How to Grow by Going for NO to Get to YES, with Andrea Waltz [Episode 300]

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Joining me on this episode is Andrea Waltz, Founder of Courage Crafters, keynote speaker, and co-author of the book, Go for NO! YES Is the Destination, NO Is How You Get There. Today, Andrea and I discuss the real meaning of the word ‘no’, the cultural bases for the fear of failure, and how to rapidly grow your sales by getting to ‘yes’ after a long day of ‘no’.

Key Takeaways

• Why you have to fail more in order to innovate, to take chances, and to take risks.
• How to start reprogramming the way you feel about rejection. How do you react internally, and how do you react externally? Do you give up sales for the day?
• We have physiological reactions to the word ‘no’, but there’s also a cultural aspect we need to understand.
• Andrea describes two actions we take that really sabotage us: we make assumptions, and prejudge what someone else is going to do.
• Don’t just get the “no, we’re not interested,” but qualify or disqualify the contact, get the real no — find out why they are not interested.
• Andrea’s rule is to set a number for the no’s you will collect on any given day. Celebrate your activity, rather than just the outcome. Make it fun.
• Andy states you can control activities, you can’t control outcomes — so manage your activities.
• Andrea discusses the funny stories, and great training she found in Secrets of Closing the Sale, by Zig Ziglar.
• If you succumb to feelings of personal rejection when you get a ‘no,’ Andrea recommends that you read The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz,
• Manage the objection. Is it really ‘no’ (which is fine), or do they need more information or have questions?
• How ‘no’ is a perfectly acceptable answer, especially if you get it early. And how Andrea uses her disqualification model.

More About Andrea Waltz

What’s your most powerful sales attribute?

Belief in my product.

Who is your sales role model?

Gary Vaynerchuk.

What’s one book that every salesperson should read?

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book), by Don Miguel Ruiz.

What music is on your playlist right now?

Thirty Seconds to Mars, and My Chemical Romance.

Episode Transcript

Andy Paul (0:35): It’s time to Accelerate. I’m your host, Andy Paul. Join me as I host conversations with the leading experts in sales, marketing sales automation, sales process, leadership, management, training, coaching, any resource that I believe will help you accelerate the growth of your sales, your business and most importantly, you. 

Hello and welcome to Accelerate I am looking forward to talking with my guest today. Joining me is Andrea Waltz, Andrea is a keynote speaker, co-author of the best-selling book Go for No with the subtitle, Yes is the dentist’s destination, No is how you get there. And she is also the founder of Courage Crafters. Andrea, welcome to Accelerate.

 

Andrea Waltz (1:18)

Hey, Andy. It’s great to be with you.

 

Andy Paul (1:20)

Yeah. Well, thanks for joining me. So, take a minute to introduce yourself. How’d you start your own journey to where you are now?

 

Andrea Waltz (1:26)

Kind of a wild journey. I got a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice–

 

Andy Paul (1:32)

Oh, my daughter did as well.

 

Andrea Waltz (1:34)

Oh yeah?

 

Andy Paul (1:36)

So, there is hope for her, that is what you are saying?

 

Andrea Waltz (1:38)

There is. Yeah, hopefully she’ll actually do something with it. I however, did not. I wanted to be a crime scene investigator back before all of the television shows were so popular.

 

Andy Paul (1:48)

So, you weren’t inspired by CSI Las Vegas?

 

Andrea Waltz (1:52)

Right. No. I guess I was probably inspired by Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs. That was my interest, however, one of the things that was required was to start as an intern, low person on the totem pole and work your way up. And I really wanted to make money after getting out of college. And so at the time, I was working my way up through Lenscrafters and I was assistant manager, and then a retail store manager, and then a general manager of the whole operation, and eventually was dabbling in training. I met my husband and business partner we decided to launch a training company, a speaking and training company to teach our Sales Customer Service Management philosophies. And that is the direction I ended up going into, not something I had ever planned. But as it turns out, I love doing it.

 

Andy Paul (2:49)

So, what was the sort of epiphany if there was one about this realization about Go for No. Maybe start just telling people what the basic philosophy of Go for No is.

 

Andrea Waltz (3:01)

Well, the basic philosophy of Go for No is to intentionally increase your failure rate. And it applies really, to almost everything. It certainly is a sales philosophy, and it’s probably the thing that we teach most often in sales, but it’s also in fundraising, and innovation, it’s that whole idea of failing your way to success and understanding that you have to fail more in order to hear more yeses, you have to fail more in order to innovate and take those chances and take those risks. What happened was, after we launched our company, and we were doing training and we were training on all different ideas and strategies and topics, the Go for No strategy was the thing that resonated with our customers. You know, they always say listen to your customers, they will tell you what they love—

 

Andy Paul (3:57)

Funny how that works, right?

 

Andrea Waltz (3:58)

Exactly. And so, we started. We would go into break rooms at different places and we would see posters that said Go for No, we said, “okay, there’s something to this, we need to focus on this particular topic.” And that’s what we did, we wrote the little 80-page fable that teaches the philosophy in a story in a kind of a fun way. And really, the whole goal is to help salespeople and really anyone who wants to achieve something, who has to ask, who has to put themselves in a position of hearing that word, no. To go for it to go for no. And that’s the that’s the basis for that title.

 

Andy Paul (4:36)

So, fear of failure is in itself the biggest cause of failing then, that’s what you’re saying,

 

Andrea Waltz (4:43)

Yes, exactly. And we’re saying hey, fail more, and we all were wonderful failures as children, we failed at everything we tried, persisted, pushed through it, took the lessons that we learned, got creative, change things up and got better; and yet as adults, I think whether you are an entrepreneur or a salesperson or what have you, what happens is it’s kind of this feeling of, hey, I have to be perfect. I’ve got to do it all perfectly right out of the gate, there can’t be any flubs, there can’t be any missteps, and that’s just not realistic. And that’s what I think keeps a lot of people from even getting started.

 

Andy Paul (5:25)

Yeah, we all experience failure at some point. And what you’re saying is let’s embrace this because this is what teaches us what will be successful for us

 

Andrea Waltz (5:37)

Exactly.

 

Andy Paul (5:38)

We start dig down; is there physiological reactions we have to hearing no? I mean, something that is socially ingrained in us or ingrained in our DNA? This fear of failure is nurtured in us somehow.

 

Andrea Waltz (5:53)

Well, yeah, there is. And I have studied this in depth. Since this became our expertise, we call ourselves “rejectologists” or failure philosophers. I studied everyone.

 

Andy Paul (6:12)

Expert in failure.

 

Andrea Waltz (6:13)

Expert in failure.

 

Andy Paul (6:14)

Put that tagline in there and it won’t sell very well.

 

Andrea Waltz (6:16)

Yeah, I don’t know. Well these days there’s almost a backlash because failure has become– I think some people see it as “oh, we’re, we’re getting to, we’re falling too in love with this whole idea of failing.” And I see this written up sometimes in various magazines and on various blogs, “settle down, let’s not get too excited over failure. It’s not that wonderful.” And certainly, there are clearly ramifications. I mean, people lose investors’ money, people lose businesses, people’s hopes and dreams are dashed. However, that’s not to say that it’s just inevitable and you have a choice. You can either kind of live in mediocrity and not and not take some chances and risk or, you can shoot for the moon and hopefully you are successful in some way. So, I think in all the studying I’ve done there is a physiological reaction. I mean, the bottom line is this goes way back into human biology of not wanting to be thrown out of the tribe, not wanted to be rejected by our peers. And that really, if you get thrown out of the tribe, when you’re depending on kind of teamwork for survival, that rejection is not good. And so biologically, I think we’re wired to avoid rejection, to not have that happen. And so, there is a kind of a gut feeling to avoid that risk, to avoid that rejection. And so, you have that and then you layer in more modern feelings of wanting that perfection, wanting that approval from other people, not wanting to be judged by other people, not wanting to be seen as a failure. So, all of those things working in concert affect people at various levels, sometimes there’s some social anxiety or just some general fear about being– talking to strangers picking up the phone and cold calling. So, all of these things layer into it. And over the 10 years I’ve focused on this seriously and really studied this in detail and looked at it, people have this to all types of varying degrees and so it’s really up to them to kind of pick it apart and to start doing what Richard and I say, which is to start reprogramming the way you think and feel about that rejection because that feeling is a big part of it. It’s how you feel about it. And then for salespeople is how you react. One of the things I asked all the time is, when you get a “no”, how do you react internally and in your mind? So, what do you say to yourself? When you get that rejection and you say, “oh, wow, I’m doing terrible today, and this is not working out?” And then also, what do you do externally in your actions? How do you react? Do you stop making calls for the whole day? Do you just you— “that’s it. I’m not contacting anyone else; I’m taking the day off from selling.” When you have those reactions then you know it’s an issue because obviously, from a productivity standpoint, sometimes it can be, “okay, I’m taking the rest of the day off from selling, I’ll get involved in some paperwork and do different things.” And then the next day, it becomes harder. And the next day it becomes harder. And then you end up in this whole call reluctance cycle. That’s kind of hard to get out of.

 

Andy Paul (9:50)

Yeah. Well, actually, that’s one thing I want to get to eventually as we talk about call reluctance. Let me take a step back before I do that, though. So, we have the physiological reaction, would you say it’s ingrained in our DNA because we didn’t want to come an outcast in our tribe, we depended on being a part of it for our survival, if you will. But it seems that there’s a cultural aspect of it as well. We seem to be very fortunate here in the US at least, there is a culture that’s more accepting a failure, or do you think that’s not? I mean, certainly, we have a risk tolerance in certain segments of our economy that are not enjoyed by other countries.

 

Andrea Waltz (10:32)

Yes, yes.

 

Andy Paul (10:33)

So it is completely segmented, or is it sort of a broader acceptance across our society that– Horatio Alger and all these other tales that have come up that as a people as a culture, we accept risk taking and failure more than other cultures do?

 

Andrea Waltz (10:51)

Yes, we do. Absolutely. And we have made– as I was kind of alluding to great strides in that, as I said in the center, some people should grin, actually. Or they think, we’ve gone too far extolling the virtues of failure. I haven’t. And that’s mostly because I see that that the fear of failure still holds so many people back. I think maybe in Silicon Valley some people feel that way. Culturally though, absolutely. Our society here in America, for sure. And we’ve spoken in England, mostly. We haven’t really done a lot of international, I haven’t been to Asia, different places like that, so, I can’t speak on some of that. Although I’ve read that in places like Switzerland, failure is just like– you don’t, failure just cannot happen. It is just not looked upon in a good light. And I know in England, everyone thought that the Go for No message was– they loved it, but it was also really scary for them because it is not something they do. And also, the funny thing about Britain is that they’re so polite, and they tell me this all the time. Everyone’s so polite, no one wants to say no, either. So, it’s just this constant push and pull, or trying to get people to— “hey, tell me now, so I can move on to the next prospect.”

 

Andy Paul (12:21)

So, people sort of think of this as sort of a uniquely American formulation.

 

Andrea Waltz (12:25)

I get the sense that they do absolutely, but it resonates. Go for No sells, at least on Kindle on Amazon, or around the world. And we’ve been translated into all kinds of different languages. So, I know that it is universal. And I hear from people in all different parts of the world, even though we haven’t gone there and actually done any training or anything, but I get emails and people are just blown away by the concept and they need it.

 

Andy Paul (12:54)

Well, so let’s talk about people changing people’s relationship to rejection, is really what you’re doing. So, what’s the encouragement people should take from a “no”?

 

Andrea Waltz (13:07)

Yeah. Well, a few things actually. The first thing is to start to value those noes and to see the value when you get a “no” and try to take it not as a personal rejection but try to look for the learnings. And one of the things that we teach people is that when you’re not going and you’re avoiding opportunities to hear a “no”, there’s the biggest thing that happens and this is salespeople, but this is everyone, this is it whatever you want to do, if you’re trying to raise money for something, if you’re if you’re just want to go across the street and ask your neighbor to borrow their lawnmower. I mean, this doesn’t matter, it is not just for business. We do two things are really sabotage, and that is or make assumptions, and we prejudge what someone else is going to do. And those two things are really killers. So, we spent a lot of our time on trying to wipe that off people’s mental slate. So instead of doing those prejudgments and saying, “oh, I can’t call this company. They would never, do business with us or with me”, it is reminding yourself to go for “no”, and putting it into practice. And just doing that behavior. And then when you have the quantity of your presentations, and you can get that to a certain level. And keep in mind if somebody is a great quantity person, if they’re out there making the calls, and this may not apply to them, but the person who’s so afraid of hearing no so afraid of that rejection, usually their quantity is really low, and so they never have a chance to figure out where their gaps are, where their skills need to be enhanced, because they’re never getting down deep into the conversations enough to figure out where their needs are, if you will.

 

Andy Paul (15:09)

There’s layers to that right? You’re talking about one form of correlates that I see, and I think reps have to be really cautious about. Is that they’ll make the call and be comfortable with the person saying upfront, “yeah, we’re not interested.” Because to them, that’s not a “no”, right? They’re just not interested. Whereas if they actually have to ask the follow up questions and dig, then they might actually get a real “no”. So you see a lot of sort of superficial calling that takes place because they don’t really get in and dig. And so, they’ll take that first “no”, and that’s not personal. It’s that second one where they’re really engaged, and they say, “no”, they don’t want that.

 

Andrea Waltz (15:46)

Yeah. Well, that’s a great point. And I think that is an example of where people say, “we just hear no over and over again and never get any better.” And our answer is a is no, obviously. No, you want to be willing to go for “no”. In other words, be willing to up your quantity of calls and then start looking at, are you just taking that, “yeah, we’re not interested, it doesn’t sound like it’s for us”? Are you qualifying that person? Or disqualifying that person? Are you asking the questions? Are you digging into objections? And that’s really where some of those skills come into play that are so important.

 

Andy Paul (16:29)

Yeah. So, for people listening have to think about, it’s not necessarily that first “no”, it’s really the real “no”, is the one you want. And it requires a little more effort. I think about my own experiences when I first came out of school and had a typical cold calling job selling business to business, selling computer equipment. It was over the phone. I was out making 3040 cold calls a day in the field. And I was burned out by noon, every day the first couple months, because I just couldn’t get accustomed to the noes actually.

 

Andrea Waltz (17:09)

Right? It is challenging.

 

Andy Paul (17:11)

So, what’s sort of the key, for people who are in that environment, that are doing the right things? They’re not just doing the superficial calls, but they’re asking the right questions and it’s just wearing on them. What’s the advice?

 

Andrea Waltz (17:25)

Right. So, the advice is, a couple things, the first thing– so we talked about, valuing that “no”, and learning from it and figuring out where are your gaps, so that you can improve. And so, you can take what might be some bad numbers and improve in different areas. But until you get to that point, until you are having those conversations, sometimes people don’t give themselves the opportunity, but if they are out there, and they’re just kind of beating their heads against the wall, one of the things that we recommend, and this is just kind of a fun thing, and a little bit superficial, I’m not digging down deep, but we teach people to set “no” goals. So set a goal for the number of noes you’re going to collect on any given day or week. And in your case, it would be, hey, go out and collect 20 or 25 noes and when you get those noes, that’s when you should celebrate. That’s not when you should beat yourself up and say, “ow, I went to 25 you know, different locations, I got 25 noes I am terribly bad.” It’s celebrate your activity, rather than just the outcome. And one of the things– he is a good friend of ours, he called us one day and he said, “you guys are going to love this story.” He said, “I was out making calls. It was like Friday afternoon. It was 5:30. My goal that day was to get 10 noes.” It was 5:30 in the afternoon, he said “I wanted to get that last “no”, I wanted to get my 10 noes and kind of reward myself for what really was a massively productive day.” And he said, “so I decided, you know what? I’m just going to call this guy, I’ve been calling on him for about two years now, he always says “no”, he always puts me off, I will call him and just get the “no” and I’ll be done, and I’ll be satisfied and it’ll be great”, and he said, “I made the call to the guy and the guy said, “oh, Mike, I’m so glad you called me, I’ve been thinking about you, and yeah, let’s go forward. Come in on Monday and we’ll sign the deal and let’s go ahead and go forward.”” It’s kind of funny when you make your process, whatever your process is, kind of a game and collect those noes, and you can collect noes in any given particular interaction. You can collect noes asking for referrals, or if you’re trying to just get through the gatekeeper, and you want to collect noes trying to find the right person. There’s all different ways you can collect those noes, but when you make it a game and make it fun, you’re really celebrating your activity more than the outcome or the results, and quite frankly, sometimes we can’t control that.

 

Andy Paul (20:09)

Absolutely. I was just interviewing Jason Jordan, if you’re familiar with him, Cracking Sales Management Codes is all about, you can control activities, you can’t control outcome. So, manage activities. Yeah, it really resonates. That’s what I advocate for people as well, focus on the activities. And if one leads to a “no”, or as you said it set a goal for noes. Yeah, that’s like setting a goal for it. Yes. That’s just the other side of the coin.

 

Andrea Waltz (20:35)

Absolutely. And Andy, I have to just add something here too. And this has to do with just we’ve been watching baseball recently. And Richard is a die-hard Cubs fan and he was– Good news Bad news, yeah. And he was freaking out a couple weeks ago because they happen to be on a bad streak. A little slump. And now I think they’ve won about 10 games in a row and it’s the best streak they’ve had all season. And, we all salespeople have those weird streaky periods. And you just have to remember that, and it’s hard sometimes, and there’s just no way around, sometimes selling is just hard sometimes. And sometimes we’re just in a down period. And we just are in that striking out one after the other, and you think this is the end, the end is near. And it’s just not, and so you have to do whatever keeps positive, and to listen to motivational things, things that get you pumped up, things that keep you thinking positive, because we all have those down periods and you just have to move through them sometimes.

 

Andy Paul (21:45)

Yeah, I think that’s a great point. You have to have sort of a toolkit about building up your confidence. As you said, it could be something motivational you listen to, it could be music, it could be a particular speaker, a TED talk, an eBook or something that you have that you can go to that gives you those basic affirmations. And actually, even using affirmations I think is very powerful. I think people tend to look at them with somewhat a stance, but I know a lot of people that on a daily basis do their little affirmations of the day and are very powerful for them.

 

Andrea Waltz (22:26)

They are powerful. Absolutely. It’s funny you even say that. We created some Go for No affirmations around courage, and persistence, and attitude, and all kinds of affirmations set to music just around our training to help people do that reprogramming process, but I remember I loved listening. The very first training I ever listened to, audio training, was Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Ziglar. It’s probably still one of my favorites. It’s so old school, but I just his stories are funny, he just doesn’t take himself too seriously. And yet it was just great training. So yeah, if you can find some things that you love and just listen to them over and over again it can be very powerful.

 

Andy Paul (23:08)

You really raised a cute key point there. I think it was that the thing that really makes Go for No work, I believe, is that you can’t take yourself too seriously. Know that it’s not you, this isn’t personal, right? How do you guys deal with that issue? Because I know so many sales reps that at the beginning, they just internalize, they personalize it, they think it’s about them and it’s really not.

 

Andrea Waltz (23:33)

Yes, absolutely. How do we deal that? That one is a really hard one. In fact, one of the books I recommend repeatedly to people who– and as I said earlier in the interview here, we find that people have different issues, right? It’s like some people just they got a problem picking up the phone. Other people are like, “I could pick up the phone, but I just hate I when I finally get the person, I’ve worked really hard and when I lose a deal, I just freak out.” It’s like different pieces of the puzzle, and that taking it personally thing is challenging, because that’s something that usually is pretty ingrained. And we really have to learn to value other people’s opinions just like we value our own. I tell people all the time, and especially– it’s kind of funny when we get some really nasty negative review on our book, which is always funny; and I have to step back and I go– I walk out of movies sometimes because I just can’t sit through it. There’s books I can’t finish. And when I when I learn to depersonalized and say, “this person is entirely entitled to their opinion, however nasty they may they may have been”, it actually makes me it makes it easier for me to take it. But I will tell you this, the book that I highly recommend to anyone with that as their particular issue is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. And in that book, one of four agreements is to not take things personally. And it seems– how deep can he get? He just talks about understanding that it’s not about you, it really says everything about the other person because it’s all really about us, right? And so, everything in the world is about us and when we can depersonalize and realize that that person is just reacting based on their beliefs and how they were raised and everything that they know, I think it just makes it easier. So, it’s important to find those tools when you can analyze where you are in the process. And so, I always encourage people to create a “no” awareness, when they first look at Go for No, how many noes are you getting? What is your reaction? Your internal reaction, your external reaction? Where in the process do you fall down? Do you have a fear of other people finding out that you fail a lot and hear a lot of noes? Do you have a problem being judged by other people? Do you take the “no” personally, and if you can figure out where the gaps are, then you can reach out and get more tools in addition to just read Go for No, and really internalize and take action, which is really a positive, proactive step, but also, what can you do just to help your own psychology?

 

Andy Paul (26:33)

Exactly. Well, so another question that comes to mind, I guess understanding what a “no” is?

 

Andrea Waltz (26:42)

Yes, and that is a whole other thing, isn’t it? Especially in sales because I think a lot of people– I hear this all the time, and I’m sure you do as well, which is– it’s hard to get those, people don’t like to hear “no” and they also don’t like to give “noes” often. So I’m always telling people, be clear if you have to say to this person, “hey, I’m calling you back one last time, I want you to know that if you’re not interested, if it’s just not for you, and “no” is a perfectly fine answer, but if you could just let me know that way, I’ll take you off your off my list, I’ll never contact you again.” Trying to get people to give you that “no” can be challenging, and like you said, what is that “no”? And then that comes back to that managing of objection? A lot of times it’s not a “no”, it’s just, “I need more information.” Maybe there’s something that they don’t understand. And so, as a salesperson, you’ve got to get creative and finesse that a lot of times and dig into the real reasons.

 

Andy Paul (27:52)

Yeah, you need to listen. I think that’s an important part of that is understanding what a “no” really means. So at least to me. I know some people had written a blog post about something saying basically, “sometimes no is a no.” And I had this sort of small backlash from a certain segment of people that were like, “no, no, when you get a “no”, that’s the time to really start selling” No, not really. Sometimes a no is a no, and that’s okay.

 

Andrea Waltz (28:21)

And that’s okay, you’re right. And we say, “hey, and no is a perfectly acceptable answer.” Especially if you get it early. Richard and I are fans of a high probability selling model, disqualification type model, if you will. So, if I call somebody and I say, “hey, do you guys ever bring your people together for sales training?” And they say, “nope, never done it, never going to do it.” And then I say, “well, okay, let’s talk about that. Because I’m going to spend the next hour convincing you why you’re wrong, and you need to start doing that.” I would rather just say “alright, fine”, and move on to somebody who does hire sales trainers and try to sell them on our sales training services, rather than trying to pull this person. So that’s kind of where we come from on that.

 

Andy Paul (29:12)

There’s a whole segment of sales training that’s based on this theory that the first no is never a no, and so on. You’re a business owner, I’m a business owner, and when I say somebody “no”, most of the time I’d like to believe that is a “no”. Because I don’t have the time or energy, and I want the same thing when I sell. I’m like you, I want to disqualify, and I talk about that in my books. Both my books devote a lot of space to this whole issue of disqualification because that frees your time up to go sell to people that are going to buy.

 

Andrea Waltz (29:44)

It does. On the flip side, there’s that and then there is, “we do hire sales trainers, but no, we’re not interested in you.” And that’s where I say, “okay, now you can have some fun with this”, right? I mean, they’re qualified, it’s just a matter of they don’t have the information. They don’t I don’t know enough about you. So, you’ve got your work cut out for you now, if you want to stick with this person and see what you can make happen. But I think just kind of understanding the difference is really important.

 

Andy Paul (30:13)

Yeah, absolutely. Now on this last segment in the show, I’ve got some standard questions I ask all my guests. And the first one is hypothetical scenario. Actually, you said you’ve listened some episodes, which we prepped for this. It is a hypothetical scenario I give all my guests. You Andrea have just been hired as the VP of sales at a company whose sales have stalled out, and they’re anxious to get things unstuck and back on track and sales turn around doesn’t happen on the day, but you’re in charge, your first week on the job. What two things could you do that could have the biggest impact?

 

Andrea Waltz (30:44)

I am aware of this question but I fully unprepared. I think the first thing I would do is sit down and interview everyone on the sales team to find out kind of where they are in my assessment of their skill level and also their passion. And if I find people that aren’t passionate, that’s going to be a big red flag to me. So, I would I would really want to get to know the team. And that may not do much for a bit, for a turnaround quickly. But that would be really important to me. And the second thing really is, I would take a look at the intersection of sales and marketing, and I see that as a big disconnect for a lot of companies. And being a really small business owner is not an issue for me since I am in sales and marketing. I think looking at what’s going on with the outreach and the outbound marketing and compared to what are the processes that the salespeople and what are they doing to support marketing and vice versa, I think those things would be my two first steps.

 

Andy Paul (32:03)

Okay, excellent. Yeah, I love the thing about passion because when you have a turnaround situation, and I tell people that you can have a turnaround situation, if you have two bad months in a row, you’re not solely throwing our way out and bringing in a new sales leader. But, you’re basically going into a turnaround at that point, you’re going to do the things you would do if you were sort of doing a turnaround in terms of assessing your team, and that passion thing is really important because you really are enrolling people in a mission, in a cause, if you will, at that point to get past the sort of the slump that they’re in.

 

Andrea Waltz (32:38)

Absolutely.

 

Andy Paul (32:39)

Yeah, if there’s no passion it is hard to make that happen. Okay.

 

Andrea Waltz (32:41)

It is.

 

Andy Paul (32:42)

Yeah, great answer. Okay, some rapid-fire questions for you. So, the first one is, when you Andrea are out selling your services, what’s your most powerful sales attribute?

 

Andrea Waltz (32:52)

I think of my most powerful sales attribute is just my belief and how much I think our message can help people and how quickly it can help people. So, for me, it’s just the belief in my product slash service.

 

Andy Paul (33:08)

Yeah. Okay, great. Who’s your sales role model?

 

Andrea Waltz (33:13)

Oh, right now, my sales role model is probably Gary Vaynerchuk. I’m sure I sleep far longer than Gary sleeps. I actually like naps. So, but he’s my sales role model, and his ability to produce content, to be authentic. And to just, I just love his hustle attitude.

 

Andy Paul (33:37)

Yeah, he’s excellent. Other than your own, one book that every salesperson should read.

 

Andrea Waltz (33:42)

Well, I’m going to go back to the Four Agreements, and I do recommend that often for people who struggle with fear of failure, rejection, all of that. The it’s incredibly powerful book.

 

Andy Paul (33:54)

And the author again?

 

Andrea Waltz (33:56)

Don Miguel Ruiz, Miguel Ruiz, okay.

 

Andy Paul (34:00)

Don Miguel Ruiz, okay. On my List. And last question for you, this is a tough one, what music is on your playlist these days?

 

Andrea Waltz (34:06)

I like Alternative. So, 30 Seconds to Mars and My Chemical Romance is when I’m listening to you most often. Kind of Old School.

 

Andy Paul (34:19)

I was going to say, old school. I haven’t heard them for a while but yeah, excellent. All right, good. Well, Andrew, thanks for being on the show. Tell people how they can find out more about you.

 

Andrea Waltz (34:28)

Come to goforno.com there’s a “no” question quiz, videos, blogs. It’s a great place to dig in if it’s something that they’re interested in.

 

Andy Paul (34:37)

Excellent. Okay, well, thank you very much. Remember, friends make it a part of your day every day to deliberately learn something new to help you accelerate your success. An easy way to do that is to make this podcast Accelerate a part of your daily routine. Whether you’re listening on your commute, in the gym, or make it part of your morning sales meeting. That way you won’t miss any of my conversations with top business experts like my guest today Andrea Waltz, who shared her expertise about how to accelerate the growth of your business. So, thanks for joining me. Until next time, this is Andy Paul. Good selling everyone.

Thanks for listening to the show. If you like what you heard, I want to make sure you don’t miss any upcoming episodes please subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or stitcher.com. For more information about today’s guests, visit my website at andypaul.com.