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Today’s show featured an interview with Joe Swope, author of “The Creativity Algorithm,” and Desmond Richelsen, VP of Sales at AMES, Inc.
Find Joe on LinkedIn. Find Desmond on LinkedIn.
JOE’S TIP: “One specific thing someone should do is every day carve out a couple minutes, ask yourself why, when, and how is your next good idea, your transformative idea that will get you over that brick wall? How is it going to happen? What are you doing to invite it? Because that’s probably the most important thing in your sales practice, is your own mind.”
DESMOND’S TIP: “Make sure that you are being the best that you can be, and that will allow everybody else to follow you in the right direction.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: We’re talking with Joe Swope today and Desmond Richelsen, who is one of his customers. I’m very excited about that. For listeners that know, frequently, I get a lot of outreach from authors and speakers and other types of thought leaders, and I always say, “I’d be happy to have you on the show, but you need to bring a current VP of sales or sales leader on the show.” Joe, you brought Desmond on, so I’m excited to have some interaction here. It’s good to see you guys together today, and I’m very excited for what we’re going to be talking about. Why don’t you introduce yourself? Joe, tell us a little bit about your book, and then Desmond, introduce yourself. First question I’m going to ask is, we’re doing today’s interview in March of 2025, what is the biggest challenge sales professionals face today, and what are some of the ways they can overcome it?
Joe Swope: My background is psychology, and then I came to sales through the academic route, and specifically, how do those breakthrough ideas, those innovative ideas happen? My background of research has allowed me to track that down and find the triggers that can help us invite good ideas. I help sales teams, sales managers get unstuck by unleashing their own creativity. I’ve had perhaps some pretty good results, and it’s really fun to see people have that aha moment. That’s a little bit about what I do, and my book is called The Creativity Algorithm.
Fred Diamond: I read the book, and we’ll go through some of the ideas that you talk about here. Desmond, it’s good to see you. Why don’t you introduce yourself and why don’t you tell us how you know Joe as well, so we can put this in context?
Desmond Richelsen: I’m Vice President of Sales for AMES. It’s a brand under FCG, Flow Control Group. It’s actually a private equity firm that owns our brand. They own about 108 brands, so there’s some navigation of that too that we might discuss. The background of how I know Joe. I’m a sponge for information, so Joe is a source of information for me, and he is always a good source of information for me in guiding my sales folks to continue their success.
Fred Diamond: What is the biggest challenge that your sales professionals are facing today?
Desmond Richelsen: That’s a very interesting question, and if you ask most salespeople, they’ll say it’s a different one each day. The reason that’s the case is because sales ladies and guys are out on the front lines, and they’re seeing the stuff before everybody else does. They’re closest to the customer and they see different things every day. That’s a challenge. But I would say in today’s society, the biggest challenge most salespeople have has to do with instant gratification society, and the fact that they can research things for sale on Amazon or several different places to get the source of that product. Sometimes it’s hard to show value and carry that value to your customer.
Fred Diamond: Joe, what do you think, what do you think the biggest challenges facing sales professionals today is?
Joe Swope: What I see is this idea that people accept limits. They think there are limits to what they now. Wherever they come from, I don’t know. I don’t want to sound like a Pollyanna pie in the sky idea, but the reality is, for most people, there aren’t limits except the ones they place on themselves. Of course, there’s constraints, customers change, customers have their own pressures, and markets change, but the idea is we can learn to navigate those constraints and break through the limits that somehow or another we accept and we just shouldn’t accept. That’s something that I think a lot of folks just need to remind themselves. There isn’t a ceiling. That’s what I think the biggest challenge is.
Fred Diamond: That being said, what roles do mindset and emotional intelligence play in sales success, and how can they be effectively taught?
Joe Swope: I think a lot of people think mindset is like a trait, like eye color, and that’s just who they are. That’s what they inherited. It’s a skill. It can be a difficult skill to practice, but listen, every day, ideally, we should brush our teeth, we should floss our teeth, every day we have these disciplines and things we should do. Mindset practices and mindset exercises are critical. Hand in hand with that goes emotional intelligence. If you don’t know yourself, no matter what facade you put on for your client, they’re going to pick up that something’s not right. I think that emotional intelligence and mindset skills we should practice, things we should be aware of in ourselves.
Fred Diamond: Not everybody knows what emotional intelligence is. Could you give us a definition of that as it relates to sales?
Joe Swope: The idea of emotional intelligence is being aware of what you are feeling and what your clients or potential clients or prospects are feeling. It takes a skill. Of course, some people are naturally better at it, but it’s not a fixed trait, and we should practice it because the most important thing is, of course, people. We have to make those relationships and just being aware of the little things, how we act and what we say.
Fred Diamond: Desmond, emotional intelligence. You’ve been a sales leader for a long time. Give us your thoughts on how important it is to be emotionally intelligent. Is it important? Has it changed over time? I’m just curious on what your thoughts are as a sales leader.
Desmond Richelsen: It’s actually the most important thing I would think if you’re successful in sales. You have to read the room. They say read the room. There’s studies out there that say, sit in a certain position in a room to be the position of power or sit in a certain position to be the person that is supportive. A lot of that I’ve gained from listening and seeing Joe speak and also his books. But it’s so important in today’s society, and it’s almost heightened because you get a short window now.
You used to probably be able to go in somebody’s office and spend an hour and a half with them. They don’t have time for that. They don’t want that anymore. Now you get five minutes on the phone and that’s all you get, or you might get five minutes with them. In that short period of time, you have to be able to pick up on that, read their actions, read their body language or eye language, and pick up on what they’re giving you. It’s very, very important. It gets more important every day, I’d say.
Fred Diamond: That’s a great answer. I especially like the way you said how shortened the timeframe is that we get to spend and make a connection with customers. I’m curious, Joe, sales professionals hit brick walls. We’re doing today’s interview in March of 2025. Why might things go well for so long? Someone’s doing great, they’re a professional, and then a brick wall happens. Why do things go so well for so long and then stall?
Joe Swope: That’s a great question. I think sometimes the answer is very nuanced. While the brick wall is obvious, why it happens can be subtle. Let’s say something external happens, a shift in the market, a change in a client, or something like that. If performance dips through no fault of the sales professional, oftentimes there’s going to be a little bit of dip in confidence, and then that dip in confidence is then going to lead to a further decrease in performance. All of a sudden you’re staring at this obstacle, and it might not be any fault of your own, but it’s tough to get yourself out of that spiral. I think that’s the biggest brick wall I see.
Fred Diamond: That’s definitely true. Desmond, real world here. I presume you’ve seen this with your salespeople, if not, good for you, managing a completely unique team. But knowing that you’ve seen this, how have you led them through this period? Actually, a little follow up question is, what would be your advice for, let’s say, people who are relatively new to sales management, sales leadership, who this may be the first time that they’re experiencing this? They have some high-performing people who all of a sudden aren’t for whatever reason.
Desmond Richelsen: Great question. Great answer, Joe. It’s almost about finding out the inner emotion that’s causing that brick wall with that person. You have to ask the question of the person that’s had a brick wall, say, “You got something going on?” Maybe it’s something in their life. Maybe it’s just the work has fallen off. We call it shaking the trees. You have to go out, you got to do the things you always do. You go see the customer, you go back to the basics. You put feelers out to see if you have more leads. All that has to do with building confidence, like Joe said, of getting back to doing what you’re doing.
There’s three ways of people getting successful in life. It’s either through the military, through schooling, or through the school of hard knocks. All of those teach you when you get knocked down to get back up. That’s the thing they teach you. That’s what we try and persuade through to our salespeople, is, “Look, you’re going to hit the brick walls. It’s about how you break that brick wall down and go over it.” It’s really about asking the questions and really listening to the employee that’s having the problem.
Fred Diamond: So many times on the Sales Game Changers Podcast, the people who I bring on the show, people like you who are active sales leaders or authors, consultants, thought leaders like Joe, a lot of times the advice is get back to the basics. A lot of people don’t find that particularly sexy, but it’s about doing the research, practicing your messaging, practicing role playing, those types of things that are so critical. People talk about hacks, hacks aren’t going to get you there. It’s really getting back and perfecting your skill. We like to say that if you’re a sales professional, do things that professionals do. A lot of times it’s working on those little things, calling customers, making 10 phone calls a day, if you’ve lost track of that.
Joe, in the book, you talk a lot about sophisms, and tell me if I’m pronouncing that right, but you say that a crucial technique is to engage in what you call cognitive exercises called sophisms while you are relaxed. First of all, am I pronouncing it correctly? Second of all, explain exactly what they are.
Joe Swope: A sophism is a way to challenge your mind. I used the phrase flex and stretch your mind. We all have had innovative ideas. We’ve all had those breakthroughs, but we don’t know when or why they come. As I hinted at before, most of us have daily routines, daily disciplines, brushing, flossing, exercise. I encourage people to challenge that creative muscle. A way to do it is with a sophism. That’s the idea of thinking of something that’s just on the edge of what you can conceive, just on the edge of what you can imagine. By doing that, you’re going to invite the flow state, and that’s where those good ideas come from. It’s a daily or weekly exercise. Push yourself to your mental limit, and your mind is going to respond and give you that idea you need.
Fred Diamond: Desmond, Joe’s book is Subtitled, How to Reach Your Sales and Professional Goals with Applied Creativity. He just mentioned the word creativity. What does this mean to you as a sales leader? Do you want your people to be creative, or do you want them to follow strict and rigid rules? Talk about creativity as a sales leader.
Desmond Richelsen: Two questions there, but they’re very interesting. The first one is what the title means to me and what the book itself means to me is to open your mind and be a person that gathers that creative mind.
Fred Diamond: Talk about do you want your sales professionals to be creative, or do you want them to be rigid? “Follow my process. This is the way that we at AMES do things,” et cetera.
Desmond Richelsen: I like to think of all my salespeople as almost private contractors when they’re doing their jobs. I let them handle their own sales. They almost can do their own thing. With that, I want them to be the best person they are. That is gathering knowledge and doing the best they can. One of the things that Joe’s book taught me was ask the question, what if. I tell my guys and my ladies all the time, “Ask what if, and you never know what the answer’s going to be.” With that, I want them to gather as much information and use that information to go be successful and raise revenue and raise gross profit.
Fred Diamond: Joe, why don’t you give us a couple examples? Why don’t you give us two or three exercises that you recommend from the book? As I’m reading the book, it’s replete with ideas, things that might not have occurred and things that you could definitely do. Give us a couple that can transform how the sales professional performs.
Joe Swope: They don’t take a lot. We’re not asking for hours and hours. Literally a couple minutes every day is all you need. I think the first exercise that we should all do is relax. Now, as soon as I say that, you can almost hear people’s eyes roll. We’re too busy to relax. What I say, instead of trying to relax, don’t do that. Try to exhale. Focus on the exhales. That’s it. If you focus on your exhales for three minutes, you’re going to be relaxed. That’s the first thing, is relax by not trying to relax.
The second one is challenge your mind. What podcasts are you listening to? Most of us get in our comfort zone, and we just listen to the same stuff. Fred, I’m not telling anyone to not listen to your podcast, but the idea of the sophisms is to challenge yourself. Think of something different.
I think the third exercise is to track your progress. This is true of life, whether it’s KPIs or stepping on a scale. If you are serious about being an innovative sales professional and finding a way to overcome the challenges, you got to track your efforts. Where did your idea come from? What were you doing? Why were you doing? Track it and be a student of the process. Like I said, you’re not going to have limits, because your mind will always hand you the solution.
Fred Diamond: Desmond, are there any particular things that you’ve found successful over the years to help some of your salespeople when they’re stuck? Do you have a go-to or a couple go-tos that have always worked for you?
Desmond Richelsen: Joe mentioned one of them, what gets measured gets improved. You start tracking a little bit more. You start looking at some of the data. That gives you a little bit more information about how to correct the behavior or get going in the right track. The other one is maybe the person’s grown out of that position or grown into a position that they can move to a different spot. There’s an old adage out there, if you put the person in the right spot on the bus, you can take the bus anywhere. Sometimes we’ve actually found that it’s better if someone’s starting to falter off, we move them to a position that’s more geared to their personality or towards what the market’s telling them. Those are two of the items I use in my background.
Fred Diamond: Joe, how do people get into habits doing this? You talked about a couple of ideas. Your book is replete with ideas. Do you recommend that people make these into habits, new ideas, or try to find something different every day that may boost your creativity or get you going? I do need to say one quick thing. We’re well over 750 Sales Game Changers Podcast episodes, breathing. Breathing always is like a solution that so many of the great people I’ve had on the podcast talk about. Someone once said, it’s the one commonality you have in your life from the second you’re born till the moment you die, is that you have your breath. I’m just curious, talk about the concept of these creative aspects being put into habits.
Joe Swope: I oftentimes am careful how I present it because when I talk to a room full of sales professionals, I try to lighten the mood, because good ideas can’t happen when we’re stressed or rushed. But oftentimes that idea of play, that idea of letting go doesn’t fit when people bring me in because they’re in crisis. That’s a tough thing to navigate. The short answer is we want to make these ideas, and the process is fun, but you have to schedule the fun. The exercises themselves need to be playful. You need to challenge yourself, think outside of the box, but you have to do it regularly, because if you don’t do it regularly, that’s like trying to go to the gym and pack a six-hour workout before your beach vacation. It just doesn’t work. You got to do it regularly.
Fred Diamond: Desmond, if you have a sales professional who’s doing really well and they have a couple of these creativity activities that they do, but you’re not really quite sure about them, do you encourage them to continue? How do you come in? It goes back to the same question that people always ask the sales leaders. If you have someone who’s really nailing it out of the park, but they show up once a week, do you still want that person on your team? I’m just curious, how much of this creativity do you want from your sales professionals, and how do you balance them if they’re being successful?
Desmond Richelsen: Great question. It goes back to the old adage, as you get older in your tooth as a salesperson, you might become a farmer, not a hunter. I want the creativity to span all aspects, whether you’re a new salesperson, whether you’re a very successful salesperson, I want that creative mind, and I want that creative thinking to always be there. If it’s not, then you start seeing some of those areas where somebody’s just cultivating their business. They’re not getting new business or going after new business. I actually really like the things in Joe’s book where he has a weekly exercise for the things to think about for the end of this week. That’s something that a lot of good books out there have that I keep on my desk on a daily basis. It just gives you a little bit more push to think creatively and think outside the box no matter where you are in your stage of sales.
Fred Diamond: I want to ask you both essential skills. We’re doing today’s interview March of 2025. Joe, what’s a skill that you think every sales professional needs right now? Desmond, as a follow up, what skills are missing, do you see sales professionals right now that you wish that they were doing?
Joe Swope: I hope I don’t steal Desmond’s thunder on this one, because he mentioned that immediate gratification. I think an important skill is patience. Patience with your customer. You can’t force a sale. No matter how much you might want to, you got to know when you’ve given the best you can and work the relationship, not work the relationship to get a sale. Work the relationship out of fidelity and be patient. If it’s going to happen, it will happen, but you can’t force it.
Fred Diamond: That’s a great point. One of the main shifts that we’ve seen over the last couple years is companies have sales processes and they want their people to follow the sales processes, but the buyer’s journey has shifted dramatically. Where the customer is right now is much more important than your company’s sales process. You are absolutely right, you can’t force it. There may be some things you do to demonstrate urgency, and you have to be aware of where your customer is, et cetera, but you’re absolutely right.
Desmond, what’s a skill that’s missing you wish that every sales professional had?
Desmond Richelsen: Hunger. That’s not really a skill, but that’s a trait. I see a lot of the younger generation coming out into the Salesforce, and it’s almost, “You show me the money and I’ll show you the work.” That’s not really how sales works. Sales is, you show me the work and I’ll show you the money. You basically have to sell yourself. No matter what product you’re selling, if you’re selling a service or a product, you have to sell yourself. If somebody trusts you, they believe in you, and you provide them a solution they’ll buy from you. That’s the number one adage in sales that I’ve learned in my entire life, is get people to believe in you and trust you, and that’s all you really need. Build that relationship. As I said before, and Joe said it here, you have a shorter time to do that, so you got to get really good at it. That’s to me what it is.
Fred Diamond: I’m just curious, if a brand-new sales manager, someone who was just promoted, the first year in the job, if they came to you and said, “What is one thing that you suggest that I focus on?” what would be your advice? Desmond, brand-new sales leader, maybe they’ve been in sales for five years, they just got promoted, the typical thing. They came to you and said, “Desmond, I want your advice, your mentorship. What’s something I should specifically focus on?” Tell me what that would be.
Desmond Richelsen: My say would be, focus on your people. Your people are what make you. Focus on what makes them tick and also be a very good example of what to do. They’re going to follow your lead, so you have to work harder than every salesperson in your group. You have to sell harder than everybody else in your group, and you have to be better at listening than anybody else in your group. Those three things right there will teach them what they need to go on and be successful, but really to grow your people, you really just have to ask questions and listen to them.
Fred Diamond: Joe, how about you? One bit of advice for a brand-new sales manager.
Joe Swope: I think Desmond stole my answer. There’s got to be a certain amount of humility. If you’re a brand-new sales manager, you might have been the best sales person, sales professional on your team, but give yourself a year. Listen. Don’t talk, just listen, because you probably have some superstars on that team, and let’s see how they work best before you impose your will. I think that’s the best thing I could say, is be patient.
Fred Diamond: Joe, tell us the name of the book one more time and where they can find it.
Joe Swope: It’s The Creativity Algorithm, and it’s on Amazon. It’s on my website too, which is joeswope-publicspeaker.com. It’s easily findable and I think of a lot of folks have been reaching out and saying, “Thank you for that.” I think it’s doing some good work out there.
Fred Diamond: You’ve both given us a lot of great ideas, things that people can put into play. We like to end our show with one action step, something specific that people should do right now after listening to the show or reading the transcript. Desmond, give us an action step people should put into play right now to take their sales career to the next level.
Desmond Richelsen: I would say just make sure that you are being the best that you can be, and that will allow everybody else to follow you in the right direction.
Fred Diamond: Joe, why don’t you bring us home, final thought?
Joe Swope: One specific thing someone should do is every day carve out a couple minutes, ask yourself why, when, and how is your next good idea, your transformative idea that will get you over that brick wall? How is it going to happen? What are you doing to invite it? Because that’s probably the most important thing in your sales practice, is your own mind.
Fred Diamond: Once again, I want to thank Joe Swope and Desmond Richelsen for being on today’s Sales Game Changers Podcast. My name is Fred Diamond.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo