It's the 28th of January. Happy bloody birthday. Thank you. It's my birthday today. And I'm going to read something to you because it's your birthday. Thank you. The best gift a guy could get. And it's from your friend of mine, Marcus Aurelius. Take a good hard look at people's ruling principle, especially the wise, what they run away from and what they seek out. So I think as we talk about evidence, don't we? Right. And there's no better evidence when you're starting out in sales than mentors.

high performers, people who've done the job and put it out there. And we live in a time now where we are spoiled for information. Whatever you want to do, wherever you want to go, chances are someone's not only done it, they documented it and put it on the internet. Yeah. Yeah. So I remember when I first started out, Wolf of Wall Street was big. Yeah. And it's not a style of selling that I look at now, but suddenly you're thinking, well, what was the story behind that? What did he, and you're learning about straight line persuasion. You're picking little bits out of

Okay, did that resonate with me? Maybe not. And then you may be looking at another salesperson trying to find out about them. And now I've found that where I find the most joy in learning is how do the therapists of the world, how do they ask the best questions? How do they cut straight through? What's the most efficient way of doing that? How do you handle that objection? How do you tell a story? How do you get on a stage and tell a story? They're all different ways of learning.

And I think for you, you weren't into this style of selling before you joined We Have A Meeting. This is something that you've been a sponge to and you adopted and lived and breathed. But what did you do when you first started out? I threw myself into it. You said, these are a few of the people that you might want to look at. And then you go down the rabbit hole. typically, because one of the forms of media that I love the most is podcasts.

You'd listen to someone on a podcast with someone else. You'd be like, well, I wonder who else they've had. And then all of a sudden you kind of doing this treasure map of, different people and different communicators. one of, one of the first guys that we listened a lot to was Benjamin Dennehay. So I was listening to Benjamin Dennehay, his style was like, love it. I love how kind of down the line he is and the way he asked questions. And then after a bit of research, you're like, there's another guy, Marcus Kaukey, who used to train Benjamin. And then you listen to him and you're like,

That makes sense, but everything kind of falls down the tree and you're like, well, who else is there that's up there? And then you're listening to different people and different books and different podcasts. And you can kind of, I think mentorship is important to have people that can guide you, especially when you're young. And I sometimes put myself in situations now of the best bosses I've ever had. So from a leadership standpoint, if I was X now, what would they do in that situation? But from

a sales standpoint, there are so many amazing people out there, but even if you can't afford or have access to these people, we're so lucky to live in a world where we can absorb their information for free. exactly. And there's any little element of the process that you're struggling with. So let's say it's negotiation. Well, then I'm going to read Chris Voss's Never Split the Difference. Let's say it's

how to be better at software selling, or maybe I might look at gap selling by Keenan. There's different books out there, so you don't necessarily have to jump straight into finding the mentor, but you can certainly learn from the blueprint in those low stakes environments. What's the worst thing that you can gain from reading the chapter of book in bed at night on a topic you're trying to get better at? Nothing. Yeah, exactly. And I think like sometimes reading the books that you are kind of enjoying the information that might not necessarily

agree with your thoughts already. What are the books that are going to question your beliefs? So maybe it's a case of, don't believe that relationship selling is the most effective way. Okay, well, I'm going to go and read a book about relationship selling. Or I don't agree with it after reading that. I actually feel like this side of selling suits me better. But that one question that they asked to get a referral every three months, that's brilliant. I'm going to keep that. Or challenger sales.

It feels like medic is all about them, but I, but there are some good questions around that. So it's all about like taking what works for you. You've got to remember that everything is a remix and you've got to create your own kind of selling process that works for you, but stick to a formula and you're allowed to bring in interchangeable bits from every other element. Yeah. There's a belief in guitar playing that you gain your own style when you fail to sound like the person that you're trying to sound like. Yeah. Yeah.

So you're trying to copy some great blues player, or maybe actually in trying to do that, you gain your own style in the process. And I think what you're saying there is picking up those little bits along the way, amalgamating them all and coming up with something that's uniquely yours for interpretation. Yeah. And everybody, we've got to remember there's no such thing as an original idea. Like everybody is inspired.

Like it keeps going back and it keeps going back and back. And we think about like self development and mindset and all these books that Stephen Bartlett and Mark Manson, a lot of it goes back to stoicism and the rules that in the, that came from Marcus Aurelius. And it's brilliant to see, but find what works for you and create your own belief system from it, which I think is so powerful. How many times have we heard something and gone, that's stoicism. Someone else already figured that

Yeah, or it goes back to somebody else or Simon Sinek said that, wait a minute. think I know a Nietzsche quote that sounds like that. So I think mentorship is so powerful. Can you find the right mentors? Like reach out to people, but you've always got to remember like what's in it for them. if you're reaching out to highly successful salespeople and hoping they're going to coach you, if you're reaching out to the Benjamin Denner Hayes or the Grant Card Dones or whoever it is,

They're probably going to be busy, but there are going to be amazing high performers, maybe in your organization or other organizations that probably do have time to work with people and mentor people and coach people that just want to help and put what they wish that they'd maybe had when they were early twenties or whatever it may be. So don't necessarily aim for the top. There are other sales mentors available. I've been Jack Frimston. I've been Zach Thompson. Remember you will die.

Salad, is there really enough time?