#42 - Better Sales: In Search of Blunt Feedback.

Well, it's another episode of Let's Chat Sales. And in this one we're talking about saying NO. And how important it is to be able to say no. And how difficult it can be. 

So we're going to dive right in. So if you'd like it, do the thing where you like and subscribe. All right. Let's get started. 

  Hey, Bob, guess what? What? It's another episode of Let's Chat Sales. !!!!!!!!!  And, and this is a good one, I think, because there's gonna be a lot of personal, you know, revelation, a lot of confession that's going to take place and we're going to talk about saying NO. 

Who's confessing to whom? 

Me. 

Please refer to me as Father Bob.

And I will refer to you as the Entrepreneur in Residence because you just scored the new position. 

Uh, well, thank you for that. That's 

listening. My son. I appreciate 

the recognition. So,  this is kind of fun because

you start to get some success. You start to get things built up. You get some momentum. And one of my character flaws is I have a tendency not to want to say no. 

I want to make people, I want to be able to help people out. And then ultimately I say, oh yeah, I'll do that project. 

I'm doing a couple extra things right now and they're taking up ...time  and it gets you into trouble.

Yeah, it can. It doesn't always, but it can. 

Yeah, because what ends up happening, some people get burnt out, or you get stressed or your quality, the quality of your work product slips or you are late in delivery. And so you're disappointing your customer but  boy, it feels so good to be able to say yes to people.

But doesn't it also feel good to say no? I mean, you would not. And the reason the show is going and can I share a little bit, not the details, but just general. Sure. Earlier, Brendan and I were talking about something that someone suggested to him and he kind of ran with it and said, this is a great idea.

I really want to do this. And  we had the discussion. What do you think about? And he said, I hope you likethis was this preface. So I knew that that's a clue that Brendan is already three quarters of the way around. It's going to be hard to stop the, uh, you don't have final part of the run. And so I started to ask him questions and the questions were really up leading to how much time can you devote to this thing?

And it was, you know, 40, 50, 60 hours. Okay.  

Over a period of three or so... three weeks. 

But what we, we also discussed that you aren't starving for money. You're not struggling with your business. They're not all these things. And if you were in a position where you didn't have a lot going on, it would be a perfect idea.

But the return on the investment, you said to me was, yeah, I could make some money from doing this thing, but also I could get more clients. You don't need more clients right now. There's a limit to your capacity. And so I think sometimes we don't think about capacity. 

So that's yeah. And rather than not recognize the capacity you sort of want to just brush it under the table... under the rug. 

And that's kind of what I do is I, I just assume, oh, I can get this done too.  But the problem is, something usually suffers. Either your health or your mental health or your relationships, your relationships, or, or or the, uh, care about golf.

But the, the quality of the product. Or the quality of the relationship. You're going to end up disappointing somebody, whether it's yourself or somebody else. And so this is sort of walking into the idea of... hey, this is where it helps to have a coach.

And that is you have someone who can talk to you, bluntly, from a distance, but knows you enough and knows your situation well enough to say... hey, here are blind spots that you may not be aware of. So maybe this isn't so much about saying no. It's about, Hey, this is where coaching comes in.

Having people around you that know you and know your circumstances and your capacity and can give you advice. That's kind of 

valuable. Sure. They get, I don't, can I jump in? I don't think they'd give you advice. What I was doing today was not giving you advice. I was just trying to get you to see

this from other angles, you go, go, go angle. And I was just trying to get you to think a little bit about, well, what would be a reason for no. I didn't tell you what to do. 

I never told you what. I didn't like it at all. 

I would tell you this, Brendan, the things that I hear from the people that I respect, including you, that I don't like are the most important things for me to hear.

Yeah. And if, and if you don't hear those things, If you're always being told, oh my God, that's amazing. You're brilliant. Yeah, no, I know things are going to achieve. Yeah. 

So this is really turned into a  conversations around or, or blog posts or whatever about how you have to be able to say no.

And they're innumerable books. But what this really is coming back to, as a conversation on why it helps to have people around you that know you and can give you solid unvarnished advice or perspective. Maybe that's what this conversation is about. 

before it's over. I feel it. 

Well, no, but the funny thing about this is... these are rambling chats, so that's what they are... they're chats... is that the things that are so obvious to you... as an outsider... are not to me that. The funny thing about that is when I coach with others... when I talk to them about sales situations.

Oh man. Sometimes they're just painfully obvious to me, like, of course. But it's just it's that myopic position that you're in being yourself. You can see things from a certain angle and it's so helpful to have somebody looking in from the outside and saying... hey, have you thought about this?

Or how are you going to help 

And they are emotionally detached. That's most important part. I have no emotion around you and this idea. None whatsoever. I literally have no attachment in any way shape or form.

Well, see,  I don't want to hear that. That's not fun! 

But that's what you 

need to have someone that can ask you the hard questions. You need the person who goes... yeah. That's a great idea. But what about these things? If you did this, what about this? 

 So how do you find somebody or people like that? What do you look for? If you want someone, if you want that outside perspective, but 

It could be a really good friend.

Um, I will tell you that the people that I put in that role are people who are not afraid to call me on my stuff. Like, if someone at a party 

How do you find them. How do you find them? 

You have to keep your eyes open. I think, I think they are circulating in all of our worlds. We just don't like hearing it. We dismiss it.

Yeah. So being on the lookout for people that have good ideas... that are smart, that are, 

open and forward-looking. Yeah, it would be the qualities.

I would also say former college professors.  That's one of the avenues early in my career, I went back to a lot of my professors and would just pick their brain like... hey, I'm thinking of this, this, 

this. This is where that accelerator incubator model really works. Because  in the role that I've got as this.

Eh, in this Entrepreneur in Residence. Oh, yes we see, uh... what we do is we collect a whole bunch of mentors and people into the network that we can draw on and put people in front of. 

So if you're a founder and you're looking for advice around something in particular area, we can usually connect you. And what's probably as important as is you'll meet other founders that you can commiserate with.

So that would be another good way to go is get other people that are kind of in your... that are going through the same things or have gone through the same things that you have that can spend time with you. 

Or attend events. You know, Ted talks are really great for forward looking people, um, networking events.

And you and I did an event last week and one of the people that, you know, you and I both spoke or let it, someone came up to me afterwards and said, Hey, I'd really like to pick your brain.

 I'm thinking in terms of finding people that you can have a regular and ongoing dialogue that can kind of figure you out over time.

 I'm thinking in terms of people that can see your, your growth, your trajectory, they can look at things, they kind of, they know your mindset and they  can spot your blind spots over time because they see the patterns. And, you know, maybe that's a reciprocal thing. You can do the same thing back to them. So. 

 I think if you were open to the idea ... they will emerge very easily. 

 I think the openness is the thing like, well, I don't need help.

No one can help me. They don't know my industry. 

Open to the idea and also... on the lookout. You have to be on the lookout for those folks. So, Hey, right. I that's what I was kind of bounced around my head today.

I thought, well, why don't we spend a minute beating the crap out of that one. What do you think we good? All right. Well, very good. All right, well maybe we'll do this again, Bob, for this. This is a lovely, I think this is 41. This is episode 41. So we've been, 

I haven't been there. 

Yeah, but 

it's still. Going back to my golf game, Brendan.

I just wanted to mention that the Sidekicks Association of America is getting ready to have their annual tournament. 

Is there like a union or you guys have an association or  a conference, like 

how to, could we do the problem is we can't find anyone to speak at it.

Oh, but  No keynote. There's no keynote. Oh my God. Oh, that was lame. This is probably going to get edited out. But anyway. All right. So say goodbye Bob. I will tell again, 

if you like what we're doing. Yeah. There was someone else, please. Well, if you 

like, if you like, what we're doing right. Is if you don't, nevermind, don't worry about it.

That's more accurate. See your Brendan. 

Okay, well, that was another episode of Let's Chat Sales, and I hope you found it... uh, useful. And if you did please like subscribe and do that sort of stuff, and you can check out another episode, right... here. I think, I think that's where it'll be right there. I think it's right. Somewhere in there. 

All right. Thanks for watching or listening, whatever you do. Thanks.