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[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a replay of the Creativity in Sales Webinar sponsored by the Institute for Excellence in Sales on July 31, 2021. It featured me and was co-hosted by Zeev Wexler,]
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MY TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “Get out there and see people in person. We’ve missed it for a long time. We’re doing a webinar every day at the Institute for Excellence in Sales. There were days when I’ve done six, seven Zooms. I’m not saying be irresponsible about it. I’m saying you want to be safe and you want to do what you need to do, but at the same time you just got to get out there. Those connections really are where things happen, where you learn, where you get some aha moments. It’s very hard to get an aha moment on a Zoom call because you’re talking, then I’m talking, I’m looking at you, I’m making sure you can see me. In person, you have that space, you could bring a notepad, you’re eating if it’s that. You have another person to bounce off of and I just highly recommend that people get back out there and start meeting people.”
THE PODCAST STARTS HERE
Fred Diamond: Welcome to the Sales Game Changers podcast. My name is Fred Diamond. I’m the co-founder of the Institute for Excellence in Sales. Usually, Zeev Wexler, I’m the host of the Sales Game Changers podcast, but today, we’re doing something a little bit different. I’m actually going to be the guest today, and my good friend Zeev Wexler, he’s the founder of Wexler. It’s a digital marketing agency and he’s also been a sponsor of the IES, Institute for Excellence in Sales for probably close to six, seven years now.
Zeev, I want to thank you so much for all of your support. You’re going to be playing the Merv Griffin role today. For anybody who’s under the age of 70, he was a very popular TV talk show host. Zeev, I just went on this amazing three-week roadshow as we were battling the Delta Variant, which we’ll talk about in a little bit. I posted it up on LinkedIn, I got close to 20,000 views of my post. I posted on Facebook, got a couple 100 comments and likes and a bunch of people reached out and said, “Fred, why don’t you tell us about some of the lessons and how it applies to salespeople?”
It’s great to see you. Thanks for stepping into this role. I’m a little bit nervous because I’m not quite sure what you’re going to ask. That’s not true. We prepared for the show, but seriously, how are you doing my friend? It’s good to see you.
Zeev Wexler: Great to see you and honor to have you ask me to interview you. We’ve been in touch throughout your journey. We’ve spoken a lot on the phone. We had some personal conversations, and I loved what you did. I was tuning in to see what’s going on every chapter. I’m excited and I’m going to ask you some questions maybe we have not planned but I really want to learn what you have learned during this amazing journey you’ve taken.
Fred Diamond: Well, just for people’s benefit. What I did is early in July, I took a three week road trip and I reached out to a lot of people that have helped the Institute for Excellence in Sales, either as speakers or as partners or as webinar guests, and I said, you know what? Originally, Zeev, I was planning on going to Denver. I decided to change my trip which we’ll talk about in a little bit, but I went to Detroit, and then I went to Chicago, Minnesota, St. Louis, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Hot Springs, Arkansas, Louisville, Altoona, Pennsylvania just to stay one night and I ended it at a wedding. My best friend from high school, his daughter got married, it was wonderful.
Saw a bunch of IES people for the first time. Some people I met for the first time, LinkedIn friends or some people who might have done webinars for us. I also met some people like the great Jill Konrath, who wrote Selling to Big Companies. She was an IES speaker in 2014. Sam Richter, who was the IES 2021 speaker of the year. All three of us met together in Minneapolis for dinner just reconnecting. It was wonderful and we’ll talk about that in detail.
Zeev Wexler: Fred, let me start with asking you, what made you go on this trip? What happened that you decided that this is something you’re going to do, because this is a time commitment, financial commitment, and a lot more? What made you do this?
Fred Diamond: A couple things. One is that my significant other wanted to go visit her mother for a little bit, who is getting elderly. She lives in a different town. I said, go spend some time with her. There’s not a whole lot going on live right now. There are very few business things that are going live. I’m based in Northern Virginia, the IES, Institute for Excellence in Sales is based in Northern Virginia. I said, you know what? I haven’t seen a lot of these people. I love driving. I’m not a huge car guy, but I love to drive. I said, you know what? I’m just going to get in my car, I’m just going to go meet people every day, and hopefully get some other experiences.
I know the East Coast really well. I lived in Detroit, so I know the Midwest a little bit. I lived in Houston, Texas, so I know the Midwest a little bit, but I just wanted to connect with people. We’re all familiar right now, basically everybody we deal with is in as a rectangle and you have to stare at the dot so that you could make eye contact. You don’t see people below their torso, and you don’t see the background and you don’t see waiters when you interface like this. It was a whole different dynamic experience.
One of the cool things was everybody I reached out to, Zeev, was thrilled to see me. That made me feel nice as well. There were some people who had conflicts and weren’t able to meet, but pretty much I met with like 25 people scheduled. This wasn’t a backpacking trip across Europe, where I was just going to discover and meet people and talk to them in pubs. I only had one night where I was kind of by myself. It was a Saturday night in Oklahoma City, but every other night, I physically met with somebody for dinner.
When I went to Austin, Texas, I had something like 10 meetings. I shifted my trip, instead of going to Denver, I went to Austin. Because of the nature of Austin and tech, there was like 25 people I knew, and I wound up meeting six or seven of them and just had some amazing experiences. But as we’ll talk about it, I just wanted to get out there. We hear about this every single day on the webinar and the podcast, people want to get out there.
Zeev Wexler: Fred, one of the things I love the most about what you did is you were proactive. You took this opportunity, and you went and you made the best out of it. I know some parts of it weren’t easy, but what were the best parts of this trip? What were the major two, three lessons that you have learned from this trip?
Fred Diamond: There’s three big lessons as they apply to sales professionals. Again, I always have the Sales Game Changers hat on and the Institute for Excellence in Sales hat. Everybody I met with the exception of a couple of friends, which I’ll talk about, are people that are in the Institute for Excellence in Sales community. Speakers, some of our partners, Deb Calvert runs The Sales Experts Channel, and we’re a sponsor of that. I met her at her house with her husband, and just had a wonderful time in Kansas City. But there’s three main themes, Zeev, that came from this for me as it relates to sales.
One is just the whole concept of getting out there and connecting again. Secondly, we talked about this a lot. Be curious. People talk a lot, if you want to be a very successful salesperson, be curious about what your customer is doing, be curious about how they’re helping their customer’s customer. Be curious about your partners, and be curious about how your solution can offer value. The third thing, and I have some examples of all these, is be interesting.
Customers meet so many salespeople that seem to be similar. We hear about this a lot, don’t use a script because you sound similar to the five guys that just came before you. How could you be interesting? How can you have stories? We talk a lot about storytelling. You and I had dinner with the great Matthew Pollard two years ago, and he came to the IES talking about storytelling, but be interesting.
I was in search of some new things to be able to talk to people about. I love talking about the Institute for Excellence in Sales and why people should become members and how fortunate we are to have companies like Amazon and Red Hat and Salesforce all involved with the institute. But the better conversations are the ones where you talk about some other things that have occurred in your life.
Maybe something is challenging you right now. Maybe you have a child with an illness. Maybe you have a spouse that’s going through something and if you can have that type of relation. We’ve been stuck on that a little bit the last year because we’re constricted to Zoom and things like it in that personal setting, as you’re waiting for the table. If you go to a restaurant, the little one minute before you’re physically sitting down, what little nuance can you talk about that might lead to deepening your relationship?
Zeev Wexler: I could not agree with you more. One thing I love about what you do is, at this moment I think everybody feels a little bit alone. You went out there and actually asked people to meet face-to-face and their response were amazing. They wanted that time, we all miss that time. If we try to offer people something that they want, and not we want, I always think it’s going to have a better outcome for the collaboration we’re going to have.
I think a lot of salespeople think about themselves. “Would you get on a call with me for this sales presentation?” They’re thinking about what they want to convey to the client. As you said, the best salespeople out there always think about first what the client want, needs. What are their problems before I’m going to push my solution to you? I know I’ve got a little technical, but I really love how you figured out that these people wanted contact, you needed contact, I think, and together you’ve created a beautiful journey that created a lot of lessons and business for you.
Fred Diamond: Absolutely. One thing I also said is, for those people who have listened to the Sales Game Changers podcast, I have two favorite books. One of them is a book called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. We just had Gay Hendricks on the webinar recently and his new book, The Genius Zone just came out. I recommend The Big Leap all the time. My other favorite book is Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
A number of my guests on the Sales Game Changers podcast have brought that up over the years. I said to myself, you know what? This is a really interesting time, obviously. As we’re coming towards the end of one stage of the pandemic, and now with the Delta V, there’s another possible stage. It’s not over. I was treating it like it’s over, we’re winding down. It ain’t over, and there’s a lot of impact about that.
I decided, along the lines of your question, to have deeper conversations. I tried to use some of the lessons we talk about on the Sales Game Changers podcast, where there were times when I said, I’m not going to talk at all. I’m just going to ask a question of the person that I’m having dinner with, and it’s going to be about them. And of course, they were interested in what’s going on with me.
Interestingly, we talked about the Institute for Excellence in Sales, we talked about sales. I’m going to say Zeev, 95% of the content in the conversations, they weren’t about sales. They weren’t about prospecting, they weren’t about using the Internet. I had dinner with Sam Richter, who is the guru on using search engine and Google to understand your customer and find information. We didn’t talk about that for a second. We talked about his college football career, we talked about his relationships in Minnesota. I went to Minneapolis.
There’s a lot of stuff going on in Minneapolis over the last year. George Floyd and everything related to that. There’s so much going on in this country that we don’t have to be talking about, here’s how the five programs that we’re doing at the IES are going to provide you value. They know that information, but how are you doing? How has this affected you? It’s interesting, because in a lot of the Sales Game Changers podcast interviews, people will say that. How are you doing? Remember the beginning? How do we be empathetic? This was a good opportunity for me, as someone who’s an expert on it, to actually put it into practice.
Zeev Wexler: You and I are a great example, Fred. We’ve been friends for many years, and we do have a lot of business conversations, we used to even have a weekly business conversation. But some of our favorite conversations is when I was going through things in my personal life, and you were there for me as a friend. You were going through certain things, I was there for you as a friend. That strengthens the business relationship to the 10th degree.
If you are able to be a friend to someone, if you are able to not just be there because of who you represent and the company that you work for, it creates amazing relationships. People that are like each other, and I believe you and I are like each other, I know that I can pick up the phone and ask you for help that is nothing related to my business, and I know if you can do it, you will help me and you know the same about me. You can’t build those relationships just by talking about sales.
Fred Diamond: I went back and reviewed every conversation that I had was at least very good. There was no stiltedness, there was no stultification, there were no moments where there was unease. There were a couple of interesting ways the conversation went in one or two instances, but not from a bad, more from an interesting perspective. The sales is really a people person type of a business, and the more you’re able to have those kinds of conversations, and the ease that you have them, and the trust that you’ve built to have those conversations, the deeper the possibilities.
I want to go through the three things we talked about just to put some context. Number one, again, we just talked about it, getting it out there and connecting again. Like I mentioned, as the trip went on, it was three weeks. Every day I had these rich conversations with people. I do want to say a couple of things. Back to the pandemic, again, we’ve been talking about this for a long time. I’m in Northern Virginia.
A good portion of people have been vaccinated. Companies aren’t necessarily open but restaurants and stores are. People have taken the responsibility, but the pandemic is still raging. I like to go off road which we’ll talk about in a little bit. I did the interstate as appropriate, but I would always like to take a state highway just to get a different feel, a different flavor. One thing that shocked me was main street small towns are destroyed, for lease, for sale. Restaurants with brown paper over the windows.
I’m going to say, every single small town with the exception of Lawrence, Kansas – I’m a big fan of college towns. I went to Lawrence, Kansas and in Lawrence, Kansas, the downtown was thriving. People were shopping, stores were open because of the university, but every other small town in Iowa or Kansas or Missouri, Arkansas, small-town towns were destroyed. Basically, that said to me from a sales perspective, as a salesperson, there’s probably going to be a lot more of the Zoom-type of interfacing that you’re going to have to be doing. I know that’s not an aha but it was an aha for me to literally see how many of the downtowns were really destroyed.
A second thing, a little bit of a tidbit here. Before I took the trip, I have a relatively old car. Again, I love to drive. I’m not necessarily a car guy. My car has 270,000 miles. It’s a Pontiac G6. I got the brakes repaired before I went and got it completely cleaned but the car did a great job. I was thinking about buying a car, I was thinking about renting a car. Zeev, for a three-week trip, the cheapest rental I could find was $3,000 to rent a nice car. I’m like, you know what? I’m just going to take my car. Again, it’s a Pontiac G6. Just a quick note, a guy I went to college with once said, if you keep the oil in your car changed frequently, you can drive a car forever. There’s that.
People aren’t out as much as I thought they would be. I had no problems getting hotels. Matter of fact, I stayed at people’s houses a lot. Deb Calvert had me over her house, which I appreciated. A couple friends along the way had me over and that was a great experience. I used hotels.com maybe a half an hour before I got to my destination and always had a great opportunity. The hotels aren’t being as serviced as we’re used to, I stayed in Austin for three days and there was almost no service. They just can’t get people to work is one of the huge problems, and we’re familiar with that but here’s plenty of hotels. The roads, I don’t recall ever being in too many traffic jams along the way. There’s a lot of construction going on in the most remote of places. Somewhere in Western Kentucky, for example, in the middle of the night, they were repairing like 10 miles of roads.
LinkedIn and Facebook were tremendous. When I decided to go to Minnesota, I knew Jill Konrath. I typed into the LinkedIn, people in the Minnesota area and Jill Konrath appeared, and Sam Richter appeared, and Lee Salz who’s a great friend of the Institute, the author of Sales Differentiation. He is also there and he wasn’t available to join us, but Jill, Sam and I and Jill’s fiancé had dinner.
Just one other quick thing as it relates to relationships. When I was coming back up through Texas, I know a bunch of people on LinkedIn that are in Dallas. Two or three main people weren’t available so I met a guy I went to college with and his wife. They both went to the school I went to, Emory University. I haven’t seen him since… We met, we had dinner, I stayed at their house, it was if no time had elapsed. They have no idea what I do. He’s a liver doctor, liver specialist, and she does a lot of charity work and teaching but at the same time connecting with friends, pure friends who have nothing to do with the business. That was also a highlight of the trip as well.
Zeev Wexler: Tell me three interesting stories about encounters you had on this trip and what you’ve learned.
Fred Diamond: This goes to the next topic, but I’ll tell you one. This was the highlight for me. There were a lot of empowering highlights. Again, talking. Every conversation I had was empowering like I mentioned. I’ll tell you a story. I said I was searching for meaning. In St. Louis, I met one of our webinar guests, her name is Kristie Jones. She’s a sales speaker and a sales trainer. She is in Women Sales Pros, and she lives in St. Louis.
I met her for dinner. I said, “Tell me a little bit about yourself.” She said she’s from Kansas, which is an abutting state. I was like, oh, for some reason I’m fascinated to go to Wichita. I’ve never been to Wichita. She said, well, there’s not a whole lot in Wichita, but you can go to Lawrence, Kansas, which is about 30 miles away from Kansas City, which was my next stop. She said, oh, by the way, I’m from Topeka, which is a state capital. I love state capitals. I said, “Oh, I’ll go say hi to your mom.” She goes, “No, you don’t need to do that, but go to the state capital.”
I go to Lawrence, Kansas and I stopped at at least a dozen college campuses. University of Kansas is nice, and I love college towns and Lawrence had all the usual college town stuff, coffee shops, bookstores, and it was very cool. Then I said, you know what? I’m just going to go to Topeka. No expectations. I figured I’ll see a state capital, and then I’ll go to Wichita. I go to Topeka, and there are signs there for the Brown v. Board of Education Historical Site. I was like, oh, okay. I don’t know why I forgot about that but I’ll check that out.
I follow the signs. It’s in a off neighborhood, off of downtown and it looks like an old three-story school building per se. I was a history major, Zeev, there’s so much that’s been going on. We all know about the pandemic, but all of the racial issues that have been going on over the last summer and the social issues. I get there and I park my car. There was about a dozen cars there. It was a Saturday. It was probably about 11 o’clock, maybe. I walked up in. It’s a national park, so they had park rangers there as the guides, and of course as a park, it’s free.
I went up to the front door, and I couldn’t go in. I was so overwhelmed with the emotional impact of what this building represented, especially after what we’ve all been through over the last year. I literally could not walk into the building. I’m a middle-aged white male. I haven’t been affected directly by whatever happened with Brown v. Board Education and I couldn’t go in. I had to go off to the side just to compose myself and the park ranger said to me, “People sometimes come to the door, then they go home and they come back the next day.” He said, just the implications, man’s inhumanity to man is just overwhelming.
I did go in and you need to go see it. It’s a very rich, historical museum towards racial injustice in this country. The next day, as it relates to stories, I went to Oklahoma City. I drove from Kansas City to Oklahoma City. I did drive past Oklahoma State University, which is like a major league sports facility, almost. It was quite fascinating. I get to Oklahoma City, and I forgot about the Oklahoma City bombing in the 90s. It just escaped my mind, and there’s all these signs.
I had a fun dinner. The next morning, I woke up and I went to the Oklahoma City Memorial. I went to the Brown v. Board of Education Memorial, the next day, I went to the Oklahoma City Memorial and it was overwhelming as well. They had mini statues for the 150 some-odd people who died. It was just a beautiful serene. I didn’t go into the museum, I went to the monument. Kids at that bomb, there’s a childcare center where I think a dozen kids died, and just one-two punch just made you appreciate what you have.
Most people who listen to the Sales Game Changers podcast who are members of the Institute for Excellence in Sales, almost everyone to the last person has been blessed to have the opportunity to have a successful career, to work for great companies. We have amazing companies. Again, Red Hat, Salesforce, Amazon Web Services, Cvent, Wexler, they’re all involved with the Institute, but there’s a lot of world going out there, and there’s a lot of things that aren’t necessarily as lucky, if you will, for us.
Zeev Wexler: I’ll add something shortly. Sometimes when we feel in a bad place, it’s incredible what happens to us if we help others. If we get out of the pain that we’re feeling, get out of the hole that we’re feeling and just go out and help another, even if it’s not in our profession, it just helps us. It’s something about giving to others that makes us stronger. Let’s get back to you. What is your lesson to salespeople? You have created this trip and got so much out of it. What is your message to salespeople? What should they do in this new world that is upon us?
Fred Diamond: I want to talk about two other major themes. One was be curious, and we hear that a lot. I asked the sales leaders, give us your advice and it’s be curious, be curious about your customer. I’ll share a couple of interesting little tidbits that I was not aware of. I was blown away, Zeev, by how many Sonic burger places there are. Obviously, we all know about the McDonald’s and the Wendy’s and the Burger Kings. Sonics are all over the place. The nearest Sonic to me in Northern Virginia is 50 miles. I posted that, I said, the nearest one to me is 50 miles and so people let me know that they just built one in Manassas which is 20 miles away. They are all over the place, and in some cases, they are the only restaurant in some small areas or small towns.
The second thing that also blew me away, dollar stores. There are so many dollar stores. Living in the Northern Virginia area, we’re lucky. There are dollar stores but we have Wegmans and we have Whole Foods and great places to get our produce and stuff. Dollar stores, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree, they are ubiquitous. I was blown away by how many dollar stores and how many Sonics.
The other thing from a curiosity perspective. Again, I travelled from Kansas City east. I didn’t go over the Continental Divide or anything. There’s not a lot of stuff in a lot of the country. I’m going to say this, 90% were farms, grasslands, and woods. There’s a ton of corn being grown between the big cities. I guess, if you’re a farmer, it’s not nothing. But for someone who’s always living in cities and suburbs, you’re driving like 100 miles from something to something and there’s just woods.
By the way, on a curiosity perspective, I saw a brown bear in New Jersey. I was driving on a freeway in New Jersey, entering Upstate New York. I looked to my left and there’s all these mountains in that part of New Jersey, which people necessary won’t think, but I saw a bear. I saw a bear climbing up the hills. It was very gated, but that was pretty fascinating.
The last thing about curiosity is go off the main highway. Obviously, we’re so fortunate now too I upgraded my iPhone before I went which was a great decision. You type in, hello Siri, directions to Oklahoma City. It sends you via the freeways, 35 or whatever it might be, but state highways get you there as well. Maybe a little bit longer, but you’ll come upon things. Maybe something interesting, an ice cream stand, a produce stand, some type of person selling something, so be curious.
The other thing I would say is, be interesting. We talked about this in the beginning. Be an interesting person. Read, explore. I’ll tell you something that I discovered and I share this with people. I’ve had more conversations about this point, Zeev, than anything else that I’d seen on my trip. I listen to plenty of podcasts. Obviously, I have my podcasts. I do plenty of phone calls with IES people and you and Gina Stracuzzi who runs our Women in Sales program, but I listen to a lot of music as well.
Since my car is relatively old, it’s not great for Sirius, I don’t really love Sirius. I bought a bunch of CDs, typically 70s and 80s Rock CDs. Neil Young, the Grateful Dead, the Pretenders. I must have had, I don’t know, 50 CDs. The biggest realization I had on the trip, Zeev, 80% of the songs are about love. I kept listening and I’m like, is that song about love? The Pretenders, Greatest Hits. Every song is about love. She even says on one of her songs, I want love, I want love, love me, I want you. I’m coming back and I’m listening to Tom Petty and Neil Young and the Grateful Dead, even. I think the greatest love song of all time is a Grateful Dead song, Box of Rain. That just blew me away when I had that realization.
The other thing I would suggest is be flexible as it relates to being interesting. I originally was going to go to Denver, but one of the people that I really wanted to meet had to cancel. She wasn’t available. Denver is a lot further than I thought it was, so I changed my plans. Instead of going from Kansas City to Denver, I went from Kansas City to Austin. Turns out, I know like 25 people that are really good first-degree people in Austin. It’s a beautiful city to walk around. Horrible homeless situation and probably the worst that I’d seen anywhere that I had been. But I just loved going to Austin, hadn’t been there in 20 years, explored it. Just getting out there and just seeing new things to talk about. It’s just something that’s fascinating as well.
Zeev Wexler: I love that and I love your reaction about love. That’s a really great tip to a lot of salespeople. Don’t be afraid to love, don’t be afraid to show love, don’t be afraid to care. My best clients in the world are people that will call me when something is up and not in their business. They know that I have their best interest in heart and they will give me a call. Be more personal. Love other people. Go off the beaten path. Meet people.
One thing that worked for me really well and you’ve helped me with that in my career, Fred, is offer people what they want, not what you want. Try to think about, what do they want? For instance, you called me. You know me really well. You said, hey, Zeev, do me a favor, host this podcast. You know I like to talk. You know that the chances I will say no to that are very slim. Ask people what they want to do and then when you start creating that relationship, more things will come of it. How can salespeople love more?
Fred Diamond: That is such a great point. Love is everywhere, it’s ubiquitous. You love your spouse, and you love your children, and I love the Phillies, I love Wawa, I love my family, my parents. Being open to that and there’s nothing wrong. I’ve been telling partners. I’m not sure I’m going to tell a customer I love them. You’re not quite there yet, but partners, I love you. I love the work we’ve done together. If I were to sit here and create a list of all the things that we’ve done together, we could probably come up with 100 things.
John Asher, who is another great sponsor of the Institute, he’s been with us for five some-odd years and love him, and he’s done so many great things, but just feeling comfortable with people. One thing that surprised me a little bit, I like to hug and stuff, but I’m not off-putting but I’m respectful of people and respectful of people’s space. I was blown away by how happy people were to spend time with me. It’s not like I was shocked but it was like, I remember thinking in the conversations like, wow, this person really enjoys being with me.
Take that in. Take in the fact that, if people are going to give you their time, they’re doing it because they enjoy you and they want to get something from you. It’s not that they necessarily want to get value, whatever, but they want to get something from you. Before I give the final action step, I just want to say, one other little odd thing was the speed limit, Zeev, in some parts of the country is 80 miles per hour. There’s a toll road, I guess it goes from Austin to Dallas, the speed limit is 80. All over the place, I was averaging, I hate to say this, 85 in some cases. I knew I was going 90, and I was getting past in certain places. I only got ticketed once and it was in Iowa and I deserved it. I was going 87 miles per hour and I was only five miles away from the Kansas border, but I did get one ticket in case people were curious here.
I want to thank you, Zeev. I want to thank you for hosting, I want to thank everybody here for listening to the story, and I just want to say, we end every Sales Game Changers webinar or podcast with an action step. My action step for everybody, very simple. It’s, you got to get out there and see people in person. We’ve missed it for a long time. We’re doing a webinar every day at the Institute for Excellence in Sales. There were days when I’ve done six, seven Zooms. I know a lot of the people here. Someone just chimed in, Sheryl Lynne, and said that she averages seven zoom calls a day.
We all know about that, especially the people who are listening to this. Everybody knows about that, how the Zoom is. You got to get back to the in person. I’m not saying be irresponsible about it. I’m saying you want to be safe and you want to do what you need to do, but at the same time you just got to get out there. Those connections really are where things happen, where you learn, where you get some aha moments. It’s very hard to get an aha moment on a Zoom call because you’re talking, then I’m talking, I’m looking at you, I’m making sure you can see me. In person, you have that space, you could bring a notepad, you’re eating if it’s that. You have another person to bounce off of and I just highly recommend that people get back out there and start meeting people.
Zeev Wexler: There is an energy flow. I’m an energy-driven person. There is some energy in Zoom but it’s very limited. There is an energy flow and you sense the person you’re in front of when you talk to them. Fred, thank you for sharing all your personal lessons. I know that I’ve gained from them personally. For everybody out there, go out, reach out to people. Don’t be afraid to show love and do more and try to offer people what they want to do and not what you want to do.
Fred Diamond: Very powerful. Zeev Wexler, thank you so much. I love you. For everybody here who watched today, I love you all and we will see you next week on Tuesday’s Women in Sales webinar. Thank you so much.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo