Building Resilient Sales Teams in Manufacturing with Coach Chris

[00:00:03] So tell us a little bit about yourself, Chris and kind of your bio and stuff.

[00:00:07] Curious your story?

[00:00:08] Sure.

[00:00:09] So I'll take you on my personal origin story and then tie that back in how I got into the

[00:00:14] industry.

[00:00:15] So when I was a young guy, it was like seven years old with my parents and we had this

[00:00:19] good, this Cub Scout outing and my whole family went to it.

[00:00:22] I had four older brothers so they weren't happy about going to it because I was a

[00:00:26] little guy.

[00:00:27] Long story short, we come up to the stop sign and the scops stand in there and

[00:00:32] he says, hey, you guys got to go around.

[00:00:35] It's February, it's cold and we're all ready to get home.

[00:00:37] So he says there's a house fire so we just creep along and my dad's looking over his

[00:00:41] shoulder and he goes, oh my God, it's us.

[00:00:44] It's our house.

[00:00:45] And I only use the story to bring some context.

[00:00:47] We go back, there's this big fire, our whole house burned down.

[00:00:51] We lost a bunch of pets during it and what that led me to guys was in that moment

[00:00:57] I remember here's my big family watching everything they had kind of get just destroyed.

[00:01:03] I watched and became this different person in that moment because my dad got right to

[00:01:07] work and he became a, he just said like, we're about going to take my family tonight.

[00:01:12] I got to get my family in place to sleep.

[00:01:14] And my mom was just being nurturing and as an eight or seven or eight year old

[00:01:17] kid what that did for me is it taught me this grit and grace that's led me to

[00:01:22] this place where I've been a coach my whole career and that coaching is currently with

[00:01:27] McCullough, the sales manager and everybody here calls me Coach Chris.

[00:01:31] I've been doing this for 30 years working for in the electrical industry and I love

[00:01:37] to coach so I've been working on my own kind of personal brand doing some coaching

[00:01:42] and then I coach all day every day.

[00:01:44] That's cool.

[00:01:45] So you have your own kind of company that you do coaching and you also do both?

[00:01:50] I've been coaching that I do a couple nights a week where I just take on people from all

[00:01:54] aspects of life.

[00:01:56] Most of those people come through the electrical sales channel because that's where I've

[00:02:00] lived for the most, the better part of my career but I became a certified life coach.

[00:02:05] I'm an accredited business coach.

[00:02:08] I was a football coach, basketball coach so I've been coaching this whole time

[00:02:11] so I will, you know, I got kind of this unique blend of experiences that I use

[00:02:16] in my coaching practice but then during the day I'm sales coaching all day.

[00:02:20] I'm doing this all day long and really sales training and just having a blast with it.

[00:02:24] That's cool.

[00:02:25] And how big is McAuliffe?

[00:02:26] How many folks you got over there that chairs?

[00:02:28] We're trending back towards 20.

[00:02:30] We usually sit around 20 people in the organization.

[00:02:33] You know, we cover Michigan and Ohio for the agency and then remotely we do cover

[00:02:37] some other geographies with our inside team so you know we've been around since 1975

[00:02:43] so we're coming up on our 50th year anniversary.

[00:02:45] Great small company, couple of premier brands that have helped us, you know, really

[00:02:49] build the reputation of the organization and the industry so you know

[00:02:53] we like to think we have a really good reputation and I think we do.

[00:02:58] And you focus mainly on sales coaching, from McAuliffe and marketing and stuff

[00:03:04] or is it sale?

[00:03:06] You know, you guys will get this.

[00:03:08] It's a small company so we wear a lot of hats.

[00:03:10] So mostly most of my job I spend as the coach but I also still do customer facing.

[00:03:15] I do distributor training, I do customer training.

[00:03:18] We kind of pride ourselves as a technical agency so you know we're doing a lot of

[00:03:23] product demonstrations and things like that and I've been in Detroit you guys for

[00:03:27] the better part of my career so I do a lot of automotive type of work here

[00:03:32] with specification in some of the big three, the big domestic three and things like that.

[00:03:36] Interesting.

[00:03:37] Okay yeah, we don't do a lot of that.

[00:03:39] It's an industry that's interesting though to us.

[00:03:43] I don't know a lot about it.

[00:03:44] Is that significantly different than the electrical space or other spaces?

[00:03:48] The automotive?

[00:03:49] So the automotive industry here in Detroit takes up the majority of our bandwidth

[00:03:53] but you know and recently with all the EV infrastructure and EV changes in the market

[00:03:59] we've had a couple of really good years right so we're enjoying that.

[00:04:03] We're in a little bit of a lull right now as some of the other programs start

[00:04:06] some programs are ramping down and we have some more that are going to be

[00:04:08] ramping back up but the rest of the agency we get into all different

[00:04:11] verticals we get oil and gas, food and beverage, a little bit of pharma,

[00:04:15] a little bit of furniture.

[00:04:16] We get into some different vertical spaces but for me personally being

[00:04:20] the headquarters out of Detroit here we are pretty heavy automotive.

[00:04:24] Yeah, so you guys are calling on industrial accounts and then you're

[00:04:29] kind of in the neighborhood where the auto industry is king so a lot of

[00:04:34] those industrial accounts are they are automotive but you also get into some

[00:04:38] other ones is what you're saying.

[00:04:40] For sure so you know not only the automotive themselves but all of the

[00:04:44] suppliers you know we're heavy into the panel shops.

[00:04:47] We play in a lot of that space but we also go you know we touch industrial

[00:04:51] contractors, we touch you know commercial contractors, we get into a

[00:04:55] lot of different vertical spaces but in this town it feels like they're

[00:04:58] all they got some sort of relationship to an automotive manufacturer.

[00:05:02] My dad worked for Ford for a long time and we lived up near there

[00:05:06] and he built like the big Ford Oval where they do all their testing

[00:05:10] and I was young but he took us on to the track, one does this side note,

[00:05:14] but he took us to the track got this big van like my family,

[00:05:18] a bunch of friends are in this van.

[00:05:19] He's like screaming down the road like 200 miles an hour on this like

[00:05:23] in bank man and doing all this crazy stuff so.

[00:05:26] We nailed it we have you know we have the testing facilities in

[00:05:29] the area so the proving grounds and you know we have plants all over

[00:05:32] the place which we're very fortunate to have and one of the

[00:05:35] interesting things that you guys might not know is that you know

[00:05:38] whenever anybody comes to and builds a plant in North America,

[00:05:42] a lot of the tooling often gets done in Detroit so we get to

[00:05:45] benefit from that.

[00:05:46] That's awesome.

[00:05:47] This is also maybe a side note but what do you see happening with

[00:05:51] the EV market?

[00:05:52] It's a topic I think that's trending we were talking about it

[00:05:55] to another guest I think last week.

[00:05:57] Is that what's happening?

[00:05:59] So I'm actually kind of starting to go into the market for a new

[00:06:02] vehicle so as I'm talking to some of the car dealers you're

[00:06:05] walking through a sea of electric vehicles that just haven't had

[00:06:09] the momentum from a sales perspective.

[00:06:11] So there's definitely been some the push that the very hard

[00:06:15] push that was going on has slowed down a little bit.

[00:06:17] Everybody's still projecting that they're going to you know

[00:06:20] the capital spend and the investment that they're doing

[00:06:22] in the automotive markets not going away but they're

[00:06:24] slowing down the investment a little bit into into the space.

[00:06:28] I think what we saw here in the northern climate there was a

[00:06:32] lot of talk that those batteries just didn't perform well when

[00:06:36] the climate got pretty cold.

[00:06:38] So I think that scared some consumers.

[00:06:40] The fact that we're just so ingrained in the ice engine

[00:06:46] that it's so easy and convenient.

[00:06:49] It's going to take some time to integrate but it's not

[00:06:51] going anywhere.

[00:06:52] There's a ton of investment here just down the road here we

[00:06:54] got factory zero for General Motors.

[00:06:56] The F-150 Lightning and Mustang plants not far from here as well.

[00:07:00] So there's significant spend there and I don't think the

[00:07:03] automotives are going to take their foot off the gas they just

[00:07:06] might ease up on the pedal a little bit.

[00:07:08] Yeah.

[00:07:09] So it's the wave is coming up.

[00:07:11] Tell us more about your coaching practice.

[00:07:14] For example, you know like what do you see as the biggest

[00:07:18] points when you're doing your coaching that have the biggest

[00:07:21] impact on people or would you tent?

[00:07:24] Great question.

[00:07:25] So all coaching it doesn't matter if you're doing sales

[00:07:27] coaching or life coaching or it really it starts with some

[00:07:30] sort of limited belief that you adopted at some point in

[00:07:33] your evolution right and you come to believe something that

[00:07:37] may or may not be true and really what coaching does and

[00:07:41] what I love about coaching guys is we're not I'm not

[00:07:44] sitting there solving a problem.

[00:07:46] What we're doing is we're breaking down kind of where

[00:07:49] your ideology developed and why you think the way you think

[00:07:52] and is that benefiting you and is that serving you to become

[00:07:55] the best version of yourself.

[00:07:57] So that's the fun part about coaching guys it is so satisfying

[00:08:00] when you sit through these breakthroughs with clients and

[00:08:03] they kind of see something from a different perspective and

[00:08:06] you can just see them light up and spark and like oh my

[00:08:08] gosh that's really and it really helps them improve on

[00:08:11] whatever they're pursuing but you know and I'd like to

[00:08:14] say you probably the majority of sales coaching and I love

[00:08:16] young sellers because they they'll just have a belief of some

[00:08:20] sort that and I'll say why won't you frame it this way and

[00:08:23] they look at it and they try it and then it works man

[00:08:25] that's pretty powerful.

[00:08:27] What's an example we just had a guy on about a month ago

[00:08:30] that was talking about how hard it is as a new rep right in

[00:08:33] this industry learning the ropes us kind of stuff what

[00:08:35] are some of the things that you you would help someone

[00:08:37] like that in terms of like your mindset like you're

[00:08:40] saying yeah so I think one of the things and especially

[00:08:43] in the rep business is that we were I said a little

[00:08:46] early but we were a lot of different hats and we serve

[00:08:48] a couple different masters right so and we're often

[00:08:51] put in the position where we're trying to say yes to a

[00:08:54] couple of different sides of the equation you'll see

[00:08:56] sometimes the frustration that comes in where you know

[00:08:59] in our case maybe it maybe our manufacturer has a

[00:09:02] certain set of rules that don't behoove us in the sales

[00:09:04] and we do this dance and sales to me is just a dance

[00:09:07] guys and sometimes it's a slow dance and sometimes it's

[00:09:10] a fast dance so we're doing this kind of back and forth

[00:09:13] and negotiation and really what we're tasked to do is

[00:09:16] become this really good communicator both directions

[00:09:19] right we got to be effective in communicating what

[00:09:21] the manufacturers expectations are and also what

[00:09:24] our customer and our distributors expectations are

[00:09:26] and finding a bridge so you're always solving

[00:09:28] problems which ultimately I guess that is what sales

[00:09:31] is is always solving problems. Yeah I mean it's funny

[00:09:33] you say that I agree with you 100% is when

[00:09:36] you're almost at times an arbitrator you're

[00:09:38] trying to you know you're trying to bring that true

[00:09:41] win-win to both sides and sometimes that's

[00:09:44] difficult but that's what we're charged with as a rep

[00:09:47] you know bringing everybody to the table making it

[00:09:50] happen and where everybody walks away from that

[00:09:52] table feeling like they won if we do that then man

[00:09:54] we've done our job. I couldn't agree more that is

[00:09:57] a perfect and accurate description of what we do

[00:09:59] and I feel like you know I get as a sales person

[00:10:01] we get a pretty good fair amount of windshield time

[00:10:03] and that's probably where I do the majority of

[00:10:05] my sales coaching is just on phone calls and

[00:10:07] going through scenarios and how do you

[00:10:09] frame this and how do you and I did one this morning

[00:10:11] right I had a seller who was pretty frustrated

[00:10:14] with a factory response as far as in a competitive

[00:10:17] nature and you know just trying to serve their customer

[00:10:20] just trying to you know get orders and I love that

[00:10:22] energy but what we I kind of had to frame it back

[00:10:24] and say okay let's take a step back let's find out

[00:10:26] where we can get maybe a small win and then

[00:10:28] build out on that and then we can communicate

[00:10:30] that back and have a better dialogue about

[00:10:32] what the potential is here it's just and it's

[00:10:34] always nuanced and you guys know this it's just

[00:10:36] sales is just that dance that you're going back

[00:10:39] and forth and a lot of people get frustrated

[00:10:41] and restricted in it and I look at it as an

[00:10:43] opportunity to grow and get an order and have some fun.

[00:10:45] Yeah, yeah that's fair. What are maybe some of the

[00:10:48] patterns that you see like in all these

[00:10:50] conversations you're having are there certain

[00:10:52] things that tend to come up more frequently

[00:10:54] they're like yep this is how you do this

[00:10:56] this is how you handle this is how you change

[00:10:58] this time that's a great question it ties

[00:11:00] in a couple of things that I see actually

[00:11:02] which is one of the funny things in the

[00:11:05] manufacturers rep agency you know we it's

[00:11:08] sometimes we have a hard time with numbers

[00:11:10] and just because of the way that the market

[00:11:12] flows and the money flows our numbers are a

[00:11:14] little slower so we don't have real-time

[00:11:16] data sometimes what I see from both

[00:11:18] distributors and customers and my own

[00:11:20] sellers is that they don't set

[00:11:22] necessarily really strong targets or

[00:11:24] goals and not because we don't want to

[00:11:26] but because sometimes those are hard to

[00:11:28] get your hands around so one of the things

[00:11:30] that I found really effective here recently is

[00:11:32] just saying okay let's pick a number

[00:11:34] let's pick what is your sales goal what is

[00:11:36] your target whatever that is and I do this

[00:11:38] on coaching it's just really you set the

[00:11:40] goals early on in the coaching process

[00:11:42] and then we just hold yourself accountable to

[00:11:44] those goals and guys I have gotten so much

[00:11:46] momentum with that approach where people

[00:11:48] just start they start thinking

[00:11:50] differently they start looking at well

[00:11:52] what are my options not what are my

[00:11:54] hurdles but what's my options do you

[00:11:56] typically coach like this the sales

[00:11:58] of sales folks or a little

[00:12:00] bit of both so I've had recently

[00:12:02] the uptick spending sales people but

[00:12:04] I've done sales management coaching a

[00:12:06] little bit of leadership coaching I'm working

[00:12:08] on actually a client right now who's

[00:12:10] who came to me and asked me to put together a

[00:12:12] leadership program I hadn't done that before so

[00:12:14] I have to put that together and I'll say this about coaching

[00:12:16] coaching even to sales life

[00:12:18] leadership it follows a pretty

[00:12:20] predictable path which is we're going to

[00:12:22] talk about those limited beliefs

[00:12:24] we're going to set some goals and then we're going to

[00:12:26] look at a process a very

[00:12:28] deliberate process that gets us to

[00:12:30] achieve those goals and then I've just

[00:12:32] found that through my experience I've

[00:12:34] applied it to a few different disciplines

[00:12:36] and they all kind of follow a similar path

[00:12:38] you mentioned data when you were talking

[00:12:40] a little earlier how do you see the

[00:12:42] availability of data and getting

[00:12:44] good data how important is that

[00:12:46] to get everyone pointed in the right

[00:12:48] direction and working together

[00:12:50] to achieve those goals

[00:12:52] yeah I think that's the most

[00:12:54] important factor because if you don't

[00:12:56] for sales people if you don't have

[00:12:58] a sales target then you're

[00:13:00] really just kind of floating out

[00:13:02] there and believe it or not there's

[00:13:04] a lot of companies that

[00:13:06] don't just start with a good sales target

[00:13:08] and there's a lot of reasons right that's not

[00:13:10] being accusatory of anybody but there's

[00:13:12] a lot of reasons they don't set sales goals

[00:13:14] I think from a very basic coaching

[00:13:16] perspective you just got to start with a goal

[00:13:18] and in the sales industry that's a sales

[00:13:20] target and then you start to frame up

[00:13:22] the efforts and the actions that are going to

[00:13:24] go ahead and get you there and

[00:13:26] either meet or exceed that goal

[00:13:28] so anything you see in terms of

[00:13:30] helping motivation like setting

[00:13:32] the goal is I think maybe

[00:13:34] 10% and then like follow up

[00:13:36] follow up follow up how do you

[00:13:38] what's your process for that? oh you're so good

[00:13:40] and that's it and I think even in sales

[00:13:42] you hit it with you know what we could

[00:13:44] set a goal but the follow up

[00:13:46] the thing you just kind of that's

[00:13:48] the key and it's like it's a continuous

[00:13:50] process I had a recent example I

[00:13:52] tried to integrate myself to a new

[00:13:54] customer of mine and it took me 12

[00:13:56] reaches touches phone calls

[00:13:58] emails carrier pigeons before

[00:14:00] I got my first little email

[00:14:02] back that said okay by the way

[00:14:04] more recently that's turned into

[00:14:06] a it's going to be probably a couple

[00:14:08] million dollar customer at the end of the day but

[00:14:10] I think that sellers get so frustrated

[00:14:12] when they don't get immediate contact

[00:14:14] but our attention spans are you know

[00:14:16] I wrote the book about a short attention span

[00:14:18] our attention we got so

[00:14:20] many things coming at us every day

[00:14:22] and you guys know it we had text

[00:14:24] you know even trying to you know go and getting on the call

[00:14:26] with text messages emails

[00:14:28] you know direct messages everything

[00:14:30] is flying at us and we're

[00:14:32] competing for attention so we got to be really skilled

[00:14:34] at how we get our customers attention

[00:14:36] and the best way to do that is just to

[00:14:38] provide an enormous amount of value

[00:14:40] and whatever your approach in there

[00:14:42] you just got to bring a ton of value and

[00:14:44] the data is incredibly important right we need

[00:14:46] to put it in place as we can measure

[00:14:48] if you can't measure it you can't grow it right so

[00:14:50] well you mentioned your book

[00:14:52] so you got your book and you put it right here

[00:14:54] so everybody can see it

[00:14:56] yeah so I was on a long plane ride

[00:14:58] and I was going through this yesterday afternoon

[00:15:00] and kind of talk me through this

[00:15:02] I mean there's a lot of good content in here

[00:15:04] and a lot of it kind of hit home

[00:15:06] for me from you talk

[00:15:08] about the short attention spans I mean

[00:15:10] we all have so many balls in the air

[00:15:12] every day it seems like I'm like my dog

[00:15:14] I see something like a little shiny and I go over here

[00:15:16] and I go over here and I go over

[00:15:18] you know kind of talk us through this

[00:15:20] the intensity method and how this came about

[00:15:22] and give us the foundational

[00:15:24] parts and pieces of your book here

[00:15:26] so guys I've been studying

[00:15:28] you know leadership sales

[00:15:30] human behavior for years and years and years

[00:15:32] and so and a lot of that's

[00:15:34] book content right that's really long form

[00:15:36] and then most recently I got into audio books

[00:15:38] a few years ago and those are 20 hour

[00:15:40] listens right while you're driving in the car

[00:15:42] and so we had a

[00:15:44] a number of conference so that's our national

[00:15:46] electrical manufacturers representative association

[00:15:48] that's a long time but we had our conference

[00:15:50] in Dallas and we got iced in one night

[00:15:52] and I had been contemplating

[00:15:54] this book since I was with the seller

[00:15:56] years ago and we had a four hour drive

[00:15:58] to one of our account and at the end of that drive

[00:16:00] he was new to the industry he said Chris you should

[00:16:02] write a book so we got to the coffee shop

[00:16:04] in Alpina Michigan and I sat down

[00:16:06] and I started a Google Doc

[00:16:08] and I'd been thinking these thoughts for years

[00:16:10] right and I had pieces of it in other places

[00:16:12] so fast forward I'm in Dallas

[00:16:14] and I get solicited

[00:16:16] by somebody that says hey we can help you

[00:16:18] self publish a book and I bought

[00:16:20] and I wrote the book and believe it or not

[00:16:22] the book came together pretty fast

[00:16:24] I mean I wrote it probably

[00:16:26] you know three four months but

[00:16:28] by design it was meant to be short Craig

[00:16:30] because I don't you know we're busy guys

[00:16:32] and our attention's you know challenged

[00:16:34] so I wanted the chapters to be no more than one or two pages

[00:16:36] I wanted to get right to the point

[00:16:38] and cut through the noise and just kind of hit

[00:16:40] the principle really quickly and share

[00:16:42] a little personal story in her as well so

[00:16:44] you know it was my first attempt

[00:16:46] at a book and I'm not sure it was perfect

[00:16:48] but I'll tell you what I'm really proud of it

[00:16:50] and glad that I got it out to the world so

[00:16:52] yeah and I like that fact that like you said

[00:16:54] is to the point we can all get lost

[00:16:56] in these books there's so many times I'm

[00:16:58] reading a book or I'm listening to a book

[00:17:00] and I start wandering and I've got to come out

[00:17:02] I gotta play that again I gotta play I gotta read

[00:17:04] that chapter again this was

[00:17:06] direct it would it held my attention

[00:17:08] it was good but kind of talk about

[00:17:10] you know we got a few that just the

[00:17:12] topics here this is uh you know like

[00:17:14] showing up I mean that's one of the things I talk

[00:17:16] about with all our people is you know 80

[00:17:18] percent is just showing up we talked about

[00:17:20] on one of the earlier podcast is like look

[00:17:22] you gotta be in front of your customers

[00:17:24] you gotta be communicating with your manufacturers

[00:17:26] it's showing up and figure it out

[00:17:28] I mean it's just kind of talk us through a few

[00:17:30] these like the showing up part yeah the

[00:17:32] show up one was that seller I talked

[00:17:34] about when we were driving on that four-hour

[00:17:36] drive that was his biggest takeaway

[00:17:38] when we talked through like some of those

[00:17:40] stories and things so that's why it became chapter

[00:17:42] one it wasn't chapter one by writing

[00:17:44] actually I wrote several of those chapters

[00:17:46] before but I put chapter one show up

[00:17:48] because the essence of anything

[00:17:50] is just that I just lost some weight

[00:17:52] and the big thing was I start measuring

[00:17:54] my calories and go into the gym right

[00:17:56] I had to show up and I had to measure

[00:17:58] and showing up to me in sales has always

[00:18:00] been the most it's the biggest advantage you can

[00:18:02] have is if you just are persistent and you

[00:18:04] show up and sometimes

[00:18:06] you know I had this young seller

[00:18:08] who just said you know I'm a little

[00:18:10] lost what I did is I just went to places

[00:18:12] and talk to people and the guy came

[00:18:14] away with a day four or couple days full

[00:18:16] of activities and things just even

[00:18:18] without a plan he showed up so

[00:18:20] that's the very first element you need to do

[00:18:22] to make some significant change in your life

[00:18:24] and that's why I put that as the number one chapter

[00:18:26] and got the most feedback

[00:18:28] that's the most popular chapter so well I'll

[00:18:30] like that one I tell you the other one I like was

[00:18:32] pivot and there's a there's a quote

[00:18:34] here you know Jeff goings

[00:18:36] pivoting isn't plan B is part of the process

[00:18:38] there's so many times that we

[00:18:40] we've all had

[00:18:42] okay this is our path but

[00:18:44] you have to pivot and it's not like

[00:18:46] we're scrapping the plan A and going to plan

[00:18:48] B it's just plan changes

[00:18:50] and there's other there's a lot of other

[00:18:52] things going on they can cause that to change

[00:18:54] you can't take that as a

[00:18:56] failure or oh god we

[00:18:58] scrapped everything you just have to pivot

[00:19:00] I thought that was a great

[00:19:02] great topic and a great point I love

[00:19:04] that quote that you know pivoting isn't plan B

[00:19:06] it's part of the process it is

[00:19:08] and you know I was a basketball coach

[00:19:10] that's the first sport I coached was

[00:19:12] bad so pivot was uh was a

[00:19:14] term that I kept pretty close to my heart so

[00:19:16] so that that came from that basketball

[00:19:18] experience I just always liked it

[00:19:20] in that context but we use it in sales

[00:19:22] and in life frankly all the time

[00:19:24] yeah there's so many external things

[00:19:26] that happen especially in the sales

[00:19:28] world and when you're position between

[00:19:30] manufacturer and customer there's a lot

[00:19:32] of pivoting you have to do to get

[00:19:34] where we all want to get and like I said

[00:19:36] get that win-win situation and it's

[00:19:38] important that

[00:19:40] you don't take a square peg and just ram it

[00:19:42] into round hole you have to pivot

[00:19:44] and you have to maneuver with

[00:19:46] all these external things and

[00:19:48] once again just keep your eye on the

[00:19:50] prize and finish the job and

[00:19:52] that's part of it is pivoting

[00:19:54] is just to me is important in all

[00:19:56] that we do and in this environment

[00:19:58] with the way supply chains have been

[00:20:00] you know all the other factors we're dealing

[00:20:02] with uh labor issues

[00:20:04] at manufacturers, labor issues

[00:20:06] at customers you have to pivot

[00:20:08] to make sure we get a successful

[00:20:10] scenario for everyone

[00:20:12] yeah critical skill

[00:20:14] uh and I did try to when I did

[00:20:16] the book I did try to kind of front load it

[00:20:18] with the actionable things and then talk a little bit

[00:20:20] more about the human things at the

[00:20:22] side of the book but yeah pivoting

[00:20:24] figuring it out is another one that you know

[00:20:26] that's a chapter there that you know I think

[00:20:28] a lot of times when we have young sellers nowadays

[00:20:30] they had a different experience with digital

[00:20:32] and other things and they stopped short

[00:20:34] of accomplishing a goal

[00:20:36] and not just going all in

[00:20:38] and figuring something out on their own

[00:20:40] and I know as

[00:20:42] a parent as a

[00:20:44] coach as a manager

[00:20:46] I sometimes get frustrated with that because that's

[00:20:48] another one that you know

[00:20:50] kids man we got to go out and we figured things

[00:20:52] out right because we didn't have

[00:20:54] a lot of convenience in our fingertips

[00:20:56] to go to right away so that's been

[00:20:58] that's one of the things I find myself coaching on quite

[00:21:00] a bit is sometimes you just got to get in the grind

[00:21:02] or go through the process

[00:21:04] and see how the whole thing plays out

[00:21:06] and how you develop and I had a sales

[00:21:08] example yesterday that was

[00:21:10] I took a couple young sellers on a journey

[00:21:12] with me where I knew this was going to be a hard one

[00:21:14] I knew it wasn't going to be smooth

[00:21:16] and they have learned so much from that

[00:21:18] in this case by me setting the example but the next

[00:21:20] time those guys get to go do it and figure it out

[00:21:22] that's resilience right

[00:21:24] is that kind of what you're talking about how do you coach

[00:21:26] resilience in people

[00:21:28] that's interesting you know I think most

[00:21:30] people are more resilient

[00:21:32] than we give them credit for I think

[00:21:34] they want success they want to do

[00:21:36] it the right way they want to achieve

[00:21:38] and in a lot of cases

[00:21:40] you know we just need to give

[00:21:42] not only the inspiration but the accountability

[00:21:44] and that's what coaching is

[00:21:46] in any aspect is I want to inspire you

[00:21:48] to be the best version of yourself

[00:21:50] but I'm going to hold you accountable to the things you say you're going to do

[00:21:52] right so

[00:21:54] guys I have a coach I keep coaches all the time

[00:21:56] I believe in it

[00:21:58] I believe in coaching immensely because of that

[00:22:00] because I've seen I felt

[00:22:02] myself grow by doing

[00:22:04] those two things staying inspired

[00:22:06] though the world's going to throw some ugliness at you

[00:22:08] all the time or sales or whatever

[00:22:10] but you also got to be accountable to the things you set out to do

[00:22:12] so those two things are really important to me

[00:22:14] yeah that's good

[00:22:16] you mentioned basketball coaching

[00:22:18] recently what are the parallels you see

[00:22:20] between we talk about this a lot

[00:22:22] sports coaching sales coaching

[00:22:24] so I'll take it to football because I most recently

[00:22:26] did some high school football coaching

[00:22:28] if you don't mind

[00:22:30] all the coaching is the same you get together

[00:22:32] with your

[00:22:34] team your leaders you come up with a plan

[00:22:36] you do some

[00:22:38] you watch film or you go through and kind of

[00:22:40] do a competitive analysis

[00:22:42] no different in sales and then you say

[00:22:44] okay this is going to be a practice plan

[00:22:46] our framework how we're going to do it and then you set

[00:22:48] your goals and then you hold yourself accountable

[00:22:50] to those goals and so coaching

[00:22:52] the high school coaching experience

[00:22:54] was the best thing I ever did for my

[00:22:56] sales career so

[00:22:58] it taught me as much about staying structured

[00:23:00] and yet having

[00:23:02] the ability to adapt on the fly pivot

[00:23:04] and so one of those

[00:23:06] two they're very similar experience that's good

[00:23:08] you have some others in here that are

[00:23:10] interesting kindness enthusiasm

[00:23:12] these are kind of inspiration

[00:23:14] you know kind of character traits

[00:23:16] as opposed to maybe activities

[00:23:18] can you talk to a student maybe is there a difference

[00:23:20] between how you would coach something like that versus

[00:23:22] well it's a really good question

[00:23:24] there's a deep impact that happens in coaching

[00:23:26] in a lot of cases and there's a lot of emotion

[00:23:28] there guys and

[00:23:30] you can probably tell I'm pretty much an emotional guy

[00:23:32] but I'm telling you when you connect

[00:23:34] and this can be in sales this can be in business

[00:23:36] when you connect with somebody

[00:23:38] that's really about those other things

[00:23:40] that's the stuff that moves us that's the stuff that drives me

[00:23:42] at least and I was raised

[00:23:44] but my dad was also a Ford

[00:23:46] motor company but he worked

[00:23:48] his tail off right and we

[00:23:50] had four older brothers there's five of us

[00:23:52] you know he had to be he worked

[00:23:54] and so I didn't get as much time with my dad

[00:23:56] as I would have would have loved to have

[00:23:58] though he was an outstanding great dad

[00:24:00] I really connected with my mom

[00:24:02] and my mom was you know she was

[00:24:04] think a lot of us say this that we have

[00:24:06] a real world right but she taught me that

[00:24:08] that softer side that

[00:24:10] honestly I think it's helped my sales career more than anything

[00:24:12] and that's how to be empathetic

[00:24:14] that's how to have

[00:24:16] real conversations about real problems

[00:24:18] and solve real problems together if you can

[00:24:20] and so that part

[00:24:22] of my coaching business I sometimes

[00:24:24] get mad at myself because we'll be talking

[00:24:26] about sales and we end up in this deep conversation

[00:24:28] about something else but man that's impactful

[00:24:30] and when you see those type

[00:24:32] of connections I you can't price them

[00:24:34] You know, when you talk about like the emotional side and the personal side,

[00:24:38] you know, I hate it when people say, uh, it's not personal. It's just business.

[00:24:43] No, they're one in the same to me, to be good at what you do

[00:24:47] and to truly care and about everyone involved. It is personal and you just can't divide the two.

[00:24:56] So to your point on all this, the emotional side of things, it becomes personal.

[00:25:01] And I think if you take it personal, then that provides that grind, that drive to make it work.

[00:25:07] And to me, that's just, there's personal business or just intertwine.

[00:25:11] You so well said, I can't add much to it. I really agree with that. And that was what

[00:25:17] I was coaching this morning that that exact scenario came up and, and, and, you know,

[00:25:21] and how to, how to sometimes it was a personal situation, right? This was a win that we want

[00:25:27] to do personally. And sometimes you add a little business into that to frame it upright,

[00:25:31] but man, it's all personal to me. I don't, I don't think I have an interaction in sales that

[00:25:35] isn't personal. So, and I like that part. And I, I tell you, I respect some people who can do,

[00:25:39] you know, have a little more balance than I do, but, but that's my style.

[00:25:42] Before we move towards wrapping up here, I wanted to make sure we give you the opportunity to

[00:25:48] just any words you want to say or how can people get in touch with you? How do you,

[00:25:52] how do you work with people? You know, they're interested in coaching, for example.

[00:25:56] So I'm all over social media. So if you want to find me, I live on LinkedIn mostly because that's

[00:26:01] right how you guys and I spend most of my time there from a professional standpoint, but that,

[00:26:05] I do have a website intensity method.com. It kind of frames out the different things I coach on.

[00:26:12] So, so you can easily get a hold of me there. I'm doing some business coaching right now,

[00:26:16] and they're teaching me how to, how to do landing pages and other things in the marketing

[00:26:20] aspect of things. So maybe you'll see some of that develop. But right now it's pretty

[00:26:23] much through the website. And, and of course, you know, if there's any manufacturers out there

[00:26:28] looking for a great rep at the Michigan Ohio area, you can reach out to McCall of two schools.

[00:26:33] There you go. We'll do it. We'll set that up. Any, anything else crack or any other

[00:26:38] appreciate you want to make? Appreciate the time. It was like I said,

[00:26:41] it was a good read. I enjoyed it. It was definitely for somebody with a short attention

[00:26:44] span. It was perfect. So I liked it a lot and 42 pages. Yeah.

[00:26:51] Available on Amazon. Right up my alley right there. But no, it was well done. I appreciate the time

[00:26:57] today. It's been a lot of good insights and you know, stay in touch. We'll have to have you back

[00:27:02] on. Amen guys. Anytime I love this stuff and, and, and I love what you guys are doing. I think

[00:27:08] this is really cool and I'm grateful for the opportunity.