Full Transcript below. Here you can find the condensed show notes.
Intro: You’re listening to the sale success stories podcast where we deconstruct world class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve.
To learn more visit us on TOP1.FM.
Here’s your host Scott Ingram.
Scott Ingram: I’m in Dallas today with my guest Justin Bridgemohan who is and has been the number one seller and influitive in his regional sales role. Thanks for having me over and welcome to the show Justin.
Justin Bridgemohan: Thank you Scot, you very welcome.
Scott Ingram: What we do to start on this show is I’ve asked Justin to prepare a little bit and kind of talk through the top 3 things that really set him apart and allowed him to the top. Justin why don’t we through each of those that are high level but having seen a preview, we going to be digging in a little bit. Why don’t you talk through the 3 pieces first?
Justin Bridgemohan: Alright let’s do it. First thing I would say that I do differently is I have a very strong focus on being an expert in my domain. Just to give the audience an understanding Influitive is an advocate marketing software company, we sell both services as well as a marketing product.
For me marketing was brand new when I started first Influitive back in 2013, I’ve been in the industry , didn’t really know a whole lot about it , never went to school for marketing or even business. My first foray into marketing was really interesting, was intriguing because I had an academic thirst of understanding and what it consisted of.
And I just so happened to be in the situation where when I first started Influitive there wasn’t really anyone there to help me or mentor me, they said this is the direction you should be focused on, these are the things you should learn, so I went out seeking it on my own.
I read every single page of content that we had, did my own research, read my own books and over time I started to accumulate knowledge enough to realize that in moist of my sale calls that I was having my customers, my potential customers were deferring to me understand the intricacies of advocate marketing.
And at that point I realize that that’s probably my biggest asset , that I have interaction with customers and delivering value, the knowledge , my understanding and my expertise around advocacy.
Scott Ingram: Awesome, we will definitely come back to the expertise particularly around how you developed it , so to your point that it wasn’t something you gone to school for and I don’t know if anybody go to school thinking I’m ultimately going to go in a sales role and how do you prepare for that ?
To a point its very situational, it depends on the industry you in and obviously this advocate marketing space is a very new one, so this isn’t something that has been established for 30, 40, 100 years.
So we’ll come back to some of these things, so what’s the second thing?
Justin Bridgemohan: The second thing that I do is I have a very specific methodology where I ask my prospects to opt in so to speak to the sales process and this is a methodology I follow on every single one of my sales deals. And if the prospect doesn’t opt in, they don’t agree to participate in the buying process of the either line for them, and then I’m not going to spend any time working with them.
And that for me has been one of the biggest keys to my success and of course over time I evolve by approaching, my methodology is not the same as it essentially was but at its bases that is something that I require from my prospects if they want my time and my expertise and helping them to a creation of an advocacy program.
Scott Ingram: That’s awesome and we definitely going to come back to that one. It’s really intriguing to me both the process and the qualifying that you’re really doing around that.
Ok, cool the third one.
Justin Bridgemohan: I say the third thing that I do is I make a risk for my prospects, If someone is aligned to what I’ve been saying there’s two point people don’t necessarily have a great understanding about advocate marketing which is my domain that I sell towards.
And as a result they very risk revised, the number one reasons why prospects are not going to make a decision are not going to take a step towards change because they are afraid of the repercussions. They afraid of the if’s and they not really sure of what should be happening before, during and after the sales process.
So if I could remove that block as well one by one, I could ultimately put the people up to the vision that I create and hopefully can sell them one.
Scott Ingram: Awesome so obviously we got a lot to dig into just from the first 3 points that Justin has shared, I’ve got some questions about each and we obviously we going to go much, much deeper in terms of Justin’s history , his mind set and some of the things that he does behavioral beyond his process and things.
So lots to look forward to but before we go there I want to give a quick shout out to my inaugural sponsor, my friends at Nudge. Nudge is a modern sales platform the leverages relationship strings to help you find and keep your best customers.
I’ve been using Nudge myself since the very early data version and they continue to add more and more to the solution. So if you value your relationships the way I do then you need nudge.
You can sign up for free at neednudge.com that’s neednudge.com and you can pause the show and you can come right back, listen to some more of my conversation with Justin.
Now that you’re back , Justin lets talk about that first piece so what would you recommend or maybe what was your own process for gaining the expertise? What did it take ? How long did it take ? Really to establish yourself as the expert in the room on this topic of advocate marketing.
Justin Bridgemohan: So we can qualify it in a couple of different ways.
If you want to use in terms of the number of hours, I would say probably several hundred, all the way from 150 to about 300 hours. Probably over the first 6 months at my time at Influitive required and that consisted of other variety of different things.
Internal content, every single blog leading up to that point, reading book that I was able to read and secure and it also consisted of having conversations with customers and really digging to understand what is it that they don’t know.
So if there is one thing that I would say in the macro level, there’s one judging question that I used.
It was this: What is it that I could know about advocate marketing that my customers won’t?
Scott Ingram: Interesting.
Justin Bridgemohan: And when I used that question that basically framed what my knowledge gaps where because I was never going to be the expert in marketing as a whole.
I was brand new to the marketing , I was speaking to CMO’s or VP’s that have been in marketing for their entire career’s 20, 30,40 years. I was never going to be that expert, I was never going to know more than them about marketing but I could know more than them about advocate marketing because for those people it was something that was exceptional new.
Scott Ingram: Yeah, very, very cool and that is such a good bart to, this is not or you going to spend the weekend and you going to study hard and you going to be good right, it is going to take some time, you going to invest some number of hours every week. What I love about what you said that there is a purpose, you had a definite goal about, here’s how I’m going to get there from the gap that I’m trying to fill, so it wasn’t just surveying the market for data, you really trained to answer questions which you were then going to turn around and answer for your prospects.
Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly and I think one of the important things I need to understand is when we have that level of knowledge and understanding and comprehension about your domain there is a certain confidence the eminent from every conversation that you have as a result. And those two things are intricately linked, so confidence in my opinion comes partly from competence.
So in order to be truly confident about what you selling and everyone knows that confidence is integral in any sale process or any sales conversation. You do have to be knowledgeable and you do have to believe, not only that the right person you should be talking to but know the right things as well.
Scott Ingram: Yeah, so speaking of confidence you obviously very, very confident in your process. So what is the process? I mean peel that onion back a little bit and kind of walk us through, where does it start? What are the steps? How do you position that with the client that they opting into to go through this journey with you?
Justin Bridgemohan: Certainly, I think there is only one thing that I focus on in terms of getting people into my process is very simply this, If I work with more people who actually want to work with me then I’m gonna have a higher chance of success and that seems very obvious or self-evident.
However I can tell you that for most sales people it isn’t, it’s like getting someone into the first discovery car its point teeth and getting the second deal is the same thing.
I think it was probably 3 or 4 months in during my time at Influitive, I thought well wait a second what if people where following my lead and they volunteer to be part of my process. So I started experimenting with what can I do to get people to follow my lead? Because I felt if I knew the most about advocate marketing, I also knew the most about how to launch the program and how to lead people through that buying process of launching the program as well.
So my one focus was I’m gonna group people into 4 buckets, first bucket I called A1 and then the second bucket is A2. And A1 is my top prospects, the other people I’m going to spend 70% of my time on.
And A1 are described as people who have a champion, have budget perhaps, have some type of specific project that they working towards but the most important thing is that they have agreed to follow my process.
But A2’s are people that have agreed to follow my process but have neither of those things, they think what we do is cool; they think it could work and they champions so to speak.
B1’s and B2’s are the bottom thirds and fourths of my buckets and B1 is some who has a project, is perhaps interested or has budgeted, the executives is interested but they haven’t agreed to follow my process.
And then B2’s have done neither of those things and then I don’t have a champion.
Scott Ingram: Then you have to forget about them then.
Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly, so I would say my time sort is about 70, 20 and 5 and hopefully 0 should be for my B1’s sorry the B2’s. That’s probably how I split it up.
Scott Ingram: So how are you articulating the process, what are you explaining to the client that they are opting into?
Justin Bridgemohan: Certainly, I think the most important thing for me is about framing because if I frame this kind of conversation the right way, like this is a crucial conversation this should happen on the first call that’s for me.
I’m saying essentially something like this, I’ve worked with 50 or so other organizations to help them launch an innovative like the one that you looking at and I’ve seen certain common denominators that if we correctly during the planning process will lead to inter nominal success.
So I’m gonna outlay what that process is for you and I whole heartily believe if we follow that process we are going to align you correctly to gain, to buy into more executives, we going to create a wonderful all aligned business case and we ultimately going to line the frame work for a successful program for today and years to come.
Scott Ingram: Awesome, what about the flip side of this? So somebody says, yeah that all sound good but we got our own way of doing things or I got an approach that I want to take, basically they not opting into your process in one way which you perform. How do you tell them no?
Justin Bridgemohan: I usually try to disarm them with the understanding that I’ve done this more times than you, of cause some of them in a more gentle way.
Scott Ingram: Softer.
Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly, so something like I often use this,I understand you know Scott you do have your own process of how you bought software, I like you to tell me a little bit about your experiences with launching an advocate program with the company that you work for.
Scott Ingram: And you probably get more amounts of crickets.
Justin Bridgemohan: You got from there we probably going to take a step back wall, I haven’t really done this before but I have done something similar for another piece of marketing software, like aqua and.
I say ok I understand and one of the things that I have learnt it that implementing Influitive in implementing the market automation platform is really very different. And I respect completely your experience in launching your automation platform but I think that if we follow this process and part of my responsibility is equipping you with your first success down the road, if we run with the process that I’ve ordained for this particular innovative then we going to have the types of results that you like.
And if we don’t follow this process that I tell you, I’ve tried it in multiple different ways then we probably not going to have the type of result that you like and that you probably don’t want to work with Influitive.
And there’s never been a time were I’ve used that and someone has, nope we still going to follow it my way, you know most people if they the champion, if they one of the people that you want to be working with then they probably not going to tell you no.
Scott Ingram: Nice, how do you in co-operating kind of the traditional buying process into that as well? Right so different organizations have different prophecies in terms of procurement and especially in our space these days, security, review and all of those things. How do you incorporate that into that process?
Justin Bridgemohan: I list it has one of the bucket items that we have to check of and in fact usually I put procurement as one of the last steps but technical or security side of or legal side of comes actually much early.
So I may something like, one of the things that I’ve noticed is since advocacy is something that is very new to organizations, there legal department is probably going to vat this pretty extensively.So in my experience we should probably be getting started on this process of legal vetting quit early.
Scott Ingram: Yeah that makes a ton of sense given the conversation that I was just having with one of your colleagues last week.
Justin Bridgemohan: Completely.
Scott Ingram: It hangs you up, right and it’s when you have been through the process you know this is going to come, this is going to happen, this is going to become our bubble neck you know you going to be able to come in front of it and not be surprised by it and miss your number in a quarter because shoot this is going to take another month longer than we thought right.
Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly will the one determining thing has been part of my process, I should probably have protest this with this one comment and is that I get people to say in an optimal world one where I love this innovative project.
So that’s the date that they set, so that say its December 31st, ok great usually my experience is that the legal paper work can sometimes take up to two months, so with your blessing I think that is something we probably get working on concurrently as we check out some of the other items on this list.
Scott Ingram: Perfect.
Justin Bridgemohan: The second that someone has volunteered their ideal time frame then they agreed to my process, they set their own goal and I use every single thing that I do in that process is working towards the goal that I set.
Scott Ingram:And I you basically creating a joint project plan with them that you checking in on, how does that manifest itself as you work through that process?
Justin Bridgemohan: I will say that’s exactly what it is, I know some people call success plans or those plans whatever it is that you use but this is essential what I’m doing except that it something that I do on a every single deal from the very first call.
And that’s the key because I think a consistency is one of the most powerful things in sales is that, if the very first call I set my objectives, my goals or I’m saying this is a process that we are going to follow, inherently if you can continue the conversation with me you agree to following my process.
Scott Ingram: Awesome, great stuff and then lastly maybe not interesting but something we all have to be thinking about and obviously make a job of that. In terms of the litigating risk which do you see the most often and what are you doing to get ahead of those things?
Because I imagine again that it is consistency approach which is part of the process and just staying ahead of it and not being surprised by it, right.
Justin Bridgemohan: Sweetly, I think the first thing is understanding where that risk or what type of beliefs have trigged that apprehension that people have in moving forward with a project.
And this for me is a lot of to do with physiology and everybody has a certain set of beliefs that they go into a situation for uncovering what those beliefs are, that also determines what sort of risk mitigation we need to do. So that could be the most basic way and probably that everyone encounters as a sales person what if this doesn’t work?
I understand that you probably have an apprehension about why this isn’t going to work, tell me about where that comes from?
And then as people start to say well you know I have an implementation that took too long and that we didn’t get up and running long enough. Then my focus is going to be on the implementation plan, this is how we get you up and running and started and this is how we keep you successful.
Or it could be well I’m worried that a year down the road that the executives may not sponsor this program for another year and then I will go into this is why we do an executive check in during that annual process so we equip you with the matrix s and the quality data that you need to go in there and speak to your executives in an intelligent way an demonstrate success.
So I think uncovering what are the beliefs in terms of what our prospects have or over risk because another person maybe like completely opposite spectrum. Well what if we do this and it is such a success that we need to expand the program by 3 X and that is an initially different circumstance entirely, its mitigation than the others.
Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah that’s great stuff, good, good. So let’s start right at the beginning, let’s talk about kind of your current role. How did you get into this role? How did you get to the top? I’m also interested in that we’re sitting here in Dallas cause that’s not where you started.
Justin Bridgemohan: That’s correct, I’m a regional director of Influitive and I have been in this role now for about 2 months, 2 and a half months since the start of August and prior to that I was a regional sale manager so I received a promotion in August of this year. I was the regional sale manager from August 2014 up until August of this year and prior to that I was the account executive and influitive from August 2013 until August 2014. So I’ve had 2 promotions since I’ve been at Influitive from and account executive to a regional sale manager and now to regional director working for enterprise customer s.
Scott Ingram: Awesome so talk about what do each of those roles entail cause you still individual contributor all the way, right?
Justin Bridgemohan: That’s correct. My first role as an account executive was working with companies that less than 500 employees, primarily in a b to b software space, those are the types of prospects that we target and I reported directly to the VP of sales software. Of because part of this had to deal with the growth of Influitive as part of an organization, so I started off as the second sales person at Influitive which was a great experience in a nut itself.
And then through my first year of performance, I performed pretty well and I moved into the regional sales manager role and that was handling accounts from 500 up to 2500 employees.
And then now I’m handling 500 plus as a regional director but in its fundamental piece my role is basically the same, the quota and I want to hit that quota as an individual contributor.
The type of companies that I work with types the complexity of the projects that I deal with that has evolved now but the fundamentals have remaie4d the same.
Scott Ingram: And then quantify your results for us because you have done very well.
Justin Bridgemohan: So for my first year, so from 2013 to 2014 I hit about 670 thousand, I mean AR, annual recurring revenue.
During the second year as a regional sales manager I pumped it up to 900 thousand and then my third year as regional sale manager it was close to 1.2 or 1.3 million, I saw a pretty significant increase part of that had to do with the growth of Influitive, part of that has to do with our great marketing team. But I think obviously the most fundamental factor is evolving the process that I have used A and B and just ultimately following that process all the way through to success.
Scott Ingram: And obviously number one, each of those years.
Justin Bridgemohan: Correct, I’ve been number one for each of those years, for the past 3 years.
Scott Ingram: Awesome what’s your origin story? How did this all start? How did you get into sales?
Justin Bridgemohan: so if I have to take you back, way back when my very first job so to speak was selling chocolate bars for a charity and that was I think when I was 12. But my formal job in sales was working at Future Shop and Indian Folks will know what that is but for the Americans it’s the equivalent of best buys.
So I worked selling home theater systems, that was my very first formal job in sales and so I finished school.
And my very first officially job in sales post-graduation, I was working at a consultant company and really the only reason I took the job because it probably had the best pay offer of anything that was out there, if I’m gonna be 100% transparent.
Than I thought well I’m either going to go back to school now to do my graduate studies into medical school or law school or whatever it happens to be or I’m going to take the job, it’s the best well paid and I hope it turns into something and that’s what I did.
Scott Ingram: I think that is how so make of us got here. Very rarely is it intentional, at what point did you become intentional? Like you know what I’m serious about this, I’m gonna turn this into a real profession.
Justin Bridgemohan: I’d say after the first year, I started to realize that a lot of the skill sets that I think that I had as a natural aptitude as a human equipped me pretty well to be successful at sales and I realized, I think it was probably about.,yeah after a year.
I was having a conversation whom my sales manager was at that time and he was leaving to go to another organization and he was telling me about the compensation that he planned, he was going to be at the next company and I was like hmm.
You know I could probably turn this into a good gig, make more than I want as a lawyer or doctor perhaps and that for me was the primary goal.
Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, so now that it is something that you really committed to, is there anything that you would have done differently if you were kind of starting out on your own sales path today.
Justin Bridgemohan: I would say so I think business acumen is probably the one thing that I think that sales people that can acquire as early as possible because of regardless of the world that you’re in wither business development representative making cold calls or you an enterprise executive, you know calling that fortune 500 companies. Business acumen can help you every single one of these situations across any industry that you are in regardless of the type of sales that you doing.
Now I didn’t go to school for business and that’s part of the reason why I’m doing my MBA right now, is to help supplement some of those business knowledge and things that I felt like could be pretty instrumental in my success.
But I would say acquiring just general business knowledge, finance, accounting, how basic things work, strategic planning, marketing, these things, these fundamental concepts are think are helpful in just about any sales scenario and that’s one thing I wish I could have acquired earlier on.
Scott Ingram: Yeah, totally agree and it helps you connect all the dots right, how does this company function? What’s the highlight case study, it’s really hard to come with that if you don’t understand how business works.
Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly.
Scott Ingram: Yeah, great. So from an accomplishment prospective what are you most proud of to date?
Justin Bridgemohan: I would say probably two things. I think getting two promotions within the course of 3 years is pretty great and I think that’s probably something that I am quite proud of, particularly that I am ahead of the curve in relation to where most people would have been however many years I am currently into my sales role.
Probably the think I’m most proud of is my year to year growth in income which is since 2013 has been anywhere from 30to 45% growth year over year and I think that, it’s not just about the number, the round number of cause, the commission checks help of cause but it’s also about what that is reflective of.
It’s reflective in my opinion of my knowledge of advocacy but it’s also reflective of my growth as a sales person, as a human being, as a business person, as a potential entrepreneur, I think that’s all reflective and decor dive of that over your growth, that’s probably the thing that I’m most happy about.
Scott Ingram: That’s awesome. On the flip side what’s been the biggest challenge or was there a particular period in this role or in a previous role where it got harder, where it got to be a struggle?
Justin Bridgemohan: I would say my first six months in Influitive was quite difficult and as I mentioned we didn’t have a vice president of sales, I reported directly to the CEO, didn’t get a whole lot of face time with him of cause being a very busy person. I didn’t have someone there who was able to mentor me 24/7 or even for 10% of the time, so I basically got thrown into a situation where I didn’t really have a whole lot of leads, didn’t have a whole lot of direction, didn’t have a whole lot of content, I struggled for 4 to 6 at Influitive trying to find my footing.
Understanding how to sell this process and how I could sell Influitive as a company and that for me is probably the most difficult time to endure.
Scott Ingram: And how did you break through that? What is the apparatus that got you through the challenging period?
Justin Bridgemohan: I think it was (inaudible 25:37) on my belief that if I put in enough hours of work and I acquired enough knowledge that ultimately there was success at the end of the road.
And I think that it seems really simple but I think that our belief systems really influences these types of situations and I think in any profession belief systems may not be as important but in sales, I’m telling you when you enduring stuff that is really difficult, the tough corner or a tough year even. Having that belief that would enough work, would enough effort , enough improvement there is a light at the end of the tunnels, I think that that is really instrumental, I think if you going to get into sales.
Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, and absolutely. So how did people play a part in that or continue to play a part in that? So whether that was new sale leadership that came on or the way that you worked with your peers or maybe you had other mentors to continue to elevate your game.
Justin Bridgemohan: I think that every meeting that I went into whether it was with product or marketing or business development or any one executive within the organization, I was going into it with a mindset of what can I learn from this person.
And I would say that the entire origination team at the time as well as, just about everybody played a role because we were a small company at that time and we had 30 people and so I got to listen to everyone’s prospective.
Whether it was Jim Williams of VIP marketing, I learnt a whole lot from him, the way that he handled a managed his team and also with the way that he ran the marketing organization. And so I would sit down and have conversations with him if we were at a conference as an example and just get his prospective of marketing in general and those were the little tit bits that I would start to infuse into my process as a sales person.
In my first 6 months I also spent a lot of time listening to Mark Organ who’s our CEO on sales calls himself, not necessarily so much for the practical aspect of how to execute as sales cycle or a sale process but more for his vision. So I started to take certain parts of his vision and then append them into the way that I would sell.
And the Randy Yahoo was my first VP of sales at Influitive, her enthusiasm, her further overall for having been something that I started to infuse into my sale process.
So I think it is the amalgamation of so many different people, where I just pulled certain different things that they all exemplified very well, I infused them into my process to very specific ways.
Scott Ingram: Nice and having worked with Jim Williams, he is a pretty good sale guy for a marketer.
Justin Bridgemohan: Yes definitely.
Scott Ingram: So I asked before and I’m still curious about how you got to Dallas from Toronto?
Justin Bridgemohan: It’s a great question, it was a combination of circumstance, opportunity and ultimately a vision on my part of wanting to be in somewhere different I think and that’s what put a role, from a strategic stand point Influitive has 3 different levels in the sales teams or 3 different positions that you can take once you a sales person. So there’s an account executive and then a regional sales manager and then a regional director, now I was responsible for the Texas area as a regional sales manager but we didn’t have a regional director yet at that point who was going to be working in Texas.
So I looked at that and I said hmm, well I have been performing pretty well for the past 2 years as a regional sales manager, we hadn’t hired anyone yet to be a regional director in Texas, I’m in Texas probably at a week of every month, just as is, I don’t really like the cold weather back in Toronto which is where I’m from, although I love the city.
Scott Ingram: We’ll fix the cold weather in Texas.
Justin Bridgemohan: And as a result I said this is the perfect opportunity here for me to make a move and grow experience a new city, a new culture, a new environment and also progress into that role almost as a blocker so to speak. So I made the move before I was even promoted to the regional director role with the assumption that I will be eventually able to progress into that role.
I moved here at the end of May, end of May 2016 by august I was promoted in that role, so it made sense and worked out as a calculated risk on my part.
Scott Ingram: Nice, how’s the shift been? Because you went from a positon where you were in the headquarters office, you guys have a couple of officers in different places but you were in the main office and know you’re in your remote output in Dallas. How is that? And How do you manage the being virtual aspect that so many of us are in?
Justin Bridgemohan: I think everyone is going to have different challengers, my challenge really isn’t around discipline, I would say my challenge is more around staying connected to the other members in the team.
I’m someone who is usually quite animus, introverted many would say, so making sure that I’m constantly involved rather on our sink up calls that we have on our daily discussions with our team. All of our team meetings and so forth that’s probably been the biggest challenge for me because I’m not in the office, right there physically with everyone. But if you make a commit to it IO think it is an easy transition to make if you’re the type of person that doesn’t necessarily require that face to face interaction every day with your colleagues.
Scott Ingram: Yeah two good transition points for us as well, you talked about discipline and you talked about introversion which we have a very small sample set so far but there will be more. It’s interesting how often the introversion is coming up but going back to the discipline. What does your day look like? How do you structure the way you work from a routine prospective starting when you alarm goes off? When does that happen? And what happens from there?
Justin Bridgemohan: You know when the alarm goes off it depends, right now I’m working on some East Coast accounts so I can be in from 6 to 7 properly closer to 7 for the one reason I don’t have to commute. That’s one hour of productivity that I gotten back, both in the morning and the afternoon but I would say probably around 6:30 if we give it on average.
When that happens I’m probably be groggy for about 15 minutes but I get right into my routine. And I have taken this right from one of the people that I look up the most is Tony Robbins which is the hour of power with 15 minutes of performing.
I’m gonna being pulling out my clothes and I’m gonna be going out for a 15 minute walk, during the first 5 minutes of that walk, I’m just doing some deep breathing, getting my body awake exclaimed to the first part of the day and the second five minutes what I’m going there is focusing on gratitude, what are some of the things I’m thankful for in my life?
And it could be simple as the opportunity to wake up another day, the food that I have in my fridge and then I change into the deal that I’m about to close and I start envision what I’m gonna do in my sales career that’s going to bring me success. The house that I’m gonna have a year from now and I’m very thankful for even before I receive it and then from there I go into 5 minutes of incantations as Tony Robbins calls it.
So an incantation could be every day and every way getting stronger and stronger and then I repeat these for 5 minutes and then I probably finish up with another 5 to 10 minutes of walking back to my place, ready to get started and working on the day.
Scott Ingram: Awesome and then throughout the day, I mean are there particular routines or rituals that you doing or particular ways that you’re doing the structure of the day or maybe take advantage of energy levels or what have you.
Justin Bridgemohan: Certainly I would say my goal is to make it up to lunch without really any distractions or interruptions what so ever, so during the first part of the day, I’m really focused on getting work done,getting thinks out of the way.
And I try to schedule as a result all of my meeting for the afternoon because when you have meetings naturally I think it becomes a bit disjointed, one goes over,one starts early whatever happens so be it.
So my first part of the day is when I’m trying to get out my proposals, my RAI business cases that I’m working on, responding to emails as an example, get those things out of the way and then in the afternoon I’m gonna do my meetings.
If I don’t have any meetings, what I like to do is spend 15 minutes every hour completely focused, you know no interruptions, no surfing on the internet or watching TV and then 10 minutes just relaxing, listening to music, going for a quick walk around the house, grab drink of water and so forth.
So I work in 15 minute intervals in terms of productivity.
Scott Ingram: Is that Pomodoro driven.
Justin Bridgemohan: It is, so pomodoro partially influenced that but also I found that it worked well for me, so I’ve modified it a bit to fit my behavior and sometimes I could be working for 15 minutes and then next thing that I know is I look up at the clock, I’ve actually been working for an hour and a half because I’m in that zone.
And I’ll just continue all the way through, take a 30 minute break.
Scott Ingram: Nice, How about when you traveling? How does that routine deferred ort the things that you trained to do, structural stand point help you manage being on the road?
Justin Bridgemohan: Sure I think there has to be some alteration that has to happen but I try to keep things as stable as possible, so when I’m on the road, I definitely going to do my 15 minute walk in the morning, that’s nonnegotiable for me.
So if there’s one thing that I don’t want to change it’s certainly that, now the other things more or less change, I would say pretty significantly. You know the meetings are all over the place, driving from one end to the other, so I would say that there are certain things that I would alter in my day.
One is that I only check emails at the start of the day and at the end of the day, any internal messages from folks from my team, I’m only checking at the start of the day or at the end of the day and then the middle part of the day is there for meetings or executing on business cases and so on.
So that’s the only difference that I make because this area bit more frantic when I’m on the road.
Scott Ingram: Yeah, so that’s interesting because a lot of people in the sales role have sort of pushed back on the, I can’t do email only twice a day because people expect me to be responding on the spot and always available. So what’s kind of your mind set around I only do email twice a day?
Justin Bridgemohan: I would say probably two things, if its prospects that we talking about, if its customers that you working with probably the most important thing that you can do is at the very first interaction that you have with them, probably set some type of expectation around when you will be responding to things that they do.
Or you can set your out of vacation or out of office so to speak response and just say I’ll probably respond to email at 9am and 5 pm Eastern time, so I think it’s just the expectations that this is what is going to happen and then people aren’t surprised by it.
But if you going away and you know that you have a price customer that is always calling on you or emailing probably twice everyday then you needs to tell that person that you going to be away and that you’ll only get back to him at this point in the day.
I think the second thing and probably in my opinion the most important is that let people know that you are going to be meeting their needs but it’s just going to be at different intervals during the course of the day.
I think that’s probably the most important thing.
Scott Ingram: Yeah, are there particular apps or tools either to support that process or just in general throughout the day that is kind of key to your process.
Justin Bridgemohan: Sure I had a math’s book and probably the thing I used the most minders, funnier you know everyone uses sales forecast or whatever CRU system that they use, I not going to say that I couldn’t live with sales forecast, I think I probably could or I think management opportunities in a Word document although not ideals, not the end of the world. I’m probably have to say that I’m the minimalist when it comes to tools or gratifications that I use, my notebook and my reminders are probably the two things that I use the most.
Scott Ingram: (Inaudible 38:02) so email twice a day, don’t use any apps. What is your, we’ve talked about building up the expertise in the beginning but what is your ongoing information diary look like?
Justin Bridgemohan: For me I try to merge business and my personal interest as much as possible because when you do that, then you can find yourself doing certain things that increase productivity quite substantially. So for an example I have no games on my cell phone, so if I’m waiting at Starbuck for a meeting to start or it’s the morning and I’m just waking up and I’m on my phone, I’m probably going to end up reading Forbes or Harvard business reviews or something that I think brings some type of knowledge to me instead of playing games as an example or watching funny videos.
I think there is a time to decompress things but I try to maintain myself in a very knowledge thirsty state as much as possible. So that’s where I’m going 5 or 10 minutes every single day just reading any business article or book. And the other thing I try to do, I complete a book every single month, whatever the book happens to be, you know it can change from month to month in terms of topic but it should be focused on for me anyways business, personal development, those are usually the topics that I focus on.
So just to summaries a book every month and then other than that I spend I would say 10 to 15 minutes every day with little snippets of knowledge, now anytime in my content team that influences a new market E-book or new blog post I’m reading that every single day and I’m taking notes and so forth.
Scott Ingram: Nice, so that day that were you kind of short period , what I heard there was mostly like main stream business news kind of orientated stuff, Forbes, Harvard business review, anything else that is a kind of must read in that time period?
Justin Bridgemohan: Business insider, those are the three that I use the most and it is just not about Netflix’s, stock sold by 20 %, more often it more of, its often the more I would say intellectual stimulating things.
10 ways you can be a genuine person, those are the types of articles that I really focusing on, the psychology that often over looked in sales.
Scott Ingram:Yeah, good stuff but of the last year of books, I would assume you read about 12, is there one that was the most impactful or was most fun, which one was the favorite out of that read.
Justin Bridgemohan: I would probably say Getting More by Stewart Diamond, it’s a book about negotiation, and I know the mention book is getting the Yes.
Scott Ingram: Getting more is the bible of one of my friends, he reads it almost annually, every time you call him like there is some type of where he have to go read this.
Justin Bridgemohan: And you know that it’s true, I think to anyone that is listening.
Scott Ingram: 🙁 overlapping 41:11)
Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly, did you say Jerald?
Scott Ingram: Yeah.
Justin Bridgemohan: Jerald knows is stuff because I’m telling you, anyone who picks up getting more will immediately save $1000 in the preceding 12 months of buying that book, whether it’s the negotiating with the cable company or your cell phone company or rate at a hotel, whatever it happens to be, you will save money to get that book.
Scott Ingram: Yeah, amongst other things it is an excellent read through a bit to get through.So let’s talk about your style a little bit, how would you describe your style?
Justin Bridgemohan: I would say that I’m very laid back, I think that comes partially because I have the confidence in the process that I have outlined, I’m very inquisitive, I’m certainly as I mentioned introverted, so I’m always seeking to understand what my prospect might be thinking? What they may be feeling? What type of situation or circumstances there in that’s going to impact the conversation that we are about to have?
So I would say that my style of role is a bit laid back, it is not aggressive, confident but certainly not cocky or argent and I think that I try to inspire people.
So far I’m gonna describe it in 3 words, confident, calm and inspiring , probably be the 3 words that I would try to choose.
Scott Ingram: Awesome and I think that’s probably coming across maybe because we’re nice and relaxed sitting on your coach here but I’m getting the calm, confident, man its inspiring me so I hope those that are listening are feeling the same way.
Is there, you maybe articulated this but maybe there is a formulae element, do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?
Justin Bridgemohan: I would say that the challenger sale methodology probably has the biggest impact influence on my mechanism on selling and that’s because I think it makes sense.
I think that naturally sales people should be teachers, every time that we are educating people we delivering them value and I have this belief, I talked a lot about beliefs but one of my beliefs is that value is the driver of every human interaction or the lack there of. In other words every time that we deliver value and you in an interaction whether its ordering food at a restaurant or with a prospect, we can move that interaction forward, every time there is an absence of value in that interaction then the movement alts.
In other words to put it into sales terms the sale cycle stops and so I think that too often that sales people, myself included I’m somebody that’s done this before, we don’t deliver a whole lot of value in every interaction. So when we do that the people stop returning our calls, they no longer interested, they no longer motivated to interact with us or to take that process through to the next level.
So with that belief in mind my focus is very heavily on, how do I tell someone something new that they didn’t know before? Because every single time that I do that theirs someone interested in continuing the conversation, if you every had that friend who you said you know I really like this guy but I don’t necessarily like talking to him.
You know as an example this is completely impromptu.
Scott Ingram: No names here.
Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly, you know as an example a conversation goes something like this,” hey howzat going? Good, how are you? What you do this weekend? Oh well, I went to Toronto. What you doing next weekend? I’m going to Montreal. Ok cool, what about you? “It’s a really boring conversation but if at that point that person says I’m going to Montreal and you say, hey you know what there’s this awesome restaurant called La bunkoes, that sells amazing putty, I really think you should try it out.
Scott Ingram: I love that you worked poor putty into this, this is fantastic.
Justin Bridgemohan: I’m trying and if you say that to that person, you actually delivered value and the entire interaction changes, it’s no longer that maintained, back and forth, what did you do? Good, how are you?
And when you deliver value into your interaction, I think it changes everything, I think that’s what we need to do. That’s what I strive to do as well.
Scott Ingram: That’s awesome, that sounded like a real recommendation, so if you ever in Montreal, what’s the name of the place?
Justin Bridgemohan: La bunkoes.
Scott Ingram: Here you go and if you don’t know what good putty is, look that stuff up.
Justin Bridgemohan: Definitely.
Scott Ingram: When you head up to Toronto or Montreal man you got to make that happen.
Justin Bridgemohan: Definitely.
Scott Ingram: So, obviously you got a very high level of discipline, a good amount of structure, what motivated you or how do you motivate yourself?
Justin Bridgemohan: It’s a great question; I think there are probably 3 things that motivate me.
The first is a desire to help people and that’s true about me as a person not as a sales person and as the side I think that’s one of the things that’s I’ve learnt probably it’s been influential in my growth as a sales person is that the moment you try to be a different person in your sales life and in your personal life it’s no longer congruent and that’s going to come out across in the wrong way. Whether it’s in results, whether it’s in conversations with you customers or prospects, so you got to merge that two as much as possible.
And for me the biggest thing that motivates me is the opportunity to help people. So when I go out there to sell Influitive, to sell my product, I thinking how can this product impact people’s lives, get them promotions or better job opportunities, make them happy, make their boss’s happy, make their work life easier and that is a huge motivation for me.
The second thing that motivates me is continual evolution and growth in a person, if I can change 1 % of my approach every day and improve then that has a monumental impact, not only who I am as a sales person but who I am as a person. And I always look to make that distinction as well.
And the third thing that motivates me is I would think that it would motivate many sales people is the financial aspect, I think having money but also a tribute to get to a specific goal, whether its family or security to it’s the new car that you want, or the new house that you saving for to it’s a particular savings goal or you like your parents to retire. Having a specific obtainable goal aside from having ex number of dollars, I think that is something that is important and it is definitely motivational to me.
Scott Ingram: Awesome, awesome, is there something that you believe that the average sales rep will think is crazy?
Justin Bridgemohan: Yes, I definitely that they would, I believe that digging for pain in not a necessary part of the sales process.
Scott Ingram: Tell me more.
Justin Bridgemohan: In my opinion.
Scott Ingram: Notice how it’s digging there.
Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly. Only 40 to 50 % of people are motivated by the aversion of pain, so in other words if you step in a room of ten people, 5 people will move away from pain. So for 5 people that process of spin salad so to speak, where they getting to their knees pain and uncovering it, that’s going to work.
But for 50% of the people that you encounter, they actually motivated by moving towards something that’s better and that isn’t necessarily exemplified by digging for pain but by creating a very compiling vision of the future.
So I think that in 50% of our sales calls that digging for pain is pointless or almost useless actually, it’s not something that’s going to motivate people or even deliver any value for them what so ever.
Scott Ingram: That makes even more sense on your space, where it’s not like the advocate marketing program is broken, it’s much more like they don’t have one.
Justin Bridgemohan: Its true but you know what people my own sales team disagrees with me on this and they’d say well they don’t have automated program, let’s say that they missing specific goals on their marketing team or their marketing goals that they want to obtain, that is a pain.
And in many circumstances I’d say it’s true but that’s my whole belief that digging for pain is not a necessary part at every single sales process.
Scott Ingram: So besides the pain pieces there’s something that you think other sales reps belief, you know those are average or some part that you think is crazy.
Justin Bridgemohan: I would say always be closing or you know that of mentioned man trough from plant very, plant lost or something like that we ABC always be closing. I think it is really none sensual at its core for a variety of reasons but one of them, no one wants to be closed, no one ever wants to be closed, I bought a car after my move I never wanted to closed on the car, I never wanted someone to do, get me to say yes 3 times in a row and then try to close the deal. That’s ludicrous because that’s not how we function as human beings.
So that’s where my process comes into play, I believe that if you set out a process for someone and the vision is compelling enough or the pain is great enough and they want to move away from it, all you need to do is guide someone through the process.
I don’t remember the last time that I used a trail out close so to speak because closing should be the natural result of the relationship in the process that you have established in my opinion.
That causes the least amount of friction and it also causes the least amount of inter turmoil for me as a sales person , maybe other people are fine with some arm twisting, some tactics that are a bit more hard balling but that isn’t who I am as a person, so I don’t take those types of methods.
Scott Ingram: Yeah the congruency theme is becoming really consistent right, it is when you out of step with whom you are and doing unnatural things to people that also feel that it’s unnatural. Obviously what you’re doing is working, some of the other folks that I talked to here, it’s been working so I really think it’s being mindful of who you are and what your style is and having that level of empathy and being mindful of what do they want ?
That at the end of the day it is not all about us.
Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly and that’s not to say that always be closing does not work for some people, I just think that for the majority of people that I encounter in colleagues or conversation that I have with other sales people, it’s probably not who they are as individuals.
Scott Ingram: Theres one to think about. So Justin what have been the most important decisions that you made or lessons you had to learn to get where you are today? I don’t imagine that all of this came this easy.
Justin Bridgemohan: I think probably establishing certain rules or standards that you going to hold yourself up to are the biggest thing. You know as an example you may say to yourself I don’t want to respond to that email because I didn’t have time or anyone that says that I’m going to ask them did you brush your teeth today. And the answer that I hope is going to be yes but that took you 2 or 3 minutes, that’s probably how long it would have taken you to respond to that email.
What you actually saying is that you didn’t priorities sending that email over something else that you did. So I think setting standards of priorities is one of the most important things that I did really early on in my sales career and I’ve adhered to those standards in a very unyielding way up until this point.
Whatever your standards are you got to decide, you know your standards maybe I will send out a follow up email after every single call or maybe your standard is not to do that or maybe your standard is to call someone after every single call after 48 hours.
Whatever it has to be set a specific standard and follow through on what those standards are and I think when I did that and I had my own sets of standards that probably what makes me more successful.
Scott Ingram: Is that something that you have documented or is that just a set of things that you accumulated overtime and you know what they are?
Justin Bridgemohan: They are combination of both, sometimes I documented these things and other times I focused on just learning and evolving over time. You know one of the things I believe is that reframing is at the heart of persuasion, that’s one of my things that I believe and one of my ore beliefs.
So in every situation where the seller may have an objection, I’m in the sell process my immediate focus is to reframe, that’s something that I live by.
The standard that I have, don’t argue with people just reframe the way that they think about it. And whatever that you believe that is ultimately going to make you successful, that’s why I think people should document what their standards are and live by them and to follow them.
And know your standards as a human being and then as a sales person first.
Scott Ingram: Nice, what advice would you have for somebody that’s starting out in a sales career today? Or even a new sales job, right.
Justin Bridgemohan: Openly give pieces of advice, become a master of psychology and become indispensable in some way. To dwell a bit further I thing that sales at its heart is a psychological interaction between one person and a group of people and the rest is really just notable in my opinion.
And the second thing that I believe is that if you are indispensable to an organization in some way, shape or form you don’t have to worry about job security. But also you are going to be so specialized and so emphatic in your area or in one asset that you poses that when you get to uncover that one particular area in a sale process, when you get to unleash it on a prospect, there is going to be very little that they can do but curium to that power that you generated, that knowledge and expertise that you created.
Scott Ingram: Nice, what about somebody that’s a little bit further along in their career and is looking to take it to the next level or maybe they’ve gotten to one of those hard patches that we talked about before and is looking for something to break through. Maybe they listening here because they looking for some type of motivation, what should they be thinking about or doing?
Justin Bridgemohan: I would say that they should be probably thinking about certainty and their believe systems. So what I mean by that is that, let’s say you five years into your career, you hit a quota four years in a row but this year has been really rough, so what beliefs do you have that are impacting the way that you view the code situation that you looking at ? What level of certainty are you operating with?
And what I mean by that is that, if I told you Scott if you went out there and made 50 different sales calls every single day for a year that you will get 5 million dollars, would you do it?
Scott Ingram: I would do it.
Justin Bridgemohan: Ok but no one is ever going to give you that guarantee in life, that guarantee have to come from yourself. So if you can say to yourself, if I send my emails when I’m going to, if I prepare for an hour before every sales call that I have and if I’m on time at every single meeting and if I’m learning anew thing every single day that I will get a 100% of my quota then you’ll probably do all those things.
But if you don’t have that certainty, if you think well I could probably do 10 calls a week, I could probably do all the research that I should you extend my knowledge, I probably should send out all my proposals but I don’t really think that it’s going to give me the type of results that I ‘m looking for then you probably not going to do and you probably not going to succeed.
And that’s when it comes down to evolve your beliefs systems, about what you have, those the four years that you hit your quota, you obviously accumulated different belief systems or levels of certainty but some of that has caused you to change that.
Well I think its reevaluating your level of certainty and reevaluating your belief systems and that is something that I’m always looking to do even as far as with my sales career as I am right now.
Scott Ingram: Nice lets go back to the psychology and indispensability. First of all what resources have you leverage or found the most useful? In just learning and understanding the psychology piece, I imagine that was some books you read many, many months ago.
Justin Bridgemohan: Certainly, I think a lot of them are probably books that a lot of people have read how to work friends and influence people, it’s a classic, most people have read. But reading something doesn’t really do a whole lot for you, you have to take specific steps to apply that knowledge.
Other books that I’ve read that’s Influence, that’s another big one, that’s another classic, a lot of people have read it, very few people apply into the sales process because if we did we’ll reject a lot of the traditional sales things that we’re told.
Like always be closing, like if we really believed human psychology which I think is far more advanced than where we are in terms of sales tactics then probably discard a lot of the things that we currently do right now.
So I think influence, how to work friends and influence people are 2 of the biggest ones that I would read anyway right of the bat.
Let’s see here what other books have I read that are really powerful , basically everything that Tony Robbins read, I read so let see, unleash the child within, great book both for personal motivation and also covering how people approach situations, how people learn, how people adapt, I think those are the books that we should be focused on.
Unleash the giant within, great book. Both for I think personal motivation but also uncovering how people approach situations, how people learn, how people adapt. I think those are the books we should be focused on.
Crucial conversations by Susan Scott is the book I’m reading right now, another great book that gives you insight in how people think and approach conversations. So I think that anything that has to do with psychology and probably doesn’t include sales in the title is something you should read.
Justin Bridgemohan:
What is your process then in taking that step in that application? Reading is one thing. How are you applying and making use of that?
Scott Ingram:
So every single book that I read I’m going to instil it down into two different pages of notes,giving you the very tactical real application here. I open a Microsoft word document and as I’m reading or listening to something which I often do I’m going to take notes and I’m going to summarize those notes into usually three or four key concepts.
So a key concept maybe be something like,consistency is the key. So if that is one of the key concepts so I am going to say what are the areas that I can make consistency imbedded as part of my process for every single interaction that I have ?and I’m going to evaluate and write all those things down and then I’m going to make it a point to go through every single day to implement those three different things.
There’s this chart that I have seen. So we first start of at unconscious in competence, you don’t really know what you doing wrong because we just not aware of it.
We move onto conscious incompetence and realize that this is the exact same thing right and from there we can move into the conscious competence which we actually thinking about. I have written down that consistency is the key but now I actually need to implement this.
We also move into unconscious competence which is what we should be aiming towards. So whatever your process is however you learn or however you take action on something, just remember that ultimately the goal is, you doing this unconsciously, because you never going to have that notebook in front of with the Microsoft documents in front of you and all the things you have just read. That’s not going to happen when you are in a meeting trying to close the deal.
What is going to happen though is the steps before that and if you do those steps correctly and you progress towards them then you won’t have to think twice about many of the things you have learnt from the books that you read.
Justin Bridgemohan:
I think that’s a real good process that applies to anything right. You can apply it to listening to this conversation,going back and taking some notes of the things Justin has talked about, what is relevant and what is the theme you apply that?
Scott Ingram:
Definately
Justin Bridgemohan:
We might come right back to that. Before we do that. I’m curious about what would you want to hear from top sellers in other organizations? What would you want know from them?
Scott Ingram:
The first question that you ask is probably the most important one. What are the three things that you do differently that make you stand out from anyone else? There’s probably another question that I find really interesting to ask people in general which is in. If I called up the person that you are closest in the world and asked them. What are the three things that you admire about you the most, and three things that they are not so fond.What would they say?
And what I’m looking for there is,what are some of the character trades that the top sales people possess that I need to work on. Is it adaptability, is it the relincy, is it their resourcefulness,is this someone who is so resourceful that they are able to make a dinner out of the scraps that they have left in the kitchen and that maybe what their husbands or wife’s say about them, “Oh goodness Jason is so resourceful I can come home and say we haven’t bought groceries in two weeks and he still manages to put together a meal.
What it ultimately means is that Jason is resourceful and so he goes and find those information which is internally,externally in his network that help him sell better as a person, because my belief is that we really aren’t that different as human beings as we are in our personal lives and our professional lives.
So finding out those key core characteristics that people have can ultimately enlighten me to say,maybe I’m not making use off all the resources that I have available and I should be probably be doing a better job.
Justin Bridgemohan:
That’s interesting and I hope you recognise this that’s it totally a trap, because I’m going to ask you what are those three things on either side for you. What would the people closest to you say?
Scott Ingram:
I would say that people will call me dependable.I think dependability is created as a result if consistency. People know I’m going to be there, they know I am going to perform in the things I need to whether its remembering to throw out the trash, picking up the groceries, paying the bills or if it is hitting my podcast number, there’s that sense of dependability. I strive to bring in every relationship I have,whether its with my customers or my personal life or with my colleagues.
I probably say that the second thing is my relincy.Regardless of what happens I find a way to endure it and make it through to the other side and I think that people close in my life see me as, I hope that they see me as a beacon of stability that they can count on. That goes back on dependability
And I think the third thing is confidence. You know I have a certain sense of certainty about myself and as a result when I’m in situations that are uncertain I can bring that and really provide a sense of comfort to people. Whether its the prospect of wondering whether the project is a success or its my sister who is worried about her application for her PhD program or whatever it happens to be I think those are three characteristics
Justin Bridgemohan:
And its a cool level of confidence because its very like calm and understated but its strong. I think you mentioned it earlier. You super arrogant, confidence can be taken to far.
Scott Ingram:
Exactly ,I think its important not to cross the line into arrogance .
Justin Bridgemohan:
So what about the flip sides, what are the three things they going to say about you that a gaps or perceived challenges maybe?
Scott Ingram:
My rigidness,at the same time while I do have a process a big hole there could be, I haven’t resolved my process enough because I have fallen in love with it.
Justin Bridgemohan:
Those are all in the be one docket.
Scott Ingram:
So I think definitely my rigidness is certainly one aspect of it.
The second aspect is that people often think that I’m very serious perhaps maybe too serious.This could manifest itself as in a sales conversation it could be I don’t break the ice well enough although I feel that I do but other people might think in a larger sample size that I’m not as friendly as I actually could be or I actually am with prospects.
For the personal side I’m not speaking to everyone at the party. I chose a very few people that I really like and I stick with them so some people will see that as perhaps closed of or too serious in certain situations.
Justin Bridgemohan:
Or it just could be the introvert itself.
Scott Ingram:
Or it could be the introvert itself.I think if I had to chose a third what people say about me would be, that I don’t share enough.I don’t necessarily share my emotion or my learnings or the knowledge and experience that I have accumulated whether personally or professionally.
In every single one of my performance review is the one thing you probably going to see is that I don’t participate enough in sharing my knowledge.
Justin Bridgemohan:
Exactly I was going to say I think you probably doing a pretty good job here. Maybe we will just send them this episode.
Is there anything we’ve left out like,I should have shared this or I should be sharing this. Hopefully I’m captured that with those with the top three things of where we started or is there anything else that you are thinking.I really think I should take this opportunity and put this out there
Scott Ingram:
Probably the really one thing that I want to reiterate.I know I have said it and emphasized it many times is that I think that sales is at its core in the game of physiology. So people will excel and understand human phycology and motivations are I think the ones who are the best equipped to be the top performance in any sales industry.
Justin Bridgemohan:
One of the things I’m playing with here at the end of this episode is creating some type of challenge and summary. I simply think you probably summarized what that key elements are. It’s becoming better at phycology and I’m guessing when you talked about that not only with the folks were interacting with but with also our own beliefs and mind-sets.
Scott Ingram:
Exactly
Justin Bridgemohan:
So how would you frame some type of challenge. I’m thinking shorter duration, seven days, ten days or maybe a month. What would you challenge the person listening to this right now.
Ok yes. I get it,I’m going to take action right, I’m not going to this conversation but I’m going to use it as myself better. How would you create that challenge for them to take on.
Scott Ingram:
I would say focus on two things,two beliefs that you have about sales and two beliefs that you have on your personal life that are inhibiting your success.
An example of that could be in sales. I believe that people don’t want to buy my product. You will be surprised a lot of sales people feel that way. So I will look to uncover what is the source of that particular belief that you have and then aim to change it. I think it’s something we can do I say in ten days.
You know write down the two things, uncover them really dig deep below to understand what those things are and when you do, then figure out a way to change them, figure a way to replace those beliefs with more positive ones and in doing that you are probably going to uncover a lot of your psychology in things that you don’t want to admit. Its actually a personal exercise.You may believe that you don’t have a lot of important to say and that can be formulated in your phycology as a person. Not as a sales person but it can certainly manifest itself in that way.
So when u picking that phone to make that cold call or picking up that phone to call on that executive and ask them if they want to take a meeting because your champion thinks you should.
Do you have an underline belief that you don’t have something important to say to an executive? That your time isn’t is as worthy as their time? Because if you do, that’s something you will have to change.
Justin Bridgemohan:
That’s an interesting exercise and I will encourage you to put some type of time constrain around that.I don’t think it needs to be that much. If you spend ten to fifteen minutes a day,put it in the calendar, go through that exercise. So call it ten days or two weeks.
So every business day ten to fifteen minutes a day put it in there. Start by identying what are those limiting beliefs then start acting on them.I think just by that daily exercise are been more aware of them, its going to give you that opportunity too start working towards other resources they should bring into that or maybe partners in that challenge to help them think that through. Any thoughts in that?
Scott Ingram:
I think the person that understands you best whether if its your parent, your significant other,your friend, your colleague because they are going to be able to give you insight too. Now that you mention it this is probably the belief system that you have, that a lot of other people don’t.
This is a belief system that has caused trouble in our relationship whether its a significant other or a colleague or a friend, they are going to be able to cover and give insights into what those things are
Justin Bridgemohan:.
So what are the other things that might be interesting to bring back. Is the question you suggested. What would people say about you ? Sometimes it’s a really an interesting exercise to ask them, go find three friends or five friends who know you really well and ask them what are the three most positive attributes that I bring to the table ?Because I think that you can bring a lot of possibility around that and help understand better who you really are from that perception.
On the flipside what are three things that I really don’t do so well I see as limiting my ability, my future and opportunities
Scott Ingram:
Exactly. You must understand that when you get those responses from people in your personal life.When you going into the office and bring in sales calls you sending out proposals or sending out emails. You have the core of what those responses are imbedded into the DNA of your interactions.
Justin Bridgemohan:
And what a great controlee test to talk about a couple of personal friends and get that feed back and then talk to a couple of professional friends. And do those things match up, or do you they really have other things you might want to start on working on yourself and start growing?
Scott Ingram:
Exactly
Justin Bridgemohan:
Jason this has been fantastic. So the last part of the show isn’t really even a question.I’m trying to figure out how to hand over this one to you.
Ultimately it’s called the action which you’ve spent almost an hour listening to this conversation. Justin and I have been talking quite a while now. Hopefully you have got a lot of value to this conversation. I want to invite you into out community. If you could go to the website. If you go to Top 1 putting your email address you will get an invitation to our influetive community.
So Justin I’m going to ask u to be psychic here a little bit and if you mention things that I’m not yet doing, I will obviously need to start doing them. But let’s talk about why I would be using influetive as place of building community around the show and creating place for folks who are like minded orientate to take their game to the next level. Maybe you just getting started in sales and trying to figure out.
Why will the want to go into that influetive community ?And what might they be doing in there that might be so valuable.
Scott Ingram:
I think the most important reason is that, it’s an engaging way to interact with other people.You know that might be the key in a lenitive group with several thousands of sales. May you get a notification in an email inbox.
There’s not a lot of fun in them participating,but if you go on the top one FM influentive program and you start to engage there.You going to have a fun element to it.You are going to accumulate points for doing various different things.
But mostly you are going to be networking with people you want to be learning and at the same time within that fun environment and I think that probably what’s going to make it the most unique in engaging things. Its going to be a place that you want to go back to.
Justin Bridgemohan:
Awesome I didn’t prep Justin for that question so obviously you are the expert in this space so I really appreciate that. So what I will talk to Justin about is,what we night be able to include that’s one if his action documents,the notes he has taken on a book and how he has turned that into a guide that some of the things he was written had on his own standards.
Something we can add into your participation is getting you involved in that community.
anywhere else then getting into the sakes community.
So again FM.put in your email address we will send you an invite, that how it works today.
In the future we may ask you to do a little more work or ask give you a pitch and ask why you should be involved and what you going to add to the community. But for now its wide open and we hope you get in there.
Justin thanks again.it really has been an honour.
Scott Ingram:
Thank you.