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Dennis Collins: Welcome back. It’s Connect and Convert, your sales accelerator podcast, where you get insider secrets to growing your sales faster than ever. I’m your host, Dennis Collins. I am joined today by the lovely and talented.

Leah Bumphrey: Hello, Leah Bumphrey out of Canada, where we still have snow.

Dennis Collins: You still have snow. As we record this, I’m in Florida and we have no snow.

I don’t understand. How could that be? Leah, today I thought we would talk about something that’s very personal to me. Goal-focused or process-focused? Inside the mind of a high achiever. That sounds pretty lofty. I hope we can deliver that to our viewers and listeners. That’s a lofty topic, but I want to start by telling a story.

I want to introduce you to Jay. I knew this kid as he was growing up, but my clearest memory of him was when he graduated college. Now, this kid was an achiever in everything he did. I saw that because I was a tennis player at the time, and this kid didn’t even start tennis until he was in his teens. And he ended up becoming a high-level competitive tennis player.

Very coachable, very smart, highly motivated. In college, he was a criminal justice major, but he lost interest in law enforcement and he needed a job. So, I met with him, we had lunch, we talked, I had an idea. I had a plan. There was something in my belief system that I’d always wanted to try, but the right situation was rarely, if ever, available.

And I said to myself, this could be the perfect opportunity. I’d always wanted to take someone new, someone fresh, someone without bad habits and preconceived ideas, basically a blank slate, and prove a long-held belief. So, what do you think I called it? I call it the blank slate challenge. Isn’t that creative?

I want your opinion on this. I’ve had this long-held belief. Again, as I said, if I could find someone who’s qualified with the right attitude, and as I said, fresh, new, no prior experience, no bad habits, no preconceived ideas, and give them a specific nontraditional training regimen, they would have a better chance of becoming a master high performer than others who don’t have that.

So, when we focus on people who win, here’s the traditional thing that we think. They won because they had lofty, ambitious goals. That’s what got them to the win. But I will say this, my theory is behind every high achiever, you will find a process, a system for success. So do you mind if I share my theory, Leah?

Are you ready for this?

Leah Bumphrey: I’m very curious. What you’re saying is this is a guy who didn’t have any previous sales experience. He didn’t have that mindset of, “Okay, I want to be doing this.” He knew that he was ambitious in the general sense, but you were going to take him and see what you could do with this blank slate.

I’m very curious. Yeah.

Dennis Collins: Well, big risk and you know, somewhat expensive, but let me tell you how I arrived at this theory. Bill Walsh, three times Super Bowl winner coach focuses on the process. The score will take care of itself. Those words have echoed in my mind for decades. Goals are good to set the direction.

We’ve got to have a direction. But processes and systems are best for building skills and making progress. Let’s say you totally ignored goals. No goals. And focused only on perfecting your process, and your system. I want to know what would happen. I don’t think results are the problem. I think the systems that produce the results are the problem.

So, you already guessed it. I am talking about a salesperson. Why was this risky? Well, it defies conventional wisdom. You know, I grew up in the radio business and managed all the way through to general manager and three decades in that business. The conventional wisdom was, “Oh, you got to hire someone with radio experience. You have to have somebody who knows the business.”

Well, guess what? I was going against traditional wisdom. That’s tough. The traditional wisdom was to read a few books, go to a couple of seminars, get out there and sell, and focus on your outcomes, your targets, and your goals. And when you hit these targets, some nice things happen.

You make some money and you get to keep your job. That was how I was hired. I figured, you know, that was very traditional.  I know you’ve spent some time in the radio business. Does that sound familiar?

Leah Bumphrey: Oh, yes. Here’s the yellow pages. Go make some calls!

Dennis Collins: That’s what I was told. I had a burning desire to learn more, as I’m sure you do, and that’s what is the difference.

I taught myself this stuff, but I wanted to try this. Now, I don’t want to negate the value of goals and targets. In every human endeavor, I don’t care what it is, they’re important. But there’s something that I believe is more critical, and that is learning and installing the process for success. How do we get to success?

What actions do we have to take? What do we have to do to get to success? Continuous, monitored, daily small process improvements. You have to have a coach, a sales manager, a buddy, an accountability partner, and somebody who’s monitoring your progress. So here’s what we did.

My sales managers and I devised a very extensive, deliberate practice routine. Jay was accustomed to this. I knew his tennis coach, by the way.  I had that same coach. I never became an exceptional tennis player. What the hell happened there? Why did Jay? Well, anyway, I did know the coach. I knew he got a high ranking in tennis, even though he was relatively late.

He was a high-level college player and his coach believed in what you’ve heard us talk about – deliberate practice, breaking down the process into its component parts. Deliberately practice with a purpose, and how to effectively open a sale and master that. Then we move on to questions.

How many different kinds of questions do we ask in a sales conversation? Lots. How about techniques? How about disrupting a brush-off or an objection? Master that. How do we do that? Monitored, and recorded role plays. Now it’s fine to practice by yourself, but they’ve got to be monitored. They’ve got to be coached to be effective.

Deliberate practice requires coaching, instant coaching, and feedback. Do more of this. Do less of that. Over and over and over until each segment of the selling process is near perfect. Every segment of the sales conversation, how to open, what kind of questions, how to listen, every anticipated brush off an objection.

So of course the objective or the goals informs the process. It is not the process. It guides the process. Yes, we have to have results in business. We don’t just get rewarded for the process. The process though has to get to the result. We do the process. We check the result. We make the necessary corrections.

We’re a little bit off here. We’re a little bit off there. It’s like firing an arrow at archery, you know, “Okay, I’m a little bit off the bullseye, move over just a tad, blah, blah, blah.” Repeat until the execution of the process produces the desired outcome.

Leah Bumphrey: So Dennis, I want to make sure I understand what you’re saying. You would be communicating to Jay where it is you want him to go. But then you’re giving him basically a template of activities – this, this, and this with monitored feedback so that you’re telling him “Nope. Not like that. Do this.” And critically, he’s teachable. He’s in student mode.

He is not feeling, “Oh, quit telling me this.” Exactly like his coach in tennis. He would have to have trust that you’re doing this for his benefit.

Dennis Collins:  Again, this was a wonderfully motivated person. He would have to have a vision of his future success.

Again, If you have someone who doesn’t care or is not motivated to become better, this doesn’t work. This kid wanted to be better. He proved that to me in many ways as I knew him and watched him grow up. Otherwise, you’re hitting on one of the weaknesses of this, it wouldn’t work.

It doesn’t work for everybody.

Leah Bumphrey: If you have someone who wants it and you have someone who wants your success, it’s a match. Like so many relationships, right?

Dennis Collins: I can teach skills. You can teach skills. We can teach skills. I haven’t found a way yet to teach motivation. I can tell if someone has it or not, but I can try to create an environment that’s motivating, but I can’t motivate anybody.

“Hire for attitude, training, and skills.” That was my motto, hire for attitude, for motivation. This kid had the right attitude. I had the sales managers and I had the knowledge about what skills were needed for him to be successful. Does that make sense?

Leah Bumphrey: It does. And what I love about it is that this applies to any industry because the people already in it know the skills.

And if you have someone motivated, you have that right person and hire for the person, because then you’re not having to also train out bad habits. You know, “Don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this.” That’s really hard once they’re embedded.

Dennis Collins: If I had a dollar for every one of those people that I hired in the radio industry, Leah, we’d be doing this podcast from my yacht somewhere in the Caribbean.

I mean, that is a killer. That’s what I got tired of. And I wanted to try this and I tried this in other forms too, not just with this brand new person. And it does work. It works best with this scenario. But it worked in other scenarios that were similar to this. Traditionally, what happens when we put a new salesperson out there, is we give them some cursory training.

“Here are your Riella pages. See ya. And by the way, if you don’t hit this target in three months, you’re fired.” What does that do to their psyche? What does that do to their emotions? What does it do to their anxiety? How is that a good way to onboard a salesperson? I’ve never understood that. Guilty.

Yeah, I have done that at times. I’m not proud of that, but I tried never to do that. And this was an experiment that proved, and I’ll tell you why. So you might ask, what’s become of Jay?

Well, he had a very successful time as a salesperson, but not for long. We parted ways many years ago when he left our company and eventually became a major sales manager for a major international pharmaceutical firm. They then started their own business and sold it successfully. He’s now a partner in an exciting new startup, mostly because he understands and masters the process.

The process of persuasion, the process of communication, and the process of influence. As you said, Leah, these skills, this process work across many disciplines. Wow.

Leah Bumphrey:  It gets me excited because there are many people out there who are motivated for their own success.

They want to make a difference in business. They might not have the foundation of a specific industry, but it’s the finding of those people that can make a difference in any business. And this is a template that anyone listening, any business manager, any business owner can take, but also any sales professional can look at themselves and go, “Okay, am I in student mode? Am I willing to learn? Am I looking at the basic foundation of what I should be doing?”

Because when you have those droughts where success isn’t happening when you’re not achieving your goals, sometimes you have to look inward. And this template, this process that you’re talking about gives both sides. You were talking about communication those basic skills. And again, that always brings me back to Wizard Academy where they teach that to people who are open. And when you’re open to learning, wow.

Dennis Collins: That’s a great point. Jay was open to learning.

Had he been closed off to learning, not only would this experiment not have worked, but he wouldn’t like the Wizard Academy, would he? No. You need to approach the Wizard Academy with an open mind, you know? Because I guarantee you, one visit there and your mind will explode.

So let’s issue our breakout challenge. We always try to end this with a challenge, right, Leah? So, how daring are you? Do you have people in your organization who have the potential to be great, but they just don’t seem to be getting it? If they have the attitude and the motivation and the desire, it’s probably about the training.

Are you willing to do your version of the blank slate challenge? By the way, it can be done with the right person, the right regimen, and the right regimen of deliberate practice. Jay is a living example of that. Are you bold enough to try it?

Leah Bumphrey: This is about building people. It’s about building business and it’s about building potential in industries. It’s very exciting.

Dennis Collins: It is. But to me, that’s the bedrock of my philosophy of human performance that gives me the blank slate that has the attitude and the motivation to get better and we can find a way to train the process and the skills. However, the process and the skills determine the level of flight. How high you go is not how high you set your goal.

It’s how much skill you have and how much successful process you have.

Leah Bumphrey: Fantastic.

Dennis Collins: I think we’ve covered this, Leah. I love your questions. Is there anything else that puzzles you about this or that you’d like to ask on behalf of our listeners?

Leah Bumphrey: Well, I mean, if it hadn’t worked – when it doesn’t work, I’m sure you have the other side of it when it doesn’t, is there a part that’s missing? What is missing when it’s not working?

Dennis Collins: There are several things. Number one is the raw material. Suppose you made a bad selection. In other words, this person does not want to grow, they are not motivated. They don’t have the proper mentality. And people can fake that. I hate to say it, but you know, job interviews are a joke, right?

I mean, they could tell you anything. I never relied on interviews to hire a person. I go deeper than that. So you could have the wrong person. Number two, it’s time-consuming to do deliberate practice to train that. You gotta have the manpower, the person-power. Luckily I had about five sales managers working with me that I could task – myself and them – with each part of this.

So not one of us had to do it all. So actually doing the deliberate practice is hard. It’s outside the comfort zone by definition. If the practice is comfortable for you, you are not doing deliberate practice. So, it’s too hard or it’s just a time thing, we just don’t have it. Or if the deliberate practice is not designed properly to eventually produce a desirable result.

I’m not saying throw goals away. I’m saying put goals aside at first so we don’t have that emotional attachment to making the goal and have the emotional attachment to building your process. Those are the three things that I think work and go wrong. But today I wanted to talk about where it went right.

Leah Bumphrey: You know what, for every time it goes wrong… I love that you’ve clarified it’s the person, it’s the how, it’s the why.

Those are all the reasons to make it work. Just think of any industry, when you find the gem sitting in the warehouse, working on parts, and you can just see that it’s the right type of person who already understands your industry. Wow. If you can get them on the sales floor they are so excited. They are so motivated and they are so loyal.

Dennis Collins: It changes business. They’re just waiting for their chance for someone to believe in them. So you know, your radar has to be on at all times because those people are in your organization. I guarantee it. It’s not just finding a guy like Jay who was outside and I brought him in. They’re inside your organization. Put your radar on. We’ll do a podcast on that one day. How’s that?

Leah Bumphrey: I’m excited to hear from our listeners and watchers when they do this. The people that they find, the gems that they find, and yes, how it helps the organization.

Dennis Collins: Send in your comments and questions. We’d be happy to put them on the air. Let’s close out another episode of Connect and Convert the Sales Accelerator Podcast. We’ll be back next week. Tune in. Thanks for listening.

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