Jim Doyle WINS by Selling With A Servant Heart

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Speaker 1: Good afternoon everybody. My name is Carrie

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Richardson, I'm a partner at Richardson and Richardson and

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today I am your host for win. With me today is Jim Doyle, who

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is the author of Selling with a Servant Heart, a book that I had

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the opportunity to read right after it came out in December

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2021, and a book that I also went back and read this week

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before the podcast, so that I had some good questions to ask

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Jim about it today. Jim is also the founder of GDA Media. How

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are you doing today, Jim?

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Speaker 2: I am great. Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

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Speaker 1: I was so excited when you offered to be on the

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podcast. It's not very often I get to interview the author of a

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book that I've enjoyed.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you.

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Speaker 1: With that in mind, before we start, tell me about

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your life questions. I have questions about the book.

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Speaker 2: Oh, okay.

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Speaker 1: So first of all, I didn't know that Boy Scouts

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actually sold candy. You sold candy as a Boy Scout.

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Speaker 2: That was my first sales job. I was the star of the

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candy sales bit. I think we sold toys one year and candy one

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year and see so that I knew because I fucked out of college

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and had no real skills that maybe I could sell. That was

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people say. When did you get into sales? It was like all

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other avenues were closed. I had a paper route. I had two paper

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routes, an overachieving entrepreneur at age 15.

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Speaker 1: My favorite story, obviously because of Penny the

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van, is the story about Dave Wall and the luxury RVs.

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Speaker 2: What I wanted to try and do was I had a lot of

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experience in the niche our company store, which was media

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salespeople, but I wanted to write a book that was for sales

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in general, and so I went out and interviewed all these

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amazing salespeople from all these different industries, and

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Dave is one of the ones that really sticks with me as well,

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because this is the guy who singlehandedly sells more RVs

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than probably most of the RV dealers in the world, and he

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does it as one person. He sells these big motor coaches. He has

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massive amounts of repeat business. He's just

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extraordinary, and a client of mine who I've known for a long

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time was the guy who said Dave Wall would be a great guy for

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you to talk to. I would get off the call with these people and

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interview them much like this and try to get the sense of what

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they believed in, and just get off the call and be, oh man,

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that was the best salesperson I've ever met, and then two

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calls later I'd be like, wow, that's the best salesperson I've

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ever met. I met some extraordinary people and

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hopefully what I captured in the book was the principles that

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lay laid out in terms of what caused them to be successful.

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Speaker 1: I think the one thing that I took away from the book

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more than anything else was that selling is more about customer

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advocacy and customer service than it is about anything else.

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Speaker 2: It was interesting to me that what I took away, I

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think, is exactly that. But it's how they define winning. I grew

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up as a salesperson where winning was when I closed the

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sale and I would tell you even today if I got in the car after

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somebody had agreed to an idea that we'd suggested. I'm still

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going. Yes, I loved it, but these sales reps love it too,

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and they certainly love the financial success. But they

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define winning as making a difference. If I make a

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difference for my customer, I'm going to obviously be rewarded

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by long term relationships, by more refraining. I'm going to be

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rewarded by long term relationships, by more referrals

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. So their definition of winning isn't just making a sale. Their

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definition of winning is can I make a difference?

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Speaker 1: One of the things that we trained into our reps

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was the understanding that when a small business owner is making

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a decision, they have to make a decision between doing this

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thing for their business or potentially putting money into

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their retirement fund or their kids' college education, and you

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need to be a good caretaker of that.

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Speaker 2: Money is important, I think, most salespeople think

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my competitor is the other people who might provide the

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same kind of service to that business. No, for a small

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business, your competitor is everyone, including the rent

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that may take up, because I think you would have empathy for

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that, as would I, because we've operated small businesses and

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we know that there are many times that there are decisions

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that you need to make and would like to make you just can't

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afford to make because the priorities are more to pay the

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bills than to do other things at that moment.

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Speaker 1: You started a business, you wrote a book. How

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did it all begin?

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Speaker 2: I was really lucky that I got hired to work selling

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advertising in Portland Maine back a long time ago. It was a

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while ago and I fell in love with the business very much for

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the reason I described it. I liked that idea that we could

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have longer term relationships and I liked the whole marketing

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process. I love marketing and that allowed me to advance

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through the chairs. And then in the mid 80s I got an opportunity

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to buy a radio station with some partners in Rochester, New

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York. We had a couple of years of magic and then it wasn't so

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magical. People say how do you get to be a sales trainer, which

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is the business that we started after that and I always say

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there's two reasons. One is it was always my dream to do it.

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But the other reason, equally true, was the format change

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didn't work. The partnership blew up. I lost a million

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dollars and you too can be a sales trainer. So I started the

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JDA company in the early 90s and by the time we got done, 30

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years later, we were one of the largest training companies in

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the country and certainly the largest in the media business,

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the media space.

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Speaker 1: You've recently exited from that business.

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Speaker 2: Right, yeah, we sold out to a great company at the

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end of June last year, and so it's a different phase, but to

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the beginning there was no dreams of selling it ever. I've

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great empathy for people who have begun businesses, because

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starting a business is hard and I was at two years in. I

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literally thought you know what I need to quit because I could

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have made way more money with a real job than I was taking out

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of this company at this point Way, way more. And I got

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encouraged to give it another year and something happened in

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that year that just changed it from being bad to starting to be

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good. And boy, we talk about hanging on. Sometimes I had to

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hang on. You have to hang on in order to get some magic, and in

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small business there's so much. I always counsel small business

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people, as you do, all the time that one gets you to two, gets

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you three and at some point six gets you 60. But getting to six

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is going to take you twice as long as you think it is and

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probably cost you twice as much money.

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Speaker 1: Tell me about the very early days. You mentioned

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that you had a severed partnership. It didn't work well

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. You lost a million dollars and you were broke. How did you

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come up with the idea for starting your business?

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Speaker 2: I had always loved to train salespeople. So I had

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gone to a seminar gosh a decade before that, and every time the

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guy gave an example of what you weren't supposed to do. I

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thought he'd been following me around. It was like, really

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You're not supposed to do that. So I came back with this sort of

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passion to train salespeople. So what I would do for years was

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I, if I hired a new salesperson , I call up all my buddies and

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they send me their new reps and I do a weekend session and I had

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so much love in doing that. And then there was about a seven

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month period of time before we took over the radio station,

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where we were delayed and that's what I did. So I always had

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this sense that, boy, I'd go back to this at some point. Now

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I thought I was going to go back to what may be doing one

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seminar a quarter and live it in Paris instead of having to pay

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the mortgage and just all do all that stuff. The first year of

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anything that you start, don't you think it's like one of the

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hardest things you'll ever do?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, I was like you. I just started going

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through the newspaper we still read the newspaper back then and

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calling people and asking them if they needed someone to make

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their cold calls. And then finally somebody said yes, and

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then they asked me how much it cost and I was like I'll get

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back to you $30 an hour and they're like that sounds great

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and I was like, oh, that was not enough, I should have scratched

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more than that.

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Speaker 2: That's that experience. Any entrepreneur can

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identify with this. What you just said, which is when the

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price goes down, between my brain and my mouth it's $50 an

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hour, $30. And part of it is we're so desperate to get any

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piece of business. One of the things that happened to our

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pricing in our company was when I stopped quoting, the pricing

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got strong Because for me it was a mortgage payment and for the

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other person it was just a price vote, and so when our marketing

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director started quoting the prices now I would still

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occasionally have clients call and say I don't want it,

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Elizabeth Price, I need a Jim Price.

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Speaker 1: That's a hard transition, though going from

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being the person that's talking to the clients and making the

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quotes to trusting someone else to be able to do that as well as

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yourself and being able to take all of that institutional

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knowledge out of your brain and share it with someone else, and

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that kind of brings you into your genius zone. And the story

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about how you had to bring in someone to replace yourself as

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CEO.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, most training businesses don't survive past

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the life of the trainer. It's fade out when people start

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calling, stop calling. So we did 15 years ago that we wanted to

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try to see if we could change that. So there were two

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approaches to do that. One is we had to develop business and

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products that did not require me to leave town. We got to the

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point where about 80% of the business was in boot camps,

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coaching programs on demand. We have a company built, an

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unbelievably robust learning development system online, and

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so we started. 100% of the business required me getting on

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an airplane and going someplace, and within a 10-year period of

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time it became like 20%. That allows you to have a business as

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opposed to a practice, and now that becomes a little bit more

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sellable. So we sold a big chunk of it 40% to an ESOP, which is

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an employee-owned ownership program, a retirement program,

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and we did that in 2012. And then I found for control freak,

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giving up any control you alluded to this before is very

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difficult and I struggled with that whole process because it

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was my baby and when you nurture your baby, you don't want to

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send them to college. One part of you is, oh, please go. But

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the other part of this I want to hold on. I remember crying when

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I took my son to college to drop him off. I wasn't going to

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see him again. It was like I'm in tears and yet I want him to

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go. And it's the same thing for me with the business. I knew

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that the business had to go beyond Jim, but I didn't want to

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let go of it because that's hard, and so I think it was hard

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for the incredible woman that I hired as my CEO. It was

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difficult for her as well, because she wants to be

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respectful of me but at the same time, she's not there to keep

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it the same. It's an interesting transition.

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Speaker 1: You had mentioned, in around 2020, she gave you an

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ultimatum.

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Speaker 2: Yes, she said I had control issues and the company

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only needed one CEO and we needed to decide which one. And,

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as you would say instantly, and many friends of mine said, that

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proves you got the right person , because they were strong

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enough to say, boom, I'm going to stand up and not do this if

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it's not going to be joyful for me. Yeah, and so I was like, oh,

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I think I'll write a book now.

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Speaker 1: So tell us about the book. Obviously, I've read it

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and I really enjoyed it and I think that there was a lot of

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interesting takeaways. I didn't find it to be the usual hey,

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here's how you sell book which I appreciated, like I didn't

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really want. I wasn't looking for a step by step. It left me

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feeling positive about my chosen career and how I could make a

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difference in the world through that career, and I think

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sometimes people come to sales like you and I did. If you can

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close, you can always get a job in sales, but how do you make it

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fulfilling?

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Speaker 2: I think I had come to understand that and boy, that

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may be the nicest compliment that you could give me about

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that book, because I really want people to understand. There is

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a view of salespeople as the clients got my money. My job is

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to get my money out of their pocket and it's the close early

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close often ask for the order. They didn't say yes to ask them

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again, and it's the stereotype of salespeople that we have,

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maybe from some unfortunate experience on a car dealer lot

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or maybe from somebody who's an aggressive appliance or

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furniture salesperson. It's usually formed by those

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situations where it's a one-time relationship rather than what I

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really value is where the sales position is, where we have the

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opportunity to build a longer term relationship, and I hope

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that it would give some people a sense. One of the interesting

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things about the book for me was interviewing a bunch of the

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people, and especially the men who were quick to say that

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selling with his heart was not their default. Rory Vaden, who's

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an amazing speaker and friend of mine and one of the people I

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have a great deal of admiration, said he said I was trained in

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that I got to get their money school and he said it took me a

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while to realize that there was another way to achieve success.

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That would make me go home at night. It's a lot better. And so

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today he's one of the most prominent speakers in the

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country, but he said my default was not that way. We talked to

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Rick Breeden to do the book and he's a researcher who tests

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sales candidates. So he's testing candidates and he said

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that men especially he called it . He said they might have a

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testosterone, testosterone-fueled desire to

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win, and he said sometimes, as they get a little bit older,

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they will then redefine what winning is. And it was really

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interesting to me. You think people were born that way. No,

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people looked at themselves and were honest enough to know this

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isn't really fulfilling for me and is there another way to do

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this? And another way to do this is really by serving others.

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Speaker 1: That was the inspiration for your book. How

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did you decide who you were going to interview for your book

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? There's a lot of amazing people in there.

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Speaker 2: Boy and I. So I called people. Don't you know,

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people carry that. If you called them and said I'm writing a

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book with this title, who does that remind you of that? They

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would know immediately because they would connect with that

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message. So that's what I did. I called people who I said here's

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the title, tell me who you think of. And every time they

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did it, they gave me some names and, without exception, every

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name turned out to be just going for the guys he was doing 10

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times the amount of a top 10% mortgage brokerage. This guy was

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doing 300 in Houston. It's just . The stories are just beyond

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amazing. And then one of the lessons and that's what I was

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trying to do was distill what some of the lessons were.

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Speaker 1: Excellent. So you've now exited from your business.

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Are you writing a second book? What's next for Jim?

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Speaker 2: I have a meditation that I do carry. That is that

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everything I give is given to me in return. So if I send out

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love out to the world, I get love back. If I send out

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pissiness and sarcasm, I get pissiness and sarcasm back. I'm

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in a wonderful place in my life where I'm just looking for how

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can I serve. I'm posting some content of just ideas every week

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, that stuff that I think may help somebody folding laundry at

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the homeless shelter. I serve on a couple of boards. I'm just

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trying to look for how can I be of service to other people, and

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that's a blessing to be able to be in that position. I won all

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the toys, but it's just now about how can I give back even

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more.

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Speaker 1: So you're legitimately retired.

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Speaker 2: I've just saying that word. There's a sick feeling

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when you go from who's who to who's he.

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Speaker 1: I think that's a really important conversation

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and a lot of entrepreneurs aren't like. We work with

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entrepreneurs and help them plan their exits, and one of the

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things that we talk about and you and I talked about this a

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little bit earlier is that life planning process that we take

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people through, and I think that the earlier people do that when

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they start going on the path to exiting from their business,

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figuring out what's going to be next for them, what brings them

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joy, what's going to bring them fulfillment, what are their

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energy and renewal cycles like, what's going to be next. There's

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a big business shaped hole in your life when you sell your

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company.

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Speaker 2: You know it's interesting and I hit back to

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way because of Angela I'd been less involved the last couple of

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years, but it's interesting that you say that I always knew

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that the most successful people who retired to something, not

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from something. So what was that look like? And I thought I had

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a good idea of that and I thought I had a good sense of

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that. But what I never realized was the extent to which I was

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addicted to being the guy and for 32 years I was the guy. The

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company originally was Jim Doyle Associates and I was Jim Doyle

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and then it became I was the guy and I realized that I was more

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addicted to that than I thought, which made the transition a

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little bit more difficult for the first three or four months.

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Speaker 1: I'm two years clear of my business and I'm still

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struggling with that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that who's who to who's he thing is.

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Speaker 1: Who's who to who's he .

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a real . It's a blessing to have that

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transition and I'm glad that I've been given some tools to

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help deal with that. But it's not as easy as I thought it was

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going to be, because I thought I had it figured out, which is

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pretty typical for me.

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Speaker 1: But you're resisting the urge to to come back to us

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in the business world.

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Speaker 2: Oh, you know what? I made a conscious decision that I

00:19:09
was going to take white space because I could sense that my

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desire to be somebody could cause me to make decisions that

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might be impulsive. I wanted to take some time to just really

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not overreact to what and really be open to what is going to be

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the plan.

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Speaker 1: What was your favorite part of the book? If

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not necessarily favorite person that you featured with the

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favorite part.

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Speaker 2: So I think the lesson that I continue to resonate

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with me the most is the chapter about becoming a lifelong

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learner and just really understanding. I share in the

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book a story of a Des Moines car dealer who had told me at

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dinner the night before that he just turned down like some

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outrageous 40 or $50 million offer for his company and he was

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at that age where it was a good time to think about that. I

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don't know about you, but $40, $50 million is a lot of money

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for a business. The next morning I'm doing a seminar for dealers

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and he's in the front row at 730 taking more notes than

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anybody in the room, taking more notes than anybody in the room,

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and then the seminar ends and he's the first person up there

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to say I clarify this for me, help me understand this. You

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said something that I think is significant Can I get my

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marketing person and you and I to do a conference call? And I

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thought, boy, that's the model for me. I cannot. I get afraid

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if I think I have learned everything, particularly in a

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world that's changing as quickly as ours is. So I love following

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your stuff because you're younger and hipper than I am and

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I can feel like I can get exposed to things that maybe can

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make me better in a nonprofit situation or better in coaching

00:20:49
somebody.

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Speaker 1: The only thing I hate more than things staying the

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same or things changing. I'm struggling with the AI taking

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over everything and all the things that I love doing. I love

00:21:00
writing content, I love talking to people. All of those things

00:21:05
are now being replaced by Clicks of buttons and weird prompts,

00:21:10
and I'm not dealing with it but that's why I think we have to be

00:21:15
enthusiastic about change, because they're gonna be

00:21:20
opportunities created.

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Speaker 2: How many social media strategies, jobs where they're

00:21:26
15 years ago? So they're gonna be new opportunities created by

00:21:31
all of this change. So I've got to try to be enthusiastic about

00:21:34
it, because if I start acting like a dinosaur especially my

00:21:37
age it's I'm like that'd be dangerous. I want to see if I

00:21:41
can't get excited about it.

00:21:42
Speaker 1: I don't know, I want to go mow lawns or, I don't know

00:21:45
, working Healthcare, something right, I don't have to be in

00:21:49
front of a computer all day.

00:21:50
Speaker 2: I used to always say that when I had a high stress

00:21:52
day I said I'm gonna go work for the post office like mindlessly

00:21:56
sorting mail, and then somebody a friend of mine said, doyle,

00:22:00
you screw that up. You'd be down there for two or three days and

00:22:05
then you'd say what if we tried it this way?

00:22:09
Speaker 1: I think the happiest ever was. I was probably in my

00:22:13
30s and I was working for a landscaping company and All I

00:22:17
did all day was shovel gravel onto a truck and Then drive the

00:22:22
truck to someone's house and shovel gravel off of the truck.

00:22:25
That was my whole day. But at the end of the day, like between

00:22:29
everybody that had worked at that place, we started with this

00:22:32
ugly pile of dirt and at the end of the day it was somebody's

00:22:36
beautiful yard, right with the trees exactly where they were

00:22:39
supposed to be, and the flowers all put in nice and the

00:22:42
Retaining walls and the mulch, and it was very beautiful. That

00:22:46
was a very peaceful way to spend time. My shoulders are not

00:22:50
going to allow me to go back to that place and I'm not sure that

00:22:53
the for me.

00:22:54
Speaker 2: I did one of those kinds of jobs and the attraction

00:22:56
was the beer, the prodigious amount of beer we drank at the

00:22:59
end of that.

00:23:00
Speaker 1: This was when, like the first iPod had just come out

00:23:02
. And you could load it up with like music and podcasts and news

00:23:07
and all like. All I did all day was learn. It was fabulous.

00:23:11
Speaker 2: But don't you think that, for one of the things not

00:23:14
to do is have to get comfortable with, is the idea that you're

00:23:17
never, your to-do list is never done?

00:23:20
Speaker 1: That's true, and I didn't learn that for you. I

00:23:22
worked 16 hour days for years before I figured out that there

00:23:25
was going to be another 16 hour day tomorrow and for the day

00:23:28
after that. Slowly but surely, I was able to shut my laptop a

00:23:32
little earlier each night.

00:23:33
Speaker 2: I think you have to get clear, very clear, as an

00:23:36
entrepreneur, on what is your high value activities and make

00:23:41
sure that my I was great at crushing things off my to-do

00:23:45
list, make to-do list and when I transitioned to prioritizing,

00:23:49
which is connected to what you talked about before, which is

00:23:52
the ability to delegate some of the low value activities or

00:23:56
lower value activities, that's when you begin to start to to

00:24:00
sword, don't you think?

00:24:02
Speaker 1: I think that's very true. I had trouble giving up

00:24:04
the things that I Loved and the things that I was critical of,

00:24:08
so I loved doing social media, I love being on social media and

00:24:12
I loved it so much I stopped doing it entirely because I

00:24:15
spent way too much time Doing things that I don't think were

00:24:19
all that helpful and but I didn't know how to explain what

00:24:22
I wanted to people. And that was my biggest challenge was I knew

00:24:25
what I didn't like, but trying to explain to you what I did,

00:24:29
what I wanted, it was easier for me to say no, do it again. And

00:24:32
people don't like to be managed that way. It's so weird.

00:24:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never did.

00:24:37
Speaker 1: People hate being criticized. Imagine.

00:24:40
Speaker 2: It's like the little kid. You're not the boss. I mean

00:24:42
, I am actually, but I think that's such a true point. But

00:24:46
when I the more time that I could spend on the things that I

00:24:50
was really good at Like, I'm terrible at details I got tested

00:24:57
by one of these sales companies and I took it anonymously and

00:25:01
he had a lot of feedback and and once I Somebody said but I have

00:25:05
to tell you one thing about this guy he's incredibly

00:25:07
disorganized. And that was the moment I stopped, was started

00:25:10
laughing and outed myself that I was the guy and he really. He

00:25:15
said, jim, I'll bet you made more money, as you can make more

00:25:18
money as a salesperson, as a manager. He said when you get

00:25:21
out on a call, you take over the call, don't you like? Yeah, he

00:25:26
said. Why do you do that? He said. He said you do that

00:25:30
because you can't stand to see anybody having that much fun. So

00:25:36
that's if you look at the, the training business, all I did for

00:25:42
the next 30 years was standard federal room and sell my ideas,

00:25:46
work one-on-one with clients to sell our programs or be out at

00:25:50
the end user, the car dealer or the lawyer Selling services of a

00:25:53
TV station or cable company that we were working for. All I

00:25:57
did was sell and I tried to delegate everything out Out out

00:26:01
because I was horrible at details.

00:26:03
Speaker 1: How did you find the person that was going to take

00:26:06
care of those things for you when you weren't very good at it

00:26:09
? How did you evaluate them?

00:26:11
Speaker 2: you miss fire occasionally, but I still knew

00:26:14
and I got lucky we had the greatest team here and I Just

00:26:18
knew that I couldn't do that and build what we wanted to build

00:26:22
if I was trying to balance the checking account here, there

00:26:25
being a ha moment for you.

00:26:27
Speaker 1: Then was there and something that happened where

00:26:29
you're like, alright, I have to put this stuff away and I have

00:26:31
to move over here read.

00:26:34
Speaker 2: No, I think I knew that I was not going to be able

00:26:38
to make any more money until I could find a way to Stop doing

00:26:44
the things that were time-consuming but for me and

00:26:47
important but for me, not really leading to grow the business. I

00:26:51
remember reading years and years ago I forget the name of

00:26:54
the book, but the guy talked about he was. He was the general

00:26:57
manager's force general manager who got the job of selling

00:27:02
season tickets the year after Gretzky left Ottawa and went

00:27:05
down to the thing and he said he spent a lot of time. One one

00:27:10
year he realized that it had been two days or three days

00:27:12
before it had a customer contact and he said I made a decision

00:27:17
that every single day I was going to do something that had

00:27:21
me engaging with a customer, because that's a high value

00:27:25
activity. If you're an entrepreneur, so if you're

00:27:28
staring at your screen and you're answering emails and

00:27:32
you're not engaging with customers, then You're gonna be

00:27:35
challenged to start to grow the business that you want to grow.

00:27:38
So I was just trying to figure out a way to get my head up out

00:27:40
of the screen and do more of the things that I. That,

00:27:44
coincidentally, also brought me joy.

00:27:46
Speaker 1: I think that reminds me of another thing that I

00:27:48
enjoyed reading about in your book, which was Most sales

00:27:52
processes are. We have to make 100 calls a day, and then

00:27:56
technology allows us to make more calls. But if we're gonna

00:27:59
increase the number of calls that we're gonna make every day,

00:28:01
we can also increase the number of terrible calls that we're

00:28:04
gonna make every day.

00:28:06
Speaker 2: I'm a manager at heart. I'm a recovering sales

00:28:08
manager. I probably have a 12-step program I could go to

00:28:10
for that, but I I think that the management of metrics is Is a

00:28:18
mistake that I made as a rookie manager. If they make more calls

00:28:21
, then they'll make more of this . Today, the only thing that I

00:28:27
want to know is how many people did you ask and what's? And if

00:28:32
you're an experienced salesperson, who I trust, I'm

00:28:35
not even gonna worry about that.

00:28:37
Speaker 1: So what metrics do you look at? I?

00:28:40
Speaker 2: Actually, as a very young manager, stopped requiring

00:28:43
sales reports.

00:28:45
Speaker 1: I'm feeling very anxious right now, jim.

00:28:50
Speaker 2: Because in our space, in the media space, how do I

00:28:54
know that they went to see someone's, their fiction? So

00:28:58
that's fair and so why did they, why are they spending One hour

00:29:04
times 20 people or 15 people? And then I'm not reading them

00:29:08
because I know their fiction and it's why are we doing this?

00:29:10
Speaker 1: to burning a ton of payroll for nothing.

00:29:13
Speaker 2: I'd rather spend 20 minutes or half an hour with you

00:29:16
every single week, never miss a week, and I'll know what your

00:29:19
activity level is gonna be and I'll know who, what you're

00:29:21
trying to do and how can I help you. And we'll know by your

00:29:24
performance if you're making the calls. And then that does not

00:29:27
to say that I haven't done sales reports on a remedial basis oh

00:29:30
yeah, often. But for somebody who's a high performer, somebody

00:29:35
who's a good performer, just let him go. I think you can over

00:29:39
manage people. What was a new manager? I remember I'd be

00:29:43
standing by the door when they came back, like anything today.

00:29:46
I Quickly found out if they had anything they'd tell you we

00:29:50
didn't really have to, that you were gonna know. And it was like

00:29:54
that over management that I tended to do. I think, probably

00:29:57
as a baby manager, I I tend to over control, partially probably

00:30:01
because of my own fear, and that's maybe how, the only way I

00:30:04
knew how to do it. But I think we should write a book called

00:30:08
the Karen feeding of superstars, because I think one of the

00:30:11
things with superstars is they would tell you Leave me alone. I

00:30:15
need, when I'm when I need, your help. Keep me between the

00:30:18
rails just If I get off track. Nudge me, leave me alone.

00:30:23
Speaker 1: I think you can care about process, or you can care

00:30:25
about outcome, and I like to know, going into any role, what

00:30:30
the person I'm reporting to cares about more. Do you care

00:30:33
about me showing my work, or do you care about me getting my

00:30:35
work done?

00:30:38
Speaker 2: What do they say? The driver's attitude of a driver

00:30:40
is leave out the baby, leave out the labor page, just show me

00:30:43
the baby. I also felt if you're not reading it, don't make them

00:30:47
do it.

00:30:48
Speaker 1: I think we're fortunate now that If you're

00:30:51
putting your information into the CRM as you go, the odds on

00:30:54
you needing to have to create a report are Are are no longer

00:30:59
there. Right, everything gets recorded and installed somewhere

00:31:01
. I can look at a HubSpot report now for a caller and it'll show

00:31:05
me how much time they talked and how much time the prospect

00:31:08
talked, and that one metric will tell me everything I need to

00:31:11
know about that.

00:31:12
Speaker 2: Sales rep sure, confessions of a dinosaur. We

00:31:16
used HubStot in our company for the last decade and I've been on

00:31:19
it like 10 times, so I should probably not be talking about

00:31:25
how people use the CRM.

00:31:27
Speaker 1: You quoted Patrick Lincione in your book. What

00:31:31
other sales books would you recommend, other than selling

00:31:34
with a servant heart, that somebody starting their sales

00:31:36
career should Evaluate, or somebody who's owning a business

00:31:40
and has to be the primary sales rep for that business for the

00:31:44
foreseeable future?

00:31:45
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of good stuff out there. I my

00:31:50
friend, mark Hunter if they just go on Amazon and look at his

00:31:53
stuff, he's got some great stuff that he has written. That I

00:31:58
that really resonates with me. I love everything that Patrick

00:32:02
has written. I'm just such a huge fan of him. I there's a

00:32:06
book that's been out for a long time that probably helped me

00:32:11
more than any other book to look at the complex sale when there

00:32:14
are multiple buyers in an organization. You know we may

00:32:17
have a purchasing person and an economic buyer. It's Miller

00:32:21
Hyman, is written, rewritten now it's called the new strategic

00:32:24
selling. Strategic selling came out probably 30 years ago but

00:32:28
it's this. It's probably the single best business book

00:32:31
selling book that I read about complex sales. So the kind of

00:32:34
sales that you know you and I focus a little bit on is dealing

00:32:39
with entrepreneurs or small businesses. But a lot of the

00:32:42
people who are gonna listen to this are dealing with more

00:32:44
complex organizations and, frankly, most organizations are

00:32:47
becoming more complex. So what is the difference in the

00:32:50
motivation of that purchasing person, the technical buyer,

00:32:53
versus an economic buyer, and how do you change your Efforts

00:32:59
to depending on who you're talking to it? How do you get to

00:33:01
the economic buyer.

00:33:02
Speaker 1: So a lot of good stuff in those books anything

00:33:05
else you want to share with us today before we wind down.

00:33:07
Speaker 2: No, I just I think if we interrated one message of

00:33:11
our discussion, it seems to weave through all the different

00:33:13
themes. As the thinker said, the more I do for someone else, the

00:33:16
more it gets done for me. He said it differently than that,

00:33:19
but it's that when I define winning is making a difference,

00:33:22
I'm going to win also Can't think of a better place to stop

00:33:26
than that.

00:33:27
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for joining us today, Jim. It's

00:33:29
been lovely meeting you and I really enjoyed getting to know

00:33:32
you a little bit before the the recording today that was great,

00:33:36
thank you.