Sales and Cigars | Zack Lemear | Learning Sales From A Sociopath | Episode 164

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, Walter Crosby with Helix Development, your host of sales and cigars.

[00:00:05] Today's episode is a wild one.

[00:00:07] My guest is Zach Lemar from Pivot Creative.

[00:00:11] I wasn't sure where this was going to go.

[00:00:13] He's got a great backstory.

[00:00:15] We get into that, but if you want to fix your marketing, if you've got marketing

[00:00:18] questions, he describes the process that he goes through with CEOs and how it's effective and why it's effective.

[00:00:27] So go grab a cigar, grab a cocktail, strap in for a really wild episode to Sales and Cigars. I appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule

[00:01:00] to chat with me and the audience.

[00:01:02] Thanks, Walter. Yeah, it's, it's great to be here.

[00:01:07] So I like to like do a little softball question at the

[00:01:10] beginning, we're going to talk about the journey, your

[00:01:13] entrepreneurial journey, we're going to ask some questions

[00:01:16] about, you know, problems we solve. But I always like to ask

[00:01:20] CEO this question, like, is there a book that was

[00:01:23] influential to your life or that you gift a lot? You know, is there is there a book that was influential to your life or that you gift a lot?

[00:01:27] Is there a book that stands out for you? There's a lot of books that stand out to me.

[00:01:31] I mean, there's so many. I mean, the one that I would focus on right the second is the one I

[00:01:35] literally bought to gift this year, which is Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek. That's an

[00:01:41] excellent book. Has he written a bad book?

[00:01:46] Not that I've read. I also like Seth Godin. He's great. Robert

[00:01:51] Caldini. Excellent.

[00:01:53] I have trouble with Robert's stuff because they're amazing,

[00:01:57] right? The whole persuasion. He's done some big stuff in his

[00:02:04] life.

[00:02:05] I think he was part of some political campaigns,

[00:02:08] but you really gotta focus on his,

[00:02:11] because it's so deep and so powerful.

[00:02:13] His stuff is great.

[00:02:15] He's got another one called pre-suasion,

[00:02:16] which is about like tapping into the subconscious.

[00:02:19] Amazing, amazing.

[00:02:21] Then Jeffrey Gittmer, I mean,

[00:02:22] I could keep going on and on and on,

[00:02:24] but the ones I'm actually gifting this year are Leaders Eat Last.

[00:02:29] Yeah, that's a great book. And his other one is good is Why?

[00:02:34] Start with Why?

[00:02:35] Start with Why.

[00:02:36] Yeah, we use that a lot in work that we do or variations of it because it's all based on the same science, right? Yeah, because that whole idea of, you know,

[00:02:45] I'm talking a marketer, but like that idea of getting connecting people, people don't buy

[00:02:53] because they're logical and facts or they're buying because you consult, you can take them

[00:02:57] from where they are to where they want to go. You're selling your vision, you're selling your,

[00:03:02] this subconscious connection,

[00:03:05] getting them away from their fears or get them out of the status quo.

[00:03:08] Kildini is a little bit more eloquent about that than I am, but I get the gist.

[00:03:13] And I think that's a big problem for

[00:03:19] CEOs.

[00:03:21] And I'd be interested in your take on this because I think a lot of CEOs who sat

[00:03:26] in that visionary seat, started a company, maybe sat in the sales seat, and they get

[00:03:32] to a point where they need to bring people in, they have a tendency to not give those

[00:03:37] salespeople the messaging that they need.

[00:03:41] They assume, oh, he's a good salesperson, he'll figure it out. Or she's a great salesperson and she knows what to say. And I think that's a huge mistake in

[00:03:51] not giving them a sales story. And I'm not talking about the company's history. I'm talking

[00:03:57] about the why. I'm talking about what those subconscious, you know, those connectors that

[00:04:04] escape and getting out of that where

[00:04:07] they are and getting them to where they want to go.

[00:04:09] Is that something that you see a lot with your work, that they're not connecting the

[00:04:14] dots from their head to marketing to sales?

[00:04:17] Oh, 100%.

[00:04:19] We actually built a product around it because we see it so often that we didn't really see a solution that made

[00:04:25] sense that was complete.

[00:04:28] And we work very deep with personas and the psychographics and the demographics, and we

[00:04:34] work with psychological archetypes, and we help them with their purpose, their vision,

[00:04:38] their mission, their core values, and all these things.

[00:04:41] And we say as part of our description of this is that the value of this document when it's done is vast.

[00:04:52] Because it touches so many parts of your business. Because your brand isn't your logo.

[00:04:57] Right.

[00:04:57] Not your colors. It's the promises that you keep. It's not even the ones that you make. It's the ones that you consistently keep.

[00:05:06] And that's what becomes your brand.

[00:05:09] I love that.

[00:05:10] That's original Zach Wamier.

[00:05:12] Yeah.

[00:05:12] Patent pending.

[00:05:14] Well, you should put that on there.

[00:05:16] I think a lot of people get that wrong.

[00:05:19] They think, oh, you know, my archetype is a sage

[00:05:22] and I'm gonna walk alongside somebody

[00:05:26] and I'm gonna help talk.

[00:05:26] But if you don't live it and you don't actually do that

[00:05:32] and you don't articulate what it is

[00:05:36] that you're gonna do to help them get from where they are,

[00:05:39] that sort of escape and arrival concept.

[00:05:43] You know, and I don't know that it's the CEO's fault as much as, because they do it

[00:05:50] naturally, and it's getting the tools to the team so that they can align their strategy,

[00:05:57] align their vision with what everybody does. And you've got a service, a product, a program

[00:06:08] does. And you've got a service, a product, a program that helps them create that. How do you help them see that they need to keep those promises? First,

[00:06:15] it really depends on a lot of things. It depends on how long they've been in

[00:06:19] business, what kind of business they're in, what their goals are, for example. So for example, if it's a

[00:06:27] business that's been around for a long time, we have to find out what kind of equity you have in

[00:06:30] a brand that you didn't even know you're making. Because here's the thing, you're making a brand

[00:06:34] every second of every day whether you know it or not. So be careful what you're being consistent

[00:06:38] with. Because that becomes your brand. Right? Think about nicknames nicknames. You can't make up your own nickname,

[00:06:46] right? But how do they get earned? It's how you show up every day. So I use the example of

[00:06:52] somebody being in elementary school. You show up every day and you stink. You just stink. Every day

[00:06:58] consistently you're clear, you're focused, you're consistent, and then all of a sudden you become the smelly kid, right? Because of how you showed up. That's exactly how it works. That's exactly how it works.

[00:07:12] It's just so pure and unfiltered in that microcosm of like elementary school and middle school and

[00:07:19] high school, but it's all about branding, right? I was telling my son the other day, I was like, you have a branding problem.

[00:07:27] I was like, believe me, I know.

[00:07:28] And I said, what you've taught everyone

[00:07:30] is that you're a little hard to work with

[00:07:32] and you're not fun to play with.

[00:07:34] Mm, that's what's happened.

[00:07:36] And I said, what you need to do

[00:07:38] is now consistently rebrand by showing up

[00:07:42] as somebody who is easy to work with and fun to play with.

[00:07:44] And then you will become someone different. That is your brand. Every

[00:07:48] second of every day you're building a brand whether you have a business or not.

[00:07:51] And I love that analogy because it I mean you take it from the smelly kid to

[00:07:59] personal with with with your with your own son right right? I mean, and I think everybody can relate to that story, that piece,

[00:08:10] because we've all had those things happen to us. We're not all been smelly, but we all had,

[00:08:17] you know, people think of us in a particular way. And we may not have connected the dots

[00:08:27] And we may not have connected the dots as to what it is that we were doing every day to get that

[00:08:33] reputation. Is that different than the brand? Is it? No, it's very much a part of your brand, right? Because your promises you keep build your reputation. And it's what people can count on,

[00:08:37] because they we see we we inherently as human beings were only built and hardwired to survive or thrive. And we subconsciously notice patterns.

[00:08:47] So if you repeat yourself too much, or if you're not saying something of value, we subconsciously

[00:08:53] tune you out because it's eating too many calories and we're searching for survival

[00:08:56] or thrival.

[00:08:57] It's not even a choice.

[00:08:58] Yeah.

[00:08:59] It's that subconscious piece that we're not even aware of, but we're doing it. Exactly.

[00:09:05] And we work a lot in that area because we understand how this works.

[00:09:10] And what makes us different is a lot of marketing companies will give you a map, right?

[00:09:15] And a map's great, but it gives you every direction at the same time.

[00:09:19] What the hell good is a map if you don't know where you're supposed to be going?

[00:09:22] So we focus on the compass, because if you get dropped in the woods with a map, you could stay lost forever. But if you get

[00:09:28] dropped in the woods with a compass, you'll find your way out, because north is north. And that's

[00:09:33] the part like with the vision, the purpose and the core values and to get back to your original

[00:09:36] question about the sales team and empowering them. If they understand who your ideal customer is, how they think and feel,

[00:09:45] what they want, what they're struggling with,

[00:09:49] what you stand for as a company

[00:09:51] with unflappable core values.

[00:09:53] I mean, I challenge these things hard.

[00:09:56] Don't tell me trust, don't tell me integrity,

[00:09:58] show me how that echoes in every essence of your business

[00:10:02] because these have to be unflappable, right?

[00:10:04] People make a big mistake between their personal core principles and core beliefs that goes on every essence of your business, because these have to be unflappable, right?

[00:10:05] People make a big mistake between their personal

[00:10:07] core principles and core beliefs,

[00:10:09] and their business's core values,

[00:10:11] because there's a very big difference.

[00:10:15] People start a business, but your business is not you.

[00:10:18] Your brand is not you.

[00:10:20] Even if you are a personal brand.

[00:10:22] Lady Gaga doesn't dress in meat suits at home, right?

[00:10:25] There's two versions of this person.

[00:10:27] That's true. Hopefully that's true.

[00:10:29] So you can never be that thing. So like core principles and core beliefs can be influenced by new experiences and new information, right?

[00:10:37] Like people's religious beliefs can be influenced.

[00:10:43] These have to be immutable, right? And that's why you can make hiring. And now this is

[00:10:47] what happens. You can make hiring and firing decisions off of them. You know exactly who you

[00:10:53] want to attract for leadership, and they know exactly who you are. And those are the people

[00:10:58] you really want. Top talent that cares about what you care about, that's answering the phones because

[00:11:03] they're passionate about what you're passionate about,

[00:11:05] and you attract those people,

[00:11:08] you save money in attrition in your hiring,

[00:11:11] you attract better quality clients,

[00:11:14] just in this little work.

[00:11:16] And this also will help define all the colors

[00:11:18] you should choose in your logo.

[00:11:20] This should happen way before.

[00:11:22] And what shapes you should use in your logo,

[00:11:24] and what font types you should choose, and what words you should choose.

[00:11:27] And so you take all of this and you take and you and you give this to your

[00:11:31] salespeople who say hey we're looking for you know Sally saleswoman and she's

[00:11:38] interested in this and she's struggling with this and this is the kind of

[00:11:43] archetype mix that she is. So, and again, this is all foundational, and you continue to gather data. Don't

[00:11:49] stop and refine and refine and refine and build these out and find new subsets

[00:11:54] of personas to target and untapped markets. But anyway, and all of this is

[00:12:02] gold. Now here's the other thing that this does,

[00:12:05] because what happens when salespeople go out

[00:12:08] is oftentimes they will oversell things

[00:12:12] that cannot be done, especially in the software world.

[00:12:17] And they will also have their own interpretation

[00:12:19] of what your brand stands for,

[00:12:21] which is damaging your brand because it's not consistent.

[00:12:23] stands for, which is damaging your brand because it's not consistent. You cannot get awareness of attention without

[00:12:28] consistency.

[00:12:30] Well, the consistency is the cornerstone. I'd be interested

[00:12:37] in your take on this. I'll talk to salespeople about the

[00:12:41] messaging. It's sort of like jazz music. You get, there's a sheet music,

[00:12:50] there's notes on the page, we're in a certain key, and you, as long as you play all the notes in the

[00:12:55] right key, it's all going to be good, but, and you can put your personality on that. You can be

[00:13:01] authentic, but you've got to play all the notes in the right order, you know, with the right

[00:13:07] emphasis, but it but you can play your instrument. So, Miles

[00:13:12] Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, same instrument, wildly different

[00:13:17] sound, play two notes, and you could tell who's who's playing

[00:13:21] the instrument. And I think that salespeople want to put their own imprint on

[00:13:25] things, which is okay with not with the message, but with your personality and how you're excited

[00:13:34] about things. But if you're not in a line with that underlying core value, that underlying core

[00:13:41] purpose, how we're going to help that customer.

[00:13:49] I mean, all the things you said are necessary for that salesperson to understand.

[00:13:51] And like my original point was, the CEO often hasn't thought that all the way

[00:13:57] through.

[00:13:58] And they need somebody's help like yourself to be able to flush that out.

[00:14:03] Go, yeah, that's it. That's what I'm missing. And for that passion

[00:14:07] to come back, because that's, that's the, that's the thing

[00:14:11] that when you have that in alignment, and you have the

[00:14:13] right people, right, you can teach them what they need to do.

[00:14:19] But you can't, you can't teach them that passion, unless it's

[00:14:21] really aligned. I mean, my opinion is from a sales perspective,

[00:14:26] but that's really hard to do. Does that take months, years? No, we can do it in 30 days as

[00:14:34] long as they can meet with us. We've got a system and a product that we've developed called the

[00:14:38] Focus 360 that goes through all of this, plus the story. But here's the thing, I just wanna talk about,

[00:14:46] I feel like the problem with salespeople

[00:14:52] is often they don't know what they're selling.

[00:14:56] True.

[00:14:57] And that's part of what this also does, right?

[00:14:59] And I use the example of a car salesman.

[00:15:04] He's not going to sell as many cars

[00:15:06] if he goes after finance plans, gas mileage, colors,

[00:15:13] over plenty of room in the back for snacks and crayons,

[00:15:16] and a status symbol because I just got a pay bump.

[00:15:20] You've gotta know what you're selling

[00:15:23] so that you can craft everything

[00:15:24] and navigate the

[00:15:25] conversation because sales is a lot about communication but it's about relationship building

[00:15:31] and you've got to understand who they are what they need from you because nobody like

[00:15:36] a million times people say nobody wants to be sold but everybody wants to buy.

[00:15:40] So sales is and I think this is a Jeffrey Gitomer quote but I think sales or maybe this is a Jeffrey Gitomer quote, or maybe this is a Chaldini, but either way,

[00:15:49] sales is about creating the environment to buy.

[00:15:53] It's not about selling.

[00:15:54] JF.

[00:15:55] We're helping.

[00:15:56] We're helping is what it is.

[00:15:57] You're helping them figure out if what you're offering is going to get them to where they

[00:16:03] want to go. And it isn't telling them stuff.

[00:16:08] It's about some questions.

[00:16:10] It's about making sure that you're you're selling the space.

[00:16:15] An old girlfriend of mine wanted to buy a car.

[00:16:17] She had a certain amount of money to use car.

[00:16:20] And what was important to her?

[00:16:22] And she told the sales guy,

[00:16:25] I want these two things,

[00:16:28] and one of those things,

[00:16:29] this was a while ago,

[00:16:31] she wanted a cup holder in her car,

[00:16:34] in the middle section.

[00:16:35] I would call her,

[00:16:36] all cars have that now,

[00:16:37] but back then they didn't.

[00:16:39] She didn't want to have one of those things

[00:16:40] that flew down the door.

[00:16:42] And the guy didn't talk about that.

[00:16:44] He talked about all these other things

[00:16:45] that he was excited about. And she walked out of there and didn't buy the car because even though

[00:16:50] he was told what was important, he did his own thing. Went through his whole presentation, talked

[00:16:56] about what he was excited about and didn't tap into. All he had to do is say this car has those

[00:17:01] two things. What else are you concerned about? And you would have

[00:17:05] made a sale, right? And she had cash in hand to go buy the car. So I think you're a hundred

[00:17:13] percent right in that we as CEOs, we need to be able to understand our vision, understand what

[00:17:21] we're really selling, tap into emotions, help somebody

[00:17:26] realize that we're taking away that fear, we're taking away that concern

[00:17:31] about risk or we're gonna save them some time, whatever the

[00:17:36] thing is. And you can talk all day about what those are, and that's

[00:17:42] what your process helps people pull out. And you get them

[00:17:46] to pull out of their heads. When you get that done, is there like a whole new energy in the room

[00:17:50] with that team? Because I'm assuming you do it with a team, not just the CEO.

[00:17:56] Well, it depends on, we try not to get too many people involved, but we do get the team involved

[00:18:02] at the end. Because we want to get it from the highest level.

[00:18:06] And really what it is, it's two four hour sessions.

[00:18:11] There's a questionnaire in the beginning,

[00:18:14] which takes about five minutes.

[00:18:15] And then in between, there's a little bit of homework,

[00:18:17] which is more just gathering, you know,

[00:18:19] give me your client lists.

[00:18:20] Do you have any testimonials that aren't posted

[00:18:23] for attitudinal research and really figuring out sentiment on top of the psychological

[00:18:28] archetypes? Because we want to do that research, but we want to get real time data too. Because it's a balance of both.

[00:18:37] Well, you know, getting that real time data, getting them to understand what attitudes and behaviors their customers have,

[00:18:46] you're pulling that out of that circle.

[00:18:48] Oh yes, the four-hour, so it's two four-hour sessions, and then the homework in between,

[00:18:52] and then at the end what happens, and what this is built up of, it's called the Focus 360. You've

[00:18:56] got the brand compass, the brand position, and then the brand story, three sections. The brand

[00:19:03] compass is comprised of your

[00:19:05] purpose, your vision, your mission, your core values with statements so that they

[00:19:09] make sense and they evoke emotional responses. And everything has to click

[00:19:14] into the other. And most people I see, especially coaches and it drives me

[00:19:18] crazy, they will flip the vision and mission and they will do the mission

[00:19:22] first, which makes zero sense.

[00:19:31] It's like you can't send a bunch of troops out on a mission if there's no war to win. It doesn't make any sense. And then when you send them out and then you find out what the war is, you've got to

[00:19:36] bring them back and send them to a different place. It doesn't make any sense. But you also

[00:19:40] can't be repetitive because, again, we're only working to survive, right? So you can say the same thing over and over,

[00:19:46] but you gotta say it in a different way, right?

[00:19:48] So it's, you can't just be like, Zach, Zach, Zach, Zach.

[00:19:52] We are, once we identify a pattern subconsciously,

[00:19:57] we start ignoring everything else because we're like,

[00:19:59] oh, we know he's just gonna say it the same way.

[00:20:01] But if you shift it to Zach, Zachary, Zachariah,

[00:20:05] I said the same thing three times,

[00:20:07] and you heard me more intently because I changed it

[00:20:11] just a little.

[00:20:13] So again, the vision and the mission have to click in.

[00:20:16] They have to be supported by the purpose

[00:20:17] and rooted in the core values.

[00:20:20] And then we figure out what your business goals are,

[00:20:23] and then we pair them with marketing goals

[00:20:25] so you can actually achieve these goals.

[00:20:27] It's not enough just to write down your goals.

[00:20:29] And that is your compass.

[00:20:31] And that is an unflappable compass

[00:20:33] that can lead you in any direction you want.

[00:20:36] And it can be revisited and tweaked if things happen.

[00:20:38] You know, markets change, leadership changes,

[00:20:41] ownership changes, problems, all that things happen.

[00:20:45] But then the position is really interesting because we go in the weeds in a lot of ways.

[00:20:50] This is something that most marketing companies don't do because it's not fun.

[00:20:54] It's not the creative pretty work.

[00:20:56] But it's the most essential necessity so that you're investing money in a strategy

[00:21:03] instead of spending and guessing on marketing and throwing your salespeople out, hoping that they're going to figure out what you

[00:21:07]