind these books was, and how do you get better at that? Yeah. I, I actually, uh, had a young lady, uh, uh, at Indiana University find my book.

She reached out to me and said, Hey, can you come down to, uh, the Indiana, um, uh, IU in Bloomington, uh, Bloomingdale Bloomington, and asked me if, um, I could speak to the business class about that. And I said, I’d be happy to. So I did. And it was a great presentation. And then I got into some examples on how when you call somebody, and for example, when I call you and I leave a voice, a message, I hear your voicemail message.

Your voicemail message tells me so much about you. And so I asked the group, uh, and these, these are kids. And in college, and this was probably a couple years ago, and I said, when you call and leave a voicemail and listen to voicemail and say, uh, Mr. San Juan, we don’t make calls. It’s like, oh, they, and I said, are they, are they showing you this stuff?

Not really. That’s terrifying. Well. Again, I’m not knocking the school. It’s a great school. I I, and I think one of the things that I tell people, if you were to tell me those two young guys out there, what would I tell them? I would say, look, I’m sure Lauren gave you a playbook on how to do what you do, but you’re learning about people better, not just end with Lauren.

You better go out and get it. Yeah. So if you think that there’s a deficiency, you better read what your audience is reading. You better know something about politics. You better know something about the world. Mm-hmm. You just have to do things, gotta have substance that you, you are, that are gonna make you uncomfortable, but it isn’t about you.

It’s about how they like their stick. You know? My wife calls me the Filipino Cliff Clavin, she goes, you know, more useless. What a compliment. I think so I’ll take it. Yeah. Compliment. You know what, you might be not yet old enough to know who Cliff Claven was, but uh, you know, to me it’s a, it’s just a matter of he was the mailman on Cheers.

Oh, okay. He sat next to me. He was Norm Fray. Yeah. Well, I mean, what is that? Yeah. I, I do that be, I have to be in a room. What is sales? Sales is commonality. The ability to disarm. Mm-hmm. Right. And how do you disarm that? Oh yeah, I read that same book. Oh yeah. I watched that podcast. Yeah. Oh yeah. And, and if you said that, guess what?

Everybody’s level goes down. But if you’re talking French and they wanted medium rare, you guys, good luck. Uh, now that also requires homework. Right? You should be able to do a little bit of homework. And everything I’m talking about requires work. And, and my fear is that this is not work. You need to go out in the world.

You need to scuff off your knee. You need to. Oof, get no thrown in your face a few times. You need to get your feelings hurt. And again, this is, I know you guys, the audience are like, yeah, typical Gen X are fine. Yeah. But there is something you can learn. Proud of it. You know, I think, um, I think there’s a lump together of branding, marketing, and sales, because to your point, sales is a lot about establishing commonality so that you can earn the trust to establish credibility further.

The trust create likability in doing so, right? And then really at that point, you can get people to open up and tell you what they want. Now you can be a solution provider instead of a, a peddler, right? So branding and marketing is similar in that people like us do things like this, right? Seth Godin says that people like us do things like this.

So if you have that depth of substance where you can relate to somebody, if they’re a golfer, if they’re a, a theater junkie, if they, if they love music and you have something that you can add to that conversation, then you’re creating community, not just commonality. And that gets even deeper at that point.

You can’t stay safe in your bubble. Yeah. You can’t. You have to be able to be a chameleon, whoever’s in front of you. You have to be able to relate to them. You have to be able to bring them in just as much as you are giving to them, you know? Yeah. Two-way street. That is a concern, I feel like. Well, I, I, I think, um, some people do it naturally and amen to that.

Mm-hmm. Right. But some people, they need to practice it. Right. And, and, you know, that was the precipice behind, uh, the book journey. As a matter of fact. It, it’s kind of interesting the way the book whole thing started. ’cause in 2002, I’m like, yeah, you know, I, if you said, you know, X amount of years from now you’re gonna be an author of X amount like this.

Yeah. So hollering book maybe. Exactly. I had an idea. As a matter of fact, there is one that’s is really close to being released. Um, uh, and it was my first foray into fiction. Um, but that, that one, I, I would say I, I worked on that for about six years. But in 2020, 2022, my mom’s husband passed away. And I remember being, you know, at, at the funeral, I’m sitting here and behind me I heard, uh, this two people, I didn’t, I didn’t even wanna turn around and look, but one leaned to the other and said, how much are you getting?

And I’m like, that’s a problem. Yeah. And yeah, exactly. But you know, that probably happens more than we think. That one, I just happened to hear it in earshot, but, uh, it got me thinking. I’m a father of two wonderful children when I pass, you know, what am I gonna leave behind? Mm-hmm. And so at the end of the day, I said, what have I been teaching them since they were super tiny and I’ve coached, you know, sports at different levels.

Um, and, um, what I, what was, what have I been teaching my, the, the kids I’ve been coaching? And then I said, I asked myself, well, what have you been teaching the reps that I’ve worked with in the past? And it really comes down to three things. I said I wanted to leave an idea. And the idea was how to handle, handle conflict.

Any song, any movie, any show you watch, watch, MCU, watch Pixar movies, three Conflicts, man versus Man, man versus Himself, man versus Environment. That’s it. I said, I gotta make sure my kids can handle those three things. Yeah. So I said, lemme put a book together. And I said, I think it’s gonna have three chapters.

Number one, what are you looking at? Right man, verse mm-hmm. What am I doing here, man versus environment? And the third one, which I said is coming out later, is Man versus Himself. What was I thinky? Well, so from the beginning you really had kind of the, the math. Yeah. The full plan. Well, I submitted the manuscript, the, the rough outline to the editor.

Editor said, write the manuscript, write the first chapter. First chapter to your point, came out to 280 pages. And she said, okay, so let’s think about this. At this pace. You’re gonna write a 700 page book. No one is gonna read a 700 page book. She said, you accidentally wrote three books. Oops. Oops. And so, you know, uh, late 2022, that’s accidentally awesome.

That’s accidentally awesome. I. So, uh, after I wrote the first one that came out, well received, and in the meantime, I’m staring at this second one, like, oh my God, when I was gonna say every other year. So two years in between, but that thing was burning a hole on my desk. And then the people who were the first one said, uh, when’s the second one come out?

I’m like, ah, hell. So how flattering is that? You know, it was the, the beautiful part of it. It wasn’t intentional. It’s like I accidentally put together something. Some people talk about writing a book, and like I said, I accidentally wrote three now, now the question was, you know, sequence. And so I said, you know what?

If that’s what my audience wants, I’m gonna give it to. So the second book came out, which was, uh, the second human book, right? Which is, uh, what am I doing here? And then the third one’s coming out later on this year. But, um, those were the three, that was the preci on all three books. Is is just that handling, dude, it’s, it’s just about handling conflict, right?

Anybody loves it when it’s unicorns and rainbows, but when these guys get a no, how do you handle that? Uh, and that no can come into conflict, can come into one of three forms, right? You know, you versus me, me versus, you know, the world and then me versus myself. Um, so I actually, uh, ran with that and, and, um, I.

Uh, the books were born and then Argo Publishing was born. And now, uh, I, like I said, I, I don’t know if there’s anything we talked about this earlier. Uh, I think I’m done writing from a, I, I probably have a few other things to say, but I’ll say that for for another time. But right now I just help other people write books.

I love it. You know, you had made mention that um, this generation doesn’t make phone calls. They’re not even being taught to make phone calls. And we know that cold calling is much harder, but it’s not dead. Mm-hmm. What I think is really important that I, this generation maybe could be really good at is they grew up with social media in a phone in their hand.

Mm-hmm. But the phone is not for calling. The phone is for creating, that’s what they’ve been taught. Mm-hmm. If you wanna make the phone calls much easier, be a creator of content, thought leadership, perspective, purpose, values, ideas. Yeah. If you put those things out there and you can become known before you’re known, before you make the phone call, then the phone calls become much easier.

And I think that that’s the reason why people don’t make the phone calls is because they’re afraid of, of rejection. They don’t like conflict. Um, they’ve been brought up. In a society where there is no more bullying, you cannot say a bad word to somebody because now it used to be sticks and stones. Yeah.

May, uh, break my bones. Yeah. But words will never hurt me or whatever it used to be. That kind of a thing. Good time. Now it’s like, apparently words will break bones now. So, um, and that doesn’t necessarily make them soft. It means that they’ve been conditioned to be, um, so hyper respective that it’s actually the opposite.

I am so opinionated on this topic, so I tell you, I, this is kind of one of my pet peeves in general. I mean, not just, obviously it matters in sales, but just in life, right? Yes. There is mental health that we need to protect and be aware of. That’s a given, right? I don’t think that needs to be debated to any capacity, however.

Conflict in dealing with uncomfortable situations and overcoming them makes us better. Oh, it makes us more capable. It makes us grow, right? So if every single time you’re uncomfortable, you’re told that you know, oh, that’s anxiety. You’re uncomfortable, you’re nervous. It’s, it’s now gonna be labeled this.

And again, yes, those things absolutely exist and people need help that have, you know, more extreme versions of that a hundred percent. However, every uncomfortable feeling and every nervous feeling does not equate to, uh, you having a disorder. And I think that the, um, the common theme I’ve been seeing is it’s like instead of saying, oh, I feel this way, but I’m gonna push through it and overcome so that fast gets easier and easier and easier, it’s completely avoided.

So they don’t learn the skills. They don’t know how to ruminate in the uncomfortable situations. They don’t know how to approach conflict. And it’s like at some point life doesn’t care. Life doesn’t care. Yeah. You’re gonna get thrown into it whether you like it or not. Either. Does, either. Does the client or the perspective client a hundred percent.

They tru they really don’t care. I mean, in business, are you kidding me? Yeah. They don’t care. And your boss doesn’t either. So, hate to say it. I mentioned that in, in, in the Gen WTF book too, you know? Um. The two young men out there, if I were to talk to them, I’d say, talk to me about your audience. If you were a store and people were walking into your store, what does that physically, what does that animal look like demographically?

Where do they live? What is their income? What is their spending habits? I mean, obviously that more information is possible. What I tell the young people, um, is this, when when you are reaching out to me, asking for me to make a decision, buy whatever you have to sell, I said, you better know something about me, which means I’m 56, I’m a Gen Xer.

Mm-hmm. I make decisions in a very specific way. You better come to my table the way I want my steak. Mm-hmm. It won’t go your way. Now I’ll, I’ll, I’ll accept. Then maybe I’m, boy, there’s some, there’s some social mediations that are just, just monsters. And I, I love it. I’m like, oh, this is awesome. Yeah, this is awesome.

Kick their ass. You know. But, um, um, for the young people, I say, look, the person you want generally has money. You know, who has money? Old people. Mm-hmm. Like me. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I’m not saying I’m rich. All I’m saying is that generally speaking mm-hmm. I’ve been on more time, planet of 50 plus years.

Guess what? Yeah. More time to accumulate wealth. Exactly. So guess what? You know, if you are gonna approach somebody Yeah. And you know your client, you better. Come to them the way they like it. So they shouldn’t be, um, sending you a DM from AI that’s 12 paragraphs long that their marketing department thought would be an easier way of getting an appointment instead of doing it the human way.

Where, you know, I’ve received seven dms in the last day. Yeah. They were AI driven and my response has been, I don’t like your approach. I won’t do business with you. I, I’m sorry. Like, if you don’t have time to my whole life, my whole life is on LinkedIn. Like I tell you everything. Mm-hmm. Because I want you to know me because if you know me, then there’s a stronger likelihood that you may like me or you don’t like me, which makes it much easier for me to eliminate you from the continuation of thinking that there’s a chance that we might do business.

If you don’t like me, you just tune me out. But if you like me, it’s because you really, really know me. I might be the easiest person to sell to. All you have to do is watch five videos or five clips and you’d know exactly where I’m coming from and how to relate to me and and so on. So I think that there’s this interesting thing where like technology’s come into play and it’s actually, um.

To make things more efficient and easier, but it’s actually hurting the message that you’re giving. Well, it’s, it’s, uh, you know, you, you brought up a good point there about, uh, the young people and, um, the DM part. I, I spent a lot of time talking about that. Yeah. You know, here’s the reality of it. In five years, boomers are basically out of the workforce.

Mm-hmm. Um, silent generation, they’re pretty much gone. Um, I’ve got 15 years before my generation is done with the workforce, you know, who’s left? Millennials. Mm-hmm. Right. Oh, who me? Well, you know what happens when you leave? It’s gonna be the, the, the Gen Zs and, and what does that mean? This is gonna be normal.

That’s what scares me. What’s even more terrifying though, is when we talk about writing in general, if, if, if the typing is your preferred mode of communication and you can’t form a sentence, if you can’t convey your own voice in written word, then in sales, you’re gonna be in a big, uh, a big rut. Well, here’s the other hard part about it, right, is um, I can only talk to five to 15 people with substance in a day.

With real substance transfer of energy, actual fact finding. Mm-hmm. Real collaboration, really getting to the nitty gritty, getting to know each other. But I can email 40,000 at once and that’s where the problem is gonna be, is that the noise will never be broken. The way you break the noise is you actually humanize and you get to know somebody.

Mm-hmm. Um, so we’re knocking a little bit of the younger generation, but let’s be honest, I’m a Gen Xer too. What are we flawed with? What should we be learning from Gen Z and millennials that maybe we’re not doing, even though we got 15 years left? Yeah. Um, we’re not saying we’re perfect. There are things that we are definitely do wrong that we could learn.

What, what In your research. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think that the Gen X group could adopt from millennials and Gen Zers that would make them even better and it would make it easier for them to relate to the middle and way of six Success? I wanna get rid of this button number here. Zero. Happy employees.

Right? I mean, four generations, one workforce. Why can’t everybody be happy? And so, you know, when I put this together, I, I did take, there’s a section toward the end that talks about the devil’s advocate, which is, you know, throw stones at this thing. Tell me I’m wrong. And, uh, one of the questions I posed that I answer there is, well, why don’t I just hire a bunch of Gen Xers?

Mm-hmm. It’s like, f these cats. No, uh, I, I, I’d say that here’s what we can do. Is, uh, if I ran a company that had that diverse of a group, I would just find a way to make time so that there’s a good transfer of, of experience and knowledge between the generation. You just have to do that because, you know, I happen to be very good at tech for my age, not, you know.

Yeah, sure. We can text and all that stuff, but I can land airplanes with my iPad not normal. I, I’m gonna pull the Asian card down and say, it’s probably because I’m Asian and we’ll go, congratulations. You’re welcome. Um, yeah, I, but I think that, um, I would sit, I would have a very dedicated time to where these, you guys are, you guys are, you guys have to hang out with each other because Adam, you’re gonna learn something from these guys.

Mm-hmm. And then, and then, then, and I’m gonna, and they’re gonna learn something from me. What can I share with them? Nothing technically. ’cause they, they, they’re so on a different planet there. But I can talk to ’em about context, experience, history, the background, um, uh, that’s what I would do is get people in the room.

Well, we talked about that. It, it’s, how do they like to say, and I will meet you halfway, right? As long as you’re willing to meet me halfway. That’s a good exchange. So I would create an environment, you know, that, that exchange of skillset is, is just constant. It has to be that way. And then what happens is that, well, again, dialogue, you’re gonna, you’re gonna run into conflict.

Conflict. And then you, you’re gonna have to find a way to, to like it, and you’ll ultimately say, oh, now I understand. And once you say, now I understand, well then guess what? Now we have a happy workforce. As opposed to saying, uh, you know what, don’t talk to Earl. What? I dunno why I came up with the name Earl, but I mean, it, it, it just, it it, it takes intentional effort to make sure that these generations can get together.

I, I, I would love to sit down with them and say, tell me something. I don’t know. Yeah. Uh, about tech. Tell me something. I don’t know about that, but I, I think with these, with, with the young kids out there, there’s one question that I think that should ask every single one of their, when they make the calls or they see somebody, and it should be, it’s no d it’s a different version than how do you like your steak?

It’s just like, what’s your preferred method of communication? Oh, all day. Yeah. Ask that, that should be in the talk track. It’s literally in, it’s a, it’s the requirement that I have actually for the first meetings. If you’re gonna, first meeting before you leave that meeting, the, you’re gonna have to set up a follow up step, right?

Yeah. So, moving forward, communicating with one another. What’s your preferred method of communication? So that solidifies my perspective in that I don’t, I think that there’s a variety of different ways that you should be approaching the market and you can’t be too heavy and want it and ignore the other two or three.

Um, you have to, you have, it’s a, it’s a collage, right? You have to hit every side. So if you’re a salesperson, traditionally you were taught first it was we, we knock on doors and we make phone calls, right? Then it turned into, we knock on doors, we make phone calls, and we email. Oh my gosh, this email thing is amazing.

But you, that was when if you got an email, it was like, holy cow. I just got an email. Like, you’ve heard you got mail? Yes, yes. Somebody, somebody knows I exist. We’re doing it. Yeah. And that, and that kind of carried on for a while. It did, right? Mm-hmm. And then it was like, well, um, you know, we, what’s this social media thing?

Is it just entertainment? Or can we kind of start to do that? So that kind of came into play, and then we know what happened in 2020, and then we lost all the in-person stuff. Mm-hmm. So everyone kind of had to lean into the emails and the social media, because even the phone calls weren’t being picked up unless you had their cell phone.

Mm-hmm. I think that of all the bad that happened from that timeframe, I think it’s a really, really good, if you have the right perspective, it’s that now we know that we should be taking all of those and making it part of the daily activity of a salesperson, and they should be trained to have mastery in every one of them.

Mm-hmm. And, and what better way of getting mastery than sitting down with somebody that has done it before? Mm-hmm. And, and done it in a whole different way. You know, it’s interesting, the company I was with before, uh, another sales organization and, and I was always in the top one, two, or three, which was cool.

Um, and they measured everything. And, and you should measure it a lot when you’re in sales, right? I mean, you know, I, I, data doesn’t lie. Data doesn’t lie. I, I taught cold calling classes and, and I’m a big fan of what gets measured gets improved. What gets improved gets results. But what’s crazy is that, oh, so, so I finished number one, two or three and, and again, Chris High five to me, but what I was really bad at was, and they kept metrics, oh, you need to have x number of meetings per week.

Mm-hmm. Adam, you’re kind of around 50 percentile in meetings. I’m like, okay. I said, but my, I am here on Yeah. For the leaderboard. Yeah. Which meant one of my meetings will run circles around six of yours. Now, the guy who led in meetings. Probably the bottom third. Yeah. And I’m thinking, Hey man, keep doing what you gotta do.

But for me, I’d rather, you know, but don’t you have to do it enough in order to determine what your perfect ingredient mix is to make the best cake. Which is why you wanna meet with me. I can tell Ally why, how I did it. Yeah. So for instance, like, like you might have somebody that you trained, that you analyze their current metrics and you go, yeah, man, like you, you are a quality caller.

You should not be upping the amount of calls. What you should be doing is if you’re gonna make any improvement, you should be leaning more into how can you maybe document more content to show that you do this well? Or how can you make your emails sound more like your call cadence? Yeah. Like, and, and, and then there might be other people like, damn, you stink at content.

Like, you really should double down on your phone calls because you are a market to the masses. Uh, find, find the diamond in the rough. You need the multitude of calls in order to have the success. The key is you gotta know who you are within that variety. That’s what this talks about. Uh, and uh, again, that takes practice.

But at at, at the end of the day, you need to say, how are you built? Because not everybody can do it. And that’s what I tell the young people when I miss like that you can’t do it. You might not be able to. Maybe you can do what I do. I don’t know, but how are you built? And it’s like, uh, and some of ’em don’t even know.

Uh, you know, the thing about cold calling, uh. These door knocks. Um, it is a bit og right? It is og. Uh, and the, the, the problem with it, and, and this is why I don’t, I, I don’t, I’ve, I don’t make cold calls. I, I, and again, but I’ve been around long enough so I don’t have to. But, um, you know, that style of securing business is so dated, like, you know, yes, there’s, there’s calls to be made, but technology exists so you can make it more efficient.

The problem with technology is that it’s so damn clinical. It’s so cold. You know, it’s so cold. It reminds me, there was a place in Michigan, I dunno if they have this here in Chicago, but it’s, it’s a sushi joint and everything’s on a conveyor belt. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there’s one, one stuff like that.

There’s one, uh, on Randall Road in, in, like, have you eaten? I, yeah, sure. There’s plenty. And it, it freaked me out, man. I’m like, I don’t know. Like I’m, I’m like, I want that one. And I was too late. And I’m like running down the line, like knocking over a lady to get the, the whatever one. But I know exactly what you’re talking about.

And it’s, and it, the sushi’s horrible. It’s like no service. It’s been sitting there going around on the track for a week. Yeah. It’s like the hotdog at seven 11, man. Like, questionable. I don’t know. Different. I wanna watch my guy cut it. Absolutely. And bring it to me quality. Do you want a clinical relationship or do you want a relationship?

Yeah, that’s why I don’t like the AI dms. It’s so clinical. It’s like, it’s useless. Like really? You took the time to put the clover emoji, which I have in front of my name. You put the clover emoji, and then the J in my name is not capitalized. And you think that, I don’t know that this is ai. Like you can hear the name like Sam Juan.

It’s like, dear Mr. Juan, I’m gonna see Dear Santa, this is, you know, uh, one of the things that I talk about with follow up. So I met with, um, there’s a, a client that I met with and I met with their employees and I sit down one-on-one and I talk to ’em, take very copious notes. You know, literally stone, tablet, chisel hammer.

Right? Me too. And, and I do, and you’ve seen me do it and I know I’ve watched you do it too. That’s just stylistically how I do that. And, um, you know, that, uh, I idea of writing stuff down and following up. I think follow up is ski. If you’re gonna, I don’t mind doing this. Yeah. But that’s what you’re gonna do on the follow up.

Uh, on the follow up. But you’ve gotta customize it. It can’t be dear valued customer. Oh. And so when I send my follow ups, I should, you know, tonight at, at our event, I’ll, I’ll share with you some of the follow ups that I do. But it was, Hey, thanks for being in, in, in our meeting last week. It was a pleasure learning about you and your husband and your goals to retire in three years.

Uh, and your comments about credit card debt resonates with me. Yeah. And your dog Fluffy is awesome. You know what? You know what I mean? Like. You got my attention. Yeah. And I should show you the response that I got. The lady, Mary sent me a note, but she goes, thank you. You know, I’m really looking forward to working with you.

You know, I, I I really connected with you as opposed to the other guy. I’m thinking Why? Because, I mean, I did this. You paid attention. I paid attention. Yes. And you, and you appealed to their humanity. You appealed to their emotions. Everybody wants to feel unique and special. Everybody wants to feel like what I’m saying matters.

And those automated emails take everything that is the meat of what is point of sending the email out of the email. So at that point, why, why bother even sending it? You’re not getting anywhere. So I’m scrolling through LinkedIn today. Yeah. And it was, uh, a shared post. And the reason that I saw it is because somebody that I’m a first connection with, who was a previous podcast guest who I really admire and love and think, Jared Gibson, how are You buddy?

Um, he had liked and commented. So if he, if my first connection likes and comments, it shows up on my feed that he liked and commented. Hence the value of LinkedIn. It’s like your community shows you what you should be looking at. Mm-hmm. Uh, the post was a shared post by another person. Obviously he follows.

So now I’m introduced to that person, so now we can connect with that person. But here’s the amazing thing. It was a car show with an interviewer, interviewing guests, walking around at the car show. It looked just like the Chicago car show and McCormick Place or whatever. Beautiful cars. I mean, clear as day, looked absolutely perfect.

And at the top it says, this is 100% ai. It’s completely fake. And it scared me to death because if I didn’t read that, I would’ve known for a fact that that was real. I would’ve thought for a fact that that was a real, and I would’ve thought to myself, there’s a car show going on. Normally they’re at this time of year, like, where is this car show?

It was 100% ai, every person, the whole dialogue. And it literally looked like WGN was out at the car show doing the interview. It scares me to death because when you think about that, AI could be persuading us to think and do things in a, in a certain way without us even knowing that it’s ai. We think it’s a real human that with real emotions and a soul, and influencing us to think a certain way, and we’re being persuaded to do so.

And it turns out that it’s ai and who ultimately runs ai? We don’t know who’s running ai, like who’s like trace the money, right? That’s what they always say. Like, you wanna find where the crime is really coming from? Like trace the roots back to the money. Where’s the roots back to ai? Well, nothing it evil, centralized.

It’s, but is it evil? Is it, is it. It’s bias. What is it? It’s, and in my opinion, you can just get a couple of questions and you’ll, and the bias will kind of show it. Percent. And, and again, this is ai As an infant, as it gets older, maybe, oh my gosh, a little bit. You know, that’s gonna show up at the door and ring the doorbell.

I feel like it has to become, it has to become decentralized in order for it to actually affect humanity in a positive way. It cannot be programmed by a corporation. It cannot, it’s getting close, Lauren, because there are a number of, uh, uh, options available other than chat, GBT. Right. Have you found one that’s decentralized?

’cause I’ve been looking well, can’t find it. Well, fact that another one exists means that, you know, it’s not chat GBT, but clawed AI is a pretty good one. I hear Grok is a decent one. There’s one, you know, overseas called Deep Seek. They’re all kind of doing the same thing, uh, at, but there’s a bias exists.

Of course it does. You know what I mean? Babies do like chocolate. And guess what, you know, there’s a, there’s a lean toward that. Uh, but I think over time it’ll ultimately, uh, correct itself. But this is what I would love to ask. Yeah. These young kids, it’s like, dude. How do I deal with this ai? Yeah. That’s, I won’t, they gotta say, and they’ll say, well, this is what you should know.

I’m like, thank you. Now I know. I would love to ask, you know, Hey, any Gen Zs out there, you know, submit, you know, your comments down below. But I mean, it would be really cool to say, how are you managing the AI experience now? They might say, it’s completely normal dose. This is what we do. And we know, I don’t know what kind of thin slicing they do in their mind to say, that’s fake, but teach me that skill.

Do they think it’s awesome or do they think it’s scary? That’s a great question for them. I’d love to know. Old people think it’s, it’s scary. Think it’s, I think it’s scary. I think it’s scary because like, I can feel your energy. Mm-hmm. I know you have a soul. I know, I know that you are delightful just from a brief interaction.

Yeah. Um, I don’t know your complete past, but I get a vibe that you’re well intended. Mm-hmm. Right. Um, and you’re documented. I’m so like, so like your brand is out there, so I can, I, I can go. Okay. So let me read a book. I get a flavor, but I can also go, let me interact with some of his customers. See what they have to say.

Absolutely. Yeah. Like I. That’s cool. I can vibe with that. I don’t know how to vibe with what AI is telling you. Like, yeah, it, it, it’s scary how that works, but these are all wonderful questions, but then this is why you put me in a room with somebody who’s much younger than me and say, help me figure this out.

And they’ll, they’ll say, well, this is what you need to know. Like, thank you very much. And they might say, Adam, this is normal. Yeah. Like, okay, well then this is where our Gen X, you know, skepticism comes into play. Well, what about this situation? What about this situation? And then, then exchange learns. But, you know, AI is not going anywhere.

I, I think it’s, uh, but the soullessness of it is important to, uh, to point out because, um, I, I, I say the people who buy from you, they have souls. Yeah. And they will know soulness. Yeah. They have emotions. Exactly. Well, I mean, and ai, right? I, I am equally excited as I am scared. And maybe that’s like my a millennial thing, because on one hand, the whole idea of work smarter, not harder, right?

That’s like the heart. We, if there’s an easier way to accomplish something, why are we gonna take. This longer convoluted path. And, and that’s where AI in business, in your day-to-day life, it’s taking the monotonous activities, like running data, analyzing data, and we talk about, you know, making sales decisions.

It used to be manual. Then we have CRMs and we can run reports, but at some point someone has to take that data, be able to read the report and understand how to steer the ship and why it’s the best decision. Well that alone could take so many hours and so much time. I used Grok for the first time, um, because one of our engineers who is amazing was like, Hey, you should check this out.

I think it’s great. Obviously if our engineer is going, this is great, I’m going to try it. Mm-hmm. And I was blown away. It took something that had previously taken me probably a month worth of time. Just because you have life. Yeah. For ten two. Absolutely. Right? Absolutely. And it did it in about 10 minutes.

Mm. That’s some scary stuff. I’ll tell you a funny way that I used ai. Uh, this was last year and, uh, it was I think, uh, late September and it was for fantasy football. I’m like, you know what? This year really a chat gt. That’s a great application. Pick, pick it. And I, um, if wanna know how I did it, that’s fine.

Let me know. I’ll tell you. But here’s what, here’s what the results were. First seven weeks. I was like six and one. I’m like this if solid. Yeah. Then one of my players got injured. And I said, well, let me try it myself. Like, oh my God. And I, I finished fifth and fourth is when you, you place the cash? Yeah. Um, but I thought it was interesting.

It’s like, oh yeah, so this year I am going to do it again and I’m not gonna touch a steering wheel. Like, look, uh, you’re the Uber driver, I’m gonna sit in the back and let’s just see what happens out there. But there’s, there’s no doubt AI on, on what it does. Uh, and I love the fact that we’re talking about this, uh, because, you know, this is where the puck is gonna be.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and how we respond. You gotta skate to the puck. Exactly. Uh, uh And we skate. Yeah. Skate to the puck. And I think that this is where this comes up. You can talk to the young folks, man, they only know this, they don’t know Stone Temple. As a matter of fact, I think they just started letting cursive be allowed back in school.

Yeah. Did they? Oh yeah. There was a time where it wasn’t. No, my ki my son came home 15 years old, all excited. ’cause he, we opened a bank account for me. He had to do a signature. He’s like, I have it written in cur cursive for like seven years. This is awesome. He’s like, yeah, big deal. Took it outta school. I had, um, years, years ago, I came across my first sales rep, new to the workforce, brand new baby bird.

And when you close this first deal, one of the exciting things is you get to sign, you’re signing your name, that’s your baby, right? Mm-hmm. Brought that in. It’s, it’s right. A passage. Sign your name, maybe. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. And he didn’t know how to sign his name. And I had this, this epiphany where I was like.

He’s like, where’s the keyboard? I, I was like, so do I include, you know, learning how to sign your name in the sales training? Like, my God, we sound old right now. Well, we do, but I mean, you know, if I were to, uh, sit down with a young person, I would say, scenario wise, here’s a scenario. Explain to me how you would respond.

Yeah. And none of this, just look at me and talk to me on that and see it. ’cause as you said, this, this roundedness comes into play. Uh, if you haven’t read Chris Voss, um, um, never, uh, no, uh, never split a difference. And Chris, he’s a former FBI negotiator, uh, and he talks about how to get people to tell the truth.

And when I’m talking to clients or in the, and we’re, you know, just trying to learn exactly what the scenario is, he has this technique called Ted, TED. Tell me, explain to me and describe Oh, I love that. Explain as I said, explain that to me, like I’m six years old. Well, I love that question actually. It, I call that, and actually that’s in one of my other books.

I, it’s called Eli five, LI five, uh, and it says, explain it to me like I’m five. Mm-hmm. And then you’ll see if they can do that. One of the things in this first book I talk about is a prompt, uh, a verbal prompt to figure out, okay, who are you looking at? And one of the questions would be, tell me something I don’t know about Kia Sierra copiers.

Mm-hmm. Just say, tell me something. I, and then, and then the four personalities that I talk about there, somebody who is. As I say, triangular, we’ll say, well, what do you wanna know? Okay. That that’s me. Yeah. Like, all right, well, what do you wanna know? Um, there’s a, a square that I identify here, and that’s the person I’ll say, well, the history of blah, blah, blah.

And then they will just talk to you. Yeah, yeah. No punctuation. They will not blink. They will not move. Everything’s perpendicular. And that’s how they’ll talk to you. Um, a circle, as I mentioned in in this book, will just talk about how it brought the world together and how everybody’s kumbaya. That’s cool.

And then there’s the wave line. Oh, yeah. I, what Sarah, what they do is amazing. And then next thing you know, there’s a level of excitement connected with that. But I, I, and, and that’s why in this book, one of the last things, like if you, if you, if you can’t figure out who you’re talking to, ask them, tell me something I don’t know about TTSG.

Love that question. Yeah. It’s, you can get a lot from these questions. Well, it is, the answer isn’t important to me. It’s, oh, the a hundred percent communication styles. It’s, it’s, it’s everything. ’cause when you’re talking about sales, right? Yeah. It’s, it’s who are you selling to, right? So we’re selling on an individual level.

What’s your role? What are your personal motivations? What are your professional motivations? And then you have the company level, right? You know, what is the overarching goal? What, who’s steering the ship there? And what are you trying to accomplish altogether? And. With that, you know, if you don’t understand the differences and the different roles and who you’re selling to, ’cause let’s be honest, like how many people are involved in decisions now?

Too many people. A lot of shit. There’s a lot of people, a lot of opinions, a lot of processes, a lot of different communication styles. And if you’re not covering all of those, something’s gonna get missed. And then that’s how you lose a deal that’ll keep you up at night for the next 10 years. Let, let me jump into the appendix of this because I wrote this and the editor said, uh, ’cause we went back and forth on should I put an appendix?

And I say, yeah. I said yes. And she said no. And I said, the appendix, Lauren, the appendix is at the back of the book. Just think, oh, thank you. Just so you know, because I literally, that, you know, is that a new one? I said it to you to make it sound like you didn’t know, but I was actually just verifying it for myself.

Exactly. So the appendix includes something called. Um, a, a shape index, and it says, okay, if you’re a circle, square triangle, rectangle says, behavioral patterns, body languages, disagreement styles, disengagement styles, effective communication approaches, family and personal relationships, handshaking and greeting.

Top five jobs, top worst jobs. Sweet. I mean, this to me, I I put it in the back just so you can say I love it. You can go back and say, okay, so this person, I even put a, a section there about how they text. Yeah. And, and that way you can say, okay, so based upon the text, I know that this person is this, which gives me an idea about how to communicate to them.

But let’s talk about TTSG for a second and, and my industry too. And somebody says, well, what makes you different than the the next TTSG? And we, we can all brag about service, and I would love to ask them and say, talk to me about what happens after you win an opportunity. What does a servicing look like?

And I would love to hear what they say. I sold more, uh, opportunities selling my service team than I did by Apple. I’ll want that thousand percent all day. And, and, and the core values and purpose of the organization. Well, I took it a step further. Yeah. I said, well, if you decide to move forward, you’re gonna be working with Sue.

When you talk to her, ask her about her 15-year-old son. He’s just about to get his driver’s license. And that’s, it’s, it’s like, thank you. He’s human. Yeah. Been there, done that. I know what that’s like. I can’t wait to talk to her because my son crashed it. Right. So it just starts that, know who’s talking, they’re talking, and then the commonality starts off.

So you know who’s selling for me? Ah, Sue. Yeah. You know what I mean? There you go. Yeah. I said my, that’s why, who’s, who’s the expert took care of my sales team. Yep. Right? And, and we’re spoiled here because we have a service team that we sell constantly and they, they back up everything that we promise. We don’t have to be concerned that it’s not gonna go that way.

And they, you know, our customers, they know our service team by name. Yeah. They’ll call and they’ll say, oh, I talked to so and so, you know, they know about their personal lives. Yeah. It’s people working with people. Well, you also have an owner in Tim and a COO and Bob who built the company on service.

Right. Oh. And part of the reason why Tim Yeah. Bought this or, uh, built this company was because he was working at another place and then got recruited away. But one of the things that he, that he really, um, turned him off in the industry was just the lack of service. And then he started paying attention to the industry, even when he was out of it and kept hearing feedback about how bad the service was.

Well, people kept calling him, even though he was out of the service, going like, Hey, how do we get back with you? And he is like, well, okay, I should probably start a company up again. And that’s kinda how it went. So his whole thing has been like, has been, look, we’re gonna do everything in our power to give you the most competitive pricing, the best utilization of your money, not the cheapest, the best utilization of your money, which ultimately means that for the dollar, the service and the interaction with people and the attention to detail and the care will.

Supersede the cost. And so that’s kind of been his selling methodology and what, what they’ve led with as it relates to a brand. Mm-hmm. Um, and will continue to do. And the cool part is then the service department absolutely makes it come true and backs it up. And then when the, when the operations team makes the sales team’s words come true,

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Get back your time and your money with GSD Drive business forward. Leave the technology to GSD GSD now.com. Yeah. Us sales guys, we say a lot, you know, and, and, and this is why I spend a lot of time, this is why I wanted to get my fricking thumb in there so I could say, can you just understand? You know, how I win opportunities and your, your role in that and how are you gonna unravel that?

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but then again, or how you can solidify, so it’s gold forever, right? So, you know that, that takes, um, dialogue. But, you know, I did, I did meet, uh, Tim and, uh, I can, I, I can tell he was a big culture guy. Mm-hmm. Right? And, you know, you walk and here the vibe is just very different. As a matter of fact, the energy of the, uh, sales guys too was like, good for you, man.

You guys sound excited. I said, I hope you can find a way to transfer that, that enthusiasm, um, you know, over the phone. Uh, and um, and, and can continue to do that. But I, I brought up this, the, the service part of it because, uh, it’s still a people game, right? And I didn’t sell Sue the implementation person.

I sold her as a human who just hap who’s a really awesome person who just happens to be in charge of your implementation. Mm-hmm. That’s it. She is an implementation person that just happens to be a mother of 15 old. Exactly. Okay. And once you humanize that, not an implementation person who’s also a mother No, but a mother Yeah.

Who happens to be the implementation manager. Well, and the fact that I said, Hey, ask her about her son. Mm-hmm. When you talk to her that says, well, Adam, it sounds like you spent her say, I absolutely spent, said, I need to know. That’s why, you know, one of the first things I do is I sit down with my tire service.

I know what this person does, I know what their hobbies are. I know where they live. Yeah. I, I know you’re selling in humans instead of selling in, selling in humans. Yeah. With, again, this is where this concerns very, so I would love to ask the younger generation, how are you selling humans? How are you? I mean, I’d be interested to figure out how you do that.

It’s critical. I don’t know how you would miss, how would you miss that piece? You know what I mean? Like I don’t even, you have to build that relationship, Lauren. Here’s how you miss it. ’cause you don’t care. All I know is this. I can press one button and 40 emails, 40 million emails, yes. Out. And some, something will stick, which means it’s a numbers play.

Yeah. Again, that means the customer’s just a number and if I’m just a number in the way that you approach me in marketing, then I’m gonna be just a number. And likely the way that you approach service. Well, yeah, that’s the truth. LinkedIn, right? You know, if you’re a link or think we’re all on LinkedIn and somebody reaches out to out to me for some solicitation, I say, well, how do you know me?

Yes. And I said, then I’ll take your call because I haven’t seen you like or comment on anything. Like if you wanna sell me, literally, and this is what I teach the sales team here, and any of our clients that we talk to like. The, the money of LinkedIn, the profit of LinkedIn is in the comments a hundred percent.

It’s, it’s not in the creation, but you have to have creation because people are going to go to your profile. Mm-hmm. Once you’ve commented enough to see who’s commenting. Mm-hmm. And at that point they go, oh, well that was nice that that person commented. But the, the, the value of LinkedIn is liking and commenting on somebody’s post in a human and substantive way to add to the conversation so that that little red bubble shows up on their phone.

Right. 10 times. Right. When they normally get that to show up 10 times in a week, it showed up 10 times in an hour. And it’s all you and you like to commented and, and, and then you send ’em a dm. And the DM is like, thank you for the value you’re giving on on LinkedIn. I’m really enjoying your content. And there’s no ask.

It’s just a give. Well, uh, that’s the key. That’s the super key. Right. And, and I think that, uh, you’ve mentioned, and in what you just said, you’ve mentioned the word value like four or five times. I’m, I’m all about commenting on that. But there’s a way to comment, right? And there’s a way to comment wrong.

And so when you comment, it’s like, man, that sounds, you know, benign. I mean, just say something meaningful. Uh, or you can say, excellent posts. I use this with my sales team today. Keep up the good work. Boom. That’s gold. That’s gold. You smoke. Yeah. So you shouldn’t do love this. And it’s got like the celebration emoji that you just, uh, that LinkedIn provided you and you just clicked on that.

Like, you see what I’m saying? I take a minute, put the celebration emoji. Then, and then add a sentence. Absolutely. Say, Hey, you know, excuse the terseness of a, an emoji. I just wanted to say, well done and keep up. And by the way, line five, you had me, I said to someone, I said to somebody the other day, I said, you had me at the hook.

You had me at the hook. This is at, and the, and the response back from a guy who’s a CEO of a major, uh, dentistry practice. It, the, the response back was, you’re my kind of people. If you, if I had you at the hook, that means you’re the, you’re the kind of people I like to operate with. And so it’s not that hard.

Now, that interaction is as powerful, if not more powerful than me making 50 phone calls. Yeah. To get a 32nd pitch out. If you even get that, because let’s be honest, you’re probably making 30 phone calls and you’re leaving voicemails and not talking to a Yeah, because that guy has no irritation. The person I call on the phone has irritation.

I get the 30 seconds out. It takes a long time to break the ice. It’s important. Eventually you have to do it. I love it. You gotta make the calls. But to find somebody’s content, compliment them. Reciprocity, give, give, give, give, give. Make them feel a certain way. Do it a few times. Then send ’em a personal note.

Never ask for anything. Establish a bond and then go, Hey look, is there anyone in my network that I could introduce you to? So another give. And then at that point, if they say yes now they almost feel like they owe you. So the appointment ask is like, Hey, can I get 15, 20 minutes of your time to talk about who we are, what we do?

That becomes easy, uh, much easier, you know? Um, there’s a, a marketing component to this as well, because we talked a little bit about content. I, I know you’re on what I do every first and third Monday, I send, um, a sales tip out. And that has nothing to do with 401k. It has nothing do with anything other than saying, Hey, this is something that I think you’d find useful.

Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a local story. It’s to make it more unique. It isn’t just an email and I try to keep it under 300 words. I think that comes out to about two minutes worth of, it’s like a newsletter. It’s like an email. It’s it’s a, it’s a audio email. Yeah. It’s like I just say it, it ’cause it, when I get it, it, it just looks like he’s sending me a personal email.

Yeah, right. But when you open it and you just blind copy it, so it’s going to several people, but Lauren Yeah. But it’s, you know, it’s something interesting because, you know, we’ve talked enough, he knows I’m super nerdy about sales, about sales psychology, about human beings. I think we all are. You and I have had deep discussions about the same, so you know what I’m interested in.

Mm-hmm. And he’s tailoring information to that. And it is, it’s, it’s only sometime like couple paragraphs. Mm-hmm. Two, three paragraphs and. But it’s staying front of mind. Yeah. It’s the front of mind. But I also take it one more step further. It, if you wanna read it, go for it. But I have a button there if you want to hear it.

Click on it and it’s cool. My void. Yeah. And it’s, and narrate Totally. You click on it, it’ll say two rather, before you click on it, it’ll say, it’ll say two minutes and 36 seconds. It’s like, I got that. Yeah. That doula, that’s problem. It’s simple. And it, and it’s real simple. So there’s a company that I’m working with without coaching them on doing something like this to say, when you send out your marketing update emails to your clients mm-hmm.

Make it audio, make it hard. Welcome to 2025. And it’s not hard to do. I mean, you know, I, I, I do that every other week and that goes out probably to about 500 people. Yeah. Uh, and, and then guess what? They say, oh, you’re the guy. Like tonight, like, we’re gonna go to this event. It’s like, oh, you’re that guy. I’m like, yeah, I’m that guy.

I feel like I know you. Yeah. Well, no different than what you’re doing here. It’s like, yeah, I saw you on the podcast. So, um, yeah. That’s, that’s, uh, the word. The key is value. I don’t know, man. I mean, you know, customization takes work. Uh, but you can tell when people put in the work. Mm-hmm. Uh, I’d like to sit down with, again, some of the, these, these younger folks and say, how are, this is how I did it.

Yeah. How do you plan on doing? Or do you think it’s even relevant? And it could be, gosh, one of the things I talk about here is something called a gig economy. You won’t have employees, you’re just gonna hire people things. Oh yeah. Yep. Snipers. It’s gonna be all snipers. Yeah. All snipers. Like, okay. So, you know.

The, my fear, we talk about it is the human part of it. You know, let me, lemme just quickly talk about the second book. ’cause I think it was just as important, um, because, uh, you know, the idea about the unseen influence of your surroundings, I, one of the things I pronounced to my children was, you know, show me your friends.

I’ll show your future. Simple, simple math on that. I could say this to any of these kids out here. You know, show me who you’re calling on. Show me who you’re calling on and I’ll show you whether or not you even have a shot. Mm-hmm. Uh, or tell me, you know, I walk in here, show me your employees and I’ll tell you if you’re gonna be in business in the next five years, like you can look at my book of business, show me your clients, and I’ll tell you, if you surround yourself with a bunch of, you know, um, people who are gonna, you know, blow you up when the market goes down or, you know, stick a stick, stick with you.

Yeah. Uh, and so, uh, I spent a lot of time talking about how to surround yourself with the right people. That’s one of the chapters. The second chapter is, you know, how to, um, determine if the group you’re in is in fact, if you’re calling on the right people. What we do socially. I, I see what you’re doing. I, I see the people you hang, it’s like, yeah, you know, Lauren seems like she’s pretty cool.

Right? That’s kinda like the good to great method, like get the right people on the bus. And that doesn’t just mean employees. Right? Oh, I do What you’re saying is like, that could be suppliers, vendors, customers, like everything. Get the right people on the bus. It’s a fun Be in the, be in the right room.

Yeah. Chapter two, I think, oh my gosh, you spoke right to chapter two. I call it the dinner test. Hey. Right. You know, think about this. You know, if, if, if you saw me out at a restaurant and saw who I was having dinner with you, you’d know, I know this in Michigan, there’s uh, a couple of breakfast joints where if you’re having breakfast there, you’re seen there, but like, yeah.

You know, you, that’s quality. Yeah, right. But if he’s like, yeah, they’re a Ponderosa again, I’m like, oh, okay. So, you know, it, it’s just, it’s just different. So, so we talk a little bit about the environment, but the third chapter that is my favorite. I think salespeople get this wrong. Um, but it’s the idea of what’s what I call pruning.

Like if it’s John 15, two says, look, if you don’t prune out the debt stuff, the good stuff will never grow. And I think salespeople, they have a problem of thinking this is somewhat of a dysfunction, but we think we can win everything. Um, and you don’t want to. Yeah. Well, we, well, that’s, that, that’s again, chapter two is like, hey, you don’t wanna say yes to everybody, have boundaries.

We talked about that. And then, uh, at some point you will need to prune. And it doesn’t mean you need to prune just customers habits. It could be people, it could be a number of things, processes. Oh my gosh. You know, that’s the thing that, um. That latter processes. So after, why the c The cover of the book is a broken branch.

And I say that to me was mo the, was right off the bat gonna be the cover because too many people have yards that haven’t been pruned. Have, you know, they dialing on people like, dude that’s dead man, why are you calling on that? We we’re talking about sales, but we, we, you know, I’ve been a part of both sides of the equation.

Yeah. Like I’ve been part of a company that was so hyperfocused on being a sales organization mm-hmm. That they found ways to minimize process to make it easier for salespeople. Mm-hmm. To flow and to get jobs done. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, the operations people kind of had to catch up. Mm-hmm. I also been part of a company that was a sales organization that get he heavily operational.

Mm-hmm And it was almost like a sales repellent. Like you were putting the salespeople through so many different things just to get a deal in that you bogged them down from getting the next deal and you stagnated your own scaling process because you wanted more data. That probably wasn’t even relevant ’cause you were looking for like the Moneyball equation, right.

There’s no equation, there’s no like Well it changes because again, sales is a people first industry do humans. Stay stagnant. No, not at all. We we’re, there’s trends, they come and go. Communication styles, they come and go. We are evolving. Mm-hmm. How do you evolve if you’re trying to set a stagnant process up and think that’s gonna be the be all, end all?

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. You know, I talk about, um, uh, a personality type that is just that rigid, and guess what, you know, from a process standpoint, pinpoint. But, you know, if you were to summarize this book, uh, and this personality types, and then there’s disc and there’s, you know, a whole bunch of other ones out there, I put my own take on it.

Uh, and uh, I think it’s a little bit more simple. It’s simpler to understand that book is, what are you looking at? What are you looking at? Yeah. And it’s just, again, it says, what are you looking at? Like, it was like, I know how to communicate to you. And right off the bat, like when you and I met in Rolling Meadows, I said, I came up to you and I talked to you and I, you know, I said, this is somebody I wanna continue talking to.

But how I came up to you wasn’t, hi, I’m Adam. Oh, however you did sneak attack. He, he did lead with, you know, this is what I’m doing on the retirement side. And then he just casually starts talking about the being an author and helping people write books. And I was like, hold on a second. Wait a minute. Yeah, we, we need to rewind.

’cause these are like very different, very different, um, directions. It’s, it’s actually really intriguing. ’cause you would think that in the retirement, you know, planning industry, you think of a specific personality type. Then you think about you writing and that’s, it gets very creative. It’s, it’s, you know, and it doesn’t necessarily align with the stereotype of what you think.

So I was like, who are you enjoying, man? Well, you go there. There’s a good adjective. Intriguing Brandon. What? Don’t do it. That’s what we wanna be. It’s like, hi, you’re interest. You are not what I expected. Exactly. That’s what I, people branding all, all salespeople just should say. And that’s what I would love to ask anybody who said, what makes you different.

Mm-hmm. Tell me something I don’t know about TT yet. You know what I mean? Yeah. And go on and on it, and you, and you wanna build on that. But you, you brought up a good point about, you know, efficiencies and how companies, entrepreneurs, they do three things just remarkably well, it’s EAD. That’s how I remember.

They eliminate distractions, they automate processes, but more importantly they delegate. I suck at delegating. Mm. Uh, because I’m here. I’m, I’m skeptical. I’ll do it myself. Do myself. Yeah. Exactly. Uh, so, um, I, again, I’m, I’m a sales guy man. I, I’m not about processes. I said, yeah, I would love for you to sit down with me and ask me this very simple question.

Am I in the way of you selling more? Mm. What manager would ever ask that they should ask that? There’s a bit of humble pie to that. I’m, I’m telling you 100% it should, should be asked wan you have to ask. And I would want my say, and I would love to, I was a bit of a disruptor at my company. I, I would say, there’s a question you haven’t asked me.

And I would say, and then they say, well, what is that? Ask me. What could you do to get outta my way to sell more? Yeah. Because the question is always, why aren’t you hitting budget? Right. The the question is always, I shouldn’t say always. I should say mostly, uh, why aren’t you selling more? Why aren’t you hitting budget?

Why aren’t you hitting quota? When I believe in my heart of hearts, after 25 years of seeing it and doing it, the question should be, what can we do in order to help you to get to your quarter or budget? And then once you do that, if they still don’t hit it, if they don’t grab onto that, if they don’t make the adjustment, then you got a person issue.

There’s, there’s, can do, will do. Can’t do, will do. Won’t do, won’t do, can’t do, won’t do. Mm-hmm. Can do. Right. So like those are the four categories, like Yeah. You want the, you want the will do, can do. Mm-hmm. And you want the, um, can’t do. Will do. Mm-hmm. Those are the ones you want. The can do will do. You can train them.

Won’t do is a different animal. You know, I like the pronoun user you use there, which was if a man management team came up to me and said, what can we do? Like, thank you. Right. Thank you. That’s good. That means you’re in this with me. That means that I have the green light to say, well, okay, if it’s, if we’re talking, we then here’s what, what I think we should be doing.

Help me help you, uh, uh, help you understand that. But, you know, management styles, like I said, you just, you can walk into a building and just feel the vibes like, man, this is as a, as a, it’s like, it’s not good in here. Um, and it’s, well, and then, you know, one of the things when I talk to my clients is, you know, I, I ask about turnover, right?

And I say, okay, so talk to me about how much turnover. And some have a lot, some, some don’t, you know, interesting about the generations thing. That’s kind of interesting. ’cause I, I have a client in Michigan and, uh, she’s, uh, trying to hire, um, a vet, uh, a vet tech, and she’s having the darnest time doing it.

And it, the money’s good, the benefit’s good, everything is good. And I said, well, where are you getting hung up on? And she said, well, you know, they want PTO, they all seem to ask about PTO. I said, but I did the math on this. Look, take the cash. It’s better than PTO. And I said, who are you interviewing? And it was, you know, millennials and Gen Z.

Guess what, opinional is important. They don’t really want, they don’t want, honestly, they don’t want war awards, rewards or recognition even. No. They prefer not to have it. I was shocked because as a Gen Xer, I grew up with scoreboards awards on your desk. Mm-hmm. You know, tombstones for closing deals. Right.

Got called up, handed an award by Joe Montana for MVP of the company, like that kind of stuff. And it was like, I’m gonna run through walls for you next year. Who’s right? Yeah. And um, so I had implemented some of these things that a brand management firm and uh, pre COVID, it was like hot trot, right? Yeah.

People were on it after that. When we started recruiting different generations, they didn’t want to come up on stage. They didn’t wanna be recognized. But what they did want is they wanted the freedom to go work outside for two days without interruption. They wanted the freedom to work from home. When they want to work from home.

They wanted the incentive to be a free day off or half days. Like they want their freedom back. Which brings me to an interesting question because I think Lauren will love this. ’cause we have these like after five o’clock Yeah. Sidebar conversations with kind of conspiracy type of. Some of this stuff to that next time.

A little sales, a little conspiracy. Yeah. I feel like, you know, I feel like we’re kind of in a bit of a matrix. I think corporate USAA is, is definitely part of that matrix. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think that most businesses somehow, some way got some time with corporate USA and they’ve modeled it somewhat after that.

I mean, it has to flow a certain way. Definitely believe in process procedure. You have to have things that are trackable. You have to have data, you have to have some controls. Like I understand all of those things. I understand Compliance. I think the compliance is, is something that is part of business.

You have to, people have to comply with rules, which I’ll admittedly say I suck at. I suck at compliance, all that. So, against the grain. Exactly. I fell in line for so long that it broke me, that when I became unbroken, I kind of look at compliance, like really? Um, does that really matter? Like, but this millennials and Gen ZI think have looked at the way the world was shaped for them.

And then they looked at the fact that they were lied to for so long, and then they look at the matrix they’re in, and the policies, the procedures, and the, and the, and they go, no. Yeah, no. And you know what? As a Gen X, I admire them greatly for that because they’re essentially saying, why can’t we get the same result but do it a different way?

Yeah. And what they haven’t proven it yet is getting the same result. I hope they prove it. Hey, good luck. You know what I mean? And my job is to say, I’m not gonna tell you to do it the way I did, but you should at least know how I did it. Mm-hmm. Now maybe you can glean to two or three things. Well know how I did it, and by the way, use a different way.

But until you prove that your way is better, you better know my way too. And I’m guess what? I’m rooting for you. I’m rooting for you to show me a better way. I’m rooting for you to do it faster, smoother, and easier. So we maybe we could have a four day work week instead of this lunacy Yeah. Of, of absolutely.

We, we spend our whole life inside when all the vitamin D is outside and the sun is shining. Right. And then when we go home mm-hmm. We go home to nighttime. Right. And, and that’s our casual time. It should be flipped if you really think about it. Oh, a hundred percent. Like we need, we need the daylight. So I hope they solve the problem.

That’d be great. But they haven’t figured it out completely yet. Mm-hmm. Where they produce, where at home fully mm-hmm. Is more productive than in office. And, and the hybrid system studies show it’s not as productive. I, that, that’d be a great guess. Well, again, getting to, um, James Clear, it’s like you set up the environment for you to succeed.

Yeah. At home. I got two little dogs. I got a wife that’s building on the honey do list. I’m like, ah, it’s, I need to, you know, you know, do something different. Yeah. Full, full circle real quick. Yeah. Conflict. We go back to the, to the book, right? Yeah. Conflict with yourself. A hundred percent. That is a conversation I have with every single sales rep, every single one.

Multiple times. Honestly, every year, probably every quarter, if not monthly, there’s some sort of a conversation about you versus you every single day and being honest with yourself. Because I, I, I learned the hard way, you know, like I, I came from the bartending world. I was slang in drinks. Like that was my sales.

Do you back service time? You know why you’re good at what you’re doing? I honestly, so like when I came into, into this environment, yeah, sales is sales, but it, it’s a different type of sales. And I had the trial by fire type of, you know, onboarding where it was like, you get. Couple weeks of more controlled and then it’s, go do it.

Right. And if and if you’re doing something and it’s not working, you have two choices. You can continue doing it and pretend like it’s going to do something differently when you secretly in the back of your head, no otherwise. Or you can take a leap of faith, do something out of the box, be creative, be a disruptor.

Right. And, and that goes into every single aspect of the job. Like you will not be successful if you can’t look at yourself and be honest about what you struggle with and be honest about what you need. Like I can say I, as much as I would love to work from home, I can be honest and say I am going to not be as productive because I need certain environments.

And if I’m at home, that environment is telling my brain it’s fun time, it’s going to the garden time. It’s, you know, do art time. It’s not focus on the tasks that I don’t necessarily want to do. ’cause let’s be honest, for salespeople, we don’t wanna do the task. That’s my point. So you’ve just, that’s my exact point.

Yeah. Is the way human beings are designed by our creator mm-hmm. Does not fit this system. No. Oh. But yeah, human beings need that system in order to fit. It’s a conundrum, actually. Ah, so I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna disagree with you, but I will tell you, you can, I, I’m confused, man. I’m confused too. But, uh, I, I think that it depends on how you build, man.

Yeah. Because there’s some people who will be remarkably productive in that kind of environ, but in, in knowing who you are, being at home would completely suffocate you. But I could lie to myself, you know what I mean? Uh, and I did. Yeah. And when I first started in sales there, and this is why, and this is the conversation I have with people, is I’m like there if you’re new, right?

Because people that have been in the industry, you’ve, you’ve gone through the trial by fire. You get it. If you’re new and you’re learning, there’s going to be a point in time where you hit that crossroads where you can either be honest with yourself mm-hmm. And overcome that and just become better and elevate and continue to do that every time that happens.

’cause let’s be honest, it’s never ending sales is an emotional rollercoaster. Yep. That will take you the highest highs and the lowest lows. It’ll teach you more about yourself than I feel like a lot of other career paths. Exactly. Because you have to be honest with yourself. Well, I, I agree with you. I, I, I gotta tell you what I like about this book the most is that most people who read it says, you know, what are you looking at?

And it thinks like you, what am I looking at? What is Lauren telling me? But somewhere around page 44, that’s and 45, that’s when they started thinking about, holy shit, what am I? And then they start reflecting and it’s like, oh. I make that mistake. Oh, this is why, you know, some, one of the early chapters in that talk about, you know, who I wrote this for?

It say, look, if you got in a fight with your wife, you should probably read this. If you went on a date and didn’t go on a second date, you should probably read this. If you went, if you missed the sales trip by two opportunities, should probably read this. That would frustrate me so badly as a manager.

Well, that again, I, I wrote that to say, it may be you just read the room wrong. Maybe you need to just, and this is what I would love to ask any sales person is, you know, what could you have done differently? Forget the we part. Yeah. My job is a sales manager to, to create the best environment for you to succeed.

Tell me the obstacles. I’ll get ’em outta the way. ’cause if I get ’em outta the way and it’s on you, then it’s on you, but it’s on you. Right. Uhhuh. And then it’ll be okay. And then, as you said, it may not be right for you. And one of the things that I talk about here is determining, uh, if you’re just not billed for this, I mean, the, the index is so remarkable because it says, if you are this way, this is, these are the positions you’re gonna struggle.

There was this, uh, one young lady I was working with, she just graduated from DePaul and she wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to do. And, uh, I, we sat down, we did a one-on-one and I said, here are the jobs you need to avoid ’cause you’ll hate them. She goes, oh, but I realistic, you will suck at it. Don’t do this.

You’ll suck him unless you change who you. But then again, like you said. Are you being honest with yourself right there? A wish goal with yourself. Yeah. Just ’cause you’re passionate about it doesn’t mean you’ll be good at it. Doesn’t mean you’re good at it. Right, right. I mean, I coach girls fast fish, softball and baseball.

Just because your birthday doesn’t mean you’re gonna be the pitcher. I play golf with a lot of people that are passionate about the sport, but sports not passionate about them. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So lemme ask you this, did you carry an index? I do. What is your, what’s your index Plus one. Oh, so I’m 8.6 and I’m trying to, he has no idea what that Yeah, me, me looking like, yeah.

Plus one and eight. You can tell just like no different than this is, you know, how people carry them. Took talk. One of those humiliating sports you can ever play Golf, is it? But it, you know, I would rather get comfortable with your skin is that there’s a guy that, um, you know, good friends. He’s not a very good golfer, but he is a lot.

He’s just a pleasant person to be around. Yeah. Playing four hours and 15 minutes and be a great conversationalist. I’m all over. I’ll play with you anywhere. He’s a good people person. He knows how I’m built. I know he is, who’s a good back and forth on that. But one of the characters I mentioned in this book is a guy named s Steve Bonnet.

Uh, and you know, they, it’s so funny, after this book came out, next thing you know, there was this Hulu miniseries called, um, our Flag Means Death. And it’s hysterical. And it was a highlight on the character that I wrote in the book called, his name is Steve Bonnet and he was known as the Gentleman’s Pirate, which meant this guy came from money.

He had a wonderful family, two daughters, but just. Felt like his calling was, he wanted to be an evil pirate. Mm. And he sucked at it. He lost his family. It ultimately led to his death. And one of the things that I warn here is don’t be something you’re not. Yeah. Right. Because if you’re not, it cut bait again.

Now here’s another Easter egg. Guess what? Prune that shit. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Well, to something else. Not built for that. Or you can keep put trying to put that square peg in a round hole and good luck with that. And usually when that happens, maybe you succeed, but there’ll be shards all over the place.

Yeah. Somebody’s gotta sweep that. No for, and that it’s not good for anybody. So, um, I, one of the things that I, I, I put in both books and on all of mine, is I always take the devil’s advocates side and say, look, this isn’t all rainbows. And unicorns said, don’t get good at thinking you’re good at reading.

People gotta give him some leash. Because if you are, one of the things that people do is like, eh, I’m gonna put John in a box. He’s this way and I’m gonna treat you that way. Managers will do that. Mm-hmm. And I think that’s a crime. It’s like you let people be humans. And, and one of the things I talk about, there’s the idea of shape, of shape shifting, which means you will naturally, organically change your personality.

Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. What you wore when you were 14. I pick on my daughter, for example, now she’s, when she was 14, she was a, a wavy line and, and just a quick descriptor of the shapes here. If there was a fire in here, follow the triangle. Like, I’m outta here. If you’re with me, great. You know what I mean?

If not, you’re on your own. So tr triangle, then there’s a square, and that’s like, well, nobody move according to the exit. Mm-hmm. It says what they said, do drop and roll. Exactly. Everybody burns through the wrist. Yeah. Uh, and then there’s a circle. My god, did we get everybody? No. Where’s Tim? Right? Uh, where’s, you know, he brought his kids here too.

We, you know, where’s the dog? Yeah. I mean, do we have everybody? Or if there was a picture that was gonna be taken, oh, we gotta get everybody in here and, okay. So that’s a circle. And then there’s the wave line. Holy shit. There’s a fire in here. Yeah. Can get this, get the, uh, chocolate, get the graham crackers, get the marshmallows.

We’re having a party here. Yeah. Those are the four shapes in general. So this idea about shift, shift shifting is very interesting because when I expose this to my daughter, oh geez. 2000. See, she graduated 2012 or something silly like that. She was a freshman, uh, and, um, uh, in high school. Uh, and she was a wavy line.

Uh, my son’s a fire, uh, he’s a firefighter. He’s, he’s a circle. Mm-hmm. He’s all about running, running to, is everybody good? Yeah. Me. I’m like, get the fuck out. Okay. And then, you know, my wife is, you know, a big square procedure and all this stuff. So the idea about Shakespeare thing is interesting.

Interesting house. Do you have there? Well, it’s outta mall car. I love it. No, I love it because I said they loaded. Do I wanna be married to me? No. Oh God. You know what I mean? It’s like, yeah. You know what? Another triangle, well, we would be, oh no. It’s like, God, my wife is an analytical, like practical and.

Because I’m like, you know what we should do? We should just move to Arizona. And just, and she’s like, what? Yeah, exactly. So my daughter today, now that she’s a parent, and, and she, she read this book and she goes, you know, um, she did like the chapter about shapeshifting and, and how, how you have to have that, let that happen organically.

Don’t force it. If you’re not a square, don’t try to be an lec. Like I can be an ana liquid. I need to be, as a matter of fact, you talked about chameleon. You need to be all four, honestly. Yeah. Have the ability to at least express, I think everyone is all four. It’s whether they can tap into them in the right app, in the appropriate, authentic way.

And the fire is under duress. The real you is gonna show. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, yeah. And that’s why when my son said he wanted be a firefighter, said, I can’t think of a better role, better person for it. ’cause he is, he’s always been that way. Um, my daughter, now she’s a parent, she says, well, and I read the book and I, I, I think I’m a square made up of four squiggly lines.

I’m like, oh, I get that. Okay. Because she’s still uber creative. But now that she’s become a parent, she’s very, she has to be process driven. Structured. Yeah. He has, I relate to that. When I first started in sales mm-hmm. We had to take the disc assessment. Sure. No, yeah. I like personality tests. You know, they’re all, they all give you a little bit of little something, something, you know, something you can apply, something you can take from.

Right. The disc, I feel like is like intro to personality tests. Yeah. Yeah. And when I first took it, I was a high eye. Mm-hmm. Like extreme. Like, right. Mm-hmm. Eye. Um, and one of the things that I struggled with, because again, coming from the service industry, it was all about tips. So I’m going to be whatever you want me to be.

It’s all about how can make your life whatever needs to be. Get the outcome. Yeah. I’m trying to get tips. Yeah. I’m trying, whatever. Uh, so I wasn’t dominant. I didn’t have the practice pushing people outta their comfort zone. ’cause that made me so uncomfortable. It made me feel like something wrong was I was gonna break something.

It felt like I was gonna push something, it was gonna break and it was gonna be my fault. And it was a very scary thing, right? Yeah. And I was the whole, my first like year and a half at TTSG. Yeah. My manager back in the day was like, you need to be more dominant. You have to push them. You need to take control.

You have, and and I understood it logically, but the executing, it was easier said than done because I had to actually put myself in this situation. Right Now what happened is you get pushed around so much that you just start get, you just get pissed off and one day you just crack. You go, not today Satan.

And all of a sudden something changing. Boy, Satan used to work here. That’s crap. I’m glad he is gone. It feels like that though. They almost, yeah. I’m glad he is gone. That’s for sure that, that’s, that, that’s, that’s, that’s brilliant. Um, because at some point, um, I. You’ll need to make an adjustment. Yeah. And sometimes that happened.

Well, ultimately enough pressure. It’s like, okay, like I’m done. Yeah. Right. It’s, I’m done being that, uh, the, the, the toughest person in for sales. Actually, I think all four can be good at sales. Sure. You just have to be who you are and the right product. Right. And you gotta know how to nurture. Yeah. Uh, my, my concern with, with salespeople is the circles.

Right. Just concerned about everybody else and very just uber concerned about relationships, which means they’ll sacrifice the sale for the relationship. And I think that’s a mistake, right? I think salespeople should find a way to say there’s a happy medium. Like you cannot, and I I use this analogy where you can’t go with the burger and you drive through, Hey, can I take your order?

Yeah. Uh, I’ll have some food. Okay. It’s go around and then you go and they say, this is, that is what I wanted. Well, guess what? You didn’t say you got, they say exactly right what you want. Yeah. And well, I didn’t wanna hurt the guy’s feeling say and say that’s the problem. I say in sales. It’s like, look, you can’t, you gotta advocate for yourself.

And, and, and I know many people who don’t. And, and that is to me a little, uh, you gotta learn. You know, I tell people, you got trophies and scars, man, and you don’t have enough scars. And not only that, but you know. This, this idea about, you know, putting the relationship, I, I get putting the relationship first, but at the same time, you, you do need to know the task at hand because your mortgage company does not care that you’re a nice guy.

They really, they really don’t. No. They wanna make sure the bills companies need to stop saying, we’re a family. Because you’re not a family. We’re not a family. You’re not a family. No. You’re a team. Oh, okay. Okay. You’re, you’re, and if you’re on a team, you could be benched. If you’re in a family, you don’t get benched.

Okay. So that, I agree with that. Because if you’re, if you’re, if you’re on a team, you can be given the ball at the last minute. Yeah. If you’re in a family, it’s like, why did Bobby get the ball? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, but in a team, on a team, like Yeah. You have comradery. You have, you have, um, you’re moving in the same direction.

You have a common goal. Um, and you, and you do fall in love with each other. You do have relationships. Mm-hmm. But like, um, you can cut somebody who’s on a team, you probably shouldn’t fire your mom. Oh, that’s probably a bad policy. Probably not such a great policy. And so. Brands should stop saying they’re a family is my point.

Stop saying that also waters down doesn’t mean anything. Well, every, if you say you’re a family, every time somebody, every time somebody is fired or demoted or reprimanded or put in their place or whatever it is, you’re a hypocrite. Yeah. You know, uh, start holding funerals, you know, the, uh, not to bring the generational thing back in, but that’s something you don’t say when you’re trying to hire a Gen Z depart.

Almost like, well, we’re, we’re a family, but like, no, I didn’t trust. No, because that’s a red flag. Super red flag. It means I’m gonna manipulate you. Yeah. It means I’m going to tell you one thing. Do another thing. Eat you, ask you out. Yeah. It means that when you’re sold. Yeah. Alright, so I need, I have to ask this because, and then I wanna wrap this bad boy up.

So take as long as you want to answer this. Yeah. Course there’s no timeline. Mm-hmm. But, um, you, you’ve talked about first off, author, five books, probably more coming, but really more than anything, you’re gonna start, uh, already are helping other people Yes. To achieve the success that you’ve had in being an author and writing mm-hmm.

Managing director, um, IE sales professional, that happens to run the business as well. Sure. But sales expert mainly. Um. Very, um, understanding of the process of selling in experts. Don’t be the expert, be dangerous enough to have expertise, but get it in the hands of the person who is the expert. Mm-hmm. Uh, I love that business model.

It’s kind of the Booz Allen type of model. It’s like, let me get you in the door. Let me establish pain, want, need, let me identify a solution. Let me get you to the pro. They’ll fix it for you. Right. So I love that process, but here’s what I really want to know because you alluded to the fact, and I know this to be a fact, that you’ve always been one, two or three, top of the top.

Mm-hmm. Um, there’s a reason for that. It’s not because you’re super tall and super handsome and super. See how I did that? I tried to two out three, two out of three is good, right? Yeah. Alright. We’re the same height. Um, so there, there’s, you’ve given us a lot of meat Yeah. As to how you think, how you operate, how you believe, and, and, um, those that have been playing along.

I hope you’ve taken notes, but let’s summarize it mm-hmm. Of all the time that you’ve been in sales mm-hmm. You’ve developed pillars, perhaps a formula of how you operate a day, a week, a month, how you operate, a quarter, how you operate the game. I used to always have to negotiate a new contract every year in sales.

And the first thing I did in the first three weeks is I figure out how do I beat the contract mm-hmm. And beat the contract met. How do you make more money than they want you to with this contract? Mm-hmm. And how do you. How do you manipulate all the good parts of the contract that will do that? Right, right.

While at the same time benefiting your customers. So like, I’m sure you have those formulas. So if you could, in so many words, kind of lay out for us, like if you, if you were talking to a new sales person, let’s say a five year in sales person mm-hmm. Got enough to be dangerous, understands product, service, can pitch all that stuff.

Mm-hmm. But in order for them to get from a mid-tier player to expert level, always the top three hitting presidents club. Yeah. Uh, controlling their destiny, have quality of life, all those things, what would you advise them from a tactic standpoint and from a setting up your day, your week, your month to be successful?

Yeah. So, and go, there is a phrase a lot there, right? Um, but I would say that there’s a phrase that always comes to mind is that nobody rises to the level of their goals. They just fall to the incompetencies of their processes. Oh, that’s heavy. Think about that for a minute. Oh, it’s so true. Right? So I would, again, this is why this third book is about your process for making decisions, right?

So what is your process, uh, for making decisions, but just as well, uh, gosh, you know what, um, show me your pipeline. Right? And if you think about the sales cycle as you’re the batter’s box, that’s first, second, third, and home, can you at least get outta the batter’s box? Mm-hmm. Well, I be the first, but I got picked off.

Like, okay, so let’s understand that and then let’s understand that. So I would say that, um, if I’m talking to a young person, I’d ask them, what’s your process for getting an appointment? What’s your process for getting from first to second? What’s your process from getting to second to third, which, and now your process is different than Adam’s, right?

’cause Adam doesn’t need to make a jillion dials. Mm-hmm. He just digs wells. Mm-hmm. That’s my thing. Yeah. Are you a well digger? Are you a door knocker? You tell me. Mm-hmm. Right? And I like digging wells. And Are you using, again, this is, I need to find out where you are, where you’re getting picked off, where you’re getting, you know what I mean?

What pitched low outside. Don’t throw it there. Then you might wanna practice that. Okay, so let’s take, let’s take the appointment setting part. Yeah. Because I think if we were going to talk to about a relevant in this world right now, a hundred percent conversation on LinkedIn, conversation at sales departments, conversation with amongst CEOs, SDRs are not getting appointments.

Mm-hmm. Can’t get in front of anybody. I hear this so often. Um, can’t seem to get people to, to give us the foot in the door. We know when we get the foot in the door and we show ’em the offering, we’re gonna beat the price. We’re gonna offer better service. Like mm-hmm. Keep hearing this, hear salespeople all the time.

Mm-hmm. I make 150 phone calls. I only talk to two people. Can’t get anyone on the phone a cold calling. Like, I hear it. It was 2%, but, right. So, so like, let’s talk about that. How, how would you recommend an SDR accelerates their appointment setting in this day and age right now with the way that people are absorbing and embracing phone calls and outreach and everything else.

So there’s a complimentary approach to that Fine SDRs. That’s cool. I, I would say that you’re gonna have to do, we talked about this, is that you’re gonna have to do something that’s not normal. Yeah. What I mean Yeah. It’s like don’t, yeah, exactly. Don’t, don’t depend on Lauren to tell you how to sell. If you’re a student of sales, they’ll make you Well.

’cause here’s the problem with people who do that. They’ll blame you. Oh, yeah, yeah. You told me to do it the same. It didn’t work. Like, yeah, you can’t do that. Yeah, no. You have to go and undo that. So, uh, again, SER is, like I said, fine, but I think you will need to know, and this is the reality of it, is that if you’re here and, and the sale is here, it’s not a straight line.

Sometimes there’s dotted lines, sometimes there’s lines you didn’t even see. Sometimes it’s using your referral base. Sometimes it’s using your past customers. I will tell you one thing that’s, uh, people who are in sales fail to do, and it doesn’t matter what industry, I think the industry average is something less than 14% of salespeople actually ask for referrals.

That blows my mind. Crazy. Somebody who’s my financial guy asked for it before we even started. He sits down at the table and he goes, Hey, while I’m getting on my folders and three ring binder and all this stuff, I’m gonna show you. Here’s a sheet. Just write down five names that I should call. So I’m like, dude, I, I, I, it, I like asking for referrals.

Yeah. I wouldn’t do it that way. I, he, Hey, it’s, it’s bold. I almost feel like I, I, I’m almost like, well, shit, I guess I got, okay. Any different, I would’ve too. I would’ve done. But it works for him. Well, hey, you know, and again, the fact that he’s asking is bonus. So I would say that for the young people is compliment again, dude, this is just pipeline management.

Show me your pipeline. What’s in your pipeline. Mm-hmm. And if you don’t know what’s in your pipeline, that’s a problem. I can tell you exactly how many opportunities are in each position and the likelihood of them selling, and who needs a touch and who needs a touch. And I had, you know, I, I made a call this morning.

The guy was like, well, I talked to my CPA, which are the worst words I wanted to hear. Yeah. Oh my Lord. And I learned that the what did, what did he tell you? The score was exactly the cpa a, you know, spoke like a cpa a so he had to do in not so many words, tell him to stay in his lane. It’s like, you know what I mean?

He’s not gonna out compensate in this space. And we spent a year putting the solution together. Um, so I would, I would say that, uh, for the, the young folks, um, compliment, go beyond whatever you see on your plate, which means you just don’t be lazy. A lazy salesperson is dead. It’s you’re, you’re, you’re dead.

Go work retail. Yeah, dude, I would say network properly. Now, tonight’s presentation that I’m gonna give is gonna focus in on how to properly determine ROI on networking and, and how to do that and the technology out there available to make it easier for you. So I, I’ll, I’ll talk about that. But go out there and meet people, right.

And ask for referrals. And I, I think people that if they do it great, if they’re, if not, shame on you. If you’re doing it and you want my thoughts on how to do it, I would say, you know what? Make it easier for them. For example, I would never say, Hey John, thanks for meeting with me. I’m glad you’re a client.

You’s a sheet of paper. Just gimme five people that you know, that you think I, that would like me a lot. Okay. And that style of asking for referrals has been around. For 25 years, honestly. Yeah. I didn’t love it. I filled it out. Well, it’s weird because get mixed emotions. Well, what happens is, if I said, Lauren give, you know, can you think of anybody?

And I would just look at you awkwardly and you’re like, okay, this is awkward. Stop looking at me and maybe show me some value first. And they’d be like, who else could I do this for? That, you know, I take it, I take, I do it differently. Yeah. I say, here are five companies that I’m trying to get an appointments with.

Do you know anybody? Yeah, that makes sense. To show them. I had this idea that I talk about in, in one of the, the industry books called Chocolate Cake. So show ’em the damn chocolate cake. You ever, have you ever had the um, uh, dessert at Maggiano’s? No. Okay, so Maggiano’s, right? Pretty cool chowing joint. Uh, the chocolate cake is fricking to die for.

Maybe. I have, we bought a chocolate cake. I don’t wanna lie and say I did, if I don’t remember. Oh, we, we bought a chocolate cake for one of the birthdays and I a full chocolate cake, not just a slice. That thing came up for like 80 bucks or something silly. But it was worth it. Yeah. But when you, when you were at dinner and they, there’s a couple ways to show you dessert.

Uh, Lauren, here’s the dessert menu and blah, blah, blah. Not am maggiano. Bring that damn thing out to Oh yeah, she golden. The chocolate cake. Yeah. And so the way I ask for referrals is just that is I, there are five companies that I’m trying to get an appoint appointments with, and they’re all here in Hanover Park and the default is they go, I don’t have anyone for you at that company, but I do.

Yes. At this one. Five is fallible. The five number, they’re like, well, whatever. Two of them I do. But I could, I can, I feel bad. I don’t have anything at the other ones, but I can help you with these other three. So you still get the five. It’s just three other ones. Or ecology, they might say, they might say, oh, um, you know what, uh, what I, I I want them to ask about this.

So what’s up with this list? Yeah. And I say, they got shitty 401k plans. Mm-hmm. And I fix ’em. I’ve written two books on the topic, blah. Like, oh, well, my neighbor owns company xy, like, da da. Right, bro, girl. Yeah. You know what I mean? But, but that’s a path that isn’t in any playbook. No. You know, it’s, it’s like, oh, Lauren said that I should ask for this.

Are you willing to purchase from me? Hang on. Well, there you go. That’s what, you know what I mean? There you go. Because you, here’s what’s in the playbook. Ask for referrals and of occasion. Yeah. That’s a But what you just gave was how the how to. Yes. And it’s a how to that’s disruptive and different. And there’s layers to it because there’s, there is a, an ask that you could get the answer to, but then there’s five other answers.

If you don’t get that answer, bro, we’re just said, this is chess. Yeah, that’s, that’s sales. You have a plan. A, B, C, D, ef, go through the L. Love that. Yeah. You know, so, so for the young people here, do they make follow up calls? Do they, oh, say, what does that sound like? It depends on the situation, honestly, that you, you’ve made three calls at his cat.

He’s been sitting on third base. What would that follow up call sound like? Presuming that we got a hold of them. Correct? For sure. Yes. It would be. What is preventing you from moving forward? Is there something that we have not addressed that we should have addressed? Because we’re trying to get to the root of the delay because people say all sorts of things.

Mm-hmm. But usually what is actually, um, keeping a deal from moving forward is what and what’s not being directly said, and in order to cut through all the months. Well, they give you a hedge. Yeah. But there’s an objection that’s really underneath it, that typically the emotional always, or it’s, it’s a conflict between them and somebody else in the office.

We, and they don’t wanna throw that person under the bus, or we have, they actually don’t have the money to do it. Yeah. And they don’t wanna open up to you and go, Hey, we’re broke. We can’t do it. So they give you a hedge. Okay. You know what I was saying? I would do something completely opposite. I love it.

All right. Let’s hear it. Get on. My approach would be this, Hey, you know, Lauren, I know we have our proposal outstanding, but I’m not calling for that tonight. I’m gonna be an elgen at a networking event with other business owners like you. If you’re available, I’d love for you to be my guest. Love it. Yeah.

That makes both sense. What have I said about the project? Dude, I know you got a proposal. Okay, so here’s my, here’s my model. Yeah. Ready? Mm-hmm. Hey, uh, we’ve been interacting, uh, for a couple months now. I’m not certain when you’re gonna make a decision or when this deal is or isn’t gonna go through, but we’ve had enough interaction that I think you would be a spectacular guest on the podcast.

We would love to have you in, um, to give you a tour, meet our team, but we would have you on the podcast to promote you and your brand and whatever it is you wanna talk about. And then we would create 30 content clips that we would then send to you within a, within a day of the release of the podcast. So it’s gonna promote you, your brand, your brand message.

You could give it to your marketing department. They’ll love it ’cause it’s gonna help you. Gotta close more deals. Then I’m gonna send you the clips and now you got a month to 90 days worth of content clips to put on LinkedIn, which I know you probably hate to do, but now I just did it for you. And then we’ll see what happens from there.

What do you think about that? So what? That’s the model. The model being creative. I, if you were to drop everything we said today, drop in a transcript, control F, the word value, that’s what we’re talking about. Follow up with value, reciprocity. Let me give you, if I give you seven things Yeah. And all I ask for is this little thing.

Yeah. Then I have the odds of winning. Even though your perception is that I’m giving you seven amazing things and I am, look, here’s the deal. There will be no sales pitch to you after this podcast. There will be no sales pitch. Right. What you will feel is the love that we provide through this podcast to give you all the clips and you’ll receive value and benefit through.

Your audience and your following saying, dude, you are so good on that call now, every time they say you were so good on the call, you remember the get shit done experience. And then you remember that that is hosted by T-T-S-G-G-S-D technologies in 2020 design. Exactly. And then you go, well, I think, I think favorably about them.

So now when you need one of those things, you know who to call. That’s the model. Yeah. I’d, I’d love for to hear one of these young guys, you know, just, how are you following up? Because I would sit down and just walk them through that. Now again, uh, I’ll, I’ll pull old ass Adam, gen X I’m gonna sit down with you.

Right. As opposed to here is how to follow upsell anyway. Right. Yeah. I I I How that’d be a great que how are you adding value, right? Yeah. You know, let’s even role play follow up with me and if they say that I’m like wrong, said, I’m hanging up on you because you know what? You’re still a sales guy stopped fricking selling.

Yeah. You, Adam, here’s the other thing. Right. If you did the work up front Yeah. Or you did the research to know what you have in common. Yeah. What they stand for. They went to University of Iowa. Yeah. They, whatever, they’re a golfer, whatever. Mm-hmm. Like your follow up at some point when there’s a snag and it’s not moving forward.

Yeah. Should be. Hey, um. I, I thought of you ’cause I got a lot of family members Yeah. That go to University of Iowa and I ordered them coffee mugs and I thought of you, so I figured I’d just order you one. So I You expect it in the mail. Oh, that’s huge. So you just send ’em an Iowa coffee mug. ’cause you know they went to Iowa.

You think they’re not gonna drink outta that? And then you put a little note in there that every time you take a sip of this, I want you to think of TTSG. Exactly. Okay. So, oh, the garbage can was so, oh, the garbage cans. Right. So there, there’s a brilliant thing. Sales rebellion. Right. So another brilliant thing, but let’s say they’re a golfer.

Mm-hmm. Be like, Hey look, we’ve got an event coming up. Um, I need a good stick. I know you’re a golfer. Yeah. Like, come chop it up. Let’s go win a tournament together. Or, Hey, I looked on your website and saw that you are having an event coming up. How can I pause? How can I get involved? Well, he did that. I said, how can I help Tim at this event?

I said, what can I do? I said, can I put question together? Yeah. But it’s true. We had a question and you were like, what is the best way for this introduction to happen? And I said, you know what? We have an event coming up. Mm-hmm. That speaks volumes. Mm-hmm. You’re, you care about the, to be involved, by the way, it’s how Tim has built his business.

A hundred percent. Tim Tim’s not gonna sit in a room he, he may have 25 years ago. ’cause we all had to. Mm-hmm. It’s how we all started. We sat in a room, we made 300 dials. Mm-hmm. And you figured out your chops. You figured out how to do it Right. And then you figured out how to do the same productivity in 50 calls.

Yeah. And the trick was, can I keep myself dialing a hundred times or two other times, even though I can close the same amount in 50 calls? But the way that Tim built this was purely on establishing a network, being in the right room, giving, giving things to people, offering reciprocity, being there when they needed him.

And when I look at a, a sales team mm-hmm. Of young people, they should be following the messaging that you just gave because it’s brilliant messaging. And I mean that sincerely. It works. Yes. And it is a differentiator and it stands out. But you know, they should also be using all the tools around them. We do Zoom calls now.

Why, why do you go to the client’s house? Why don’t you ask the client to your house? Hey, why don’t you, why don’t you watch the Taylor Swift concert, you know, online? Why, why would you even go to the concert? Yeah. Just like, but like, they just think about this, like, you want somebody to engage and buy your full brand experience, not just your products and services.

Somebody buys your products and services is transactional. Someone who buys the vibe of your brand, the total experience, yeah. They’re a partner and they’ll be a partner for an extended period of time. The beautiful thing about the dialogue and the idea of digging wells is that you will be in a position to ask a question as if you had a beer in your hand.

Mm-hmm. And once you know your audience, and I’ve done this before where, you know, broke with somebody and it’s like, Tim, we’ve been on third base for about. Four weeks that’s affecting my batting average, bro. Yeah. What, what, what, what am I not seeing here? And I just shut the hell up, right? And they’ll say, well, it’s, the timing’s not good.

Can you talk to me after the outing? ’cause right now it’s a real big focus of our off. Fair enough. Like at least, you know, done. Yeah. It’s like sat, I said, it’s in my calendar, Tim. You know, do you even talk to ’em like that? But how do you, how do you even know to be able to talk like that? You have to get to that relationship.

You should. You gotta know that. You gotta get to the, but how do you even get to the relationship? You gotta say, what am I looking at here? How do you like your stake? Because if you’re a process guy, I, I, I, one of my largest clients is an engineer group. And I remember the presentation I gave, and I didn’t have, I had a navy blue suit on, and I was upright and everything was perpendicular.

And I said, four to five dentists recommend Trident for their patients who chew. They lost sta, STAs STAs all day, every day. We got the client, right? Uh, um, but a lot of it had to do with, oh, this is so cool, man. Our solutions are bad. Not gonna buy it. What They need stats. Right? They need, and so now you gotta know who it is.

Now we’re like this, right? Mm-hmm. So now I can say, Hey, Beth, you know what I mean? That report. Yeah. How bad do you need that? Yeah. And then, then now, now you have a rapport. She goes, oh, we don’t need that. So if you were selling me, it would be, Hey man, this is awesome. ’cause of that, I vibe with that, right?

But the, uh, the, the stats person, you better come with stats. You better know who that is. You, you, you’re in a room. And again, this is what I’m, I’d love to, to talk to this. Who are you calling on? What in my book, what shape are they? Yeah. And that’s, that’s a whole conversation. What personality tire. I even go as granular sometimes.

And this is just me because I, again, I am a nerd, so I don’t think this is necessarily the norm, but I, I wanna know like your birth order too. Oh. You know what I mean? Are you a middle child? Are you coming from pretty similar Ed? Yeah. Are you No, that’s important. I can come across that way. I’m, I’m an only child.

Oh. I’m a middle child special. I’m not oldest child, middle child. Um, that makes sense. I love that. These are the things that take a little extra work. So getting to your original question, what would you tell the sales guys? Mm-hmm. Right? You know what? Ask for referrals. Follow up with value and better know your audience.

Now, this is a fun book because it says, what are you doing? What am I doing here? Yeah. Just like, what are you surrounding yourself with? I, I, I, there’s a fun story about me in the eighties, me and my misfit knucklehead friends. I don’t know why I was hanging out these cats. But anyway, two o’clock in the morning we’re at Denny’s.

And, uh, it’s a series of bad decisions. Nothing good happens at Benny’s at it two morning, morning or before that. But one of the, the little Easter eggs in this was, I made a very subtle comment and very few people caught it, is that, you know, we didn’t sit, sit in the smoking section because they had smoking sections.

Yes. Mm-hmm. We did sit in the smoking section. We were next to it. Um, and we walked out and somebody said. You know, oh, I can, I have a cigarette. And I’m like, I don’t smoke. It’s like, oh, I thought you did. Why? Because you smell, I smell like smoke. Right. Why? ’cause I was hanging around the smoking section.

Mm-hmm. And this is why, you know, if I’m talking to the younger people, I, again, layups are layups. When you win, you win. And, and I hope you find a way to dissect that and find a way to make it repeatable. But at the end of the day, the challenges come with the conflicts. And that’s why the three books know what you’re looking at.

Mm-hmm. Surround yourself with good people. Show me your pipeline and I’ll tell you whether or not you’re gonna be around. And the last one is, do you have a process for making good decisions? And if you don’t, you’re screwed. So I would say those are the things that I would communicate to the young guys.

Um, the nice thing about, uh, this process, it’s not, yeah, you’re not gonna be rich maybe, but you’ll be better human. And people hire humans. Right. And, and that’s why for me, I spend an inor amount of time watching people speak. Um, you know, watching people in general. I’ve, I, my mom, I am be going there in June to grab her and move her into Chicago.

And I’ll tell you what, if you like people watching Vegas, let’s go to Yeah. Such, and I just, it’s a giant mall. I, I look around and it’s like, wow. You know, and then watch arguments. I, I don’t know how I fell into this rabbit hole on Instagram, but it’s called. It was at that moment. He knew he fucked up. Oh, I, yeah.

Yeah. I see one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s the I They got you. And that was like, I watched that and I’m thinking, oh my gosh. I mean so much. It didn’t have to go that way. No. If they just, upon just the domino of bad decisions to get you to that point, a whole set of that. But you have to be a student of people.

Forget sales first. Yeah. If you’re a good student of people, I think you’re gonna, and that’s what I told my kids. I said, you get good at these three things. I’m not gonna say you’re gonna be rich, but I will tell you, you will surround, you’ll, you’ll be a good human. You will raise good little humans. And for generations at my funeral, it won’t be How much are you getting?

It’s like, yeah. My, my, my dad taught us three very, very important lessons. I’m like, that, that to me is, you know, that’s what I wanna leave behind. It isn’t money. You could know, get money. You could know products, you could know services, you could have an expertise. Mm-hmm. It’s not until, you know, people did those things actually really jump to the next level.

You know? What’s kind of cool about this? You know, I, I say this here is, I, I, you know, my friend watches this podcast. Alright, check this out. Married, second marriage. This set of kids behaves a certain way. This set of kids behaves a different way. These guys are just like little hooligans. These guys here.

Little halos. I know they’re both backgrounds and I know how. That happened where you know, what they were surrounded with. Mm-hmm. And why they are the way they are. This is why who you surround yourself with has a profound, we’re a product of our environment. Right. All day. So, you know, again, getting to the young folks, that’s what I would tell ’em.

You wanna take it to the next level. You know what, study your pipeline and surround yourself with good people, and then ultimately make a decision. I love it. It’s been an absolute pleasure having you on Adam, uh, lazy Gentlemen. Adam’s books you could find on Amazon, I would imagine, right? So any of the, the, uh, books are ready for you to order, please follow Adam San Juan.

I. On LinkedIn, ai. Stay away from him. Be genuine, be real. Reach out to him. This is a person who generally wants to be of benefit to you. If you’re in sales, I’m sure that it’ll take a DM from you anytime. Um, and it’ll probably, uh, analyze and measure whether or not you wrote it properly. I certainly do when I get him, I’ve want to, Hey, if you would’ve started with a hello, like how are you, that might’ve been nicer than you trying to jam it in and get, and get your message across.

Maybe, maybe be nice, be nice for a second. Punctuation is such a big deal. It’s good for my generation. It’s just still the damn worst, right? Yes. It’s, it’s, it’s fairly important. That’s a bare minimum. So, uh, again, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Um, you can catch Adam in the Chicagoland area at the networking circuit.

I’m sure that he’s open for collaboration. Lauren, it’s always a pleasure to have you on. You added a ton of value and um, and substance and, uh, Adam, sir, I wanna remind you, you got shit done. Uh, I appreciate it. This is, of all the podcasts I’ve been on, this was a lot of fun. We can talk openly and the GSD and somebody understands it, like, yeah, this is the right place to be.

Nothing makes me happier than that. Thank you, sir. Alright, have a great day. You Cheers.

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