In today’s episode, Jon and Scott challenge your mindset Yet again.
Stop selling yourself on outside forces being the problem. Look inward and see how YOU can improve. Focus on what you CAN change.
Sit back and enjoy!!
*E - explicit language is used in this podcast.
Read the transcript
Jon Dwoskin: Good, Scott. How are you doing?
Scott Fishman: Great. It feels weird. Normally, I say good morning but it’s afternoon today.
Jon Dwoskin: It is.
Scott Fishman: We’re going to scratch that. Good time, appropriate greetings to everyone out there.
Jon Dwoskin: Yes. Late afternoon and we are going to share what I think is some really good medicine, not that we’re doctors. I was premed in college for a year and dropped out, but some very good medicine today. That medicine is for all of you sales people listening. One, we want to thank you again for taking time to listen; but, two, we want you to look in the mirror because it’s a really good best sales practice. I want you to look in the mirror and I want you to say to yourself, “Shut the fuck up.” Do you know why I say that, Scott?
Scott Fishman: Jon, why do you say that?
Jon Dwoskin: I know you agree because we talked about it as we were putting together our thoughts on today’s podcast. Our sales people for some reason … Even the most successful sales people … we both know people who make ten to fifty thousand dollars, hundreds, thousands and some millions. They love to complain.
Scott Fishman: Right.
Jon Dwoskin: They love to complain. There is nothing more irritating than somebody who is so self-righteous and complains about way too much stuff. Today’s episode is all about, like I said earlier, just shutting the fuck up and stop complaining. We’re going to give you some tools to stop complaining.
Scott Fishman: Exactly. We want to give you a checkup from the neck up today.
Jon Dwoskin: Yes.
Scott Fishman: Get some cheese to go with the wine and stop whining because it’s become prevalent. We always hear it. Every sales person does it. We’re good at selling so one of the things we do is we sell ourselves.
Jon Dwoskin: Right.
Scott Fishman: We give ourselves all the reasons why we can’t be good at sales today, or why we can’t be good this month, or why this is going to be our worst quarter ever.
Jon Dwoskin: Right. Or why our sales manager or our manager is holding us back, or why they’re not always around for you. Or they said one thing that you didn’t like seventeen years ago and you’re still pissed at them. The list goes on and on. You can’t be productive because the person next to you speaks too loud and you’re making a tremendous living. What are some other excuses? We’ll try to get as many out on the table so you can all identify with this talk.
Scott Fishman: The leads are bad.
Jon Dwoskin: Right.
Scott Fishman: That one’s huge.
Jon Dwoskin: Huge.
Scott Fishman: People are stupid. If they were smart they’d want to buy from me.
Jon Dwoskin: Right. We’re going to give you some very simple tools right now to get out of your own way because that’s what happens. You get in your way and you get in this tornado. The first thing is to recognize that if this resonates with you, you’ve got to continually remind yourself, “I got it really good. I can either (a), continue to grow my gain and my skillset. Or I can conform with all these other pigeons because I’m not in the mood to be an eagle.
Scott Fishman: I like that, Jon.
Jon Dwoskin: You like that?
Scott Fishman: You said that with conviction too.
Jon Dwoskin: Because I mean it. There’s always this group of consistent, solid sales people that you never hear them complain. They’re not into corporate politics. They’re not listening to the bullshit and they’re doing great. Those are the eagles and then you see around the water cooler, all the pigeons shitting on each other. You can be a pigeon or you can be an eagle.
Scott Fishman: Yes. We always talk and I’m in a team sales environment. I have been in one for years, whether I’m running the team or just part of the team. Do you know who Statler and Waldorf are?
Jon Dwoskin: It sounds familiar.
Scott Fishman: They’re the two old dudes from the Muppets.
Jon Dwoskin: Oh, yeah.
Scott Fishman: They just pick on everybody. Whenever someone complains or they’re just kind of a wet blanket, I always think about those two guys. Everything in the world is cynical or they’re cynical about everything in the world. There’s a conspiracy out to get them every single time.
Jon Dwoskin: Right. Yet they’re in box seats. They’re wearing tuxedos. Obviously, I don’t know the back story of those two Muppets. I used to watch it when I was a kid. Obviously, they’re wealthy so come on.
Scott Fishman: Exactly.
Jon Dwoskin: Right. Get it together.
Scott Fishman: Exactly. I think the big thing that we need to do is really … I said the words check up from the neck up, but really give yourself that little checkup. We talked about it before, “Is this something that I’m cut out for?” Because if you’re not it’s time to be realistic with yourself and get the hell out.
Jon Dwoskin: Right. You got to get thicker skin. That’s the next thing. Get thicker skin and know if this is something you want to do. Also, very important because I think this will resonate with everyone: Your complaining. Every time you complain, every complaint costs you ten thousand dollars minimum. Your complaining is costing you a ton of money if you add up all the hours, hours and hours. We’ve done it in past podcasts what your time is worth, your hour, your minute, etc. If you add up all that time of complaining and the time that you’re thinking about complaining, you’re costing yourself a ton of money.
Scott Fishman: Right. Remember there’s other people that are doing it. You’ve had sales before. You’ve been successful or else you wouldn’t be listening to this. At some point you would have found success. If you’ve done it before, you can do it again. There’s no reason to blame it on anyone but yourself. Are you doing the right things? Are you taking the right actions? Are you taking shortcuts now that are really leading you to the negative path? That’s something I notice a lot of times. Newer sales people will listen to the vets. The vets. They get by a lot of times on charisma. They don’t really follow the basics. If you try to cut corners and be that veteran salesperson, you don’t really know the relationship that they’re building. You don’t really know the foundation. If you’re just stealing their little one liners you’re never going to be successful. If you feel yourself wanting to complain, go back and actually look at yourself. Look in the mirror and say, “What am I doing wrong? What can I change?” Because you probably are the problem.
Jon Dwoskin: Yeah. You’re right. Absolutely. Maybe you’re a great salesperson, just in the wrong place. Maybe you just need to find a better home to do something. I know for me, anytime I’ve been negative about something, more in my head. I’m not a water cooler person. I’ve always known it’s time to move on. It’s just time to have a new home and do something new.
Scott Fishman: That takes guts.
Jon Dwoskin: That takes a lot of guts.
Scott Fishman: To give – really give – yourself that opportunity. To be able to walk away from something, that takes a lot of chutzpah, a lot of chutzpah. Most people will just sit there and they’ll complain for years. I actually know a guy. It’s kind of funny. He’s one of our fraternity brothers. He’s been there even longer than me. He’s worked with me for about fourteen years. I swear every single month is his last month at the company. It’s a running joke because he complains. He complains and he complains and at the end of the day he cashes his fat checks. He’s good at his job but he has to complain to keep his motor running.
Jon Dwoskin: Right.
Scott Fishman: Sometimes, I just have to walk away from him. I’m like, “Listen, man. You don’t realize we have the same job. If you want to tell me how bad your job is, you’re telling me how bad my job is. That can affect my psyche so I’m going to walk away from this conversation. Next month when you’re still here, maybe we’ll have it again but you’ve been doing this now for fourteen years times twelve. What is that? A hundred and sixty-eight months has been your last month of the company.”
Jon Dwoskin: That’s too much time there.
Scott Fishman: Keep going and learn.
Jon Dwoskin: You may have a really good point because for those of you who are listening, you can find yourself complaining a little bit and you can catch yourself. That’s great but don’t surround yourself and take yourself out of the mix of being around negative people. Let them know that you’re not the go-to person for their complaining because you are the sum of the five people you hang out with the most, specifically at work. Hang out with people who are positive and who are going to lift you up, raise you game and highlight the positive things that you’re doing. Not the negative.
Scott Fishman: Right. I joked and said, “Maybe you should quit.” I’ve actually given that advice several times over the last month because the negative people were coming to me. Because they saw me coming from a position of leadership so they wanted to come and complain to me, when they didn’t really realize what they were doing to my own mindset. I went ahead and I started telling people, “You know what? You should quit.” The great thing is, no one quit but no one is complaining to me anymore.
Jon Dwoskin: Amen. Good job. Well done.
Scott Fishman: It’s worked. Jon, I don’t know what sparked this in you that you made you want to have this conversation today, but I love this. This is great. I want to say thank you. It’s cathartic a little bit.
Jon Dwoskin: Right. You know what? We don’t really talk about a lot here but I am an executive advisor business coach. I’m working within companies a lot throughout the country. One thing I see – I used to run sales divisions throughout companies – is just salespeople complaining about really superficial, irrelevant things. I know it’s important to them. It always seems really important and monumental, but the reality is that they’re too inside their heads and they just go to get out of themselves. This is just a friendly reminder to look in the mirror and remember what you have: Your potential. That you’re in sales because you love it, enjoy it. I always believe in incremental change. If you’re complaining twenty percent of the day tomorrow or after you’re done listening, complain nineteen percent of your day, eighteen percent the next. Really ween yourself off of complaining because it’s doing you no good and people just don’t like you or don’t like being around you.
Scott Fishman: Jon. I’m going to share a funny story with you. This is going to be a big reach to make this actually fit in with what we’re talking about, but it’s just funny. It’s winter time here in Michigan and I was just driving in front of the gym yesterday. I saw this guy. He didn’t see me but I saw him. He slipped. He tripped and he turned around. If you slip, you slip. You’re a human being. It happens but he turned around to see like, “There’s no way I could have actually tripped on something. There must be something behind me.” As humans we always do that. You trip or you slip. You always look back and you blame the curb or you blame that imaginary object that you tripped over. I think as salespeople we do the same thing. It couldn’t possibly be our fault. We always want to blame someone else. Stop blaming. Don’t play the blame game. Get out of your own way, as Jon said. Just move onward and upward folks.
Jon Dwoskin: Onward and upward. Right. We talk about looking in the mirror. I started off by saying look in the mirror and suggested that you say something to yourself, but really look in the mirror and role play with yourself. Grow your game, spend every day role playing. Grow your skillset. We’ve talked about this on a past podcasts. Sales come so easily sometimes, we don’t think we need to grow our game. The reason we get negative is because we kind of get complacent. You’re doing the same old thing every single day. You get into a routine. What can shake it up is role playing, reading books, talking to people who are ahead of sales where you are. There’s so many things you can do, listening to podcasts. There’s unbelievable podcasts out there. Educate yourself. Don’t stop learning. Don’t stop growing.
Scott Fishman: Right. In closing, when it’s time to make that change, it’s time to start with the man in the mirror. Thank you very much everybody. Have a great day.
Jon Dwoskin: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Seven Minute Sales Minute. For show notes and worksheets pertaining to this week’s show, check us out at the sevenminutesalesminute.com. Take today’s strategies and run with them. Increase your sales and increase your income.
