Carole Mahoney: The Neuroscience of Trust and Asking the Right Questions

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Hey, everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And today's conversation is with Carol Mahoney. Now, Carol is the founder of Unbound Growth that provides sales performance training and coaching that is science-based and field tested. She's also the author of a new book called Buyer First, Grow Your Business with Collaborative Selling. And she's a sales coach for Harvard's Entrepreneurial MBA. So she's got a lot to say about sales. And right out of the gate when I was doing some prep, I mean, I've known her for a while, but as I was preparing for this, I looked at her website.

And I mean, I knew we aligned right out of the gate because right on her website, it says, I believe that sales is the connection between a problem and a solution. When done in the best interest of others, better salespeople and leaders can make the world a better place. Therefore, we have a responsibility both as individual sales professionals and sales leaders to raise the respectability of the sales profession. It is my personal mission to change the negative perception of sales. That's exactly what my mission is as well. From the individual salesperson to the executive and leaders by helping companies hire better and increase sales performance using proven science and cognitive behavioral approach.

I mean, honestly, outside of the proven science and cognitive behavioral approach, I don't think we could get more aligned with our whole view of the sales profession. So we dove into everything. And this was a really easy conversation. I mean, we talked about the negative perception of sales and why sometimes negative sales tactics actually win, what it takes to be great in sales, what soft skills we need to focus on now with AI, how to train empathy and the neuroscience of questions and so much more. So strap yourself in for a 100% sales focused discussion on this one. Let's make it happen. Carol Mahoney, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast. How are you doing? I'm doing fabulous. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, thanks for coming on. It was great seeing you. Where do we see each other? Was it inbound or was it Dreamforce? Because they were right back to back. Was it both? It wasn't inbound. It was actually the all-bound gala while you were standing in line and I had a frozen rosé in my hand. There you go. That's right. Yeah, this was like, this is the weird conference season where I get everything mixed up as far as where and when I see people. Because when you see people in person now, it's just kind of like so different than what it has been and it's refreshing in a lot of ways. So it was great to see. And I love the book, by the way. Congrats on it. I know you've had some great early success with it and hopefully we'll push it through a little bit more here.

But let's get the audience. We're going to talk about, I mean, you and I are, I don't want to say kindred spirits, but I was doing some prep and a lot of what you talk about is directly in line with my mentality as far as what sales is really all about, how to be successful in this profession. And I'm guessing your why is pretty similar to mine, but let's back up here. And I've always loved to know people's origin stories. So not just work-wise, let's go all the way back to childhood here because we're going to talk about how to sell as an entrepreneur versus how to sell as a sales rep at a company. And I'm always curious where that entrepreneurial bug kind of caught you and where it comes from, nature and nurture type of stuff.

So I'll just give the audience a little perspective here and then we'll take it from there. Cool. Yeah. Awesome. And I often say to people, my entrepreneurial DNA was something that I've had since birth. Like I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. My mother owned a painting business. My grandmother was one of the first female real estate owned brokerages in Massachusetts in the seventies. Way. Yeah. My grandfather. That's awesome. Isn't it? And she was my sales role model, honestly. Of course. Yeah. My grandmother had, my grandmother, my grandfather also had a sporting goods store and he also did like freelance, a broad iron welding. So if you go around Boston area or you look at all of the universities with the broad iron fencing and welding, that was his work.

And so growing up, working a nine to five job was pretty much a foreign concept. The dinner table was our conference table. And I would often hear my grandfather and my grandmother, actually, it's funny. My grandfather was very blue collar and my grandmother who owned the real estate brokerage, they would often butt heads, right? Because he saw her as this always on sales person. And she saw him as just kind of like this, you know, blue collar until they were always butting heads, but they were both such major role models for me that, you know, sometimes I felt like I was stuck in the middle between the two of them, but that's really where my entrepreneurial DNA came from. And when I went to college, I wrote my business plan in college.

I had an idea of like, after I graduate, I want to spend five years in corporate so that I can get the connections that I needed and all of the, you know, experience that was going to help me to serve my clients better. And long story short, I ended up getting laid off in the last great recession that we had. So my five-year plan opened a business became a six-month plan because that's how long I had in unemployment. And what I didn't expect, you know, I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. I grew up around successful salespeople, had great role models, but my perception of sales actually was created because my mother actually had a boyfriend who was a used car salesman, who was just the horriblest of persons.

And it was that impression of sales that left me struggling with how to sell my own self and my services as I became an entrepreneur. And it was a really hard rock bottom story. Like, you know, not able to buy groceries and Christmas presents for the kids kind of rock bottom. That's when I realized I needed to, I needed to change the way I thought about sales and the way I interacted in sales, because it was obviously not working, but it all stemmed from those first role models that I had with my grandparents as entrepreneurs. Well, that, so remind me, so the, when it was, when rock bottom was that after the great recital, like 2007, 2008 timeframe? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That was brutal. That's why I like, you know, and I think we'll get into this, but that's why I think I, I, I almost feel bad for, for the generation of sales professionals who have gotten into sales after that.

Right. So after 2000, I, I almost want to call 2010 to 2020 the golden years of sales, especially in Texas sales. Cause it was like, after that recession, it just, everything just, you know, especially with the interest rates being as low as they were and, and SAS just growing at all costs type of thing. Like, I think we've lost a lot of the fundamentals that shaped what you had been able to shape that foundation. And, you know, granted you had to adjust it a little bit because of your perception, but you at least had something I think to fall back on it. And we'll get into this as far as your mindset was that was the challenge, not exact, not necessarily your skills and abilities. And are you seeing that right now with the people that, cause what are you doing now?

Well, just to, let's put a pin on that one and just say, or let's put a cherry on top and say, so what are you doing now with what you've learned as far as your business and what do you do? So when I first started my business, it was a lead generation company. I did inbound marketing. I was one of the first 100 HubSpot partners and I was all in. And what I found was happening with my clients is that we would deliver all of these great leads for them, right? In their buyer, you know, in their target market, but they couldn't close them because they were still using these outdated sales tactics on today's educated internet buyer. And I realized that if I was going to complete my mission and helping small businesses to grow, to create jobs, to feed their families, that I needed to teach them how to sell in today's environment.

And that required even more work on my own sales skills and mindsets because, you know, doing sales yourself and then selling salespeople and helping them to become better sellers is a different ballgame. Totally. And so today what I do is I actually help people walk through this cognitive behavioral approach to sales performance, whereby we're addressing what are their specific beliefs and mindsets in sales, because there are specific ones that impact our ability to adopt certain skill sets and help them then also to learn what those skill sets are. So when I'm coaching and training, whether it's business owners, entrepreneurs, or sales teams, I'm looking at, do they know what to do? That's training.

Can they do it? That's coaching. And then will they do it? That's mindset coaching because we can know what to do and we can do it. But if we get in the moment with our buyer and we chicken out or we're not asking those tougher questions or clarification questions, then we're not getting anywhere. So we need to have all three of those elements. And that's what I do in my sales coaching and training. And love it because I was at Inbound actually, and we had a couple of my clients on stage. And one of the things that really struck me is they said, yes, I, you know, increased my close rate by 71%. I've increased my average deal size by 14%. We've gone from zero to, you know, $350,000 in customers.

But one of them, Michael Douglas said, he's like, you know, all of that is great. But what really happened was it actually changed me. It impacted my personal life. And that's often why I say you can't be a good salesperson. If you're not a good person, it will change you if you do this work. Hey, I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB sales membership. It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, filling the funnel and driving to close. It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific skills and different tech like ChatGPT and how to leverage it in the sales process. And it gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done.

You get all of this for $420 a year as an individual or $5,000 for teams. And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to www.jbarrows.com and click on the individual or team membership and use code podcast, you'll get 20% off. Let's make this happen together. Well, so I agree with you because I always say to people like, you know, the number one thing you need to be successful in sales is a belief in what you do. So why do you think you and I seemingly fight used car salesman mentality on a consistent basis? And why does it seem to win so often? I was actually having this conversation with your colleague James a couple of weeks ago. And there's one thing. One is that there's this psychology talks about the theory of reasoned action and planned behavior.

The attitude that we have towards a certain behavior will dictate how we do it or if we'll even do it. And a lot of times sales has this negative perception because of where it came from. You know, all of the different methodologies and processes that we've had in sales has created this perception of I need to sell to you. I need to influence you. I need to, i.e., manipulate you to get you to do what it is that I want you to do. And it's because of that focus on ourselves, that focus on what we want out of this conversation or out of this opportunity, it's created this dynamic where sales is pushy, slimy, and sleazy. And that's what we think it takes to be a good salesperson. And so if that's what we think it takes to be good, even if we don't like it, we're going to do it because we need to pay our bills, we need to make our quotas, and we'll do whatever it is that we have to do, just tell me what's going to work.

And what's happening is that the used car sales tactics are what's getting the most amount of noise because, you know, you have people on Instagram showing the Black Dough bank account with the six figures in it. And if you do what I did, then you're going to get these kinds of results. And it's that hope of, oh my gosh, this might be something that actually works that people flock to. And it just seems so simple, just do A, B, and C, and then you're going to be making the same amount of money that I am. And it's unfortunately not true, but because of our perception of what it should be, we think, okay, this lines up with what I think it should be, and that's how I'm going to do it. I do a lot of coaching for Harvard Business School.

And when we first started doing this, the students would, you know, have their classroom work, and then they would be asked to play a buyer and seller in a role. They were given a case study. And it was interesting, as I was sitting there and watching these video replays, as it started, the students are having these great, you know, human conversations. But then as soon as they started to have to get into the buyer and seller role, it's like they put on costumes and masks and became completely different people. And I think that's one of the things that fuels this, is that we think we have to become this type of person to be successful in sales, and it's the exact opposite. I couldn't agree more.

I think authenticity is, it's so apparent to me that authenticity right now is, is unfortunately a differentiator, you know, because it shouldn't be because, you know, it's a lot easier to be authentic than it is to be fake. But I think to your point that people have this perception of what it takes, but also I think it's a lack of education too. And this is what I, what I say to people to try to give sales for the profession of sales a little bit of a break here. You know, lawyers go to law school to be lawyers and they get taught to be lawyers. So you can have disdain for lawyers if you want, right? Politicians go to school to be politicians for the most part, and they get taught to be politicians.

So again, their actions, you can kind of blame on them, quite frankly, and that profession. Sales reps don't go to school to be sales reps. They go to school to be whatever the hell else they think they want to be at 18 years old. And then when they get, it's the default profession. And then what happens is when they get into sales, and this is kind of my justification for why sales is as bad as, or has the, as bad as perception as it is, is because you take a relatively normal kid, right? Who's got decent ethics and is a decent person. And then you put them in a situation with almost no training and you give them a territory and a quota and you say, good luck. Now that kid, and you tell them basically, if you don't hit your quota, not only are you not going to get paid, you're probably going to get fired here in the next three to four months.

So that kid who is usually rather ethical, usually a rather good person is going to start to do some rather unethical and not good person things because they have to be self. And look, we're all built for survival, right? Like at the core of us as humans, we have survival built into us. And so it inherently is going to come back to about me when it comes to this type of stuff. And that's what just, that's what drives me crazy. I'm, I'm very glad that sales is now, you know, a profession that can be taught in school. You know, I think there's probably about 150 or 200 colleges now that actually teach it in the university. But I guess, you know, is it, are we on a, are we on the right track here as far as improving sales?

And let's not, let's, let's, let's put a hold on the AI discussion because that's a, that's a whole nother topic here. But, um, do you think we're moving in the right direction as it relates to sales and, and how it, in, I think in your, in my opinion, it should be done? Yes. I absolutely think we're headed in the right direction. I call it the Renaissance age of sales now, because if you think about the Renaissance, one of the most respected professions today is the medical profession. Yeah. Let's just leave that there. Cause there's all kinds of other things with that, but it wasn't always the case before the Renaissance, the medical profession was seen as this barbaric religious fanatics.

They blindly follow the teachings of a few. And a lot of times did more harm than good. Sound familiar salespeople. And when they started introducing science and dissection and that scientific process into the medical profession, they started to change the kinds of results they were getting. They started to change how they were treating patients and they started to gain the level of respect that we take for granted today. And that's where I see sales today is that if we can infuse, not just, this is what I did at my last company, or this is what this person did to make six figures in six months, but actually infuse decision science, behavioral science, neuroscience, data into how we teach and train salespeople, we can take the sales profession from disrespected, not trusted to trusted advisor status, which is what we all want.

I see sales as the connection between problems and solutions, and that's how we make the world a better place. That's why sales is such a noble profession and why we need to start taking this kind of approach to it. And yes, we are starting to teach it in colleges and universities and bring some standardization to it. When I'm helping teens to hire salespeople and I see someone that came from, you know, Kentucky or any of those other places or University of Dallas, Texas, they're far light years ahead of those others that haven't been able to have that. That's why it was so important for me when I launched this book that I'm donating 10% of the proceeds to the Barbara Guilla Manco Scholarship Fund because this helps more women also to get involved in sales.

And I think, you know, you and I both have friends, Laura Richardson, Trish Bertuzzi. Women in sales is going to change the way we sell. And when we start changing sales, we're going to also attract more women. And so our mission is aligned in that way, because if we can change the perception of sales by having more women in it, I think that's going to balance it out. It's going to make it much more of a perceived as a noble profession. Yeah. I think that, you know, been fighting to get more diversity into sales in general, especially more women. I mean, I think that's one of the big reasons I wrote that book with my daughter is to get more women and to introduce it to kids at an early age, because it is, I mean, I personally think it's one of the greatest professions in the world.

When done right, it's one of the worst one done wrong. And one of the reasons is, is because it is so such a financially free, it allows you to be free. Right. And if there's one thing that I would love to empower as more women to have choices of how they live their own lives and sales is one of those ones where, yes, there's obviously discrimination and it's a, it's a boys club and it's bro culture and a lot of stuff. But if women like Lori, for instance, can, I mean, I was reading her, she had posted something for women in sales and she had said, I forgot that she, you know, she did same thing, rock bottom, got divorced, whatever, and ended up taking a 100% commission job, which is a scary thing for anybody.

But what she did was she bet on herself and she made it happen. And to me, I think, you know, the drive that is within a lot of women to, you know, go out there and do it. They just have to bet on themselves. They just have to kind of get that confidence to go after it. And, you know, once they do, they realize this is a profession that can really propel them and allow them to not have to worry about, you know, what anybody else thinks or what anybody else says. And I say to people, if you learn how to sell, you will never go hungry, period. You will never go home. So what, so with this transition, I think we're in, I actually think we're in a massive transition right now in the profession of sales because of AI specifically, right?

I think we're, there's a lot of factors coming into play here. So if we're moving in the right direction and, you know, we're getting hopefully a little bit more diverse, uh, we're introducing more people. It's more, it's a more educated profession. I, I look at all that outside of AI and I say, yeah, I think we are chipping away at this profession and doing it the right way. Even though there's still the Grant Cardones out there, there's still the Jordan Belfort's out there who I can't fucking stand. And I'll say it on top of a mountaintop. Um, I'll say it to their face as well. Yeah, actually there's a funny quick story. Uh, the Jordan Belfort's, um, podcast team called me up and said, Hey, do you want to be, you know, on his podcast?

I was like, sure. If he doesn't mind me asking why I think he's the worst thing that's happened to sales, you know, I'm like, I'm like, I'm, I genuinely want to have that debate with him. And I'm not like, because that perception is what everybody has, right. Of, of just screwing people over trying to now, do I think he's got some good stuff? Absolutely. You know, he's got some great tactics and everything else, but the whole persona is gross. So, so with that, without AI, I think I'm hoping that we're moving in the right direction, educated, less, you know, stuff it down your throat, more relationship driven. Yeah. Now we got AI though. And it, I am looking at this and, and paying very close attention to all the things that can and can't do.

And what it can do is mind blowing, obviously. Right. I mean, writing emails, preparing for meetings, but one of the things I'll, I don't know if you saw my recent post on LinkedIn, but I went crazy because I posted something about some like LMS, uh, thing that was, you know, helped you create a, find a better learning management tool. Right. And it was all comparisons. When I posted it, it was just an image. Um, all of a sudden very quickly, five or six, you know, uh, post comments hit my, and they all were very similar. They all had some, the very similar line. And I'm like, motherfucker, these are fucking AI bots who are automating the chat. And, and I actually sent any, I mean, that you'll, if you look at the thread, it's blown up.

There's like 150 comments on it, but I actually sent that to LinkedIn. And I said, look, this is an existential threat. I've been on this platform since the beginning. And if there's, and I've always thought there was little threats, but nothing was going to touch LinkedIn. That is an existential threat because if all of a sudden it gets littered, in-mails are one thing, right? If you want to automate your in-mails and dumb shit like that, nobody really pays attention to them anyways, who cares? But if you're going to start automating the comments, then trust is lost. I don't know. Like there was a bunch of people where I was like, I guarantee you that's an AI comment. They're like, no, it's not.

I'm like, I don't believe you. I'm sorry. And when I lose trust in who you are, there's no chance. People say they buy from people they like. I think that's bullshit. I think they buy from people they trust. Exactly. I don't have to like you, but I absolutely have to trust you. And when I see your comment, that is an AI version of it. So with this transition that we're in of people trying to hack the system, trying to automate the process, that type of stuff, how does that play into how do we educate sales professionals? And where's a sales professional's role in this world of AI? Because a lot of the stuff that we are used to doing, a lot of the admin work, a lot of the prep, all these other things is now being completely taken away from us.

So where does, what's this balance that we have to strike here? And how do we train this new generation to, to, to, to work with this balance? It's going to come down to the soft skills. It's going to come down to the inner skills. Like you've had a couple of podcasts that, that talk about the beliefs and the mindsets and how that impacts us. I see that as the differentiator between salespeople who are in tune with who they are. They're being authentic. They're be, they're actually putting other people's interests before their own. It's why we have this silly t-shirt, not about me upside down to remind people of that. I think that's where we need to go with this. If AI is going to a lot, free up our time in research and first drafts and those types of things, it's when we add that personal human element to it, when we customize it to the individual, when we make that emotional connection, that's where this needs to go.

But like you said, what I see happening is the same thing that happened when the internet first came out and we had SEO and everyone was trying to gain the algorithm. Everyone was trying to figure out how do I automate this and send more massive messages out to more masses of people. And we're just perpetuating the spamminess of it all. And so I really, really hope that LinkedIn blocks that down, but that also people realize that AI is not another tool in your tool belt to automate and spam everyone because people are going to tune out even faster. We're training people to ignore us when we do that. And so having that human connection, understanding, you know, like when you're going into a conversation with someone and you're going through your discovery process, you shouldn't just be asking about the, what's the problem?

What's the impact? But what's it also mean for you personally? We need to solve this problem. How is it going to change your job? How is it going to change your life? Those are the things that AI can't necessarily do and make that human connection on. So what's funny, Carol, is this, is like, you know, I've never been, I never really paid attention early on in my sales career because I was just always just doing and I was learning through osmosis. And I want to come back to that as far as I think we're lacking on that, but what you just mentioned there is funny because, um, you know, Sandler, Sandler sales training is as old as it gets, as far as the methodology is concerned and what's old is new now, right?

Cause what you just mentioned there for people who don't know Sandler sales is the pain funnel, the third layer of pain, the personal pain, right? You start in the organizational, right? Like, okay, what's, you know, what's going on here? And then you go to the company, like, okay, like, all right, departmental wise, what that was, and then it gets to, what does that mean to you personally? And I think getting to that point is what a lot of people don't really think about because we we've turned sales into this transactional, you know, every aspect of sales seems to be transactional, right? Oh, check. Yep. I did the discovery check. Yep. I did the power, you know, that type of thing. And it's not getting to the real factor of who we're talking to.

And if, and until you have that empathy for people, until you look at them as a person, as opposed to a checkbox that you have to get through, you're never going to make that connection. And so my fear right now though, is this, is you and I grew up in, in, in sales where, again, like I said earlier, we might not have gotten the best training, but we learned through osmosis. We met with people in person. We saw body language. We, we were in the bullpen and heard Sally make a dumb call and get shredded by that person. And we heard the, you know, Jimmy over there, get hung up, you know, that type of thing. And we realized that, Ooh, I don't want to do that. And I, you know, now in this virtual world where most reps are just sitting behind a desk doing exactly what we're doing right now, they're engulfed in their films.

As far as the relationships are concerned, how do you insert the human element back into this and, and, and retrain a whole generation of people that have grown up like this? Like you and I are looking at each other right now, because whether you, whether we like it or not, this is a digital representation of you. This isn't you. This is a digital representation of you. And very soon I'm going to be able to talk to a digital, a real digital representation of you that looks exactly like you talks exactly like you. You know what I mean? And, and, and doesn't, and doesn't have the human part of it. Right. So how do we instill that? There's, there's sales skills, there's ability to ask good questions, there's curiosity and all those other stuff, but how do you train the give a shit factor?

How do you train the empathy factor? Yeah. Well, so one of the things before you can get into asking someone, what's the personal impact for them on a particular solution or problem? You have to have that trust because if you ask me and I don't know you and trust you about what the personal impact for me, I'm either going to give you a bullshit answer or no answer. Um, and so that's the number one. And so I think that's the place where we need to get to in the sales profession is how do we not just qualify and, you know, do discovery and do a closing sequence, but how do we actually build trust with people? And a lot of times what I see happen, um, you know, we talk a lot about goal setting and, you know, making sure that we have goals that are, you know, measured and quantifiable and blah, blah, blah, like smart goals.

Yeah. Smart goals. I'm, I'm kind of over the smart goals thing. Me too. I think I know a lot of people and I've been one of those people, you set smart goals, you put it aside and you probably never look at it again. Yep. And one of the things that's surprising to me in my work is when I have leaders and business owners and salespeople go through a personally meaningful goal exercise. So this is not just, I need to make so many sales to make so much money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's why am I doing this in the first place? What is my ideal date look like? How does that align with my values and my purpose? And then how does the work that I'm doing here in this company align to that? How does it manifest?

What does it look like? How can I then start to measure the things that I'm doing here and how they're going to impact me in my personal life? For example, I had one salesperson who I went through this exercise with and I was so surprised when he came up with this, he said, look, I need to make an additional $75,000 next year because my wife needs to get IVF. So, you know, in vitro fertilization because we haven't been able to have a baby and that's going to cost us $50,000. And we really want to be able to have this child. But I said, you said you needed 70 or 75. What's the other 25 for? He's like, so that I can go to South Africa to bring the child with us to show my family. And this was something personally meaningful to him.

And when we were able to tap into that, what is our personal values? What is our thing that means something to us and why? Then suddenly that human element starts to take place in our own conversations because we've tuned in with what's important to us, which makes it a lot easier to start tuning into the human element of what's important to other people, because we're not operating on that surface level anymore. Yeah. With the why, because I'm all in on the why and the values, right? But I'm also 47 years old. And I also picked up on that why with Simon Sinek probably five years ago, you know what I mean? And reset it and was like, wow, okay, I get this now, right? How do you do that with a 20-year-old?

And I ask because, you know, I think one of the worst pieces of advice I think you could give a kid is follow your passion. I actually think that is terrible advice because, Frank, don't know what your passion... And like, if you said follow my passion when I was 18, 20 years old, I'd be smoking weed, painting on the sidewalk for crying out loud. You know, I was an artist. Like, that was my first major in college. That was my passion, okay? And so I'd be playing pickup basketball, probably on some shitty court and smoking a shitload of weed and drawing pretty crappy art if I followed my passion at 18 years old. I say, find your passion first and then follow it. And so, like, the why, I almost feel bad trying to...

Because I have this conversation with reps a lot who are trying to figure out where to go. I'm like, well, what's your plan? And it's very similar to what you talk about, which is, hey, look five years out, right? And I don't mean here at the company. I mean vision where you personally want to be in five years from a lifestyle standpoint. Do you want a partner? Do you want a house? Do you want kids? Do you want to travel? What does that look like? What does that vision look like? And then back into what you need to do to get there, right? But the why, like, I don't think a lot of kids in there, like, if you ask a 20... If you ask me at 22 years old, John, what's your why? I'd be like, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Values, absolutely. I think all of us at any stage of our lives can really get centered on the values. But that why, is there a point where you need to just figure it out before you can know? Or can you start to do things earlier to really hone in on why you're doing what you're doing so that you can have more comfort and looking for opportunities that align with it? Yeah. I love Simon Sinek's book. Also, at the same time, I think it's kind of screwed us over a little bit because it's created this idea that we can't do anything until you've uncovered your why. And so we become frozen trying to figure out what our ultimate purpose is. But what the research actually shows is that our purpose isn't some fixed thing.

It's actually something that evolves evolves over time. So whether you're 20 or 25 or 48 like me, actually older than you, that you actually discover your purpose and your why by action, by doing. It's not something like you have this sudden realization and everything and the stars are going to align. It is actually something that you discover as you go through life. And so when I'm working with BDRs who were just out of college, I remember during the pandemic, I coached a lot of BDRs. It was almost like a mental health crisis for BDRs because not only do you have the toughest job in sales, you're also isolated in your bedroom, in your parents' house. Your parents' house, like depressing as hell.

A lot of them, when I'm going through this exercise with them, they're like, look, my purpose right now is to get the hell out of my parents' house or not have to have roommates or, you know, be able to like go out. And so sometimes our purpose is something much smaller and much simpler, but it's meaningful to you and it's going to drive you to make changes and step outside of your comfort zone that that's all that's required. So, you know, having a 22-year-old, you know, sit down and try to figure out their ultimate purpose and why and how they're going to go through life is unrealistic. But identifying the thing that's going to mean something to them now and then what the next thing is and then the next thing is, that's where the purpose lies.

I had one individual, Mauricio, who's in the book, came to me. He was a salesperson. He was on a performance improvement plan. And his goal, he said to me, was that he wanted to get off his performance improvement plan so that he could become a manager. And I'm like, yeah, so? So it is on everybody else. Like, what does this mean for you? And was able to actually dig into what his personal reason was behind it. Now, he was in his 20s. You know, again, like you, if you would ask him, like, you know, what's your passion? He would have been said probably drinking and driving fast cars. Right. Yep. I hope we're not at the same time, but yes. Exactly. But digging into that and understanding, like, what does getting into management mean for you?

Now, for him, it was, you know, means that I can prove to my dad that I can actually do this and take over the family business. I got you. So sometimes it's digging into that and sometimes it's giving pushback, but then also accepting where they're at. Because if you keep trying to push someone towards uncovering their ultimate why at 20-something, you're going to burn them out. You're going to create anxiety around it and they're never going to be able to uncover it. But if you can give them small baby steps to get there, to eventually discover what it is for them right now, you've built a relationship with that sales rep that will stand the test of time. Quick break here to mention the HubSpot Podcast Network and promote some of the other fantastic podcasts that are on this network, including The Sales Evangelist, hosted by Donald Kelly.

Now, Donald interviews some of the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales right now. Some of the folks he's interviewed include Jeffrey Gittermer, Jill Conrath, Guy Kawasaki, and myself. We actually had a really cool conversation recently about the direction where sales is headed, some of the interesting things that are happening with AI. And we got super tactical, but it also got really philosophical as well. So go listen to Sales Evangelist wherever you get your podcasts. Let's make it happen. I think you're spot on, right? Trying to really, that's why goal setting, right? You always set with, from a management standpoint, at least when I used to train this, it was, you know, your A players, you set long-term goals, but you let them set the goals, right?

So you're like, okay, say at the end of this year, you hit your quota. Like, say you blow your quota out, outside of obviously the compensation, what else do you personally want, right? Well, I want, you know, and it's different for everybody, right? I want more time off, I want, you know, I want to drive a cool car, whatever that might be. Okay, cool. So you set that, and I'm just going to over-communicate with you and let you go. Whereas the B players, like the kind of middle-of-the-road players, you work together collaboratively on your goals, and you set kind of mid-term. So it'd be like, this quarter, what do you want to do? Let's work on this together. Whereas your laggards, your C players, if you will, they're used to, I always say, they're kind of used to losing, right?

And losing is a momentous thing. And so what you have to do is you have to stop that losing, and maybe a little change your state, Tony Robbins stuff here, but then focus on the small wins, right? So it's like, hey, today, can you, you know, can you hit 50 dials today? Let's just see if you can actually make 50 phone calls today, right? Okay, great, you did that. Good job. Tomorrow, can you make 50 dials and get, like, through two gatekeepers, right? Can you do that? Great. And you build that positive momentum to, like, those little meaningful things, because that person that is on that PIP, right, and is on that performance review, it's like, you can't talk about my why right now. My why is to get out of this performance review thing so I don't get fired.

That's my why. Right. And I think that's where I think, to your point, you know, there's a blessing and a curse of the Simon Sinek stuff, because people listen to it at its surface and say, oh, okay, I got to figure that out before I can figure anything else out. No, no, no, no, no, no. Action overtakes anything else, in my opinion. Just go do. So, from a neuros, I mean, you've done a lot of research on, from a neuroscience standpoint and things. What are some things that I think that we can control, right? Because there's that, again, let's go back to the nature-nurture component to this. There's certain things about nature that certain people are just born more driven than others, I think.

Certain people are just born more curious than others. But the nurture side of the house, there's some stuff that we can do to change our mindset in a lot of ways. And what are some of the things that have stood out for you that are the biggest impactors on success or growth or any of that stuff as it relates to that neuroscience and how we can apply that to keep moving forward? So, there's a couple of things. One is, if you look at the neuroscience of questions. So, there was a study that was done at Harvard and another study that was done at Stanford. And when you think about, you know, you talk about curiosity and seeking to understand. And the way that we do that is through the questions that we ask.

So, the Stanford study showed that when we ask collaborative questions or clarification questions of our buyers, what happens is that it helps the buyer just take a different perspective on their problem. And even if that perspective is something different than what they were thinking before. But it's through the questions that we ask that help our buyers in their brains to start thinking more about that. It actually, by asking these types of questions, we're also building trust. One of the studies showed that when you ask these type of clarification questions to seek to understand, it actually lights up the part in our brain where we actually form trust. It actually releases dopamine in our brains, it actually releases dopamine in our buyers, and that's one of the ways that we start to build trust.

Because the place where dopamine is released in our brains is the same place where we form relationships and bonds. And so, by asking these clarification questions to seek to understand, we're building that trust with our buyers. I had a sales call a couple of weeks ago, and I had asked a question about their decision-making process and what's important to the person that they need to go to for this. And there was a long pause at the end of this. Now, these are sales professionals that I'm selling with. And they just paused, and I waited. And they're like, you know, you just built more credibility and trust with us than anyone else because no one else has asked us that question. I was like, okay, thanks.

Do you want the rest of your sales team to do it too? Yeah, right. Sign the contract. But I think that we, you know, like going back to the Harvard students that I was coaching, when I would give them some feedback afterwards, they'd ask like no questions. They went in for the pitch right away, immediately started discounting. When I asked them, I'm like, you know, why is it that you didn't ask more questions? They said, well, isn't that what I'm supposed to do is to talk, you know, give the value proposition and make the pitch and then ask for the business. If I ask questions or too many questions, won't they think I don't know what I'm talking about? And so, it's this perception of how I want to be perceived.

I want, yes, I want people to like me and that way they'll buy from me is a total misnomer. It actually creates more problems because if you think people need to like you in order to buy from you, you won't ask them tough questions that might accept that. Yeah, exactly. And so, what was happening is that their perception of what a good salesperson was, was getting in their way. And further, their need for approval or to be seen a certain way also got in their way. And so, these specific beliefs that we have is what, you know, psychology calls the theory of reasoned action or planned behavior. How we think about something is how we will do something. And so, when we can start changing these thought patterns that we have, and there's very specific beliefs that we have in our minds that get in the way of us being able to sell.

Like, I mentioned, like, people need to like me in order to buy from me. I need to educate my prospect. I need to tell them how they're going to make a decision. You know, these are things that cause emotional involvement in the sale. And so, then when we get emotionally involved, we get those happy years, always going to close. And then we start skipping over some of the meatier things that we need to do. So, as far as, like, the rest of the neuroscience goes, there's another study that's called the IKEA effect that came out of Harvard. And it's not a neuroscience study, it's more of a behavioral study. And what I found so interesting about this in relation to questions is that when we collaborate with our buyers, they start to have more value in whatever solution that you've come up with.

Because they've put some input into that, right? Like, they found in the IKEA study that people actually had a higher value and were willing to pay more for something they had to say in putting together for themselves. Or something that was put together for them by someone just like them. And so, a lot of times in our question asking where we're trying to be diagnostic, we're trying to be prescriptive, we're skipping over the collaborative part. Like, the sales advice that your buyer doesn't know what they want and they can't decide for themselves is bullshit. Because they do. They know their problem in their industry probably better than anyone else. They've probably already done all of their research about all of the options that are out there.

They usually know more about this than the salesperson does. If they're a good salesperson, then they know more. But that's, I think, one of the other misnomers that we need to stop thinking about is that selling isn't something we do to people. We're going to convince them. It's something we have to do with them. That's what today's buyer is demanding. And that's something AI can't do either. I always say, if you're trying to convince someone in sales, you're doing it wrong. Exactly. Sales is about helping people solve problems or achieve goals, period. And that's collaborative. And that's why, you know, Challenger Sale, it's funny. You know, I remember reading Challenger Sale and being like, okay, I get this.

But good luck implementing it. Very, very. And I actually got myself in trouble a while back because, you know, when this was probably seven or eight years ago and Challenger was super hot. And I stood in front of an audience, probably about 2,000 people. And I was like, could y'all do me a favor and stop teaching 22-year-old kids how to be a challenger, please? Like, that's fucking ridiculous. Like, you do not have the business acumen to be a challenger. And quite frankly, I think it's a tiny bit insulting in a lot of ways. Because, look, I get the lead with insights, right? That part I like. You like lead with insights. Hey, the industry is going in this direction. You might be so heads down with what you're dealing with.

You do not see what is happening in this industry over the next 12 to 24 months. And I need to educate you on that and show you how I can help you achieve that. That part of Challenger, I'm a fan of. But the challenge part of Challenger, of saying, like, basically, you know, hey, you make this decision once a year. I help people make it every day. Let me show you where people make good decisions and bad decisions, right? Like, that, I mean, you better be that industry fucking expert. Like, you better be Seth Godin in marketing to come in and tell me what I need to do without really asking any questions. Yeah. So I tell people, even me, been in sales for 27 years, you know, whatever influencer means, people call me an influencer.

Same thing with you. I still don't challenge VP. I've had the VP of sales job. I've had a CEO job. I've had the CRO job. I still don't challenge them that way, saying I'm smarter than you. I challenge to what you've talked about is questions, is being genuinely curious because they know what they need, but sometimes they don't know the nuances of the challenges of what they're looking at or how to look at a solution for what they need. And that's where I think questioning comes into play and that, that layering questions, those, that curiosity, even though I don't think we can, I think, I genuinely think we are born naturally curious, genuinely curious, or we're not. But I think we can put a framework in place to allow people to be curious.

Yes. Yes. So how do you, how do you, in your opinion, how do you allow somebody or get somebody to be curious about the prospect and stop teaching, like stop thinking of that as a number, stop thinking of that as a quota they need to hit or a target they need to go after and really genuinely go into a meeting prepared in whatever way they prepare to put them in a position to have a genuine, real conversation in 30 minutes that might not end up with a cool, let's go to the next step here. How do you, with all the pressures that we're on, curiosity is one of those things that gets thrown out of the way because I got to get through this meeting, I only got 30 minutes, I got to prepare for it, I got to ask these questions so my boss makes sure that when they listen to me on gong that I don't get dinged on this shit, right?

So how do you cultivate curiosity? So to cultivate curiosity is, again, some very deep inner work. And so when I'm looking at taking a cognitive behavioral approach to sales coaching, what I'm actually doing is I'm displaying the behavior that I want them to have with their buyers. I'm asking them a lot of questions. I'm being curious about them. And then a lot of times I'm saying, this is one of my annoying things about coaching is if so many people think that coaching is going in and telling the rep what they need to do next, doing the pipeline review. What coaching is really about is creating a sense of self-awareness in the rep so that they can start to critically think for themselves. And part of that is curiosity.

And so when I'm role-playing a conversation with a sales rep about their particular buyer and I'm acting in the role of the buyer, I'm not taking it easy on them. I'm giving them the tough answers or no answers at all so that they have to start digging deeper and get used to doing that. I'm also constantly reminding them whenever they start going into their pitch or they're asking questions that they care about but the buyer doesn't necessarily care about, I ask them the question, who cares about that, you or that? Yeah. Who are you making this all about right now? Yeah. Or I say, I'm smelling a salesiness in you or something along those lines because we need to have that awareness of it because we get into this autopilot in our sales conversations.

We go through the checklist of questions and I've seen it happen on sales calls. I've interviewed buyers that they're just so annoyed that they didn't even listen to the answer that I gave. They're just asking the next question on their list. That's not curiosity. That's robot. AI could do that. All day. But when someone gives you an answer and you stop and you pause, that's actually one of the things that I'm coaching so many reps to do is to be able to pause long enough for the other person to fill in the gap. Because we get so uncomfortable in the silences that we want to fill it, let your buyer do it because what they think and what they say matters more than what you think or what you say.

So, it's little things that we're sort of bundling some of these habits together over a period of time because it's not something that's going to be, if you're not naturally curious and seeking to understand, it's not something you're going to learn overnight. But it is, to your previous point about getting quick wins, for them, sometimes the quick win is asking more clarification questions in the conversation so that they can start to develop that curiosity. That's what I really find I have to be able to do with them. And then also taking it out into their personal lives. I have often have a lot of reps who say, well, I need to get more practice reps in. I need to ask, you know, get practice reps in and asking more questions.

And how do I do that? I'm like, you're a human being that interacts with other human beings, right? Like, start asking questions of your Uber driver and your grocery store clerk and the waitress or waiter at your restaurant. Like, your opportunity to learn more about people is at every instance in your life. You just have to actually make the effort to do that. And it's funny because I often have sales reps that will come back to me years later. Actually, Mauricio that we mentioned earlier. He's now an age to be married because he has a better relationship with his fiance because he started asking more questions with them that he kept practicing on her. So, like, that's how I help sales reps and business owners to start getting more naturally curious.

But a lot of times we can't become curious if we're so wrapped up in what we need to do next. We're worried about paying our bills or meeting our quota. And that's where, like, routines of self-care, meditation, yoga, those are going to help you in your sales conversations as well because you're emotionally present. You're actively listening. And you can't just all of a sudden five minutes before your sales call suddenly become emotionally present. It's something you have to build a muscle for in your daily life. Sales is one of the most stressful jobs there is. And the stress not only will impact you physically, but it's going to impact your sales performance. And if you can have a routine of managing that as well as a practice where you're continually asking questions and seeking to understand, you're going to become that curious salesperson who all of a sudden is in a conversation with someone.

And you ask the question that gets them to sit back and go, you know, I'd never actually thought of it that way before. Like, that's gold right there. And that's when you have them. I always tell people, when you ask a question and somebody legitimately has to pause and think about it, look, when somebody asks you a question and then they feel like, oh, that's a good question. Then they answer that. That's not really a good question. They just want to make you feel good. But if they genuinely pause for a second and go, huh, that going back to challenger sale, that to me is how I challenge people. I get them to think about something a couple layers deeper. And I always use the analogy of it's like Inception, you know the movie Inception, right, where they plant the seed and they let it become your idea type of thing.

Well, again, I don't want to spend 10 years, you know, 100 years down there or anything like that. But I do want to plant that seed and get you to think a little bit so that you can then start to those wheels start to turn, right? And that, to me, is adding value to my life. If you can actually get me to stop and think for a second, then you're adding value to me. Not bringing your statistics and how much you know and all that other stuff. If you can ask that right question, it gets me to go, huh. And one of the things I always tell reps is, and you touched on it, is, you know, what's the reason for your question? And is it for you or is it for the client? And that's why you, I, I, small tactical tip here I tell reps is, every question you have, make sure you, just assume that the client's going to push back on you and say, why do you need to know that?

So you have a good reason for your question. And sometimes I don't even let the client answer the question before I give my reason because I know it's a, it's a touchy question that maybe they might be hesitant to answer it. So I'll say, hey, Carol, you know, let me ask you about the, you know, who else are you talking to from a competition standpoint? And before you have an answer, I'll say, and look, the reason I ask is because if you're talking to like me, Richard Harris and Jim Keenan, you know, whatever, you know, we're all kind of apples to apples right there. But if you're talking to me, like Miller Hyman and so-and-so and da-da-da-da, you're kind of comparing apples to oranges, the lemons, that's why I'm asking the question.

And you literally watch the client relax a little bit because now they know where the question is coming from and why you're asking it, going back to the why. So that curiosity factor, it also has to do, last question here on this because we could talk all day, but how much does preparation come into play here? Because I do think there's a fine line between being too prepared and you kind of feel like you know everything because you've analyzed absolutely everything about the client before you've walked in the door. You know exactly what you want to take this conversation and then not being prepared enough. For instance, like Gary Vaynerchuk, I love him. I'm a big advocate of his, but he did this LinkedIn interview one time where he said he never prepares for any meeting because he wants to go in with an open book.

He wants to be genuinely curious and take it down that path. And I'm like, well, yeah, Gary, that's you because you're Gary Vaynerchuk and people are enamored when you walk in the fucking room. Right. You know what I mean? So people get, but if you've ever been in sales and you don't have a huge brand and you've gotten that question, and I'm guessing you've gotten this too, where you've walked into a meeting and before the meeting even fucking starts, the executive goes, So John, before we get started here, tell us what you know about us so far. And when you don't have an answer for that, you might as well just walk out of the office, right? You just might as well just be like, sorry, I did not prepare for this time to go, right?

So what's the fine line for you? Because I do think that preparation allows you to be curious because it's like, oh, I found something and I'm now interested in that thing. So I'm going to ask those layering questions versus I've researched this so much that I already know all the answers. Where are you on the research and the prep to a meeting so that you can be in present, but also curious? Absolutely. You need to prepare because your buyers have done their homework. You need to do as much, if not slightly more homework on them than they have. If you think about the journey today where so much of the buying journey happens before they ever talk to a salesperson, you have to make up that gap of knowledge in your preparation and in your research.

And so for me, preparation looks like understanding the company, you know, you can go to LinkedIn Navigator and Insights and you can create all kinds of information there. Doing a simple Google search on the company, doing a simple Google search on their industry. What are the latest trends that are happening? I personally, I do a lot of work with SaaS professional services and manufacturing. So when I go to the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, those are the industries that I'm keen on learning more about. And I do that on a daily basis so that I'm not trying to cram it all in. I'm staying up to date on what the trends are already. So that when I'm talking to an individual company, my research can be what's, how is this affecting their company?

What do I see on their website? What do I see on LinkedIn? You know, for example, I'm looking at how many salespeople have been hired in the last six months. Where's the dip happening? And that could happen for a number of reasons. And then I'm doing research on each of the individuals. What is their education? What's their employment history? What interviews have they done? And what stances are they taking on things? I look at, because I want to understand what their communication style is. I use Crystal Mills for that, which is cool to whoever. But it helps you to get a kind of a baseline of what's the style of this particular person. And then not just taking it for what that is and just saying, okay, well, Crystal Mills says that they're this style, but actually testing it out through some of the conversations and questions that you have.

Or my favorite thing to do is actually look at the recommendations that someone has made. What do they value in a person that they recommended? You know, is it their attention to detail? Is it their ability to work within their team? Is it their creative insights? That gives me an idea and a sense of what this individual has done to value in a sales conversation as well. But again, not making the assumption, but creating a framework where I can operate with them to start testing it out when I'm in the conversation with them. And I think the other thing is, is in order for you to be able to offer insights that they maybe didn't know or hadn't fully considered before, you have to do that research.

Otherwise, you're just kind of going in and guessing. I cringe when I hear a sales call that starts with, so tell me more about your company. That's the worst question, I think. That's the most insulting. I actually think that is the most insulting thing you can do at this point. Because there's so much information out there about businesses. And my most valuable asset is time. So you're going to waste my time with asking something that you could have easily found out on my website. It's the same thing that I do when reps call me up and ask me for advice. Like, those conversations even last a whole... I'll talk to anybody. I love mentoring young sales professionals, but the conversations are either three minutes long, or 30 minutes long.

The three-minute long ones go like this. So, John, you know, thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it. You know, could you help me just understand how you got to where you are in your career today? Why? It's like, have you ever seen a little product? There's a little product out there. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's called LinkedIn. I put my entire fucking work history on LinkedIn so we can skip this bullshit part of the conversation and move to the next step. So here's a tip for you. When you ask for somebody's time, respect it and get off the phone. And I literally hang up on them like three minutes in. Because I do think that we all need to get punched in the mouth every once in a while to wake up to realize how embarrassing what we're doing is.

It's happened to me multiple times in my career. And so that part right there of doing enough, but not too much to make assumptions, but enough to be curious is, I think, what that key balance is. And so... Well, the other side too of doing too much research is perfectionism. When we have perfectionism in sales, it stops you from prospecting. It stops you from doing anything because everything has to be just so. And that is what's inhibiting you from actually being able to do that. One of my favorite exercises to do with sales reps is improv. You can't fear for that, right? Yeah, no, I love improv. You can't be fully present, actively listening and have an open mindset. Like, you know, the whole point of improv is yes and.

I'm going to take and accept what it is that I've heard. I'm going to add to it. And I think that's an exercise that more sales teams should be doing to get past the level of perfectionism, but then also, you know, giving them some frameworks to do some basic research and then helping them align that. One of the challenges that I see so many younger salespeople have, they ask this list of questions, they learn all of these things, but then they have no idea how to bridge the gap between the issues and the solutions that they have. It's like, well, thanks for all of that information. Now I'm going to go into my standard pitch. Now's my pitch. Yeah, exactly. Like, none of that mattered. Right.

Yeah. Thanks for all of that. It didn't be a thing. Exactly. Carol, look, we got to wrap things up. Just because we're coming up on time. Like I said, I think you and I could talk sales for hours and hours on end, but let's tie a bow on this and let's tell people where they can find out more information about you, about your book, about everything. So tell them where they can go and we'll obviously put it all in the show notes, but where should people find out more? So you can go to my personal website, which is carolmahoney.com. Don't forget the E at the end of the Carol. And you'll see the link there for the book. And one of the things that I'm telling people is that anyone who buys the book this year, I'm also doing a free monthly kind of group coaching book club Q&A because the book was designed to be actionable, but also at the same time, I want people to be actually to start taking these things and implementing them.

So we're doing a Q&A every month for that. And then also you can go to my company website, which is unboundgrowth.com, which is where I do all of my training programs and so forth. And then of course, if you can't find me on LinkedIn, then I'm doing something wrong. Exactly right. Awesome, Carol. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really enjoyed the conversation and very, again, congratulations on the book and all the success. And hopefully we can kind of get it to that next level for you too, because I do think this message, I believe you, I think we're heading in the right direction. But I think it's only for the people that care and I'm hunting for those people that care. So, and you're obviously one of them.

So thanks for coming on. Yes, we need to band together. So thanks for having me on. Absolutely. And everybody, I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did here. Go out there and try to figure out, you know, how to get that little bit better, be more curious, do a little bit more preparation and change that mindset. And like I always say at the end of all my podcasts here, go out there and make somebody smile today, because no matter how bad your day went or how bad you think it's going, you make somebody smile, you know you had a good day. The world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much. And I'll see you on the other side. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did with your support and our incredible guests.

We're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now. And I can't thank you enough now to keep the momentum going. It would mean the world to me if you could go and leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and share some of your favorite episodes with your network. Also, check out my new website, jbarrows.com, where you'll find even more ways to engage. There's a ton of free content, and you can also get trained from me directly as an individual or for your team. Look, I'm out there selling every day just like you are, and I'm doing my best to stay on top of all the latest trends in sales and technology. So if you're looking to level up and you give a shit about this profession of sales, let's connect and make it happen together.