Have you wondered what separates A-players from the B-players in a sales organization?
A-players are few in number and they generate a lot of sales. B-players know how to sell but never achieve greatness. The question is what blocks B-players from being exceptional. It's Mindset.
Podcast Highlights:
- We have anywhere from 50,000 – 100,000 beliefs that define who we are
- Our beliefs control our behaviors, So to change a behavior you have to change the underlying belief
- Mind training is the new frontier in sales enablement
Contact Umar:
[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]
Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone, this is Umar Hameed, your host and welcome to the No Limits Selling Podcast, where industry leaders share their tips, strategies and advice on how to make you better, stronger, faster, get ready for another episode
Hello, everyone, my name is Umar Hameed and I'm the host of the No Limits Selling Podcast And normally I have a guest with me. But today, I want to share an idea with you that I think is important for the future of sales. But let me start off with a story. So I had a client come in, this is someone who's in sales, who's successful, who's doing about $180,000 a year and the frustration this person had was, "I'm at 180, I go up a little bit go down a little bit, but I can't seem to break through to the next barrier going up. And there's people in my company that are not as good looking as me and are not as smart as me, how come they can do better, I know I can do better, but something inside me has me blocked."
So I said, "Okay, what I want you to do is I want you to think of a particular time, where you felt, you know, frustrated that you can do better that you are maybe beating yourself up or having that internal dialogue like what the hell is going on?" And he goes, "Sure enough, about a week ago, I had this time in my office, and I was thinking about, you know, what on earth is stopping me from being better at sales." So I said, "Okay, in your mind's eye, I want you to go back to being in that office and see what you saw back then." And he said, "Okay, I'm doing it." I said, "Great. Now I want you to listen to whatever you heard back then it could have been your own inner thoughts. Or it could have been, you know, the music in the background or office noises, whatever was happening, hear that now when you do those two things, you get to re-experience what you were feeling inside your body, when you felt you know, so frustrated that you can't do better." He goes, "That's weird. I'm feeling it now is uncomfortable feeling in my chest. And I'm feeling it now."
Well, there's a tool from neuroscience, you can link that feeling to, to his unconscious mind that records everything. And using that tool, I said, you know, "Tell me, have you had this feeling before." And when I asked his conscious mind, he would have said maybe or not sure. But with this tool from neuroscience, he immediately went back to this pivotal moment. He said, "Oh, my God had forgotten this. I was maybe about eight or nine years old. And we went to this restaurant, it was my mom, my dad and all the kids sitting at the table. And soon as we'd sat down, my dad turned to us and pointed a finger at me and said, "Remember, you can't order steak, we can't afford," it in that moment, in that instant. It created a belief around self worth and money that had been governing our hero's sales performance from there on. He's doing about $180,000 in take home pay, but he knew he could do better.
As soon as we figured out what the belief was that was blocking him using Neuro-Linguistic Programming, we broke through the belief in that session sent him on his way. And he reported back a couple months later that I'm not sure what you did, but whatever the block was that was stopping me from being exceptional is removed, and my sales performance has gone up dramatically.
And that's what I want to talk to you today is about sales performance. And how important mindset is, I was at a conference a few years back, and there were about 140 sales managers in the room. And I asked them this question, if this is the sales process, you know, getting the appointment, doing the presentation, handling objections, closing the deal, and then going deeper into the account either getting referrals within the organization or outside of the organization. Would it be fair to say that that is a sales process? And they all went? "Yep, that sounds about right." I said, "Okay, where are your salespeople struggling in that sales process the most?" And two answers tied one was getting enough appointments, and the other one was closing the deal.
The next question was, you know, on either one of those issues, if a salesperson has issues in that area, how much money are they leaving on the table, and they said anywhere from 30 to 40% of their earning potential gets left behind if they have a weakness in those areas. And you know what, in the US we spent $7.8 billion in sales training in the entire sales process. But primarily those two activities. So the question is, why do people still struggle? And that's what I want to explore with you. Because if you can encode that decode that, it would make a massive difference in your sales organization.
In any sales organization. You have three groups of players, you have the eight players that do exceptional things, you have the B players that do a good job, but never quite reach greatness. Then you have the C players that are just going to placeholders question is, why do you still have the C players in your organization? We spend a massive amount of money. I think the number is about $8 billion a year on sales training, primarily not so much to get the A players to do better. They're already doing fabulous work. It's not so much to get C players become B players, although that might be some of the driving factor. But what we're really hoping is that the B players step into the A column, if that happened, it would be huge for the company.
Because if you look at it, you look at the skills of the A players and the B players that are almost identical, the only difference is mindset. A players have more hutzpah, more drive, more determination, more tenacity, to get the job done. And B players, you know, do a good job, we're happy they're there. But what's frustrating for a lot of sales managers, a lot of sales leaders a lot of business owners, is I can clearly see that Jane could be a rockstar if she just became bolder, or she just stopped micromanaging or whatever that thing is, there's a behavior getting in the way of her being an A player, and more sales training, and more rewarding and more coaching is not going to help that because what you need to understand is how human beings work.
And in a moment when to delve deeply into that humaneness, how humans are built and what really drives our actions. Once you understand that, it'll become clear what sales training isn't enough to create the changes we need to compete in this complex sales environment. Because if we could get the mindset stuff, right, what it would do is it would allow us to maximize the sales training we've already done for our salespeople. For many organizations, you know, this is, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars, and for others millions of dollars that have been invested. And they still end up with a few A players, a lot of B players, and of course, a bunch of C players.
So let's dig deeper into the human element and understand how human beings work. The first thing we need to understand is that at the heart of who we are as human beings is where we hold our beliefs. And we have anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 beliefs that define who you are, we get those most of them by the time we're seven years of age. And we get those beliefs from our parents or uncles or aunts, our teachers a Cookie Monster, if somebody says something believable, we believe in and it drives our behavior from there on this is how easy it is to get a limiting belief. If somebody says something believable, it goes in our unconscious, and then guides our behaviors from there on.
From our beliefs, we develop a model of the world how we think the world works, as it turns out that your brain is only 2% of your body's mass. But a uses 25% of your body's energy. And it sounds like a lot. But it turns out it isn't because most of our brains are kind of lazy. And the reason we do that that laziness we don't think a lot is because there's a biological imperative that we need to have enough energy. So if there's a zombie attack, or a sabertooth tiger or taxes, we need to have enough energy to either fight like hell or run like hell. And yes, that's the fight or flight response. But in order to save energy, we create a shorthand of how we think the universe works, how we think a world works. And that shorthand allows us to navigate in the world very, very quickly.
Now, here's the problem with it. You've got people that work for you right now. And in their model of the world, what you're suggesting for them to do is an impossibility. They may say, "Yes, boss, I'd be happy to do it," but internally, their unconscious mind is saying no, not for me, it might be possible for him or her, but it's not possible for me. So a model of the world dictates our behaviors, what we will do and what we won't do. Behaviors always, always, always give us the results that we get. So what we need to understand is, how do we create change? Because oftentimes, you know, we can clearly see the results that salespeople are getting, you know, the numbers don't lie. When we look at you know, they're not performing well, where are they not performing? Well was okay in this area, then we say, Okay, we need to change their behavior over there. And we invest in coaching and motivation in training. And most of the time, people don't change. And sometimes they change for a little while, but they go back to what they were doing before.
The question is, why does that happen? Well, it turns out below every single behavior that counts is a belief in our unconscious that controls it. And this belief is the strongest force in the universe, think of it as a black hole of gravity, that locks that behavior in place. So no matter how much we want to change, we don't change because the gravitational force is just way too powerful. And once in a while, we get inspired, and we do change. But if we change our behaviors without addressing the underlying belief, within a day, within a week, within the month, we go back to our old behaviors. We've all seen this, right? We have the sales training, we send people out to it, people come back excited saying, Oh my God, that's gonna change my life." And they come back and they change for a little while, but they revert back to what they were doing, Because if we need to create change, it needs to be done at the level of beliefs.
So now that you understand how human beings work, I'm going to delve into the three main areas where human beings get stuck. The first place where human beings get stuck is a limiting belief in their unconscious that stops them from executing at the level they want. So let me give Have you an example of that? I had the salesperson come in who is you know, has been hitting above quota for five years. He's a rockstar in this company comes in. And so my question was, you know, "Dude, how can I help you? You you're already doing phenomenally well," he says, "I'm doing well in all areas except one, when I go to ask for referrals, I'm not sure what it is, I feel really uncomfortable. And sometimes I don't ask because I'm so uncomfortable. And sometimes when I do ask my voice cracks, and I just asked in a really bad way, if I could fix that problem, it would allow me to increase my sales by maybe 20-30%." So I said, "Okay, what I want you to do is I want you to think of a particular time where you were in a sales meeting, where you had a client that already loves you is happy with you happy with your company.
And I want you to think of one of those particular times where you went to ask and you didn't because you felt uncomfortable." And he goes, "Well, just happened a couple of weeks ago, I was in with a client, I went to ask for referral. And I felt so uncomfortable that I didn't do it." I said, "Okay, in your mind's eye, go back to that event. And I want you to see what you saw back then see the client before you," he said, "Okay, I'm seeing it now." "I want you to hear the conversation going on. What have you heard back then when you do those two things? What were you feeling and goes, "Oh, that's really odd. I was feeling this uncomfortable feeling kind of in my throat area." I said, "Okay, using a tool from Neuro-Linguistic Programming, we link that feeling to his unconscious mind that records everything." And he goes, "Oh, my God, I'd forgotten this. I was about seven years old, I was at home with my dad, we were in the kitchen, and my dad had a buddy from workover, and the two adults were talking.
And somewhere in the conversation, my dad said, 'You know what real men don't ask for help." And our hero plucked that thought out of the year, the seven year old and made it a belief. And when he heard that it made him feel this uncomfortable feeling and that's how we got to it. So we uncovered what the belief was, we changed that belief using neurolinguistics, sent him on his way. And a few days later, I got a phone call saying, "Dude, I'm not sure what you did. But it's changed my world. Now I'm asking for referrals. And my number one customers want to give back and something weirds happening." And I go, 'Well, what's happening, that's weird. Because what's happening that's weird, is that for the first time, I love cold calling, like it was okay before but but right now, it's something that I really, really enjoy." See what's going on is he had this belief that was, real men don't ask for help. And when you cold call, that's all you're doing is saying, you know, Hey, can I have a few moments of your time, you're asking for help. And once we change that belief, it was okay for him to call and an activity that he did. Now he did exceptionally well, because that belief that was blocking him had just disappeared.
The second place where people get stuck is inner conflict. I had this woman come in to see me her husband run this small company, they've got about five employees. So she comes in to see me and she's telling me that, you know, she knows that she can be great at sales. And as she's telling me this, her right hand is moving gesturing in really powerful gestures. And she's telling me this powerful boys, Umar, I know, it can be great at sales, my company's counting on me. And then her other hand comes up. And she's telling me about how she doesn't have formal sales training, she isn't sure she can really understand what to do. And the gestures are weak, and her voice is weak. And as soon as I see that dichotomy between the two gestures, and the two voices, I know immediately that there's an inner conflict that's getting in the way, one part of our psyche knows she can be great. And the other part of our psyche is saying, Who do you think you are? If you're better, stronger, faster, sexier, taller, maybe you could do it, but you're not.
So as soon as I see that, I take it through a process from Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and I help her resolve that conflict. When we resolve that conflict takes about an hour and a half to do. The instructions are great. Did you go networking this week? She goes, Yeah, I went networking. So I want you to call people and set up appointments. And this is something she's had difficulty with. Monday morning, she starts making calls. And as she makes the calls of first person she calls booked an appointment with her that day, she booked five appointments that week, she booked 17 appointments. And when she called me back, she said, Oh my God, you wouldn't believe it. Like before, I had difficulty figuring out what to say, with that thing you did with NLP, all of a sudden, the right words are falling out of my mouth, and I'm booking appointments like crazy. You see, she always had the knowledge, but this inner conflict was blocking her from executing in the way that she needed to get the results that she wanted.
So that second place that inner conflict is more common than you think no amount of sales training is going to help somebody overcome that. But if you go in with mind training, you can help people break through the barriers, so they get exceptional results. The third way that people get stuck is something I call the hot wired process. And the way it works is this when I'm onstage teaching someone how to do this, I give an example of shaking someone's hand. When you go to shake someone's hand, you put your hand out and because people have shaken a million hands before they unconsciously shake your hand but at the top of their spinal cord where their brain sits the most ancient part of the brain, the reptile brain has to figure out whether it's safe or not to let someone else grab a hold of you. And it makes that decision saying okay, it's it's safe to shake my hand, then their brain has to figure out how long to shake the hand not long enough and I'm going to think they're stuck up too long. And I'm gonna think they want to like date me or something. If they shake my hand too firmly, I'm gonna think I'm a wimp. If they shake it not firm enough, I'm gonna think they're a wimp. All those calculations happened in their unconscious mind. Without them knowing what was going on.
The same thing is true in sales. I had this sales rep come in, let's call him Brian, Brian comes in and says, Umar, I am starving to death because I don't have enough appointments on my calendar, the biggest problem is picking up the phone and making cold calls. So what I uncover is when he looks at the phone at the office about to make cold calls, he has this hotwire process, looking at the phone triggers at the very next step he does when he looks at the phone, his internal dialog comes up in his mind that negative voice that says, You're not good at this, and cold calling doesn't work anyway. And the second step that he does, is that he creates a picture inside his head of a CEO getting very angry that he's being interrupted by a pesky cold call. And that makes him feel very anxious and brings up fear, right. And then he has more dialogue, this time, the negative dialogue in his head is more negative, more toxic, the pictures are worse, the feelings are worse.
And after about eight seconds, a very last thing that he wants to do in the entire world is pick up that phone and make the calls even though he's starving to death and his family's counting on him. So I said, Okay, let's reprogram your brain using Neuro-Linguistic Programming. And what we end up doing is this is to say, Okay, look at the phone. So it's the same trigger. So you don't think about it. Just looking at the phone, we're going to give you a different path in your brain. And we lay this path out, the very next step that we do on this new path, is we create a massive feeling of curiosity. So we looked at the phone, if you're deeply curious, you can figure out all the possible things you could do with the phone, then a millisecond later, we invoke a feeling of total decisiveness. So he makes a decision on one of those options. And then we bring in a millisecond later a feeling of massive burning desire to take action. And he can't help himself, he has to take action, and he picks up that phone and he makes that call.
So I send him on his way. Brian calls back about a week later saying I'm not sure what the hell you did. But each time I look at the phone at the office, the only thing I want to do is to pick it up and start dialing. And you know, he's happy he's off doing his stuff. I'm happy. About two years later, I'm on LinkedIn. And of course, LinkedIn says, you know, you might know Brian, and I go, why do you know, Brian, I do want to hook up with Brian. So I link up with him. And when Brian, you know, accepts my LinkedIn request, he sends a note saying, yeah, by the way, that year that we worked together, I was ready to quit, because I was starving to death. But because you helped me overcome that barrier in cold calling. I joined the million dollar round table that year. I've been there ever since. So that's the power of mine training, we need to understand that sales training is not enough. It turns out, according to ies research, a company that researches sales training that most sales training fades after 80 days anyway, a lot of times people change their behaviors for a little while, and they go back to their old way of being faster than you think. And faster than you would like.
So the question is this, we know from the research firms that the number of salespeople right now in the US, about 18 million of them is going to reduce dramatically with artificial intelligence and robots. So the people that are left have to be at their very best, more sales training is not going to help this route. What we need to understand is in this frontier of, you know, massive competition, massive information. The one deciding factor is how do we help human beings become exceptional, and the fastest way to do that is to show them how to control their mind. And when we do that they can access peak states of performance, they can overcome any barriers that would have blocked them in the past. It allows them to become bolder, more tenacious, it allows them to move from the B column at the top of the A column. And I think that's our job as sales leaders, is how do we get our people to become exceptional at what they do? How do we become the leaders that give them the tools that they really need. And I think mind training is the new frontier for sales, mind training is the new frontier for humanity.
We live at this golden time, where the FMRI machine we have a deep understanding of how the brain works, we can actually take that information, turn it into applied neuroscience, and help our people become better, stronger, faster. If this intrigues you, you can go to my website at nolimitsselling.com, and there's some free mind training there to give you proof positive that mind training is going to change your life and change the performance of your salespeople. Not tomorrow, not the next day not next month, is going to help change that performance, right here right now.
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating. And if you're looking for more tools, go to my website at nolimitsselling.com. I've got a free mind training course there, that's going to teach you some insights from the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and that is the fastest way to get better results.