Dr. Cindy McGovern: Sales is not just a career, it's a mindset

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 Dr. Cindy is one of those people. She has a PhD in communications. She's an international speaker, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and a consultant who helps people and companies get what they want in work and life by using the skills of sales. Now, we were two kindred spirits having this conversation because we share a very similar opinion about sales and how it's not just a profession but a mentality and is applicable in all aspects of business and life.

We started by breaking down the perception of sales and what it is versus what it isn't. We then dive into how to have the right mindset to be successful in leveraging sales skills to get where you want to be for all the right reasons. One area that we definitely did not agree on, though, was the percentage breakdown of how much sales is an art versus a science. She thinks it's 80% art, 20% science, and I think the exact opposite. And this made for a really interesting debate. Finally, we started talking about the importance of personal brand and the fact that you have one, whether you like it or not. And if you're not intentional about it, then others will be the ones who determine what your brand is.

And that usually is not a very good thing. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. What's happening, make it happen, family? Big shout out to our partners today, Gong, Vidyard, and Chili Piper. Gong's data is more than valuable. It's cornerstone in any organization looking to collect the data that's going to tell them where they can improve and where they need to spend their time making changes. Vidyard makes it easy for people to use videos anywhere. No matter whether you're sending videos in email or on social media, posting them somewhere or sending them in a DM, Vidyard has got you covered. Our friends at Chili Piper are so much fun to be around. They make it easy for people to get on your calendar and every sales rep has got to have this function locked in.

It's one of the most important things we can do as a seller. How can I get you on my calendar easily? Chili Piper can make that happen for you. Be sure that you're checking out all these great tools. And now let's pass it over to John to find out who's joining him today. See you soon, everybody. Dr. Cindy, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast. How are you? I am so good. It's so nice to see you, John. Thank you so much for having me here. Yeah, thanks for coming on. I've been looking forward to this conversation because as we were talking a little bit in the prep, I think we're kindred spirits here on our whole mentality and approach to sales. So I'm looking forward to it. But let's first do the whole backup and tell us a little bit about where you're coming from and what you're doing these days.

And then we'll dive into the conversation about brand and mindset and all these things around sales. But give us a little history for you, Dr. Cindy, if you don't mind. So the funny thing is I'm now known as the first lady of sales and I never wanted to be in sales. And I went into it kicking and screaming, fast forward, got into it about 6 months later and realized I'd been selling my whole life. And that I had to change my mindset around it because sales was really just about helping people. And I thought it was this sort of icky, pushy, manipulative. And I'm like, Oh, wait a minute. That's not what it is at all. So once I realized that, I was like, I'm in. Bring it. I love helping people.

Let me find other ways to help them. Let's do this. And then I realized I can help other salespeople and other people in general to embrace selling and embrace that sales process. And so that's what I've been doing. I run a consulting company and online academy and now writing books about this to try to help others to be able to help other others. I love it. Look, can I ask you, so you're, cause I think that the perception is, is something we all battle here. All right. I mean, it, there's the perception of sales and then what, to your point, what it really is, where did your perception come from? Was it from bad experiences personally? Was it from movies? Was it like, if you would have put a pin on like why beforehand you were like, ew, absolutely not.

And I'm, I'm sure the answer is all the above, but was there something that really kind of early in your life turned you off of sales or made that perception what it was? Yeah. So it's funny that you say that because it's hard to pinpoint a moment. I have multiple moments, but they were so few and far between of all the times that I had been sold to. However, those were the ones I held onto. So I created this avatar in my mind and actually I call them Tommy two thumbs where he's like the, the avatar of the sales guy. Hey, what's it going to take his agenda? Not mine. It's about him. It's not about the customer. And that's where it came from. But you know, what's funny? And I think this is part of what we as salespeople fight against and have to sell against with our own personal brands is people are conditioned to think that sales is icky.

And it's not until you get into the job, you realize it's not. And so we have to recognize that when we're selling, even if it's a customer or a prospect that's interested, we still have to sell across the stigma. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Breaking it down because that's, I think the stats right now are pretty sad as far as the desire of a prospect or a potential client to want to engage with sales. And that said, they, they get a lot of value and they need to have that interaction with the right ones, but they get turned off by so many of the ones who are just going through the motions. And I think that's the part that I'm trying to, that I personally struggle with the most is look, even the, for the people that get into sales.

Okay. And, and to your point kind of have this, oh, it's not as sleazy as that. Right. But, but yet they still like, look at it as a job and they look at it as just going through the motions with a lot of the stuff, right? Like, oh, I got to send out my 50 emails today. I got to make my 50 cold calls. I got to have my 10 discovery calls this month. I got to close my revenue this month. So where is that point for you? I call it the, the catching your sales groove, right? Where one day you wake up and it's just a little bit easier than it was before. And, and, and, you know, you don't know what happened, but I look at it as it's the day you realize that you stop pitching your solutions and you start having conversations about your solutions.

You start caring more about what the client needs than, than what, you know, what, what your commission check is. And oddly enough, that's when your commission check goes to the roof. So how can, we get people to, how can we get sales professionals who choose the career and our, and I, and I'm going to say this 70 to 80% of them are going through the motions, um, to get them to that give a shit factor of, of caring so that they see really what this profession is. So it's such an interesting question and I come at it from a place of gratitude. That's the way that I start my day. It's the way that I approach my sales because regardless of whether you buy anything from me or not, you are now a walking commercial for me as a human being.

So whether you, we may not even gotten to me selling my product or service, but you have an impression of me. And now you're an advocate for me or an adversary for me, one or the other, there's no middle ground. And so when we think about it in terms of being able to interact with other human beings who can then help us to help others, help us to get our word out there, network for us, help us prospect, even, even if the answer is no, you're grateful for every encounter you have. And that changes the way you pick up the 50 pound phone to make those 50 calls. It changes the way you send your emails because we recognize that every interaction is a transaction. That email that you sent, maybe it was perfunctory, but that was an impression you left on that other human being, even if it was for a split second before they put you in the delete file.

Absolutely. And that, see, I try to get that across of every, to your point, every interaction is a transaction. And so if you send that, that first email, that's a templated piece of shit, all about you email, that is making an impression of who you personally are, or even worse, in some cases, who your company is, which is why I cringe at a lot of the marketing stuff that goes out there in a lot of ways. But the sales reps double down on that by basically sending marketing emails to sales. There's no difference here. And so it's, it's that, like I said, it's a give a shit factor and I'm doing everything I can to figure out how to expedite that outside of hiring. I think obviously hiring is the key factor in the give a shit and for hiring the right people with the drive and all that stuff.

But, but getting that light bulb to go off, to realize that you had that sales is okay. I have a perception of it. Now I'm in it and now I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. But then that light bulb goes off and says, holy shit, this profession is nothing about convincing. This profession is nothing about sleazy tactics. It's about helping people solve problems or achieve goals. So when you start with gratitude for you, um, and I agree with that because I'm doing my own little morning meditation here and it's always affirmations and all that stuff. I got my gratitude journal and everything else. Um, where do you go from there though? Like, okay, cool. So I'm grateful that I have this job. I'm grateful that I work for a company that, that makes a difference.

Um, but man, I'm still getting, I'm yelled at by my boss to, to make my 50 dials today and I haven't hit my quota. So that's all well and good. That fluffy stuff there, Dr. Cindy. But, uh, if I don't do this, I'm going to get fired here. So how do I balance the short term results with the growth and evolution of myself as a sales professional? So I think it comes down to two things, John. I think the first one is your own motivation for wanting to do it. And the second reason, the second thing is why you actually do this to begin with, because if you're doing it for a paycheck, I can smell that all over you. I don't care who you are. I don't care how genuine and how good of an actor you are.

I can smell the desperation on you. So that's why you're struggling with making those 50 calls. That's so you got to kind of have a hard look in the mirror for yourself and be like, is this for me? Is it the product service you're selling? Maybe it's the hours, maybe it's the industry. I don't know, but you've got to find how to get your mojo back. Because if you don't, the first part doesn't matter. So you're not going to be able to get that motivation and get into your groove and be able to get your mojo back if it's just not your jam. Like it's very funny because people will ask and say, oh, what's the thing you would never sell? And I'm like, I can think of a lot of stuff I would never sell because it doesn't interest me.

But I can also think of 50 things I would. That's why I always disagree when people say, oh, that person can sell ice to Eskimos or whatever it is. It's like, that's the worst salesperson I've ever heard in my life. If you're telling me that the best salesperson can sell anything to anybody, then I am probably the worst salesperson you've ever come across in your entire life. Because when I don't believe in something, I'm about as unconvincing as it gets. But if I believe in it, somebody told me this early in my career, and I still believe this to this day, that sales is the transfer of enthusiasm. I believe that strongly in what I do. So with that, how, let's talk to the masses here. Most sales reps don't give a shit about what they're selling.

Okay? They, you know, it's a software that makes people more efficient in what they do. Not that it's a bad product. Not that it's a, you know, it's taking it and screwing people. It's just something they don't really care about. Now I'm going to tell that person, you know, in a perfect world, quit, go find a company you can really believe in and, and you'll see the stars, right? Let's talk reality though. Most reps are in jobs where they're just selling something that, yeah, okay, it does something. And, but they don't see the outcome because they're not on the customer service side. They don't see that. So how do I bridge that gap of, eh, I don't really believe, John, do I really need to believe in this piece of shit software here to sell it?

It does a job and I'm getting paid. How do we, how do we get them to, in that company, believe more that they're making a difference so that they can get to that next level? Such an amazing question. And it should be part of their sales process, but so often it's not. So for everybody listening, you have to know what the client's goals are first, because if you're going in to sell them, whatever your piece of software is, and you don't understand the impact that it's going to make, wants to make, should make, they need it to make because they need to look good to their boss because they need to change the way they're seen in the market. If you can't connect those dots and get excited about the impact that you're making, then maybe you do need to go find another job.

But it really is about making sure you understand their goals first. Because I think for people in sales, let's be very honest, all here, you know, just us chickens, we like to win. So, and we're competitive. And so if I'm in the job and I'm selling the software and I'm doing the thing, the whole point is how do I win? Well, the win isn't the sale that you made. The win is the impact that the sale made on the company and on the customer. And if we skip the part in the sales process of understanding that more consultative approach of understanding the client's goals and why the heck they want this and why they don't want your competitive software, by the way, if we can't get there, you're going to have a hard time connecting those dots and getting excited.

I love it. I think, and actually that brings up a question for me. Do you, this is very pointed. Do you like to win or hate to lose more? Ooh, such a good question. You know, what's funny? I like to win. And the reason I like to win more is because when I win, I think others win too. And I don't mean that as sort of like a, you know, a post-it note. I really do believe that because I think if I lose, others lose too. So I don't like that. I like to win. So everybody else does. Yeah. I think it's a weird one for me because winning, I like winning. There's no question about it, but now, and I, this is going to sound like a jackass, but because I've kind of won, you know, one is a relative term in a lot of ways.

To me, I hate losing personally more than I like winning. Now, I think early in my career, I loved winning because to your point, it was not just about me. It was all about the team and the group and that other stuff. But now I don't pay as much attention because, you know, there's momentum when we're doing good stuff and there's a lot of little wins across the board that I can look at and say, yeah, that makes me feel good about it. But man, when I lose, I'm like, and, and, and because, but here's the reason I hate to lose very similar to your, why you love to win is because when I hit, when I lose, I deconstruct and I learn. And therefore I can translate that to the team, to everybody else to say, Hey, here's why we lost.

And so I'm learning from this loss. We're learning from this loss to get better. So it's a similar track, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I think I've, I think I've crossed the chasm to the hate to lose. Um, so, all right, we're going to like getting that. And let's talk about the customer. How do you, the outcome is great. Okay. I understand the outcome, um, to the existing customer. How much do you think a rep needs to know about the business that they're working for and the leadership that they are working for and like the customers that they already serve? And the reason I'm asking this question is because I think a lot of onboarding, it has it revert, has it the wrong way. I think onboarding starts with product knowledge, product knowledge, product knowledge, and then it's skills, skills, skills.

And then you get your, you know, whatever it is, your badge for how you presented. And then they throw you out into the field to figure out the impact that you make and all this where my onboarding is they talk to customers first. They talk to customers first. They talk to employees sec. Well, I'm sorry, employees first interview, all the employees, then they interview customers, good, bad, ugly. And then they go talk to people in their network. And then I teach them how to train. And then I teach them what their metrics are. So how would you as an organization, let's talk about the organization here for a minute. How would you run an onboarding program for new hires that would help expedite that process?

So the first thing is, and I agree with you, by the way, I think most companies do it backwards. So I think product knowledge comes later because I think when you're selling anything, it's wish fulfillment. At the end of the day, all we're doing is trying to fill somebody's wish. So we have to know what the wishes are. We have to know what they're up against, what we're competing with out there in the world, why it even matters. Why does this company even need to exist? Why does this product or software need to exist? So it's the why behind it first. And the only place you're going to get that is in the market and understanding the industry and understanding what your customers are up against.

And this is one thing that I want to in my coaching with my own clients, we talk a lot about your competitive edge, and it's not meant in the way that most sales books write it. What I mean is your competitive edge because you know exactly what they need and what they're up against and what they're hearing. And it's not just, oh, our product does this because the features and benefits are better blank, blank, blank. No, no. What's the feeling? And so like you said, knowing how the business is perceived, knowing how the leadership is perceived, is it a good place to work? Because if everybody knows that you literally work for a house that just turns and burns them and kicks them out, that changes your credibility.

So I think it's important to know all of that stuff and know you're selling, because when you're selling, you're really selling everybody behind you too, because you're not the one that's going to actually implement. You're selling, you know, the idea of the wish fulfillment. That's it. It's funny you bring that up because I remember when I got hired at Xerox, you know, they put me in a shitty territory that had been ripped apart, like five reps in three years. And I had interviewed really, really well. And so they put me in this really hard territory, state and local government too. So I was selling copiers to state and local government. Yeah, try that out for fun. Anyways, I remember walking in the doors and all my other private sector, you know, reps were flipping copiers almost day one, right?

Because I'd walk in and I'd walk in and be like, hey, I'm ready to do my thing. And they would look like, literally, they'd look at me and be like, get out of our office. I'd be like, what are you talking about? You're like, you're the sixth rep we've seen in three years. You're not, you know what I mean? So the reputation had been destroyed. And I was forced to take the opposite approach of every other rep, because every other rep could flip and close and whatever it is. And I had to take the take a step back, build trust, understand the real impact and the, you know, the bit understand their business. And I actually almost got fired. Like literally, I, cause I didn't produce any results for the six, first nine months of me working there.

And they were like, we thought we brought you and we thought you were all good. Like what the hell my bosses yell? I'm like, just, I'm like, just shut up. Just give me a chance here. You guys have whipped this whole territory apart and I got to figure out a way to fix it. And now after I developed all those relationships, eventually it was just like cash and checks. So for the reps that don't have that mass hole, uh, approach that I do as far as like, you know, talking back to bosses and that type of thing, how do you go about the, the, the pressures of results and, and, and pushing back when you know, that's not right. You know what I mean? When you want to do it the right way, but you're not being allowed to, you have any suggestions on how to even approach that?

I absolutely do. And I have to commend you for your bravery in that, by the way, because you can say it's because you're from Boston, but I really think it's because of your own personal brand. Like you were being true to who you were and you sold your boss on the idea. And so I think that's the thing when you're newer to sales. And I'm going to say under the age of 40, I haven't been doing this for 20 years. When you're sitting there and you're like, I can't, I can't push back. I know this is wrong, but they're telling me to do this. Sell the idea of why their idea is wrong. Sell the idea to them that, Hey, by the way, you're doing this completely backwards. And here's why. And here's what I'm up against because we have to remember that in sales, there's quotas.

Those quotas go to other quotas. Those quotas go to budgets. Those budgets go to bottom lines. Those bottom lines go to board members. Those go to stockholders. Right? So we were, there's a, there's a long food chain and we are very, very small part of it. But when you recognize that you have some social capital and you build trust with your leadership and you sell yourself that you can be trusted and look, negotiate it with them, just like you're negotiating. Give me six months. If at the end of six months, I can't do it and fire me fine. You got to have a little hooks for that too. But I really do believe that you have to be the advocate because here's the problem. If you don't advocate for that, you will fail because you know, doing what you're doing right now is not going to make you any money or them.

So why stay in it? Why drudge through that when you know it's wrong? You got to sell them on the idea of doing it right. But how do you earn that right? So there's a, there's a football analogy here and bear with me. Um, so here in New England, right? We got, we got Bill Belichick who's been here for years and proving he's got championships upside down and sideways. Then Mac Jones rookie last year comes in and you know, he was great last year, took him to the playoffs, kind of did what Belichick said. Then in the off season, Belichick made some changes, brought in some different coaches, got in different offense and now, and now it's actually looks really bad. Right. And so Mac over the summer, he started chirping, he started complaining, he started like questioning all the decisions.

Right. And part of me, I see both sides of this. Part of me is like, uh, dude, you're a rookie, shut the hell up and do your job. Bill Belichick's been proven for years. So yeah, you might not like what he's doing, but you don't know what you don't know yet kid. Cause you're 22 years old. So shut your mouth and do your job. Right. That's, that's the asshole part of me. The other part of me says, this kid brings some insights to the table. The league is changing. He doesn't, he sees he's concerned with all this stuff. So I actually understand why he's chirping, right? So how do you respectfully earn the right to not do what you're being asked to do? Because hopefully what you're being asked to do has been quote unquote proven at some point, which is why you're being asked to do it.

So you respect the history, but also push against it. But it comes down to trust. I mean, you and I both know, and everybody listening to this, no sale ever happens without trust. So the reason that your boss isn't going to listen to you because you're 22 and don't know your butt from a biscuit is because they don't trust you. You haven't earned their trust as a human being, much less as a salesperson. So that's what they're telling you when they said, no, no, no, go sit in the corner, a little person, because you don't know anything yet. You just got here. You were a kindergartner. That's what they're saying is I don't trust you. But if you're bringing insights to your sales meeting, if you're coming to your boss with challenging ideas and saying, hey, I'm paying attention to these industry trends, and I'm a little bit concerned because this approach isn't working.

When you look at your CRM and you tell them, you're like, look, I've literally made 4,000 phone calls with the message you taught me. And here is what's not working. And here's what I'd like to try. Can you give me the okay to go ahead and do it? And then there's me that comes in and says, ask for forgiveness, not permission. But let's say you're asking for permission. Then you go and sell them on the idea and give it a timeframe. Like I said, tell them to give you six months, give you two months to get an appointment, whatever it is. But the problem is because they don't trust you. If that rookie coach had come in with a track record, it would not have been a question because there's trust.

So that's all it is. You're selling against yourself right now because you're unknown. There you go. So, and this leads to another question. I'm curious from your perspective. I think I know your answer, but I got to ask it. How much, obviously, it's both sales as a science and an art. What's your positioning, though, on the percentages, if you will? How much of sales, in your opinion, is a science versus an art? I would actually argue that it's probably 2080, where it's mostly an art form. Ah, I see. That's where you and I differ. I think it's the exact opposite. I think 80% of it is science, 20% is art. But explain. So tell me why you think that 80% of sales is art. So if you look at successful salespeople, what is it that makes them different from one another?

Let's take 5 salespeople selling the exact same thing in the exact same company. One is at the top of their game. Why are they at the top of their game? It's because of the way they execute. Yep. Okay. So is that art, though? So that's the art. Because technically, they're all doing similar things. It's the way that they're doing those similar things. I mean, we're humans selling to humans, right? We only have the finite resources we can use. We can use video, text, email, drop-ins, phone calls, all those things, right? So we all have the same tools. We all have the same science. It's the way you use the science. I really believe it's in art form. So here's the scenario. When I look at art form, I look at somebody who just, I personally think there's only about 5% of our population that are the pure artists in sales, that when they show up, they know exactly how to relate to people.

They know what questions to ask, where to spend their time, and everything, right? And it's just, I mean, I know two of these people, and they blow me away every time I watch them. I think the rest of us need to work our ass off in sales to put ourselves in a position to be successful. And so an artist, in my opinion, for instance, would walk into a meeting with zero prep, and just be, right? And ask questions, and be curious, and ooh, and magic floats from the sky. In my opinion, the better reps prepare. They have a checklist before they walk in, they do their research before they, you know what I mean? Like, here's an artist versus a scientist, in my opinion. An artist in this podcast right here, Dr.

Cindy, I would just show up and be like, hey, what's up, Dr. Cindy? How you doing? So tell me about a little bit about you. And oh, that's interesting. You know, that's kind of cool. And I would see where, and I would hope that I was good enough to extract the value out of you that the listeners would be getting. Now, I'm not that guy. So I have to go to your website, I have to look at some of your other interviews, I have to come up with questions that are relevant based on stuff. So you're not answering dumb questions you've answered a million times before. And I think that that science, that structure, that process allows for the art form to be that much more effective. And one more example I'll give you here is, have you ever done date night, paint night?

You ever done that? I did one once. Yeah. Okay. So, so paint night, right? And listeners have heard the story before, but I'll tell it again briefly. My wife is not an artist. She is about the furthest thing from an artist you can possibly get. She's a scientist. She has a hard time drawing stick figures. I'm not joking. So I took her to one of these paint nights one night, right? And, and these date nights in the picture was a Monet, right? And literally when we walked in the door, she almost had a, a panic attack because she was like, Oh my God. She's like, there's no way I'm going to be able to paint that. I'm like, honey, let's just grab some drinks and have some fun. Right now y'all sit there and there's like four brushes in front of you, four colors and an easel.

And the, and the artist stands up there and says, all right, take brush number one, put it in the yellow and put a yellow circle in the, in the top of the thing. Okay. Now take brush number two and swap blue across the bottom. And then, and they walk you through this process. And at the end, everybody's shit kind of looks like a Monet. Now are some better than others? Absolutely. So if you think about it from that perspective of structure versus that, that, that charisma, because I think art, a lot of people think of as charisma and which I think scares a lot of people away from this profession because they're like, I just don't have it. And I'm like, you don't have to have it. And you actually say everybody's in sales, right?

So help, help me understand, help me reconcile that. So, so I'll help you reconcile this in a slightly different way. So I think that it's 80-20 for the sales, what sales is. I do believe that there are virtuosos. I do believe that it's probably less than 5% truthfully. Those are the ones that literally came out of the womb as salespeople and our rock stars. That's your Mozart who was playing at age six. For the rest of us, the rest of the 95%, I still think it's 80-20. And the reason I think it's 80-20 is because we all get the same skill set, right? We, we have, we sell what the 5 cents is. We have whatever resources we have available to us, but we are still human selling to humans. It's the way you move the brush to use your paint analogy.

I'm not going to be able to paint that Monet. Trust me, your wife, you think she's the worst. I think I might be the worst. There is an ongoing joke in our company about my drawings because they're that bad. So I will not be good at the Monet the first time I try it. I am not going to be good at the Monet the second time. But I believe that sales, and I say this all the time to our clients, I think we practice sales. You practice medicine, you practice law. We get better at our art form. So if my art is sales, which I believe it is in my life, I think that's one of my arts, my books, my, you know, other, but sales is my art form. I do have to practice. So you're not missing the practice by making it 80% of an art is of it is art.

You're working on your craft and constantly trying to get better at it. And if you're not, this is probably not the industry for you because you got to have that desire, like you said, to want to get better. Yeah. And I think that the, the, I guess I'm looking at the structure because I, you know, I picked up coaching my daughter's 12, you know, she's seventh grade and no, there was no coaches for basketball, um, for the rec league. So I was like, all right, I'll, whatever, I'll do it. Right. And it's, it's brutal because I, there's kids who have never played ball before. And then there's kids who are on the travel team and I'm trying to figure out and I've never coached before. And first session I'm gonna, I play ball.

I played ball my whole life. Right. And I can show them how to, you know, go down the court and dribble and all this other stuff. But the first practice was literally chaos. It was all over the place. And I was like, okay, I, this is wrong. So I had to go back. I had to research. I had to figure out some plays and some structure and some practice drills and those types of things that I then brought to the second session and applied and it went way better. So that's, I guess my analogy of sales of science, the structure more or less than the art, because those girls are not, if I just let those girls play, they would not get better. They would get marginally better. But if, you know, cause that's what the other coaches are.

I'll just, you know, let's just play. I'm like, no, like that poor little girl over there has never played this sport before. And that girl has been playing for 10 years. Like she's not going to learn anything if we don't put some structure to this. Well, you gotta have the 20%. You absolutely have to have that structure. And I do believe that's the science of sales and truthfully, and you know, this, and I know this, you know, being coaches and giving advice is we go back to the science part. If something in the art form is missing, you go back to the formula. Where did you skip? Oh, you stopped asking for business. That's why your numbers are sucking right now. Like, so, you know, you go back to it, but it is the way you execute, because I do think, and this is my opinion, but when you go into a sales call, how well you gain the other person's trust has to do with how you structured your research, how you did those things.

But it's also the way that you walk into the room. It's the way that you create your art. And I think a sales conversation is absolutely a work of art. And you've seen them, and I've seen them where we're just like, what just happened? Like, that was amazing. Like, I want that to happen in every sales call. You know, my goal is very funny. I had a sales call this years ago, and we hadn't even gotten to the contract part. And I got a handwritten note in the mail from the prospect. And I said, that's the new standard. That's it. We are getting the handwritten notes from sales calls from now on. That's a tough standard. The only one I've ever gotten, I'll be honest with you. But it was like, that's the new standard.

That's what we're going to do. What's up, everybody? I know you're enjoying this conversation. John does a great job with genuine curiosity on these episodes and our guests consistently bring the heat. We want to take a moment here and let you know that you've got an opportunity, an opportunity to become better than you were yesterday. And you can do so by gaining access to all of JB sales content. All of their training tips, techniques, tactics, and takeaways can be yours for $1 a day. $365 for the year gets you annual access to everything, including our private Slack channel for members only, which you get access to all of us directly 100% of the time, 24 hours a day. And then at the same time, you're going to get access to our bi-weekly ask me anything sessions where you can bring real deals to the table and get the help that you need where you need it.

This is very, very important. Sales reps that invest in themselves are often found at the tops of their leaderboards. Join us today and get the help you need to become the seller that you deserve to be. That URL one more time is joinjbsales.com. Let's get back to the show with JB and our guests for this week. You had mentioned something internally and I think externally that's really important to pay attention to these days. And I talk a lot about it and I know you do too, which is your personal brands, right? And, and the importance of that with the analogies of those internal sales rep who's, you know, their brands, if you will, how they are trusted internally makes a difference of what they can get and what they can get away with.

And the same thing for external. So you, you have a process here, I think, or is this with for when you're promotion, when you're selling yourselves, right? You have plan, look for opportunity. You got like a five-step process here for personal brand building. Could you walk us through, first of all, your, your opinion of the importance of personal brands and then how to start on that journey and, and, and what are some things that they can do to, to improve it? Yeah. So I think the personal brand is more important than just about anything else you have, truthfully, because the brand is the product of you and it's what you're selling. Your reputation is a result of the brand. So if you don't have a good brand, nobody cares.

And if you don't have a strong personal brand, you're not a person of interest. So that means nobody wants to talk about you and nobody wants to help you. So at the end of the day, it's your brand is your legacy. And it's funny because I talk to salespeople about this all the time who like, Oh, I have all these, you know, 15,000 LinkedIn connections. How many of them are actively sending you referrals? None. Then you don't have a network, you know, people. So, you know, you don't have a strong enough personal brand that they know how to sell you. So all of that goes back to that branding piece. So I teach it in, in my book, I teach it in three phases. You've got to create a brand, you got to live it to build trust, and then you got to sell it.

You have to be your best advocate for getting people to believe in that brand. And the way that you sell it is with those five steps. So the first one is you got to have a plan for that. Just like you have a plan for a sales process, you have a plan for a sales call. What do you want the outcome to be? What do you think is going to, you're going to run up against? What are you gonna have to sell against? You know, all the things, all the things that you would do in a sales plan, you do the same thing for selling your brand. What's the ghost of your brand of the past? If you're 22 years old, you have a ghost of a brand in this new company, whether you know it or not, your shadow is that you're the new guy.

So you got to sell against that. You got to have a plan to do it. Second thing is you got to look for the right opportunities. And salespeople are good at this, right? It's like blue car syndrome. When you buy a blue car, you see them everywhere. When you're in sales, it's like, Oh, you see them everywhere. So you got to know when those opportunities are. But more importantly, with your personal brand, it's seeking them. You seek the opportunity to advocate for yourself and to lift up, I call it multifaceted brands like a diamond. If somebody's talking about dogs, you and I are going to talk about dogs because our goal is connection. Building trust. Same thing. Seek the opportunity to build trust in you as a human being.

And the third part is listening to establish trust. We all know this is the crux of the sales process. If you don't trust, cross out of the friend zone into the trust zone, no sales is going to happen. This is why, and I know we talk about this all the time as salespeople, but like, Oh, they're telling me there's a chance. Oh, we had a three-hour lunch the other day. Yes, that's called a friend, not a customer. Yeah. Build that trust. It's so important. What's interesting to me about how you outline this is you didn't talk about anything related to posting and sharing on LinkedIn, for instance. And this is where I think a lot of people have a, I don't want to say misperception, but have a, what blocks them from, from really working on their personal brand.

Cause they think it is, well, I don't want to post on LinkedIn. I don't want to do a stupid video. I don't want to, you know, share my knowledge. And by the way, what knowledge do I have to share here? So I kind of feel like an asshole even doing it in the first place. So could you explain the difference between your LinkedIn personal brands and your actual personal brand? Yeah. So the first thing that I would say to someone that said that to me is we have thousands of years of successful salespeople before LinkedIn existed. They did it somehow without social media. And you and I started without social media, right? So it's like, we, this is a thing. You, your brand, that's your highlight reel.

At the end of the day, that's your highlight reel, right? Like that's what you want people to see. And yes, I think it does lend credibility to your brand, but it can also destroy your brand too. So nobody is telling you, you have to be on LinkedIn, although it's kind of, you know, the business card of this millennium. So it's like, you're not, but, but truthfully, if it's not who you are, you're not going to be able to fake it. So that's step two of my process, create, live and sell. If you're not that guy or that gal, it's never going to work for you. Like you're just, everybody's going to be like, it's forced. It doesn't seem appropriate for you. So then don't, but here's the thing. We live in a very small, really small world these days, but a very interconnected world.

So looking at how you would be posting the motivation behind it, going back to the motivation and what, what drives you, you want to help more people. You need more people to be telling your story for you. If you got those people on LinkedIn, seeing what you're doing and advocating for you and helping you, that's the difference. And, but it's got to still be you. And I'll give you a quick example. A couple of weeks ago, someone I have never worked with by the way, but I know through conferences, he's seen me speak a bunch of times. Someone asked for a sales coach and he, in the comments said, got to talk to Dr. Cindy linked it. Boom. Of course, I immediately reached out to him. Oh my God. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But here's what's funny. Everybody in the comments to that post did the same thing. Hey, I know this person. Hey, I know this person. Those were advocates for all of our personal brands because we were out there, we were available. So it's kind of like, you can't get asked to the dance unless you show up. So if you want to be part of the LinkedIn dance, you got to kind of be there. Yeah. And I think the, you know, LinkedIn is, it's scary. You know, don't get me wrong. It's scary to put yourself out there because, you know, especially if you're a 22 year old, 23 year old, you know, and it's not tick tock, you know, that's a different, that's a different type of brand, but it, but it's part of it.

But I think the, the thing I'm trying, I try to shift people's mindset to is, you know, you have a brand, whether you like it or not, you know what I mean? Like whether you like it or not, you have a brand. So for you to say, oh, I'm not into personal brand building, tough shit. You already have one. So if you're not intentional about it, then it's up to everybody else to determine what your brand is. And that might not be a good thing. Right. And so, so how do you look at that? Let's, let's take LinkedIn, let's take LinkedIn off the table. Um, let's go back to when you and I first were selling and all we had was this phone and whatever, but, but And, uh, and so let's talk about their personal brand internally.

Right. Because I think this, this, we're moving into a real scary world right now, as far as like the questions right now about the economy, about what's going on, the macroeconomical things right now that nobody can control. We have no idea. And so the importance of brand I think is, is it's exponential now, because if you don't have one, you're going to get passed up, but there's the internal brand in your organization. How do you, is that just based on core values or how intentional do you need to be with that brand to build it the way you want it to be? You have to be 100% intentional because literally what you said, others assign things to you. I just taught a class on this. It was a virtual course for a client on personal branding and presence.

And they're all newbies. They're all like, you know, less than 24 years old, barely can spell whatever company they work for yet. Right. And part of what their pre-work for my workshop was, was I needed them to hear how people referred to them in the office for 2 weeks. Were they referring to you as the new guy? Were they saying, "Oh, John can handle that." Or was it, "Oh, John doesn't know how to do that yet." And I wanted them to just take a little honest inventory of who they really were. And then of course, I opened the workshop saying, "Well, guess what? What are your 5 words that you think your brand is?" And then tell me what your client said. Tell me what your colleagues said. That's who your brand actually is.

So you gotta know. That's an interesting exercise is to go around asking kind of your, you can do this with your friends too, right? You could just ask them, "Hey, if you were to write five things about me, what would that be?" That's a real good way to figure out what your existing brand is. And if you need to change it or not. You know what I mean? Interesting. I like that. I might actually do that myself. Cool. Well, with that, how do you right now protect yourself? Let's end with this in some advice on where we're going right now with this economy and the scariness of layoffs and everything else. How do you put yourself in the best position possible to deal with the stuff that you can't control?

So that is literally why I wrote this book that I just wrote because I saw the world go through the great resignation and then the great remorse and then the great reset. I think we are in what I'm calling the great rebrand. Everybody's rebranding. The entire world is rebranding. Companies are rebranding, restructuring. Everything has changed. Given what we went through in recent years, the world shifted. Whether you realize it or not, it did. Even if you're in the same job you were five years ago, the world shifted. So we are in an opportunistic moment to sell yourself differently. And I want to invite people to think about their brands as you go into it. I mean, at the time of recording this podcast, we're almost to the new year.

New year, new you. Bring it. Let's see who you're going to be this year. And you have to be intentional around that because others have already assigned a brand to you. And you're selling against that whether you realize it or not, or you're reinforcing it by doing nothing. And so if you're seen as the guy that, "Oh, you do all of the work, and you do a good job, and you're a steady hitter, but you're not selling them on the idea that you're trying to get better, that you're trying to do more, and they got to cut somebody, and everybody is in the same place as you, sayonara, son." So really recognizing the power that you have is within you, truly, to sell yourself, to keep the job, to change the job, to get the promotion.

And they've assigned that brand to you already. I'm telling you right now, go and just listen, see how people refer to you. You're going to know what you need to sell against. And do it with intention. And your self-talk is a big part of that as well, to your point. Like that's, you know, for instance, I've been really thoughtful these days about the self-talk, right? Because I've convinced myself for years that I have a shitty memory. And it's just a default to me. I'm like, "Oh, I got a terrible memory." So guess what? Now everybody thinks and knows that I have a terrible memory, and I've basically given up on that. Now, could I fix my memory? If I dedicated myself and really focused and really cared?

Yeah, I absolutely could. But I have a bad memory. So now I'm known as somebody who has a bad memory. That's part of my brand, whether I like it or not. And I've made that part of my brand because I talk about it so much as an excuse of why I can't do certain things, which ultimately is what it ends up being, which is an excuse. Good self-awareness, though. If there's one thing I am, it's self-aware, I'll tell you that. I have one last question for you, Dr. Cindy. I'm curious on this one, and it has to do with doctor. Why did you decide to get a PhD? You know, it's a great question. It was at a point in time when I thought I was going to go be a college professor. And I was for years before I went into consulting.

And I thought that's what I wanted the job to be. And it was really important to me to study ethics. That was my dissertation. It was in communication and how ethical structures are created. You look like Billy Madison then, huh? Have you ever seen Billy Madison? Oh, yes. At the end, business ethics. The guy, his head explodes. It's a great film, by the way. Oh my God, I haven't seen that in so long. So what's today? October? So it was a great one. So truthfully, I wanted to be a college professor. And what I realized is I actually am addicted to teaching and helping people. So I'm still doing that just in a different capacity. That's really what it boils down to. But that's why I started to get the PhD, because I wanted to be a college professor.

I'm always curious on that. My dad had a PhD. And I'm not a school kid. I drank my way through four years of college. I went to a state school. I couldn't really... I worked. I got a 3/3 or whatever it was. But it wasn't my passion, if you will. So I'm always curious, people who are on the education track. I mean, dedicating that much of your life to learning has always been impressive to me. So I was just curious why. Thanks for answering. Awesome. Well, look, just in the interest of time here and keeping it low, I think we could have this conversation because like I started with, I think we're kindred spirits on our mentality outside of the art and science. I do think we will agree to disagree on that.

Fair enough. But Dr. Cindy, tell people where they can find out more information about you and about your book and all the cool stuff that you're doing these days. So drcindy.com. And I am one ST lady of sales on literally every social platform, including the TikTok. I call it the TikTok. And they can learn more about my new book at sellyourselfbook.com. Awesome. And again, that book is... Could you explain to the audience who that book is really targeted at? It is targeted for the person that is not where they want to be yet, but they know they have the passion to get there and need a little help. And this is going to help you define your brand so that others can also give you an assist. Love it.

And again, it's not about being a sales professional as a profession. It is about using sales as a mindset to get to where you want to go, right? It's exactly right. It's you being the real you in the world and knowing the tricks and techniques that salespeople have is a better way to get there. Love it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on board. I really appreciate your time here, Dr. Cindy. It was so fun, John. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. And everybody else, I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did and got something out of it to make you think a little different, change your perception maybe on sales a little bit differently. And look, like I always say at the end of all my podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad your day went or you think it's going, if you make somebody smile today, you know you had a good day and 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. Thank you so much for your time today and listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. With your support and our incredible guests, we're one of the top sales podcasts in the industry with over a million downloads and I can't thank you enough. To keep the momentum going, if you could go to your favorite podcast platform and leave us a five-star review, I would greatly appreciate it. In return, I will answer any question that you have on Instagram. Hit me up there at John M as in Michael Barrows with a video question or a DM and I will get right back to you, I promise. And last but not least, if you're looking for training, I'm adjusting my training approach this year and I'm actually going to be delivering training to the masses.

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