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[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a replay of the OPTIMAL SALES MINDSET Webinar hosted by Fred Diamond, Host of the Sales Game Changers Podcast, on May 28, 2020. It featured “Everyone’s in Sales” author Todd Cohen.]
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EPISODE 252: “Everyone’s in Sales” Author and Speaker Todd Cohen Gives Three Unique Tips for Sales Professionals to Rebound Quickly This Summer
TODD’S TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “First, go to everybody in your organization and say thank you and find something that they did that helped you close a deal. Second, call every client you’ve got, don’t email them and say, “Checking in, how are you feeling?” No, call them. Pick up the phone and Zoom them if you can, most people are thrilled to have some different human contact, you might be really surprised. Third, don’t stop self-development. Read, read, read. Start a book club. Call your clients and say, “How would you all like to read this book with me?” I have clients doing that right now and it’s another way to bring them together.”
Fred Diamond: Todd, it’s great to see you again, my friend. You’ve been a very popular speaker at the Institute for Excellence in Sales on numerous occasions.
Todd Cohen: As a keynote speaker, you can imagine a big chunk of my business literally evaporated overnight. In fact, in one 72 hour period I had about 3/4 of my book business simply go away and it wasn’t that I had much warning other than the fact that I had a sneaking suspicion people were going to start cancelling events. I had to do a lot of thinking about mindset and one of the things I talk about when I speak and I keynote on sales culture is that selling is mindset and behavior. I’m going to get into that in just one second, I know that you asked for a little social media love and I’m going to do the same thing. Ladies and gentlemen, when you hear, not if but when you hear something that resonates with you, if you wouldn’t mind throwing it out there, there’s my twitter, there’s my LinkedIn and most importantly, make sure that we’re connected when this is done because I love to see what other people are doing out there as well.
I let other people inspire me because I’m not that smart, I need other people to motivate me as well. Ladies and gentlemen, today is not about sales training. Frankly, there’s plenty of that out there, there is more than enough sales training out there. In fact, I think that most of it is becoming extremely redundant, I’ve read 30 sales books in the last year or two and candidly, the one thing that they all talk about is the importance of relationships. No kidding [laughs] but we’re going to focus in on that one little bit today when I talk about sales culture and sales mindset. I want to tell you that today is not teaching you the blocks and tips and tactics and block and tackling of sales.
A little disclaimer before we started, we know this situation stinks but we’re strong and resilient and it’s interesting, there’s so many words that when we’re done I’ll be glad never to hear again. Pivot, Zoom, virtual and probably resilient is climbing on the list there again so I need to change this slide.
When I talk about sales mindset, one of the things that I really want to zero in is that from a perspective of where we’re at right now, recovery is all about the people and the culture around us. As I said, we could do all the sales training in the world, all the tips and tactics and block and tackling and frankly, I don’t think that’s what’s going to get us out of this. I am a passionate believer in that people and culture are our currency as we move forward post COVID-19. A couple of years ago I started doing a keynote as an extension of my Everyone’s in Sales and Sales Culture keynotes on the profound power of presence and at the very end of this, what I’m going to do is I’m going to give you my email address and I’m going to ask you if you’d like to drop me an email and I will send you my special reports on the profound power of presence and smashing the stereotype of sales and post-COVID-19 recovery. Total reading time on those is about half an hour and you will get infinitely more out of it than the time that you put in, I promise.
Here’s the deal, when we talk about sales mindset what I want to do is I want to today for us redefine what mindset means. I’m not suggesting that former definitions of mindset no longer matter, what I am suggesting is in terms of our recovery, in terms of our being able to move forward out of this quagmire that we’re in, it has thrown us all for a loop. You would be disingenuous if you didn’t say, “This is business as usual for me.” As I said a moment ago, 75% of my business evaporated literally overnight.
About two months ago I really started thinking about how we’re going to recover from this and it’s not about activity per se as we think of sales training, it’s about people and it’s about culture. What you need for today’s presentation is really something to write on and please make sure to the extent that you can you’re as engaged meaning not multitasking because you’ll hear in a moment what multitasking actually does. Today is about developing a new muscle memory, we’ve got to change the behavior, the mindset of not only ourselves but everybody around us. It’s by exercising a new mental mindset. I don’t know about you but I feel like this is Groundhog Day. Back in 2008 I was working for a company called LexisNexis and it seems that when the economy crashed, I like so many others were eliminated from our positions.
When I’m thinking back to 2008 and thinking back to what I’m doing now, they’re actually very similar. I’m zeroing in on how I show up, in other words, my presence, how I’m showing up because – ladies and gentlemen, write this down if you would, please – people make a buying decision on you before you ever say a word. What we forget as skilled professionals and frankly all business professionals, that people evaluate us, they judge us and before they’re even willing to engage with us we’ve already made a buying decision and that buying decision is really, “Do I actually want to engage with this person? What is it about this person that actually makes me feel like I’m in the right place versus I’m not so sure that I’m in the right place?” You know as well as I do that as consumers, we make decisions when we’re getting ready to buy something from somebody before the person ever even says a word.
What I’ve been counseling and coaching organizations on right now is this isn’t about cracking down on the sales team, this isn’t about more activity and trying to get, as I say, blood from a stone. This is about understanding that how we show up matters because when this is over there will be two kinds of professionals, this is my humble opinion and those of you who know me know I tend to be fairly direct, there’s not a lot of gray area with me when it comes to this stuff, I also know that there’s lots of interpretations for things. I believe there’s going to be two kinds of professionals: there are those that will have active and rich relationships and then there are those that will have led whether knowingly or unknowingly the creepy crud of complacency slip in. In this virtual world we’re working in right now, we have to actually do more to maintain the same level of parody that we had when we had the privilege of being together with people.
We have to make sure that we have clients to turn to when this is over and when I share with you the number of people who have said, “Everybody’s in the same boat I am so they’ll be there when I’m ready and I’m sure they’ll be there when this is over” I literally want to take them and shake them because that is absolutely not the case. We cannot let that creepy crud of complacency slip in. The rule of networking is the same rule of sales, it’s the same rule of listening, it’s the same rule of relationship building. It’s not about you, it’s about them and if you remember that 100% of the time, it will always come back to you.
You might be thinking, “I dialed in to hear this?” Yes, you did because we need to be reminded of this today more than ever, we’re here talking about mindset. Mindset doesn’t mean more activity or more proposals or more cold calls or pressing on people when they’re not ready to buy yet. Mindset means, “How am I showing up?” The mindset that says, “I’m taking care and time that how I’m showing up matters.” I think you can all see me on camera, this is actually my third virtual keynote today, believe it or not, I have one more at 5:00 o’clock tonight. This is my third one, I made a conscious decision about how I was going to show up today. I’m wearing my company “shirt”, I’m not standing here in boxer shorts or short pants and flip flops – that’s too much information for anybody – I made a decision. I Zoom most of the time which allows be to use a virtual background, that’s what would normally be here but for the time being, you’re all now welcome in my spirit of vulnerability to see my home office, A.K.A. the third bedroom, and there’s my terrible towel. Some of you might be Pittsburgh natives as I am, we won’t talk about the fact that the Steelers are six-time Super Bowl winners.
If we’re not careful, this is the time when relationships can fade because you know as well as I do what out of sight, out of mind means. I don’t even need to make that any clearer than what I just said and this is where complacency can kill us, this is what I mean by mindset. In fact, I’m going to dig into this concept of mindset just a little bit more. Two facts are clear, there’s no debating this. We cannot replace the lost selling time, we cannot put those hours back on the calendar, we cannot recapture from March 18th till May 28th and probably another month or two.
What I do know is that what we’re doing today will set the tone for whether we are – write this down, please – top of mind. You’ve heard that expression, “top of mind”, your job as sales professionals is to make sure that you continue to be top of mind when your customers are actually ready to buy because today they’re trying to figure out how to keep their lights on. Tomorrow they might be ready to buy, your ability to make a difference to be remembered is 100% about your mindset, your focus on how you’re showing up, how present you are and how willing you are to show your humanity, your vulnerability and acknowledge. People who are pressing too hard to sell today might actually get a sale but you will cripple yourselves down the road, no question about it. This is a bit of a cliché alert but bear with me, recovery is an all-hands-on-deck experience.
When I wrote my first book, Everyone’s in Sales, it’s very simple. I don’t mean everybody needs to stop doing what they’re doing and go out and make sales calls although I believe everybody should go on sales calls throughout the year because candidly, there’s nothing better than understanding from the customer’s perspective why they’re giving you their hard-earned cash because frankly, I don’t care what you think as a customer, I care what I think. Real simple, folks, that’s a mindset. Recovery now requires what I’m going to redefine for you as a sales mindset. A sales mindset is so much more than how you’re feeling, it’s now about how you’re proactively showing up because as I said a moment ago, people are making a buying decision on you before you ever say a word. When you all logged on and you can see me on camera – I can’t see you so I’m talking into this empty void – I’m actually working harder to be engaged and let you know that the only thing that’s going on in my world right now is looking at this little camera and being a master of my content, that’s being present.
Your job is to do exactly the same thing, the minute that camera comes on, the minute people see you for the first time they’ve already made a buying decision. You can spend all the time in the world reading all the books on sales training and how to write a proposal and challenger this, challenger that, it’s all worthless if we don’t master how we show up. This is what people miss, they’re so busy talking about block and tackling – I’m not picking on sales training, but I think we as human beings need to evolve far beyond the basics and in a little while I’m going to share with you a book that will help you get there. It’s not my book, buy this book I’m about to show you before you buy any other book.
Fred knows me, I’m pretty blunt in my thoughts on this stuff. Let’s just get right down to it, a sales mindset means that everyone has a line of sight to revenue, everybody in your organization does something that influences the customer’s decision to say yes. If you understand that and have the ability to show them, then you now have a culture which is based on the currency of people and not letting the organization become siloed. Those of you who have heard me speak before hear me say there’s two sorts of companies out there, siloed cultures and sales cultures. Silo cultures are ones where everybody’s in a room going, “I’m just the…” The three deadliest words of a company and a career. “I’m just in HR”, “I’m just in finance”, no you’re not.
Your job as a sales professional is to work with your entire organization and you say to them, “Proactively listen. What you did a week ago, a month ago, a year ago had an impact and today a customer said yes” and I want to draw that bridge for you because nobody wakes up in the morning and says, “I’m proud to be overhead.” People want to know that they matter. This is an incredibly important time as we redefine sales mindset, way more than how you’re feeling because we’re all feeling anxious, we’re all feeling the same anxieties. Today is an extraordinary time for you as a business professional to understand how your world, your virtual team is engaging with you to help you help a client say yes. This is what I mean by, “Everyone’s in sales.” Fred, the last time I spoke I’m not sure that I actually had this up there because I’m always revising my content and after twelve years I’ve evolved just a little bit over time. In fact, I’m recycling some stuff now that I found twelve years ago and one of my favorite sayings is, “If you want to sell more, we need to engage more” and today that’s never been more important because today it’s too easy to become complacent and sink into that virtual world. It’s just too easy to let that happen and we have to do more so we have to become super-engagers – that’s, by the way, not real words. I made that up so if anybody Googles me on that, I will get a big fail.
We have to remember that how we engage has changed, everybody around you has a brand new title, the mindset is essential. This actually came from a client of mine who had hired me to come in to talk to his company about Everyone’s in Sales, about a thousand people two years ago. He called me out of the blue one day and he said, “We’re laying people off and I need to get them back and I also understand that my whole sales organization is my whole company, they’re all essential. Todd, I want you to take that message out.” Here’s a piece of counsel for you, and write this down. If you want to sell more, engage more, let your clients inspire you. You don’t need to be the smartest person in the room, you need to be vulnerable and humble enough to listen to your clients and let them guide you. That’s the ultimate act of emotional intelligence, of E.Q., of being self-aware.
As I said a moment ago, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, “I’m proud to be overhead” so how do we continually force the issue? And we do have to force the issue of differentiating and being seen and being visible in a world where we’re forced to be invisible at the moment. Even though we’re on video, it’s still not as visible as any of us would like to be. I don’t like being locked up in my home office, it’s a great house and I’m in Center City, Philly and I used to go to walk over and get a cheese steak whenever I wanted. I don’t because my heart would seize up. That being said, we can’t get blood from a stone.
The answer today is not, “I’m going to ratchet up a number of sales calls, a number of proposals, a number of this, a number of that.” Sales leaders who play with activity metrics right now, that’s very 1980, very 1990 at best. These are people who don’t get the bigger picture, today is not about more sales calls because if your clients don’t have the money or are trying to keep their lights on or are about to shut down, it doesn’t matter. I had a client call me up and say, “Todd, I’ve rewritten the compensation plan, I’m lowering the percentage rate and requiring more sales calls.” I said, “What?” literally I had to stop him, he thought his big victory was, “I put a big bonus at the end of the year.” I said, “People aren’t even buying today, we don’t know where they’re going to be at the end of the year.” Folks, we can’t get blood from a stone, what we can do is influence our people and our culture because that is our currency, that’s the only thing we have going for us that is ours truly because we can’t control the rest of this.
Ladies and gentlemen, write this down: it is not your customer’s job to remember you. Today in this virtual world where people are further and further away, the likelihood of not being top of mind is exponentially higher. It’s not other people’s job to remember you, how we show up today is how we will be remember tomorrow so write this down: what’s the image that I want to lay down? What’s the image that I want to send out? How am I showing up so the minute that video camera goes on or the minute that phone call is answered, I’m without saying a word sending a message that says, “You’re in the right place, you made the right call”? That’s a sales mindset. Sales mindset means everything we do is a selling moment, everything we do leaves a mark, leaves an image, leaves an impression and that impression is, “I’m glad I’m here doing this with Fred today” or, “I’m not.” I’m very glad being here. I also want to point out in terms of presence and how we show up, when I logged on at 1:30 Fred wasn’t wearing his sport coat, he was eating lunch, that’s okay because it was just us but prior to this he got up, he put his coat on, he straightened himself out.
The point is he thought about how he wants to show up, that is a selling moment. Don’t confuse selling with activity right now, redefine sales mindset as presence and how people make decisions and how you show up. We talked a moment ago about companies being siloed, in my keynotes I talk a lot about the Rubik’s Cube and in a company, if the Rubik’s Cube is solved what we’ve got is a dysfunctional company because all the different people in the same groups are hanging with just their people. The problem is to make business go and to recover it’s all about the people you have around you so your Rubik’s Cube has to constantly be unsolved so that you’re not allowing people to go retreat to their silos, and in this virtual world it’s easier than ever to do that. Don’t confuse a virtual world with, “You can stay virtual because you’re doing your work that’s on the checklist.” No, that’s not advancing relationships, that means you can follow a list and do work. We have to demand more of ourselves and of people. Mindset is everything right now, a sales mindset means everything you do is a selling moment. Everything you do has an impact whether you realize it or not, on the customer’s decision to say yes, it is how the brain works.
There is no such thing as a ‘wasted conversation’, the wrong mindset today comes from anxiety, panic, depression and worry and I have been there on all of those. I have good days and bad days every day. When I said earlier that 3/4 of my business had evaporated, that was a bad day. The next day I had to figure out what I was going to do about it. It took a little bit to get me out of bed that next morning and I’ve been going straight at it ever since. I’m not alone in that, we’re sales professionals, we’re high energy people, you know what I’m talking about and I also had to rethink that everything I did from that point on was going to send a message to the world, “Todd Cohen has it” or, “He’s lost.” “I’m going to engage him” or, “Not.” I didn’t have the luxury of saying, “The last three emails, ignore them.” They were interpreted a certain way.
Our goal very simply is to stay connected. If our goal is to stay connected, we have to remember what I call the rule of thirds, this means that whatever we were doing before when we had the privilege and the blessing of being in front of people live means it’s only about a third as effective. I love doing this, but this isn’t as effective because me being on a main stage doing a keynote, it just isn’t. This isn’t as effective for you as it is being in the room when you can engage with people and suck in their energy so we have to work not harder but smarter about presence and being engaged to sell more. If we want to sell more, we have to engage more. How we engage has evolved and our mindset has to be that everything I do and everything my company does is a selling moment, this is a mindset shift. You want to go out and fix this by making a thousand more sales calls? Knock yourself out, you will be right back here a year from now saying, “Why didn’t this work?” I’m absolutely sure of that fact. At the end of this, I’ll give you an email address if you want to get this white paper from me but in it I talk about what’s called the recovery mindset.
At the middle of that recovery mindset very simply is the concept I’m sharing with you now of being present, it’s humanity, friendship without expectation, never leaving a conversation without an ask. It is all about demonstrating your vulnerability, your ability to acknowledge. It’s the things that we do as human beings to be memorable, sales mindset is there’s no difference in our business because at the end of the day – sales cliché alert – the people who are going to be remembered are the people who were present with me during this crisis. The vendors that I personally use who will get my business after this are the ones who are present with me and didn’t try to sell me because of bad sales training but they said, “What do you need for us to stay engaged?” One of the best lines I’ve ever heard by one of my vendors. “Todd, what do you need from me for us to stay engaged?” I get my inspiration from my clients, that one was absolutely brilliant because it showed that he understood my plight. What I want to do is remind you that those who are present achieve permanence in the minds of our clients. If you’re present today, you’ll be permanent in the minds of your clients tomorrow. If you show up today the wrong way, if your people show up today the wrong way you will lose that permanence and you will not get it back.
We are in crisis mode, our backs are against the wall, we do not have the luxury of saying, “That sales call, it didn’t go well but I’ll have another chance” or, “That email didn’t matter” or, “That text message was wrong but it’s okay.” No, those days are gone and if we learn this now, think how powerful you’re going to be. It boggles my mind what we will be able to do once we’re actually back in front of people again. How do we practice being present when we’re stuck in this virtual parallel universe? That’s what I’ve started calling it, my parallel universe. There was a movie, Bio-Dome, many years ago by one of the worst actors ever to curse the screen, Pauly Shore and he was terrible but the movie was interesting. I feel like I’m in bio-sales-dome, bio-mindset-dome. Fred, let’s just move on, I’ll put the Bio-Dome humor away.
Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to go through these really quickly, these are 10-ish guaranteed ways to stay present and profitable and memorable when working virtually. All of these come from my broader keynote and workshop on the power of presence and they’re all transferable when you’re back in front of the human race again. #1, we must learn to breathe. When you take three deep cleansing breaths, three, four, five, you become less anxious. We know the power of breathing but when we become less anxious, guess what we do when we breathe, we listen better, we listen more because right now your clients don’t want you to fix their problem, they want to know that you understand it and you get it. Your ability to breathe and be present is your best sales mindset tool ever. #2, step away from your email, no conference calls, Zoom or whatever, video only.
Ladies and gentlemen, do not give your clients the opportunity not to engage with you face to face because face to face will always win. I’m old-school, I’m proud of it and I have to tell you, face to face will always win because if you’ve ever developed any sort of relationship in your life, if you even have a friend or a spouse you didn’t do it in a vacuum, you met face to face, you developed something that only comes from being in somebody’s presence. Right now the best we can do is this and if you can’t do Zoom or video then default to a conference call and then if you must, do email but don’t default to email because then you become complacent. It’s all in the eyes, how you show up matters. Look at these two pictures, who would you rather buy from before they ever say a word? Me, it’s absolutely the young lady on the right, the smile, the eyes, she’s engaged.
The guy on the left, I don’t know if he’s stoned or he doesn’t want to be there or whatever but my initial impression when I got these pictures was, “I wouldn’t buy from him, I would only buy from her.” We all send a message before we say a word and we’re selling silently, that’s a sales mindset. The next rule of staying present is multitasking corrodes relationships. Unfortunately we’ve got way too much electronics around us right now. In fact, on my desk I’ve got my computer, I’ve got my iPad, I’ve got my phone, I’ve got a video camera and all of you right now who think you’re really cool, I’m not cool enough to wear one but think you’re really cool by wearing one of those cool Apple watches where you can get your email and you think nobody sees it when you go, “Yeah, I’m listening to you, Todd, I just got an itch on my wrist.” The minute you look away from that screen is the minute you lose your client, multitasking corrodes relationships, people are really smart, I can see when you’re looking away, I can see when you’re not paying attention and it doesn’t even matter. If you are paying attention and I get the impression that you’re not, you’re done so you have to work really hard at understanding where the camera is on your computer and staring at it. Multitasking corrodes relationships and people are more sensitive to it now than ever because we have all of our electronic goodies on our desk in front of us.
Decide how you want to show up, you’ve heard me say this over and over again, make a conscious decision about the image that you want to send before you ever say a word because the minute that camera goes on, people have already made 50% of their buying decision on you. I’m looking for an intern for my business, I interviewed four interns yesterday. I knew in 30 seconds which one I was going to hire, it was because how she showed up, how she was dressed, the smile on her face, her eyes were locked on, she was approachable. Write that down, approachability is profitability. Are you approachable? Are the people that represent you approachable? The next rule is people have biases, you need to remember this. People have biases about who they like and who they dislike, who they’re comfortable with, not comfortable with, it’s unfortunate, it’s also life. We have to be aware of the biases to the extent that we can and we also have to know that it’s harder today to sell through the biases.
If somebody already has a bias against, for whatever reason, you and you’re not present and your mindset is somewhere else other than the fact of what I’m doing right now, how I’m showing up and selling, you will reinforce that bias. I’ve had people say to me, “Todd, I want you to speak for us but you’re old.” I’m not that old. “We want young and hip millennial” and I’m like, “Okay, whatever” but I knew that going in because I researched the kind of speakers they hired and I was able to in some cases work around that because it had nothing to do with my content, my energy or me, it was a bias. We need to work harder at understanding biases if we can and today it’s harder to sell through them. Face to face we can sell through a bias like being present, by knowing how we show up physically, it’s harder virtually, we need to be aware of that. How you show up matters, nobody wants to see your doggone fuzzy slippers, period, end of story. Eye contact means you’re listening, very simple.
When we talk about presence, if you’re making eye contact it means you’re listening. This whole entire keynote other than glancing down at my slide I’ve made it my business to make sure that I’m looking square in my camera. You know that I’m making eye contact well virtually with you. Think about how I’m doing this now, I can’t see any of you, you can all see me. If I was using Zoom, I could see everybody’s picture because every system is different. You can’t let that be an inhibitor, you have to pretend and be virtual and be present enough to know that everybody is in front of you whether you can see them or not, that takes practice, that is that new muscle memory that I was proposing to you, you have to practice this nonstop.
Make sure you’re using people’s names. I live in Philadelphia, our names are not by default, “Yo!” That’s not our name although in Philadelphia everybody says that – Fred’s smiling at that one – but everybody seems to think that by nature we’re all named “Yo.” No, Rocky did not permanently change everybody’s birth certificate but I will tell you, people have names for a reason. When you hear somebody’s name, when you hear your name what happens? You snap to attention, you listen for a moment, that shows respect, that demonstrates that. Chris Tully, I know you’re out there because you just sent me a LinkedIn invitation. Chris, thank you for that and Chris, when you heard your name you probably for a split second paid a little more attention.
Fred, I’m going to ask you right now, are we getting any questions?
Fred Diamond: Todd, we actually have a ton of questions. Do you have some advice for the people here on how to be more energized?
Todd Cohen: There’s no one rule for everybody. As a keynote speaker, as somebody who does this for a living, one, I have energy when I’m standing and doing it as if I’m on the big stage so it’s hard for me to sit down and do it. Two, I drink a crap-load of coffee – no, I’m kidding and it’s not illegal drugs, either. I prepped for this so this is my third of today, I made sure I had lunch, I took a little nap prior to this, I’m very thoughtful about making sure I’m prepared and to the very kind person who asked that, trust me when I tell you at about 5:30 I’ll be comatose.
Fred Diamond: Next question. “In the days of no handshakes, in person and video calls, what is the replacement for a firm handshake, a smile and looking someone in the eye?”
Todd Cohen: There will never be a replacement for a handshake, ever. However, if you go back to what I said a moment ago about making sure that people can at least see you, they can see you looking at them, they can see you smiling over video. One client actually said to be the other day, “Todd, how are you?” and he went like this and I put my hand out and we both laughed like four year olds. There is no replacement for a handshake which is why I want the hell out of this bio-dome that I’m in. In the meantime, everything else will be almost as good and being vulnerable about, “I wish I could shake your hand.” I actually said to a client the other day who called me to say, “Todd, I want to let you know we’re not canceling you, we’re just deferring it” and I said, “If you were here I’d probably kiss you because everybody else has canceled.” His name is David and then I said, “David, I’m sending you a virtual handshake”, he said, “Received and appreciated.” It’s how you play it.
I say to everybody, “Hey everybody, turn your cameras on because it’ll help us engage and I want to make sure you get maximum value from this and I want you to see that I shaved today or put clean clothes on.” I have fun with it, I’m vulnerable about it. Write this down, everybody, vulnerability is a strong selling tool. I didn’t even get to that in today’s presentation because I know we wanted to keep it tight but when you’re vulnerable, people drop their defenses and they feel better. Some people absolutely refuse and that’s okay, you don’t press it, you ask once. Ask once and that’s it but let them see you, always take that higher road.
Fred Diamond: I have another question for you. Again, you’re the author of Everyone’s in Sales, you’re the Everyone’s in Sales guy, you’re the sales culture guy permeating the company. Someone asked here, “Should that be our #1 priority right now?” and you touched on this throughout your presentation. There’s things going on, obviously we know what’s going on in the world and you made some great points here and we see this in all the webcasts we’re doing. Sales today, May 28th, 2020 may not be, “What do I got to get you to do?”, “Where are we with the deal, sir?” those types of things. It’s about being a professional which goes into the relationship, getting really good at speaking to the dot which two months ago most people weren’t really familiar with. A question comes in, “Is Everyone’s in Sales the main message that I should be pushing?” The person who asked that, they’re in sales, they’re actually a sales leader. What do you think?
Todd Cohen: Obviously I’m a biased respondent to that but absolutely because everything else is just more sales tactics and it’s not going to work. The only path we have to pure recovery is people, they’re the ones who are going to help us get over this. If we view our organization as the sales team being everybody and helping everybody understand what that means, then you build a different organization and then when people are ready to buy again, you can go back to your tactics again but right now it’s absolutely all about people and culture.
Fred Diamond: Todd, give us the top three things that our listeners should do today.
Todd Cohen: One, go to everybody in the organization and say thank you and find something that they did and point it out to them and how it helped them help you close a deal, that’s the first thing. Number two, call every client you’ve got, don’t email them and say, “Checking in, how are you feeling?” No, call them. “I’m checking in”, just suck it up, pick up the phone and Zoom them if you can, most people are thrilled to have some different human contact, you might be really surprised. Number three, don’t stop self-development. Read, read, read. I highly recommend – yes, I’m a shill but I think this book changed my life – Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, been around 30 years. If you can read this book and get it, you will understand intimately what it’s like to be on the other side of this thing. Folks, I base so much of my work on this book. Start a book club, call your clients and say, “How would you all like to read this book with me?” I actually have clients doing that right now, they’re getting together and they’re doing a business book club.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo