Geoff Woods has very literally taken the step from B2B sales professional to multiple streams of income in the past few years.
He joins me on today’s episode of the show to share why you MUST focus on reducing risk by increasing the ways you get paid.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
Transcript
Will Barron:
Coming up on today’s episode of The Salesman Podcast.
Geoff Woods:
The only reason you have a side hustle is because you want to have another stream of income.
Will Barron:
Hello, Sales Nation. I’m Will Barron, host of The Salesman Podcast, and welcome to today’s episode. On today’s show we have Geoff Woods. He’s back again, and on this show, I’m asking him if salespeople, B2B salespeople specifically, need a side hustle. All become clear in the show, and huge hint here, the answer is yes. Yes, you do if you want any kind of security and comfort from that perspective. You can find out more about Geoff over to geoffwoods.com. With that all said, let’s jump into today’s show.
Will Barron:
Hey, Geoff, welcome back to The Salesman Podcast.
Geoff Woods:
Will Barron, glad to be here.
Should Salespeople Have a Side Hustle? · [01:29]
Will Barron:
I’m glad to have you on, mate. And I’m interested because you’ve essentially done what we’re talking about today. Well, I’ve essentially done it as well, I guess. I’ve never really thought about it like that. But I think there’s benefits to going big and going full time like what we’ve done, and I think there’s benefits to going small, and we’ll come into those as well as that it can improve your business acumen and over a range of things as well that is going to help you in your day-to-day sales job. If that’s your one thing, I guess, if that’s the thing that you are focused on the most. I’m going to just throw it straight at you, and we can jump into the conversation after that, should the B2B salespeople listening to the show right now, should they have a side hustle?
“The only reason you have a side hustle is because you want to have another stream of income.” Geoff Woods [01:40]
Geoff Woods:
I’m going to redefine side hustle. The only reason you have a side hustle is because you want to have another stream of income. Is that fair to say?
Will Barron:
Yes.
Geoff Woods:
Okay, cool. So I’m going to redefine the question. Should every salesperson have multiple streams of income? That answer, yes. Here’s why I say this. Those of you who are listening to this, you may have an awesome job. You may have an awesome territory, a really fair comp plan. You might be doing really, really, really well. And some of you may be saying, “You know what? I need to make a change.” Wherever it is, it doesn’t matter. Let me throw a scenario out there to you. What happens if today, after you listen to this episode, something terrible happens to you. You get hit by a car or you have a really serious health injury like a stroke? Us sales people, we’re alphas, we’re drivers. And we often feel invincible like something can’t happen to us, until it does or to someone that we know.
Geoff Woods:
We talked about this in my original interview here, which was what? 196 or something like that. That’s how I felt. I’m invincible, right? Everything’s great. I’m doing really well. I’m working from home. I’m selling medical devices. I’m wearing scrubs. I’ve got this amazing house in Orange County, my wife, my beautiful new daughter. And then my colleague, the Florida rep, has a stroke, and he’s 35 years old. It hit me so hard because I’m asking the question, what if that was me? What if I could no longer work because physically I was debilitated and could not work?
How Geoff Would React if He Suddenly Lost His Ability to Earn an Income · [03:30]
Will Barron:
What would’ve happened if that happened to you? Obviously, it’s different now, but at that point, what would’ve happened to your life?
Geoff Woods:
I wouldn’t have been able to work.
Will Barron:
And what would that mean to you?
Geoff Woods:
Well, my wife was a stay-at-home mom. She can go get a job at Pottery Barn. Maybe she’ll go out and make, I don’t know, 30K a year. That wouldn’t even have covered our mortgage. We would’ve had to have sold our house, moved into a small apartment. I mean, the entire life would have changed. Medical expenses through the roof. We would’ve gone deep into debt. It would’ve been terrible.
“I heard one of my mentors say that the average millionaire has seven different streams of income. We know this from an investment standpoint, but what about from an income standpoint? Are you diversified, or do you have all your eggs in one basket? If you do, then you’re vulnerable.” – Geoff Woods · [04:34]
Geoff Woods:
Thank God it didn’t happen to me, but I’m looking at my colleague saying… He made it. He actually had a really nice recovery, which was a miracle, but he was never the same. That was when I said, “If I can no longer work, this stream of income, no matter how strong it is, stops. It dries up. It goes away.” What happens to you if, all of a sudden, your stream of income goes away? I heard one of my mentors say that the average millionaire has seven different streams of income. We’ve all heard from investing, you should diversify, diversify, diversify. We know this from an investment standpoint, but what about from an income standpoint? Are you diversified, or do you have all your eggs in one basket? If you do, then you’re vulnerable.
Why Don’t People Have Multiple Streams of Income? · [05:01]
Will Barron:
You’ve brought up a different conversation here, which is awesome, than what I was planning, so we’ll go down this road. But why do people not have multiple streams of income when it seems obvious from the outset? It kind of the case of it it’s simple… I can’t remember the phrase now. It’s simple to talk about but perhaps difficult to do. When it seems so obvious, why aren’t we implementing this from a young age? There’d be 40, 50, 60-year-olds listening to this show, as well as the millennials, who are going, “Shit, they’re right. I’ve never really thought about this before.”
Geoff Woods:
I’m going to flip it on you, Will. When you were a sales rep, did you have multiple streams of income?
Will Barron:
I did not know-
Geoff Woods:
Why not?
Will Barron:
… but I knew that they were important, and I knew that I wanted to aim towards that. We’ve discussed this before, my goal eventually is multi-family real estate investment, things of that nature. My dad does a little bit of that. And so, that’s always been at the back of my mind. The reason I didn’t do it, and I know what you’re going to say next, is perhaps a lack of capital. That was what mentally was holding me back from diversifying my income streams.
Geoff Woods:
How many years did you work as an employee without having multiple streams of income?
Will Barron:
The whole time. Even now with the show, we’re only just releasing our first product. We’ve been relying on sponsorships since the beginning. And so, I’ve never had more than one stream of income, even though I know the importance of it myself.
Geoff Woods:
Right? So what has held you back outside of capital, because capital’s not the issue?
Will Barron:
Capital to me, obviously I understand now, was the issue. I thought it was the issue. The reality was my mindset and the skill set to implement these things was the problem.
Changing Your Mindset to Accommodate Multiple Streams of Income · [06:47]
Geoff Woods:
There you go. Mindset and skill set is the answer. Where do you develop your mindset? What goes into influencing that? And what goes into influencing what skills you acquire? I believe it comes down to the way we were raised, comes down to what we learned from our parents, comes down to what we learned from our teachers, comes down to the people we surrounded ourself with, and it comes down to the system that we are all a part of, the country that we live in.
Geoff Woods:
I read this interesting book called One World Schoolhouse. It’s about the future of education. They talk about how long, long, long time ago in the United States there was this powerful group of guys. I’m talking Rockefeller, Carnegie, the titans of their industry, came together and said, “What’s going to happen in the future?” They saw the Industrial Revolution happening, so they asked the question, “What type of skill sets do we need people to have so that they can help support the industrial revolution?” They needed people who could memorise something, turn around and do it. So they then designed the education system to teach people how to memorise something, turn around, and demonstrate their knowledge.
Geoff Woods:
They trained Americans to be cogs in a machine. And the education system has not changed, yet the world has changed rapidly. I believe that is why people don’t think this. When when you were a kid were you taught that you needed to have multiple streams of income? No, you were taught you go to school to get good grades so you can get into a good college so that you can get a good job. We’ve all heard that. They taught us to march down that line so that we could be that cog in that machine.
Will Barron:
I think there’s a weird thing happening now, though, and I just noted this down. There’s a documentary, I think it’s called How Big Oil Took Over The World, sort of along that lines of that, I’ll link to it in the show notes, and it explains without crazy conspiracy theory it explains fact by fact of what you described with big oil and big coal and all the industrial revolutionist, how they did manufacture the education system, how they founded half the universities in the states and how that’s dripped down to elsewhere in the world as well. And so, I’ll link to that in the show notes. It’s definitely worth a watch, interesting footage.
Will Barron:
But I think there’s a weird thing happening at the moment where millennials perhaps know that retirement is a weird thing that happened 40 years ago and perhaps isn’t going to happen anymore because they can see the uncertainty in the markets, they can see where your pension pot is going if that’s what you’re aiming towards and you’re doubling down on that by working for 40, 50 years, 60 years, by the time we actually retire, because the retirement age is, of course, always going up. They can see that the uncertainty from their parents being unable to retire and promises been broken from what they’ve worked towards the whole life, they know that the whole system is a bit messed up, but they don’t have the solution. They don’t have the answer because, as you eluded to, they’re not being taught it.
Passive Income Ideas For B2B Salespeople · [10:08]
Will Barron:
I want to leave that there for a second because that’s another conversation that we can perhaps have another time, and I want to come back to this idea of a side hustle and get practical about this, Geoff. What are some potential revenue streams… So we touched on one, multifamily or single family property, for example, or rental income. What are some other potential income streams that a B2B salesperson has, I guess, means and capital and access to, even if they don’t think they do right now, what do you know that they’re capable of, is perhaps the best way to describe it?
Geoff Woods:
They’re capable of anything. To ask what are the specific other opportunities I don’t think is a fair question. What you need to acknowledge is that as a salesperson, you have acquired the most valuable skill set in the entire world, the ability to communicate, influence, and persuade. No matter what you do in life, this is a foundation skill that will serve you well, whether it’s you actually having to close deals and drive revenue or your ability just to interact with other people in effective manner. You also happen to have the added benefit that as a salesperson you control your schedule. You’re not expected, unless you’re inside sales, you’re not expected to be at a desk clocking in and out. You are given a goal, a quota, you are given the resources, whatever your product or service is, your brochures, the training, and you are told to go get it done. How you manage your time is up to you.
Geoff Woods:
This was something that I recognised. I work from home. I have a territory of about 150 hospitals. I talk to my boss when I call him. And every day, I wake up and I decide where I go. I decide what accounts I’m going to be in, how long I’m going to be in there, when I’m face to face with customers, when I’m doing proposals, all those things. So why can’t I focus on being as efficient as possible in my day job, my medical job, so that I can still exceed quota and expectations and free up additional time for me to focus on my side hustle?
Geoff Woods:
This begs the question, what do you do with your side hustle? I’d like to encourage you to pick up the breadcrumbs. What interests you? Will and I have similar interest. Immediately I said, “I want to get into real estate investing.” So that meant at night I was going to real estate investing networking events. I was meeting with people. I was looking at properties. I was doing due diligence on properties. I was trying to syndicate deals at one point because I wanted to get into commercial. A lot of this happened early in the morning or late at night. Sometimes it happened during the day because I got efficient enough with my day job that I could still exceed expectations and have time remaining.
Geoff Woods:
In the process of going down that path, I decided, “I always want to invest in real estate, but I don’t want to be a principal. I do not want that to be my profession. I have no business looking for assets. I have no business doing due diligence. I have no business syndicating deals. It sucks the life out of me.” So then I came back to square zero, what the heck do I do? That’s when this whole Jim Rohn quote, “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” comes into play. I just looked out and said, “Who are the entrepreneurs out there who inspire me? Who are people who are doing amazing things? They have thriving businesses, making a massive impact, and delivering massive cash flow to their families. How can I start studying these people if I don’t know them personally? How can I get in the room with these people and form a relationship with them? How can I go deep in a relationship with them to the point that they would turn around and mentor me?
Geoff Woods:
Through that process, I kept picking up breadcrumbs. I launched a podcast, The Mentee, just to add value to other people and record the conversations with my mentors as I went from employee to entrepreneur. And that ended up opening up the ultimate opportunity, which was the chance to quit my day job, move to Austin, Texas, and partner with Gary Keller, who built Keller Williams to being the largest real estate company in the world, and his co-author Jay Papasan, they wrote The ONE Thing together, which a lot of you have heard of. And now I get to earn the opportunity to be the CEO of that company, and now the face of The ONE Thing. And it was because I just picked up breadcrumbs.
The First Step to Comming Up with Side Hustle Ideas · [14:30]
Will Barron:
Let’s take a step back here, because you just answered this question, but I think we need to be more direct about it. For the salesperson listening to this now who’s going, “Oh, crap, you made me nervous. I need to increase my streams of income or diversify. I need to do something about this because… ” Perhaps they’ve got kids or they want to have kids or they’ve got a mortgage and they’re struggling. Even if they don’t hit target and they’re having a bad month, it’s really affecting them financially. What is the very first step that they need to put in place before they even decide what type of side hustle they want?
“Start surrounding yourself with people who have multiple streams of income and see what they did. Be more interested in them rather than trying to get them to be interested in you.” – Geoff Woods · [15:53]
Geoff Woods:
I’ll speak for what worked for me, what will work for you could be entirely different, but I’m going to speak from experience, not speculation. For me, when I just tried to pick something and go for it like real estate, I found out it wasn’t a fit. What ended up working was expanding my network. We just talked about there’s a reason that your mindset and your skill set is limited even though you have the most valuable skill set there is. It’s because you are surrounding yourself with people who have bought into this education system, that have bought into this career path, and you’re surrounding yourself with other salespeople who all think about quota, all think about how can I do better next year? How can I do better next year? How can I move up in the ranks? How can I make P Club? Start expanding yourself or surrounding yourself with people who have multiple streams of income, if that’s your goal, and see what they did. Be more interested in them than trying to get them to be interested in you. It’s not about you. Start studying what they did.
Geoff Woods:
A lot of entrepreneurs-
The Benefits of Having a Mentor When Growing Your Income Streams · [16:13]
Will Barron:
Even more direct with this, Geoff, even more simple, narrow this down even further. What’s the first step we need to do? I’m going to put words in your mouth here. Is it to find a mentor?
“Surround yourself with people who have what you want. If you want to start a side hustle, surround yourself with people who have started side hustles.” – Geoff Woods · [16:25]
Geoff Woods:
Sure. Surround yourself with people who have what you want. If you want to start a side hustle, surround yourself with people who have started side hustles. How did they do it? What were the challenges? How did they identify their side hustle? How did they end up creating the opportunity that one day they could wake up and choose to do their sales job or not? See what they did, and see what resonates for you, and take action.
Will Barron:
You mentioned choosing-
Geoff Woods:
Thank you for narrowing that down, bud.
Will Barron:
No, it’s okay. You were saying it, but I don’t want… Because it’s a really important point, and it’s something that I missed out on totally. I went out to try and do it on my own, and from speaking to yourself and a couple of other people when I was doing the podcast, the emphasis and the importance of speaking with people that have already done it who you can model and just copy their success, they’ve got a clear pathway. For the podcast, and I speak to him occasionally over emails when I’m trying to add value to him, but John Lee Dumas of The Entrepreneur on Fire Podcast, he’s where I want to be download numbers wise and that kind of thing. He has a very clear path of what he’s done because he’s been on so many podcasts and been open and shared it all, that I can step by step follow his footsteps and things.
Reasons Why You Should Have a Business Mentor · [18:16]
Will Barron:
Now, when I first started the show, I had no blueprints. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I had no idea where it was going to go. I had no idea how fast it was going to grow to the point where we are now. Until I looked for, even though he doesn’t directly mentor me and we don’t have one-on-one conversations about how to progress things, just following in his footstep, it took the burden of uncertainty away from me from a certain point, and it made it possible in my mind from a mindset perspective. So yeah, you were saying essentially what I wanted to get out, but I thought it’s very important, as you said, if you want to take this on board, you’re just wasting time if you’re not dealing and hanging around with people that have already done it.
Geoff Woods:
Well, you’re doing it already in your career. What happened when you first signed on with your company? Did they literally say, “Congratulations, you’re hired. Go sell.”? No, they gave you some training on the product. No matter how much or how little it was, but you got some training on the product. Somebody who had experience brought you up to speed so that you weren’t just wondering what the heck to do. You probably had some ride days, whether it was with your manager or whether it was with a top rep or both, somebody who knew how to do the job, tried to get you up to speed, so again, you could be as effective as possible in your territory.
“If you want to have security, which is what we all work for, security comes in diversity. Not one stream of income, it comes in multiple streams of income.” – Geoff Woods · [19:10]
Geoff Woods:
It’s the same thing here. If you want to ultimately have security, which is what we all work for, security comes in diversity. Not one stream of income, it comes in multiple streams of income. Okay, so how do you do that? You happen to have the best job out there, developing the best skill with the most flexibility. So now how do you do it? Well, who’s going to train you on how to start a side hustle? Somebody who’s had a side hustle.
Geoff’s Thoughts on Why Retirement Plans Won’t Work In The Future · [19:50]
Will Barron:
I welcome anyone who’s listening now to email me and bounce back and forth ideas with me on this. I want to get people even more excited emotionally as well about this, because I think it’s important. And I agree that everyone should, even if they don’t have it right now, they should be putting in steps in place to move towards these multiple streams of income. That isn’t a 401(k) for everyone in the States or isn’t retirement funds in the UK over here. I don’t know that much about it, and I’m 100% convinced that in 20, 30, 40, 50 years, they’re simply just not going to work, are they?
Geoff Woods:
Well, let’s follow the same principle. Let’s look to the people who are already where we want to be, the people who are financially free, who are secure. Is any single one of them banking on their 401(k)? No, they’re not. Was it a investment vehicle? Yes, but that’s the investment vehicle of the middle class. When you look to the upper class, you look at the millionaires and the billionaires, which I happen to know many of them, they ain’t banking on their 401(k).
Benefits of Having Multiple Streams of Income · [20:48]
Will Barron:
What other benefits are there to having multiple streams of income other than that increased security? I can think of one myself, and that is just having the ability to say F you to any sales manager who’s a pain in the ass and being able to have the flexibility to move perhaps from one sales job to another if you still need the sales job or if you enjoy it. Are there any other possible benefits to this other than perhaps the financial security, which, of course, everyone focuses on?
Geoff Woods:
What’s the cost of not having it? I mean, Will, you have expenses for your podcast, right?
Will Barron:
Mm-hmm.
Geoff Woods:
Yeah, this is also your one source of income, right?
Will Barron:
Mm-hmm.
Geoff Woods:
Okay, so you have to pay rent or a mortgage every month to keep a roof over your head. You have to pay to put food on the table. What if tomorrow all advertisers decided that they no longer wanted to advertise on podcasts? How much income would you have coming in?
Will Barron:
Well, it would drop to zero. The shift that I’ve made since essentially becoming an entrepreneur and starting the show is that I know I’d be fine because I’d source out another way of doing it. But if you would’ve told me five years ago when I worked in sales that you’re going to be laid off, I’d be shitting in my pants. I’d feel like the world had just about to drop from underneath me. And it’s just a simple mindset shift that you’ve got skills, you can add value, you can go out there, and you can do it and make it happen. But that would’ve been crazy for me. As I said, that would’ve been as if the world had been taken… It would’ve meant moving home and living back with my parents and that kind of thing at 24, 25, which would’ve been a huge embarrassment as well in my mind.
Geoff Woods:
What would happen if, all of a sudden, they say they no longer want to advertise, your income goes to zero? How many months, assuming no money comes in, how many months could you go before your bank account runs out and you’re going into debt?
Will Barron:
I’ve got at least 12 months emergency fund, and then I’ve got savings and stuff as well on top of that.
“There’s a certain level of security and confidence that comes when you have a year’s worth of expenses in the bank.” – Geoff Woods · [22:45]
Geoff Woods:
Boom. Okay, so you’re in good shape. That’s a level of security. I was talking to one of my partners about this. He said there’s a certain level of security and confidence that comes when you have a year’s worth of expenses in the bank. Because no matter what happens, you can say eff you to your current employer.
How to Consciously Keep Your Costs Down When Building Up Your Side Hustle · [22:55]
Will Barron:
Let me just prelude this as well because I’ve always had 12 months money in my bank. I know the audience always laugh when I talk about this and when I share it on Snapchat and Instagram Stories and that kind of thing, but I very consciously live in a small one-bedroom flat to keep my expenses down as I grow the show and to keep risk down from this very factor, if everything went to shit, I’d be okay. It’s not like I’ve splashed out. I’ve got a 10-year-old RX8, which I love to bit, but it’s not a new Porsche. I could dump all the money I’ve got into a nice sports car, but I’ve held back from all these kind of things as well. If I had multiple streams of income, I’d perhaps have to be less careful about these kind of things. I’d be in a nicer place and these things open up. But I think it’s just important to note there that clearly anyone who listens to the show regularly, listen to everything that I’m doing, I’m very consciously keeping costs down, which is a problem in itself for a lot of sales professionals. I feel like they’ve got to live up to the lifestyle implications of being that professional and playing on nice golf courses and things like that.
Geoff Woods:
Any successful rep is money-driven, no doubt about it. And with that comes the nice shoes. One day you want the Rolex watch. You want the luxury car. You want the big house. I am that guy, I have all those things, and all of a sudden, I wake up and realise that my monthly nut is huge. I’ve got a mortgage, I don’t get to drop that. I’ve got a mortgage. I’ve got kids. For the people who are a little further down their career, when you have real responsibilities, that weighs on you. I’m looking to the people who have done it right, the people who have the security, who have that financial freedom that they can wake up every day and choose to do whatever they want. A health issue or a job loss, it’s not going to phase them because they’re in good shape. They’ve got that income coming in every single month. I’m choosing to be there.
The Financial Independence Journey For New Sale Reps · [25:04]
Will Barron:
For the listeners now who are millennials, so say, 19, 20 to 35, 40, pushing the boundaries a bit there, to just to focus the conversation for a second because I know older people listen to us and younger people listen to us as well. I get a lot of emails from people who are just starting their first sales jobs at 16 or 18, depending on what they’re doing with school and that. But for people who are in this kind of catchment area in the middle where they’ve got the opportunity to scale their income in work from performing better, different jobs, different careers, different industries, and they’ve got the ability to then increase their number and streams of income, should they only focus… As long as living a decent life, that’s underrated and not talked about in these conversations enough. There’s no point being a slave and being miserable for 40 years to retire early. But should their number one goal that aside, because that’s relative, should their number one goal be to become financially independent?
“I think the number one goal in life is to be happy. At the end of the day, we all want to be happy. Because if I could give you two options, you can have all the money in the world or I can guarantee you absolute blissful, happiness every day, you’d want happiness.” – Geoff Woods · [26:01]
Geoff Woods:
I think the number one goal is to be happy. At the end of the day, when you boil it down, what we’re all wanting is to be happy. Because if I could give you two options, you can have all the money in the world or I can guarantee your absolute blissful, happiness every day, you want happiness. That is the ultimate goal. But what’s going to make you happy? Is your current job making you happy? Does having more money make you happy? Does having more diverse streams make you happy? What leads to that happiness? Go down that rabbit hole.
Things That Make Geoff Happy? · [26:35]
Will Barron:
And what is it? What makes you happy, Geoff?
Geoff Woods:
I am happiest when I’m working toward a goal, when I feel like I’m growing, when I feel like I’m being challenged, and I’m constantly working to overcome something, when I feel that I can have anything that I want, I don’t have to say no to anything. I can go out for lunch today because I want to go out for lunch today. My wife and I can get on a plane and go to Vegas this weekend because we want to go to Vegas. I can choose to work today or not because I don’t feel like it and I feel like playing with my kids. The choice in life makes me happy, yet at the same time, feeling like I’m growing, feeling like I’m surrounded by amazing people, feeling like I’m making an impact. These are the things that drive my happiness.
Will Barron:
Good stuff. I appreciate that. And with that, Geoff, I’m going to wrap up this part of the show. I’ve got a couple of questions that I ask everyone that comes on. I don’t think you’ve answered these before. I think they’ve changed since last time you were on.
Geoff Woods:
Well, then, there we go.
Quick Fire Questions · [27:51]
Will Barron:
I’m going to throw this first one at you. What’s the biggest deal, dollar size if possible, that you’ve ever closed?
Geoff Woods:
It was a little under $300,000.
Will Barron:
Nice. Next one. Books aside, because obviously we talk about The ONE Thing all the time, everyone knows how much I enjoy it, we’ve had Jay on the show as well to talk about it, are there any resources, whether it be online, whether it be in person, events, or anything like that, is there anything like that that’s helped you become a better salesperson?
Geoff Woods:
A great book is Conversations That Win the Complex Sale. I’ll say that again, Conversations That Win the Complex Sale. It talks about how do you communicate and present in a way that captures and maintains people’s attention. I loved it. They bought a copy of the book for everybody in my medical company. They brought them in to do trainings on it, and it’s something that I have used to this day that when I walk into a room, I do not throw a PowerPoint slide on the wall, I do not hand out brochures. I get a whiteboard or a flip chart and a marker, and I start going to town, and I engage with people and they are with me all the way.
Will Barron:
Nice. That’s a new one on me. I’ll check that out. Final one of these, what does the first 60 minutes of your day look like?
Geoff Woods:
First 60 minutes of my day usually involve my wife slapping me saying, “Your son is crying.” Dean is nine months old. So I go put on my robe, go downstairs, make the bottle, feed him, turn on the coffee machine, have some coffee. I’ll meditate for a little bit. Usually, my wife will come downstairs, and that’s my opportunity to connect with my wife in the morning and spend some time together. I play with the kids for a little bit, get ready, and then I head off to the office.
Meditation For Salespeople and Why It’s Important · [29:30]
Will Barron:
When you say meditate, tell us a little bit more about that because it’s something that comes up on the show regularly. Different people have different ways of doing it, and I’m trying to drill it into the audience that it’s almost essential at this point in my mind for someone who has a stressful job such as a sales professional.
Geoff Woods:
I believe that our understanding of the brain is so limited compared to what it’s about to become. If we were in a time machine and we projected 30 years into the future, meditation, I believe, will be mainstream. It’s not just Eastern, it’s going to be worldwide, very regular practise. We all have this internal thermometer built in called our feelings. So often we go through the day ignoring how we are feeling. But if you for the rest of the day today were to be conscious and aware, whether you’re driving through your territory, whether you’re on the phone with a prospect, whether you’re just having lunch or spending time with yourself, and be mindful of how you are feeling. If at any moment you’re feeling off, you’re feeling stressed, you’re feeling anxious, you feel just not good, something’s off.
Geoff Woods:
Again, we’re all doing this to be happy. I have developed a practise of closing my eyes, and whether I’m listening to a guided meditation or listening to just some binaural beats or whether it’s just me closing my eyes right here and taking some deep breaths and really centering myself and getting back to the point where I feel good, relaxed, focused, intentional, in control. I move through the day with so much more clarity, efficiency, and productivity. I get more done, and I have a better time doing it.
Will Barron:
Definitely. I think it was the Dalai Lama, and you may know this, it was a famous quote essentially of he had a meditation time schedule for his day and his team came up to him and said, “Hey, you’ve not got enough time for this.” His response was, “Well, if I’ve not got enough time to meditate, I need to meditate for twice as long.” And that was my thought-
Geoff Woods:
Yeah, that’s right.
Will Barron:
… of all of this. Because I meditate for 10 minutes every morning after going for a walk, and that’s another conversation of what I think about what I’m planning as I’m walking. There’s a lovely park and lake near me, so I just go for a wander around there every morning. And just doing that alone, it sounds so crazy having… and then I exercise… having that hour to myself makes such a difference to my productivity every single day that that hour is worth two or three more hours. I mean, what time is it now? It’s 5:50 here. I’ve got another three or four shows to do after this one, and I’m still just as excited as when I started.
Geoff Advice For Salespeople on How to Improve Their Ability to Sell · [32:28]
Will Barron:
And yeah, maybe I’ll write a blog post to what my practical steps are every morning, but a trend that I see for people like yourself, Geoff, and of high performance to come on the show, a lot of them even meditate or essentially meditate and don’t realise that they’re doing it. They have some kind of practise for that. And so, I appreciate that. Appreciate you sharing that with us. I’ve got one final question, Geoff, slightly different from the last one when you came on the show the previous occasions, and that is, if you could sit down with every single person who’s listening to this now, between 10, 20,000 people that the show goes out to every single day, what’s the one piece of advice you’d give them if you could only offer them one piece of advice to help them improve their ability to sell?
Geoff Woods:
This is actually something that has been very top of mind for me over the last 48 hours specifically. I first discovered The ONE Thing because my medical device company brought Jay in to speak at our national sales meeting. And when I walked into the room, hundreds of chairs across the room, there was a copy of that book sitting right there on every single chair. There was a huge focus on the company on how do we implement The ONE Thing? How do we identify what The ONE Thing we can do for our territory such that by doing it will make achieving quota easier or unnecessary? We narrowed it down to one thing, and now that I’ve actually started living the book and becoming the face of the brand, I realised we did it wrong. I said, “If I had the chance to be on stage at my old company at next year’s national sales meeting, what would I tell them to do?” I would love to walk you guys through this now.
Geoff Woods:
If I put a gun to your head and said, “You can only do one thing in your sales career to drive the performance of your territory and exceed quota, if you could only do one specific action, what is the one action that you would do that such by doing it would make everything else easier or unnecessary? Role play with me, Will, what do you think it would be?
Will Barron:
For me in medical device sales, it probably be to just work on the network that I had with the surgeons themselves, because they then just bought from me because they liked me regardless of product, regardless of price, a lot of time regardless of whether they needed new stuff or they fancied a new toy. Just having those relationships was probably The ONE Thing that I knew worked but was difficult and time-consuming, didn’t have immediate payoff so I never focused on it as well as what I should have done.
Geoff Woods:
Awesome. I think that’s a great answer by the way.
Will Barron:
Thank you.
Geoff Woods:
And so just to challenge you, so you’re saying if you could only do one thing you would focus on building relationships with surgeons?
Will Barron:
Sure. Yep.
The Specific and Measurable Activities From Succesful Salespeople · [35:43]
Geoff Woods:
Okay, cool. For our company at the time, it was to focus on evaluations, because if they got an evaluation unit into the hospital, it meant they had issued a no charge PO. It got there. They had to actually purchase the disposable, so there was an escalation of commitment on the customers, and we were in there fully training them like they bought the damn thing. And once it was in there, we knew it was going to stay. That was The ONE Thing. Now, with your one thing and our one thing at the time, I realised we did something wrong. We never drilled down enough to identify what is the one specific, measurable activity that is black and white, yes or no, you did or did not do it that would help you do that. So, Will, you say building relationships with surgeons, but that’s still pretty ambiguous. What is the one specific, measurable activity that you could do every day that such by doing it would make building relationships with surgeons easier or unnecessary?
Will Barron:
I guess it would be meeting in person with a surgeon and giving them… Well, that’s not the best example because you clearly… Maybe meeting with a surgeon and giving them-
Geoff Woods:
Keep going.
Will Barron:
… value and not necessarily trying to shove a pitch down their throat every day. And if you could do that… I don’t know about your territory, my territory was relatively compact. So by the time you’d done that for a year or two, you’d met with everyone and they’d know you then as the guy, which is what I was known as, as the guy who is there to add value, to train, to help and support as opposed to the… I probably shouldn’t, but there’s a couple of companies out there that would just pitch, pitch, pitch, and it pissed everyone off. I kind of went the opposite route of that. So I think, yeah, meeting with a new person or reaffirming a relationship and adding value every single day face to face at least once would be the black and white perhaps.
Geoff Woods:
So now we need to narrow it down even finer to something that is 100% in your control, because meeting with the surgeon is not 100% within your control because they have to be there. They have to be willing to talk to you. Drill down even further, what is the one specific, measurable activity that is 100% in your control that would help you meet with a surgeon every single day?
Will Barron:
Send X emails or X calls to secretaries to get the meeting set up, perhaps.
“The application and implementation of The ONE Thing is making that thing a habit to the point where every single day you do it with little to no resistance.” – Geoff Woods · [38:01]
Geoff Woods:
Okay, so that’s one. I know some people just happen to go check in at the hospital and happen to hang out by the scrub sink. They’re one thing may be, “I am at a scrub sink every day by 7:00 AM.” Yours might be, “I need to send five emails a day to secretaries,” but it is 100% in your control. It is black or white, you did or did not do it. This is what I would recommend for every single salesperson: identify what that core activity is that is going to drive your business the most, and narrow it down as much as I just did with Will, to something that is 100% within your control. It is a specific, measurable action that you will do every day. And here’s where it gets interesting because that’s the idea of The ONE Thing, but the application and implementation of The ONE Thing is making that thing a habit to the point where every single day you do it with little to no resistance. That’s where things get hard.
Parting Thoughts · [38:58]
Will Barron:
I love it. So you’ve given us a double whammy here, Geoff, of The ONE Thing, the philosophy. And, of course, I recommend it all the time on the show, but if you haven’t already picked up a copy, it’s on Amazon, everywhere else. We’ll link to it in the show note to this episode. And then just the concept of multiple streams of income, I think that’s super important as well. And with that, mate, because I’m conscious of your time here and I’m conscious of we get to a certain point in the show and people have to listen to it over two crowded car journeys and it gets mixed up, so just to wrap up the show, mate… Honestly, I could talk to you about this all day because I get a lot of our conversations as well partly therapeutically You’re very good at throwing questions back and narrowing things down and then just the value from the information itself as well. Where can the audience find out more about you and then everything that you’re up to, Geoff, so that they can follow up and get even more value from all the content you got out there as well?
Geoff Woods:
Sure. Our website is the1thing.com, and it’s with the number one. So the1thing.com. My podcast is called The Mentee. I’ve been the mentee, and I’ve just been recording the conversations with my mentors. We’re transitioning to the point where I’m transitioning to being one of the mentors. I’m having somebody from the audience become the next mentee. And I will be relaunching The ONE Thing podcast, so I’ll be the face of that. Email me, geoff@geoffwoods.com, Geoff with a G-E-O-F-F, geoffwoods.com.
Will Barron:
Good stuff. You heard it, Sales Nation, give Geoff an email and ask him some questions. And with that, mate, I want to thank you for your time. I want to thank you for insights as always. And I thank you for joining us on The Salesman Podcast.
Geoff Woods:
Thanks, brother.
Will Barron:
And there we have it to Geoff. Thank you, Sir, for coming on the show. I appreciate your time and your insights, mate. I want to thank you guys, Sales Nation, as always for tuning in. And if you’ve got this far in the video and you haven’t yet subscribed, make sure you click that big red button below this. And with that all said, I’ll speak of you again on tomorrow’s episode.
