Welcome to the summit. A podcast focused on bringing you the knowledge and insights for industry leaders. I'm your host, Kyle Hamer and I'm on a mission to help you exceed your potential. As a sales guy, turned marketer, I am passionate about building sustainable businesses. And if there's one thing I've learned in my 20 year career is that you won't find an overnight growth scheme, a shortcut to success, or a way to hack yourself to the top. Nope. Success is the byproduct of hard work, great relationships and deep understanding done over and over. We're here to help you unlock that success with some secrets from other people, one conversation at a time.

Thanks for tuning in I'm your host, Kyle Hamer and today's guest on our podcast is Eddie Green. Eddie, Welcome to the show.

Hi, thanks for having me, Kyle. Appreciate it.

He is the VP of sales at tier level digital marketing, as well as the CEO and primary sales consultant for disaster restoration, console sales console sales. I said that wrong, but if you've met, if you've met at a, you know, that he's a man who lives his core values, he's a man who believes in God, family work, always being smart, hungry, and humble, do something with passion or don't do it at all. Execution of the little things is what makes you great. And a failure to plan is a plan to fail. So if you do these things, Eddie has a firm belief that you will under promise and over deliver every time Eddie did I miss anything?

No, I think, you know, I'm a walking, you know, walking analogy you know, waiting to happen. I love, you know, leadership and leadership principles and pulling single quotes out and how to be able to apply them to your life. You know, so I'm sure throughout this podcast, you're going to say something that I'm going to want plagiarize and want to grab and apply to my life as well. But so far, I think you hit the nail on the head.

Well, that's great. Well, we're super excited. We're going to talk a little bit today about how sales is a person, not a process. And for many people that have been here, you know, that I have been on a well for our listeners. They know that I've been on a bit of a tirade, especially since COVID hit with understanding what the heck is actually going on with sales. We've turned everything into this giant machine of chewing people up, throwing them into process and then expecting them to have exponential results. And your experience is a little different in, you know, your position in the market. So Eddie, why don't you just give us a little bit of history on how you got involved with sales and how you came to the position to understand that sales is more than a process. It's a person.

Absolutely. So, you know, first off I want to thank you very much, you know, for having me on your show. You know, it's, it's, I get to do, you know, podcasts all the time and it's always, it's always really, really cool to be on this side of it. You know, I was going to school at the university of Oklahoma and it was at the running a program manager for call center. I'd spent some time, you know, doing managing like little call centers, like for Olin mills photography, you know, selling those startup-y plans if they used to have you know, and things like that. And I was a psychology major and just realized I knew that I didn't have the wherewithal to go through, follow through with PhD to be able to do it, even though it was something, you know, that I thought that I really wanted to do and fell into a sales position, selling those big, massive C-band satellite dishes that they used to those big yard anomalies that they used to have. So it looked like you had NASA at your house. Why was implementing setting appointments for the outside sales team? And the owner just happened to be sitting behind me one day on the phones. It was late at night. The office was closed up, it was dark and I'm just me and a computer, just sitting there talking to the people, using the limited experience that I had on the C-band satellites, but was having a lot of success setting appointments for them. And he said, his exact words were, I think you're wasting your time in here. He said, I really seriously think you're a sales guy and you don't know it. And I said, okay. I said, well, what would be the next step? And he talked to me about commission structure and that of course got me excited to know that instead of sitting in a, in a dark room, you know, making an hourly wage that I could go out and go make a lot more. So he took me out for a couple of three appointments. So let me shadow. And the next day he took me on five appointments and I closed all five of them. I had a hundred percent close rate and he was just floored. That continued for nine straight months. I had a 100% close rate for nine months. And that sounds all well and good. But of course, you know, a lot of people you learn early on, if they don't, if they say yes, really quickly, then there's something wrong. And that was the case. A lot of those people couldn't get the financing to be able to put the system in and things like that. So I didn't have a hundred percent install rate, but I did close everybody that I was in front of. And from that point I never looked back. I stayed in sales the rest of my life. I've been very blessed to have a lot of success for, with multi-billion dollar organizations and have sold everything under the sun that you could possibly think of and just took to it like a duck to water and, you know, but I found out that it wasn't really about applying, even though the sales as a process, it wasn't about applying those processes. It's about sitting down and getting to know the individual creating individual needs and being a solution to whatever problem they may have. And we can talk more about that, but I mean, that's, that's kind of, you know, I didn't have any formalized sales training, you know, I didn't go through all of these big methods and, and a lot of failure not a lot of success, but the most important part was that I learned from those failures and was able to be able to find work arounds and be better because of them rather than accepting failure. And, and, and where I see a lot of salespeople make their mistake is they wallow in it, you know, and I did not. I, I chose my pick, my spots found my learning points found out that really it was about the individuals, about the person. It was about relationship. It wasn't about running through 10 million processes and trying to close them. It w it was, it was very individualized needs based selling consultated servant's heart mentality, you know, I mean, I could go on and on and on, but it really became more about the person than it did anything else.

So, I mean, you mentioned, you mentioned quite a winning streak there. I mean, would you say five, four or five your first day or your first week, and then, you know, that continued for nine months. There's something, there's something unique about that. And I don't, I don't think I've ever heard of anybody going on that type of a wind streak. Talk to me a little bit about what happened, innately, what was going on that you think led to that type of consecutive close rate where people were just saying, Hey, yes, yes, yes, yes,

Absolutely. It had to make sense. You know, and I think that so many people, they spend a lot of time showing up and throwing up on people about this is what we can do. This is what we have. This is why we're the biggest, this is why we're the best. This is why you should use our product. I am implore. I wanted to be different right out of the gate. And I think that's really what has been a lot of the biggest differentiation between my success and a lot of the people that I see that have better skillsets than myself that don't have the success. And I w I would've considered it lock if it wouldn't have been consistently breaking records for every company that I've ever worked for, you know, doing things that had never been done. And it's because I don't think the way the majority of people think so, you know, that being said, we'll just see bands, satellites, you know, a lot of these guys are going out and marketing to people that already had cable. Well, you know, it's, that's fine. You know, because it was, you could switch that presentation over to, well, you're never going to own cable, you know, 10 years. They're not going to write you a check and say, thank you for thousands of dollars. They've invested, but you're going to own our system, but a much harder. So then what my approach was. So I asked, I said, you know, well, tell me how you can tell where there's cable and an environment. And at the time you'd watch the lines that would hang all the poles. And there would be this kind of partially shaped, seeing shaped wire that would hang down towards the pole. And that would indicate that there was cable TV. So I followed the lines until there was none. And that's where I would market to the people that only had rabbit ears and three channels. And I would stop where I would start my marketing and I would go knock on the door. And I had a core channel. I had a C-band satellite book that was four inches thick, you know, with all these. And I say, and it was a very simple question. It would be like, what if I can give you more than what you have now, would that be a value to you? Would you like to be able to turn on your TV and watch, you know, whatever sports team like you, you live in, you know, Kyle, you, I know you're a big Nebraska fan, but say you live in California and you can't watch Nebraska football, corn, Husker football go in the Midwest, you know, in the Midwest college football is everything to us. And if I walked in and said, Hey, you know, you're, you're having to watch these three channels, but I can give you a corn Husker football, every single Saturday. Would that be a value to you and watch your eyes light up? And at that point, it really closed itself. You know? So I just marketed differently. I went after the people that were dying to have what everybody in the city had, but had no way of being able to get it. And that's, that's where the differentiation came from. And that's where the success came from because I went to where my service was needed, not to where it would just be a, an alternative.

Well, and, you know, you said a couple of things there that I think are, are, are really key. One is, is you didn't take the show up and throw up approach. So I have a question related to that, and we'll get to the second question. But my, my question related to that is, is why is that so prevalent in today's sales cycle? Why is it I need to show up and tell you immediately Eddie I do this for multimillion dollar companies who needed to buy from me right now. What, why, why do we do that in sales versus taking the approach that you're talking about? Which sounds like it's more like active listening,

Right. And you know, it is it's because people still work off of a law of averages mentality. In my opinion, it should be the easiest way to explain it is it's a charity pigging mentality, and it's really not selling. You know, when, when you get down to, I used to tell, you know, I tell all my sales reps, I'm sorry. I want you to be mentally exhausted. You know, at the end of the day, from, from not only researching your prospective clients, but engaging in questions that are going to insight, open-ended dialogue, that's going to be all about them. In fact, three, the first three to four parts of the sales process, you shouldn't even be talking about your company. You should be asking, engaging questions about what they would potentially need, but to show up and throw up mentality is no more than throwing darts at a map. It's like, I'm going to go out there and hit on five to 10 points. This is who I am and what we do and why you should use us and hope that one of those darts stick and that we've hit a hot button. And if I do that to 2025 contacts a day, if it's cold calling, if it's on the phones, if I do it for just 60 to a hundred, the law of averages are going to state that somebody's going to buy, and it has taken all the personability and personalization out of selling, you know, it's it's, and, and, and I hate that because people want to deal with people. They want to deal with people who are real, that are you, you hit the nail on the head, they're going to actively listen. And it's just a simple paradigm shift is saying, Hey, this is what I can do for you. It is, you know, what, Carl, what would you need from me? If we were to establish a relationship, you know, with the products and services that we have, what would you need for me? And, and how can I be that solution? And then just shut up and let you talk and let you live and just listen and take notes and be engaged to the point to where you really do want to hear what the customer has to say. So more often than not salespeople already have their next response preloaded, you know, and they're talking to speak, they're asking questions to speak rather than to listen. And, you know, if you will just implore, you know, the 30, 70 principle, I'm going to talk 30% of the time and listen, 70% of the time, a lot of the times a customer will end up taking you down a road for sales that you never thought about, but you're going to more importantly, establish a relationship that is one inch wide and 10 miles deep. And that is what's important to me. You know, it is, I don't care about the one and done mentality of sales. It's like, you know, in restoration, it was like on commercial, large loss, most people in that industry look at it as, okay, well, this hotel floods from the top down, it's probably going to be the only time that's going to happen in my career lifetime. So I'm going to milk that for all it's worth. And the way I judge success is did I do the right thing? And would the customer call me back?

It's interesting. Cause you, you, you actually set up the segue here. Cause I was going to ask I'm like, okay, well, you know, there are people that are listening to this and they're going to say Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, okay. You were selling satellites before satellites were a big deal before it was fully commercialized. You were selling it in rural areas. Like no wonder you had such a huge success rate. It it's super easy to go out to where nobody has anything and to take it into the market. And if you're targeting the right people to have buyer after buyer, after buyer lineup, but you took that, you took this approach into the restoration business where there's, there's a lot of competition. And else

I picked this approach through every platform I've ever sold from dental implants and endodontics, you know, in a very wide, highly competitive market to home interior gifts, decor, and accessories to government contracts for industrial tools sales, it didn't matter. It is, it is still nonetheless never the throw darts at a map. You know, it was, it was fine. It was fine. The need by having open-ended and engaging dialogue. So yeah, it wasn't just restoration, but I mean to interrupt you, you know, I mean, it was, it was multiple products across every region and every facet of the United States. So it wasn't, you know, but you are right. I mean, it was easy, but nobody was doing what I was doing. They were out knocking doors and resin in highly populated residential areas, trying to sell satellites to cable people. They weren't thinking outside the box and going, well, let's go where cable's not so

Well. And look, I mean, there's, there's, there's a lot there that I can unpack, but this is about, this is about your experience as it relates to me, I'm just, I'm listening here. I'm nodding my head. Yes. Because you know, I've done the door-knocking. I understand what, not only what the challenge is to get in the door, but once you get in the door, what the challenge is to get somebody to say yes. So the fact that you had that level of success rate, not only in satellites, but across multiple industries is fantastic, but I think what you started to allude to before I interrupted you, was that, you know, you were applying this process in the restoration business and you were saying, well, what am I doing, right. Am I doing the right thing by the customer? Am I looking at this as a long-term long-term sale, a longterm relationship talk, talk a little bit to the listeners, into the folks that are here. Tell us about your experience with doing the right thing via the longterm versus the short term, and then what the outcomes were because you have some really interesting success as it relates to your time in restoration.

Absolutely. And, you know, thanks for asking that question because you know, to me, one of the biggest facets of successful sailing is storytelling. You know, to be able to have a relatable experience that can tug on the heartstrings of the person that you're talking to and say, you know what, that guy didn't just sell me something. The fact guy cared so much, which is really kind of the mantra that we, we didn't approach, which is in sales. My whole mantra is out care out, educate, and you know, it is. And so what does that mean? So I'll give you just kind of an apples to apples story. We had a four-star diamond hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Garth Brooks was going to have an eight day stand. And we all know that the people that stayed at a four-star diamond hotel are not staying at motel six or holiday Inn, and that's not taking a shot at those hotels. It's just, it's a very different clientele. It was very upscale, only 55 rooms, historic building. I get a phone call and the GM is in a panic. And he said, he said, how quickly can you get here? And I said, I can, I can be there in 15 to 20 minutes, what's going on? And he gives on flooded from the top floor down. And he said, we were putting final coat of paint on the seventh floor ceiling. And the contractor hit the sprinkler head and we got the water. Finally got the water show, flooded seven floors all the way into a five-star restaurant. And, Oh, it was awful. They pled, unfortunately their vendors havoc on their hotel over the next 120 days, which is going to tie into, to this story about doing the right thing. So I show up and he, he is in a panic and I can tell something is I'm watching his mannerisms. And I know something is really wrong aside from just the water. I mean, you can see, or masters of that domain. He knows we have that handled already had crews on site doing the emergency extraction. We responded very quickly and I pulled the GM into the room, into the conference room and I just sat down with them. And I said, I said, you know, talk to me, man, that's what's going on. And so we have this under control. He said, I can't take this kind of a hit. He said, I have business interruption insurance. He goes to all the rooms that are flooded, are going to be considered occupied. He said, but Garth Brooks is coming. He said, the people that stay here don't stay at other hotels. And he said, I'm going to get slaughtered on Yelp. He said, and lose clientele. And he, and I said, well, I said, you know, we've walked this with the production manager. This is a historic building. There's not a lot of insulation and interior walls. It's primary interior walls that are affected, which means that we can pull the code base and drill vent holes to force the air movement up through the walls, rather than doing the cavities to dry them that way, as opposed to doing a whole ton of demo. I sit and I said, tell you what I say, Garth Brooks is going to be here in four days. I said, if this structure reprise the way we think it's going to dry, I said, and your guys can follow behind me and patch and pain. As we pull equipment every single day, I honestly feel like we can get every room back to you by Garth or by Garth Brooks, except the originating room. I said, that's our mission. And he told me, he said, you're full of it. He said, I've dealt with restoration companies. He said, I know what you guys do. You're gonna tell me what you need to do to land the job so that all your equipment tear my building apart two to two to six months later, I'll finally get my building back. And I looked at him and I looked with the director of production. And I said, I promise you that your needs are as, just as important they have become my needs. And I said, in our goal, I said is not to win this business and make the job as big, bigger than it needs to be. My goal is to get every room back to you, except the originating room by Garth Brooks, as promised. He said, if you do that, I'll never call another restoration company. Again, we did everything right. And we got every room back to him by Garth Brooks, except the originating room. We only had one room out of service because it was so restoration professionals don't have those kinds of conversations. I don't know why. And that's what I teach is, is whenever I consult all over the country is to out care. Your competition is listen to your customer. If it can't be done, be honest enough to be transparent enough to tell them the why it can't be done, you know, but we were confident in our abilities and our equipment and our resources to be able to make it happen. So if I would have been like any other restoration company, this happened in January, March 17th, on St. Patrick's day, a plumber uncapped, a four inch hot water main in his stairwell and did it again. And I was the first phone call. And then literally 60 days after that, it flooded again. So in 120 days, there were three catastrophic losses on this hotel. But because of what happens with the sitting down and caring about him and what his concerns were on the first loss was what set us up for success for doing all their linens cleaning rooms that would come in with the, if they had pets stay there. You know, I mean anything and everything he would call us for because we cared enough to listen to him the first time, what was it about the water? It was masters of that. So why do I need to talk about that? Why do I need to sell that? But I knew by watching him and through the power of relationship, that something else was really wrong. And I took him in and I sat him down and I asked him and we facilitated that and his concerns became our concerns. And at the end of the day, his goals became our goals. And we did the right thing by that customer. And that was one story out of hundreds that I have in restoration. There were like that cried with customers, you know, have got them back open and save their financial lives, you know, by, by providing solutions. But you have to have, you can't be scared of those conversations. You have to have those conversations with people. You have to be willing to care enough to be able to exit,

You know, it's it's so first of all, that's a pretty cool story to be able to turn that around in such a short period of time. I think there's a lot of people listening to that are going, wow. I mean, w you, you're still doing desk restoration cause we want, we want that company to come take care of our property or, you know, our, our catastrophic event. That being said, though, the thing that's interesting about that to me is, is that there's, there's a level of active listening and empathy. That seems almost as if it's non replicatable and you followed some sort of process. And you go back to the top of the show where we were talking about this is about a person, not a process. How do you replicate that? How do you build a team that can do what you did it? So then organization can scale. Like we were just talking, you know, prior to getting on the line about some of the challenges that folks you work with have when it comes to hiring, they hire talented people. But what you do doesn't necessarily seem like it's replicatable or is it,

Well, I, I refused and hope that I'm not the only person out there like me. Nia know, I've been blessed to be able to work alongside people in restoration some colleagues and some peers that do operate with those same principles. And I keep them very close to me. And, but I think that you're right, I think in the hiring process, you know, too much time gets spent on selling the candidate on the organization rather than a candidate selling you on them. And we were not quick to judge. We are quick to jump when we recognize talent, rather than going through a two, three, four step process to bring them on board. And I think that the interview process, it becomes a lost art because it needs to be very situational, very uncomfortable. You know, and what I mean by that is I, I want to paint a very bleak picture, like in the restoration industry, I want to paint a very bleak picture for them. I want to, I want to talk about, you know, Hey, you were sitting down Christmas morning with your kids to sit down and open presents and client calls you with a catastrophic loss and are you out the door or does something else get in the way? I'm not saying that family's not important. Family is important, but in restoration catastrophes don't happen at opportune times. And if we have a good team around us, that we can call team members to be able to help facilitate that, but nobody's going to take care of the customer and build the trust better than you. And there are times that I had to get up and leave movies with my on date nights with my wife, or had to leave family dinners or had to do those kinds of things, because that is what we promised our customers. And my family was very, I was very blessed that they understood, you know, they knew that I was at that point in time and I don't, and this is the point that I, that I think that so many people take politely is that in restoration, when a person calls you, you're the superhero, you're the one that's showing up with the whatever color your, your company is. For me, it was ServPro you know, with a bright green Cape. And we were the ones who could fix the problems that they couldn't. And I took that very, very seriously. So I think that when you were going through the interview process, rather than painting rainbows, because the thing about it is, is that no family, you know we're a big family. Nobody is, nobody is going to have family go sucker off sewage at two o'clock in the morning. That's not what family does. And I think we have to make sure that we look a, to as the person that candidate fit our culture, because they're a great sales person doesn't mean they're great for us. They also too, is the person going to go above and beyond? Do they have the ability to have creative out of the box thinking to be able to win relationships, but more importantly, the most important aspect in the hiring process, especially in any organization, this passion, you can teach them all the tools of the trade, but you can't teach passion. What do you mean by that? What do you mean to bypass? So whenever I got, I knew nothing about restoration. Whenever I came in, I was working. My, my book of business was up 18% for a company called and ASCO. That was a company record. I was handling government contracts, selling everything from AAA batteries to larger wheel build equipment, but I wasn't happy. And whenever I came in to restoration and, and started, they put me through this two to three step process. And whenever I started pursuing the company, because I felt like this is going to be a good fit for me. And this is what I need to do. I started doing research on my own. I went home whenever I knew that I was going to have the job locked up. And I started looking at mitigation techniques, what pieces of equipment did and why they did them. And if it was a dehumidifier, there were certain levels of dehumidifiers. And how many pints per day did that pull? And why did you use a low green refrigerant dehumidifier versus a desiccant dehumidifier, and started looking and doing all this research on my own to be a true student of the game. So whenever I came in on my first day, I had a pretty versed education on, on what I needed to do so that I could hit the ground running. And then the second thing that I did is I said, when can I go out with production and actually do the work because I can't sell what I can't do. And I don't see people do that. And to me, it's, it's, if you're coming in here for a paycheck and it's not about being the best you can possibly be at the job, you need to go find something that you're passionate about, you know, and, you know, I've, I've had jobs, you know, to where I had to do it, to make ends, meet, to take care of family and things like that, but always had, you know, tear a motive, but I still did the best that I could possibly do for that organization. And, you know, it's a lot of that falls on leadership and how we challenge our employees or what I've seen more often than not in leadership anymore is there's really no accountability. They just kind of let people fly by the seat of their pants and expect stellar results out of them, and then want to complain about why they don't get them yet. They're providing zero development, zero motivation, zero accountability. And, you know, it's, it's just, can't be that way anymore. It is, people need discipline, they need accountability, they need structure. And those kinds of things will them passionate. But then it's also to challenging them and saying, you know what, tell me a story this week, where you went above and beyond for one of your clients, you know tell me a story this week. Think about where you came up with a solution that really didn't have anything to do with our core services that we provide, you know, like in restoration, it was like, if I couldn't get in the door with fire water mold, I would go to hotels. And I got myself certified to teach human trafficking awareness. And people are like, why did you do that? And I'm like, because they don't want to hear about Firewater mold, but it's branding. And it's me being able to get in front of them and provide a solution to a problem that they have that is specific to their organization. And that allows me to cultivate relationship aside from that, the, the core value services that we provide and I was winning market share left and right, because of doing things so far outside the box that even the owner of the company was like, I don't, I don't get how you're doing this, but it's working and I want you to teach it. And that's what our team became. Our team. We cultivated a culture, or I cultivated a culture that became so much about being customer centric, that, that we, I would challenge them and say, you have to go out this week and not ever talk about Firewater mold. I want you to go win relationships without talking about what our core services are, but are leaders challenging their sales team to be passionate, you know, to be creative, they're not, it is, it is a law of averages. It is it's, it's just sickening. It really is. It drives me crazy because it has become more about, more about money and law of averages to the customer. And the customer chooses you. They choose to do business with you. You owe them everything because they choose to do business with you. They have come from, you have competitors. They could do business with anyone. You know? So that's, that's the kind of passion that I'm talking about.

So you're in, you're in the interview process and you're looking for, for talent salespeople, how do you identify what the right type of person is for fitting into it's about people not process? I mean, you mentioned passion, you, you alluded to some other things of being able to identify top talent. How do you, if you're a business owner listening in, what are you looking for? If you're a sales guy and you're looking for your next career move, how do you exemplify the things that, Hey, maybe I was mediocre at my current place, but I'm designed to be stellar because I mean, sometimes at least in my opinion, sometimes a lot of salespeople are average for one of two reasons, either a they're in the wrong they're in the wrong company, which is usually the, the primary issue. I'm not, I should never be selling this. If you're not supposed to be selling this, I don't care how great of a salesperson you are. You'll be only average compared to what your potential is. The second thing is, is that I think you talked about passion. The second thing that I believe is is that either you don't have the right company, or you don't have the right leadership. So how do you, how do you identify that somebody that was mediocre somewhere else or even great somewhere else can come in and be a top performer at your organization?

Well, I think it's, I think it's important first and foremost, that everybody in the organization embodies the mission statement, vision statement, and core value proposition of the organization that comes from leadership. I go console with companies all the time that don't even have those three things in place. And it's like, well, what if, if you don't have a mission statement, a vision statement, something that you believe in your core values for your organization and how can anyone represent them? You know, and, and how can you expect anybody to, to support and believe what you're trying to do as a business without those things. So, you know, I spent a lot of time writing those for companies and helping them write those. But, but then once those are established, are they up? Are they visual to where when people walk by and they see them and they can regurgitate them and they not only say them, but live them. So that helps you understand and leadership, like if you're a director of business development or, you know, an HR hiring manager, you know, whatever it helps you understand the culture that your company embodies. So then at that point, whenever you get the sales person that comes in, you need to start looking you know, personality based, situational based questions that are going to see how they would respond and whether or not they would be a good fit for your culture. You know? Tell me about a situation where the customer, you know, you dropped the ball and it was a, it was a huge problem. And the customer didn't want to use your services anymore, and you potentially won them back. You know, what, what did you do? You know, case in point, I had a very large client that had told me that if you drop the ball, and this was a national account that I was managing. So if you drop the ball, not going to ever use you again. Well, unfortunately the first loss that happened was outside of our territory was in another state. I trusted another franchisee to be able to take care of that customer, the way that I would take care of them without setting the precedent, they screwed it up. I lost the relationship for a year, but I got it back by bending over backwards and doing 20 cents a square foot after hours, perfect cleaning for all of their local facilities until they got a loss. Again, it took me a year to win the relationship back. Most people would have just gave up on it, walked away and said, you know what? We screwed the pooch on this one. It's done it's over, but I kept fighting because I believed honestly that we had the best service out of anyone in our industry to offer. So I don't take no for an answer because if I do that, I'm lying to my customers. You know, if I take no for an answer online to them. So, you know, but I want to put situations in place like that to where in the interview process that I'm asking him, tell me about an out of the box idea that you use to win a customer that didn't, that didn't embody any of your core services that you offer. And if they look at me like a deer caught in the headlights, I know they're not creative. Well, I can teach them creativity, but I also too want to put them on, you know, see how they think on their feet. You know, so it's not just the standard interview questions. Mine are very situational based. And, and to try to look for certain personality responses and traits and things like that. So, but whenever I'm out consulting, you know, if you don't know how to do those things, we put those types of things together I'll even help prescreen their candidates for them to get the right bodies in front of them. You know, so, but if it's a hiring manager or business manager that looks, it'd be like, I guess I could ask you, you know, look at your track record and see how your sales team has been performing for you to see whether or not you've made the right decision, you know, because, and then, but most importantly, at the end of the day, leadership has to look yourself in the face and say, you know, are they failing? Because I didn't provide them with all the tools that they need to be successful. You know? So I, I, first and foremost always challenge the leadership. If somebody in your subordinate staff is failing, the first person I look at is leadership, you know, and say, okay, well, what, what have we done for this person? Are they uninspired? What have you done to inspire them? Are they not motivated? What have you done to motivate the individual, not the team. If you think that throwing out a monetary incentive is his motivation for everybody, it's not, you know, so it's hard work at the end of the day, you know, to, to create and develop a truly successful sales team that embodies passion that is, wants to get up every day and be better than they were the day before. But a lot of that comes from the leadership that surrounds them

Well, let's, and let's segue just a little bit, cause I think some of the stuff you're touching about here as it relates to to leadership and the things that leaders need to be cognizant of, I think a lot of leaders who deal with field sales or outside sales reps are in a unique spot in, in the wake of COVID and the transitions that are happening with, with travel and, and just how organizations are behaving, right? I'm not necessarily in an office, maybe I'm working from home. And so what I'm I'm curious to know is, is how can leaders develop in and look at the resources that they're giving to their sales team to ensure they're successful, even though the market conditions are changing for how you would have typically sold, are typically built relationships in the past. What are things that leaders are thinking about in today's environment?

Well, I think, you know, more often than not that if you're relying on the techniques from 2019 to carry you into 20 20th are going to work, you know people have become very standoffish. You know, the people that have chosen to adapt and overcome and become very versed in blended sales techniques and techniques are the ones that you're seeing that are excelling. You know, it's going back the old school mentality of actually picking up the phone and talking to people and being good on the phones and teaching people to be good on the phones to see it's utilizing your social media platforms like LinkedIn and Alignable and, and all of these to be able to garner meetings. You know, LinkedIn's one of the most valuable resources in my arsenal to be able to connect with individuals we didn't connect with the correct centers of influence because a lot of them are working from home, you know, but you know how to, to construct and craft an email, that's going to garner a response, you know, so you whether it's an email or a text or things like that, so you have to be good in all three facets of selling now if you want to be successful. So leadership needs to understand, I'm going to encourage this as a shameless plug, you know, and it's, he doesn't give me anything to do this. It's just, I wholeheartedly believe in this guy, but there are two books out right now that have real three books, actually that ever really changed my sales life for 2021 is virtual selling by jet blonde. That book is tremendous. It's showing how to sell and in the new world and the new modern era. The other one is a book called selling in place. Talks about this guy and his self esteem garner and broker multimillion dollar deals and never meet customers face to face, do it all over the phone. And the other one is Go-Giver someone teaches, you know, the, the, that you don't make a sale, you receive a sale and, you know, we can, we, and you know, it's about relationship and, and you know, those three books have been so impactful to me. But you have to, as a leader, you have to be going out searching and thriving and hungering for that information, you know, going okay, here's the cards we've been dealt with 2020. Nobody saw this coming, but how are we going to Excel? We're going to be an excuse. Are we going to be a solution? And you know, the solutions are out there and you have peers that are willing to pour into you through podcasts like this who are tremendously eye opening. You know, I'm going to be sharing this through all of my platforms. Not only because I love the way you're positioning everything, but because I think more people need to know you, you know, and success is only one relationship away, but you gotta be coming back for a blended sales classy. You gotta be good on the phone and you gotta be good digitally, and then you gotta be good face-to-face and you have to be able to use all three of those to be able to, to, to get in front of the perspective center of influence, to be able to talk and do business. Well,

First of all, thanks for the, for the plug to publish out everybody that's listening should do the exact same wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't pay for any advertising on my podcast. So the only way people hear it is if you share it,

That's right. Like subscriber follow I'll, say it again, but specific, specific to the two books that you mentioned, what are some of the key takeaways you had from selling in place in virtual selling like two or three that you're like, man, this, this has really transformed transformative for the way that I've been thinking in, in then I fall. The, the, the thing that I think is interesting about you, Eddie is as you started on the phones. So how much of that starting on the phones influences your thinking versus somebody who just started selling by knocking door to door. Like, what's, what's the difference as you look at those things you take away from, from both the virtual selling and selling in place to your personal experience and how you blend those together for what to do next.

Absolutely. I think, you know, the biggest thing is, is that virtual selling is the most people don't get the meetings, you know, on LinkedIn or on zoom just simply because they don't ask. You know, and, and I see people that are scared of those formats, you know, it makes them feel very vulnerable. Face-To-Face, you know, it's all an art form, every bit of it's an art form to be good on the phones to be good virtually to be good face-to-face but in face-to-face you have far more tools at your disposal, nonverbal communication, picking up on interests from around the room that you're, you're noticing whether or not, you know, like if I was in your office, I'm sure I would know for sure, in Nebraska Cornhuskers fan, you know, would give me good segue conversation to lower those walls, to be able to do that. Whether or not what your body mannerism to see whether or not you're engaged, you know, and, and the communication or whether or not I'm, I'm hitting on anything, or we're connecting, you don't have those tools at your disposal on the phone. And, you know, on the phone, it is all about active listening is all about voice inflection. And it is all about not what you say, but how you say it. You know, to be able to garner that. And it's a lost art form because people spend so much time in text and email and using their own interpretation to where on the phone, you have to listen to the responses that you're getting, you know, case in point. And I teach us all the time. I can say three simple words and have four totally different meanings. And I use the words I love you. And, and the way that it said it applies the way that it is meant and delivered. So if I just say it, you know, I love you. It's just a matter of fact statement. It means more than I like you, but it's just a matter of fact, you know, I love you. That's how I feel, but what if, what if I change the inflection to the word? And I say, I love you. Well, now it's implying. It's a much more personal it's it's me. It's nobody else around here. I want you to know this is laser hyper-focused. I love you. Well, what if I change the inflection to the word love? And I say, I love, well, now it's much more powerful. You know, it's, it's, it's not a matter of fact statement. It's I want the emphasis to be on the word love so that you understand the power of what I'm trying to say. And then if I switch it to you, I love you. Then it's very specific, you know, so it's on the phones. It could be something as simple as how you, you know, how are you today, or how are you today, you know, and we have to recapture that lost art. So, and that's what I really got from, from the selling in place was the power of inflection and delivery and active listening on the virtual selling side. It was just simply the asking for those meetings so that you could really still have face-to-face meetings like this, or I can see whether or not I'm connecting whether or not, or just throwing darts at a map, you know, throwing up and people are disengaged, but it is such a fantastic, powerful platform because you could get on zoom pro. You can get every director on the board of directors on the same call or face to face. You may, we'll be lucky to show up and only get one center of influence. And that center of influence may be swayed by horizontal influenced by another director, not to use your services. So I think you have more power in the virtual world than you do, even in face-to-face, but so many people are scared of it and shy away from it, and simply don't ask. So I think it's just an incredibly powerful tool for you to be able to get to the correct centers of influence quickly, identify all your non-verbal communication and look at who may have for a horizontal or vertical influence in that, in that group, and be able to, to leverage that, to engage in higher levels of business.

I, I gotta be honest. I can't think of a better way to end. I mean, from, from, you know, starting about it's about people, not a process coming all the way to the end, where you gotta be active listening, you gotta use the tools that you have, and you have to be creative in your position. I mean, it, it really boils down to sales is about people, meaning the person doing the selling and the person that you're selling to creating a unique bond. So this is good stuff today, man, just really great stuff. Eddie,

Thank you so much. And you know, like I said, I truly appreciate you. I know we connected, you know, I told you the other day, you know, it wouldn't matter if nobody heard this, I got to, it was about the interpersonal experience that I have with you. And now I've got another friend in Nebraska that, that I can call and bounce ideas and somebody that will mentor me and, and, and, you know, iron sharpens iron. So my life is better because of it. And that's the way that I look at sales. That's the way that I look at people and relationships and, and, you know, I encourage you that if you are struggling, it's, it's to just, just one simple paradigm shift. This is what we can do for you shifted to what would you need from me? And I promise you, it could be a life changer in your sales and your sales experience, you know, it's

It's the position difference of assuming that what I have is important to you versus having you tell me what is important to you and in one position, you're always wondering what went wrong and in the other position, you know, I could deliver, or I couldn't. And I think that that's really powerful. So thank you so much today, Eddie, for being on the show for your generosity, it's been our pleasure to have you here.

Thank you so much

For those of you who for people who want to get in contact with you, or want to listen to your podcasts, do a shameless plug for it's a, it's a person, not a process as well as how to get ahold of you.

Yeah. So I'm selling people, not a process. It's hosted by Libsyn and it's out on every podcast channel. You can think of iTunes, Spotify, iHeart, radio everywhere that you can listen to podcasts just look for selling people, not a process. And if you want to find me it was funny. It was actually kind of a comedic thing of my LinkedIn profile. It's any sales guru is what it is. And you can find me there I'm on LinkedIn and connect with me, feel free there, or just drop me an email at Eddie EDD, I e@tierlevel.com. And I'd be happy. I'm always happy to connect with people. Whether it's sales challenges, where you think I'm full of it either way let's engage in some dialogue and, and my life is always better from getting to know each and every person that I do. That's awesome.

Well, thank you again for being on the show. You know, I'm your host, Kyle Haimer, you've been listening to summit podcast. Make sure you like subscribe, follow on until next week. Eddie said it best iron sharpens iron keeps sharpening yourself and stay on top of your game.