Niraj Kapur: Reinventing yourself through the pandemic

Hey everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And today's conversation is with Niraj Kapoor. Niraj is actually a colleague of mine. He does sales training and consulting and has had a very interesting past couple of years. For those of you who don't know, as an entrepreneur and a sales trainer, when you're off on your own, it's all you and most of your stuff is done before COVID on site. And so both of us had all of our revenues pretty much disappear. And so we talk about Niraj's background and his history and where he comes from living from Northern Ireland as with Indian descent and his parents and how everything was going good for him up until about 11 years old and he was the best of the best.

And then he got transferred to a different school and it all fell apart. And that's really where he got his drive to prove everybody wrong. And we talk about emotional intelligence as a child and some of the things that are necessary to instill in children specifically today to give them a chance in today's world and what he pulled from that. But then as he grew up and got into the business world, you know, 2016, 2017 hit and a lot of things fell apart for him. He had a really successful career up until then. And then all of a sudden he had to go through divorce. His business wasn't doing good. He got depression. His kid went to college and he lost his best friend. And after getting through that in 2020, he thought he was on the right track.

And then COVID hit and pretty much annihilated his entire business. And so he took the blue ocean approach to this where he started paying attention to what everybody else was doing and where everybody else was going and decided to focus on a different area and he reshaped himself. He learned some new things and he created some new content around LinkedIn and started doing individual coaching for people and started building back his brand. And we talk about that brand and the importance of personal brand building and why it doesn't matter what your role is, why you should start now and the impact that it can make. And then we also talk about making that mental shift and going from selling to serving and how that is actually a life inflection point.

When you realize that it's not about you anymore, it's about other people, the whole world opens up to you. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did and it gets you to think a little bit or it helps you through those tough times that you might be facing right now. So 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. Raj, welcome to the podcast, my friend. How are you doing? I'm doing good, John. Such an honor to be here. I've been a big fan of your podcast for several months. And obviously, we've been at various events together. We've never spoken, but so briefly.

So it's fantastic to have this time together today. Yeah, I appreciate you reaching out on this one because I agree. There's certain people where you see in social circles and you always enjoy the conversation, but then you never actually have a conversation with them one-on-one. So I appreciate you coming for this one, especially based on what we've been going through because we're both in similar spots here, you know, sales, training, consulting type of world. And it's been a really interesting past couple of years that I think we're going to get into. But before we do that, Raj, why don't we give the audience a little bit of background on you? Talk to us a little bit about where you're coming from and what you've been up to, and then we'll kind of lead into where we're going.

Sure. Hi, everybody. I'm Neeraj. I'm a LinkedIn top voice and a trusted sales and LinkedIn coach. I help clients. So that's something too corny to get better outcomes, to get better results. Most of it is on a one-on-one level. I don't really do that much group work, but it's something that gives me great pleasure. It's very personal doing one-on-one work as opposed to doing group work, which is why I like doing it so much. And I spent my life growing up in Northern Ireland. When I grew up, there was no internet, no more than four TV channels. It really did suck. So I then moved to London, spent 25 years there, had an amazing career, and then came back to Ireland during lockdown. So that's been like the next phase of my life.

There you go. I like it. And when you grew up in Northern Ireland, I think we're similar age here. So, you know, the internet, albeit accessible, was very limited at best growing up. You know, for me, it was zero growing up. But talk to me a little bit about you growing up. I always like to kind of hear people's origin stories as far as, you know, school and just you as a kid. Anything that you can kind of give some insights to the audience as far as where, because a lot of kind of who we are today, obviously, is based on where we came from in a lot of ways, and the values that were instilled in our parents, or some of the challenges that we face. So anything of note for you on your journey from being a kid to where you are now that stands out?

Very interesting, because there's two parts to my childhood. There's up until the age of 11, where I was the biggest overachiever in the world. You know, I was the top scorer on my football team. I was the best student. I was a head boy. And this is an all-white school as well. You know, my parents had good health. They were happily married. Mom would pick us up from school every day. That's what moms did back then. They didn't have to do jobs as well as take care of the kids, which is a second job. And my life was brilliant. I didn't achieve much. It was a small town, but I was like the best of the best. And then I got into one of the top schools in Ireland, Balmain Academy. And all of a sudden, I'm surrounded by excellence on a different level.

And all of a sudden, I go from being the best to being really average, to being really awful. And also, I discovered girls. I'm an 11-year-old kid who's hormonal. I go, oh, my God, look at these 17, 18-year-old girls. And all I wanted to do was impress them. Being good at school just didn't matter. And after three years of just embarrassment and failing all my exams, just playing music all the time and chasing girls, my father moved me from what was pretty much the best school in Northern Ireland to the school across the office or across the road from his doctor's surgery, which was a really bad school. But he can keep an eye on me. He knew the headmaster. And that was the second part of my childhood where I suffered unbelievable racism and hatred.

And you really got to see how awful teenagers could be. Because when you're young, kids don't understand racism. It's lovely. They just accept you for who you are. But when you get older, it's more about being a teenager and wanting to fit in and kids being dumbasses and making bad decisions. And it was pretty awful. And that was where my growth came from because I realized I wanted to be a somebody and that I wanted to prove everybody wrong. That was just my goal in life. And so I said, right, I'm going to prove them all wrong. I'm going to be popular. I'm going to be rich. I'm going to be the first ever Indian Bon Jovi. Obviously, I had longer hair and a six pack. But yeah, that was my goal back then.

And I left home and I saved money for two years stacking shelves in the supermarket. It was exhausting work. And I went with a demo tape to all record companies in London, age 19. And at least I did it, you know? Yeah. Hell yeah. And do you think that drive or that I want to prove everybody wrong, was that kind of instilled with you, with your parents? Or was that something that clicked in you eventually and said, I'm kind of sick of whatever getting picked on or whatever it is. And I'm just going to go. I'm just like, fuck it. I don't give a shit. I'm going to go make it happen type of scenario. I have conservative Indian parents. They're very modern now. But growing up, they were very conservative.

So you can imagine their unbelievable disappointment of a child not going to university, saying I'm going to have a job, which has no guarantee of income whatsoever. My father was such a respected man. People are like, you're doing what? You're going to be, what's the matter with you? I mean, literally, what's the matter with you? It was the most common thing people said to me. And it was very difficult. But also, it was the pressure from school. Because at school, you know, it's interesting. As adults, we want to be heard. We want to have our voices respected. But as kids, it matters 10 times more for some reason, you know? As an adult, I'm not a people pleaser anymore. As long as my core people respect me and are respectful to other people, that's okay.

I don't have to be loved by everyone. But as a kid, when one person hates you, it feels like the whole world's a guest kind of thing. You don't have the emotional intelligence to deal with it, which is why I always say emotional intelligence is one of the greatest skills in life you can have. Yeah, I think that emotional intelligence, it's tough to teach. But, man, is it more, in my opinion, so much more important than IQ, right? I mean, you can, you know, there's pretty much technology that can solve almost every problem at this point. But the emotional intelligence to be able to handle what's going on in the world today and how to react to it and how to adjust to it and all that stuff, man.

I mean, my daughter's, you know, she's 12 years old right now. And that's the one thing I hope that I can instill in her is confidence and, you know, the ability to, you know, critical thinking and emotional intelligence because I just, you know, I can't imagine being a 12-year-old girl right now, for instance, you know, in today's world. It's just like, holy shit, the amount of stuff that's coming at you is just brutal. But, hey, you know, you do what you can do and hopefully you put them, instill the right values in them, right? And it sounds like your parents did a good job from instilling some values in you that got you through those tough times, right? They taught me some good values, but being a teenager, you don't listen that much.

So my father always said to me, the smartest thing you can do is invest in yourself. And I'm 18 years old. I'm like, Dad, I don't care about invest. Come on, I hate school. Why would I read a book? I'm going to give me these books on philosophy, which now I love, but as an 18-year-old, I just didn't understand or care about. It didn't matter. I wanted to prove people wrong. Why would I read for? And he was saying to me, the smartest thing you can do is give to charity. I'm like, Dad, come on. I don't have much money. I'm not going to give to charity. So all the brilliant stuff he taught me, I just wish I'd listened to him because I can't even imagine where I'd be if I had, you know? That's the hardest part, I think, is like you see all the things that you want in your children to know because you just skip a few steps.

You know, I'm 46 years old. I've learned this the hard way. Like, you're 12, you can learn it now. And to your point, they don't care. They're like, yeah, well, it's Halloween. I got some, you know, a large snicker bar the other day and I was pretty happy about it. But it sounds like, you know, a lot of that prepared you for kind of what has happened over the past couple of years here with a lot of the adversity in general that we've all faced. But I know you and I, you know, we had similar challenges, right, from a sales trainer standpoint. I mean, for me, you know, 90% of my revenue was on site before COVID hit. And thankfully, we had been structured and it wasn't just me. It was an organization, you know, I had 15 people and we were able to pivot and do some cool things.

But, you know, it was a scary, scary scene in a lot of ways. So talk about what's happened because your journey of the past couple of years has been pretty rough and you've come out pretty, pretty good on the other side. So walk us through kind of what happens and what your practice was before COVID hit and then what happened with it and how you got through it. Certainly. Before COVID hit, I had a very successful career. You know, you start off at the very bottom, you know, selling classified adverts at the back of a magazine. That's how old I am. And then, you know, you grow and you grow and you become a, you know, SDR and you grow to be a manager and a sales manager and a sales leader and a sales and marketing director.

And that was my journey. And I had a great career. And the last two years, I wasn't enjoying. And I said to my bosses, you know, every time I'd mention it, I didn't call it mental health. Nobody really knew what mental health was back around 2016. I called it depression. And as a man, it's very difficult to talk about that. And my male bosses were unforgiving about it and arrogant and far more. They really couldn't care less. And the second thing I wanted to do was work from home one day a week because I was a dad. I was not seeing my daughter enough. And they would say, look, nobody works from home. It will never take off. It's a dumb idea. Only lazy people. No, I was getting so much bad advice.

And I kept thinking they're all wrong. I couldn't prove it, but I thought they were wrong. And I got a reputation for being difficult because I couldn't understand why nobody wanted to do things my way. I couldn't understand why people couldn't take care of, you know, let's stop people getting depressed in sales. Let's take good care of staff. Let them work from home one day a week. Now, now this is normal completely. But in 2016, 2017, this was unheard of. And I look back and I just wish somebody had listened to me. It's almost like what I said a few moments ago. People want to have their voices heard and they want to know people that understand them. And one boss said to me, you know what, Neeraj, you think you're always right.

Why don't you just set up your own business? And my next boss said that as well. And I thought, you know what? I'm a chicken and that's why I stayed in the corporate world so long because it's terrifying setting up your own business. I am great at working for other people, but I'm not an entrepreneur. I don't know how to have multiple streams of it. I didn't understand any of this. And I was terrified. And I went to a Tony Robbins event. It's four-day UPW. And when you attend a four-day Tony Robbins UPW, you come out of it thinking, I can do anything in the world. I can achieve anything. I can do anything. And my book was just about to be released, Everybody Works in Sales. And that became a big success.

And instead of focusing on the coaching, which would have been a smart thing to do, I just focused on book sales because I wanted 10,000 copies sold. I thought that was a good number. And I just focused on book sales, book sales, book sales. The problem is the first month I earned thousands. I'm like, yes, I'm going to make it. The second month was thousands. Yeah. And the third month was hundreds. And I'm like, oh, crap. Now I've got to learn how to run a business. Yeah. I can't hide anymore. Yeah. And the next year, my life was pretty tough. And at the same time, I think going through that, suffering from the depression you get from running a business, and then my eldest daughter going to university, it was just me and my wife left.

And we'd achieved the success of our lives in a big country house. And all of a sudden, the cracks started to appear really slowly. We're working seven days a week to pay a big, big English country house that she wanted because she grew up in poverty. I didn't. Not that I grew up in wealth, but our lives slowly kind of came apart, and our daughter left the house, and I hated being a business owner, and nothing was going right. My mental health was getting worse, and I went through a horrendous divorce. And the next year and a half were pretty brutal. And then once I got out of the divorce, I thought, yes, January 2020, I'm going to start my life over. And I had two brilliant months. Oh, man.

And then March 2020, it went from being $10,000 a month to zero. And I'm like, that's what happened. I'll stop talking because I was saying a lot there, and I just wanted people to process kind of what I went through. Yeah, I mean, that's a lot, man. I mean, I think it is, you know, the journey of entrepreneurship is always in it. I think you and I are similar in the sense I never really thought I was an entrepreneur. I never really, you know, kind of envisioned myself as one. I think I had the DNA, though, because even though I didn't know it, back when I was growing up, both my parents were, to a certain degree, entrepreneurs. You know, my mom quit her job, and she started an at-home consultancy when I was born.

So when I was at home, you know, when I'd go back to my house, there'd be the living room, and half of it was her office, and half of it was our TV. My dad worked from home for the whole time, and he was a consultant for the FAA. And so I knew I didn't know anything about entrepreneurship, just like I didn't know anything about sales, you know, growing up. I didn't think of it as a profession. I didn't think of it as something that, you know, you would go to school and get a degree in. But when I was in the corporate world, to your point, like, it's safe, right? It's safer in there because there's a structure to it. There's predictability to a certain degree of it, which feels good. And there's also base salaries, which is very, you know, appealing in a lot of ways.

Because I've always said, you know, from a sales standpoint, I was always scared to death to be 100% commission rep. Because, you know, I was like, wow, man, if you know, what if I don't, what if I don't close anything in a month, and I'm not going to be able to eat. But it was such a minimalistic or limiting mindset. Because when I was effectively forced to be 100% commission rep, when I was fired from, you know, my first job, or not my first job, but when I was fired from Basho, and Basho kind of went belly up, and we were all looking for, and I became a business owner. You know, it kind of, it hit me like a ton of bricks that I was now 100% commission rep. Not only was I running a company in my own little company here, but I was now the be all end all.

There was no base salaries anymore for me. It was, I, and I'm a pretty motivated, I'm pretty, I consider myself a pretty motivational or motivated guy at the end of the day. But man, if you want motivation, know that if you don't get up in the morning, you ain't getting paid. That's a different type that'll, that'll get you out of bed a little bit early and stop you from, you know, pushing that snooze button. But there's, I mean, there's a lot of ups and downs. You talk, well, you talk about depression. What was depression for you? You know, you're talking about mental health or depression. Was it, did it manifest itself because you were just not enjoying yourself and there was all these negative things happening to you?

Or do you think that there was something underlying that, that, that was causing it? It was a mixture of both. You know, after you spent 23 years having a successful career and you work for some great companies, I took great offense. I went to networking events and people were like, a sales coach? No, people just made this horrible face when I said I worked in sales. And I was just like, we don't need your help. You know, you get five accountants, six lawyers, four graphic designers, you know, three SEO acts. We also get the same people go to networking events, but I didn't see many salespeople there at all. And people just didn't want my help. And then when they did want my help, oh, no, we can't afford you.

And I just didn't feel respected. And again, it goes back to childhood trauma, not being respected, not having my voice heard. And I think that combined with the fact that I missed my daughter because she was, me and her were close friends. And the fact that I was going through a divorce with my wife and the trauma involved in that was horrific. When you go through a divorce, you find out very quickly in life who your real friends are. And it turns out the people I thought were my friends weren't. They were my ex-wife's friends. They weren't mine. I was just a husband to a successful woman. And also you've got a few married people who just don't know what divorce is and they just don't get it.

So instead of supporting you, they say nothing and they don't return your calls. They don't return your texts. They pretend that they just don't talk to you. And that was, these are people whose weddings I've been to. These are people whose children's parties I've been invited to. And all of a sudden, again, I became a nobody, John. My voice was stripped away from me. And it comes back to that, no voice, not being heard, not being respected. There's so many people. I mean, you can macro that out to the societal problem, right? I think people lash out when they don't feel like they're being heard, right? Well, they either suppress it and go into depression or they lash out and they react in a way that isn't.

It's like little kids, you know what I mean? When kids can't express themselves with their words, they scream, they yell, they throw a temper tantrum. And quite frankly, I think that's what a lot of our society, unfortunately, is doing right now. They don't feel like they're being heard. So they're effectively throwing a temper tantrum and they're not making rational decisions. They're not making rational choices. They're just angry and they don't know why. And I think that's a big societal problem that we have an issue with right now. And I don't necessarily know how, I mean, outside of continuing to talk about it and trying to de-stigmatize, if you will, mental health and depression and frustration and all that other stuff.

I ask the question a lot these days, like, why is everybody so angry? I hear in the States, I mean, it's probably not nearly as bad politically, at least, even though Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland probably have their history. But, you know, but here, like, I notice it, obviously, with the political environment. And it just seems like everybody's angry. And I think a lot of it has to do with what you just said, is they just don't feel like they're genuinely being heard. And they don't feel like they really have an option to do anything about it. And so let's talk about what you did about it. 2020 hit, right? You're just gone through. You're now, like, on the other side of it. You're like, all right, cool.

Like, I'm about to go fucking get it again, right? And then COVID comes and punches us all square in the face. Business dries up, zero. Did that drag you back down into depression? Or were you able to fight through it? And how did you mentally and tactically get through this? At the beginning, it did affect me, of course, because when you have no money coming in, and your clients say they have no money, and your daughter's at university saying, Hey, Dad, I need money. I need this money this month. You know, it puts you in a tough position. My parents are retired. So I felt very uncomfortable asking for anything. And it put me in a difficult position. So one thing I did was I thought, okay, I'm halfway through my second book.

I'll fast forward that. And I'm a great believer of a Tony Robbins quote, success leaves clues. And I was listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast. And he was talking about how he sold, he sells hundreds, sometimes thousands of advanced copies of his books to corporations. I thought, that's a brilliant idea. Success leaves clues. So I would call up clients saying, look, you can't afford my services, but your clients are hurting. You should buy 100 copies of my books. And quite a few people told me, I'm not sure what the American word is, but in England, I was like, piss off. 100 copies? You're drunk. Go away. Okay, that wasn't a good idea. I'm not saying fair. So let's try 20 copies. And some clients bought 20 copies.

Some clients bought 10. Most bought five copies. One, because I asked them to, and four, to give out to clients as present. So I pre-sold over 1,000 copies of a self-published book, which really helped, again, short-term, not long-term. And I started looking what all of sales trainers in my industry were doing. And they were all fighting, it seemed like, for the same piece of business. And any time anybody went, did go on LinkedIn to say, hey, I'm looking for a sales trainer, you'd see like 200 comments on their page. Hey, I'm an award-winning. I can help you. I'm like, oh, God. And I didn't want to be fighting for the same crumbs as everybody else. And I thought, okay, what do I do? And as you can see by my bookshelf here, John, behind me, which actually includes a book you wrote with your daughter.

I'm a massive reader. I'm a great believer in life that the more you invest in yourself and take action on, the better you'll become. That's one of my great foundations and philosophies of life. Learn more, take action, you'll do better. And I read a quote by Sam Walton, who's the founder of Walmart, who said, when everybody else goes in this direction, you go the other way. And I thought, that's really interesting. The guy's a billionaire. He must know something I don't know. And that's what I did. So everybody was bragging. They were getting 600, 500 people to their masterclasses. So I thought, look, I'm going to charge £21. What's that about? $26, $27. I only got, I think, eight people. And I was vilified.

I was criticized by a lot of people for doing this. And I thought, okay, I've earned some money. Next one, $47. Next one, $67. And when I started charging $97, I started getting coaching inquiries. That was interesting. So that was the first difference I made. I went in the opposite direction to other people. And the second thing was, a few months later, people started inquiring about LinkedIn training. Now, I knew what LinkedIn was. I was active on LinkedIn. But I wasn't brilliantly successful. I only had a few thousand followers. And again, you invest in yourself. So I hired Daniel Disney. He was a great guy. I did his course. I read books. I spoke at about, I don't know, 35, 40 networking events online for free.

For five-minute talk, 10-minute talk, 15-minute talk. As much as I could. So I really learned how to use LinkedIn. And after about six months of doing that, I felt the confidence in to start charging people forward as well. So it came from the masterclasses initially. Partly, royalties from my book, which, again, nobody else was doing at the time. And then pivoting from sales to LinkedIn, because it wasn't just how to optimize your LinkedIn profile. Most people do not know how to sell on LinkedIn. They just don't know. And being able to teach them that was an absolute joy, you know? 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 JBSales' 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 biweekly 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. A lot of this sounds like it was based on feedback from the audience. So how much do you pay attention to what others are doing, right? So you can go in that blue ocean area, but also what's happening with the feedback from the audience. And the reason I ask that question is because, you know, Henry Ford said, you know, the famous quote, if I had asked the audience what they wanted, I would have made, you know, a faster horse or whatever the hell he said, right?

As opposed to coming up with a car. So it seems like you were reacting a lot to what people were asking for. So how much of that, from your strategy standpoint, is what you know is the right direction versus what people are asking? And I want to relay that to sales, too, in general, like with clients, right? So a lot of times clients come and they say, hey, I need this, but challenger sale, right? You flip it around and you're like, do you really? You know, that type of thing. So let's start with the strategy first for you personally and how you look at leading versus following the audience. Whenever someone tells me, when people approach me, it's nearly always the same way from a sales perspective.

They want to close more deals. And I talk to them about their process and how they go about doing things. Nine times out of ten, John, the problem is never closing more sales, ever. The problem is they don't understand sales process. Most people cannot open a sales deal. Most people don't know what to do. If somebody says call back in three months, most people go, okay, which is the worst thing you could possibly do. Never do that. If somebody says call back in three months, you said, okay, well, look, three months is a long time away. I'm happy to do that. But can I at least keep in touch with you once a week with some valuable insight that will help your industry? I promise not to spam you.

And if you don't say that in three months, you're screwed because you're starting from scratch again. So, you know, you have to understand sales process and how to open and engage with customers who are not doing business with you. And most people don't get that. So, for me, that's what I focus on in coaching. And the second thing, of course, I focus on is mindset. Because a lot of people are super stressed out and they're worried about the future, probably now more than ever, because of everything that's going on in the world right now, from oil prices to the rising cost of everything. So, mindset and sales process is something I do. In terms of looking at what other people were doing, I think it's very important to be aware of what the competition you're doing, whether they're healthy competition or friendly competition.

It's important to be aware. And one thing I find, I'm not sure about America, but in the UK, when sales trainers get together, it's almost like a bragging contest. They're all trying to outdo each other in terms of who's more impressive and who's better. I mean, if they brought a measuring stick, they might as well do that. I'm better than you. I'm better than you, mate. It's ridiculous. And all they do is brag. And what I found was interesting was when I'd meet them at events months later or talk to them in private, they would admit they weren't that successful. But they felt they had to put on a public persona to appear impressive. I find that very interesting. And I thought, you know what?

I'm going to be the real deal. I'm going to talk about the struggles I have. And on LinkedIn, I'm going to say, you know what? I had a client pitch. They approached me, but they chose somebody else because they were cheaper. They chose somebody else because I didn't recap enough. I didn't dig deep enough. And I really was very vulnerable and very honest. Something you don't really get much from sales trainers, especially male ones, who like to have this macho attitude. And because I was so different, what was interesting was I started to attract female clients. That's something I never expected to happen, by the way. And they told me they wanted to work with me because I wasn't a grand cordon because I was a real deal.

It's almost sad to me how authenticity is a competitive advantage right now. Because the world is filled with so many perceived successful people. But in reality, they're struggling just like everybody else. And for some reason, everybody feels the need to project that confidence, that false bravado, if you will. But, you know, it's just like, I mean, if you boil it down to Instagram and Facebook, it's, you know, I'm sure you have friends just like I do, that if you just paid attention to what they do on Facebook or Instagram, you'd think they have the greatest life you've ever seen. But you know that their family is a train wreck. You know that, you know, that is just the surface level. And I think that the world is just dying for somebody to not be full of shit, you know, and tell it like it is.

And I think that's also related to sales, too. I mean, I think a lot of your content, obviously, attracts the type of people you want to attract. But also, you know, I don't know about you, but in the sales process, I try to, to a certain degree, disqualify more than I qualify at this point. Right. Because I'm trying to find, and I'm so dead nuts honest with what I'm good at and what I'm not, because I actually don't want to do business with you of something that I'm mediocre at, even if the money's there. And that brings up a question for me as I talk out loud here. In some of the challenges that you've faced, you know, it's really easy to go chase money, if you will. You know, be like, I got to pay the bills, so I'm going to basically do whatever for whoever, right?

Especially, you know, most, a lot of entrepreneurs, a big mistake I see they make is when they get into being an entrepreneur, whatever their product or service they sell, they'll basically take money from anybody to keep the lights on. But what that does is that sucks them away. If they're not taking on the good revenue, the good clients, it ends up sucking them away from, from the clients that they could do a great job for. And so they're going to do a mediocre job for money in the short term. So talk to me a little bit about that, about how, you know, have you taken bad revenue before or have you been, even, even in your toughest times, more of a patient person to figure out where the right revenue comes from?

In the last year, I've said no to anybody who wasn't the right fit. By not being the right fit, I mean, if I speak to somebody, and all they do is criticize their team nonstop and put them down, I think, you know what, I don't want to work with you. Because if you haven't got respect for your team, if you hit every single member of your team, you're the problem. The team don't need coaching, you do. If I speak to people who use, I don't mind bad language, look, I get it. But if it's constant bad language, and it's extreme bad language, I will not work with you. And I have quite strict rules like that. There are companies who approach me, say my team are making 100 calls a day. I say, you know what, there's people out there you should approach.

I'm not that person. So again, it's being straightforward with people. In the last year, I've been good. But during lockdown, there were a few deals I had to take. And every single deal I took where I had to give a big discount, or I had to work with somebody I didn't respect, almost within seconds of getting paid, I regretted. I can't say it any other way, John, you know? I'm right there with you, man. Like when I, you know, we've all done it, right? But I think when you're an entrepreneur, and you're not only the entrepreneur, but you are the product, you feel it at a much more visceral level than if you're just a sales rep selling a software that gets handed over to customer success, right?

When I was in those roles, when I was selling for Xerox and that type of stuff, it was, you know, I still cared. I still wanted to work. But if you were a total douchebag, but you still had money, I was going to sell a copy to you, you know what I mean? Because also, it wasn't really a relationship either. I mean, yes, it was, and we said it was, and all your solutions and all this other bullshit. But at the end of the day, buy a fucking copier, and then I'll come back whenever that lease is up, and I'll sell you a couple more. You know what I mean? But now as an entrepreneur, and, you know, being the one who, in a lot of ways, delivers the content, you feel it when it's, and you realize, and going back to mental health and depression and all those other things, like when you're constantly being berated by customers, or you're constantly trying to, you know, fit that square peg into that round hole, that adds to the doubt, if you will, the self-doubt of how good are you really at this?

And, you know, is this really what you want to do? And I think drives a lot of entrepreneurs out of the business because they end up working with people who aren't the right fit for them. So, do you have any advice for entrepreneurs who are getting into it along those lines about how to be patient and look and find the right revenue, find the right type of clients and not take the bad revenue? That's a fantastic question that no one's ever actually asked me. So, I'm going to take everything I talk about really is based on personal experience and the experience of my clients. So, I find my ideal customer, because I used to really go after salespeople. I figured they're my customer because that's the experience I have.

It turns out they're not my customers because a lot of salespeople don't like to pay their bills or turn up for coaching half the time or they cancel all the day. But business owners don't do that. Business owners invest themselves. Business owners rarely cancel last minute or don't turn up. Most of them have been very honorable and turned up and paid their bills. So, it took me about a year to realize I should be speaking to a business owner. So, it took me a while to find that audience. And then, loads of them were women as well, which surprised me. But that came through writing consistently on LinkedIn. And people found me through my voice because, A, I was consistent. People vastly underestimate the importance of consistency in sales.

Second of all, I led with vulnerability, which very few people in sales do. Third, I always say, surround yourself with smart people and ask them for advice. And again, Daniel Disney, we both know, sitting around, you've got to start doing video. I said, Dad, come on, I can't. I'm in my late 40s. I have no hair. I've got a massive Indian nose. No one's going to want to watch me. Why would anybody want to see me? I can't imagine why anybody apart from my mother would want to watch me. He says, look, you can sit here and argue with me or you can go out and have success. He was very good, actually, Daniel. And so he pushed me to do video. And I did. And it took me about, I did video once a week.

After six weeks, people started to notice it. And after 10 weeks, I got my first business inquiry just off a video post. And now I do video. I did video once a week now for almost 18 months because it's authoritative. And I got used to seeing myself and I've gone from like doing 30 seconds to 60 seconds to two minute videos. I don't have a script anymore. I can just talk to people very naturally. But it took me hundreds of videos to get there, John, you know. But it was by talking to people consistently on social media, that's how they found me. And I attracted a different kind of audience. And, of course, through my books as well, I write with vulnerabilities, a very different approach. And I guess the third way is, to a certain extent, speaking at sales conferences, sales panels, because that's a very good way to have your voice heard and to attract the right customer, too.

So I'd recommend that to any business owner, any entrepreneur out there. These are the things you should be doing. So, I think that's a big hang-up I think a lot of very similar people have, which is, you know, social selling, right? And they're like, well, who am I to go out there and, you know, talk about stuff and nobody cares, you know. But what I said, I had the same exact, like I fought hard when I went off on my own, not going off as J Barrows, right? So the first, you know, we've gone from J Barrows to JB Sales to Sell Better by JB Sales. And at first, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, this isn't about me. This is about the content. This is, you know, I don't want to make this about me.

And so many people said, John, you know, this industry, man, and this was kind of before personal brand building was really huge. They were like, dude, this industry, sales training, it's 50-50, man. It's 50% the content and 50% who delivers it. And so you have to brand yourself. And so I went into it kicking and screaming because I literally, you know, people think I'm an extrovert because they see the videos all over the place and everything else. It is, I am about as far away from an extrovert. I mean, not as far. I'm not a massive introvert. But I guess I've learned recently that I'm more of an ambivert, which is, you know, you adjust to the situation, right? But that hang-up, because I think you and I can talk about social selling in a way that is different than most because of what we do and who we try to attract.

I kind of always make the joke, like, it's easy for me to do social selling because effectively, I'm a crack dealer dealing crack and I'm a crackhead myself. You know what I mean? So it's like, I'm dealing crack to crackheads and I'm a crackhead. So it's easy for me to talk about. It's easy for me to do. But when you're sitting there and you're maybe middle of your career or something like that, and you're either thinking about either going off on your own or staying with the existing business and looking at the social selling thing, being like, what the fuck's the point? What do you say to people of why they should, even if they're not an entrepreneur, I see a very direct correlation to entrepreneurship and personal branding and all that other stuff, right?

Because you have to brand yourself in today's world. You can't, you know, I was talking to my mom, you know, when my dad passed, she's like, your dad was just in awe of you because he never understood, like, how you could do what you did. My dad was always one of those. He felt he was an electrical engineer and he felt the work should stand for itself. So he was one of the smartest people I've ever come across, but he smashed into a ceiling because he would never promote himself. He would never talk about what he was good at. He would just do what he was good at and expect other people to see it. And that, unfortunately, is just not how the way the world works right now. So what suggestions do you have for somebody who's kind of sitting on the fence there saying, man, I've been hearing so much about this personal branding stuff.

A, I don't know how to start. B, I don't know who would listen to me. I'm selling security services to CIOs. Like, who the fuck am I to build my brand here? Talk us through the jump and, first of all, why you think every or anybody should do it and B, how you would suggest they get started in an authentic way so that they're not just doing it for the clicks and the follows and that type of stuff. Of course, there's two ways of doing it. There's a gentle coaching way whereby I would ask some questions. And if that doesn't work, there's a blunt way, which I'll come to in a second, which I sometimes have to use because I find that people over a certain age, usually as 45 years old, they know they have to change, but they're resistant to change.

They know there's a lot of weird things happening in social media. They don't want to be part of it, but they want to be part of it, if you know what I mean. And probably white guys over 50 are the worst because they're like, why is everybody taking selfies on LinkedIn? It makes no sense to me. Why are they talking about their personal story? This is not Facebook. And a lot of them message me saying, this is stupid. Why is this working for? That girl's just a pretty face. That's why she's successful. I'm like, hang on a second. Let's just calm down for a second, okay? So first of all, you have to be where audience are. If your audience or your future audience is on LinkedIn, which there's a 90% chance they will be unless you work in a unique industry like pharma or retail.

In the B2B, certainly LinkedIn is a place to be. There's no doubt about it. It's a fantastic platform for so many reasons. You've got to be here. Second of all, people connect with personal stories. Now, three years ago, I would never have told a personal story. I just wouldn't have. And I told personal stories more by default. I never planned to. I was just going through, having gone through a traumatic divorce. Nobody was listening to me. My business had kind of disappeared and I was restarting again. And to make things worse, I'm a glutton for punishment. I was doing online dealing. Which in a small town of Ireland is not easy. And I stood out a mile, which is interesting. You stand out in business, it's great.

You stand out in online dating, it doesn't work out. And I had to, it was exhausting. A number of times I was stood up or I'd meet the person, I'm like, you're 10 years younger in your profile, you know, or they'd turn up and they were a complete bag of neuroses. I had somebody turn up once with a friend on a date because a friend wanted to judge me to see if I was good enough for a friend. These are 50-year-old women, by the way. So we all have baggage at different levels. And I encourage everybody to tell their personal story because I buy from people I admire and respect and know. So just say I found somebody, John, who was better than you, but I didn't know the person and I had no connection with the person and you were the second best.

I would go to you because I trust you. I know you. I like you. I know your personal story. I've heard you talk many times about your father beautifully and about your parents. And I understand your world. I know you've been fired from a job before. So have I. You know, I get it. I get where you've been and I get your journey. So I buy into your personal story. And one of the best ways to build your brand is to tell your personal story. Now, a lot of people want to say, well, my private life is my private life. And I understand that and I respect that. A lot of people say, you know what? I will never promote my children to be successful. And you know what? I respect that. And I do. That's the biggest objection I get.

When people say that to me, I always say two things. You don't have to wear every scar on your sleeve like I have. You can simply talk about challenges. You overcome in life. People will get that. And the second thing is, and this is the most important. This is where I become blunt if they don't listen. You can be right or you can be successful. What would you prefer? And that's usually the final thing I say to them. And most of the time they reluctantly go, successful? I'm like, okay, if you want to be successful, then you have to tell your personal story. You have to get your brand on LinkedIn. You have to be consistent and you have to talk about the challenge you overcome. The one thing that I've really realized, especially in being in this space now for the past 20-something years, is consistency is one of the most critical components of all this.

Because anybody for six months can come out hot and put out a ton of content that's super valuable and tell some interesting stories. But can you do it every day? Can you build it into your routine? Can you do it every week where you make that connection with your audience? That's what I find so many entrepreneurs. They come in and all of a sudden, you and I are in a space where sales trainers, I think most of them have about a three to four-year cycle. Where they get frustrated at work because they think they're better than whatever the situation is. They know they have some good stuff because they're a good coach, they're a good mentor, they're good whatever. They jump out and they say, oh, this is great.

And they know the first two, three years are going to be a battle, whatever, but they have some minimal success. But then when year four, year five hits and the struggle is still there, and they're still not getting over that hump that they thought they were going to. And then they get that customer that says, hey, I'll give you 200,000 pounds to come be our VP of sales. Okay, no problem. Let's go back to being safe again. And it's that consistency on brand. It's that consistency on drive that I think so few people have the stomach for to continue to do. And I think social selling is a big piece of that. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people that I've seen come and go over the past 15 years who were fantastic in so many ways.

But now I haven't heard from them for, I can't tell you how long, because they just weren't able to stay consistent. And the last thing I'll say on the brand thing is, I always tell people that you really never know who you're going to impact by telling your story. Nobody cares about the outcome. That's the Instagram stuff, right? That's the look at me, I'm driving, you know, I'm Grant Cardone, I got my jet, and I got my cars and all that other stuff. But it's the journey of how to get there that I think the majority of people are far more interested in than anything else. Because that's where the learning happens. That's where the interest factor, that's where the humanity and the empathy comes from and the connection comes from.

You know, telling that story about you failing hard and being vulnerable on LinkedIn and talking through some of the challenges that you're talking through. You never know that there might be that you out there listening to this. And that strikes a chord to help somebody realize that things are better, you know, oh, they could be better. I mean, I don't know if you heard recently, I was at an event. And, you know, I see this happen to Gary Vee all the time. And, you know, I'm sure you get similar feedback from people saying, oh, thank you so much. You know, your content really was helpful. And that's kind of what ultimately you live for. But I've never gotten this. I've never gotten what I've seen Gary get multiple times, which is some kid came up to me and he just said, thank you at an event.

And I was like, sure, man. He's like, can I get a hug? I was like, yeah, sure. I'm a hugger. What's up? So I hugged the kid, right? And he goes, can I just tell you? And he did the holy shit. Like, you saved my life. And I was like, what? I was like, come on, dude. I didn't save your life. I'm like, I don't even know you. And he goes, no, no, no. You have no idea. He goes, when your dad passed away and you started talking about that on your podcast and you were so open about the struggles you were going through. And all that. He's like, I had just lost my mom to cancer. My brother died the same day unexpectedly. So I literally lost my mom and my brother the same day. My wife divorced me and my job fired me because I was taking too much bereavement time.

I was literally in a car. That's where I lived because I had no more house. I had nothing left. And I was contemplating suicide and I was listening to your podcast and you were talking about your dad. You were talking about how you were getting through it. You were talking about it. And it just made me realize that there was a different mindset that I had to shift my mindset and I could get out of this. And all of a sudden, boom, bang, boom. I got a job now. I'm back on my feet. My wife's, you know, I got a new girlfriend and everything else. And I was just like, oh, I'm like, holy shit. And I ask anybody to your point of being successful. It's like, if you could impact one person like that in your life, outside of your family, obviously, right?

Your kids and those type of things. But if you, I mean, wouldn't you consider that a pretty successful fucking career? If you could have one, you know, one person like that, that you impacted. Like, Jesus, if that's the case, then why wouldn't you tell your story? You know what I mean? Why wouldn't you share it with other people just in case there's that one person listening to you that you'll make a difference for? And, you know, be vulnerable because you'll start to attract the people that you want to attract, right? Versus the people that you think you want to be around type of scenario. That's so true. And one thing I haven't mentioned is that whenever I did tell my personal story, I've had seven posts in the last year do over 250,000 views, over 1,000 comments on LinkedIn, the number of men who've messaged me to say, look, I work in banking or I work in logistics.

I can't talk about these things, but I just wanted to let you know I'm grateful for what you have done. I'm like, wow. You get two or three of these every time you get a viral post and you get women who reach out to you and say, look, don't worry, it's going to get better. Women are like, I've been through it. I get it. Keep going. Men are like, I'm just really not in a good place right now. But I wanted to say thank you. That means everything. No one said to me, I've said they're alive, but you're making someone's life better because you've said something that's really difficult to talk about. Last question for me, just genuine curiosity. When did you, or has it always been in you that you realized it wasn't about you, it was about other people?

Because I think there's, going back to you being a selfish kid and not listening to your parents, same here, right? Like, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah, you know, okay. I'm smarter than you. I think my mom was the, quote unquote, dumbest person I had ever met in my life up until I was about 25 years old, you know. When did that switch happen for you or did it ever? Did you always know that it was about somebody else and not you? Because I think that's such a healthy, I think that's such a healthy mental switch for people to make when they stop thinking about everything from their own lens and they start truly having empathy for other people and realizing that life is far more about helping other people than it is about helping yourself.

When did that happen for you? When you spend a lot of time working on yourself and trying to improve yourself, for me, it's just, I'm a great believer that keep getting better, keep getting better. For me, the improvements that we're making were like 0.1% a day. I mean, they were tiniest. You wouldn't see it until after a few months. And it was only when a lot of people on LinkedIn said, you're making a difference. It was only when all the charities that I support, because I give 10% of everything I own to charity. That's the one good thing my father's, I'm living after 10 years now. So one thing my father and I, he comes from an old school of people, John, doesn't say I love you, doesn't say I'm proud of you, that's not his nature.

He only has two emotions, anger and hunger. That's pretty much, that's an immigrant thing as well. But the one thing we bond about a lot is our charity work. That's what really keeps us together. And I love our reading as well. So I'd say those two things. And, you know, he has helped me in so many ways with the charity work I do. And a lot of charities say, thank you for your help. And a lot of them have been watching me in the sidelines for years. People don't realize when you're posting, there's so many people who watch you that don't say anything. And I think a combination of charities saying thank you for donation and thank you for supporting our charity events. A combination of my career getting better, posts going viral.

And I think you need a bit of luck as well. The LinkedIn top voice, the Salesforce sales influencer, those awards are prestigious, proper recognitions. There's so many crappy recognitions out there that are done internally or by friends. These are genuine recognitions. And I think that all came together. And the final piece for me was doing therapy. And my therapist helped me recognize things that I was struggling with. And something just kind of happened, sort of summer of 2021, where I went from selling to serving. And all of a sudden, my business just took off. So I'm currently making 100% more revenue this year than last year. Just to be clear, I'm not a seven-figure earner. I'm not even a high six-figure earner, okay?

I need to be up very clear to people listening, okay? Because you think I am. But it's doubled by 100% because I have grown so much. And so my business has grown so much. And everything I do comes from a place of serving. Not I must close this deal, but I must help this customer get the best result possible. It's a very different attitude. And it's a much more joyful process, John, when you come from a place of serving than a place of trying to win for yourself. It's funny. I talk about that catching your sales groove, right? And I could probably macro this out to catching your life groove. And when it's your sales groove, and I kind of use the movie, the dumb American movie here, Tommy Boy, as my favorite sales movie of all time.

And talk about like, hey, when did Tommy Boy catch his sales groove, right? And the whole movie was trying to be his dad, right? You stick your head up a butcher's ass. And then that scene that he's in the diner, and he's like, Helen, you look like a Helen. Let me tell you why I stopped as a salesman. And he goes through that whole little, Tommy likey, Tommy want wingy. That moment was such a pure moment in sales because he was just being himself. He was just having fun with it. And he didn't care, ultimately, at the end of the day, what the outcome was. And that moment is when, you know, when I talk about catching your sales groove is when you stop pitching your solutions, and you start having conversations with your solutions.

When you start caring more about what your commission check is all about, and you start caring more about what the client needs. And so, to your point of going from selling to serving, that's the point where you truly catch your sales groove. And quite frankly, probably catch your life groove as well. Because when you make that mental shift to realize, shit, man, it isn't about me. You know, the universe is a weird place here. You know, whether you believe in karma or not, I personally do. But there's been too many instances in my life that I've realized what goes around comes around, right? Where something I did today, you know, I probably am not going to see the benefit of it until maybe two, three, four.

I might never see the benefit of it, but that's okay, right? Because I want to end up on the plus side of this plus, not minus, right? Like in sports, are you on the field? Are you a plus or a minus? My goal at the end of this whole thing is to just be a plus. So, you know, when I was on the field, I added more value than I took away to this whole thing. So, I think that's a good way to think about it from a selling to serving standpoint. Awesome, man. Well, look, let's wrap this up. We're getting up close on the time. And I appreciate you sharing your journey here with us, Neeraj, because I think a lot of people are going through similar challenges. And I think a lot of people will, quite frankly, coming up into whatever this kind of whatever economy is going to happen from a recession standpoint or whatever.

So, you know, it aligns a lot with what I talk about, which is execution. Just keep moving and have those strong core values and be grateful for what you're doing out there. Because those pieces, those pillars will get you through almost everything. So, I'm glad to see you've come out stronger on the other side on this one, Neeraj. No, thank you. It means a lot to me. You said that. But more importantly, you recognize that too. And I want people to know that if I can succeed through tough times, there's absolutely 100% no reason why you can't either. We got to remove that limiting mindset that so many of us have. You know what I mean? Like, who am I to share on content? Who am I to go off on my own?

Who am I to, you know, buck the system or whatever it is? Who are you? You're you. Go fucking do it. There's nothing stopping you. You know, there's this beautiful meme that there's this weird dude on Instagram or TikTok. And he's like, hey, do you ever know that you could just do stuff like you know, there's nothing nobody's stopping you from doing stuff. And it's like this weird, like old and he's just doing random ass weird shit. He's like, nobody's stopping me from doing this. You know, you can do it. Right. So I think hopefully people will realize that, you know, this is the opportunity to go out there and and be focused on what what makes you happy, what what what you want to do, where you can add value to this life.

And I'm hoping more people take that jump and start to hone in on that so they can come through the other side like you are in a much happier and more peaceful and better place. So thanks, Naraj. No, it's an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for your time, John. Absolutely. And where can people find out more about what you're doing, what you're working on, connect with you, everything else? Talk to the audience. No matter how many times I say to people, go to everybodyworksinsales.com. They always go to LinkedIn and follow me. So, look, if you're going to go to LinkedIn, at least send me a personalized invite and say, hey, I heard you're the John Barrows making happen podcast or something.

Don't just don't just follow me and don't send me a generic invite because as I approach the 30,000 limit, I'm just saying no to most people. So just please send me a personalized invite. It'll mean so much. Or go to everybodyworksinsales.com. It's absolutely fine. And for those listening, it's Naraj, N-I-R-A-J, Kapur, K-A-P-U-R. So go look them up on LinkedIn, connect with them, make sure it's personalized and share your journey as well because I'm sure Naraj and myself would love to hear little snippets of people and more experiences of what they're doing so that we can learn from you too. So thanks again. And look, everybody, I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did and again, got you to think a little bit differently and maybe do something different today.

And like I always say at the end of all my podcasts here, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad of a day you think you're having or you think your day went, if you go out there and 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 will 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. I'll be delivering live training the first and second week of every single month with our two marquee courses, filling the funnel and driving a close to anybody who wants to join and it includes membership in our on-demand platform with weekly AMAs. So you can go to jbarrows.com slash open to check out the details. Thanks again and have a great day.