Transcript Below:
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Welcome to grind grind, sell elevate with your host Tyzer Evans, a podcast dedicated to bringing you the top minds in all areas of business, entrepreneurship, sales, and leadership. Let’s elevate together.
Speaker 1 00:00:20 Everybody. Thanks so much for joining me on the grind. Sound LA. This is Ty your host this week. I sit down and talk to Andrea waltz. Who’s the author of go for? No, which was one of the top 50 sales books ever written. She sold over a half-million copies, she and her husband also co-founded courage, crafters. So we jumped into what does this goes for now? His message is for salespeople and just people in general. So check it out if you guys haven’t done it. So please subscribe to the podcast and you could drop me a five-star review that makes it easier for other people to be able to find it on iTunes. If you want to follow me on social media, I’m very active. Go check out Thais Jevons across all platforms, but without further ado, here’s my conversation with Andrea.
Speaker 3 00:01:06 Hi everybody. Thanks so much for joining me today on grindstone at elevate. This is Thai and I’ve got Andrea waltz with me, Andrea. How
Speaker 4 00:01:12 Are you? I am doing awesome. Good to be with you.
Speaker 3 00:01:15 Yeah. Thanks so much for joining us today. Um, what, just for context purposes, I’d love to have you introduce yourself, uh, to the audience. I know w we’ll mostly be talking about all things sales today, but just about who you are and kind of what your journey has been.
Speaker 4 00:01:28 Yeah. Um, so name’s Andrea waltz. I am the best known as the co-author of a, of a little fable called gopher. No subtitle. Yes. Is the destination. No is how you get there. It is a book about how to, um, change the way you think and feel about rejection, primarily our advices not to avoid no, but if you want to get more yeses in your business, um, in your career and your life, then you need to be hearing no more often. That’s kind of the context of it. And, um, I have been on an entrepreneurial journey now for over 20 years, I was in the corporate world. Um, retail actually is my background, my husband and I decided we’d launch our company. Um, and, uh, basically had no idea what we were doing. Um, and just started out, uh, like cold calling, large fortune 1000 retailers, asking them if we could do training for them, speak for them.
Speaker 4 00:02:27 And somehow miraculously, I think because we spoke their language, uh, we got hired and go for Noah’s one of the things that we would teach. So we kind of focused on that industry for a few years. And then eventually we recognize that, uh, rejection is not just a problem for people who sell, beat it like B to C sales, rejection is everyone deals with it. And so we decided that we really just focus on this idea of go for no. And so that’s what we’ve been doing now for like the last really like hardcore, probably seven or eight years is just, um, where we don’t focus on any particular industry. Um, you know, whether it’s SAS or whether it’s enterprise or anything, we just focus on, um, this message and helping salespeople and sales focus leaders deal with with the word. No,
Speaker 3 00:03:22 And it’s tough. It is. I don’t, yeah, I, I I’m, I’m more in a production role, so I deal with it on a, uh, you know, on a daily basis myself. Um, which I think that’s kind of the, one of the benefits, I think for people listening to grindstone, elevate that know that I, whatever I’m doing and whatever I’m talking about, I actually do on a day-to-day basis. Right. Absolutely like yourself, you know, when you’re out there and you’re looking for contracts to coach people you’re facing the same type of rejection that you’re teaching about.
Speaker 4 00:03:51 Yeah, absolutely. And, um, it, while the context may change and certainly with technology, it’s changed, like LinkedIn makes things easier and yeah, you can DM people all day long. You still have to deal with a certain amount of rejection on eventually. Like I tell people all the time, um, you can make, you can put certain things, I guess you would say kind of, uh, roadblocks up to protect yourself. But ultimately we all have to ask for the business at some stage in the process. And if you don’t, then you’re going to find yourself going like, wow, I’m having a lot of great conversations and I’m not, I’m not closing any sales. Why, why is that happening? Because a lot of people, you know, they just go like, well, I made this presentation and then it just kinda died from there. So this idea of asking is it’s huge and it’s everywhere and you’re right.
Speaker 4 00:04:43 It’s not, it’s not easy. And it’s really the elephant in the room. And I always say that like enlightened leaders, it’s the enlightened leaders that really ended up hiring us to come in and do a presentation or whatever, because they recognize this, this is an issue. And we might as well deal with it and talk about it a little bit, like just openly. And honestly, and that way we’re not pretending like, oh, everyone is, um, people are teens and they can just go through the numbers and they can just, and, and it doesn’t affect them. No, let’s talk about it and deal with like the mindset behind it.
Speaker 3 00:05:19 It is a mindset. And it’s so interesting, especially for young salespeople. I know that you jumped out as an entrepreneur at 24, so good for you. Um, and so I got into sales early, too in my early twenties, and nobody was talking to me about mindset or what it takes to deal with rejection. Actually, one of my first, um, my first sales managers, I won’t mention his name, but he says he’s actually still a pretty good friend, but, uh, this is when I started selling personalized insurance. So it was very transactional, B2C, you know, it’s pretty much like I, in some ways you got to close the person on that call or, you know, that visit or there, you’re probably not going to talk to them again. Um, regardless of diligence, your follow-ups are. And so anyway, but if you got into a conversation and you were talking a lot and he knows that you’re talking too much, and then the person left and they didn’t buy, he would start playing that song from toy story.
Speaker 3 00:06:11 Um, the friends song, I forget my rant by Randy Newman, you know, and he was like, Hey man, we’re not here to make friends. We’re here to do business. Right. And because a lot of people, they get, they feel really good about we’re having a great conversation, we’re building some rapport and then they know they’ve got to ask for the sale. And then they completely just shit the bed because they get like, ah, well, I don’t want to ruin all this great energy. We just had some, maybe I just collect an email address and we move forward. Maybe walk us a little bit through that psychology and why people do that?
Speaker 4 00:06:43 Yeah. Well, it’s funny you bring that up because we actually have this, um, model that we, that we created. And it’s kind of, it’s like one of these kind of standard four quadrant models where we, cross-reference what we consider to be the two biggest concerns for salespeople. One is building relationships, or at least if you’re not building relationships, it’s like having people like you because we all want, you know, we all want that. And then the second piece to that is getting results. So making the sale. And so if you take those two concerns of getting the sale, getting results and relationships, and you cross reference them, you get like this four quadrant style. And so in the upper left quadrant, I’m doing this without schematics here. Um, and the upper left quadrant is the person that has a really high concern for being liked, but they have a lower concern for results.
Speaker 4 00:07:36 And it doesn’t mean they’re not entirely yet, like they don’t want results at all, but it’s just, they’re willing to kind of put the results behind the fact that they are this great relationship builder and they’re in the service. And, um, you know, they’re into like people liking them. And so what ends up happening is exactly what you described now, the opposite person is the one who only cares about results. And those are like the, you know, numbers people, and, and it is a numbers game to them. They don’t really care about relationships, um, unless somebody is paying them. And so that’s really on the opposite. And so what we try to move people to, and this again, is a total mindset thing is, well, how can you have both? Can you have a like, Hey, I want people to like me and like working with the company and the process, that whole thing, um, to where they like it so much, they are happy to refer business to us.
Speaker 4 00:08:30 And then simultaneously, can you also have the courage to ask for the sale, ask for the business and that’s the person we call. So the first one, to your point, we call that the friend that’s the label is the friend. And then the one that we’re aspiring to is the, um, advisor. I mean, that’s, that’s really kind of that ultimate style. And what we have found is a lot of the, the friends style, their biggest fear is just, they don’t want to look like that, that adversarial style, which we also kind of joke is the shark. Um, so, you know, they don’t want their there, so I’m concerned about that. And they think that when you tell them like, uh, like if a sales manager tells them, Hey, you need to ask for the business. They think they’re being told to be like a shark, like go out there and hammer people. They don’t realize like, oh, I can do that. And still maintain friends status.
Speaker 3 00:09:24 Yeah. That’s interesting. I’m always curious. Do you, do, are you a strong believer? I know because you consult for a lot of companies in doing those personality tests beforehand to try to flush that out.
Speaker 4 00:09:36 Yeah. You know, I have like no personal, I’ve taken a couple of those. I’ve had no personal experience with them and I’m in a group called women sales pros. And I know that the lady who now runs that, um, and that was founded by a woman named Joel Konrath. Um, she was like one of the big, first, really big, um, women, women, uh, like sales speaker trainers out there. Um, she kind of blazed the trail and Lori Richardson took over for her. And I know Lori does that assessment like those assessments. And I think, I think, you know, I’ve seen some numbers. I mean, their predictability on a lot of that stuff I think is pretty high because they’re asking questions of, you know, your basically your values and your beliefs. And so I, you know, and I’ve, like I said, I’ve taken one and I had a very high like that kind of, um, you know, relational, you know, people pleasing, however you want to look at it, um, type personality. And you have to like manage that with having that drive for results. So I think those are probably in a lot of cases, pretty accurate.
Speaker 3 00:10:50 Yeah. It’s always interesting. Um, I I’ve used them at several different companies, you know, there’s always exceptions to the rule, right. You’re always going to find that one person you’re like, Hmm, no, but then they somehow that’s their way and they always make it work. I’m just curious. It kind of, I hop all over the place. So don’t mind me. I wanted to know, like what got you kind of, I know you said you did retail sales, but like what in your mind kind of clicked? I think a lot of people think about this and a lot of people wind up in sales at an early age. Like I did, maybe like you did, because they’re like, shit, I went to college or I didn’t go to college and seems like a good way to make a reasonable about a money. So I kind of just fall into it. That’s how I happened with me. I won some awards in college, selling surfboards and stuff. And I was like, well, I don’t really know what I want to do with my degree that I paid all this money for some people just go into sales. How did you get your start?
Speaker 4 00:11:43 Um, very similar. So I got a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice and right when I was finishing, I was working at LensCrafters. I, they wanted to promote me to assistant manager. And I was like, well, I’m really, I wanted to be a crime scene investigator. And this was before it was cool before there were any TV shows about it a long time ago. And the Sheriff’s department was like, well, here’s the good news. Um, you can be an intern. We can’t offer you a job, but you can work for free. It might be two, three or four years. Just keep working for free, keep showing up. And eventually a position will open. And I was like, Hmm. Yeah, I’m ready to make some money. I’m, I’m really tired of being the starving college student. It’s really cute for awhile. And then it gets very old.
Speaker 4 00:12:28 So LensCrafters is over here going like, we want to promote you. We love you. We’re we’re desperate. You know? And so that’s what I did. I just, I kept working for that company. Um, after I graduated and I just worked my way up really rapidly and became a general manager of a, like the highest grossing store in our entire chain. Um, and in doing that, I ended up in the training department and that’s where I met my husband, uh, who is kind of like the he’s really the creative genius behind our, our books and everything that we create. And he told me this, like, go for no story, which we talk about in our book. So he tells me this story about this time that he was selling suits for a living, he had this amazing sale. It was like $1,100. And the district manager asked him, um, what did that customer say no to?
Speaker 4 00:13:19 And my husband was like, what are you talking about? What did he say no to? And he said, well, you, you had this great sale. I’m just wondering, you know, out of everything that you showed him, what did the customer say no to? And he S and my husband was like, he said yes to everything. I don’t know what you’re talking about. And he goes, Hey, he said, well, then how did you know he was done? He never said no to anything. Wow. Um, and, and so he tells me this story, and, and basically his district manager was like, um, like talk about good mentors. His district manager was like, your fear of the word, no is going to kill you. You know, you’re if, but if you could, you’re a good sales person, but if you could learn to get over that, you know, I think you could be one of the great ones.
Speaker 4 00:13:54 And so, um, and so he did, he, my husband did really well and, and this philosophy really helped him. And so when he told it to me, I was like, oh my God, I totally get that. I don’t like hearing no, I, I, I will completely completely stop short of, you know, recommending something else or showing something else because I don’t want to hear the word. No. So it was one of the things that kind of bonded us. And he was like, we, and then he says, and then he says the real magic words to me. He’s like, do you realize that if we quit our jobs, we could go out and make twice or three times the money that we’re making now on our own, self-employed speaking and training to companies. And I was like, really? And he’s like, yeah. So I was like, all right, let’s quit.
Speaker 3 00:14:45 That’s awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that story. So let’s dive into a little bit more about the gopher, no strategy. So what does, what does that really look like and kind of, what are the principles behind that?
Speaker 4 00:14:55 Yeah. So I’m glad you used the word principle. It really is. Based on the principle of you, you can’t get typically more success in your life without being willing to fail and, and, and move through those failures. You don’t typically get more yeses in your career unless you’re willing to hear more nos. And so that’s really what the principle is. It’s, it’s being willing to hear no more often understanding that the yeses are out there. Now we want to hear no’s intelligently. Right. And I think that’s really important. And it, sometimes it gets lost in translation. Like people go, oh, I see. So go for, no’s just a numbers game game. And you just, you know, you go out, you hit your head against the wall. You hear no a hundred times. And admittedly, it was probably more like that 20, 30 years ago. Um, but we’ve kind of refined the message, like, especially when we do trainings and things like that of, Hey, no, you want to, you want a prospect smart.
Speaker 4 00:15:51 You want to disqualify quickly, and you want to be talking to people where if you get a no, it’s a good, no, um, you don’t want to be just like shooting in the dark and, and taking this like, approach where you have no idea who you’re talking to. Um, so it’s, it’s part that it’s also part like persistence of understanding that no doesn’t mean never no oftentimes means not yet. And depending on the industry, I mean, if you have, if you’re in retail and somebody leaves the store, you’re probably not gonna, unless they come back, you’re not going to find them again. But in B2B sales, I mean, it takes a long time for people to be willing to change. So, you know, the persistence being willing to follow up, you know, sticking with, uh, prospects for long periods of time, sometimes through those long sales cycles really important.
Speaker 3 00:16:43 And, and your mind, what’s interesting. What’s a long sales cycle, you know, maybe let’s just touch on actual, like what, what in your mind do you think is an appropriate amount of touches? I know can, you know, dependent from vertical to vertical, but new your mind, kind of, where does that number sit for you? Or how do you look at that?
Speaker 4 00:17:02 Right. So, and sometimes I differ on the people that I’m not like one of these research people and everybody likes to quote Gartner with further research. Um, and I see it a lot. I’m like, okay. Um, and so I see numbers like eight to 10 times before you kind of do the, if you’re into it, do the, the breakup email or whatever, um, where you’re going to say, Hey, it’s obvious that you guys aren’t ready to move forward. So we’re just going to kind of call it for now and if something changes. But, um, for me, in terms of a long sales cycle, I mean, for me personally, it’s anything over about 12 months, then it becomes, you know, a long process. And in my business of selling, speaking, which is primarily I’m, I’m more of a speaker, less of a trainer and consultant, um, that sales cycle can be a long time. And, and I’ve taken, I’ve gone back to companies, um, for years I’ve had people finally say yes to me after like nine years, 12 years. So I’m in this thing for the long haul. So that’s why I’m like, Hey, be persistent. If you’re going to be somewhere, then have a long-term attitude and don’t give up so easily.
Speaker 3 00:18:15 I love it. I’m right there with you. I was having that talk the other day with a rep that I kind of mentor. And we were talking about, you know, he, he was having trouble with the prospect and I go, how many times you call him? And he’s like, ah, six or seven. I can’t get ahold of them. And I go, I tell ya. And so I gave him a whole story that one of my best prospects ever closed, I called him 17 times. And I sent them 13 emails. And that finally resulted in one meeting, which then I had to follow up on. Right. And it, like, we were so far in this deal, but I ended up writing, we did seven figures together. So it was worth the persistency, um, you know, to continue to stay after it. But a lot of people don’t have that type of mindset. And I think that the other part, and, you know, having managed lots of sales reps in my day, you typically to see the reps following up the same way, which I think is a real detriment. So if you’re going to stay following up for 6, 9, 12 months, what do you do? Or how do you coach or train people to stay relevant, stay fresh.
Speaker 4 00:19:19 Yeah. Or you have to get creative. Totally. And if you can get really creative, um, I mean, so I’ll, I’ll send stuff that is, um, sometimes I’ll send direct mail pieces that are completely like irrelevant to, um, to like the actual business thing. I’ll send things that are fun. Like I sent, uh, like I’ll send Christmas cards and it’ll say, uh, everything is for us is about the word. No. So it’ll be like frosty the snowman and I’ll be present. Or one year I did, um, Rudolph, I did like posts about Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, you know, and oh, and, um, and so just being creative sometimes, but also coming back. I mean, sometimes you can just check in like, Hey, just checking in to see what’s going on. My favorite line is I want to see, um, what’s changed. Cause I love the word change because change, everything is always changing.
Speaker 4 00:20:18 We know that, I mean, if we didn’t know that we definitely, after 2020 know that, so that’s true. Right. So, um, I think checking back to see what’s changed with them is a great way for you to get some intelligence, if you can actually get them in and have them share something with you, but things are always changing with us too. So it’s, Hey, I’m just calling to let you know, um, a couple changes. One, this price has changed too. We added this potential w we added this offering might be of interest to you. So if you can think about the word change for them and for you, I think that goes a long way to just always be able to mix it up.
Speaker 3 00:20:56 Yeah, no, I love that. That’s a great tip. Um, now we’ve talked a lot about how to overcome failure and I guess that might be synonymous with maybe this failure, fear, fear of failure and rejection, or actually it could be completely different, but, uh, let’s stay on the fear of failure and you know, how do you coach or start to get someone to make that mental mind shift, to switch that give themselves permission to succeed?
Speaker 4 00:21:26 Yeah. Well, it’s interesting that you’d use the phrase permission to succeed. Cause we, we tell people they need to give themselves permission to fail. And in our book, we’re very straight, even though it’s a fable, um, the main character in the book, uh, convinces this other character. He’s like, you have to love failure. You have to love it. And, um, in fact, I was on a clubhouse chat today and I was asked, you know, do you, do you use the word failure or do you like prefer other words like other, you know, softer like mistake or setback and all that. And we use the word failure. We’re like, let’s not sugar coat. This there’s nothing wrong with failure. Right. And the more we make it shameful or having a bad rejection B or bad, no. Um, we better be willing to learn from those things instead of hide them and be embarrassed and all that.
Speaker 4 00:22:16 So, um, the huge piece of, and I tell, I say it’s in the book, it’s a very short piece because the book is actually really short, but we start with it because we have to get people’s mindset changed around failure. And the fact that if you’re going to want, if you’re going to hear more nos, you’ve gotta be okay with that. Like, and so get back to that kind of childhood willingness that we all had. Right. Which was just like falling down. I remember learning to ride a bike. I was completely on board. I didn’t care that I was looking like an idiot in front of people. I wanted to get on my bike and ride with these kids. So I was gonna fall off and do whatever it took it, you know? And we’re all like that. And especially like freelance entrepreneurial type people, you know, lots of failure. And so embracing that and just giving yourself permission is so huge to, to be able to kind of implement the gopher, no strategy.
Speaker 3 00:23:17 No, I think it’s, I think it’s wonderful advice and I have a five and a six year old two boys, and gosh,
Speaker 4 00:23:24 That must be a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 00:23:26 It, yeah, it is. And you know, it was like a Friday night was a great example. My six year old, he’s going to be seven in a month. Um, he’s in first grade and they’re having a move. We’re having a movie night. I live in Texas. So it, things are open here. Yeah. And, and so we’re having a movie night at the school. There’s going to be a couple of hundred people there on a gymnasium and you’re watching a movie and I had no interest in doing that. I had none, zero. My wife was like out done, not knowing. And, um, he would not, he must have asked me, I mean, he wore me down and asked me 13, 14. I have no idea in a 24 hour period, how many times a kid asked me? And I finally just said, fuck it, Knox. Yeah. We’ll, we’ll go, buddy. We’ll fight. I just need you to be quiet, stop asking me. And we lose that along the way. I think we lose that a lot in life. Just our willingness to learn. I will us to face rejection, right. Our willingness to want to grow, try new experiences, take risk. And that’s interesting. You want, you think that is that’s completely unrelated to sales. I’m just curious.
Speaker 4 00:24:24 Yeah. I think we all, at some point become very self-aware. Uh, and I was over at my husband’s daughter’s house. She, um, so he’s a little older than me. So, um, her, he, we were visiting his grandkids and they’re like, um, seven and four, but anyway, I could see that the seven year old was very self-conscious in front of us. Um, I could just tell. And so I say, I think there’s like the self-awareness because they were asking her different questions and I think she was embarrassed to say anything in front of us. And so there’s that self-awareness in there. There’s that like societal unspoken don’t mess up. Don’t be judged. I’ve done surveys of like groups that we’ve run. Um, we have like a private coaching group on Facebook and I’ve asked them like, what are you, what’s your guys’ biggest fear? Is it, is it fear of not making your quotas?
Speaker 4 00:25:19 Is it like a money thing? What is it everyone? Like the majority of people said it was fear of judgment and getting, doing something embarrassing in front of someone else. So it’s that idea of, of calling somebody and calling some CEO and just like falling on your face and looking like an idiot. And I’ve done that. I mean, I’ve called people at, in big positions at big companies and I’ve sounded like an idiot. So I just go like, well, that’s what I had to do. It’s either that or my business goes away. So, you know, I had this like tremendous fear of loss on one hand and this okay. Yes. You’re going to look like an idiot, but if you can fight your way through it and get better and learn from this, which you do, the more calls you make, then that’s how it works.
Speaker 3 00:26:11 I think that that’s the key part to sales into life that most people, for whatever reason, it doesn’t ever click in their mind. And maybe for me just did early on because I was an athlete, but it’s about, it’s all about it’s, it’s all about the reps, you know, and if you can make that strong correlation, and it’s funny with my kids, because for me it was basketball. Once I realized I put in a lot of effort and I became really good. And so I put them in sports. The first time they started playing a sport was that two, I put them in soccer and people were like, well, you’re putting a two year old and they live in no what planet they’re on. There’s still a planet they’re on. Right. And I’m like, no, but the teach them to have a competitive edge to lose, to learn how to lose and do it with dignity, but have teamwork.
Speaker 3 00:26:50 Right. I think sports really helps to kind of cultivate that for a lot of people. Unfortunately, I feel like we, we move away from that as we get older. And I read a, um, on my boards flipped cause I do it for the peer. But on the other side of my board, I have a quote by grant Cardone that says, you know, pay the price today so you can pay any price in the future. And that’s how I always look at sales. Like I know that today’s not going to be a fun day, but it’s going to be a heavy call day. And I go into it with that mint, that, that warfare mentality. But I know that I do the work today. What I want in five years, we’ll be there.
Speaker 4 00:27:24 Absolutely. Yeah. I love that quote I’m at Ryan’s me, Orrin, Woodward said something similar. It was, um, the two most important things, um, decide what you want. Number one, um, figure out the price, number two, three, pay it. It’s not simple. It really is. So, yeah. That’s and it’s, and it’s hard. And I think there is, are a lot of similarities between AF fleet, uh, you know, sports and selling and you hear it all the time, but those comparisons are like true for a reason because they’re accurate. And all of the, you think about like the coaching and then all of the planning and yeah, if you want to be a good winner, you have to be a good loser. Um, you have to be a good sport about it and be competitive, but also, uh, you know, train and all. I, I love all the, I love all the comparisons. I love all the quotes from all the football coaches and all that. I just find them very inspiring.
Speaker 3 00:28:16 No I do too. And it’s so it is really relevant and that’s usually, it’s tough when I’ve hired salespeople. I typically look for athletes did just me personally. That’s just always, what I felt like is obviously, you know, it’s, that’s a very blanket state, not always the case, but I found that that’s always worked well for me. Um, you know, one of the other things I did want to talk to you about was, is there anything that you could help reps given today is far as a tip when they have that call, they got to someone that just hangs up or tells them to fuck off or just super blatantly rude to them that can help them reprogram their mind within a matter of a minute or two, so they can get back on the phone.
Speaker 4 00:28:57 Well, that’s exactly what they need to do. You’re so right. They need to get back on the phone. And the sound’s kind of, um, sounds kind of like some of it’s cliche. I mean, it works, but, um, there’s a guy who, unfortunately I just found out, he passed away really tragic. Um, his name was Trevor ad and he worked do you know that he worked with Russell Wilson, the football player, and they like started a company together, but he was a basically like mindset coach for athletes. And he was really into the idea that if, what you say out loud is like 10 times more than even the thought that you have. And we can’t help a lot of times having a negative thought. I thought he was really right on with that. Like, so if something happens, let’s say you have somebody who’s a real jerk to you and immediately you can’t control the thought of sometimes it’s oh, wow.
Speaker 4 00:29:56 That guy’s a total jerk. But then the other thought oftentimes is, oh my gosh, I suck. I’m I’m failing at this. Who am I kidding? You know, we start thinking those things and sometimes saying them out loud and he would always be like, you can’t say those things out loud. So my advice is always really practice your response, which is like change your state. Don’t say, try to catch yourself with the negative thoughts, both out loud and to yourself, and then immediately jump into the next call. And maybe it’s an easier call or call somebody who can lift you up first and then go to the next one. I’m like call a friend or something to kind of change. Like what’s going on in your mind. The final thing though is, is we can’t take those nos personally. And, and my advice. And a lot of times I talk to like creatives artists, people who, when you get rejected, it is, it is completely about you. It’s because you’re, um, they don’t want your face, like your, your, your personal,
Speaker 3 00:31:03 Like your
Speaker 4 00:31:04 Face for this role, literally don’t want your face. Um, so, or your artwork that you created by hand and you lovingly produced and people are like, oh, wow, that sucks. I would never buy that. Right. And I’ve been at art fairs and you hear that. And you’re like, oh, that’s so painful. But the truth is that, you know, nothing is really about us, even when it’s about us. We take no personally because we think, oh, it’s all about us. No, it’s about the other person. So if that guy is a jerk to you, if he flips out and screams at you or whatever, um, that’s like all about him and probably God only knows what’s going on in the company. Um, maybe he just got fired 15 minutes earlier is not going to tell you that. So we just don’t know. So it’s really, you have to remind yourself, it’s, it’s them. Not me, even though I’m involved.
Speaker 3 00:31:54 Yeah. I T I, I love that. And it’s so funny. I don’t know if I can find it and I’ve never done this live on air, but I had one of those guys that I kind of, I mentor, and I know he’ll listen to this, but he was talking about, I just got off the phone and I was told I was too aggressive and arrogant. Um, you know, but he, anyway, and so he goes, you know, the lady went on to, to yell at me and, um, and he goes, all I could think about is the second agreement, don’t take anything personal because he’s reading the court. He’s three to the four agreements right now. And so I, and I say, I go, yeah, buddy, not going to make 10 more. Right. Like just, just move on. Just, just keep going with it. And so just that just happened an hour ago. So it kind of brought home our message.
Speaker 4 00:32:36 I love that. And I love that. That is a great book. That changed a lot for me actually, when I read that, um, I don’t know, probably 10 years ago. And I was like, holy cow, this, if I, if I could tell anybody to read a book that kind of goes parallel with our book, like that deals with the emotional side, it would be that book. I think that books amazing.
Speaker 3 00:32:58 Yeah. I read it 10 years ago and it literally, I probably gifted it over 30 times. Cause it changed your life. Yeah. Yeah. It fundamentally, because I came from a real victim hood mentality and I feel like that really hindered me probably my first couple of years in sales, not even knowing because I did take it all personal. Oh, well, fuck that person. Well, but not thinking, coming from a place that like, you’re just set, that person could have been fired. They could have had a fight with their wife. They might have a sick child if you don’t know where they’re coming from. You know? And so what the book taught me was that everything is someone else’s is a projection of their own internal dialogue that they’re just putting onto you to make you feel the way they’re feeling.
Speaker 4 00:33:34 Absolutely. I did. I’ll tell you a funny story about this. Um, do we have time? Yeah, of course. Okay. Um, yeah, so we wrote this book, uh, called million dollar a year. And like the thing that we always, that authors are always told is whatever you do. Um, don’t comment on a review. Well, this was a few years ago and I went into Amazon and I, of course, all authors read their reviews, like obsessive, like this we’re, you know, we have to, we have to have the accolades, right. So I go in and I’m like, oh, I wonder if we have any new reviews or whatever. And I see this review and it’s, and it starts off, it’s like, um, one star and he goes like, this book was not worth the paper it was printed on. And I was like, oh wow. Okay. That that’s very painful.
Speaker 4 00:34:21 And then I stepped back and I did, I’m like the four agreements is just ringing on my head and I’m like, okay, think about a time. I try to put myself in that person’s shoes. Thinking about a time that you had a reaction to a work that you were that like viscerally annoyed by it. And I thought, you know, I remember going to this movie, crouching tiger, hidden dragon. A lot of people love it. Um, I just, I did it now. I love kill bill different kind of different kind of genre. Um, but it’s, you know, the, the, the flying stored people and all of that. And I remember we literally walked out of it like half an hour in. And so I was like, okay, so there’s an example. Like I also there’s things that just repel me as well. So I decided, you know what, I’m going to write this guy back.
Speaker 4 00:35:05 So I make this comment and I said, Hey, I get it. I’m really, you know, I’m sorry that the book was so disappointing to you. Um, but yeah, I said, uh, crouching tiger hidden dragon was like a movie that like won all these academy awards. And I walked out after half an hour. I hated it. So I get it. And some things are just not for other people. No worries. Thank you for like, at least trying to read it or whatever. And then the weird, the crazy thing is, is that I don’t know when I discovered this a couple of months later, I go in, he’s changed his review from a one-star to a four-star. He goes, I went back and re-read it. And it’s actually a really good book.
Speaker 3 00:35:46 It’s incredible.
Speaker 4 00:35:48 I know. Which is not, I, that is not even what I was going for. Like, I was just trying in my own way, because I had recently read the four agreements. I was trying to practice like being okay with other people’s opinions and really like saying, okay, for him it sucked it’s oh, oh, well.
Speaker 3 00:36:07 Yes, absolutely. And, and I think that that’s the thing in sales, is it, you know, you’re not going to be everybody’s cup of tea, so just get over it. You’re not going to win every sale, not everybody’s gonna like you, you know, and every presentation is going to go well, so just fucking get over it and move on, you know, and the faster you can do that, the more success you’re going to have.
Speaker 4 00:36:25 Yup. Yup. And then the more experience that you, I mean, the more shots you take and the more like, from a quantity standpoint, the more, you know, you do, the more you learn that I think a lot of people, um, that’s why one of the things that we teach is get out there and have a lot of conversations. Even if they’re bad, you know, you’re going to learn a lot and you’re going to find where your gaps are. So don’t sit back and go like, okay, I’m going to spend the next four hours practicing for my, for this presentation and hope that it goes perfectly. No, I’d rather, you go give 10 presentations and just figure out how to make it better each time then practicing, practicing, and then have all this pressure. Like, oh my God, this is, this has to go perfectly.
Speaker 3 00:37:14 I totally agree. You know, it’s so funny. And I don’t know if I’ve gotten older and like, I’m never done speaking. Like you’ve done speaking, but I’ve done a lot of like webinars and seminars, a couple hundred people here and there and stuff like that. And I get to do panel stuff during the podcast. And I usually will do a, I will collect my thoughts and I will do one or two run throughs. And then I just, I don’t do anymore because I don’t want to overthink it. And so sometimes the biggest presentations I’ve walked in on was one. I remember it was two years ago and there was a couple of billionaires in the, and the audience. I was like, so nervous. Right. I could feel like afterward. I felt like my stomach, I couldn’t eat for like the rest of the day. Cause my stomach had been that twisted in knots. And I’d only done the rehearsal one time. Yeah. And I know other people, like I knew every single word I know my cues and I’m like, I’m not one of those people. I gotta be able to just fly or I’ll obsess over it and freak out. So I just got to be able to do it off the fly more often than not.
Speaker 4 00:38:08 That’s funny that you’d say that because my husband and I are, are, he’s more like he likes to know the first one or two words for every like section and I’m I like that at the beginning, but I’m like, you I’m like, like sometimes he’ll say, you know, I don’t want to wordsmith you, but I think you should say this and this. And I told him, I’m like, now that you’ve told me those two words to say, I promise you, I will forget them. I will never remember those words. So just forget it.
Speaker 3 00:38:35 That’s great. Um, do you have any, uh, Andrew kind of winding this down, do you have any success habits that you think that it helped you as an entrepreneur or as a salesperson? Hm.
Speaker 4 00:38:45 I am like really weird person in that. I don’t have the typical, like, I’m not like the, the get up at 4:00 AM morning routine Jocko, Willink. I have his book, you know, and I’m like, okay, this person is David Goggins. I absolutely love him. I’m like David Goggins would chew me up and spit me out at anybody. Doesn’t know him. You have to Google David Goggins on YouTube. He would literally like laugh at me and pick his teeth with my bones because you were just like, I would never survive 24 hours with David Goggins. Um, you know, because these, these, these people are, they’re so successful. They’ve got these really good habits. Um, so I guess, I guess with that as the framework tie, like, okay. So I basically have said like, listen, don’t listen to anything I say now. Um, I guess my biggest habit is persistence in that.
Speaker 4 00:39:43 I just, my whole thing is not like, oh, I, I hope that this happens. It’s like, no, I’m going to make this happen. However long it takes. I have a for, I have a however long it takes attitude, um, for things. So I stick with things. I am, I am a big believer in old school stuff. So I write everything down. Like I have this notebook here, I write everything down. Okay. There you go. Because I want to make sure that things happen. So I’m pretty, um, I’m pretty organized that way. So I guess those are probably like my key things. Um, but yeah, I’m not the up at 4:00 AM having a protein shake and at the gym by five, I get to the gym. If I roll into the gym by four in the afternoon, I’m okay with that.
Speaker 3 00:40:27 Yeah. Hey, you know, everybody’s got their own schedule that works well for them. My wife and I, she she’s an entrepreneur and we’re, we’re complete, I’m very more on the Jocko and Goggins side, or I am up at quarter to five and I’m in the gym and I’ve gotten my meditation. Right. And my wife’s, that’s awesome. My wife’s up, you know, her alarm goes off at six 10 when she gets up as a completely different story, you know, it’s probably closer to seven and, uh, you know, we’re just, but she’s wildly successful. She handles her shit, you know, but on the opposite end, I can’t function after 6:00 PM. I shut down. She’ll work till 11. So, you know, it’s just, it’s just kind of a bounce, but, um, so where can people find your book?
Speaker 4 00:41:11 Uh, so books on Amazon just type in, go for, no, you will find it, um, come to go for no.com. We’ve got a fun quiz. People can take it, we call it the no quotient quiz. So you can see like where your mindset is in relationship chip to failure and rejection. Awesome.
Speaker 3 00:41:29 And now if people were wanting to work with you and your husband and your company and get some help and work, they find you for that
Speaker 4 00:41:36 Go for new as well. Um, we have an online course, which I know is like, ah, another course. Um, it’s a really short, uh, like a course that you could do in a couple hours. And we encourage people to come in and take it and then like go through it probably like once a quarter. And really, it’s the kind of message where, um, we do ongoing in our Facebook group. Um, I call it notification instead of motivation. So, you know, come in and get those messages. Um, that’s probably the best way that that’s the way people typically work for us. Like on an individual level. Everything else we do is, is really click corporate.
Speaker 3 00:42:09 Okay, good. So join the Facebook group, go to the website, take the course, uh, buy the book on Amazon. I’ll post a link to all of that in the show notes. If you’re listening, you can go scroll right down. If you’re watching this on YouTube, you can cruise right down, hit the notes, click the link, get the book. Uh, absolutely. It’s it’s to me in my mind, I was so excited to talk to you because it is so important to realize it’s a part of the process and the more that you just embrace the POS and the process, the more successful it would be faster. Yeah. That’s my opinion. So, um, any advice to close?
Speaker 4 00:42:44 Uh, basically just keep asking, like, if you, if you’re, if you’re at all timid or squeamish prac, I always tell people, practice go for no in your, in your life like your kids, you know, um, like your kids do on you. So if you want something and you’re, you’re, it doesn’t matter what you want in life. You’ve got to like have the courage to ask and give yourself permission to give, give your, get the know, rather than give yourself to know basically
Speaker 3 00:43:12 Love it. Thank you, Andrea so much. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation and I appreciate your time today. Thank you,
Speaker 4 00:43:18 Me too. So fun. Thanks.
