(888) 815-0802What Are Your Sales Strengths? with Chris Spurvey [Episode 730]
Chris Spurvey, Business Growth Facilitator and CEO at Chris Spurvey Sales Consulting Inc., joins me on this episode. He is also the author of the book, It’s Time to Sell: Cultivating the Sales Mind-set. And today, we’re going to talk about how to cultivate your sales strengths and include among the topics to explore are:
- Why the conventional sales mindset just doesn’t work for most sellers?
- How to determine when you need to find your own way of selling? This is so important in writing and talking about that a lot recently.
- How do you use experimentation to define your unique sales strengths? Learning how to sell in a way that gives you the greatest confidence from a customer which is so important and
- Why you need to focus on growth instead of goals?
So we’re going to talk about that and much, much more.
Episode Transcript
Andy Paul
It’s time to accelerate. Hey friends, this is Andy. Welcome to Episode 730 of accelerate sales podcast of record that’s Episode 730. I’ve got a great episode lined up for today. Joining me as my guest is Chris Spivey. Chris is the author of the book titled It’s time to cultivate the sales mindset and is also CEO of Chris Spivey sales consulting. And today we’re gonna be talking about how to cultivate your sales strengths, and include among the topics to explore why the conventional sales mindset just doesn’t work for most sellers, how to determine when you need to find your own way of selling this is so important. I’ve been writing and talking about that a lot recently, how to use experimentation to define your unique sales strengths, learning how to sell in a way that gives you the greatest confidence from a customer which is so important and why you need to focus on growth instead of goals. So we’re gonna talk about that and much, much more. So before we get to Chris, I want to spend a minute to talk to you about vanilla soft. Vanilla soft is the industry’s leading sales engagement platform. So what does that mean? Well, it means you can eliminate sales leads cherry picking by your reps, meaning your reps will make more than two or three outreach attempts for every lead they get. It means each rep actually follows an omni channel cadence. Now to help you with that in the checkout funnel sauce Ultimate Guide to prospecting Daniel Disney and Darrell pro will show you how to combine cold calling with social selling for outrageous results so you can get that now at vanilla soft.com. forward slash Andy Paul. That’s me. That’s at vanilla soft.com forward slash Andy Paul. Alright, let’s jump into it. Chris, welcome to the show.
Chris Spurvey
Thank you Andy. It’s a privilege to be on and I’m looking forward to this being a lot of fun.
Andy Paul
Yeah, we’ve been in the making for quite a long time. So you’re joining us from New from New Zealand,
Chris Spurvey
New Zealand, Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador. I need to put it in okay. You’re part of our province, Labrador as well.
Andy Paul
We don’t want to call them libre. dorians. For the labs, whatever. getting mad at us. Exactly. Actually, we’ve had a fair number of people on the show recently from yeah in a relative sense from us saying gee earlier is Halifax I mean there seems to be quite a yes sir. But interestingly our tech startup scene going on in Halifax which absolutely…
Chris Spurvey
I know a number of the founders there.
Andy Paul
yeah which when you sort of look at on the map and so you think well, huh. That’s fantastic because obviously you should build it anywhere but it was a little surprising because it’s remote.
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, it is in Newfoundland is even more remote.
Andy Paul
Even more, right.
Chris Spurvey
I live in igloos though we don’t live in England.
Andy Paul
So it’s let’s see, we’re recording this in the middle of August so hasn’t started cooling down yet
Chris Spurvey
Know that well. It is theoretically historical. This yesterday, which was the we have a thing in Newfoundland’s the longest running sporting event in all of North Korea. Erica called the Regatta, the Royal the Royal St. John’s Nick regatta and it takes place the first Wednesday of August. And that historically has been considered the turning point of summer where it starts to move at all. But global warming seems to have changed a little bit. So where we got a few more weeks left yet
Andy Paul
yeah, geez. Yeah, I was thinking about that the other day where if I want to go get a cool place where I go besides putting my face on my refrigerator because yeah, it gets hot here in New York, and so no, good. Well, thanks for joining and we’re gonna we’re gonna chat about a few things. A little bit about your own journey to start off with and, and earlier in your career. you’d mentioned in something at the summit that your own negative beliefs about sales you felt were holding you back from sort of reaching the next level. So what were those negative beliefs about?
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, well, I mean, I would suggest they kind of line up with perhaps some of the stereotypical negative beliefs in that. I thought that you had to be gregarious, extroverted, have the scripts and the objection finding, all that sort of stuff plus, be pushy, right? You know, I could tell you a story about my first exposure and Bradley grab sales. Well, yeah, it’s a sore. It’s a story similar to many people, I’m sure listening to that and I know specifically 1983 I’m 10 years old. I’m out playing street hockey, and it’s a Sunday evening and I go in the house and mom has soccer on the table. And the knock comes to the door. And it’s the Electrolux vacuum cleaner salesman. And
Andy Paul
they throw dirt on the floor.
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Within 30 seconds though. He was in our living room, and He was doing a demonstration, right? And I just sort of I remember my mom and dad who never dreamed of buying a vacuum when they woke up that morning, putting up objections, such as the price and so on,
Andy Paul
or someone else’s top of the line.
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, it is. But anyway, Mom and Dad ended up buying a $3,000 vacuum that evening, which in today’s dollars would be around $12,000. And then they fought about us for the next three months, trying to figure out how to pay for it. So, that was kind of my exposure to sales. So when I went into why when I decided
Andy Paul
So, yes, was that a positive exposure to sales or a negative exposure to sales?
Chris Spurvey
Well, I would say it was a negative exposure in terms of how I internalized it around my mom and dad’s energy as they fell around the purchase. And they were largely influenced by a person who had all the means to get over that objection to Oh, so I internalized that.
Andy Paul
And so who ultimately ended up taking responsibility for making that decision? Okay. Yeah,
Chris Spurvey
yeah. And my mom was certainly in my life just to really go deep into the subconscious entrenchment of this whole thing. My mom was my mother, of course, my motherly figure she was. And so observing kind of how the reaction after definitely internalized for me, that darn salesman who sold the vacuum that they didn’t want to begin with, right. So that’s that it was a negative experience out of the gate for sure. And you didn’t start your career in sales, though. No, no, not at all. Even though I think I had started a business and sort of partway through university and just maybe my two business partners at the time because I didn’t have technical skills. Nor finance skills. I got a designated staples person, right? Yeah. So that was, you know, that’s kind of when I, but you know what the experience of that led me down a path that once we sold that company and I’m not talking about any major exit here I’m talking about a few thousand dollars you know once we decided to sell that company, I then said sales is not for me. I’m going down a marketing path. So I spent the first 10 years of my career kind of in a marketing role. Hmm. What was that transition then where you said, Okay, now I have to confront sales. You’re starting a new business? No. So fast forward. 10 years later, my family and I were in a position where I needed to make more money and I was kind of getting tired sitting behind a desk all day. And somebody gave Robert Kiyosaki his book. And in that book, was that Rich Dad, Poor Dad or one Are the national audience or whatever. And in that book, I internalized this idea that I’m an entrepreneur, however, I wanted to earn more money, and building a business didn’t seem to line up, right. So in terms of how to do it immediately, somewhere in the book I read if you want to acquire the skills of an entrepreneur, go for a career in sales. So I woke up one morning and said, You know what, I’m going to conquer this. I’m going to try to find a career in sales. And so that’s what that decision point led me then to a company that decided they admit the owner met me and maybe saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself, but he saw a salesperson, and then just dump
Andy Paul
it was selling What?
Chris Spurvey
Well, that was selling it professional services, okay, which I knew nothing about really. And he decided to make me his manager of business development and I was all of a sudden in sales and I kind of just fell into it. Because I wanted more for my family and financially and he saw something in me that I didn’t know was there. So I decided to go for it and give it a try.
Andy Paul
So it was at that point time you’re saying, Okay, I’m starting this career in sales as I should be acting like I saw that guy, Electrolux say I should or I don’t want to be that person. What am I gonna do?
Chris Spurvey
No. So initially, it was I jumped in and thought I had to be that person. And I went, and I’m gonna throw out some names like Zig Ziglar and Brian Tracy and those types of people. And I guess I internalized them as a way of selling that was very much in line with what I perceived that Electrolux vacuum cleaner salesman to be so I tried to be a combination of that. And it didn’t work for me. I went. I was miserable even though I was determined but miserable. If that makes sense, sure, I was determined to conquer it and find a way to sell that was unique to me. I’m sorry that actually I’m phrasing that wrong. I tried, I failed, I was determined and then I realized I need to find a way to sell that’s in line with my personality. So I decided to just start experimenting. And the more I experimented, the more I found a few little things that worked and away I went, you know?
Andy Paul
Well, this is a topic I wanna spend more time on, because, you know, you work with companies all over and help them with transforming their sales. I’ve obviously talked to a lot of companies and a lot of entrepreneurs and executives and one of the things that seems to be a trend in sales these days is toward greater conformity. Right now one of the artifacts I think of the technology we have is that a boundless alien forces what sort of encourages conformity. I think managers enforce conformity because Hey, we’ve got away now to have more insight into the activities you’re doing. And you know, we have our metrics, so on and so on so forth. But interests of you sort of see the same thing, because that’s certainly what my takeaways are increasingly I look at companies and what they’re doing. And yeah, I’m very outspoken in my writing. I think that’s a huge problem. So interesting, what do you think about that?
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, yeah. So, I just wanna understand your position. So you’re suggesting, are you suggesting today’s day and age we are we are now at a point where people more and more people are selling in a way that feels better for them,
Andy Paul
not just the opposite. I’m saying opposite, a greater emphasis on conformity, which is less aligned with who they are as individuals. And so I said, I write quite a bit about the importance of becoming the best version of you, not the best version of some mythic ideal salesperson. Yes, yeah.
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, well, I mean, so you mentioned I now work with companies. I mean, there’s a long story to where I’m doing, I’m doing what I’m doing now. And certainly we could dig in a little bit on that, but what I have found so for me, I really gravitate towards helping individuals who are not say, who are not stereotypical or, or their sales is not even in their inner title. And I basically help them see how, just through consistency of building relationships and having an approach to selling that feels Okay, and feels good for them, how they can, you know, leverage their own strengths and so on, to become effective at getting results in sales. So they’re not there. They’re not they’re non sale sellers, as I call them, you know? Absolutely. Yeah.
Andy Paul
Well, I think they definitely see more of those at least, it feels like some and certainly entrepreneurs have been in that boat forever. Yeah. But yeah, that is always sort of the first hurdle for a lot of entrepreneurs is you start a company, oh, no, I have to go sell. Absolutely. And they carry, it’s loud the beliefs that you did that is that we all do maybe to someday negative stereotypes and images and, and this idea of saying okay, well how do I how do I find a way to sell that’s congruent with who I am, right? is it’s tough. It is.
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, for me, it’s what I try to do is I try to zero in on some core strengths that they have, and change or flip those strengths to be in line with being of service and delivering value for clients. And a lot of the people I work with are, you know, given my background in consulting, and then you know, our company was bought by KPMG. So there, these are people who are subject matter experts. In the same way an entrepreneur is a Subject Matter Expert around the product, or idea or service that they have, and how do you tap into it? You know, maybe it’s a strength of being curious. Maybe it’s the strength of solving problems. And so
Andy Paul
Do you have what so when you’re working with someone who’s an on-sale seller, as you talk about it, we typically do start with them, right? Because see, we have entrepreneurs, listen to the show that struggles with this. So somebody’s saying, Okay, yeah, I’m just really struggling. not comfortable. And I’ve made a career out of helping people who aren’t sellers learn how to sell but interested in your perspectives is where do you start with them as is?
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, you know, for me, I’ve adopted a bit of a methodology that’s not mine. Well, the methodology that I’ve adopted is I go after I begin working one on one with somebody, I haven’t done strengthsfinder and you know, Doing strengthsfinder they read their top five or 10, whatever they decide to unlock their strengths. And what I have found with almost everybody who does Strengths Finder, they read the top five strengths, and at least 80% of those top five or 10 strengths. They can say, you know what, that’s me. I can’t believe that. I know, it’s me, I can’t believe that this 30 minute assessment identified it as me. So for me, you know, my number one strength is an act. I’m an activator, as an example, and just you know, number two strength is I have empathy. Competition is also in my top five strengths. And I’m a Maximizer. So if you know, I have people do the Strengths Finder. And what I do is I get them, I get them feeling good about the process, they went through to identify their strengths. And when they read them, they say, God, that’s me. And I show them how they can leverage a few of those strengths in sitting with confidence with a buyer and having a conversation. Right? And, and so I leveraged Strengths Finder, I really do and find it. All it really entails is adding a new picture, we think in pictures, right? And if somebody can reframe the picture of what sales is to be to have some form of a positive energy to it, then away we go, right. And that’s the building block. That’s the initial building block.
Andy Paul
So what is that? If you say, okay, there’s something that income people just sort of have that they just don’t get about sales, but someone asked you, what do people not get about sales? What would you say?
Chris Spurvey
Well, I mean, so what I would say to that is what people don’t get about sales. Well, what they think they know about sales is that they think sales is convincing and You know, right, persuading. And so I, you know, through my book, you know, the number one thing people take from my book is they get it, they get a new feeling about sales that is not pushing, it’s pulling. And so what I try to do through this process is then identify how having leveraging your strengths, having good quality, organic conversations with a potential buyer, it’s a polling, it feels more like a poll, right? And, you know, and so I’m, as I’m working with them, they’re changing the image on the screen or their mind that you know what sales is not pushing, it’s pulling. And
Andy Paul
So how do you hide distinguishing that? I mean, obviously, the I know the difference between pushing and pulling, but in the sales context, how are you differentiating those two because now you could say, hey, pulling as coercive as well as pushing So,
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, that’s a valid point. Yeah, I would say it’s how you know, the best way I can put it is to say it’s a feeling thing. It’s an intuitive thing and
Andy Paul
more of a not pulling as much as leading, hence, you’re really leading from the front as opposed to pushing from behind. Yeah,
Chris Spurvey
yeah, that’s actually very good. I like that. Yeah. As lead it’s leading your buyer would be a good word. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s just, it’s a feeling thing. And I just know from my experience, now we’re having worked with, you know, hundreds of people, let’s just say that once they get that feeling, and the feeling comes from having a different image on the screen of their mind, right, all what sales is.
Andy Paul
So when you sort of started going through this process, what was the first area you experimented with, or you worked on? Because I love that image and I just wrote about that. So people here this will be passed, but here early in August wrote about this idea if you have to experiment, right? This is how you Yes. That’s how you understand who you are. What’s the best way for you to sell? As a great quote I love from the American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, who aligned sand with what you’re saying. And what I believe is the quote is all life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.
Chris Spurvey
Absolutely I it’s only. And again, it’s amazing how something like that can impact you. I was long, I was behind me, my lazy boy chair. And I spent a few minutes there every evening and I read a really good book by Price Pritchard called Quanta Quantum Leap strategy or quantum shift, quantum leap strategy. And just this little paragraph on the top, it’s like a side quote of it on every page, and it said, What experiment can you run tomorrow morning to test your limits? And I said the Muslim God, that’s a pretty it’s a distinction, right? What experiment can I run tomorrow morning to test my limits? Maybe I’ll go out and run 30 you say I’m gonna run 30 K,
Andy Paul
right. I don’t run Fair hopefully you’ve been training before that, but yeah,
Chris Spurvey
Well, but if I, if I set 3030 K is my limit there, or whatever that is in miles for anyone listening to the United States, I’m probably gonna get seven or eight K.
But I’m gonna know what my limit is, right? So it’s running these little experiments, I think is a really clever idea.
Andy Paul
Yeah, I think that what it’s funny we on certain aspects of selling especially you see proactive outbound there’s a lot of emphasis on testing a B testing, right, we’re gonna test subject lines, we’re gonna test you know, opening paragraphs thought about it, we’re gonna test these, these things we do sort of remotely, right, our email outreach, our, our cold calling script. And I think what a lot of sellers don’t get as well, that applies to every conversation you have with the buyer, every interaction you have not just through prospecting through the middle of the funnel, your discovery calls. Well, maybe I’ll ask this question this way today, because it’s different than the way I’ve been doing it. And yeah, I know No, I could be better. Yes. So let me experiment with that. And absolutely, that’s when we talk about experiments, at least my perspective, I think with yours as well as that’s what we’re talking about is being able to do that, though you just can’t operate on autopilot, right? Yeah. No, you have to be conscious of the fact that you’re you’re learning you’re trying to learn, you’re being deliberate in how you sell. And so yeah, tweak it, and then just, you can write, you can write it down if you want to. But yeah, first of all, don’t tweak a million things at once. tweak one, so you can remember it and yeah, yeah, repeat it four or five times and see if it works. Exactly. And
Chris Spurvey
I think probably the most important aspect of that is to ensure you’re taking a very objective look and a view to it, right? Because you can rationalize anything. So if you do something once or twice or three times, you can convince yourself that it’s the right way even though you’ve failed three times, right. This is the value I think of, you know, of having somebody who is objective coming along for the ride and giving you feedback and challenging your thinking and so on, right, I guess all what I’m saying is that’s the value of a coach to do that, you know, so, but yeah, I mean this idea of experimenting, and then maybe sitting down every Monday morning looking at your past week or on Friday before you leave for the afternoon and, and having a good look at what you did and then tape making some objective decisions to try something a little bit different. Make a few tweaks the next week, and do that every Friday until you’re getting to certain numbers that you hope to make you feel reasonable, you know, not everyone’s gonna say yes. So, pick a number that you find is reasonable and kind of start working your way towards that by experimenting and by pivoting around what works right. So I’m with you. I think that’s extremely valuable.
Andy Paul
Yeah, and there’s a Ghost, John Maxwell quote, sitting here playing on my computer, which I love, which speaks to this specifically is his quote was, if you focus on goals, you may hit your goals, but it doesn’t guarantee growth. If you focus on growth, you’ll grow and you’ll meet your goals. meet your goals.
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, I really like that.
Andy Paul
Yeah, I think that’s a great, great quote for people to keep in mind as is really the business that should be trying if you’re in sales, you’re thinking, Okay, yeah, yeah, we’ve got a number you got a quota and so on. But what your mission should be is to grow. Yes. And by growing and growing personally, growing professionally, doing the things that Chris was talking about here, the experiments, continual sort of deliberate change of what you’re doing to try something else. Always sort of test back and forth a B. Yeah. Yes. If you set the mission to grow Yes. If you Brian Tracy talks about the value of reading. I stress the value of reading as if Brian Tracy, his quote was if you’ve read a book a week in your field and 12 months, you’d be in the top 5% of earners in your category. Yeah. Yeah, a little hyperbole there. But I think basically he’s right.
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, I think action it comes down to though as it comes down to action. And, you know, the one thing I have learned is that there’s a segment of the population that is willing to do two things I read somewhere, you know, successful people are willing to do the things that failures just will not do. Right. And so action is very important. And from my perspective, what I’ve learned is that action is a result everybody needs to have some form of inner desire to grow. And which, which I guess the word is self motivation. And the only thing that but don’t you think this issue that we don’t we don’t
Andy Paul
have And I’m talking broadly in terms of the sales industry. But when I look at we’ve got these high rates of attrition and sales so high turnover rates, right there where individual contributors see statistics, like every 12 to 14 months, they’re turning over and VPS of sales every 18 months. Yeah, that’s a problem. And I think for me a lot of what you read and Gallup, who did strengthsfinder one of their surveys was that people are primarily leaving because they don’t feel there’s opportunity to grow. Mm hmm. And so if there’s no opportunities to grow, I think this is something really for you as an individual to think about as is Yeah, I’m in sales. I want to grow. What does growth mean? Yeah, it’s become more proficient, growth becomes broader and my knowledge of sales is deeper in my knowledge of sales and my customers and so on. What do you need to do in order to achieve that growth because right too often it just seems like it’s just associated with growing sales. Yeah, that’s why I think the Maxwell quote is so great because yeah, your growth is your goal. Sales are gonna come.
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, definitely. And I think it’s important for companies to align with that goal of growth and provide like your company if your work for a company your company is really your partner in crime in the fulfillment of your own personal visions and if those company if the company you’re working with is not is not providing you with those growth opportunities, you know, maybe you’re maybe you’re with the wrong company, right? You know, but I really find companies need to need to align with their that exact thing their employees who desire to grow and learn and thrive and flourish type of stock, right?
Andy Paul
Yeah, I don’t see enough of it though. That’s no, no, you’re right. But that means, we see half of a half hearted half assed attempt to sameen companies so often as our training budget we’re gonna consume for our sales kickoff in January, it’s like, yes. Okay, how does that help? How does that help anybody to do that? And so instead of saying, look, hey, here’s something we could do every day of the year. And we have programs that we sell through the sales house to companies, and increasingly companies are looking at it. But yeah, the initial pushback is almost always the initial objection of those one is, we don’t have time to do that. It’s like, we don’t have time to grow. You don’t think you have time to invest in your people? Yeah, of course. You’ve got time. You’ve got nothing but time.
Chris Spurvey
Exactly. Yeah, I think Bob Proctor says if you’re not growing, you’re dying. Right? Right.
Andy Paul
There’s no there’s no standing still. No.
Chris Spurvey
Exactly. That’s
Andy Paul
Why do I like to say there’s no standing stone?
Chris Spurvey
No, no, it’s impossible. Bob goes as far as to say you’re still dying. Even when you’re And degrade because you’re disintegrating. True.
So there’s no standing still. But no, I think, yeah, we’re out of something here. Well, I think
Andy Paul
I, what I, we talked frequently on the show about is that the individuals have to take more responsibility or willing to take more responsibility. This is, I think, really not. Not hard to ask. Yeah, I think because. And maybe again, it’s the training situation and you may feel a little bit different if you’re in a really highly rigid sales process or conformity driven sales process environment. Maybe not but even then, the point we’re talking about earlier is if if you’re operating in that environment, you think there’s more you know what a rep supposed to do to serve break free of the shackles right I had in my early in my career. I was fortunate enough to work for people that gave me enough rope to hang myself. We had up to. We had a process. Yeah. And Bill it as part of it. But the part that didn’t align with me. I came with my own. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, I don’t, but you don’t feel like people don’t seem to feel as empowered individual contributors and sales don’t seem to feel as empowered these days to sort of go against the flow and do that. And I, yeah, to your point earlier, they need to leave where they are, to go find a place where they can do it, or they need to take the risk where they are and say, Look, this is my job. This is my career. Yes, Mr. Boss, I appreciate his boss. I appreciate, you know, the guidance, but I think there’s a better way to do this. And yeah, fire me at the end of the year, if I don’t hit my numbers, but meantime, I’m gonna try to do what I think works best. Right.
Chris Spurvey
Yeah. And I think going right back to the original story, this is where Robert Kiyosaki was pointing to if you want to, you know, if you’re the entrepreneur, entrepreneur and the salesperson in terms of skill set, there’s a big alignment there, right? So, you I find that the best salespeople are entrepreneur and entrepreneurial, the wired that may be the right word, right?
Andy Paul
No, I said the rule breakers.
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, yeah, exactly I was talking to. I had West Schaefer on my podcast, I believe, a couple of weeks ago, and he was talking about how, you know, I threw out the idea that some of these larger enterprises and the the name I use, and I hope you don’t mind me saying it was Oracle, and how at the end of the year as the end of year approaches, they, they put off the Blitz where you you know, that customers can buy for X percent off and that forces tries to force decisions. And Wes made a comment that just from his experience leads to a pile of lying, right? What’s the status of that proposal? Oh, it’s still in the waiting room. Meanwhile, the salesperson never ever sent it in. Right. So
Andy Paul
why Yeah, that’s one artifact. I think the other artifact was those types of sales initiatives? Really are our trust breakers. Yes. And one of the four cornerstones of trust is transparency. Yes. And so the customer has to be confident that and comfortable that your motivations are aligned with air. So your emotions are transparent. And just think about how you spend all this time to build trust with a buyer and they say, ah, have I got an opportunity for you? If you buy before tomorrow? We’ll give you a 20% discount. And doesn’t mean the customer is not going to take advantage of that. No, but in their mind, suddenly I went from being an advisor to a vendor from a partner to a seller. That’s fine. Okay, we’ll take it but yeah, the shine goes out of the eyes. They know exactly who you are at that point. Absolutely. And I know personally as a buyer in certain aspects of my life. For all aspects of my life, I put a block off to that right? Big time My my, my spidey senses go off immediately. And even if it’s something I need, I won’t buy it. Right. Yeah, well, I mean it’s I think sales managers actually are most responsible for this is they tend to point the finger at individual contributors for discounting and I, I personally in my experience has been in both through in my own career and as a manager and as a consultant many many companies is that yes, it’s managers who who really stimulate the discounting. contributors and I said it’s really a surplus problem. Yeah. And the surpluses they’ve got you have too many unsold products. You buy the right services product and still have unsold inventory. Theoretically, if services are unsold. Ours are unsold. They’ve got a surplus and they need to move the surplus.
Chris Spurvey
Exactly. And I guess it sells So a factor of the managers somewhat wage, they’re in the middle, right? So they’re getting top down pressure. And they and they but they’re not the doers right? So they can only go down with that pressure and it results so I’m with you it’s the manager who’s ultimately responsible for it largely.
Andy Paul
Yeah. So I mean sorry, we’re unfortunately running out of time but I think that one takeaway for this as at least I would leave with sellers here though listening is that and this is hard, but it can be done. I’ve done it my career. I know many other successful people have done so in their careers. Yeah, you could be in an environment that’s fairly rigid. The culture is fairly rigid, but maybe you enjoy the job, you enjoy what you’re selling, you enjoy your customers, but you’re just not aligned with the process. Yeah, change it, change it. Brandon hit break, it hits you, as long as you’re hitting your numbers if you’re, if you’re doing the job. If your manager and I’m sure there are managers out there, say yeah, screw that this guy’s not in line with the culture. You’re not a fit, misfit, you’re fine. Next, yes, take your capabilities and go somewhere else. But
Chris Spurvey
yeah, there’s companies that have become billion and trillion a billion dollar companies by hiring misfits, so and the Misfits, the
Andy Paul
Misfits is not to be a pejorative in this case, it’s just right. Yeah, find an environment where you can do your thing and where you feel supported. Even if you have to invest on your own to grow to learn, you know, you take an online class, you do whatever. But you at least feel supported doing it. You know, find those environments, because that’s, I agree, that’s where you need to be to hit your own goals and your own life. And that’s absolutely, we’re all about growth, not goals.
Chris Spurvey
I love it. That’s awesome. If you don’t mind, I’ll just fear because I had mentioned the word self motivation. Yeah, yeah. And I, the one thing that I’ve come to realize is that there’s really only one way to get yourself to a point where you are so self motivated and willing to do what it takes to you know, to get it and it really comes down to having a vision for your future that’s far more compelling than where you are right now. Right and, and being falling in love with that vision for your future. And that’s what leads to the self motivation when you really want a future that’s brighter. You’ll do you’ll, you know, you’ll you’ll you’ll put the physical energy into it with enthusiasm if I guess that’s a great point.
Andy Paul
Yeah, great point. And what’s ironic about that, to some degree when you think about it, is that one thing you should be good at if you’re listening to a show as a seller is creating a vision. Right? I’m actually sales ultimate fear in certainly my experience being in a complex sales environment, is the way you get the customer enrolled into the process of making a decision is by creating this compelling vision of what I believe for them with the outcomes they can achieve with the products or services. You’re selling. Let’s dance one on one. If you really want to have a successful career in sales, well, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a similar vision except in this case, maybe you’re rolling yourself maybe enrolling your partner in life. You know, because you might have to make some sacrifices and time, but you have to have the same passion and passion around that vision as the one you create for your customers. Yeah,
Chris Spurvey
yeah. And I guess yeah, I love your I love your analogy there if that’s what it is. I mean, it’s really selling yourself in your future. And, you know, that to me is what it takes to go out and do what’s necessary to be successful.
Andy Paul
Yeah, well, I said you’re gonna get people enrolled in it and Yeah, I did. I couldn’t have done what I’ve done over the past 10 years in my first marriage. We didn’t didn’t buy into the vision.
Chris Spurvey
There you go.
Andy Paul
But it can work on the job level as well as Yeah. Yeah, you got to put yourself in those environments where right? Yeah. Yeah. So all right. Well, Chris, it’s been a pleasure. And it’s been a lot of fun. It’s been deep. So yeah, well, that’s what you get here to accelerate. So tell people how they can find out more about you and connect with you.
Chris Spurvey
Yeah, they can go to CRISPR v.com. If you’ll permit me to spell it. Chris, spelled normally spur v. Sp, you are vy.com. And if people want to go there, they can get an electronic copy of my book for free. And yeah, so just do that. And LinkedIn is where the social platform where I spend all my time, really, I don’t really participate in any of the other social platforms. And if you’re ever newFoundland anytime.
Andy Paul
All right. Well, it’s if it’s on your flight path. Absolutely. Yeah. So, Chris, thanks a lot, and we look forward to talking again soon.
Chris Spurvey
Thank you, Andy.
