Kristie Jones: Identifying and Leveraging Your Unique Sales Superpowers

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 guest is Christy Jones. Now, Christy is the author of Selling Your Way In. She's also a speaker, coach, and sales process consultant with over 20 years experience as a sales leader. So this conversation is all sales all the time. We talked about tactics, we talked about strategy, and we talked about a lot of things that come out of her book, specifically stuff like your superpower and finding your superpower in sales and business and life, quite frankly, and really leaning into it.

But I asked her, like, how do you find your superpower? We unpacked that quite a bit. We talked about also the idea of looking for impact, right? And the difference between impact and ROI calculators and all that crap that a lot of reps kind of lean on, but unfortunately give us a little bit of a false sense of security and false sense of hope. Then we talked about objection handling and how a lot of objections are actual instant disqualifiers, but most of them aren't. If you really develop a habit of seeking objections as an opportunity to reduce and eliminate fear, then you can start to make a difference here because that's ultimately what we're trying to do is we're trying to reduce the risk for people to make the decision to go with it.

So this one's jam-packed with techniques, tactics, strategies around sales all day, all the time. Hopefully you enjoyed as much as I did. Let's go ahead and make it happen. Christy Jones, welcome to being on the Make It Happen Monday podcast. Finally, we made this happen. How's it going? He must really want me on. I appreciate that because we've had some technical difficulties over a couple of days. Yes, indeed. Yeah, that was just the weirdest thing. But hey, look, we get it. We get it. We get it. That's why people see me. If we're going to do this on, we do this video and audio and they see me with head earbuds on. That's the reason why we're do. We're cobbling this together. But I think the audio is now perfect.

So thanks for bearing with all the technical difficulties here, Christy. I appreciate it. My pleasure. Awesome. Well, look, this is going to be all sales all the time conversation because I was doing some prep and looking through all the materials and all your experience. So I'm really looking forward to this. But I would love to just, as always, start with the origin story, especially growing up. And the reason I ask this is to find out kind of where the business bug came in, what influences did you have to be where you are today? Because we can all read LinkedIn, right? But it's where you're coming from. So if you don't mind giving the audience a little bit of that context, then we can dive right into it.

No, I don't mind because I think it's truly important. I affectionately say I got my MBA at the kitchen table. My dad was the owner broker of a Coldwell banker franchise, and my mom was one of the top 10 agents in town. And so our dinner table conversation, and I have a younger brother who was an individual contributor sales professional, and our dinner table conversation revolved around out-of-town buyers, listings, commission checks. Money was a super transparent topic in our house. So I knew when my dad was and wasn't taking payroll, when it wasn't when taking a salary in order to make payroll or pay my mother's quarterly taxes. And so that was sort of just the organic situation. And we were office brats, if you will.

So after school, we'd pop in, or on the weekends when dad needed to go into the office, he'd drag us along. Real estate is not the best family situation, so my mother was off and working nights and weekends. So my mother spent the first 13 years teaching, and then that kind of flipped our family upside down when she went into real estate, because we were used to having her home at 3.30 and weekends and summers. And so everybody adjusted. But there's no doubt in my mind, my brother is also a top 10 percenter. And so no doubt in my mind that the reason why, although we took different paths, I took the leadership path and he took the individual contributor path, but no doubt that we got that at the kitchen table.

That's super. I'm curious on that note, because I was reading that, and the openness about finance, if you don't mind, I'm just digging into that a little bit. Because, you know, as a father, my daughter is 13 years old, and, you know, you kind of balance that. It's actually, you know, the reason I was almost a little bit late today was because I was dropping my daughter off this morning, and she's, you know, she's 13. She's got a lot of emotions going on. And, yeah. Yeah, another podcast for another day. Yeah, totally. But one of the things she said was, you know, and I don't consider us rich, right? Like, if you were to think of rich, like, ball it out, like, million dollar house, you know, those type of things, we're well off, no question about it.

And we're better off than some. But some of her friends, like, make it a constant point to bring up to her that, oh, well, you're rich, right? Because they don't, because they, coupons and those type of things, again. So, and it's kind of put her in a tough position because she doesn't, she's like, what I see as rich is different than what you see as rich. So, how do you approach, like, was it, was your parents just, that's the way they were? Like, they just talked about money and the ups and downs of it? Or did they take a, I guess, I don't want to say more a thoughtful approach, but what is, with what you knew and what you grew up, what is your thoughts on having that open conversation and how direct you need to be?

Because kids sometimes don't have the context of, like, oh my God, I had a bad quarter this month. That doesn't mean we're going to lose the house. It just means that whatever. So, how do you think about that for kids? If you don't mind me diving into that for a bit. No, and my dad was raised very nicely with financial and acumen as well, but it was, I would call it age appropriate, John. So, initially, I tell this story. We lived down the street from the bank that we banked at. And so, almost as early as I can remember riding a bike, every Saturday, my dad made us ride down to the bank and we had our little passbook and we either had to deposit money or withdraw money. And back in the day, there was no ATM card, right?

So, we had to take the deposit slip, I had to ride it out, he made me take it to the teller, I had to give it to them and tell them what I wanted. And so, I would say age appropriate money conversations for sure. But we always understood what things cost, but we also understood, we weren't always in real estate, so to speak. And that's sort of where money kind of became a more prominent part of our life. But my dad, before that, was a mid-level manager for what we would call today AT&T. And as I mentioned, my mother taught school. We were in really small towns. I grew up in the Midwest. We lived in a Mennonite community where there was literally one school, K through 12. My mother taught English and she shared the room with a kindergarten teacher.

So, you know, I had like a whole, I had a whole like weird upbringing, if you will. We moved a lot because of that. But I think as we got older, there were just age appropriate conversations, right? And so, even though I think the money talk was always happening around us, but it was always visual. Nobody was ever hidden. I remember my dad, even before we got, I think, into real estate, we had a bill drawer and all the bills went into the left drawer on the desk in the kitchen. And then once a month, my dad would clear the kitchen table, spread out all the bills. The checkbook was there and we literally watched him pay bills, right? So, there was never any transparency about like, how does money, you know, how do things get paid for or whatnot?

And we knew that like, you know, once a month that was bill day. So, for me and I have a 24-year-old son, you know, I'm very transparent about money, too. He knows what I make. He knows what I charge. I think, you know, and we've always been very transparent about what things cost. And I think like, my friends will tell you, I get frustrated sometimes with conversations and people's unwillingness to talk about money. Because I think if we were all willing to talk about money, we'd all be making more money. We'd all be saving more money. We'd all be smarter about money. And so, there was never any kind of, now again, my parents would say like, hey, like we don't go around talking to everybody about what mom and dad make and, right?

But like, now I do. Like, if people ask me what I make or how I charge, I'm very transparent about that. I just did a training session two weeks ago today. And the topic was how to get more comfortable talking about money. Like, the owner called me and said, I've got customer success reps and even hunters that aren't particularly comfortable. And they happen to ironically all be women. And I said, like, and they were older. Like, they weren't just straight out of college. They were older. And I said, how many of you, like, you know what the rent was? How many of you knew what mortgage costs? How many of you knew what the car costs? And nobody, right? And so, I think we're doing our children.

So, you have children. So, that I would say, we've done our children a disservice by hiding that. But I also say that, like, in general, because of that, parents can't teach kids financial acumen or financial literacy. The schools aren't doing it. So, that means who's doing it? No one. Nobody. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. 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, which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process. It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like ChatGPT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process.

Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done. And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to JBarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code PODCAST at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now, let's get back to the conversation. Yeah, and they're getting punched right in the mouth when they have to figure it out. That's what scares me the most about our education system is that they're not teaching the real world skills that kids need to survive, like basic stuff like balancing a checkbook. And actually, you brought up a great point of that transition into sales and the uncomfortableness about delivering price.

You know, my joke is always, you know, we always negotiate with ourselves before we even start negotiating with the client. Because if something's like $30,000, right? Whatever. Say it's 30 grand. Like when somebody says, John, how much is this? The answer should be it's $30,000. And I should shut the hell up. And I should wait for your reaction and then deal with it that way. But it's never $30,000. And it's always, well, it's $30,000, but, and it depends on, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Now, I might have been listening to your competitors and I heard 40, I heard 50, and I heard 30 from you. And I'm like, damn, that's actually pretty reasonable, right? Right. But as soon as the word but comes out of your mouth, I'm not paying 30 grand.

So let me ask you this, and this isn't where I was wanting to take our conversation, but I'm very interested in your perspective on this, is how do we get reps who haven't been exposed as, you know, with their parents, the financial stuff, how do we get them comfortable talking about money, pricing, and everything else? And one of the things that I'm curious from your perspective is, is it important for a rep to know where pricing comes from? For like the CFO to sit down with them and say, look, here's our pricing, here's how we did it, here's what we had reinvested in from an R&D, and here's where money goes. So that they at least have the ammo to combat it, you know, a little bit. How far do you think the company needs to go to get somebody comfortable enough talking about price so they can justify it?

Or is it basically none of your business, my price is my price, and that's what it should be? I think unfortunately, even if the CFO sat down and worked through the how, most people, again, were not raised with having that type of conversation. So I think it's got more to do with society and less to do with how the sausage gets made and how did we get to $30,000. And so like, you know, some of the tips I gave a couple of weeks ago was first off, this isn't your checkbook. This isn't, we're not asking you to spend your $30,000 first and foremost, right? And like, and I said, you know, and I tell this again, my dad had amazing, I called, you know, they were, he had amazing, you know, sayings. And he said, don't judge people by how they spend their money.

Some people want a big house and don't care about their car. Some people want a fancy car and don't care about their house. Some people want to take two weeks vacation and some people just want a long weekend. And so I said the same thing to them. I said, don't judge anybody. Like, just be, you know, it's about value. And so if you're going to, you know, and that's, again, I was listening yesterday to your podcast with Beck and was super interested in that because I say this all the time, majority of sales professionals are only getting pain or problem, but they're not actually calculating with the prospect, the financial impact, business impact that that pain or problem's having. And so I said to them, if you think 30,000s, if you're not comfortable saying 30,000, but you also don't know how much the problem costs, then, then you're not, then there's a reason to talk about 30,000, right?

If you haven't already calculated with them, this is the business impact of not solving this problem every month, every week, every year, then, but I said, like, I said, by the way, if your product's 30,000, but they have a $350,000 problem, maybe your product's 70,000, by the way. Yeah, totally. Well, that's, I actually use that example. I screwed up pretty heavy in a negotiations and I use this in almost every negotiation class that I teach is like, I go through this give, get process and I give an example of one time where, and I talk about the same thing, like find the problem, right? Those type of things, like I call it sell to the 20%, like find the thing that really you can lean in on.

And this was before I thought of impact. And so I was like, oh, you know, negotiation, why are you looking at negotiation? Well, our, our, our, our managers are just getting really pissed off about how many discounts the reps are giving away. And I was like, oh, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, discounts. Let me show you how it could impact discounts, right? And in my idiot self, like I should have just asked a very simple follow-up question. Well, what's the average discount rate right now? 20%. What's your net new revenue target this year? A hundred million. Oh, so this is a $20 million problem. Like I'm not a genius here. So now pricing is irrelevant. Like, you know what I mean? Cause if we, if I can get, you would agree to the $20 million problem, I could charge you 10 million.

It's just, I got to justify it. Right. So I guess, how do you like with that approach, right? What's the difference in your mind between impact and an ROI calculator? Because I think a lot of people default to some standard, like, well, let me come to the, how many hours, how much time are you spending? And based on that, this is what, and nobody ever, I get the sense that almost nobody ever believes ROI calculators, even if it's with their money, even if it's with their information. So what's your, I think I talked to Beck about this. I know I talked to Keenan about this and his, like, what is your perspective on impact versus an ROI calculator? Yeah, I, I, I guess I'm not a big ROI calculator girl.

I think it could be talked through. And some of that's subjective, right? Because some of that is, I mean, like, what's the price of fear? You know, how do you put a price, how do you put a price on fear? How do you put a price on, you know, churn that may or may not happen? I mean, I always, you know, back to price, I'm like, you live with the price, you live with the price for the life of the customer. And although, even though you may be the hunter, you know, you're doing the company a disservice going back to your discounting conversation. So I go, you never get that back. I mean, I've never seen it. I've never seen it. If you discount it by 15%, the company never, ever break, never, ever catches up on that.

So you've discounted that product for the life of your customer. And if your, you know, lifetime value or the, you know, number of years customer stays is 10, you know, that means you've affected profitability for those 10 years. And so I think, you know, the impact is talking people through it and then making some sort of, again, yes, I do think there's a mathematical formula, i.e. ROI calculator based on certain things. But then, you know, this person, you know, this person needs to fix their problem to get promoted. Well, what's that worth, right? Is that $20,000 more a year in their promotion over X number of years? I mean, there's so many kind of subjective things. But I think, I think it's just making and having the conversation and making the point and just, I get to the minimum.

Like, so at a minimum, it's a $500,000 problem, right? But if you talk about the money that you're losing, if you don't get the promotion, that's, you know, again, like, what's the business problem? What's the personal problem and impact? So there's so many things tied to that. But I don't think we're comfortable taking, I think because of the lack of business and financial acumen, people walking through that with their calculator is scary for them. And I think that stops people, you know, that's why, I honestly think that's why people have built ROI calculators. Because having to do it yourself, I mean, I walked into the dry cleaner last week, and I gave the guy cash, which I don't normally do, but it was only one shirt.

And he counted back change from the register, and I said to him, I go, you're the only person, like, in the three-mile radius that could probably do that today. You know, he was in his 70s. And I'm like, we don't, I mean, kids, like, kids, people in their 30s, like, people wouldn't even know how to count back change from the register if it, you know, if the electricity went out. Even if it says it, you know what's crazy to me is, like, I'm the guy, like, I'll be like, if it's $4.25, right, I'll give you, or if you're going to say it's $4.28, I'll be the one that gives you $5.30. You know what I mean? And I'll be like, cool, right? And I'm like, all you literally have to do is go into that little thing and type in 5.20, and it'll do the math for you.

And they look at me, like, sideways, like, I'm like, just give, I'll do the math for you, just give me $1.05 back. That's it. That's, I'm like, that's all I need here. And they're like, so, yeah, I think it is a scary thing that I never thought of our hesitance to talk pricing and our lack of a skill of negotiating price is actually could be rooted in the fact that we financially as children never get exposed to it. So, super interesting. Yeah, and I tell people that I go, the best way to get comfortable talking about money is to talk about money. Yeah. Right? To tell people what you paid for things. I mean, you know, I gave that advice, and then I said to them, so I'll give you an example. I said, I sold my home three years ago for $100,000 over asking.

I'll tell you exactly what I got if you'd like me to. And I'm paying $3,200 a month in rent for the house I'm now renting. And, like, you know, people were like, and then they were like, $3,200. I'm like, yeah, it's expensive, right? Like, I have to make a lot of money. That's, I mean, I said, that's twice what my mortgage was at the house. But I wanted to sell the house at the height of the market. And I didn't want to turn around and spend that money on buying it. But I don't have, again, because of the way I grew up, I don't have any problem having that conversation with people. But I said to them, like, start small, right? Like, I can't believe I just paid $5 for eggs, right? Like, you know, I mean, whatever.

Like, but I said the easiest, I mean, you're not going to get comfortable talking about money if you don't talk about money. So if you're just trying to do this in your professional life and you're not talking about money in your personal life, that's a disconnect. That's going to make that that much more uncomfortable for you. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think that, you know, I always, it's always, it's also the company you keep when you're, it's funny because when I'm around other people who actually make more money than me, I got no problem talking about money, right? Because I'm like, yeah, my house is this expensive. I pay this much for my Tesla. And, you know, we just took an X, Y, Z, you know, dollar figure vacation.

So anytime I'm around people, like, I don't know if there's a certain threshold where people, once you reach that threshold, it's like, oh, finally, I can talk about this. But, you know, I always find it awkward talking about it, especially when I know the people that I'm around don't make as much money. You know what I mean? And they might be struggling, but I still think there's ways to have that. But almost doing a disservice to them, too, because to your point, the more we talk about it, the more we're elevating each other. Well, I mean, I can, I mean, if you know what I'm making and I know what you're making, we're going to make more, right? And you may say to me, like, you're undercharging for that, right?

I mean, I'm part of a mastermind group where I asked somebody today what she was charging for a speaking engagement. And she said, five grand. I said, you're crazy. That's crazy, you know? And so, you know, but if you don't know what other people are charging, you know, I'm part of the women's sales experts, Lori Richardson and that group. And thank God for them, right? Because sometimes I don't know what to charge for something. And so I got to go into the network and say, hey, you know, and again, one of the things I love most about that group is we share contracts. We tell people what we're, we tell each other what we're, what we're charging for things. You know, it's, it's a completely transparent group and we're all making, you know, here's, here's Barbara Weaver Smith posted that always sits on my, uh, above me.

Charge scary plus 20%. Nice. I mean, but Barbara Weaver Smith, like she, like the very first, uh, conference that I went to for that group. She's like, you know, we were talking about pricing and she said, ladies, scary, price it, then price it scary plus 20%. And then you'll be charging what men are. And I go, okay. That's, uh, that's great advice too. Cause you don't, cause you don't know until you know, right? I mean, that's a market's going to tell you what, what they're worth, right? Some people will happily pay. And the final, the, the interesting thing is the, I find the more people pay for certain things, the less of a pain in the ass they are in a lot of ways. Like I have, like I've caused, and I tell people all the time, like if you're a pain in the ass in the sales process, you're going to be a pain in the ass customer.

So if I have a pain in the ass client about sales process customer, and they're beating the shit out of me on price and whatever it is, like, you know, and I don't discount, but say I did, you know, and then I guarantee you, they're going to nitpick every little thing about the training and look for, well, we didn't get this ROI. Whereas somebody just says, oh yeah, that sounds good. Go do your thing, John. We trust you. It's like, oh my God, this is the best case scenario. Like I getting paid to do what I love to do and they're letting me do it and they're not nitpicking every stupid thing about it. Right. Yeah. Well, I call it PETA pricing and PETA, PETA, PETA pays more pain in the ass pays more, always pays more.

So yeah, I just go, they're like, how are you going to price it? I'm like, oh, I've got a special PETA price for you. That's a lot of it. You know, one of my favorite interviews, um, the, the guy from the CEO of Red Bull, the original one, it was actually of when it comes to pricing. He had this great quote where somebody interviewed him and said, Hey, you know, why is Red Bull so expensive? Like you're, you're, you're, you're actually less fluid ounces and, and, and you know, a Coke is 50 cents and you guys are charging $2 and 50. Like any, the, the interview was like, well, you know, the ingredients and, you know, tell us about, and the guy looked her dead in the face and said, how else would you know it was a premium product?

Because I can't, I was like, exactly. Like he's like, he's like, he's like, I price it that way because if I didn't, you wouldn't know it was a premium product. And I was just like, that is the best answer I think I've ever heard. That was the best answer. Yeah. So, yeah. So let's, let's shift a little bit to your book, selling your way in. Um, there's a lot of stuff I want to unpack about this, but I want to first understand, first of all, why'd you write the book and what's the title all about? I wrote the book because, uh, Barbara Weaver Smith told me I wasn't going to get speaking engagements if I didn't have a book. So poor, you know, I, I wish I'd never had lunch with Barbara that day, by the way, as she's, she's got all kinds of problems for me.

Um, and then when I, when I was told I had to do it and I, and my response was, Hey, I got shit to say and I don't have to write a book to say it. She goes, yeah, you do. I was like, fine. So then I decided I didn't want to write a how to book. I thought there were plenty of people out there writing how to books that could do it better than I can. And that wasn't really sort of my passion project, but what I was seeing, and I think it's because of partly because how I grew up was that people weren't controlling their own career. And then as a result, they weren't controlling their income. And then as a result, they weren't able to control their life or have the life that they wanted. And so the subtitle of selling your way in is the playbook for setting your income and owning your life.

And so for those of us who've chosen a profession in sales, it truly can open all other doors than you're not maybe expecting or thinking of, but we can control our income, but you have to do all the right things for that to happen. So I spend a lot of time in the book talking about the first section of the book is called You Must Know Yourself Before You Get to Know the Prospect. And then in all of the years I've been a sales leader and then a consultant for the last eight years, what I'm seeing oftentimes is that people are not putting themselves in the right sales position to be able to own their income in their life. They're not in the right role, selling the right thing, in the right industry, working for the right company or the right leader.

And so I've been talking a lot about the fact that as proactive as we are as sales professionals in understanding our ICP and our persona and outbound prospecting and going after this subset of people, we do not treat our career that way. Our career, we change jobs because the recruiter calls and says, oh my gosh, do I got a deal? You're perfect. You're just what they're looking for, right? And so how many, I mean, of the last, you know, of the last X number of jobs, your list, you know, if you're the list or how many of the last three to five jobs you've taken, how many of those did you proactively go and prospect into your ideal company with your ideal boss selling the ideal product? In the ideal industry into SMB mid market or enterprise and then approach them and say, boy, do I got a deal for you?

I love that. Yeah. And that, and, and actually that shift of proactive versus reactive, you know, I tell reps all the time, especially with what happens last year, beginning of last year with all the layoffs and tech, you know, first things first, don't just go for the next job. Like, like, like recenter on your, your core values and, and really go through the core value exercise and then go look for opportunities that align with your core values. Because then you can do some special, like go look for opportunities and people that align with those core values. Because when you have alignment of your core values, you can do some special stuff. When do you think that a, that that's a rep, if you will, is ready to do that?

And I say that in the sense that, you know, both of us have some experience here, right? I was very react, you know, I got my job, I was like, okay, okay, boss, what do I do here? You know, and I kind of, all right, when's my promotion? Okay, cool. And I earned it. And then, you know, I, there was an uneasy feeling that I had about being in the corporate structure that I just couldn't put my finger on. I'm like, I just don't know why, but this doesn't feel right to me. Right. And I, thankfully I got introduced to startups through somebody, even though that was never something on my head. And I immediately like, oh, I could breathe, right? So, so when do you think it's important to take that proactive without the experience or the context to be able to know what your superpower is, which I want to dive into you with you?

Like, I want to know what, you know, what, what's a perfect job. I don't need sales. I don't need sales. Like, do I like sales? I don't know. And first two, three years, you're just trying to get through this nightmare, right? So how do you, so do you think there's a level that you can turn or should you do it from the start? No, I think it is. I think it is a little trial and error, right? Because again, interestingly enough, you know, the starter job, I've been talking to some college professors because I do think that the book that I've written might be good curriculum for that, or at least a book that they would, should read before they exit college and pick their first sales job. And so, but the only thing that the college is, so there are about a hundred colleges, universities with a sales major in our country.

And, but what they're teaching is, they're teaching SDR 101 is what they're teaching, right? And so those kids don't know anything else. Like, there is no starter, there is no starter or curriculum for, I said to them, but what about customer success and account management? What are we teaching them about that? Nothing. What about sales engineers, solution consultant? No, nothing about that. What about implementation specialists or onboarding specialists? No, nothing about that. How about expansion specialists? No, nothing about that. So they're going to come out of school with one thing. So they're going to have to try the one thing that they know, right? So they're going to have to go in entry level and it's probably going to be SDR, but you do need probably two or three jobs.

And I, like you, was working for a Fortune 500 company when my values got extremely misaligned with what was going on within the organization. And I left that organization and went literally into an unfunded startup with a, you know, kind of a family owned company, but we back, I'm so old, we called it subscription model and that SAS back then, John. I'm there with you, by the way. Yeah. And, you know, about a million or so in revenue when I got there and about, you know, 10-inch employees when I got there. And you know what it felt like? It felt like I was home again because it felt like the real estate company. It felt like what I had grown up with and was super comfortable in that environment and small didn't scare me or bother me.

But I think what, you know, so A, I think you've got to get, so I didn't make that switch, by the way. I didn't get disenchanted with my Fortune 500 company until I was in my late 20s. I was almost 30. And then I switched and immediately I was like, oh my gosh. And then throughout that, like, I think by then I'd had, you know, it had that experience. Then I spent 10 years at that first company, that first SAS company. I stayed a long time. I wanted to have a seat at the Knights of the Roundtable, as I said, reported directly to the owner, you know, CEO. I had full revenue responsibility within a year and had that for the next, you know, eight years. So I think, though, I made a mistake. Then mistakes started to happen.

But by then I knew myself well enough to know I'd made a mistake. So the job after that was what you now know as web.com. So I worked for a company called Network Solutions that was purchased by web.com. And I was there for 18 months and that was my favorite job ever. But I knew it was VC backed. And I was actually employee number one, let go after the transition. They wanted all executives to move to Florida. That was this was way pre-pandemic. So, you know, all the nice white men who were running that organization thought the only way to run it is all the executives have got to be in the same building. And so my boss, the COO actually went and I was just not in a position to do that. And so the next job I took, I go and I was like, OK, so then I had the VC backed bug.

And I'm like, OK, I've got the VC backed bug. Smartest people ever. Right. Like this was the most challenging job. I knew I'd pick the right boss, by the way. I chose that job because of the boss, which is, by the way, a little risky. But I knew I wanted to work for Carl. I knew Carl would make me better. And then about two to three weeks in to that job, I knew I'd pick the right guy because the day before we we tracked daily, like every day you tracked the revenue and you did a year over year comparison and against plan and all of that. And I my team had killed it the day before. And Carl shows up in my doorway. His office was two doors up and he shows in my door that morning. He goes, hey, great day yesterday.

I'm like, I know. Thank you. And he goes, he goes, so what happened? I go, huh? He's like, what happened? How come you killed it yesterday? And I was just a deer in a headlight. And I was like, uh-huh. And he goes and he goes, he looks at me and he smiles. He goes, I'll be back. And I was like, shit. And then I was like, well, be careful what you asked for. You knew he was going to make you better. And so, you know, but that's how every day was there. And that that bring that that that levels up your game real quick. Um, but I made the mistake. The mistake I made after that was I, again, I thought the VC backed bug was for me and I wanted to manage some, uh, an international, um, sales team.

So I took a job with a holistic dog and pet food company. So sexy. Interesting. Yep. VC backed. The CEO and the COO had just turned around Breyer's ice cream. They were guns for hire. They were, they were, they were a team. Smart. The VC was, you know, quality. And I got in there and like in two months, I was like, what the hell have I done? And I was, and I, I mean, I'm like, I mean, like I was in charge of helping distribution. I was running Canada, all this stuff. And I'm like, and then I got to call people and go, oh, well, we can't fill that order because, um, we have a, you know, either we can't get the ingredient or we've got a, you know, we can't get, find the barley or what, I mean, whatever.

And I was like, and if, and I mean, I'm like, what have I done? But here's what I did do. I was gone in 10 months and I went back to SAS. Right. And so that's the other thing is like, I had to know myself well enough at that point to know that I checked a lot. I was looking for certain things and then I don't know what I was thinking, but I'd never been in CPG. I didn't know I was going to hate CPG. I, cause I, cause I was used to like, Hey, um, we need this new feature. I go, cool. Um, how many developers do you think it's going to take to get that out in the next eight weeks? And then we're like 12, like, awesome. Let's go. You know? And then all of a sudden we're like, you know, we're out of ingredients.

The FDA has put a hold on whatever. And I'm like, what the is going on here? And so, but, but in 10 months, like, again, like that's where like, you have to know yourself well enough to know what you're super. I mean, like I knew my superpowers were definitely in sales leadership. What they were not in was CPG. I was going to fail. Like they were going to fire me in fairness. I hated it. I hated getting up every day. So that was my first clue that this was a bad idea. And then I was going to fail because this was not my swim lane. And so you're, so let's get into that superpower thing. Cause you talk a lot about that in the book, your superpower. I was going to ask you what you answered is, is, is leadership, right?

Leadership and management. Is that where you would say yours sits? And is there anything specific about that? That, and then I want to unpack how you figure that out and how other people can figure that out. Actually, my universal superpower is generosity and that boded me well. My sales leadership superpower actually is managing to questioning, leading to questioning. So two kind of different things there. I found my, I figured out my generosity superpower at 46. I didn't know that was my, my universal superpower, but I had lost my job and I was looking for another job and as I was networking, I was looking for my VP of sales gig. And as I was networking, all of a sudden a bunch of weird things happened, like the universe conspired and a bunch of interesting things started to happen.

And all because for years and years and years, my motto has been, I have 30 minutes for everyone. And people take me up on that two to three times a week. I'm meeting for 30 minutes with someone who says, do you have time to meet? I think, you know, I need something from you. And I always say, yes, I'm hoping to be busy enough someday to only say 15, by the way, John. But right now, right now I have 30 minutes for everyone. And when you think back to my childhood, I was always the person when I started to think about generosity being my superpower and then how it put me in the position I'm in today, because of all the times I had said yes to people. And then all of a sudden, when I needed a new position, people were willing to help me because I'd always been someone who was helpful.

But when I think about going back to even my teenage years, I used to affectionately say at night, like I would say, I've got a radio talk show called Cry with Christy. Phone lines are open between seven and eight. Because I was the one that all my friends reach out to, you know, when they got a bad grade, when they were fighting with their parents, when their boyfriend broke up with them and people would call me. So like, yes, like my superpower is generosity, but it's also firefighting, right? Like I'm a clear headed person. I'm a compartmentalizer. Like just by nature, there are certain things that are not maybe superpowers, but strengths am I like. I can compartmentalize like your, your, your tears don't become my tears, right?

Your tears become my like, buck up, come on, get, grab a Kleenex. We know there's no crying over here. Like, let's get our shit together. Let's own our own shit. And let's, you know, let's, let's take control of things. So, um, and I think that, so like, again, I didn't realize the generosity was my superpower and has put me in the position I'm in today until 46. So some of these are, you know, works in progress and that years and years of, of something happening and all of a sudden you're like, wow, that's my superpower. I think a lot of self-reflection, you know, those types of things for me, as far as why and values and a lot of that stuff came later in my career. How does a, how's a young professional, um, or anybody for that matter, kind of maybe pro go back to proactively thinking about what their superpower is?

How do you, like, what's a structure that, that, you know, you could share with us that helps people to kind of hone in on that and then start to lean in on. Cause that's why I always say with like, with strengths and weaknesses, right? People all, you gotta, you know, you know, fix your weaknesses. Ah, my, my philosophy on that is my weaknesses are my weaknesses for a reason. I don't like doing them. Right. And so if I can, as long as my weaknesses aren't getting in my way and, and like literally holding me back, that's, that's one thing. Right. But I want to lean all in on my strengths cause that's what I'm passionate about. That's what I'm good at. So how do you, how do you help a person figure out what those superpowers are?

Yeah. I ask them several questions. Um, I take people through kind of a workshop on this, but one of the first things I, you know, I mean, there's several questions, so like, I'll just list off a few of them. Um, what is it that other people can come and ask you advice or help with? Um, what do you think when you look around, like, what are you, what is easy for you and hard for others? Um, you know, what do you love to do? What do you gravitate towards? What have you been financially or otherwise rewarded for doing in the past? Like, what are people willing to pay you for? Um, you know, I mean, sometimes people say, I say, I've got 30 minutes for everyone. Someone's like, I feel like I should pay you.

Well, that means that that's 30 minutes is valuable enough. Right. And so it's not, I think it's beyond strengths, right? Because it really, what it really is, is what is it, what is it that you have that you can then, like you said, lean into and be completely confident in. So when, you know, when the rubber reads the road and everything's on the line and you need to close this one more deal or you're going to not hit Q1 quota or, you know, or the annual quota, then you're like, I got this because if I can manipulate the situation into where, you know, negotiations are superpower, where, you know, we get a negotiation situation or, you know, you know, showing value is my superpower, asking questions in my superpower.

Empathy, I did a workshop recently where somebody's like, empathy is my superpower. But if you can, if you understand that, then you can lead that horse to water to some extent. But what is it that you, if you look around the room, so to speak, what are you doing better than your coworkers and your competitors? What is it that your boss comes to you and says, hey, like, can you teach this at the next sales meeting? Like, these are the things that you're shining in and then you have to lean into them. So when I teach the superpower workshop, it's, it's identify and then develop and develop, by the way, just happens. That's on the job training. Honing, honing is intentional. Honing is having, it's what you're asking about.

Honing is having an intentional plan to make our superpower stronger. Then you need to pressure test it. So then you have to use it under the worst possible circumstances so that you feel confident that you can pull it out when you need it and then leverage and leverage. I mean, the definition of leverage is your ability to manipulate or control a situation in your favor. So those are the five, those are kind of the five steps I take people through. So identifying, developing, honing, pressure testing, and then leveraging your superpower. And I think that not enough people really sit down and think about it, but, you know, I think that also kind of aligns a little bit with the values too, right?

Empathy is, is probably, if I were to really, authenticity, I would say is my superpower. Like I'm about as transparent as it gets, you know, good, bad, or ugly, right? In a lot of ways, it's actually, you know, got me in a lot of trouble. Yep, exactly. So, but then how does that align with, you know, your, as we're talking sales, how can we leverage that as in sales, right? So can you be proactive with objection handling? Can you, you know, get out front of things and be open about pricing, right? So I think it's like making that, it's like, okay, this is what I'm really good at now. How do I proactively look at how to leverage this to get what I need, right? Because I think as you went through those questions, I could imagine there's a lot of people out there being like, nobody comes to me and asked me to present at the sales team.

Nobody comes to, and it doesn't have to be this big, huge, oh my God, you're the most charismatic or you're the most empathetic or whatever. It could be, you're really good at LinkedIn. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's, let's go to, I mean, because we talked about pricing a little bit. I want to kind of circle back around to that with objection handling, because you talk a little bit about that in a few of the articles that you posted there, read through. The, you, you mentioned something that I thought was interesting that some objections are actually straight up disqualifiers, right? Yeah. Where there's some objections that are just surface objections, you got to dig through them.

And then some objections are straight up. Okay. When you get that objection, you, you might as well just walk away. Could you kind of walk us through a little bit about like what you see as the disqualifying objections and then, and then we'll kind of get into how you can reduce the fear of dealing with them? First and foremost, I would say that you have to first be comfortable with the fact that not everyone's a fit for what you offer. Yeah. Right. And before I think before you and I hit the record button, you know, I said, one of the things I tell my clients is I have a very direct communication style and sometimes the bow isn't big enough to fix the ugly baby, right? And so, and so if that's going to be offensive, I mean, I work with a lot of startup founders, right?

And so if that's going to be offensive, then I'm not your consultant, right? I'm not your person. And there are plenty of people out there. Again, the water's warm consultants, right? Water's warm for consultants, right? So if, if I'm not your person, that's fine, but you know, but you need to know that. And I think, um, you know, I think the earlier you figure that, you know, you figure that out the better. So some objections are, are just not, are not an objection. There are no fit, right? Um, and some objections are what I call NRNs, not right nows. So I don't believe in no, I believe in NRN. And so like you, we have so, we have such a finite period of time and everybody needs a, you know, five or six X pipeline, but everybody needs the right stuff in their pipeline.

And so I think the biggest problem I'm seeing, John, is lack of discipline, right? It's just a lack of discipline. It's, but if you don't have processes in place, so again, I'm a big structured process girl. And so like, as an example, I put, I asked when I work with my clients, I'm like, we're going to have an NRN process. So when you get a not right now, what are we going to do about that? Right? I also ask each individual rep when I do training, I make them write down their walkaway point, their personal walkaway point, right? How many times are you going to call and email and send a video and ping them on LinkedIn? But as I said, like, you know, like, again, have some pride, right? Like, please have some pride.

Please have some pride. But, but I'm telling, but the reason why you don't is because your pipeline's anemic. And when your pipeline's anemic, panic causes bad decisions and bad decisions look like you start to harass your prospect over 30 days, which then damages your relationship. But when it's a process, it's not emotional and it's not personal. It's, I've been ghosted by them for two weeks. That's the start of my walkaway process. And so step one, I make an, you know, I send an email. Step two, next day I follow up with a phone call. Like, it's just like you would put an outbound cadence together. Your walkaway process is that. But it's different for everybody's tolerance for that, so to speak, is a little bit different.

So I don't just hand people like, here's your walkaway process, right? I want you to know. And then I make them write their Dear Jane email, you know, and I, and most of the time I don't accept the Dear Jane email. I don't like the ones that I normally get. So I'm sort of the, I'm sort of the Chris Foss girl. So I said, you know, my walkaway email, the subject line of my walkaway email is change of heart question mark. And then I say, John, have you changed your mind about solving X, which is costing your company Y? Love, Christy. That's it. Push this in button. And then I set myself a task in HubSpot for two days later. And it says, did I hear back from John? And if the answer's no, that's a close-loss deal.

Close-loss deal. Right? And so I think in order to get comfortable, again, so objections, there are some legitimate objections. I think early objections in the sales cycle are normally either disqualifiers or no fit. And by the way, no fit is like, I say to my clients, because they're like, but everybody I'm prospecting to should, you know, be the right. You know, this is ICP and they should definitely, everybody needs my product. And I go, but not everyone needs your product now. Not everybody can afford your product now. Not everybody can implement your product now. Like all this in or in stuff, like there's no, we're not going to talk people. I mean, yes, there's a certain amount of persuasion that comes in our professional with what we do.

And I'm about persuasion, but I'm not about bullying and I'm not about harassing. And so the, you know, the sooner I can disqualify somebody, the sooner I can talk to somebody who's qualified and that comes from confidence. And, but again, I'm back to discipline. Like so many organizations, so many sales reps don't have the discipline around what I just said. At the two week of ghosting, I start my walkaway process. It's not personal, it's business. I need to know if you're in or out because I don't do maybe. My second favorite word is no. And so, you know, but part of that also starts with the upfront contract, right? Like I should have said to you at the beginning, Hey, John, if at any point in time, as we're going through this, you're like, Hey, not for me.

I need, you know, I, uh, I've got, I've always got my big girl pants on. So just say not for me, not right now. Here's whatever, why? And so I can also use that. So if I had that upfront contract conversation, then I can say in the first email is, Hey, John, remember back in Feb when we met and one of the first things we agreed upon is that if it's any point in time, this is not a fit for you or something's changed that, you know, you would be, we would be honest with each other about that. Feels like that's where we might be love Christy. Right. And so I think there's so much of that is, is people is people bring emotion into it. And if you have a process around it, this is just my walk away process.

This is just my not right now process. And so you're just working the system that works for you. And, and then it's just, this is how we do. This is how I, that's why I said to sales reps, I'm like, this is how you do business. Not how your company does business, not how the industry does business. This is how Christy conducts business. Yeah. It's the, I think it comes, sums down to objectivity versus subjectivity. Right. I think that the more objective you can make things as far as setting expectations and holding people accountable and knowing what your line is. Because we all have a walk away line in our head. There's always this point where we're negotiating and okay, cool, back and forth.

And then it goes past this point, like this imaginary line in most people's heads where they start to get annoyed. And now in their head, they're not saying this out loud, but in their head, it's like, this isn't fair anymore. You're getting more than I am. And then it's this weird self-defeating prophecy where I'm now going to react poorly the next time you reach out to me. So I'm going to be shorter with you. I'm going to be more aggressive or whatever. Right. And it's going to get worse. So it's actually, you're, you're feeding into it without having that line. Whereas if you have that line, it's like, okay, once it goes past that line, it is what it is. And without it, customers are going to push you below it because why wouldn't they?

Right. Right. Because that's their job. Because that's their job. Yeah. So I think you're, you're spot on. The, the objectivity of all of this to me is I think life is about expectation setting. So I'm going back to setting up about what this conversation is. I do something similar to you as far as my walk away. I call, did I lose you? You know, the Chris Voss or, you know, have you given up on this, you know, this situation or whatever, or this initiative. But I've actually even gotten to a point where Colt with, with reps who get ghosted all the time. I sort of tell clients, like, I'll just ask them not to ghost me. So I'll do it on the, on the back end of a call. Be like, Hey, real quick, Chrissy, before we get off the call here, can I just ask a quick favor?

Well, yeah, sure. What, John? Right. Well, you know, look, as we go through this process, you know, if it's pretty evident to you that we're not a good fit, you know, and I'm not seeing it because my sales lens or something like that first, Hey, are you, are you okay with telling me no? And because that's my second best favorite answer. And second of all, like, could you just not ghost me? Like, and that usually gets a, all right, you know, okay. And then I'll bring it back to them and be like, Hey, I'll do a little like ghost emoji or something like that. If they're, so. Yeah. Right. Feels like, yeah. Feels like this may happening. Yep. I'm there right now. So, and I think not enough people, but I, you, you did hit on what goes to that driver is a big fat pipeline, right?

Cause if you have a big fat pipeline, you, you sell because you want the business, not because you need the business. That's right. And when you do that, you sell the right way, right? You push on their timeline, all that other stuff versus when you need it, you do some desperate shit. So. Yeah. And not to say that the objection handling doesn't, isn't a necessary part of this. Right. Like, so again, I teach, we handle objections by asking questions to seek to better understand. So of course there are objection handling, you know, judge and handling needs to happen throughout. But again, that's active listening. Like, is this, is this really, again, like, is this the blow off? Is this a true objection?

Is this a legitimate objection? Like you said, or can I proactively handle that? And the later you get in the sales cycle, you know, the objection handling skillset needs to come more into play. That's something that you need to have, you know, soft skills, sales training around and understand how to handle. Well, I don't think any sales leader is providing enough negotiation training, but to your point is sometimes we miss, we misconstrue objection handling with disqualification, a not right now situation, poor fit, and that has nothing to do with, you know, that like you got to peel back the ending. That's why I say you have to handle objections by asking questions to seek to better understand, because I don't think until you do that, you can determine what bucket it falls in.

No, I agree with that. Like you have to layer those, like, tell me more about what's going on here and say, like, all right, is this a bullshit objection or is this actually a real one that we have to dive into? That's right. Awesome. Well, look, let me ask you this last question, because I think it'll lead to you know, where you're going, because I went on your website to prep and there is a big sign on it that said something big is coming. So I don't know if you could expose what something big is coming, but why don't you talk to us a little bit about what you're working on and where people can find more information about you. I know you got a lot of stuff that you're putting out there right now.

So if you can expose to us what, or maybe give us a hint, that'd be awesome. But if not, where can people find out more information? I'm about to launch a rebrand and launch a brand new branding. So that is coming. That is imminent. That is coming soon. The book can be found at sellingyourwayin.com. But what I would love for your listeners to do is connect with me on LinkedIn and give me their one takeaway from today. I always want to know what was the most impactful thing that was discussed between us that might change their trajectory. Well, that and so and it's again, it's Christy IE Jones, right? Yes, K-R-I-S-T-I-E. Awesome, Christy. Well, by the way, I'm going through a full rebrand too.

So I'm like in the same bucket. We're transforming platforms, new site, new everything. So I know the pain you're going through right now. It's awful. It's so awful. Awesome, Christy. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Enjoy the conversation. John, thanks so much for having me. Thank you. Absolutely. All right, everybody. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And like I always say at the end of all these podcasts, 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 and 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 will see you on the other side.

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