56: Bill Hart - Discipline, Training, and Practice

buddy this is john barrows consulting make it happen mondays hopefully you all had a fantastic weekend mine was decent my celtics got absolutely smoked by the cabs so uh i'm not exactly thrilled about that but everything else was cool um and i'm super excited to announce here today we're coming up on 100 000 actually i think we just crossed 100 000 downloads for the podcast which i was never expecting in my wildest imaginations when we launched this thing so we're running a little promo here for anybody who's listening to this podcast or watching this right now take a screenshot of it throw it out there on social uh tag me on it and we're giving away a whole bunch of make it happen gear for this week so uh because of just to celebrate and say thank you all for listening so with that i thought today was actually going to be a really good uh episode here to help celebrate that as well i'm here with bill hart from building champions bill want to introduce everybody to yourself and give them a little background on you where you're coming from what building champions is all about thanks john you bet yeah so building champions is uh an executive coaching firm out of portland oregon i live in southern california uh you can live anywhere right do what we do uh but we started our business about 20 years ago in the mortgage space that's where uh all of the coaches came from right now our number one client is daimler uh the german entity that that owns chrysler and mercedes number two talk about random is chick-fil-a and i don't know i can't explain it right people by the way just to jump in there all i gotta say you must be doing something right with chick-fil-a because everywhere i go chick-fil-a's are bananas like you know you go to the food court in the mall here in boston right and every other place is empty and chick-fil-a's got a line around the corner so i don't know if it's got to be a combination of everything like man whatever's going on over there they got they got the special sauce they do the end and they do it in six days and they're closed on sundays so right yeah exactly right yeah it's pretty special stuff um but my space historically has been mortgaged real estate and that's where i've spent the vast majority of my time uh got into the business 15 years ago 30 years well 35 and sales i mean my sales career started selling airplanes to people who didn't need them so if you're gonna cut your chops on a on a high ticket price in sales right that's that's the gig so it was in the 80s and we were selling airplanes to actors and attorneys and uh and directors because back then you you could uh you could appreciate the airplane straight line depreciation over five years if you leased it back you could take a 10 investment tax credit off the bottom line of your taxes so imagine john if i sold you a quarter of a million dollar airplane and you had a 25 000 tax liability it's a wash that year right pretty it was a pretty big deal so anyway sold airplane sold sold an airplane to bruce jenner when he was a guy so that's an interesting claim to fame right yeah there you go um it's a different day man it was a different day we uh i got into real estate after that and then i got into the mortgage business and and i've been uh i've been coaching as i said for about 15 years the thing for me with the military connection that we'll talk about with the book is i mean i didn't serve in the military although you can now see in the background right there's an american flag pillow there and there's a there's a picture of a bunch of guys in iraq with an american flag in front of a tank and that's me with chris kyle back in the day the american sniper so anyway but where that all came from is when i read lone survivor i think i got it here that book in 08 i think it was it just rocked my world before it was even a movie right lone survivor this story by marcus luttrell of what they go through john and compared to my life right and compared to the people that pay me a thousand bucks an hour for coaching it's like no comparison no it just rocked my world yeah and i started to see this sort of parallel between the elite and the special forces and the elite in sales and there are parallels so that's where the idea for the book came from and where my appreciation for veterans came from i love it and and just for everybody's uh knowledge it's called white collar warrior right and it is it already out or are you launching it tomorrow tomorrow it's available for pre-order today it is out tomorrow on amazon uh yeah man it's uh it's it's been a labor of love the subtitle is so it's white collar warrior yep lessons for sales professionals from america's military elite and that's the weird little bridge that i found yeah and that's i mean so we'll we'll make sure all the the links and stuff are in the on the facebook thing and also for those people listening to the podcast go on amazon white collar warrior pre pre-order it here but let's talk about that because i do think there is there is something that separates great you know i i've never been part of the military i've always admired it and i've always had a deep deep deep respect for it and appreciation um but i've never been there but i you know in sales i try to do what i can to stay into that top you know one percent if you will and i've always done that and i you know i've asked my parents a long time ago because now i have a daughter i'm like hey you know what did you do to instill that work ethic in me because i just feel like you know i knew early in my career i couldn't control much but i could control my effort right so i figured i'd just i'd just try harder than everybody else and i'd figure it out along the way and i think one of the things that um you know people always ask me john what's the secret to success you know you've gotten to a pretty decent part you know place in your career and those type of things and my answer is always uh there's no special sauce it's just working your ass off so so what are some of the things that you've seen from those elite athletes or i'm sorry elite um military and veterans and that people who excel in those areas and what are some of those you know things that you can make connections to here in sales yeah man so i mean in no particular order the one that comes to mind when you say that and and this comes up a lot for me in coaching is discipline yeah and here's the reason i think i'm so emphatic about this if i'm completely transparent i did not learn discipline as a kid i didn't i was not an exceptional athlete i wasn't an exceptional student i didn't learn martial arts i didn't learn a musical instrument i just didn't i didn't figure that out until later in life and it's much more it's like learning a language later in life right it's much more difficult how old is your daughter now seven yeah get a seven-year-old learning japanese and she'll rock it when she's 25 right but try and learn in the 25 and you're like uh i don't know that i could make that sound because a lot of times you have to unlearn stuff to learn right because because you're so conditioned to learning in a certain way and then you get off of that track especially when you got out of school and you don't you're not in that muscle memory isn't there right yeah yeah so so here's the thing right if somebody's watching or listening to us right now and you're like me and you're like don't i i didn't get it when i was younger well do what i did i mean right you just you got to double down do what you did it's outwork everybody but if you ask for the the synapses right like what are those connection points um number one is discipline so if you're listening to this and or watching this and you figured it out someplace else right you throw weights around in the gym you run long distances you learn to play the violin as a kid whatever i'm telling you tap into that because as a coach that's something that i work with john if i can find that someplace else in a person's life in coaching i'll take them back there like like my granddaughter right now she's she's 15 she's a competitive ice skater she's done it for eight years i know for a fact that as difficult as it is right now for her as a teenager i all i have to do is talk to my daughter about that right know that it's difficult but those 4 a.m cold mornings they're going to come back and pay dividends for her so if you've figured this out someplace else you've got an unfair competitive advantage use it use that discipline so that's the first one that comes to mind for me so let's dig into that a bit so from a discipline standpoint there's that can be that can be taken in a million different ways right it's discipline to to you know do the right things every day it's discipline and structuring your days what are some of the areas from a sales rep standpoint that you see having the highest impact that they have discipline with yeah great point so so i i joke that this will be my second book and it might actually be my second book but i call it the by noon effect i don't know if you ever read uh hal elrod's book miracle morning it's a great read the basic premise is i see more successful people getting things done early than average people right so if you're a sales rep and you want to get better results i'm going to challenge you and i'm going to call you out right now particularly if you're in your 20s and 30s so get ready this is the gray-haired coach coming in with the goods if you're binge watching netflix at 11 o'clock at night it's a mistake yeah it's a mistake what you're doing is you're stealing your better future from current like potato chips for the mind right now look i get it there's some great shows out there but i talk to an awful lot of people that go to bed late which then dictates what time they get up then they hammer themselves on i know i should have gotten up earlier but i don't have time to eat right now i'm going to run they don't get any fuel in their system they run in they're they're on the phone as they're driving they they kind of come flying into their day out of control that's a mistake so if you ask me like what's one place where where sales reps can focus right now that's it and it's an easy thing to change i'm not saying it's it's simple it's not easy it's simple thing to change yeah so wake up earlier right wake up earlier knock out your non-negotiable disciplines you know as well as i do there are calls that you need to return emails you need to jump on posts that you need to be on top of responses that you need to do if you do those first before the rest of the world wakes up brian tracy calls it the golden hour that hour before everybody else kind of gets in right and starts waking up if you knock that out you can have the rest of your day to react but be intentional about what i call the by noon effect just try and get more done by noon it's funny because uh i'm sure you follow gary vanderchuk right totally right so so he's got an interesting take on this because i i actually lean a little i leaned a little bit more towards him uh with this than because i understand what he's trying to say people say oh is it better to wake up early or you know morning or the other type of stuff and he's like it doesn't matter how much you sleep it's matter what you do when you're awake right that's his whole thing it's like if you're a night owl and you stay up until three o'clock in the morning and then don't get up until 11 o'clock but i but i tend to err a little bit more on the getting up earlier side even though you know i i do agree it makes a difference what you do when you're awake but it's because it's that clarity it's because it's like you're into your day and you're midstream you're you're hitting your stride by by the time everybody's starting trying to get up to theirs right that's right example i was in london i was in london and dublin this week and you know five hour time difference from boston here and uh and i you know and i forced myself to hit on their time so as quickly as i possibly can so when i get home saturday i got home late on friday right i and i stayed up late so i could so i could kind of readjust back on my schedule here and what happened was obviously on saturday morning i popped up but i don't i think i woke up at 3 30 and then i forced myself to go back to bed until about 4 35 o'clock and then i just sat there like staring at the ceiling so i'm like you know what might as well get up my wife isn't up my daughter isn't up so i had three hours and i decided to come into the office you know kind of clean up from the week get some emails done went around the house cleaned a few things up there and by the time they woke up like i was i i was completely i felt um very accomplished right by by eight o'clock in the morning which is obviously very rare right and so i felt a lot more at ease throughout the rest of the day because in the back of my head i wasn't having all these things oh shit sunday night i gotta you know i gotta make sure that all this stuff to prep for monday what and it allowed me for monday you know sunday night just to hang out and watch movies with my family you know what i mean so i actually do agree with like getting if you can get up a little bit earlier um because i think the whole momentum piece kicks into gear not even just hey you got a bunch of stuff done but again you're mid-stride when everybody else is just starting right i love it so there's a guy in the book the the book opens comparing a navy seal's life during hell week if you know anything about buds it's what they go through and it's just unbelievable sleep deprivation and physicality and hypothermia and guns blaring and lights flashing it's completely disorienting right and you know a very small percentage of those guys make it through right the vast majority ring the bell put their helmet down on the line and they and they go off to do something else in the navy but they're not going to be sealed um i contrast that to a guy that i used to coach who literally woke up every morning now just think about this because this is anecdotal evidence it's not gospel but it's anecdotal evidence he woke up at 3 30 in the morning the very first thing he did was he at building champions we have clients do a life plan so that's the very first thing they do they do like a business plan for the life and then a business plan he would review those two things he quoted darren hardy i don't know if you're a fan of darren or not but the publisher success magazine you know darren yeah yeah and and he calls it darren calls it calibrating your day so i would love for people listening right now or watching to file that thought away or maybe make that note like i need to calibrate my day in other words what he was doing is he was saying this is my true north this is where i'm going now if you start your day there then you work out then you return emails then you slide into breakfast with your child and spouse long before the rest of the world is rolling are you going to go to bed earlier yeah this guy in his 30s was going to bed at nine o'clock i know that sounds crazy but let me tell you what else sounds crazy he owns 100 rental properties john 100 he's 40 he owns 100 rental properties he drives a previously depreciated range rover right it was three years old that somebody else took the hit on the depreciation he owns his home free and clear he's got passive income far beyond what most people can imagine because he was willing to do what most people wouldn't do so if you're a sales rep i want to challenge you you don't have to get up at 3 30 but if you're getting up at seven i'm just going to call it out it's too late it's too late get up at six and if a coach ever asks you what time do you wake up and your response is well you know it's uh that's not a good answer yeah you gotta like name a time be resolute and have a routine too i think that what i've gotten into a lot these days is is having this morning routine right where instead of checking fantasy league because everybody has one whether it's formally structured or not you know who knows right but you know i used to check my fantasy leagues or whatever come in and talk to people about the game last night those type of things now i've adjusted that to i review my data you know i check out my plan for the day uh and then i look at you know i follow all my top accounts on on some social listening tools and i and i follow some blogs and stuff like that that i want to use to educate myself for the day based on my personas and the clients that i'm after and so just for an hour i'm kind of skimming through information and seeing if i can pick up on anything and it's that routine i think so it's not only having so discipline and obviously having a discipline to do certain things but also having a routine around them so that you do them consistently that's right because it's kind of like working out like i suck at working out and there's a reason i suck at working out is because i'm an event driven worker outer you know what i mean like i'd like if i if i if i'm going to the you know on vacation in a month i'll be at the gym every day and then i'll go to the you know i'll go to the beach and then i'll come home and be like oh pizza beer fuck it you know like yeah so this is what happens now i know that if i just woke up every morning did bunch of sit-ups bunch of push-ups 15 minutes of cardio that i'd actually maintain a really healthy lifestyle for my you know what i mean and i wouldn't have to do it so i think a lot of it has to do with creating a routine that you can stick to and not adding it to i think this is the big challenge that people have is when we you and i talk about stuff like this it's like yeah that's yet another thing that i gotta add to my plate here bill like what the fuck i only have so much time in the day we'll wake up earlier okay well okay but talk about replacing things right so it's like that's the key right take those the binge watching of game of thrones totally place that with something that's more healthy for you and from a business and a lifestyle standpoint right so so check this out this is a very low-tech way to bring this image up i'm sure there's another way to do it but i'm just going to do it so this is a guy that i coach i don't know the exact number i'll have to look it up but he's probably 37 and last year he did i think it's 66 295 push-ups i could be wrong on the number but here's what it was he did one he did one push-up on january 1st he did 365 december 31st he's the only thing he changed in his workout damn dude one year what's the difference the difference is january 2nd he did two push-ups january 3rd he did three he was that disciplined to something and i get that everybody's question is towards the end like dude really 365 push-ups yeah in sets of 50 right right transformed his body so look jim roan told us years ago my favorite quote i often have clients memorize this it's we must all suffer from one of two pains the pain the pain of discipline or the pain of regret the difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons so ken ken perry is his name if you want to follow him by the way um ken said i am going to feel the pain of discipline it's not a huge pain but it's a pain what's the pain of regret i got 30 extra pounds i used to have a 32 inch waist i got a 35 inch waist i can't fit into that thousand dollar suit right yep yeah just regret weighs heavy on you too i mean figuratively and literally right i mean i always it's funny i had an old manager a boss who said you know take the gym analogy again like you're either in or you're not he's like the worst part is people who sign up for the gym and and decide not to go like say you wake up in the morning you decide not to go right or you wake up that day and you decide you know what i'm not going to the gym today and then you sit on the couch you need ice cream and and you're sitting there telling like feeling regret for not going to the gym absolutely so it's either eat the fucking ice cream or go to the gym don't sit in the middle here right like accept the fact be like you know what screw it i didn't go to the gym today house a bunch of ice cream here and i'm not going to feel bad about the fact because this is a choice right absolutely that regret weighs so heavy on people and and you know that prevents them from doing more stuff 100 so here here's my phrase on that so i i was talking to the publisher i'm a first-time author right this is all brand new to me and he's saying so you know you got to figure out like your go-to phrase right when you sign the book so and i it never occurred to me that you sign on the title page right that's that's what you do and he said you need to get a good blue pen and you need to be prepared for that because you're going to be talking to people and you got to be able to do this make sure you spell their name right because there's a lot of variations for john um but the go-to phrase for me which is just something that i've said for years is if you're going to be in be all in yeah you're going to be in be all in be all in at the gym be all in as a dad be all in as a spouse be all in as a sales rep right don't settle for mediocrity don't settle for average that's my point no that whole being you know it's like i couldn't agree with that more as far just you got to commit to it and and if you don't then it's that middle ground is what kills people right um because then then there's indecision and i because i used to have a i have 12 guidelines to success and they all line up pretty directly with what we're talking about here one is the rule of one percent which is i got from ken blanchard's book uh um uh raving fans right know who you are know what your customer wants of you and then add one percent of you better every day so every day don't don't set the bar at a high you know high level and then once you achieve that bar go up here once you hit that go one percent better every day right so can you one more cold call every day can you send that one extra email can you do that one extra push-up right totally and then the other one which i changed recently because i i had one that said uh always have a plan b but i actually as i've as i've evolved i've realized that's actually a bad idea because you're because having a plan b distracts from your plan a right love that you're absolutely right and in on your plan a if you have a plan b yeah but i i change it to always be okay with worst case scenario so every decision you make look at it and ask yourself what is the absolute worst case scenario that and if it and if you're okay with that then do it fuck it right i love that john i so i tell a story in the book that i use in coaching all the time i didn't realize i did all this stuff by the way until i i started to be interviewed about the book and then it's like yeah i guess i do have a story for that i've been doing this a long time but i call it show them the dead body so in order to fall asleep at night my wife watches old episodes of law and order right so as i'm falling asleep i hear yeah but every episode think about it right whether it's ncis law and order whatever it all starts the same there's some happy-go-lucky situation and then the person's dead and then the detectives are around the yellow do not cross tape and then they sort of reverse engineer the story right like what happened how did the person die so what i try and help clients do is what you just said and that is i try and show them the dead body like if you continue this behavior classic example had a guy who after a year of coaching finally confessed to me he said dude i drink a a six pack of diet coke every day oh okay so that's a really bad plan it's a it's you think there's its diet there's something good going on in there right there's nothing he just kept gaining weight right so he did that he gave it up because i asked him to future his thinking well how do you think this is gonna end up well i don't know i hear it leeches calcium for my bones and maybe i get osteoporosis maybe right what what would happen if you replace that with water i'd probably be more hydrated and i'd pee more and that'd probably be good for my system and yeah i mean let's go through all the list of what could possibly go wrong so i think sometimes looking at the dead body john with your current behavior again if it's your personal relationships if it's the calls you're making if you go home to so today whatever day you're watching or listening to this seriously when you go home think back over your day and just ask yourself did i give it my all was i all in if not then you actually may have gone backwards right you didn't it's probably not homeostasis you're not just sitting there but you definitely did move forward which means tomorrow you got to hustle twice as much and that's see that is exact same concept with the ruler one percent like i i tell kids you know go home and just look yourself in the mirror and just ask yourself was i better today than i was yesterday totally and if you can genuinely answer that question then keep moving but if not then you got to do something about it tomorrow and plan for it right absolutely so we only have a few minutes what are some other things that you think i mean there's discipline there's there's structure there's effort you know other things that sales reps like individual sales reps can look at from from the experience that you've had that say i can do that or i should be doing that different yeah so chapter three is about training and you know with the seals and the rangers and i interviewed a top gun instructor arguably he has the most expensive like flight education in history because he's the last guy before they're they're flying drones out of uh out of vegas in a bunker right but um these guys to a person will all tell you and they are all guys because it's it's special operations and it will include women but right now it's all men they will all tell you they train every single day john they train and train and train more and in our business in sales in any industry it's easy to skip the training and to miss the training and not be fully present for great training so what i would say to you is if you don't know what to say in a particular situation if you're not great at the right questions if you don't know your product dead solid inside out like i can answer any question you got to do more training and so in my opinion it's make yourself as sharp as you can possibly be so it's it's ask yourself this question how do i show up if i show up solid awesome great training if there's gaps you need to train harder what is your what is the difference between training and practice in your opinion because i look at it and i say look we might not all have the time every day like i look at training as reading a new article you know picking something real quick doing a google search on it but you can also translate that at least in my opinion to practice and be conscious be conscious about it right so most of us don't consciously practice sales we we do sales and we learn almost through osmosis it's like oh i asked a stupid question to a ceo and the ceo said that's a stupid fucking question and so i'm not going to ask that again but but what are your thoughts on a sales ups with a conscious mindset of practicing sales yeah compared to actually training or learning sales so great question i've never had it asked that way before but i 100 agree with you i think there are two different things in golf if i go to my golf instructor and she she's a great instructor she's a woman and she says you know what on your downswing you need to bring that right elbow in a little bit more that's training that's something that she's got me on video i'm looking at it like wow haven't thought about that that's good maybe it's a new script maybe it's a new way to ask a question maybe it's listening better right biting my tongue and not talking but practicing is now i go to the range without her and i practice that so i would do the same thing i tell clients all the time and i know we're short on time but like listening is such a big one john that's something you can practice so consider this training to me we just talked about it but now when you're listening to somebody listen listen before you respond right don't say as soon as they're done with their babble i'm going to tell them how it is that's a mistake listen process then respond you can do that with your spouse you can do that with the waiter you can do that all day long that's in my mind that's practice versus training well and here's a very tactical thing here's a very tactical thing which is you know layering questions here's an easy way for everybody listening right now to practice active listening and it's called using layering questions sailor has this with their pain funnel you know whatever but it's introduce a could you explain to me how could you give me an example of what you mean by that could you clarify for me what you mean and then the other way of practicing that is regurgitating it back to the client obviously active listening bill what i thought what i think i heard what you said there was x y z is that true totally is that is such an easy way to practice it's perfect listening right without having to try too hard i've actually i actually to the guy that's great coaching yeah so it's like in those simple so i got trained on on active listening i got trained on layering questions and i actually implemented layering questions very specifically for me because i'm so i get into neuro-linguistic programming and and that type of stuff too in this visual auditory and kinesthetics i'm a very visual like talk fast use my hands to communicate so when somebody asks me a question my immediate gut is to answer that question because i've heard it before i'm pretty sure i know what i'm talking about here it is i've had to slow down myself because a lot of times i'm answering the wrong question or not really the question you know they're asking or i'm assuming that the answer is this so i've used layering questions specifically and practice them to slow myself down and get much better insights from what the clients truly ask me right so that's so solid man i'm telling you guys if you're watching and listening this right now like i would rewind three minutes and listen to john go through that again because that that is something that i see sales reps falling on their sword over and over and over again and they don't realize what's happening it's because you're missing the connection you're missing a connection by not doing the layering questions that john just described love it cool man well i think like i think we could have this conversation for the next eight hours for crying out loud i'm a big fan of of learning from experts and also the military just to give you a sense my mom started a uh uh arts in the veterans uh program down in uh virginia so if you're down in virginia if you know anybody in virginia uh the the she i'll put the link in here too it's veterans in the arts it's she's an art therapist or she was an art therapist and she uh works at a place that uh has a concert hall effectively and brings veterans in and uses music to help them re-assimilate and address some of the challenges that they're dressed with so all uh and by the way all this going back to your tagline right uh all in or nothing mine's making it out you got that store uh and 100 of those proceeds go to the veterans in the arts right love that man anyways but uh bill again give everybody uh what's the best way to follow you get your book because i think this is going to be fire man i appreciate you sending me the link to it i'm gonna i'm gonna read it myself here my pleasure uh tell everybody where they can find out more information about this and what they can do yeah so so whitecollarwarriorbook.com is the best site to go to because you can order there once you get your receipt from either amazon or barnes and noble put that code in there are free resources there there's a reader's guide a summary a leader's guide if some of you manage other sales people it's a great way to really double down on the content and execute not just read it and say yeah that was good it's do something with it so and on social i'm coach bill hart you'll find me so it's been great hanging with you john i appreciate the opportunity let's stay connected and if there's everything anything i can do for your audience let me know what that would be i appreciate and by the way you do individual coaching right correct you okay cool because i got a lot of people who ask me for individual coaches so i'll make sure we point them your way um and everybody again thank you so much for listening here uh as always ask whatever questions you have anytime day or night um and again uh if you liked this podcast if you like the podcast in general do me a favor take a quick screencast of what you're watching here or uh the the podcast itself on your iphone or something like that post that out there on linkedin facebook whatever you want to do tag me and then at the end of this week we're going to choose a winner there and send them over a whole bunch of make it happen schwag and all that sort of stuff keep the ball rolling all right cool thanks again bill uh we'll talk soon take care you guys later you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you