[E9a] Mindset Week: Bonus Episode – Richard Smith

On this very special episode I have Richard Smith from Refract.ai on with me and we discuss a follow up to the Watching Film Episode (#9).

We discuss why sales people don’t like receiving or asking for feedback, if sales professionals are actually ‘professional’, and the best traits for being the type of salesperson who wants to achieve success long term and understands ‘watching film’ is an important tool.

Enjoy this bonus episode as a part of Mindset Week on The Sales Experience Podcast

More information on Richard Smith:

Bio: Richard is Co-Founder and Head of Sales for Conversation Intelligence company Refract. He has a passion for helping sales people become more successful through coaching, personal development, and better understanding the science of sales.

You can find Richard:

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-smith-refract/

Twitter @richard_refract

Article that he mentioned in the episode – https://www.refract.ai/blog/sales-coaching-the-disconnect-epidemic

More information on Refract:

Website – www.refract.ai

Twitter @refract_ai

LinkedIn Company Page – https://www.linkedin.com/company/refract

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Episode 9a – Transcript

Jason: Welcome to a special bonus episode of the sales experience podcast. My name is Jason Cutter, I have a fun guest on the show today, his name is Richard Smith. He lives in Newcastle in the UK, half a world apart, half a time, half a world of time zones apart he runs a company called refract. Like I said in Episode one, I’m not very big on interview shows with long intros and setups and then also sales pitches.

So, Richard will give me a bunch of links, I’m gonna have a lot of stuff in the show notes that you can find him online on LinkedIn, his website, a lot of great videos and fun stuff. Richard welcome to the sales experience podcast.

Richard: Jason thanks for having me on. I’m pleased that you also accept foreigners on your podcast. So, I’m very delighted to be here.

Jason: Well you know what’s great about this is, not only are you the first guest on the show that because you’re outside the US, it’s now international. So, it’s the international sales experience podcast which is you know that may be partially why I wanted you to be on the show I don’t know.

Richard: Well, it’s always good to take things overseas and you know I think we can now call this officially a global podcast, so.

Jason: Yeah it’s like the second week which is awesome, so, I appreciate it, all right. So, the sales experience related conversation that I wanted to have with you is a round feedback. So, it’s mindset week on the podcast this week and it’s segues perfect into what you and your company do. I know when we were chatting on LinkedIn, I mentioned to you that I was doing an episode called watching film, and I could tell you were laughing during the chat. Tell me what your feedback your thoughts were when you heard that why was that funny?

Richard: Well, you know I think, if you look at any sort of profession in the world and you know let’s just take sport. And if you look at the top performing teams in any line of sport whether that’s solo place or golf players for example through to an NFL team. And one of the ways that they get better is by watching back, what they did you know. Oftentimes this is called kind of playing back the game tape and ultimately it’s how a lot of teams a lot of individuals become better at their craft.

Because they take the chance to literally watch back or listen back or observe what they did previously to look for ways to basically better themselves or even find the things that worked really well, so they can replicate those. And there’s no you know there’s, it’s not a coincidence that people at the top of their game in professional sports are doing this on a daily, if not regular basis it’s no wonder why coaches and the top coaches play back the game tape as part of, because of the kind of the foundations of how they can strategize and look for the you know look for those kind of fine-tuning and areas to improve.

So, I’ve before I started refract I long wondered why was the same approach to playing back tape and observing how we did things previously, why was that not being, why was that staying experience not coming into the world of sales. And I think kind of book speaks to a bigger problem that we call the sales profession as in we’re professionals, but many companies and many salespeople don’t actually act like professionals. And this new concept of actually playing back at the tape of sales conversations or listening or watching back to how we actually perform in real life selling situations is as crucial to improving in the world of sales, as it is to the NFL team preparing for their next game.

So, yeah you are kind of when you talked about this topic Jason, and I thought you know this is a really interesting concept. Because watching back the game tape is highly applicable in many other sectors and disciplines and is slowly working its wind at the field of sales too.

Jason: Yeah and I think it’s so fascinating when you really dive into it from a high level and you look at like you said how professional sports is operated as a profession with coaches and support staff the actual players. Everyone involved with the goal of winning with improvement, with overcoming challenges. And you look at anything similar which is like the profession of being a doctor, a lawyer, maybe a professional actor, you know could be on stage or could be in movies. Where there’s so much rehearsal, there’s so much practice, there’s training, there’s requirements there’s scripting.

Let’s say there’s a process and then you look at sales and sales like you said, it’s called the sales profession, but how many are really run professionally. And I know you know a lot of the topics I talk about as well with companies with people and post is about training. I mean you know in a lot of other professional organizations there’s training that’s done and it’s structured with sales doesn’t seem to be that way. And so when you take that even further in watching film, it just doesn’t seem to happen. Why, you know I have my thoughts on it, but why do you think that doesn’t happen so much in a sales organization where they don’t treat it like a profession where feedback is critical?

Richard: I just think that there’s been a mentality in sales for so long which is kind of you know we all just figure it out as we go along and we all make loads of mistakes until we find the winning formula. And I think traditionally that’s kind of got companies by yet, in the modern age where the competition is so fierce you know, so many products and services are on the face of it, so similar. It’s becoming increasingly hard for buyers to really understand why they should choose one product over another, because they all look and feel the same. They all have the same value propositions, they all have the same features and functionality and service levels and all the rest of it.

And so the one thing that every sales organization should be acknowledging today is that, no longer is the product going to do the selling for them, it’s actually how their salespeople sell which is their key differentiator. It’s in how their sales teams improve the quality of conversations, they’re having with buyers, how they’re helping buyers make buying decisions who buys, who maybe are confused, who need education who need their eyes open as to why certain products and services are valuable. So, I think traditionally Jason this has just been a you know much like many people in sales they kind of wing it.

And I think that’s how a lot of organizations have kind of got by but things and times are changing. And until I think companies are slowly starting to realize that until they truly look to understand how their sales people are selling, how they can look for those fine-tuned, fine-tuning moments how they can give feedback to their salespeople to become to become better, until they start to really do that they’re going to be left behind. And I think that’s the kind of the critical stage in life that we’re at today is that, this is what should be front and center of every single sales organizations mind.

Jason: Well and I think it’s interesting how well a company can do without a structure, without a plan, without you know feedback, training, development all of those parts that you mentioned and just what goes into a sailor’s agent. Whether it’s business-to-business sales which is you know mostly what your focus or a lot of your clients are, mine is business to consumer so direct to consumer either way. But it’s interesting how many companies survive you on the backs of tearing through a lot of reps.

So if you’re a salesperson listen to this you know if you’ve been in the business for a long time or any length of time, you’ve either come and gone from one organization to another or you’ve been in one place and you’ve seen co-workers come and go, maybe at mass volume. And you know I think that’s how they get by. I think that’s you know unfortunate for the salespeople who if they were nurtured if they were given the proper tools could get where they want to get to.

Richard: Yeah, I think it’s a really salient point you make about the impact of feedback on retention. I did a survey towards the back end of last year which came off the back of me, reading the results of a report which identified the disconnect between salespeople and sales management. When it comes to coaching, the top level summary of the report was that less than 40 percent of the salespeople interviewed said that, they receive any coaching whatsoever any feedback from their managers whatsoever.

Yet over 80% of the managers that were interviewed, all happily said are we coach our salespeople all the time. So, there’s this massive disconnect between what salespeople are feel they’re getting from their managers and what their managers are actually saying. And the survey that I did looked at the impact of what this is causing, and yes there’s the impact of a lack of coaching and feedback happening in an organization is poor sales performance reps not meeting quota.

But the biggest problem that companies that I asked and felt was that the biggest knock-on impact of this was down to the retention of their sales reps and retention of high performers. And you know the modern day particularly Millennials coming through, they wats to know that they’re the job that they’re doing they’re gonna be getting improved, they’re gonna be getting feedback. And if they don’t then they’re not gonna hang around for long, and they’re gonna go and look for a company who was actually going to give them it. And we all know the cost of hiring and hires that don’t work out, it’s a huge number and for companies to deal with.

So, they need to understand that the wait retaining, salespeople that reach the wait retaining their highest performers is by building in a culture of feedback and coaching into their, in the best sales organization.

Jason: So why, let’s talk about reps for example on the sales side. Why do you think somebody would not want the feedback?

Richard: Yeah, it’s a good question. So, I think probably look at this from a couple of different levels what from my experience. I’ve often seen sales people being reticent to receive feedback because it sounds like a harsh word. but it’s arrogance, it’s a feeling that they can’t get any better, but you know I’m an experienced salesperson I’ve been doing this job for years why should I receive any feedback, I can’t be, I can’t get any better. I think that is ultimately a poisonous, it’s a poisonous mentality to have an it any sales organization of feeling that we can’t get better as a sales team that we have salespeople, who will resist feedback, because they feel like they know it all.

On the flip side people who are reluctant to receive feedback in is that, they they’re not coachable. They don’t respond well to constructive feedback or they’re reluctant they accept feedback but they were looked into try and put that into place, again you have a risk of a poisonous culture there. Because the time and effort that sales management are putting into giving feedback to help make their salespeople better, if that’s not being practice then they’re going to become stagnant the salespeople are going to continue doing what they’ve always done and you’re essentially wasting valuable and coaching time which is already at a premium for sales management.

And I think the solution to solving that problem actually stems from a much earlier on from the point of recruitment. I think companies and this is one of the things that we measure against it refract when we hire salespeople is one of the big metrics we measure against is coach ability, the sales person’s willingness and enthusiasm to accept feedback to put it into practice. That’s one of the things that we measure against, and I think that’s what every company who take this seriously should be should, also be looking to do at the point of hiring.

Because you know you get the wrong person on who’s not coachable, who doesn’t respond well to feedback, if you hire that person it’s very difficult to change that mentality once you’ve got them on board.

Jason: And that I couldn’t agree more anyone listening to this who’s listened to the other episodes this week knows episode 7 was open and willingness. And I know that’s the number one thing I’ve seen, so it’s interesting that you, you know mention that unprompted and unscripted in advance as far as what the answer is. Because I know for my side with everyone I’ve seen come and unfortunately go in the sales career and sales business is that, they have to be coachable, open and willing it’s funny.

I have a story I tell a lot of people especially new hires, and sometimes in you know when I’ve done recruiting, meetings, interviews with potential candidates, you know there’s a story I tell where I was at an organization, we had a script, we had a process. The script was very much designed to help new people get success and learn the process and then evolve away from having to be scripted, right. So, the script isn’t a tool because we know it works. And I remember it was this guy second day in training and he walks up to me.

And I wasn’t his trainer I wasn’t his manager I was a bit higher up, but he basically walks up to me and says I like your script, I think it could be good but I already know what I’m doing, so I can’t wait to just throw that aside and do my own thing, because I know what I’m good at. And he didn’t make it two weeks, because he wasn’t open and willing and he couldn’t work within what we knew worked over the phone, he wanted to do it his way and his way didn’t work. And it’s fascinating, I mean this is the part that you know a lot of people don’t want to talk about it. It’s kind of harsh but you know if you’re moving from sales organization, the sales organization and you’re changing and you’re at a new company at a certain point.

It’s kind of like relationships right it’s not them it’s you, what is it about that you’re doing like if your way work you would have been at the original company crushing it or sitting on a beach somewhere on your big pile of money because you are so good. And now sometimes it’s organization sometimes you have to change it, sometimes things happen and it’s not a good fit but you know that openness that willingness that coach ability like you said is so important. And then setting it up from the beginning where you know the company says, we’re gonna give you feedback and then here’s the feedback and it’s gonna be constant.

And you know like I always say everyone hates hearing themselves, I hate hearing myself. I record these podcasts and then I basically publish them because I don’t want to listen to it, I don’t edit I don’t go through it. And so everyone hates hearing themselves but it’s a necessary evil when it comes to improving, and basically watching that film.

Richard: Yeah, I think one of my favorite course I’ve heard, this year was somebody that said, if you hate listening to yourself so much why do you think your customers or prospects should listen to yourself. I think was a really salient point that I heard once and it’s it just kind of rings true that if we hated listening back to ourselves on the phone to such an extent that we simply refuse to do it, then how does that, what do we think our customers think about how we sound. And I think ultimately it’s one of those things that nobody ever really likes the sound of their own voice. But it’s just because you’re not used to it.

And but I was gonna ask you a question Jason, you know we talked about like coach ability there and I talked about the importance of companies’ kind of measuring that to reduce those problems down the line. I mean what methods have you seen in companies trying to implement in order to measure, how coachable somebody is in that kind of interview recruitment process as that’s often I think one of the big challenges I often see a lot of companies struggling with?

Jason: You know what I’ve found is what works really well, this is the important tip for any sales leaders or managers listening. So, I found it’s a two stage approach, the first one is that you’ve got to understand a baseline of what works for your organization. So, what I’ve done is used third-party testing behavior, personality attributes and also some skill testing. And then figured out what the right combination is by testing the current staff of all the sales reps that I’ve had in my organization, that I have.

All of them not just the good ones not, okay here’s the five top reps let me test them but all the reps, and then compare those results literally doing data analytics versus actual performance results. And draw the line in the sand between the performers and the non-performers that are meeting expectations exceeding. And then basically develop what that looks like what that personality makeup, how open somebody is based on the testing. And then literally every new candidate comes through the door giving them that testing, so that I can see how they stack up.

And if they fit the mold of what, I know can work you know plus or minus some you know percentage wiggle room. Because people are people and you know it’s those sometimes they’ll surprise you.

Richard: Yeah, I know I love that approach to testing. I think testing in an assessment is part of the recruitment process is so valuable. It’s kind of shows you things which you can’t always see in an interview and is kind of up brings a bit more science to the equation rather than just judging somebody based on you know an hour and a half oral interview. One of the things that we do here to measure the salespersons receptiveness to feedback and coach ability, it refracts is I do this in an exercise where we will play out a sales call, or I will act as the prospect. And get the salesperson who act as the salesperson, will record that call will then play the call back together.

And I’ll give them feedback and the proof is in the pudding as to whether then we do the call a second time around and to see did they put into practice the feedback that I’ve given them or do they just ignore it. And then oftentimes that’s a one of the telling signs of the sales person’s willingness to accept feedback which can sometimes be quite critical feedback. But importantly how do they take that feedback and actually put in a practice. And that’s I found that to be a very effective way of measuring that upfront.

Jason: That’s brilliant and I can see that that would work amazingly well. Because that’s literally testing for what you want. You could throw out everything else in the interview process and just do that. And obviously I’m gonna put a bunch of links in here you know the program, the software that you have obviously helps facilitate that which is amazing. But yeah, that would be if you want openness, willingness, coach ability then literally does some kind of mock call or go through something give them feedback see if they improve. And before you even said that you did the second part which is do a second call to see if they’ve improved, I was just imagining doing a call playing it back.

And if you’re face to face with them giving that feedback and watching their reaction and sharing to do it their defensive or not. And for anybody that’s listening to this that’s a salesperson you know obviously I’m all mindset focusing on that this week openness, willingness as Richard says being coachable. You know it’s letting go of that ego and that survival mechanism and your primitive brain that’s kicking in that wants to keep you safe. But safes not gonna get you to where you really want to be in your life and achieving what you could be with your life.

And so if you’re a salesperson make sure you focus on that, if you feel that defensiveness kick in when you’re watching film when someone’s giving you feedback when someone’s playing back you and then pointing out the things you did that didn’t work, right. It’s something that’s good or bad just didn’t work in that time. Just notice what your reaction is and what your feeling is at in that moment.

Richard: Yeah, and its funny Jason, but I’ve actually had a new sales develop and representative start my team today. Hit they’re fresh out of college this is their first sales role, you know no experience in sales but you know they showed in the interview process that they had the right mindset, the right coach ability levels the right ability to accept feedback. And you know these are the kind of things that you know if you demonstrate that even if you haven’t got sales experience that can you sure that you’ve got the right behaviors and mindset to become successful in sales.

You’ve got the right willingness; the skills will come but part of the battle is just demonstrating that you’ve got the right will total in. And when I sat down with him today you know I kind of went through here am I, so I’ve got like a slide that I go through with every new salesperson who joins the team and I I have almost like ten tips to success to sales success at refract. And there’s nothing in there that I’d say is groundbreaking, but one of the, number one I think it’s number five on the list is embrace feedback and don’t feel bad about it. Because the salespeople that I’ve seen in my career, he wants success who weren’t successful of the ones who were defensive, who push back on feedback, who thought that they knew a better way.

And it’s the battle that only leads to as you say, it’s stagnation and also just too poor cultural in the organization. And it’s just getting people to understand that feedback even though sometimes they might feel negative as long as the expectations from the organization have been set up front that the whole purpose of giving feedback is all about want to make you more successful, want to help you make more Commission. Then embrace it and put into practice and the more successful salespeople, I’ve worked with are the ones who’ve been able to do that really well.

Jason: And I think it’s important like you said to set that expectation upfront and then follow through with it. And it’s interesting you said that about the new hire, the new person out of college with no experience, you know I will tell you based on everything I’ve seen and done. Most of the time I would rather have somebody with some customer facing experience and this is good if you’re in sales or you’re thinking about getting in sales. Like this is a really important team for my side is, if you’ve done something with the public it could be customer service. Maybe you worked in a restaurant maybe you worked in retail at the mall you’ve done something that involves some people, so you’re comfortable enough having conversations.

But you’ve never really done a sales job especially an either phone sales or like a face-to-face whether it’s you know working in a call center or selling cars or you know whatever it might be is that, I always prefer that kind of person who is hungry and open and wants to make a career out of it and learn and read and digest. And it’s just a blank canvas with no bad habits, versus the person who’s been selling for 20 years that I know is going to be a battle every day to get them to work within the framework of the organization’s structure of what works for sales or what’s compliance or what’s required or the steps.

So, if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking about getting into sales, you’re not sure about sales or you’re new and you and you are kind of struggling that this it’s all about that mindset. And if you’ve been in sales for a long time and I’ve seen some of these people well which is always awesome is where they’ve been in sales for 10, 15, 20 years. And they’re super open and they’re hungry and they want to take all the awesome stuff that they know how to do, and then just aim those bullets at a new process to make that successful.

Richard: Yeah totally agree Jason, and you know if there’s one thing I just to kind of piggyback on talking to salespeople out. There is you know you don’t have to be the most experienced person in the world to be successful in sales. If you’ve got the willingness to learn the ability to accept embrace feedback the ability to ask for feedback on a regular basis is quite key as well and not be afraid to ask for feedback, and then you the skills will come. And but it’s much harder to teach the skills to somebody who is resistant to feed back who doesn’t have that mindset.

And again the most successful salespeople that I’ve worked with in my career have been the ones that have embraced it. And it’s kind of like this concept of marginal gains of like, how can I just get like one percent better every single day. And you do that by even if every day you just asked your manager what’s the one thing that I could do better today and that would make me 1% better than yesterday, what could I do differently, how could I optimize this, how could I improve that.

Though if you have that mentality you will be a success in sales, whether it’s with your current company or your future companies but you know that’s one thing that I can almost say and without any shot of it, that’s the route to success.

Jason: Alright so that segues perfect back into you what kind of started our conversation which was watching film. And which obviously and I mentioned this in one of the podcast this week as well that you know that dates me and makes me old. Because obviously it’s not film anymore and we don’t videotape anything. And so forth, but when we’re talking about the concept of watching film obviously you have your expertise in what you know works on your side, because of your technology. As a manager giving feedback and as a rep to receive the feedback or to get it in a certain format, what do you think works best?

Like listen to this recording here you go here’s some things to listen for or look for, you know without a complete plug of what your software does which is it’s fine I’m gonna put links in there. But like on the tactical basis on the ground roots level, like what’s the best way to transfer the feedback from that sales manager to that sales rep and for the sales rep to absorb it and then put it into practice.

Richard: Yes, there’s different things that we see, people implementing here and I think ultimately the route that you choose really depends on your sales team and your general kind of approach to this, and what you find to be most effective with the reps in your team. I see some customers that we work with and they really encourage getting reps to actually self, give themselves feedback before they look to invite their managers. So, they will actually you know they will literally play back one of their own sales calls and almost go through the call them self and pinpoint the moments in the call, where they thought they did things well or where they thought they could do things differently.

Why that’s so powerful is actually and this kind of ties into coaching in general is one of the things in coaching is not just giving the salesperson all the answers is actually letting them kind of trying to figure it out themselves. And oftentimes we are very capable of picking out at least one or two things in a call that we feel we could have done differently just by self-reflecting. Self-reflection being one of the most powerful things that changes behaviors quickly. It’s kind of understanding and realizing ourselves what we could have done differently that would have had a better outcome.

And they will then share their thoughts with the manager and the manager will then give them will basically share their thoughts as to how much do they agree with the salesperson and what they’ve already identified and is there anything additional that they would add to that to that kind of feedback list. It may be that you know a lot of the times salespeople don’t know where they could have done, where they could have done things differently. You know they you might come off a sales call, the sales calls gone dreadfully wrong. But you can’t really point to the moment or why the call took went so badly.

And that’s where inviting the feedback from a manager to listen to that conversation to give point is to provide suggestions to ask questions about things that we were doing at certain points of that conversation or certain things that we missed or didn’t say or the way that we responded getting that feedback from the manager can just bring that realization very quickly to the sales person. It’s almost like, you know I had an example of this recently with one of my own team members, who came off a call last week.

She’s just started learning to do kind of more later stage discovery conversations in the sales process and you know we came off the call and she said, I said how did it go and she said well it was okay and I said okay. So, when you say okay, what do you mean by that, she’s well I saw the five out of ten said well what do you think could have made it a seven out of ten. And she said to be honest I really don’t know it just was one of those where you know I kind of couldn’t really point to where I you know I know I could have done things differently. I just don’t know where and I was able to just you know play back those key moments and kind of make herself realize the things that she could have done differently.

But I think feedback is important that it’s delivered in the right way as well. Often times feedback can come across, can be received or perceived in the wrong way. And feedback can sometimes be perceived as too negative. And so I think it’s important for managers to still embrace a coaching conversation and where they’re sat down with a salesperson and the manager is busy talking through the moments of the call of where they could have done things differently. Asking questions to help the salesperson, kind of elaborate or give their input. And just making sure sometimes that you know feedback when it’s given over in a text format can sometimes and not, the consumers lack context.

And oftentimes just having that coaching conversation with the salesperson can just make sure that it’s all received in the right way with the right meaning behind it.

Jason: Yeah and I know from myself whenever I’ve given feedback like obviously they’re setting the expectation upfront, in the recruiting, in the hiring, in the onboarding, in the training process. Like even once they start working with leads and prospects whether it’s on the phone or face to face is setting the expectation of the feedback that I give will be with the purpose of helping them win and doesn’t come my ego. So, as a Sales Leader, it’s not about me needing to feel good by putting you down or criticizing you, it’s literally from in my heart. I want you to be successful, I know it could work, I know what it does take to make it work and be successful to sell something whatever it is.

Because anytime I’ve ever sold or managed a team, it’s I’ve always started out by selling it first, a while to understand it. So, I know what works I know what it takes I know how to deal with people and so my feedback is really to help them win, it’s not about an ego right. Like a professional coach who’s giving a player feedback to help them win. It’s not about I’m the coach you’re not, it’s not like I’m the parent you’re the kid you listen to me or else and I’m in charge or else which I know there’s some sales managers out there who are like that.

And that’s probably a bunch of the industry is that the sales rep who was promoted to manager who has the ego and feels like they know more than everyone else, versus I just want you to win. And so I always preface everything with I’m gonna give you some feedback just so you know my goal is to help you win. It’s not about me it’s about you, like I could obviously hire more people the key is I want you to be successful if you’re supposed to. If you’re a rep listen to this obviously make sure that’s where the feedbacks coming from like you said.

And it could be a hundred percent harsh like you just totally sucked on that call, it was terrible here’s all the feedback doesn’t ever do that again. If it’s set up right you know you could still take that on because most likely you know the salesperson knows they did that incorrect. And on the feedbacks, I know for me a lot of times if there’s a script or a structure or a process that I know works that’s what has been taught and I know the rap has just deviated. I know a lot of times what I’ll do is say, listen to this recording grab your script or your outline or the bullet points of what you were supposed to do.

And what I want you to do is, as you listen to the call on this on this sheet of paper just highlight or mark everything that you did that you were supposed to do. And usually after listening to it, they’ll come back with a page that’s not very marked up or highlighted, because they just went on their own and they freestyled, and it didn’t work.

Richard: Yeah, no I think that’s a really valid and I just totally agree with your point there about setting the expectation upfront is so crucial to having feedback received in the right way. And making sure that the salesperson understands that the whole purpose of you getting feedback. It’s purely with the intention of helping them succeed get better and you know achieve more better results and that can be so crucial to the to the ongoing relationship they’re after.

Jason: Yeah and you mentioned it a little bit ago and I’ve seen this infrequently but when I did it was amazing and those raps always did well. Not always the top performer but they were consistent, they were professional, and they saw it as a career and whether it’s a lifelong career in sales or understanding that everything in sale everything in life is sales related and that it’s skills that add-on is what you said we’re reps who actually go to somebody else for feedback. Whether it’s a senior rep on the team or it’s a manager, assistant manager, a trainer going to somebody and saying, hey I’d like some feedback or I just got off this call.

I thought it should have gone well, it didn’t can you give me some feedback and let me know what happened, and see that I’m the person who’s hiding and shy and doesn’t want the feedback because they know it sucked and they just don’t want to get in trouble. But the person that knows you know the only way to get better is to be honest and get some honest feedback.

Richard: Totally agree with you, couldn’t put it better myself.

Jason: All right, well let’s end on that note then and like I said, I’m gonna put lots of information from Richard with this contact info, you could find them all over the place. Richard thank you for being my first guest on the sales experience podcast and making this now an international global podcast. I appreciate you and our connection online and chatting and the value of, basically what the Internet allows when used for good and not evil which is connecting with other professionals all around and then sharing information and helping everyone get better. So I appreciate it.

Richard: Yeah no problem Jason, I’ve lived some stuff on this too. So, it’s been at being really great.

Jason: Well, it’s interesting is that I talked a little bit about that, but you know obviously that I try to keep the show’s short. But you know it’s when you’ve gone through a lot of life and you’ve gone through a lot of things, no matter how old you are because life will just keep coming at you no matter what. You know you just realize what’s important, what’s not important then how you really want to help other people. So, I appreciate your time Richard and everything that you’re doing for the sales community.

Richard: Awesome, thanks so much Jason.

Jason: Appreciate it and for everyone listening, make sure to subscribe, check out the show to be show notes from Richard. Follow the other episodes, I’m gonna do me doing more of these bonus of guests to interview conversation, ones as they come up. But until next time always remember that everything in life is sales and people remember the experience you gave them.