Take me down the path. Put a little leader on my neck and say, follow me. You've been such a good boy. This is the path to serenity. Wow. And what day is it? Well, if I told you it was January the 12th, would you believe me? I think I would. It's going quick, isn't it? It's going quick. It's still a bit chilly outside, but we're here to warm your cockles. Ooh, get me by the fire. So today I've got a little bit of epic tea. It's easy for you to say. Mm-hmm. Okay. Keep this thought.

at the ready at daybreak. And through the day and night, there is only one path to happiness. And that is in giving up all outside of your sphere of choice, regarding nothing else as your possession, surrendering all else to God and fortune. Wow. You like that one? Does it make you feel like you could lead an army? Makes me feel like I could lead you to water, but I might not be able to make you drink. But boy am I thirsty. Wow.

So I want to start you off with a little story about control. The theme is all about control. When I was in my early sales career, I did that thing that we all do. I get hung up on the deals and I got invited in to do a demo with a guy who was reviewing a couple of other different software companies. Right. And I went in, I had a, I actually had my guitar with me. was when I was still living in London. So I had band practice later on. So I walked over my guitar. I used to play guitar as well.

wow. we're chatting about guitars for a little bit, showed him the demo, but in between he's like mentioned little bits about amps and what kind of band are you in? And he's telling me a bit about himself and you could really feel there was this like rapport being built between us. We were really getting on and there was less questions about the product because of it. yeah. It looks like it's pretty similar to what we're looking for. looks really good. There wasn't much of a sales process. It was much more on the building of the relationship side of things.

And I left thinking, what a nice guy. That's definitely gonna, gonna happen. Wasn't very strong on the next steps. Just like, we'll catch up at some point. Then the reality is set in. I thought it's a sure thing, right? But I couldn't get a hold of him. Emailing him. No answer on the phone. Week went by, another week. Said to one of my colleagues, can I grab your phone and ring him off a different number? Wrang off at him with my answer straight away. Hello?

Dealfront (02:26.632) it's Zach. was wondering what... you're all right, Zach. Yeah, we went with someone else.

But I thought because of the relationship, because of the bonding, because of the rapport that was built, that we were definitely going to move forward. And I think it just goes back to, you can often play a different scenario out in your head, can't you can think, they really liked me. I'm really in control there because the relationship's so strong. There's no differentiators, but it didn't matter. of the work that I thought I'd done in building a relationship, him saying yes or no to me.

wasn't in my control at all. And yet it still knocked me back quite a lot. Yeah, I bet that hurt. Like even telling it, like I could feel it. Like those situations happen a lot of the time for salespeople and you feel like you've won and then like all of a sudden like it ends there. So it's hard. You kind of sparked a thought there. And I think that this is a brilliant piece of advice when we think about control and also communication. So a lot of the time...

You never want to be in those positions where like you're chasing people and you need it because it's, it's awful. Like you don't want to be in those situations where you're like, yeah, I'm just following up. I'm just catching up. So that's why we always talk about like next steps and having those confirm next steps. And I also think that when it comes to like communication, you don't have control over lots and lots and lots, but what you do have control of is how you communicate and you'll sit down at your desk.

and you might get an email through, or you've got a note on your CRM that you need to reach out to someone, and you've got that control of choice where it's, do I phone them or do I email them? And my biggest advice to salespeople is always use the telephone. Why? Because so much, do you know how many arguments I've had with friends and family members over the time where, well, this isn't an argument, but you'll like this. So.

Dealfront (04:24.652) We've just painted our bathroom pink, right? And, my, mom was, was messaging my partner and she said, do you want, she sent a photo saying, do you want one of these like fancy pulley switches? And, and Zoe went back and said, we've not got one of those. And my mom read it as, they've not got one. I'll get one. And Zoe was saying, we don't have one of the pulley things. So next thing you know, my mom's sent me a message saying,

Can you order this and I'll transfer you the money? And me and Zoe are going, she's lost it. That's it. That's the final marble. It's gone. Zoe's dead. And Zoe's gone, but I told your mum, we don't have one of those, but that's how easily things can be kind of miscommunicated. So if that's happening between people that like each other, imagine strangers that don't know how you typically communicate, how you converse. like being on the phone, you can hear somebody, if somebody sounds

If you sound a bit agitated or something, or I can read your tone, I might not be able to see your body language, but I can, I can read into it a little bit. And I might be able to cold region or something's not right here. Or if I say, did you read the email? Did you manage to get a look at the proposal? If that's on an email, you can read that. Did you see, did you see the proposal? Why is he being so blunt with me? Why is he so mad with you? if you can pick up the phone over emailing or LinkedIn or texting or whatever, always.

use that. That's one of kind of my bits of advice for this episode. Because it sounds like it's the most honest means. There's not as much open to interpretation. Exactly, exactly. And some people don't necessarily like that. I think the question is, why don't they like that? If you're calling up their phone every three minutes, you probably got to put some boundaries in place, but aligning that on the next step. So, okay, well, when would be good to call you up? And then you call up and say,

John, we spoke last Wednesday. You told me to give you a call at two o'clock on Thursday. Here I am. What does it look like? It's about the cold read then as well. I'll let people know what the cold read is. Do you want to let them know or do want me to let them know? You let them know. Okay. So a cold read is if you're picking up on something, you can just kind of say it as it is. So, What do you mean? It feels like you're in a bad mood today. it is. Yeah, that was good acting. Yeah.

Dealfront (06:47.33) But you can call things out and even if it's not true, then all of a sudden, no, no, no, I'm really good. Sorry. sorry. And that is a tool that you can use in cold calling, discovery calls, leadership, lots and lots of different things. Yeah. I was in a meeting once, face to face meeting. was a guy being very blunt and short and you could tell he didn't want to be there. And I stopped and said, I'm so sorry. I've got a horrible paranoid. So I don't know what it is that I'm really annoying you.

And he was like, Oh, no, no, no, no, no, you know, sorry, I just had a meeting before it overrun and yeah, sorry. And then he just totally settled down into that conversation. So that ability to just call out the elephant in the room. the story that you tell yourself is I'm boring. This product doesn't align. I'm doing something wrong. I'm upsetting him. But he says, no, I've still got things on my mind because we always think it's about ourselves. But more often than not, it's not. They've got a bigger. Exactly. World and a bigger life. Control, baby. Why not?

Might as well. Exactly. I've been Jack Frimston. I've been Zack Thompson. Remember you will die. True or false. Mylean's class.