The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Shut Up and Win: Strategies to Sell Smarter, Lead Better, and Live with Purpose by Jed Etters

Episode Date: October 12, 2025

Shut Up and Win: Strategies to Sell Smarter, Lead Better, and Live with Purpose by Jed Etters https://www.amazon.com/Shut-Up-Win-Strategies-Smarter/dp/B0F9V2TJRQ Shutupandwin.com Are you ready to stop spinning your wheels and start winning with strategy? Shut Up and Win delivers bold, actionable strategies to help you master sales, sharpen your leadership, and make better decisions under pressure. Whether you're an entrepreneur, sales pro, or team leader, this is your no-fluff guide to high-impact growth, in business and in life. Inside this powerful book, you’ll learn how to: Build unshakable confidence and emotional discipline Master sales techniques that connect, convert, and close Set goals and manage time like a pro Lead with purpose, clarity, and resilience Develop a winning mindset that thrives under pressure Author Jed Etters draws on more than two decades of real-world experience in competitive sales and leadership to bring you practical tools and mindset shifts that work. This isn’t theory, it’s what top performers actually do. Whether you’re in sales, management, or personal development, this guide provides the roadmap to elevate your impact and create lasting success. If you’re tired of talk and ready for results, this is your playbook! “If you’re serious about increasing your sales and making a real impact, this book needs to be on your desk.” —K. Reid Partlow “A direct blueprint for anyone ready to sell smarter, lead stronger, and actually move the needle.” —Nick Bonner Stop reacting. Start leading. And shut up... and win.About the author Jed Etters is a seasoned sales strategist, thought leader, and captivating speaker dedicated to empowering individuals and organizations to achieve unparalleled success in the ever-changing world of sales. With over two decades of experience in the field, Jed brings a wealth of knowledge and a fresh perspective to the art of selling. Jed is known for his innovative approaches and strategic insights that have transformed traditional sales methodologies. His practical advice and actionable strategies have empowered countless professionals to break through barriers, drive revenue growth, and cultivate lasting client relationships. When he’s not strategizing his next sales conquest, Jed enjoys spending time with his family, flying small planes, driving classic cars, exploring the great outdoors, and seeking inspiration from the people and places around him. Jed is always happy to connect with like-minded individuals who are ready to take their businesses to the next level.

You wanted the best... You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Because you're about to go on a moment. monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss my folks is voss here from the christmas show dot com please don't with the early things that makes official welcome the big show as always the christmas show as a family loves you but doesn't judge you at least as harshly as the rest of your family for 16 years and over 2,500 episodes going on 17 and 2,600 geez what more do you people want from us. We're doing 48 shows a month, and we produce stuff like the Netflix of podcasting where you can binge us about whatever the hell you want on the Chris Foss show, but we love that you guys consume everything. It's either because I'm funny, stupid, or we just

have the most amazing guests. Pretty sure it's the amazing guest part. Anyway, guys, welcome the show. Go to goodreads.com, Fortezs Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com, for it has Chris Foss. Chris Foss won on the TikTok, and all those crazy places in the internet. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Voss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, we're an amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking to him about

his insights, his new book, and all of that good stuff. Jedd Edders joins us on the show. He's the author of the latest book to come out called Shut Up and Win. Strategies to sell smarter, lead better, and live with purpose

out. I believe it was May 2025. You can check that book out and order up wherever the Nine books are sold there on the inner webs in the sky. Jed Edders is a season sales strategist, thought leader, and captivating speaker dedicated to empowering individuals and organizations that achieve unparalleled success in the ever-changing world of sales. With over two decades of experience in the field, he brings a wealth of knowledge and fresh perspective to the art of selling. Jed is known for his innovative approaches and strategic insights that have transformed traditional sales, Methodologies. His practical advice and actionable strategies have empowered countless professionals to break through barriers, drive revenue growth, and consult and cultivate. I'm still learning to talk here this week, folks. Cultivate lasting client relationships. When he's not strategizing the next sales conquest, he enjoys spending time with his family, flying small planes, driving classic cars, exploring the great outdoors, seeing inspiration from the people and places around him. He's always having to connect with light. mind individuals who are ready to take their business to the next level welcome the show jenn how are you chris thank you so much it's a pleasure to be here with you big fan of yours you've written some great books yourself so there you go so give us a dot coms where do you want people to find you on the interwips well i tell you what

you can go to shut up and win dot com we've got that website it's got a lot of good extra information as well as, I would say, you know, go to Amazon.com. If you want to buy the book, take a look at Shut Up and Win. We're the black and white copy there, and it's packed full of great information. Shut up and win already. Give us 30,000 overview. What's inside the new book? You know, shut up and win.

A lot of people will say, hey, Jed, what do you mean shut up and win? How am I going to win by shutting up? And, you know, it really kind of comes down to this. It's really be strategic, think about what you're going to do, and then go out there and do it. You know, go out and win. And I think that's really the highest, the 30,000 foot level of what shut up and win really means. You know, I need that for my Raiders. We used to subscribe to this thing, just win, baby.

And that clearly hasn't been working in the last 25 years. So maybe my first and last Raiders game was in person in. Oakland. Oh, did you? My last one in Oakland was one with San Francisco versus the Raiders. And it was like living, it was like being on a prison yard of fights and danger. Yeah, I accidentally wore a brown shirt. Oh, wow.

And I didn't, I had never watched football before live and they were playing the Browns that day. So after getting my life threatened a few times, I bought a Raider shirt and survived the rest of the game. Yeah, that's what I would have done, too, if I've been, I mean, San Francisco, they have a rivalry that's evil but man i've never been so afraid in my life uh then the time and i was a raiders fan that's thing you know i had i had big giant men you know one guy he's i was i had some fries he walked by and he was i'm six two and he's huge and he's little too afraid he was in fries pretty good i was like yes sir you can have if you want anyway so uh you wrote this book this is your first book this is my very first book

a little bit of time. It took about five years. People asked me, they said, Jed did AI write that? And the simple answer is, when I started writing this, AI wasn't even really a thing. So, no, it wasn't. Written exclusively by me. Isn't it sad? People

have to ask that question nowadays. But I'd be kind of insulted to. So, shut up and win. You talk about several different powerful things in this book. How to sharpen your leadership. That's one of my favorite topics is leadership. and how to make better decisions under pressure.

We're dealing with a lot of pressure these days in 2025. You know, we've got tariffs and we've got all sorts of weird stuff going on, economy-wise, and costs and stuff. How do we deal with this? How do we sharpen our leadership and make better decisions under some of the change? You know, AI is another big change that's happening in 2025. Yeah, you know, and I think, you know, Chris, I mean, you've written books about strategy. And so, I mean, you know, I think you're one of the better strategists.

But I tell you what, one of the big things that people can do is hit actual situations head on. When we run away from situations, from difficult conversations, from difficult issues, then they have a way of chasing us down. And it's a lot more painful when we have a situation hit us than it is if we attack that situation. So we're talking about leadership. You know, it's everybody below us is. looking for us to lead the way to success for them if we're talking about in business. So I think that's a real key is being willing to do the hard things and hitting them head on. How has sales changed, do you think? I mean, you've been writing this book for five years.

Now we have, you know, AI ads systems. We have, you know, all sorts of different technology. You know, a lot of stuff has changed from the old days of, I don't know about you, but where I grew up, You know, where you, you had to go out and knock on doors and handshake the buyer for the business, you know, and sometimes you had to bring them, like, you know, little trinkets to build her poor. You know, I remember. Yeah, I remember doing that. I was a kid and car products, K.R products, and I would have to go sell products to, like, blue collar places like welders and trucks stops. And, you know, there was tools that we would sell. But yeah, we would, we'd give out those pads and little screwdrivers that have our name on them and shit.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I tell you what, like the question being like, how has it changed with AI? I mean, people aren't thinking on their own. I actually even talk about that in the book. It's like, you know what? There's one thing you can utilize AI. And I think it's smart to utilize it.

But it's a tool. It's not a replacement. You can't rely on, on AI to give you a, 100% the correct direction. Now you can rely on it to give you some breadcrumbs, maybe some important pieces. But at the end of the day, you need to know your job well. You need to know what you're talking about so that that way when it adds that information, you're still leading well. Now, one of my biggest pet piece, honestly, Chris, with AI is people that write all of their emails and AI. And there's certain things you can look for and see them. Because, you know,

it used to be that you would get like a quick answer. I ask somebody something. They give me an answer, right? And maybe I'm just being short. Maybe it's because I'm, I don't have this really long patient, you know, bit in my soul. But I tell you what, now it's like people beat you to death with these long-winded emails that mean absolutely nothing because they're all AI generated. So I don't know if you see that, but it drives me up a wall. I'm kind of bad where there's people that want a response for me, uh, that I received their email, which I find really annoying. It's, uh, you know, they'll, they'll, they'll be like, can you confirm that you got this? And it's like, it's like, dude, you're just, you've added more work to me. I got your email. Okay. You're going to be

fine. But, you know, I mean, there is a lot of stuff that goes to spam box now. You know, one of my big clients just was like, oh, yeah, your invoice went to spam box. Um, they couldn't find it. I'm like, well, you need to pay it. I don't give a fuck. It's over there. You know, and I've got trackers where you can track, you know, if they open the email. But, you know, so I kind of get it, but they always want to respond. So I always use those cheap email, Gmail responses now, the A1s where it just goes, great, look forward to seeing you, you know. I think I got that from you last night, so thank you. Probably did. And then Call and Lee, you know, Cal and Lee has their own automated system that bugs their shit out of people to remind them of the show. Another thing

you talk about in your, in your book is mastering sales techniques, that connect, convert, and close. Again, what changes, are there any changes really to sales techniques that are happening in the world? It seems like being interpersonal and actually talking to people, you know, sometimes picking up the phone or actually having conversation with people, seems to be more richer now and more valued than, you know, it used to be I couldn't get to the buyer, the buyer's agent if, unless I, you know, I really buttered up the gal at the front desk there.

I tell you what, it's an interesting question because I think that it used to be, and maybe you'll identify with this, it used to be beat the people to death, just keep telling them what they need to do. They need to buy. You've got to buy. You've got to do this. You've got to do that. And then eventually these people would be so just beat up that they would just succumb to this and just grind them down. That's what I'm dating. That's what I do in dating. That's how you got your wife. Okay, I get it. Maybe it was good for her, though. I don't know. But I tell you what, no, I said this in the context of sales and not in other things, but no doesn't necessarily mean that people don't want to know. You know what I mean? Because people will say no as a reaction

because they've got their defenses up because they've been beat so many times with like people trying to sell them hard. So that's just the automatic defense. If you can give them some actual value, now, now we're talking, okay? Now that no, I say no means, and this is exclusively, I want to make sure people understand

this is exclusively in sales, okay? If we're talking about physical touch, no's no. Okay, but in sales, no generally means you didn't give me enough value. Show me some value so that I can say yes. You know, maybe, you know, maybe the thing to do is to show the value up front on the pitch.

I don't know. The, it seems like you're right, you know, people have that knee jerk reaction. I think we learned that in sales. I think, you know, that came to Zig Ziglar. You know, a lot of people, their media reaction on the decision is no. And, you know, and it's kind of a defense because everything's coming at them, you know. I've got an email full of people pitching me all sorts of bullshit. I'm sure you do too.

LinkedIn is a different thing from emails from people. You know, owning a, I tell you, owning a podcast for 16 years,

if I had a dollar for every podcast promoter that's in some third world country that I, I would hate to find out how that works. And I've heard bad stories too. But geez,

if I had a dollar for everyone of those, I'd probably be a millionaire at this point between me and my LinkedIn box. And so it's crazy out there. And so, yeah, think do it, but I think more so you've really got to show or, and I think, and I could be wrong on this, but I think you have to anticipate the value of what stuff is, you know, and show

them what the value is before they finally, they have to say no. I don't know. I think you're absolutely right. You almost have to pre-determine their objections. And we're also talking about sometimes maybe you don't know what it is that would be valuable to them right away. So let's say you pitch the wrong thing. They want you pitch a blue car. They want a red car. You pitch a two-story house. They want a one-story house.

You pitch the green shirt. They need a yellow shirt. You know, you have to take another run at it, is what I say. And the thing is, is it really comes down to listening, okay, to hear what it is they want up front. But sometimes, especially with people that maybe aren't experienced in sales, they go in with this pitch thinking that they've got the right thing. And so people will just automatically say no. That doesn't mean they don't want to know. You just probably hit on the wrong thing.

Yeah. Yeah, you probably just, they want red or a different color. You know, it's in so many people nowadays, I don't know if this is a thing for you we talk about in the book, but so many people nowadays, they don't build rapport first before they pitch. That's a lot of things, stuff I get on my LinkedIn. There's no rapport building. It's just pitch. And usually there's no, you know, I grew up in the age with the, and I think this got copied into a movie, what was the movie, Wolfram Wall Street with the pen?

You know, sell me the pen. Yeah. That was, you know, that was the 90s. That was a big thing in the 90s when I came in, but way before that movie made it popular. But it would, you know, you give a new salesperson a pen in the interview. you'd be like, sell me this pen. And any good sales guy knows, you know, you compile the features and then you compile the benefits that are tied to those features, you know.

Oh, it has this ergonomic, you know, perfectly handheld thing and that's designed to make it comfortable for a long hours of writing or spending time with it or just ease of writing, you know, all those sort of things that, you know, you come up with in sales. And I don't find people do the features and benefits thing anymore. It's just, hey, do you want to buy my shit? I mean, you know, that's, that's kind of what it is. This is title of my new book. Do you want to buy my shit? Chris, it's a number one bestseller. I'm already going to buy it from you.

It's going to be the sequel to Shut Up and Win. So if you're listening to this, buy Shut Up and Win and then buy Chris's. Somebody's going to have a book called, we don't want to buy your shit. I don't people want to buy my shit. That might be a better title. I think, I think, you know what? You bring up a really good point. I think people do, there's two ways of selling, right?

One is quality and one's quantity. And what do I mean by that? You can call 100 people up and say, do you want to buy this? Yes or no. They say, yes, great. Here's what you got to do. No, okay, buy. Or you can do quality, right?

And you can say, hey, listen, here's what I sell. But I'd love to know what are some of the challenges you have. Is this something that's interesting to you and build that rapport like you're talking about? And I believe that if salespeople today, if they actually took the time, they would, they would get twice as many sales because they'd build that rapport that you're talking about. They'd find out the values. And what happens when you add value to other people, Chris? They tend to buy or they tend to invest in it, right? Well, and they tell people, right? They tell other people because, because the thing is, is like, you know, you go, you add value and

then people go, wow, you know what, Chris really added a lot of value for me. You should talk to Chris. And so it's just kind of this giving mentality that really works. But when you don't have time and that's that's the problem is we are all so rushed yeah we all we barely have time and everything is a time suck especially i mean we're talking about it right here how many emails do you get a day that you just have to delete yeah it's it's a it's an insane amount uh so and evidently there's a lot of money i don't know how america missed uh podcast promoting but uh we get a lot of it I mean, we've been doing this for 16 years now, 2,500 episodes. It's a long time.

And so they love to hit us as a top podcast. They love to just bang my LinkedIn. And they hump me down on every available email or access point. So the fan pages on Facebook, the groups on Facebook, they hit the Chris Foss show like everywhere. It's insane. Even like the Chris Foss Show, LinkedIn, the other day I checked into our LinkedIn, in the Chris Foss Show podcast page on LinkedIn, which, you know, I don't, you don't really get into the emails unless you go into their area. Yeah.

And there was like a flood of them that I hadn't seen in there. I was like, oh, my God. So you talk about another thing that's in here, building unshakable confidence and emotional discipline. Sounds a little bit maybe like stoicism there. But tell us about that. I think a lot of people, maybe that's the problem in sales. They're not that confident, maybe. I don't know.

You know, you know what builds confidence? most of time, Chris. Kicking people's ass? That'll build your confidence. Winning fist fights? It's knowing what you're talking about. What? Yeah.

You got to do that too? Yeah. I mean, you know, you're a negotiator. You know, you still are. That's what you do on a daily basis, right? But here's the thing. If you know what you're talking about, all of a sudden you're confident, right?

Because no matter what somebody says, you know the truth, right? Well, a lot of times confidence comes from incompetence, or I should say, being afraid comes from incompetence, right? When you're not, when you have that confidence, it's because you are competent. Let me correct myself on that. You know, the thing is, is that if we want to build confidence, we need to do the basic things so much that we don't even have to think about it.

It becomes second nature to us. And I think that that's how you get unshageable. shagable confidence. And then here's the, here's the other thing is, you know what, we become, I say, you know, success comes in pinches and teaspoons, not cups and quarts. And I say that in the book. And really, what am I saying by that? We're going to all make little tiny bits of progress typically. You don't make these giant leaps. Everybody thinks that there's just this one secret thing. You know, it's like you woke up one day, Chris, and your show was just amazing. It's been 16 years, right? That's, that's, that's pitches and teaspoons, right? That's not cups and

quarts. And, and I just think that, you know, you build that resilience over time when you have that experience. So let's talk about some of the things that you have on your website at shut up and win.com. And tell us about some of the offerings you have there, some of the things people can work with you on, how are you for, et cetera, et cetera. Well, I tell you what, You know, one thing that's really worked well for people is, you know, you get a sales group. You have a group of salespeople. Maybe they're floundering. Maybe they're new.

Maybe they're wanting to be much improved. Let's say that. Is that a nice way of saying that? So basically make them less stupid. Is that whatever it is. Let's say that they lack strategy in the way that they need to. People will have me come in. That's one thing they can do.

they can have me come in and provide some structured things that will help that sales crew go out there, kick butt, take names, go out there, really make a name for themselves, but really build the confidence that they need to succeed. The other thing that people can hire me for is they can hire me to be a keynote speaker, always happy to get up in front of the crowd, get people motivated, get them going in the direction that's going to be helpful for that business. and just get people the strategy. One thing that's really tough is, so many people say out there,

and maybe you've heard this before, Chris, I don't want to speak for you, but I just care. And so I just want to do this because I like people or, you know, whatever. The tough thing is for the people like me that really do want to just see people succeed. That's a sincerity thing. Like, I truly want to see people succeed.

And that's, I get a lot of satisfaction off of seeing, people go out there and do things. And so, and the people can hire you one-on-one as well, too, right? Yeah, yeah. We can set up a coaching schedule and, you know, I hate the, forget coaching, mentorship schedule. I think a mentor is a little bit different than a coach. And I think of myself more as a mentor. I notice, too, there's some extra bonus materials on your website. Looks like you've got some articles and then some downloads. Tell us about that. Yeah, well, one thing that that we talk about is you know there's this voice in your head right i've got six there's six voices in your head some of them are nice some of them some of them aren't right there's one that says kill kill kill

the judge's just can't use anymore you're like uh i try not to listen to that one you know you got a barbecue too right so that way you can just put it on the barbecue immediately after there's a lot of holes in the backyard let's put it that way okay that's good uh what's what's your address because we're going to call the authorities i'll tell you what you might be back there too no i'm just kidding people don't do that these are jokes please don't yes please don't go to chris boss's house at one-two one-two no don't want her in the backyard at least anything that's got newly overturned grass so uh exactly actually look for the greener grass yeah look for the greener grass that's uh yeah two things there but did we

Did we make sure the metal was off those? Anyway, yeah. I saw a funny thing today. I'm sorry to sideline this or to segue off this. But somebody was writing, Hey, you know, why you shouldn't buy plastic skeletons? There's plenty of skeletons out in the world you can use for Halloween. They're probably buried in your backyard and I was like, oh, yeah.

Anyway, sorry to stop what you were talking about. That's an interesting one. I haven't heard that one. Halloween, the end of this month. We do live in, I live in California, so that's probably true. Yeah, probably somebody in there. I live between Nevada and Utah, so. There's got the desert.

You just go out in the West desert. There's skeletons in the desert, for sure. Which blob guy was this? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. One of the things you talk about is living with purpose, clarity, and resilience. And you, and I mentioned, too, the emotional discipline part, emotional intelligence. I think that's a really important thing more people need to have now today.

We live in this kind of victimhood competition environment where it seems like, you know, more people, you know, I don't know, buy my product. I'm broke and I got to feed my kids. I don't know. I see some of that on the cash apps and some of the singles groups. So what, talk to us about this emotional discipline. Is that emotional intelligence and levels of that that you're talking about? And how do we develop that winning mindset? Well, I tell you what, I had a, I had a client of mine that went and came to me and he said, Jed, you know what, I reached out to one of these people that I wanted to work with, and they didn't respond. And so I just gave up. And he goes, you know, and I read your book, and, you know, there was a piece about a convincer number.

And in the book, I talk about a convincing number. And that is, you know, that most people have a commensor number of three. So they have to hear things three times to be convinced that they should do something, right? There's people that have a commenser number of one. There's some people that are never convinced, right? And I talk about how to deal with that. So he goes, you know, I read that, Jed. And I thought, you know what?

Maybe this guy's got a bigger convincing number. So he emails him back. And he goes, you know what happened, Jed? This was amazing. He's like, he got back to me. I guess he was a two-time convincer. And, you know, when we're talking about, you know, building confidence, right? Sometimes it's just having a little extra guidance, a little extra push in the right direction.

And that's where I go with shut up and win. It's really about mentoring people to be strategic so that that way they can overcome a lot of the hurdles that they're having. A lot of the hurdles that they're having are really self-inflicted. And, and you know, one thing that I tell people is, and I know you know this, words matter. The specific words that you use can make or break a situation. And so we talk about what are some ways to make an impact and to not say the wrong thing. Maybe use some timing. There's different aspects to it, but we talk a lot about that.

One more have we talked about your book and some of the service you offer and what you want people know about you and what you do. Sorry, you said one more, what? Anything more than we want to talk about of what you offer or some of the things in the book? Yeah, you know, I think that one of the things that I talk about in the book that I think would be really helpful for people, just kind of going along the lines of what you were asking me was, you know, strike when the iron's cold. you know the old adage strike when the irons he's like i don't know strike when the iron's hot right you've heard that before yeah yeah so i i say strike when the iron's cold and what i really mean by that is go out there do the things that you need to do when you have the clearest mind right

because when you when you go out there and you're fired up you're irritated you're excited whatever it is if you don't have that clear mind if that iron's hot then that's going to cause some cloudiness it may not give you the result that you want and so i really encourage people strike when the iron's cold that's going to be a little little sound bite for you um but um but but but i think you brought up a really good point chris which is building rapport with people is really really powerful um even here you are you've done How many episodes of this show? We're going on 2,600 here probably in a week or two.

2,600. And most people would probably assume, hey, you know what? Chris doesn't have the time to talk to me, but you're sitting here going, so many people pitch me so hard. I wish they would take the time to build a little bit of rapport. Yeah. I mean, this is kind of different in the show, but we get like hundreds of proposals a month to come on the show.

And, you know, we only do so many shows, but we do more shows than anybody. I mean, nobody does 48 shows a month because they're, they're smart I mean we our consumer base just eats it up I mean they they love it they consume 96% every show and I think the 4% is them hearing me start to rap and they go next show and they skip but um you got to you know and that's really podcasting you've got to feed the audience because if you don't they wander over to my show but yeah it's uh I see that on on Instagram or just anywhere I go. And there's not a feature benefit usually either. It's just, hey, you want to buy my shit? And you're just like, I don't even understand what your shit is or what

it's going to do for me, you know? There's an old thing where you've got to solve people's problems, right? In sales? I think that's a big thing, isn't it? Still? If you don't solve somebody's problem, what are you doing? You're creating another problem, another thing to bug them with, you know? And again, we're all beat to death with advertisements. with people knocking on our door, which I'm going to call an advertisement, you know. But I do want to hit on this because you did bring this up, which is, you know, you said back in the olden days, people would, we'd have to go knock on doors, you know, I would go give trinkets.

I had a little, you said you had a screwdriver. Oh, yeah, like everything. Oh, yeah. We had all this shit you could buy to give people. You know what's so powerful today? knocking on people's doors and handing a little screwdriver with you name because nobody does it nobody does it anymore nobody does it anymore so you can you can go out there you have to think outside the box to be original but it's amazing how things come all the way back around isn't it though

like i noticed years ago that there was a value again like i back in those days you know the the buyers for most companies that i would go to they would behind they would be behind that gatekeeper secretary and that woman was usually she was like uh what we she was like arguing with that french guy in the castle and the in the in the uh movie uh was the holy grail search for the monty python the holy grail you take your take your stupid whatever and get a bugger off or whatever i don't remember the line shoes but you know they were they were those those Those women were ironclad warriors, man. You could, you try and arm wrestle those gals or hustle them with bullshit.

And they would, they would, they would kick you in the nuts and send you walking, man. They, you, you could not get past them and, and to the buyer unless, I don't know, you, you, and it didn't matter what kind of trinkets. You could bring her roses. You could bring her, you know, all the screwdriver's company name on it, the stupid pens and the pads. and all the crap we used to give out. But yeah, now, now you just get right through. And the guy's like, hey, no one ever calls me and talks to me. This is kind of different.

Wow. It's amazing how just being human. Like, people are like, you know, and I do it. I don't know if you see that. But like I've received a couple of messages. Like I get the, you know, the AI generated ones that I'll say. And then I get one from a real human and you can always tell because like, hey, you know, and I'm really sorry to bother you.

But I wanted to run this by you. And I'm like, I'll respond to that because I'm like, it's so out of the ordinary that it's normal. I think. I think with AI, that's going to make that human connection even more so important, maybe, you think? I think it's become already more and more important. The problem, and I was joking with somebody the other day, I said, hey, look, you know, what's going to really happen in the future here? Is there going to have classes on human interaction? so that that way people are going to be able to talk

because they're going to be so used to being on their devices. They're like, I don't know what to do when I have a human that's right here in front of me. But I think, unfortunately, that's probably where we're headed. But, you know, part of the book here is use your mind. You know, that's the whole thing. Nothing can replace your mind unless you let it. And, you know, it's like the rest of your body.

If you don't use your legs, they're going to grow weak. If you don't use your mind, it's going to grow weak. Stay strong. Be smart about things. I haven't yet met someone, and maybe you have, but I haven't met someone that said, Jed, you know what, I just don't want to be very successful in this role. Hmm. That's interesting.

You know, I think more and more the interpersonal action of people, and that features benefits. I mean, that's really the big thing. Like, it seems like a lot of the pitches that I get are all about, them and not me what is this going to do for me and instead it's just i mean really the only the most of the pitches i think if i pulled them off linked in are like the basic benefit is your money goes into my bank they're all the basic benefit is that i feel really good about this yeah yeah i'm selling this product and you should buy it and you're like what is what is the what is the benefit to me again this this this ties into one of the things that I talk about in the book. It's take I and me out of the

conversation. There we go. So what's really interesting, if you try to have a conversation, and I would challenge you to do this, try and take the word I and me out of that conversation the whole time and replace it. So it's a good replacement to use. I would like you to buy this. Something that I've seen that's a value for. for people like you is this product. And here's maybe the ways they've benefited. You know, I mean,

here's some things that benefited other people. Perhaps it would benefit you. I don't say it's going to benefit me. I don't say to me, you should buy it because I think it's great. You know, and the second that you use I and me, then it's,

it's just like you said, right? You're reading all these, all these posts. And it's like, this just benefits me, me, me, me. And it's not, how does it actually benefit you? Yeah. And that's what people are concerned about. I mean, that's the whole reason you become an entrepreneur. That's the whole reason that you get

into sales is people have a problem they need solved in their life. Maybe they don't know that it's a problem. Maybe you're going to educate them of what the, of, hey, there is a fix. Do you have this problem? There is a fix for that and stuff. But, you know, like, like, I think it probably good, a blue sky sort of big thing. It's like, you know, the cable company will be like, hey, you know, you can have faster internet. And you're like, for 2995 or

something more or whatever, you know. And you're like, well, what does that do? Like, am I really going to benefit from that some way, shape, or form? Or what are the features of benefits? And I, we could probably sit down with my LinkedIn inbox or my Gmail. And it is like,

you know, it's, it is just hammer time for, by my shit. And you're like, what are the features and benefits here? What is this, what is this going to do? And then I think, I think sometimes, you know, so many people are selling their services. And so a lot of the message gets is that I and me message that you talk about in your book, where it's, I kick ass and take names and I can, I can, I teach this. And you're like, what do I get? How do my problems get solved? And that's really what most people are sitting around focusing on. I mean, any time you buy a product is, you know, you buy a drink at the store

because you're thirsty. You're solving a problem. And I think more people need to approach sales with what problems is this product solving? Because there's a lot of products out there. I saw have someone talking about this in TikTok. There's a lot of products out there that don't really advertise themselves as solving a problem. Like metaglasses is one. They just go, hey, metaglasses, it's got cameras and shit in it and AI. You want to buy it? And I have beena glasses. They're great. One of the reasons I buy them is so that I can have, I usually have two huskies right now. I'm in between, and I just have one, but I love having the first person video shooting so that I can pet both them, where I can take video where we're on a walk. And when I get my puppy here probably

in a few more months, I'll be able to hold it in my hands and videotape it where, you know, if you're trying to hold a puppy and you're trying to work the camera, you know, it's just impossible. and you get shit shots. And I still have great video of Google glasses back in the day of my dogs that are just invaluable, that you're replaceable. And so, but they don't sell that feature. They just go, hey, it's got a camera in it. And I don't know, you can record shit if you want, I suppose.

And this goes down to, this goes to time, right? Because it's really like, in order to find out, you know, we started this whole conversation with, you know, well, you should have, maybe you should have pitched the value to begin with. how do you pitch the value to someone if you haven't asked the question? And, you know, part of the thing is that, you know, you need some kind of information to find out what people need. And I try to really say this is that sales is really not sales, okay? I don't sell anything. Sales is really a leadership position.

Because if people want to buy something from you, it's because, because they have a need, like we just talked about, and they're looking to someone that is better at doing that or they believe is going to lead them to winning in that situation better than they would do on their own. Otherwise, people would do it themselves. Yeah, they wouldn't. Well, this has been a great discussion.

I love this discussion we've gotten into about features and benefits. Hopefully remind people to, you know, maybe improve their things. You know, ask people, you know, in my sales organization, we always ask the question, what are you trying to accomplish when we sell people? And that's the very first question I demand has to be asked. And boy, anytime they don't ask that question, we sometimes end up down the road where the person is like, I didn't, this is what I wanted. I didn't want this.

I wanted that. You know, when we had the mortgage company, it was like somebody every now that would ask for a 15 year, but most people ask for a 30-year mortgage. And, you know, the salesperson didn't ask the question because we do recordings and monitor calls and stuff. And, you know, usually if I walk the office and I heard somebody saying that, I'd be like, you're not saying my line. And so they wouldn't listen to what the client wanted.

And they'd assume what the client would want because they didn't ask, what are you trying to accomplish. You know, and it's a better version of the, how can we help you? And everyone hates that. And they have the knee jerk reaction to that we talked about at the beginning of the show. But establishing what people want to accomplish, what problems they're trying to solve, I think it's really important. It's the most important if you're going to lead people to success. Or if you're going to be an entrepreneur.

I see a lot of products that I've seen, you know, over decades of experience, especially stuff out of Silicon Valley that has been pitched at me, that you look at it and you go, you go, what is this? Who is this trying to solve the problem? Like, I don't know. We got some VC money and it sounded like a good idea at the time. And you're just like, okay, have fun with that. So as we round out the show, it's been wonderful to have you on.

And Jed, give us your final pitch out for people to pick up the show, how they can reach out to you, order up your services, engage with you, find out more data if they won't need to, et cetera, et cetera. I would say this. Ask yourself this question, or these questions, you know, am I producing the results that I want? Could I use some additional strategy? Can I maybe reach new heights with some guidance, with, with a mindset, with a

mentor and one of the great things that you can do is you can go to amazon you can buy shut up and win take a look at the book i have it inaudible it's probably very torturous because i'm the one who actually spoke in it so you're going to have to listen to my voice the whole time you got great voice i joke i joke it's i try to be very engaging i try to be to the point and you know it's 25, you know, plus years of hard learned experience that you can benefit from. So you just don't have to experience the pain and the agony of learning how to do things the wrong way so that you can figure out how to do it the right way. So I just, I'll leave it on that.

There you go. I take a look at this book. If it's right for you, buy it. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show, Jed. We really appreciate it. Amazing discussion, sir. Thank you so much, Chris. Thank you. And thanks for us for tuning in. Orup Jeds book, wherever fine books are sold. It is entitled, Shut up and Win. Strategies to sell smarter, lead better, and live with purpose. May 29th, 2025. Thanks for honest for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortunes Chris Foss. Facebook.com, Foress, Chris Foss. If your podcast, promoter, I don't need your services. Thank you.

and all the other groups and stuff for me and the Chris Foss show on the interwebs. Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. And that should have us out.