It's time for Confessions of a Serial Salesman. Author, expert sales trainer, and serial entrepreneur Steve Noodleberg wants to help you change your life and your business using his 27 rules for influencers and leaders. This is the Confections of a Serial Salesman Podcast. With Steve Noodleberg, here's Josh Cohen.
And welcome to another edition of the Confessions of a Serial Salesman. The podcast based on the book, the 27 rules for influencers and leaders. Hardcover, pay-per-back, live boot camps around the world, and podcast number 41. Tom Siever is the number you've chosen for 41.
I did not choose that. You didn't choose that. That would be our friend Ken. Tom Lavic, voice of the FAU Allstate.
Tom Siever. Little did he know that I was such a big fan in my day. I can name that rotation. Tom Siever.
Jim McAndrew. Nolan Ryan. What's the name of that? 69 Metz.
Who are you talking about? The 69 Metz. The amazing Metz. Jim Coleman.
You know when the lawyers say, never ask a question, you don't already know the answer to them. You actually asked yourself the question that you didn't turn out to know the answer to. I don't know the answer to it, but I'm focused on what we're going to do here. It's just you and I today, Ken.
It's another one of those episodes in which you just expound a pound of people, the knowledge and wisdom you've gained, and I set it up and tee it high, and you let it fly for this 41st episode. And the question today, you're asking people and you're asking yourself and you're even asking me, are you being a good CEO to yourself? Do people view themselves as a brand? Do they view themselves as a CEO of their own brand, their own company?
So when you ask, are you being a good CEO to yourself, what are you asking actually people of themselves? So here's the interesting takeaway. First of all, I want to shout out to my friend, Alan Goldberg. Alan actually got to see me speak at one of the events I did.
He's actually set me up with the franchise Brokers Association. I'll be speaking at the end of November. But in speaking with him yesterday, he said, listen, I love what you guys are putting out. He had just listened to one of the other episodes.
He said, but candidly, I'd like to hear more of you. Like when you have a guest, you need to make room for the guest. So number one, I was flattered. Number two is, I do have a lot to say.
So this is a good opportunity. So the question that you threw that I wanted to talk about is, I think when people talk about a CEO of a company, they elevate that person to a place like, oh my God, that guy's the CEO. Look at all of the people that report to him. Look at all of the moving pieces.
Look at how my God, that guy has a difficult job. And so in some of my coaching sessions, I say to somebody, I go, what happens if you were the CEO of your own life? Look at all the moving pieces in your own life. Your emotion, the physical nature of doing things for yourself, around yourself.
I said, if you basically start grading yourself, would you hire yourself? Would you go to the... And a lot of them would go, well, you know, wow, you know, that's... Self-awareness is a rare thing.
You learn it in time and through wisdom, the more self-aware you are, the more successful. You can be in all aspects of life. So one of the bases of being successful, not only in sales, but certainly in sales, is understanding yourself, understanding what you're good at, what you're not good at. I think most people focus on, oh my God, I'm weak, I'm this, I'm don't do that.
That's not what a CEO does. A CEO focuses on the things they do best and they become the best at things. Focus on your strengths. Right.
So people say, you know what, I don't do this. Well, I'm gonna spend a lot of time there. Well, the reality is that happens in sales, too. I get invited in and I'm talking to them and they go, well, here's our bottom 20%.
We'd like you to spend time with them. Why? Spend that quality time with the top 20% making them better and you're elevating your organization instead of bringing it down. So when I bring it back to each individual, there's so many pieces of running your own business.
You as an entity. What's page number one? Steve Noodleberg, Inc. Right.
Is all about who am I? You know, and I think that's a competitive advantage in today's marketplace that people are not exploiting, but who you are, what makes you tick, what are you passionate about? Because when you align the passion, the people over use this, but it really isn't like working. Whatever you want to do it, you want to achieve it, the goal structure is very different.
You go, I can't wait to get up in the morning and do all this. Yet most people do something you love and you'll never work in doing it. Correct. So if you're the CEO of the company and you don't like what's going on, what do you do?
Think of a good CEO. Think of Richard Branson. What did he do? He iterated all the time.
He made changes. He didn't accept the status quo. Put yourself as a human being and look at all the decisions you got to make that you just accept. And so the first thing is understanding who you are and embracing it.
Not saying, well, I need to get better at this or I need to do that. Now, who you are is who you truly are that the world doesn't know or the perception of you that the world has. That's agree because there's a major difference between what we know we are and what the world will and we talk about brands all the time. Know your brand, know your audience.
You know, last night, Monday night football, halftime is now commercial for eight percent of my Genesis. Well, Genesis was a model of the Hyundai brand. People would not want to buy. Correct.
And they tried. They tried to say, you look at the $65,000 sedan, if it was a Benz or an MPMW, it'd be $105,000. But people couldn't get over that brand. So then they said screw it.
Let's give up on the Hyundai. Let's make the Genesis model its own make, its own subdivision. But last night, halftime, I'm watching Lil Wayne performing, right? Lil Wayne is lip syncing a new song off his new album.
The pay acts to play halftime at Super Bowl. Now the acts pay the NFL to do so. So last night during this performance, it was Lil Wayne dancing around, getting out of the back of this Genesis vehicle. And I jokingly tweeted, I knew it.
I always thought Lil Wayne was a Hyundai guy. Well, don't you think that Odell should have been dancing with him? Seeing that Odell. Is that his brand?
Lil Wayne was doing the interview with Odell Ford. Who knows? To my point is that what we want our us to be to the world is very different from what we truly are. So when you say know yourself, know who you are, is it how you're perceived, what they believe you are, or is it truly what you know you to be?
So that's an awesome comment. Thank you. I'm going to be doing a lot of awesome tea up because the reality is we are living in a transparent environment where the more genuine and authentic you are, the more connected to who you want to be on a real basis, you know, and live that, not, you know, the picture that you expect other people. That's a very dangerous slope in all candidates.
That's how I grew my sales career. I was always the guy. I was always out in front of it, you know. So doing that from a disingenuous place can be exhausting.
Yes. Dangerous could be when you finally connect with who you are, and then that's the color you show people they see through so much. Like, oh my God, people have said to me, Wow, Steve, you've really changed. It looks like you really hit your stride doing what you do.
Who knew that I would be so excited about speaking and training, you know, back in the day because I was so competitive on being the best and doing it, you know, that I didn't pay attention to the things that make me legitimately happy. You know, and this does. So connecting with your brand and then, and here's where it changes. We have social media, this bazooka that allows you to spread your message.
But if you spread a message, that's not genuine, people see right through it. You know, you could say you're something at the actor, you could say you stated a holiday and last night with the following day, when you show up face to face, we just want a piece of business from a great guy, a guy who's going to be on our on our podcast, who named Andy Brahms and Andy's the CEO of a company. He decided he wanted to add some energy and some of the things he watched me on social media and said, this is a guy that I want to potentially be in my company reached out. We had a conversation that just shows you the power of how real it is.
And we made an opportunity to create an opportunity to visit together. If I showed up and was it every bit of what you portrayed, I portrayed, he would see right through it. Of course, the conversation was over. We went up, spending a couple hours that day, she was there, just shooting the shit talking about the Mets and the Yankees and his whole story about his entrepreneurial thing.
So we were very aligned. You talked about being symbiotic. It was great. And so if you were the CEO of your own company and your company's not telling the right story or trying to fake a story, that just doesn't fly anymore.
And that's where I've had this conversation with lots of the people on an individual basis and on a broader basis in terms of, hey, what really makes you tick? Are you getting up every day? Are you really excited? What story are you telling yourself?
Because that becomes overwhelming. There's a lesson to be learned. Lil Bow Wow, actor, rapper, famous since he was a little kid. Wasn't he in the basketball movie?
He was in the basketball movie. He sure was, but famous since he was a kid. In fact, I think he makes a cameo in a Snoop Dogg video in the early 90s, maybe gin and juice. His name is Shat.
This is real. Lil Bow Wow. A couple of songs where he made the mistake because he's still making movies, still making music. He's still making music.
He's still, he was on Entourage. I mean, he's still, you know, he has fans and followers around the world. And he was going to the press junket and was going to the promotion of a new film that he was in. And then he decided to Google Private Airplane, something and the image that came up was like a limo rescue fee on the tarmac in the private jet.
And then he, you know, posted on social media that he was flying out to go and promote his film. Problem was, people realize that you're sitting next to me on a Southwest flight. Oh, God. Wow.
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
Wow. Wow. And on the SUV on the tarmac, he got busted and people will, they will never forget those moments. You know, you said something, which you always do and I.
So we have an aha moment podcast, I'm enumerant. It could be, because I tell people, listen, you are the director of your own movie correct, that whatever script you're writing and sharing is up to you. So people say, what do I post? How do I get into that?
There's a lot of people. I would say probably a good 75% of sales people really do not know how to grasp building their own brand in the sales channel is just they're just new to it. And do it and they're not. It's not something that's comfortable.
So you could be a great salesperson, but not in your mind, be a great creator of social content. So those two things are fighting. So I'm unaware or forgetting the fact that we are all a brand. Correct.
Or they just don't know. I think there's an education curve. And this has happened more and more in the speeches that I've been doing around the country, where I'm teaching people to be your authentic self and basically just tell your own story. So we worked with a young lady last night and we started talking about who she is and what she's all about.
And she was a stand-up comedian. Really? And she literally got up in front of stages and did acts and wrote content. And I said, well, why are you willing to share that with people?
And she goes, well, why would they care if I used to be a comedian? I said, well, your take on what happens is what people are interested in. You become to TV station for somebody else going, look at her. And so in the creative process, we came up with something.
Her name is Talia. We came up with Talia's takes, which it's just her take on working in a family business, being a female in the work environment and being a road warrior. She's all over the place. And there's a little racial.
I'm a big fan of the little racial. Right. Well, exactly. And so that was maybe the biggest stretch for her.
But once I set in her face lit up and she goes, oh my god, I can do this. And she did one this morning that she posted about being stuck in traffic trying to get to Miami Beach for a nine o'clock meeting. That was hilarious. Because she was a comedian who knows how to write a joke, tell us an organ delivery.
But she was telling the story in a comedic way that I promise you that's the kind of thing that gets liked and shared and commented on it. So I said, you didn't have to become somebody different. I don't need to know everything there is to know about your business. And here's the takeaway for people who listen to this.
Is that if I genuinely like you and like your content, I'm going to be curious about what you do. Oh, what does this person do? Oh, this person is this and this. That might be somebody that we could help each other.
And all of a sudden, these amazing relationships are being born that were not being born if I just say, hey, here's what I got to sell you. So I've talked about it before. But that if you're the CEO of the company, you are responsible for making changes. There's no business that started with a game plan and didn't change it.
I use football all the time. But my things make up time adjustments. Make adjustments. It's a game of adjustments.
And so I try to use that CEO mentality, that if you bring the fact that you're the CEO of your own company, you are of your own being. You are responsible for how it shows up. You are responsible for how people, what people think about it. You are responsible for follow up.
You are responsible for being the leader of yourself. And once I start doing the checkbox, people have their aha moment going, oh my, wow. There isn't anything on here that I can't control. None of it is somebody else's responsibility.
It's all ours. And the best that we can do is put our best out there. But not everyone's an entrepreneur. Not everyone has their own LLC.
Not everyone has their own business. A lot of the folks that you're talking to, they are helping someone else get rich. Whether it be the owners of the company, the shareholders, what have you. So when you say they are the CEO of their own, are they subcontracting them?
Because in their mind, some of these folks go, all right, not my problem, it's 5 PM, I'm out the door. So here's where I'll challenge that conversation. So there's a lot of people who are in professional services who went to many, many years of school to become a doctor or lawyer. And they go, well, I became an accountant so that I didn't have to sell.
Well, ask that person what's happening in those partners meetings. So they're not doing what they love. They're avoiding not having to do what they don't. I just don't think people realize that no matter what they do, they are responsible for where their career goes.
But think about what you just said. Think about what you just said. They say to you, I became an accountant so I wouldn't have to sell. Correct.
Well, it doesn't sound to me like they pinpointed what it is they'd love to do. It sounds like they pinpointed how to avoid, way to avoid what it is they'd hate to do. And that's not what I live your life because here's where the fallacy is. If you had something that could legitimately help me solve a problem, wouldn't you want to share that with me?
The problem where sales gets muddled up is when you try and cram something to me that's not a fit. And I talk about that in all of my writings and all my books is that you're not a fit for everybody. So the selling part, not everything is for everyone. So if it's not a fit for you and I can say, hey, Josh, listen, I'm glad we're friends but what I do is not a fit for you.
The next time you meet somebody that you think is a fit, that'd be great if you refer me. That's not selling. There's nothing wrong with that. Every accountant is providing a service to somebody.
It's where when they get the crosshairs is the way they go, well, I don't want to have to sell it to them. Well, they bought you. There's a reason why they're already doing business with you. And so in every organization, we have this mindset that we try and create that is much like a franchise or.
So no matter what business you're in, if you work for ESPN, you are a franchisee of ESPN. Correct. There are really, really successful people at ESPN and really some people that are not successful. What's the difference?
What's the difference? The difference of the people. So I do this example with McDonald's. I know Ricky Wade, as I think you do.
Sure, of course. You know, very successful operator of McDonald's franchise. And he gets it. He gets it.
So would it surprise you that there are some McDonald's franchises that are not successful? There are. Sure. There are.
And so the difference is. And they have every advantage to me. Well, you would think, oh, they give me a McDonald's franchise. It's a no brainer.
And every advantage with brand recognition, with market standing, with marketing support. Yet people make a difference. So that's where the CEO mentality comes in. It says, you know what?
You got to be responsible for yourself, no matter what, the cards are, no matter what. I watched an interview the other day with James Franklin. That if people have not seen it, they should. It was the post-game interview after they lost to Ohio State.
And he sat there and he said, we just played our butts off. We played a great game. We made some mistakes. We could have made.
But what happened is we are not an elite football program yet. Ohio State is an elite program. And he said, the reason why we are not elite is we're too comfortable. We are, he said, make no mistake.
We are a great football program. He has brought that program back to where it's great. Now he's saying everybody in the organization needs to make themselves uncomfortable, because the road between being great and being elite is very, very different than it was. And he's reminding everyone there's levels to this.
And as good as we think we are and as good as you fans out there want to believe, I'm not saying that we're not. I'm just telling you that we're not at the level where we need to be. And that means perennially in a playoff. And it can work for any form of business.
That was an interesting post-game. I happen to see some of the folks listening right now probably saw it also. But really the moral of that story is being self-aware, knowing who and what you are being true to that. And then kind of motivating others to say, what level are you on right now?
Be honest. And what level do you believe you need to be on? Those are the two very different things. Which is great.
And that leads me to you ask me a couple of things that somebody would need to do. And this happens at the CEO level now. The way to communicate who you are and what you do is very, very significant. We just had an engagement.
I won't mention the name. But we had a bunch of people in the room. And I asked every single person in the room. And there were 25 or 30 people.
Now, what do we do here? What is it that we do? I had them write it down and basically got 30 different answers. Really?
30 different answers. So something's wrong. How many correct answers were there? There would be like seven correct answers.
There was probably seven that were close to being something that we had. I mean, if you work in the Hershey factory, and everyone should write down, we make chocolate. But in a diverse world of marketing, PR, strategy, consultation, there could be a lot of answers. But if there's as many answers as our people, that's a problem.
It means every time on page. So if you're on if you are not on the right page, that's a tragedy. And that's what happens in a lot of companies. They go around.
They're not telling the story the same way. But even if you are on the same page, and there were two right answers that weren't the same, we're not telling the same story on the outside. We're certainly not telling it on the inside. And here's the takeaway for if it's your company, your job.
Every single person in the organization, their job, is to understand what we do and be able to communicate it to somebody right next door to them in a way that they could go tell somebody else. So it breaks that down. So what does that look like? So if I told you what I do, and I got into this long ramble of, how we work with companies, and we do all of this kind of stuff, probably would lose you.
And there'd be no way that you, if you were sitting at lunch, and somebody might be a prospector, you could never repeat it. I could never repeat it. So coming up with short, memorable ways to describe what you do. And some people call it a unique selling proposition.
Some call it a value proposition. I call it, some people call it an elevator pitch. It's really none of those. It is what is short, sweet, memorable that makes somebody want to pay attention to you.
It's a bio blast. The idea is a lot of clutter. And everybody in my organization is walking around going, well, we're mortgage brokers. How many other mortgage brokers do you know?
No point of differentiation. And the work I did with Bank United, one of their points of differentiation was that they have local decision makers. Jerry, that was on the show, makes the decision, or has a hand in the decision of someone alone. So instead of saying to somebody, hey, I'm in banking, hey, I work with a company that is loaning money to local people with local decision makers.
Ooh, selling point. Yeah, I mean, differentiating. Eddie Ariola on, he talked about Apollo Bank. The story behind Apollo Bank was all about the missions.
Those people collectively now throughout the whole organization have two sentences that they can go tell. They know the story. So the receptionist is sitting there at home, and she's got a house full of people, and someone goes, you know, Mary, what do you do? Sh, sh, sh, boom, and you educated another group of people and another group of people.
It's probably the number one place that we see a drop in people being consistent and communicative about what they do. I mean, it's really the work is fascinating. It's for your chance to be creative and stand out. Very similar to what I did on my LinkedIn page.
Everybody on LinkedIn is saying that they're a speaker, a trainer, a life coach. That's really funny because people that I know that are life coaches sometimes have the words. Well, no, that, I mean, that's how, you know, in life. That's how that works.
So I can't do a teach. Well, so I went the other way. I said, I can't live my life, but I can teach out live yours. I'm not a sales trainer.
I'm a sales doer. You know, and that has won us more audiences more. Yeah, so, you know, I get emails or connection requests from people saying, I need somebody to get in my company who can do it. Forget about teaching it, who can do it?
Can you, are you on the field, are you practical? And those are for me when that comes out or like the title that I use, you know. Points of differentiation. Words matter.
Yeah, so if you're the CEO of the company and you're the CEO of your own company, this is about you, it is incumbent upon you to figure out how to tell your story. How do you stand out, you know, if you love biking, well, wouldn't it be great to connect with all the other people that love biking? You'd instantly be able to have a conversation with them. Yeah, because you share that same passion.
Why wouldn't you put that in the way you promote yourself? You know, so there's a ton of stuff like that that we go over on a regular basis. But the idea from the top was, if you started looking at your own life as a business, would you operate it differently? Would you hire yourself and all that?
And the idea being you have to learn to be aware, self-aware of what you really are and how you're perceived by others. Yeah, absolutely. And then some of it is execution. And here's a doozy that happened this week.
And I spoke about it in my coaching group. You know, we were brought up to say don't talk to strangers. Well, that's a complete fallacy if you're in sales because every stranger is someone who could become a friend. And it happens to me all the time.
I talk about, you know, all of these things that are really, really happening. And in this particular case, somebody had forgotten their wallet or whatever the story was, they couldn't pay for their coffee. I'd say, you know, I'll pay for your coffee. And struck up a conversation.
What do you do? I told her a little bit of my story, a little bit of her story. Tell me something good, all of the things that I use. And it turns out to be a, what potentially is a very big business opportunity that came because I was willing to talk to a stranger.
And so one of the things I instruct all the people that I work with is just be kind to everybody around you. Just smile and say good morning and tell me something good. And not because you want anything from home. No!
But because the universe is blessed with another day of life. I had no idea that this one. Another sound long is full of air. And you never know why the universe places these people and opportunities around us.
And if you wouldn't have bought this one in coffee, then this whole process wouldn't have gotten a motion that looks as though it's going to cause great success for business. All the symbiotic nature for all involved. So we said today we would open it up to some questions. OK.
Are you getting any questions there? Well, one of the things I had written about that somebody had asked me to talk about was the start of the fourth quarter in sports. A lot of guys hold up the four fingers. Hey, this is fourth quarter, which all that means is where we're totally committed.
We're focused. We're ready. We're going to close out the game. We're going to give it our best effort.
And yet in sales language, in a lot of the rooms and places that I work, people are saying, well, you know, November we got Thanksgiving. Most of December is shot already. If I don't have it done already, I've got to look the first quarter to make it up, which is so anti how to get things done. Every day brings huge opportunity.
And one of the things we talk about is when everybody else goes to sleep, that's the time to really bring your A game and worry about discipline. And instead of saying, hey, you know what? People are going to be gone for Thanksgiving. I've done more.
I need more new connections during the Thanksgiving break. Really? That's when CEOs are home chilling, doing the stuff they want to do. I think especially salespeople have a challenge that's saying, oh, with that person's not getting back to me, it's about me.
No, sometimes they just don't have the time. And so when you look at opportunities, that's where Saturday and Sunday. So for me, fourth quarter is a way to end the game in a blitz and then create momentum that takes you into first quarter. As opposed to just taking a knee in the victory position and thinking you've done enough.
Yeah. You know, it's just the way that the sales is another football metaphor. The way that sales minds are programmed is, OK, if somebody tells me this, then I'm tend to believe it. And so there was a myth that fourth quarter is a difficult time to do business.
And it's really not because a lot of people that are doing it. It's because they say it. Well, right. It doesn't mean that that is the case.
So you found success in thinking for yourself as opposed to just doing things the way that they've always been done or others believe them to be done. You know, I make generalizations while we're on this, while we're talking. Of course, every situation starts with, you know, what am I? How am I going to make the most out of today?
And again, as a CEO, daily routines, are really significant. What is our daily operation? I had a conversation with Jordan. It's ever been recently.
And he could tell you exactly what's happening in his one of the top advertising agencies. He could tell you everything that's happening every single day. When it's happening, why it's happening. He's not involved.
Oh, yeah. And so, you know, great CEOs are that involved. And there's no, you know, I've said this before. Don't worry about the scoreboard.
Just worry about the blocking and tackling. So in this particular case, you as a human being need to be focused every single day. What you're doing. Not, oh my God, I got to climb that mountain.
What am I doing? I'm a CEO of your own company. Are you being a good CEO to yourself? That was the question today.
So I ask you, are you being a good CEO to yourself? I'm really, really hard on myself. You know, I hold myself to a very high, you know, goal structure, I said, I'm high. What's the difference between a goal and a dream?
The execution. Yeah. You know, the. I always tell people there's a deadline.
Goals or dreams of common deadlines. Not like that too. You know, the, you know, we talk about aha moments. That's my aha moment for today.
Okay. Just taking things you've heard before and hearing them differently. Like I have that done. Boom.
I'll give you one example if I can. Please. I spoke in Orlando last month. We were talking about one of the rules in my book is make your bed.
And everybody's, oh, I love that. And they were kind of coming to one guy. A CEO in the back of the room said, I have a different take on why I make my bed and my kids make their beds. And I go, why?
He goes, it is a clear demarcation between sleeping and well, this one doing and doing the small things. You know, for me as a non clutter guy coming home at night to a bed that's not made driving crazy. I like to, everything's got to be in order before I walk out the door. So here's another perspective, which is probably the best part about writing the book is that people have said to me, here's it might take on the rule.
I love it. But here's how I do it or here's how I don't do it. Here's something I do in return. And so, you know, the dialogue that I've had with people about how the rules have affected their life.
And we post some of the testimonials every Saturday, but there are so many testimonials. Just looking for a system. That's great. Listen, before we wrap it up, because I know next one is the Big Jackie Robinson, number four two on tap two.
We are going to ask you to do what it is that you ask others when you meet them and greet them. And that is to tell us something good as we put a bow on this episode number 41. So what do you got for us? So I got asked to be the MC of the Acistic Fibrosis event this past Friday night at the Polo Club.
Oh, that's great. It was the first time from being an MC at an early large event. What did you learn about yourself? That it's not as easy as it looks.
Not raising money, not as easy as it looks. No, no, if it was easy anybody could do it. Correct. But I did it.
My friends were there to support me, which was great. And we raised the shitload of money for Acistic Fibrosis Crale. And I was going to say, I was going to say, and it caused you to have to step on your comfort zone and put yourself in position where a lot of people are looking at you and maybe not paying attention. And maybe like the comedian that you spoke of earlier, a chance for you either to a bomb or to connect.
But you can learn a lot about yourself by the way. It was the beginning was really not fun. As a guy that's done that thousands of times. I know exactly what you're talking about.
Fantastic. All right, kids, get the book. If you haven't already, confessions of a sales salesman, 27 rules for influencers and leaders again, paperback and hard cover. We'll move on to Jackie Robinson.
We'll do it one more time. If you have that bad ass party. Have a big party for Steve Nober, Josh going saying, thank you for listening to this episode of the confessions of a salesman, the podcast. We'll see you next time.
Bye.