[E236] Security, Safety & Sales, with Zack Knight (Part 1)

Jason: Zach, welcome to the sales experience podcast. Zack: Jason, I appreciate you having me, my friend. Jason: I am really looking forward to this. And based on the intro that I did for you, it seems like a very fascinating kind of experience to have you on the podcast being in the military, prior police in working in combat situations, yet we're going to talk about sales. Zack: It's an interesting cross blending, but the applicability. We'll be there. I think it'll make a lot of sense to people. And there are so many lessons to take from the battlefield into the boardroom. And I think it'll be a fantastic conversation. Jason: I love that battlefield into the boardroom and whatever level somebody's at, whether it's in the boardroom or it's on a phone and they're trying to make sales. I think there's so many lessons when we talked originally prior to this, I was thinking, man, this is going to be so much fun, especially some intersections with what I've done in the past, but let's start with. Kind of one of the hot topics where usually I do evergreen shows where like anybody could listen to a show anytime in the future. They don't know necessarily when it took place because it's sales and sales related and it's everlasting. But obviously right now in the state of the world we have a couple of things going on in America. One is the coronavirus and one is the kind of tensions with the police and with our society. And so the first thing I want to do is talk about going back which is the police side that you had. So you're a police officer. You're in Atlanta. How long ago was this? Zack: The policing, I left at the end of 2016. And here in Atlanta, I was on the SWAT team here in Metro Atlanta. And there was a time in 2013 2014 before the current climate with protests where the incidents in Ferguson happened. Several incidents around the country happened. And about that same time, about a month after the incident in Ferguson happened, our SWAT team actually shot and killed a guy. He was a black male that led to the black lives matter movement, coming black Panthers, Jesse Jackson, you name it came to Atlanta with protests. So my involvement in that space started back probably in 2014 on the police department and ran all the way up until about last week with everything that happened here in Atlanta. Jason: And then here's the thing, right? So we're talking about sales. That's what you're here for. Obviously, this isn't a political podcast. It isn't even a society culture podcast. One of the things that's fascinating to me, and I knew this to be true, and then you confirmed it when we talked, was the act of selling slash persuading as a police officer, because one of the things anyone knows me, listen to my podcast, at the end of every episode, I say everything in life is sales, then that leads into how the hell is being a police officer or on SWAT related to sales. Zack: It's interesting because I never saw it as sales until I started my own business. And when you're in the middle of it, you don't think about selling yourself, right? You're there to, at least the good ones, are there to calm down a situation. And in the climate we're in currently, in the climate back in 14 15, As a bald white guy, as a cop in a area in here in Atlanta that has a very diverse background. What I didn't realize is that I was literally selling myself every single day to whoever I ran into. Whether that was a black male that was just a traffic stop, or there was a couple that had some sort of domestic violence issue or argument going on that we had to intervene in. I kind of correlate sales and leadership to both being based off of influence and be able to influence whoever you're speaking to, whether that's a client, the audience, whoever you're leading, I kind of correlate all of those into. The same genre, if you will, that's just a complete necessity for a police officer in order to stay alive. It's literally a life and death situation where if you don't sell yourself to these people, you can have a gun pulled on you, a knife pulled on you. I've had it happen because there were times where my sales, salesmanship wasn't the best. So you run into these situations where you start learning how to influence people with your behavior, with your mannerisms, with your body language. And all that directly translates into what I do now in business where you're selling your products, you're still selling yourself at the end of the day. Jason: And what's interesting when we really think about it and anyone in sales maybe think, okay, I'm selling this product or service and that's different than being a police officer dealing with somebody who might be upset or in a difficult situation or maybe in trouble. And there's always a point in a sales process where it breaks down and it fails, where if you're unsuccessful at selling something, you lose the deal, right? Or you have an upset prospect, or maybe you sign somebody up and then they complain or cancel. And there's that kind of issue. And then there's in the police kind of activity in that realm, to me, one of the things I thought of when you were talking is how they failed sales attempt, right? So persuading somebody to do some kind of action for themselves or for you, when that fails, then there's some kind of escalation that happens, right? Escalation of force. Escalation of issues to me. That is the result of a failed sales attempt in policing. Hey, it's Jason here. We'll be right back to the podcast, but first, are you ready to change the way you view your selling role and become a sales professional? Do you have a team that is hungry for new ways to improve and grow? If so, I have various coaching and consulting programs available that might be great tools to help you achieve your goals to learn more about the ways we can work together and to book your free sales power call, go to Jason cutter. com. Now let's get back to the episode. Zack: Yeah, a hundred percent. And it turns into honestly, looking back at it, some of the best sales training ground. Because if you don't sell yourself in the middle of a domestic violence situation and to outline the context for the audience, and hopefully you haven't been in these situations, but. You're going into somebody else's house, somebody else's background, culture, things that you don't necessarily understand, especially as a white male. If you're going into a black community that has a household that's a husband, wife, and several kids, and they have a totally different culture than you, you're walking into this situation and you have to defuse it. And if you walk in and the wife has a busted lip It's one of those that the male, who could be the breadwinner, could be literally the foundation of the household, has to go to jail by law. And you have to figure out a way to sell yourself, sell them into handcuffs, and avoid any type of escalation of force, because you don't want something like that to happen in front of the wife and the kids, right? And a failed salesmanship in that piece ends up in a fight of some sort where they resist or they try to get away from going to jail. Or as we've seen more often in recent media, something worse, it escalates even further than that. So realistically, when you put that type of context around salesmanship, it's a great training ground to learn how to. Sell yourself, which is directly translated into my consultancy where I'm literally selling myself and my background every day. And if you can take that same mindset into salesmanship or saleswomanship, if we will, and really put that context around the words life or death to make this sale, you bring so much different passion and enthusiasm into the situation. That's the authenticity that people are looking for, right? What are you passionate about selling? If you can bring that into it, it's it's life or death that you make the sell and you're going to just keep hitting them with this authenticity. That's a no lose situation, which is just perfect for you and the client. Jason: And what's even more interesting, and I'm thinking about it and There's a lot of people in sales where they're either afraid of doing things a certain way because they don't want to be that person, right? They don't want to be the bad salesperson everyone's afraid of. Or they're already that person in sales and they're struggling to get results because they're doing it in a way that's not conducive. And they don't usually realize it. But if you look at police interactions, especially now that most things are recorded, you can see it, you can watch the replays, people have had different interactions. No matter who you are, what race you are, you've had some interaction with the police. If you're old enough, there's something that's happened. Whether it's a speeding ticket to something more serious. And the police that seem to be in trouble or seem to be highlighted are the ones that are very confrontational. Very forceful, very much like it's my way or the highway and they're going at it that way, which correlates like, again, this is a sales podcast, correlates to the salespeople I see that are not effective longterm who do the same thing. They're confrontational with their prospects. They're trying to be forceful. They're trying to control the situation. They're not following any process like rapport and empathy. They're just going for the jugular. They're trying to go for the sale. And it's fascinating because again, we can see what the terrible ramifications are when policing goes wrong. Sales reps detach themselves from that a lot of times and don't see it in themselves. Zack: Yeah. It's interesting. The toxicity of a pushy salesperson. Nobody likes that. I don't like it. I don't like being sold to nobody likes being sold to, or having that. I don't know if you've gotten it, the LinkedIn here lately. My LinkedIn has been going crazy and getting random phone calls about a pushy extended warranty for my Tacoma. Like all this silly stuff that's happening during Corona and this shutdown that's happened, people have like upped their sales game into just like being desperate. And I feel like that's what happens if you're being pushy. It kind of pushes over that desperation and exhibits that desperation that nobody likes. So if you can have that influence, that calming demeanor to keep that conversation flowing and it's really like the gift of gab. That's why I think the biggest thing that I learned from the law enforcement side of things was the gift of gap, how to talk yourself out of a really unfavorable situation into a favorable situation. That's really all sales ends up being at the end of the day is how do you just chat until. You get to a favorable situation and the client gets a favorable situation. And at the end of the day, I don't necessarily believe in win scenarios, right? Or win for me, lose for you. I am all about a no lose where you can't lose. I can't lose. Here's the situation. Bottom line up front. We call it in the military, we call it bluff bottom line up front, where I'm just going to tell you straight up, here's the authentic truth behind what I'm offering, what the price is going to be. And take it or leave it. And that's like a beauty of what I've learned in businesses and from law enforcement. Take or leave it. Here's the deal. And this is what you're going to get or what you're not going to get. Jason: All right, that wraps up part one of my conversation with Zach Knight. Again, go to CutterConsultingGroup. com where you can find the podcast show notes. You can find all of Zach's links before we get to the final part of our conversation. If you want to get in touch with him, you literally can't wait till the fourth part. Make sure to check him out. He is an amazing force and shares so much great value. I just appreciate him so much. Make sure to check that out. Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to this so that you can get every part each day that it goes live. As always, I appreciate you listening, but always remember that everything in life is sales and people remember the experience you gave them. Zack: Thank you for listening to the sales experience podcast. Find show notes, more episodes, and join our email list by going to cutter consulting group. com forward slash podcast.