MMS #125 - Ditch the Scripts, Build Real Connections: Prospecting in 2025 with Larry Levine

[00:00:01] Welcome to Mastering Modern Selling, relationships, social and AI in the buyer-centric age. Join host Brandon Lee, founder of Fistbump, alongside Microsoft's number one social seller Carson V Heady, and Tom Burton, author of The Revenue Zone and co-founder of LeadSmart, as we explore the strategies and stories behind successful executives and sales professionals.

[00:00:24] Dive into business growth, personal development, and the pursuit of excellence with industry leaders. Whether you're a seasoned executive or an aspiring leader, this podcast is your backstage pass to today's business landscape. This is Mastering Modern Selling, brought to you by Fistbump.

[00:00:49] Hey everybody, welcome back. Episode number 125, Mastering Modern Selling. We've atrophied down to just me and Larry, at least for the moment. Brandon has had an internet connection and he'll be back with us here in just a minute. But Larry, this gives us a chance to talk about Brandon and kind of throw a rock down before he gets here. So, well, since, hey, Tom, since he was taking pot shots at me, now Brandon's not on, we could take pot shots at Brandon.

[00:01:17] That's right. That's right. That's what this show episode is, is pot shots about Brandon. That's our topic for today. So, we'll probably get the most comments we've ever had. But, anyway, we digress. So, hey, Larry, welcome back. I think this is your third time now with us here on Mastering Modern Selling. So, welcome back. Always great to have you here. No, it's a pleasure. Was that third time's a charm or three strikes and you're out? I don't know. It's one of those two.

[00:01:45] That's right. Well, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. So, hey, Larry, there's a lot of things, you know, we've touched on on previous times we've talked and so forth about just the selling from the heart philosophy. But in case there's somebody out there listening that doesn't know who you are, which I can't believe, but it's possible. It's possible. It's a rare, rare, you know, tell us a little bit about you selling from the heart and then we'll jump into it. Oh, no, thanks. And I appreciate it. We're going to have a great time, by the way, everybody today.

[00:02:14] We're not a loss for words when we all get together, but my name is Larry Levine. I started this whole journey multiple decades ago. I spent 30 years in the office technology space. So, I parlayed all of my knowledge around selling copiers in a highly transactional way, highly dysfunctional environments. But I grew my dealerships doing something that was really different. And that was just being my authentic, genuine self, realizing that the stronger the relationships I built,

[00:02:43] the better the experience I put forth, this all equated to increased revenue and profits. So, as I exited the channel, I had to figure out what to do with myself and flip the switch and started coaching and training salespeople in the office technology space on how I grew my copier dealerships. Well, I soon realized a profit's not welcome in their own backyard and said, you know what? I convinced Daryl, Amy, who's my podcast partner, I said, we got to start a podcast. That was eight years ago.

[00:03:11] And the podcast, I said, hey, we'll start this. This is a way for us to jump the fence. And he goes, I'll only do this under one condition. You come up with a really cool name. That's really how Selling from the Heart started. It was on a podcast and I convinced Daryl to start this podcast. So, eight years now, we've been going strong with Selling from the Heart. The book came out shortly thereafter. Had no idea that it would turn into a business, turn into a movement. We've done some really great, cool things. We wear our hearts on our sleeves.

[00:03:40] We're bringing things to the forefront that I think need to be brought to the forefront, which is then just recently, I just launched my second book, Selling in a Post-Trust World. So, that's the Reader's Digest version. But we're all about bringing authenticity and trust to the forefront. And really how you create this to turn this into increased revenue, profits, and sustainability. I didn't realize that the podcast is what kicked all of this off. Yeah. And eight years ago, man, that's like people were listening to iPods then.

[00:04:09] I mean, that was – you had to have been one of the earliest podcasters out there before it was a thing to do. You know, podcasting was out there. But I'm telling you everyone right now, don't go listen to our first couple podcasts because they were – I'm telling you something, they're really bad. But however, we practiced, we became intentional about it, and it's turned into something really special. Yeah, that's amazing. How many episodes now? Oh, heck, dude. I don't know.

[00:04:38] 2017 to now, eight years ago every week, do the math. Yeah, it's got to be over 1,000, right? It's got to be well over. Well, no, I figure if there's – Yeah, it's 400, 500, yeah. Yeah, we're well past 400 episodes. All right, well, we're at 125. We're rapidly catching up. I wanted to say hello to Bob and to Bill. And if you're out there, please jump in. Let us know where you're from. Say hi to Eric. Say hi to Larry.

[00:05:05] And also, I also was remiss in letting everybody know that this podcast is made possible from Brandon's company, Fistbump. They're the sponsor of it. They take care of everything, all of that. So I want to thank Fistbump and Brandon's team for everything they do here. And I hope Brandon will be back with us here momentarily once he finds Wi-Fi. I think he's roaming around the neighborhood. Maybe he's going door to door asking, you know – He might.

[00:05:31] He might, but Brandon promised me really nice goodies and soft drinks and things like that, and I haven't even seen him yet. Oh, yeah, I don't get it. Well, he's not connected, right? So that must be the problem. Hey, Larry, let's start off. You know, you were talking about authenticity, and certainly now in the world of AI and technology and so forth, it seems like, I don't know, maybe authenticity can get left by the roadside a little bit.

[00:06:01] Tell me a little bit about what you're – and the audience here – what you kind of feel like the state of authenticity is right now. What are sales – are sales organizations moving in the right direction? Or is AI and other things moving them in the wrong direction? What are you seeing, I guess, in the state of the industry? Here's what's interesting. I'm just going to just level set on a couple things. I'm not an AI expert. I don't even really dabble that much in it. Yeah, I mean, we dabble in it. I don't read a lot about AI. Call me old-fashioned, right?

[00:06:30] I've been called worse. I'm just an old-fashioned guy. I understand technology. I support it. I know what AI is. I know how to integrate it to a certain degree. But what I hold myself true to is I'm not going to get lost in it. And I think there's a lot of people out there that get lost in AI. And I think when you get lost in AI, you get lost in yourself. And I think authenticity, and I'll just hit it head on.

[00:06:59] I think authenticity is just a bastardized word. Unfortunately, it's kind of what goes on in my head is everyone talks about authenticity. Heck, we're all authentic human beings. Every single one of us on this planet are authentic human beings. It's how do we choose to carry ourselves? Do we carry ourselves in a congruent way?

[00:07:21] And if we throw in the mix of social, does your authentic social life mirror your authentic personal life? If I kind of bridge both of these together. And I'd question a lot of that. And I think what's happening is this whole artificial intelligence, AI, I see the benefits of it.

[00:07:47] But what I don't want to see happen is that we get lost into it. And we say we as salespeople, since this is sales centric, I don't want people to get lost so much into AI. They've forgotten how to communicate. And they let somebody else, which is AI, do the thinking for them. AI can, you know, seed your thinking, stop right there, and then kick your brain into overdrive to think through it.

[00:08:11] But it's just, I've always said this, and I always say that technology has sometimes made salespeople, sales leaders, conversationally incompetent. Meaning when you lean into technology so much, you've forgotten how to actually have a competent conversation. What I don't want to see happen is people lean so much into AI that they've become conversationally incompetent or it's stunted their growth, if you get what I'm saying. Yeah, totally.

[00:08:41] You know, I think there's a Harvard Business Review article that just recently came out. It was either Forbes or Harvest HBR, I can't remember. And the title was, Are We Getting Dumber, right, as a society or as a people? Because are we going to rely on AI too much and we don't think anymore or we don't create anymore? We don't use our brain as much as we could be because we're relying on AI. And we certainly, I think, see this in the world of sales, right?

[00:09:06] Oh, it's, I'll just have AI create an email or I'll have AI create my, you know, sales script or whatever the case may be. And we maybe lose some of that things that make us, I guess, special from a sales perspective. Well, that's just, that's just think. What happens to, since I just brought up the word think, what happens to the thinking part of our brain when somebody else is doing the thinking for us?

[00:09:31] There's, there's, there's a re there's a reason why there's a reason why I read every day. There's a reason why I learn something new every day. It's to keep my brain fresh all the time. And I just want to set the stage on this. I am not poo-pooing AI and this isn't the point behind this conversation. There's a, I mean, we use it inside selling from the heart. And I see Chris Decker on here, special shout out to Chris Decker so he knows where I'm going with this.

[00:09:59] But, but it doesn't do our thinking for us. And that's what I want people to really just like grasp is we can use all of this. But let's keep our thinking fresh. Let's keep our conversations fresh. Let's leverage this to help us have better conversations, not replace our conversations. Well, now I think we lost Larry.

[00:10:29] No, I'm here. Larry used to. No, I'm here. I'm good. You're frozen on my end. If you're in the comments listening, can you let me know if, if Larry is frozen or it's something on my end? I think it might be something on your end. Okay. You're back. All good. All right. Hey, this is all, this is all good. This is real life stuff.

[00:10:59] We're having technical difficulties. This is an authentic podcast. That's all. No, this is an artificial Tom Burton. This is the real Tom Burton. So the show must go on. So I don't know. I just got a message from Brandon. I don't know if he, I just saying that the whole internet without. So I don't know what his plan is, but let me check. All right.

[00:11:29] Moving ahead. So I want to unpack a little bit more and I want to hit actually Bob's comment or question here first. It's a little bit off of what we were talking about, but he's talking about, you know, people being anonymous on social media and maybe not, you know, necessarily having an alternate personality or so forth. And then that can cause people to be inauthentic as well.

[00:11:54] I don't want to necessarily touch on that or go into detail on that right now, but I wanted to see, you know, you said Larry a second ago, right? Everyone says they're authentic, right? Oh, we're all authentic. But what does that really mean? And what does that mean from a sales perspective and from a selling perspective? What does it really mean to be authentic and not just be a word that we say, you know, as a trite way of labeling something? No, I hear where you're going.

[00:12:21] And I do want to hit on what Bob said because, I mean, social's woven into a vast majority of selling these days. And to me, it's all about being congruent. And again, I'm going, does the walk match the talk? And for those that know me, you know me, Tom, I recognize some people that are in the comments. You get what you get with me. What I share on social is no different than what I would say right to your face. It's no different than how I would communicate.

[00:12:50] And I'm comfortable enough in my own skin because I figured out who I am because I do the work on me. And when I always say, you know, when I hear some people say, hey, I'm being my authentic self, I don't publicly say anything other than what silently goes on in my head is, are you really being your authentic self? And silently, I'm going to say, I would question that one. And again, I'm not here to papui what people are using. People can use social however they want to use social.

[00:13:19] It really doesn't bother me because I know how I use it. That's what matters most. But Tom can use it however Tom wants to do it. Bill can use it however Bill wants to use it. Bob can use it for however Bob wants to use it. I really don't care. It's just that. When you put something out there, you better be able to back it up.

[00:13:42] In other words, just don't play some role on social, but actually live it, breathe it, because people will sniff it out pretty darn fast. I don't think authentic. You know what? I see what Bob put in there. I don't know if authenticity means being a chameleon. I don't feel like I'm being a chameleon. I know who my authentic self is. I know I'm a deeply caring, genuine, real, relatable guy. I'm heartfelt. I care. I'm compassionate.

[00:14:11] I'm like that on social. I'm like that face to face. And I don't know if the right word is chameleon or not, but I don't have to worry about trying to pretend to be somebody I'm not. And I don't have to change the color of my skin to do that. I always say you just get what you get with me. And I don't know if that answers Bob's question or not, but I don't feel like I'm being a chameleon.

[00:14:40] Yeah, I think being a chameleon would mean sort of changing colors. And I would think from an authentic perspective, you would be really not changing colors regardless of the situation that you're in. Yeah. And that's – no, it's all good. Oh, he's being an inauthentic mean being a chameleon. Well, we unpacked it completely the other way, Bob.

[00:15:00] But I think – but here's the issue, and we're just getting the social thing out there is – again, my beliefs on this, people say things on social they probably would not say face to face because it's easier to hide behind a keyboard. And it's easier to carry on this persona than it is to be your real genuine self, which only wreaks havoc on you later on.

[00:15:27] And it – because sooner or later, you're going to get called out on the carpet. Sooner or later, right? We all know something's going to hit the fan with all of this. But being – it's all good. Brandon won't be able to join us. That's good. It'd just be – we're going to have a role. We're going to have a great conversation nevertheless. But, you know, authenticity – I always say this, right? If you want to improve, you've got to practice. Authenticity does require practice.

[00:15:57] We're all authentic human beings, like I said. I don't have a PhD in any of this. I haven't – I'm not a psychologist in any of this. This is just living this through a practitioner's point of view, you know, now since the 80s selling. But authenticity requires practice. It requires intentionality. It requires doing some work. And you can't just say, hey, I'm being my authentic self, which kind of rolls off the top of most people's mouths. So let's kind of take that down a road a bit, right?

[00:16:27] I mean, you work with many, many different sales organizations in all kinds of different industries. I'm sure most of them, when you walk in, they say, oh, yeah, of course we're authentic. But then when you get there and you kind of unpack what's actually there, where do you see the gap, I guess? And then what do you – there's two questions here. Where do you see is the gap when you normally walk into a new customer or new client?

[00:16:50] And then kind of what is the blueprint or the roadmap that you take them down to help them maybe transition from where they are to truly being authentic and obviously being more effective in what they're doing? Great question. And here's what I find out is – and I'm not saying all, so this isn't an all statement by no means. It's just there's a vast – we'll call it vast majority. There's a vast majority of people.

[00:17:17] We'll keep sales out of this, but we're going to clump it all back in here in a second. There's a vast majority of people that really don't know who they are. And I'm going to share why because I spent my 20s and my 30s and my 40s trying to figure out who I was. And it really didn't take until my 50s for me.

[00:17:39] I'm 60 now, and it took me until the decade of my 50s to really unpack who I really am. What makes me tick? What lights my fire? What am I passionate about? And if we then roll this into sales, most salespeople are chasing extrinsic things.

[00:18:04] What I want salespeople and sales leaders and executives and presidents of companies to really unpack is in order to bring your authentic self to the forefront, you've got to chase the intrinsic things. That's opening up the cupboard. We'll use kitchen analogy. You've got to be willing to open up the kitchen cupboard of who you are, which is scary stuff. Bill McCormick, you're older than me. Stop it.

[00:18:30] So you've got to be willing to open up the cupboard of who you are to look inside of who you are. And I've done some pretty deep heart work. And heart work is hard work. That's why I can look you in the eye, and I can look anybody in the eye and say, you get what you get with me. The reason being, I've done the work. I've literally done the work. And I've been, I got the tears and I got the scars to prove it.

[00:18:55] Because I've been willing to really unpack and get vulnerable with myself and those in my inner circle to really uncover who I am. There's not a lot of people out there that are willing to go down that road. So when you say I'm being my authentic self, are you? And I'll leave it at that. So what do you, when you come into a sales organization, and again, I would suspect that a lot of people would go, oh, of course I'm authentic.

[00:19:23] Or what kind of, what road do you take them down? What's the process that you take them down? How does it all work as you kind of try and transform them truly into their authentic self? You know, I mean, it's just simple things like doing a lot of reflection. And when I say doing a lot of reflection, and that's like the first three or four chapters of selling from the heart. It's all reflection work. But it's all sitting down with notepad and pencil or pen, however you all want to do this.

[00:19:53] Hey, what words would I use to describe me? How would others describe me? Interview other people. Hey, what words would you use to describe me? In my interactions with you, how would you describe them? What's authenticity look like to you? How do you know you're around an authentic human being? And these are kind of like challenging questions, mindset, heartset related questions. But it gets somebody to think.

[00:20:21] And when I can get somebody to reflectively think, this is like holding up the mirror to them. Which a lot of people aren't in a position to do. They don't want to do it. But I go, this has a direct tie-in. Doing this kind of work has a direct tie-in to increase in profits and revenues and commissionable dollars to salespeople. It's tough stuff. Nobody really wants to do it. It's reflective work that most people deflect. But again, I'm not a PhD.

[00:20:49] I'm not an overly complicated guy. I just take them through a couple little quick questions and start asking themselves. But then I have them go validate it to friends, family, their clients. People who know them the best and just start asking them, what words would you use to describe me? In my interactions with you, how would you describe them? What's that look like? Walk me through it. What's authenticity mean to you? How do you know you're around an authentic human being? How do you know you're around an authentic salesperson?

[00:21:19] What are the triggers? What are you looking for? I would suspect that sometimes those are not easy for them to answer. They're not. And I was at a mutual customer last week who has been reading your books and implementing the selling from the heart principles. And they're a customer of ours, of our software. And we had dinner with their CEO and their VP of sales last Tuesday night.

[00:21:48] And what they were saying is, basically, our salespeople are getting more confident by doing the exercises that you talked about in the book. They didn't say they got better yet, but they said they were getting more confident. And they were willing to now kind of grow and take the next steps and take the next steps and take the next steps as kind of the foundation of what was there. Hey, I'm glad you brought up that word confident. And I want to key in on this for a moment because I see it.

[00:22:18] And so just follow along with me on this. But this is what I see. And this does, I don't care if you're a well-tenured grizzly veteran. You're the midway point of your career or you're just entering, you know, your journey in sales. There's three things. You hit on one of them. There's three things that I see. And this is why if you're willing to do the inner work, and I've always said this is the subtitle of my second book, Soft Skills Yield Hard Dollars.

[00:22:46] Is these are people skills. This is people skill development, relationship skill development. Two things that salespeople are in, but a vast majority of them stink at. And the reason being is when you lack confidence in yourself, when you lack believability in yourself and believability in your messaging, and you have low self-worth, that has a direct tie-in to your sales growth or lack of sales growth.

[00:23:16] So if I can get people to do the inner work, and I had to learn this the hard way because, you know, I'm talking to CEOs and presidents of companies who think selling from the heart is pixie sticks and rose petals. And how can I make that, right? I had to pivot real fast to share with them, hey, this is the journey. If you're willing to go on the journey and play the long game, this will create long-term sustainability for your company and your salespeople. But here's what I see.

[00:23:47] Because people are messy and relationships are messy, you've got to constantly be coaching your salespeople around people skills and relationship building skills. And the reason why they struggle a lot with it is they internally lack confidence in themselves. They're never going to say it. They're just going to keep it close to their heart. And they may lack self-belief because they lack confidence. And when they do all that, they get wishy-washy with their messaging.

[00:24:17] Then people lack confidence in them. People lack believability in them, which then all converts to then they have low self-worth. So in selling from the heart, we pick people up. I'm a big fan of inspiration. There's motivation. But there's a next thing about inspiration. And inspiration is about breathing life into people. And I will breathe life into your sales department because motivation is short-term. That's just like dopamine rushes. Yeah.

[00:24:46] I think inspiration is what's going to cause people to internally think about themselves. And I've seen it. I've seen it years now in the companies and the salespeople I'm working with. Is we're turning very fast increase in revenue and profits because we're building the confidence, believability, and self-worth of their salespeople. And the reason being is because I'm delivering it through a practitioner's lens.

[00:25:11] Because I had to build my self-confidence, the believability in myself, and my self-worth. Yes, even in my 50s. You know, and it's interesting. This customer that I was at last week, they were saying that up until they were starting to read your book and understand some of your principles, their sales enablement, sales training was learn our products, right? And learn our market. And then learn our sales process. That was the sort of sequence. Now they're reversing that.

[00:25:41] And they're saying they want to incorporate the selling from the heart, the authenticity, the confidence aspect is the bottom layer. And then it will make the adoption of the process, the adoption of understanding their business and their ability to utilize that when they go out much, much better. And they had that realization. And this company has been around, I think, 70, 80 years. This isn't a brand new startup by any stretch of the imagination.

[00:26:08] But they're just starting to realize that that foundationally was going to make a gigantic improvement in their overall sales enablement, sales training process. And it's so good to hear. And this is, I love having very assertive conversations with executives, Tom. I really do. And this makes me smile, warms my heart when you tell me this.

[00:26:32] But this is the conversations I have with CEOs and presidents of companies, is I'll ask them a very direct question. By the way, baseball season's around the corner. In a tip of the cap to the Dodgers, I'm batting 1,000. I'm literally batting 1,000 on asking this question. And that just means there's ginormous amounts of opportunity out there. I will look CEOs, presidents of companies, senior leaders in the eye, whether that be face-to-face or virtual, depending.

[00:27:01] And I'll say this, and I'll shorten it, but just for our time together. But I'll ask them in our conversations, I'll say, hey, listen, do you believe that your salespeople are in the people business and relationship building business? 100% of the time, they say yes, Tom. And I said, okay, God, we got an agreement on that. Here's my question.

[00:27:22] With trust and credibility being at anemically low levels, how are you coaching, nurturing, and guiding your salespeople to build trust and credibility in a world that doesn't think salespeople are trustworthy, nor do they think they're credible? But you agree, you're in the people business and relationship building business, upon which I hear crickets.

[00:27:49] That's the opportunity I want CEOs and senior leaders to realize is y'all are leaving revenue and profit on the table at rapid rates because you're not developing the people skills and relationship building skills of your salespeople. And they're the revenue and profit generating arm of your company. When they get that, when they flip the switch mentally on that, I'm not papooing product knowledge. I mean, you need to have it.

[00:28:19] Right, right. But when you lead with product, you're doing what everybody else is doing. I can find all that stuff out on the internet. But what I can't find out is what makes somebody tick. And I can't find out what's their confidence level, where's their believability level, where's their self-worth level. That requires doing some hard work. And that's what we bring to the forefront. Yeah. And I completely agree, right? You're never going to eliminate the need for product training.

[00:28:48] You're never going to limit the need for sales process and sales enablement and all of those types of things. But the job is a lot harder. What I'm hearing is a job is going to be a lot harder to accomplish those things if you don't put the fundamental pieces that we're just talking about here at the bottom layer. On the other hand, if you put some of those fundamentals, build the confidence, get them to understand their value, get them confidence in their value, then everything else is going

[00:29:14] to be that much smoother as they go through that quote unquote traditional training process. No, 100%. And then it just goes back to this, which is kind of just blends into what Bill just put in chat. But it just goes back to what do y'all want to be known for? And that's what I want everyone to start thinking about is when people lack confidence, when people lack believability, when they have low self-worth, we know that we live in this digitally driven,

[00:29:44] hyper-connected world. We all know that. And people, again, my phraseology, my viewpoints on all of this, but I really believe people are trying to poke holes in why they shouldn't have a conversation with you and why they shouldn't do business with you as opposed to why they should do business with you. And it all goes back to salespeople, sales leaders. We have trained our salespeople in old ways of doing business. Well, things have changed.

[00:30:15] And we all know, right? If you ask how important trust is out there, everyone's unequivocally going to say trust is at the utmost importance. Then I say, why are you eroding trust by coaching and training your salespeople to do things that actually erode trust? And credibility. And credibility. So think about it.

[00:30:39] It's like, if I'm a buyer, if I'm an executive, I want to start searching out, who are these people that are calling on me? What are they all about? If I get into a conversation with Tom Burton, what's he going to bring to the table? If I get into a conversation with Brandon Lee, what's Brandon going to bring to the table? I'm going to do my due diligence. At least a smart, right? A smart thinking executive.

[00:31:10] Before they take a meeting with somebody, however they do their due diligence, they're going to do their due diligence. Right. And they just want to know, what am I walking into and who is this person that I'm getting ready to speak with? And that's why I said, right? Salespeople, sales leaders, you all control all of this. And it's all in how you all show up. Yeah. And I was thinking about what you were just saying.

[00:31:39] I was, look, we all, right? Whether we're salespeople or we're executives in business, we're dealing with salespeople. And I was thinking about, as you were talking about that, in my own business, right? There's, I don't know, five, six vendor, quote unquote, relationships that we have. Key vendor relationships that we have. And I could immediately think of like two salespeople that I actually look forward to having a conversation with.

[00:32:06] And then there's four that I would rather not ever have a conversation with them if I could avoid it because I just either know it's going to be a waste of time or just not fruitful. But there's a couple that I go, man, I really value the conversation. I enjoy the, I get value out of it. It's not just I just like them, but I get value out of the conversation. They're credible and they're trustworthy. And so therefore I look forward and I will actually go out of my way to have the conversation versus avoid the conversation. Oh, 100%.

[00:32:36] I mean, I'll tell you, you know, I sold copiers in the LA marketplace, Ventura County, Los Angeles County for 30 years. Copy machines. Highly commoditized. Yeah. Very dysfunctional environment. A race to the bottom. Right? I always said this, copier salespeople would sell their mother and father for an extra 500 bucks commission. Now I'm making, you know, it's a funny, it's not true, but it's kind of the funny that would go out.

[00:33:06] Yeah, but that's the reputation, right? It's it. It's the, it's the reputation. Right. But there's one thing that I knew I was in the people business and I was in the relationship building business. And I'll tell you this for 30 years, I sold things that required constant service that would break at the most inopportune times. I still to this day, I know how the outside of a copier works, right? I can press buttons. I don't know how they work. Couldn't fix one. Don't even care.

[00:33:34] I sold them for 30 years. I didn't have to get deep in all of this. What I brought to the forefront was what 95% of most salespeople struggle with. And that's how to bring your authentic self to the forefront in a people oriented relationship oriented business. That's what I did. I made people feel comfortable with me. And when they started feeling comfortable with me, they opened up and they share business secrets.

[00:34:04] And those business secrets are the things that weren't telling other salespeople. And it just goes back to, right? We all know we have six cents. Well, there's five senses, but we have a six cents and that's the six cents of smelling out BS. And people can sense this. It like it's an aura and it oozes out of people, whether that be behind a virtual screen or whether that be face to face. Well, and I think that aligns perfectly with Bob's comment here, right?

[00:34:33] He's talking about sellers need to go first when it comes to authenticity, which then gives the customer permission to be authentic themselves, right? Which is exactly what you just said, right? Then you get the secrets. Then you really get the, go beyond the social relationship and you get into a valued business relationship where now you're getting a lot of knowledge that the other person's not or the other person's not. No, a hundred percent. I would, I tell you this. I was never the smartest person out there.

[00:35:01] There's people way fricking smarter than me, Tom, way smarter than me. But one thing that I really keyed in on, I still do it to this day. And I coach to it is if I'm a seller, I want to be really cognizant of the silent things that are going on in somebody's head in the first 60 to 90 seconds of them engaging in a conversation with me. Okay. And it's right. And it could go something like this. They're never going to tell you.

[00:35:30] They are never going to tell you, but they're silently checking these boxes off. Is this person going to listen to me? This is probably going to go down like every other sales conversation I've been on in the last week. What's this person going to do? That's any different. I'm going to wait for the sales speak to come out. I'm just waiting for it. This is rapid fire. So if we know that, then all I want people to do is they got to flip the switch on this.

[00:36:01] They got to flip the switch fast and they got to go, right. I got to build trust. I got to build credibility from the get go. And the minute that happens, watch how that person in front of you does this. Watch their eyes, right? Watch how they lean in. They're engaged because they've silently in the span of 30 seconds, they've silently checked off all these boxes going that gal or that guy's different. They opened this up differently.

[00:36:31] They looked at me differently. They engaged with me differently. That's what I want people to realize. We control all of this. But when you do that, you soon give the other person permission to then to start unloading. Yes. Well, they feel safe because you've created that trust that allows them to feel safe and know that they can, again, trust what they tell you or what they tell you.

[00:36:59] And also they have, you have credibility in their mind to understand what they're telling you and you're going to listen and hear it. And it just goes back to what we're talking about. If you can have that as your head start or your first impression, then the other stuff about your sales process, your products, all of those things, a million times easier, a million times more results. A hundred percent. Then it makes all the wonderful things that your company trained you on, like product knowledge and whatever your internal sales process is.

[00:37:29] It makes it a whole lot easier. I've always said this. The reason why, I'll use the word closing. The reason why y'all have such a closing issue is because you forget about how do I open this? How do I open it in a way that gets people to open up immediately?

[00:37:51] And when you fumble and bumble in the very beginning, then you come up with all these weird and wacko things that y'all do throughout the whole sales process, which leads to all these ways to close business. I'm a bit, if, and you use the word impression just a second ago, if first impressions mean something, because I ask.

[00:38:14] Everywhere I go, when I speak and I do workshops and things like that set aside from the coaching that I do, I always ask people, do impressions matter? Do first impressions matter? Everybody says yes. Then what's your first impression? How are you opening up these conversations? Because I always ask, right? How hard is it to build trust? And I always hear this stupid phrase.

[00:38:48] It's time to build. And it's on first impressions. How are you opening up these conversations? What's the first three, four, five minutes of a conversation sound like? Now, if you're not engaged in any of those, then I can go back to what are you saying online? How are you positioning yourself online? What types of messages are you leaving people in their voicemail? All of this plays a part in all of this.

[00:39:16] But yet, we're trying to coach and train salespeople on all these wacky, right, permission-based openers and pattern interrupts and all of this. That wouldn't work on them, but we're coaching and training salespeople on some pretty wacky stuff. Really wacky stuff. Scares the crap out of me. Yeah. Yeah. I was doing a seminar last year with a customer on some sales techniques.

[00:39:46] And one of the customers or one of the people in the audience, she kind of popped up. She's like, oh, my God. She goes, I would never want to buy from me the way I sell. That was her realization. In other words, the way she sold, she would never buy from and she would avoid it. And it was like the world, the lights came on, the angels flew. I mean, it was a huge, huge realization that she had.

[00:40:15] And it completely changed how she looked at everything she did going forward from there. Oh, 100%. So this was like, oh, my gosh. Can I tell you a funny story? This is real world. This is a funny story. This has happened three weeks ago. So I was on the road for a whole week. And it was the last leg of a seven, eight day road trip. And I was with a group the last day I was there. I was with, you know, I was with ownership in the beginning.

[00:40:41] And then the next day, I'm just with salespeople, like salespeople, sales leaders, some ops people were in here. And I said, and there's probably 85, 90 people in the room. And I asked this question, Tom, totally hilarious. I said, right, we're going to be open. We're going to be transparent. That's how we learn. We're all in amongst friends. So let's check egos out at the door. Don't make any crap up. Let's just have some fun with this. But this is going to be a learning opportunity.

[00:41:11] I said, here's the question. I want to know right now what the first three minutes of your conversation sounds like. When you walk in someone's office and you sit down and after the normalities, I want to know the first 90 seconds, the first three minutes, what comes out of your mouth, literally what comes out of your mouth. And then I didn't say anything. Tom, there was dog dead silence for a while. And I said, I'm telling you something.

[00:41:41] I'm not saying a word until somebody opens their mouth. Somebody go first. Somebody's got to go first on this. And then so somebody raised their hand and they're mumbling and bumbling, right? People were laughing and all that as expected. And I said, okay, thanks. So-and-so I appreciate you stepping up to the plate. Now somebody else go and they're fumbling. Hey, I'd say this.

[00:42:02] And I said, folks, listen, if you're fumbling and bumbling in here, it's safe to say you're fumbling and bumbling out there. And if those first 90 seconds to three minutes are all about you, your company, hey, Tom, it's a pleasure to meet you today. Let me tell you a little bit about myself and all of that. You're going to get somebody who's polite, who's going to shake their head like you are. Yep.

[00:42:29] They're hearing you, but after that, they're really not going to listen to you. And then you wonder why they go, okay. After 20 minutes, they politely check out and then they ghost you. I don't think we're doing enough as executives to coach and train salespeople on the human skills, people skills, relationship building skills. We just take it for granted. And I will tell you this, a lot of people stink at it. A lot. Even the most tenured of tenured stink at it and they just mask it.

[00:43:00] But what an easy exercise what you just described, right? If I'm an executive or a sales coach in a business, do exactly what you just said. What do you say for the first three minutes when you get in there, right? And see what happens. And then it can even just be something you work on every week, right? Ask that same question Monday, this Monday, next Monday or whatever. I would assume it's just going to keep getting better because people are recognizing what they're actually doing or not doing.

[00:43:29] Hey, Tom, pull this question up on the screen that Bob just put in there. This is a fascinating question. And it's interesting when I hear pushback from C-level people who are all about numbers and financials. I totally get it. But I do know this. Executives want to grow their business. They want to grow revenues. And they want to grow profits. Here's the issue. Most executives have not. I'll use a car analogy.

[00:43:59] Most executives have not lifted up the hood of their sales team. And they have no idea what they have. So I understand, right? I know executives, their financial or into their numbers, people totally get it. They're also people oriented as well, or else they wouldn't be in that position. They got to grow revenues. They got to grow profits. They got to pay attention to the financials. However, what teeters on that is what the salespeople sell.

[00:44:29] So the pushback that I get is, hey, I can help you grow this. And there's potential sitting in your sales team right now. Most executives don't know the potential of the salespeople they have because they haven't lifted up the hood of their sales team. Another way of looking at this is, I know this. This is just business 101. If executives that are listening to this or that are watching this, and this really dives

[00:44:59] into Bob's question, I'll just take this one step farther. If executives were going to go out and acquire a company right now, if they're in the acquisition mode as part of growing their company, they're going to hire some high paid consultants to come on into their company. They're going to work with those consultants to do their due diligence to see if that company's worth acquiring as part of their acquisition plan. And maybe that's part of their company growth.

[00:45:27] Well, if we understand that they've lifted up the hood of that other company to determine yay or nay on them acquiring the company. That's all financials related and all of that stuff. Why can't executives take that same philosophy with their sales team? Why can't they lift up the hood of their sales team and see what they got? The good, the opportunity to improve, and the potential. You can be a numbers person and a financial person all day long. I do know this.

[00:45:56] What's going to affect that is what your salespeople sell or don't sell. Most executives don't know that. So they could push back on me all day long. However, there's monumental opportunities and upswing. And I do know this exact part of executives comp program is on what their salespeople sell. Of course. So, yeah, I mean, to your point, right? That is all going full circle to everything we've talked about today.

[00:46:24] That is the foundation for numbers. Bingo. 100%. Right. Or you can make it a lot more difficult than it needs to be and struggle and turnover and churn and all those types of things. And as you said, not really understand what's under the hood of that sales organization that you're trying to manage and grow. So I'll use a food analogy. I'll use a food analogies for just a second.

[00:46:53] Most executives, they don't know how much food their salespeople are leaving on the table. Because they're not coaching and training, they don't know what the potential of their salespeople are. They don't know what their salespeople are holding close to their heart, which is all this intrinsic stuff. They have no freaking clue. Just because your A people are killing it, however you define killing it, they all want to become better.

[00:47:18] However, it's just they're in their comfort zone because A, they are. B, no one's figured out how to help them sell more. It's not about extrinsic motivation with any of these people. It's all internal stuff. That's what's going to drive profits and revenue. Well, and you hear this a lot. I hear this a lot even from our customers is they feel like they're walking by more business than they're actually selling. Right. They're with their customers.

[00:47:47] And especially because there's customers buy lots of different products, lots of different divisions and so forth. And they just feel like their sales team's walking by more business than they're actually getting in that company when they're there. And I think that ties into exactly what you were saying. Yeah, it's interesting because when I hear that, the first thing I would say is why? Why is that happening? Right. And then I just listen and then I go, okay, well, what's causing that? Listen. Well, why do you think that's happening? Listen, right?

[00:48:18] Is this having a direct impact? And it's so funny because I always like tying this all the way back to how executives get comped. All I know is if I'm an executive of a company, I want to ensure that my sales team's running at full potential. And right now, based on my research, based on my intimate knowledge of the clients I have, there's a lot of freaking food being left on the table for other people to grab.

[00:48:46] And that's because we're not coaching and training. That's because executives don't have a clear window into what their salespeople, who they are, what makes them tick. They have no clue into any of that. And so how do you coach and train salespeople? You can't just raise quotas all the time and say, go out and sell more and expect it all to happen. It just doesn't work that way anymore. You got to understand what drives people. And then you got to lift up the hood and say, hey, what do I got? I got 50 salespeople.

[00:49:16] Of that 50 salespeople, probably 20% of them are driving 80% of my sales. And they're keeping the slack, you know, they're holding the reins for all the other people. Well, I got to coach all these other people up. But I also got to ensure that 20% of my salespeople are still growing and executives are struggling to figure that one out.

[00:49:42] Yeah, boy, I don't want to, in the interest of time, but one of the biggest, you know, our customers from my company, right, are predominantly manufacturers and wholesale distributors. Yeah. And I would say the majority of them that I talk to at the executive level, I'll talk about, hey, we want to double our business in the next five years. Well, to double your business in five years, that's about 15% annual compounded growth for five years. That's not easy in that industry. And I'll ask them, I say, well, how do you expect to do that?

[00:50:10] Well, we're going to acquire some companies or open another branch or open some other locations or things like that. And I said, have you really ever thought about how you could squeeze more organic growth out of what you already have, right, that maybe makes that job way less difficult and way less risky, right? It's risky to acquire companies and open new locations. And it's risky and it costs money, right?

[00:50:36] And getting more out of what you already have is way less risky and way less costly along the way. And I believe, and we've talked a lot about that with our customers, I believe that they could get way more than halfway there, if not two-thirds of the way there, through organic growth rather than having to go out and acquire and buy to achieve those results. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I mean, we can go on a good tangent on this one. Yeah. I hate to say it. No, no.

[00:51:02] I hear what you're saying because right before we started this conversation on your show, I was having a conversation a couple hours ago with a company that franchises across the United States. And I was talking to one of their top franchise owners in the Midwest. And this franchise owner has, we'll call it, say, 500 customers. But this franchise owner wants to hire, right, three more salespeople. And I said, why don't you, right?

[00:51:32] Why doesn't this franchise owner go back to their 500 customers and upsell and cross sell them all the wares that they have? Yeah, exactly. And they can drive more business. These are 500 customers who already know them, who are already paying them recurring revenue. Yeah. But no, I want to go out and hire three more salespeople. Yeah. And probably won't coach and train them properly. And then they'll bitch and moan 90 days later when they haven't sold anything. And it's expensive. Right.

[00:52:01] As opposed to they got, you know, age old, especially got low hanging fruit sitting right there. That's how I'd grow my company. No, I really believe. And I really believe that organic growth is the biggest opportunity for a lot of these companies right now. And they don't see it. Or if they do see it, they don't think it's possible because they don't know how. Right. And even hiring more salespeople is really not an organic growth strategy.

[00:52:26] That's still adding more cost, more expense, more overhead, right, versus getting more out of what you already have. No. And here's why. And I see it. It's the first two legs of the trust formula. It's because a vast majority of salespeople haven't been coached to build authentic relationships and bring any kind of meaningful business value. So when you struggle in those two areas, which is requirement if you want to cross-sell and upsell.

[00:52:54] So if your salespeople are struggling because they haven't gotten high, white, and deep in the company, and they're not bringing any meaningful value, you can't expect your salespeople to go in there, you know, I'm keeping it simple and sell them any more than they're selling. Right. Because they haven't earned the right to do so. Right. And they're at risk of what they are selling. So they're at retention risk all the way. Yeah. Hey, I want to switch gears a little bit before we wrap up here. Larry, I know you released a new book. Was it last October when your book came out? August. August. August. August of 24.

[00:53:24] Wait. August of 24. Yeah, I knew. So tell us a little bit about the book, what it is, and kind of how it builds on, you know, the original book of Selling from the Heart. I would say, thanks for asking. And I would say Selling from the Heart created, you know, this whole movement of authenticity and trust. But I wanted to be able to look somebody in the eye and say, hey, if you leveraged Selling from the Heart,

[00:53:49] Selling from the Heart helps you build trust and authenticity, but it also helps your salespeople drive more revenues and profits. The reason why it's so important is because we live in this post-trust world. We live in this world where, you know, unfortunately, trust is at a premium. Yes. That was the whole ignition and the spark behind me writing my second book, which is Selling in a Post-Trust World. And the subtitles, right, discover the soft skills that yield hard dollars.

[00:54:17] And I introduce everyone into the trust formula. And I will tell you this. The trust formula will transform your personal life. It'll transform your sales career. And it's around four foundational pillars. And this is what I coach sales teams to right now with ginormous amounts of success. Is how to go high, wide, and deep in their companies. How to authentically build relationships. How to bring meaningful value so it's authentic relationships and meaningful value.

[00:54:46] And then it's how to bring an inspirational experience and then get really disciplined with your habits. And I weave this whole book into how you prospect, how you manage your clients, and throughout the whole sales process. And the clients that we have are seeing monumental levels of growth in those four areas. And those are the – and I keep it simple. I'm not an overcomplicated guy. I don't complicate anything.

[00:55:14] We get really granular on those four pillars of building trust. Authentic relationships. Meaningful business value. Which in highly relational worlds, people struggle with meaningful business value because they lean into the likability and friendship factor to sell. Which they get caught in the friend zone. When you get caught in the friend zone, we know what happens. And so those two things drive business growth is authentic relationships and meaningful value.

[00:55:42] What drives profit is inspirational experiences. And I learned that a long time ago in the copier world because I was petrified to put profit in deals because I came out of an environment that was so price conscious. Because that's just how we were trained. But I knew that in order to break the mold, I had to change the experience. It's not just a customer experience. It's an inspirational experience. Because to inspire means to breathe life into somebody.

[00:56:09] So if I can breathe life into my clients and give them an experience on an ongoing, consistent, disciplined manner, that ties to profit. I've proved that out already. And then he's got to become disciplined with it. What I'm hearing you say is by incorporating that inspirational experience, you can get out of becoming the race to the bottom on price.

[00:56:33] And you're no longer going to be judged on price, which allows you to sell more profitably, higher margins, all of that stuff. Because the experience is what they're buying versus the commodity, if you will, from what they're buying. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. If all the experiences was exactly the same, we all know what's going to happen. Yeah. But salespeople have the ability to control all of this.

[00:57:01] That's why I said, you know, and this might hurt. Salespeople are responsible for how they show up. It's not your company. It's not your manager. It's not your leader. You are responsible for how you show up. If you can show up to inspire, breathe life into your clients, this has a dotted line to what you put in your back pocket. Yeah, totally. All right. Well, man, I'd like to go off on a whole episode just about what you just talked about, inspirational experiences.

[00:57:31] Because I really do think that is the, we talked about even, you know, the organic growth and driving. I think if you can weave that into how you sell with that authenticity in this day and age, I think that's game changing. I see it every day is like the moment I see us falling down into, you know, from a software perspective, like feature poker and how do your features compare to somebody else or whatever.

[00:57:59] It's like you can just, oh, this is a losing situation. But as soon as you can change it to experiential, all of a sudden everything just moves that much faster and better. This stuff, I agree. This stuff's not rocket science. This is really not rocket science stuff. But if you want to create sustainability, you got to nail the people and relationship side of all of this. Still continue down the road you all are doing. I'm not saying discontinue from it. Double down on it.

[00:58:30] But triple down on people and relationship building because that has a direct tie in to what everything we're just talking about. And here's what's interesting. And it's sad. You can wrap up after this. It just pisses me off more than anything else. When executives raise quotas, expect salespeople to do more year over year, even when they air quote or killing it, they say, okay, you out and do more. Go out and do 10% more.

[00:58:59] Go out and do 20% more. Whatever that number is. But they're not willing to pour in and invest in their people. In a world where people and relationship building skills is what's going to get them to the next level. Just chaps my hide. So, Larry, hey, if people want to learn more about you, obviously your books I know are on Amazon. If they want to learn more about your company, is it sellingfromtheheart.com or where would be the best place? No, they could just.

[00:59:26] Actually, I wish we could have .com, but somebody's got .com and won't let it go. So just go to sellingfromtheheart.net. .net. You can find out anything you want to find out about Selling from the Heart. Obviously, Selling from the Heart podcast. We just released a new podcast called Culture from the Heart, which is the evolution of Selling from the Heart, where we interview CEOs of heart-centered companies who are developing cultures the right way. And if you want little tidbits of information, text to you, all you got to do is bust out your smartphone.

[00:59:57] Text the word TRUST, T-R-U-S-T, to 21000, and you'll get all kinds of actionable goodies immediately to your phone. Oh, cool. I'm going to do that when we're done here. Right on. All right. Well, once again, Larry, I think you're definitely going to be coming back for a fourth episode here, hopefully before too long. And hopefully I can get our co-hosts back. We can get Carson and Brandon here back. And yeah, I got a message from Brandon. He tried his hotspot. He tried everything.

[01:00:25] And I guess they're having a thunderstorm there on top of everything else. So that's all good. I enjoyed the conversation, you and I. Next time we'll be the four amigos. So that's fine. It's all good. That's good. And thank you for everybody, Bob, and everybody else who commented here, Bill, everything like that. We will be back next week. And again, thanks again, Larry. And thanks again, everybody who listened. Have a good week. It's my pleasure. Talk to you soon.

[01:00:57] Thank you for joining us today on Mastering Modern Selling. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe for more insights. Connect with us on social media and leave a review to help us improve. Stay tuned for our next episode where we will continue to uncover modern strategies shaping today's business landscape. Learn more about Fistbump and our concierge service at GetFistbumps.com. Mastering modern revenue creation with Fistbump, where relationships, social, and AI meet in the buyer-centric age.