Three Questions and Two Thoughts

Listen to the audio version here

After last week’s discussion on Covey, I got a ton of great responses.

Clearly, the idea of ‘enough’ resonates. And it got me thinking—how does it shape our work, our success, even our mental health?

There’s so much more to dig into, and I will in the coming weeks.

Today, I want to share a few sales questions I got recently, along with a couple of other provocations for further thought.

Some of you noticed I joined the 30MPC community as a Club Captain—a role that’s not about a paycheck but about contributing to a space where top sales pros share what’s working and ask for help when they’re stuck. Last week, I did a Q&A, and some of the questions were too good not to share.

An Asynchronous Fireside Chat

If you were starting from scratch with no network that relates to the industry you were dropped into, how would you approach creating a referral network? What would you say at events you attended? How would you find the right events?

I would think way less about what I want to say, and I would think way more about what I want to learn and what I want to ask.

Do a little research on the people who will be at these networking events, and create a short list of people you want to be sure that you connect with.

As you shake their hand, say, “I just started in this industry, and I've got so much to learn. What are the top two things I need to spend my time learning so I can be the resource you need me to be.”

That’s a very difficult question not to answer.

Before you can benefit from it, you need to contribute to a network, so invest in it with your curiosity.

People will want to share with you because you're eager to learn.

There’s an obvious win for you here but also a subtle one for your new connections.

They’re also going to benefit by thinking about those issues from a fresh point of view.

How do you balance trying a new technique (i.e., reworking my talk track), versus listening to what your direct manager is asking of you (i.e., the same tried and true method that we have)?

I would have this conversation directly with my manager:

“I want to be a good team member, and I'm very coachable. I have some things I want to try, but I don't want to feel like I'm defying you here. Can I get a couple of things from you?

1. Are you okay with me trying stuff?
2. Can you help me stay organized with what I should be trying and what I know is tried and true?”

Great leaders give their teams enough space to succeed and to fail, so their answer to this request will tell you a lot about who you’re working for.

When you are a rep, your manager is a customer; you need to sell them on your willingness to improve, A/B test, and willingness to try things that will help you maximize your performance.

If you're early in your career, there is also a certain amount of responsibility that your manager has to steward your development.

If I'm a leader and someone comes to me like that, I don't see it as confrontational. I see you as someone who wants to grow, and now I have a direction to guide you. It’s a win for me.

I've actually done this in the past, and it's worked well for me.

If you were starting your sales career over, what are one (or two) skills you’d work on developing most?

There are so many ways I can answer this question, but what I'm going with is listening and empathy.

Selling is not so much about what you say. It's about the questions you ask.

When you ask those questions, do you really hear the answers? And do you have empathy for where those answers are coming from?

The same words, coming from different places, often mean different things.

Understand what people are willing to say, and also get a feel for how willing they are to tell you and what their motives are when they tell you.

Where is the emotional place that this comes from?

If there's anything I've done well in my career, I feel it’s really nailing that balance. I can connect with people very quickly because I pay attention to their moods, facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and more, and I use them as a filter for the answers I'm getting.

As I’ve progressed in my career, I’ve gotten better at distinguishing a truth from a half-truth, and I’m willing to ask for more clarification. That’s a game changer when it comes to really digging into the root causes of problems in discovery.

That ability to connect also allows me to ask more challenging questions because my prospects usually appreciate the intent, even when the words don’t come out right.

I haven’t thought about that specifically until I answered this question, but what a powerful tool to have in your kit: the ability to ask tough, tricky questions while having something of a safety net in case you don’t ask them perfectly!

Two Quick Thoughts

Be more curious and less judgmental.

This has become a mini-mantra of mine and has helped open up a lot of bandwidth for me mentally, especially as it relates to my level of self-compassion.

Instead of being hard on myself, I look a little deeper into why I’m <insert pattern of behavior here>. Investigating the root cause of a behavior I’d like to change is far more effective than beating myself up about the behavior.

Selling is both a science and an art.

The science incorporates all the things that need to happen for a sale to be made.

The art is making everyone feel like it’s not a science.

This came up during a discussion with Krysten Conner about sales discovery. You’ll get the whole recording in a few weeks, but that little gem was worth sharing early.

AI Tip of the Week

There’s always been a lot of talk about AI changing the way we work and replacing human jobs. But I think that’s the wrong approach. AI is great at things that people aren’t very good at, and likewise, people are great at things that robots will never be good at.

The goal is to delegate the stuff we’re not as good at so we can do more of the things only we can do.

Having the bots take toil and menial work off your plate allows you to pay more attention to nuance and make better connections with people.

Spend less time taking notes in meetings and more time making eye contact. With that freed-up space, you can be so much more creative with those connections and the context you‘re working in.

It’s going to be a long time before a bot can take up that task.

Thanks again for being here. If this resonates, share it with a friend who’d find it useful—and keep an eye out for some cool rewards coming soon for spreading the word!

See you next week!

Cheers, JB