WEBVTT
00:00:00.119 --> 00:00:01.143
Hey, what is up?
00:00:01.143 --> 00:00:04.471
Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
00:00:04.471 --> 00:00:08.471
As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and I will tell you what.
00:00:08.471 --> 00:00:14.208
Whether you hate it, whether you adore it, you cannot ignore it when it comes to sales.
00:00:14.208 --> 00:00:28.411
Yes, we're all going to have to sell in all of our businesses, and that's why we've gone out and found someone who not only loves sales and loves training other people on sales, and understands what it takes to grow a business and really deeply serve people and do it through, yes, selling.
00:00:28.411 --> 00:00:29.373
We can't avoid that.
00:00:29.373 --> 00:00:32.109
But we've got someone who is an incredible entrepreneur.
00:00:32.109 --> 00:00:35.783
I already love this guy's energy and I'm excited for all of us to learn from him today.
00:00:35.783 --> 00:00:37.869
So let me introduce you to today's guest.
00:00:37.909 --> 00:00:39.301
His name is zach saban.
00:00:39.301 --> 00:00:49.250
Zach is a master trainer and leader with over 15 years in the insurance and financial services industry, known for transforming agents into top producers.
00:00:49.250 --> 00:00:52.390
He's trained thousands to achieve breakthrough results.
00:00:52.390 --> 00:01:05.629
Starting as a sales agent himself, zach built one of Michigan's top-ranked agencies before moving into leadership, where he led his territory to number one in the market in a national top 30 ranking.
00:01:05.629 --> 00:01:16.072
He's got a bunch of certifications and designations that I'll let him tell you all about, but Zach specializes in building scalable businesses, high-performing teams and a culture of excellence.
00:01:16.072 --> 00:01:26.512
And what I really appreciate all this stuff that I found when I looked up Zach and his work and his business is that this is someone who has a very strong bias towards action.
00:01:26.512 --> 00:01:28.968
We are all going to be pushed to our limits.
00:01:28.968 --> 00:01:32.030
It's going to be uncomfortable at times today, but I'm super excited.
00:01:32.030 --> 00:01:33.605
I'm not going to say anything else.
00:01:33.605 --> 00:01:36.228
Let's dive straight into my interview with Zach Sabin.
00:01:36.228 --> 00:01:42.730
All right, zach, I am so very excited that you're here with us today.
00:01:42.730 --> 00:01:43.822
First things first.
00:01:43.822 --> 00:01:46.391
Welcome to the show, thank you, Brian.
00:01:46.840 --> 00:01:53.025
Super excited to be here and excited to, yeah, talk to your audience a little bit about how to grow and scale through sales.
00:01:53.527 --> 00:01:53.847
Heck.
00:01:53.847 --> 00:01:58.906
Yes, zach, it's not necessarily a topic that they're going to want to hear about, but we're definitely going to put it on them today.
00:01:58.906 --> 00:02:01.429
But before we get there, take us beyond the bio.
00:02:01.429 --> 00:02:02.100
Who's Zach?
00:02:02.100 --> 00:02:03.846
How did you start doing all these cool things?
00:02:04.486 --> 00:02:05.448
Yeah, absolutely.
00:02:05.448 --> 00:02:06.813
It's funny.
00:02:06.813 --> 00:02:09.227
I kind of stumbled into sales.
00:02:09.227 --> 00:02:12.550
I tell people all the time it was kind of the best thing that ever happened to me.
00:02:12.759 --> 00:02:15.008
I went to school to be a teacher.
00:02:15.240 --> 00:02:48.967
I love coaching and teaching, obviously, but I wanted to coach sports and I wanted to be a high school teacher and I ended up working in retail and decided I didn't want to give up my full-time job to go back and pay full tuition to be an unpaid student teacher and so I ended up in retail management and then, by chance, found my first sales role and was attracted to it purely for the fact that I was going to be paid based off of my performance as a former athlete um, you know, college athlete.
00:02:49.167 --> 00:03:10.394
It motivated me to know that I was going to be paid based off of how well I did my job and how much time I was willing to put into learning the craft and becoming really great, uh, at helping people, and so that was kind of what motivated me to get into it and just kind of fell in love with the business and have been in insurance It'll be 16 years in May.
00:03:10.394 --> 00:03:21.413
It's hard to believe it, but it's gone fast and just have a passion for watching others succeed and achieving their goals by helping other people, and that's really what sales is.
00:03:21.413 --> 00:03:24.563
Sales is not the old school mindset that a lot of people have.
00:03:24.563 --> 00:03:29.028
You're not doing something to someone, you're doing something for someone, and that's why I love it.
00:03:29.028 --> 00:03:35.186
If you're coaching and teaching in the right way, you're having a huge impact on those that you serve, and that's what I try to do every day.
00:03:35.901 --> 00:03:48.467
Yeah, I love that overview, Zach, and I will tell you this I constantly remind listeners that that when we have amazing guests on such as yourself, you are not just a subject matter expert, but you are one of us, you are a fellow entrepreneur.
00:03:48.467 --> 00:03:54.030
So I'd love for you to talk to us about that transition into launching your own company, ignite Agency Training.
00:03:54.030 --> 00:03:55.947
Walk us through the beginning days of that.
00:03:57.224 --> 00:04:00.667
Yeah, it was one of the hardest but best decisions that I ever made.
00:04:00.667 --> 00:04:10.389
You know, I had a very fulfilling role in the corporate world before leaving, and somebody that always wants to live with no regrets.
00:04:10.389 --> 00:04:24.850
I don't want to, you know, not bet on myself, and so I contemplated starting the company for a long time and finally it got to a point where I knew if I didn't take action today, if I don't do this now, I never will.
00:04:24.850 --> 00:04:27.461
I would have kept working in my role.
00:04:27.461 --> 00:04:35.627
I had a great group of agents that I was basically doing business consulting with, and I decided to take the leap of faith to bet on myself.
00:04:35.627 --> 00:04:38.401
And I've done that multiple times, you know.
00:04:38.562 --> 00:04:43.141
When I left my retail job to go into a full commission sales role, it was a leap of faith.
00:04:43.141 --> 00:04:50.261
When I left my team member role to open an agency and be a business owner for the first time as an agency owner, it was a leap of faith.
00:04:50.261 --> 00:05:01.062
When I left that to move into the corporate world, it was a leap of faith, and I always trust that if I work hard and I focus on helping those that I'm serving get what they want, I'll get what I want tenfold.
00:05:01.062 --> 00:05:12.206
So I decided to resign and launch this virtual on-demand interactive training system for insurance agents back in October of 2023.
00:05:12.206 --> 00:05:13.769
And it has been a wild ride.
00:05:13.769 --> 00:05:18.766
It has been a journey and it is very different than running an insurance agency.
00:05:18.766 --> 00:05:21.814
There's so much to get your arms around.
00:05:21.814 --> 00:05:31.562
Being an insurance agency owner is not easy, but this has been one of the most challenging yet rewarding things that I've ever done, and I'm so glad that I made the decision to do it.
00:05:32.202 --> 00:05:44.987
Yes, I am also glad as well, Zach, because just having seen the content that you put into the world and the way that you show up, not only is your messaging very uplifting and encouraging and, like I said in the intro, it has a strong bias to action.
00:05:44.987 --> 00:05:54.584
Even just talking with you here today, it makes me want to do the work, makes me want to put those reps in, but what I really appreciate, Zach, is the fact that you openly acknowledge I mean, sales is such an important thing.
00:05:54.584 --> 00:05:58.043
You said it's not something we do to people, it's something we do for them.
00:05:58.043 --> 00:05:59.305
Let's start there.
00:05:59.305 --> 00:06:07.987
Let's reframe the traditional old school way of viewing sales, which I don't think we can have this conversation without throwing used car salesmen under the bus.
00:06:07.987 --> 00:06:09.411
That's like the old cliche.
00:06:09.411 --> 00:06:14.940
But walk us through your view on sales and the new way that we really need to be embracing it as part of our growth journey.
00:06:15.442 --> 00:06:16.622
Yeah, absolutely.
00:06:16.622 --> 00:06:23.391
You know sales is about change and helping customers solve a problem.
00:06:23.391 --> 00:06:48.146
I tell the people that I work with all the time your job as a sales professional isn't to sell a product, it's to find the customer's problem that you're best served to help them with and then walk them through a process of asking really good questions so that they start to self-discover that there might be potential concerns.
00:06:48.146 --> 00:06:53.220
And in the insurance world specifically, we're selling non-tangible products.
00:06:53.220 --> 00:06:59.213
We're selling things that most people not most people nobody ever wants to use.
00:06:59.213 --> 00:07:03.560
But when they do, they're glad they have it if it's done for the right reason.
00:07:03.560 --> 00:07:05.341
But when they do, they're glad they have it if it's done for the right reason.
00:07:05.341 --> 00:07:27.504
And so I use something that I've kind of dubbed emotional insight questioning, where we are trying to tie into the emotion that we know drives decision making and then help the customer finalize the decision using the logic that we have the right solution to help them solve the problem that is presented to us based off of the conversations that we're having with them.
00:07:27.504 --> 00:07:29.790
It's not a one size fits all approach.
00:07:29.790 --> 00:07:33.007
It's not this policy is the best for you or that policy is the best for you.
00:07:33.007 --> 00:07:41.052
It's what are some of the consequences or potential impacts to you if something happens and this problem isn't solved.
00:07:41.052 --> 00:07:41.802
What does that look like?
00:07:41.802 --> 00:07:53.492
And so being very consultative and asking really good questions and then being comfortable sitting and listening and being empathetic and actively paying attention to what the customer has to say.
00:07:53.579 --> 00:08:03.586
A lot of times sales professionals they ask questions with the intent to respond, not with the actual intent to listen, and I coach that all the time.
00:08:03.586 --> 00:08:05.507
You have two ears, one mouth.
00:08:05.507 --> 00:08:06.961
You need to use them accordingly.
00:08:06.961 --> 00:08:34.703
And so I talk about if you're recording yourself and listening back to your sales conversations and you're talking more than 30%, 40% of the time, you're probably not very successful, because that means the customer's not getting their voice in the room enough, they're not thinking out loud, they don't view you as a trusted partner, right, they're surface level, they're not giving you the information that you need to help them, and so that's kind of the philosophy that I have.
00:08:34.744 --> 00:08:37.831
We focus on asking great questions throughout the process.
00:08:37.831 --> 00:08:39.261
We don't push people.
00:08:39.261 --> 00:08:44.254
We don't try to, you know, force people into conversations that they don't want to have.
00:08:44.254 --> 00:08:46.860
It's about what is in the best interest of the customer.
00:08:47.421 --> 00:09:31.011
In the insurance world, I've kind of dubbed this the insurance professionals manifesto and it goes like this Our role as insurance professionals is to help every customer that we get to interact with understand all of the risks they face and all of the options that we have to protect themselves, so that they can make an informed decision about how we can help them and whether they want to do business with us or not, because that's whose choice it is it's the customers and unfortunately, in the insurance industry, there's a lot of conversation about price and a lot of people are just trying to save people money, and that leaves the customer in a situation where, if there's a bad situation, they're gonna have to pay a lot of money out of pocket, and that's just not something that I've ever wanted and something I don't want to teach the people that trust me to help them get better.
00:09:31.816 --> 00:09:32.961
Yeah, Zach, I'll tell you what.
00:09:32.961 --> 00:09:43.150
Obviously, in close to 1100 episodes, we've talked about sales in so many different capacities before, but I've never heard someone talk about questions and questioning in the way that you just did.
00:09:43.150 --> 00:10:00.932
You talked about leading someone to a process of self-discovery about their needs, and I think that's such a brilliant approach, even on the surface level, because I can imagine that if you tell me that I need something, okay cool, you can rationalize and logic it to me, especially as an analyst by nature.
00:10:00.932 --> 00:10:03.465
You can definitely rationalize with me.
00:10:03.465 --> 00:10:11.611
However, if I can come to that conclusion, then I trust you, and now I'm just looking for you to be the provider of that solution.
00:10:11.611 --> 00:10:13.443
Talk to us about that self-discovery.
00:10:13.443 --> 00:10:16.711
I don't think that is a common message in the sales world.
00:10:18.481 --> 00:10:29.692
Yeah, it was one of the first things that I ever and it's heard, and it was the first sales book I ever read, so I'm going to give credit where credit is due Jeffrey Gittimer, one of the sales goats.
00:10:29.692 --> 00:10:43.081
He wrote a book called the Sales Bible and he says very blatantly in that book people love to buy, but they hate to be sold.
00:10:43.081 --> 00:10:55.094
And what that means to me is we love to spend our money on things that either make us happy or prevent us from being upset, aka solve a problem.
00:10:55.094 --> 00:11:11.004
And in the role of a sales professional, our job is to help the customer buy, never feel like they're being sold, and that is how successful salespeople get to the levels they do.
00:11:11.004 --> 00:11:27.121
They focus on helping the customer think through the problems that they have, think through how they want to address them and then ultimately make the decision that they choose based off of the information that they've been provided.
00:11:27.121 --> 00:11:30.869
I tell people stop pitching and start helping.
00:11:30.869 --> 00:11:33.754
Find a way to help the customer.
00:11:34.701 --> 00:11:38.698
The people that I get the chance to work with, most of them are multi-line insurance agents.
00:11:38.698 --> 00:11:42.489
They have lots of ways to help the customer, not just one.
00:11:42.489 --> 00:12:05.969
They may come to you to talk about auto insurance, but they don't know how you could help them with their homeowners, their renter's insurance if they're a renter life insurance, disability and so we don't know how we can help them either if we don't go through kind of the four key types of questions, which are circumstance, what are your current circumstances, what's your current situation, what are your obstacles?
00:12:05.969 --> 00:12:07.491
Right, what are some of the challenges?
00:12:07.491 --> 00:12:08.793
Why are you shopping?
00:12:09.419 --> 00:12:11.167
Nobody likes to shop for car insurance.
00:12:11.167 --> 00:12:11.708
It's a.
00:12:11.708 --> 00:12:19.168
It's a it's a thing that really people probably disdain, um, and so we have to find out why are they shopping?
00:12:19.168 --> 00:12:32.023
And then cut through the myth that price is all that matters, and then get to the impact or consequences of failing to take the right action and ultimately help them see what the the benefit is of doing business with us.
00:12:32.023 --> 00:12:47.068
And so it's a very uh focused and structured process, uh, where we we're asking, you know, very emotional questions to get people to think about the future, because insurance is something we never think about today, but we also don't get to go back and change it in the future.
00:12:47.068 --> 00:12:50.360
I can't fix a claim after I've had it right.
00:12:50.360 --> 00:12:56.466
Um, I have to think about the consequences of something happening and we have to paint vivid pictures and stories for people to do that.
00:12:56.567 --> 00:13:01.527
that comes through questions yeah, zach, I noticed that you said structured and not scripted is.
00:13:01.527 --> 00:13:02.509
Is that intentional?
00:13:04.032 --> 00:13:04.331
It is.
00:13:04.331 --> 00:13:19.899
I am a big believer in scripting, I'm a big believer in the use of scripts, but as a way to practice, I tell people and you should practice your script until you know it as well as you know how to breathe.
00:13:19.899 --> 00:13:39.726
Because if you can have a conversation with somebody and logically think about the next question or the next step in your process without having to invite your own disruptive emotions into the conversation, that's when you know you've got it locked in and you've got it figured out.
00:13:39.726 --> 00:13:57.557
But that comes through hours and hours of repetition and practice, and repetition is one of the key ingredients to successful training in any industry, in any endeavor, whether it's health and fitness or it's insurance sales or it's, you know, b2b sales.
00:13:57.557 --> 00:14:06.677
Repetition is how we get better and I think that's a common misnomer and why it's one of the core ingredients that I talk about with successful training.
00:14:07.581 --> 00:14:12.575
Yeah, all right, we have to go there then, because it's right, in the name of your company, ignite agency training.
00:14:12.575 --> 00:14:13.496
Let's talk about training.
00:14:13.496 --> 00:14:26.265
A lot of people think and I'm so excited for you to call this out a lot of people think that salesmen are born or you know they just have the right personality, or someone's a good salesman and someone is not, as if it's a core part of our identity.
00:14:26.605 --> 00:14:29.873
Clearly, you believe and you know that this can be trained.
00:14:29.873 --> 00:14:30.914
What is it about training?
00:14:30.914 --> 00:14:32.577
Is this a skill set that we learn?
00:14:32.577 --> 00:14:33.438
What does that look like?
00:14:34.345 --> 00:14:37.605
Yeah, it absolutely is a skill set that can be developed.
00:14:37.605 --> 00:14:51.125
When people ask me what it takes to be successful in sales and it doesn't matter the product you're selling, it doesn't matter the industry I really say there's only a few things you have to enjoy people, you have to be a communicator.
00:14:51.125 --> 00:14:52.125
You have to enjoy people, you have to be a communicator.
00:14:52.125 --> 00:14:54.509
You have to enjoy being around people for the most part.
00:14:54.509 --> 00:15:00.190
But after that I really want somebody that is willing to work hard, because it's not easy.
00:15:00.190 --> 00:15:01.875
If it were easy, everybody would do it.
00:15:01.875 --> 00:15:05.519
That's why sales professionals are paid as well as they are, that are really good.
00:15:06.142 --> 00:15:07.245
So you have to be willing to work hard.
00:15:07.245 --> 00:15:17.772
You have to be willing to do things that others aren't, and that means stretching outside of your comfort zone, staying late, working weekends, holidays sometimes, to to outperform those around you and you have to be coachable.
00:15:17.772 --> 00:15:33.264
And if you have those three characteristics, I can give you the skills to be successful If you're willing to put in the work and you're willing to do the four things that I believe are required to call something training.
00:15:33.264 --> 00:15:41.336
But it starts with those three core attributes You've got to like people and you've got to be willing to be in conversations with people.
00:15:41.336 --> 00:15:53.833
You don't have to be an overly great communicator we can teach that but you've got to enjoy being around people, you've got to be willing to work hard and you've got to be coachable, and then we can layer the skills in with the four key ingredients to successful training.
00:15:54.816 --> 00:15:59.715
Yeah, zach, I want to go here with you because you and I were talking about it off air before we hit record together.
00:15:59.715 --> 00:16:02.912
And that is personality types extroverts, introverts.
00:16:02.912 --> 00:16:15.006
Too many people think that you have to be extroverted and I see I mean you clearly laid it out for us right there that you have to like people, you have to like being in conversation.
00:16:15.006 --> 00:16:20.028
But how do you work through that for people who may have that limiting factor or limiting belief of, well, I'm an extrovert, zach, I'm not going to have the energy Like that's draining for me.
00:16:20.028 --> 00:16:21.811
How do you navigate that with those people?
00:16:22.666 --> 00:16:31.028
Yeah, I think it's finding the reason why you want to be in sales in the first place, and it's not for everybody.
00:16:31.028 --> 00:16:42.592
Some of the best salespeople that I've ever had the chance to work with are naturally introverted people, but at their core they want to help other people.
00:16:42.592 --> 00:16:55.731
So they get past that fear of being in those types of conversations by focusing on what they do enjoy, which is helping people, and they get energy out of helping people.
00:16:55.731 --> 00:17:14.316
Now, if I sat a naturally introverted person in a sales chair and had them read an old school, overly salesy script for eight hours a day and the whole goal behind that script was to do nothing more than to sell products to people, whether it was the right fit or not.
00:17:14.316 --> 00:17:16.465
But we have quotas to hit, we have targets to hit.
00:17:17.269 --> 00:17:18.776
That's going to drain that person's energy.
00:17:18.776 --> 00:17:20.785
That's going to drain an extrovert's energy, but.
00:17:20.785 --> 00:17:24.577
But that is an absolute recipe for burnout and disaster for an introvert.
00:17:24.577 --> 00:17:55.567
But if I can get a naturally introverted person into a role where they are feeling empowered and in like they're making a difference in helping the person on the other than the phone, that fear or the anxiety of being in that type of environment actually goes away because it's trumped by the joy of seeing the, the smile, or hearing the excitement or or the, the relief in the other end of the phone when the person has their problems solved.
00:17:56.369 --> 00:18:14.150
And so I think it all comes back to the type of role that we're trying to put them in from a sales perspective and then, building on those skills, and as confidence grows, we stretch, we get outside of the comfort zone, into the learning zone and then we, you know, get into kind of the strength zone.
00:18:14.150 --> 00:18:33.762
And that's where I found success and I believe, yeah, some of the best people are naturally introverted and I shared with you, you know, I'm an extrovert in some ways and an introvert in a lot of ways, and it just depends on the environment and what I'm doing in that moment.
00:18:34.522 --> 00:18:36.284
Yeah, I really appreciate those insights.
00:18:36.284 --> 00:18:48.368
I'm so excited for you to cross this bridge for us, because what I appreciate about your training style and everything I've read about your business is it's actually not merely about information or education, it is about that action.
00:18:48.368 --> 00:18:51.656
Talk to us about what that training actually looks like.
00:18:51.656 --> 00:18:53.050
What's the process look like?
00:18:53.050 --> 00:18:59.911
How do you, as someone who's leading that ship, ensure that people actually take action with the stuff that you're providing them with?
00:19:00.744 --> 00:19:02.070
Yeah, it's a great question.
00:19:02.070 --> 00:19:06.969
It goes back to the four key ingredients I've mentioned a couple times.
00:19:06.969 --> 00:19:26.906
Most people believe that training is all about content, and so I can listen to a podcast like this, or I can watch a video on YouTube, or I can subscribe to Ignite Agency Training and I can watch the videos there and I can read a book and I'm going to just get better through osmosis.
00:19:26.906 --> 00:19:29.311
That's not how we get better.
00:19:29.311 --> 00:19:33.940
There is a common myth out there that knowledge is power.
00:19:33.940 --> 00:19:36.269
Knowledge is not power.
00:19:36.269 --> 00:19:43.612
Applied knowledge is power, and if we don't ever use the information, we can't say that we've trained.
00:19:43.612 --> 00:19:46.702
We might have learned, but we haven't trained.
00:19:46.702 --> 00:19:57.305
Training is something that is intended to change behavior and it is intentional and it changes an outcome, and so training isn't just good content, it's not watching content or acting with content.
00:19:57.305 --> 00:20:03.507
It requires the other three key ingredients and we try to build that into the system as much as we possibly can.
00:20:03.507 --> 00:20:06.493
But those ingredients are repetition.
00:20:06.493 --> 00:20:07.476
I talked about that earlier.
00:20:07.476 --> 00:20:19.486
The average human needs around 7 to 11 interactions or repetitions with a piece of information before they ever are at a level of confidence to implement it consistently.
00:20:19.486 --> 00:20:28.029
And even once we do a lot of times we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed, because it's a lot like working out.
00:20:28.029 --> 00:20:41.210
I could build my muscles to be the strongest they've ever been, but if I stop working them out in the same vigor that I had before, they're going to actually over time, even if I still work out.
00:20:41.210 --> 00:20:48.236
If I change the way that I work out, the muscles are going to change and our sales conversations change over time without repetition.
00:20:48.236 --> 00:20:51.089
And then the third ingredient is practice.
00:20:51.089 --> 00:20:53.916
Salespeople, they hate role playing.
00:20:53.916 --> 00:21:01.367
They hate role playing because most people do it the wrong way.
00:21:01.367 --> 00:21:04.373
Role playing shouldn't be designed to be the entire conversation every single time we role play.
00:21:04.373 --> 00:21:18.981
When you think back to playing sports or playing a musical instrument or being a performer in the choir whatever it was that you did where you were performing you didn't get better playing the game.
00:21:18.981 --> 00:21:24.736
You got better doing drills and you got better scrimmaging, and that is how we get better as well.
00:21:24.736 --> 00:21:26.226
Role play should be short.
00:21:26.226 --> 00:21:41.269
It should be one small aspect of the conversation that we're trying to improve and it should be multiple repetitions of that, just like when I go to the gym.
00:21:41.269 --> 00:21:46.615
The analogy I use is I could go to the gym every day and I could work out and do one rep on every machine in the gym, but can I say I'm going to get better faster doing that?
00:21:46.615 --> 00:21:57.492
No, I'm going to get better by practicing the same skills multiple times, in short, succinct sessions, day after day after day.
00:21:57.492 --> 00:21:59.297
So repetition and practice.
00:21:59.396 --> 00:22:14.855
And then last is accountability, which, in the business world, is another one of those buzzwords that gets a lot of negativity around it, and I believe personally that accountability is ultimately about personal ownership over the opportunity that you've been provided, and this is what I tell people about accountability.
00:22:14.855 --> 00:22:20.115
If you work for a leader, that has provided you with clarity about your role.
00:22:20.115 --> 00:22:22.407
So what is the role that you serve in the business?
00:22:22.407 --> 00:22:32.813
They've provided you with clear goals, so you know what your goals are and how you are serving the business, and then you know what is expected of you from an activity standpoint.
00:22:32.924 --> 00:22:35.855
So in sales we call it leading indicators and lagging indicators.
00:22:35.855 --> 00:22:49.971
If you know what those three things are and your goals and your expectations are realistic and you're failing to hold up to your end of the bargain, you either have a skill or a will issue and we need to fix that.
00:22:49.971 --> 00:22:55.491
We need to hold you accountable because you're not serving the role that the business has hired you to do.
00:22:55.491 --> 00:22:59.571
But if you're doing those things consistently, we should never get into that conversation.
00:22:59.571 --> 00:23:04.173
And that's the goal is to identify do I have a skill issue or do I have a will issue as a leader?
00:23:04.173 --> 00:23:19.326
And then from there we focus on fixing the skill issue and we coach up or coach out on the will issue, because those are really hard to change, but we have to be willing to do what's required to call it training oh, zach, I'll tell you what.
00:23:19.365 --> 00:23:24.445
you are living up to the expectation that I set at the top of this episode about that bias to action.
00:23:24.445 --> 00:23:26.770
I've never heard that skill versus will.
00:23:26.770 --> 00:23:29.990
Gosh listeners, I hope none of you have a will issue.
00:23:29.990 --> 00:23:39.054
I hope that it comes down to that skill and we can plug a lot of those gaps here, because, as Zach said, content can be the catalyst, it can be that spark that makes you go deeper.
00:23:39.054 --> 00:23:44.234
But you have to practice these things and that only comes from having that will and tying it.
00:23:44.234 --> 00:23:48.111
Zach, I love the fact that you bake accountability into this, because it's so important.
00:23:48.111 --> 00:23:51.372
Actually, I wanna go a little bit deeper when it comes to reps and consistency.
00:23:51.372 --> 00:23:55.828
It's something that you and I have both preached and hammered home quite a few times in our conversation today.
00:23:56.289 --> 00:23:58.275
I think about it within terms of podcasting.
00:23:58.275 --> 00:24:01.330
Whenever people ask me, oh, I want to start a podcast, what's your best advice?
00:24:01.330 --> 00:24:07.211
I always tell them the same thing, zach, I say don't start unless you're willing to hit episode 100.
00:24:07.211 --> 00:24:10.718
If you're going to do it for less than 100 episodes, save yourself the time.
00:24:10.718 --> 00:24:17.201
So few shows in the history of humanity have made it, so to speak, in less than 100 episodes.
00:24:17.201 --> 00:24:19.932
You have to be willing to go there, regardless of results.
00:24:20.012 --> 00:24:25.710
And I think about all the people beginning stage entrepreneurs who try sales.
00:24:25.710 --> 00:24:35.875
That term drives me crazy, zach of try, but I've heard people who say, yeah, I tried to sell my products or services to people and they didn't buy and I think, did you follow up with them?
00:24:35.875 --> 00:24:40.734
Talk to us about that back end support, the follow ups, the reps, the touch points.
00:24:40.734 --> 00:24:41.817
You talked about frequency.
00:24:41.817 --> 00:24:42.727
We've all heard that.
00:24:42.727 --> 00:24:47.508
Number of you know you have to get in front of someone seven times for them to make a purchasing decision.
00:24:47.508 --> 00:24:49.270
How do you navigate that?
00:24:49.270 --> 00:24:55.180
What's embedded in your approach to frequency and follow-ups and supporting it so we actually get those results?
00:24:55.964 --> 00:25:08.991
Yeah, I believe wholeheartedly that prospecting and follow-up is what separates great salespeople from average salespeople.
00:25:08.991 --> 00:25:12.358
And I'm going to tell you a funny story.
00:25:12.358 --> 00:25:20.136
One of my former agents, one of my closest friends, is an insurance agent.
00:25:20.136 --> 00:25:29.419
He owns three agencies and we used to have workshops where we would do role plays, and these were the longer form.
00:25:29.419 --> 00:25:36.281
We actually had a kind of a competition and they had to come in and perform our point of sale conversations.
00:25:36.281 --> 00:25:38.769
So somebody's requesting information on auto insurance.
00:25:38.769 --> 00:25:51.815
The goal is to have a needs-based, value-driven conversation, identify opportunities for other conversations about other needs and ultimately get the customer to make a decision to help us, help them.
00:25:51.815 --> 00:26:02.876
And so this person that was role-playing had an excellent conversation, absolutely killed it, and so we went through and we gave him all of this feedback on some things he could improve and how well he did.
00:26:02.876 --> 00:26:16.891
And this agent sat his pen down and he knew intimately about the activity level of the salesperson, because the agent he worked for was one of his closest friends and in the analogy used, he said that was one of the best conversations I've ever heard.
00:26:16.891 --> 00:26:26.577
But the downside is you don't talk to enough people to make it relevant, because that kind of conversation is going to have a real impact on people.
00:26:26.577 --> 00:26:31.051
But it's kind of like being the best singer in the world, but only singing in the shower.
00:26:31.051 --> 00:26:34.561
Does it count If nobody ever hears it?
00:26:34.561 --> 00:26:50.511
And what he was getting at was this person was executing the conversation at an amazingly high level but wasn't doing the work that it required to get in front of the right number of people to ultimately achieve the goals that had been set for him or that he had set for himself.
00:26:51.316 --> 00:27:01.438
And so you can be the best salesperson ever, but if you do not have a systematic approach to nurturing and following up with your leads, then you're going to fail.
00:27:01.438 --> 00:27:09.242
And if you do not have a compelling reason for the customer to stay engaged with you, then you're going to fail.
00:27:09.242 --> 00:27:22.920
I teach people all the time you should never use the words just checking in or just following up in your follow-up, because that screams salesperson, that screams desperation.
00:27:22.920 --> 00:27:28.096
Find something that leads into the value of what you talked about the first time.
00:27:28.096 --> 00:27:36.269
Find something that you can give of value in that next step, in that next text message or email.
00:27:36.269 --> 00:27:58.132
What are you going to do to continue to nurture the relationship and deepen the relationship, and do it at enough of a frequency where you stay top of mind and then, most importantly, when you do get some kind of commitment, making sure that you are locking that next step up and getting a specific date, a specific time.
00:27:58.152 --> 00:28:01.981
A lot of sales people out there leave their success up to chance.
