The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Brian Jackson, Owner of The Sandler Sales Coaching Program

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

Brian Jackson, Owner of The Sandler Sales Coaching Program Sandler.com The Sandler Methodology is a sales and management training approach that empowers sales professionals to build stronger, more effective client relationships and achieve consistent sales success. The methodology focuses on understanding the psychology of selling and shifting the salesperson's mindset from being a persuader to becoming a problem-solver and consultant for the client. Sales professionals are encouraged to continuously improve their skills and techniques through regular training and self-assessment.

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We're going to be talking about one of my favorite subjects that made my life sales. When I was young, there's a story in my book about when I was young, I was about to get fired by my sales manager because I couldn't close. I couldn't close or sell my way out of a paper bag. And pretty much any sale I got, I had to flop into my lap. It was like a fish that jumped out of the boat and landed on my lap. And there weren't many. So they're about to fire me. And there's a famous story in there about how my sales manager loaned me $10. He goes, go get Zig Ziglar's, what was it, How to Close? Closing the Sale, I think it was, or something like that. Saved my life, changed my life, and the rest is history.

And now I just run a podcast all the time. So there you go. If you want to be like me, buy the book. Anyway, we have an amazing gentleman on the show. Brian Jackson joins us on the show today. He's going to be talking about his amazing company that he has built, and I think you're going to be excited by it. Sandler Training, and it's even in San Diego, California, which makes it even better and more beautiful. Brian Jackson is the owner and coach. He's a career-long practitioner of the Sandler selling system. There's a system to it, folks. Brian began

Sandler training in San Diego after over 20 years in the medical equipment and software sales and in leadership. He enjoys helping clients achieve their personal and professional ambitions, changing their behaviors, attitudes, and techniques, and rising up the ranks of the organization. And now he joins us on the show to change my behavior. Welcome to the show, Brian. How are you? No chance, man.

No chance. Thank you for having me. I'm 55. I'm an old dog. Thank you for coming. Give us your.com so we can find you on the interwebs, please, sir. Well, the.com is at salesrevenue.sandler.com and i'll tell you what i'll copy and paste it and put it in the chat if that is possible no thank you so much for having

me on the show i really appreciate it thanks for coming uh so give us an overview about sandler training uh what what uh give us some review about your company and what they do from a 30 000 level yeah well you mentioned earlier uh you said hey there's a there's a system to this right well you know just to imagine uh you know most sales people out there uh they go into sales because they're told their whole life hey you've got the gift of gab you know you're good with people you should be in sales um and and other people are kind of pulled into sales because they're technically very knowledgeable and they've got some sort of a technical knowledge and then they're the only ones that can face the

customers and talk to the customers so they're put into this customer facing role but regardless of the scenario not many people start out with a systematic way of selling so what we have found fact, there's even been a clinical study done, a white paper done that showed that less than one out of five companies invest in a selling methodology training platform. Wow. But of those 18%, and there's only 18% of companies that invest in sales methodology training, 100% of them

attain their revenue goals, right? And it's just not surprising because if you think about it, if you go to the batting cages consistently, your batting average is going to go up, right? It's not rocket science. We didn't need to do a white paper to figure that out. So just imagine that salespeople, instead of out there winging it all the time, which is what I'll admit I did in my early career, we actually have a systematic way of selling that's all based in psychology. There you go. There you go. So what got you into sales and down this road and eventually owning your own company? Give us a little bit of your hero's journey, if you will. Well, I'll give you the short version.

I followed in my father's footsteps. I'm very proud to say that my father was in sales and sales leadership. And I'm also proud to say that I passed all of his milestones before I was 31 years old. So I got to a point where very quickly, one, I sort of didn't want to continue to move up the ladder because the further you move up the ladder, the further you get away from selling. And selling and coaching salespeople really is what I'm passionate about. But the other thing is that being based in San Diego, I recently saw that San Diego has – it's number four in the nation now for the most homes priced at over a million dollars. Holy crap. So it's San Fran, San Jose, L.A., and then San Diego.

And so I'm just being really candid with you. I found that my management, my sales leadership income, what used to seem like a lot of money,'t affording me the the quality of life that uh that i was used to growing up in texas and oklahoma oh yeah you know um so i had to do something else so i i actually uh sandler is a franchise model there's uh other franchisees like me around the country i was a client of sandler 15 years ago and i had heard rumblings of what my coach had made, what he made, how much money he made. And I always just made a mental note that, you know, I think I could do that. I think I might enjoy that. So I called him up and I asked him, I said, you know, Gary,

do you mind sharing with me if it's true that you can make this much money doing what you do? And he said, yeah, it's true. And I said, well, that's what I'm going to do. I want to be my own business owner. I want to make twice as much money. So from there, it's been a journey, a four-year journey. It's been humbling being a business owner. I've learned a lot about myself, but I'm pretty lucky I get to make good money coaching people, helping people. There you go. You've gotten through the gauntlet. You know, being an owner of a company or a CEO, you have to sell. And so, you know, having that sales skills and that expertise is really important.

Because you've got to sell to everybody. You've got to sell to your customers, your employees. You've got to sell your vision to the board. It is a hotbed for imposter syndrome. Really? Oh, yeah. Like, just imagine you have a successful career. You've never failed in any sales or leadership.

Okay. Now you have to be a sales coach, and you have to sell your sales coaching. So never has selling been more difficult. And this is true for every other sales consultant that I've ever talked to. They all share the same thing. You question everything because you are your own product when you're selling. You're the brochure. In fact, there's no need for brochures.

You're a pretty good-looking brochure. I'm not hitting on you. This is good lighting. I'll tell you something. It really has leveled up my game in sales because I have to be a product of my product. There you go. You're the product of your product's product. Something like that. And plus you're the brochure, damn it.

You know, it's the thing about owning a company and building a company and we talk about it a lot in the channel, uh, is it, it brings self-actualization and self, um, self accountability on you like nothing else. Yeah. Like it puts you through the gauntlet of, of the thing. And if you survive, that's good. You might, you might, you know, you might lose a few, but, um, so what do you, what do you think the, uh, biggest issue is today in the sales market field for just about any, you know, just sales in general? What do you think the biggest struggle is or things that people are having out there? Well, I mean, it it it's not I'm not just saying that. I mean, I think it really is fact that the world of sales has completely, completely changed in the last 20 years. It's, it's

completely changed. And what's specifically changed about it is that traditionally, uh, meaning prior to 2000 or whatever, prior to the internet, prior to high speed internet, uh, you know, you, you had to go through a salesperson to learn about a product, you know? And so, and I'm generalizing here, like if, if listeners can bear with me, I'm going to generalize with your permission, but generally people would hire salespeople that were just face people. You know, they were charming, you know, attractive. They were, they were, you know, say, Hey, you know what? I'll buy it. I'll listen to what you have to say. And maybe at the end of it, they say,

sure, I'll buy it. Maybe I won to what you have to say. And maybe at the end of it, they say, sure, I'll buy it. Maybe I won't. Maybe I won't. For the most part. Now, because people, the buyer's journey has completely changed. Okay. They come to the conversation with the salesperson already armed to the teeth with information that they found online. They've checked your references, your reviews. If you

are just going to spout knowledge that they already know, you're wasting their time and it's going to be a short conversation. So salespeople nowadays, they have to be very skilled in capturing people's attention quickly, getting control of the conversation fairly quickly, diagnosing quickly, establishing next steps quickly, and getting one clear indicated next steps after every conversation, keeping that deal moving through the process. And so it takes more skill, in a short. Sales takes more skill now than it ever has before. And to elaborate on that, are you tracking with me so far?

I am here. Yeah. So to elaborate on that, the type of salesperson has changed as well. Like we see, and if any of the listeners are familiar with the DISC personality profiling tool, are you familiar with DISC, Chris? I'm familiar with some different profiling tests and stuff like that. Probably Myers-briggs is another one yeah myers-briggs that's the one i'm thinking of yeah disc is a similar but even more simplified for the purpose of like uh i don't know yeah application but but what we see is we see more and more sort of let's just say introverted types that are excelling in sales because they make better listeners and they are more or I guess you'd say less threatening to people and in so long as they

have the assertiveness to get permission or to go places conversationally they are better at gathering information and listening and and and i think the reason why we're seeing a lot more people like that is that you're seeing a lot more technical products of your product has a software attached to it or artificial intelligence or machine learning those kinds of things so you're getting these people that are highly uh knowledgeable about the product maybe they come from a technical background and they have that more introverted personality and now they need to be in sales. They got to sort of have a way to execute in sales and get assertive and ask good questions and such. So a lot's changed.

You know, I can see how that would work well because listening to the clients is really important. You know, I mean, that's one of the things we do on the show. I pretty much try not to interrupt our guests. I hate listening to other podcasts where, you know, the poor guests can't get a word to edgewise. It's like, you know, and plus, you know, they write me on the show and go, Hey, we've heard your shit for 14 years. Shut up and let people talk. Um, the, uh, so, you know, what's interesting to me is it seems like, uh, a lot of sales right now people have lost some of the basics you tell me if i'm if i if i have my thumb on this correctly because i get hit up all the time on uh you know we get people hit up on one of the podcasts like hundreds of hits and then we get the

linkedin stuff you know the message on linkedin everybody wants to work for us for some whatever on linkedin and it's almost like the basics are gone like i learned i learned the old school way i learned from car dealerships um and use car dealerships uh and that'll put you through the gauntlet and and you know you learn stuff like building rapport mirroring asking questions getting to know the person and and having that vibe with them first before you start trying to close them into shit. And these days I just get like, like no one warms me up or takes me to dinner or offers to buy a coffee. It's just like, boom, you want to buy my shit. And you're just like, who the fuck are you? And what's going on? Do you, do you see a lot of

that happening over email too? Is that what you yeah email linkedin there's no there's no no one wants to take me to dinner on a date before we go right to home base they just hey can we get your credit card there you're just like yeah i you know i agree with you and a lot of what we see and this is what you're sort of saying is i mean a lot of people are just hiding behind email yeah uh to do their selling a lot of i mean a lot a lot of people are just hiding behind email to do their selling. A lot of, I mean, a lot, a lot of companies, their sales teams, they think that emailing and LinkedIn messaging and that kind of thing is the only form of prospect. Well, it's the only form of prospecting that they do.

An interesting thing happened when I started my company not long before COVID, the pandemic. Did you notice that when the pandemic happened, even though salespeople out there had nowhere to be, they were all quarantined all over the world, that we didn't see an uptick

in phone calls from salespeople. Did you notice that? Maybe that's because we were all at home playing video games or something. Well, think about it. Business owners and the people that you're trying to call decision makers, they're trapped. Most of you have access to their cell phones, like there's software out there to get their cell phones.

Why are you not calling them? Why are you not calling them? What else do you have to do? You're quarantined in your office. I noticed it. I noticed that, in fact I kept my this is in the beginning of my business where I was I was doing a lot of phone calls and prospecting because I was trying to find my first client I found that it was some

of the best most productive time for dialing and I was surprised that salespeople weren't picking up the phone point is this salespeople they they don't pick up the phone as much as they used to. They hide behind email and LinkedIn messaging. I love talking to people, but I'm old world. I'm kind of old school. Yeah. You know what?

It's interesting is that with those tools, there's so many great technologies out there that can track opens and clicks and that kind of thing. And I think it's awesome using those tools to take a, like a, imagine draining a pond. If you're a fisherman, you drain a pond from, you know, down to four feet deep, and then you can spearfish. If you can take a thousand contacts and email them and then see, you know, who are the top 100 clickers and openers now, now call those people, you know, to me, that's how it's meant to be used. It's meant to gather data and to be smarter about the calls you make, not to avoid the calls altogether. Yeah. It used to be back in my

sales days that when, when you would call like, you know, the buyer for some company and man, that, that dude had like one to two, uh, armor, uh, ninja warrior secretaries. The gatekeepers you had to get through. And you had to charm them. I had to go with donuts and flowers. And still they'd be like, I don't care how many donuts you got, Chris. You're not getting in. And you could not get on.

And now you can really get on the phone with people. It's kind of funny. And it's almost like they love talking more and spending more time. It's a little bit easier to be able to pour. I mean, at least that's what I find. Because I just call people and I'm just like, I don't care. Well, you find that because you're actually making the call. You know, you're right.

Look, I didn't come here planning on talking about reflecting on the pandemic. But since we're on the topic, I mean, after that experience, people were welcoming human interaction. And so when you're one of the few that's willing to pick up the phone call, and you just treat like you're just being authentic, you're being a human, say, look, I don't know if there's any application here. You know your boss just as well as anybody. How about I tell you the reason why I'm calling him or her, and then you tell me if it might make sense for us to talk, him and I or her and I. And it might not. Like, is that fair? And they say, yeah, sure. Tell me, what is it? Here's what we see folks like them often dealing with, and this is what we help people with, blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah. any of that worth a conversation with them and it might not be like you're treating them with respect you're treating them equal business stature like like you know and you know it's not going to win every time but you know what you're gonna have a conversation maybe you get an appointment there you go you know i i think too somebody asked me yesterday we had a air force uh uh gentleman on and after the show he asked me he goes why do you like doing this on, and after the show, he asked me, he goes, why do you like doing this? And I go, because I love people.

I'm very interested in people. I like interviewing people. I like talking to people. If I'm on a plane, I can get all the roles around me, laughing, free drinks for everybody, and the waitresses love me, or the stewardesses love me. And I can do that. I can do it in an elevator or anywhere I go.

But I'm genuinely interested in people and i generally care about people at least most people maybe not politicians yeah but uh um you know even then i could probably strike up a conversation room if i need to but uh you know and i think that you know people get that from great salespeople i've had some great salespeople that have worked for me over the years and their ability to gain rapport and connect and mirror in a very short amount of time. I'm like, I've had someone, I walked by him and they're like, yeah, I know what it's like to be 45. Yeah. I'm feeling you, man. I'm like, you're 25. Shut up. Let me, let me, let me challenge you on this. Cause I am tracking with what you're saying 100 100 but you uh you are

a certain uh personality type that you're a social being right you're a social being fair yeah like right now i'm pretending to be a social being i'm actually not a very ironically actually i chose a profession that i enjoy and i enjoy the competitiveness of it and the business ownership part of it, the problem-solving part of it. There's a lot of it that I enjoy. And with all humility, I'm good at selling. But it drains my energy. The human interaction drains. It takes more energy for me than it does you.

You get energy from human interaction. When I'm on an airplane, I've gotten better about this, but I usually sit in a seat that's the least likely to have someone sit next to me. Do you want to know what row and aisle that is? Just so you know for all the listeners, this is my secret. I'll give it away. What is it? On a typical Southwest flight, it's row 10 or 9. Wow. And just take either the window or the aisle, because it's row nine or 10. That's always the last where people sit. The people sit in the front, then they sit in the back, and then it's the middle that fills up last. So if it's not a full flight, you're most likely to have an empty seat in the middle in row nine or 10. That's my tip from 20 years of traveling.

But that's where I sit, because I don't want to sit next to people. I don't want to talk to people. I'm the opposite of you. So here's what we teach in our program. On the topic of bond and rapport is that you treat people the way that they want to be treated. There's ways to pick up. There's cues as to what personality types people are. There's a lot of cues.

But here's my devil's advocate, my argument, is that some people, for some people, building rapport might be, hey, listen, would it make sense for us to get just straight to the business? And no talk of what did you do today? How are you? Weather, sports, whatever. But would it make sense for us to just get straight to the business? For some personality types, they're going to say, yeah, let's do it. Like, I like you. I really want to work with you.

You're not like other salespeople. They always want to have banter. Like, thank you. And that's rapport because you're treating them the way that they want to be treated. You're adapting. We, again, we use DISC

for really teaching this whole stuff. But yeah, I agree with what you're saying. I way that they want to be treated. You're adapting. We, again, we use disc for really teaching this whole stuff, but, but yeah, I agree with what you're saying. I'm just challenging a little bit. Yeah. I, and I agree,

you know, but, but, you know, gaining rapport, gaining rapport, it's just, it's just so interesting because there's lots of easy ways to do it.

Yeah. You know, when someone calls us on the show, we're in the green room, we'll talk about the background. You have a really cool background us on the show, we're in the green room, we'll talk about the background. You have a really cool background, by the way. Right.

But I usually talk about the background, talk about something of theirs, or I'll see something. You know, there's a book I'm reading currently, and I think the gal calls it a what's it, where basically you find something on the person, and you go, what is that? What is that little flag, maybe emblem you're wearing or uh what what kind of jacket is that uh is it a designer jacket you know things like that oh i can see you're married you're holding up a cool cup right now um you know so there's different ways that i can i can talk oh how long you've been married you know and uh so there's you know hitting from all those different points but yeah i know it's so hard for me that people struggle with it.

What do you guys do with your coaching program? What do you guys find are the most popular programs in your program that people really are looking for the most to solve their problems as salespeople? Well, before I answer that, I have to tell you a hilarious story, a fast story about how that can backfire looking for something to talk about. Okay. how that can backfire uh looking for something to talk about okay yeah i can't remember where i heard this but um i think it's a true story that uh a sales rep was in someone's office and uh they sat down and they started to scan the room for pictures remember not everybody wants to make chitchat some people want to get straight to business but maybe maybe this person was uh seeing that this person wanted to make like would build rapport with some chitchat. So they looked and they saw a picture of this person with their wife

behind them. And it was a nice picture of them standing, I think, like at Paris or something. Some historic site or whatever. And he said, oh, cool. I see that's a cool picture that you and your wife, you guys have visited such and such.

Did you guys have fun when you visited there? I've been there. Something like that. And the guy says, God, how does this story go? Shoot. Did you get the worst? I already messed up the story. Okay.

I already messed up the story. Here's how the story goes. Oh, I remember now. By the way, I'm the worst story. You have everyone on pins and needles now. You built up the story. Here's how the story goes. Oh, I remember now. By the way, I'm the worst story. You have everyone on pins and needles now. You built up the suspense. So here's how it went. Actually, so the guy saw a picture. Now I've ruined the story,

but it's still funny. It's still cringy as hell. But he sees a picture of this guy with a picture of him with John Madden behind him. And he goes, Oh, my God. I'm a huge fan of John Madden. When did you get that picture taken with John Madden? The guy says, that's not John Madden. That's my wife.

Oh! That was worth the build up. That was worth the build up. Sorry. Now you can tell my personality style actually is coming out because I'm terrible. I'm like you. I'm terrible at telling stories. I'm the opposite personality.

There you go. Well, you haven't had anybody come out on the show, so feel free. Even though you're married, your wife might appreciate that. Jokes. My question was, out of all your programs you have, because I'm looking across the website, and you guys have a lot of cool stuff here, a lot of different packages

and stuff. What do you find is the things that people need the most, your top programs that you guys offer? What do you guys find that they need the most and you know, they're struggling with the most? Well, you know, here's the way I'd answer that question, is that not every client's the right kind of client for us. There you go. Right. I mean, we we cater to. I like to say revenue generating professionals, right?

Not necessarily always salespeople, but revenue generating professionals that have a highly consultative sales process and where they can move the needle. And it's usually not like a transactional commoditized type thing. Not that Sandler doesn't apply to that stuff, but that's just not like the kind of clients that I particularly serve. So the clients that I serve, they all can more or less benefit from one product, and that is the Sandler methodology and the program with which we reinforce this stuff on an ongoing basis. Like, it's almost like a virtual training facility

for salespeople, whether it be individuals or large companies that often do private programs or small companies that have even one or two salespeople, and they often attend a session like a cohort all together with 20 or 30 people in one zoomer so you know in those programs for private clients we tailor the content to fit the challenges they're facing in public programs we more rotate through content meet people one-on-one but one thing that i see as a common theme that everybody wants to really kind of get to is, or at least not everybody, but a lot of times, is business development. You know, it's brushing up on what we were talking about earlier with, you know, how do we make cold calls, Brian? Like, how do we make cold calls effective? How do we make them fun?

How do we take the pressure off of ourselves and the pressure off of prospects? Because it is a lost art. It is a lost art for the reasons that we've talked about with people hiding behind emails. It's also a lost art because we've got now two generations of humans that have grown up on the screen and have less and less experience with interpersonal skills to be very blunt. So cold calling is something that if you're good at it, if you can get good at it, oh my God, do you ever have job security? Wow. You can be motivated to consistently make prospecting calls.

And if you can be good at it, you have written your ticket to succeed in any sales organization. There you go. People really get, I think, in your voice and your personality if you really are caring and if you're really interested in them and helping them achieve what they want. I learned a lot from the

insult comic from all these years. He recently passed away. Don Rickles. Don Rickles could say anything to anybody, pretty much. But you always felt with Don that he cared about you. He loved you. He was just telling jokes.

He was having fun. And he respected you. And there was no harm to it. And I think people get that when you sell to them. I think people get a sense of your personality. And a lot of the great salespeople I've ever had, they're kind of almost, they can morph and shapeshift into whatever it takes to build rapport with the client and get to know them and show genuine interest. And it's always amazing to me that when people know that you really care about them and are interested in them, it makes all the difference in the world because no one gives a shit about anybody anymore. So it kind of sticks out.

Yeah. It's on that topic of authenticity, right? Like one of the things that somebody said to me early on was I talked to somebody who's very successful within Sandler. What would you do if you were me? And he said, Brian, the first thing I'd do is I'd get into the real psychology of understanding everything that we do and the why behind it all. Because until you understand the core principles, you're just a technique junkie. And that stuck with me. You're a technique junkie. What does that mean? Well, that's where sales people, humans like our our communication

skills are our perceptiveness is off the charts like uh in fact i think that there's even a lot of communication through pure energy transfer that science hasn't even yet proven yet but but i i believe it's real that without even saying anything or doing anything we can almost feel things from each other as humans and so when somebody doesn't believe what they're saying, or they're saying something false, in terms of like, they're just trying to close you for something. It's incredibly uncomfortable. And there, it's a complete and total trustbreaker deal killer, you know. And so on that note, like

we spend a tremendous amount of time in our program focusing on mindset, focusing on belief system, attitude. Here's an example. A lot of times people don't feel comfortable with asking for referrals, right? They feel that asking for a referral is invasive. It's pushy. They just don't feel okay about it. They feel like they're being a burden. Well, no, I would disagree.

I would say that's in your head. You're getting in your own way. What you need to think is that instead of a referral asking for a handout, that you need to think about how you're offering to lend a hand. And a referral now the technique that follows behind that the words would be chris listen um you know when you're talking to people about these kinds of problems that we're talking about and this could be like while i'm in the discovery phase like i haven't even closed them uh i'm just curious like you you talk to other peers that have the same role as you do they also have these problems? Is

there is there a chance that any of them could benefit from knowing what we do? Is there a chance that we could that I could help them? And if so, would you feel comfortable making introduction? It's about them. Because I'm a believer. And this is how I've had to change my own mindset, because my business is very dependent upon referrals. And I wasn't very, like, okay, with it. At first, I had to change my own mindset because my business is very dependent upon referrals and I wasn't very like okay with it at first I had to change my belief system. I believe that the universe is conspiring to help

Us to help each other and you know, the universe has a plan God Whatever you believe in they have a plan and if you if you don't make that suggestion then they can't work through you They can't use you as a conduit to make that miracle happen. But when you just put it out there and just flow with the universe, Hey, do you know anybody else that could benefit from knowing what we do? Yeah. Suddenly you're now in a position to help somebody,

you know, and you wouldn't have been there if you had gotten in your own way. If he's, I don't want to ask for a referral. That's just a burden. You know what I mean? That's not a universal way of thinking. Yeah. And, and I think if people, like I said before, if people feel they have your general interests

at heart, make all the difference. What do you think are the most important habits of successful salespeople? It's a good question, man. Persistence, maybe? Yeah, it's just, yeah, yeah actually that's pretty much what I was about to say I was going to say cocaine but those are some of the sales persistence here's the way I was the angle I was going to take at that

the cocaine or the persistence actually I didn't hear you say the second time oh you didn't I said cocaine one of the habits is cocaine but I've known some pretty I did. Actually, I didn't hear you say the second time. Oh, you didn't? Yeah. I said cocaine. I said one of the habits is cocaine. But I've known some pretty good people. One of the habits of successful salespeople. See, I'm slow, man.

It's okay, man. Sometimes the mic takes me time to process. Yeah. I got to stay away from humor on podcasts. I have a very dry sense of humor, actually. There you go. So persistence, what I would say, what I would call that is like discipline, right? Consistency.

Instead of just winging it, waking up every day, being busy, really knowing what constitutes a productive behavior versus a nonproductive behavior and knowing what makes a productive day versus a non-productive behavior and knowing what makes a productive day versus a non-productive day. And knowing that, being consistent with it, i.e. tenacious with your prospecting. I think that's one of the most important traits. Another one that I know my dad would be proud to hear me say is a healthy, healthy sense of skepticism at all times, you know, because we as salespeople have to have, we often have happy ears. You know, we hear what we want to hear. Clouds are judgment. You know, we don't want to hear no's. Well,

why would you not want to hear a no? You're going to hear a no more times than not. Get used to it. Just accept it. Okay. It's okay. Just, just welcome it. It's going to save you time to hear that. No, move on. And so to even have a healthy amount of skepticism, like, you know, what could go wrong here? It's going to lead you to ask better questions. Make sure you get very clear, defined next steps and outcomes, et cetera, et cetera. There you go. Probably skepticism is good too to make sure you have the sale locked up, you know, so it stays, whatever through the sales process it's going to go through once it's sold.

And then also, you know, one fallacy that I used to see with a lot of salespeople, you know, we used to sell, we had a huge mortgage division. And so, you know, you're dealing with people's credit and their title and their appraisal and, you know, all these things that go wrong in the sale. And there's usually a two-week to a month process of it. And a lot of salespeople that I would see, not only in my business, but in other businesses I was in, you know, they would get, like, sales on the board and they would bet on them they were going to close. And they kind of, like, lay back.

And, you know, the tenacity of what you talked about is really important because you just need to keep going for more. And then, of course, the sales numbers. You know, I learned a long time ago, I don't know if it was Zig Ziglar or somebody, but every no is one step closer to yes. So when you get a no, you don't go, oh, God, this is horrible. You go, hey, I'm one step closer to yes i just gotta go knock on this next person's door yeah yeah absolutely right man um you know speaking of uh forecasting and all that stuff man i mean it's um there's it's just crazy what technologies are out there there's a company we just learned about that we're partners with now that it integrates into a CRM,

which is a customer record maintenance system for those of you don't know, but it's, it's where businesses organize all their prospects and the software integrates in and it uses standard sets of questions that salespeople answer to give you a very specific percentage probability of the forecast and how accurate it is, which, which 10 years ago would have been like eh but now with the data that they have and and the extent to which they've tested it it's it's incredibly accurate that they can um they can predict the

accuracy of people's forecasts right um one of the weird things about being a part of sandler this network is that we're always learning about those kinds of new cutting-edge technologies. And so, anyway, just throwing that out there. There you go. And I can see that on your guys' website. You guys have the Sandler CRM program. And, of course, those are really good. Back in my day of sales, the old days, folks, we used to get rocks and scrawble the name of the client. No, I'm just kidding.

But no, we had one of those 3x5 card boxes. Remember those? You're a Gen Xer, right? See, we have the unique ability to have one foot in the past and one foot in the present. I grew up, I started

out with Manila folders. I didn't have a cell phone in college you know so it's we can relate you know like maybe we can appreciate but no i get it i was the same way the crms are are cool now because you know they can tell you when to tickle they can tickle file for you so you can hey call this guy back at this time uh you can remember you know you can remember hey what was i talking this guy about so i can just pick it up and stuff um but the beautiful part about sales uh is that if you can learn sales just to sell anything widget a pen whatever the case may be you can almost do anything in life and it really helps if you want to be an entrepreneur you want to own your own

company if you want to be a ceo someday you want to be a leader, you want to own your own company. If you want to be a CEO someday, you want to be a leader. Uh, being able to sell is everything because you have to sell your ideas to people. We have to sell ideas to each other. Like all people that say to me, Chris, I hate sales.

I don't like to sell. And I'm like, uh, so you're married now, right? Yeah. So you had to sell yourself to your girlfriend or, you know,

your date probably was probably started as a date. You had to go and sell her on what a great guy you're going to be and what a great future you might have. And then you had to sell her on why she should marry you and blah, blah, blah. You've been selling all your life. You sell yourself when you're like, hey, honey, you want to go to the store? That's selling. You know, and so people don't realize we sell all the time. It's part of the genius of what we are.

But, you know, I come from the Glen Ross College. Oh, God. You know, do you ever do any of that sort of training? Do you ever show up at the meeting and pull the Alec Baldwin brass balls out of the briefcase? Yeah, no, I think that we wear that as a badge of honor. Always be closing, but we prefer always be qualifying. There you go.

Qualifying's a big thing people don't do, too, in part of the report building. All the people that'll be like, hey, do you want to buy some steel to ship over to America, Chris? I'm like, do I look like I'm in steel? Where did you get this from?

Is that on my LinkedIn profile? Yeah. No, it's definitely a common problem. And you mentioned something before the Glengarry Glen Ross. I was going to add something to what you just said. What were you talking about a second ago? The OSB closing, the brass balls? No.

Well, one point of clarification, just to backtrack a little bit, on the CRMs is we don't necessarily sell CRM, but we talk about how to integrate Sandler into other people's CRMs. We work with pretty much all the CRMs. Oh, do you? So that's an important note

because some people have their own little systems and you gotta be able to integrate with them. But, you know, learning to sell, having rapport for people, liking people. I think people get that if you're interested. Like, you know, when I go on planes or sometimes I, I, I'm, I like to fuck with people and I don't like to fuck with people to screw them in a bad sort of way but i like to like make people's life happy and make them smile i'm an entertainer if you will and so when i get on the plane or when i get on the elevator when i get on the thing you know everyone's kind of a thing you know first thing i do is i just break right through the fucking ice i don't and so yeah yeah i remember when uh i'm i'm remarried we have a five-year-old daughter, but I have three boys from my previous marriage. And when I had to reenter the dating scene, I just remember I had to redefine my way of living. I just needed to be more outgoing, just enter conversations with people to just flow with, get to know people around you. And you know what?

It's a better way of life. You know what I mean? It's a more happy way of life to smile and say hi to people to, to get to know the person you're sitting next to. I've never changed it. And, you know, I've met people on planes that I'm friends with now that I've done business with. You know, I agree with what you're saying. And by the way, the thing that I wanted to go back to that I forgot earlier is that you were talking about how sales is everywhere. You're absolutely true. It's absolutely accurate. And what I love about what I do is that everything that we teach is based in psychology.

So the stuff that we teach is equally applicable to how you manage teenagers, how you talk to toddlers. I mean, it's basic communication soft skills applied to no matter how complex or simple a sales process is. And just to, again, highlight what you said, if you're a business owner, an entrepreneur, or even like a professional services provider, like a CPA or an account or something like that, you've got to know how to sell. You've got to know how to sell you got to know how to sell you know and all my great salespeople have have had that psychological talent they know how to read people they know how to talk to them they know how to approach them they know how to spin with them and a lot of times you know the poor is like so much of it when it comes down to

interpersonal stuff like i i can i can go routinely i just do this because i i just want to challenge myself and i'll go i'll go get my haircut and i'll go to like great clips or something because you know with this much beauty you only need a 12 haircut and uh so i'll go sit down and i'll start working the room and i'll start working the thing just like a stand-up comedian and I need to go do stand-up I've done you know just like parties I'll do I think it'd be a high I think it'd be like a rush to try it I yeah it'd probably be boner for me because when people laugh it's like rock fuel for my brain um but uh uh so I'll do that and i'll have everyone laughing but you you mentioned a great

thing you never know where you're going to get a sales lead from where you're going to get a referral from where you're going to build people where people are going to know you from and uh it just makes all the difference in the world yeah um for real do people have still i imagine people still you know cold calling is still the hardest thing for most people to do. Well, let's go back before we change. Think about if you're dating, right? You sit, like, you know, we were talking about referrals earlier. Just imagine you're sitting on a plane, right?

And you're just being conversational. You're striking up a conversation with maybe a nice old lady sitting next to you. I mean, do you know how, like how easy it would just be to say, hey, listen, I really have enjoyed our conversation. I'm curious. Do you know any young girls that are looking for a dude to date in San Diego? I'm looking for a girlfriend. You know how many dates you would get just from that?

Like, oh, yeah, I want to set you up with you know like that's just the mindset of like put yourself out there into the universe let it take you wherever it's going to take you flow with it and that's that's when miracles happen miracles happen yeah you know the only way to fail at prospecting is to not prospect that's true i like that you got a prospect, damn it! Makes all the difference in the world. So as we round out the hour, what have we touched on that you guys do really well

that we want to educate people? Maybe how they can onboard or talk to you guys about how to work with you in the future, et cetera, et cetera, and reach out to you. Thanks, that's a good question. One thing that we do is we don't like to enter into agreements and arrangements with clients until we know what to expect. I mean, what are the things we're going to fix? How are we going

to fix it? So what we lean into really hard in our sort of discovery process is assessments, something that makes us sort of unique, you know, so we want to assess the participants that are going to be going through the program, whether it be an individual or a company of a sales team, you know, to find out where are the strengths, where are the gaps, and we've got custom assessments that we've built with one of our partner vendors that even sort of gives us a roadmap is for each individual, what are the specific skills that we need to really focus on to build upon those skills and to tighten up those gaps.

Sounds like you really customize it to the clientele and what they need. You have to, right? Because everybody's different. Every individual's different. So, yeah. Yeah. And so how do they reach out to you? How can they cross the bridge and talk to you about

what they need or what if you might be a good fit for them? Well, the first thing I'd say, and I'll put my email in the chat, but remember that I have to be a product of my product. So I cannot, I'm not allowed to be a pushy, annoying salesperson. So don't have a fear of reaching out to the sales coach like, oh, God, I want to call a sales coach. He's going to sell me something. Like, I can't be an annoying, pushy salesperson or else I'd be a terrible salesman.

That's my job. Yeah. So just we can have a conversation. We can have a quick 10-minute call to see if it's worth for, you know, any kind of further discussion. So you can reach out to me on linkedin uh or my website or an email address i just put into the chat um i'll also uh put my my linkedin in the chat and uh i think that email or linkedin is probably the easiest way but i'll leave it up to you guys there you go uh so uh on your website too i see people can go

there they can read over the website see the different service you have to offer. You've got a lot of professional development solutions, online tools. You work with business owners, presidents, CEOs, sales managers, sales teams, and individual salespeople in enterprise organizations. They can click on the website or fill out the field to book a call with you, a discovery call. Yeah, so you can find me at Brian Jackson Sandler Training, San Diego. on the website or fill out the field to book a call with you, a discovery call. Yeah, you can find me at Brian Jackson Sandler Training San Diego.

The website is salesrevenue.sandler.com. But yeah, happy to have a conversation and see if the challenges that you have are things that we help clients with and take from there. There you go. Well, Brian, it's been wonderful and fun to go through the program and talk about sales with you.

Hopefully we've enlightened a few people, people on LinkedIn will probably love us on the newsletter. Uh, anything more you want to pitch before we go? Man, no, I think I've, I think I've done enough,

man. I just want to thank you, Chris. Uh, this has been a lot of fun and, uh, and I've enjoyed your way of doing the podcast really loose. So,

uh, thanks. Hopefully you can go and edit out my joke from earlier. Which joke? I liked them all. No, actually that's, that's set up a suspense,

man. You, you had everybody, you took people on a journey, man. I'm going to beat myself up about that. No, no.

You took people on a journey, man. I was sitting here going, what the, what the hell happened now? I was watching you. Oh my God. The joke could have been like be like, that's just a joke, man. You created suspense and adventure.

And I was just like, wait. Maybe that's a whole new way of telling the joke. It's the journey. It's the journey. It's not the destination. Hardest thing I ever learned in my life. You're a stand-up guy. My favorite stand-up guy is Norm MacDonald.

I love how he can stretch it out to be like five minutes long, and then it just has the most cheesy punchline at the ending. Note to self, be like Norm MacDonald. That's an homage to Norm. We do that on the show. I love Norm. I was crushed when he passed. Me too. And such a funny guy, George Carlin.

The beautiful part about Norm was Norm could die and kill. And most, you know, if you're a comedian, you don't want to, you don't want to die. Yeah. Yeah.

Kill. Yeah. Uh, but the real art, you know, the taxi driver, gentlemen, I forget his name.

He was in the show taxi. Uh, I was going to say the same thing. Andy Kaufman. I was going to say, and I kind of held it back, but I said, you know, who else did that really well as Andy Kaufman I kind of held it back but I said who else did that really well is Andy Kaufman yes I'm with you 100%

he just opened the bible and started reading it it's really hard to be funny it was the great Gatsby and then you take everybody out for chocolate chip cookies I love going on YouTube and pulling up Norm clips from

Conan or Dave Letterman where he's just torturing them with this long story and they're like, is there an end to this? That's the joke too. He's just dying and it's killing because after a while the audience gets the joke. They're like, oh, we see

what he's doing. He's got a great roundup. Thank you for coming on the show, we see what he's doing. He's just, he's got a great roundup, but yeah. Anyway, thank you for coming on the show, Brian. We really appreciate it. Give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebs, please. Yep, it's www.salesrevenue.sandler.com. There you go.

Thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Foss, youtube.com, Fortress Chris Foss, linkedin.com, Fortress Chris Foss, the big LinkedIn newsletter as well. Thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress Christmas, YouTube.com, Fortress Christmas, LinkedIn.com, Fortress Christmas, the big LinkedIn newsletter as well. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, damn it, and we'll see you next time.