#675: The Best Sales Advice Bill and Bryan Have Ever Received

In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, we take our turn at a new feature at Advanced Selling Podcast. The best sales advice I ever got. Bill and I give you ours and reminisce about some old leaders from our past who influenced us. And by the way, Bill needs help finding one of his. The case of the lost sales advice. Hope you can help. Enjoy. Welcome back to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast, history. I am one of your host, Bill Kasky. Another one, Brian Neal here. We are happier with us today. For those of you who are fairly new to the podcast and who have got a lot of new listeners that come in, Willie Nilly throughout the year, we release every Monday at six between six and seven a.m. And we like to know we do, don't we? Yeah, I just wonder if people are sitting there. Oh yeah. In the morning, I watch the countdown class. If you've gotten your advance on my podcast, I got to get a workout in before. Exactly. So we are glad to have you. And last week we celebrated our 15th anniversary of the podcast inception, which happened in 22,2006 in the October time frame. And so we are glad you're here. We are going to do many of this up. Yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. So we decided here a couple of months ago that we wanted to reach out to some other experts in the field of sales and marketing and achievement and get some of their advice on some of the things that they were taught when they were younger or over the years that we that they thought would be helpful for our audience. So we've identified a handful of people. We've already interviewed several of them and asked them a simple question, what's the best sales advice you ever got? And sometimes they will give us a little bit more than that. Sometimes they talk about sales advice they've given, but some of these interviews have been really eye opening. And so there's a lot of really good people. Do we want to share a couple of those people? No, I don't know what to be surprised. So over the next few weeks, you will start getting extra episodes that will be us interviewing. Some of these are short. Some of these are a little longer. And we may play some clips of it for the general audience is to watch your feed for these best sales. And then to kind of kick that off, we're going to do our best sales advice ever. Brian has a couple. I've got a couple. And kind of teed this whole thing off. But I think you're going to enjoy it over the next couple of months to them. Really good stuff that we've learned. And it really helps us to get to know some of these experts because we really didn't know some of these people before. And most of them are good people. So that we get asked the exact most, I think all, well, we get asked, you know, who do we follow? Who do we listen to? This group that we got Bill and I handpicked. So we started with a big list. We narrowed it down to, we've done six. We'll have done six here by after today. And so these are people that we've selected on purpose for a different voice and people that we admire and respect and something that's funny with Bill. Can we tell the story about the guy who no, no, I wouldn't. We did have one guru person that we both admire, maybe admired and had a little technical difficulty, which really didn't seem to be a problem for anyone else, but him, right? So we were seven minutes well anyway, no, it does. Yeah, we everyone else was there. Everybody else made it with the same link. But anyway, and that was the end of this off. And so that's it. So did you want to reschedule? So anyway. Yeah. And you know, this is a thing, new voice to the podcast. If you have someone that you like admire, you can shoot us a note over, put it in the LinkedIn group. Maybe we'll put a little chat in there for people you would like to hear from. We will track them down, interview them. We've got a really nice platform here. Most people would enjoy to be on the podcast. No guarantees. We're going to again, it's kind of a hand pick selected thing. This isn't like a free for you want to have people go to the LinkedIn group and share what sales advice they've gotten to kind of invigorate this. You can instead of a little bit. That's a nice little thread. So lots of stuff. So go to our, if you haven't already connected with us on LinkedIn and join the group, go to advancedsellingpodcast.com/linkedend. That'll take you right there. Join the group. We've got 12, 13,000 people in that group. And so we'll have a couple of posts here when we start this. Yep. Endeavor to have you tell us what's best sales advice you have. So Brian, I'm going to get that up. Here we go. Why don't you go first? We've got a couple. I've got a couple of older. And then we're trying to give the source, but we've got a little funny story about there. And second, that's okay. So my one that first this comes from the guy sitting next to me, best sales advice ever got from Bill Kasky. I was in this business, Bill invited me in to work with them and for him. And I was struggling. I wasn't closing anything. And my behavior was wrong. I was doing the wrong. I was like a professional visitor. I was having a bunch of meetings. I weren't spitting out anything. I don't know if you remember this or not. You said you need to have a yellow calendar all the time. When you look at your calendar, it needs to be yellow. So what you do is you open up your calendar. This is back in the days of paper calendar before written calendars. Every page you flip every week, you turn over should be yellow. And the reason it's yellow is because you said I want you to go through anything that's an actual end user sales call. Do a yellow highlight around there. And when you flip the page over the whole thing, she just like jump out at you yellow. I was like, I never thought of it that way. I just said all my meetings written down, but they didn't have categorized or anything. And I think that's one of the best pieces sales advice ever got. And I've used the yellow. If I remember it was it was the yellow brick road kind of idea that this was our closing call. Yes, it was a closing call is the end we can get a thing. We get a deal. Get a deal. And to this day, I think about that when I look at my calendar. I'm not selling as much as I used to, but still am. And I'm looking, okay, what do I have? What do I have cooking in that that the visuals old days. I like the visual though, the paper calendar because if I if I was well, I was honest with myself when I turned the thing over before that conversation, there wasn't much yellow in there. It's like no, one of you're not closing deals because you're having a bunch of random meetings, you know, they're moving or coming into fruition with anything. Yeah, I think what that that's good that you said that what that did for me when I used it was it just made me more mindful that there has to be a decision point in the process. Yes, whether it was yellow or blue or whether it was highlight or not, just kind of brings your attention to, oh, wait a minute. I'm not really thinking about getting deals here. I'm thinking about having like you say professional visitation calls. So yeah, that's good. That's good. That's really good. Here was one piece of advice that I got Brian reference it in the in the intro. I cannot recall where I got this, whether it was from a book or a human being. So if you actually gave me this advice, you listener and you're hearing this and I can't remember just text me and let me know that I will attribute it to you. Yeah, but and I've taught it off and on for the past few years. In fact, I had a guy last week in a coaching session for one of my groups. He called me and he has just changed his whole attitude about prospecting because of this little simple thing. And that is typically when we go out to prospect, we think of it as something that we're going to get out of the action. Like we're going to get an appointment or get a sale or get an advanced sales process. And what we've talked about in the past is you've got to enter that process of prospecting with a sense of obligation that you are obligated to share with the prospect your story or your value or ask them questions to find out if there's any way at all you can help them and if there is great and if there isn't, you really do have to walk away. It's not about well there is there isn't and you're going to try to make it make it so it's you know there are prospect no you're just saying these are the issues I fix. What are some of the issues you have do they match if they do let's talk further if they don't we can move on. But it's a sense of obligation that I think goes along with that that frees you up and allows you to shoot more linked and video do a podcast I mean we kind of feel that here you if we were to miss a couple of weeks I think we would miss the sense of obligation that we have for our listeners. And so that oblig I have no idea where it came from probably a book it's it sounds a little spiritual I'm not suggesting I'm a spiritual dude I kind of am kind of not. Yeah, but it does have that ring to it so that that was the best advice I get because it just frees you up to do what needs to be done like that you can't you can't lose if you act out of a pure good sense of intention obligation. Yeah, you can't do that can I do another one and some people think that word obligation sounds burden some right we don't mean it that way. Yeah, it's just hey I kind of owe it to people to share what I know so it's not an obligation where you're where it's a debt to be paid or any kind of yeah. You know hostage situation is just just new way of thinking okay fire away so this one came from and it's less of like a statement or phrase it was more of a thing to a way to be a Vic Livese Vic Livese and Vic was my very first sales manager proctor and gamble. He was an army the retired army retired is the right word but he was an army leader and so you can picture an army leader so when we remember the good old days of right along. You ride along well with Vic you started you met for breakfast at Bob Evans 6 am 6 am oh my gosh Vic remember those days but he was great but what he taught me was. From a work standpoint effort standpoint you do whatever you need to do to make the business happen or be right. And he taught me both it's a two to headed thing for me number one that starting early thing has never left me like getting up early to work out get your day started so much and some of you like I'm not a morning person or I am or whatever these days it seems like. You know this little general. but seems like everyone kind of eases into the day, right? Kind of rolling it, nine, get going about 10, take a break for lunch, head home at three, to let the dog out. - Oh, you got 90 minutes of work in it. - Exactly. - Like, okay, whatever. Vic wasn't that way. - That's a dog out. - Exactly, well, that's what, it's the truth. But I called on these grocery stores, where the main buyer is this roll called a headstock clerk, and this is like retail. They work nights, they work nights. So I talked to Vic, I said, "Hey, man, is it okay if I work nights?" 'Cause that's, he's like, "Absolutely. Do whatever you need to do to get the business done." And so I would do that. And the great thing was I didn't have to wear a suit. I could go in shorts and a t-shirt, and I would leave my house about 10 o'clock. I go call these guys from like 11 to 2 in the morning and killed it, not because of me, but because Vic gave me the permission to encourage him to do it. - Yeah, and go ahead. - And probably, you didn't see a lot of other sales people. - No, they were at zero. - They were zero. That's what I loved about it. And that little extra effing, they go, "That's crazy." And then I would sleep in, of course. So I'm like, "Hey, I worked 11 to 2 last night, so then I did. " - Party, 25 to go home. - Exactly. - It's a shut-eye. - Head to a banger. - Yeah. - I didn't call them bangers back then, but I go. - Yeah, so your advice there was, you just do what it takes. - You would do what it takes. - And if it's not conforming to the traditional, that's okay, it doesn't matter. - That's the big lesson to me. Was it everyone thought, "Well, I've got to go." You know, at 730, put my suit on, go in my company car, and do that, and Vic's like, "No, I don't care. "Go ahead, work and I." You know, just get it done. And it worked. And he was. - That's kind of a military thing. - It is, yeah. He was a great leader that way. He was really, really good. 'Cause he was also very in the lines, compliant, but also gave me the space and the ability and the encouragement to find new unique ways to get business done. So I appreciate him. I think he's the director of personal HR for the Cincinnati Reds, I think. - Really? - Vic is, I think. - Well, we should take a great person. - I should. - Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's see, my other piece of advice came from a guy named John Condrie, and John actually might be a listener of the podcast. And I haven't talked to John in many, many years. I see him on Twitter occasionally, and we message him back and forth. But John was one of my coaches early in my career. And he was one of the most. He had a knack for articulating difficult subjects. And if I had a prospect and it wasn't kind of working, he would say, "Well, look, here's what it should sound like." And I can remember, he would always just, it would flow. And I never recorded any of those, 'cause at that time, you know, that was 30 years ago, he didn't have any easy recording equipment, but I would love to have captured, 'cause he just always had the right words and the tonality and the right context and the right cadence. I would be scribbling frantically, trying to write down, but he was just awesome at just, and one thing he taught me is, look, separate the issues. You've got two issues. You've got the issue of, do they have a problem that they wanna solve and the issue of, what do they wanna spend to fix it? - Yep. - And a lot of times, we get those conflated. As well, I want to do it, but I don't have the money, and he always said, let's separate the issues. Take money out of it, just for the discussion, and then we'll reintroduce money based on the trick there, the strategy was, find out what the problem was, find out what the problem is costing them, and then introduce money to the equation. And John was always really good with language, and just a really good coach, and he was always very eloquent, not just eloquent, but peaceful. It was always a very easy conversation. - Yes, anyway. I love that, just separate, even just, let's just separate the issues. Sounds so easy, doesn't it? - Yeah. - Let's just take them one at a time. - Yeah. - Let's go this one, then that one. There's no pressure, there's no angst, there's no neediness. - It's very thoughtful. - It was all very thoughtful. - Very good. - Yeah, very basic. - What's his name? - John Conjury. - Worsey now, do we know? - He's in Provo, I think. - Oh, really? - Real Arsolic city, so much. - Hi, John. - It'd be great that he's a listener. It's good that he gets you. - I think he is. - Yeah. - I'll send him a copy of this. - I love you. - Yeah. So what's interesting is that people from our past, that kind of, we've forgotten about, when you start to talk about this, and that's what we might hear from our listeners too, is on LinkedIn. Don't just give the seed advice. Tell us who you're talking about. - Yeah, we're talking about how to acknowledge that. - I think that's great. - Yeah. - And I think we'd be amazed at how many people may, all of us, all of you listeners, you've left at some point, some mark on somebody. - That's right. - You have no idea about. They might come back to you also in this thing. So it's a really, really good, karmic thing to do here. That sales advice I ever got. So we're gonna have several of these, by the way. So go to the LinkedIn group, level a little chat there, put your own sales advice in, pay attention to your podcast feed. These are gonna be coming out through the week, not on Mondays. Best sales advice I ever got from a hand-picked group of experts that Bill and I will love it and admire. And then if you've got some suggestions on people, you'd like to hear on the best sales advice I ever got. Go ahead and tag them. No guarantee we'll put them on, but we'll certainly take a look at it. So awesome. Good job. Bye, bye. (upbeat music)