#58 - Sales Mindset - Who Are You?

Brendan: Hey Bob. It's it's you know what this is  

Bob: Somehow Brendan, it's Let's Chat Sales. If you can fit it into your busy Entrepreneur and Residence scheduled on 

Brendan: Oh, there's so much going on right now, Bob. And yet this is like the most important thing is to talk about this because

Bob: That demonstrated by how you were on time for our meeting today.Yes. 

Brendan: Oh, this how it's gonna go. Is this how it's gonna go? 

Bob: Oh, this is how it's gonna go. 

Brendan: Oh man. All right. So, so Listeners 

Bob: It's time for what?

Brendan: Let Let's Chat Sales, 

Bob: Let's Chat Sales. 

Brendan: And, and on this episode well, it's gonna be entertaining for you listeners because there's a certain amount of tension that I have to diffuse.

So the real, the official topic of this is to talk about, about what you need, why you need to know who you are as a founder and some of, and why that's important the unofficial title or not unofficial theme of this is how Brendan can resolve tension between Brendan and Bob, because there's evidently so

Bob: And, and for the record, we are good friends.

Brendan: Yes. 

Bob: We don't just do those programs. We, we've been out. We've had drinks together. 

We commiserate over like many joys and circumstances.

Brendan: And yet you might see this friendship spiral right in the ground over the course of the next 10 or 15 minutes there. 

Thoughts it's got that excitement to it. The possibility that anything could happen.

Bob: That's right. And by the way, don't you like my devilish look with the red face? 

Brendan: You do look good. You look quite good.

Bob: I, I dunno what I've done with my lighting. 

Brendan: You're blurry. You're very blurry, but on my end. So which is, which is kind of normal, cuz you look a little blurry in real life too. So it's going great.

Bob: So we're talking about knowing ourselves, right?

Brendan: Yes. For purposes of. Purposes as, 

Bob: So can I ask you some questions? 

Brendan: Yeah. Fire away. 

Bob: So, first of all, I know myself really well. Why are you telling me I need to know myself? I've been in my own skin for all these years. 

Come on, Brendan. This is silly. 

This is just some sort of contrivance that you've created to fill a podcast.

Brendan: Yeah. , no, it's not. And the reason is, it helps to know. 

Where you are in terms of your understanding of who you are, in your level of expertise, relative to the problem that you're facing relative to the problem you're trying to solve. 

And so I think it's really useful to kind of go and do it's a little corny.

At some level, I suppose, but at the same time, it is really a useful exercise to understand where your strengths are and why you have particular areas of expertise, because over the course of your sales process, you wanna build on those, right? 

You wanna use this as a foundation. 

And so it's good to know where you are when you start and by, by knowing where you are, where, where you start, it kind of helps, you know, where you have to get to and, and, and where you don't necessarily need to get to. 

You don't need to, you don't need to be an expert in all things. 

Bob: All right. But Brendan, come on. I found a solution to a real problem. Yep. It doesn't matter anything about me.

It's just about that solution.

People are gonna come flocking to me because I found this solution to this problem. 

And it doesn't matter how I got there. 

It doesn't matter who I am. It doesn't matter anything because they're coming my way, 

Brendan: Such a common. And you know, don't beat, don't beat yourself up if you're, if you're this way, but it's such a common attitude and it's fundamentally flawed.

And the reason it's fundamentally flawed is because people ultimately don't buy solutions. 

They don't buy a.. They don't buy a widget, they buy a solution.

And the only way you can get to the point where you can convince someone that, that you have the solution is to, is for them to understand that you have credibility in that space, that you know what you're talking about.

And so you have to, you have to have some kind of understanding as to who you are and what you're good at and why that matters.

That makes sense. Okay. So 

Bob: That makes sense if I've got limitations. Yeah. So let's say, for me personally, I'm not really that strong at some of the financial stuff.

Yeah. Like when people pull out spreadsheets.

Yeah. I have to really focus hard on it. 

Yeah.

Unlike a lot of other aspects. 

Right. 

Does that mean I should never do anything that involves spreadsheets and financial stuff, or does that mean, I need to be aware of that limitation, that constraint and minimize it wherever possible, but also build in systems to make sure that I can cover.

Brendan: Systems and resources and people. 

I mean, we talk about this in another episode of the podcast, that is the idea of outsourcing things you're not good at. 

You don't have to be good at everything. 

Right, right. But, it is important to understand where your weaknesses are. 

And, you know, in some cases, those weaknesses can be a strength in a sense.

In the sense that when you go and talk to a customer and you can, and you can admit, Hey, this is where I'm solid. This is where I, this is where I can really help you.

You know? And I'm not good at this other thing. I'm not a finance guy. I understand the basics of it. I can get you. I can get you from here to here.

But I can't get all the way. 

And if it, you know, it gets to be the sort of thing where you're really looking for special, you know, tax, tax recommendations, or understanding internal rate of return or whatever it happens to be.

I'm not your guy.

And the, the fascinating thing about that is that's the sort of stuff that really makes a difference with your customer when they, when they know where they can rely on you and where, and where they know they have to go elsewhere for it.

And if you can help. Um, when they have to go elsewhere, even better, 

Bob: But Brendan, come on. I'm trying to get my first or my fifth or my 10th customer. 

Yeah. 

If I explain to them where I'm weak, they're gonna go to my competitor or they're not gonna trust me. 

They're just gonna completely lose all, all the feelings that they have for me.

And that's not worth it because I need to make this. 

Brendan: Well, I guess, I guess it depends, it depends on how many customers you've, you've talked to.

 It depends on how much knowledge you've accumulated over time, you know, to really understand the customer's problem. 

And then, by understanding the problem, be able to articulate. A compelling solution and a solution that ultimately they believe you can solve for them. 

And at some point you're gonna, you know, in the course of your development, and this is one of the things we work on in some of the stuff that I, that I do with people is, we work on, on developing that level of confidence, that level of expertise

And building your kind of credibility so that when you say here's where I'm an expert, you really are an expert in that area. 

It's really, it's really something where when you come to the table and talk to them. 

You, you know, you know, what, what issues are the issues are, you know you know, what the sorts of problems can be and, and how to resolve them.

You've seen every, you've seen those, all those issues before. 

So really nothing surprises you when you get to that point. Um, you know, the customer is much, much more inclined to wanna buy from you and wanna work with you. Okay. 

Bob: That makes sense. Yeah. So, Brendan, I, I know you were late for a meeting and I get that. And you told me that you were working on this course. 

Yeah. 

Can you explain to us this course real quick? 

Yeah. 

Brendan: By all means. And, um, so, so one of the, one of the things that I constantly run into with founders and early-stage creators and startup startups is they wanna build, they wanna create the product.

And, and they tend to either put off sales because they don't like it because they don't understand it because they think it's sleazy. 

Because they think they can outsource it or, or, or, or they assume people will just find it. Yes, exactly. 

You know, they'll beat a path to their door and, and that's, that's a particularly dangerous assumption.

And so the, the, the purpose for this course is to do three things, is one, is to develop your mindset around. 

Oh, how to think about sales in a way that makes you more effective. 

To the process, like understanding the fundamentals of the process for your particular kind of selling, particularly B2B selling.

And then the third is, um, is execution and that is developing the habit of, of, of making sales part of your daily routine because sales isn't really necessarily that hard. 

There's some mystery to it that we try and get rid of that we try and address. 

But the real thing about sales is it's it's, it's a, it's a muscle it's momentum.

And once you get going it's, it's easier to stay, you know, stay, keep going.

It's a body in motion tends to stay in motion. So what we do is we use a 30 day process to kind of get you into the habit of selling in a way that's kind of painless and, and, and, and easy to understand and, and and execute on that's.

That's the purpose of the course. 

Bob: And how do I find out more about that course, Brendan. Cause that sounds 

interesting 

Brendan: yeah. So we'll have a, we'll have a link in the, in the Dole do below and it's it's at kinetics, K N E T ics.com/so 

Bob: kinetics with two i's at the beginning. 

Brendan: Yeah. Slash sales accelerator, you know?

Bob: Okay.

Brendan: And you know, and so that's, that's the link and, 

Bob: Yeah 

Brendan: It's really cool. And the way we've kind of structured it is, Hey, if it doesn't work, if it doesn't generate opportunity for you in your pipeline, if you don't see results, you don't pay.

Cause I

Bob: Okay

Brendan: it's cause I, you know, I frankly I'm of the opinion that.

This is the sort of thing that once you get going, it's, it's, it's doable. 

And the thing, the thing I don't wanna have happen is I don't want you to, I don't want people to get into the, you know, try and get into sales and not be successful. 

So that's the purpose of this course. 

And it's the sort of thing that's, it's got, it's kind of got accountability built in and it's got like very simple, you know, 20 minutes a day, kind of a thing to get you going.

And that's kind of the purpose.

I think that's the sort of thing that works for people. 

Bob: And Brendan, before we close out, um, give me a movie recommendation or something on Netflix or Hulu or one of those things, cuz you're always giving me great suggestions.

I want one right now. 

Brendan: Well, the one we've talked about all the time.

Don't watch the gray man. 

Bob: I understand you've gotta have something to 

Brendan: replace. Oh, so, alright. I'm gonna go back to my favorite movie, like one of my favorite movies ever and, and I think it's on Netflix right now and it's no country for old. 

Never seen, well, never seen it 

Bob: violent?

Brendan: But but it's, so there's so much level, there's so many levels to it and it's got some bunch of great actors and it's written by Cormick McCarthy.

Who's one of my favorite authors? And so, I would strongly recommend that. And yeah, so by all means,

Bob: much better than that. Some more. I watched that the other night. Oh really? 

Brendan: Not good. 

Bob: It was like a hallmark movie going bad. 

Brendan: Oh, don't do that. And so, and remember, so here are the two takeaways. 

There's a course. Right. And also don't watch, don't watch The Gray Man. 

Bob: There you go. All right. Well, I think we've kicked this one around enough for today. 

Brendan. I think I've been really well behaved 

Brendan: And you've been great and I hope we're patching things up, so we'll see. All right. We'll see. Thanks Bob.

Talk soon. Yeah.

That was another episode of Let's Chat Sales, a quick one, of course.

And I hope it was helpful. And if it was please like, and subscribe and more importantly, share it with your friends. 

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And thanks for listening or watching.