Speaker 1: 0:00

The Surviving Outside Sales podcast, hosted by Mike O'Kelley, presented by Sales Builder Academy. The goal is to survive and thrive all phases of outside sales, whether you're getting in, dominating or getting out. Surviving Outside Sales. Now on with the show. Welcome to the Surviving Outside Sales Podcast. I'm your host, mike O'Kelley.

Speaker 1: 0:41

We're knee-deep in Q2, and so the things to think about, you know Q2, as we're getting close towards the summer months, we've got a major holiday coming up the next month, then we've got holiday season, you know, really Q1 and the first half of Q2, albeit for Easter holiday, and then Mother's Day weekend, of course there's spring break, but there's not a lot of disruption. Once you hit Memorial Day weekend, basically every month, there is a disruption of some sort for basically the rest of the year. And so this is kind of the period where the Q1, first half of Q2, where you can have a lot of consistency in being able to get meetings, et cetera. But once the weather starts turning warm, especially for most parts of the country the Northeast, the Midwest, even in the South, the cold winter months are over. If you're living in California, florida, arizona, areas of the country, the southernmost parts of the country that are warm year round. You're not seeing as big of an influx of travel. But here in the South, in the Carolinas, this April kicks off vacations, spring breaks, people traveling for Easter, and then the beach season is going to be in full swing, starting in May and it's going to last till after Labor Day, and so it's very important that you understand and you have that mindset of taking advantage of what you have in the moment in order to be successful. So that's kind of a preface, but today's talk is going to be about having that growth foundation Okay, having a growth foundation that you can build upon. That is building a relentless mindset and a brand that's going to grow your sales business without any type of fear like you're missing out, any type of fear that you're doing something wrong, and just knowing that your growth is going to be sustainable and you're going to have the ability to scale. So the first part about that is to build that relentless growth mindset and having that yes, mentality.

Speaker 1: 2:37

A lot of sales professionals I speak with and even executives of companies that I speak with, there is a bit of a limited mindset that things can't be done. There's always an issue that pops up that's too insurmountable that you can't overcome it. I can tell you this right now, having worked for small companies and having worked for large companies it does not matter what type of company you work for or the type of product that you represent You're going to have headwinds. There's always going to be something that can get in your way. The question is are you going to allow that to happen? Are you going to allow that to derail you and your business goals and your business vision?

Speaker 1: 3:18

Because that relentless growth mindset is something that is contagious but that comes back to your habits, your mindset, every single time. Do you see it half full, the glass, or do you see the glass half empty? There's always opportunity. It doesn't matter if you are in a blue ocean or you are in a red ocean. Hopefully you're in a blue ocean, but if you're in a red ocean, if you're in a crowded marketplace, there are still ways where you can scale your business. It happens all the time when you see companies come out of nowhere and they quote unquote disrupt the market or product that quote unquote disrupts the market. Well, how do they do that? They're disrupting the market because they come in with something that is innovative.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Somebody had that mentality that they were going to get it done and they were going to say yes. That is building that relentless growth mindset yes, always, yes. You say yes until you can't say yes anymore or you've overwhelmed yourself. That is how you're going to be able to expand the limits of your capability. But if you're butting up against your limits and you say no, and you keep saying no and you say, well, I've just tapped out, I can't grow my market anymore. That's not true. That's not true. You just have to come at from a different angle. You haven't topped out. You have to change things up. You have to grow. That is one of the first things that I've had. Some clients and I've talked to some companies, some executives, and they say, well, we've just we've plateaued.

Speaker 1: 5:02

Okay, there's a lot of aspects in your life where you might have plateaued. There's a lot of things that may have happened in your life that have you've plateaued. That means you have to start doing something different. If you've been on a weight loss journey and you plateaued, if you've been on a strength training journey and you've plateaued, are you just going to keep doing the same thing you're doing, banging your head against the wall and just saying, well, I guess, I guess this is, this is what I'm going to look like, or I guess this is um, how strong I'm going to be, or I guess this is how fast I'm going to be. No, you have to change it up. You have to push yourself. It's the same thing in the sales world and the business world in general, if you're waking up and doing the same thing every single day, year after year. That's why you've plateaued.

Speaker 1: 5:45

The environment around you has changed, but you haven't. The environment around you, the market around you has adapted, has adjusted, shifted, but you haven't. Your mindset hasn't shifted, but you haven't. Your mindset hasn't. So having that growth mindset, that relentless mindset, is the constant pursuit of adaptation and perfection. Remember, I've said it before You're never going to be perfect. Your sales pitch is never going to be perfect. You're nothing's going to be perfect. The scenarios aren't gonna be perfect, your market's not going to be perfect, your product's not going to be perfect, the timing's not going to be perfect. Nothing will be perfect. You've just got to have that mindset. That's okay. Every conversation you have with every prospect, every client, even every advocate, it's always about more. What can we do more? How can we grow? How can we keep pushing forward. It doesn't matter if somebody is in, is an advocate of your product or you. You're still asking for more.

Speaker 1: 6:44

This happened to me the other day that I was meeting with one of my advocates and I kind of asked him and I said um, you know, are we doing everything that we can possibly to to earn your business, earn your trust, earn your respect, so that you will go out and continue to recruit and continue to send people my way? He said earn your respect so that you will go out and continue to recruit and continue to send people my way? He said yeah, and I said great, I'm being stonewalled by somebody that you know, that you gave me the information. I'm being stonewalled. Can you help me? And I don't have to, I don't have to be cool. I'll just tell you the exact example.

Speaker 1: 7:16

So I was trying to get in with a golf course and the, the, the golf pro was kind of not responding to my messages, um, being very slow and being very vague, and it's not a place where I can just pop in. And so the person that sent me this, uh, this, uh, golf pros information uh, basically, it was one of our, one of our members, one of our clients and I said hey, I'm really struggling with this. Can you help? You know, can you reach out to this guy or can you talk to somebody else? And he said, well, yeah, my, my brother-in-law is on the board of the of the of the country club, so I'll just I'll talk to my brother-in-law and we'll sidestep this guy. Perfect, I could have sat back and just said you know what? You know, he did the best he could.

Speaker 1: 8:03

It just isn't meant to be. No, that is being relentless. I want to get into this golf course. I want to be able to have a relationship with them so that we can do events there. And so, if I'm being stonewalled, I'm going to leverage an advocate's relationship and just flat out say hey, re-institute, are you still an advocate for us? Do you still love what we're doing here? Are you still happy with this relationship?

Speaker 1: 8:27

Once I got that verbal yes, that's when I make the ask, that's when I close the deal and I say great, this is what I need for you to do. Can you do that? Sure, then all I have to do is just follow up. Now you have to understand when people are doing things for you. You're not as forceful. You know like this is going to take time, but that's the key thing about growth is you have to allow for the time.

Speaker 1: 9:01

It all starts, though, with a relentless growth mindset, not a sit back and just let things happen to you in your business or your territory. You've got to go out there and you've got to make things happen. It doesn't matter what type of product you have. You could have the number one product in the world that everybody is clamoring for, and I'm trying to think of one right now, and it's just uh, it's evading me, but, um, you have to go out there and go after what you want. You have to go out there and go after what you want, and the first thing that I talk to my clients about is building that relentless growth mindset, saying yes to opportunity, but also figuring out ways to push. You're going to have to push people. You got to be comfortable with pushing people. That's the first thing.

Speaker 1: 9:36

Change doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen easily. I mean, think about everything in your life that you haven't changed. If you've put on a little weight or you're not sleeping as well, well, think about it. Why haven't you changed? Why haven't you done? And everybody's guilty? Look, I'm staring at myself right now on the camera making this episode. I'm the same way At the beginning of the? Uh, making this episode. I'm the same way at the beginning of the year.

Speaker 1: 10:03

I looked myself in the mirror and I said, hey, I have to make a change, and one of the reasons why was for my health. But what I did was I uh, I tricked myself and I signed up for a Spartan race. So I did a Spartan race the past, this past weekend and, uh, it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do physically. Race the past, this past weekend and uh, it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do physically, and I used to be a professional athlete and this blew it out of the water. It was a 10 K super race and, uh, it was almost four hours on the course. It was the hottest day of the year not hot in in retrospect, but just hot considering right now. This morning woke up. It was 40 degrees, but it was 86 degrees and not a cloud in the sky last Saturday and last Saturday not yesterday, but the but or or. This Saturday, but the previous Saturday, and it was the hardest thing that I ever had to do.

Speaker 1: 10:52

But I had to change my mindset of just going to the gym and going through the motions. I had to train for something. So what I did? What did I do? I put an artificial motivator in place. The ticket was already purchased for the Spartan race. I had to do it so you could trick yourself into having a growth mindset. You could trick yourself into being relentless, whatever you've got to do. But that is one of the first steps towards scaling your business is building that strong foundation, and the first thing to do, the first step, is to build that relentless growth mindset. However, you have to do it. It's a yes mentality. It's a I'm going to do whatever it takes to get the job done mentality. What happens is it spills over into everything you do until it gets to the point where it is your being. It's who you are.

Speaker 1: 11:47

People that do business with me know that I am not satisfied with the status quo. I'm always pushing for more. I always have ideas to grow, and a lot of times in my sales career when I have struggled, it's usually because I've had a limited mindset. I kind of go with the flow. I keep doing things as they've always been done. Now that doesn't mean that once you find a process, it's just tried and true. But once you have gotten to a point where you're no longer putting effort towards growing, where you're no longer putting effort towards growing, you're not still putting effort towards perfecting your systems, your process, your habits, you're not trying to consistently move forward in scale, that's when you've gotten stagnant and that's usually where a lot of struggles come from. And sometimes you know the struggles come from being burnt out. It happens, it happens to everybody and that's okay. Even if you're burnt out, you can still refresh, reset your territory, refresh your energy, refresh your mind. You can do that. But the first step on that growth foundation, that is the relentless growth mindset.

Speaker 1: 13:05

If you want to talk more about the building a relentless growth mindset with me, I do offer a free 30 minute consultation. Just reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm redoing everything behind the scenes. I'm trying to get better. You know I practice what I, what I preach. I'm trying to get better. I'm trying to to streamline things. I'm trying to make it easier for people to get help, to have resources to get help. So if you want to have a conversation and see where you are, just reach out to me on LinkedIn DM me.

Speaker 1: 13:37

Um, I probably get five to six DMS a week. Um me, I probably get five to six DMs a week, and I don't, and I haven't even been been posting consistently on the podcast. I am going to make this a part of my my week again. I'm going to be doing this because I absolutely love it and I want to thank everybody who supported the podcast in the past all of the people, the people that I have met and spoken with. I am going to start having more guests in the future. I got to kind of ramp that up. Usually there's about a six to 12 week delay for most people because people are busy and, um, I can hop on here and do a solo episode whenever. Um, I have, you know, a spare 15 to 20 minutes, but getting a guest on here and talking about the sales world is a little bit more challenging. It takes a little bit more time. So, uh, but I will be doing that again because I've I've recently met a lot of great, talented people in the sales world and I want to have more discussions because it gives more insight and it helps more people out there. So, again, thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 14:32

Please share with a friend. Um, if you are on one of your platforms, I'd love to get a review. That helps the algorithm and it helps to share it with more people who are looking for it. So if you want to help your fellow outside sales professionals, um, please share. And then also, uh, you know, rate and review five-star is appreciated, um, but you know you can be honest. If you don't like what what I'm doing, just give an honest review, but five stars are the best, uh, so I'm going to ask for that. Again, reach out if you have any questions and we'll see you next time on Surviving Outside Sales. Cheers.