I think that what I would do more. I have I’ve read a lot of books so I guess I would call them my mentors. But I think I would really seek out more in person mentors and try to listen more on those things. So for me I’ve always and it’s work. So I mean it’s kind of almost going against the success I’ve had. But I think that I’ve always tried to find my own way. So it’s funny because I don’t know how many other people listening think like this but I hope a lot just because I don’t want to be alone on it. But you know even from I’ll just give you an example. I’ve been at companies that have pretty great training programs and a lot of times as I’m seeing things happen on that. I’m always trying to find my own way and sometimes I’ve done it for no other reason than just to say I found my own way. And I think I would really try to find some mentors that I really really respect and that could be a personal items whether it be investing or in other things but sales in general I would just find more in-person mentors and really try to engage with them. I haven’t done a good job of that. Mostly what I’ve done is find my own way and then execute. And I think I could have benefited and have started to search those out in the last few years to really find great mentors.
Clip: Paul DiVincenzo on the average sales person’s gap
What I’ve noticed is the average sales people at least in my industry. I can only speak to that is they are not a team player is the best way for me to describe it. I think that the average rep thinks that they are a lone wolf. They can do it all on their own and that they don’t want anybody to take their glory whether that because they got credit for the sale or whatever it is. But I think that to me is what the definition of average is and I’ve seen it specifically on performance. So you know we’ve got many many reps and that’s always what I see is they feel like they can do it all on their own verses. Even though I guess I wouldn’t call it mentorship but being a team player at least in most many sales organizations today you you have to be a team player and you have to be great at it. To really get the largest accounts and largest deals to come together and finally be done and that that team player mentality is what makes you win and then you and your whole team win. And the numbers reflect that.
Clip: Paul DiVincenzo on focus on becoming an expert at what you’re doing
For just getting started. It’s funny because I think a lot of people come out and there you know especially now with the environment of entrepreneurialism people really want to try to be a great business person from day one. And a lot of times you just can’t do that. So for news sellers I really tell them to focus on becoming an expert in what they’re doing and then really learning how to how to excel at that. And so the reason the focus on that in the beginning is because you cannot be successful unless you are really great at what you’re doing. So I think a lot of people skip over that. And in the world that we live in right now it’s easy to swipe this way or click on that thing and really studying what you’re doing and becoming an expert at it leads to credibility. It leads to building your reputation. It leads to building your internal brand. It bleeds to all those things that allow you to be successful. And I haven’t even talked about work ethic.
Clip: Paul DiVincenzo on selling can be more than just what it is
I dove in and I literally learned what was going on so that I could better understand it. And and then being able to adapt and take action. So for me that’s that’s kind of a story that goes along with selling to me because I feel like selling can be more than just what it is meaning people can talk about tools and tactics. But I don’t care if it’s business to business sales really to me we’re a people to people and that for me is what I keep in the forefront of my mind.
Clip: Paul DiVincenzo on the experience working with a business coach
I had not grown. I would call it for a couple years and I didn’t realize it. I just had allowed it to happen without really paying attention and I think that’s you know probably can happen to anybody. And so if you get to that point you know the really the thought is and I’m sure people that have been around you kind of always have this push and pull of you know hey is it time to go into leadership. You know I’ve been an individual contributor role for a long time I’m well respected in that role. It’s not like I can’t go into leadership but is that what I need to push myself to the next level. And what I really thought was you know I just I it was back to that mentor piece where I could start searching out mentors and really find if that’s the right way. But as I was looking at that you know I decided that for me just to jumpstart the scenario I decided to look for a coach. And so I ultimately found that I ended up hiring. And there’s probably many of these. But just because his CDs helped me in the beginning of my sales career I found out that the Tony Robbins organization has coaches and so I set up an interview and an ex executive from the Hyatt Corporation had become an executive coach and so I talked with him and kind of interviewed him he interviewed me and decided that I liked the interaction and that I wanted to engage him for to be my coach so that’s been going on for about a year and a half now and I’ve really enjoyed it. And the reason I enjoy it most personally is because I think you can find it other ways by the way. But that’s why I encouraged it in the beginning of this conversation is you get you’re not getting just pure industry perspective so an example is I could have got an executive from Cintas to be my coach. But there’s always going to be a slant towards something. And so this independent review has really helped me because I’m just like everybody else. You go through your ups and downs and and you really get to talk through it with somebody and they get to either call you on your B.S. or say you know hey you know you might want to look at it this way. And I’ve really found high value in those engaging conversations where my perspective my mindset back to that that portion has been twisted in many cases because I’m too involved or too emotionally hijacked by this particular scenario. So I talked with my coach.
Clip: Paul DiVincenzo on using business books to prospect new business
And you can use business books to do this so I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you want to get into a company and you’re a seller and you you. You don’t know how you’re going to get in. You can do a couple things right. You can go on LinkedIn kind of figure out the organizations structure find out who you think your decision maker is. But one of the things I think people don’t do if they’re covering a local territory they can do this physically or if they’re covering a wider territory they can do it virtually. But in today’s market I think it works really well and you can get a business book and you just write inside the jacket of the business book. Something like I hope this makes a great addition to your business library. I would love to chat with you about what we can do for your business at some point in the future. And you write your name and your phone number and really making a connection with somebody a business to business especially you know those things stand out. And so you send that out or you have it dropped off to that executive and then you make a phone call in and ask to chat and it may not be the right time for your product or service or it may be and it just wasn’t on the radar yet.
Clip: Paul DiVincenzo 3 point 7 day challenge
Over the next seven days what I would encourage people to do is the first thing is to stop and think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. And then second to that is to think to yourself are you working by yourself or are you working as a team and if you’re working by yourself if you find yourself alone in the wilderness out in the marketplace then think about how you can get a team because I think those things are are what make a success. And if you don’t know how to get a team those things are what to focus on. And then the final thing is very simple. Now what we talked about earlier which is you know what are you putting into your mind. So really you know if you are not thinking about business as a whole and what you’re putting into your mind then those are the things to think about. So I think those are the three things I would do for the next seven days.
Clip: Paul DiVincenzo on how people are very optimistic on Fridays
And then on Friday same principle I either I’m trying to push out things that I’m following up on or I’m scheduling for the next week or the following week because I’ve found that people are very optimistic on Fridays and they’re willing to commit to me on Fridays. But if I try to set something up on Monday they’re not willing to commit. So if I’m trying to I usually try to do my follow up on Mondays where I’m fulfilling my promises. And on Fridays I’m asking people for time commitments because they’re very optimistic on Fridays. And so I really try to use those two days as that. And then Tuesday through Thursday are really you know call an activity. And so making sure that I’m trying to be in front of decision makers push a deal forward. You know meeting with hopefully it’s for a business deal. But sometimes it’s just a an account review. But regardless of that it’s in front of a customer so I think just week to week that’s my structure.
Clip: Paul DiVincenzo on books as mentors
If you look at books as your mentors and you know as if you don’t have the ability or time or even maybe your personality doesn’t lend itself to jumping out and trying to find an in person mentor. If you look at books as your mentors and the authors as your mentors I would say yeah. Mix it up sooner so you know the the book that I was forgetting is called the Alliance by Reid Hoffman and if nobody knows what that is the Reid Hoffman is the guy that started LinkedIn and the book the alliance. It’s funny because when I read it a few years ago it had a big impact on me because I really tried not to look at myself as an employee. I think that’s a key to my success and is by acting like what I’m doing is my business and taking responsibility for it. And Reid Hoffman has a theory of the alliance is that especially sellers have an alliance with their company and that alliances were going to sell a lot of business a lot of good business and we’re going to you know get paid and get handled a certain way. And so the alliance was a really great mental concept for me and helped me focus in different ways kind of back to that adaptability. So I would say don’t just focus on sales books. I think at a certain point there’s only so many tactics that you can learn.
Clip: Paul DiVincenzo on individual contributors don’t have control
I think this is a big thing and especially I appreciate you putting this thing this whole podcast together around individual contributors because I think that is it’s a it’s an unsung hero podcast we’ve got going on here. We we literally don’t control the majority of what’s coming out so I’ll just I’ll give you an example and tell you how I deal with it. So in the last three years I’ve been asked to focus on three separate focus areas. Every year it’s changed. And what I built up the prior year really couldn’t be used the next year so that I think happens a lot. And so the way I deal with it is I really try to go back to my number two which is focusing and mastery. I really try to to to create I read this concept and I really use it which is something called thinking time have you heard about this in general but maybe not the specific you’re thinking of. Right. So. So there’s a there’s a we haven’t gotten to books yet but I’m at say one here because I think it’s a really it’s a really great one. It’s a new one but the guy that wrote his name is Keith Cunningham. It’s not a sales book. It’s a business book. And then the book is called the road less stupid. And so his there’s a concept in this book that I had heard of in a speech a few years ago. So I got a preview to this the book just came out maybe a couple of months ago maybe six months ago. But the concept has been in my mind for about three years and it’s something called thinking time. And it’s really where you think about a problem. And so the answer to your question to me is I get thrown a curveball and that could be a KPI could be a minimum expectation. It could be changes to the plan. And so what I really try to do is stop for just a little bit and think about what this new problem has for me and a lot of times I’m able to to think about that problem and ask myself better questions to give myself better choices.
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